Relentless

by Jack Campbell

  He ended the transmission, feeling uncomfortable at using such high-sounding words, then saw Desjani looking at him approvingly. “You always give good speeches before an engagement, sir. Short, direct, and powerful.”

  I do? “Thank you, Captain Desjani. I meant every word of it.” He wondered if the last part sounded defensive.

  She seemed startled by it, though. “Of course you do. We all know that. You’ve proven it. In any event, we’ve all had plenty of experience with hearing long speeches. It always seemed to me while listening to them that anyone who really believed what they were saying could get it said in a lot fewer words.”

  “You may have a point there.”

  Rione unexpectedly chimed in, her tone dry. “She does have a point.”

  Not looking back, Desjani frowned, then, with a glance at Geary, gestured everyone on the bridge to silence.

  He barely noticed, concentrating on the movements of the opposing forces sweeping closer to each other. The maneuvering systems were counting down a recommended time to initiate the maneuver, but Geary was matching that against his own experience, his own gut feelings for the right moment, factoring in the time required to send the command to begin carrying out the package of commands he’d already forwarded to all of the other ships in the fleet.

  Still no change from the Syndics. They’d done that at Cavalos, too. Whether or not the CEO in charge of their flotilla knew that it had given Geary problems at Cavalos, he or she was following the same tactic here, holding off on a course change until the last possible moment to frustrate whatever plan Geary had developed.

  One minute to recommended time to initiate maneuver. He frowned at the countdown, feeling a nagging instinct that it was a little too tight. He had to time this right, not perfect-world right but real-world right, all while not knowing how the Syndic CEO would react. But he’d fought the Syndics enough now that he had good grounds for guessing, so Geary waited, letting his instincts speak as his eyes watched the Alliance fleet and the main Syndic flotilla rushing together. Waiting. Waiting.

  At ten seconds before the recommended time to pass the command his thumb twitched without conscious thought, activating the comm circuit. “Formation Indigo Two, Formation Indigo Three, execute maneuvering orders package one effective immediately.” He paused, then called out again. “Formation Indigo One, execute maneuvering orders package one effective immediately.” Wait. Seconds ticked by as Dauntless’s bow pitched upward. “Formation Indigo Four, Formation Indigo Five, execute maneuvering orders package one effective immediately.”

  On his display, Geary could see the smaller subformations above and below the Alliance fleet’s main body losing their shapes and collapsing toward the main body as that formation rose to meet them, its warships also leaving their positions as they altered course. The Syndic CEO would see all that beginning to happen, a few minutes delayed since the fleets were still that far apart, and either believe that the Alliance fleet was aiming for a firing pass above the Syndic box or trying to vault past the top of the Syndic flotilla. That CEO would have to decide whether to alter course slightly upward as well, and know that there were only minutes to decide.

  The one thing he wouldn’t expect was for the Alliance fleet to steady out and aim straight for a head-on intercept against the center of the Syndic flotilla. That was the sort of damn-the-missiles, straight-up-the-middle charge that had become common on both sides as the training and skills needed to carry out more complex maneuvers were lost in increasingly bloody battles. Commanders who knew only one way to fight had followed that way, depending on “fighting spirit” to overcome bad odds and enemy firepower. Courage and honor were the watchwords, making possible horrible slogging matches in which one side or the other eventually prevailed at awful costs in ships and personnel.

  Geary had never done that. He’d brought with him from a century before the expertise to fight intricate battles across vast reaches of space, coordinating the movements of different formations despite time lags of seconds, minutes, and even hours in communications and information. Despite its initial resistance, the fleet had followed his lead. Most of the fleet, anyway. The closest he’d come to ordering an attack into the teeth of the enemy had taken place at the first battle of Lakota, and it had been only after a series of maneuvers had fooled the Syndics into spreading their formation so wide that their middle was weak and unsupported by flanking units.

  No, the Syndics knew that Geary didn’t attack up the middle in the opening of an engagement. They knew that of all the options available, he wouldn’t do that.

  So that’s what he was doing.

  The Alliance fleet’s main body and the two upper subformations kept dissolving and merging together, every ship breaking from its position relative to Dauntless and swinging onto a wide variety of course and speed vectors as Dauntless herself kept her bow swinging past up, over, and down slightly. The battle cruiser’s main propulsion units slammed into action briefly, slowing her and allowing other Alliance warships to take up position on the side closest to the oncoming enemy.

  Beneath them, the other two Alliance subformations had also dissolved, their ships rising to meet the main body and moving toward their own new positions.

  “Can we really get this done before contact?” Desjani inquired tonelessly.

  “I hope so.”

  “Why do you think the Syndic flotilla will rise to meet what seemed to be your path?” Rione asked.

  Geary kept most of his attention on the movements of ships as he answered. “It’s a natural human instinct. If someone tries to rise over us, we try to rise to match or overreach them.” Even humans raised entirely in space showed the same bias even though the designation of up and down in star systems was purely arbitrary, up being above the plane of the star system and down being below it. “If the Syndic CEO follows their instincts in the very short time they’ve got to react, we’ll have them.”

  With the rest of the fleet’s ships braking, the massive hulls of the Alliance battleships were passing through them and forming up into a slightly curved wall leading the fleet, around them clustering a swarm of Alliance destroyers and heavy cruisers.

  All around Dauntless, other battle cruisers were sliding into place, their commanding officers only now realizing that they were positioned well behind the battleships. Geary had no trouble imagining the outrage that would be blossoming on those battle cruisers, but they wouldn’t have time to do anything about it before contact with the enemy.

  Just behind the battle cruisers, the four auxiliaries were surrounded by the shapes of the four most badly damaged Alliance battle cruisers, other battered Alliance warships, and every heavy cruiser.

  “Estimated time to contact twenty seconds. We have incoming transmissions for Captain Geary from Daring, Victorious, Implacable, Illustrious, Inspire, Intrepid—”

  He’d obviously underestimated the outrage of his battle-cruiser captains and how quickly they’d move to vent that outrage. Desjani was being obvious about not saying, I told you so, as Geary hit his command override on the communications controls, his eyes on the Syndic formation, which had tipped upward slightly, just as he’d expected. The Syndic commander had hoped to bring a lot of firepower to bear on the Alliance fleet as it tried to rush past above the Syndic formation on one of the slashing firing passes Geary had often used, the heaviest Syndic firepower concentrated at the top of the formation. But the latest Alliance maneuvers had brought the concentrated Alliance fleet on a vector aimed straight at the center of the Syndics instead.

  And the Syndics had no time to react.

  “All units, we are less than twenty seconds from contact with the enemy. All battleships are to concentrate their fire on enemy capital ships. We need their shields down. Battle cruisers are to strike the death blows on those capital ships. If all capital ships within range have been eliminated, engage targets of opportunity as they enter weapon envelopes but conserve specter missiles.” Geary’s eyes flicked toward the
time readout. He had to give the next maneuvering order before the fleet passed through the enemy flotilla even though it wouldn’t be executed until afterward. “All units, execute maneuvering package two at time one four.”

  “Estimated time to contact ten seconds. Five seconds.”

  The Syndics were ahead, then behind, the moment of contact incredibly brief, automated targeting systems aiming and firing as the warships tore past each other at a combined speed of almost sixty thousand kilometers per second. Dauntless’s hull shuddered as enemy hits registered on her shields. Geary tried to remain focused on the big picture as watch-standers called out reports.

  The Syndics had volleyed missiles and grapeshot at the expected position of the Alliance fleet, the great majority of those shots passing overhead as the Alliance warships went beneath them. By contrast the Alliance grapeshot couldn’t miss, slamming straight into the comparatively weak center of the Syndic flotilla. At short range and with the Alliance formation so compact, the dense barrage of steel ball bearings it had fired annihilated the light cruisers and HuKs in its path, blossoming flashes of light marking the deaths of the escorts. More lights flared as Alliance grapeshot slammed into the shields of the Syndic heavy cruisers, battleships, and battle cruisers in the center of the flotilla. As the opposing warships shot past each other, hell lances tore into targets and from the Alliance battle cruisers and battleships null fields blossomed to engulf parts of the Syndic combatants.

  Syndic counterfire had lashed out, pummeling the massive shields and armor of the Alliance battleships. After the battleships had absorbed the first volleys, Syndic fire had flailed at the following Alliance warships, weakened but still deadly.

  It had all taken only a fraction of a second, in which humans could only trust to the strength of their defenses, the accuracy of their automated targeting systems, and their luck. Now, as the Alliance formation and the Syndic flotilla raced away from each other, Geary watched as the fleet’s sensors evaluated the results.

  The seven Syndic battleships and three battle cruisers anchoring the center of the enemy flotilla had faced thirty Alliance battleships and battle cruisers. Outgunned three to one and without the null fields, which gave the Alliance an advantage at very short range against ships whose shields had been weakened, the Syndics had suffered the inevitable result. All three Syndic battle cruisers had exploded, along with two battleships, another battleship had broken into three large pieces, and the remaining four battleships were drifting, badly shot up, displaying the huge bites in their hulls that marked null-field hits, and showing few systems left operational.

  The list of disabled or destroyed Syndic cruisers and HuKs was gratifyingly long. The center of the Syndic flotilla had simply disappeared.

  “Executing maneuvering package two at time one four,” Desjani announced, the excitement of battle finally breaking through her aggravation with Geary.

  He simultaneously checked the Alliance fleet’s status and the movements of the Syndic flotilla. The Syndics were swinging their formation to the right and around, keeping the four corner formations slaved to each other, probably expecting the Alliance ships to keep heading for the jump point. But instead, the big Alliance formation was dissolving again, the battle cruisers, light cruisers, and many of the destroyers angling down as they coalesced into a new formation, while the battleships, heavy cruisers, auxiliaries, damaged warships, and the rest of the destroyers closed up on each other and bent their track upward.

  Geary felt like he’d swallowed grapeshot as his display pulsed with alerts reporting heavy damage or destruction of Alliance warships. A bright symbol in the wake of the Alliance fleet marked the spreading debris field that was all that was left of Exemplar, his last scout battleship. Smaller than battleships, bigger than cruisers, the scout battleships must have made sense to somebody but had suffered from the compromises in their design. Like her sister ships destroyed in previous engagements, Exemplar had been large enough to draw extra enemy fire but too small to withstand it.

  None of the Alliance battleships were out of commission, but the Syndics had concentrated their fire on Resolution and Redoubtable as the Alliance battleships engaged them, and both of those battleships had taken major damage forward. Resolution, having also suffered propulsion damage, was trying to keep up with the fleet but sliding backward relative to the other warships.

  In the wake of the fleet, the battle cruiser Incredible drifted, having suffered even more damage as she protected the auxiliaries. She still had some weapons operational, but otherwise was a sitting duck, her crew doubtless praying that the battle would remain clear of Incredible until they could get some propulsion units back online.

  Heavy cruisers Tortoise, Breech, Kurtani, and Tarian were knocked out, with nothing left of the first two but pieces of wreckage. Light cruisers Kissaki, Crest, and Trunnion were gone, and destroyers Barb, Yatagan, Lunge, Arabas, and Kururi had been destroyed.

  There was simply no time to review all the lesser damage inflicted during the first firing pass.

  Where the formations had clashed, swarms of escape pods filled space, Alliance survivors of destroyed ships intermingled with Syndics who had abandoned their own disabled craft.

  Worst of all, with a second volley of missiles fired just as the forces passed through each other, the Syndics had finally scored serious hits on one of the ships Geary could least afford to lose. “Goblin has lost all propulsion units,” the operations watch reported. “Serious damage aft from two or three missile hits. Estimated time to regain partial propulsion is at least one hour.”

  Geary watched the auxiliary’s track through space as, unable to alter its course or accelerate, the stricken Goblin followed the path of the wreckage and derelicts from the engagement, curving away from the rest of the Alliance warships. Running out Goblin’s path and comparing it to the movements of the Syndics produced a simple and unpleasant result. “Goblin doesn’t have a chance. Can anyone confirm for me that the most probable estimated time to the Syndics hitting Goblin is twenty-five minutes?”

  “Confirmed, sir,” the operations watch responded immediately. “I have twenty-four minutes on my estimate.”

  Way, way short of the hour Goblin needed to get moving again, and in any event the lumbering auxiliary couldn’t have escaped even if half of her propulsion units miraculously popped back online at this moment. Nor could the Alliance fleet get back and around in time to try to prevent a Syndic firing pass on Goblin. Geary sighed and tapped his controls. “Goblin, this is Captain Geary. Recommend you begin abandoning ship immediately and set power core for overload in about twenty minutes.” He planned to win this battle, but the outcome remained in doubt, and he couldn’t risk the Syndics’ capturing Goblin intact.

  Goblin’s answer came half a minute later. “Sir, we’re trying to load what fuel cells are left on board onto our heavy-lift shuttles. We might be able to get them out. Our repair crews are trying to get one of the propulsion units back online.”

  Desjani made a disbelieving sound. “Those heavy-lift birds can’t get clear of the Syndics. They don’t have the speed even if they’re empty.”

  Geary nodded. “Goblin, the heavy-lift shuttles are far too slow and will be magnets for enemy fire. They cannot escape, and anything on them will be lost. One propulsion unit can’t save your ship, and the fleet can’t get back to you in time to cover you. You’re an engineer. Do the math. Get your people off that ship while there’s still time. You may regard that as an order if that makes the decision easier.”

  This time Goblin’s reply took an extra minute and sounded resigned. “Yes, sir. I’m ordering all personnel to the escape pods now. Setting power core to overload in . . . eighteen minutes.”

  “Sir, Incredible’s commanding officer informs us that he has given orders for nonessential personnel to abandon ship.”

  “Very well,” Geary responded. The situation didn’t leave any other choice.

  “Resolution cannot keep up with the fleet
. She’s declaring her intention to close on Incredible and provide support.”

  “Approved. Tell Resolution and Incredible that we’re going to try to keep the Syndics busy.” Geary concentrated on the movements of the Syndics and his own two formations as the three groups of warships swung through the huge turns required at velocities still close to point zero eight light speed. As the Syndics came around to the right, a cluster of battleships began sliding over to fill the gap where the center of their flotilla had been, then apparently halted halfway between its old positions and the center.

  “They’re confused,” Desjani said scornfully.

  “That’s the idea.”

  Rione’s voice came from the back of the bridge. “Why are they confused? You’ve put our fleet into only two formations instead of up to six as you have in the past.”

  “It’s how those formations are constituted,” Geary advised her. “One is built around all of our battleships, slower and massive, obviously configured to slam right into the heart of the Syndic flotilla again. But the other formation contains all of our battle cruisers, swift and agile, obviously configured to hit the edges of the Syndic flotilla.”

  “I see.” Rione smiled with one side of her mouth. “They don’t know where you’ll hit, so they don’t know where to put their heaviest firepower.”

  “Exactly.” Geary shook his head as he watched the Syndics. They’d been expecting the Alliance fleet to turn back toward the jump point for Padronis, but instead found themselves lining up with the Alliance battleship formation to one side and above them, while the Alliance battle cruisers were to the other side and beneath. “I don’t think I should punch the battleship formation through the middle of the Syndics again. Not yet, anyway. If the Syndic commander reacted quickly enough and collapsed his flotilla around the center he could hurt our battleships badly.”