The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Leviathan (17 page)

“They don’t have to hit us with multiple formations at once. I think instead they’re going to try to box in one of our formations and hit it hard with one of theirs,” Desjani said.

“I think you’re right, but we won’t let them,” Geary vowed, already working up new orders to counter the moves of the dark ships. “At some point, the dark ships have to make a mistake.”

He narrowly got Tango Three out of another dark ship attempt to catch that formation, tried to use the momentum of the dark battle cruisers’ latest maneuver to trap them, failed as he was forced to avoid another set of moves by the dark battleships, got
Dauntless
and the other Alliance battle cruisers free of a triple attack that tried to force him into contact with one or more of the dark ship formations, swung Tango Two out of a forming trap, began to set up another attack, had to
shift his battle cruisers away from that, moved Tango Three at the last moment to avoid yet another dark ship attack by all three enemy formations . . .

Geary lost track of time, completely lost in the constant dance of the three Alliance and three dark ship formations. He made a few mistakes which were minor enough to avoid disaster, but the dark ships made no mistakes, giving him no openings.

His ship commanders, as aware as Geary of how close they were to being annihilated, made no protests for once despite the lack of firing on the firing passes that always avoided getting close enough for combat when the dark ships had the advantage. And it seemed the dark ships with their superior maneuverability and firepower always had the advantage.

Geary roused himself from his intense focus on his display to become aware that Dr. Nasr was standing beside him and offering a small med patch.

“You are in need of this, Admiral,” Dr. Nasr said.

“A stim patch?” Geary blinked, trying to recall when this engagement had begun. “How long have we been conducting firing passes against the dark ships?”

“You began these series of maneuvers sixteen hours ago,” Dr. Nasr said, sounding composed but also unyielding. “You are required to apply a stimulant patch to maintain alertness and mental clarity. My assistants are ensuring that everyone in the crew receives a patch. All other ships are also administering stim patches.”

“How long are they good for?” Geary asked.

“They will have to be renewed after eight hours. You can apply a series of six patches one after another if judged necessary given the situation, but beyond that you risk negative health and mental outcomes.”

“I had to do a series of six once,” Desjani said as she slapped a patch on her own arm. “I don’t recommend it. Coming down from that was hell.”

Sixteen hours. Geary applied his own patch, then refocused on the situation. Battles in space could be extremely long but rarely involved extremely long periods of continuous action. If nothing else, wide-ranging maneuvers would eventually buy time for an exhausted nap between firing runs.

But against the dark ships, this time it had been a seemingly endless succession of attacks, counterattacks, evasions, and lunges. One set of fast maneuvers after another, constantly straining ships and their crews.

Motivated by a sudden concern, Geary called up data on fuel cell status for his warships. “Most of our destroyers are down to thirty-five percent on their fuel cells,” he told Desjani.

“That’s not surprising,” she grumbled. “We’ve been jerking around the entire fleet time and time again.”

But the dark ships had been pushing themselves even harder.

Geary, who had decided at some point just to strive to keep from being beaten badly, felt a sudden glimmer of hope. The dark ships had definitely been programmed for tactics. Specifically his tactics. And Lieutenant Castries had already noted that the dark ships appeared to be using Battle Priority profile on their maneuvering solutions.

Had anyone programmed the dark ships for logistics concerns?

The ships that had hit Indras and then Atalia had used up their entire supply of bombardment projectiles, holding none back for emergencies. That implied a lack of attention to the expendable weapon supply aspect of logistics. Did the dark ships also not pay enough attention to other aspects of logistics?

And was Dr. Nasr right about what would happen if the dark ships hit a firm limit in their programming that they had not previously rationalized their way around?

Could he manage to avoid a decisive encounter for enough more time to find out?

He bent grimly to the task, avoiding each new lunge by the dark
ships and attempting new attacks by his own warships, which were always frustrated. Another pass . . . another . . . six formations comprising hundreds of warships twisting and spinning through the vastness of space, each seeking the fraction of a second of advantage that it would need to inflict major damage on one of the other formations.

His commanding officers and crews continued to follow Geary’s orders, continued to believe that he would find a way out of this, while he prayed that he and his ships would hold out long enough.

The moment he had dreaded finally came, after nearly twenty hours of continuous combat maneuvering.

Tango Two had been forced to nearly kill its velocity to dodge a firing pass from a dark battleship formation. Now, its warships pointing straight up and main propulsion back on full, Tango Two was trying to regain speed, while Geary tried to bring the other two Alliance formations to its aid.

But the dark battle cruisers had seen the opportunity and were pouring maximum thrust from their propulsion, as was the other dark battleship formation, and Tango Two simply did not have enough velocity to avoid their charges and did not have the time to build up that velocity.

Captain Jane Geary on
Dreadnaught
called in, her expression that of someone facing the end. “We will make them pay, Admiral. Avenge us.”

“I will.” He had already probably lost Michael Geary, and now Jane would die as well. Because of his decisions, both of the grandchildren of his brother dead. Because they were Gearys and forced to follow in the footsteps of Black Jack.

“The dark battle cruisers are still coming around,” Lieutenant Castries said, sounding puzzled.

“Take another look,” Desjani said.

“Captain, they have passed the point at which they should have held to their vector to hit Tango Two.”

Geary and Desjani both sat up straighter, eyes going to the places on their displays where the dark battle cruisers were represented.

“What are they doing?” Desjani asked in disbelief.

“They’re still coming about, Captain,” Lieutenant Castries said, sounding as baffled as her commanding officer. “So are the dark battleships. They’ve also passed the vector for intercepting Tango Two.”

“So is the third dark ship formation,” Geary said. “Look.”

“Where are they going?” Desjani demanded. “Tell me where they’re going!”

Her lieutenants exchanged helpless glances.

“They’re finally steadying out,” Geary said. “Where is that—? Where does that vector lead?”

“Away from our formations,” Desjani said. “Why would they spend twenty straight hours trying to tear us apart and suddenly head off like that? Could Admiral Bloch have suddenly regained some control of them? Did some software routine activate that caused them to stop fighting us?”

“I think it’s software,” Geary said. “Something the dark ships did not see coming.”

“Captain,” Castries said, “the three dark ship formations are all steadying onto vectors for the jump point for Montan.”

“Montan?” Desjani stared at her display as if an explanation for the inexplicable could be found there. “What could they want at Montan?”

“It’s the nearest jump point from where we are now in this star system,” Castries pointed out. “Aside from that, the only major feature at Montan is a hypernet gate, Captain. Montan is one of the fallback star systems if Varandal had fallen to the Syndics, so it had a gate installed to allow rapid shifting of defensive forces.”

“A hypernet gate?” Desjani turned a baffled gaze on Geary. “They’re trying to get back to their base? Are they running away from us?”

“It looks like it,” he said, fighting off an immense weariness and afraid to believe that his hope had really manifested.

“If you don’t mind my saying so, Admiral, that’s pretty damned miraculous for someone who claims not to have any ins with the living stars.”

“There’s no miracle involved,” Geary said. “The dark ships are programmed for tactics, not logistics. You’ve all seen how hard they’ve pushed their maneuvers, which has also burned their fuel cells at a very high rate. Look at our own fuel cell status. Look at our destroyers.”

Desjani checked the data. “Our destroyers are low. Fifteen percent on average. That’s not surprising after all the dancing we did at maximum thrust over the last twenty hours. You think the dark ships broke off because of low fuel cell reserves?”

“I know they did,” he said, unable to keep the triumph and elation out of his voice as the dark ships continued to head for the jump point for Montan. “Some of their ships, maybe all of their destroyers, must have gone as low as ten percent fuel cell reserves. What do fleet regulations say about that?”

Lieutenant Yuon, who had probably been studying just those regulations for his fleet promotion standards, answered quickly. “Any formation containing warships reaching ten percent fuel cell reserves must disengage and refuel immediately.”

“No exceptions, right?” Geary said.

“No exceptions, sir,” Yuon agreed.

“Why would they pay attention to that?” Desjani demanded. “The dark ships shot up all of the shipping in this star system, they attacked Ambaru, they attacked Atalia, they attacked
us
. Why would they obey what fleet regulations say about fuel cell levels?”

“Dr. Nasr said the dark ships must have two ways of thinking. A set of firm instructions on what to do and what not to do, and a flexible set of programs intended to mimic human thought processes. Those flexible programs might well have allowed the dark ships to rationalize their way past limits they have encountered in the past. But Dr. Nasr said that if the dark ships ran into a new, firm prohibition, they would have a problem with it since they hadn’t yet rationalized their way past it. They would have to obey that rigid instruction until they worked around it.”

“Ancestors save us,” Desjani said. “I guess maybe our ancestors did save us.”

“They told me,” Geary blurted out, too tired and excited to hide it. “With a candle flame. Dodge and keep dodging. Don’t get caught.”

“I keep telling you to listen to them,” Desjani said. “So you saw that the dark ships were burning their fuel cells a lot faster than we were and just hoped they would run low enough before we did, and hoped that Dr. Nasr was right?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

She gazed at him wordlessly, then laughed. “We owe our miracle to fleet regulations. I will never live that down.”

“Fleet regulations had to be good for something. I’ll take my miracles in any form they care to appear.” Geary spent a long moment contemplating his display, still absorbing the reality that his fleet would not be destroyed here. “It’s tempting to try to send some ships after them, to try to follow them to their base.”

“But?”

“But the dark ships would see them following. It would be far too easy for the dark ships to leave an ambush at Montan. I can’t risk that.”

“Ask for volunteers—” Desjani began.

“No. I will not send people to die for no purpose, no matter how enthusiastically they volunteer for the task. And all of our ships are getting low on fuel cell reserves at this point, too.” Geary sighed and closed his eyes, finally letting what had happened settle into his nerves and relax them. “We’ve saved Bhavan. We’ll follow the dark ships at a distance until they jump to Montan, then head back to Varandal.”

“What if the dark ships work around the fuel cell reserve regulation before they jump for Montan?” Desjani asked.

“Then we’ll be much better positioned to engage them again, and their ships will be increasingly low on fuel cell reserves. That could be our best outcome, if they turn to fight us again with their fuel nearly exhausted.”

“Let’s hope,” she agreed. “Even the dark battleships would be helpless as their power cores shut down.”

But the dark ships apparently failed to overcome their blind adherence to fleet regulations in time. They jumped for Montan half a day later, and Geary led his battered fleet back toward Varandal, ignoring the questions now streaming in from Bhavan asking whether the threat was gone and what would happen now? He didn’t try to answer those questions because he had no answers.

—

“IT
sounds like things got pretty bad at Bhavan.” Admiral Timbale grimaced unhappily. “We saw those dark battle cruisers pop out of the hypernet gate and charge for the jump point for Bhavan, but the only things we had close enough to intercept them were a few destroyers and one cruiser. Not wanting to lose any more ships in hopeless fights, I ordered them out of contact. Your Captain Duellos was very upset, but with two of his battle cruisers still in dock, he couldn’t even chase after the dark ships.”

“We survived,” Geary said. He was in his stateroom aboard
Dauntless
, reviewing the damage to his ships in the long fight at Bhavan and wondering whether Captain Smythe could find the funds necessary to acquire a lot of replacement fuel cells. Timbale’s call had been a welcome distraction. Geary spoke frankly to the image of the other admiral. “Which was a victory compared to what might have been.”

“Well, Black Jack can’t be beaten, right?” Timbale offered with an encouraging smile.

“He damn near was at Bhavan,” Geary said. “They apparently built those dark ships to beat me, and, for once, the government was far too successful in achieving its goals.”

“You’ll find a way,” Timbale said. “The living stars wouldn’t have given you this challenge if they didn’t think you couldn’t handle it.”

“In that case, I wish the living stars had a lot less confidence in me,”
Geary said.
Everyone says basically the same thing, that surely Black Jack will find a way to beat the dark ships. But Black Jack himself can’t think of a way. I sure as hell can’t beat them in a straight-up fight with what I’ve got.