The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Guardian

Desjani spoke with dawning realization. “This is the opposite of what we were like, isn’t it? We were fighting without regard for formation, just slugging it out, before you reminded us how good formation fighting could multiply our effectiveness. But these guys are acting like they can’t imagine breaking formation. They haven’t even adjusted the formation to compensate for their losses or form a more effective defense. It’s like there’s a spot they have to be in relative to the guide ship, and they aren’t going to move from that spot even if the living stars showed up and said go.”

Dauntless had swept through her turn and, instead of continuing on toward the undamaged wing of the Covenant formation, was lining up on the center of that formation. Desjani clearly intended to take out the flagship this time. Geary didn’t question that targeting decision.

The Covenant ships did not pivot to face the oncoming Alliance battle cruiser, instead continuing to accelerate at their best rate toward the Dancers. Still moving fairly slowly relative to Dauntless, they fired weapons that could bear aft and down, scoring several hits this time as Desjani bored in on her target.

Specter missiles leaped away from Dauntless, the entire volley aimed at one of the megacruisers, then the battle cruiser tore through the Covenant formation again, hammering the megacruiser from which Mister Medal’s transmissions had come.

As Dauntless began another wide turn, her thrusters pushing her down and to starboard this time, Geary watched the Covenant flagship explode. Near the site of the flagship’s destruction, the megacruiser targeted with specter missiles had taken multiple hits on its stern and was spinning wildly away from the formation.

“One more run ought to do it,” Desjani said.

“Captain!” Lieutenant Castries called. “Escape pods are launching!”

“From which ship?” Desjani asked sharply.

“Um . . . all of them.”

Once again, Geary found himself watching his display in disbelief. The megacruiser badly hurt on the second firing run was spitting out escape pods, as was the megacruiser that had lost propulsion on this attack run. But so was the so-far-untouched last-surviving megacruiser, as were the three remaining corvettes. “They’re panicking.”

“They’re . . . ?” Desjani gave him the look that meant his words made no sense to her.

“Their commander is dead. They may not even have known why he attacked us. Most of their ships have been destroyed. They know they’re outmatched in firepower, maneuverability, and tactical skill. They’re panicking.”

“What?” Desjani repeated. “That— What? They’ve taken losses, so they’re giving up?” She sounded far more confused than Yuon had been earlier.

Looking around the bridge, Geary saw the same incomprehension on the faces of everyone else. “They’ve never fought a real battle,” he said, speaking slowly. “Just practice fights, against fake enemies who probably always lost. Because no commander wants to lose, and in practice battles senior commanders always place themselves in charge of the ships playing their own side. This is the first time they’ve faced an enemy who didn’t cooperate with them, an enemy who wouldn’t roll over and play dead because that’s what the plan called for, an enemy experienced in real combat who played for keeps. This is the first time they’ve seen ships destroyed in battle, the first time they’ve seen comrades die, the first time their training and their weapons haven’t worked the way they were supposed to. Everything they’ve been told was right has turned out wrong, their officers probably have no idea what to do when things don’t go exactly according to plan, and discipline has simply disintegrated on those ships as everyone tries to save themselves.”

Desjani shook her head. “The next time they want to fight, they’d better be ready for a real fight. We could walk over these guys, couldn’t we? An Alliance fleet could wipe them out while they were still fainting at the sight of blood.” She sounded angry as well as contemptuous.

“If we wanted to,” Geary said. “Do you want to?”

“Hell, no. People who bail out of perfectly good warships aren’t worth the energy needed to put a hell lance through their escape pod.”