The Lost Fleet Beyond the Frontier Invincible

She shook her head, pointedly ignoring Rione’s presence. “No. Basic information, as far as we know. I was talking to my comm officer about that, and he said that if the enigmas had routine, complex, faster-than-light communication, we should have been able to see signs of that by what wasn’t visible to us when we went through their territory. We wouldn’t see all of the routine message traffic flying between parts of star systems. But the comm traffic in enigma star systems was about at the level we would expect, which implies they can send some data, but not a lot, and still depend on regular light-speed comms for most traffic.”

“Which would mean the enigmas here would know the Alliance fleet was coming but not necessarily how many ships that involved.”

“They’d know—” Desjani grinned. “They’d know what showed up here. So the enigmas here might think the bear-cows got all of our battleships and heavy cruisers? That only our fastest ships got away?”

“Maybe. If the enigmas don’t know the battleships and heavy cruisers are coming on behind, they’ll be overconfident, thinking our strength has really been whittled down already. But if the enigmas do know our battleships and heavy cruisers are coming, they’ll know they have to try to beat this formation before we get those reinforcements,” Geary added.

“Which will encourage the enigmas to attack as quickly as possible,” Desjani concluded.

Rione had listened, and now her gaze was withdrawn, her expression intent as she thought. “The enigmas here might or might not know about the captured bear-cow warship, and might or might not know about the six spider-wolf ships coming here. But the Syndicate forces and the rebellious forces will not know either of those things.”

Geary smiled. “Do you think they might throw off CEO Boyens’s calculations?”

“They might well, Admiral. The importance of getting that information to the government on Prime might override any plan by Boyens to blackmail us by threatening the hypernet gate. Still, try not to destroy too much of this star system.”

“I’ll do my best, Madam Emissary.”

Desjani had lost her smile as she looked at Geary. “Hey, Admiral, have you considered what the enigmas might do when they see that Kick superbattleship? Because that superbattleship doesn’t work any more than one of those Syndic battleships does. Right now it’s only military function is RBRSRIT.”

“RBRSRIT?” Geary asked.

“Really Big Really Slow Really Inviting Target.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. At least our superbattleship that doesn’t work isn’t here yet. And don’t forget, even though dreaming up new acronyms to describe that ship seems to have become everyone’s favorite hobby in the fleet, she’s called Invincible now.”

“I still don’t feel good about that.”

The enigmas should have seen them coming at around half an hour after the Alliance fleet arrived at the jump point. Then the enigmas would very likely have begun accelerating toward the Alliance ships, while Geary had already pushed up his own velocity as he headed right for an intercept with the enigmas. On a display showing large reaches of the star system, the track of the Alliance fleet was a vast curve, heading in toward the star and the place where the enigma formation had awaited them.

The distance between the two forces should be closing rapidly, unless the enigmas had defied all expectations and instead charged in another direction. If the enigmas moved straight for the hypernet gate, they could still collapse it before Geary’s pursuit force could get there.

Geary tried to look unconcerned as the last minutes elapsed before they should see the enigma reaction to their arrival. Much farther away, none of the Syndicate or rebel forces in this star system would see anything for almost another hour.

His display updated in a flurry of new information as the light from the enigma reaction finally reached the fleet. Desjani’s lips drew back in a fierce grin. “Here they come. Just as predicted.”

The enigmas were accelerating along a vector clearly aimed to meet Geary’s forces, the alien ships showing off their impressive maneuverability as they increased speed at a rate the human ships couldn’t match.

The estimated time to intercept kept updating, scrolling downward fast as the velocity of the enigma ships kept increasing. Then there came a sudden shift, the alien ships ceasing their acceleration. “They saw us come up to point one five light speed,” Desjani said. “So they stopped at . . . point one six light speed. If we both hold that, we’ll meet in sixty-five minutes. Nobody’s going to get any hits if we pass each other at that velocity, though.”

Geary nodded, knowing he would have to reduce the velocity of his ships at some point before that intercept so his fire control systems would have a decent chance of scoring hits on the enigmas. The enigmas would also slow down to give themselves good shots so—

Would they?