The Lost Fleet Beyond the Frontier Invincible

“It’s pretty simple,” she said, sounding a trifle smug. “Look.” Her display lit up with representations of Geary’s force and the enigmas rushing toward each other. “They’ve seen us fight. They know you’ll likely alter course at the last moment to hit just part of their formation with everything we’ve got. In order to do that, we’d need to be within a certain range of them, no matter which direction we dodge.” She entered more data and a flattened cone spread out from the future location of Geary’s force, surrounding the enemy formation. “We’d have to be somewhere on that cone. If I was running the show for the enigmas, I’d be watching for the first twitch of movement onto a new vector by us, and the instant I saw the direction of that vector, I would know where on this cone we were aiming to be.

“For example.” Desjani entered one number, and the cone was replaced by a single vector. “See? Easy. If you’re maneuverable enough to change your own vector fast enough to manage a new intercept at that point. Human ships aren’t that maneuverable. Enigma ships are.”

“And if I don’t dodge, it just makes their solution simpler,” Geary said. “I’m glad you’re not running the show for the enigmas.”

“Damn straight. So, what are you going to do?”

“Use your cone. How much farther do we have to deviate from course to hit whichever enigmas try to hit us, and still be safe from an intercept aimed at somewhere on that cone?”

“That depends which way you go.” She raised one eyebrow at him. “You usually choose up and to the right.”

“So you told me.” He paused to think. “Let’s seem to make it easy for them. We’ll go up and to the right. Farther up, though.”

“It might mean a clean miss on that firing run,” Desjani cautioned.

“As a certain battle cruiser commander pointed out, we can afford that,” Geary replied.

Rione was back. “Admiral, the spider-wolves have arrived in this star system.”

“Good.”

“How will we keep the enigmas from destroying them?”

That complicated things.

Desjani spoke as if saying thoughts out loud to Geary. “At least we don’t have to worry about the spider-wolves. They’re not quite as fast as the enigmas, but they seem to be slightly more maneuverable. Unless they want to fight the enigmas, they should be able to avoid any attempt to engage them.”

Geary nodded and looked at Rione. “What she said.”

“Thank you . . . Admiral.” She looked forward at his display. “I understand that there have been some political changes here.”

“It looks like it though we don’t know the extent yet. Feel free to talk to Lieutenant Iger about it. His people are trying to sort out the changes.”

Rione recognized a dismissal when she heard one. “I’ll let you go back to focusing on your battle, Admiral.”

“Half an hour to contact,” Lieutenant Castries reported.

“Let’s slow it down as if we intend a regular firing pass,” Geary said. “All units in pursuit formation, reduce velocity to point one light speed at time one five.”

A few minutes later, Dauntless and the other ships surrounding her pivoted around so their main propulsion units faced forward and began braking their velocity down to the speed Geary had ordered.

By the time that had been done, and the warships had brought their bows forward again to face the oncoming enigmas, only five minutes remained until contact.

Geary checked everything else on his display, wanting to make sure he didn’t focus solely on the enigmas and miss important developments elsewhere in the star system. The spider-wolves had accelerated upward, apparently seeking an orbit out of the direct path of the combatants. The main body of Geary’s fleet should have arrived at the jump point a few minutes ago, but the light from that event had not reached them yet. The Syndics here, as well as the rebels who used to be Syndics, would within the next hour begin seeing Geary’s pursuit force, but so far none of those three flotillas had spotted the arrival of the Alliance warships or altered their previous vectors.

“The enigmas haven’t reduced their velocity,” Desjani said.

“Captain?” Lieutenant Yuon reported. “Our combined engagement speed with the enigmas will be point two six light speed. Combat systems accuracy will be significantly impacted. Recommend reducing speed.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant. Not this time.”

Geary nodded and then, confident of what to do and when to do it, activated his comms. “All units, at time four four come starboard seven degrees, up six degrees. Engage any enigma units that come within your weapons envelopes.” He had already called up the battle cruiser captains, telling them to beware of ramming tactics, so now it was just a matter of letting physics call the shots.