The Lost Fleet Beyond the Frontier Invincible

That left nothing else to do but wait, watching as an occasional ship’s status report upgraded as the sudden equipment failures were repaired. No, that wasn’t the right thing to call them, Geary thought. “Sudden equipment failure” implied that there was something unexpected about them. But as he had learned not long ago, these ships had only been designed to function for a few years in the expectation that they would be destroyed in battle before that time was up. Geary, and the end of the war with the Syndicate Worlds, had thrown off that expectation by keeping these warships in the line of battle longer than they had been designed to operate. Now internal system components were wearing out. Smythe and his auxiliary force were working to get those components upgraded and replaced, but it would be a long and difficult process.

In the meantime, he had to go into battle with ships whose systems were increasingly prone to “sudden” failure after two, three, or even four years of combat life.

“All units, execute preplanned maneuver Alpha One at time three zero.” He had trouble keeping his eyes off Titan as the remaining time elapsed. What would happen when Titan tried to use that balky propulsion unit? His first experience with Titan had involved propulsion problems, and now here he was again.

And that first time, his grandnephew, Michael Geary, had probably died aboard his ship Repulse, buying time for Titan.

Not again. Not this time.

“Here we go,” Desjani announced, as Dauntless’s thrusters pushed her bow up and over, followed by the kick of main propulsion as the battle cruiser curved up and to port along with about a third of the other warships in the disintegrating fleet formation.

The bear-cows would see the maneuvers very quickly, within fifty seconds of when they took place, but it would take them a while to figure out what the human fleet was doing. Then the bear-cows would have to decide what to do.

Ships were forming up around Dauntless, which remained the guide ship for this portion of the fleet. Another third of the fleet had bent outward to starboard, forming around Captain Tulev’s Leviathan, while the remainder of the human ships dove downward, using Captain Badaya’s Illustrious as their guide.

Titan kept up with Captain Badaya’s force, along with Kupua, Alchemist, and Cyclops. Accompanying the warships with Tulev’s Leviathan were Tanuki, Domovoi, Witch, and Jinn. Accompanying Dauntless were the four assault transports, Tsunami, Typhoon, Mistral, and Haboob. “If the Kicks want to go after lightly armed support ships, they won’t be able to focus on any one of the three formations,” Desjani observed. “Nice.”

The warships forming around Dauntless were taking up an oval-shaped formation, the assault transports on the side farthest from the bear-cows, as the path of the formation kept curving, turning back toward the Kick armada.

The humans were going at point one five light speed, while the bear-cows had pushed their own velocity up to point two three light speed. That had produced a closing rate for the Kicks of point zero eight light speed, but when the three new human formations turned toward the bear-cow force, the closing rate suddenly went up to nearly point four light speed. Geary saw the positions of the Kick warships on his display smear, going from pinpoints to blobs as the incredible closing velocity produced distortions in reality that the best human ingenuity could not compensate for. The human warships tore past the bear-cows before the enemy could even fully realize what had happened.

“They’re staying straight on,” Desjani said. “Heading for the spider-wolves.”

“Then let’s go help our new friends.” Geary sent new orders. “Immediate execute. All units in Gamma One One, come starboard one nine zero degrees, down zero two degrees, all units in Gamma One Two, come starboard one eight five degrees, all units in Gamma One Three, come up one three degrees.” He switched to personal comms. “Captain Tulev, Captain Badaya, once your formations come about, you are to operate independently. Concentrate on eliminating the escorts.”

Desjani raised her eyebrows at him. “You won’t be ordering maneuvers by Tulev’s and Badaya’s formations?”

“No. These Kicks, from what we’ve learned of them, believe in single-direction. If all of our ships are acting in accordance with my orders, we’ll be meeting them on their ground, one mind versus one mind. But if all of our ships operated independently, hundreds of minds working on their own, we’d be at a disadvantage against their coordinated actions.”

She nodded judiciously. “But three formations give us three heavy punches, while leaving the Kicks with three opponents who are working together but not in lockstep.”