The Lost Fleet Beyond the Frontier Invincible

Automated probes launched from several of the human ships around the bear-cow warship, approaching their target at a steady, unthreatening pace, each one broadcasting requests to surrender and promises of safety to the bear-cows still aboard their ship. The civilian experts with the help of some of the fleet techs had worked up an animated movie with the same messages, using images in the format used by the Kicks to convey the human offer, and those videos were being sent simultaneously.

The same messages, the same movies, had already been broadcast toward the superbattleship, with no response. Were the surviving members of the crew dead, or were they still refusing to communicate with humans?

Suddenly, particle beam and laser fire licked out from the superbattleship, and within seconds, probe after probe had been blown apart or rendered inactive, all systems dead. “We’ll have to do this the hard way,” Geary said.

“No surprise there,” Desjani replied. She had been grumpy for some time, annoyed that the main effort of reducing the superbattleship’s defenses had been assigned to the human battleships rather than the battle cruisers like Dauntless.

“Captain Armus,” Geary said.

The image of Armus, commanding officer of Colossus, appeared before Geary. Armus was solid, unimaginative, and deliberate to a point just short of being too slow to act. Often that could be a problem. But in this kind of attack, those characteristics were a virtue, so Geary had placed Armus in charge of all of the battleships for the operation.

“My task force is ready,” Armus said.

“Commence your bombardment.”

Armus saluted in the slightly awkward manner of many of the senior officers who had spent most of their time in a fleet where saluting had once been a forgotten ritual, then his image vanished.

All around the helpless superbattleship, Alliance battleships turned bow on and began closing the distance, their shields at maximum and their weapons ready. Dreadnaught, Orion, Superb, and Splendid, all of them with weak shields and extensive damage, had been ordered to hold back until the majority of the bear-cow defenses had been knocked down; but they could still be called on earlier than that if necessary. Even not counting them, against the single superbattleship Geary could deploy nineteen human battleships. As mighty as the Kick warship might be, it was unable to maneuver and seriously outclassed by the firepower steadily drawing closer. He watched, feeling a surge of pride as the battleships headed toward the superbattleship by divisions.

He had led these ships in fights many times, but rarely with the opportunity to watch the slow majesty with which they went into action. Gallant, Indomitable, Glorious, and Magnificent; Dreadnaught bearing extensive recent scars from action, Orion as badly battered as her sister ship, Dependable, and Conqueror; Warspite, Vengeance, Revenge, and Guardian; Fearless, Resolution, and Redoubtable; Colossus, Encroach, Amazon, and Spartan; Relentless, Reprisal, Superb, and Splendid, the last four also scored by damage. Somehow, the wounds borne by the battleships made them seem even more imposing, more threatening, veterans marked by combat who would not let injuries turn them aside.

The superbattleship must have expended all of its missiles in the earlier battle and while fighting off harassing attacks by the spider-wolves. Now it opened fire again with particle beams and laser fire; but the human battleships didn’t return shots yet, letting their bow shields absorb the shots while human sensors pinpointed the precise locations of the weapons on the bear-cow warship. “They’re not concentrating their fire,” Geary remarked. He had worried that shots would be focused on the already-most-hard-hit battleships, but with the Kicks lashing out at every battleship around them, no one human battleship was taking enough hits to cause serious worry.

“No leaders,” Desjani replied. “Their leaders fled the ship, so there’s no one to tell them what to attack. They’re all just picking targets individually.”

Having localized every alien weapon location, Armus gave the order to open fire, and twenty-three battleships opened fire at once with a tremendous barrage of grapeshot and some heavier kinetic projectiles as well since the superbattleship could not maneuver to avoid hits. The grapeshot struck all around the hull of the superbattleship, shields flaring in white-hot intensity as the energy from the solid ball bearings converted to force, battering at the enemy defenses. The alien shields flickered under the blows, weak spots appearing and growing.