The Lost Fleet: Courageous

“Yes, that’s really it.” He could understand her surprise. “We’ve got two advantages. As a smaller force we can make it harder for the Syndics to employ their full numbers against us all at once. Those box formations of theirs can’t adjust quickly enough to counter that.” I hope. “And since we’re slower, we can turn this formation tighter.”

The ships of the Alliance fleet collapsed into Formation Omicron. Instead of a number of separate subformations, Omicron held every ship in the fleet in one grouping. And instead of dispersing the warships with plenty of distance between them, Omicron used minimum safe distances. The cylinder was only small by comparison to the big Syndic formations, but most of the Syndic wall formed by Flotilla Delta wouldn’t be able to engage his fleet, even if the two forces swept through each other.

Geary had also abandoned the standard practice of having the lighter escorts between the major warships and the enemy. That was what they were for, normally, but he didn’t intend to fight a normal battle. The outside of Omicron’s cylinder was made up of battleships at the front and back, the battle cruisers forming a belt in the middle between them. Inside the cylinder were the destroyers and light cruisers. Heavy cruisers blocked both ends of the cylinder, one end stiffened by the two scout battleships. Also inside it, as well protected as possible, were the damaged warships and the auxiliaries, Warrior, Orion, and Majestic in close company.

“Thirty minutes to contact with Syndic Flotilla Delta,” the combat systems watch announced. “Twenty-eight minutes to contact with Syndic Flotilla Bravo.”

The last Alliance warship slid into place in the formation, the cylinder of the fleet pointed down along the track toward the jump point for Ixion.

“The commander of Delta is going to let Bravo soften us up and take the brunt of our first volleys and then move in to finish us off and get the credit,” Desjani observed. “I always disliked commanders who did that sort of thing.”

“This one’s going to be disappointed.” I hope. Geary sat and waited, trying to judge the right moment. “All units, reduce speed to point zero seven light.”

The Syndic ships were close enough now to have seen the Alliance fleet changing formation only a few minutes after it had begun, but they’d been forced to wait until the shape of the new Alliance formation could be made out before they could make any counterchanges to their own formation. Now Geary saw the formation for Syndic Flotilla Delta compressing, the wall getting shorter and thicker so that more Syndic ships could engage the Alliance fleet at any point. But Geary’s speed reduction was causing the Syndics to rush to contact faster than they’d anticipated.

“Ten minutes to contact with Bravo. Twelve minutes to contact with Delta.”

That was close enough. Bravo, conducting a stern chase, was gaining slowly, while Delta came tearing in from the side, still at point two light. He’s going to have to brake now. “All units in the Alliance fleet, pivot formation down nine zero degrees and turn starboard seven zero degrees at time three one.” Another very complex maneuver, with ships simultaneously swinging the cylinder so it pointed down, and bringing the cylinder around onto a new course.

“Delta’s braking,” Desjani noted on the heels of Geary’s order as Dauntless swung around to push herself onto the new heading.

At their velocity, Delta had a hard time viewing the Alliance fleet well and, already committed to a hard braking maneuver, they couldn’t do much about it anyway.

Bravo, coming on behind the Alliance fleet, tried to turn to match its maneuver but swung wider, losing distance.

A blizzard of missiles and grapeshot fired by the Delta Flotilla tore through the empty space where their combat systems had predicted the Alliance fleet would be.

Delta’s thick box rushed past the place where the Alliance fleet would have been, while the vertical Alliance cylinder swung by to one side at extreme hell-lance range.

“Nice,” Desjani said approvingly, but she kept her eyes on the display, knowing that this was just the first move.

Geary had his eyes there, too. The Syndics would follow. Bravo will continue around, ready to pounce when we steady out. Delta will go up or down, I think, to simplify coordinating another joint approach. That means I need to take this fleet…there. “All units, turn starboard one nine zero degrees, time four four.”

Delta was turning upward as Bravo once again failed to match the Alliance fleet’s turn and lost yet more ground. “All units, alter course down two zero degrees time four nine. Pivot formation up seven zero degrees at time five two.”