The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Invincible (9 page)

Desjani’s smile slipped. “And now you’re trying to jinx my ship.”

“I only meant—”

“Quit while you’re ahead, Admiral. I’m sure you will apologize to the living stars later for the presumption, but for now let’s pretend you didn’t say that and just focus on the fact that Black Jack wouldn’t have any other ship carry his flag.”

HE
almost hesitated before sending the next maneuver orders, wondering if they would go out to the rest of the fleet as they should or if the comm system would suffer more problems. But Desjani’s comm personnel had reported that the system was working properly for now at least. “All units, come port six five degrees down three degrees at time one five.”

Every ship turned as ordered, the box formation once again pivoting its heading without changing its shape, the fleet curving around away from both the star here and the oncoming bear-cow armada, now only twenty light-minutes distant.

“The bear-cows are going to be unhappy,” Desjani commented.

“As long as they do what we want,” Geary replied.

“And what,” Victoria Rione asked from the back of the bridge, “are we doing?”

He pivoted his seat to look back at her. “Trying to get them to do what we want them to do. I take it we still haven’t heard from them?”

“No,” Rione said. “Not even a bloodcurdling ‘moo’ of defiance. I believe your experts are right. These creatures do not speak with their enemies. They get rid of them.”

General Charban came on the bridge as well as Rione finished. “And too bad for anyone or anything that wasn’t actually an enemy, though I suspect their definition of enemy might be very broad. I just had a fascinating discussion with Dr. Shwartz.”

“Any new insights?” Geary asked. It would be about forty minutes before they spotted the bear-cow reaction to their latest maneuver, so he might as well see if he could learn anything new during the wait.

“Nothing good,” Charban said.

“Why is it that Dr. Shwartz’s insights rarely bring comfort?”

Charban smiled. “That’s a question I can’t address. But I can tell you what our experts have concluded from more analysis of the surface of that inhabited planet here. You already know it is almost covered with buildings.”

“Right. Buildings with crops on the roofs.”

“The same crops, Admiral. There is very little if any variation in vegetation in all of the areas we have been able to view of that planet.”

“Everywhere?”

Desjani got it, making a noise of disbelief. “They’ve wiped out everything else? That planet is covered with them and what they grow to eat?”

“Pretty much,” Charban said. “They not only took out all of the predators, they’ve also apparently taken out everything else that might compete with them or be in the way. In the videos we’ve intercepted, we’ve seen birdlike creatures occasionally, and some small beasts that appear to be pets, but aside from that, it’s just bear-cows. Oh, except for some shows that must be historical. The bear-cows in them wear primitive armor and engage in battles with other creatures, clearly digital special effects rather than real, probably the predators who are now extinct.”

“Battles?” That might be another opportunity to confirm how the bear-cows fought. “Can you forward me one of those right now?”

“Certainly, Admiral.” Charban tapped his comm unit, then nodded to Geary.

Desjani leaned in close to Geary to watch as well, pointedly ignoring the arch look that Rione sent their way at the physical proximity.

In the new virtual window that popped up before him, Geary saw serried ranks of bear-cows bearing shields and long spears, advancing steadily against foes that battered vainly against the shield wall. Occasionally, one of the maddened predators would leap high enough to clear the shields, only to be impaled on the bristling field of spears behind that.

“It’s an impressive display of discipline,” Charban commented. “The bear-cows all stay in position in the formation, all stay in step, all respond immediately to orders.”

“I’m not seeing much drama,” Desjani commented. “They’re just using the weight of numbers to push back those predators, encircle them, and spear them.”

“That’s all that happens,” Charban said. “All of these historical videos are the same. We haven’t seen a single case where a lone bear-cow plays the hero. Apparently, the bear-cows get their pleasure from watching the mass movements of their own armies. I checked, and there are rough analogues to that in human history. One ancient society on Old Earth, for example, who fought in similar tight formations with locked shields, and found heroism and drama in the simple question of whether or not each soldier could hold their place in formation as two forces clashed.”

“They’re not totally different from us,” Rione said. “There are ways in which we could find common ground if they would talk to us. But our earlier estimate that these herbivores attacked us solely because we appeared to be predators was incomplete.”

“There’s another reason?” Geary asked.

She waved in the direction where the distant bear-cow planet lay. “We would be competition, Admiral. They don’t allow competition of any kind. They’ve wiped out the competition on their home world, and if they had not been pinned here by the presence of the enigmas, they might have expanded to human-controlled space by now, plowing under every other life-form they encountered.”

“What about in the other directions? Do we have to assume that the bear-cows are surrounded by enigma-controlled space?”

“We can hope,” Rione said. “And, yes, I know none of us would have hoped for that before coming to this star, but now the enigmas do seem to be the lesser of two evils.”

“Pandora,” Desjani said.

“What?” Geary spoke for everyone else on the bridge.

“One of those old legends,” Desjani explained. “The type that blamed everything that was wrong on women. Pandora opened some box and found all kinds of bad things in it. I think Pandora might be a good name for this particular star.”

“Those old legends didn’t blame all women for everything that was wrong,” Charban said. “They only blamed women who . . . didn’t do as they were told.”

“A critical distinction,” Rione said in dry tones. “It is, after all, hard to overemphasize the importance of obedience in women.”

Desjani grinned at Charban’s discomfort, then suddenly realized that she had allied with Rione in this matter and shifted her attention back to Geary. “Five minutes until we see their reaction.”

Not wanting to get involved in the discussion of historical views on “appropriate” female behavior that Charban had unwittingly opened, Geary simply nodded, focusing back on his display. The bear-cows should react to his last maneuver by coming to port, heading down very slightly, and accelerating again to set up another intercept with the human fleet.

“There’s always the chance,” Desjani said, “that the armada will peel off to let the fortress deal with us.”

“I know. Our next maneuver will get us much closer to them, though. If what we know and guess about the bear-cows is right, they’ll keep after us.”

The bear-cow armada shifted vector exactly on schedule, making the exact changes in course necessary to bring about another intercept while the bear-cow warships began increasing their velocity. Geary gave them time to steady out on their next course, but ordered the next human maneuver while the bear-cows were still accelerating. “All units come starboard one three four degrees up five degrees at time two seven.”

This time the human formation swung widely back toward the bear-cow armada, every ship pivoting in place within the box. “They’re eighteen light-minutes distant,” Desjani commented, “but we’re going to close that fast on this new course. Current closing speed is point two four light speed, and they’ll keep accelerating until they see we’ve turned toward them.”

Geary nodded, his attention back on the alien fortress. The human fleet had gradually closed the distance to that as well, so the fortress was now but twenty-two light-minutes away, its relative bearing on the port quarter of the Alliance warships as they steadied onto their new course. The bear-cow armada was off the starboard bows of the human ships, so that alien fortress, human fleet, and alien armada were now nearly in a line, with the humans between the two bear-cow forces. “We’re going to be making quicker moves from here on, and a lot of it is going to be by instinct since we won’t have time to see the bear-cow reactions before we make our next move. Let me know if anything feels wrong to you.”

“You’re better than me at fleet maneuvers,” Desjani said. “A lot better.”

“But you can judge whether or not
Dauntless
is moving the way we want. Just let me know how that feels. Every other ship in this fleet is keeping position on
Dauntless
, so if she’s moving how we want, they’ll be moving how we want.”

“Yes, sir.”

Seventy-five minutes left to contact, or more like seventy if the bear-cows kept accelerating.

He had briefed his ship captains on what was to happen. Over the next couple of hours, the human fleet made repeated turns, to port, to starboard, back around, forcing the oncoming alien warships to frequently change their own courses and speeds. If those creatures were human, they would be growing increasingly frustrated and angry as the human fleet kept alternately turning toward a faster meeting, then turning away to force a longer chase. There was also the risk that Geary’s own captains would feel the same emotions. But each set of maneuvers left the bear-cow warships closer to the human fleet and brought both human and alien formations closer to the huge orbiting alien fortress. The twin threats of alien armada and fortress would hopefully help keep Geary’s most aggressive ship captains in their places in the formation rather than charging the enemy.

As the fleet swung widely to port again, Geary thought about the virtues of the bear-cow way of fighting. Every combatant staying exactly where they should, doing exactly as their commander ordered. It would be comforting never to have to worry about someone doing the wrong thing or refusing to do what they had been told.

But then he would have a fleet of commanders who were even worse than Captain Vente, incapable of acting on their own when circumstances required, locked into waiting for exact instructions on what to do, blindly following orders even if those orders were clearly mistaken. Too much discipline and too little discipline were two sides of the same disastrous coin, which could only purchase defeat.

“The leader of that armada has got to be mad as hell,” Desjani said. “You keep playing with them instead of charging in to fight.”

“That’s the idea.” Soon now. The box formation of the human fleet had worked around so it was only a few light-minutes from the alien fortress, but on the nearly opposite side from the bear-cow armada, which was currently clawing around to starboard to come back at the humans, the massive bear-cow superbattleships requiring huge turning radii and the smaller ships around them keeping exact positions relative to the larger ships. Geary had dipped his fleet formation up and down slightly as he weaved back and forth, with the latest maneuver bringing the fleet aimed several degrees under the plane of the star system.

On Geary’s display, he watched the elements of the so-far-bloodless battle all swinging toward the alignment he had been working for all that day. The heading of the human fleet sliding toward the alien fortress, and beyond that fortress, the jump point that he needed to reach now almost in line with the fortress, the current turn aiming to take the fleet short of the fortress. Off to the port side of the human fleet and the alien fortress, the curving path of the alien armada was gliding toward not only the human fleet, but also a close approach to the fortress.
That won’t worry the bear-cow commander. He wants me. He wants this fleet, and he doesn’t have to worry about being attacked by that fortress. And the fortress is watching me, too, waiting until this fleet gets into the right position so the fortress can launch hundreds of those suicide missile ships at us.

They’re not watching each other because they think they don’t have to.

I hope.

Now.

“All units, come starboard three five degrees at time four nine. Accelerate to point one five light speed.”

Thrusters fired at maximum power as the human fleet checked its turn to port and swung back to starboard in an enormous weaving maneuver. Main propulsion units flared, pushing the warships faster while they swung about. Geary kept his eyes on the ponderous auxiliaries in the center of the formation, knowing this maneuver would stress their capabilities to the maximum. If any of them failed to match the movement of the fleet, he would have to adjust courses on the fly to try to keep them safe.

But even though the largest auxiliaries screamed hull-stress warnings on the fleet alert net, they kept up with the turn. Geary took a deep breath, not even aware that he was crossing his fingers for luck. “All units. Immediate execute Modified Formation Hotel.”

Off to port of the human fleet, the now all-too-close bear-cow armada would be seeing the latest human maneuver, turning away but not enough to avoid contact this time. They would also be seeing the human fleet finally altering velocity, speeding up to confuse targeting and make the intercept harder. And now they would be seeing the outer edges of the human formation dissolving as the human warships shifted positions at the same time as they kept turning and accelerating.