“You think so?” Desjani studied the situation. “Yes. If they come a little up and to port, they’ll go right through the Dancer formation instead of ours.”
“And you can bet the Dancers have seen that, too.” He knew he sounded confident. He hoped he was right.
The last minutes seemed to pass very slowly.
The moment of contact came and went too fast for human senses to register.
“No engagement!” Lieutenant Yuon announced.
Geary realized that he had been holding his breath and let it out slowly.
“Oh, nice!” he heard Desjani say.
Focusing on his display again, Geary saw that the Dancer formation had dissolved in the minute before contact, the forty bright ships sweeping down and over to catch one flank of the dark ship formation as it tore past. While none of the Dancer ships were the size of human battleships or battle cruisers, and none carried as much armament, forty of them could do a fair amount of damage, especially against smaller Alliance warships.
A dark heavy cruiser was reeling out of formation, unable to control its movement. One of the light cruisers was gone, nothing but debris remaining. A second had broken into sections, which were disintegrating as they tumbled through space. And one of the dark destroyers was gone as well.
“They’ll think twice before trying that again!” Desjani said gleefully.
“Damage to some of the Dancer ships, but none are disabled,” Lieutenant Yuon reported.
The dark battle cruisers were whipping around, the Dancers swarming and rising to meet their turn like huge, shining bubbles flying upward, all pretense of a rigid formation vanished in favor of something that resembled the movements of a school of fish.
“It’s too bad the Dancers don’t have more firepower. The dark ships didn’t take into account the maneuverability and skills of the Dancers,” Geary said. “The dark ships won’t make that mistake again, but the Dancers should keep that one group of battle cruisers busy.”
Which left four more groups of dark ships.
The battleships that had come out of the docks had started out an hour behind the dark battle cruisers and accelerated more slowly, so they were now more than two hours from contact. The three groups of dark ships that had come out from behind the two stars were pushing their own velocity up, aiming to reach Geary’s formation at the same time as the first group of battleships.
“We could detach enough ships to help the Dancers finish off that first group of battle cruisers,” Desjani suggested.
“That’s what they want,” Geary said. “To get us focused on fighting those battle cruisers, then the groups here after them, until our option to do anything else disappears. We’re going to hold together, we’re going to blow through any opposition that we can’t avoid, and we’re going to wipe out those docks and warehouses. Then we’ll engage the dark ships. By that time, we’ll also know whether or not the hypernet gate is blocked to us.”
He called up his division and squadron commanders, repeating what he had told Desjani. The news that the gate might be blocked was met with as much anger directed at the dark ships as fear for the consequences. Captain Badaya, though, saw a positive side to the situation. “They can’t get away from us this time!”
“We’ve got them trapped,” Captain Duellos agreed, smiling slightly.
Captain Jane Geary smiled broadly. “Nothing to lose. Let’s hit them just like Black Jack would.”
“We’re going to do just that,” Geary said, accepting the role of Black Jack as needed now. “We’re going to hit them and keep hitting them. If the fleet has to break into small formations centered on the battle cruiser and battleship divisions, I trust you all to operate independently, and I know you will all carry out your duties in a manner that does honor to your ancestors.”
He ended the call, concentrating once more on the situation. The first group of dark battle cruisers, scarred by the Dancer attack but still powerful and fast, was behind and above the Alliance ships, accelerating again. But they were beginning to roll to one side to evade the Dancers’ second pass. That was taking the dark ships off a vector to intercept Geary’s formation again. “General Charban, please inform the Dancers that they are doing all I could ask for, and to please continue keeping those dark battle cruisers occupied.”
“We may be inventing a new art form,” Charban replied. “Improvisational battle haiku. I will inform them. Admiral, I’m looking at this situation. Is it as bad as it appears?”
“Yes,” Geary said.
The dark battle cruisers fell increasingly far behind as they dodged repeated attacks by the Dancers, who could outmaneuver even the fastest and most agile dark ships. But after forty-five minutes of provocation, the dark battle cruisers darted directly onto a chase after Geary’s formation, ignoring a slashing Dancer attack that took out more of the dark cruisers and destroyers.
Fifteen minutes after, with the dark battle cruisers behind racing to catch up, the Dancers chasing those dark ships, and four dark ship formations approaching ahead, Geary sent new orders. The dark ships in front of Geary’s force were already beginning to decelerate in anticipation of intercepting his formation in half an hour. “All units in First Fleet, immediate execute, accelerate to point two five light speed.”
“What happens after we blow through them?” Desjani asked.
“We start braking, drop off Mistral as we blow past the government facility, continue braking to ensure the accuracy of our bombardment as we swing past the orbiting support facilities for the dark ships, blow away those facilities, then break into three formations and go after the dark ships.”
“Got it. Need help configuring the formations?”
“I would be grateful for your assistance, Captain.”
Because of the distance still separating the forces, it took the dark ships several minutes to see that Geary’s force was accelerating, limiting their time to counter his move. All they could do was further reduce their own velocity, and the three dark ship formations that had been hidden behind the two stars were already braking at near maximum.
Their carefully planned maneuvers thrown off by Geary’s acceleration, the dark ships were now coming in at rates that would cause them to encounter Geary’s fleet at slightly different times instead of all at once.
“Estimated relative velocity at contact with closest dark battleship formation is point two seven light,” Lieutenant Yuon announced.
“Nobody is going to get many hits at that speed,” Desjani said.
On Geary’s display, the thin, curving lines marking the projected paths of the dark ships were growing in diameter, shading lighter on their outer edges, reflecting growing uncertainty as to exactly where the enemy ships were and exactly what their vectors were, as the relative velocities grew so large that human sensors and tracking systems could not fully compensate for relativistic effects that warped their view of the universe. The closer objects got to the speed of light, the worse the relativistic effects, and the harder it was to see an accurate picture of what was outside of a ship. It was just one of the reasons why warships rarely pushed their velocities above point two light speed, but it was an important reason.
The dark ships would be having the same problem precisely tracking Geary’s warships. It was hard enough hitting something on the fly while shooting past at tens of thousands of kilometers per second. If you didn’t know exactly where that ship was and would be, the problem became an impossible one.
At five minutes before contact, with the different formations only about one light-minute apart, Geary sent new orders. “All units in First Fleet, immediate execute, pivot one six zero degrees port, down zero four degrees, brake velocity to point one light speed. Mistral, maneuver independently as required to close on the government facility.”