“It’s just like at Bhavan,” Geary said. “Whoever programmed the dark ships put a lot of effort into the tactical model but didn’t put nearly as much work or emphasis on logistics. The dark ships are still thinking primarily in terms of destroying us, not in terms of defending their support structure from us. And they’re not going to get a chance to rethink those priorities.”
He called up the bombardment routines again and, designating all of the docks and warehouses as targets, told the fleet’s combat systems to come up with a launch plan for when the Alliance warships went through the region of space holding those facilities. Not certain if the battle cruisers in Delta One would be back with the main formation, Geary told the combat systems to make full use of the awesome bombardment capabilities of the twenty-one Alliance battleships as well as Desjani’s Fourth Battle Cruiser Division. This time, with such short flight distances between launch platform and target, any unpredictable or varying interactions of the gravitational fields of the two stars had too little impact to worry about. The proposed plan popped up almost instantly. “Can you do a sanity check on this for me, Captain Desjani?”
She looked over the plan on her own display, brightening as she saw the sheer size of the bombardment. “We’re going to make sure nothing survives this run.”
“Right,” Geary said. “I don’t want to have to worry about coming back to finish the job.”
“It looks very good to me.” She checked another part of her display. “It also looks like you were right, Admiral. Those dark battle cruisers are going to try to take Badaya. They want Mistral bad and probably figure they can whittle down our number of battle cruisers at the same time.”
Their bows facing backwards while their main propulsion labored to slow them down, the ships under Badaya’s command already had the majority of their weapons and strongest shields pointed toward the enemy. The dark battle cruisers, though, having ramped up their velocity to catch Geary’s ships, were now having to brake harder and longer in order to effectively engage the Alliance battle cruisers, their sterns toward the enemy they were rapidly closing on. And as the dark battle cruisers and Geary’s battle cruisers both slowed, the Dancers gained more rapidly on both of them.
Those aboard Mistral, Geary reflected, were probably feeling extremely nervous at the mass of human, automated, and alien warships swiftly bearing down on them.
“Badaya is cutting it close,” Desjani warned. “The dark ships are going to be almost in range of Mistral when he engages them.”
“He wants the dark ships to hold their vectors,” Geary said, “and maybe he’s hoping they’ll be holding their fire as well, waiting to engage Mistral.”
“We did that to them at Bhavan,” Desjani said. “They won’t fall for it again.”
“We’ll know in less than two minutes.” He had no doubt that the dark battle cruisers would be stopped. He could only hope that his own battle cruisers would not pay too high a price.
The dark battle cruisers pivoted at the last possible moment, bringing their bows forward to face the Alliance force. They came within range of Badaya’s battle cruisers seconds before the Dancers caught the dark ships from behind. Even at the comparatively slow relative velocity at which the ships engaged this time, the exchange of fire happened too quickly for human senses to follow.
But Geary had no trouble spotting the explosion which, from its intensity, could only mark the destruction of a battle cruiser, as well as lesser detonations that heralded the deaths of heavy cruisers and destroyers. The fleet’s sensors were still trying to evaluate the outcome, who had lost what, when the Dancers ripped through the remains of destroyed ships to hammer the dark ships again.
The formations diverged, finally giving Geary a clear look.
“Mistral is all right,” Desjani said. The assault transport was still braking, now being overtaken by the fast-moving fields of wreckage from the shattered warships that had been pursuing her.
“We lost Motte,” Geary said as the report of the heavy cruisers’ loss came in. “As well as Moulinet, Remise, Mause, Spitfire, and Skyraider.” Two light cruisers and three destroyers. “Lots of damage to Dragon, Incredible, and Implacable.” Those three battle cruisers seemed to attract a lot of hits in every battle.
One blessing was that in a bow-on engagement, there had been few hits on propulsion and maneuvering systems. None of the damaged Alliance warships would be unable to keep up with their fellows.
Unfortunately, that was also true of the dark ships.
On the positive side, one of the dark battle cruisers was gone and the other three had been damaged enough to break off their attack. The dark ships had also lost two more heavy cruisers, another light cruiser, and four more destroyers.
“If they hadn’t veered off their attack vector, they would have been wiped out,” Desjani said, her right hand forming a fist that she rapped against her seat in frustration. “It looks like they tried to shift targets at the last instant to the ships in Delta One, then to the Dancers.”
“I bet they did,” Geary said, studying the results of the engagement replayed in very slow motion. “That was their fix to what we did at Bhavan, to allow last-moment retargeting outside normal parameters. But that meant in this engagement they ended up losing their chances at a lot of shots by shifting targets too often and too easily.”
He grimaced as he looked over the results, and the sharp curve of the path the remaining dark ships in that group were following as they swung out to one side and down relative to Geary’s formation. “We didn’t hit them hard enough.” He had always tried to avoid battles of attrition in which each side wore down the other, taking and inflicting losses at terrible rates. But he was beginning to believe that this battle would offer no alternatives to that strategy that weren’t even worse.
“Delta One,” Geary sent, “maintain your position relative to this formation until we clear the enemy support facility region.”
The government facility, a vast structure orbiting in solitary splendor, gleamed as Geary’s fleet swept past it. Hazard lights were visible on the outside of the structure, and on Geary’s display the exterior view of the facility was overlain with sensor readings of heat leakage and power use that showed which portions of the facility were in use. The intended home for an Alliance government in exile radiated a sense of great strength as well as great size, which struck Geary as ironic given its intended function. The only way this facility would ever have been occupied by the Alliance government was if Unity had fallen and most if not all of the Alliance had been occupied by the Syndics. Its use for its intended functions would have marked last-ditch desperation and defeat, not strength.
“We might have had to use this,” Desjani said. “If you hadn’t shown up.”
“And now it’s my job to neutralize it,” Geary said. “Are the living stars laughing?”
Mistral was partly out of sight around the curve of the facility as she backed in to the dock, her main propulsion flaring at full power as the assault transport slowed rapidly over the last few thousand meters before exactly matching the orbital vector of the facility. Geary saw Mistral’s propulsion stutter once as Commander Young fine-tuned the braking slightly, maneuvering thrusters also adjusting the transport’s angle of approach. Seconds later, the transport glided into the dock, comm relays dropped in Mistral’s wake still providing a solid link to the assault ship for the rest of the fleet even though she was now completely within the hangar.