Invincible

SEVEN

“There’s one good thing about this,” Geary said as he waited through the last ten minutes before the first maneuver would take place.

“I’d love to know what that is,” Desjani replied.

“The bear-cows can’t tell how many of our ships are degraded and by how much. They have to treat every one of our ships as a full threat.”

“Except,” she pointed out, “the ships with degraded shields. The Kicks should be able to detect that.”

“Except those,” Geary conceded.

“What are you going to do if Titan can’t keep up?”

“Improvise.”

Desjani took a report, then nodded to Geary. “My comm officer swears on the honor of every ancestor he has that your comm system should be working perfectly, Admiral.”

“Admiral!” Captain Smythe looked weary, as if the last half hour had been a long day of intense work. “We’re helping to remotely direct repairs on the affected ships, but there are a lot of them.”

“I’m very well aware of that, Captain,” Geary replied. “How is Titan?”

“Commander Lommand has a fix in. He thinks it will work under stress.”

“Commander Lommand has a good track record,” Geary said. “I’m willing to trust his word on that. What about Witch? Can Captain Tyrosian get her shields fully up anytime soon?” The auxiliaries were as big a worry during a battle as they were a necessity between battles. As lightly protected as they were, any lowering of their defenses had to be a major concern.

“She’s working on it,” Smythe said.

That left nothing else to do but wait, watching as an occasional ship’s status report upgraded as the sudden equipment failures were repaired. No, that wasn’t the right thing to call them, Geary thought. “Sudden equipment failure” implied that there was something unexpected about them. But as he had learned not long ago, these ships had only been designed to function for a few years in the expectation that they would be destroyed in battle before that time was up. Geary, and the end of the war with the Syndicate Worlds, had thrown off that expectation by keeping these warships in the line of battle longer than they had been designed to operate. Now internal system components were wearing out. Smythe and his auxiliary force were working to get those components upgraded and replaced, but it would be a long and difficult process.

In the meantime, he had to go into battle with ships whose systems were increasingly prone to “sudden” failure after two, three, or even four years of combat life.

“All units, execute preplanned maneuver Alpha One at time three zero.” He had trouble keeping his eyes off Titan as the remaining time elapsed. What would happen when Titan tried to use that balky propulsion unit? His first experience with Titan had involved propulsion problems, and now here he was again.

And that first time, his grandnephew, Michael Geary, had probably died aboard his ship Repulse, buying time for Titan.

Not again. Not this time.

“Here we go,” Desjani announced, as Dauntless’s thrusters pushed her bow up and over, followed by the kick of main propulsion as the battle cruiser curved up and to port along with about a third of the other warships in the disintegrating fleet formation.

The bear-cows would see the maneuvers very quickly, within fifty seconds of when they took place, but it would take them a while to figure out what the human fleet was doing. Then the bear-cows would have to decide what to do.

Ships were forming up around Dauntless, which remained the guide ship for this portion of the fleet. Another third of the fleet had bent outward to starboard, forming around Captain Tulev’s Leviathan, while the remainder of the human ships dove downward, using Captain Badaya’s Illustrious as their guide.

Titan kept up with Captain Badaya’s force, along with Kupua, Alchemist, and Cyclops. Accompanying the warships with Tulev’s Leviathan were Tanuki, Domovoi, Witch, and Jinn. Accompanying Dauntless were the four assault transports, Tsunami, Typhoon, Mistral, and Haboob. “If the Kicks want to go after lightly armed support ships, they won’t be able to focus on any one of the three formations,” Desjani observed. “Nice.”

The warships forming around Dauntless were taking up an oval-shaped formation, the assault transports on the side farthest from the bear-cows, as the path of the formation kept curving, turning back toward the Kick armada.

The humans were going at point one five light speed, while the bear-cows had pushed their own velocity up to point two three light speed. That had produced a closing rate for the Kicks of point zero eight light speed, but when the three new human formations turned toward the bear-cow force, the closing rate suddenly went up to nearly point four light speed. Geary saw the positions of the Kick warships on his display smear, going from pinpoints to blobs as the incredible closing velocity produced distortions in reality that the best human ingenuity could not compensate for. The human warships tore past the bear-cows before the enemy could even fully realize what had happened.

“They’re staying straight on,” Desjani said. “Heading for the spider-wolves.”

“Then let’s go help our new friends.” Geary sent new orders. “Immediate execute. All units in Gamma One One, come starboard one nine zero degrees, down zero two degrees, all units in Gamma One Two, come starboard one eight five degrees, all units in Gamma One Three, come up one three degrees.” He switched to personal comms. “Captain Tulev, Captain Badaya, once your formations come about, you are to operate independently. Concentrate on eliminating the escorts.”

Desjani raised her eyebrows at him. “You won’t be ordering maneuvers by Tulev’s and Badaya’s formations?”

“No. These Kicks, from what we’ve learned of them, believe in single-direction. If all of our ships are acting in accordance with my orders, we’ll be meeting them on their ground, one mind versus one mind. But if all of our ships operated independently, hundreds of minds working on their own, we’d be at a disadvantage against their coordinated actions.”

She nodded judiciously. “But three formations give us three heavy punches, while leaving the Kicks with three opponents who are working together but not in lockstep.”

“Four opponents,” Geary corrected. “If the spider-wolves don’t just try to avoid action. I’m hoping the differences in temperament among the formation commanders will further confuse the bear-cows. Tulev is methodical and steady, while Badaya is quick and more daring.”

“And you are unpredictable,” Desjani said.

“Let’s hope so.”

Up ahead, the spider-wolf formation had begun breaking up, the intricate pattern shattering into shards that seemed to be re-forming into smaller whorls of ships. But then the smaller groupings also came apart, every spider-wolf ship racing off on a different vector. “Looks like they fight as individuals,” Desjani remarked.

With the spider-wolf ships turning, accelerating, and maneuvering, the human sensors could finally get a look at their propulsion systems. “Hot stuff,” Desjani said admiringly.

That sums it up pretty well, Geary thought. Baffles had spread outward, revealing impressive propulsion systems, and similar baffles at other points on the hulls had slid back to unmask powerful thrusters. The spider-wolf ships all seemed to have higher thrust-to-mass ratios than any human ships, giving them maneuverability close to that of the enigma ships. And they were all coming toward the bear-cow armada…

He clenched his jaw, thinking about how impossible it would be to avoid the spider-wolf ships swarming around the bear-cow formation. “They’d better stay clear of us because we can’t stay clear of them and attack.” That brought up something else, an omission that briefly appalled Geary as he thought of what might have happened. “All units, ensure your combat systems are set to not engage any spider-wolf ships unless specifically targeted in response to commands from me.”

The bear-cows, without the spider-wolf formation to concentrate on, had finally chosen another objective. The Kick formation was braking as fast as the bulk of their superbattleships allowed, while coming around and down toward the subformation led by Badaya. Captain Badaya’s ships in turn were rising to meet the bear-cows and pivoting so that a shield of warships remained between the bear-cow armada and the four auxiliaries with Badaya’s force.

The Kick sledgehammer spread out as it turned, two superbattleships anchoring each side while the other six remained near the center. “They’re not going to make this easy,” Desjani said.

Geary adjusted the course of his formation, aiming it toward one of the superbattleships on the side nearest to his force. “Immediate execute, all units in Gamma One One, reduce velocity to point zero eight light speed.” Dauntless and the ships with her pivoted, bringing their main propulsion units around to face in the direction the ships were going. Despite the inertial nullifiers, Geary felt pressure force him back into his seat as the propulsion units labored to brake the velocity of the warships.

The human subformations were all fairly close together despite the huge distances required for turns at the velocities they were traveling. With only about a light-minute separating the human forces, Geary could see what the others were doing almost as soon as it happened. Badaya had not yet changed course, still rising up straight toward an intercept with the bear-cows, while Tulev, like Geary, had steadied out, aiming for part of the enemy armada.

As his force rushed toward the bear-cow warships, Geary had a mental image of an enraged bull charging him, the horns and head made up of those colossal superbattleships. “Five minutes before we’re in range,” Desjani warned.

“Got it.” He waited, wanting the Kicks to see his course change too late to do anything about it. At three minutes to contact, the time felt right at last. “All units in Gamma One One, immediate execute turn starboard four degrees, up one degree. Engage enemy escorts as you enter range.”

The human formation turned slightly to the right and up, changing its vector from one aimed at the nearest superbattleship to a path that would clip the upper portion of the bear-cow formation about one-third of the way from the edge. The Kicks themselves had been braking as long as possible, trying to get down to engagement speed, but now were pivoting in the last moments before contact to place their heaviest armor and armament facing the human warships. The combined closing speed was down to point one eight light speed, well within human targeting parameters but just outside the bear-cow capabilities. “Too fast for them, but not by much,” Desjani commented in the moment before contact.

Specter missiles were leaping out to home on bear-cow warships, then in an instant of sequential shooting, hell lances were firing, grapeshot was hurled at the closest enemies, and, in a few cases, the lethal clouds of null fields engulfed portions of their targets.

Dauntless shook with only one near miss, Geary’s eyes on his display as it updated the status of the bear-cow fleet. Six of the lesser bear-cow ships—four about heavy cruiser–sized, one light cruiser–sized, and one equivalent to a human battleship—had been hit hard. Two of the cruisers were gone, blown to pieces, the crippled battleship spun off, and the other stricken warships wobbled to try to keep up with their formation, shields, armor, and weapons badly battered.

Desjani’s shout and the blare of collision warning alarms sounded on top of one another. Startled, Geary saw twenty or thirty spider-wolf warships weave through his formation at tremendous velocity, some missing collisions with human ships by distances that would have scared the hell out of any human ship captain.

Once through the human ships, the spider-wolves pounced on the crippled bear-cow warships, making individual firing runs that rapidly reduced all of those damaged ships to wrecks.

“What. The. Hell?” Desjani glared at her display. “Those stupid spiders almost nailed us instead of the Kicks!”

“Captain?” Lieutenant Castries said in a voice that mingled awe and terror. “Our systems estimate the spider-wolf ships were on manual maneuvering controls. They weren’t being guided by automated systems when they went through us.”

“That’s impossible. Nobody could—” Desjani shook her head. “Nobody human. Admiral, those things are absolutely insane.”

“At least they’re on our side,” he said, trying to judge the right moment for his next maneuver. Tulev’s force had just gone through a lower edge of the bear-cow force, leaving five mangled Kick escorts in his wake though taking more damage to his own ships than Geary’s force had suffered because the closing velocity had fallen just within bear-cow targeting parameters. Geary saw another flock of spider-wolf ships weaving past any obstacles as they leaped to attack the victims of Tulev’s strike.

Badaya had turned down again at the last moment, his ships raking the bottom of the bear-cow formation and knocking out four escorts while inflicting significant damage on several others. But Illustrious and Incredible had suffered some hard blows as well from two of the superbattleships.

“Immediate execute all units in Gamma One One come up one nine zero degrees,” Geary ordered. “Increase velocity to point one light speed.” He would bring his subformation up and over, back down in more than a half circle to close on the rear of the bear-cows, who had now slowed to point zero nine light speed.

An alert pulsed red. “Titan has lost that propulsion unit again,” Geary said, adding some curses under his breath.

Badaya’s formation had suddenly become limited in its ability to accelerate, slow, and turn. The bear-cows must have spotted the change in Titan because they began coming around to intercept Badaya’s force. Incredible staggered into position near Titan as one of its own main propulsion units gave way after the damage it had suffered a short time earlier, and almost at the same moment Illustrious suffered shield failures along most of her hull.

Geary snapped out more orders, bringing his subformation in a tighter turn, the moan of the inertial nullifiers becoming audible along with the groaning of Dauntless’s hull under the strain. The other warships matched Dauntless, but the assault transports swung wider, unable to equal the maneuvers of the combatants.

If he kept this up, he would come into contact with the bear-cow warships with his formation disrupted and the assault transports dangerously exposed.

“Admiral?” Desjani asked.

“It can’t be done,” he muttered. “Not that way.” But he had to do something to relieve the pressure on Badaya, who was unsuccessfully trying to hold his formation together as it turned to evade the head-on rush of the bear-cow armada. Tulev’s subformation had been caught out of position when the Kicks turned toward Badaya, and now had to chase back into contact. Tulev couldn’t make it in time to disrupt the attack on Badaya’s subformation.

Geary had five battle cruisers in this subformation. Dauntless, Daring, Victorious, Intemperate, and Adroit. His hand hit the comm controls. “All units in Gamma One One, immediate execute come up two zero degrees. Shift formation guide to Warspite. Daring, Victorious, Intemperate, and Adroit, match your movements to Dauntless.”

He turned to Desjani. “Captain, take Dauntless through the middle of the enemy formation at the best velocity you can manage.”

She smiled in a baring of the teeth that would have surely unnerved any bear-cows who could have seen it. “Let’s go!” she told her crew, then brought Dauntless screaming around, accelerating through a turn even tighter than that before, the other four battle cruisers following.

Geary watched red-line warnings pop up on his display as Desjani pushed her ship into stress danger zones. Somehow, the other four battle cruisers stayed with her as the tiny formation dove straight for the bear-cow formation.

They went through at blinding speed, main propulsion units still at maximum. One of the superbattleships and a score of lighter yet still powerful Kick warships fired everything they had at the plummeting battle cruisers, but Desjani had gotten the relative velocity up close to point two light speed, throwing off the aim of the enemy. The human warships replied with lightning-fast barrages that pummeled two of the Kick battleships.

Then they were past, Geary reassuming control of Dauntless and bringing the battle cruisers back around to try to rejoin the rest of his formation.

A screen of spider-wolf ships had appeared between Badaya’s force and the oncoming bear-cows, but they could only inflict minor damage before scattering in the face of the superbattleships.

Geary braced himself for serious losses, knowing that Badaya had been cursed with bad luck but had also fumbled this situation, reacting too slowly to the damage and not turning away far enough and fast enough. Nothing could stop the Kick armada now from inflicting major damage on Badaya’s ships, not when those superbattleships were so hard to hurt or turn aside.

Without warning, battleships Dreadnaught and Orion broke away from Badaya’s subformation, closely followed by Dependable and Conqueror. Relentless, Reprisal, Superb, and Splendid went after the other battleships in a rush, every battleship in Badaya’s subformation now coming steadily and ponderously around on vectors aimed straight at the oncoming enemy.

The words of Captain Mosko came back to him. It’s what battleships do.

“They’ll get torn to pieces,” Geary whispered. My grandniece. Going to her death under my command just as her brother did. May our ancestors forgive me.

Desjani wore a look of tragic pride. “Yes. But they might enable the rest of Badaya’s force to get clear of that charge.”

His eyes searched the display, looking for a miracle. Tulev’s subformation still too far off, the spider-wolves only nibbling at the edges of the bear-cow force, his own battle cruisers climbing and turning back to join the rest of his subformation, which was still coming around to meet him and continue on toward the rear of the Kick armada.

No miracles. Just men and women doing all they could, knowing it wouldn’t be enough.

“What are they—?” Desjani burst out.

Geary’s gaze went back to the eight battleships making a suicide charge. It took him a moment to understand what he was seeing, hundreds of projectiles being launched from those battleships, curving on trajectories aimed at the oncoming bear-cow force less than a minute from contact. “Kinetic projectiles? In a ship-to-ship engagement? That’s—” He got it then. “Brilliant.”

Normally, ships could easily dodge dumb projectiles fired from a distance, but the battleships had pumped out every kinetic projectile they had, a field of death rushing toward the enemy armada. The battleships had even launched their big kinetic rounds, the ones called BFRs by the crews, which rarely got used because of the wide devastation they could cause when dropped on a planet, but they were now on trajectories going straight at the Kick superbattleships. Only a collection of that many human battleships could have pumped out a sufficient number of kinetic projectiles quickly enough to force evasive action by an armada the size of the bear-cow force.

If the Kicks didn’t evade, if they held course to catch Badaya’s formation, they would wade right through that barrage, and surely no one—

Geary watched with growing amazement as the final seconds to contact ticked down, the human battleships now also hurling out specter missiles as fast as they could launch them, the Kicks holding steady on their course and firing their own missiles. Just as in the bear-cow videos they had seen, no one would waver, no one would break the shield wall, no one would step away from their place in the line of battle.

As the two forces and the kinetic bombardment merged, space filled with chaos too intense for the fleet’s sensors to pick out what was happening. Geary could only stare at his display, appalled by the amount of destruction.

One human battleship burst out of the bedlam, broadcasting extensive damage but still moving. Dreadnaught. On her heels came Orion, lurching with grim determination in Dreadnaught’s wake. Dependable and Conqueror followed, both amazingly lightly harmed. Then Relentless, Reprisal, Superb, and Splendid in a rush, armor pitted, shields in shreds, many weapons out of commission, but still going.

The bear-cow armada had kept on, but the energies erupting in its center had disrupted the other ships, breaking the charge. And Badaya had finally gotten the right maneuver in, twisting his formation up and climbing so that his ships were out of range of most of the surviving enemy warships as they blundered past.

Geary finally understood what had happened. Not a miracle, but something unexpected. “They blew a hole through the Kick formation. They made it through because everything in front of them got pulverized by that barrage instead of evading.” Why hadn’t they evaded? Just because bear-cow tactics didn’t allow for individual action? Had the bear-cow commander been surprised by the new tactic? Had that commander tried to order evasive action but been unable to do so in time, while the individual Kick ships held to their places in the formation?

“Three of the superbattleships are gone, along with a lot of the ships that were near them.” Desjani’s pride was now mixed with glee. “May the living stars remember what happened here!”

“They’re not beaten yet,” Geary warned, watching the bear-cows re-forming. After every loss, they had simply tightened their formation, and now they did it again, ending up with a much smaller formation but still clearly ready to fight.

He could hear cheers echoing through Dauntless as word spread of what the battleships had done. There would be cheers on every ship in the fleet right now. For the moment, morale wasn’t a problem.

“Why didn’t they dodge?” Desjani demanded, and Geary realized that she was referring not to the human battleships but to the bear-cow warships. “The Kicks must have known what that many kinetic projectiles of that mass could do…” She turned a look of dawning understanding on him. “They don’t. They don’t have kinetic projectiles aboard their own ships, they don’t use them because they have a defense against their being used against planets. Since ships can usually dodge rocks easily, there would have been no justification for their warships carrying rocks.”

“The oldest trap in the book,” Geary said. “Assuming that the enemy’s capabilities, tactics, and intentions match your own. Thank the living stars that gives us an edge.” They would need that edge, but he doubted that tactic would work a second time now that the bear-cows had seen it used.

The five battle cruisers merged with the rest of subformation Gamma One One again, Dauntless resuming her status as guide ship. The Kicks had swung wide to the left and up, trying to catch Badaya’s force, but they were still hampered by the sluggishness of the surviving superbattleships. Badaya was accelerating straight up, unable to pull clear of contact with ships limited in their propulsion capability, but prolonging the time needed for the bear-cows to catch him. Tulev’s force had come up slightly to aim for an intercept with the Kicks’ new course, while the spider-wolf ships swarmed everywhere, zipping through human formations with crazy nonchalance and ripping apart any bear-cow ships that had been knocked out of the armada by damage.

The eight battleships from Badaya’s formation were coming up and swinging back to try to catch up with their formation again, Dependable and Conqueror screening their more badly damaged sister ships, a welter of spider-wolf ships forming a weaving barrier between them and the bear-cow armada. Who ordered that charge? Geary wondered. Did Badaya tell them to make that move, or did Jane Geary start it on her own initiative? Whoever did it, it was the right decision. And who came up with the idea of using their kinetic projectiles against this enemy?

Putting aside questions he couldn’t address now, Geary brought his formation nearly straight on, aiming to catch the bear-cow force as it steadied out on the new intercept with Badaya. He should get there minutes after Tulev hit them.

“How have the spider-wolves kept the Kicks at bay?” Desjani wondered. “From their firepower and their tactics, they could never have stopped the Kicks from parading through this star system and using one of those jump points.”

“Good question. We’ll have to ask them once this is all over.” He could see the damage and casualty reports coming in from the eight battleships now, feeling a heaviness inside as the fleet systems automatically totaled up everything. The battleships had paid a heavy price for their success.

Here and there on his display, new damage warnings flickered to life as aging systems overstressed by the demands of combat failed on Alliance warships. But the burst of failures earlier had subsided. These failures weren’t good, but at least his entire fleet wasn’t falling apart as he watched.

Tulev’s formation tore past one side of the enemy armada, hammering at the bear-cow warships there and knocking out two more. But the attack barely registered on the superbattleship there, and the armada continued its charge toward Badaya’s force, closing at an increasing rate as the enemy continued to accelerate, and Badaya was held to about point zero six light speed by the propulsion casualties on Titan and Incredible.

Geary aimed his formation for the bottom side of the bear-cow force, Dauntless shuddering once again with hits and near misses as the Kicks threw out a heavy barrage. He half heard the damage reports streaming in to Desjani, telling of shields penetrated, hits on the battle cruiser’s light armor, and a few penetrations but no systems losses. On his display, similar reports flowed in from the other ships in his formation. None had been hit hard, but many had taken damage.

One more bear-cow ship was limping, unable to stop a spiral out of its formation that left it prey to the spider-wolf swarm. Other enemy warships showed damage.

But it wasn’t enough to turn aside the enemy.

Badaya had two battle cruisers left in good fighting shape, and now Inspire and Formidable swung away from the rest of his formation, twisting around to come at the Kick armada.

Geary weighed everything: Tulev coming around in a wide arc that took up large amounts of distance and time, his own subformation doing another swing up and over that would take too long, Badaya altering course to head directly away from the oncoming enemy and gain as much time as possible before being overtaken, and the eight battleships on the other side of the enemy from Tulev and Geary trying to claw their way back to Badaya, the entire battle heading upward from the plane of the star system. He ran some hasty maneuvers through the combat systems, coming up with an answer that was desperate but doable. “Dependable, Conqueror, this is Admiral Geary. Proceed at best speed on an intercept with the enemy.”

Two light-minutes distant, the two battleships would turn and accelerate, leaving behind their much more heavily damaged comrades. That might distract the bear-cows, but Geary didn’t think so. The important thing now was to hit that armada with everything. “Captain Tulev, I am assuming maneuvering control of your subformation.”

No time to run this through the systems, no time to figure out the ever-shifting time delays and distances. He had to depend upon his own skills, his own experience, and the unmatched ability of the human brain to handle this kind of puzzle on the fly. “Captain Badaya, detach all of your escorts at time one seven, order them onto an intercept with the enemy formation at point one five light speed.”

Desjani had noticed the moves, frowning at her display. “What are you doing?”

“Bringing a hammer down. If I don’t, we lose all of the damaged ships and undamaged auxiliaries in Badaya’s formation.” Besides Incredible, Titan, and Illustrious, that included Kupua, Alchemist, Cyclops, two heavy cruisers, and several light cruisers and destroyers.

Inspire and Formidable, moving too fast for the bear-cows to target well, slashed at the enemy but didn’t knock out any warships.

“Captain Duellos,” Geary ordered, “coordinate the movements of Inspire and Formidable with Dependable and Conqueror. Make your next firing run in conjunction with them.”

Desjani’s eyes darted about her display. “You’ve got us all coming in together. We’ll hit that armada almost simultaneously. Will that be enough?”

“It had better be.” His gaze swept from place to place on his display. Badaya’s core of damaged ships still going almost straight up, Badaya’s cruisers and destroyers braking to fall behind their comrades and facing the oncoming enemy, the bear-cow armada curving in from the right and below to catch Badaya, Tulev swinging in a wide arc that ended where the Kicks would be, Geary’s own subformation coming over the top of its own curve and steadying out to aim slightly upward at the Kicks, the small force under Duellos on the other side, also climbing but from the left of the enemy. “All units, we need to break their charge. Press your attacks and employ kinetic projectiles against the enemy formation as you close to contact.”

“If anything will make them turn, that will,” Desjani said.

“If they don’t turn, and we hit them with that many rocks, they won’t make it to Badaya.” How badly did the enemy commander want the crippled human warships with Badaya? Did bear-cows suffer from the target fixation that could drive human combatants to fly right into obstacles ignored in their total focus on the objective?

“You know,” Desjani remarked calmly as the several groups of ships rushed toward contact, “the Kicks haven’t taken one important fact into account.”

“What’s that?” Geary asked, not taking his eyes from his display.

“They don’t know how crazy humans can be. If we were sane, we’d be running. Badaya’s formation would have scattered. They’d be able to chase us down and smash us. But we’re crazy, so instead we’re going to hold together and blow their butts off.”

Geary smiled, watching Badaya’s cruisers and destroyers volleying kinetic projectiles at the enemy.

The bear-cow ships shifted positions slightly, trying to dodge the rain of rocks. They probably would have succeeded, because no matter how many rocks there were, space was wide, but Tulev was coming in now as well, hurling rocks ahead of his ships, catching the bear-cows in a cross fire, and then Duellos’s small formation was tossing out rocks as well.

“Here we go,” Desjani said, as the combat systems in Geary’s subformation also began launching kinetic projectiles, so that rocks came at the bear-cows from front, sides, and a bit to the rear.

The last seconds were gone as everything came together, the Kick armada trying to evade without breaking from its track on Badaya’s crippled ships. The bear-cow commander had compromised, Geary realized in the instant before contact, trying to both continue pursuit and evade the human strike. It was the kind of compromise, the failure to choose one way or the other, that had doomed countless human commanders.

He saw one of the five surviving superbattleships lurch under several impacts, its powerful shields overwhelmed by the force of the kinetic projectiles before a single BFR tore into it and blew it apart. Then Geary’s subformation was through the enemy armada again, tearing past with the other human warships in the immediate wake of the kinetic bombardment.

This time he felt few hits on Dauntless. Damage reports streamed in from Tulev’s subformation, from Duellos’s small task force, from the other ships in Geary’s subformation, from Badaya’s escorts. Geary took a sudden deep breath as he saw a dreaded symbol appear with names next to it. No contact. Assessed destroyed. Brilliant. A hard-luck ship since Captain Caligo had been arrested for conspiring with Captain Kila, but it was hard to believe that the battle cruiser was gone. Heavy cruisers Emerald and Hoplon. Light cruiser Balestra. Destroyers Plumbatae, Bolo, Bangalore, and Morningstar.

Not all of the destroyed human warships had been annihilated in the fractions of a second during exchanges of fire with the enemy, denying their crews any chance of escape. Some had survived, broken and helpless, long enough for their crews to take to the escape pods that now awaited rescue.

But the Kicks had paid for their stubborn stand. Even the superbattleships could only take so much, and the multiple firing passes coming close on each other right after the avalanche of kinetic projectiles had devastated the enemy armada. Two of the four surviving superbattleships were only drifting wrecks, a third crippled, with spider-wolf warships already swarming about it to administer the kill, and a fourth spinning away, trying to regain maneuvering control, its main propulsion units torn and mangled. The smaller bear-cow warships had been decimated, with maybe forty remaining, and those streaming frantically toward the jump point from which the enemy had come.

The shield wall had broken.

Geary slumped back, feeling no sense of triumph.

“We did it,” Desjani said, but her voice was subdued, not jubilant.

“Yeah.” He agreed with both her words and her tone of voice. “Isn’t peace great?”

“Feels a lot like war to me,” she said.

Geary roused himself. First priority, those escape pods that held survivors from his ships that had been destroyed in the battle. Many of those survivors would be injured and in need of medical care. “Second and Fifth Light Cruiser Squadrons, intercept and recover all escape pods. Notify me immediately if additional ships are required.” That took care of the most immediate need. All that remained was to order the fleet to re-form, prioritize damage control, get help to the surviving ships that needed it most to deal with their dead and wounded and their battle damage—

“Admiral,” Desjani said in a way that caught his attention.

The last surviving superbattleship had partially stabilized its motion, but now thrusters had ceased firing even though the huge warship was still rolling away uncontrollably.

“It’s a sitting duck,” Desjani said.

“Let the spider-wolves—” Geary began, then sat up straighter again. “It can’t run.”

“Will it self-destruct?” Desjani wondered.

“We haven’t seen any of them self-destruct yet, have we? And there haven’t been any—” He broke off speaking again, suddenly realizing something. “We haven’t seen any bear-cow escape craft leaving any of their ships. None from any of the ships we crippled and destroyed.”

“I guess they don’t see those as cost-effective. When you’ve got that many billions of worker bear-cows, why worry about saving a few here and there? The herd is still strong.” Desjani raised one finger to point. “But, Admiral, if they can’t, or won’t, destroy that superbattleship, it’s ours for the taking.”

A huge warship full of bear-cow technology, bear-cow survivors, bear-cow literature, bear-cow history, science, art…

“The taking won’t be easy,” Geary said.

But he knew they would have to try.