The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Leviathan Read Online Free PDF Page B

pretty complex. Fortunately, it was a complex math problem, and computers were very good at math. All Geary had to do was designate a ship, tell
Dauntless
’s maneuvering systems where he wanted that shipto go, and the necessary commands and vectors appeared so quickly that it seemed instantaneous.
    He sent the commands to the individual battleships affected, as well as to the commanders of the light cruiser and destroyer divisions that would back up the battleships. Space was huge, so even the many ships he was sending out would form a very sparse screen indeed, but the point wasn’t to build a wall. It was to position mobile units so that they could move to intercept anything trying to get past them.
    “What are we going to do?” Desjani asked.
    “Hold course for now until we see the dark ships head for Ambaru,” Geary said.
    “If we do that, we won’t be in a position to intercept them before they reach Ambaru!”
    “I know. Even if we turned now, we couldn’t catch them in time. Every minute they spend heading toward the hypernet gate draws them farther away from a straight shot at Ambaru and allows us to try for an earlier intercept. We’ll wait until less than three hours before the dark ships would likely maneuver. That way they won’t see us changing our vector before their own planned maneuver. If they saw that, the dark ships would probably turn sooner and accelerate faster, and make our intercept impossible. Even if everything works right, it will be close. If the worst happens, I’ve got sixteen heavy cruisers that I can move to stop them after the dark ships clear the battleship screen.”
    “Sixteen heavy cruisers?” Desjani shook her head. “Against two battle cruisers like that?” She paused in thought. “Maybe. If they at least make the battle cruisers divert their courses and mess up their firing runs—”
    “It will be insurance that we’ll have time to catch those dark ships,” Geary finished.
    At two and a half hours before the dark ships should reach the hypernet gate, Geary sent more orders, secure in the knowledge that the dark ships would not see his maneuver before they had veryprobably planned to change their vectors. “All ships in Task Force Dancer, immediate execute, turn starboard zero six four degrees, down zero five degrees.”
Dauntless
swung in response to the command, her maneuvering thrusters pitching her bow toward the star and slightly below it, the other battle cruisers, heavy cruisers, light cruisers, and destroyers with her matching
Dauntless
’s vector change.
    Task Force Dancer. So named because it had hastily escorted back toward their home space ships carrying representatives of the alien species that humans had nicknamed Dancers. “What would the Dancers think of all of this?”
    “They said they’d be back soon,” Desjani said. “How much do you think the Dancers knew about the dark ships, and how did they discover things we didn’t know?”
    “I think the Dancers may have pulled a few strings,” Geary said. “I’d like to know why, but I can’t shake my belief that ugly as they are to our eyes, the Dancers are allies to humanity.”
    “I hope you’re right. The living stars know that humanity already has enough enemies, most of them homegrown.”
    —
    GEARY kept hoping his display would show new information, but
Mortar
and
Serpentine
stayed near the hypernet gate. He could easily put himself in the place of the crews of those two ships, imagine them watching the odd movements of Geary’s ships and listening to whatever fragmentary and contradictory messages had reached them. They had brought their shields to maximum strength, had their weapons powered up, and were doubtless scanning space, watching for any threat, unaware that the software in their own communications, sensor, and weapons systems had been secretly directed in hidden subprograms to hide or delete anything related to the dark ships. But even if they had seen the oncoming dark