The Lost Fleet: Victorious by Jack Campbell

Author:Jack Campbell
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Space ships, Science Fiction, John (Fictitious character), Space Opera, Fiction, Space warfare, Imaginary wars and battles, Adventure, Military, General, Geary
ISBN: 9780441018697
Publisher: Ace
Published: 2010-04-27T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter SEVEN

THE Syndic flotilla hadn't initially responded to the change in path by the Alliance fleet, but after about ten hours had turned away toward the jump point for Mandalon while also decreasing speed. They couldn't be more blatant about wanting us to chase them, Geary remarked. Desjani made a face. It's more taunting of us. You don't see it that way? It's too obvious. Maybe to you. She shook her head, eyes looking somewhere into the past. To you maneuvering around like that is just reasonable tactical positioning. But we're used to seeing the enemy and charging straight for him, while he does the same right at us. You really haven't understood how your maneuvering tended to drive the Syndics crazy, have you? Because it wasn't how the game was supposed to be played. Now the Syndics are playing it back at us. 'Here we are, try to catch us and kill us.' The Syndics are hoping that we'll get as angry as they would and head for them, trying to force a proper battle. He had never thought in terms of proper and improper ways to fight, just of smart ways and dumb ways. In peacetime training there had been some dumb things demanded by doctrine or whoever the current senior commander happened to be, but those had always come with an implied or open message that in actual combat things would be done differently. Maybe in peacetime it was easier to figure out what was smart, or maybe it just seemed easier because real battles and real lives weren't on the line. I've still got a lot to learn, I guess. Desjani managed to look skeptical in a mostly respectful way as Geary continued. In any case, it shouldn't make much difference now whether we chase after them or not. We're too far from any jump point to reach any of them before that flotilla would be able to jump for Mandalon. This time Desjani rubbed her neck, then ran some more maneuvers through the system. The Syndic flotilla is just shy of two light-hours away from us. In theory, it's just possible that we could head for the Tremandir jump point like bats out of hell starting about now and, factoring in all of the time delays for the Syndic leaders at the Mandalon jump point to see us start that way and send orders to the Syndic flotilla to accelerate at maximum for the Mandalon jump point, to get there as fast as possible, and the time required for the flotilla to reach the jump point, and the time needed for the Syndic leaders' signal to reach the hypernet gate after that, and then for the shock wave to get to us, for this fleet to be able to jump for Tremandir in time. I wouldn't want to bet my life on it, but the Syndic leaders may be trying to make absolutely, positively certain that they can get their flotilla out while leaving us no way we could escape when they collapse that hypernet gate.

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