“Mine strike,” Desjani observed. “She couldn’t turn tight enough to completely avoid the minefield.”
“Captain Tyrosian warned me that Titan maneuvered like a pig when her bunkers were loaded with raw materials.” Geary sighed. He braced himself and read the details of the damage. “Not too bad, but we need to keep the fleet’s speed down so Titan has time to fix that damage.” It was past time to return a semblance of order to the fleet. “All units, cease fire unless fired upon and assume Formation Delta Two, forming on fleet flagship Dauntless.”
GEARY sat on the bridge of Dauntless watching his fleet re-form, trying to figure out exactly what was bothering him. It wasn’t the remaining Syndic presence at Ixion. Annoying as the nine surviving HuKs were, there wasn’t anything that could be done about them. Since their mission was clearly to track the Alliance fleet, they’d surely run if pursued rather than seek hopeless combat. Two of the groups of HuKs were so far off they hadn’t even seen the arrival of the Alliance fleet in the star system yet. Nor was there any other shipping to worry about. The assorted merchant traffic in the system offered no threat, and as the light from the Alliance fleet’s arrival spread through the system, that civilian traffic was fleeing for the nearest possible place of refuge.
The fleet had arrived in Ixion six light-hours from the star itself. Aside from a scattering of mining and manufacturing facilities farther out in the system, the Syndic presence was concentrated around the sole habitable world a mere nine light-minutes from its star. As expected, Ixion had suffered from not being on the Syndic hypernet, though not as badly as some of the places that Geary had seen. It still seemed moderately prosperous and from analysis of the planet’s atmosphere and surface retained a large population and plenty of industry.
There was an orbital facility about the habitable world that had been tagged by the fleet’s sensors as probably military, but it posed no danger at all to the Alliance fleet. He’d already sent off a brief message to all the Syndics in the Ixion Star System warning them not to attempt to interfere with the Alliance fleet’s passage and letting them know about the survivors awaiting rescue at Daiquon.
So what was the problem? The main Syndic combat presence in the star system had been crushed with ease. Too much ease. That was it. “The crews of those Syndic ships were totally green and unprepared for combat.”
Captain Desjani looked over at him and nodded. “That’s clear.”
“And yet they were positioned as if the Syndics clearly expected this fleet to arrive in Ixion.”
“Yes, sir.” Now Desjani frowned. “That’s inconsistent, isn’t it? If they believed you’d bring the fleet here, why did they have their least experienced units guarding the jump exit?”
“Good question. And not just a couple of sacrificial lambs, but battleships and battle cruisers. Why did the Syndics throw away those ships by leaving them to confront us?” Geary looked toward the back of the bridge. “Madam Co-President? What do you think?”
“I think there’s something I need explained,” Rione replied. “You know those Syndic crews were inexperienced because of their behavior. I remember something like that at Sancere. Some Syndicate Worlds warships barely avoiding collision. But this was much worse.”
“The formation at Sancere was made up of new ships with barely trained crews,” Desjani pointed out. “Like the one we encountered here, but I’d guess a little better trained.”
“So?” Rione pressed. “Why should that matter? How do the crews influence what the ships do when maneuvering orders are given? Aren’t the motions of warships controlled by automated systems?”
Geary nodded, realizing that was a perfectly reasonable question. “Right. At the velocities warships move, it’s almost always crazy to try maneuvering manually.”
“Then why would their amount of training and experience make a difference?”
Desjani spoke like an instructor, apparently oblivious to Rione’s obvious annoyance with her tone. “There are three stages of training and experience with maneuvering warships. The least experienced simply don’t trust the automated maneuvering systems, since we all know any automated system can suffer errors. What creates the most problems is that as relativistic distortion effects come into play, human instincts are thrown off. We think the maneuvering systems are doing the wrong thing because our senses and our experiences in a much slower environment don’t match what we seem to be seeing and feeling when moving at tenths of light speed.
“Crews at that most inexperienced stage are the most likely to panic, decide that the maneuvering systems are in serious error, and try to manage the maneuvers themselves.” Desjani waved one hand toward the display. “You saw what happens then. It takes a good amount of time to learn enough to accept that the maneuvering systems know what they’re doing and to understand what will happen if you override them. That’s the second stage of experience. Those who last long enough come to realize that even automated maneuvering systems can suffer miscalculations and failures sometimes, and that they really do need to be overridden on rare occasions. Then you have to know when to override and what to do, which is the third stage of experience.”
Desjani smiled at Geary. “Correct, sir?”
“That’s how it was in my time, too. It takes a lot of time moving at point one and up to point two light to develop the instincts needed to correctly second-guess the automated systems.” He gestured from Rione to the display. “I say instincts, because it has to happen below the level of conscious thought. There’s not enough time for our brains to process it. And even then, only a fool would try to override the autos in a combat situation when two formations are passing through each other. By the time you realized you were going to hit something, you’d already be part of a ball of plasma from the collision.”
“Thank you,” Rione answered in a flat voice. “Then the answer to your question seems obvious. They thought you might bring this fleet here, but didn’t consider it the mostly likely place. It may have been the least likely in their judgment. They left something in place just in case, but didn’t really expect that force to end up confronting this fleet.”
Geary glanced at Desjani, who nodded. “That seems plausible. But why assume this was the least likely destination for the fleet?”
Rione swung her arm in a grand gesture and spoke with broad exaggeration. “Because the great Black Jack Geary has repeatedly demonstrated that he doesn’t make straight runs for Alliance space. He moves carefully, trying to avoid the obvious destinations in favor of ones that the Syndics are liable to judge unlikely.”
That made sense. “They’re trying to second-guess me based on my patterns of movements so far, but in this case I did something uncharacteristic.”
“Uncharacteristic is one word for it,” Rione agreed sarcastically.
“It worked,” Desjani noted in a sharp voice, instantly reacting in defense of Geary.
“But we can’t count on it working again,” Rione replied in a tone just as blunt. “You can see, the first of the Syndic Hunter-Killers is already heading for a jump point. It will carry news of where the Alliance fleet is, and then the Syndics will see a new pattern in the movements of this fleet.”
“Yes,” Geary broke in quickly to keep the argument from escalating. “You’re both right.” That didn’t seem to make anyone happy, though. “I need to think about our next destination. Thanks for your insights, Captain Desjani and Madam Co-President.” He stood up, stiff from sitting since the fleet’s arrival at Ixion.
Rione stood as well, accompanying Geary off the bridge. She waited until they were temporarily alone in a passageway before speaking once more. “It won’t work again.”
“I told you I need to think about it,” Geary answered, a little harsher than he had intended.
“It shouldn’t take that much thought. I know the next star on the straightest possible line to Alliance space is T’negu. If we go there, this fleet will find a trap far dead-lier than those poor fools we encountered here.”
“You could be right.”
“I am right! Even if I don’t know all those little details of fleet operations that you and Captain Tanya Desjani enjoy sharing with each other!”
He stopped and glared at Rione. “Is that about the experience question? You asked, and we answered. And you’re supposed to be working to disprove rumors that you’re jealous of Captain Desjani!”
“Jealous?” Rione shook her head and smiled, but the humor didn’t reach her eyes. “Not likely. I just want you to remember that Captain Desjani worships the space you sail through. That influences her advice to you. She doesn’t think you can fail.”
“That’s-” Geary reined in his temper. “All right, I’ll admit that’s important to remember. I haven’t forgotten it. Now, I repeat, I haven’t decided on where we’ll go from here. Please wait until I’ve reached a decision before informing me how wrong it is.”
“I’ll be happy to wait until then.” Rione sighed and ran one hand through her hair. “I’m not trying to be a bitch
