The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Leviathan by Jack Campbell Page B

Desjani said. “Rosen better slow them down, or we’ll have no chance of saving Ambaru or hitting those dark ships again.”
    “Fifteen minutes until the dark ships are in weapons range of Commander Rosen’s force,” Lieutenant Yuon said.
    They were so close by the time the forces rushed toward contact, only a couple of light-minutes to one side, that the images were almost real-time. As the dark ships neared them, Rosen’s heavy cruisers accelerated out of their orbits. Both formations pivoted around one of the leading heavy cruisers, as if the formations were rolling up to stand one corner, and headed toward the paths of the dark ships, the upper heavy cruiser formation diving toward contact while the lower formation climbed toward the enemy.
    This time the dark ships reacted in the minutes before contact by abruptly jerking upward and to one side, toward the higher heavy cruiser formation. The dark ships plainly intended concentrating their fire on one set of Alliance heavy cruisers while avoiding the second formation.
    The moment of contact was so quick that there was no hope of seeing the events happen, but Geary was also focused on what the lower formation of heavy cruisers was doing, bending their climb up and over to compensate for the change in the vectors of the dark ships. Instead of missing them completely, the lower formation hurtled past the sterns of the dark ships a few moments after the enemy battle cruisers had encountered the upper formation.
    “Damn,” Desjani muttered as the results of the engagement were reported by
Dauntless
’s sensors and data feeds from the heavy cruisers.
    As Geary had instructed, Rosen had ordered her leading heavy cruisers in each formation to evade at the last moment, shifting from targeting the dark battle cruisers to instead aim for the dark heavy cruiser trailing them. The change in vectors had been enough to throw off a lot of the dark ship fire. And the dark heavy cruiser, hit by fourAlliance heavy cruisers, was staggering along and sliding off to one side, trying to regain maneuvering control.
    But the two enemy battle cruisers had also aimed some shots at the second row of heavy cruisers in each formation.
Diamond
,
Bastille
,
Hori
, and
Presidio
had all taken significant damage, losing weapons, shields, and in some cases parts of their propulsion and maneuvering thrusters. Personnel casualties were only estimates, but all four heavy cruisers had taken losses.
    The twelve heavy cruisers hitting the dark battle cruisers had done their job, though. One of the dark battle cruisers had lost half of its propulsion and been slowed by hits. The other had been battered along one quarter but did not seem to have suffered serious damage to its propulsion or maneuverability.
    “Not enough.” Geary sighed, trying to accept the fact that there was nothing more he could do, that catching a force of warships which did not want to fight was nearly impossible when all of space existed to offer escape, that the distances in space meant sometimes there was no way to get somewhere in time to make a critical difference.
    “The dark battle cruiser with the damaged propulsion is having trouble regaining its velocity,” Lieutenant Yuon reported. “We can catch it before it reaches firing range of Ambaru.”
    “Which leaves one battle cruiser to shoot up the station.” Geary tapped his comm controls. “Commander Rosen, use your heavy cruisers to finish off that dark heavy cruiser. Be aware that it will likely carry out a power core overload once helpless, so stay clear of the damage radius. There are light cruisers and destroyers coming your way from the screen which you are to assume control of to coordinate their attacks with your own.”
    He looked at Tanya. “Let’s get that damaged dark battle cruiser. Too bad we can’t—”
    “Captain?” Lieutenant Castries called, sounding baffled. “The second enemy battle cruiser is pivoting. He’s . . . braking his