Emergence.
Jessica always felt it in her bones and her soul, but more so today. She was dancing with a devil she didn’t know, although one she had studied enough to guess well, at least for the first few steps.
Now, it devolved to random chaos.
There were really only two fixed points in a battle like this: Trusski, and the spot where the Flight Wing was right now, which was changing slowly as da Vinci maneuvered her force as fast as she could away from the first bullseye, as randomly as possible.
“Status?” Jessica asked as they found everyone.
She had feared utter annihilation. The gods were apparently smiling on them, today.
“Six destroyed,” Enej replied quickly. “Ten more damaged but potentially salvageable given time, plus Sunset is offline. Apparently, they were successful in significantly damaging a second cruiser.”
Jessica let out a breath silently. So much better than she feared.
That phase was always the riskiest. Would Buran’s commander be willing to pay the butcher’s bill to destroy the flight wing? It was possible, but expensive.
The fact that the warships were hiding in the darkness probably worked to her advantage. Even a battleship would be loath to be caught between that particular Scylla and Charybdis.
Now if she could just convince them to accept their losses and depart. Not that she expected it. Looking at the scans from Devilfish, Jessica could take that commander’s measure.
Aggressive. Possibly angry as well, at least enough to override good sense.
Jessica let the smallest grin form on her face. She had always had that knack: find the gap in the other commander’s planning and slam a knife home in it. It has won her command, followed by ever-greater responsibility.
It had won her a crown.
But this wasn’t the original Red Admiral, a genius at warfare. This was a total stranger, possibly an enraged bull.
There was still dancing to be done. Waltzing with blades, as the ancient hymn went.
Time to goad them into reacting, instead of planning.
Jessica called up her tactical file and went deep into the tertiary options.
Yes. There. Completely insane, from an utterly unexplainable tactical angle.
Just the right level of crazy for someone used to Sentient logic.
“Bridge, this is Keller,” she said aloud.
It was fun watching nearly every face in the room turn and stare, just for a second. Fleet Centurions issued orders to their Flag Centurions, who translated them into commands for the entire squadron. But she and Denis had been together for a long time. Much of her legend could only have been built with his willing help and capable hands.
It was fitting to let him have some of the fun, especially after he had been obliged to let Tomas, Robbie, and Alber’ have dessert first.
“I’m transmitting a firing sequence to you now,” she said as she pushed the send button.
His face glanced down in her viewscreen, skimmed the message, and broke out into a broad smile.
“Alber’ put you up to this?” he asked with a knowing laugh.
“I believe he will approve, but he can’t do it,” she replied. “Only you can.”
“Roger that,” he laughed again. “Stand by.”
Seconds later, the entire hull rang six times in rapid succession. Missiles going down range and tracking.
When facing Buran, missiles were worse than useless, since the Sentient ships could jump out of the way with ease. That was why she had to leave RAN Ishfahan behind. What good was a missile cruiser here? Bedrov’s cruisers had a pitiful two tubes each, but she hadn’t even bothered bringing missiles, since Yan had designed them to launch Imperial beasts.
Just as Yan had designed his ships to replace all the space normally allocated to missile racks and storage with more beams, and a ton more generators and batteries for them.
Everyone had probably forgotten that a Star Controller even had the racks.
Until now.
“Six birds away and tracking,” Denis was back. “Ballistic programming locked in.”
“That should give them something to think about,” Jessica said aloud to all the confused faces. “Take the squadron to point twenty-nine. I want to see what they do next.”