“But…we got a message saying—”
“I know. I told them to send it, though my wording was different; the idiots in Enforcement changed it. But they’d already dispatched the fleet, on their own initiative, and I didn’t find out about it until now. I’ve put an urgent message for them on the system ansible, but they may not stop for it before they start shooting. You’ve got to get out of there now. They’re less than sixteen hours out, and that’s if Enforcement told me the truth. Since I just arrested their head, they may not.”
“We can’t leave, Rafe. We’re guarding a Mackensee ship full of wounded and our supply ship; the pirates might come back.”
“Pirates might; ISC will. Ky, listen—fourteen ships. Including two full-size battle cruisers. I know you’ve just fought a battle; you can’t have a full munitions load. You haven’t got a chance—”
“I’m not leaving helpless ships behind for your goons to shoot up,” Ky said.
“They’re after you, not Mackensee,” Rafe said. “I didn’t realize—my father’s not supposed to be interfering with my management but he called someone in the department, told them about his suspicions, and they’ve picked you as the primary target.” No need to explain his father’s dementia or the internal politics at ISC. “You and that Space Defense Force you’ve put together. It’s all a mistake; I can call them back once we’re in contact, but they could blow you away before that.”
“Do you have their IDs?” Ky asked.
“Yes, but it won’t do for you to blow them away, either. That would prove that you’re the enemy. You have to get out of there.”
“Send me their IDs—and I presume you know something about what armament they carry?”
“Yes, but I can’t tell you that. Ky, if you’ll just listen to me and get out—”
“Or you could listen to me, when I say I’m not going anywhere.”
“Ky—”
“No, listen. The Mackensee ship has had some damage, and it’s stuffed with casualties. They’re waiting for their relief convoy, which is due in…I forget how many days, but several. It’s in transit; they can’t contact it. The pirates not only attacked Mackensee—we happened to arrive in the midst of that fight—but they had a stealthed observation ship in the system. We captured that, but not before it reported on the battle, and I’m not sure there’s not another one. If I leave, and there is another one, then the Mackensee ship could be a prime target for another attack—and so might the relief convoy.”
“Protecting mercs is not your job!”
She felt a wave of heat rush up to her head. “You do not define my job,” Ky said. “The way I see it, my job is to protect those who need protection. And this ship does, and I’m doing it.”
“You are the most stubborn, idiotic—”
For some reason, that quenched the anger. She made her voice calm. “Rafe. We’re wasting time. I need the data on those ships, if only to evade them. Send me the data first. Then we can try to figure some way to ensure that neither my people nor your people end up splattered across space.”
“Ky—all right.” A moment later, a datastream spit out in the implant. Ky was able to route it to the regular ship interface of her implant, and thence to the bridge.
“Now just a moment,” she said to Rafe. “I’m going to try to talk on an external channel.” The pervasive smell of wet leaves changed to something peppery—whatever that meant—as she used the implant’s interface to the ship intercom.
“Yes, Captain?” Hugh said. “Are you available again? What’s this datastream about?”
“I believe those are the ship IDs of fourteen ISC ships that are believed to be on the way here,” Ky said. “If the data are correct, someone may have the ship specs in their implant databases. Please check that.”
“On the way here to…deal with us?”
“I believe that’s the understanding,” Ky said. “I have to go now; I’ll be back with you shortly.” She disconnected the in-ship channel.
“I wish you’d change your mind,” Rafe said. He sounded tired, now, tired and worried.
“I can’t,” Ky said. “Now—quit arguing and tell me everything you know about those ships…and if you need more time, why not contact Stella and relay through her so we can use the shipboard units? It’s a lot more convenient.”
“She wasn’t there,” Rafe said. “I did think of that, but she was en route from Cascadia Station down to planetside to inspect manufacturing facilities. And the watchdog at her office wouldn’t let me talk to Toby.” He sighed; his voice was rough at the edges, as if he were exhausted. “I can’t send you much more anyway—it’s proprietary; it would be a breach of company security—”
“And talking to me on the ansible I’m not supposed to know about, let alone have, isn’t? Rafe, be reasonable: I’m not out to destroy ISC. I have no desire to blow up your ships. But the best way to ensure I don’t is to tell me what their performance capacity is, so I can evade them until they’ve had time to get your messages via ansible.”
“All right. All right, here—”
Another datastream flowed into Ky’s implant. Range, insystem maximum velocity, FTL engine type, weapons types and numbers, munitions types, range…She blinked. Surely a lot of those data had to be wrong. “Rafe…some of these ships look…a little outdated.”
“They are,” Rafe said.
“I don’t see a minimum-radius microjump listed—”
“It’s not in their specs that I could find.”
Ky felt her spirits lifting. “When is the last time this fleet went on live-fire maneuvers?”
“I’d rather not say,” Rafe said.
That wasn’t surprising, if her surmise was correct. “Are their munitions…have they been stored in the ships all this time?”
“All what time?”
“Rafe, those Model R-ZM-200s haven’t been manufactured anyplace I know of for over thirty years. And they’re incompatible with current guidance systems.” And, she did not add, the warheads deteriorated over time…probably half those things wouldn’t detonate at all, and the rest might detonate anywhere, any time, once they were unlocked.
“They still outnumber and outgun you,” Rafe said. “Numbers count.”
“It’s true that enough ants can eat a camel,” Ky said. “But a camel can walk away before they do.” It was too early to feel what she felt—but she couldn’t help it. Fourteen ships, yes, but…not particularly dangerous ships.
“You think you can evade them?”
“It’s a possibility,” Ky said. “Thank you for warning me, Rafe, but I think I need to disconnect now and get busy with my officers.”
“I still think—”
“That I should leave. I know. I’ll talk to the Mackensee commander, but he’s even more stubborn than I am, so don’t expect that to happen.”
“Ky, please…take care.” This time she heard something in his voice she had not heard but once, during that last serious talk.
“And you also,” she said, before pulling the plug to the ship’s power. A last strange smell, and it was over. Her head felt odd, as if it were too big, but after a few moments the sensation faded and she was able to put away the cables, stand up, and move without any difficulty.
As she’d expected, Colonel Kalin was unwilling to leave the system. “We are supposed to be in this system, and you assure me that ISC has no intention of attacking us—”
“That’s what my informant said. But it’s still dangerous—”
“Yes, but…the one thing I’m sure of is that my relief will be coming here, expecting to find us here, and if we are not here there will be hell to pay.”
“It will not help either Mackensee or ISC if they shoot holes in you by accident.”
“True. I will tell our captain to move us a considerable distance away from you.”
“That’s a start, at least.” Ky hesitated, then went on. “There’s still the pirate problem. I’m not convinced they won’t return…an
d the longer it is before they return, the more ships they’re likely to bring with them. If it ends up as a three-cornered fight—”
“That’s very unlikely,” Colonel Kalin said. “It would be an amazing coincidence—”
“True. But coincidences happen, and we can’t afford to ignore them. I’m going to give you the data I have on those ISC ships—”
“You got this from that…device…on your ship, did you?”
Ky reflected that an ansible in her head was in fact on her ship and thus fulfilled the criteria. “Yes,” she said.
“I know we’re going to want that technology,” he said. “But in the meantime—what you’re describing is very dangerous for you, and you have no contractual obligation to us—”
“I’m not leaving,” Ky said. “If worse comes to worst, if we’re losing…maybe. But not now, not before any shots are fired.”
A few hours later, a message came through the system ansible for Metaire. Colonel Kalin contacted Ky—though the lightlag meant she got the message six hours after it came in, two hours after he received it. The Mackensee convoy had picked up one of the messages he’d sent at an interim jump point and had changed their route; they would be insystem days earlier than expected.
“Early enough to be here when ISC arrives?” Ky asked. She wouldn’t get an answer to that for four hours.
“Possibly; they said they’d go to full power. By my calculations they could be here a few hours before, or within six hours after. They know about the mined jump-point entrance…”
Ky had another conference with her captains. “We may have an interesting time,” she said. “ISC’s due to arrive in…something under ten hours. If they don’t take care, they’ll run into those mines; they may assume we placed them. Mackensee’s relief convoy might be here just before or just after them—or hours later. And the pirates—if there are pirates—may show up at any moment. Kalin told Mackensee we were on their side, so we know Mackensee ships won’t shoot at us—but whether they’ll shoot at ISC if ISC attacks us is another question. I didn’t bother to ask Kalin; he wouldn’t know. And lightlag in communications is going to be a royal pain, with at least three and maybe four sets of ships.”
“You want us to hold our present alignment?” Argelos asked.
“Yes. The pirates are the only ones who might risk coming in on some strange vector. The others will use the mapped jump point, and I expect both of them will come in warily, knowing the jump point might have been mined. Even if the pirates do something odd, we’re in a good arrangement for them. Set your crew schedules so the crew you’d most want for battle are rested when we expect things to get interesting.”
Ky woke with the knot already in her stomach. Calculations or no calculations, fourteen ships to three was higher odds than she had ever imagined facing. Ransome’s Rangers would be effective gad-flies, faster and more maneuverable than anything in that ISC fleet, but their armament was pitiful in comparison. She had only two beam weapons on her own ship; any two of ISC’s larger warships should be able to blow her entire fleet away.
Except that ISC’s ships should not be as effective as their paper statistics suggested. “Should not” was a slender thread to hang all those lives on…was she crazy to think it might work? If she could slow down the attack long enough, if the captains of those ships downloaded the waiting message Rafe said he’d sent…no one need fire a shot. “If” was an even more slender thread. Had Rafe told the truth? Had he really sent such a message? Were the ISC ships really so outmoded? Or was Rafe playing the role of ISC’s chief officer, luring her into a situation she could not survive? Was his apparent concern for her just an act? They had been allies in the past, but he’d always insisted his primary loyalty was to ISC.
She had no alternative, really, other than abandoning Metaire…though with the Mackensee relief force coming so soon, they wouldn’t be uncovered long.
“Captain?” That was the comtech again. “It’s Captain Yamini.”
“What’s the problem, Captain Yamini?” Ky asked.
“Lattin picked up something on the shipboard—on a channel the pirates use. She doesn’t know the language, but the coordinates of this system were given. And she thinks she’s got a direction on another stealth ship in the system. Here—” A string of numerical data came in; Ky shunted it to her navigator. “She doesn’t have any data on range, of course.”
“And we really don’t have time to set up for triangulation and try to capture another signal,” Ky said. “Call Captain Ransome and ask him to assign one of his ships to a quick search pattern along that vector, but carefully. That ship may be trying to lure one of us into range.”
“Yes, Captain.”
“And let’s hope that ship doesn’t have microjumping capability. I know we can detect the disturbances it’ll leave that way, but a stealthed ship hopping around is…not my favorite thought.”
“We have contacts,” her scan tech said suddenly. “Not at the jump point.”
Longscan showed fifteen ships in three-ship formations at that distance. They’d emerged from jump hours ago—the uncertainty smudges were elongated ovals—all immediately red-tagged as armed, weapons live. Ky’s stomach knotted tighter. “That’s not ISC,” she said. “And it’s not Mackensee—they were coming into the jump point. Tell Metaire; make sure they have the scan coordinates.” Though a message was probably on the way from them to her, as well.
Moment by moment, scan refined the position from first acquisition, the ovals shortening behind and lengthening in front, narrowing as the data showed no deviation in course, no slackening of velocity.
“They came in really fast; they know where they’re going; they know they have no minefields to worry about,” Hugh said.
“Yup. And where they’ve been is safe for us,” Ky said. “They can’t lay mines at that velocity, or reverse vector on insystem. They’d have to microjump—”
“Found it!” That was Teddy Ransome, breaking in on the shipboard ansible. “It is another stealthed observer, and we’re taking it out! Furious, your turn! Oh, good shot!”
“They’ve all left station,” Ky said, rolling her eyes. “Give me another all-ships channel—I need to talk to Argelos and Pettygrew.”
“Is that ISC?” Pettygrew asked. “They look at lot more formidable than you said…”
“No, that’s not ISC,” Ky said. “That’s the pirates. If we’re incredibly lucky, ISC will come barreling through the jump point and run headlong into them, but I don’t think we’ll be that lucky. Ransome’s taking out the other stealth ship—I hope it’s the last one—and we’re all going to play hide-the-thimble until ISC or Mackensee arrives—or both. Once that stealth ship is gone, we’ll start microjumping on those courses we discussed. Metaire knows where to go, and our transport’s already in hiding. If it gets too hot—we’ll have to leave. Be sure your FTL engines are warmed up.”
“They’re almost in range to use beam weapons…” Argelos said, looking worried. “You know we can’t jump with your precision…”
“Jump now, then, your first vector. Just don’t deviate from your plan—we don’t want to land on top of you accidentally.” Sharra’s Gift disappeared from the scan; she would reappear half a light-hour away, in a direction the fight should not propagate. Three minutes later, the pile of garbage she’d jettisoned as a marker sparkled and flared as a beam hit it.
“They’re really annoyed,” Hugh said. “That was maximum distance; shields would’ve held.”
“But flared,” Ky said.
“Got him!” came another cry from Ransome. “All to smithereens, he blew, to the great delight of all the crew!”
“Not all that fancy stuff and poetry, too,” Lee said, making a face.
“If they blow up our enemies, they can make up all the silly songs they want,” Hugh said. “They’re definitely a case of the clock on its side.” Lee looked confused; Hugh didn’t explain, but Ky chuckled.
“Congratulations, Captain
Ransome,” Ky said. “Excellent shooting. Do you have the attackers on scan?”
“Yes, we do…I’ll bet we could take one from behind; I believe we have the legs of them.”
“It may come to that, but right now it would be most useful if you could slip in behind them and give us real-time data on their movements,” Ky said. She was watching scan. Metaire, moving in the right direction, had still not microjumped. Kalin had said nothing about problems with the FTL engine…was it functioning? It disappeared from scan and reappeared almost at once, having jumped less than a light-second…that would have been two hours ago, before Ky’s crew had detected the pirates. Were they testing the FTL engine? And was that tiny hop evidence of precision, or of a problem?
She should have pushed harder to get Kalin’s permission to install a shipboard ansible on Metaire—at no charge, if necessary—so they could communicate in real time.
“Beam discharge, vector data—” Ransome again, sounding as cheerful as ever. Ky’s navigator converted the vector data into a line on the screen. The pirates were still over four light-hours away; the beam was aimed at where Vanguard would be on her present course.
“That is the weirdest thing I ever saw,” Hugh said. “We know they’ve shot at us; we know where it’s going and when it will get there—and unless it’s more powerful than any beam I know about, our shields would hold against it if we let it hit us at that distance. It’s child’s play to evade it…they’re much too far away; I wonder why they’re taking these long shots.”
“They don’t know we’ve got someone on their tail who can communicate with us in real time. They’re trying to take us out before we think we’re in range…hoping we don’t have our shields up yet.”
“And we don’t.”
“True. Without shields—it could at least knock out a lot of our scan and com equipment on the outer hull.” Ky looked back at scan. “I wish Metaire would get out of there. We can’t protect her from fifteen of them. That little hop worries me…is she all right?”
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