"We'd need to discuss it with Commander Lewis," Bagwell agreed, "but this is something Paulo-I mean, Midshipman d'Arezzo-and I have been kicking around for a couple of weeks now. And-"
"A couple weeks?" Terekhov interrupted, with a quizzical smile, and Bagwell smiled back with a small shrug.
"Skipper, you told us one of our jobs out here was anti-piracy work, and Paulo and I figured that sooner or later we'd have to deal with a problem pretty much like the one we're looking at here. So we started playing around with simulations. If Commander Lewis-and you, of course, Sir-are willing to put a little extra wear on the ship's alpha nodes, I think we can generate a pretty convincing normal-space flare. The sort of flare a failing beta node might produce. Nice and bright, and clearly visible to any modern warship at at least ten or twelve light-minutes. And just to put a cherry on top, we could simulate successive flares. The sort of thing you might see if an entire impeller ring that was in pretty shaky shape was overstressed so badly its nodes began failing in succession."
"I like it, Skipper," FitzGerald said. Terekhov looked at him, and the exec chuckled. "I'm sure Ginger won't be delighted about abusing her impeller rooms the way Guthrie's suggesting, but I'm willing to bet she could do it. And it would explain that low an acceleration rate out of a relatively small merchantship."
"And if it's visible from extreme range," Kaplan agreed with gathering enthusiasm, "the bad guys won't see any reason to expend a recon drone to check it out. They'll be too confident they already know what's going on to waste the assets."
"All well and good, Naomi." FitzGerald's smile faded a bit around the edges. "But they're still likely to be suspicious if we 'just happen' to leave orbit as they 'just happen' to come into sensor range of Pontifex. And if we're getting under way with what appears to be a seriously faulty impeller ring, that's even more likely to look suspicious to them."
"That's one of the things I was already thinking about," Terekhov said before the tac officer could reply. "Since it shouldn't be that difficult for us to track these people with our own arrays, it ought to be possible for us to coach a Nuncian LAC onto a course which will bring it close enough to the bogeys for it to have detected them. At which point, the LAC skipper would quite reasonably broadcast an omnidirectional general warning that stealthed ships were entering the inner system."
"It could get a bit rough on the LAC if she gets too close to the bogeys, Skipper," Kaplan pointed out.
"I think we could avoid that," Terekhov replied. "The fact that the LAC is broadcasting a warning at all should be pretty convincing evidence to the bogeys that she managed to detect them, regardless of how likely or unlikely that appears. If we bring the LAC in behind them, where she could get a look at their after aspect, the 'detection range' would go up pretty dramatically. And that would also allow us to put the LAC on a course which would make it impossible for her to intercept the bogeys, even if she wanted to. I don't see any reason for the bogeys to go out of their way and waste the time to bring a single obsolescent light attack craft into their engagement range when the damage has already been done. Especially if decelerating to do so would distract them from the pursuit of a lame-duck merchie.
"Actually, I'm more concerned about the bogeys' reaction to our decision to run deeper into the system rather than breaking for the hyper limit on a tangent. I'm hoping they'll figure we've panicked, or that we hope they're still not close enough to have us on shipboard sensors and that we can get out of sensor range fastest by heading directly away from them." He shrugged. "I like to think I wouldn't be stupid enough to assume either of those things myself, but I'm not at all sure I wouldn't be. God knows we've all seen enough merchant skippers do illogical things in the face of sudden, unanticipated threats. I think it's likely these people will assume we're doing the same."
"You're probably right, Skipper," FitzGerald said. "But do you really think Commodore Karlberg will agree to put one of his ships that close to these people?"
"Yes," Terekhov said firmly. "I think he wants them swatted badly enough to run a far greater risk than that. Especially after I explain to him how we're going to take a stab at retaking the merchie, as well."
"You mentioned something about that already, Skipper," FitzGerald said. "But I still don't see how we're going to pull it off."
"I can't guarantee we are," Terekhov conceded. "But I think we've got a pretty fair chance. A lot will depend on Bogey Three's exact design and several other factors beyond our control, but it ought to be possible. Here's what I have in mind..."
Chapter Nineteen
Abigail Hearns sat in the copilot's seat on the flight deck of the pinnace tractored to the hull of the Nuncian Space Force light attack craft. Although NNS Wolverine-named for a Pontifex species which bore remarkably little resemblance to the far smaller Terran predator of the same name-dwarfed the pinnace, she was tiny compared to any true starship. In fact, at barely fifteen thousand tons, she was less than five percent the size of Hexapuma, yet she was one of the more powerful units of Nuncio's fleet.
And, Abigail thought, remembering a night sky speckled with the brief, dying stars of deep-space nuclear explosions, she's not that much smaller than the LACs we had when Lady Harrington took out Thunder of God. There's a certain symmetry there, I suppose... if this works out.
Wolverine sat motionless in space relative to Nuncio-B, holding her position while Pontifex-and HMS Hexapuma-moved steadily away from her at an orbital velocity of just over thirty-two kilometers per second. Five other LACs sat with her, all that could reach her present position before she'd stopped in space, holding position on minimal power, and let her homeworld move away from her. They were packed to the limits of their life-support capacity with two companies of Nuncio Army troops who, Commodore Karlberg had assured Captain Terekhov, were fully qualified for boarding actions and vacuum work. She hoped Karlberg was right, although if everything went well, it probably wouldn't matter one way or the other.
The real teeth of the boarding force lay in the platoon of Captain Kaczmarczyk's Marines distributed-along with Abigail Hearns, Mateo Gutierrez, Midshipman Aikawa Kagiyama, and Midshipwoman Ragnhild Pavletic-between the two pinnaces under her command. She'd kept Ragnhild with her aboard Hawk-Papa-Two and put Aikawa aboard Hawk-Papa-Three with Lieutenant Bill Mann, Third Platoon's CO, and now she glanced at the midshipwoman's snub-nosed profile. The young woman looked tense, but if she was nervous, she gave remarkably little indication. She sat in the pilot's couch, the gloved hand resting on the helmet in her lap relaxed, fingers spread, and rather than sitting there staring at the time display, she was gazing raptly out the cockpit canopy at the Nuncian vessels.
Probably because she's never seen anything that antique outside of a historical holo drama, Abigail thought wryly.
She grinned, and then the smile faded as she caught sight of her ghostly reflection in the armorplast beyond Ragnhild. She looked much the same as ever... except for the hastily modified rank insignia on her skinsuit. Its sleeves still carried the single gold ring of a junior-grade lieutenant, but the single gold collar pip of the same rank had been replaced by the doubled pips of a senior-grade lieutenant. She was tempted to reach up and touch them, but she suppressed the urge firmly and returned her attention to the instrument console.
There's no way they'll let me keep them, whatever happens. But it was a nice gesture on the Skipper's part. And practical, too, I suppose.
Terekhov had surprised her with the appointment to the acting rank just before she left the Hexapuma. In theory, he had the authority to make the promotion permanent, but only pending a BuPers review. And given that Abigail had held her current rank for less than eight months before reporting aboard Hexapuma, she rather doubted BuPers would feel inclined to confirm it. In fact, her peculiar status as a Grayson currently in Manticoran service-and the only steadholder's daughter serving in either of her two navies-would probably make the Promotion Board even stickier than usual. But at least it made her technically
superior to Mann in rank, which was handy, since the Captain had stressed that she, not the Marine, was in command. And it also gave her a leg up with Captain Einarsson, Wolverine's commander and the senior NSF officer of the hastily organized little squadron.
Captain Magnus Einarsson was obviously one of the Nuncians who had trouble remembering that prolong meant the Manticorans with whom he was interacting were uniformly older than they appeared to Nuncian eyes. When he looked at Abigail, he saw a teenager, probably somewhere on the lower side of sixteen, and not a young woman almost ten T-years older than that. Worse, Nuncio was an uncompromisingly patriarchal culture. The bitter centuries of bare subsistence and miserable medical care had created a society which was forced to stoically endure a horrendous child mortality rate. For most of their planetary history, Nuncian women had been too busy bearing children-and dying of childbirth fever, as often as not, until the local medical establishment finally rediscovered the germ theory of disease-to do much of anything else. Only in the last two or three generations had the system's slowly climbing technology level made it possible to change that. And, human societies being human societies, cultural changes of that magnitude didn't happen overnight.
Yet another parallel with home, the Grayson lieutenant thought sardonically. Although at least this atheistic bunch doesn't try to justify it on the basis of God's will! But without Lady Harrington, the Protector, and Reverend Hanks to kick them in the butt, they're going to be slower-and even more mulish-about accepting the change, anyway.
Einarsson, at any rate, clearly had serious reservations (which he no doubt thought he'd concealed admirably) about accepting "recommendations" from even a senior-grade lieutenant who happened to be female. How he would have reacted if she'd turned up with her permanent rank was more than she cared to contemplate.
She looked down at the chrono once more and nodded as it came up on the five-hour mark since her remote arrays had detected the intruders. Five hours in which Pontifex had moved over half a million kilometers, taking Hexapuma with it. If the bogeys had managed to put one over on Hexapuma and get a recon drone into space headed to intercept the planet at the time they themselves would approach the hyper limit, its course would take it far enough from Wolverine's present position to make anything as weak as a LAC's impeller signature invisible to them. And since Bogey One and Two themselves were still far beyond shipboard detection range of the planet-
"Stand by for acceleration in three minutes," Captain Einarsson's voice said in her earbug.
The three minutes ticked past into eternity, and then the six LACs and their pinnace parasites went instantly to five hundred gravities of acceleration.
Well, we'll find out whether or not the Skipper is a tactical genius in about ten and a half hours, Abigail thought.
* * *
Naomi Kaplan settled herself at Tactical, racked her helmet on the side of her bridge chair, and gave her console exactly the same quick but thorough examination she always did. It took several seconds, but then she made a small sound of approval and sat back, satisfied.
"I have the board," she said to the midshipwoman sitting beside her, where she'd minded the store while Kaplan caught a belated breakfast. The ship was at Condition Bravo-not yet at General Quarters, but with her crew already skinsuited-and it was the RMN tradition to see that its people were well fed before battle. Kaplan had already seen all of her people fed... and been informed rather pointedly by Ansten FitzGerald that he wanted her fed, as well.
"You have the board, aye, Ma'am," Helen Zilwicki said, and Kaplan looked at her.
"Nervous?" she asked in a voice too low for anyone else on the bridge to overhear.
"Not really, Ma'am," Helen replied. Then paused. "Well, not if you mean scared," she said in a painstakingly honest voice. "I guess I probably am worried. About screwing up, more than anything else."
"That's as it should be," Kaplan told her. "Although you might want to reflect on the fact that just because we think we're bigger and nastier than they are, we're not necessarily right. And even if we are, we're still not invulnerable. Somebody can kill you just as dead by hitting you in the head with a rock as with a tribarrel, if she gets close enough and she's lucky."
"Yes, Ma'am," Helen said, remembering the breaking-stick feel of human necks in the shadows of Old Chicago's ancient sewers.
"But you're right to concentrate on the job," Kaplan continued, unaware of her middy's memories. "That's your responsibility right now, and responsibility is the best antidote to more mundane fears, like being blown into tiny pieces, that I can think of." She smiled at Helen's involuntary snort of amusement. "And, of course, if you should happen to screw something up, I assure you that you'll wish you had been blown into tiny pieces by the time I'm done with you."
She frowned ferociously, brows lowered, and Helen nodded.
"Yes, Ma'am. I'll remember," she promised.
"Good," Kaplan said, and turned back to her own plot.
Zilwicki was a good kid, she thought, although she'd had some reservations, given the midshipwoman's connection to Catherine Montaigne and the Anti-Slavery League. Not to mention her super-spook father's working association with the technically proscribed Audubon Ballroom. Unlike altogether too many officers, in her opinion, Kaplan didn't figure politics-hers or anyone else's-had any business in the Queen's Navy. Personally, she was a card-carrying Centrist, delighted that William Alexander had replaced that incompetent, corrupt, fucking asshole High Ridge, although she normally stayed out of the political discussions which seemed to fascinate her fellow officers. As a Centrist, she wasn't particularly fond of Montaigne's bare-knuckled political style, and she'd never cared for the Liberal Party, even before New Kiev sold out to High Ridge. But she had to admit that, whatever Montaigne's faults, there was absolutely no doubt of her iron fidelity to her own principles, be they ever so extreme.
Still, Kaplan had wondered if someone from such a politicized background would be able to put it aside, especially now that Zilwicki's kid sister had become a crowned head of state! But if there'd ever been a single instance of Zilwicki's political beliefs intruding into the performance of her duties, Kaplan hadn't seen it. And the girl was a fiendishly good tactician. Not as good as Abigail, but she had the touch. So if someone had to sub for Abigail, Zilwicki was an excellent choice.
But I don't want anyone subbing for Abigail, Kaplan thought, and felt a flicker of surprise at her own attitude. The youthful Grayson had a knack for inspiring trust, on a personal as well as a professional level, without ever crossing the line to excessive familiarity with superiors or subordinates. That was rare, and Kaplan finally admitted to herself that she was worried. That she disliked letting Abigail out of her sight, especially out amongst those primitive, sexist Nuncians.
Of course, she thought wryly, she's probably had one helluva lot more experience dealing with primitive sexists than I ever have! There's probably quite a few of them in her own family, for that matter.
She snorted at her own reflections, and checked the time.
Nine hours since the remote arrays had first detected the intruders, and so far, everything was ticking along right on schedule.
* * *
"Ma'am, I think you should look at this," Helen said after rechecking her data twice, very carefully. It had come out stubbornly the same each time, however preposterous it seemed.
"What is it?" Lieutenant Commander Kaplan said.
"The Alpha-Twenty array just picked Bogey One back up, Ma'am. It got a good look at her, too, and I don't think she's exactly what anyone's been expecting."
Kaplan looked up from the missile attack profile she'd been reviewing and turned until she could see Helen's plot. She'd had Helen monitoring the sensor arrays-largely to give her something to do, Helen suspected. But now she looked at the data codes and the library entry sidebar CIC had thrown up on the plot at Helen's request, and her eyebrows rose.
"Well, Ms. Zilwicki," she said dryly, "I see you have a true Gryp
hon's gift for understatement."
She studied the display for another few moments, and Helen watched her as unobtrusively as possible.
The data had come in on a laser, not FTL, to insure that the bogeys didn't pick anything up, so it was several minutes old. But that didn't matter for ID purposes, and after a moment, the TO shook her head and reached for her com key. She pressed it and waited two or three seconds until a voice spoke in her own earbug.
"Captain speaking."
"Sir, it's Kaplan. We just got a positive relocation on Bogey One. She's right where we'd expected her to be, and the array got a pretty good look at her. Ms. Zilwicki-" she gave Helen a quick smile and a wink that made her feel astonishingly good "-patched the data through to CIC, and we have a tentative identification."
"And?" Terekhov asked when she paused.
"Skipper, according to CIC, this is a Mars-class heavy cruiser."
"A Peep?"
There was something in the Captain's voice. A sharper edge, or a pause. A fleeting break, perhaps. Something. But Kaplan couldn't quite put her finger on it, whatever it was. And if she'd actually heard it at all, it had disappeared by his next sentence.
David Weber - Honor17 - Shadow of Saganami Page 33