No honor in death, p.34
No Honor in Death, page 34
Guthren stared at Pushkin, a strange fire in his eyes as if the chief was back aboard Don Quixote.
“You ever see the reaction when a full load of antimatter fuel intersects a power shield, sir? We just about didn’t see it either. Fucking Imp shields overloaded and broke down in a fraction of a second, but the reaction was far from over. It just kept on going, eating up the outer hull. The Gar Varig started breaking up in front of both fleets, destroyed by a little scout under the command of a crazy lieutenant. We were tossed around by the ship’s death throes. Damn near got wiped out ourselves, but Cap’n Dunmoore has the devil’s own luck.” Pushkin could read the evident admiration in Guthren’s eyes. The cox’n stood up and stretched his stout frame.
“Anyways, with the destruction of their flagship, the fuckers didn’t know which way was up anymore and pulled out, so that was the end of the battle. The Barracuda found us drifting among the wreckage, more wreck than ship ourselves, and threw us a tow. Towed us all the way back to Dordogne, as a matter of fact. Admiral was so impressed that he decided we should lead Task Force 3A from the emergence point in Dordogne system to Starbase 30. We patched up our sublight drive during the jump and painted an almighty imperial dragon on our hull, a kill mark, and then we cast off the tow a few million klicks out. The old Don Quixote rode for the last time.” There was genuine emotion in his voice now. “We got permission for a fly-by and a full reception when we docked.” Guthren shook his head again.
“Those were times, Mister Pushkin, those were times. Aboard the little Don Quixote, tilting at every goddamn imperial windmill. Anyways, since then, nothing our very own Dona Quixote does surprises me anymore.”
“Yeah,” he smiled at Pushkin’s expression, “that’s what we used to call her, Dona Quixote. She and the Don would have made quite a pair. Both as crazy as loons. You mark my words, Mister Pushkin; she’ll cover us with glory on this one too. Any skipper who can beat a flagship with a scout can do just about anything.” He winked, “including playing a good game of chicken with any bastard who gets too close.”
Then, without a further word, Guthren left a thoughtful first officer alone in the conference room, happy that he had finally been able to tell the story and let the buggers on this tub know their skipper was one of the best there ever was. And that they were damned lucky to have her.
*
“Interesting.” Siobhan steepled her fingers. The passive receptors, less accurate and suffering more from time lag than the active scanners, had recorded Tol Vakash's random gyrations as it moved up to the reorganized convoy.
Chief Penzara was playing the battle log for the captain's benefit now, adding a few comments culled from the depth of his experience.
“A Shrehari commander who thinks. I could almost believe it's Brakal or one of his apprentices. See how he vanishes from view here,” she pointed at the timeline display, “and here, going silent and listening, instead of bulling his way in our last known direction. Can we get a make on the ship?”
Penzara shrugged, a grimace creasing his weathered features.
“It's pretty indistinct, cap’n, but I give it a good chance of being a Gorgon-class cruiser. The electronic signature is close, and the Gorgons are the most common rated ships in their navy.”
Tol Vakash was a Gorgon-class cruiser. By Commonwealth standards, Gorgons were closer in size to heavy frigates but they still packed a mean punch, as she remembered.
Siobhan knew it was wishful thinking to imagine the chase ship being Tol Vakash. Revenge was not only a dish best eaten cold, but it was also a dish rarely eaten. The Gorgon was the most common patrol type in the Imperial Deep Space Fleet and a very successful design by their standards. The chief could be wrong, and it could be something like the larger and deadlier Basilisk-class cruiser, though the Imps usually kept those in heavy assault forces, not on detached duty. Siobhan liked enemies who followed their own rules closely. It meant she could throw away her rulebook and confuse the hell out of them.
“He's placed himself in a good strike position. If he coordinates jumps with the convoy, one or the other will be able to keep watch in normal space. Except,” she smiled knowingly, “the convoy commander will want to get to Cimmeria quickly and won't be under the orders of the Gorgon commander, so we'll get a few brief windows to maneuver in close. Look at the trace: no inter-ship coordination. The convoy's keeping the same jump-rest-jump pattern as before. We just have to time our jumps well.”
“Pretty difficult, sir,” Pushkin commented pessimistically. “The Gorgon's been moving randomly enough to make any hidden approach impossible to time well. He's made jumps as short as fifteen minutes and as long as seventy-two. God knows what that's doing to his drives.”
“There's nothing scientific about this, Mister Pushkin. Gut instinct is the only way to go. Risky, sure, but it's just as risky for him to move toward us as soon as we pop up on his scanners. He'll be guessing too, remember that. And the one who makes the least mistakes will take the prize.” She looked at the time display and rose. “Let's go look for our window of opportunity.”
Penzara and Pushkin followed her out on the bridge. The varsity team was back at its stations after a short rest and Siobhan’s instincts told her it was time to move on. Or, she suspected, she was simply impatient to get back to the fray before the odds increased with the arrival of the Cimmeria Assault Force. Was she really out to earn her ship glory, she wondered, or were the ghosts of her past driving her headlong into a situation she might not be able to handle? She shrugged it off.
“Status.”
“The convoy is still moving FTL, sir,” Devall reported. “The other ship is still tooling along at sublight.”
“Looking for us, no doubt.” Siobhan relieved Shara, who had the watch, and slipped into her seat. “Wondering how long we're going to wait. In this, we have some advantage. He has to react to our moves. As long as we keep the initiative.”
A soft beep caused the gunnery officer to glance at his screen. “He's jumped, sir.”
“Time to go, people. Mister Shara, make our course one-nine-seven mark three-one, ten-minute jump at max. Mister Pushkin, up systems.”
“Laid in.”
“Ready.”
“Engage.” Nausea gripped them and vanished. “Mister Pushkin, the moment we emerge, rig for silent running. We're going to take this slow and careful.”
Pushkin raised his eyebrows. Pushing the jump drives to max sure as hell was not slow in his book. Too much of that would bring complaints from the chief engineer and with good reason. Stingray's older engines had a definite limit on high-speed sailing. But Siobhan Dunmoore had a hard gleam in her eyes.
*
“Active scan.”
“On screen, sir.”
“Still moving on exactly the same headings. Good. Chances are he hasn’t emerged and still hasn’t had an opportunity to pick us up. Go silent.”
The minutes ticked by slowly as they waited for the Shrehari to go sublight for a scan. He did, ten minutes after Stingray, and came up with a blank. The convoy remained in its bubble, confirming Siobhan’s suspicions that the cruiser’s commander could not work out a mutual search-jump-search arrangement with the convoy commander. Too bad for them. He jumped again and so did the frigate, slowly overhauling the line of transports.
“The convoy’s due to emerge soon,” Siobhan said, three hours of tense hide and seek later. “He has to tack at least once before making a beeline to Cimmeria. My guess is the Gorgon’s skipper will use the time to move nearer. He’s lost some ground and knows our strike window is closing.” Siobhan studied the display in silence for several minutes. She picked a point on the convoy’s course and pointed it out to Shara.
“This is his optimum tacking point, both for time and fuel consumption. How long is a redline jump from here to there?”
“Redline?” Shara and Pushkin turned to her at the same time. Redlining the engines was a definite no-no, forbidden except in cases of extreme emergency. It reduced the life span of the drives considerably, and on an older ship like Stingray, had a chance of burning them out.
“I don’t recommend it, sir.” Pushkin frowned. “We’ve already had enough troubles.”
“They’ll take it this once. How long, Mister Shara?” The sailing master queried her navigation computer.
“Six minutes.”
“Our friend’s still FTL?”
“Aye, sir,” Penzara replied. “Has been for eleven minutes now.”
“And the convoy?”
“Going on five hours and fifty-one minutes.”
Silence enfolded the bridge as Siobhan pondered her next move. If the convoy commander held to his standard pattern, something a human would never do after an attack, he was due to emerge in nine minutes, at the optimum tacking point for a home run to Cimmeria.
“Mister Shara, lay in a course for the point I’ve indicated –”
“Cap’n, the Gorgon’s emerged.” Chief Penzara’s warning cut off all conversation. “And he’s damned close.”
“We’re as silent as we can be, sir.” Pushkin forestalled Dunmoore’s question.
“Okay, everybody, make like you’re a bunch of mushrooms.” Siobhan’s quip drew the expected chuckles, releasing some of the sudden tension.
“Just as long as the bastard ain’t out to pick mushrooms for his admiral’s salad.” Chief Penzara growled in a low voice as if his words could carry across the void.
“His scanner just passed over us.”
“Any bounce back?”
“Probably some. Hopefully, he’ll think it’s a sensor ghost or a cloud of ionized gases.”
*
Tol Vakash's gun master grunted at the scanner readout, stroking his short chin beard. He could have sworn... Just to be on the safe side, he swept the area again, but this time nothing.
Lieutenant Urag was a good gunner but lacked the imagination of a superlative weapons officer. In the time between sweeps, the human frigate had moved, hurtling through space at constant speed, like any natural object, for nothing in the universe was ever at rest. The movement changed the angle she presented to Tol Vakash and this time, the bounce back was scattered enough to escape the less capable Shrehari scanners.
“Something, Urag?” Jhar asked, alert as ever to the mood of the crew. It was one of the qualities that had attracted Brakal's attention and subsequently, his patronage.
“A faint reflection, sub-commander. I swept again and nothing.”
“Sensor ghost,” Jhar growled, “or a cloud of gas.”
Brakal, sitting back in his chair looking as relaxed as a lord on his estate does, smiled. “Maybe not. If the human is running silent, we would get such a ghost. Plot the 'sensor ghost' on screen.”
A green icon winked to life on the tactical display. Jhar frowned, doubtful. “Much closer than expected. If that ship is a Type 203, he has good engines.”
“Or a shrewd and reckless commander,” Brakal replied, a calculating look transforming his face. “The speed is possible. And with good discipline, a human ship can vanish against the background radiation.”
“Then why no ghost on the second sweep?”
“Because he is no longer in the same spot, and does not present the same aspect. Then again,” Brakal continued, toying with his gun master and first officer, “it could simply be a cloud of gas. Navigator, we will shorten our course to run on the convoy's flank as it changes direction. Let us see what we can scare up by opening the window a crack.”
“A trap, commander?”
“No. This one seems too canny for a trap. Bait perhaps.”
*
“He’s on a new course, cutting across our front.”
“Avoiding the convoy’s dog leg.” Siobhan nodded knowingly.
“In a hurry, sir?” Pushkin looked at the tactical display, frowning.
“No,” Dunmoore grinned devilishly, enjoying this contest of wits. “He’s giving us a go at the convoy.”
“A trap?” Pushkin looked alarmed.
She shook her head. “Not exactly. He knows we won’t make it easy for him, so he’s hoping we’ll use this unexpected window of opportunity to strike, revealing ourselves at the same time. Then, he’ll swoop in.”
“Do we take it?”
“Oh yes, we do. But on our own terms. He’s probably planning on the basis of our known speed, so we’ll simply make him eat his assumptions.”
“Redlining the engines.”
“Yup. Give him a real shock when he finds us buggering his precious convoy behind his back.” The crude simile drew barely suppressed chortles. Siobhan’s manic mood was beginning to infect the others. “Course ready and laid in, Mister Shara?”
“Aye, sir.”
“Up systems, Mister Pushkin. Cox’n, engage.”
The jump, though short, proved to be uncomfortable, most of all for Gregor Pushkin. Stingray clearly did not enjoy Dunmoore’s breach of engineering regulations and proved it by protesting under the strain. Tiner called up to complain, but the first officer, to his credit, quietly told her to shut up and carry on. Dunmoore had earned at least that much loyalty from him. To be honest, the element of risk, the gamble, stirred something within him, and he discovered he wanted to see this through. So, by the looks of the others, did they.
Siobhan glanced at the computer-generated estimate on the tactical schematic, excitement pounding through her veins. If she pulled this off... With a bit of luck and a sound knowledge of the Shrehari’ ways. She could not ask for a better intercept solution than this. All those hours of maneuvering, of creeping closer, would pay off soon.
One minute to go and the icons on the display began separating, spreading out under the tense stares of the crew. Pushkin realized he was gripping his chair’s arms with bone-breaking force and willed himself to relax. His heart felt like it was about to burst under the adrenaline rush. He briefly wondered if he would have been able to withstand the even greater pressure of Don Quixote’s reckless charge.
Siobhan’s breathing had become heavy, deep, her pale face flushed. Perspiration gathered on her upper lip. She glanced at Pushkin, who read in her eyes an almost unbearable tension.
“Everything’s ready,” he said in reply to her unspoken question.
“Good.” Her voice had reacquired that smoky, hoarse quality which sounded so eerie to the usually staid first officer. “Primary target is the trailing Gecko-class, Mister Devall. No screwing around this time. Pound him hard.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
“Here we go,” Guthren rumbled, hand closing down on the cutoff switch.
*
Through the haze of emergence nausea, Lieutenant Trevane Devall saw a sight he would never have dared dream of, a once in a lifetime event. Stingray emerged in an unremarkable area of space, a short distance from the outer rim of the Cimmeria system. It was, however, the same area the convoy commander had chosen for his final tacking maneuver, as Captain Siobhan Dunmoore had predicted with uncanny accuracy.
Within seconds of the frigate's return to this universe, the imperial ships materialized across her bows, almost within touching distance. Ripples of the trans universe movement struck Stingray, so close was she. And athwart the convoy's line of travel too, able to engage the entire line with nearly all her guns.
“My God,” Pushkin whispered in the incredulous silence. “Guthren was right. You have the devil's luck, captain.” The awe on his face was almost comical.
Siobhan smiled beatifically, looking at the culmination of her professional expertise. “Oh, I don't know about the devil, Mister Pushkin. Though that's where those bastards are going. What d'you say to a target-rich environment, Mister Devall?”
“Good morning an' how are you?” The lieutenant turned toward her, a broad grin transforming his aloof, arrogant features into those of a child in a candy store. He felt giddy with exhilaration.
“Indeed.” Then, her voice lost its dreamy edge. “Engage the trailing transport with a full spread of missiles, then the same on the escort. Give him too many targets and watch him go. Cox'n, head straight for the Gecko at half speed. Mister Pushkin, full energy to the forward shield.”
“First salvo of birds away.” Then, “Second salvo away.”
Siobhan stared hungrily at her two victims, ignoring Devall.
How the hell do the girls in Fleet Intel come up with those ridiculous class names anyways? Loon-class troopship?
*
On the narrow bridge of Ptar Vanak, Sub-Commander Reyvtal could not absorb the evidence provided by his own eyes. That thrice damned human frigate had appeared, as if by magic, on his port side just as he and his charges were at their most vulnerable. And now, the bastard had fired a full spread of the blasted nuclear ship-killing missiles, an astonishing profligacy, one which would overwhelm his gunners.
His crew still struggled to sort themselves out amidst the nerve-rending screech of the battle siren.
Reyvtal gave orders to wear ship and meet the raider head-on. Then, the two flights of missiles split, half kept on course toward him, a number he could handle, but the other four headed straight for the troopship Mentara, which carried the twelve-hundred strong Ashari Regiment to Cimmeria. His gut clenched with horror when he realized he could not both beat off the missiles headed for him and protect the troopship at the same time. Either his ship or the troopship was doomed, for Mentara could not defend itself adequately.
Reyvtal swallowed with difficulty. The legendary Brakal and his Tol Vakash still rode the currents of other space, unaware of this disaster, and Ptar Brokat, in its lead position, would never make it back in time.
“Gun master!”
“Kha?”
“Make your priority target the four human missiles heading for Mentara. And put every bit of energy you can on the port and bow shields.”
The gun master nodded, knowing Reyvtal had probably signed their death warrant. But an escort was supposed to protect its charges, at the risk of its own survival if need be. The commander of Ptar Vanak was acting in the only way he could: with honor.
