“Send a drone to the kraits. Tell them we will pass through their area in approximately eleven minutes. Remind them there is to be no radio or other electronic emissions until they are ready. Obedience or death!”
The Select Freeman (Communications) bowed, then programmed the drone and launched it. It shot out of the missile tube and accelerated away.
Soon now, thought the Prince.
On board the H.M.S. London, Admiral Skiffington grunted in satisfaction as the last of the Tilleke missiles exploded harmlessly. “They can’t penetrate our defenses,’ he said, loud enough for the entire deck crew to hear. “Not enough punch.” He rubbed his hands together briskly and laughed. “They can run, but they can’t keep us from reaching Qurna. Then they’ll have to fight and we’ll have them.”
Grant Skiffington listened to his father with only one ear. Something was nagging him, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. He watched the holo display, a little tickle of unease in his gut. The Fleet was accelerating, but they still weren’t overtaking the Tilleke warships. The Tilleke were able to keep their distance, just on the outer edge of the Victorian’s missile range.
“Maximum military speed,” Commander Kerrs reported to his father. Five percent of the speed of light. “If we want to go faster, you will have to authorize overriding the inertial compensators.” The practical limit of the ships speed wasn’t the engines. Given enough fuel and time to accelerate, a ship could go faster and faster. The real limit was the ability of the inertial compensators to protect them. If the inertial compensator failed, the entire crew would be turned into something resembling chunky tomato paste in a matter of moments.
The Admiral shook his head. The statistics weren’t pretty. The inertial compensators failed ten percent of the time when you exceeded maximum military speed at all, and the failure rate shot up as you went faster. He wasn’t going to risk losing twelve or fifteen of his ships just to be able to swat the Tillies on the rump. “Maintain course and speed. They’ll have to turn and fight at Qurna. No need to take the extra risk now.”
Grant’s feeling of unease grew as the minutes passed. Hiram had spooked him about how clever and devious the Tilleke were. But they were running away, weren’t they? The Tillies were probably at their maximum military speed, or were desperately overriding their inertial compensators. He frowned. Unless…unless-
Hurriedly, he called the ships computer. “Mildred!”
“Yes, Lieutenant Skiffington, how are you today?”
“Mildred, what is the known maximum military speed of Tilleke war ships?”
“Unknown,” replied the computer’s motherly voice. “Tilleke war ships have never been observed in combat by Victorian forces. No information has been provided by The Light, which engaged in hostilities with Tilleke vessels one hundred and twenty five years ago in the-”
“Stop,” ordered Grant.
“Of course, dear,’ Mildred said. Grant recalled the London’s computer had been programmed by the Cornwall Software Collective on Aberdeen, which was rumored to have the highest percentage of grandmothers of any of the software combines. It gave the ship’s AI a distinctive personality.
“Analyze the sensor data of the Tilleke ships pursuing the Dominion force,” Grant ordered. “Were the Tilleke ships overtaking the DUC force?” His hands were sweating now.
“No, not during the forty three minute, fifteen second period that we were tracking both of them.”
Commander Kerrs turned to Admiral Skiffington. “Admiral, does this feel to you like it’s going a little too well?”
Skiffington gave him a cold stare. Kerrs had been with him for years, and in terms of personality was his perfect counterfoil. Oliver Skiffington was brash, boastful, arrogant and could be aggressive to fault…and he knew it. He kept Kerrs on his staff because Kerrs wasn’t afraid of him, unlike virtually all of his other subordinates. Kerrs’s function was to tell the Admiral when he was overreaching. Skiffington valued that, even when he didn’t like it.
“Don’t play games, Oscar. Spit it out.”
“Well, Admiral, if I were the Tilleke Emperor, my biggest problem would be how to defend Qurna against a larger, more powerful force. It would help a lot if I could know what path that force would take toward my home planet because if I knew, then I could lay ambushes. And if I had studied the opposing commander, and knew he was exceptionally aggressive, well, Admiral, you know what they say when you’re hunting a lion?”
“Goddammit, Oscar, just say it!”
Kerrs continued, unperturbed. “Those Tilleke ships out there are bait. We’re being suckered, Admiral. We aren’t chasing them, we are following them. They know exactly where we are going to be.”
Dangle some bloody tempting bait right in front of my nose and watch me chase it! Admiral Skiffington glowered for a long, hard moment, then let it go and turned to the problem of the enemy. They had been chasing the Tilleke force towards Qurna for close to fifteen hours now, plenty of time for the goddamn Tilleke to lay in a surprise. And if he were the Tilleke admiral, that surprise would be…
“Sensors!” he bellowed. “Check our path of advance! Out to ten minutes. Look for small objects, but lots of them!”
Two junior sensor officers glanced at each other in bewilderment, and then hastened to comply. All sensors had been focused on the retreating Tilleke strike force, some fifty minutes out, but now they recalibrated to sweep the area two seconds to ten minutes in front of the advancing Victorian Fleet. The hologram display blinked off, then flared to life with the new data. Everyone on the deck turned to study it.
“And there it is,” Oliver Skiffington said softly. Two minutes in front of them there were forty to fifty objects laid out in three long lines, directly along their line of advance. They were barely visible on the sensor display, but they were there. He turned to Kerrs.
“Missile mines.”
Kerrs nodded. “I concur, Admiral.”
Across the control room, the Chief Sensors Officer’s head jerked up from his display. “Admiral! DMB flare! The Tilleke ships are slowing down and turning to face us!”
Admiral Skiffington took a deep breath. This was going to be very close. There are no crisp turns in space, just long curving ones. “All ships, minefield to our front! Turn ninety degrees upward now! Execute!” Then he turned back to Kerrs and growled:
“Next time you’ve got something to say, Commander, say it sooner!”
“Yes, sir,” Kerrs said, without even a hint of contrition.
Oblivious to the commotion around him, Grant asked nervously. “Mildred, what was the speed of the Dominion force while they were being pursued by the Tilleke?”
“Four point two C.” Four and two tenths percent of the speed of light. At that speed, the Tilleke force had not been able to overtake the Dominion force. But now, the Fleet couldn’t catch the Tilleke force, even though the Fleet was going faster than the DUC force had been. That could only mean…
“Bugger me!” Grant bolted out of his chair. “Mildred, give me the present location of the DUC ships!”
In the Emperor’s Pride, Prince RaShahid studied the display. His force sat slightly off center of the Victorian line. The Vicky right was curling around in an arc to encircle him. In a few moments he would be surrounded.
Everything was in place.
I have three surprises for you, he thought to the Victorian fleet.
“Let us begin,” he said.
“Lord!” the Select Freeman (Sensors) shouted. “The Victorian Fleet has changed course. They are now pitching upwards. They must have seen the minefield.”
RaShahid looked at the display in consternation. The Vickies were in a long, curving skid, trying to change their forward motion by ninety degrees, but unable to turn crisply enough to keep out entirely of the missile field. The ambush wouldn’t be perfect, but with luck it would be enough.