Like maybe if we change the course or speed of those ships without some special input from the Syndic crew. I’ve got twenty flying bombs heading for the most vulnerable and valuable ships in this fleet. Geary thought about the situation. “Okay. Say we use the CRX. That’ll leave us with twenty ships we can’t let get close to our big units and twenty crews of unconscious Syndics.” He knew Desjani was watching him, waiting for his decision and wondering how he’d square that decision with his expressed concern for prisoners. After all, he’d be justified in any action against people who planned a sneak suicide attack. But that doesn’t mean I have to do anything I don’t want to. And what I do want to do is to make life difficult for the people who planned this, who sent those shock troops on a suicide mission while they’re sitting safe and happy back near that inhabited world. “How long do we have to work with?”
Carabali looked toward Desjani, who tapped rapidly on her controls. On Geary’s display, large spheres appeared surrounding each Syndic merchant ship. “That’s the estimated damage radius if one of those merchants blows its core. You can see the damage radius for each merchant bulged slightly to one side because of the movement vector of that ship. If our ships are farther away than that, their shields should be able to handle any debris that gets to them.”
Geary judged the distances and the time left until the merchants got too close to the auxiliaries. The time remaining wasn’t much, but hopefully it’d be enough. “Very well, Colonel. Here’s what we’ll do.”
Twenty minutes later, Geary watched on the remote video feeds as the last of the unconscious Syndic crew members were dumped unceremoniously into the escape pods on their ships. Since none of them were strapped into the seats, they’d get banged up a bit when the pods blasted away. But since they were planning on dying, I don’t think they’ll have any legitimate grounds to complain about bruises and broken bones.
The pod hatches were left open as a precaution against a booby trap, and the Marines hastened back to their boarding shuttles, being met at the airlocks by the rest of the Marines in the boarding party who’d come from downloading instructions to the autopilots on the bridges of the merchant ships.
Geary let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding as the shuttles pulled away from the merchants. He checked the time, willing the shuttles to move faster, wanting them as far as possible from the merchants and their damage radii before the automated instructions that had been sent to the Marines to download finally kicked in.
“Thirty seconds,” Desjani advised unnecessarily.
Geary just nodded, his eyes flicking from the Marine shuttles to the damage radii around the merchant ships to the Alliance fleet auxiliaries that were drawing ever closer to their rendezvous with the merchants.
“Mark.”
Geary held his breath again, waiting to see if the instructions given the merchant ships’ automated systems to seal the escape pods would trigger the ships’ destruction. The Marine shuttles should be far enough away now to be safe, if their estimates were right. But “estimate” means it can be wrong.
“Pods should be launching,” Desjani announced.
“There.” Geary pointed at his display, where the Dauntless’s systems were tracking the escape pods that had shot out from the merchants. They had another moment to wonder if launching the pods would cause the ships’ power cores to overload. But once again, the merchants continued on, heading for the Alliance fleet in a steady way that was almost unnerving. “Let’s see what happens when we play with the merchants’ courses.”
Moments later, the instructions the Marines had downloaded ordered the merchants’ maneuvering systems to start kicking them down and around. The big, slow merchant ships, heavily laden with the stores the Alliance fleet had demanded, swung ponderously until their bows were pointed down and away from the Alliance fleet. “One more event left,” Desjani noted.
The main drives on the Syndic ships lit off, pushing against the mass and momentum of the merchant ships to change their path through space. Geary tried to judge their progress as the merchants continued getting closer to some of the Alliance ships. “Should we maneuver Titan and Jinn to make sure those things don’t get too close?”
Desjani pursed her lips as she studied the relative movement of the vessels, then shook her head. “We should start seeing distances opening any minute now. Unless something causes those main drives to shut off, those merchants won’t be a threat much longer.”
The drives didn’t shut off, continuing to push with all their capability against their ships. Slowly, the projected courses for the clumsy merchant ships began altering, the changes becoming clear as the actual courses diverged from the original paths, then changing faster as the big ships picked up speed in the new direction as fast as they were able.
“Where are they going?” Colonel Carabali’s image asked.
Geary gave her a tight-lipped smile. “Home.”
Carabali frowned.
“No, Colonel,” Geary assured her, “we’re giving the Syndics back their ships, but they won’t appreciate the gesture. We had to do something with those twenty ships, and the people who launched the attack on us needed to get paid back. There are two military facilities orbiting the inhabited world. The orders we had your Marines download into the merchant maneuvering systems direct ten of those merchant ships to keep accelerating as fast as they’re able, aimed directly at the point where one of those facilities will be when the merchants get there. The other ten are aimed at the other facility.”
The Colonel’s frown changed into an open smile. “Ten merchant ships packed full of cargo charging all-out at one target in a fixed orbit? The Syndics might have a little trouble stopping them all.”
“They won’t be able to stop them all, Colonel,” Geary assured her. He gestured toward the images of the lumbering merchants. “Under normal conditions, the merchants would be too slow to worry about and easily destroyed on approach. But these ships won’t be slowing down as they approach orbit. They’ll keep speeding up as best they can until impact.”
“And,” Desjani added with her own smile, “any hits on the merchants will have a lot of mass to divert. If they manage to blow the merchants apart, they’ll have to deal with all the cargo and wreckage still heading their way.”
Geary smiled, too. “After all, we do need to conserve our supply of long-range weaponry. If in the process of breaking their word, the Syndics hand us something that will do the job of punishing them, they’ll just have to live with the consequences.” He glanced at the display. “We’re just over thirty-two light-minutes from the inhabited world. It’ll take a half hour for them to see that their suicide attack didn’t come off as planned. Give them at least another ten minutes to track the merchants and figure out where they’re headed. I’ll wait a half hour to avoid tipping them off and then broadcast a message.”
“Which will reach them in about an hour. That’s far sooner than the merchant ships can reach their targets. They’ll have time to evacuate their orbital facilities,” Desjani sighed.