Gran smiled. “No, sir. But I was thoroughly briefed on our weapons system. We do have those quick-firers and a chaff launcher. I think I can take care of at least one or two missiles.”
Kas was unimpressed. “Really. Well, don’t forget; we have to turn our belly to the enemy to use our lasers. And the quickfirers have a very limited field of fire. We have to maneuver the ship bow-on to use them.” He shrugged. “Our shields are beefed up and may be able to stop one or two missiles, if they’re not too big. But don’t get your hopes up.”
He turned back to Rom. “As soon as you detect a missile launch or laser blast, hit the attitude jets to bring us back to bow-on. We’ll need to be the smallest target this fat old tub can be, and bring our quickfirers to bear.” Rom nodded. “Now, how long before we’re in detector range?”
“Just over three minutes, sir,” Rom replied crisply.
“Missile launch!” Gran cried. “Bandit has fired on the tramp! Another!” seconds later he added, “One missile impacted her drive coils, sir. She’s lost all acceleration. The other missile was a near-miss on her sensor array.” He snorted. “Lousy shooting for close range and an unarmed opponent.”
“All right,” Kas said. “How much speed can we gain, Rom?” he asked.
Rom shrugged. “I estimate that given our original velocity relative to the target, and adding in max boost for 3.12 minutes, we should approach at just over a hundred thousand meters per second, relative.”
Kas’ eyes widened. “Really? Excellent! That’ll cut down on the time available for him to react. How long until detection?”
Rom hesitated. “With the additional acceleration, 1.35 minutes. We’ll be in optimum weapons range in 1.6 minutes. He should have less than half a minute to react and deploy weapons.”
“Good. As soon as we’re in detection range adjust our attitude to bring our lasers to bear; say, uh, thirty degrees from straight ahead. Will that do it, Gran?”
Gran nodded. “Should do, sir. That’ll give me about twenty degrees of swing. Uh, sir, I could open fire before we reach the high-confidence point.” He shrugged. “We might hit something useful.”
Kas shook his head. “No. I want to keep him wondering until we reach high confidence. If we go in with lasers firing his first impulse will be to raise his shields. If we’re just a blip he might not raise them until you’ve had your best shots.”
Gran nodded. "Aye, sir."
The seconds ticked away, though each seemed minutes long. They were a seasoned fleet crew, but the silence was oppressive with tension.
Kas fought the temptation to ask Rom how much longer just as Rom shouted, “Detection! They can see us now! Adjusting attitude to bring weapons to bear! Raising shields!”
There was a sudden flurry of movement on the bridge. The image of the corvette slid to one side of the viewscreen, though it continued to grow larger at an impressive rate.
“We’re being hailed, sir,” Gran said calmly. “Should I answer?”
Kas shook his head. “Keep your mind on your weapons. Let ‘em keep guessing. Maybe it’ll distract him from raising his shields. What’s the time to high confidence?”
“Twenty seconds, sir. Ten seconds. Firing in five… four… three… two… one… Firing! Firing! Firing!”
If Kas hadn’t been expecting it the results would have been disappointing for the first seconds. Since there are no atmospheric particles in space to render a laser beam visible, the only indication that Gran had fired was an infinitesimal white dot that flared on the corvette’s missile rack, and another that slashed across the bridge and then disappeared, so quickly as to barely be seen. The dots faded, then bloomed again. Suddenly, there was a blinding flash as a missile detonated in its rack, followed by an even greater actinic flash, and a circular fireball that dissipated immediately.
Kas blinked rapidly, and when his vision cleared the corvette was gone, replaced by an expanding cloud of debris. “Rom!” he shouted, “bring us bow on to the debris cloud, and pray that our shields deflect that junk! Once we pass through the debris cloud cancel all acceleration and bring us back around. I hope that crew’s all right.” That hope was sincere. More than a hundred and fifty people had just died in that single flash, and Kas’ satisfaction with his victory was tempered by that realization. To Kas, the only possible justification for that loss of life would be the survival of the tramp’s crew. The mere fact that they’d avoided endangering their mission was cold comfort.
The shields held, and none of the debris that until seconds ago had been a state-of-the-art warship got through.
Chapter 5
Finally, Kas could turn his attention to the tramp. It would take thousands of kilometers for Starhopper to slow and vector back toward the other ship and more than an hour before they could come alongside.
Kas sighed. “Well. Does anyone have any suggestions concerning what we do about the tramp and her crew?”
Rom scowled. “Strictly speaking, we should finish what the Glories started. Otherwise, our cover is blown completely.”
Kas nodded. “That’s what I mean. They have to know we’re armed and that we destroyed that corvette. I doubt they’ll believe it just happened to blow up at the moment we came barreling in on it.”
Gran was looking as unhappy as Kas felt. “Uh, they might not have seen anything, sir. Remember, that second missile was aimed at their sensor array; and it was fired before we were in detection range.”
“But it was a miss,” Tera put in. “We don’t know if it took out all their sensors.”
Kas sighed again. “All right, I see three alternatives. But I’m not sure we can live with two of them.” He raised a finger. “First, we can finish what the Glories started and destroy the ship.” He held up a hand to forestall the angry replies. “I’m sure that’s what Imperial Intelligence would tell us to do.”
He held up another finger. “Second, we can just leave them here and boost out. Chances are they haven’t seen us and are sitting over there wondering when the Glories are coming. Of course, their drive coils are destroyed, so unless someone else happened by they’d just drift here forever. With their sensor array damaged, they may not even be able to get an SOS beacon working. But,” he continued, "We don't know what sensors they have that are still functional. They may have seen everything."
He raised a third finger. “Finally, we can say to hell with Imperial Intelligence and follow our natural inclinations to rescue them.” Again he raised a hand to forestall interruptions. “Unfortunately, that one leads to complications. If we just pick them up and drop them at our next recal stop several things will happen, all bad. First, the authorities are going to want details about this Glory ‘pirate’ — and they’re going to want to ask us some hard questions.”
“Second, that tramp skipper is going to mention that the Glories talked about a battle cruiser. We do not want planetary authorities thinking about us and battle cruisers at the same time.
“Finally, even if they did let us leave, it wouldn’t be for days or weeks. If they figured out who we were, we might never leave.”
“There might be another option.” The quiet voice belonged to Tera. All heads turned toward the Astrogator.
“We won’t be grounding again until we’re on the way back,” she continued. “We could bring them aboard and pop them into cold storage until we get to the Rekesh.”
Gran shook his head. “I wish we could, Tera,” he replied. “But we don’t have any empty cold sleep units. We’d have to revive other crew.”
Kas was also shaking his head. “And we don’t have cover documents for anyone but us,” he continued.
Tera shrugged. “Maybe, but I’ll bet that the people on that ship have all the identification they’ll need.”
“I hadn’t thought about that,” Kas admitted. “We could rescue those people, pop them into cold storage, and the people we revive could use their ID’s and the tramp’s ship’s papers.”