“If there was a frigate set against a free trader, only an idiot would fight it head on. But that’s not a Tal-Kader frigate.”
“The fuck do you know—” started Pascari.
Antonov dropped him from the channel. “Explain, Clarke,” he said.
Clarke could hear Captain Navathe ordering her CO to delay Beowulf’s answer to the supposed freighter. Smart officer, and efficient. She’d have done alright in the Defense Fleet.
“Look at the readouts, sir,” Clarke said, and connected the data to Antonov’s wristband to save time. “The map of the freighter, and the radiation leaking from the drives—”
“What about them?” Antonov snapped. Clarke didn’t blame him, the longer they waited the more they exposed themselves to an attack. But Clarke needed to make sure he was crystal clear. He drew a marker on his screen, which would appear on Antonov and Navathe’s too. He focused on the part of the freighter underneath and behind the red cloud of radiated heat.
“This is the cargo deck,” Clarke pointed out. “In a commercial vessel, cargo bays are stacked parallel to the keel since that’s the most efficient way to load cargo under gravity.”
“That’s correct,” said Captain Navathe, “but how do you know it’s the cargo hold?”
“Military vessels are rectangular in shape, there’s no part of the hull protruding away from the drives. All ships bigger than a corvette are limited to space operations only, so their decks are stacked perpendicular to the keel, one on top of each other, like a pile of coins. This allows the ship’s acceleration to work as an artificial gravity of sorts, and the crew can function during normal acceleration. In short, our friend’s over there have the wrong shape for a military operation.”
Usually, a military crew only strapped to a g-seat during evasive maneuvers or when speed was critical to a mission’s success.
For a brief moment, Clarke could only hear silence on the channel. Then, Captain Navathe said:
“I’m an idiot. What an obvious point to make. I should have realized it the second those readouts came in.”
“Don’t beat yourself up, sir,” said Clarke, “it’s only obvious in hindsight. It’s harder to reason under threat of combat.”
“It didn’t seem to stop you,” Navathe said.
That’s the reason it was important to remain calm while taking decisions that put lives at risk, Clarke thought. People like Pascari, who went along with their first impressions, usually brought disaster to the unlucky men and women under their command.
“So, it’s just merchants, then?” Antonov muttered. “Maybe we should consider helping them, after all. We’re supposed to be the good guys here.”
“Wait one second, sir,” Clarke said again, “that’s not what I’m saying. That’s a freighter alright, but those are not merchants.”
Clarke wasn’t comfortable holding the upper hand to people above himself in the chain of command. In the Defense Fleet, information usually trickled down, not up, unless you worked in NavInt. He waited a couple seconds to let them figure it out for themselves.
But they said nothing, and the clock was ticking. Clarke spoke, trying to keep his voice neutral, the tone those same NavInt officers used to explain things to their superiors:
“Sirs, the radiation leakage isn’t just coming from the engines. As—” he was going to say “as you know” but that may have come off wrong—pretentious. He paused, then said, “Weapons systems leak heat too, and some types of weapon leak radiation. From the images, I’d say the freighter is equipped with six mounted turrets. Not unusual…but look at this hull’s section over here. That bright red spot means radiation.”
“Shit,” said Antonov, “a cannon tube?”
“Not big enough,” said Clarke, not bothering to hide the relief in his voice. “From the size, I’d bet a month’s wages it’s a rail Gatling gun. Depleted uranium shells, with a punch capable of puncturing Beowulf’s hull, port to starboard.”
“A railgun, then?” asked Captain Navathe. “That’s military equipment. Gotta be pirates with black market weapons.”
“My thoughts exactly, sir,” said Clarke.
“Reiner have mercy, we’re still fucked then,” said Antonov. Clarke’s gaze flashed at the channels, to make sure no one but the three of them had heard that statement. “Railguns out-range our turrets by far.”
It was a fair assessment. Railguns were restricted to navy use for a reason. They were the most powerful short-range kinetic weaponry available to the Edge. But, unlike torpedoes or a cannon’s lance barrage, bullets were pretty inaccurate when aimed at a moving target going at a fraction of the speed of light, .05c, to be exact.
“Sir, if we maintain our current vector and burn hard g’s to New Angeles, we could stay out of the railgun’s effective killing range. They won’t chase us into the planet’s space, the patrols would mop the floor with them in an instant.”
It would involve having the Beowulf do a 180 degrees turn and accelerating towards the planet instead of decelerating. The ship would either pass the planet or burn a lot more fuel than they had budgeted. If they weren’t careful, they could run out of reserves altogether.
Both options were better than getting raided.
Navathe dropped from the channel for a couple minutes. Clarke could see her sitting on her g-seat, speaking furiously at someone. Not far from her, Pascari glared at Clarke. No doubt, the man would’ve tried to fight him if they weren’t strapped to the g-seats. Navathe returned to the channel.
“Navigation says the freighter has an interception course with us on the current vector,” she said, her voice calm and collected but with an edge to it that was as expressive as if she’d started yelling curses. “They must’ve changed course while we spoke, burning a lot of fuel and abusing the couple light-minutes delay between our visuals. According to Navigation’s numbers, they’ll have us in their sight in five minutes if both our current courses are maintained.”
“They said their engines weren’t working!” said Antonov. “Have you threatened a violent response, yet?”
“Yes, sir, we threatened retaliation as soon as we found out. They called our bluff.”
At least we’re free to open fire now, thought Clarke. Not that it’d do much good.
Unless…
“Any other ideas, Clarke?” asked Antonov.
“Sir, we pull a Pascari,” said Clarke, letting a wolfish smile draw on his lips. “We keep our plan, but we open fire right now.”
“Clarke, have you lost your mind?” Antonov said. “You just told us the railgun out-ranges our turrets, and we’re still too far away from them to shoot us! We’ll never hit them, at all!”
“We don’t need to score a hit, sir,” said Clarke, “we just need to make them dodge.”
Antonov cursed in frustration. Clarke cursed himself for being so vague, but he’d forgotten that Antonov was a planet-side leader, not a sailor. Navathe, who had experience with space mechanics, caught his meaning and said:
“If they go into evasive maneuvers, that’ll change their current vector enough that they’ll lose their window…but why should they? At this range, hitting them will be like trying to hit a fly across a room by throwing a grain of sand at it. The only thing they have to do is not react.”
“If,” Clarke said, “they stop to think, they’ll see they’re safe from us. But it’s hard to keep a level head while people are shooting at you, and that’s a pirate pilot we’re dealing with, sir. They’re not famous for remaining calm under pressure.”
A tiny change of vector was all they needed to rob the pirates of their kill-zone. If the pilot pointed the freighter’s nose away while accelerating, just for a couple seconds, it would be enough. That kind of reflex, in the Defense Fleet, was drilled away from the pilot’s heads until they wouldn’t fart without direct permission from the ship’s commander. Clarke hoped their pilot friends lacked a navy background.