“Thanks, Lieutenant—but we’ll need everything we’ve got,” Coriander said. “The bastards keep chipping away at us. Every one we blow up, takes a little bit of us with it.”
“We’re at maximum velocity,” Grounder reported. “Estimate two minutes till we’re in range.”
“You think they’d look up the specs on a Venture-class Corvette,” Coriander sighed.
“They did, Chief, but you weren’t on the chart,” Billy called over.
That, Harcourt reflected, was nothing but the unvarnished truth. A corvette was a very uneasy compromise; it sacrificed the agility of a fighter-bomber for not as much firepower as a destroyer. But if you couldn’t afford to put a destroyer out on guard duty, a corvette was better then nothing. And, he reflected, if you’re losing the war and running short of ships and men, you have to keep that corvette on station for two years in a row, without leave or refitting.
Better than nothing? Maybe—but not much. At least, not enough to give its crew any feeling of security.
Under circumstances like that, you either went crazy and tore each other apart, or you became extremely close. The crew of the Johnny Greene hadn’t torn each other apart—yet.
It never occurred to Harcourt that he might have had something to do with that.
“Viking is turning,” Billy reported.
Harcourt nodded, gazing at the illuminated grid of the battle display in front of him in frustration. light, it had—lines, it had. Blips, it had none. The hit they had taken eighteen months before had knocked out the relay circuit from the battle computer. Billy could see where the foe was, but nobody else could. They just had to trust him.
They did.
Still, the battle display did lighten the gloom of the bridge nicely.
Harcourt felt the tension building. “Now we’ll see if this Viking can think of anything new and different.”
“How many things can you do in a space dogfight?” Grounder countered.
“Come now, Lieutenant!” Harcourt reproved. “You show a singular lack of imagination. Now, if I were him, I would…”
“He’s diving!” Billy cried.
Suddenly, Harcourt ached to be able to see, but the display in front of him stayed stubbornly featureless. He glared at the direct-vision port, but it showed only careless stars.
One of them was moving—but they were still too far away for the Kilrathi to show as a silhouette.
“He knows we don’t have any armament underneath,” Harcourt said. “He’s going to try to come up under us and shoot off our belly armor.”
“Well, at least it’s something new,” Grounder said—but there was a tremor of trepidation in her voice.
Harcourt hit “all stations” on the intercom. “Everybody stand by! We’re going to flip!”
“I already did,” the senior gunner answered.
“Yes, Flip, and we’ve all decided to join you. Now, hold tight—you’re going to be hanging upside down relative to where you are now.”
“So?” Jolie’s voice replied succinctly. “We’ll just think of it as, we’re upside down now, and we’re going to be right side up!”
With artificial gravity holding them down to their seats, it didn’t really matter—but they all knew the unpleasant sensation that a roll could produce, gravity or no gravity, because Coriolis force is Coriolis force and fluid is fluid, especially if it’s in the inner ear, telling you that you’re rolling, no matter what the seat of your pants says.
Harcourt watched Grounder’s two gyros in their universal mounts as the blue poles swung around and down to point at the console itself. Blue was up, red was down—and right now, down was up, so Harcourt knew they were upside down. At least, they were inverted in relation to how they had been a couple of minutes ago.
“Viking above us,” Billy sang out.
“What’s the range?”
“Five hundred kilometers,” he answered, “closing at a klick a second.”
“Taking his time, isn’t he?”
“Hey, he wasn’t expecting to see our top.”
“Close enough,” Harcourt decided. “Fire!”
The ship bucked as the two cannon fired, a quarter-second out of phase—one of the other little things that had gone wrong, and really should have taken them into repair dock.
Flip yodelled with glee, and, “He’s hit,” Harry decided.
“We got his tail,” Billy reported, gaze glued to his screen.
“I never see any action,” Jolie grumbled over the intercom.
“You will now,” Billy told her. “He’s rolling over and coming up behind. He still wants to get at our underside.”
“I know how he feels,” she griped.
“See if you can’t fry him a little on the way,” Harcourt suggested.
The skin of the ship delivered a muffled ’whumpf’ to them—the sound of the mass driver discharge, conducted through the hull. Then Jolie’s voice on the intercom, disgusted: “Damn! Missed!”
“No, you didn’t,” Billy countered “You winged him on an attitude control tube… Wait! Missiles! He’s firing!”
“Return fire!” Harcourt snapped.
“But he’s not in range! We’ve only got two missiles left!”
“If we’re not in range, he’s not! Number One! Evasive action!”
“Aye, aye!” Grounder grinned, and the gyroscopes whined as they began to weave up, down, and cross-ways in some very interesting combinations.
It didn’t work.
“His missile’s locked on,” Billy reported, “and we’re flying into it!”
Grounder said, “We should come up behind it before it gets to us.”
“Not even at top acceleration!” Coriander called out. “I keep telling you! Missiles are faster than ships!”
“Even with two extra engines?”
“Even with ten extra engines! Pull out of it, Grounder! Give Jolie her chance!”
Grounder looked up pleadingly at the captain, but Harcourt shook his head. “No time to experiment, Lieutenant.”
“Oh, all right!” Grounder huffed, and the gyro slowly rotated.
“Closing!” Billy yelped. “Three hundred kilometers! Two fifty! Two hundred!”
“Fire, Jolie,” Harcourt advised.
The hull delivered the ’whumpf’ again.
The sudden glow from the screen illuminated Billy’s face. “Got him!” he whooped. “Nice shooting, Jolie! Now he doesn’t have any tail!”
“Still bored?” Harcourt asked.
“No, not for the moment,” she admitted.
“He’s got to pull out now,” Coriander said. “Got to steer with his nose thrusters, and run.”
“No, he doesn’t,” Harcourt said. “He’s Kilrathi.”
“Still coming.” Billy’s voice was low and tense. “Wobbled a bit, but he’s still coming.”
“He’s crazy! Jolie could shoot him into shrapnel!”
“Then he’ll die trying,” Harcourt said grimly, “or we will. Now give him our missile.”
“Now?” Billy squawked. “He’s flying straight toward us, Captain!”
“Then it will hit all the harder.”
“Our last two!” Coriander wailed.
“That’s what they’re for, Chief. Launch Missile One.”
Grounder hit a pressure patch. “One away.”
“So is his,” Billy called.
“Evasive action!” Harcourt snapped.
Grounder’s gyros whined and described crazy loops with their poles as she swooped upward, then swung from side to side as the ship corkscrewed back toward the raider. The Kilrathi missile, not yet locked on, went blithely on its way…
Straight toward the Greene’s missile.
“They’re going to lock on each other!” Coriander wailed.