Harcourt turned back toward the display. “Has to be something going on in their furry little minds that we don’t know about… Well, I guess we leave that to the folks in Psych.”
“Right,” Ramona said. “Our job is to bring in pictures of that world, every square foot. How can we do it, Captain?”
“Oh, we can get in there and take pictures, all right,” Harcourt said breezily. “Four fly-bys, and you’ll have the whole planet scanned—or do you need more?”
“Four is enough,” Ramona agreed. “One polar orbit will do in a pinch, if I’m high enough up—the computers back at HQ can compensate for distortion and magnify the details, as long as I have million-pixel resolution on the crystal, which I do. They can plot a polar projection there, or magnify any square foot they want.”
Harcourt nodded. “That’s good, because we can get in there for an orbit, but the chances of our completing more than one without being shot down are minuscule. One, though, we might complete.” He looked at her again. “What we can’t do is get those pictures back to the jump point.”
Her eyes sparked anger. She locked glares with him. “Can’t, Captain?”
Harcourt shook his head with full conviction. “We can try, Commander. We can try like fury. But the Cat admiral who is commanding this little fleet only needs to be halfway intelligent to blow us up before we clear the orbit of Vukar Tag’s moon—and even if we make it that far alive, he’ll definitely cut us off before we get to the jump point.”
Slowly and conscious of every ounce of dignity, Ramona turned back to the battle display, feeling a cold weight sinking within her. He was right, she knew; even a dunce would be able to keep them from escaping.
Of course, the odds that the cruiser wouldn’t tear them to pieces with its fighters, before they even completed one orbit, were minuscule, too, no matter what Harcourt said. Personally, she wouldn’t even want to bet on their getting close enough for that orbit, without being shot to shreds.
But she heard herself saying, “I can’t take any pictures from this far away. How long before they discover us, Captain?”
Harcourt shrugged. “Could be two seconds from now, could be an hour. It all depends on when they have a planned sentry-scan of the jump point. But we’re not waiting.”
“Oh?” Ramona didn’t want to sound ignorant, but she had to know. “How are you going to stop them?”
“Barney?” the Captain asked.
Barney pointed at a faint, fuzzy line between Vukar Tag and the gas giant. “Asteroid belt. We can hide in there for a while, sir.”
It was an old trick, Ramona knew, but it was almost always effective. With all systems shut down except life support, there was no external radiation to give them away, so any scanner would perceive them as just another piece of floating space junk. She nodded reluctantly, to hide a feeling of massive relief. “Do it.”
“Cut all active sensors,” Harcourt ordered.
“Actives dead.” Billy leaned back, folding his arms and watching his screens. Only the passive sensors, the ones that received incoming radiation but didn’t send any out, were still operating. Since the enemy ships were all putting out radiation with their own sensors—radar and its descendants—they still showed on his screen.
The asteroids didn’t generate radiation, so they no longer showed—but their force field would protect them from even the largest piece of space junk they were apt to bump into. The force field was a closed system, so no radiation would leak from it to show their location.
“Let me know if anything starts moving toward us.” Harcourt didn’t have to say that he meant anything with a mind inside it. He turned around to Ramona. “Now. Any ideas on how we get close to the planet?”
Ramona started to say that was his responsibility, then bit the words off. If she was supposed to be in charge of the mission, it was exactly this sort of thing that she was supposed to be able to cover. She frowned, thinking.
Harcourt’s tone softened. “Why don’t you sit down, Commander? This might take a while.” He looked up at Ensign Barnes. “Barney, do you suppose you could rustle up a couple of cups of coffee?”
“Sure thing, Captain.” Barney headed out the hatch.
Harcourt turned back to Ramona. “Let’s start by figuring how we would do it if there were no enemy in the way. Do that first, then we can make a few modifications to allow for Kilrathi stumbling blocks.”
Ramona almost laughed at the idea of his “few modifications.”
“Left to our own devices, we’d make a slingshot around the planet—except when we got done with the horseshoe, we’d bend it a little farther and make it a complete circuit.”
“You sure that’s all you need, Commander?”
Ramona shrugged. “It wouldn’t be, if there weren’t any enemy—but there are, so let’s leave it at one orbit. If we complete three hundred and sixty degrees, though, doesn’t that send us off at the wrong angle for escape?”
“No, because we’d modify the angle of approach so that the angle of exit would sling us right toward the jump point.” Harcourt’s brows drew down in concentration. “Of course, if there are enemy there, we’d want to end the pass going in the wrong direction, to mislead them. Then…” He turned and studied the battle display for a few minutes. “We’d exit going toward the gas giant, and use it as a slingshot to alter our trajectory back toward the jump point. Tractor beam the planet.”
In peacetime of course it would be highly illegal to use even a small asteroid that way, like a drunk grabbing a light pole and swinging around; the asteroid would take an entirely new—and potentially fatal—orbit, maybe even smashing into a planet. But this was war.
“We could keep that,” Ramona said slowly, “if it weren’t for that wing of fighters stationed on its moon.”
“Right.” Harcourt nodded. “I think I just found out why they chose to station them there. I’ve been wondering why, when they had a perfectly good moon right by Vukar Tag itself. Of course, they’ve got another wing there.” He turned to Billy. “Any other planets?” But before Billy could answer, “No. It doesn’t matter. Any rock sizable enough to hide us while we shift direction, they’ll have an outpost stationed.” He turned back to Ramona. “We’ll have to expend fuel and realign our course once we’re back in the asteroid belt.”
“So we’ll be coming back here?” she said slowly. “That makes sense. Now how do we manage that, if they get a few fighters in our way?”
“Shoot them down.” But Harcourt’s face showed that he wasn’t quite as confident as he tried to sound.
Ramona nodded. “Okay, we’ve made a plan and allowed for a few enemy craft. Now, how about worst case? Let’s say the cruisers scramble all their fighters, gun for us themselves, and call in the troops from the moon and the gas giant.”
“Oh, we’re not that important. Of course, whatever’s on Vukar Tag, probably is.” Harcourt turned to the bridge at large. “Anybody have any ideas?” He pressed “all stations.”
“Gunners and engineer to the bridge. Brainstorm needed. All and any ideas welcome, no matter how asinine, no matter how badly it won’t work. Maybe it will give us a plan that will.”
Ramona stared, unnerved. She had never heard of a captain depending on his crew this way. He was supposed to be alone and aloof, the source of all the ingenious plans, all by himself.
But she had learned the hard way about the closeness of this particular crew. She bit back a scathing comment.
“Capture an enemy ship,” Barney said slowly.
“Oh, fine, if we’re still alive when we’re done!” Grounder said.