Babcock was starting to think she ought to volunteer for one of the squadrons designated for the Kilrathi birds. At least then she’d get a crack at extensive combat simulations, instead of nothing but routine patrol work.
“Come on, skipper, we’re coming up on the rough spot!” The voice of her wingman, Lieutenant Eric “Viking” Jensson, brought her back to reality. “One minute.”
“Copy,” she said. “Stick close to my three, Viking.”
“Close enough to reach out and touch you,” he replied, drawing his fighter in tight beside hers.
“You do and you’ll be up on charges,” she said sweetly. “Again.” Viking was a big, blonde, handsome Dane who’d grown up on Terra but drifted out to the frontier after being turned down by the ConFleet Academy as unsuitable officer material. He’d done better on Landreich, but three times in a relatively short career he’d landed in hot water by making unwelcome advances to female officers. If he hadn’t been a naturally brilliant fighter jockey he would probably have been cashiered long since. Still, despite his reputation, Babcock was glad to have him in the squadron…as long as he knew where to draw the line in his personal pursuits.
They were coming up fast on the arbitrary “edge” of the gas giant’s rings. They were impressive by any standards, out-showing even Saturn in the Terra system, but though they extended for thousands of kilometers outward from the superjovian world, they were less than a hundred kilometers thick. Made up of ice ranging in size from dust up to chunks like small boulders, the density of the ring field was fairly low, so that ships could pass through without much danger of major collisions. Unshielded, Karga had passed through the rings hundreds of times since being damaged, and had collected only a few extra scars as a result.
Still, a ring system wasn’t exactly a pleasant place to fly. Particles of debris clouded sensor scans and confused computer imaging systems, and an unlucky encounter with a substantial ice boulder could ruin your whole day. It was particularly bad here and now. Normally a carrier had enough sensor arrays and sufficient computing power to compensate for the inhibiting effects of the rings, but Karga’s systems still stubbornly refused to resolve the data gathered into anything useful. That meant she and Viking had to be doubly careful making the transit. And they also had to be the eyes for the carrier. If they picked up anything large enough to be a threat, they’d have to deal with it. Karga still couldn’t maneuver away from danger under her own power, and her point-defense batteries couldn’t fire as long as the sensors weren’t able to distinguish individual targets.
“Here we go!” Viking called. “Hornet one-oh-six, feet cold!” That was pilot’s slang for approaching any airless chunk of rock or ice, up to and including small planets.
They passed the boundary set arbitrarily by the navicomps. At first there was no noticeable change, but then the particle density began to rise until Babcock felt like she was flying in atmosphere. Although the rings were not very thick, the supercarrier’s orbit was at a very low angle from the plane of the rings, and it took nearly half a minute on that vector to pass through them. As abruptly as they’d entered the orbiting ice cloud, they were through.
And, all at once, the threat tone sounded loud in Babcock’s ears.
Bridge, Guild Privateer Bonadventure
Orbiting Vaku VII, Vaku System
1458 hours (CST)
“Targets! Targets! Two targets, bearing zero-zero-two by zero-one zero! Range ten thousand, closing.”
Zachary Banfeld rose from the captain’s chair and crossed to the tactical control officer’s position. “What are they?” he demanded sharply.
“Mass is just under fourteen tons each,” the TACCO reported. “Length ’prox twenty-five meters…warbook calls them Hornet fighters.”
“Hornets.” Banfeld didn’t bother to hide the contempt in his voice. Obsolete light fighters from ConFleet’s old stock didn’t pose much of a threat to his squadron.
“Thev will be posted as patrol craft,” Gedi Tanaka commented. He was nominally the captain of the privateer, a one-time Confederation Fleet officer who had been discharged for failing to prevent a Kilrathi raider from knocking out three ships in the convoy he’d been assigned to escort. Despite that blot on his record he was a fine tactician and a capable leader, and he had flourished since coming out to the Landreich and joining the Guild. “There will be heavier fighters ready to respond to an attack.”
“But not enough to stop our attack,” Banfeld replied. “Not if we can get the first blow in by surprise.”
He checked the tactical plot. Bonadventure had settled into orbit well ahead of the Karga, keeping the rings between the two ships. Springweather’s information had made mention of a sensor glitch, and that was just the thing he needed to achieve complete surprise.
His orders from Williams were to destroy the supercarrier, but Banfeld had no intention of doing so if he could possibly knock it out without severely damaging it. Those Landreichers had worked hard restoring the ship to something like working order, and he fully intended to take advantage of their hard work. But to take out the ship’s shields without causing collateral damage he’d needed an edge, and the obscuring rings had given him just what he wanted.
Bonadventure was the perfect ship for the mission, and she was ready to strike. Originally a bulk ore carrier, she’d been taken over by the Landreich government ten years back and refitted as a sort of makeshift escort carrier, with a single flight deck and a capacity of no more than twenty carried fighters. Before she was finished the Landreich Navy had pronounced her hopelessly outclassed for combat service against the Empire, and the project had been abandoned. But the orbital shipyard where she’d been building had belonged to a member of the Guild, and Banfeld had paid to have her completed and crewed as the largest of his fleet of privateers. Though she might not be able to face a stand-up fight with a Cat battle group, she was an excellent convoy escort…and an equally effective raider.
Against an enemy with no drives and dependent on a tender’s thin-stretched shields, Bonadventure’s fighter contingent would be more than adequate. Striking with surprise, they’d have the tender’s shielding battered down before the carrier could scramble its available fighters, and that would be the end of the fight. Banfeld could sit back and wait for the supercarrier to fall into his hands, intact and ready to have her refitting completed by the Guild.
Of course, Mancini and Williams didn’t have to know if the supercarrier was captured. Let them think he’d been forced to destroy it. They were pleased to call him one of the best agents of Y-12, but in fact Zachary Banfeld remained his own man. It was convenient-and lucrative-to work with the confees from time to time, but in the end what mattered to Banfeld was preserving the balance of power out here on the frontier. He’d take down the Landreichers before they could put a ship into service that would force Ragark to back down…but later it might be the Cats or the confees who needed to be cut off before they became a threat, and with the Karga he’d be nicely placed to do whatever was needed to keep the fires of war stoked high.
Banfeld smiled. He enjoyed the dangerous game he played, balancing opposing sides and growing wealthy from the profits. He imagined Ragark would offer a tidy sum for information about Murragh, the kil Springweather had claimed was the heir to the Imperial Crown. He’d kept that bit of information from Williams and Mancini, figuring that Ragark would pay more than they would. How much would it be worth to the warlord to have this rival eliminated? With luck, Banfeld would have a chance to find out. But, as he’d told Springweather, he wouldn’t be telling the Cats about Karga. That was too valuable a secret to let Ragark discover. For now, at least.