Delgado lunged forward, but Banfeld was ready for him. He fired the laser pistol, aiming for the big mercenary’s knee. Delgado screamed once and collapsed.
“That was just a sample. You’ll find things will get much worse as time goes on, Antonio. Much, much worse.”
CHAPTER 15
“Never permit your enemy to learn your advantages, unless doing so can cause him to become fearful so that he stumbles during the chase.”
Bridge, Guild Scoutship Highwayman
Near Baka Kar, Baka Kar System
1034 hours (CST), 2671.017
“Cloak is holding. All systems nominal.”
Zachary Banfeld nodded at the helmsman’s report, his eyes on the tactical plot beside his command chair. The voyage to Baka Kar had gone smoothly, but Banfeld was still nagged by worries. How much had Delgado betrayed of the Guild’s secrets? What was going on back in the Landreich while he made this foray into Kilrathi space? How would Ragark receive his information? Everything now balanced on a knife-edge, and he knew one wrong move could spell disaster.
The trouble was, so many of those possible wrong moves weren’t even his to make. That was what galled him most, not being in control. That had hardly ever happened to Banfeld before, and he didn’t care for the feeling at all.
The scout had managed the three jumps from Hellhole to Baka Kar in less than two standard days, a tribute to the high acceleration Highwayman could generate at need. With the stealth generators on, they had slipped past the Kilrathi picket boat at Vordran, where a whole locus of jump points located close together made the system a vital strategic link along the frontier of the Hralgkrak province. Now they were less than two light-minutes out from the provincial capital, still cloaked.
Banfeld was still not sure how to initiate contact with the Kilrathi. He had never sent one of his smugglers to the provincial capital before, never faced the problem of dealing with so much naval traffic. If they were in a trigger-happy mood the Guild ship could be fried by patrolling elements of Ragark’s fleet before he could get a message through, once the cloak went down. But he had none of the usual facilities for making contact with his links to the Economic Minister. The usual procedure required initiating contact at a remote outpost, but there wasn’t time for that.
He would have to hope the Kilrathi would give him time to talk rather than take Highwayman for a spy or the forerunner of an attack. All he had to do was get in touch with Ghraffid nar Dhores, and the Baron would do the rest.
“Drop the cloak,” he ordered. “Jonas, broadcast the hail. Broad channel…we want everyone to know we’ve got business with the Minister.”
“Broad channel,” Jonas Hart, manning the communications station, confirmed.
He continued to study the tactical monitor. The traffic in the system was making him edgy, and he was sure there was something important he just wasn’t seeing out there…
Certainly there were plenty of Kilrathi ships orbiting the planet. On the way in from the jump point Banfeld had counted four escort carriers and their battle groups, an imposing fleet indeed to be assembled at one point. Assuming Ragark had garrisons posted at other worlds of the province, his fleet was going to be a powerful threat to the Landreich even if the carrier at Vaku was made operational. Perhaps he had worried unnecessarily about the threat to the balance of power, led astray by the paranoia of Williams and Mancini.
On the other hand, that salvaged carrier had turned out to pack quite a punch, and with the support of the rest of Kruger’s fleet it could still turn the tide against a Kilrathi task force made up of escort carriers. Banfeld would stick to his original plan.
But there was still something that wasn’t quite right about the readings they were getting. He continued to look at the monitor, especially at the symbols that described the main orbital docking complex over Baka Kar.
He stared at the readout for a long time before it hit him. The mass was wrong, completely different from everything in their records on the faculties at Baka Kar. The docking complex was supposed to be large, but these figures were almost twice what they should have been. Banfeld ordered the computer to zoom in on the orbital dock so that he could study it more closely.
It took a long time for the computer imaging system to interpret the sensor data well enough to comply with his request, and that wasn’t right either. Something anomalous was out there, something that was distorting Highwayman’s probes…
Banfeld let out an audible gasp as the computer imager finally displayed a picture based on the collected data. Something massive really was over there, docked with the orbital facility. Something that dwarfed the spidery framework of the station. It was the biggest ship Banfeld had ever seen-if it was a ship, and that’s what the computer was insisting. It measured nearly twenty-two kilometers in length, bristling with hardpoints and radiating an awesome amount of energy even when it lay quiescent alongside the dock.
The Guild leader had only heard rumors about such ships, but now he was sure he was seeing the reality behind those rumors. A Kilrathi dreadnought, one of the vast and powerful warships Prince Thrakhath had ordered for the final solution to the war with Mankind.
And it was here, with Ragark’s fleet.
Cold fear washed over Zachary Banfeld. He had wanted to help Ragark even the odds so that the war on the frontier might be prolonged and the Guild profit from the war. But a Kilrathi dreadnought made all the defenses of the Landreichers useless. Even their new supercarrier would be no match for such a powerful ship of war, whether they fully restored it to fighting trim or not.
When the Kilrathi smashed their way across the border, the question of Guild profits would no longer be a factor in his plans. The question would be one of Guild survival.
“Abort the mission,” he ordered sharply. “Get us back to the jump point. Best speed. And get the goddamned cloak back up!”
Reception Area, Orbital Station Asharazhal
Orbiting Baka Kar, Baka Kar System
1040 hours (CST)
Ukar dai Ragark stood by the broad transplast window and studied the impressive bulk of the Vorghath, or rather the comparatively tiny part of him visible from this part of the orbital dock. Ragark had never seen one of Thrakhath’s dreadnoughts, and merely reading over the specifications had hardly prepared him for the reality of seeing the huge ship in person.
One such dreadnought could carve out a new Empire. The apes would never stand against his firepower.
He turned to look at the crowd of ministers and officers waiting a respectful distance behind him. “Look at him, my friends,” he said expansively, gesturing to encompass the great ship that lay outside. “Look at him! Vorghath the Hunter, come to lead us to victory. With this ship, we shall crush all opposition, and have our revenge on the apes for the Homeworld.”
As if in response to his declaration the boarding tube door adjacent to the window cycled open, and Dawx Jhorrad stepped through with an eight of his senior staff behind him. Jhorrad was a short, thickset kil, half his face hidden by an extensive prosthetic plate that contained bionics to replace an eye and an ear lost in the first Terran raid against Kilrah years ago. No one could have mistaken him for an aristocrat even if he’d bom the honorific between given name and surname that marked a noble’s rank. But despite being a commoner Jhorrad was a brilliant tactician, and his underlings, even those who were titled, would follow him to the Underworld and back at his slightest command.