Kruger snorted. “Wonderful.” He stood up slowly. “All right, Captain Tolwyn, we’ll try this your way. Maybe we’ll bail Vance and them out of a mess…or maybe we’ll just go down fighting. Either way, at least Max Kruger will go out with a bang, instead of a whimper, and be damned to the politicians who think they can put me out to pasture!”
Flag Bridge, KIS Dubav
Near Tump Point Sixteen, Vordran System
0918 hours (CST)
“No sign of the picket vessel, my Lord. Or anything else. Not even a debris field.”
Ragark resisted the urge to snarl a reply to the image of the ship’s captain on his monitor screen, forcing his voice to remain flat and calm. “Very well, shape course for the jump point to Baka Kar. Maximum acceleration.”
“My Lord!” That was the Flag Sensor officer. “Picking up an emissions signature that corresponds to the Karga. Near the edge of the asteroid belt…”
“You heard that, Val?” Ragark demanded.
Akhjer nar Val gave him a grasping gesture of understanding and assent. “We have it here,” he said.
“Then order the fleet to pursue, by the Gods!”
Ragark cut the intercom link, raging inwardly at the seeming inability of his subordinates to do anything competently. When they had first jumped into the Vordran system they had picked up a sensor image from something that should have been the picket boat, but after a burst of encrypted comm traffic the ship had vanished, apparently into the jump point to Hellhole.
Now they were registering the carrier…where nothing had been before. Lurking near the edge of the asteroid belt, with transponders shut down, they might have escaped detection. But what kind of game was this dai Nokhtak playing?
Zartoth 905, VAQ-662 “Shrill Cats”
Asteroid Belt, Vordran System
0920 hours (CST)
Lieutenant Mbenge smiled inside his flight helmet. By now Ragark’s crew should have picked up the signal he was sending, and he wished he could have been there to see the reaction when all those Cats discovered what looked like a carrier appearing from out of nowhere.
They’d be even more surprised when his wingmate, Lieutenant Cynthia Hill, started up her part of the day’s fun and games. Bondarevsky had detached the two Zartoth EW planes, plus a Kofar resupply bird to support them in the absence of the carrier, specifically for a situation like this one. Each of the Zartoths could put out signals that mimicked a ship’s transponder code and energy readings. The discrepancies of size and mass would be hard to spot as long as the planes remained near the fringe of the asteroid belt, and since they could turn their signals on and off at will they could do a fine job of keeping the Cats occupied, searching in vain for a ship that wasn’t there.
With luck, that could buy them some time at Baka Kar, and keep Ragark from setting up an ambush at one of the jump points. Then, hopefully, they’d be able to keep a low profile until the danger passed and someone sent ships from the Free Republic to retrieve them. From everything he’d heard, the carrier might not be coming back from Baka Kar.
He checked the countdown clock beside his sensor screen, and flicked off the switch that controlled his transmission. Let Ragark chew on that, for a while…
Combat Information Center, FRLS Mjollnir
Approaching Baka Kar, Baka Kar System
1118 hours (CST)
“Another cruiser, sir. Routine challenge and reply.”
Tolwyn nodded at Lieutenant Mario Vivaldi’s report. That was the fourth warship they had encountered since making the jump from Vordran, and so far each one had sailed blithely past with no more than a casual exchange of greetings over the commlink. Richards had been right. If they had tried to come in as attackers, they would never have penetrated this far. There were plenty of fighting ships in the system, though it was clear from long-range scans that the bulk of Ragark’s forces were elsewhere, presumably engaged with the Landreich fleet at Ilios-if Kruger’s intelligence information had been accurate.
But the deception was working beautifully. The transponder continued to send out the old ID signature which the Kilrathi picked up as friendly. And apparently the ruse with the picket boat had worked according to plan. There was no sign that anyone in space around Baka Kar was the least bit suspicious of Karga.
That would all change soon, though, he reminded himself grimly. As soon as the pretense was dropped and they attacked the dreadnought, every Cat in the system would come after them, and the odds were still formidable. With luck they could render the dreadnought useless…but it would still take a minor miracle to win clear afterwards.
Tolwyn pushed the dour thought from his mind. He had already crossed his Rubicon. Now he had to hope that all the elements of the strategy he, Richards, and Bondarevsky had mapped out together would come together as planned. And he had to make sure that Geoff Tolwyn, at least, played out his part.
The sensor technician spoke up. “Ships appearing on long-range scanners out of the jump point, sir. Two…now three. Lead ship IFF reads as Xenophon…”
“Right. Let the Cats get a good look, people.”
“Comm activity from the station is increasing,” Vivaldi reported.
“Vector changes on three cruisers…four…destroyers now changing vectors as well…” the sensor tech spoke fast to keep up with the changing conditions. “Hell, it looks like every capital ship in the system’s changing course for the jump point, skipper.”
“That’s what we’ve been waiting for,” Tolwyn said. He touched a stud on his intercom panel. “Flight, from CIC.”
“Bondarevsky here.” Tolwyn was surprised to see the Wing Commander in a full flight suit. The plan hadn’t called for Bondarevsky to be strapping on a fighter today. But it was his business to run the Flight Wing any way he saw fit. Tolwyn trusted him…and trust was a commodity Geoff Tolwyn rarely extended any more.
“Captain,” he said formally. “I make us forty-five minutes from target. The diversionary attack has commenced at the jump point. Get your people ready.” He paused. “And…good luck, Jason.”
Flight Wing Briefing Room, FRLS Mjollnir
Approaching Baka Kar, Baka Kar System
1140 hours (CST)
Bondarevsky shut off the intercom and turned back to the assembled squadron commanders. “It’s time,” he said quietly. “You have your orders…but you also have your wits. Use them out there today. Now assemble your squadrons!”
“Black Cats!” Etienne Montclair shouted, smiling like a wolf on the scent of prey. Some of the others took up the call as they rose and headed for the door.
A good team, Bondarevsky thought as he watched them go. Maybe not as good as Tarawa’s old outfit, but a damned good team. Would any of them make it out alive? The odds were against it.
He saw Sparks and Harper leaning against the far wall, talking, and started toward them, but he never made it there. Alexandra Travis appeared at the door, her usual easy grace replaced by a stiff, awkward gait as she favored her injured side. He moved to meet her.
“What the devil are you doing out of sick bay?” he demanded. “Doctor Manning told me you’d be out of it for at least a week.”
She nodded. Pale from her ordeal the day before, her wan complexion offset the dark helmet of her shortcut hair. “I…just wanted to come down and see you off,” she said, her voice strained. Pain, or emotion? He wasn’t sure. “Sorry I have to sit out this dance.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “I didn’t want to have to ride out the whole battle in the command plane anyway.” His original assignment for the attack had been to the Gratha Command and Control craft that would be coordinating the carrier’s Alpha Strike. But with one of his best Strakha pilots wounded, he had changed his mind. He’d fly one of the stealth fighters today, taking personal charge of the squadron in place of Travis.