Alicia nodded in understanding, then gasped in relief as Megarea cut the drive's power levels far back. The dreadful vibration eased, yet there was a grim undertone to her relief as she felt the AI prepping her own weapons. If the SLAM drone had lasted just a little longer, Megarea might have broken back past Howell's ships to join Monkoto. She hadn't, and Monkoto or no Monkoto, she was still in the "pirates'" range, with no choice but to decelerate towards them or lose the shield of her Fasset drive. But if she decelerated too rapidly-or if they began to accelerate once more and overran her- the range would be less than two light-seconds when she penetrated their formation.
A jolt of sullen fire went through Alicia at the thought. She clenched her teeth as her madness lunged against its restraining net, hungry for destruction, and felt Tisiphone at her side as she fought it down. It subsided with an angry grumble, and sweat beaded her forehead. She'd won- this time-but what would happen once the shooting started?
"Alley! Check the gravitics at two-eight-oh!"
The dreadnought Procyon erupted from wormhole space with her entire brood, and the alpha synth was still there, decelerating into their teeth.
James Howell bared his own teeth. DeVries was a drop commando, not a Fleet officer, or she would've known better. If she'd simply cut her drive, he might not even have been able to find her; as it was, she was bidding to break back through his formation in another suicide attack.
That was the only explanation for her maneuver, but this time her ship was hurt and he knew what he was up against.
Orders crackled out, and his formation opened to receive its foe.
"Commodore!" It was Commander Rahman, his face taut. "We're picking up another grav source! It's still supralight, but decelerating quickly. Estimate breakout in … six-point-one
minutes at thirty-one light-minutes, bearing two-eight-six, one-one-seven. At least thirty sources."
Howell stiffened, and his stomach tightened as Rahman's data appeared on his plot.
Those other sources were decelerating, if far less madly than DeVries had, and their vector converged with his own. Not perfectly, by a long chalk, but close enough they could match it if he tried to accelerate back up to supralight. Jesus! Could DeVries have known they'd be here?!
It didn't seem possible. If an ambush had been intended the ambushers would have arrived ahead of time to lie doggo without revealing drive signatures. But what else could it be?
Numbers tumbled across the bottom of his display as Tracking calculated frantically, and he swore. Yes, they could go sublight on a converging vector or accelerate back supralight with him even if he went back to max acceleration, but they'd never be able to engage him as long as he continued to decelerate. They'd have to kill their own velocity, then go in pursuit, and his people were already killing speed. He'd have too much of a head start to be caught short of wormhole space on a reversed course … which was the coldest of comforts.
Jaw muscles lumped as he turned his hating gaze back to DeVries. They might not be able to engage, but they'd still get good scanner readings, and that meant his entire pursuit had been for nothing.
He glared at the alpha synth's dot. All for nothing. Everything they'd done, all the people they'd killed, and it was all for nothing! Once his ships were fingerprinted, Treadwell's dream of building a new empire on the "pirate threat" would be dead. It might take months for Intelligence to put it together, but the true nature of the "pirate" squadron would be a glaring arrow pointed in the right direction.
Yet there was one last thing he could do. DeVries wasn't racing to meet the newcomers. She was still decelerating towards him. The shoot on sight order still held; she dared not confront the Fleet any more than he did, and she was accepting the threat she knew in a desperate effort to evade the new one.
Which meant he could still kill her, and perhaps-
"SLAMs!" Rahman screamed. "SLAMs bearing oh-oh-three, one-two-seven!"
Howell's head whipped up in horror as malignant blue dots speckled his display. Where had they come from?! There was nothing out there! It was-
And then his sublight sensors finally picked up the ships ahead and "above" him, firing down past his drive masses as he decelerated towards them.
"Go, Simon!" Megarea shrieked, and Alicia's blood-lust spasmed against the web. A strand parted, and Tisiphone hurled herself at the weakness, blocking the thrust of madness. She didn't get it all. A tentacle of fire groped through Alicia's brain, and breath hissed between her teeth.
The SLAMs flashed in, and Howell's ships lunged into frantic evasive action. The short range meant the SLAMs were still building velocity when they arrived, and she snarled as Procyon evaded an even dozen, but two battle-cruisers were less fortunate, and she twitched in ecstasy as they died.
Eleven capital ships hung on James Howell's flank, their velocity within ten percent of his own, and he'd lost Trafalgar and Chickamauga. Verdun replaced Trafalgar in the tactical net, but only she survived to support Procyon. Had the dreadnought's AI remained, she alone might have matched all eleven of her opponents, but it didn't. She retained her brute firepower and defensive strength-not the fine-meshed control to make it fully effective.
Understanding filled him. There had been an ambush, but not of Fleet units. The energy signatures told it all. Somehow, DeVries had linked up with the mercenaries at Ringbolt. An alpha synth-and only an alpha synth- might have nailed Gregor and had the speed to reach Ringbolt before making for the rendezvous to bait the trap. There was only one way those slow-footed battleships could have brought him to action, and he'd swallowed the bait whole. But what about the ships even now breaking sublight? They couldn't have been part of the plan; he knew Monkoto's reputation, and the mercenary would have been in place long since with every unit he had.
Conjecture raced through his mind in split-second flashes of lightning. The other units couldn't be from Gomez's Fleet district-not unless Brinkman had been found out and the whole operation broken from the other end, and in that case there'd be a hell of a lot more than thirty drive sources! Could they be still more mercenaries? Some last minute ally of Monkoto's who'd arrived late?
It didn't matter. What mattered was that the only way to avoid fighting both enemy forces was to take Monkoto head on … and that was suicide.
But perhaps not for everyone. If any of his people could break through the mercenaries, they might turn true pirate, or perhaps take service with a Rogue World far enough from Franconia not to realize what they'd been. It wasn't much, but it was all he could offer them-that and a chance to kill some of the bastards who'd ambushed them.
"Come to poppa, you bastards," Simon Monkoto whispered. He'd hoped for still more SLAM salvos, but then he'd expected the renegades to accelerate back up to wormhole out. They hadn't, and now they were hidden behind the drives pointed straight at him. The battle to come had just turned even uglier, but his own ships matched the "pirates'" maneuver. Thanks to the battleships, their maximum deceleration was less than the enemy's, but it would be enough to insure a long and deadly embrace.
"Up their asses, Megarea!" Alicia snarled.
"Are you sure, Alley? I'm not in good enough offensive shape to add much to Simon's firepower."
Megarea's worried voice tore at the corona of violence building in Alicia's mind. She clenched her teeth, sweating, trying to make herself think, and a part of her screamed in warning. The web about her madness sang with stress, and it was crumbling. She felt Tisiphone between her and it, felt the Fury pouring herself into the fraying web. She writhed in her chair, fighting to keep her jaws locked on the order to engage. She could break off. She could curl away from Howell and leave him to Monkoto's unwounded ships, and she knew she had to. She and her companions were the only ones who knew the truth about Treadwell. They couldn't let themselves die yet. She knew it; yet she couldn't let go. She held her course, and the most she could do was strangle the order for Megarea to redline her deceleration.