He didn’t know what to say, what would be safe to say, but Ito came to his rescue. “I know what the snakes would do to me if I they caught me on an Alliance ship helping them,” she said.
“The last Alliance shuttle has finished off-loading,” Lieutenant Foster cried out in relief, then immediately looked embarrassed at his outburst. “He is breaking free now. Our detachments on the other freighters report all personnel have been brought on board, all hatches are being sealed, and all soldiers report ready for action.”
The Alliance shuttles dropped back quickly, pivoting around to head back to Ambaru for recovery and refueling. For a moment, as the shuttles accelerated in the opposite direction, there was an illusion of the freighters leaping ahead with a burst of speed, but the displays made it clear just what a fantasy that was. The velocity of the freighters was climbing, but with the same dogged slowness as before.
“Lieutenant Foster,” Rogero ordered, “get your armor on and rejoin your unit.”
As Foster rushed off of the freighter’s bridge, he had to veer around the other people blocking him in the crowded and confined area. Bradamont stared after Foster, then her hands flew over the maneuvering planning system again. “Colonel Rogero, there’s something else we can do. If the freighters use their thrusters to nudge them onto a different vector, the commando shuttles will change their intercept vectors to match. If we then thrust back in the opposite direction, it will force the commando shuttles to swing back.”
“They’ll lose ground?” Rogero asked. “And we won’t slow down if we change the direction we’re going?”
“No. Not for a change this minor. You’re in space. We’d just be altering direction enough to force the commando shuttles to change their vectors. That means they’ll have more ground to cover to reach us, which will take longer even though they won’t slow down either.”
“And if they’re close,” Garadun added, “it will mess up their final approaches. Five-degree course change?”
“Seven,” Ito suggested.
Bradamont nodded. “We can do seven, even in these freighters, since we’re not worried about how wide the turn would be. Up and to the left. That should maximize how much of a change the commando shuttles would have to make.”
“What about that Alliance destroyer?” Executive Barchi demanded. “What’s he going to do when we veer off our vector?”
“We’re not veering far enough to threaten anything in this star system,” Bradamont snapped at him. “Nor for long. And he’s going to be under orders from Admiral Timbale to protect us. We’ll be fine.”
“Do it,” Rogero ordered.
The orders went to the other freighters, and within seconds a slight pressure announced the thrusters on this freighter firing along with those on the other ships.
Was it working? The vectors of the freighters altered with agonizing slowness, but it was impossible for Rogero or anyone else to tell whether or not the commando shuttles were reacting as hoped. “Twenty minutes?” Ito asked, but directed the question to Bradamont rather than Rogero.
“That’s as good a guess as any,” Bradamont replied. “Were you a battle cruiser driver, too?”
“That’s right.” Ito turned a superior look on Rogero. “We’re the best.”
He just nodded in reply, only belatedly realizing that Ito had included Bradamont in that we. Shared danger could go a long way to breaking down barriers.
The freighter lurched slightly, causing Rogero to flex his hand as if it held the weapon still holstered by his side. That’s it. We didn’t make it. That lurch must have marked a stealth shuttle making contact with the hull of this freighter. How long until the commandos reach this place on the ship?
The others must have been asking themselves the same question, all except the freighter executive who was listening to something. “We got internal comms back,” Barchi announced with a cheerfulness that shocked the others.
“Wonderful,” Garadun muttered.
“Colonel,” the executive continued, “can you tell your people not to shift crowds all at once? These units aren’t made to deal with rapid changes in load locations.”
Rogero squinted at the executive, unable to understand the man’s apparent obliviousness. “What do you mean?”
“That lurch. Didn’t you feel it? My workers say your people rushed a whole bunch of the ones we picked up over two compartments. That’s a lot of mass to shift that fast.”
“The lurch…” Rogero grinned, looking at the smiles breaking out on the faces of the others. “That’s what it was?”
“Yes,” Executive Barchi said, giving him a puzzled look. “Is that funny?”
“No. Not funny. Just very good news.”
Bradamont, rigid with tension a moment before, had sagged against the maneuvering controls. “Five more minutes, then we’ll swing back.”
“Weaving?” The executive scratched his head. “We don’t usually burn thrusters for no reason. That’s money down the drain.”
“We have a reason,” Rogero assured him.
“Here comes that cruiser,” Ito announced.
The Alliance light cruiser Coupe slid past astern of the freighters like a sleek shark cruising behind a pod of clumsy whales. Rogero watched the cruiser tear past, wondering if it was as close as it seemed to be to him.
Apparently it was. Ito shook her head. “If that cruiser came between us and the commando shuttles, they are way too close.”
“Yes,” Bradamont agreed. “Let’s swing back now.”
The orders went out, and the motion of the freighters up and to the left gradually slowed, stopped, then was replaced by a glacial sway to the right and down.
Five minutes. Ten. Twenty. “How long until we’re clear?” Rogero asked.
“I don’t know,” Bradamont replied.
“The destroyer is coming back,” Ito warned.
All eyes went to that warship on the display as Bandolier came in barely astern of the freighters. But instead of sailing past, the Alliance destroyer was braking, her main propulsion units flaring to bring the destroyer to a stop relative to the freighters and not very far behind them at all.
“What is she… ?” Bradamont began.
Bandolier’s thrusters lit off. The warship was vastly more agile than the clumsy freighters, so her hull almost immediately began pivoting, still holding position just astern of the freighters. The bow came up and over and around, the entire ship pivoting in a circle as if it were a hand on a clock of ancient design.
“They’re being fairly obvious about fouling the shuttles’ approach, aren’t they?” Garadun commented. He looked to Rogero as if Garadun couldn’t decide whether to be admiring of the maneuver or amused by it but was too tense to do either. “They’re very close astern as such things are measured in space.”
“Meaning the commando shuttles are, too,” Bradamont agreed, herself radiating nothing but tension. “Whatever Bandolier does next will tell us whether or not that last obstruction trapped the shuttles into an impossibly long stern chase.”
The Alliance destroyer’s bow finished spinning through a full three hundred sixty degrees.
Rogero realized that he was holding his breath, watching the Alliance destroyer, waiting to see what its next move would be.
Instead of continuing around again, Bandolier rolled and pivoted to one side, coming out pointed in the same direction as the freighters.
Bradamont nodded wearily. “That did it. They’re just accompanying us now. I expect that Coupe will come back and join up with Bandolier.”