''I've won, damn it, Longknife. I've won. You're supposed to run away. You've lost. Why aren't you running?''
''Because, Hank, this is not a pick-up basketball game; a chess match. Folks don't just resign and walk away. Take you and me. We're on a head-on course. In a few minutes, you'll come over our horizon and we'll be shooting to kill each other. That what you came here for?''
There was a pause at that. ''No, no you can't do this to me again. You got me to walk away from that jail. I bet you think you scared me. I know I would have won. I should have done it then. This time, I'll do it. I'm going to blow you out of space, Longknife. This time I know why you did it.''
''The alien stuff.'' Kris sighed.
''Right. You're not going to hog it. Not this time.''
''Hank, nobody can hog it. The people on Chance know about it. I know about it. You know about it. Fine. We share it out for everyone.''
Hank snorted. ''Right. You expect me to believe that?''
''Why not? If you walk through the logic, it holds together better than us killing each other and our families fighting.''
''No. You won't talk me in circles this time. You sound like Slovo. If I could, I'd put both of you in the same cell.''
Which explained why Kris hadn't heard anything from the flag captain. Only seconds remained before the cruisers came over the horizon and the battle started.
''Hank, this isn't a fight, it's a suicide pact. We're fighting with hand grenades in a broom closet.''
''You're wrong, Longknife. I won't let you mess with me. It's not a suicide pact I'm signing, it's your death warrant.''
The four cruisers edged over the horizon, their sensor returns still smudged by the atmosphere that lay between.
All four Peterwald cruisers fired everything they had: 6-inch lasers, 21-inch pulse lasers, 4-inch secondaries.
In unpowered orbit, Kris had the Patton nose on to Hank's ships and in a soft drift to the right. As Hank's cruisers came over the horizon, Sulwan slammed the Patton as hard to the left and as down as the attitudinal jets would take her, while firing off a cloud of decoy chaff in the direction they'd been drifting. The folks on Chance had no rockets, but they did plenty of hunting—now shotgun shells blew ice and iron pellets to distract Hank's gunners. A maelstrom of energy from Incredible and Fury passed down the Patton's right side, hitting nothing.
Not quite, a pair of 4-inchers raked the meter-thick ice on the Patton's nose.
Nelly, do you have a track on Hank's ship?
They are coming in on a straight course. Dumb.
Fire. Forward, the Patton's five working 6-inchers reached out for Hank's flag. Three connected, boiling swirls of angry steam off the ship. Why'd two miss?
They are not staying registered. Their trunnions are old. I will attempt to adjust, Nelly said.
''Five-inch battery, engage the second ship in line.'' And Kris's secondary lasers reached out to rake the Fury. Though the difference between 6- and 5-inch lasers seemed small, the main battery hit with over double the energy of the secondary. However, the secondary could fire two or three times while the 6-inch lasers recharged. At this close range, their reach was irrelevant.
''Wasp, Resolute, engage your opposite number plus one,'' Kris ordered. The Wasp now fired at the third ship, Dominant, while the Resolute tackled Georg Kratz's Surprise. Hopefully, the captain with only daughters would not handle the thin-skinned Resolute too badly.
Although the short range of the Wasp's and Resolute's pulse lasers didn't matter today, they were intended as single-shot weapons. It usually took four or five minutes to recharge after firing. Now Penny and Drago used a trick of Nelly's to fire only one-tenth or one-quarter power shots from their pulse lasers. They could worry the Greenfeld skippers longer if they held back, recharged as they went—and waited for them to get closer.
Assuming they dodged death and were alive at close range.
First salvos exchanged, now Kris waited for the lasers to recharge. In a running gun fight, 6-inch lasers usually took ten seconds to do that, 4- or 5-inch secondaries a third as long. But Kris's ships were not under power. No fusion plasma shot from the reactor to the motors and out into space, generating electricity in the superconducting coils of the ship's magnets.
This would not only be a battle in slow motion as the ships followed their orbits, but in slow time as the capacitors struggled to charge up again. Thanks to the expanded racetrack and its trickle charge, Kris had her 6-inchers back on-line in only twenty seconds. She fired. Four hit. More ice boiled off of Hank's ship as it stayed steady in its orbit and on course.
''Sulwan, keep her on a steady course,'' Kris said through tight lips. ''Get ready to execute evasions.'' Kris watched the seconds click by. Her guess was Hank would need a full half minute to recharge.
When asked how long Hank's ships would take to reload, Nelly had given the equivalent of a computer shrug. ''Too many variables, Kris. I will need to observe him for a while.''
Kris only had her gut to go on. At thirty seconds from Hank's first salvo, Kris said, ''Up and to the right.''
''Done,'' Sulwan said, firing decoys.
''Now left.'' Kris waited, listening for Nelly's next random move. If only she knew when Hank would be recharged. ''Up,'' Kris said a second later.
And the Patton was raked by two 6-inch hits down its right side. Had Hank fired as fast as he could, or waited and outguessed Kris? No way to tell.
The 4-inch lasers picked at the Patton, boiling off a bit of ice here, some more there. Her ship rumbled and shuddered beneath Kris as reaction mass was pumped quickly to rebalance the ship. Otherwise the spin might tear the ship apart, sending ice flying off into space and leaving her ready for Hank's coup de grace.
''Sulwan, jack up the attitudinal jets. Jink faster.''
''These dinky jets weren't meant for heavy lifting.'' But the woman did. The Patton dodged and weaved in its orbit. Every few seconds, Sulwan goosed the main engines, jumping them a bit in their orbit and vacating the space that had gotten too hot. In near-0g, this was not the mad, punishing dance at 2 and 3 gs that Kris had needed to survive at Wardhaven. Kris doubted the Patton could take that. No, they stayed in their orbit and dodged just enough to throw off Hank's gunners.
But the occasional blast of plasma through the five working motors shortened the time Kris needed to reload. She fired her five available lasers as they came up again. Four raked Hank's ship. Only now did it start its own dance. No question Slovo was in the brig. Unfortunately, Hank was learning from Kris how it was done.
Behind Hank, the other ships began the same. And the Resolute was taking one, no two, hits.
''Aft gunnery, if you can target the Surprise, get a few shots off at them to take the pressure off the Resolute.'' Only two of the stern lasers were up, but when Sulwan put the Patton into a left lean, both of then took a nip at the Surprise. One hit, boiling a long slash in her ice.
''Bet that surprised them,'' a gunner chortled on net.
Now Kris's battery was again loaded. She waited for Hank to go from a zig to a zag, let Nelly do the analysis, then sent five lasers his way. Again, she hit. Hank must be trying to do his own dodge pattern. Nelly had developed the one Sulwan and the other ships were using. It wasn't perfect, not at this range, but it was better than Hank making his own calls. ''He likes going up and to his right,'' Nelly noted.