Meharry appeared at the bridge entrance, bloodstained and breathless. “Captain—it wasn’t Sirkin after all. It was Skoterin. Sirkin’s been shot; she’s alive—”
“INTRUDER YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. UNDER THE JUSTICE OF THE BENIGNITY OF THE COMPASSIONATE—”
“Now, Arkady!” Heris said.
“—HAND YOU STAND CONDEMNED OF TRESPASS, REFUSAL TO HEAVE TO—”
“They never said ‘Heave to’; they said ‘don’t maneuver’,” Oblo said. “Weapons away, Captain. And it’s supposed to be ‘convicted,’ not ‘condemned.’ ”
“—AND OTHER SERIOUS CRIMES FOR WHICH CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IS THE CUSTOMARY SENTENCE. PROTESTS WILL BE REGISTERED WITH YOUR GOVERNMENT AND INDEMNITY DEMANDED FOR YOUR CRIMES. BY THE POWER VESTED IN ME AS AN OFFICER OF THE—”
“Targeting . . . incoming, live warheads, much faster than before.”
“BENIGNITY OF THE COMPASSIONATE HAND, SENTENCE IS HEREBY CARRIED OUT. JUSTINIAN IKLIND, COMMANDER—”
“I think those little warts were just testing us before—” Ginese sounded more insulted than worried.
“Get off my board, Oblo, and let me at them,” Meharry said.
“Spoilsport.” They switched places smoothly, and Oblo returned to his own console. His brows rose. “My, my. Look who’s come calling.”
“Unless it’s half a battle group, I don’t care,” Heris said, her eyes fixed on the main screen. The incoming missiles jinked, but relocked on the yacht; their own seemed to be going in the right direction but—no—she lost them in the static from the incomings, which had just blown up far short of their target.
“If they thought all we had was ECM to unlock targeting, they’re going to be annoyed,” Ginese said.
“That wasn’t a bad guess, Captain,” Oblo said. “Although it’s only one cruiser.”
“Our side?”
“By the beacon, yes. By behavior—we’ll have to see when their scans clear. It says it’s Livadhi again.”
Livadhi’s cruiser had arrived with far more residual velocity than the yacht, and more mass as well—it appeared on the scan with its icon already trailing a skewed angle. Livadhi, it seemed, meant to be in on the action.
The Compassionate Hand ships, on the other hand, made it clear what they thought of his interference. One engaged him at once, with a storm of missiles. The other changed course, angling across the yacht’s path to come between the yacht and Livadhi’s cruiser. The third—
Heris reached out for the tight beam transmitter they weren’t supposed to have. “Oblo, get me a lock on Livadhi’s ship.”
“Why? He’s got Koutsoudas on scan one—d’you think he’d miss anything?”
“No, but he’s being shot at. Give him a break, can’t you?”
“Right.” Oblo nodded when he had the lock.
Heris flipped the transmitter switch. “Livadhi—third bogie on your tail—watch it.”
As if he’d been waiting for her signal, her own tight beam receiver lit. “We’ve got to stop meeting like this, Heris. You got bad data at Rotterdam. You’ve got a traitor aboard. That’s why we’re here.”
“Not for long if you don’t watch it,” Heris sent back, eyeing her own scans. But Livadhi, in a fully crewed cruiser, had more eyes to watch than she did, and the first attacking missiles died well outside his screens. She wondered what his orders were—if he had any—because his counterattack was already launched. She had never thought of him as a possible rogue commander, but here he was deep in someone else’s territory and opening fire.
“Something else I wish we had,” Oblo muttered, watching. “Screens that would stop something bigger than a juice can.”
“Wouldn’t fit, remember?” Military-grade ship screens ate cubage and power both; offensive armament could be crammed into small ships without room for shields.
Both Compassionate Hand cruisers now engaged Livadhi’s ship. Heris began to hope everyone would forget about her . . . given enough time, they could continue their swing around the gas giant, reach a safe jump distance, and disappear. That would leave Livadhi in a fix, but he seemed to be doing very well. His first salvo sparkled all over one of the enemy’s screens, an indication that he had almost breached them. And if he had come to rescue them, give them a chance, then the smart thing to do was creep away and let the professionals do the fighting. She didn’t really like that, but the yacht was no warship.
“Captain—” That was Petris, on the intercom. “Medical report: We’ve got three dead, two critical, three serious—”
“Lady Cecelia?”
“Alive, conscious, in pain but she’ll make it. Skoterin, Mr. Smith, and Haidar are dead. Sirkin and Lady Cecelia’s communications therapist are critical—we may lose them without a trauma team, which we don’t have. Three others of her medical team are in serious condition. Lady Cecelia’s physician is unhurt, but trauma’s not her specialty—she’s a geriatric neurologist—and she says she’s out of her depth with open chest and belly wounds.”
Heris fought down her rage and grief. That wouldn’t help. She felt her mind slide into the familiar pattern . . . a cool detachment that allowed rapid processing of all alternatives, uncluttered by irrelevant worries. They had dying passengers; they needed medical care. The nearest source of trauma care was . . . right over there, being shot at.
And of course it was the best excuse for getting involved, although she pushed back a niggling suspicion that that carried more weight than it should.
“Thank you, Petris,” she said. “We’ll do what we can. Livadhi’s out there now, and he has a trauma center. Assuming we win the battle.”
Silence for a moment, as he digested that, and calculated for himself the probability that the yacht and Livadhi’s ship might be in one piece, in one place, able to transfer patients, before they died. “Right. I’m going back down to check the damage—stray shots hit some circuits around there, and now that we’ve no live environmental specialists—” It was not the time to tell him that one of the things she loved about him was his ability to stick to priorities.
“I think,” she said, in a thoughtful tone that made Oblo and Meharry give her a quick look, “I think those Compassionate Hand ships have decided we’re not worth bothering with. They seem to think the important thing is keeping Livadhi away from us.”
“Yes, Captain?” Oblo looked both confused and hopeful.
“Well, they got between us. All of them—” Because the trailing third ship had risked a microjump—a huge risk, but it had worked—to catch up to the battle. Dangerous, but it had worked. “And nobody’s targeting us. Now speaking as a tactical commander, don’t you think that was stupid?” None of them answered, but they all grinned. “I think they just put themselves in our trap. Oblo, how much maneuvering scope do we have?”
“Not much—but we can close the range on them, if you want. It’ll cost us another half hour to a safe jump range.”
“Jump won’t get our wounded to care any sooner,” Heris said. “But Livadhi’s got a perfectly good sickbay over there, if somebody doesn’t blow a hole in it. Let’s make sure no one does.”
The Compassionate Hand ships clearly thought they had an enemy cruiser locked in their box; for all that Heris’s scans could detect, they paid no attention to the yacht’s change of course that brought her swinging out toward the warships. They were too busy pounding at Livadhi’s ship, and dealing with his salvos. If the yacht had not existed, it would have been a well-conducted attack, almost textbook quality.