“Of course, when we do fire, they’ll be all over us,” Heris said.
“If they don’t notice us another minute or so, we’ll be close enough to blow one of them completely,” Ginese replied.
“One of them . . .” Meharry said softly. “But the other two will have to acquire us, get firing solutions . . . we have time.”
That minute passed in taut silence. Livadhi’s attack breached one of the enemy ship’s shields, but it neither broke up nor pulled away. Major damage, was Oblo’s guess, but he couldn’t understand the Compassionate Hand transmissions, which were in a foreign language and encoded anyway. “I think they rolled her, though, to put the damaged shields on this side.”
“That’s your prime target,” Heris told Ginese. “You know wounded C.H. commanders—they get suicidal. How much longer?”
“At your word, Captain.”
“Now.” The yacht shivered as Ginese sent a full third of its ballistic capability down the port tubes and out toward the wounded C.H. ship. Oblo rolled the yacht on its axis to present the remaining loaded tubes to the fight. Seconds ticked by. Then the yacht’s missiles slammed into the enemy cruiser, one after another exploding in a carefully timed sequence. The external visual darkened, protecting its lenses from the flare of light as the cruiser itself ruptured and blew apart.
Heris spent no time watching. “Oblo—maximum deceleration, now.”
He gave her a startled look but complied. The yacht could not withstand extreme maneuvers, but a course change like this might be enough to surprise the enemy. And avoid any late-arriving missiles that Livadhi had sent at that cruiser. Unfortunately, it would blur their scans just when they needed them clear, but—
“There they go—Livadhi did have a couple on the way.”
“I would hate to get blown away by my rescuer,” Heris said.
“I have a lock on the second cruiser,” Meharry said. “Permission—”
“Do it.” Again the yacht shivered; she wasn’t built for this kind of stress. But the salvo was away . . . Heris tried to calculate what that did to their gross mass, and what that meant to maneuvering capability, but at the moment the figures wouldn’t come.
The scans had adjusted to their new settings; she could see that the other two Compassionate Hand ships were changing course, the trailing one swinging wide now, losing range to take up a safer position, where Heris could not attack it without risking Livadhi in the middle or performing maneuvers beyond the yacht’s capacity. The nearer enemy ship and Livadhi continued to exchange fire, and Oblo reported that the nearer ship was trying to get a targeting lock on the yacht.
With their course change, it took seconds longer for their salvo to reach the enemy, and this time someone had been watching. Heris felt a grudging admiration for a crew that could react that quickly to a new menace. Half their missiles detonated outside the ship’s shield, and the rest splashed harmlessly against it. Return fire, already on its way . . . but Meharry and Ginese were able to break the target lock of some, and the timers of the rest.
This time it was Livadhi’s crew that exploited an opening—or perhaps defending against Heris’s attack had taken just that necessary bit from the shields—for Livadhi’s salvo blew through, and the enemy cruiser lost power and control. It tumbled end over end, shedding pieces of itself to clutter the scans.
“And that leaves number three,” Ginese said.
“And their reinforcements. It may take them a while to get here, but they’ll arrive.”
The third ship now fell farther back. Heris didn’t trust that, but she didn’t have the resources to pursue it. Instead, she changed course again, returning to maximum forward acceleration, and put a tight beam on Livadhi’s ship.
“We have critical casualties,” she said. “Can you accept five patients?”
“How’s your ship?”
“Not from that—from a fight inside. That traitor you mentioned.”
“I see. Frankly, I don’t want to risk docking with you while that other warship’s untouched . . . I can send over a pinnace with a trauma team, would that help?”
“Yes.” It would help, but would it be enough? She could see Livadhi’s point—if she’d commanded the cruiser, she wouldn’t want to have some civilian ship nuzzled up close when an attack started. “But we have no supplies for trauma, and just empty space . . . send what you can.”
“Right away. Stand by for recognition signals—”
“Why not Fleet Blue—I already know that.”
He actually laughed. “Of course—sorry. Fleet Blue it is.”
The pinnace should be too small to attract fire from that third ship; Heris could barely find it on scans herself and she was much closer.
Time passed. Heris could not leave the bridge, not with a hostile ship out there; she sent Petris to help the pinnace mate with their docking access tube and reported its safe arrival to Livadhi. Was it too late for their casualties? She heard nothing from the medical team—of course, they would be busy. Better not to interrupt. Another hour, and another. The third Compassionate Hand ship continued to fall behind, though it did not turn away.
“Sorry it took so long.” That was Petris, as blood-streaked as Meharry. “I wanted to patch up a few things—near as I can tell, nothing really important got holes in it. I’ll have to read up on the systems, though.”
“And our casualties?”
He shook his head. “Can’t tell yet. They brought two trauma surgeons and their teams; Sirkin’s the worst, but they’re still working on her. Said if they could stabilize them, a regen tank would do the rest, but there’s no way to load a regen tank on a pinnace.”
“Lady Cecelia?”
“Is spitting mad, near as I can tell. A fragment got her synthesizer, and her communications specialist died, so she’s having a hard time making herself understood. She got a shallow flesh wound—probably the same fragment that ruined her synthesizer—but she’s fine. Wants to see you, when you’ve time, but I explained you wouldn’t.”
“Where is she?”
“In the thick of things. Insists she wants to stay with Sirkin, and the med teams are too busy to carry her out—her hoverchair got a solid hit and it’s down, too.”
“Have you found out any more about Skoterin?”
“Only what I heard as I came on the scene. She was a deep agent for the Compassionate Hand, before she joined up, and a relative of that mole who died on your first voyage.”
“And perhaps that guard who died on Sirialis, the one who shot young George,” Heris said. “Iklind—that was the name. Livadhi claims we got bad chart data from Rotterdam Station, which is why we ended up here . . . and Skoterin is the one who fetched the charts from the Stationmaster.”
“And altered them on the way? Could be done. She could’ve been messing up Sirkin’s work, too—we trusted her, old shipmate as she was.”
“Lady Cecelia tried to tell me—said it wasn’t Sirkin—but I wouldn’t believe her. And now three people are dead—”
“One of whom should be.” Petris reached out a hand and drew it back. Heris saw the movement, and wished they were not on the bridge in a hostile situation; she needed that touch, some comfort in a bad time. “If it’s any comfort, not one of us caught on; we all made the same mistake.” The others on the bridge nodded.
“I had liked Sirkin a lot,” Meharry said. “So I cut her more slack than the rest of you—kept thinking it was delayed grief reaction or something—but it never occurred to me it could be sabotage. Just like you, and Petris, I trusted Skoterin just because she’d served with us even though I knew some of that crew were Lepescu’s agents. I didn’t know her before, but—she was military, she’d been a shipmate, that was enough. And that was flat-out stupid.”
“That may be,” Heris said, “but I’m still at fault.”
“That’s true.” Oblo turned around and grinned. “The great Captain Serrano makes mistakes—what a surprise! We thought you were perfect!”