“How far do we have to go?” Lenna asked, seeing only one ship about the size of their own freighter on the scan.
“Not that far, but it will take some smart flying or they’ll have us for sure.”
Lenna considered that briefly, and waved the pilot out of his seat. “Let me take over — I’m of Trader stock. As long as this ship can take it, I can outfly anyone they could be sending against us.”
“This old bird can take it,” the captain agreed as he turned over his place to her without question, moving into the copilot’s seat. Then he leaned closer to the scan monitor. “Confirmation is coming through. That’s a stingship.”
“Bless us!” Lenna exclaimed under her breath, staring at the monitor for a moment. Then she set to work on the ship’s master computer. “I wonder where they were keeping that? Must have a stingship carrier in orbit. We’ll have to settle our affairs and get you boys out of here before they can get any more of those monsters into space.”
“We can’t outrun a stingship, not sublight,” the captain reminded her. “Our engines are actually a little small for a ship this size, to fit inside their aerodymanic housings.”
“I can do something about that,” Lenna said absently as she continued her hurried work at the keyboard. “It’s a little-known trick, but I’ve learned a thing or two from tricky people. It will be an uncomfortable ride for the two of you…”
“Better than being shot out of space,” the copilot remarked.
“Just strap yourselves in tight and don’t think about how much it’s going to hurt when you wake up again. I just hope that you can recover quickly enough from high G’s to fly yourselves back out.” She glanced at the monitor briefly. “Yes, here we go.”
The stingship was circling well around to come up behind the freighter, her crew no doubt assuming that they were pursuing a slow, aging ship that would be easy prey. Indeed, the complete lack of response on their own part suggested that they were actually unaware that a hostile ship was closing with them. Lenna waited, leading them in. It was an old game for her, and one that she had learned very well. Anyone who was good enough to fly with the Starwolves could handle a stingship, although she would have been happier with her converted fighter than this ancient freighter.
Lenna waited patiently until the stingship turned in to begin its next run, then gave full power to the freighter’s main drives and pulled up tight. Although the two human crewmembers made small sounds of protest against the fierce G’s, it was actually a fairly easy turn compared to what she intended to do. She was saving her tricks for later on in the game.
“Go ahead and extend the missile cradle,” she instructed the captain. “I’ll have to take him out, or he will never give us the chance to make our run on their secret base.”
He activated the freighter’s improvised defense system. The doors of the forward cargo bay, built into the bottom of the hull to facilitate loading, swung open and the rotating cradle with its six large missiles was extended just outside the hull.
“You want me to take weapon systems control?” the captain asked.
Lenna shook her head firmly, watching the scan monitor as the stingship swung around for another run. She was keeping her distance, but deliberately setting herself up to put her enemy on her tail. “You’ll not stay conscious through the little surprise I have for our friends. Just be ready.”
Lenna rolled the freighter through a long evasive turn, knowing when she started that she would end up with the stingship still squarely on her tail. This part was the window dressing, building false confidence in an opponent who was obviously not particularly experienced. Under other circumstances, her evasive tactics would have been the best that anyone could have done. This freighter did not have the high-intensity acceleration dampers of a stingship, nor did she have the special acceleration suits or padded flight cradle the enemy pilots enjoyed. But the Union pilot would not suspect that she was a Trader, able to take harder turns than he could despite all of his protections.
She continued to lead the stingship in, feigning just enough helplessness to lure the enemy close before he fired, sure of his kill. She waited as long as she dared, then activated her program modifications to the control system and gave the main drives full power. Following the automatic commands she had set, the computer control also engaged the stardrive at very low power, just enough to give their thrust a firm boost.
The freighter catapulted forward, and Lenna lead the ship through a torturing 60-G turn. Its spaceframe groaned aloud as the ship bucked and shook, protesting the sharp change of direction. Lenna had to fight the pain and crushing forces herself, without the aid of the armored suit that usually supported her through harsh accelerations in her own fighter. She could only hope that her two companions had survived, facing G’s that humans never should have taken unprotected. Even stingships did not attempt this.
She looped the freighter completely over, coming up behind the stingship and catching the enemy pilot by surprise just long enough for Lenna to lock the missile tracking system on target. Perhaps the stingship’s pilot never thought he should have anything to fear from a freighter, even after that last surprising move. He had only just begun to accelerate away almost casually when Lenna released her first missile. Carried by a small drive that would quickly burn itself out with its own power, the missile found its target in a matter of seconds.
Sure of her prey, Lenna did not even wait to see. She had to get the freighter within the planetary atmosphere before they were intercepted by another stingship. She brought the ship back on course, keeping their speed as high as she dared until she was forced to decelerate rapidly. With no time to spare to orbit in, she guided the ship straight in at a sharp angle as she continued to cut their speed, retracting the missile carriage and bringing the atmospheric shields to full. It was only when the freighter entered the atmosphere, wrapped in a shell of thin flame, that she finally leveled off to an acceptable attitude for entry.
By that time, the two regular crewmembers were beginning to recover from their rough handling. Lenna glanced at the captain quickly. “Do you think that you can take over? I need to get Bill and myself packed away.”
“Yes. Right.” He released his straps and pulled himself from the copilot’s seat, moving with exaggerated care. Lenna knew that he would be regretting it far more tomorrow. She just hoped that he would be doing better by the time they began their attack run.
Lenna relinquished her seat and hurried to the rear cargo hold, cramped with the heavy, white form of the ejection module. Bill, the sentry, was already inside, securely strapped down in his own impact cradle. He was in fact an armored security automaton of Union construction, commandeered for her use by the Starwolves during her first mission and later modified to suit her more demanding needs. In form he was a great, white, armored bulk standing on four solid legs, now retracted beneath him, his small head dominated by a battery of guns and a pair of small camera pods behind protective flanges. Loyalty and firepower were his strong points, but he was still an exceedingly stupid machine compared to the sentient Starwolf carriers. Lenna climbed inside the module and secured the hatch, then strapped herself into the single acceleration couch. Then she settled in to wait.
The little freighter had continued its approach unopposed, having dropped down to within a hundred meters of the surface and holding at twice the speed of sound. According to the original plan, she was to hold a much greater speed at an even lower altitude, but her captain was still reeling under the effects of Lenna’s evasive tactics and he did not trust his ability to fly this ship, and it had not had a functional low-level attack guidance system in years. The extra altitude would also give Lenna and Bill a better chance of surviving when they went overboard.