No one was paying any particular attention to him as the Vanguard swung around to target the next merchie. Casually, Charles got up from his chair and began to circle around the bridge in the casual urgency of a man making for the head. Just beyond the head was the bridge's exit.
Standing in the hatchway, he looked back one final time. Sic transit gloria mundi, he thought, and ducked quietly through the opening.
Nobody saw him go.
"I will have your head, Mister," Sandler ground out in a voice with broken-glass edges, glaring at Cardones as if trying to set him on fire through willpower alone. "You hear me, Cardones? You are dead."
"That'll be up to a court-martial to decide," Cardones said, rather surprised at how calm he had suddenly become. The die had been cast, and there was nothing to do now but ride it through. "But for right now, may I have your permission to help the Fearless?"
Sandler's glare only got hotter. "We might as well, Skipper," Damana murmured from her side. "The disinformation thing is out the window now anyway."
"No, it's not," she countered, shifting her glare to him as if astonished that he would dare come to Cardones's support against her. "They'll simply assume they missed."
"Until they get aboard and examine the junction points," Damana said, holding her gaze without flinching.
"Which they wouldn't even have thought to do if he hadn't reactivated the wedge," Sandler snarled.
Damana just stood there silently... and slowly the fire died from Sandler's eyes. "They won't let us get away, you know," she said, turning back to Cardones. "They'll come after us and disable us; and then they'll go back and blow Fearless into dust anyway. Then they'll come back as Jack said and find out how we spiked their toy and ruined all their fun. We had a plan; and now you've wrecked it. And for nothing."
"I don't think so," Cardones said, trying to match her gaze the way Damana had. "That is, it wasn't for nothing. Because you're right, they don't realize yet what we've done. And that gives us a weapon we can use against them."
He looked at Damana. "But we don't have much time."
"What do you need?" Damana asked evenly.
"Some equipment from Shadow," Cardones told him. "And I need Ensign Pampas and Captain McLeod to stay behind with me for a few minutes."
Damana threw a sideways look at Sandler's stiff profile. "I take it that means the rest of us are abandoning ship?"
"I'll be damned if I'll leave my ship," McLeod spoke up indignantly.
"You'll do what you're told," Sandler said coldly. For a long moment her eyes searched Cardones's face. Then, reluctantly, she gave a sort of half nod. "Jack, collect the team and get aboard Shadow," she said. "Captain McLeod, order your people to go with them."
McLeod started to sputter, took a closer look at her face, and choked back the objection. "Yes, Ma'am," he gritted instead, and turned to the intercom.
"So what's the plan?" Sandler asked, her eyes still on Cardones.
Cardones gestured toward the displays. "From the way we saw them operate at Tyler's Star, I'm guessing they'll move in close and launch boarding boats after they take out our wedge again."
"Probably," Sandler said. "So?"
"So," Cardones told her grimly, "we're going to prepare a little reception for them."
"That's odd," Wallace murmured. "Captain, CIC just reported one of the merchies has brought her wedge back up."
"I thought you said they'd all been knocked out," Honor said, looking over at her displays. He was right: the Dorado was up and running again, lumbering toward the inner system.
"They were," Wallace agreed. "McLeod must have gotten his nodes working again."
"Any idea how?"
Wallace snorted under his breath. "I don't even know how the Peeps knocked them out."
"Mm," Honor said, frowning at the numbers. Yes, the Dorado was running; but where was she running to? Surely McLeod didn't think he could outrun a battlecruiser in that thing.
And then understanding struck her, and she smiled a bittersweet smile. Of course. McLeod couldn't get away; but what he could do was try to distract the Peep. Possibly even drag him far enough out of position that Fearless would be able to engage the two enemy ships one at a time.
The catch was that if he was able to become enough of an irritation that he actually did any good, that defiance might well cost him his life.
Which left Honor with only two options: to take advantage of his proffered sacrifice, or to instead try to distract the Peep herself into leaving the Dorado alone.
Fearless had finished her deceleration and was finally starting to close the distance back toward the convoy she'd abandoned. The raider behind her, she noted, was accelerating in her wake, continuing to herd her toward the battlecruiser while at the same time being careful not to get close enough that she would be tempted to turn and engage. It was still over an hour back to the convoy, according to DuMorne's plot. Plenty of time for the battlecruiser to deal with the Dorado.
For a moment she studied the numbers. Fearless's acceleration was hovering right at five hundred and four gees. That was far above the normal eighty percent power the RMN normally maintained, but it still left a safety margin of almost three percent against her inertial compensator...
"Chief Killian," she said quietly to the helmsman, "increase acceleration to maximum military power."
Venizelos turned to look at her, but remained silent. He'd probably run the numbers, and the logic, the same way she had.
"Aye, aye, Ma'am," Killian acknowledged, and the safety margin dropped to zero as Fearless went to a full five hundred and twenty gravities.
"And prepare a broadside, Commander Wallace," she continued. "We'll fire as soon as we're within range."
Because, after all, it was the wolf's job to distract the rampaging bear from the cub, not the other way around.
And with a little luck, the Peep would find out just how distracting HMS Fearless could be.
"We're in range of the Dorado, Commodore," Koln announced. "Crippler reports ready to fire."
"Tell them to make sure they actually hit the damn thing this time," Dominick said pointedly. "Fire when ready."
"Yes, Sir," Koln said, touching the signal key. Vanguard's lights dimmed yet again, and on Dominick's tac display Dorado's wedge vanished. "Good," he said, weighing his options. As long as he was here anyway, he could send a couple of boarding boats to go and loot the attempted runaway.
But if he did, that would leave Jansci floating around on its own behind him, with all that top-secret military equipment aboard. Would the Manties have orders to destroy the most sensitive cargo in case of imminent capture? The Harlequin's crew hadn't bothered with any such sabotage before they'd run; but then, Harlequin's cargo hadn't been as sensitive as what was supposed to be aboard the Jansci, either.
There was no point in taking chances. He opened his mouth to order the ship around—
"Sir!" Koln said suddenly. "We've got another ship on scope. Small one—dispatch boat class, about forty thousand tons."
"Where?" Dominick demanded, scanning his displays.
"Behind the Dorado," Koln said. "It must have been hidden by her wedge. Probably moored to the topside hull; they had their belly to us when their nodes went down that first time. Really hauling gees, too."