"At this point, we're going to get to them," he said flatly. "The only way they could prevent that would be to spot us and destroy us first, and I don't think they're going to do that."
"I hope to hell you're right, Commodore," the tech rep said fervently. Which, Horster thought sardonically, wasn't exactly the most reassuring thing one of the people supposed to be teaching him how the ships worked could possibly have said.
He nodded courteously to the civilian and waved him back towards the EW section, then turned to the main plot and puffed out his cheeks as he considered the geometry.
If he'd only started the exercise sooner, he might have been able to intercept the Manties before they attacked the Station. Then again, if the Technodyne people were right about the maximum attack ranges of current-generation Manticoran missiles, they were already in range to attack Eroica. He'd just have to hope this Terekhov was running a bluff, that he wouldn't really inflict the massive casualties an all-out attack on the Station would produce. Surely the thought of how galactic public opinion-and especially Solarian public opinion-would react to something like that in time of peace, without even a formal declaration of hostilities, should give the lunatic pause!
"All right!" Hegedusic smacked his palms together and grinned at Levakonic. "The odds seem to be shifting," he observed.
"At least in the direction of having a fighting chance," Levakonic agreed a bit more cautiously.
"But we could shift them even further if we could keep this Captain Terekhov coming in fat, dumb, and happy."
Hegedusic thought a moment longer, then turned back to the communications section.
"Send a message to the Manties. Tell them I've decided to evacuate the Station, but that it's going to take some time. Tell them I estimate a minimum of two and a half to three hours, even using every available vessel from the civilian platforms."
"Yes, Sir."
Hegedusic turned to another staffer.
"Get down to flight ops. Tell them I want a steady stream of lighters and shuttles moving between the Alpha platforms and the Beta platforms. I don't need anybody aboard them but the flight crews; I just need small craft in motion where the Manties can see it."
"Yes, Sir!"
"Well, thank God!" Bernardus Van Dort heaved a huge sigh of relief as the message came in. "Congratulations, Captain. It looks like you've managed it without killing anyone, after all."
"Maybe." Terekhov frowned at the master plot, then glanced at Abigail Hearns. "Any sign of confirming movement?"
"As a matter of fact, Sir, there may be," the Grayson lieutenant said after a moment. "I've got half a dozen-no, a total of nine-small craft impellers moving away from the military portions of the Station."
"You see?" Van Dort's grin grew even broader. "Hegedusic must've realized he didn't have a choice."
"I'd certainly like to think so," Terekhov agreed, his frown beginning to ease at last. "Amal, inform them that as long as they appear to be making a good-faith effort to evacuate the Station, I'll hold my fire. But warn them that restraint on our part is dependent on their continued compliance with our instructions."
"How obliging of him," Hegedusic said, and looked back at the tactical officer on his screen. "They're holding profile, correct?"
"Yes, Sir. They're about eighteen minutes from zeroing their velocity relative to the Station. And," the tac officer smiled thinly, "they're just over ten-point-one million kilometers out."
"Patience, patience, Commander," Hegedusic said. "If they're willing to come closer, I'm certainly willing to let them."
"Ms. Zilwicki?"
"Yes, Traynor?" Helen said, turning to the senior sensor rating assisting her with the remote arrays.
"The Alpha-Seven array's picking something up," Traynor said.
"What?" Helen asked. It was scarcely a proper contact report, she reflected. Assuming, of course, that it was an actual contact at all.
"It may be nothing at all, Ma'am. Maybe just a ghost. Look here, Ma'am."
He flicked keys, transferring the data he'd been examining to Helen's secondary plot. She gazed at it herself for several seconds before her eyes narrowed. She input a command sequence, playing with the data, trying to refine it, and frowned.
She considered briefly, then shrugged and sent a request to CIC for the master computers to take a close second look at the suspect datum. Seven seconds later, a scarlet icon flicked into existence on the master plot, strobing with the rapid flicker of an unconfirmed contact.
"Captain," Helen announced, astonished that her own voice sounded so calm, "we have a possible impeller signature, very weak, inbound at three-point-two light-minutes. Apparent closing velocity four-one-five-seven-two kilometers per second."
"Range now ten-point-zero-seven million kilometers," Hegedusic's tac officer said. "Velocity now three-seven-seven-three KPS."
"Range to enemy now five-seven-point-six million kilometers," Commodore Horster's tac officer reported. "Closing velocity four-one-five-seven-two KPS."
"CIC, I need confirmation, one way or the other." Terekhov kept his tone as level as possible.
"Yes, Sir. We know. We're doing our best to-"
"Captain, Alpha-Seven has a second possible contact in close company with Bogey-One," Helen announced. She hesitated a moment, then cleared her throat. "Sir, the array's at less than eleven light-seconds from whatever this is."
"Your point, Ms. Zilwicki?"
"Sir, these arrays don't pick up ghosts at that short a range. If they're seeing something that close to them, it's really there. And if they can't see it clearly, it's because whatever it is is doing its damnedest to imitate a hole in space."
"She's right, Skipper," Naomi Kaplan said from AuxCon. She'd been studying the frustratingly inconclusive data herself. "And if that's what we've got here, Sir," she continued grimly, "whoever it is has got much better EW than any Monican unit ever had."
"Guthrie?" Terekhov looked at his EWO. Bagwell didn't even hesitate.
"Concur, Sir. My guess is that we're looking at a maintenance level impeller wedge covered by some damned good stealth technology. Probably almost as good as our own."
"Understood."
Terekhov leaned back in his command chair, thinking furiously. All eleven of the Solarian battlecruisers Copenhagen had discovered were still at Eroica Station.
Which means these people weren't at the Station when the drone made its pass. Battlecruisers they'd already refitted? Possible. Probable, really. They could've been running trials or training missions out-system, where Copenhagen couldn't see them. Or these may be Solly units that never were intended to be refitted. Either way, I've got a pair of bogeys coming at me that I have to assume are at least battlecruisers... and there's no way Hegedusic didn't know about it when he sent me that "We're evacuating as quickly as we can" message. But-
"Captain, we've got a third possible contact."
He looked up as a third strobing icon appeared in formation with the other two. Helen, a corner of his brain noted, still sounded crisp and professional, but not quite as calm as she'd been with the first two.
And I can't blame her for that! That's three we know about; God only knows how many we haven't found yet . He studied projected vectors, and his mouth tightened. At their closing velocity, his squadron's vector intersected almost exactly head-on with the three bogeys' vector in less than twenty-four minutes. There's no way we can avoid them now, but there's still the units waiting to be refitted. So what do I do? I can hardly even see these probable Sollies. I certainly can't justify wasting missiles on them at this range, not with the miserable hit probabilities we'd have! But if I hold my fire until the range drops and then go for an engagement with them, I could lose everything I've got and leave eleven untouched battlecruisers behind me .
His jaw tightened.
"Ms. Hearns."
"Yes, Sir."
It was remarkable, he thought, how that soft Grayson accent actually got more musical as the stress mounted.
"We can't leave the battlecruisers in the yard behind us. I want to hold the pods-we may need them against these newcomers. Do you have a good firing solution on the Station?"
"Yes, Sir," she said steadily.
"Very well," he said. "Execute Fire Plan Sierra, broadside launchers only."
"Fire Plan Sierra, aye, aye, Sir," she said, and entered a command sequence.
"Missile launch! I have multiple hostile launches! Estimate thirty-plus inbound!"
"God damn it!"
Isidor Hegedusic smashed his fist down on his own knee. Missile Defense was tracking the incoming missiles-or trying to, at least-and there didn't seem to be many of them. No more than thirty or forty. But the Station's anti-missile defenses hadn't been upgraded. There hadn't been time to do everything, and he and Levakonic had concentrated on giving Eroica Station sharper eyes and longer teeth. Nor had they counted on the fiendishly effective EW platforms scattered among the attack missiles to assist them in penetrating Hegedusic's defenses.