“Not quite, but better than they have, I expect. As long as we don’t let them get past us—or get the first shot—we’ll do very well.”
After she had the schedules for the next twelve standard hours, Heris went to see Cecelia.
“I don’t know how that man does what he does, but we’re damn lucky Livadhi wanted me to run off with him. With my people, I’d have a lot less margin to play with.”
“So we’re going to fight again?” Cecelia looked as if she were trying to project eagerness. But she would be remembering that other battle, in which she was trapped in her aged and disabled body, unable even to speak clearly. She had to be scared.
“Yes, we’ll fight—but it won’t be anything like the time before. They won’t have detected us—and they’re unlikely to do so until we blow them away.” She used Cecelia’s desk display to diagram what they intended to do.
“It’s not very sporting, is it?” Cecelia asked.
“It’s not ‘sporting’ at all. It’s not a game,” Heris said. “Lepescu made that mistake; I don’t. This is a band of ruffians who have terrorized this system repeatedly, and I’m going to destroy them. True, their homeworld may send more—I can’t help that. But if Koutsoudas is right, Aethar’s World may have more to worry about than a missing allied pirate. These people will have months—maybe years—of peace and a chance to develop their own effective defense. So yes, I’m going to destroy them with the least possible risk to us.”
“How can you be sure they’re the right ones? What if you’re about to blow up an innocent ship?” She didn’t sound really worried about it, but Heris considered the question seriously.
“By the time we do it, we’ll know what brand of dental cleanser they use,” she said. “Right now we know they are running with a falsified ID beacon—which doesn’t necessarily mean criminal intent; we had one. But they’ve also got a whopping load of armament. And they’re from Aethar’s World, which is always suspicious. About the only time those barbarians leave home, it’s to cause trouble for someone. They fit the profile of the trouble your friends have been having. . . .”
With the enemy ship only a light-second away, Koutsoudas continued to pour out a torrent of information about it. “Not only Aethar’s World, but one of the Brotherhood chiefs. Svenik the Bold, I think—certainly he had this particular ship a while back, and this sort of raid is his specialty.”
“I’m surprised he’s lasted this long with that hull/engine combination,” Petris said.
“So am I,” Koutsoudas said. “But he hasn’t been up against anything that made him redline it. Yet.” He grinned at Heris. “I know you want to do this the quick way, Captain, but I wish we could push him to it.”
“Not worth it,” Heris said. “I know—it would be fun, but none of our friends can match our scan capability, and if we made a mistake—or he got lucky—”
“He’s gone hot,” Arkady Ginese, on weapons, did not look up for anyone else’s conversations.
“It’s not us,” Koutsoudas said. “He isn’t side-scanning—that’s just preparation for hitting the station. He should be transmitting his demands—yes—there it goes—”
“Go ahead, Mr. Ginese,” said Heris, feeling that familiar sensation in her belly. Plan, plan, and plan again, but at the moment, there was always one cold thrust of fear. Arkady and Meharry both touched their boards, and their own displays lit. Now, if the raider were looking, they could be seen. The weapons boards flickered through the preparatory displays, then steadied on green, with the red row at the top showing all the weapons ready. It had definitely been worth it to get that fast-warm capability, though it cost half again as much. Or would have, if Ginese and Meharry hadn’t done the conversion themselves.
They had the raider now, though he didn’t know it and might not before he died. They had calculated their ideal moment to attack, but from here on, the conclusion wasn’t really in doubt.
“Screens warm,” Heris said. Their puny screens wouldn’t deflect much, but better a little protection than none. Second by second they closed.
“Second scan,” Koutsoudas said suddenly. “Jump insertion, low velocity. Preliminary says it’s a medium-size cargo hull; weapons minimal.”
It had always been a possibility that the raider would have a companion. Or rival.
“Koutsoudas on the new one; Meharry, you take main scan on the raider. Ginese?”
“Any time, Captain.”
“It’s hours out,” Koutsoudas said. “And it’s not in any hurry. Could be tramp cargo—I’m just getting the beacon ID—but the timing’s suspicious.”
“That’s why we have backup. Meharry, give me a replay of the raider’s transmission to the station.” The station, as agreed, had rebroadcast that narrowbeam transmission in omni, which allowed the Sweet Delight to pick it up—and enter it in the log, for evidence. It was about what she’d expected, the wording varying only slightly from the previous raids. Koutsoudas glanced up briefly.
“That’s Svenik the Bold. I recognize his voice; it was one of our voice-screen samples on file. Want a verification?” Heris nodded. He reached over to Meharry’s board, and flicked a switch on the module he’d added.
“Transmit our authorization,” Heris said. Koutsoudas grinned, and hit another switch.
Half a light-second; the raiders should be startled to receive a transmission from a source they hadn’t spotted, giving them official notification that they were unwanted and about to be fired upon. The question was, what would they do next?
“There’s Grogon,” said Ginese. “Right on time.” The old escort had been given a special set of electronics and now lit up the scans as if she were studded with more armament than the yacht. Positioned as she was, on the far side of the intruder’s path, she limited its possible maneuvers. He would have to assume a coordinated attack plan.
“Now,” Heris said to Ginese. He ran his thumb down the firing controls, and the green telltales flicked to red, the red ready lights to yellow. The Sweet Delight shuddered at launch, even though the missiles were shoved out of the tubes at low velocity, to light outside. Red to orange to yellow to green, as the weapons reloaded automatically, and the red row at the top reappeared.
Meanwhile, Ginese and Meharry tracked the launches. “Five—eight—all lit,” Meharry reported. Half a light-second still left over 90,000 miles between the two vessels, though that distance was closing as the raider approached. Certainly it was enough time for them to maneuver. But which way? They should be worrying about the old escort; they should be wondering what other weapons she would launch.
“Koutsoudas?” Heris watched the back of his head. “What’s our friend up to?”
“Dumping vee. With the lag, still a safe distance out. Very interesting ID, Captain.”
“Yes?”
“In the FR registry as an independent hauler, crew-owned. But I’ve got a flag on her in the Fleet database for suspicious activities, and a personal flag . . . she’s been in the same system, but remote, during raids by Aethar’s World pirates and by the Jenniky gang.” He cleared his throat. “My guess is she’s either a spotter or a paymaster. Maybe both. Not in her own right, of course, but for someone else. My guess there is the Black Scratch; she claims to trade with Xolheim and Fiduc, and you know the Benignity has a strong presence there.”
“Agreed. Keep an eye on her, then. Arkady?”
“Nothing—there. They’ve launched at us, and kicked up another ten gees acceleration. It’s within our pattern, and I could stop their salvo with my bare hands, just about. Old stuff.”
“A rock in the head will kill you just as dead,” Heris quoted; Ginese laughed.
“Yes, Captain, but Aethar’s prefers bang to finesse . . . look at my scans.” Already the Sweet Delight’s elegant ECM had confused the enemy missiles; Heris would need to order no evasive maneuvers at all. She worried more about the old escort, with her novice crew and her faked signatures. If they fired anything much at her . . . but the raider seemed intent on getting away.