by David Weber
"And how will you find them or even know where to look for them?"
"First, we know they're pirates," Caslet said, ticking off his points on his fingers as he made them. "That means we can be confident they're working another system somewhere. Second, we can be fairly certain none of the major outfits are funding them, since not even one of the Confederacy's system governors would be willing to look the other way for people who do this kind of thing. That means they're probably operating from a system no one else is interested in, one where they could move in and set up basing facilities of their own. Third, they seem to have come up dry here in Arendscheldt. We can't be certain they didn't pick someone else off the very next day, but shipping is sparse out here, and Citizen Surgeon Jankowski's best guess is that they hit Erewhon less than two weeks ago. To me, that suggests they probably didn't get anyone else, in which case they've no doubt moved on to find richer pickings. Fourth, if I were a pirate moving from here, I'd go either to Sharon’s Star or Magyar. Those are the next two closest inhabited systems, and of the two, Sharon’s Star is closer. If they did go there, they may still be there, given how recently we know they were here. What I propose to do is inform Arendscheldt of Erewhon's location and move immediately to Sharon’s Star. With luck, we may catch them there. If not, we can move on to Magyar, and since we'll be going straight through without hunting for prizes, we can probably beat them there."
"A star system is a big area, Citizen Commander," Jourdain pointed out. "What makes you think you'll spot them even if they're there?"
"We won't, Sir. We'll convince them to spot us."
"Excuse me?" Jourdain looked puzzled, and Caslet smiled thinly and waved for his tac officer to join them.
Citizen Lieutenant Commander Shannon Foraker was one of the very few officers who'd actually been promoted after the disaster of Fourth Yeltsin. It was she who'd spotted the trap into which Citizen Admiral Thurston's fleet had strayed, and it wasn't her fault she'd spotted it too late. Caslet knew Jourdain's report had had a great deal to do with Shannon's promotion, and the peoples commissioner had come to share the rest of Vaubon's crew's near idolatry of the tac officer. She was one of the very few Republican officers who refused to feel despair over her hardware's inferiority to the enemy's. Indeed, she took it as a personal challenge, and the results she sometimes obtained verged on outright sorcery. She was so good, in fact, that Jourdain had decided to overlook the frequent lapses in her revolutionary vocabulary. Or perhaps, Caslet thought wryly, he'd finally realized Shannon was so deeply involved with her computers and sensors that she had no time to waste on little things like social nuances.
"Are you up to speed, Shannon?" the citizen commander asked as Foraker stopped beside his chair. She nodded, and he tipped his own head at Jourdain. "Then tell the People’s Commissioner why we can count on the bad guys finding us."
"No problem, Skip." Foraker gave Jourdain a bright smile, and Jourdain smiled back, almost against his will. "These bastards are on the hunt for merchantmen, Sir. What we do is tune in our EW, take about half our beta nodes out of the wedge to drop it to an energy signature a merchie might have, and come in where they expect to see a freighter. If they're out there, they'll have to come to within, oh, four or five light-minutes, minimum, to see through our EW and realize we're a warship. By the time they do, my 'puters and I'll have their emissions dialed in to a fare-mee-well. If they're the people who did this, we'll know it."
"You see, Sir?" Caslet said to Jourdain. "We'll give them a target they can't resist and try to suck them in. At the very least, we should be able to ID them, and with any luck at all, they'll be coming in to match velocities with us before they know what we really are. Without knowing their max accel or our exact vectors ahead of time, I can't promise to overhaul them, but I can damned sure give them a run for their money. In fact, I'd almost prefer not to catch them."
"Why not?" Jourdain asked in surprise.
"Because if we can get close enough to chase them into hyper without overhauling, they may just be stupid enough to lead us to their home system," Caslet said grimly. "Independents or not, they may have more than a single ship, Sir, and I want to know where they nest. I've got a feeling Citizen Admiral Giscard will want them just as badly as we do, and unlike Vaubon, he's got the firepower to smash any bunch of pirates who ever operated."
Jourdain nodded slowly, not even seeming to notice that Caslet had said "we" and not "I," and the citizen commander hid an inner smile. Jourdain took another turn around the command deck, hands folded behind him, then nodded again and turned back to Vaubon's official CO.
"All right, Citizen Commander. We can take the time to divert to Sharon's Star, at least. If we don't hit them there, I'll have to reconsider before authorizing you to move on to Magyar, but a diversion to Sharon's Star won't put the rest of the squadron behind schedule. And..." he smiled a cold, wintry smile, "you're right. I do want these people, too."
"Thank you, Sir," Citizen Commander Warner Caslet said quietly, and looked at Foraker. "Get Branscombe’s data downloaded ASAP, Shannon."
Chapter FOURTEEN
"Well? What do you think?"
Honor sat in her briefing room, a month and a half out of New Berlin, while the squadron orbited the planet Sachsen. Sachsen was one of the Confederacy's sector administration centers, which meant a powerful detachment of the Silesian Navy was home-ported here, am the Andermani Empire had acquired a hundred-year lease on the planets third moon as the HQ of an IA naval station. As a consequence, the system was a rare island of safety amid the Confederacy's chaos, but Honor attention wasn't on Sachsen at the moment. Instead, was on the holo chart glowing above the conference table, and she raised one hand, palm up in question.
"I'm not sure, Milady." Rafael Cardones frowned a the chart. "If the Andies' information is right, this is certainly the major threat zone. But you're talking about branching out into a whole 'nother sector. The Admiralty might not like that... and I'm not sure I like splitting the squadron up quite that widely. Captain Truman?"
Honor's golden-haired second-in-command shrugged. "Split up is split up, Rafe," she pointed out. "Well be just as much out of mutual support range covering one system as ten, unless you want to hold us together, and we'd look a little odd lollygagging around in a bunch, Some of these pirates have damned sensitive survival instincts, if they see a batch of merchies holding station on one another in a single star system, they may smell a trap and stay clear. But if we split into single ships, we can cover a lot more systems. I like the rotation idea, too. It should not only keep presenting any bad guys with fresh faces, but the changing patrol areas should keep our people from getting stale."
"Maybe so," Cardones agreed. "But if the Andies could twig to us, what's to say someone else hasn't? If the bad guys know we've got Q-ships out here, they're either going to stay away or come in carefully... maybe in greater numbers." He looked at Honor. "Remember the sim you set up for me and Jennifer, Skipper?"
Honor nodded and quirked an eyebrow at Truman, who shrugged.
"I can't fault either point, but 'staying away' is what we want them to do. I mean, killing them all off would be a more permanent solution, but our real job is to reduce losses, isn't it? As for numbers, of course we're going to get hurt if someone decides to swarm one of our ships. But why should a whole squadron of raiders go after a Q-ship in the first place? They're not going to get any worthwhile loot, but they will get plenty of hard knocks, even if they take us out. They know that, so why risk it for no return?"
Honor nodded slowly, rubbing Nimitz’s ears while the 'cat curled in her lap. Rafe was playing the cautious devil's advocate, a role foreign to his own aggressive nature, because it was his job to shoot holes in his CO's schemes on the theory that it was better for one's exec to shoot up one's plans than for the enemy to shoot up one's ships. And he had a point. If a bunch of bad guys tried to pounce on a single ship, the odds were that that ship would get badly hurt. But Alice had a point, too.
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The problem lay in the new data Commander Hauser had provided. Raiding patterns had shifted since ONI put together her own predeployment background brief. Ships had been disappearing in ones and twos in Breslau and the neighboring Posnan Sector, and they still were. But where whoever it was had been snapping up single ships and then pulling out, so that the next half-dozen or so got through safely, now as many as three or even four ships in a row were disappearing, all in the same system. Losses were actually higher now in Posnan than in Breslau, which was what had forced Honor to rethink her original deployment plans, but the new pattern of consecutive losses was almost more worrisome than the total numbers. Consecutive losses meant raiders were hanging around to snatch up more targets, and that was wrong. Raiders shouldn't do that ... or not, at least they were operating in the normal singletons.
No raider captain wanted to stooge around with a prize in tow, because two ships together were more likely to be detected and avoided by other potential prizes. Then there was the manpower problem. Very few pirates carried sufficient crew to man more than two or three, at most four, prize ships unless they captured the original ships' companies and made them operate their ships' systems.
On the other hand, she thought unhappily, they might just be managing to hang onto those crews. Normally something like half the ships hit by pirates were able to get their personnel away before the ship was actually) taken, and some incidents were still following that pattern. But some weren't, and the crews of no less than eighty percent of the Manticoran ships lost in Posnan had vanished with their vessels. That was well above the usual numbers, and it suggested two possibilities, neither pleasant. One, someone was simply blowing away merchant ships, which seemed unlikely, or two, someone had sufficient ships to use one to run down any evading shuttles or pinnaces while another took the prize into custody.
And that, of course, was the reason for Rafe's concern, If the bad guys had multiple ships working single systems, the opposition might be far tougher than the Admiralty had assumed.
"I wish we knew just how the Andies tumbled to us," Truman murmured, and Honor nodded.
"I do, too," she admitted, "but Rabenstrange didn't say and I can't really blame him. Just telling us they know could jeopardize their intelligence net. We'd be asking a bit much for them to simply tell our own counterintelligence types how they'd done it."
"Agreed, Milady," Cardones said. He rubbed his nose, then shrugged. "I'd also like to know just why the pattern's shifted this way. According to Commander Hauser’s figures, we're the only ones losing merchies in groups."
"That may be simple probability," Truman said. "We've got more ships out here than anyone else, despite our losses. If anyone's going to take multiple hits, the people with the most targets are the ones who'd get hit most often."
"And when you add our drawdown in light units," Honor pointed out, "we actually turn into more tempting targets than someone like the Andies, who still have warships available to respond. If I were a raider, I'd pick on the people I knew weren't in a position to drop a squadron of destroyers into my cosy little web."
"I know, but I just can't help feeling there's something more to it," Cardones said.
"Maybe there is, but the only way to find out what it might be is to go see for ourselves." Honor tapped another command into her terminal, and bright green lines sprang into existence in the holo chart. They linked ten star systems, six in Breslau and four in Posnan, in an elongated, complex pattern thirty-two light-years across at its widest point, and she gazed at it moodily.
"If we follow this pattern," she said after a moment, "we'll have one ship, and a different one, entering or departing one of these systems every week or so. If anyone is lying low and watching for us, they won't see the same ship hanging around for extended periods. That should keep us from looking like trolling warships, and it puts us in the center of the zone of heaviest losses and lets us patrol the widest area once we get there."
"Yes, it does," Cardones admitted. "Assuming we don't run into anyone operating in squadron strength, I'd say it's clearly our best approach. But it does move us into Posnan, and it leaves all these stars in Breslau," he tapped at his own terminal, and nine more stars blinked, "uncovered. We're taking losses there, too, and Breslau is where we're tasked for operations."
"I know," Honor sighed. "But if we extend the pattern, we also extend times between stars. We spend more time in hyper and less in n-space, where we're most likely to actually find and kill pirates. This seems to me to give us the best mix of deception and time in the zone, Rafe."
"I agree," Cardones said in turn. "I just wish we could cover more area if we're going to split up anyway. However we go at it, you know we won't be there when someone gets hit, and the cartels are going to howl that we're, that you're, not doing our job if that happens."
"The cartels are just going to have to accept the best we can do," Honor replied. "Our shipping will still be hit whatever pattern we follow, and without more Q-ships, there's not much we can do about it. I know they're going to complain if we aren't covering a system and they lose a ship there, but the fact is that the pirates have the initiative. They're the ones who decide where they'll raid; all we can do is follow them and hurt them badly enough the survivors decide to go somewhere else. If we clear one area, they'll move to another and we'll follow them, which should at least let us cramp the scale of their operations. And once we pick a few of them off, the Admiralty can point to the kill numbers as proof that we're actually doing some good."
"You know what I wish?" Truman asked. Honor looked at her, and the other captain shrugged. "I wish we knew who was funding and supporting the bastards. You know as well as I do that the average piracy ring can afford to lose and replace vessels, and crews, all year long if as much as a third of them manage to take a decent prize on each cruise. Think about it. These eleven ships," she tapped her screen, where the names of the most recently missing vessels were displayed, "represent an aggregate value of almost twelve billion just for the hulls. You can buy a lot of ships heavy enough to kill merchies for that kind of money."
"According to Commander Hauser, the Andies are working on that, just like ONI," Honor said. "If we can identify whoever's actually disposing of the ships and cargoes, we'll be in a position to demand their local authorities take action against them." Truman made a sound which might charitably have been called a laugh, and Honor shrugged. "I know a lot of the locals will be in bed with the pirates, but if they're too stupid, or dirty, to take at least pro forma action, I suspect Admiral Rabenstrange would be delighted to drop a squadron of the wall in on them to convince them to see reason. We, unfortunately, don't have that sort of firepower. All we can do is pour water on the fire and at least make them replace losses."
"I know," Truman sighed, "but I can wish, can't I?"
"I'll wish right along with you," Honor agreed. "In the meantime, this looks to me like the best way to proceed in light of the information and forces available to us."
"Agreed," Truman said, and Cardones nodded, though he still seemed a bit unhappy at the prospect. Honor knew most of his unhappiness was for her sake, since she was the one who was going to catch any criticism that came the squadron's way, and she wondered if he'd worked through the same logic Admiral White Haven had explained to her on Grayson. It seemed likely; Rafe was sharp, and the level of his unease indicated more than a mere sense of tactical exposure.
"All right," she said more briskly, shaking off her own awareness of those same points. "In that case, Alice, we'll go with the pattern you and I discussed. You'll take Parnassus to Telmach and Samuel will take Scheherazade to Posnan to start your legs. I'll take Wayfarer to Libau for the first leg through Walther, and Allen and Gudrid will take the first Hume-Gosset leg."
Truman nodded. The patrol pattern Honor had outlined would put her own Parnassus and Wayfarer in the systems of maximum threat for the first portion of the pattern, while MacGuire's Gudrid would have the closest thing to a
milk run for her first system.
"All right." Honor said again. She sat up straighter and looked both her subordinates in the eye in turn as Nimitz flowed up over her shoulder to sit on the back of her chair. "There are two more things we should consider. The first is what we do with anyone we capture. Rafe was out here in Fearless with me, so he already knows my policy, Alice, but you weren't. Have you had a chance to review my memo on it?"
"I have," Truman replied with a sober nod.
"Do you have any problems with it?" Honor asked quietly.
"No, Ma'am." Truman shook her head. "If anything, you're being too lenient."
"Perhaps so," Honor acknowledged, "but we have to at least pretend the Confederacy has a functional government, until they prove otherwise, at any rate. In the meantime, I'll draft formal orders for you, Allen, and Samuel to cover the situation. Remember that we need any information we can get on operational patterns, though. If anybody wants to deal by turning informer, feel free to use your initiative and judgment as to terms."
Truman nodded, and Honor rubbed her eyes wearily. "And that brings me to my last point, which is the possibility that these new patterns indicate we aren't looking just at normal raiders, or even privateers. The 'liberation governments' in Psyche and Lutrell are the most likely culprits if someone is operating in squadron strength, but there's one other possibility."
"Peeps," Truman said flatly, and Honor nodded.
"Exactly. Neither ONI nor the Andies have picked up any signs of it, but the Peeps have their own connections out here. For that matter, their embassies are still open, since they aren't at war with Silesia or the Andies. It wouldn't be too hard for them to make a quiet deal with one of the smaller system's governors for clandestine resupply, and their embassies' intelligence on shipping patterns is probably at least as good as ours. If they have managed to slip a raiding squadron in on us, they'd go after our shipping, not anyone else's, and they wouldn't want the crews of the ships they hit getting loose to tell us they're here."
