After just over two hours of pursuit, Baby Doll announced. “I’ve projected their course out. They are on a beeline for the Edinburgh Systems.”
Raferty spun in his chair and looked at Baby Doll. She nodded slowly. Rafe pursed his lips. He hit his comm button to bring up all Flot 1 ships. “We are currently following three Commonwealth warships at their top speed. We project their course to be the Burgh Systems. All ships will proceed to Kiraloch at best possible speed. This may be nothing, but we got to be safe here. All ships will acknowledge.”
He now rotated his chair to bring Tactical into view. “Figure the time to catch up at current speed and at top end speed.”
“Already done. It’s on all the tac screens and can be viewed at your convenience.”
“You are scary good.”
“That’s why I get the big money.”
They exchanged smiles, and Hawkins spun back around. Hyatt Reynaldo at comm spoke up. “Incoming from Ace in The Deuce. Passing it to all stations.” Pirates are superstitious by nature and the prediction by Ace that his ship, Rebel II, would be called The Deuce had come true in spades. Nobody called her Rebel. She was always The Deuce.
Ace appeared in a window on all screens. “Us and Rogue have been monitoring three destroyers. They suddenly turned and ran at top speed. We project their course to be the Burgh Systems. We are keeping them on the edge of sensors and pursuing.”
The message ended. Ace had sent it before he would have received Raferty’s message. In Rafe’s mind, that message confirmed his worst case scenario. He didn’t know how, but the Commonwealth had a bead on the Burgh Systems. He hoped it was general information they were reacting to and did not have a particular planet in mind. He hoped that but didn’t really believe it.
Then Terrant’s message arrived on his computer. He forwarded the message to his staff. Those idiots in the three Marbellan destroyers would lead the Commonwealth to the encampment. He was mad at the destroyers, but he was also angry with the remaining Marbellan ships still at Mistral. Someone had seen those three destroyers depart and had done nothing for many hours. It wasn’t a priority at the moment, but he would have to address that in the future.
He hit his comm button. “All ships converge on Kiraloch at max speed. The Commonwealth is going there.” He leaned in towards his monitor and talked to the two guard ships at Kiraloch. “Jim and Adam, bad situation all around. We are coming as fast as we can. Jim, you have command there. Make the calls as you see fit.”
Marauder and Blackheart were on high guard at Kiraloch. If the entire Commonwealth squadron converged there, it would not be pretty. Hawkins had faith Jim Concannon would do the best he could.
Hawkins sent his message and looked at helm. “Put it in the red zone. Eli.”
He sank in his seat, lost in thought. Tactical moved to be beside him, and Baby Doll leaned on the back of his chair.
“Nothing you could have done,” Tactical quietly informed him.
“Should have left all those people in their ships at Mistral until the Commonwealth got out of the region. Thought we had them outsmarted. I was stupid.”
Baby Doll spoke in his ear. “Not stupid. You just wanted to get them off those hellhole ships. That is kind hearted. An endearing quality, but one you have to overcome. You’re just too nice.”
“Maybe I should turn command over to Killian. Nobody has ever accused her as being too kind hearted.”
“Let’s not go crazy here,” Tactical cautioned. She returned to the situation at hand. “Someone else in those destroyers is the one who got stupid. Can’t predict that ahead of time. Just have to settle for killing people afterwards to set the example.”
Eli had the engines pegged out. Calculations showed that, at current speeds, the two pirate ships would gain on the Commonwealth ships but would still arrive at Kiraloch sixty minutes behind the three ships. Regardless of the number of minutes in trail, late would be late, and it would be bad.
Reports began to come in from other Flot 1 ships. Seven Flot 1 ships were racing to Kiraloch but nobody was closer than Hawkins and he was still eighteen hours away. The three ships Hawkins was pursuing would get there before any Flot 1 ships, and it was reasonable to assume that other Commonwealth ships might arrive before them also.
Hawkins frowned. If both units were at full strength, the fight would be uneven. If Flot 1 had to throw ships in the battle piecemeal as they arrived on scene, it would be even worse. He didn’t need Tactical to run computer scenarios to predict this fight.
Then a call came in from O’Hare. Her image was on his screen with a stern expression. “Well, desperate times, desperate measures. A couple of days ago while we were on the border between the Badlands and the Burghs, we passed Blue Squadron on the edge of sensors. That contact and later radio chatter from freighters tells me that Blue Squadron is probably in range to help.” She leaned toward her screen. “Rafe, they owe us one and Dietrich knows that more than any of them. Give him a call. Out.”
Hawkins pondered for a moment. She was right about desperate. Tactical was suddenly in his ear. “She is right. No choice. Make the call.” He hit his bridge comm station button and spoke to Hyatt Reynaldo quietly. “Comm, do you have a discrete freq for Blue Squadron?”
“They roll base freqs on a six-hour basis and shuffle comm freqs continuously during transmissions to keep out eavesdroppers, but I can give you a safety of flight freq that all their squadrons monitor. You can get out a P4 and keep it private.”
“Send me the freq, please.”
Hawkins moved to his day cabin. Without invitations, Tactical and Baby Doll moved with him. He didn’t care. He sat at his briefing table and brought up his floating screen for communications. He took a deep breath. He looked into the monitor. “Admiral Dietrich, I need your help. We have a house on Kiraloch in the Burgh Systems. It is our Charlie Squadron. We have recently moved a bunch of Marbellan refugees there so there are over sixteen hundred people in one settlement. I have reason to believe the Commonwealth squadron is converging there. I can’t be sure of their course of action, but all indications are their ships are moving in that direction. I assume if Yossian gets there first he will threaten to wipe out the settlement unless we turn over Terrant and Delacruz. He may wipe out the settlement regardless of what we do. Anyway, we are moving there also, but at least some of his ships will get there ahead of any of us. There are two ships on high guard there already. Marauder under James Concannon and Blackheart under Adam Rutledge. Just for ID sake, Blackheart is an Aurora Empire destroyer.” He paused now in thought and then continued. “I’m not going to go into the ramifications of all of this or make the usual threats. You know all that already. I need your help here and so do hundreds of people in tents on Kiraloch. I always thought you were a decent man. Guess I’m about to find out if I was correct. Hawkins out.”
Rafe looked up after sending the message. Baby Doll shrugged. “Best you could do. Now we will see.”
~ ~ ~
Dietrich and his chief of staff watched the message while sitting at their flag bridge stations.
“Wow,” Max Westphal muttered as the message concluded. He looked at Dietrich. “Wow,” he repeated. “I have a bottle of scotch hidden in my stateroom. I’m going to go drink it now because the universe is about to end.”
Dietrich smiled. “I got to admit I did not see this coming. I want a glass of that scotch, and we can watch the end together.”
Westphal nodded. “What are you going to do?”
Dietrich shrugged slightly. “We got to help. No way around it. After Ulatar, Agra 2, and the Redemption episode, if we let this happen it will be painted as another example of surrogates doing Goldenes Tor dirty work. Since the Commonwealth is the same unit that got us banned from all the spaceports, people already see our two groups as tied together. They kill sixteen hundred people, and it becomes known we could have stopped it but didn’t, there will be repercussions across the quadrant. Quite frankly, this is an easy call.�
� He smiled. “Of course, I would never tell Hawkins that.”
“Outside our patrol area. Green Squadron’s AOR.” Westphal was just stating a fact, not an objection. A good staff officer points out all the facts even if he knows it won’t change a thing.
Dietrich nodded, and the two moved on to their tasks at hand.
Westphal calculated an arrival time at Kiraloch as Dietrich looked at the addressee list on Hawkins’ message. The pirate captain had infoed all his ships under the heading “Flot 1.” Dietrich had no idea how many ships that was but it was unimportant at the moment. He hit his “reply to all” virtual button. “Captain Hawkins, Blue squadron is en route to Kiraloch. ETA twelve hours. We will establish a protected zone around your settlement. Dietrich out.” He brought up his command net. “Blue Squadron, we are going to a planet called Kiraloch. Move out at military power. Prepare for combat on arrival there. Dietrich out.”
Blue Squadron changed course and accelerated.
Chapter 39
Commodore Yossian paced his flag bridge while pausing every twenty seconds to look at all sensors screens although there was nothing to see as of yet. His message traffic indicated his entire squadron were on converging courses to arrive at a point on the edge of the Edinburgh Systems. Vega had the three enemy warships on the edge of her sensors while pretending to be a passing freighter. Vega would maintain the contact and report where the three ships went. From Vega’s sensors, it seemed very likely these were three Mamba class destroyers. Hopefully, they would lead him to bigger game, but he would settle for the three ships as compared to nothing at all.
Yossian turned to Tallman. “Everyone is closing on target. We may not get everyone there in time but should have a large enough force to deal with three destroyers, especially considering those ships are not in top combat condition.”
Tallman looked up from his screens. “Yes, Commodore. If the ships continue into Edinburgh territory, I assume you will continue to pursue.”
“Of course. We are in hot pursuit, and it is a reasonable course of action to continue the chase.”
Tallman nodded at the expected answer. It was a reasonable course of action, but this is the ship that started a firefight in a spaceport. Reasonable was a casualty of the little spat. Tallman suspected his squadron did not have the leeway to declare hot pursuit while crossing different political entities, but he kept that opinion to himself. He hoped the whole situation would not be put to the test.
Yossian paced anew and then paused at his command station. “Vega says the three Marbellans have entered orbit around a planet.” He paused as he waited for more information from Vega. “Name of the planet is Kiraloch.” Another pause and then more reading. “Now two ships that had been hidden on the other side of the planet are coming into view.” Yossian looked up and gave Tallman a smile. “There may be something on the planet. Two ships are guarding it.”
Tallman nodded. It was possible, but the planet could also be a rendezvous location for ships to join forces. If so, there would be nothing relating to the Marbellans on the planet. Another opinion left unsaid.
Yossian sat at his command station and talked over his command net. “Vega, hold on the edge of sensors and monitor the situation. Several of our ships are closing on your position. When we have sufficient strength, we will attack the five ships and see what is on the planet, if anything.”
Tallman started getting a sinking feeling.
~ ~ ~
The trio of Marbellan destroyers entered a standard orbit around Kiraloch. Slate called down to the encampment. His call was immediately answered but not by the settlement.
“Krait, this is Marauder, James Concannon commanding. State your business.”
Slate was taken by surprise. He was not aware of other ships in the area. Then he saw the two pirate ships coming around the planet. He understood now, the two ships were guards. “Marauder, Krait here. Roland Slate commanding.” He liked the way that all sounded. “Sorry to show up unannounced. We were not aware of guards on scene. Just dropping in for a visit and to see if we can lend support in any way possible.” That sounded better than saying, “We came for our women.”
“Who is with you, Krait?”
Slate didn’t care for the tone but decided getting into an argument would not help here. He would tell them to piss off after he got what he wanted. “Krait is accompanied by Python and Sidewinder. Again, sorry for the surprise but, I assure you, we come in peace.”
He voiced the last comment in a light tone to help ease the tension. It didn’t work. Concannon was having none of it. “First, you didn’t surprise us. Freighter radio chatter has been tracking you across the Badlands for almost two days. Everyone, including the Goth Emperor, knows you are here by now. Second, do you have that contact on the edge of sensors?”
“Yes, she had been with us for just over two hours.” Slate wanted to sound on top of the situation. “We are sure she is just a freighter. She had just been plodding along in the same direction as us.”
“God, you all are stupid bastards! If she was a freighter plodding along, she wouldn’t have stayed on your sensors as you would have outrun her. She also wouldn’t be hovering out there right now keeping sensors on us. Judging from the return, she is a heavy cruiser or battlecruiser and she is waiting for others to show up before moving in.”
Tyr in Sidewinder spoke up. “How do you know that?” There was a worried tone to his voice.
Concannon didn’t ask about the new voice on the call. He had much bigger concerns. “I know that because I’m a pirate captain that has survived for years in the Badlands! Not sure I can survive your stupidity. Right now, Flot 1 ships are coming here, and we got Goth support too. You better hope some of them get here before the Commonwealth or it is going to get really ugly, really fast.”
Slate jumped back in. “We certainly don’t want to cause a fight. This ship has a working shuttle so we will send it to the surface for our crews’ families and then be on our way.” Saying he wanted all the families sounded better than saying he just wanted the three captains’ women.
“Nobody is going to the surface and nobody is going on their merry way. The settlement is packing for evac. I made the call six hours ago when it became obvious you were coming here and bringing some new friends with you.” He paused and then asked the question that had been bugging him for hours. “Didn’t you hear the freighter chatter about you?”
There was silence as the question implied sheer idiocy on their part. Finally, Zoller in Python spoke. He decided coming clean was their best course here. “Yes, we heard it. Made us sound tough, so we thought nobody would mess with us. We figured once we got out of the range of the talking ship, nobody would be able to track us, so it was not a big deal that a ship in the middle of nowhere saw us. We only saw four ships on sensors in two days so they couldn’t have tracked us.”
Concannon gave a heavy sigh. “All the commercial ships broadcast on common, open freqs and reporting navy ship movements is a standard procedure for them. All the freighters repeat any interesting sightings to other ships so one sighting can result in dozens of ships hearing of it. You three traveling in a tight formation at high speed would attract more attention than a free whorehouse on a mining planet. Four direct sightings would have pointed to your exact destination. All anyone has to do is know the location of the initial radio calls, put them on a star chart, and connect the dots. Since I am sure you flew here on a direct course, it would have been very easy. The Commonwealth force would be monitoring the freqs, and they have followed you. Better get ready. We will have a fight on our hands.”
There was a long silence. Concannon waited. And waited. Finally, he said, “You all heard that, didn’t you?”
Slate talked in a quiet voice. “About that, we are not combat ready. We have about a dozen missiles each and some rounds for the guns. All the weapon systems are iffy at best. We don’t have regular crews who have trained together so not sure about efficiency.”
Slate cut him off. “We have no intention of being missile magnets for anyone.”
Adam Rutledge in Blackheart cut into the conversation. His ship was well behind the four ships to provide sensor coverage in the opposite direction. “We got incoming. Twelve ships. If I had to take a guess, I would say Blue Squadron. At least, I really, really hope so.”
Slate immediately jumped on that bit of news. “Well, it seems our conversation is now irrelevant as help will be here in short order. We will be taking our leave now. Sorry to have-.”
“Whoa, cowboy!” exclaimed Concannon. “You’re not going anywhere. If you make a move to leave, we will start pumping missiles at you at the cyclic rate. We’ll see if you were telling the truth about your systems. Just shut up and drift there.”
Nothing changed over the next hour. All captains seemed content to await further developments with no further conversations. Blue Squadron continued to come on. Concannon judged their closure rate and began to call them.
“We are being hailed,” reported the comm station on the flag bridge to Admiral Dietrich.
Dietrich brought it up onscreen. James Concannon’s image waited for a reply to his hail. “This is the Imperial battlecruiser Lowe, flagship of Blue Squadron. Admiral Erich Dietrich commanding.”
A few seconds later, Concannon nodded and replied, “Pirate vessel Marauder, James Concannon commanding. Welcome to Kiraloch. Hiding behind the planet is the pirate vessel Blackheart, Adam Rutledge commanding.”
Dietrich had noted Blackheart had taken a position so he could easily slide behind the planet if Blue Squadron turned out to be less than friendly. He nodded at Concannon’s statement. “Good afternoon to Blackheart. Understand we have some trouble headed this way.”
The Queen's Hammer Page 26
