“I have been given specific code words to advise me that the situation at home is safe for the Prime Minister’s return.” She smiled thinly—an even more terrifying expression on the Moon simulacrum than Kira thought it was on herself—at the other woman.
“Suffice to say, calling us hijackers is not included on that list. If you continue your hostile approach, I will have no choice but to engage your task group to defend the Prime Minister.
“Please, Captain Abraham, if you are not involved in the Royalists’ schemes, stand aside. If you approach within two million kilometers, I will order fighter strikes on your command.”
She cut off the message and sent it.
“Think they’ll buy it?” Konrad asked.
“Honestly? No,” Kira admitted. “But I suspect that things are in a state of absolute chaos in the Crest right now, and even if the Crown Zharang hasn’t moved yet, that whole spiel seems believable enough.”
She shook her head.
“I’m not counting on Abraham believing me,” she concluded. “I’m counting on her being unsure enough not to risk a fight she can’t actually win.”
For several minutes, there was no response from Captain Abraham and Interest Differential. The battlecruiser and her destroyer escort continued to close, moving ever closer to Kira’s two-million-kilometer line.
“Sagairt, Cartman, Patel,” Kira said quietly, linking all three Commanders, Nova Group, into a channel.
“Stand by for launch. Priority target is the battlecruiser. Raccoon-Zeta will make a high-speed strike with their nova bombers. Everyone else will cover them. Heavy fighters and fighter-bombers will target the destroyers with their torpedoes if they get a chance.”
None of the interceptors were carrying torpedoes. Their job would be to deal with their Cavalier counterparts on the other side.
Her CNGs chorused acknowledgement, and icons began to flicker from yellow to green on Kira’s fighter status report. The speed suggested that many of the nova-fighter pilots had already been in their cockpits, waiting for the order to strap in.
“Two-point-four million kilometers,” Soler reported. “Wait. I have a vector change! She’s turning away.”
Kira double-checked and breathed a sigh of relief. For now, it looked like Abraham was blinking.
“She’ll transmit shortly,” Kira said aloud. “Let’s see what she’s thinking. Maintain battle stations.”
If she had to hold Memorial Force at battle stations for the full twenty-hour cooldown, she would. Her people would be shattered by the end and she’d be in trouble if her next nova took her into even more Crester ships.
“Still no coms,” Soler reported. “Interest Differential has matched velocities at eight light-seconds. The destroyers are spreading out but also at eight light-seconds.”
“Spreading out?” Kira asked.
“They’re attempting to synchronize active sensors to create a virtual telescope,” Konrad guessed. “Aiming for a better view of the ships around Fortitude.”
“Short of bringing up the jammers, can we stop them?” she asked. If they got a good look at her ships, they’d realize how heterogenous her fleet was—and they might even be able to ID the Redward destroyers, given that Panosyan’s delegation had been sending reports back.
Hell, they might even be able to identify Memorial Force based on those reports and the Redward-built destroyers.
“No,” Konrad said grimly. “It’s jammers, which blows any chance at pretending we’re friendly, or allow them to ID us.”
“Which will probably also shred any chance of maintaining the deception.”
Kira checked the time. They still had nineteen hours left. But…Interest Differential was a big ship and an older one. Bigger than Deception, older than Fortitude.
“Do we have an estimate on the Banker’s Acceptance’s acceleration and speed?” she asked.
“On your screen,” Konrad replied a moment later.
Kira studied the specifications for the cruiser. They could do it. Just barely.
“And she’s matched v with us,” Kira said aloud. “Raccoon and Lady Tramp are our slowest ships, but even they have a slight edge over Differential.”
She shook her head.
“I don’t want to kill people who are simply doing their duty,” she noted. “All ships are to rotate sixty degrees to port and go to maximum acceleration. Multiphasic jammers to come online as soon as we’re moving.”
The icons on her display updated swiftly as her people obeyed. All six of her ships were suddenly running away from Interest Differential—and before Captain Abraham could react, multiphasic jamming shrouded Kira’s fleet.
The downside of multiphasic jamming was that Kira couldn’t see out. Optical pickups weren’t going to reliably detect a ship at eight light-seconds at the best of times, and it wasn’t like multiphasic jamming had no impact on the visual wavelengths.
“Adding possibility zones for NRC vessels,” Soler said quietly as the icons on the main display dissolved into large colored spheres. “The destroyers can catch us. So can the nova fighters.”
“We’ll keep our fighters in space,” Kira replied. “Stand the rest of the Force down to status two by laser if we can reach them. We’ll maintain a combat patrol capable of handling their ten Cavaliers.”
And otherwise, they would spend twenty hours running away. Kira was perfectly capable of recognizing when flight was the best plan.
46
Kira was pretty sure Captain Abraham was furious by the time they dropped the jammers to nova to the next trade-route stop. The battlecruiser group was still pursuing them and clearly had been for the entire nineteen-hour layover.
The Navy of the Royal Crest commander hadn’t been foolish enough to send her destroyers or nova fighters ahead on their own, though.
Kira gave the other woman a mental salute as Fortitude’s nova drive engaged. She could respect that kind of determination and loyalty. She wasn’t going to let the NRC task group engage her fleet, and by running away, she’d made sure nobody died.
Kira had even managed to sneak in a nap while they ran.
A perfect victory for any mercenary.
“Novaing now,” Soler reported. “Stand by for new contacts.”
It wasn’t a question of if there would be contacts. They were now at the closest trade-route stop to Guadaloop and still only three novas from the Crest. There were going to be ships around.
“Sixty-five contacts,” the tactical officer reported after a few seconds. “More are freighters; I am still resolving… We’ve got a GODCom destroyer and I’m definitely looking at five NRC ships.”
“I was hoping for a nice quiet stopover,” Kira noted. “What are we looking at?”
“Looks like…logistics-support ships, eighty-kilocubic colliers,” Soler replied. “No, hold on…that’s two eighty-kilocubic supply ships and three eighty-kilocubic cruisers.”
“That’s not good,” Kira muttered. “Identities?”
“Give me…got them. Reliable, Dependable, and Sensible. They are Reliable-class cruisers, almost obsolete and the last of their class in commission.”
Kira was running the names against the lists in her head.
“Captains Ruud, Yong, and MacDermott by my list,” she noted. “They’re all Royalists, at least in theory.”
“That could be good, right?” Konrad asked. “Should be good?”
“Yeah,” Kira agreed. “Assuming the Crown Zharang got their message out. Assuming that they’re Royalist enough to turn a blind eye to a stolen carrier.”
“What do we do?” Soler asked.
“Transmit to all three of them,” Kira ordered. “Audio only. Advise them that we are operating under Protocol Tinkerbell Rising and they are to stand by for further information from Hook, Line and Sinker before acting.”
“Does that mean anything?” Konrad asked.
“It means we’re operating under direct authorization from the royal family and they are to
stand by for further orders from NRC Central Command before taking any combative action,” she told her lover.
“Transmitted,” Soler reported. “What now?”
“We keep our distance and we hope that the Crown Zharang’s message reached them,” Kira said. “We don’t let them get close. If they’re older ships, we should be able to hold the range open.”
“Warbook says they have updated Harringtons,” Konrad warned. “They’re faster than Raccoon.”
“Then let’s get that range opening now while we wait for their response,” Kira ordered. “The good news is that I’m reasonably sure the Reliable class doesn’t have nova fighters.”
Which meant that unless the cruisers had cooled down their own nova cores, she didn’t have to worry about the almost thirty light-seconds of range disappearing on her.
Memorial Force began to move away from the three cruisers. Nine million kilometers gave Kira a lot of room to play with, but it could go away in a lot less than the twenty hours it would take to cool Fortitude’s nova drive.
“No response,” Soler reported quietly. “Cruisers are moving…toward us, but relatively slowly. They’re maintaining range, not closing it.”
“I can live with that,” Kira said. “Confusion is enough for here and now. All I need is for them not to attack us.”
“How long do you think they’ll hesitate?” Konrad asked.
“Less than an hour,” she admitted. “Three ways this breaks down, people. The three Captains are arguing it out right now, considering their loyalty to the Crown of the Royal Crest versus the fact that we’ve pretty clearly stolen a carrier.
“First way it breaks down is that they decide that our sins exceed what those code words buy us,” she said. “They come after us. It’s unlikely to take them an hour to get to that point, so we’ll have a fight on our hands.
“Both the second and third way it breaks down, they decide our code words cover us or can’t come to a shared conclusion. Second way it breaks down, they either let us go or hesitate—and they don’t move against us before we can nova.”
“And the third option?” her boyfriend asked.
“Someone jumps in from the Crest with an update and a shoot-to-kill order,” Kira admitted. “Faced with direct orders, they have no choice but to attack—backed by whoever carried the message.
“Which could be anything from a single gunship to an entire carrier group. Depending on timing and where the messenger arrives, that might still be a bust for them.”
The wild card in the deck for the Navy of the Royal Crest, Kira knew, was whether or not Fortitude had a full deck of nova fighters. If Kira had brought enough birds and pilots to arm the carrier, she’d have a two-hundred-plus-fighter alpha strike.
She hadn’t, which meant that the odds were even at best if the three cruisers came after her. But the NRC didn’t know that, which hopefully added to their hesitation.
“We’ll keep the distance between us and the Reliables as open as we can,” she told Soler and Konrad. “That keeps options open for us.”
“And if they do try to close?” Konrad asked.
“Then we send in the fighters and try to take out their engines without wrecking the ships,” she said.
They could only try that once. If they didn’t disable the cruisers on the first pass, a second attempt to cripple them would be too dangerous. They’d have to destroy the cruisers or risk Memorial Force’s safety.
The Captains and crew over there weren’t Kira’s enemy and she really didn’t want to do that.
But her people came first.
“Reliables are breaking off.”
Kira released a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been half-holding. Seventy-six minutes had passed since they’d transmitted their code words.
“What are they doing?” she asked.
“Resuming their original patrol pattern, it looks like,” Soler reported. “They…appear to be ignoring us now.”
“That’s the best we can hope for,” Kira replied. “Let’s get the range further open. If they want to ignore us for now, let’s make sure they can’t change their minds later.”
“Will it last?” Soler asked.
“Now we’re waiting to see if they get orders from the Crest,” she told the tactical officer. “If they do, then it’s a lot harder for them to pretend they didn’t know something was going on.”
Kira eyed the cruisers as they slowly jetted away from her command and shook her head.
“Go catch a breather, Soler,” she ordered. “I’ll keep the lights on here for the moment. Listen for the battle-stations alert.”
The look she got from her subordinate in response to the last suggestion made her chuckle.
“I think we’re fine, Soler,” she said. “So, go rest. We’ve still got nineteen hours before the final nova, and things are going to get fun in Guadaloop.”
“Yes, sir.”
The younger woman transferred tactical control to Kira’s console and left, leaving Memorial Force’s Commodore alone on the carrier’s massive bridge.
Someday, it would be filled with mercenary crew at all hours. Right now, they had a battle stations crew of five, and Kira had sent all of them, including her boyfriend, to rest.
She could fly the carrier from there. She could even fight the carrier from there, though not overly well without support crew.
What she couldn’t do from there was see how the Navy of the Royal Crest was reacting to the theft of their newest supercarrier. She couldn’t know how the judicial counter-coup was going on the Crest, or if the military forces loyal to the Sanctuary and Prosperity Party were short-stopping the Royalist scheme to retake control of their government.
She had no answers and no vision of anywhere but one trade-route stop in the middle of nowhere.
At least the code words had worked. Kira really hadn’t wanted to fight the cruisers—but she also hadn’t really believed that anyone would buy the “Protocol Tinkerbell Rising” thing.
47
“Cooldown nearly complete,” Konrad reported.
Everyone was back on station and Kira was watching the three Reliables like a hawk. She’d slept in the daybed in the captain’s quarters, in an uncomfortably restive three-quarters doze, all too aware things could go sideways.
“All right, everybody.” Kira looked at the collection of virtual faces hanging around her. Starship Captains and nova-group commanders. Subordinates and friends.
“Are we good for the final leap?”
Nods answered her. No one was looking entirely comfortable with what came next, but they’d been planning for it for a while.
“Remember, it’s a three-light-year jump, not a six-light-year jump,” Kira said. “That means we only have twelve hours before we can start novaing again, and we’re jumping in twelve light-hours out.
“We should be clear of attack until we’ve finished cooldown. We’ll transmit our demands from the twelve-light-hour point and then begin an outer-system nova hopscotch.”
She shook her head.
“We will come under nova-fighter attack,” she noted. “Sorry, CNGs, but we’re looking at a minimum of five squadrons in the air at all times. Half the planes. Once we’ve seen off the first few strikes, they should hesitate and wait for orders from the Crest.
“Final Usury’s Admiral Dafina Avagyan is related to the royal family by marriage but is not on my list of officers cleared for Protocol Tinkerbell Rising,” Kira continued. “So, either Panosyan briefed her personally when they were in the system, or we can assume that Avagyan will react as any rational NRC officer would.”
“Assume we’ve stolen a carrier and attack?” Zoric asked drily.
“Exactly. Assuming that Avagyan relays our demands to the Crest immediately upon receipt, we’re still looking at a minimum of eighty to a hundred hours for a response,” Kira continued. Without the stopover at the security point, it was only two trade-route stops to the Crest.
“We’re b
etter off assuming a week, people. If things are looking remotely orderly in the Crest, they’re not going according to plan.”
Kira’s next words were interrupted by an alert as Fortitude’s scanners picked up something new…
“Contact, contact!” Soler snapped. “Multiple contacts. I am making it…”
The young woman looked up in concern.
“I am making it a Banking-class fleet carrier and two battlecruisers, plus destroyers,” she noted. “Full carrier group.”
“They’ll launch fighters as soon as they locate us,” Kira said. “Konrad? Cooldown?”
“Ninety seconds,” he reported.
“Your orders?” several people asked simultaneously.
There were no good options. If they were seeing the nova emergences, the carrier had seen them almost a minute before. Long enough ago to already be launching fighters.
“Get the fighters aboard and fire up the jammers,” Kira ordered flatly. “Then stand by to repel fighters with defensive turrets while we prepare to nova!”
There was one last piece of data Kira needed before the jammers went up, and Soler resolved it for her just in time.
The carrier was Collections Agent. The battlecruisers were Amortization and Amiability.
Those battlecruisers’ commanders had to be furious. They were SPP loyalists who’d watched her kidnap their Prime Minister under their very noses—and according to the files, Collections Agent’s Captain was of a similar vein.
As were the destroyer COs and probably most of the senior officers and crews. This was the Sanctuary and Prosperity Party’s own personal carrier group.
“The SPP can’t control many entire carrier groups,” she muttered. “Why did you send them here?”
It wasn’t the normal organization of the ships, either. Collections Agent had a completely different battlecruiser listed as her escort, but that ship’s Captain was on Kira’s list of Royalists.
Fortitude (Scattered Stars: Conviction Book 4) Page 27
