A Choice of Treasons (65 page)

Add’kas’adanna was rarely surprised. As the commander of Directorate naval forces many lives and ships were usually lost if she were surprised. But she was surprised now at what they found in the Sarasan system.

A small cloud of debris surrounded Sarasan Station, the type of wreckage that resulted from heavy fighting close in to the station, and the station was completely inert. The station’s primary means of defense, the large orbital weapons platforms orbiting the planet Sarasan, would ordinarily make even a full fleet move cautiously. But they too had been destroyed.

Add’kas’adanna chewed that over for a while. She was not aware of any recent attack on Sarasan, and she would be aware of such an attack by Directorate forces, or heads would roll.

“Your Excellency, we’ve detected a number of transition wakes in the distance, and a considerable amount of transition activity and fighting in one particular direction.”

Add’kas’adanna reviewed the data: one lone wake headed outward parallel to the lines, another lone wake headed in the opposite direction, but also parallel to the lines, and finally two wakes headed toward a considerable force engaged in some heavy fighting.

As the strike force got closer to Sarasan Station some odd facts became apparent. The station, while completely inactive, had not been hulled by any large warheads, was, in fact, basically whole, though her weaponry had been shot out and she was now defenseless.

“Keep us at a reasonable distance,” she said, “while we send in a boarding party. Commodore Martak, you’ll lead the boarding party.”

Like all commanders she hated the waiting most, waiting for the boarding party to get organized, waiting for the gunboats to shuttle them down to the station, waiting for them to set up a secure perimeter in the station then expand the perimeter and cautiously investigate every possible danger. She was surprised when she received a sudden call from Martak much earlier than expected. “Your Excellency, we’ve found a large group of imperials, evidently abandoned here after the station was taken. One of them—a Commander Mayhue Sierka—is quite talkative. He has an interesting story to tell.”

From the moment she set eyes on Sierka Add’kas’adanna didn’t like the man. He was too willing to betray his former comrades, too lacking in honor to fight his own battles, and she herself felt no honor in having captured him. After filtering out Sierka’s vehemence and obviously colored opinions, the events were clear. Ballin had been betrayed by his superiors, had responded by taking Sarasan, had gotten his stricken ship repaired sufficiently to escape, and had done so only hours before Add’kas’adanna’s arrival. As Sierka glared at her from the screen and told his story she realized he was hoping to use her to exact some sort of revenge on the captain of
Cinesstar
, and it left a bad taste in her mouth to realize her duty compelled her to aid him in Ballin’s destruction, even if only indirectly.

“Confirm everything under deep neural probe,” she told Martak some minutes later. “And don’t be gentle with him,” she added out of pure spite. Martak came as close as he ever did to a smile.

Cinesstar
had transited out of the Sarasan system only hours before. She looked at the scan reports on her screen; the renegade
imper
was alone so the double wake was not her prey. One of the two lone wakes, headed outward in opposite directions, had to be
Cinesstar
. This was her chance.

She split her strike force into three small units: her two slowest ships would stay behind and coordinate, while four of her fastest would chase one of the two
impers
, and four more would go in the opposite direction after the other. It galled her that, until she knew which of the two ships was
Cinesstar
, it would be a mistake to go herself after one while the chance existed it might be the other.

The two four-ship groups headed out using a classic chase strategy. In each group all four ships would drive at maximum transition velocity. They’d be blind in transition, but Add’kas’adanna’s flagship, sitting still in the Sarasan system, could give them accurate navigational data for two to three light-years. Then, as soon as the range grew too extreme, the slowest of the four ships would down-transit, go static, and start providing accurate navigational data for the remaining three. Then a few light-years later the slowest of the three would down-transit and navigate for the remaining two. Then the slower of the two would do the same for the last and fastest of the four ships. And finally, the last ship in transition would have to get within targeting range of their prey while still close enough to get accurate navigation and targeting data from her nearest comrade. Given that
Cinesstar
had sustained serious damages and was probably unable to put out full power, they had a good chance of catching her. But they’d have to do so within eight to twelve light-years. And it was Add’kas’adanna’s job to wait, and wonder which of those two ships out there was
Cinesstar
, and pray they made no mistakes, though the only gods she believed in where the gods of war, and they were never terribly receptive to prayer.

“Captain, you’d better get up here right away.”

York nodded, cut the circuit and headed straight for the bridge. His yeoman barked, “Captain on the bridge,” as he floated in zero-G out of the lift.

York strapped in at the command console, keyed his implants into the bridge circuit and scanned his instruments in a matter of seconds. Nothing imminent!

“What is it?” he demanded.

“I’ve been analyzing our orbit,” Gant said, and from her navigational console she threw a plot of their orbit on one of his screens, “and that of our friends out there.” Another set of elliptical lines appeared on the same screen. York looked at them closely.

They’d been orbiting Sarasan for the last fifteen hours while Cappik completed the repairs, doing everything possible to keep all detectable radiation to a minimum. And from that vantage they’d watched the
feddies
transit into the system, investigate the station, certainly interrogate the prisoners there, all of whom had been carefully misled to believe
Cinesstar
was transition worthy when she departed.

The
feddies
had fallen for it, gone after the other transition wakes driving away from the system. York wasn’t terribly disappointed when they left two ships behind. It only meant they’d have to wait them out.

“What a stroke of bad luck,” Gant said.

The two
feddies
that had stayed behind had gone into a forced orbit at about the same diameter as
Cinesstar
, but using power to swing them around the planet in well under an hour, while
Cinesstar’s
static orbital period was more like twenty days. The
feddies’
orbit was elliptical, and precessing, while
Cinesstar’s
was circular and stable.

Gant sounded tired as she told York what he could already see from the scan data. “The two orbits are considerably different, but eventually, if we or they don’t change anything, their precession is going to bring them into fairly close contact.”

“When?” York asked. “And how close?”

“Twenty-eight hours. Ten thousand kilometers.”

“Shit,” someone grumbled. “That’s almost a collision course.”

The
feddies
were undoubtedly running close range scans out to that radius, if for no other reason than to spot debris. That close,
Cinesstar
would stand out like a beacon. If York had been smarter, done his job, thought ahead and played it safe, put
Cinesstar
into an unusually large and eccentric orbit, they’d be safe now. He didn’t bother to tell them he’d fucked up.

The next several hours were hardest on Cappik and his crew. To repair the transition drive and the power plant they’d had to strip the entire section. Before they’d left Sarasan Station they’d completed the heavy work on the drive and remounted the chambers. But most of the peripheral instrumentation needed a complete refit, and getting everything in place, and doing it right, was a monumental task, and there’d be no time for any testing beyond computer simulations.

The Port chamber was a complete loss, Centerline was cold, with Starboard idling at a trickle. But when that
feddie
came within range they’d need both Starboard and Centerline hot and ready to defend themselves. If they really pushed it, that would take at least a half hour of slow warm-up, a process their friends out there could spot from half way across the System. And a half hour would be plenty of time to take
Cinesstar
apart piece by piece. Again, it was the normally uncreative Cappik who came up with the only idea that might work.

“What about this, Captain?” the engineer asked. “Centerline’s in the center of the ship, which ought to provide some coverage, and I’ll add so much shielding nothing’ll leak through, as long as we don’t push it too hard. And we’re sitting right in the middle of all this hot debris from those platforms. With the added shielding we could probably bring Centerline up to maybe five percent. Now that ain’t much, but it’s enough to get her warm so she don’t take any damage if we bring her up from there real fast. The only danger is we’ll have to bring her up and hold her at five percent for a couple of hours.”

Two hours during which the
feddies
had that much more chance to spot them.

Cappik’s eyes met his, and he obviously shared the thought.

“Do it,” York said.

Cappik had the make-shift shielding in place just in time, and once they started bringing the power up in Centerline York never left the bridge. Gant monitored every move the
feddies
made, ready to warn them if there was any change, for better or worse. And York sat staring at the data, trying to think what he was going to do with one marginally hot chamber. It wasn’t enough to fight a battle, to power shields, gravity, drive, life-support, weapons. Just not enough. They’d have one shot. Then all they could do was run, and
Cinesstar
wasn’t in any condition to do that very well.

“Fifty minutes and counting, sir.”

“Eldinow, reposition us for a stern shot. I want the aft launch room lined up on their approach vector.”

“Mister Jakobee. We’ll launch two salvos, back-to-back. For the first arm two one-megatonne warheads. Fuse them for contact detonation, one targeted at each of those two warships.”

Their only chance was a sucker-punch, try to get a good first shot in under the response time of the
feddie
detection systems, which would be slowed down by the need to analyze radiation signatures from all the debris. If the
feddies
were within ten thousand kilometers when
Cinesstar
launched her warheads, they’d cover the distance between the two ships in microseconds. But it would take precious seconds to bring the chamber up to enough power to launch the damn warheads. York chose to use the small one-megatonne warheads for the first salvo—the smaller warheads required less energy to punch them into transition. “When I give the order to power-up, Mister Jakobee, launch the first salvo as soon as you have enough power. Don’t wait for a specific launch command.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Very good. Also arm two one-hundred megatonne warheads for the second salvo. Fuse them for proximity detonation, one thousand meters, one targeted at each of those two warships. And again you’ll not wait for a specific command. Just launch the second salvo as soon as you have enough power to do so.”

The second salvo, with larger warheads, was insurance, though privately, if the first salvo didn’t do the job, York didn’t think the second would do them any good.

“Ten minutes, sir.”

Add’kas’adanna looked at the reports coming in from her chase ships. Her flagship and its escort had their drones out at extreme range to get the maximum baseline for tracking the
impers
, though they were close to their limit. In another hour or two it would be necessary for the first of her chase ships to down-transit and take the responsibility for tracking their prey. But until that time it was imperative her ships and their drones make no changes in their orbits. Simple, stable orbits, with well-defined parameters. If they wanted to catch that ship, they’d need every advantage they could squeeze out of their instruments.

“Range—one hundred thousand kilometers, closing at two hundred kilometers per second. Convergence in five minutes.”

“We’ve got an good targeting solution, sir.”

“Hold your fire, Mister Jakobee,” York said. “Steady as she goes.” It was eerie, fighting a battle this close to an enemy, one approaching at a bare crawl.

“Range—eighty thousand kilometers, sir. Convergence in four minutes.”

“Remember,” he said. “We take no action until ten thousand kilometers.”