Adapt and Overcome (The Maxwell Saga) (12 page)

“
Orbcon Duty Officer to de Bouff. You can’t get away with this! When the destroyers get back here, they’ll have you for breakfast! Give up now and save your own lives! Over.”

“
Orbcon, you’re full of it! We’ll be on our way to the system boundary with
Mauritania
in half an hour. Once we’ve got her, we’ve also got the Group of 100 an’ their families. We’ve been planning this for months. That emergency signal was a fake, to draw off those warships. Sure, they’ll catch up with us: but by then we’ll have divided the hostages between both ships. If they try t’ mess with us, they’ll have grandstand seats to watch the VIP’s bein’ kicked out through an airlock, one by one, without benefit of spacesuit. We’ll start with the women and children. Nah, they’ll let us go. They’ll have no choice!”

With a stomach-wrenching chill, Steve realized that de
Bouff was right. This early in the morning, most of the Group of 100 delegation and their families were still aboard
Mauritania.
The pirates would have more than enough hostages. They could afford to murder as many as it took to convince the Fleet that they meant business.

“
OrbCon Duty Officer to de Bouff. If you fire so much as one beam at
Mauritania
, we will instantly open fire on you, and damn the consequences! Also, you may not, I say again, you
may not
leave orbit with
Mauritania
. We will fire on you if you attempt to do so. I’m contacting my superiors for further instructions. Over.”

Steve could hear the contempt
and anger in de Bouff’s voice.
“Damn
your superiors! You’ll do as I say, or watch us feed
Mauritania’
s fat-cat passengers out an airlock, one at a time! Don’t try t’ be a hero, spacer boy. The only way you could have stopped us was to have a warship intercept us durin’ our approach, when we were still out of range. It’s too late to stop us now. We hold all the cards, an’ you know it. Now
shaddup
unless I wanna talk t’ you!”

Steve knew that with so many VIP hostages at stake, all the destroyers could do would be to follow the pirate ship and
Mauritania
to the system boundary. After that, all bets were off. Both ships could hyper-jump a short distance, using only part of the charge in their capacitor rings, then change direction and jump again within minutes. It would overheat their gravitic drive units, but not to the point of inflicting permanent damage. Within an hour of their first jump they’d be ten to fifteen light years away in an unpredictable direction, impossible to follow or trace. If they were to be stopped, it had to be
now,
before they could take control of their target and its hostages.

He glanced across at
Abha. She was watching him, clearly having heard everything over the console’s speakers. Glancing in the mirror over the console, he could see the Marines watching him with equal intentness. They’d been listening too.

He took a deep breath. “Lieutenant, we’re abandoning the exercise. We’ve got pirates to deal with. Get your Marines ready for combat while I set this up.”

“Aye aye, Sir! All right, Gunnery Sergeant Bradshaw, you heard that. Abandon exercise, prepare for a real fight!”

“Aye
aye, Ma’am!”

Her senior NCO turned to the ready-use ammunition lockers and broke their seals as the others stripped the training target-designators from their beam rifles. He handed out live charges and grenades, the Marines and PSDF troops passing them from hand to hand until everyone had a complete issue. A basic load of such items was always stocked in shuttles’ ammo lockers for just such contingencies when on active service. They didn’t have heavier munitions along on this trip, but for shipboard combat they wouldn’t need them.

Steve looked at the pilot. “Sergeant Higgs, circle that hilltop until I can set this up.” He indicated a conical peak ahead.

“Aye
aye, Sir!”

Steve tapped commands into his console. Above the shuttle two more laser tight-beam communicator turrets rose from the hull. One trained around towards
Mauritania,
thousands of kilometers ahead and above, while the other aimed itself at the Orbital Control Center aboard the Elevator Terminal. As soon as their sensors detected his tight-beam, he knew both targets would slave one of their own laser communicator turrets to his, ready to receive his signal and respond.

He checked the tight-beam circuits to the other shuttles, and pressed the ‘Transmit’ button. “Outpost One-One to Outpost Six and Outpost Three-One, close up and conform to my movements. We’re going to circle that hill ahead of us. Acknowledge.
Over.”

A momentary pause, then, “Six to One-One, understood, over.”

“Three-One to One-One, acknowledged, over.”

“One-One to Six, you heard that pirate transmission?
Over.”

“Six to One-One, I sure did!
D’you mean to tell me that after all he did to you, and to those Fleet spacers, de Bouff is still around? Over.”

Steve abandoned radio protocol. “The Fleet put a twenty-five-million-credit bounty on his head, but he dropped out of sight. He probably went to the far side of the settled galaxy, crawled into a hole and pulled it in after him. I don’t know why he’s stuck his head out again, but this time I want to cut it off! He’s in what appears to be a tramp freighter, judging by its
gravitic drive signature. He’s obviously converted her to accommodate laser cannon. He says he has four, and that sounds about right – there’s not enough power in a tramp-size reactor to handle more than that. I doubt he’s installed a second reactor, because it’s hellish complicated to add another shielded compartment beneath the spine and incorporate it into the ship’s wiring harness after initial construction. He probably doesn’t have a warship’s sensors, either – only a standard merchant ship’s electronics suite, with a few primitive fire control systems added on. Agreed so far? Over.”

“Agreed.
You’re the ship-to-ship-combat go-to guy around here. You call the shots. Over.”

“OK.
” Steve silently thanked his friend for his faith in him. “We’re in stealth mode, not using locator beacons, observing radio and radar silence, and using active detection cancellation. I doubt he’s picked us up on his sensors. With so much masking, he shouldn’t be able to detect our gravitic drives with a typical merchant ship’s electronic suite except at close range. If he has something more sensitive that could be a problem, but there’s only one way to find out if he does. We’re going to have to get real close to him to use our cannon. That puts us at risk from his weapons, but I think I can mask our approach using EW so that he won’t see us until we’re within range. It’ll be risky, but that’s why they pay us these huge salaries.”

Brooks
interrupted, sniggering over the circuit. “Yeah,
right!
”

Steve suppressed a wry smile. “Uh-huh.
I plan to duck underneath him and rake him from stern to bow with our cannon. That should disable his ship and knock out its lasers. You and Shuttle Three stay behind me in echelon starboard formation, five hundred meters distance between shuttles. I’ll pass targeting information to your shuttles and slave your cannon to mine for a synchronized firing pass. As soon as it’s complete, both of you peel off and go balls-to-the-wall for the liner. Take out the pirates’ boats with your plasma cannon at low power, then board the liner through the docking bay. While you’re doing that, I’ll board the pirate ship with the Marines and PSDF troops on this shuttle. We’ll shut down her power, so she can’t interfere or escape, then sweep her compartments to make sure she’s no longer a threat. Over.”

“What about her crew? They may outnumber you – probably will.
Over.”

“The pirate ship
’s crew isn’t expecting that sort of trouble. Most of them probably won’t be carrying personal weapons. We’ll probably kill or injure a lot of them during our firing pass. They may still outnumber us, even so, but my people are in armor. We should be able to cope. Trouble is, there’ll be sixty to eighty armed pirates aboard those two small craft headed for
Mauritania
. They’ll be ready for a fight. Can your two shuttles’ crews deal with that many? Over.”

Brooks snorted audibly. “I doubt they’re wearing armor – at least, I’ve never heard of pirates that did. That means they won’t have much, if anything, in the way of beam weapons
or portable plasma cannon – it takes armor’s strength to carry them and their power packs. We’re in armor and have beam weapons, so we should be able to deal with them. The problem will be if they get in amongst the passengers, so they can hide behind hostages. Over.”

Steve nodded to himself.
“I’m going to talk to
Mauritania
directly about that in a moment, after I talk to OrbCon. Stay on circuit and listen in – you too, Outpost Three-One. Break.”

He
checked his console. Green lights were glowing to signify that both OrbCon and
Mauritania’
s systems had locked onto his tight-beam lasers and were waiting to receive. He activated the circuit to Orbcon, making sure the other shuttles were able to listen to it.

“Outpost One-One to
Orbcon. This is Senior Lieutenant Maxwell, Lancastrian Commonwealth Fleet. This is a tight-beam transmission – the pirates can’t monitor it. Put the Watch Officer on this circuit right now! Over.”

A brief pause, then, “
OrbCon Watch Officer to Outpost One-One, go ahead, over.”

“Outpost One-One to
OrbCon. I’m on my way up to orbit with three assault shuttles and a combined unit of Marines and PSDF NCO’s. I intend to take out that pirate ship, then send two shuttles to
Mauritania
to deal with the pirates aboard her. Request strike authorization. Over.”

“
Orbcon to Outpost One-One, negative!
Negative!
There’s too much risk to the passengers and crew of
Mauritania!
Do not attack! Over.”

Steve rolled his eyes in exasperation. The Watch Officer was almost certainly someone of his rank, perhaps even junior to him, and probably had little or no combat experience. He was clearly way out of his depth.

“Outpost One-One to Orbcon. How can we possibly pose any greater risk than the pirates to the passengers and crew of
Mauritania?
If you don’t know Johann de Bouff’s reputation, look it up! I’ve run into him before. If he captures
Mauritania,
the women aboard will soon be wishing they were dead, and the men won’t be much better off! Your destroyers and corvette are hours away, and as far as I know you don’t have any other armed force in orbit. We
have
to disrupt this attack before the pirates can secure hostages. If you won’t authorize a strike, get hold of a more senior officer who understands reality! Over.”

“
Orbcon to Outpost One-One. We can fire on them with our missiles if they try to leave orbit. Over.” The man’s voice was tremulous, uncertain.

“Outpost One-One to
Orbcon, negative, I say again,
negative!
Your missiles will kill as many hostages as they do pirates! We’re your best – no, your
only
option. Over.”

A new voice came onto the circuit, strong, deep,
authoritative. “Break, break. This is Commodore O’Fallon. My callsign will be Rolla Six. Orbcon, stand by. Outpost One-One, the Operations Room at Defense HQ in Beaumont called me at home to alert me to this situation. They’re connected to OrbCon via the Elevator cables, and I’m piggybacking on your tight-beam circuit to talk to you, so the pirates can’t hear us. How do you propose to deal with these bastards? Over.”

“Outpost One-One to Rolla Six.
Sir, I think we can close with them under cover of our electronic warfare systems. Our plasma cannon should be able to disable their ship, after which we can board both vessels to take out the pirates. As far as I know, we’re the only force in a position to intervene. The pirates’ small craft will board
Mauritania
in ten to fifteen minutes. Once they’ve taken hostages, all bets are off. We’ve got to move
now!
Over.”

There was a brief pause, then, “Rolla Six to Outpost One-One. I know you’ve seen combat, so you understand the risks.
If they see you coming, at least some of you are likely to be killed. You also know how important the Group of 100 is to the future of this planet. Can you guarantee the safety of
Mauritania
and all aboard her? Over.”

“Outpost One-One to Rolla Six.
Sir, that sort of danger is why we’re here. I can’t guarantee anyone’s safety, or that there won’t be civilian casualties, but we’ll do our best to minimize the risks. I submit we have no choice but to stop the pirates from seizing the ship and her passengers and crew. Once they do that, no-one aboard her will be safe. This is your planet, Sir, and you have the final say about operations in your system. I formally request permission to proceed. Over.”

Another pause, then a sigh.
“Rolla Six to Outpost One-One, you’re right. The unit presently under your command is hereby designated Task Force Maxwell. By my authority as Commanding Officer of Rolla’s System Patrol Service, you are appointed in tactical command of all operations against the pirates until this situation is resolved. Your orders are to rescue those aboard
Mauritania
by any means necessary, with as few casualties to them as possible. You may use any and all SPS personnel and resources that you need. Deal with the situation at your discretion. Over.”