Adapt and Overcome (The Maxwell Saga) (39 page)

“The second
local patrol boat’s just radioed good news. They located the lifeboat from their sister ship. Everyone aboard managed to escape. Their skipper ordered most of them into the lifeboat before he began radar transmissions, keeping only himself and his engineer outside it to manage the ship. As soon as he activated the radar, they joined the rest in the lifeboat; and as soon as they heard the alarm from the bridge warning of a missile launch, he sealed the hatch and ejected the lifeboat. That was some pretty smart work right there.”

Dan exhaled in relief.
“Phew!
I’m glad to hear they’re all safe. That was very good work by their captain. If he hadn’t forced Target Bravo to switch on her radar and gravitic drive, we’d never have been able to track her so precisely or target her so accurately. I’m glad he made it.” His soldiers nodded and smiled their agreement. Some applauded the good news.

Abha nodded, also feeling a rush of relief. “We’ll have to recommend him for recognition. He’s a civilian, of course, but he’s still eligible for the Lancastrian Cross series of awards.” She couldn’t help smiling as she recalled the Cross in Silver that Steve had earned as a merchant spacer after a
fight with pirates as a young man. Prior to receiving the Lancastrian Star in Silver a few months ago, it had headed his rows of medal ribbons.

“Have you heard any more from SysCon?” she asked the captain.

“They’re not giving us very frequent updates. They seem a tad busy right now.” Everyone laughed. “From what we can see in our Plot display, the two patrol craft that damaged the other pirate ship have turned around and are hot on her tail. A destroyer’s moving to intercept her as well, but she probably won’t get into range in time to stop the pirates reaching the system boundary. It’ll be up to the patrol craft to stop them. Two other patrol craft launched missiles at the three asteroids the pirates aimed at the planet, and knocked them off course. They’re standing by them waiting for further orders. So far, so good, it seems.” He grinned, half-waved at the soldiers, and hurried out.

Dan nodded slowly. “Good news all round, then.” He looked at Abha. “I reckon we owe you and the rest of the Fleet training mission a hell of a lot. If you hadn’t trained us so well and arranged this shuttle upgrade, we wouldn’t have been able to stop them out here; and I reckon your husband’s hard work training our patrol craft crews had a lot to do with their success.”

“All part of the service,” she said lightly. “Seriously, our efforts would have been useless if you hadn’t all buckled down and worked so hard. It makes our job much easier when we’re working with people who are really motivated. You can all be proud of yourselves. In fact, one of the most important aspects of today’s fight is that local personnel did all the work. You set up our fire plan – I was just along for the ride. Rolla’s assault shuttles and troops saw off Target Bravo, and Rolla’s patrol craft crewed by her own spacers took care of Target Alpha. Your armed forces came of age today, protecting your own planet. The problems you had in the past are pretty much over and done.”

~ ~ ~

The tension in SysCon ratcheted upward once more as Lieutenant-Commander Le Roux’s patrol craft closed the distance between themselves and Target Alpha.

“When will he fire?” Holloway demanded, pacing to and fro in agitation.

“His defensive missiles are much shorter-ranged than his main battery missiles, Sir,” Commodore O’Fallon reminded him. “They’ve got a powered range of only two million kilometers. He’ll want to be close enough to let them accelerate all the way into the target, or at least have enough reactor fuel left to shut down, coast to interception range on a ballistic trajectory, then restart their drives for final maneuvers. Trouble is, if he’s too far away when he fires, Alpha will be able to take evasive maneuvers, and defensive missiles don’t have enough fuel to correct their course as easily as main battery weapons.”

“What about his laser cannon?”

“He’ll probably try to get within half a million clicks before using them, Sir.”

“Won’t Alpha’s cannon endanger him at that range?”

“Yes, Sir, if she’s got a fire control system that can work that far out; but I’ll be surprised if she does. Besides, she’s about to have to deal with forty nuclear-tipped missiles. I suspect she’ll have so many targets closing in that the patrol craft will be the least of her worries!”

“I’m delighted to hear it.” There was unmistakable vindictiveness in the Defense Minister’s tone.

The Prime Minister re-entered SysCon with Colonel Houmayoun, and crossed to the Watch Commander’s console. “I’ve just made a statement to the news media for immediate broadcast,” he informed them. “I told them about what’s happened so far, and that the planet’s safe from attack. I’ve announced that our forces have suffered some damage and casualties, but I haven’t been specific, to give us time to inform the families first. Journalists are agitating to be given access to SysCon to watch the final developments. Commodore, do you have any objections?”

“I certainly do, Sir! This is a live operation, not an exercise. I don’t want anything distracting my people from doing their jobs. A question or comment at the wrong time might do just that.”

“But if we let in a few representatives of the media, on the strict condition that they remain silent until given permission to ask questions?”

“They won’t do that, Sir. They’re journalists. Silence isn’t in their nature.” A laugh ran around
those nearby.

Colonel Houmayoun suggested, “What if we had them sit with the trainees over at the spare consoles?” He gestured to where Steve’s class had spent the entire day glued to their screens, following the action. “They could answer
some of the journalists’ questions if they spoke quietly.”

The Commodore wavered. “Prime Minister, it’s against my professional judgment to let them in
at all; but if this is politically important, that’s for you to say, of course. However, they’ve
got
to keep quiet! If they distract my operators for even a moment, I want to be able to kick them out at once.”

“I’ll make sure they understand
that. Thank you, Commodore.”

He turned to an aide and whispered in her ear. She nodded, and hurried out. Within moments, five journalists followed her into SysCon. She led them to the trainees’ consoles, where they hurriedly pulled out spare seats and sat down at different terminals. A low murmur of conversation arose from them. Commodore O’Fallon frowned, but restrained himself.

The Plot operator announced suddenly, “Patrol Division One has fired, Sir!” The tracks of ten missiles – five from each patrol craft – blinked to life in the display, accelerating rapidly towards Target Alpha, still three million kilometers ahead.

“Remember, Sir, we’re seeing something that happened some time ago,” O’Fallon reminded the Prime Minister. “Light speed delay’s a real bitch at times like these.”

“I understand.”

As the missiles’ gravitic drives shut down for the ballistic part of their trajectory, Target Alpha suddenly jinked to starboard. Almost immediately the missiles’ drives reactivated to send them in pursuit. Commander Foster nodded in grudging respect. “He may be a scumbag pirate, Sir, but he knows what he’s doing. Most of those missiles will burn up their fuel following his first evasion; then he’ll jink again as soon as they shut down once more.”

“You’re right, but Lieutenant-Commander Le Roux has thirty more missiles. While Alpha’s trying to dodge this salvo, he’s closing in to point-blank range with the others, then he’ll follow them in with his laser cannon. She’s still almost fifty million kilometers inside the system boundary. The bastards are trapped.” There was triumph in the Commodore’s voice.

They watched as the first salvo closed in. The patrol craft did not fire the next salvo, clearly waiting to close to a range where they couldn’t miss. As Alpha twisted and dodged, eight of the ten missiles lost lock or were too out of position to hit her; but two managed to zero in on her and exploded ten thousand kilometers away, sending their cones of laser beams slashing into her hull. Again the speckle of small radar targets around Alpha, relayed from the patrol crafts’ sensors, showed that she’d been damaged. Her course wobbled for a moment, clear oscillations in her trajectory.

“He’s hit her!” O’Fallon exclaimed with vindictive glee. “That must have got a piece of her directional control, for it to affect her like that.”

“But why didn’t Alpha fire at them
with its laser cannon?” Commander Foster asked, puzzled. “They fired at the first two salvos of missiles, but as far as we can tell from the Plot, they didn’t try to defend themselves this time.”

“
Perhaps one of those earlier missiles damaged their fire control system,” O’Fallon said eagerly. “If so, that’ll make her a sitting duck when our ships get closer!”

As if to echo his words, Patrol Division One fired a second pattern of ten missiles from only a million kilometers out. They scorched in at maximum acceleration now that the target was within their powered range.

“He’s done for,” Commander Foster predicted. “There’s no way he can evade missiles launched in such close proximity at –
what the HELL?”
His voice rose to a shout as he jumped to his feet, his tone blending astonishment with outrage as they watched the unmistakable signature of a hyper-jump appear in the Plot. “He can’t
do
that!” He was echoed by a chorus of astonished exclamations from the others on watch as they also stared in bewilderment at the place in the Plot where Alpha’s icon had been.

“What’s happened?” Defense Minister Holloway asked, puzzled
by the uproar.

“It looks as if Constandt has hyper-jumped out of the system, Sir,” Colonel Houmayoun answered distractedly, attention riveted on the Plot.

“He
what?
But he’s not at the system boundary yet! That’s impossible!” The words came, not from the Minister, but from a journalist who’d also jumped to his feet, along with the others and Steve’s trainees. He moved forward as he spoke.

Commodore O’Fallon sighed, frustration in his voice.
He didn’t order the journalist to be silent, but looked at him as he said, “It’s not impossible – just very dangerous. Constandt must have decided he was caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. There’s no way he could have reached the system boundary without being nailed by more of our missiles. If, as we suspect, something was wrong with his laser cannon or fire control system, he’d be essentially defenseless against incoming fire. Even if he could dodge all the missiles or took only minor damage from them, he’d then have to fight laser-cannon-armed patrol craft that could direct their fire with surgical accuracy from very close range. They’d have carved him up like a trussed turkey. He must have decided that a desperation move was his only chance.”

“But why
was it desperate?” Prime Minister Truman asked, puzzled. “Why wouldn’t a hyper-jump take him to safety?”

“It’s like this, Sir. The system boundary
from any star is the radius within which its gravity is strong enough to disrupt the toroid field generated during a hyper-jump. If a ship jumps outside that boundary, she’s usually fine; but inside the boundary, the toroid will be pulled out of shape to at least some extent. The closer they are to the star, the more it’ll be distorted. The system boundary for our star is one-point-zero-two billion kilometers. Constandt hyper-jumped at…” – the Commodore glanced at the Plot display – “…nine hundred seventy-two million kilometers from our star. That would definitely have distorted his ship’s hyper-jump field. At the very least, he won’t have been able to predict exactly where he’d emerge from the jump.”

Another journalist interrupted. “But if all that would happen is that he didn’t know where he’d come out, he c
ould simply use star-sights to establish his new position, then navigate as normal. That’s not a risk – just a minor delay.”

“
That’s not the only risk,” the Commodore pointed out. “His ship was also probably damaged to at least some extent during the jump. The enormous gravitic forces unleashed during a hyper-jump will distort a ship’s structure if the toroid isn’t perfectly aligned. However, we can’t know how bad the damage was. If he’d been even a little closer to our star, the distortion would probably have been so great that his ship might have broken up under the stresses generated by the jump. As it is, we can only speculate whether he made it out safely on the other side.”

“So he’s escaped us?” The Prime Minister’s voice was redolent with anger and frustration.

“Not necessarily, Sir. We simply don’t know for sure. It’ll be up to the Commonwealth’s intelligence services to find out whether Constandt shows up again. If he does, we’ll know he escaped. Unfortunately, if he doesn’t, that won’t prove his hyper-jump killed him – he might just be hiding very well. We’ve disrupted his attack today, Sir, but now we’re back to square one.”

“And there’s no way we can disrupt his plans if he wants to attack us again?”

“Actually, Sir, I think there is,” Steve said carefully, trying to keep his own disappointment and frustration out of his voice. All heads turned towards him.

“What do you mean?”

“The last time I ran into Constandt and his father, the Fleet offered a twenty-five-million-credit reward for the arrest and conviction of both of them. There were no takers. We know now that they simply went out to the edge of the settled galaxy, changed their names, and hid where no-one was likely to look for them, even though the pickings were slim for them during those years.