Hegemony (54 page)

Zandy didn't bother asking herself what that ship was doing here. Maybe it had been standing by, drifting at the far edge of the system, waiting for someone to come looking for evidence of the prior battle. Maybe it had been summoned here... maybe even by the same people who had tried to kill her and Muir and Freya on Yuro IV. It didn't matter.

The
Whisperknife
was boosting at five gees, curving in on a vector to generate an attack pass at the inbound lance-ship.
Ice Knife
was accelerating at less than three gees, as much as it could manage with its damaged radiators. The two swift-ships would converge against the lance-ship at the same time, deploying as many warheads as they could before boosting as hard as they could to break off and keep their distance from the lance-ship's deadly laser arrays.

Whisperknife
could have come in on a more direct vector. Instead, she was burning hard to come in from a wide angle. A wider divergence of the two swift-ships' attack axis would complicate the defensive situation of the lance-ship, but that wasn't the only reason for the
Whisperknife'
s maneuver. As soon as the ship attained the right vector, Zandy, in her interceptor body, would be deployed on her own attack vector.

The attack that Nas had planned was simple enough in concept. The two swift-ships would manage their vectors to deliver their attacks at roughly the same time, hopefully forcing the Coalition lance-ship to use all its firepower to intercept the inbound warheads, leaving no margin to swat the swift-ships with the hull-shattering energy of its primary laser arrays. Against a conventional lance-ship, it would have been almost hopeless, but the experimental Coalition ship supposedly had only half the PLAs of a normal lance-ship. If the analysis done by Captain Tralk and the sensors team of the
Ice Knife
was correct, the rest of its main armament consisted of huge single-use laser pods, and those had already been used up when the lance-ship, and its partner, had killed the
Conquering Sun.

So this is my shot at getting even, Zandy thought. Vengeance. Is that what I want? It's not going to bring any of them back, she thought. It's not going to change anything, but I still want it. And I've got a chance to get it.

That was the third part of Nas' plan. The interceptor would be deployed on a purely ballistic vector: no drives, no launch flare, no power. Ideally, it would be barely warmer than the background of deep space. Ideally, the interceptor's more direct vector would bring it into range of the lance-ship just about the same time as the two swift-ships made their attacks. Ideally, the enemy wouldn't see her till it was too late. Her four warheads, deployed from an unexpected direction, would have a good chance of getting through the defenses. Of course, once she fired, she would be seen, and with no PLA providing power for acceleration, no mother-ship laying down blinding lasers to interfere with enemy targeting, her interceptor would be a trivially easy target.

"Stand by for separation," came a voice through Zandy's data feed; one of the crew of the
Whisperknife
; she did not know who.

"Separation in ten seconds... eight... six..."

"Interceptor CS-1-2A standing by; all systems ready," Zandy sent back.

"Good hunting," came the voice of Captain Nas Killick.

"...Four... two..."

The interceptor detached with a hollow clunk, and then there was no sound, as Zandy began her silent, ballistic attack run.

---

The holographic plot in the command center of the Coalition lance-ship
Swift Liberty
showed the same information as the neural data feed. The vector lines of the two enemy swift-ships extended slowly, pointing at a volume of space where they would converge with the vector line of the lance-ship.

"Their maneuvers confirm that they are going to execute a two axis attack; almost ninety degrees separation," Commander Grantsen said.

"Is this a problem, Commander?" asked Oversight Officer Segan. He was outside of his acceleration pod; the ship was at one gee for now; the loss of acceleration for an hour wouldn't change the dynamics of the upcoming intercept, and the chance to breath without the life-support gear, to move, to speak, to see with his own eyes, without using the neural interface, was a huge relief.

"It could be," said the commander. "We'll accelerate at the last moment, to throw off their coordination, but it's the best attack two swift-ships could execute against a lance-ship."

"We cannot expect our enemies to be incompetent," Segan said.

"We do not expect that, Oversight Officer," Grantsen said. "We can only engage one of them with our interceptors; if we split our fire, one or both ships might survive to attack us with close-range warheads. I'm not sure about the second swift-ship; it's a sort I've never seen before, but Hegemonic swift-ships have substantial warhead magazines and rapid-fire launch capability. Our secondary and tertiary laser arrays are capable of providing a good point defense, but none the less, a close range pass attack might result in some damage to us. And you've indicated that we are to decide this with a long-range interceptor attack."

"Yes. You have a plan," Segan said, not really making it a question.

"Yes, Oversight Officer. We will engage the damaged swift-ship with interceptors. Our salvo of three interceptors should be enough; they can't have enough point defenses to stop it. As soon as it is destroyed, we will vent coolant from the PLAs and retask them to engage the other ship. I do not think we will have time to boost a second salvo of interceptors enough to generate an intercept, so we will have to let it come within lethal range of our PLAs. This means allowing for the possibility of its warhead salvos reaching us. I expect that our point defenses will be sufficient to protect us, and in any event, we'll maneuver to interpose our bow-shields; but it is possible they could score hits against us."

"So much danger from only two swift-ships?" asked Segan.

"Some danger," Grantsen said. "I would in many ways prefer we simply make a close intercept and use the PLAs to destroy both ships directly, Oversight Officer. There would be some risk of them managing to bring us into both of their warhead launch envelopes at once... but their destruction would be utterly assured at that range, and I think our defenses would be sufficient."

"No, Commander," said Segan. "You know as well as I do that a long-range interceptor attack is the approved doctrine for a lance-ship engaging swift-ships. I don't understand your willingness to give up our long range advantage."

"We have less than half the PLA firepower of a standard lance-ship, Oversight Officer."

"All the more reason not to let the enemy close in, I would think. Surely three primary laser arrays are enough to engage a swift-ship, Commander."

"Our ship is... more capable than a normal lance-ship in some respects. Less so in others," Grantsen said.

"You now have reservations about this design, Commander?" Segan said, letting some impatience come into his voice.

"We could not have destroyed an assault-ship with a conventional lance-ship, Oversight Officer," Grantsen answered with disciplined calm, "but we are less well suited to dealing with multi-axis attacks from small, fast ships, like those swift-ships, than a conventional lance-ship is. A trade-off."

"Indeed. I see. None the less, we will succeed, Commander," Segan said. "In fact, the willingness of both enemy ships to attack us allows us the chance to destroy both of them, whereas if they had fled, we could have gotten only one of them. I expect that Central Command will be pleased with this."

Give the man a positive motivation, as well as a negative, Segan thought. Grantsen was a capable tool, but he could fail if pushed wrong, or pushed too far. At this point, it paid to be careful. And after this mission, Segan knew, he'd have be assigned to oversee a different commander and crew. Commander Grantsen was coming to know him too well.

---

Two swift-ships and one lance-ship; three plasma drives lighting up the dark vacuum of the outer reaches of the red dwarf system. Without magnification and computer augmentation, the raw sensor data was just three sparks of incandescent violet fire, tiny with distance. There was the radio noise from the three drives, and the thermal signals, too, all equally visible to Zandy's interceptor eyes.

With augmentation and analysis, the vector lines were clear. Captain Killick's three axis intercept looked like it was going to work. The two swift-ships would be coming into the launch window of the lance-ship's interceptors soon.

Yes, there! The lance-ship was suddenly blazing with the heat of her primary laser arrays, and there were three new vector lines as the Coaly interceptors boosted away at 75 gees. They would reach the
Ice Knife
in less than fifteen minutes.

Now she could see the sudden intensification of the flare of the
Whisperknife
's drive as the ship went to maximum sustained thrust.

Here's where we see if Killick's plan works, Zandy thought. The
Whisperknife
was boosting at more than six gees now, pushing as hard as it could. At the same time,
Ice Knife
was going to maximum power as well, venting coolant to keep the drive temperature under some sort of control, boosting away from the lance-ship, extending the flight time of the inbound interceptors.

It looked like a clever move, Zandy knew. It looked like the
Whisperknife
was trying to get into range of her own warhead launch window. The thinking was clear enough: with the PLAs of the lance-ship burning for their interceptor salvo, the lance-ship couldn't engage
Whisperknife.
Not only that; the fact that the
Whisperknife
seemed to know that the lance-ship lacked its full PLA load-out would hopefully make the Coalition ship realize that the
Whisperknife
knew at least some of its secrets. That would make destroying the
Whisperknife
vital... or so Zandy hoped.

That was the plan; to get the Coaly ship to abort its interceptor shot and switch its PLAs to try to take out the inbound
Whisperknife
. That would let
Ice Knife
off the hook for a while. Of course, for the Coaly lance-ship, it would seem to be nothing more than a delay; kill the closer
Whisperknife
and then boost hard to intercept the crippled
Ice Knife
a second time: The vector magnitudes were low enough to let that happen; it wouldn't take a hundred hours for the lance-ship to come around and re-engage.

Take the bait, Zandy thought, focusing on the lance-ship. Take it!
Look
and
see
it. We're just desperate, just trying to buy time. Take the bait.

Yes! The PLAs had shut down. The interceptor salvo was drifting without laser power. Probably the pilots, or whatever the Coalition called them, were data-linking back to the lance-ship, getting ready to launch in new interceptors.

Almost time, Zandy thought. The last part of Nas' plan. The single, drifting interceptor, silent and cold, streaking in towards the lance-ship.

Now for the real question, Zandy thought. How would the lance-ship accelerate? It could hold to its vector and launch a new salvo of interceptors at the
Whisperknife
, or it could boost to close in, using its PLAs in direct fire mode. Nas had gambled everything that it would hold its course and use its interceptors; why risk getting within the envelope of a swift-ship's rapid-fire warhead launchers when you could kill from a distance?

If the lance-ship boosted to intercept the
Whisperknife
at close range, it would put Zandy out of position to do her part. She had no laser to power her interceptor; her maneuver ability was limited to her fission fuel reserves; almost nothing, for a "ship" as small as an interceptor. The lance-ship
had
to come to her, for this to work...

---

"Effective," subvocalized Commander Grantsen.

"Will the other ship be able to escape?" asked Segan.

"Negative," came Grantsen's reply through the interface. "They are clever, but all they've bought is time, and a change in the order of their ships' destruction. The second ship's maneuver was effective in getting us to abort our initial interceptor salvo, but to do that, they had to come deep within our launch envelope. There's no way for them to get out of range of the interceptor salvo we just launched."

"Can we engage the first ship as well?"

"It will take a some hours to bring us back on an intercept vector, but yes, Oversight Officer. They can't be that close to being able to initiate FTL. Just a matter of time.

"Still, given their situation, their tactics are... very skilled," Grantsen finished.

And very brave, he thought, careful not to send that thought into the interface link. They were doomed, but they didn't scatter, didn't give up... Instead they did their all to try to engage their enemy and hurt him, before they died. How could they do that? Could the undead... things that commanded those ships still have that sort of spirit? Not a safe thought to have, not even in the silence of his mind.