Hegemony (13 page)

"Get a sensor array on the other lance-ship," she said. "Is it changing its vector?"

"I need a moment, Captain, there's a three minute lag..." said Sensors.

"Understood," said Freya. The other lance-ship was still fifty-four million kilometers away from them; it would take three minutes for light from that ship to reach them, letting them see what it was doing "now."

"OK," said Freya, "get me a direct comm-link to
Skyrunner
, and stand by. We'll need to coordinate our maneuvers."

"Yes, Captain," came the reply from Communications.

"Captain Meryl," Freya said.
Skyrunner
was only a thousand kilometers away; there was no meaningful lag in communications.

"Captain Tralk," answered Demi-Captain Obin Meryl of the Hegemonic Fleet swift-ship
Skyrunner
. His virtual avatar was a narrow-faced man, sharp featured, with fashionable metal-silver hair. Freya knew these to be the same looks as his biosim avatar.

"Captain Meryl, please stand by; the enemy may be maneuvering on a new vector. As soon as we have an idea of their intentions, we'll have to react in concert."

"Of course, Captain Tralk. Please do not unduly concern yourself with the
Skyrunner
. My ship will be ready and capable of executing its mission."

"Of course, Captain Meryl," said Freya, wondering what the hell he meant by that.

"You were right," said Muir, a few minutes later. "They are moving to link up."

"This will make our mission easier, at least," interjected Demi-Captain Meryl. The comm-link was still open.

"Easier?" asked Muir.

"Certainly," said Meryl. "If the enemy are heading for a link-up, then we will no longer be needed to blind one of them; the
Conquering Sun
will be able to aim the glare of her drive at both of them together."

Freya sighed. "I don't suppose it's occurred to you, Captain Meryl, to wonder why they wish to link up at this point?"

"Why?" asked Meryl, confirming Freya's certainty that he had not given it a second of thought.

"I suspect that we did not succeed in our mission quite ideally," Freya said. "They must have seen something that makes them want to operate in a close formation."

"They don't seem to be vectoring to avoid an engagement," said Muir.

"No," said Freya. "They're still going for an intercept with the
Conquering Sun
, but now, they will do so in close formation."

"I don't see how this constitutes a failure of our mission, Captain Tralk," said Meryl. 

"Not a failure, Captain Meryl," Freya said. "I suppose it might have been useless to begin with. Even if they couldn't see the
Conquering Sun
clearly, they must have wondered why two swift-ships were taking such pains to sensor blind one of them. I think, maybe, they suspect that the
Conquering Sun
is a warship, but I think they don't suspect that she's an assault-ship. Perhaps they think she's a heavy transport-cruiser, a Q-ship of ours, and they want numerical superiority for the engagement."

"If that's so, Captain Tralk," said Meryl, "then we've perfectly executed our mission. We were supposed to facilitate an engagement between the
Conquering Sun
and those ships. I think we can agree that we've done that."

"Yes," said Freya. "You're right, Captain Meryl. But we haven't finished the job. Let's spread out to three thousand kilometers and accelerate to keep position with the raider. This maneuver of his means we will no longer be able to point our drives at the raider, so we'll need to close in to increase laser energy density. I want us to close in to three hundred thousand kilometers."

"That's close to the edge of their full salvo interceptor range," said Meryl.

"True, but I think we can gamble on them not launching any. If they were going to, they'd have done it already. The only thing I can think of, is that they actually
are
pirates, and have a limited supply of interceptors. And we'll come in behind angled bow-shields. I don't want either ship to get singed again. "

"Very well, Captain Tralk," said Meryl. "I will maneuver
Skyrunner
to the parameters you've set."

...

"Why do you think they want to engage?" asked Jessa.

Zandy shrugged. The two women were sitting in one of the crew lounges aboard
Conquering Sun
. It was a pleasant place to relax, decorated with living plants and carefully arranged tables and couches. The assault-ship was large enough to have several lounges of this sort, serving as off-duty meeting places for the crew, as well as acting as dining facilities and gardens. At half a gee of acceleration, there was actually food service available from several automated delivery units that stood tucked into the walls. Of course, the food they dispensed was the usual bland nutrient paste, even if it was formed into somewhat more attractive shapes. Jessa was eating a bowl of noodles and Zandy had a plate with a rainbow pattern of "fruit flavored" gels.

Zandy sat back into the couch and let her eyes rest for a moment on the rows of variable-gee tolerant plants. They were small leaved, brightly flowering plants of some sort; genetically engineered, no doubt. The smell of the blossoms was nice, though. She looked at Jessa with a smile. This really was relaxing, or at least as relaxing as anything could be with the hot part of a battle coming up.

"Hey, Zandy, wake up! I asked you a question," said Jessa. "Did you forget your brain in another avatar?" she asked, smiling.

"That must be it, Pixie. I'm not really here. I'm stuck forever in that damn back-up interceptor. Seriously, I have no idea. I suppose they fell for it. They think we're a civilian ship, or an armed transport, or something.

"And I bet you've had fun flying a 'freight super-liner' these last few days, huh?" Zandy continued, with a smile of her own.

"Fuck you, darling. Yeah, it's not that much fun. It's not really boring, though; we have to keep a tight sensors fix on the raiders and make sure the axis of thrust is aimed right at them; make sure they can't actually
see
the ship. All they have is our drive plume, and that's colder and less energetic than normal," Jessa said.

Zandy's smile grew a bit. "I don't know how you can notice the difference; half a gee... three gees. It's all so slow..."

"Well, it isn't that fast... Some things are better slow, Zandy," said Jessa, smiling again. "Seriously, there's an elegance to maneuvering the
'Sun
. She's so massive... I mean the power it takes to boost at three gees is fucking huge. It's a rush, commanding all that power. And it's fun to have to think it out. You can't just plow thought a maneuver like a swift-ship; there's always a most efficient way of getting any maneuver to happen, and you have to really
fly
the
'Sun
to get it. I love it."

"Well, it looks like you get to do it for real, in about ten hours," said Zandy.

"Yeah. I've never flown the
'Sun
in a fight before," said Jessa.

"I think it's cool that the intercept will happen on your shift, Pixie. I think you've earned the chance a couple of times over."

"I'm not complaining. I am qualified, and we do have to keep the shifts running to keep psychological fatigue down. A ship-to-ship fight is a bad place to start making stress-induced errors. And yeah, it's an honor that Captain Ari-Kani wants me in the navigation neural net when we engage."

"I smell some rank points for you..."

"I'm getting pretty senior in grade... I guess I could live with a promotion. I hope it's not vectoring me for a transfer to another ship, though."

"You can't stay on the
'Sun
forever, Pixie. A few more rank points and you'll be senior enough for Chief Pilot on a lance-ship or something. That's a big step up."

"I don't want to leave the
'Sun
. I like it here, and I like working under Ari-Kani... And I don't want to leave you."

"Oh, hell, Pixie. You know you can't think like that. We go where we're sent. And yeah, I'd miss you... Though I might like the chance to go back to being heterosexual," Zandy said.

Jessa snorted, and Zandy went on, "Anyway, it's not like you're being reassigned right now, or even all that soon. It might be another thousand hours or more before you'd get a chance to jump ship."

"Well, anyway," said Jessa, "
I'm
not the one I'm worried about. I'm going to be safe in an assault-ship. You're going to be in the fucking first salvo."

"Yeah," said Zandy.

"Shit. You could at least not sound like you want it so bad."

"It's what I do, Pixie. This is my chance to do it. I mean, it's a perfect setup. Even with both lance-ships flying together, we outgun them. If we let them get in close, we could put four full waves, twenty-four interceptors, out in one salvo. They can manage maybe six each, twelve all together. If we launch at long range and double up on the PLAs... keep some cold so that we can lase for a longer flight... even then we can still put two whole waves on them, twelve 'ceptors. Then they have to either hold back and try to stop us with their twelve at close range, which is still one to one odds... that's not so bad for us. Or they can put just together a combined salvo of just one wave to meet us head on. Any way you slice it, we either outgun them two to one, or they have to launch their defensive salvo late and fight us one-to-one with no time to launch a second defensive salvo. And if they launch late then they're giving up any chance of actually getting a strike through to the
'Sun.
And even if it is one-to-one, we can take them. There is no way they can stop two waves of ours, cold, at one-to-one odds.

"So yeah, I want to be out there. Every 'ceptor pilot wants to have combat time, wants to be part of a winning engagement. Not to mention, it's orders.

"Besides, this is my chance to get noticed, Pixie. I'm not saying it's going to be safe, or that every 'ceptor pilot is going to make it back. But this my big chance. And it's a good setup."

"Unless they get
really
close," said Jessa. "They've got a big acceleration advantage. They're going to control where the point of closest approach is, no matter what we do. If they come in within fifty thousand kilometers, they could try to swarm us with stand-off warheads."

"Only if they happen to have a bunch of stand-off warheads aboard. That's not a common weapons load for a lance-ship. They usually rely on their interceptors, and try to stay the hell away from an assault-ship," said Zandy.

"Yeah. But they didn't launch interceptors at the swift-ships. Maybe that's why."

"Maybe, I guess. But if that's so, then they have no fucking chance to stop a four-wave attack from
Conquering Sun
. We'll kill them out at a hundred thousand klicks, way before they can launch stand-off missiles."

"OK, deal. You do that."

"Looking forward to it," said Zandy.

In fact she was looking forward to it, she thought with a bit of surprise. The facade of confidence and fearlessness was just part of being an interceptor pilot. None of the pilots would admit to doubts. You couldn't afford doubts in an interceptor; there was no time for them. But it was a surprise to realize that she really was eager for the fight. It was a chance to prove that she was good enough to be where she was, Zandy thought, and to prove that she was good enough to move ahead too.

"OK," Jessa said. "Just make sure to survive, Zandy. Don't get all caught up trying to be a hero and forget to transfer back to the
'Sun
, or get vaped, or something." Jessa's tone was light, but her large eyes were intense. "It's not going to be much of a victory party without you, OK?"

"I'll do my best, Pixie."

Ship-Commander Grantsen
John of the Coalition Lance-ship
Swift Liberty
sat heavily in his command pod. As befitted a man trusted with an FTL warship of the Stellar Coalition of Free Worlds, his demeanor was stern and his craggy face and iron gray hair suited that demeanor. At least, for now, he could breathe without the life-support gear. He stretched, enjoying the feeling of movement. Once the
Swift Liberty
went back to five gees, his pod would encase him in acceleration gel and he'd be breathing through the life-support mask that waited, retracted, above his head.

The two days plus of high acceleration had been brutal; hard on the crew and the ship. But the crew were conditioned to take it, and nothing else would allow the ship to fulfill its mission.

Behind him he could feel the red-uniformed oversight officer pacing, also taking the chance to move while he could. The man had no actual command duties aboard
Swift Liberty
, but, like all of the crew, Oversight Officer Segan would also be forced into an acceleration pod when the ship finished its scheduled one hour at one gee.