Almost simultaneously, Edro shouted, “I’m getting something, sir!”
Kas whirled on the little man. “Are they hailing us?”
Edro shook his head. “No, sir. They’re talking to each other. But since neither is on tight-beam, we can hear them.”
“They don’t know we’re here yet, Skipper,” Rom added. “Our sensors are enhanced, remember. One of ‘em’s an Epsilon-class tramp. T’other’s an Empire-pattern corvette.”
Kas nodded. “Put it on the speakers, Edro.”
“You’ve no business here,” A rather good-looking woman in a brown shipsuit was saying, “And you’ve certainly no authority here! This system is owned by New Senegal, and you’re certainly not Senegalese!” The woman wasn’t a beauty, Kas noticed absently, but her features were strong, regular and open, and the shipsuit bulged gratifyingly in the appropriate places.
The other figure was dressed in a white shipsuit with a large red crucifix on the left chest, over the heart. This was the typical uniform of an officer of the so-called 'Lord's Host', or military, of the so-called “Ministry for the Glory of God”, the theocracy known as the 'Glory.' Brighter patches on his much-washed shipsuit revealed where rank slashes and unit patches had recently been removed.
“Whore of Satan,” The man in white roared. “My business is wherever the Lord directeth me, and my authority is that of the Lord of All! Now, Thou’lt heave to for boarding and questioning, or suffer the wrath of the Lord!”
The woman looked annoyed. “Screw you, you damned fanatic! I know what ‘questioning’ by one of you Swords means. We’d rather go down running.”
The man flushed. “Blasphemer! Whore! Handmaiden of the Devil! Thou’lt pay for thy insolence!” His expression turned to intense hatred. “I look forward to questioning thee, slut! We’ll have thee and a battle cruiser for the greater glory of God!”
Kas started. But the woman merely looked puzzled. “What the hell are you blathering about? What battle cruiser?”
“It shall not avail thee to pretend ignorance, whore.” The man in white said with an evil leer, “Thou’lt tell us all that we desire to know presently!” His transmission ended abruptly.
The woman turned to someone out of range of the pickup “What the hell…” Her transmission broke off, as well.
Kas whirled on Rom. “How long before their sensors pick us up?”
Rom shrugged. “If they’ve got standard sensors, about five minutes at our present closing rate, sir.”
Kas nodded, and keyed his com. “Gran to the bridge. Urgent!” Gran was Starhopper ’s gunner, and it appeared that a gunner would be needed shortly.
Gran arrived on the bridge at a dead run. Edro slid aside to give him access to the comm panel which would shortly become the weapons station.
Kas keyed his com again. “All hands prepare for action. There’s a corvette from the Glory out there pretending to be a pirate. He’s looking for us! Luckily, he jumped another ship first- but he mentioned a battle cruiser that he planned to get.”
Rom frowned. “Any chance we can avoid him, sir? Slip away to another jump point? I mean, our weapons are pretty much improvised and his are Empire standard. We’re kinda overmatched!”
Kas shook his head. “No chance. Those ships are between us and the only other jump point in the system. Besides, I can't let civilians get tortured and killed just to avoid a fight. Gran, activate your weapons console and begin decompressing the hold. We’re going to need those lasers.”
Gran nodded and began pressing switches and buttons. Powerful pumps began sucking the atmosphere out of the hold while the apparently sealed crates containing the lasers began collapsing. As the pumps reduced the hold to near-vacuum, the huge cargo doors slid aside and the two nuclear-pumped self-powered lasers rumbled down the tracks in the deck, stopping just inside the doors.
“All right,” Kas said, “The Glory hates to spend any money that doesn’t go for building churches or taking over planets, so that corvette probably hasn’t been modified. Corvettes are lightly armed and lightly shielded; their primary defense is their speed and maneuverability. The corvette's main armament is her retractable missile rack. She also carries two medium-sized laser turrets mounted amidships, but they’re not particularly accurate. They're controlled from the bridge.
“We’re not going to give her time to use her speed or maneuvering. Rom, boost directly toward her at max G. As soon as we’re in detection range use the attitude thrusters to slew us around, and try to give Gran at least twenty degrees of leeway in bringing the lasers to bear.
“Gran,” He continued, “You’re only going to get one, possibly two shots with each laser before the Glory can respond. One laser is to be aimed at her missile rack. The rack is deployed; that pompous windbag wouldn’t be making those threats if it weren’t. The other is to be aimed at his bridge. Rom, does he have his shields up?”
Rom glanced at his sensor readings. “No, sir.” Kas could feel the surge of the drive through his feet. Toj was on the job.
Kas smiled grimly. “I didn’t think he would. He’s only facing a tramp trader after all. And those Glory fanatics consider shields cowardly.” He turned back to Gran. “The idea is to get off as many shots as possible before he can get his shields up. But concentrate on that missile rack! We may get lucky and detonate a missile in the rack; but at worst we should damage the rack enough to prevent him retracting and reloading it.”
“Sir,” Gran put in hesitantly, “Those lasers we have are pretty heavy weapons; certainly much heavier than his. We may be able to hit him pretty hard with our first shots.”
Kas nodded. “I hope so. This fat old bitch is no warship; I doubt she could dodge several missiles.”
Gran smiled. “No, sir. But I was thoroughly briefed on our weapons system. We do have those quick-firers and a chaff launcher. I think I can take care of at least one or two missiles.”
Kas was unimpressed. “Really. Well, don’t forget; we have to turn our belly to the enemy to use our lasers. And the quickfirers have a very limited field of fire. We have to maneuver the ship bow-on to use them.” He shrugged. “Our shields are beefed up and may be able to stop one or two missiles, if they’re not too big. But don’t get your hopes up.”
He turned back to Rom. “As soon as you detect a missile launch or laser blast, hit the attitude jets to bring us back to bow-on. We’ll need to be the smallest target this fat old tub can be, and bring our quickfirers to bear.” Rom nodded. “Now, how long before we’re in detector range?”
“Just over three minutes, sir,” Rom replied crisply.
“Missile launch!” Gran cried. “Bandit has fired on the tramp! Another!” seconds later he added, “One missile impacted her drive coils, sir. She’s lost all acceleration. The other missile was a near-miss on her sensor array.” He snorted. “Lousy shooting for close range and an unarmed opponent.”
“All right,” Kas said. “How much speed can we gain, Rom?” he asked.
Rom shrugged. “I estimate that given our original velocity relative to the target, and adding in max boost for 3.12 minutes, we should approach at just over a hundred thousand meters per second, relative.”
Kas’ eyes widened. “Really? Excellent! That’ll cut down on the time available for him to react. How long until detection?”
Rom hesitated. “With the additional acceleration, 1.35 minutes. We’ll be in optimum weapons range in 1.6 minutes. He should have less than half a minute to react and deploy weapons.”
“Good. As soon as we’re in detection range adjust our attitude to bring our lasers to bear; say, uh, thirty degrees from straight ahead. Will that do it, Gran?”
Gran nodded. “Should do, sir. That’ll give me about twenty degrees of swing. Uh, sir, I could open fire before we reach the high-confidence point.” He shrugged. “We might hit something useful.”
Kas shook his head. “No. I want to keep him wondering until we reach high confidence. If we go in with lasers firing his first impulse will be to raise his shields. If we’re just a blip he might not raise them until you’ve had your best shots.”
Gran nodded. 'Aye, sir.'
The seconds ticked away, though each seemed minutes long. They were a seasoned fleet crew, but the silence was oppressive with tension.
Kas fought the temptation to ask Rom how much longer just as Rom shouted, “Detection! They can see us now! Adjusting attitude to bring weapons to bear! Raising shields!”
