Tactical Error

normal levels and her full interior lighting coming back up. On the bridge, banks of consoles that had been sitting idle returned to life. The main viewscreen came up last of all, showing an unmagnified forward view. The bulk of the Fortress loomed vast and threatening overhead.

“Blow the grapples,” he ordered.

Valthyrra triggered the explosive devices that had been planted on the joints of the grappling probes. A series of powerful blasts shook both ships as the Methryn all but disappeared within a cloud of flames and debris. Only three of the grapples were ripped away by the explosions themselves, but the rest were all so weakened that they failed immediately when the carrier began to pull away, dropping down away from the Fortress to clear the depression in the underside of her hull.

The Methryn engaged her main drives an instant later. Riding the double glare of her flaring engines, she shot out from beneath the vast nose of the Fortress and away into open space. She accelerated rapidly, putting distance between herself and the three Union ships before they could recover from this unexpected move and open fire. Then, even as she ran, the Methryn fired both of her missiles simultaneously, emerging from the small, hidden bays under her nose.

Propelled by powerful drives, the missiles were visible only by the fierce glare of their engines. They hurtled ahead of the Methryn until they were well clear of the carrier, then looped around tightly, each one turning across the path of the Methryn, reversing their course completely to pass just to either side of the ship. As massive as they were, the Fortresses could not begin to evade impact in time. They were committed to a collision course at more than half the speed of light.

Unshielded, that impact alone would have probably vaporized a sizeable portion of one of the Fortresses. Even so, quartzite shielding at full power could have survived even that with only minor damage. The missiles struck the middle Fortress with the force of small nuclear explosions, shattering the quartzite shielding over an area of little more than a square meter. But that was all that was needed for the wave of plasma energy created by the detonation of the missile to penetrate those cracks and begin spreading like a circular wave over the hull of the ship just under the surface of the shielding, shattering the quartzite and lifting it away from the skin of the ship like the shell of an egg.

By that time, the Methryn was already circling back well out of range of the thousands of powerful cannons of the three Fortresses, the middle one was still losing it’s quartzite shielding. The Starwolves had never had a chance to use this weapon before, or even to test it on a large subject. They had no idea just how much of the ship would be stripped by the plasma wave, and they were interested in finding out. The Fortress was not being damaged in any other way, but she was suddenly very vulnerable to attack. The other two Fortresses were already moving to position themselves between their stricken sister ship and the carrier, but they had not changed course or opened fire. The Methryn’s rather aggressive response, circling around as if ready to attack again, no doubt left their captains wondering if there were missiles ready for launch at their own vessels.

The answer was a definite yes, although Velmeran did not care to continue this battle except in defense of Kanis. He had to chase these three ships out of system before the Methryn could respond to her own summons home. He was saving that second set of missiles to accomplish that goal. He certainly did not expect this group to try to take the planet now, and he doubted very much that that had ever been their intent. Considering the planning that must have gone into getting that automaton on board, the capture or destruction of the Methryn had been their primary ambition. Hard work, fast action, and a certain amount of quick thinking had saved his ship this time.

“What did this cost us?” he asked, turning to Valthyrra’s camera pod.

“No losses or severe injuries,” she reported. Her continual contact with the suits of her pilots allowed her to keep easy track of such things. “Very little damage to the ship itself, except for the main switching core. Should I begin to synthesize a new unit, or do we wait until we get home?”

“Get to work on it right away. We have a long journey home ahead of us, and that patch could fail at any time.” He turned to lean on the console of the central bridge, where Consherra remained at the helm station. “What are they doing?”

“They seem to be waiting, no change in course or speed,” she answered. “They probably want to see what our little weapons are doing to their ship. If the process continues to completion, it could take half an hour to strip that ship.”

He nodded. “We will continue to circle like a scavenger until they decide what to do. I do expect that they have had quite enough and are entirely on the defensive just now, but we have to watch them until we know that they have had enough.”

4

The Vinthra Commercial Complex was surely the largest, most sprawling orbital station Keflyn had ever seen. Since she had visited here on several occasions in the past, she was not particularly impressed. Under the present circumstances, she was far from thrilled to be here. This place represented the lion’s mouth, and she was about to stick her head in all the way up to her shapely Starwolf derriere.

Following the orders of station control, the Karabyn had spent the better part of an hour working her way into system as a part of the small fleet of incoming and departing ships with the precision of a stately dance. After having done it the hard way, she was beginning to have some understanding of the havoc that the sudden, menacing arrival of a Starwolf carrier must have upon a station like this. Keflyn had been taking advantage of her esteemed reputation with the crew of this ship to observe the docking from the small and rather crowded bridge, hiding her alarm at watching two-handed humans trying to dock a ship that was not smart enough to begin to dock itself.

Since the Karabyn was a regular courier for the Union rebels, she had been scrupulous in following the protocol of asking no one their names and they did not ask for hers. She knew the name of the ship itself only because it was listed, along with her recognition code, on either side of the hull. She had been told that the crew was changed every few weeks, and that the ship herself was given a new name, code, and registration papers twice a year.

An aging independent freighter of less than 140 meters, the Karabyn obviously did not rate very highly with the port authorities. She was nuzzling into a simple docking sleeve in one very remote corner of the station, hardly more than a large cargo airlock for her nose and a pair of braces that was ready to catch her. Even if it had been allowed for such a humble ship, they had no interest in bringing the Karabyn down to the surface as she had at Kanis. Although she had no atmospheric control or lift surfaces at all, the Karabyn was perfectly capable of landing.

The ship shuddered slightly as she slipped her docking probe into the main airlock. The braces closed against the hull a moment later, locking her in. The bridge crew hurried to secure the ship, powering down all systems except environmental and maintenance.

“Well, here we are,” the captain said, turning to her. “I’ll go find out if the Thermopylae is in port and where she is located. You won’t have to leave the ship until everything is ready.”

“Will she be on schedule?” Keflyn asked, knowing that their arrival had been timed perfectly.

“She’s a ship hired out for a regular run,” he explained. “They have to keep their schedule within a reasonable tolerance or they risk losing their contract. Barring accident or major emergency, they’ll be here.”

The captain left in the company of a junior officer, leaving the ship’s regular business in the hands of the first officer and cargo master. Keflyn spent the time as best she could, getting herself into costume and preparing her bags for travel. As far as she was concerned, this was the most dangerous part of the operation. The captain of the Thermopylae could turn them all in for a very sizeable reward, if it included her as the main prize, and she would never know until they came to take her away. And even if that part went well, she still had to reach the other ship, which could be kilometers away through a very crowded station. Although she knew to look for the tell-tale signs that gave her away, she still thought that she looked very much like a Starwolf pretending to be human. She was never entirely sure if she had been teased when she recalled her father’s story of how he had