finger, and the dot moved smoothly back to the center targeting ring. The target began frantic evasion tactics and even simulated chaff, but Cale had no trouble bringing it back into the targeting ring almost immediately.
Cale was surprised and delighted. Both the laser and the quickfirer were mounted in small bubbles on the hull, and had very limited fields of fire. This meant that Tess had to execute tiny, precision maneuvers in order for Cale and Dee to keep their weapons on target. Tess's deft touch with the attitude jets amazed him, though; he admitted to himself, it probably should not have. Cheetah was a ship to the humans aboard, but it was Tess's body. Still, her ability to keep him on target during the simulations was incredible. It was as though his weapons were mounted in aimable turrets. His confidence rose considerably.
Finally, Tess notified him that they were only five minutes from the jump point.
“Okay,” he replied reluctantly. “Terminate the simulation. Let’s use these five minutes to monitor our pursuer. Let’s try to see what capabilities he night have.”
“I believe his inertial drives to be enhanced,” Tess replied. “His delta-vee rate exceeds the specifications of the standard Epsilon-class ship. That is why I added an arbitrary 20 % to his maneuvering ability during the simulation.”
Cale nodded. “The first thing a pirate modifies on a ship is larger inertial drives and a larger fusactor,” he said. “That comes even before adding weapons. There’s no sense having powerful weapons aboard if your prey can simply outrun you.”
They spent the remaining few minutes of the countdown to jump using Tess’s entire sensor suite to try to analyze the capabilities of their pursuer.
The jump went smoothly, and Cale breathed a huge sigh of relief. He had squeezed himself into the closet- like “control room” to monitor Tess’s computations, but found they scrolled up the monitor screen far too fast to permit reading. When the computations were complete, Tess displayed the final jump figures for him, but it had taken hours for him to verify their correctness. In fact, Tess tactfully pointed out two errors in his checking computations. The more Cale interacted with Tess, the more impressed he became. It seemed the advantages of a sentient ship were nearly limitless — as long as one remained on good terms with her/it. He considered himself moderately skilled in astrogation, but he had to admit that it was a huge relief to have a ship that had hundreds of years’ experience in conning itself!
Chapter 6
The initial jump was to be relatively short. They would have some 76 hours in the nothingness that was jump before emerging into the uninhabited system for recalibration and possible battle.
Despite the danger hanging over them, time began to drag. Tess’s ever-present spider-bots took care of any chores that needed doing, meals were served in the lounge, and after a few hours, Cale and Dee were confident in their Tess-enhanced skills with the weapons systems.
Surprisingly, though, Cale and Dee were not bored. They were getting to know one another, and discovering a growing attraction. What began as a nervous comparing of simulation scores evolved into an endless discussion about nearly everything. Cale found that he was coming to regret those occasions when Dee interrupted their seemingly endless talk to return to her stateroom for sleep. And Dee was finding it difficult to break away. By the time Tess warned them of the approach of emergence, Cale had on several occasions been forced to remind himself that he was no horny teenager, but an allegedly mature man facing an uncertain future. He found it increasingly difficult to focus on plans for that future, especially plans that did not include Dee. For her part, Dee was becoming determined to solve the mystery of this attractive but enigmatic man who seemed able to endlessly avoid or change the subject whenever she managed to bring up the subject of his background. For her part, Tess was fascinated by watching this mating dance and relating it to the thousands of volumes on human behavior she had consumed and the variety of others she had witnessed over the last four centuries.
Finally, though, Tess began the countdown to emergence, and the two humans reluctantly returned to matters of life and death. When Tess announced E-minus five minutes, Cale and Dee stepped into an unexpected hug. For a moment, Cale was lost in the smell and feel of Dee’s hair, and then was surprised to find himself dipping his head and her raising her lips. For a long moment, time stopped as they shared a long, slow kiss that suddenly broke in a flurry of mutual confusion. With an embarrassed “Oh, dear,” Dee fled to the control room, trying desperately to control her breathing and focus on the quickfirer controls.
A troubled Cale dropped into one of the lounge’s comfortable seats as Tess activated the laser fire control system and the familiar targeting grid appeared on the main viewscreen.
“Time, Tess?”
“E minus four minutes and counting, Captain,” came the crisp reply.
Four minutes! That exciting hug and that incredible kiss had lasted less than a minute? Surely, that was impossible! “Are you sure, Tess?” he blurted before chiding himself. Of course, Tess was sure!
“Now three minutes, fifty-one seconds, Captain,” Tess replied in a neutral tone.
Cursing himself silently, Cale forced himself to concentrate on Tess’s countdown. “As soon as we emerge, change your attitude ninety degrees in any direction. Once you have inertial drives, boost max in that direction. If she’s already there, they may not be able to change course and attitude quickly enough to finish us off. If we get there first, you can cut your drives and swap ends as soon as you detect an emergence. They should be expecting us to continue our emergence course while we recal. Maybe we can just run away. But if not, with any luck we’ll get a few shots at her fat belly before she can adjust her attitude. Of course, we’ll need a full sensor scan as soon as possible after we emerge.”
Tess’s tone was patient. “Yes, Captain. Your previous instructions were quite clear.”
Cale cursed himself again, but failed to reply as the time hack on the viewscreen showed less than a minute to emergence.
As the time flicked from “00:01” to “00:00,” the familiar twisting sensation of illness passing too quickly to be felt told Cale they had emerged. Space beyond the laser-targeting grid assumed the star flecks of normal space. Cale started to ask Tess about her sensor scans, but her voice forestalled him.
“Initial scan complete, Captain,” Tess reported in her crisp no-nonsense tone. “No traffic or hazards in range.”
“All right, Tess. Change attitude and let’s boost max and put as much distance as possible between us and that jump point.” The starfield slewed around dizzyingly.
“Boost is at max, Captain,” Tess reported. “ Stellar index shows jump point for Angeles to be approximately 30 degrees around the plane of the ecliptic. We are driving ninety degrees to solar south of our emergence course at 1.52 G pending recalculation and reorientation.”
Then she continued more conversationally, “Long-range scan will be complete in 38.3 seconds, but so far, no sign of our pursuer.”
“Great,” Cale replied. “But keep your sensors hot and be ready to adjust attitude. Let’s build up as much delta vee as we can, but be ready to shut down the drive and swap ends.” He could almost see an affirmative nod accompanying her calm “Yes, Captain.”
Tense silence settled in as Cheetah drove away from the jump point.
It was some five minutes later, just as Cale was beginning to relax that Tess said, “Captain! I show an emergence at the jump point. I am cutting the inertial drive and beginning attitude reversal.”
Cale watched the star field slew around again as Tess reversed her attitude, then freeze. The jump point through which they had just emerged was undetectable by normal instruments, of course, so the star field now filling the viewscreen seemed identical to the previous one.
“Can you ID the ship?” Cale asked.
“The ship has no beacon running,” Tess replied. “However, she is Epsilon class.”
“That’s our pirate,” Cale replied. “Lack of a beacon is the final verification. What is our present velocity, and is there any chance he could catch us?”
“We are coasting at 0.012 percent of light speed. His capabilities are unknown, but if he has the standard sensor suite, he may have difficulty locating us, since we are no longer emitting drive traces.”
“Captain,” Tess continued, more urgently. “Our sensors now have a side view of the pursuer. His hull is
