Honor Among Enemies

escort blew apart.

'They're coming in on us now, Ma'am!' Wolcott said suddenly. 'Bogies Seven and Eight coming up from astern and low, two-four-zero by two-three-six.' Her voice was already taut; now it went even harsher as she completed her report. 'Thirteen and Fourteen are swinging in from starboard and high, too, Ma'am. One-one-niner by zero-three-three. Looks like they're trying to overtake and cross our T!'

'Show me!' Hughes snapped, and Wolcott dumped her data onto the main tactical plot. The lieutenant commander studied the icons for an instant, then nodded. 'Roll port and come to three-three-zero, same plane!'

'Rolling port, coming to three-three-zero, same plane, aye,' Chief O'Halley acknowledged, and Wayfarer began a ponderous swerve.

'John and Andrew just nailed Bogie Nine,' Hughes' yeoman reported, but the tac officer said nothing. Her eyes were glued to her display as the lumbering converted merchantman rolled up on her port side, presenting her belly to the threat from starboard, and turned back across the convoy's track. The maneuver brought her port side down toward the two cruiser-range raiders coming in from 'below' her, and Hughes' fingers flew over her panel.

'Radar lock on Bogies Seven and Eight,' her yeoman announced.

'Fire as you bear,' Hughes replied grimly.

'There goes Gudrid,' someone groaned. 'She's breaking up!'

'Carol, find me those missile ships!' Hughes said, and Aubrey closed his eyes while his mind raced.

The raiders had caught the convoy at its most vulnerable moment, as it transited between grav waves in the depths of hyper-space. The two waves were over a half-light-day apart at this, their closest approach. At the convoy's best h-space speed it would take thirty hours to make the transition, and by catching the convoy here, the raiders had been able to come in under impellers. They'd not only intercepted when the merchantmen were slowest and least maneuverable but done so under conditions which let them use their own sidewalls and missiles. Worse, no one had spotted them because of the poor sensor conditions and their unexpectedly good EW until their opening salvos had savaged both destroyers and crippled Gudrid's pods. The fact that they weren't currently in a grav wave had at least let Hughes get her LACs away, and their unanticipated appearance, and power, had given the enemy pause, but it hadn't driven them off. Apparently they'd decided anything this heavily defended had to be worth capturing, and despite their own losses, they were still driving in hard. Without their missile support, Wayfarer and her remaining LACs could still take all of them, but doing anything about their missile platforms required the ability to at least see them, and with the coupling down, how the hell did Aubrey...

Wait! His eyes popped open, and he punched a query into his probe, then grinned fiercely. It was completely against The Book, and it would be cumbersome as hell, but if he took down Radar Six and routed the input from Grav Two through Six's systems to Auxiliary Radar at Junction Three-Sixty-One, then ran a hardwired shunt from AuxRad....

'Port battery firing, now!' Hughes' yeoman snapped, and fresh energy howled from Wayfarers grasers as they came to bear. Two more raiders blew up, but one of them lasted long enough to fire back. Her weaker lasers blew right through the Q-ship's underpowered sidewall and nonexistent armor to rip Graser Three, Graser Five, and Missile Seven and Nine apart, with near total casualties on both energy mounts.

Aubrey's fingers flew, setting up the required commands. He was working as much by feel as training, for no one had ever tried anything like this before, so far as he knew, but there wasn't time to work it all out properly. His execution files were quick and dirty, but they ought to do the trick, and he dropped his control box and ripped open his tool kit.

'Keep an eye on those suckers to starboard,' Hughes ordered.

'Enemy missile fire shifting to us from Gudrid,' Lieutenant Jansen reported from Missile Defense.

'Do your best,' Hughes said grimly, and Aubrey hurled himself under the radar display, burrowing into the limited space so quickly Jansen didn't have time to get out of the way. The lieutenant gave a chopped off, surprised cry, then snatched his feet out of Aubrey’s path, and the tech ripped the front off the main panel. He forced himself to take a moment, making sure of his identification, then clamped the heavy alligator clips to the input terminals. He rolled onto his back, sat up, grabbed the edge of the console, and sent himself slithering across the decksole on the seat of his trousers, then rolled under Wolcott's panel.

Unlike Jansen, the assistant tac officer had seen him coming, and she turned her chair sideways to give him room to work even as she continued driving her sensors. 'Paul reports loss of her wedge, and Galactic Traveler's taken two hits in her after impeller ring. Her accel's dropping.'

'Put us on a least-time for Traveler, Helm!' Hughes snapped. 'Starboard batteries, stand by. Eleven and Thirteen are pulling ahead of us!'

'Incoming birds in acquisition!' Jansen sang out, then swore as Aubrey reached out, clamped his cable to the terminals under Wolcott's console, and brought his improvised software on-line. 'We've lost Radar Six! Going to emergency override Baker-Three!'

'Gravitics up!' Wolcott shouted in sudden triumph. 'Enemy missile platforms bear zero-one-niner two-zero-three, range one-point-five million klicks! Designate them Bogies Fourteen and Fifteen! They look like a couple of converted freighters, Ma'am!'

'Got 'em!' Hughes barked back. 'Stand by to roll pods!'

'Programming fire control,' Wolcott replied. A handful of seconds ticked past, and then. 'Solution accepted and locked! Pods ready!'

'Roll them!' Hughes snapped, and six missile pods spilled from Wayfarer's stern. Their sudden appearance took the raiders by surprise, and no one even tried to fire on them before attitude thrusters kicked them to the right bearing and they launched. Sixty missiles, far heavier than anything the raiders had, shrieked towards their targets, and Aubrey rolled up on his knees, panting, to watch their tracks cross the main plot. The laser heads reached attack range and detonated, and scores of X-ray lasers ripped at the missile ships. Their defenses were even weaker than Wayfarer's; they never had a chance, and both of them blew apart under the terrible pounding.

'All right!' someone screamed.

'Watch starboard!' Hughes barked. The two raiders still sweeping up and around Wayfarer's starboard bow could still have killed them, but the privateers had already lost half their squadron, and the sudden revelation of Wayfarer’s missile power, coupled with the loss of their own missile platforms, took the heart out of them. They broke off, accelerating hard and rolling to cover themselves with their own wedges, and Hughes' lips drew back to bare her teeth. 'Keep rolling pods, Carol! I want those bastards!'

'Aye, Ma'am. New solution locked. Launching now.' A fresh stream of pods rolled from Wayfarers after cargo doors. The fleeing raiders were much harder targets than the missile ships, but not hard enough to resist that sort of fire. It took only five more salvos to kill them both, and Hughes sat back with a sigh as the raiders on the far side of the convoys track also spun away and fled madly.

Aubrey sank down to sit on his heels and dragged a forearm across his sweaty forehead as the displays suddenly blanked. Then they came up again, this time showing the untouched ships of the convoy still plowing serenely along down grav wave MSY-002-91, and Hughes ran a hand through her hair before she turned to her tactical crew.

'Not too shabby, people,' she said as the tone announcing the simulation’s end sounded. 'We were late picking them up, but once the shooting actually started you did good.'

'Indeed they did,' a soprano voice said, and Aubrey scrambled to his feet with a start. Captain Harrington stood in the open hatch between Alpha Simulator and Beta, where Commander Cardones had been running the 'raiders.' Her treecat was cradled in her arms while she rubbed his ears, and Aubrey had no idea how long she'd