Honor Among Enemies

especially not here. Despite the recent jump in losses in this sector, the real hot spots were still supposed to be at Telmach, Brinkman, and Walther in Breslau, or Schiller and Magyar down in southern Posnan. So what were a pair of heavy cruisers doing flying an obvious pursuit vector on a Manticoran merchantman clear over here at Tyler's Star?

'No possibility they're Silesian?' he asked, and Hernando shook his head.

'Not unless the Confeds' EW systems've gotten an awful lot better than they're supposed to be. If these bozos are holding a constant acceleration, they were inside nine light-minutes before we even saw 'em, and they're harder than hell to hold on passive even now. I doubt your standard merchie would have any idea they were out there.'

'Hmm.' Webster scratched his chin again and wished Captain Harrington were here to advise him. He was beginning to have a very unpleasant suspicion about those two bogies, and he suddenly felt entirely too junior for what was about to happen.

He raised a hand and beckoned to his exec. Commander DeWitt crossed the bridge to him, and Webster spoke very quietly.

'What do you say to a pair of Peep heavy cruisers, Gus?'

DeWitt turned to give the plot another look. He rubbed one weathered cheek with the knuckle of his right index finger, then nodded slowly.

'Could be, Sir,' he agreed. 'But if it is, what the hell do we do about them?'

'It doesn't look like we're going to have a whole lot of choice,' Webster said wryly.

Captain Harrington’s orders were quite clear. He could take on single Peep heavy cruisers with her blessings; if he ran into a battlecruiser, which, given Hernando's still tentative readings on their impeller strengths, either of these two could yet be, or more than one CA, he was supposed to avoid action if possible. Unfortunately, the bogies, whoever and whatever they truly were, were now only five light-minutes back. Scheherazade was up to eleven thousand KPS and accelerating at a hundred and fifty gravities, but the bogies were hitting over forty-three thousand and pulling five hundred gees. That meant they'd overtake in a tad over forty-one minutes, and Webster was much too far inside the hyper limit to escape by translating into h-space. However he sliced it, these people were going to overtake him, and there was nothing he could do about it.

Despite the numerical odds, he figured he had an excellent chance to take both of them on and win, especially if they thought he was only an unarmed freighter until he proved differently. Of course, if they turned out to be battlecruisers, he was going to get badly hurt, but probably not as badly as they would. But what if they split up? If Bogey Two hung back out of missile range, which he might well do, since it was hard to conceive of a Peep CO thinking he'd need two heavy cruisers to swat a single merchie, then Webster would never be able to engage him at all. And that meant he was about to give away an awful lot about his ship's capabilities to the bad guys, whatever happened to the ship which closed. On the other hand...

'Probable enemy intentions?' he asked DeWitt.

The exec frowned as he considered. He was five T-years older than his captain, and where Webster had been a com specialist for years, DeWitt had followed a straight Tactical track. Despite that, there was no question which of them was in command, and it was a sign of Webster's self-confidence that he could ask the question he'd just posed.

'If these are Peeps,' DeWitt said slowly, 'they must be here to raid our commerce, which would explain a lot about our losses in this sector.' Webster nodded, and the exec's frown deepened. 'At the same time, we haven't heard a peep, you should pardon the expression, from anyone to confirm their presence. That means they've managed to grab the crews of every ship they've hit so far, right?'

'Exactly,' Webster agreed. 'Which is probably the best news we've had yet.'

'Agreed.' DeWitt nodded vigorously. 'Even with first-line Peep EW systems, most merchies would see them coming in time to get their crews away by small craft. That means they must've been working in pairs, at least, all along.'

'If I were their senior officer,' Webster mused, 'I'd come burning in with all the overtake I could generate with both ships. Then I'd hit my com the minute my target's maneuvers showed I'd been spotted and order him to maintain com silence and not to take to his shuttles.'

'Absolutely,' DeWitt said. 'With two of them right on top of us and both with plenty of overtake in hand, we'd never be able to get a shuttle away. And no merchant skipper would break com silence when he was looking straight into a pair of heavy cruisers' broadsides. Not in Silesian space, anyway. Maybe in a Manticoran system he'd take the chance, but the odds of anyone here's passing on his message to us range from slim to none, so why risk his ship and crew?'

'All right,' Webster said more briskly. 'We can't get away, and they probably won't split up. That's the good news. The bad news is that they're at least heavy cruisers, which means they'll have decent point defense, and that they can burn past us at over forty thousand KPS. We won't have long to engage, and they're going to be tough missile targets if they've got time to see our birds coming, so we have to take them both out fast and dirty.'

DeWitt nodded once more, and Webster glanced at his tac officer.

'Assume what we have here is a pair of Peep CAs, Oliver. Further assume they'll stay together and maintain present acceleration until we respond to their presence in some way. We won't have any choice but to engage, so cook me up the best way to nail them both on the fly.'

'Yes, Sir.' Hernando glanced back at his plot, eyes suddenly much more wary. 'How close are you willing to let them get before we pop them, Skipper? Clear into energy range?'

'Maybe. Our weapons hatches are hard to spot, but if we let them in close, then they've got a chance to use their energy mounts, too. Give me a long-range and a short-range option.'

'Yes, Sir,' the tac officer repeated, and began to talk very earnestly with his assistant.

'Gus,' Webster turned back to his exec, 'I want you to get on the com with Commander Chi. If we have to drop his LACs, they're going to have a mighty steep velocity disadvantage. Go over the enemy's approach profile with him to determine optimum launch time for his people. We probably won't be able to get them out as soon as he'd prefer, but I want his best estimate to crank into Oliver's thinking.'

'Can do, Sir,' DeWitt agreed, and headed for his own command station while Webster leaned back in his chair once more.

'Coming down on three light-minutes, Citizen Captain.'

'Good.' Citizen Captain Jerome Waters nodded acknowledgment of the report. His bridge crew, including People's Commissioner Seifert, were relaxed and confident, as well they should be. Tyler's Star was virgin territory, but this would be tile fifth overall capture for Waters' cruiser division, and so far the entire operation had gone as smoothly as Citizen Admiral Giscard had predicted. The trickiest part had been keeping any of their prizes' crews from getting away, and so far none of them had shown any particular urge to try.

Waters rather regretted that. He hated the Star Kingdom of Manticore with a white and burning passion. Hated it for what its navy had done to the People’s Navy. Hated it for building better ships with better weapons than his own government could provide him. And most of all, the ex-Dolist hated it for having an economy which ignored all the 'level field' and 'economic rights' truisms upon which the People's Republic had based its very existence... and still providing its people the highest standard of living in the known galaxy. That was the insult Waters could not forgive. There'd been a time when the Republic of Haven's citizens were at least as affluent as those of Manticore, and by all the standards Waters had been taught from the cradle, the People's Republic's citizens should be even better off than Manticore's today. Hadn't the government intervened to force the wealthy to pay their fair share? Hadn't it legislated the Economic Bill of Rights? Hadn't it compelled private industry to subsidize those put out of work by unfair changes in technology or work-force requirements? Hadn't it guaranteed even its least advantaged citizens free education, free medical care, free housing, and a basic income?

Of course it had. And with all those rights guaranteed to them, its citizens should have been affluent and secure, with a thriving economy. But they weren't, and their economy wasn't, and though he would never have admitted it, the Star Kingdom's successes made Jerome Waters feel small and somehow petty. It wasn't fair for such economic heretics to have so much while the faithful had so little, and he