Honor Among Enemies

speed would be far lower than hers, but one reason Marsh was so seldom visited was that only a single grav wave, and that a fairly weak one, served the system. That had probably been a factor in the strangers decision to come here, since the weaker wave would have put less strain on a failing sail. But it also meant the freighter could run in almost any direction under impellers, and local h-space sensor conditions were lousy. If one of her people wasn't right on top of them when they made translation, they'd have an excellent chance to evade her. In which case the next people to call would be a Confed squadron.

No, she had to get close enough to be certain they couldn't evade. The best solution would be to intercept inside the Marsh hyper limit, where they couldn't get back into h-space at all, which meant less than nineteen light-minutes from the G6 primary. But it would take them a long time to get there, certainly long enough to change their minds and run if anything did make them suspicious, so the first order of business was to keep them from suspecting anything.

All right. If that was a merchant ship, it presumably had civilian-grade sensors, which were unlikely to see her ships at anything much above eight light-minutes, and it wouldn't send a message to her unless it could see her. So her first priority had to be to hold the range open until they were where she wanted them. It would also give her a chance to see if their sensors were better than she assumed, since they'd certainly send a message to her if they saw her. Ergo, no message meant they didn't know she was here. But if they didn't, they were bound to transmit straight to Sidemore, which meant....

She rubbed her temple harder, then nodded and turned her chair to face her astrogator.

'New squadron course, Sue. We've should have a good three light-minutes to play with before we enter their sensor range. I want a vector to take us out and around in a dogleg that will bring us up from astern of them after they've made turnover for Sidemore, but we'll maintain our heading for...' she checked the plot's time display '...another ten minutes.'

'No sweat,' the astrogator replied. 'We've got six times their accel.'

'Good.' Sherman turned to her com officer. 'Raise Sidemore. Tell them I'm going to maneuver to stay outside the target's sensor envelope until we get it inside the hyper limit, and send them our course once Sue works it out. If these people send them a message, I want dirtside to tell them there's a visiting Confed antipiracy patrol out-system of them, that their message is being relayed, and for them to maintain their present profile. Tell them the 'naval units' will make rendezvous with them at the point Sue's calculating. Got it?'

'Yes, Ma'am,' the com officer said, and Sherman leaned back in her chair again.

'Sidemore should be receiving our message now, Ma'am,' Fred Cousins said, and Honor nodded.

The privateers' maneuvers made it clear they had Wayfarer on gravitics, but very few 'merchantmen' would be able to pick them up at this range, and they evidently figured Wayfarer hadn't. Their ships were swinging out to skirt Wayfarer's theoretical sensor envelope, then loop back in behind her in an obvious, and logical, attempt to head off any possibility of flight. All four of them were staying together, as well. That was nice. If she could suck them all in for the initial exchange, she wouldn't have to worry about any of them getting away.

She made herself sit back, radiating serene confidence while a skinsuited Nimitz curled in her lap. Tschu's 'Warshawski flare' had been just as convincing as promised, and as he'd also promised, he'd managed it without actually damaging anything. Which was not to say he hadn't stressed the system right to the limit, and things like that always had some consequences. It had taken all eight forward alpha nodes to project a suitable power pulse, and Honor expected BuShips to speak to her firmly for taking a good thousand hours off their projected service life, but it had been worth it. Or, she corrected herself, it seemed to have been worth it so far.

Caslet had moved over to stand beside her, and their eyes met as she looked up. He and his senior officers had dined with her each night, and a sense of mutual respect and even wary liking had grown up between her and the Peep commander. She remembered Thomas Theisman, the Peep destroyer skipper, and now admiral, she'd captured at the Battle of Blackbird, and smiled slightly. Theisman and Caslet had a lot in common. For that matter, so did Allison MacMurtree, Shannon Foraker, and, reluctant though she'd initially been to admit it about any 'peoples commissioner', Denis Jourdain. All of them were too darned good at their jobs for her comfort, and all of them were people of integrity.

'Four heavy cruisers make for pretty stiff odds, Captain,' Caslet observed quietly.

'I told you our teeth are sharp,' she replied calmly. 'I'm less worried by the numbers than I am by how slow we are. If they detach anyone, the detachee is going to get away from us.'

Caslet blinked. She was worried that a heavy cruiser might 'get away' from a converted merchantman? He was willing to admit her ship mounted powerful energy weapons, but he'd had ample opportunity to realize Wayfarer truly was a civilian design, with all the vulnerabilities that implied, and there couldn't be many places to put missile tubes. Her long-range armament had to be weak, especially given the space those god-awful grasers must eat up, and she couldn't take much damage. All of which meant a properly handled CA would cut her slow, unarmored, ungainly hull to pieces in any sort of sustained engagement. Granted she did carry those LACs, but LACs were fragile and weakly armed themselves. No matter how Warner Caslet looked at it, he expected Wayfarer to be severely damaged before she could take out that many opponents.

'Well, they seem to be sticking together for now,' he said dryly. 'So if that's your main concern, Captain, I'd say things are looking pretty good so far.'

'Message coming in from dirtside,' Warnecke's com officer reported. She listened intently for a minute or two, then looked over her shoulder at Sherman. 'Base says they're the Andermani freighter Sternenlicht. They've suffered a double node failure in their forward sail, and they took some nasty casualties when the nodes blew. They request engineering and medical assistance.'

'Truitt' Sherman asked.

'Checking database now.' The tac officer watched his display for a few seconds, then shrugged. 'We don't have her listed, but our Andermani lists've never been very complete. The message header's definitely Andy merchant service, though, and the transponder matches.'

'I see.' Sherman crossed her legs and considered, then looked back up at the com officer. 'How did dirtside respond?'

'I'll play it back,' the com officer said, and a moment later, Andre Warnecke's strong, mellow voice came from the speakers.

'Sternenlicht, this is Sidemore. Your message has been received, and we're making arrangements to render assistance. I'm afraid we lack the facilities to repair your nodes locally, but we've got a little good news to go with the bad. Two divisions of Silesian cruisers on antipiracy patrol out of Sachsen dropped by on a courtesy visit earlier this week, and they're still in-system. They probably can't help with your nodes, either, but they do have surgeons aboard, and they can at least let someone know you're here. I'm requesting their immediate assistance for you, but they've been conducting maneuvers in our outer asteroid belt, and it's going to take them a while to reach you. Maintain your present flight profile. I estimate they'll rendezvous with you in about five hours and escort you the rest of the way in. Sidemore, out.'

'Not bad,' Sherman murmured. He sounds like he actually means it. I wonder how someone that crazy can sound so reasonable and helpful? She shook herself and checked her plot once more. The range had fallen to ten light-minutes as her squadron skirted around Sternenlicht to reach its ambush position, but that was still well beyond reach of a merchie's sensors.

'. . . way in. Sidemore, out.'

Honor looked at Rafe Cardones with a raised eyebrow.

''Oh what a tangled web we weave,'' he said with a grim smile. 'At least it confirms that we're in the right place. If those are Confed cruisers, I'll eat our main sensor array.'

'I agree, Milady,' Jennifer Hughes put in. 'Carol has their emissions dialed in across the board. They're a dead match for the profiles we pulled out of that tin can's computers, and they sure as hell aren't anywhere near any asteroid belts.'