Sirius was armed. She certainly seemed to have figured everything else out! If she did suspect, holding his fire to try to surprise her would be pointless, yet even if she did suspect the truth, it was unlikely she realized quite how heavily armed the big Q-ship actually was. Coglin had come to possess a lively respect for the Manticoran officer's sheer guts as he watched her actions in Basilisk, but this was entirely too much like a mouse chasing a cat.
He considered his options carefully. The smartest thing to have done, he acknowledged grudgingly, would have been to obey Harrington's order to heave to. If he'd stopped, let the cruiser come into energy range, and then blown his panels, he could have wiped her out before she even realized what was happening. But he hadn't, and that mistake left him with a much less attractive range of choices.
Fearless was out-gunned by a factor of ten, whether Harrington knew it or not, but RMN cruisers were tougher than the numbers might suggest. If he turned on her, she would not only have the higher base velocity as they closed, but her higher acceleration and lower mass would make her far more maneuverable than Sirius in close combat. The way she'd taken out the courier boat's drive told him Harrington was no shiphandler to take lightly, and if his sidewalls were tougher than hers, her main impeller bands were just as impenetrable as his own. If he got drawn into a close-range dogfight against a more agile opponent, she might just get lucky and score a hit or two in the right place before she died. If she crippled his Warshawski sails, for example, it wouldn't even matter whether or not he could get into hyper. He'd get home eventually, no doubt, but he could never reach the rendezvous in time to stop the task force. Not under impeller drive alone, and especially not when he'd have to detour around the Tellerman rather than using it.
On the other hand, holding to his present course pointed his vulnerable stern straight at her, and it was always possible she might pop a missile past his point defense and through the rear of his wedge to score that same lucky hit. The odds were against it, given the angle at which any missile would have to come in, but it was possible. Yet his after firepower was three times as great as Fearless's forward armament, and her hull form meant her forward drive nodes were more exposed than his after ones. Besides, he had missiles to burn, many times the number that could possibly be crammed into a Courageous—class cruiser's magazines. That meant he could start firing early and hope he got lucky, whereas Harrington's limited ammunition supply would force her to hold her fire until she could reasonably hope for a hit. And her ship's greater theoretical maneuverability wouldn't help her as long as he held the range open while he smashed at her.
The only drawback was that she might break off once she realized what she was up against, and if she did, he would have to let her go. He hated that. The instant he opened fire, she'd have proof he was armed. That would be bad. Not only would it give away the fact that Haven had armed some of its Astra- class ships as commerce raiders, but the fact that a Q-ship had been in the system would certainly be persuasive evidence that Haven had played a major role in fomenting the native unrest on Medusa. And if he opened fire before she did, then Haven would be guilty of committing the first overt act of war, as well. On the other hand, her only proof would be her instrument readings, and everyone knew data could be faked up. In effect, it would be Manticore's word against Haven's, and while that might be embarrassing to certain high-ranking jackasses who had planned this entire abortion, it wouldn't necessarily be disastrous to the Republic. More importantly, it wouldn't be disastrous to PMSS Sirius, the waiting task force, or Captain Johan Coglin.
No. Obliterating Fearless before she could tell Manticore—and the galaxy at large—that Sirius had been armed would be the best possible outcome, and if Harrington didn't break off or if an opportunity to destroy her without jeopardizing his primary mission presented itself, that was precisely what he would do. In the meantime, he'd concentrate on discouraging her and keeping her from reporting back in case he did get a chance to kill her, but he'd do it while he kept right on running away ... even if he did have the more powerful ship.
'Inform me when missile flight time drops to one-eight-eight seconds, Jamal,' he said. 'And stand by to jam on my firing command.'
'Yes, Sir.'
The range continued to fall as Fearless's greater acceleration boosted her speed relative to Sirius. It wasn't a tremendous advantage at first, not when viewed against their absolute velocities, but it grew steadily, and a strange sort of tranquillity settled over Honor as it climbed.
She was committed. The first shot had yet to be fired—indeed, she didn't yet have any real proof Sirius was even armed—but she knew what was going to happen. Not how it was going to come out, perhaps, but how it was going to begin ... and what she would do about it.
'Mr. Cardones,' she said quietly.
'Yes, Ma'am?' Cardones sounded tense, perhaps a bit breathless, and very young, and she smiled at him.
'I imagine we're going to be under fire for some time before we can reply, Guns,' she said, and saw his quick flush of pleasure, the slight relaxation of his shoulders, at her choice of title. 'I don't want to do anything to suggest we suspect Sirius is armed until and unless she actually opens fire—she may let us in closer if she thinks we're unaware of the danger—but be ready to bring up the ECM and point defense the instant something comes our way. Don't wait for my order.'
'Aye, aye, Captain.'
'Mr. Panowski.'
'Yes, Captain?' The navigator sounded much more anxious than Cardones, perhaps because he was a bit older, a bit more aware of his mortality.
'We're committed to a stern chase. Once we close to two million kilometers, however, I will want to zig- zag randomly either side of his base course to interpose our sidewalls as far as possible. Set up your plot accordingly and maintain a running update for Chief Killian.'
'Aye, aye, Ma'am.' Panowski turned to his console with renewed energy, as if relieved to have something to do. Or, Honor thought, perhaps it was her suggestion that they would survive to within two million kilometers. She felt herself smile once more, and to her amazement, it felt completely genuine. She looked up to see McKeon smiling back at her and shook her head at him. He shrugged, his smile suspiciously like a grin for just a moment, and she returned her attention to the chronometer. Sixty-six minutes into the pursuit.
'Missile flight time now one-eight-eight seconds, Sir.'
'Very well.' Coglin settled himself in his chair and crossed his legs. 'Commence jamming and open fire with tubes twenty and twenty-one.'
Buzzers snarled aboard Fearless.
Honor opened her mouth to snap orders, but Rafael Cardones had the reflexes of the very young. He had already reacted. The tactical board flashed as his ECM sprang from standby to active, and two fifty-ton decoys snapped out of their broadside bays, popping through specially opened portals in Fearless's sidewalls. Tractors moored them to the cruiser, holding the driveless lures on station to cover her flanks, as passive sensors listened to the incoming missiles, seeking the frequencies of their active homing systems, and jammers responded with white noise in an effort to blind them while fire control systems locked on the small, weaving targets.
Cardones started to reach for his counter-missile firing key, then paused and glanced over his shoulder at her.
'Not yet, Mr. Cardones,' she said quietly. 'Let the plot settle. Fire at a half-million kilometers to catch them as their drives go down.'
'Yes, Ma'am.'
The youthful tactical officer tapped the command into his computers, then sat tense and still, waiting, and Honor looked at Webster just as the com officer sat back from his own console in disgust. She raised an eyebrow in
