Jolo didn’t need George to tell him the odds of an intersection were very slim. If he jumped in on the outside of the fleet then they’d see him coming and would probably take him out before he could convince them of other options. But if he jumped in close he could catch them by surprise and present his case before they fired on him. He looked down at Koba. “It’s a slim chance, but if it happens then we die here as opposed to back down on Duval.”
Then Jolo ran down to engineering. He walked up to Hurley, who was hunched over a console, and patted him on the back and said, “Thanks for everything, Hurley.”
“We ‘bout to head into it, ain’t we?”
“Yeah.”
“I know you got a plan,” said Barth.
Jolo turned to the one-armed engineer, “I just want to say—”
“Yeah, I know,” he said. “You used to get kinda mushy right before the shit hit the fan back in the day. Telling the crew how great they were. That’s why they loved you.”
“I don’t remember.”
“You don’t have to. Just be you. Jolo Vargas.”
“I’m askin’ a lot of everybody today.”
“That’s fine. That’s your job.”
Jolo had to ask Barth about pulling the safety on the next jump but knew he was going to hate it. “I need you to do something for me.” Jolo tried to keep his voice upbeat but he could tell the engineer was suddenly suspicious. “I need you to disable the safety on the next jump into Callen.” Barth’s eyebrows scrunched together and his head started to tilt down a bit.
“What about the—” Barth started to say.
“I know. Of course, I know. We need to get in front of the gunboats before they can respond.”
Barth leaned back and scratched his back with his good hand, took a deep breath and stared over at the logic array near the jump drive that housed the safety. Jolo knew he was weighing their chances with his engineer’s brain. Barth wouldn’t go for it if he thought it was suicide.
“I done it once,” said Hurley. “I’m still here.”
“Okay. I’ll do it,” said Barth.
“Good. When you are done with that I need you to modify one of the small turrets we’ve got in storage.”
The Argossy burst into orbit above Callen 2.8 kilometers from Trant’s gunboat, the Nymeria. In seconds they were all over Trant and two other gunboats protecting the flank of two Fed transports. Koba had set his transponder to a Fed Courier Class ship so the Argossy popped up on their screen a tiny blue dot, which meant small friendly ship. Jolo hoped that’s what the Fed ships saw.
“Make for Trant,” said Jolo.
“What, we gonna try and board his ship?” said Koba.
“Barth,” Jolo barked into the comm. “I’m gonna ram Trant’s gunboat. I don’t want to kill the ship, just piss him off.”
“Don’t catch his engines or topside near the bridge. Slow down before impact and clip him low just under the nose, you’ll take out the storage bay but he’ll still be fully functional.”
“What about the fuel cells.”
“Yeah, that’s right. Don’t hit those either, but they’re encased in alacyte. You gotta hit just under the bow. What are you doing?”
“Inviting everyone to the party.” Jolo looked down at Koba, who’d just heard the whole conversation.
“I can’t do that,” he said. “I ain’t Katy.”
“Do it.” Koba nosed the Argossy down as the comm board lit up with incoming messages.
The gunboats scrambled to get out of the way of the Fed transport that had suddenly popped up on their screens. Message after message came in but Jolo ignored them. The Argossy’s proximity warning sensors had long since been removed but Jolo was sure they were going off on the Fed boats now. He imagined their captains trying to look calm as the klaxon wailed in the background, junior officers scurrying about, maybe rifling through some outdated Federation manual searching for an entry on what to do when a rogue Fed transport was out of formation and on an intercept course, trying to decide if it was okay to unleash the cannons.
“They’re gonna take us out,” said Koba.
“They’re thinking about it,” said Jolo. “They would have if it weren’t for your transponder. They don’t want to take down a sister ship. Make sure your current trajectory has us missing all the boats. Then at the last second adjust and clip Trant.”
Jolo got on the comm and told everyone to hold on to something. A few seconds later Koba crashed into the Nymeria, the gunboat’s cannons were hot but once the Argossy was close Trant wouldn’t fire for fear of hurting his own ship. The Argossy gained speed as the Nymeria went into a spin and fought to regain control.
“Koba, get us out of here!” said Jolo, as Koba made jump calculations.
Then Jolo grabbed the comm and opened a channel to all Federation boats. “This is Jolo Vargas. I just rammed the Nymeria. Now I’m going down to Duval and I’m going to kill every human I can find. Especially the kids down there in Jaxxon. Ya’ll stay here. Don’t get your nails dirty.” And he cut the comm.
Jolo kept his eye on the screen as the Argossy’s jump drives wound up. He noticed some of the smaller Wasp fighters that usually stayed attached to the large Defenders disappear, their tiny blue dots going black.
