“If that’s true,” Desjani said in a voice that contained considerable skepticism, “then stop jamming our comms so my ship can send you position and vector data on those other craft.”
“Precise positions and vectors,” Geary added.
“You can—?” The engineer turned again, speaking rapidly to the pilot, her words and lip movements obscured by the security functions in the panel.
But Geary could make out her expression, which quickly went from questioning to insisting to demanding. “She’s reading the pilot the riot act.”
“Good,” Desjani retorted. “Pilots need that done to them every once in a while. It’s the only thing that keeps them even a little humble.”
The woman looked back at Geary. “I’m overriding the jamming of your comms and releasing the lock on the control-deck hatch. Please come forward so we can see the positioning data your ship provides.”
Tanya unstrapped from her seat and triggered the hatch, watching as it opened and gesturing Geary to stay back. “All right. It looks safe. Come on, Admiral. This shuttle crew may be playing straight with us, but I’ve still got a bad feeling about this.”
The flight deck was roughly similar in layout to an Alliance shuttle. The basic design must have been settled on long before humans went to the stars, Geary speculated. He grabbed a handhold to steady himself while Tanya took a free seat next to the male pilot. “I’ve got comms again,” she announced. “Dauntless, give me a remote look at the vicinity of this shuttle.”
She tapped her unit to bring up the 3-D display, which popped into existence above her hand.
“There are three of the Gorms!” the flight engineer cursed. “And closer than we thought.”
“You don’t know who they are?” Geary asked.
“No. Whoever they are, they must have been waiting for us up here. We got snookered, Matt,” she said to the pilot.
“They were watching for anyone lifting out of there en route that warship,” the pilot agreed. “Good thing they’ve had as much trouble seeing us as we did seeing them.”
“But your ship can see us and them that easily?” the engineer asked Desjani. “How?”
“Do you really expect me to answer that?” Tanya asked.
“No. But it was worth the asking, wasn’t it?”
The pilot had been studying the display and now turned and climbed slightly to avoid the nearest other stealth craft, which was just below them and angling in their direction. The second craft was in higher orbit, tracking slightly away as it searched for them, and the third lower, but rising and converging on their track. All around, following their own orbits or trajectories, scores of other spacecraft, satellites, shuttles, and ships operating without any stealth equipment wove through space oblivious to the four hidden craft playing hide-and-seek among them.
“Martian,” the flight engineer declared, pointing to the nearest pursuer.
“Are you certain?” the pilot said.
“Absolutely. The signature on that bird is Martian. I can’t tell if the other two are also Reds.”
“Why are people from Mars after us?” Geary asked.
“Hired guns,” the pilot answered. “If you’ve got money, and you want a job done, no questions asked, Mars is the place to put up your offer. The only difference between the three primary Red governments is how much they charge for looking the other way and how much control they actually have over their countries. Speaking of looking the other way, you haven’t been up here or seen me or the flapping ear or talked to either of us. All right?”
“You get us to Dauntless, and officially we won’t breathe a word otherwise,” Geary promised. “Flapping ear?”
“Flight engineer.”
“Oh.” He studied the movements of the three other stealth craft. “If your ground controllers can spot indications of those three, why aren’t they trying to target them?”
“Target?” Both the pilot and the flight engineer shook their heads before the pilot continued speaking. “You mean engage with weapons? There aren’t any antiorbital weapons allowed on Earth or in Earth orbit. Even if there were, our rules of engagement are straight out of Gandhi.”
“What?” Desjani asked.
“We don’t shoot,” the flight engineer clarified. “Not if you’re Earth-based or -controlled. Those three hunting us might shoot if they get a good chance at us, but that’s because they’re Reds, and because even if they’re one hundred percent official property of some Martian government, there won’t be anything on them to prove that.”
“You can’t shoot?” Tanya demanded as if unable to comprehend the words.
“Not while we’re in Earth orbit,” the pilot explained as he twisted the shuttle between the tracks of two other passing craft. “Beyond that, if we’re past Luna, we can fire back, but only if we get hit at least twice. One hit might be an accident, you see. So we have to wait for two hits. Two hits means it’s definitely deliberate. Then, if there’s anything left of us, we can try shooting back.”
“That is insane.”
“I suppose it might look that way,” the flight engineer agreed. “But, officially, it means we’re at peace and staying that way. And we’ve got ships out beyond Luna. If something happens to us, and then some unfortunate accidents happen to any of those three craft before they make it home, well, that’s just too bad.”
“Hey,” the pilot cautioned. “Watch the loose lips.”
“I’m just letting them know how things work here,” the engineer protested. “They should know.”
“Why didn’t any accidents happen to the Shield of Sol ships before we got here?” Geary asked.
The engineer and the pilot both shrugged. “If someone was planning that,” the engineer said, “and I’m not saying anyone was, it would have been very hard because the Shield of Sol gang knew how we did things, being neighbors and all. They were on guard for it, and they were big, and they stayed together.”
“You guys didn’t play by the rules,” the pilot added. “But we always have to. If anyone shoots at us, all we can do is dodge.”
Desjani smiled. “My ship will intercept us in seven minutes, and we still don’t have to follow your rules. If those Martian craft give us any trouble, they’ll be sorry.”
Both the pilot and the flight engineer gave her horrified looks. “No,” the engineer protested. “You can’t. Not in Earth orbit.”
“I know it’s crowded up here, but my ship’s fire-control systems can make the shots at the right angles—”
“No. You can’t shoot in Earth orbit. It’s not about rules or regulations. It’s . . . wrong.”
Desjani stared at the two, perplexed.
Recalling some of the things they had seen on the surface, Geary nodded slowly. “It’s because of your history, isn’t it? The damage that was done to Old Earth from orbit.”
“Yes, sir,” the pilot confirmed in a low voice. “Not just things being dropped on us but what happened when fighting up here disrupted space-based systems that had become critical. There were some ugly things on the ground after that. All hell, and everything that could deal with it knocked out, too. For a while, no one knew if Earth would pull through or if we’d end up like the dinos through what amounted to racial suicide. Nobody from down there is going to start a fight up here. And if you do, well, it will mark you, and in the worst way. I don’t doubt you could take out anything you wanted up here. But it would be a mistake. A very big mistake.”
Tanya shook her head and looked down at her comm unit. “All right. I understand. Dropping rocks on civilian targets is an ugly thing.”
Something in her words or her tone of voice might have given away some of the recent history that haunted the Alliance fleet, because the two from Earth eyed Desjani with startled dismay. Geary spoke quickly to distract them. “Can you stay clear of the craft pursuing you until Dau
ntless reaches us?”
The pilot jerked his attention back to Geary and nodded. “With the data your ship is sending us, yes. It’s not certain, because they might accidentally box us in, and I have to stay clear of all the other traffic up here, which can’t see us and might run into us if I don’t avoid them.”
“But you said they might shoot?”
“They might,” the flight engineer confirmed. “They’re not from here, they’re hiding their origins to keep their bosses in the clear, and the reputations of the Reds couldn’t sink any lower without going below absolute zero. Uh-oh. That low one is coming up more, and the high one is dropping and swinging in. They must be picking up something from those transmissions of yours.”
Tanya raised her eyes to study the pilot and the flight engineer. “Do you prefer having the precise data on those guys, or do you think I should shut down the data feed?”
Both hesitated, then the pilot grimaced. “I’d rather have the good picture, ma’am.”
“Captain.”
“Right. Captain. From their movements, our hunters still only have a vague idea of where we are. But they know where we’re going, to meet up with your ship, which they can see coming. That narrows down our possible vectors a lot for them.”
“I’ll see if I can tweak our gear to mask what they’re picking up,” the flight engineer added, concentrating on her controls.
A few minutes passed, the shuttle making gentle adjustments up, down, right, left, to weave along vectors toward the most open path between their hunters and all the other objects moving through this portion of space, all while still heading toward an intercept with Dauntless.
Geary had almost relaxed when he heard Tanya draw in breath in a hiss between her teeth. “Something’s happened. Those guys are zeroing in on us.”
The pilot nodded, stress visible on his face. “They shouldn’t be. But they’ve started reacting to our movements as if they’ve got a much better idea of where we are than they should.”
“Whatever gear they’ve just activated, it’s not as good as what Dauntless is using to track them.” Desjani switched her gaze to Geary. “About a generation behind our best gear, I’d guess.”
“Which means a generation ahead of what’s in this star system?” he asked. “It looks like whoever wants us provided money and some equipment.”
“Can I do anything against it?” the flight engineer asked.
Desjani made an angry gesture. “I don’t know. I’m not a tech. If we had Senior Chief Tarrini here, she’d probably know exactly what to do with your gear to confuse the guys hunting us.”
“We could have Tarrini pass instructions to the flight engineer over my comm unit,” Geary suggested.
Tanya shook her head. “It would take too long for her to study the equipment remotely, figure out how it’s configured and what to tweak. By the time that was done, Dauntless would already be here, or we’d already be screwed. It is older stuff, though. Do you know anything about it, Admiral?”
It was his turn to make a negating motion. “The gear I trained on was at least three generations behind what the Alliance uses now. Maybe four generations. And I wasn’t a tech, either. I just have a general knowledge of how it works.”
“This is what happens when you only have officers and no chiefs or other enlisted,” Desjani grumbled. “Plenty of people to give orders but no one who knows how to carry them out. How good are you?” she asked the pilot.
The pilot smiled crookedly. “Pretty damned good.”
“Every pilot thinks that.” Desjani looked to the flight engineer, who nodded confirmation.
“He’s not bad,” the engineer said. “Got a decent feel for the bird. Only crashed once since I’ve known him.”
“That wasn’t a crash,” the pilot replied, his voice sharp. “It was an abrupt landing aggravated by adverse conditions.”
“Glad to hear it,” Desjani said. “Because it’s up to you to get us through those guys. What do I tell Dauntless, Admiral?”
He knew what she meant. Do I give the Alliance battle cruiser permission to fire on the three pursuers if necessary? It shouldn’t have been that hard a question to answer; except from the way these people of Earth had reacted to the idea it was clear that doing so would cause a huge outcry, far greater than any upset over the annihilation of the Shield of Sol ships in the outer reaches of the star system.
“Just tell Dauntless to get here as quickly as she can,” Geary said.
“She’s coming around the curve of the planet now and braking to match velocity with us. Estimate three more minutes until we’re along-side.”
The shuttle lurched up, swinging to the left as it did so. “Weren’t expecting that, were you?” the pilot muttered fiercely, his eyes fixed on the display over Desjani’s comm unit.
The closest hunter slid past just beneath them, not realizing it had missed by a few hundred meters getting close enough to establish a firm lock on the shuttle’s position.
But the evasive maneuver had brought them up toward the higher hunter, and now the pilot brought the shuttle back down with a swift change in vector. “They’ll see that!” the flight engineer warned the pilot. “You’re maneuvering too hard.”
“I know! They’re getting too close! We can’t hide any longer. Our only chance is to keep dodging away from them until that battle cruiser gets here!”
“But they might—”
“I don’t have any other options!”
The shuttle ducked and darted through space, evading each time one of the hunters threatened to get too close, maneuvers complicated by the need to avoid hitting anything else around them. Geary’s breath caught as they zipped over a stodgy tug plodding obliviously through space, then narrowly avoided hitting a satellite racing along on its fixed orbit. Despite the pilot’s evasive moves, the net kept tightening around them, the distances to the pursuers shrinking as they gradually converged on the desperate flight of the shuttle.
“One minute until Dauntless gets here,” Desjani reported.
A high-pitched keening sounded just as she finished speaking. The flight engineer silenced the alarm and called to the pilot. “They’re targeting us! Trying for a lock-on!”
“Try active jamming!”
“If I do, they’ll fire on the jamming source! We wouldn’t last five seconds! I’m doing all I can with passive countermeasures.”
“Dauntless,” Desjani said in a voice whose calm tone contrasted with the frantic words of the pilot and the flight engineer. “We are being targeted. I see you forty seconds from intercept, stern on. Override the collision-avoidance systems and maximize after shields. Your relative speed at contact should be enough to brush aside the two closest of our pursuers without hazarding the ship.”
“Captain?” the reply came. “We can nail them with hell lances easy.”
“Firing is not authorized,” Desjani said.
“Captain, just to be clear, you are directing us to make shield contact with the closest pursuers of your shuttle.”
“That’s correct. Do it.”
“Follow your captain’s orders,” Geary said, leaning in toward her comm unit. I just concurred in ordering my flagship to deliberately collide with other spacecraft. “Are you sure?” he muttered to Desjani.
“I know my ship,” she insisted. “And I know maneuvering in space. Right now, those guys after us are moving just a little faster than we are and in the same direction, so they can stay close. Dauntless is slowing to match our speed, so when her shields make contact with any of them, the impact should be at a relative velocity of only about ten meters per second and dropping.”
“About ten meters per second? There’s a significant amount of mass in whatever is hunting us. That will still be a dangerous impact.”
“Dauntless’s shields can handle it.”
It was one of tho
se moments in which he either accepted her judgment or undercut her, and he knew that Tanya had a lot more combat experience than he did, as well as a lot more experience with current warships. “All right.”
“Steady out,” Desjani ordered the pilot. “Get on a vector and hold it. I don’t want my ship hitting you, too, because you’re bouncing around.”
With a stunned look at her, the pilot did as he was told, settling the shuttle onto a single course and speed. Almost instantly, the three pursuers, unaware of how accurately they were being tracked by Dauntless, turned onto intercept vectors that would get them close enough to lock onto the stealthed shuttle and open fire.
A bright star coming toward them grew rapidly in size as the remaining distance dwindled, Dauntless’s main propulsion units straining at full capacity to reduce her speed to match that of the shuttle. Her dark, shark-shaped hull was invisible behind the hellish glare from the propulsion units.
One of the pursuers, with less nerve or more brains than its companions, broke off and accelerated away moments before Dauntless slid with enormous grace and enormous mass into position next to the shuttle. One of the pursuers took a glancing blow from the battle cruiser’s shields, knocking it off in a wild tumble as the craft’s stealth systems failed under the impact and made clear to all there was a small vessel careening uncontrolled among them. Other ships and craft frantically dodged the wreckage, filling emergency communications with warnings and complaints about the sudden appearance of a navigational hazard.
The third pursuer wasn’t nearly so lucky. Dauntless hit it almost dead center on her stern, bracketed by the energies being hurled out by the battle cruiser’s main propulsion units. The craft blew backwards under the impact, disintegrating as it went, the pieces, most of them too small for anyone to worry about evading, showing up easily now to all observers.
The pilot and flight engineer were staring at the menacing bulk of Dauntless next to them as if fearing they would be next.
“My ship is opening up her shuttle dock,” Desjani told them with a smile. “Drop your stealth systems, and they’ll guide you in.”