Scornful Stars Page 20

  The first salvo sailed wide as the pirate vessel desperately jinked away from the K-shot. “Four misses,” Herrera growled. “Next salvo, salvo aft!”

  “Very well.” Sikander wasn’t surprised; he knew from years of experience that landing first-salvo hits on targets at long range was harder than it looked. When the range shortened and Decisive got into position to box its target with full broadsides, Herrera and his team would start scoring.

  “Target Bravo is returning fire!” Ensign Carter announced—hardly necessary, since Decisive’s bridge lit up with attack warnings from its automated systems. “Light kinetic cannons, velocity fifteen hundred kps.”

  “Helm, evasive action as needed,” Michael Girard coolly ordered. “Maintain current course otherwise.”

  Sikander chose to let Girard’s order stand. The real measure of a kinetic cannon’s power was the speed at which it could hurl its projectiles, and while no one would want to be anywhere near the impact point of ten kilos of tungsten alloy moving at close to one percent of the speed of light, any reasonably agile ship with a few seconds’ warning could accelerate or decelerate enough to make a slow-moving K-shot miss by hundreds of meters. At their current engagement distance, The’eb’s shots had a flight time of ten or eleven seconds—far too long to pose a serious threat to his destroyer, which meant his tactical officer was perfectly correct to focus on the pursuit and dodge only when he had to. The’eb would have to get a great deal closer to Decisive to land hits. But just to remind Girard that The’eb might surprise them with a coordinated salvo, he asked, “What’s her armament, Mr. Girard?”

  Girard paused to study the enhanced imagery of the ship firing on them—a light freighter like Mazuz, but of a different class, with stubby airfoils for better handling in atmosphere. “Two K-cannons forward in casemates, and a third K-cannon mounted in a turret aft, sir,” he reported. “She’s engaging with the turret, but she’ll have to turn toward us to bring the other weapons into play.”

  “I doubt she’d try it. Thank you, Mr. Girard. Carry on.”

  Decisive’s K-cannons continued to thump away, launching their projectiles at nearly twice the velocity of the pirate’s weapons. Sikander was accustomed to the main batteries of cruisers, firing shots every ten or fifteen seconds. Lighter weapons could sustain higher rates of fire, though, and Decisive’s destroyer-weight cannons threw metal downrange every seven seconds. Even with her aft batteries alone, the destroyer could put a formidable volume of fire on a target … and, unlike a purpose-built warship, a converted freighter couldn’t stand up to very many hits at all. The’eb managed to dodge the first three salvos that came her way, but a single shot in the fourth salvo smashed into her port side aft, punching clear through the hull to blast a ten-meter exit hole on the opposite side. Shattered drive plates spun away into space amid gobbets of white-hot metal and a cloud of venting atmosphere.

  “Got her!” Herrera shouted from his console. “Direct hit on Target Bravo, midships aft. That had to have got an engineering space.”

  “Target Bravo’s acceleration is falling off,” Ensign Carter reported.

  Sikander glanced at his own display, verifying the report. Sure enough, the pirate vessel’s engines went dead, leaving her coasting along with the speed she’d already built up in her short run. “Mr. Herrera, see if you can get rid of that turret next,” he told his gunnery officer. “No point in letting them have a chance of landing a lucky—”

  “Weapon launch from the mining station!” Carter suddenly shouted. “Multiple weapon launches! Missiles inbound!”

  “Damn!” Sikander swore. He’d expected some sort of attack from the mining structure, but not at this range—even after their brief exchange of fire with The’eb, the station was still a good thirty thousand kilometers away. On his display, a ragged volley of fifteen small arrowheads appeared near the asteroid, crawling away from their launchers on brilliant plumes of exhaust. “Where were those hiding?”

  “Launch canisters hidden in standard cargo containers, Captain,” Grace Carter answered. “I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t realize they were weapon emplacements.”

  Clever, Sikander observed. Missiles were mostly obsolete as weapons systems, but they did have a couple of advantages over more modern systems: They were cheap, and they didn’t need much of a power supply compared to something like a laser or a K-cannon. If the missiles could catch Decisive, they could hurt her, obsolete or not. “I remember reading about old antiship missile systems designed to fit in standardized cargo containers, but I never thought we’d see one,” he said to the sensor officer. “It’s something of a poor man’s shore battery. Well, now you know what to look for. Mr. Girard, what’s the flight time on that missile salvo?”

  “About three minutes, sir.” Girard peered at his own display, studying the new threat. “Secondary battery, switch to antimissile defense. Engage as needed.”

  “Antimissile defense, aye,” Herrera replied. At the console next to his, Sublieutenant Robert Ellis—the ship’s assistant gunnery officer—went to work. He controlled Decisive’s secondary battery of UV lasers. The lasers couldn’t kill ship-sized targets fast, but they were more than capable of burning down a small target like a missile. In fact, point-defense lasers were the reason missiles were generally considered obsolete: self-powered weapons in real space just couldn’t survive the defensive fire of their intended targets. Warp torpedoes had replaced antiship missiles generations ago in the Aquilan navy … but people who couldn’t afford warpedoes had to make do with older weapons.

  “It’s official,” Amelia Fraser said to Sikander over their private circuit. “They’re throwing the kitchen sink at us.”

  “They would’ve been wiser to hold their fire a little longer,” Sikander replied. “They might have given us a very unpleasant surprise if they’d waited until we were within a couple of thousand kilometers.”

  “I don’t think they’re used to targets that can shoot back, Captain.”

  “No, I guess not.” Sikander checked his tactical summary, and saw that Decisive’s battle management systems had identified the weapons as old Montréal-built AM-5 Faucon missiles with metallic-hydrogen rocket motors and five-hundred-kilo warheads of molecular explosive—dangerous enough in their day, perhaps, but according to the summary, the Faucon had gone out of production seventy years ago. Decisive’s induction drive could sustain significantly higher acceleration than the old chemical rockets; the destroyer could avoid the entire salvo simply by outrunning it. Ah, that’s it, he decided. They hoped that the missile salvo might make us turn away, and give The’eb a chance to escape.

  It didn’t work—one by one, Decisive’s lasers reached out to melt the missiles, setting off their warheads in a rippling wave of distant explosions. The last weapon in the salvo was still two thousand kilometers short of its target when Sublieutenant Ellis burned it out of space.

  “Well done, Mr. Ellis,” Sikander said. “Mr. Girard, have the main battery neutralize any more missile canisters you can spot on that asteroid when we don’t have something more important to shoot at. Sooner or later we’re going to circle back around to the installation, and I don’t want to worry about missiles in our face when we’re getting ready to board them.”

  “Aye, sir. Main battery, split your fire. Engage the target emplacements on the station, general-purpose rounds.”

  “Split the battery, aye,” Herrera acknowledged. Decisive’s forward turrets opened up on the asteroid station, thumping away as the powerful electromagnets of each K-cannon hurled their deadly projectiles into space. It was a long shot for Decisive’s Mark IX weapons, but unlike an enemy ship, a weapon emplacement on an asteroid couldn’t evade fire—the salvo’s flight time was a little longer, but the tungsten penetrators would hit just as hard. Four brilliant blooms erupted in the mining station’s exposed structure, each representing the impact of a tungsten rod whose destructive power could be measured in kilotons. One round struck near the end of the cargo dock, v
aporizing the last two hundred meters of its structure; two more flattened portions of the old refinery structure the size of city blocks; and the rest blasted molten craters from the barren rock of the asteroid where clusters of cargo units had been bolted to the surface.

  Sikander winced at the blinding impacts. That might have been a little more firepower than we needed, he realized. “Let’s reduce the power on any more shots we take at that station, Guns,” he said to Herrera. “And don’t target anything too close to that habitat—I have to imagine there’s intelligence to collect somewhere inside.”

  “Er, yes, sir,” Herrera replied. “Holding fire on the station until we see something else to engage down there.”

  “Hit on Target Bravo,” Sublieutenant Ellis reported. He’d taken over the fire on The’eb after disposing of the missile volley, freeing Herrera to deal with the station. “Sir, we just knocked out her turret. Should we cease fire?”

  Girard looked over to Sikander. “Captain?”

  Sikander nodded. “Cease fire on Target Bravo, but continue to track her. If she accelerates or fires again, resume the engagement, but first let me see if I can convince these fellows to give up. Open a comm channel for me, please.”

  “Channel open, sir.”

  “Attention, all ships in Zafer. This is Decisive. Cease fire and cut your acceleration to zero, or we will fire upon you until you are disabled or destroyed. Zafer Station, shut down your fire-control radar or we will scrub your installation off that rock. Decisive, out.” Sikander settled back and waited to see the results of his ultimatum.

  “We’re in range of Target Charlie, sir,” Jaime Herrera reported. “Your instructions?”

  Sikander looked over to his tactical officer. “Are they still running, Mr. Girard?”

  “Mazuz and Qarash are still accelerating, sir. The’eb is dead in space. Umm, Zafer Station just shut down their fire-control systems.”

  Mazuz Sikander could do nothing about—the first pirate to escape the station had taken advantage of his decision to catch the other two vessels by making a beeline for the edge of the system. Qarash, on the other hand, was well within his grasp. “Make sure to record Mazuz’s course and speed. That looks like a transit acceleration to me, and I’d like to know where she’s going when she bubbles up. As for Qarash, I want a warning shot, and a warning shot only. Give me a salvo ten kilometers across her bow.”

  “Shot across the bow, aye,” Herrera replied. He keyed up the targeting commands, and tapped the firing key again; a single K-cannon in the forward battery thrummed loudly, sending its projectile hurling ahead of the last fleeing pirate ship.

  A minute passed, while Sikander waited to see if the third pirate ship would continue its futile flight or not. The geometry of it was simply impossible for Qarash—Decisive would overtake her in less than ten minutes, and she was already well within the range of Sikander’s K-cannons. Even the most desperate or inept captain on the other ship has to be able to see that too, he told himself. He felt Jaime Herrera’s eyes on him, and then Michael Girard’s as well, as they waited for the inevitable order to resume fire.

  Amelia Fraser spoke over their private link. “Captain, we’re going to overshoot her if we wait too much longer.”

  “I know,” Sikander replied. He started to give the order to fire—and then Ensign Carter interrupted him.

  “Target Charlie’s acceleration is zero!” she announced.

  “Incoming audio transmission, Captain,” Girard reported.

  “Let’s hear it,” Sikander said. “Mr. Herrera, hold your fire.”

  The bridge’s speakers crackled with a faint hiss of static, and then a man spoke in a rapid stream of Jadeed-Arabi. “Decisive, this is Qarash. We are peaceful traders—hold your fire! We surrender, we surrender! Do not, repeat, do not shoot!”

  The tension on the bridge passed with a sudden wave of sighs and grins. Sikander savored relief for a moment, and then keyed his comm console to reply. “Qarash, this is Commander North. My tactical officer will soon send you maneuvering instructions to arrange a minimum-time rendezvous. You are to comply with his orders completely and without delay. Do you understand? Over.”

  “Yes, yes, we understand. But this is all a terrible mistake—”

  “I doubt that, Qarash. Next: Direct Mazuz to cut her acceleration and heave to. If you want to surrender, you all have to surrender, over.”

  The voice from Qarash grew shrill in panic. “They won’t do that for us! Please, we can’t make them come back!”

  Sikander cut the comms and switched over to his command circuit. “What do you think, XO?”

  “You know the saying about honor among thieves, Captain,” Amelia replied. “If I were on Mazuz’s bridge, I’d keep on going, and to hell with all my former friends in Zafer.”

  “I would too, but it was worth a try.” Sikander switched back to the ship-to-ship comms. “Very well, Qarash. We accept your surrender. Stand by for additional instructions. Decisive, out.”

  12

  Mersin, Dahar II

  Marid Pasha met Elena Pavon in his working office, a spacious library with floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over the orange-tinted clouds roiling over the lowlands beyond Mersin. She followed the pasha’s appointment secretary Nenet into the room, and took more pleasure than she should have from the act of ignoring the Zerzuran woman’s disapproving looks. Elena wore a perfectly modest pantsuit in a pearl-gray hue, and if it was tailored for a more flattering fit than the frumpy dark dress that Nenet Fakhoury considered acceptable business wear, that was Nenet’s problem, not hers.

  “Ms. Elena Pavon of Pegasus-Pavon Shipping, Marid Pasha,” Nenet announced in a painfully neutral tone.

  The pasha looked up from behind his vast desk—real Terran walnut, or so it appeared at first glance—and set down the dataslate he’d been reading, rising to greet her. “Ms. Pavon, what a pleasure to finally meet you,” he said warmly. He had more silver than black in his hair, but his face showed strength rather than age, and she realized that he was quite tall when he straightened up to his full height. “I confess that I have been looking forward to this appointment all afternoon.”

  “As have I, Excellency,” Elena replied, reaching out to shake his hand. “Thank you for seeing me.”

  “Oh, it’s nothing. Do you know Admiral al-Kassar?” The pasha gestured toward a stocky naval officer with gold braid on his shoulders, sitting in one of the guest chairs in front of the huge desk; the admiral stood to greet her. “I asked him to join us since your note indicated your business today concerned the Zerzura Sector Fleet.”

  “I do know the admiral.” Elena shook Torgut al-Kassar’s hand too. “We met at the Founding Day celebration a few weeks ago.”

  “Very good, then. Can I have Nenet get you some coffee or tea?”

  Elena resisted the temptation to send the older woman off to fetch her something to drink. “No, thank you, Pasha.”

  “Straight to business, I see. Well, I can appreciate that, I am sure your time is quite valuable. How can we help you today, Ms. Pavon?”

  “I wanted to speak with you about the two Zerzura Sector Fleet gunboats that have been scheduled for decommissioning: Kartal and Pelikan, I believe.”

  “You’re well informed,” said Marid Pasha. “I didn’t realize that our naval administration had made any public announcement about the ships to be scrapped.”

  “We haven’t,” Torgut al-Kassar said in a dour tone.

  “My company does a lot of business with various shipyards in the sector; the news is common knowledge among local yards,” Elena explained. “I have to admit that it surprised me, though. Given the difficulty of maintaining patrols in Zerzura’s outlying systems, I’m afraid I don’t quite understand why you’d want to get rid of any hulls at all.”

  “The Kartals are old and somewhat worn-out,” Admiral al-Kassar said. “They were commissioned forty-five years ago, and it’s becoming prohibitively expensive to maintain them. I am afra
id they have outlived their usefulness.”

  “Do you plan to replace them?”

  “Well, yes, we do,” Marid Pasha said. “I don’t want this to be generally known right now so please don’t share what I’m about to tell you, but … we’ve reached an agreement to purchase a small number of surplus warships from the Empire of Dremark. They’re not brand new, of course, but they are significantly newer—and more capable—than the old Kartals.”

  “Really?” Elena glanced at the admiral, who nodded in confirmation. She’d heard plenty of speculation in Dahar’s news programs about the ongoing visit of a Dremish envoy and Dremark’s apparent interest in expanding its commercial ties to Zerzura, but this was the first she’d heard about any sort of military aid. Business as usual for a Caliphate governor on a budget, or a step toward Zerzuran independence? she wondered. Either way, it seemed that Dremark was ready to put some money on the table in order to secure Marid Pasha’s friendship. “I’m pleased to hear that. How long will it take you to bring your new units into service?”

  “A few months, most likely. They should be arriving in a week or two, but it will take a little time to refit them for our needs and replace some of the older systems.”

  “That’s the other reason we’re decommissioning the Kartals,” Torgut al-Kassar added. “We need the manpower tied up in the older hulls to crew our new ships, and as you can imagine, there is quite a lot of retraining involved for our sailors. They need some time to become familiar with the Dremish engineering and combat systems.”

  “Naturally,” Elena said. “Pegasus-Pavon crews require similar training cycles when we bring a new hull into service. I look forward to seeing your new ships on patrol.”