A Choice of Treasons (74 page)

Abraxa shook his head thoughtfully. “I’ll pull Seventh Fleet in from the third quadrant. They may be able to intercept.”

“What about Home Fleet, Your Grace? With their . . .”

The alert klaxon interrupted her, and
allship
blared, “Watch condition red. Battle stations. This is not a drill . . .”

Tzecharra looked at Abraxa pleadingly. “Forgive me, Your Grace. I must cut transmission.”

Abraxa nodded and waved a hand at her. “Of course.”

“Two light-months out, sir. Holding at forty lights.” Gant’s voice held a metallic edge.

York knew they all thought he was crazy, perhaps even suicidal—ordering them to Luna like this, right into the heart of the empire. He could see the doubt in their eyes, hear it in their voices, and all he could do was pretend that he didn’t notice.

When the empress had heard what he planned she’d stormed into his office. “You’re insane.”

He’d looked up from the reports he was reviewing. “I think we’ve already established that.”

“Don’t be flippant with me. Abraxa will never let you get close enough to the emperor.”

York shook his head. “I hadn’t intended to ask his permission.”

“He’s no fool. No doubt he’s got every ship in the empire searching for you.”

“No doubt,” York agreed. “But not at Luna. And will he oppose you openly? Would he murder the empress in front of everyone? If we can sneak into the system quietly, then tell everyone we’re there, loudly, with you personally broadcasting some sort of message on every channel
Cinesstar
can tap, will the Admiralty Council just burn us out-of-hand?”

“No,” she said hesitantly. She sat down and frowned as she considered that. “Much of Fleet would oppose such an open power grab.”

“That’s what I’m counting on. I’ll get us to Luna, in one piece, and it’s your show from there.”

She shook her head worriedly. “It’ll never work. The odds are stacked against us.”

“The odds are worse out here in the fringes. Abraxa and his buddies can burn us and make up whatever they want.”

York sat at the captain’s console, kept hearing his own words again and again:
I’ll get us to Luna, in one piece
.

They could sneak in like a hunter-killer. When approaching an enemy installation all he had to do was make some educated guesses about his target: but this was Luna, so he didn’t have to guess. With a lot of number crunching he could produce an optimum deceleration curve—if he decelerated too quickly it took forever to get there, too slowly, and the outer pickets would spot them and they’d eat a warhead.

The final trick for a hunter-killer captain was to keep his transition flare to a bare minimum—reduce transition velocity as much as possible before transition, and retain as much sublight velocity as possible after transition. In any case, he needed all that sublight velocity to drift slowly into range.

A hunter-killer might take a month to set up such a shot, but they didn’t have a month, So he’d had to come up with something better than that. He’d sweated over that for days, and eventually the answer lay in the very thing that caused the problem. Luna Prime closely monitored all incoming traffic, but there was so much of it York decided to use the traffic density to his advantage.

“Two light-months out, sir. Holding at forty lights.”

“Start easing her back, try for a new record.”

“Thirty-eight lights, sir . . . Thirty-seven . . .” A gravity wave rolled ponderously through the bridge and Eldinow held at thirty-seven lights for a few minutes while he and Gant and Cappik worked feverishly to stabilize
Cinesstar’s
systems. “Thirty-four . . . Thirty-two . . . Twenty-nine . . . Twenty-eight . . . Twenty-seven . . .” Eldinow’s voice suddenly jumped an octave. “There she goes . . . Down-transition, sir.”

“All stop” York barked. “Cut all power. Rig for silent running.”

And again the wait . . . always the wait. “That’s a new record, Mister Eldinow,” York said, trying to break the tension. “Congratulations.”

“Clear to a hundred thousand kliks, sir. Going to long range.”

They were all operating on a sort of personal auto-pilot, too numb and frightened to think about what they were doing. York had drilled them for months to just that purpose, so that when the pressure was really on, they could find comfort in routine. Sometimes that was all that separated a professional soldier from an amateur. “Start an electronic activity map. Keep it fully updated at all times.”

“Clear to a million kliks, sir,” Gant said. “And nothing on passive long range.”

York looked at his console, at their sublight velocity and range. “Now we wait. Miss Gant, start looking for any hint of radiation somewhere between us and
heliopause
, anything that might indicate where they’ve stationed their pickets. Also watch for the picket tender. If they make rounds to change crews on the weapons platforms we can see where they stop. And monitor all incoming traffic. Anyone incoming is going to be challenged, sometimes by a picket, and we have a chance of spotting any transmitter splash if they’re at all sloppy. And start looking for that freighter, a big one, coming in a little too fast. We need that baby, now.”

He was repeating his earlier instructions because of his own nervousness. Gant and Rame and the bridge crew were at it before he’d even stopped talking. He hung around for an hour, reviewed the early data on the system and electronic activity maps. The back-scans showed all the incoming and outgoing traffic he’d expected.

He put in a call to the empress. She had insisted he brief her on a daily basis. As always, Lady d’Hart was with Cassandra when York arrived. York bowed, “Your Majesty.”

“I’m told the maneuver was successful, Captain.”

York gave a cautious nod of his head. “As successful as we can expect at this stage.”

“Your ever-present caution is beginning to wear thin.”

Lady d’Hart interjected, “But that may be what’s kept us alive, Your Majesty.”

Cassandra asked, “Are we in danger?”

“The danger at this stage is slight. If we’re spotted now we’re still far enough out to make a run for it. At worst we could end up back where we started, with a whole train of pursuers on our tail.”

“So where do we go from here?”

York stepped to a terminal and brought up a display of the developing system map. Even as they looked on Gant and her people added more detail. “We’re about two light-months out, coasting in at point-eight lights. Since we can’t wait two and a half months to coast into the system, we’re going to hitch a ride on the transition wake of an incoming ship passing close to us. We need something large, like a freighter, and coming in too fast, so she’ll have to start braking hard before down-transition. Her speed and tonnage will all add to the size and intensity of her transition wake, and when she starts braking like that, she’ll make a lot of transition noise. And when she’s close enough we’ll give ourselves a little boost with our transition drive. With that, I believe her transition wake might pull us into up-transition, and all the noise she’s making will hopefully mask any flaring we do. We’ll have to accelerate hard so we can stay on top of her. Then when she down-transits we down-transit with her, which should be somewhere inside of
heliopause
. And from there we can coast into Lunan
nearspace
in something on the order of a day or two.”

Lady d’Hart asked, “How long might we have to wait for such an opportunity. I wouldn’t think freighters would make such mistakes often.”

“Actually they do,” York said. As an academy cadet York had stood apprentice watches in every conceivable function in the system, including a short stint in traffic control on Luna Prime. “Freighter captains often come in fast like that to shave time off their delivery, especially if they’re running behind schedule and their contract calls for late-delivery penalties. Their contract may even specify an early delivery bonus. They’ll usually jimmy some of their equipment, so even if later they’re boarded and inspected, they can claim faulty equipment. It’s tolerated as long as they don’t push it too far, and we can count on one of them coming in like that every few days.” York didn’t add that his own stint in TC was almost twenty years ago, and no one else on board had ever served such a stint, at least not on Luna Prime.

“Excellent, Captain,” Cassandra beamed. “Excellent. Is this another one of those hunter-killer tricks?”

York hesitated. “Sort of . . .”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Well . . . It’s the kind of trick a hunter-killer captain might use. But it depends on a large freighter coming in too fast right over the top of us. And the probability of that happening is pretty slim unless you’re going into an important, busy system and you place yourself right in the middle of one of their major approach patterns.” York hesitated, and both Cassandra and the d’Hart woman eyed him warily. “Hunter-killers don’t usually try to set up sneak shots on systems that are so heavily guarded, especially since once you’re in, you’re not going to get out.”

The d’Hart woman asked, “So no one has ever done this before?”

“To my knowledge, it hasn’t been tried before. Or, if it has, and it was unsuccessful, then that’s why we’ve never heard about it. There are any number of things that might go wrong.”

York braced for an onslaught of angry words, but Cassandra threw her head back and laughed. “I guess if it’s never been done before, they won’t know to guard against it, and our chances are even better.”

York had barely left her cabin when Gant’s voice came over his implants. “Captain, I think we’ve got our ride coming in fast.”

York rushed up to the bridge, but it was a false alarm. As he looked at the scan reports, and the details of the incoming transition wake, he shook his head. “Negative. That’s a military vessel, probably a cruiser.”

“But she’s big, sir, and coming in too fast. She’ll have to start braking pretty soon and throwing noise all over the place.”

“Yes. And her scanning equipment is a hundred times better than that of any freighter, and her scan operators are used to watching for sneaky little tricks, for anything out of the ordinary. We try to hitch a ride in her wake and she’ll spot us for sure. So batten down all hatches and sit tight. We’ll wait for a big, fat, dumb freighter.”

“It’s an ore freighter, sir, lot of mass, and coming in fast. She’s about two hours out, and hasn’t begun braking yet. Looks like she’s the one.”

It was the middle of the night, and York was standing over the terminal in his cabin, doing a poor job of waking up quickly. “I’ll be right up.”

On the bridge York confirmed Gant’s assessment. “Yes, she’s our ride in, as long as we can intercept. How close.”

She shrugged and hunched her shoulders. “Not good, not bad. She’ll pass within about ten million kilometers, close by astronomical standards, marginal if we want to intercept her wake.”

Leaning over Gant’s shoulder, York scanned her screens quickly. “What if we give ourselves a little nudge, minimum possible drive power now, a little more as she gets closer and begins to mask our noise?”

“We’ll be taking a chance, sir.”

“Add it to all the other chances we’re taking. Let’s do it.”

“Shall I sound General Quarters, sir?”

“Negative. Wake everyone up easy, tell them to get some breakfast, and I want them on station in an hour and a half.”

York had sandwiches brought up to the bridge, and lots of hot, black caff. They were chewing on the sandwiches and trying to estimate what their transition vector would have to be when, an hour later, the freighter got an angry message from Luna Traffic Control, and began braking. Her captain pleaded a fault in their auto-pilot.

An hour later York placed a call to Cappik. “You know what I need?”

“Yes, sir. Full combat status, gravity and drive, all switched on fast at your command.”

“Right. Eldinow, any questions?”

Eldinow was nervous. Much of this depended on him. “Just before she gets to us I start pushing a little drive, try to adjust our vector for intercept and hover just under transition, let her pull us into transition when she goes over the top of us. Then when we’re in transition, give
Cinesstar
everything we’ve got and try to keep up with her.”

“Jakobee?”

Jakobee started reciting his role, though York didn’t really pay attention to him. They’d drilled this routine in sims repeatedly for days and he knew his part. He was just giving them all something to do other than sit and wait.

“Captain,” Gant said, “You asked me to give you a quarter minute warning. We’re there.”

“Thank you Miss Gant.” York switched to
allship
. “Stand by all stations. Hold your discipline. Shoot at nothing unless you’re given a target by your station commander.”

“Ten seconds and counting, sir . . . nine . . . eight . . . seven . . .”

York scanned his screens one last time.

“. . . zero,” Gant barked. The freighter was still several seconds behind them, overtaking them rapidly as York’s screens showed Cappik bringing up the power. Eldinow started to apply sublight drive gingerly.