No Honor in Death (32 page)

"Aye, aye, sir."  He seemed resigned.

"Engineering to Captain,"  the nearest intercom panel blared, Tiner's words echoing through the deserted, bare corridor.  Caught by death's silent fascination, the living started at the sudden, loud sound, some of them reaching for their blasters in reflex.  Siobhan unsuccessfully repressed a shiver and walked over to the intercom.

"Dunmoore."

"We've by-passed the circuits on one of the damaged units and put it back in place.  It appears to work, but I still want to run a few more tests, just to be sure."

"How long?"

"Ten minutes."

"You've got it, Mister Tiner.  And well done.  But we go FTL in ten minutes, not a second more.  Dunmoore, out."

Siobhan glanced at Pushkin and smiled.  "We won't lose the convoy, Gregor, and they won't lose their date with death." She turned to the Second Officer.  "Carry-on, Mister Drex.  You'll have enough time to wrap up here before we get within shooting range of the Imperials.  I may have told you this before, but I have a certain problem with coincidences.  When I see more than two of them as closely connected as this, I either run or clear for action.  In this case, I prefer the latter.  Death always leaves a bad taste in my mouth."

"Sir," Drex nodded curtly, face as expressionless as always.

For a fleeting moment, Siobhan thought she'd caught a flash of something else.  She shrugged mentally and headed towards the waiting lift, a pensive Pushkin on her heels.  As the doors closed, she caught a last glimpse of Lieutenant Drex's spacers surrounding Petty Officer Hartalas' broken body.  Murder or accident?  Siobhan knew what she would bet on.

A brief glance at Pushkin's sombre face told her she wasn't alone in placing her money on a cold-blooded assassination.

EIGHTEEN

"Jump drives are on line, sir," Devall reported, rising from the command chair as Dunmoore and Pushkin made their way to their stations.  Relief was visible on most faces.  Stuck in enemy space without FTL engines was a most uncomfortable situation, let alone the prospect of losing a rich prey and living down to the jinx reputation.

"Thank you," Siobhan smiled.  It had taken Tiner somewhat less than the ten minutes she'd given her.  "Where's our convoy?"

Devall slid behind his console, letting his fingers dance on the control panel.  A scaled tactical view appeared on the main screen.  "Still within our sensor range," he reported.  "They're currently moving at sub light, on the same heading as before.  No changes in composition or deployment."

Siobhan glanced at a time readout and winked at Pushkin, who was studying her lean face with interest.  Her predictions had turned out nearly spot-on.  It had been six hours now since they started the chase, six hours since the convoy's last drop into normal space for calibration and tacking.

"Okay.  Keep a close eye on them.  The moment they jump, feed their new course to the Sailing Master.  We'll move out when they do, when their scanners can't pick us up until we're about to put a thick, hot torpedo up their Shrehari asses." 

Devall turned to look at Dunmoore with delighted surprise on his aristocratic face.  Her words and the image they conveyed were highly unusual for a warship Captain, trained to be serious, aloof, even dour, but Siobhan made them sound like a darkly delicious battle call.  Somehow the young Gunnery Officer had never associated hard, intense Siobhan Dunmoore with anything even remotely sexual, but in this case, the image was all too vivid in his imagination.  He turned away quickly as he felt a flush of red burn his cheeks.

"Aye, aye, sir."

Siobhan noticed his reaction and smiled, pleased with herself.  As long as the crew remained in high spirits, they had a damn good chance of making this work.  But then, battle had always held an element of arousal for her.  Why shouldn't others feel that way?

"They've jumped without tacking, sir."  Devall's voice brought her back to the present.

"Have they?"  Siobhan smiled wryly.  "That sort of kills my one-hundred percent prediction rate.  I'll have to have a word with the convoy leader.  Preferably over a surrender ceremony.  His."  Then, she became more serious.  "We're getting close enough to Cimmeria that he figures another tack would just lengthen his journey.  He has no way of knowing someone's on his tail.  Are we ready to follow, Mister Shara?"

"Aye, sir."

Siobhan was about to order the helmsman to engage when Devall bit off a curse.

"Anything the matter?" Siobhan asked, holding up her hand to stop Guthren from anticipating the jump order.

He shook his head angrily.  "I don't know, sir.  For a second or two, I could have sworn there was another ship, deeper into enemy space, on an FTL convergence course with the convoy.  But the blip was so short, even the recorder didn't get it.  Either it's a sensor ghost, or someone so far away we got him when ionic interference dropped low enough for a brief scan window."

"Or a cloud of ionized gas momentarily bounced his signal to us.  Either way, he's too distant to give us any headaches just yet."  Siobhan shrugged dismissively.  "If he's connected with the convoy, he'd be in closer.  If not, he won't know anything about it.  The Shreharis are sticklers for security."  She dropped her hand.  "Helm, engage."

Brakal paced his cabin, impatient to move within strike range of the convoy.  This close to their destination, the convoy ship masters would be slacking off, tired after days of hard sailing towards the outpost.  They relied too much on the local squadron to keep the area clear of enemy raiders.  Any yet it was the most vulnerable moment.  No matter how much experienced officers tried to counter the inevitable decrease in vigilance, it happened.  The better human starship captains knew it all too well.

They waited for the escorts to lose their high degree of alertness and then struck.  Brakal grinned.  On that, if nothing else, the Shreharis and humans resembled each other.  He too had often taken advantage of a convoy's premature relaxation to strike.

Khrada, the
Tai Kan
spy, continued to hover behind him whenever he left his private quarters, taking notes, sending coded messages to the home world, smiling arrogantly, and hardly ever saying a word.  Brakal had to stop Jhar from killing him more than a dozen times.  His loyal First Officer reacted badly to every provocation, no matter how minor, Khrada offered.  The spy enjoyed baiting him, and felt immune to the violence carefully repressed in most fighting officers.  One day he would surely know the peril he courted.  By then, of course, the lesson would not be of much use, for Khrada would be dead.

The
Tol Vakash
sailed on a converging course with the convoy, dropping out of hyper space every two hours to scan for intruders.  So far, none had been spotted, but Brakal knew that human scanners had greater range than his own, and that a good human captain would wait at the outer limits of his detection range until the moment to strike.  Until Brakal got closer, any lurking enemy had the advantage, provided he,
or she
, he mentally amended, remembering the flame-haired female called Dunmoore, knew how to fight.

Something instinctive, an ancient genetic hunter's feeling told him a human ship had spotted the convoy and was even now stalking it.  He had not bothered explaining the feeling to Khrada.
Tai Kan
bastards knew nothing of the hunter.  But Jhar and his other officers knew, and believed, as he did, that humans were somewhere out there, near, and waiting.   The value of experience.  Five long years' worth.

Still, Khrada waited like a bloody carrion eater.  Maybe his behavior, his refusal to take up a predictable patrol route as ordered and his suborning Fleet security to obtain classified information would be enough for the weak women on the Council to finally relieve him of his duties.  Or maybe Khrada was waiting for a treasonable act to remove Brakal there and then, and take personal command of the
Tol Vakash
.  For all the good it would to him.  But it had happened before.

For all they knew, the spy could in reality hold the rank of Commander and carry full authority from Trage.  In which case, Khrada might interpret a treasonable act according to his whim.  Yet he had to give the bugger his due.  He let all provocations, whether subtle or gross, slide of his back with the same sardonic, knowing smile.  It all proved the spy was biding his time.  His revenge would be worse for the waiting.

Brakal grunted, the Shrehari equivalent of a human sigh.  As if the Deep Space Fleet had the time or the energy to waste on the idiotic ego manoeuvres of those incompetent, over-aged maggots at the Admiralty.  The Empire was on the verge of losing this war, and all they could think about was silencing those who spoke the truth, trying to reverse the inevitable slide into abject defeat.

The intercom beeped rudely, pulling Brakal out of his dark thoughts.  He had been wallowing so deeply in his anger and contempt for his superiors that he failed to notice his ship's return to real space.  He turned around with a snarl and savagely hit the panel.

"Yes?"

The watch officer did not seem to notice his Commander's irritable tone, or if he did, he wisely chose to ignore it.  Brakal's crew knew all about his tempers and moods, and believed it was part of his genius.  His anger or joy, both equally intense, reassured them.  Listlessness or dullness made them worry.

"A contact, Commander."

Brakal's anger vanished in a flash and a cruel smile twisted his lips as he furrowed his thick brows.

"Describe, Urag."

"It travels in hyper space," Lieutenant Urag, Gun Master of the
Tol Vakash
replied, "on the same course as the convoy, but at greater speed."

"Show me."

The screen sprang to life, displaying three green icons in a roughly triangular configuration.  Script flashed beneath the icons, showing the relative distances between the convoy, the
Tol Vakash
and the unknown pursuer.  On the scaled display, the imaginary line between hunter and convoy was visibly shorter than the line between the
Tol Vakash
and the convoy.  Clearly, the intruder would reach them ahead of Brakal's cruiser, unless its captain did something stupid.  Brakal swore in a low, guttural voice.

The thought that the unknown ship might be an Imperial vessel did not even enter Brakal's mind.  He knew instinctively that it was human, and that its captain knew what he was doing.  All the
Tol Vakash
could do was maintain an optimum convergence course, travel at maximum  speed and hope to close the distance before the human escaped.  Convoy losses were inevitable, but then, so was the Admiralty's stupidity and adherence to outdated doctrine.  Brakal had his own ideas on convoy practices, ideas that could go far to counter the humans' sneaky, and on the whole, admirable tactics.  But they would not give him charge of a convoy, just as they would not now give him charge of an assault force.

Brakal studied the ever changing figures and grunted.  The race would be close, close enough that luck might just give him the additional push he needed to meet the human before he could harvest all of hapless transports.  Luck being, in Brakal's realistic belief framework, an uncharted ion storm, mechanical failure on the enemy ship, or a simple miscalculation by his adversary, the latter figuring most prominently.  Praying to the ancestors was, as he knew, utterly useless, no matter what the zealots crowding around the infant Emperor said.  These days, such an opinion was best kept to oneself.  Some would be tempted to use it as a sign of treason against the Emperor, and act accordingly.

At the rate at which the distance between the two ships was closing, his unknown adversary would become aware of his presence the next time he dropped back to normal space for a spot check on the convoy.  Maybe the added factor of an approaching patrol ship would push the human commander into acting with less than cool deliberation.  Humans reacted to stress in strange manners.  Quite unpredictable.  But they had learned only too well that the Deep Space Fleet acted on predictable lines.  A weakness that had cost the Empire dearly.

"Urag."

"
Kha
?"

"Modify our course by one tenth
rogath
and take us back to FTL at maximum.  Tell that lazy bastard of an engineer to kick his engines until they outrace even the fastest courier.  We have work to do."

"Your command."  Urag cut the transmission, but left the tactical on screen.  Moments later, Brakal felt the wrench of the jump at his guts and he grimaced.  The tactical display wavered for a fraction of a second, as the computer replaced the real-time view by an estimate, now that the scanners had become myopic again in the strangeness of the FTL bubble.

Brakal touched the icon representing the enemy ship with a gauntleted fingertip and smiled.  "Who are you, my adversary?  Have we met before with honor, or are you so new that you will not even afford me a decent fight?"  He laughed at his arrogant words for he knew too much about humans to underestimate their ability.

His good humour had returned, now that a battle was in the offing.  Brakal only hoped that the human captain would prove to be of cunning and resource, a match for his ship and crew.  And may the great demon rise from the flames of the Deathworld and feast on the Council members' fat bodies.

Bah
, Brakal thought,
the demon would probably get ill eating Trage's black heart.  Even he does not deserve such treatment.

Hyper space is a pain in the neck
, Siobhan reflected, pacing her small ready room.  A deaf and blind hunter pursuing a deaf and blind prey, under the excited gaze of deaf and blind spectators.  Every time the frigate dropped back to normal space for a position fix, she lost ground, and if both hunter and prey dropped back at the same time, she would lose her advantage of surprise too.  So Siobhan had chosen to barrel up the convoy's rear, trusting her gut instinct to keep the
Stingray
on course and at the right speed to move into position, a feat which, privately, her officers believed impossible.  But they had also thought getting the ship back up to Starfleet standards impossible.  Yet Dunmoore had succeeded.

Few now dared meet her piercing eyes, sardonic smile and sharp wit without the answers she demanded.  Though Dunmoore did not believe in severe punishment for failures, like some captains in the Fleet, her cutting words and stony gaze had as much effect, if not more, than any threat.  And her words of praise, to the surprise of even the hardest cynics, touched them just as deeply.

Like all gossip, word had spread through the ship that Dunmoore knew what had been going on aboard the frigate under Commander Forenza.  And that she intended to dig even deeper, being unbeholden to her predecessor's secretive protectors and to the Battle-Group commander who had permitted Forenza's goings-on.  It gave some heart, while it frightened others, for once everything became common knowledge, even the lowest spacer would be tarred by association, never mind that he or she had no choice in the matter, indeed had to tread softly to survive.  But some began to consider seriously the option of coming forth with what they knew.  Until, that is, Petty Officer Hartalas mysteriously fell to his death in.