Hegemony (26 page)

Still, the delay galled him. So did the extra cost. The
Whisperknife
had a very limited store of anti-ship warheads. And a warhead was a lot more expensive than a mere nuke. The warhead had a powerful nuke at its core, but also the targeting systems and detonation lasers that made it lethal against an enemy. There was no guarantee, once his crew stripped the nuke out of a warhead, that they could ever get it back in working order again. This mess would eat into his profit.

There were thirty of the weapons aboard, twelve in their launch tubes, and eighteen more in high speed loading racks; those could be loaded and launched in a matter of seconds. A real swift-ship would have two dozen launch tubes, or more, capable of swarming a heavily defended target with warheads. The
Whisperknife
had only a dozen tubes, and only six of those were capable of rapid reloading. The other six were improvised tubes, requiring manual reloading and good for only one shot each in most engagments. But even so, once all the warheads were armed it would take
Whisperknife
less than a minute to launch all of her weapons.

And twelve of the warheads resting in the loading racks were high grade weapons built to military specification, with military grade targeting and counter-measures systems and compact anti-matter triggers for their nukes. They were much better, and much smaller, than the other warheads the
Whisperknife
carried;
those
were almost hand-built out of salvaged parts and civilian components, and their fission-triggered fusion nuclear devices were inevitably bulky, making the whole warhead larger and more cumbersome.

The dozen military weapons he had been given as payment for this job had no markings. No markings at all. Even serial numbers and manufactures' marks on the inner components had been removed. That was interesting in and of itself. Someone had taken enormous effort to make these weapons untraceable. The warheads' design was one that Nas recognized; old Hegemonic weapons, a generation out of date. That was... interesting, too. He was familiar enough with the basic model. In his brief time in the Fleet Academy, Nas had been trained to know the details of Fleet warheads, both the most current models and surplus weapons. An entity the size of the Hegemonic Fleet could not afford to constantly issue new designs, and it was inevitable that old designs would continue to serve for generations after they were officially "replaced."

These unmarked warheads were not of any recent Fleet issue, Nas knew. Possibly weapons from the last war; enough of those had been "lost" over the long course of the conflict. Of course, it was not impossible that the weapons were manufactured by someone, somewhere, who could copy and produce old military grade weapons from a private facility. But whoever had made or obtained them had painstakingly altered the warheads so that there was no way to precisely trace their manufacture.

Nas settled back into his command pod and let his mind muse on the possible implications for a while, as he idly tracked the shuttle's vector line on his command pod's display. The little shuttle had almost reached turn-over, and would start decelerating towards
Whisperknife
in a few moments. It was very likely, once the shuttle started vectoring to rendezvous with the swift-ship, that some observer, on the station or on some nearby ship, would track the shuttle's vector and thus notice the
Whisperknife
. That made it likely that they would have to leave this system fast, possibly even pursued by the two guard-ships that were currently orbiting the gas giant. It had been sloppy of those ships to set their orbit so that both could be caught so far from the station that they were supposed to protect. Nas smiled coldly at the thought of the local Fleet being sloppy. Only a system defense fleet, of course, but still part of the Hegemony's vast military.

No need for
Whisperknife
to be sloppy in turn though, Nas thought, as he began to plot a new escape vector towards the edge of the system, taking into account the likely vectors of pursuit. He had originally planned to leave via a commercial shipping lane, using a preset vector sent by the station. That plan had amused him; who would look for a desperate void-runner to escape by meekly following local traffic laws?

That plan wouldn't work if his ship was spotted for what it was, though. He finished the new course plot and sent it to the FTL navigator. They would need an FTL transit plan for their likely new initiation point. The FTL navigator was sleeping in his bunk when the signal chimed on his porta-comp, and Nas let himself feel a hint of satisfaction to see the rapidity of his response as the man rolled out of his bunk and headed straight to his command pod. Other void-runner crews may have lacked this discipline. His crew did not.

It was not Fleet discipline, Nas knew, his face growing cold with the memories of his previous life. He had no use for the simpering subservience of the Fleet, where discipline was enshrined and commanders could be held in contempt by crews that hid behind the rules.  His crew obeyed him not out of fear of some distant code of discipline, but out of simple recognition of his own merits; because they personally respected him, feared him, and even more, because they trusted him to lead them better than they could do themselves. That was the true basis of discipline, and of power.   

For a moment he let his pride in his ship and his crew flow together with his contempt for the Hegemonic Fleet and all its rotting, putrid tradition. His ship,
Whisperknife
, was a weapon in his hand, and for a moment he wanted to launch that weapon at the entity that he hated. A surprise attack on those incompetent guard-ships played out in his mind. He was almost sure he could kill one of them, and face the other with better odds of victory than any outsider could expect. The desire to unleash his ship, to bring destruction to those useless, deluded bastards, to
show
them, was seductive, almost a lust.

But foolish, he knew. The weapon was no better than the warrior, and if he used his
Whisperknife
rashly, it would not matter how well he had crafted his crew and ship into a weapon. With practiced patience, he folded away the desire for a violent, immediate revenge on the entity, the concept, that had betrayed him. It was not those guard-ships, after all. He would not limit himself, not waste his effort, on those ships, any more than he would choose to target just the trigger finger of an enemy who shot at him.

Let it all be calm, he thought to himself. Let them wait...

"Captain!" came a voice from behind him. Nas looked down at his displays, looking to see if the crewmember who had spoken had also sent a signal through the command pods' communication system. Some of the newer crew tended to ignore their command pods and shout out instead, a bad habit that Nas worked hard to overcome in his crew.

A comm signal was pulsing on his display, coming from his sensors officer. Nas cursed himself with brief, silent ferocity. The man had tried to send his signal through the command pod, but Nas had been too unfocused to notice. He plugged into the data feed and focused.

"What is it, Warez?" he asked, with no trace of anger in his voice.

"Captain, our drone is picking up the drive signatures of those two guard-ships. Both at the same time, Captain." Warez was using the interface now, showing the raw data to Nas as he vocalized through the link.

"Damn it!" hissed Nas. There was no way to be sure yet, and the tiny sensor drone he had put into the gas giant's orbit wasn't capable of good resolution, but it was almost certain that the two guard-ship had lit their main drives to get to a lower, faster orbit. That would mean that they were doing their best to get into sight, and into weapons range, of the stolen 'liner. Conceivably they could be executing some other maneuver, but there was no doubt at all that the guard-ships were reacting to news of the 'liner's theft and red-lining their drives. He had hoped for more time, but it was likely that they didn't know about the
Whisperknife
just yet. The guard-ships would know that
a
ship was here, but so far they shouldn't know that it was in any way involved in what was happening. If they were clever, they might guess that one of the "civilian" ships near the station
was
involved, but they shouldn't be able to tell
which
one... not just yet. So he had some more time.

He assumed that the guard-ships would be boosting for a lower orbit, almost skimming the outer atmosphere of the gas giant to increase their orbital rate and decrease their orbital time. If the maneuvers were executed competently, it would put both guard-ships within laser range of the 'liner within perhaps an hour.

There was no way, without being able to track the exact maneuvers of the guard-ships, that Nas could tell the exact time left. But however much time was left, it was obvious was that there was not enough of it for his shuttle to load a nuke, get to the 'liner and then get back with his crew.

Damn the bastards for reacting so quickly. He had counted on a little more confusion, a little more time before anyone on the station realized that the departing 'liner had been hijacked. There was no point in ordering the little shuttle to resume its course for the 'liner now.

But his crew on the 'liner would have to evacuate even so, using the 'liner's shuttles, and very promptly. If the 'liner gave up its deceptive course and moved into closer proximity with the
Whisperknife
, there ought to be enough time for the infiltration crew to evacuate and get to the swift-ship. The escape shuttles on the freight-liner were large enough to evacuate its full crew; one of them would be enough for his team. All of the original shuttles had been lost in the attack on the 'liner, and the new replacements were in perfect condition, fully fueled and ready, as per Hegemony shipping regulations. That thought made Nas smile, in spite of the mess this operation was turning into.

Nas had done some investigation about the circumstances which had damaged the huge ship, and had even heard of the 'liner's captain's using the ship's cargo as an improvised shield. That had been clever of the man, Nas thought... it might even be a trick he would try, if he had to. But that captain's cleverness wouldn't save the 'liner this time. Mess or no mess, the
Whisperknife
had been hired to do a job, and the job would get done.

"Communications," Nas vocalized through the data feed, "get Ylayn and tell her to get that 'liner on..." Nas brought up a VR vector map and focused for an intense moment at the positions of the 'liner and the
Whisperknife
. "... a new course; maximum acceleration on
this
vector, and then execute operation 'bug-out.'"

"Yes, Captain."

"Weapons!" sent Nas.

"Sir?"

"Get one of the warheads ready to fly. One of the old ones. Plot a track on the 'liner. She'll be on
this
vector, exactly. As soon as our team is clear, launch the warhead, and set for a contact detonation. The target won't be evading or jamming, and I want a direct nuke-on-the-hull hit."

---

The command deck of the Yuro System Defense Fleet guard-ship
Interdiction
hummed with activity. One could just imagine, thought Demi-Captain Gabrayal Filjon, that the sound was the plasma drive, primed and waiting, ready to go to maximum power as soon as the orbital mechanics allowed.  His ship was in the lowest possible orbit that still kept clear of the edge of the gas giant's atmosphere; the fastest way to bring the
Interdiction
back towards the hijacked freight-liner. Filjon forced himself to settle back into his command pod, close his eyes, and focus on the interface data feeds being relayed by the station's sensors; there was nothing he could do to bring his ship into action any faster.

One of the two shuttles that had launched from the hijacked 'liner was about to rendezvous with the suspected pirate's ship. Void-runner, most likely, thought Filjon. Most likely the pirate ship would prove to be a small FTL transport heavily modified for speed and loaded with whatever weapons the pirates had been able to attach, though Sensors could not be sure just yet, since the suspect had placed his ship behind a small moonlet. It was just an asteroid captured by the gas giant's gravity into a stable orbit. A few kilometers of worthless carbon and ice, but enough to prevent the station's sensors from actually
seeing
the suspect ship.

Filjon restrained himself from cursing his squadron mate. Demi-Captain Hafez and the
Orbit Guardian
should have been on the station-side of the gas giant when this mess had happened, but instead the other guard-ship had been in close company with the
Interdiction,
running a mandatory coordinated training simulation that demanded a zero communications time lag... a simulation that should have been completed fifty hours ago, if poor scheduling hadn't delayed it. It was only a
very
small consolation that the scheduling problem was all on Captain Hafez' side.

"Sir, relay sensors indicate that one of the escape shuttles from the 'liner has docked with the suspect ship," said the sensors officer. "The other escape shuttle is still on a low velocity vector for the station."

"Acknowledged," replied Filjon.