Ballistic (The Palladium Wars), стр. 60

Dunstan looked at the plot, which was empty except for the icon representing Minotaur. The frigate was pretending to be a smuggling ship. Sending out recon drones or scanning the space ahead with active sensors would give them away and send their quarry running. Once they turned the ship and fired up their drive to slow down, they’d be blind to anything ahead until the deceleration burn was complete. The element of surprise would work both ways, but he was hedging a bet that Minotaur would be able to handle whatever popped up on their active sensors in front of them once they pointed their bow at the target coordinates again. No smuggling crew in their right minds would engage in a fight with a warship of their size, and Dunstan had stacked the cards to make sure running away wouldn’t be an option for their quarry either. But if there was one unchanging constant in this business, it was that no engagement ever went as planned.

“Give me a system status on the weapons.”

“Green across the board, sir,” Lieutenant Mayler replied. “All four rail-gun mounts are warmed up and ready to be energized. Magazines are at one hundred percent. Point defense is on standby.”

We’re as ready as we’re going to be, Dunstan decided. He glanced at the plot again and took a slow breath.

“XO, sound action stations,” he said.

“Sound action stations, aye,” Lieutenant Bosworth replied. He tapped the comms panel, and the all-ship announcement system blared the alert klaxon.

“Action stations, action stations. All hands to action stations. Set damage control condition Zulu throughout the ship.”

Every crew member on Minotaur spent the next few minutes securing vacsuits, connecting life support umbilicals, and assuming their assigned battle stations. All over the ship, airtight compartment doors sealed bulkheads to prepare for possible damage. Dunstan had heard the action stations klaxon so many times in his life that the sound would never fail to make the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He went through his own preparations automatically, his hands performing tasks they had done a thousand times before, tightening restraints and twisting connectors onto receptacles in his gravity couch. There was an odd comfort in the routine, even though it meant they were about to take the ship into danger. It gave his hands something to do and his mind the feeling that he was in control.

“All stations report ready for action, sir,” Bosworth said.

“Very well. Midshipman Boyer, commence turnaround and deceleration burn.”

“Turn for deceleration burn, aye,” Boyer confirmed. This was her first deployment cruise, but after three months of patrol that had included two combat encounters, she had lost all her initial timidity and nervousness. Minotaur and her current crew had seen more action than any other fleet unit since the end of the war.

Except for Danae, Dunstan reminded himself. Whoever had waylaid and destroyed the unlucky light cruiser could very well be waiting for Minotaur at the end of this deceleration burn. But this ship was ready for a fight.

Still, as Dunstan looked around the battle-ready AIC, he couldn’t shake the unwelcome memory of the bodies drifting among the wreckage of Danae, a ship that had been ten years newer than his frigate and twice as powerful.

“We are down to maneuvering speed,” Boyer announced at the end of their deceleration burn. “Cutting the main drive in thirty seconds.”

“Steady as she goes,” Dunstan said. “Tactical, go active on the forward array as soon as we come out of the turn. Let’s take a good close look at the neighborhood.”

Minotaur had run her plasma drive at full throttle to slow down from her ballistic coasting velocity as quickly as possible. The physics of a drive plume at maximum thrust meant that they had been flying blind for the last hour and a half because the sensors could not see through the noise and thermal bloom. In thirty seconds, they’d be able to open their eyes again and see what was ahead. As much as Dunstan wanted to get his hands on the people who were trying to take delivery of a weapon of mass destruction, part of him was hoping they’d find nothing but empty space in front of them.

“Standing by for active sensor sweep,” Mayler said.

Minotaur’s main drive throttled back to its idle setting. Dunstan felt only a slight moment of discomfort as the gravmag generator at the bow of the ship spun down at the same time to keep the gravity on the ship at one standard g.

“Commencing turnaround,” Boyer said.

Dunstan watched the tactical display rotate as Boyer used Minotaur’s thrusters to spin the ship around its lateral axis.

“Turnaround complete. Coasting at one point five kilometers per second.”

“Energizing main sensor array,” Mayler said. The tactical display changed color to indicate the active radiation they were emitting to scan the space ahead. They had just done the space warfare equivalent of walking backward into a dark basement, turning around, and switching on a very bright flashlight. If any shooting was going to start, it would happen in the next few moments.

Five seconds passed, then ten. The tactical display remained unchanged, with only Minotaur sitting in the center of the three-dimensional holographic orb. Then a lone gray icon appeared on the display, accompanied by a notification alert sound.

“Contact,” Mayler called out. “Bearing 299 by 11, distance eight hundred kilometers, designate Sultan-1. Moving at twenty meters per second.”

“Just hanging out and waiting for their delivery,” Dunstan said. “And right within ten thousand klicks of the coordinates the courier crew gave us.”

“No transponder signal, and their drive is cold, sir.”

“They’re running dirty. Because of course they are. Open comms and give me a link.” Dunstan picked up his comms set.

“You’re on, sir,” Mayler said.

“Attention, unidentified vessel,” Dunstan said. “This is RNS Minotaur. You are in Rhodian space without a valid transponder ID broadcast or transfer-lane exemption. Identify yourself and state your destination and intent at once.”

The comms remained silent. On the plot,