Ballistic (The Palladium Wars), стр. 61
“They’re not even trying the ‘broken comms gear’ ruse,” Lieutenant Bosworth said. “As if we’ll leave them alone if they pretend they can’t hear us.”
“Well, there isn’t much they could be saying, Bosworth. We’re a long way from any of the transfer lanes. ‘We just happened to be drifting around in the neighborhood’ won’t cut it, and they know that.”
He considered the plot for a moment.
“Helm, lay in an intercept course. Weapons, keep a lock on them with the fire-control system. Just so they don’t have any misconceptions about our willingness to play games.”
“Aye, sir,” Mayler replied.
“Sir, the bogey just changed heading. They’ve turned away from us and gone to three and a half g.”
“Guess they noticed the target lock.” Dunstan watched the green icon on the display make a ninety-degree course change and increase speed.
“Match their acceleration and put in half a g on top,” he ordered. “Let’s have them in intercept range in twenty. No need to rush things.”
“The AI is still working on an ID, sir. It’s a commercial medium-output plasma drive signature. We aren’t close enough for a good hull profile scan yet, and their drive plume is muddling things up now.”
“No worries, Mayler. We’ll catch up with them soon enough. If three and a half is the best they can do, it’ll be a short chase.”
“Why would they even try to run? They’re too far inside our intercept envelope. It wouldn’t make a difference if they burned twice as hard.”
“People do dumb things when they panic, Lieutenant. They know they can’t fight us. So they went for flight.”
Dunstan shook his head at the sight on the plot. Minotaur was now burning at almost four g, and the gray icon was no longer increasing the distance. The skipper on the bogey was either supremely optimistic or terrible at math, because there was no way he’d be able to outrun the Rhodian warship bearing down on him.
“If he turns, we turn right along with him,” Dunstan said. “Nice and easy. He’s got nowhere to run.”
The other ship continued its futile flight as Minotaur closed the gap slowly but steadily. With every passing minute, the sensor AI got a better picture of the ship they were chasing.
“We got ID on the bogey,” Mayler said after a few minutes. “She’s an Oceanian merchant. OMV Winds of Asterion.”
“What does the database have on them?”
“It’s a supply ship. Part of the civilian merchant component for their spacelift command. She’s supposed to be laid up in the reserve fleet yard.”
“I guess someone took her out for a joyride. Any armament on that type?”
“Negative, sir,” Mayler replied. “Not from the factory anyway. But it’s really hard to bolt something to a merchie hull that’ll hurt a warship.”
“They’re trying to take delivery of a nuke, Lieutenant. I’m not trusting any blueprints. Not after Daphne. Assume they’re armed to the teeth and getting ready to blow us out of space.”
The chirp of a notification alert drew Dunstan’s eyes over to the tactical display. Another green icon had appeared, this one in the general path of Winds of Asterion’s heading and well in front of them.
“New contact,” Mayler called out. “Bearing 23 by negative 39, distance eighty-five thousand kilometers. Designate Sultan-2.”
He turned to look at Dunstan.
“Sir, contact Sultan-2 is accelerating. At ten and a half g.”
Dunstan stared at the new icon on the plot. The numbers next to it that showed bearing, acceleration, and velocity increased so quickly that the unknown ship could only have a military-grade drive and a gravmag generator.
Guess they brought backup, he thought. He’d been expecting an unpleasant surprise ever since they came out of their burn, but it still sent a chill down his spine to see that his paranoia had been justified.
“Get me a course projection and target ID for Sultan-2 now. And put out all the drones and set them to active recon mode.”
“They’re headed for a shortest-time intercept with us,” Mayler said. “At our closing rate, time to engagement-range limit is nine minutes. The AI is working on an ID right now.”
Dunstan took a deep breath to steady himself. The most agonizing part of being the commander of a warship was the weight resting on his decisions, and right now he had very little time and data to make his next call. The commander of the unknown ship either had strong suicidal ideations, or he was confident he could take on a battle-ready Rhodian frigate. Or it could be a ruse, and the new contact was a small ship with a powerful drive, intending to throw Minotaur off their pursuit and then outrun them. But if he waited for the AI to come up with a definitive ID, it would be too late to make that call. The odds were low, but if he rolled the dice wrong, he’d be forced into an engagement on someone else’s terms, with no way to control the situation.
Sometimes it’s not the odds that make a bet unwise, he decided. Sometimes it’s the stakes.
“Helm, bring the drive to emergency power. Have the AI plot us a trajectory that will keep the distance between us and Sultan-2 as wide as possible for as long as we can.”
“Aye, sir.” Boyer looked pale, but she jumped into action without hesitation, her hands flying over the data fields on her control panel. When the drive fired up to maximum output, Dunstan could feel the tug-of-war between the plasma rocket that was subjecting them to ten g of acceleration and the gravmag array that countered the g-forces to keep the crew alive.
On the tactical screen, Winds of Asterion continued her slow flight, her icon moving from ahead of Minotaur to her