Honor Among Enemies

Wayfarer was twenty-one light-minutes from the G2 primary of the Walther System, just under fifteen light-years from Libau, stooging along at a mere 11,175 KPS with an accel of only seventy-five gravities. That was on the low side, even for a merchie, but not unheard of for a skipper with worn drive nodes, and Honor had chosen it with malice aforethought. She hadn't wanted anyone to miss her, and such a low velocity was the equivalent of blood in the water. And it seemed to have worked. The bogey had closed another two hundred thousand kilometers, and his speed was still building. He already had a velocity advantage of nine hundred and ten KPS, and it was rising steadily, but that was going to change. He wouldn't want too much overtake when he actually overhauled, but he clearly expected Wayfarer to bolt when she finally saw him. He wanted a little extra speed in hand if she did, and it would be a pity to disappoint him.

"All right, Rafe. Take us to max accel."

"Aye, aye, Ma'am. Chief O'Halley, bring us to one-point-five KPS squared."

"Coming to one-point-five KPS squared, aye, Sir," the coxswain acknowledged, and Wayfarer suddenly bolted ahead at her maximum normal safe acceleration. It was only half that of the ship coming up from astern, but it would be enough to convince him he'd been seen.

"New time to overtake?"

"Make it two-four-point-nine-four minutes, Milady," John Kanehama replied almost instantly, and she nodded.

"Challenge him, Fred. Inform him we're a Manticoran vessel and order him to stand off."

"Aye, aye, Ma'am." Lieutenant Cousins spoke briefly into his pickup, and Honor watched her display narrowly. They were well within the powered envelope for impeller-drive missiles. A pirate wouldn't want to damage his prize, but...

"Missile separation!" Je

"How kind of him," Honor murmured, watching the missile trace tear after her ship. It streaked up on her starboard side and detonated, out not only was it well clear of Wayfarer, it was also a standard nuke, not a laser head. Its meaning was clear, however. She considered continuing to run, although the raider had demonstrated he had the range to fire into her ship, he was unlikely to when she couldn't get away anyhow, but there was no guarantee the person behind that missile tube was feeling reasonable.

"Anything on the com?"

"Not yet, Ma'am."

"I see. Very well, Rafe. Bring us hard to port and kill our accel, but keep the wedge up."

"Aye, aye, Ma'am."

Wayfarer stopped accelerating, and Honor punched up LAC Squadron One's flagship. Commander Jacquelyn Harmon, Wayfarer's senior LAC CO, was a dark-haired, dark-eyed woman with a pre-space fighter pilot's ego and a sardonic sense of humor, both of which probably stood the commander of such a frail craft in good stead. It was she who'd insisted on naming the twelve LACs under her command for the twelve apostles, and she rode the cramped command deck of HMLAC Peter as her image appeared on Honor’s small screen.

"Ready, Jackie?" Honor asked.

"Yes, Ma'am!" Harmon gave her a hungry smile, and Honor shook her head.

"Remember we want them alive if we can get them."

"We'll remember, Ma'am."

"Very well. Launch at your discretion when we drop the sidewall, but stay close."

"Aye, aye, Ma'am."

Honor killed the circuit and looked at Hughes. "Drop the starboard sidewall."

"Aye, aye, Ma'am. Dropping starboard sidewall now."

Wayfarers starboard sidewall vanished. Seconds later, six small warships spat out of the "cargo bays" on her starboard flank on conventional thrusters. They raced clear of their mother ship's wedge before they brought up their own drives, then hovered there, screened from radar and gravitic detection by her massive shadow, and Honor looked back at her plot.

The bogey was decelerating hard now. Given his current overtake, he'd overfly Wayfarer by over a hundred and forty thousand kilometers before coming to rest relative to her, but his velocity would be sufficiently low to make boarding simple. Of course, he might be just a bit surprised to discover who was about to be boarded by whom, she thought coldly.

"I've got good passive readouts for Fire Plan Able, Ma'am," Hughes reported. "Solution input and ru

Honor glanced down. The decelerating raider was stern-on to the pickup, giving her a good look up the open rear of his wedge. He was smaller than most destroyers, and he couldn't be very heavily armed if he'd shoehorned a hyper drive and Warshawski sails into that hull. He had a conventional warship's hammerhead ends, however, which suggested at least some chase armament, and whatever he mounted was aimed straight at Wayfarer. She checked Kanehama's intercept solution and nodded mentally. There was no point letting that ship get close enough to shoot through her sidewall, not when she had a perfect up the kilt shot at him.

"On my mark, Je

She slashed her hand downward as she spoke, and every weapon in Wayfarers broadside fired as one. Eight massive grasers flashed out, the closest missing the bogey by less than thirty kilometers, and ten equally massive missiles followed. As the single shot the bogey had fired, they were standard nukes, not laser heads, but unlike the bogeys, they detonated at a stand-off range of barely a thousand kilometers, completely bracketing him in their pattern.

The message was abundantly clear, and just to give it added point, six LACs suddenly swooped up over their mother ship, locked their own batteries on the bogey, and lashed him with targeting radar and lidar powerful enough to boil his hull paint to be sure he knew they had.

"Acknowledged, Wayfarer! Acknowledged!" a voice screamed over the com, and the bogeys drive died instantly. "Don't fire! God, please don't fire! We surrender!"

"Prepare to be boarded," Honor said coldly. "Any resistance will result in the instant destruction of your vessel. Is that understood?"

"Yes! Yes!"

"Good," she said in that same, icy tone, then cut the circuit and leaned back in her chair to smile at Cardones. "Well," she said far more mildly, "that was exciting, wasn't it?"

"More so for some than for others, Ma'am," Cardones replied with a broad grin.

"I suppose so," Honor agreed, and glanced at Hughes. "Nicely done, Guns, and that goes for all of you," she told the bridge at large. Pleased smiles answered, and she turned back to Cardones. "Tell Scotty and Susan they can launch, then match velocities. The LACs can keep an eye on our friend while we maneuver."

"Aye, aye, Ma'am."

Honor stood and stretched, then gathered Nimitz back up once more. "I imagine you can finish up here, Mr. Exec," she said for the benefit of the rest of her bridge crew, "and you pulled me away from a perfectly good book. I'll be in my quarters. Ask Major Hibson to escort the commander of that object to my cabin after she parks the rest of its people in the brig, please."

"Yes, Ma'am. We can do that," Cardones agreed, still gri

"Thank you," Honor said, and headed for the lift while the watch chuckled behind her.

The raider's commander was a squat, chunky man who'd once been muscular but long since gone to fat, and his flabby face was gray with shock as Major Hibson thrust him into Honor's cabin. He wasn't handcuffed, and he outmassed the petite Marine by at least two-to-one, but only a complete fool would have taken liberties with Susan Hibson. Not that the pirate appeared to have anything left inside with which liberties might have been taken.