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It was, unfortunately, an all-too-common response, despite the fact that it was ultimately self-destructive. Not only did splitting up ruin any chance for a convoy to use their wedges for mutual protection, but it also strung the ships out into a space-going shish kabob, presenting the raider with a series of bite-sized morsels from which he could choose whichever looked the tastiest.
And as the convoy reacted exactly as the pirate expected, the pirate now unknowingly returned the favor. His vector shifted slightly to try to outrun the lead merchies, and he pulled out another fifteen gees of acceleration he'd been holding in reserve. He smelled fresh blood, all right, and he was charging full-bore in for the kill.
Unfortunately for him, the whole thing was a fraud. Some of the merchies were indeed pulling ahead in response to Honor's order, but it was a carefully plotted and controlled maneuver, one that would let them drop back into their original formation with only a few minutes' notice.
"Update," Venizelos called. "Bogy will now hit the edge of our envelope in twelve minutes. Point of no escape in fourteen."
"Chief Killian, ease us through the pack toward him," Honor ordered the helmsman. "Mr. Wallace, give me a targeting solution, but keep the active sensors off-line. All crews, stand by ECM and point defense, and be ready to bring the wedge to full strength."
A watchful silence descended on Fearless's bridge. Honor listened to the quiet updates and watched as the red area on her tactical display shrank steadily toward nothingness. It was already nearly gone; and when it disappeared, so would any chance the pirate would have to evade contact. She checked her readiness status boards, feeling the usual slight pre-action quiver in her stomach and thankful she'd taken the precaution of putting Nimitz into his life-support pod in her quarters before they'd dropped out of hyper. With a pirate lurking this close to their exit point, she wouldn't have had time to run him down to her quarters by the time they'd spotted him.
Of course, James MacGuiness, her loyal steward, was perfectly capable of handling that job himself, and she could certainly have entrusted the 'cat to his care. But it was better all around that she'd been able to do it herself—
"Missile away!" Venizelos barked abruptly.
"Where?" Honor demanded, searching her displays. There it was, scorching away from the pirate.
"Well away forward," Venizelos said. "It's going to pass a hundred thousand kilometers in front of Flagstad's bow."
Honor felt her eyebrows lifting as she confirmed the missile's vector for herself. Most pirates didn't bother with anything as civilized as warning shots. "Are you getting anything from his ID transponder, Joyce?" she asked.
"Nothing useful," Metzinger said. "It reads out as the Locksley, with a Zoraster registry, but there's no ship of that name in our files." She paused for a moment, listening to her earbud. "He's calling on us to drop our wedges and prepare to be boarded," she added. "He claims to be with the Logan Freedom Fighters, and pledges we won't be harmed if we cooperate."
Venizelos snorted. "Cute. And, of course, your average merchie wouldn't know the Logan group doesn't operate in the Zoraster system."
"Actually, they may have just started," Wallace spoke up. "One of Logan's top lieutenants has been talking with the Zoraster Freemen about an alliance. They may have cut a deal."
"You're kidding," Venizelos said, frowning at him. "Where did you hear that?"
Wallace gave him a wry smile. "Try reading the ONI dispatches sometime," he said. "It's all in there."
Venizelos's mouth twitched. "I guess I'll have to start skimming them a little slower," he conceded. "I don't know, though. Boarding merchies sounds more like a pirate maneuver than something freedom fighters would do."
"Especially when their fight is supposed to be with the Silesian Navy, not Manticoran merchantmen," Honor agreed. "Joyce, has he given any explanation for his demand?"
"Yes, Ma'am," Metzinger said, her voice suddenly grim. "He says they're looking for a shipment of shredder pulser darts. Apparently there's a special order on its way to the Ellyna Valley government."
"Yuck," Venizelos muttered under his breath.
"Agreed," Honor said with a disgusted feeling of her own. Pulser darts were lethal enough without adding in the shredding capability that could take out whole clusters of people with a single shot. All civilized nations, including the Star Kingdom, had ba
Unfortunately, there were still people out there who had no qualms about using them, which was why there were still people out there manufacturing the damned things.
"Tell them we don't have anything like that aboard any of our ships," she instructed Metzinger.
"Yes, Ma'am." Metzinger turned back to her board.
"I guess you can't blame them for not wanting to end up on the receiving end of shredders," Venizelos commented.
"Next question being whether they plan to destroy them if they find them, or simply load 'em in their own guns," DuMorne pointed out.
"They'll destroy them," Wallace told him. "The Logan group has consistently denounced the use of street-sweeper weapons, and there's never been a report of their own people using them. Any deal they made with the Freemen would have required that same restraint."
"So what exactly is our official stance toward these people?" Venizelos asked. "The usual hands-off thing, unless and until they threaten our shipping, at which point we can slap them down as hard as we want?"
"Basically," Honor said, turning back to Metzinger. "Joyce?"
"He apologizes, but says they have to check for themselves, Ma'am," the com officer reported. "He again promises we won't be harmed unless we do something foolish."
"He's certainly a polite sort of fellow," Venizelos commented. "So how hard are we going to slap him, Skipper?"
Honor studied her displays. The Locksley was well within the no-escape area now, and apparently still unaware that he was facing anything other than six helpless merchantmen. At this point, Fearless could basically do whatever she wanted to him.
And yet . . .
"Mr. Wallace, do you happen to know how well-supplied Logan's group is?" she asked.
"I don't know the numbers, Ma'am," Wallace said slowly. "A little better than the average Silesian rebel, probably, but not that much better."
"Can they afford to throw away missiles just for the fun of it?" she asked, though she was pretty sure she knew the answer.
"Not a chance," Wallace said firmly. "Not even the relatively piddling one he tossed across our vector."
Honor nodded, her mind made up. The Locksley had spent a valuable missile trying to get the convoy to stop without any further fighting. That meant he was either exactly who he said he was, with the more or less peaceful intentions he claimed to have, or else a pirate with the kind of chutzpah even a politician might envy.
"All right," she said. "Joyce, get a camera ready on me. Andy, when I cue you, bring up the wedge and sidewalls and paint him with the active sensors."
She settled herself in her chair and made sure her uniform tunic was straight. This should prove interesting. "He's hailing again, Ma'am," Metzinger said.
Honor nodded. "Put him through."
The screen before her cleared, and the face of a young man appeared, his cheeks tired and sunken, his eyes blazing with the fire of zealots and True Believers everywhere. "—one last time, Manticoran ships," he was saying. "If you don't drop your wedges—"
He broke off abruptly, his bright eyes goggling as he belatedly recognized her uniform. "This is Captain Harrington of Her Majesty's Ship Fearless," Honor said calmly into the stu