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And dread, because if Sandler's analysis was right, the convoy was soon going to come under attack. Cardones was Fearless's tac officer, and her bridge was where he was supposed to be during combat. Certainly not here aboard a merchantman, being about as useless as it was possible for a Queen's officer to be.
And he was useless. In the quiet dark of the night, that was what rankled the most. The rationale for bringing him into this in the first place had been Hemphill's assumption that this mysterious weapon was a variant of her beloved grav lance. Now that they knew it wasn't, there was no reason at all for him to be here. Sandler ought to call it quits, swear him to secrecy, and just send him across to the Fearless.
But that was out of the question. Sandler had her orders, and like Captain Harrington, she knew how to follow them. Cardones would stay put until they were all told otherwise.
The refit itself seemed to drag on at the pace of a lethargic banana slug, but Cardones recognized that as the skewed perspective of someone who wasn't actually doing any of the work. They were, in fact, still twelve hours out from the hyper limit when Pampas pronounced the job complete.
And at that point, there wasn't anything for any of them to do except wait.
"Nightingale's out, Skipper," Venizelos a
Honor nodded, her own attention on her long-range sensor displays. As always, right at the hyper limit was the most likely place for a pirate to be lurking.
But there were no impeller signatures showing nearby. "Full active sensors," she ordered.
"Already ru
"Very good," Honor said. "Stephen, compute us a course for Walther Prime, and let's get moving."
"Commodore?" Lieutenant Koln, Vanguard's tac officer, called from across the bridge. "They're here, Sir."
"Where?" Dominick demanded, swiveling toward his own tac displays.
"One-three-eight by four-two-three," Koln said. "About three light-minutes away."
Dominick had the images now. "Course?"
"Straight in, Sir," Koln said with a note of satisfaction. "Looks like the escort is riding the convoy's port flank."
"Good." Dominick looked at Charles. "Any last-minute suggestions you'd care to make?"
"None," Charles said. "They're playing exactly as you anticipated."
Dominick felt his chest swell with professional pride. Yes; as he had anticipated. This was his plan, and his alone, and he was looking forward to showing Charles a thing or two about Republican military tactics. "Yes, indeed," he said. "Mr. Koln, alert Captain Vaccares. Activate Plan Alpha."
"Captain, we've got a disturbance," Wallace said suddenly, leaning over his displays. "Off to port, about three and a half million klicks. Looks like—"
He broke off. "Looks like someone's getting hit," Venizelos put in. "Silesian merchantman Cornucopia, by the transponder."
Honor swiveled toward her tac displays. From the target's impeller strength and acceleration, CIC was tentatively identifying it as a merchantman in the two-million-ton range. She was ru
But she wasn't going to make it. Her attacker was already in energy range and coming up fast, blasting away with lasers and grasers both. "Damage?" she asked.
"No sign of debris," Venizelos said. "They may be firing warning shots, trying to get her to heave to."
But co
"Captain." Wallace's voice was suddenly tight. "CIC's pulling a Silesian emission spectrum from the raider . . . with something not Silesian beneath it."
"What do you mean, 'not Silesian'?" Venizelos asked, frowning at him.
But Wallace's gaze was locked on Honor's face. And from the tension around his eyes, she knew there was only one thing his veiled words could mean.
They'd found their Andermani raider.
She took a deep breath. "Stephen, plot me an intercept course for that raider," she ordered, still looking at Wallace. "Full acceleration."
"Full acceleration?" Venizelos swiveled to face her. "What about our own convoy?"
"They'll just have to do the best they can," Honor told him, forcing her voice to remain calm. "Joyce, inform the other ships we'll be leaving them temporarily. Instruct them to follow our vector so as to stay as close to us as possible."
Metzinger glanced uncertainly at Venizelos. "Skipper, if someone else is lying doggo—"
"You have your orders, Lieutenant," Honor said, more harshly than she'd intended. It was one thing to sit in a calm briefing room aboard the Basilisk and acknowledge orders in a nice safe theoretical way. It was something else entirely to actually run out on ships full of men and women who were trusting her for their safety.
But she had no choice. "And then," she added quietly, "order battle stations."
On the Dorado's nav display, the distant impeller signature suddenly shifted vector. "There he goes," Cardones a
"Who, the raider?" Sandler asked, leaving her quiet consultation with Pampas and McLeod at the back of the bridge and stepping to his side.
"Yes, Ma'am," Cardones told her. "Looks like he's pulling for the hyper limit."
Sandler hissed softly between her teeth as she leaned over his shoulder for a better look. "I don't like this, Rafe," she murmured. "There's something wrong here."
"What, you don't believe there could be two unco
"No," Sandler said flatly. "And neither do you. This is some kind of setup, and we both know it. What I don't understand is why Fearless was so damn quick to abandon us."
"Maybe Captain Harrington knows something we don't," Cardones suggested.
"Maybe," Sandler conceded. "I just hate sitting out here feeling helpless." She rubbed her chin. "And you're sure that raider isn't our Peep?"
Cardones shook his head. "He's pulling way too many gees to be a battlecruiser," he said. "Besides, his emission spectrum is definitely Silesian."
"As far as you can tell from these sensors, anyway," she said with an edge of contempt. "I wish we could pull Shadow out from under the wedge long enough to take some decent readings."
"I suppose we could," Cardones said doubtfully. Sandler had refused to leave the Shadow behind in an unsecured Silesian port, but the dispatch boat was too big to shoehorn into the Dorado's cargo hold without everyone in sensor range knowing something fu
"I know," Sandler agreed reluctantly as she straightened up. "Well, whatever's going on, we don't have much choice but to keep going. Just keep your eyes open."
"Yes, Ma'am," Cardones said, frowning as something caught his eye. Had something happened to the Fearless's impellers just then?
Yes—there it was again. A brief flicker, as if the nodes were having trouble keeping the wedge up.
Like something was interfering with them.
A hard knot settled into his stomach. They had only Pampas's professional opinion, after all, that this Peep heterodyning trick wouldn't work against a military wedge. That fleeing raider wasn't far out of the million-klick range; and if he was equipped with the same weapon and was testing its range . . .