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"Understood."
Terekhov crossed to his own command chair, settled into it, and deployed its displays. There were several possible explanations for why someone might have opted to approach a star system from well above the ecliptic, but aside from gross astrogational error, very few of those explanations would have applied to merchant shipping. Most of a merchant ship's likely destinations in any star system lay in the plane of the system's ecliptic, so translating into hyper in that plane and on the same side of the system as the destination in question required the shortest normal-space flight to reach it. Then, too, crossing a star's hyper limit from significantly above or below the plane of the ecliptic also imposed greater wear and tear—which equated to higher maintenance and replacement costs—on a freighter's hyper generator and alpha nodes. That was true for warships, too, of course . . . but maintenance costs ran a poor second to tactical considerations where they were concerned.
The most likely reason for a polar approach by a warship or a squadron of warships would be to avoid any nasty little surprises a defender might have attempted to arrange on a more conventional approach vector. The fact that it also gave better sensor coverage of the entire system (or, at least, of the entire ecliptic) wasn't anything to sneer at, either. A defender could still hide on the far side of the system's central star, or in the shadow of one or more of its planets or even moons, but it got harder against someone looking down—or up—from system north or south.
"Sir," Abigail said after several more tense moments, "CIC's managed to isolate a count on the footprints. They make it ten. Best estimate is that five of them are in the four million-plus to
"Thank you." Terekhov's tone was calm, almost absent, as he studied his own repeater displays, and no one else had to know how difficult it was for him to keep it that way.
If CIC's estimate was accurate, then five of the unknowns fell squarely into the to
Although, now that I come to think about it, just what the hell would Solly wallers be doing way out here? This is Frontier Fleet's bailiwick, not Battle Fleet's, so they shouldn't have anything bigger than battlecruisers in the vicinity, either. On the other hand, none of the local systems have anything the size of a dreadnought or a superdreadnought in inventory. So . . .
"Bring the Squadron to readiness, Mr. Nagchaudhuri," he said.
"Aye, aye, Sir," the communications officer replied, and sent the order (which Terekhov was quite certain was thoroughly u
The good news, such as it was and what there was of it, was that the missile pods deployed about his ships contained all-up Mark 23s, not the Mark 16s which normally lived inHexapuma's magazines. The Mark 16's laser heads produced greater destructive power than almost anything else below the wall of battle, but they'd never been intended to take on superdreadnought armor. They could inflict a lot of superficial damage, possibly even cripple the heavier ship's sensor suites or rip up the vulnerable nodes of its impeller rings, but good as they were, they had far too little punch to actually stop a waller.
But the Mark 23 was a very different proposition, he thought grimly. His control links were still too badly damaged to manage more than a few dozen pods simultaneously. Certainly he couldn't come close to matching the multi-thousand-missile salvos the Manticoran Alliance and the Republic of Haven had become accustomed to throwing at one another! But he could still fire almost four hundred attack birds in a single launch, and if those were Solly dreadnoughts or superdreadnoughts, they were in for an extraordinarily unpleasant surprise when three badly mauled cruisers and a single destroyer opened fire on them with that many capital missiles from well outside their own engagement range.
And what if they are? that corner of his mind jeered. Even if you destroy all five of them outright, so what? Great! You'll begin the war with the Sollies with a resounding triumph. That should be plenty of comfort when two or three thousand ships of the wall head for Manticore with blood in their eyes!
At least he'd have four or five hours before he had to start making any irrevocable decisions. Not that—
"Sir, we're being hailed!" Nagchaudhuri said suddenly, spi
Terekhov twitched upright in his own chair. If the unknowns were transmitting using FTL grav-pulses, then they damned well weren't Sollies! In fact, if they were transmitting FTL, the only people they could be were—
"Put it on my display," he said.
"Yes, Sir!" Nagchaudhuri said with a huge grin, and punched in a command.
A face appeared on the small com display by Terekhov's knee. It was a dark-complexioned face, with a strong nose and chin and thi
"This is Admiral Khumalo," the owner of that face said. "I am approaching Monica with a relief force. If Captain Terekhov is available, I need to speak to him immediately."
"Available," Terekhov thought with a sort of lunatic glee as the first outriders of almost unimaginable relief crashed through him. Now, there's a word choice for you! He probably thinks it would have been bad for morale to say "if he's still alive," instead.
"Put me through, Amal," he said.
"Aye, aye, Sir." Nagchaudhuri punched in another command. "Live mike, Sir."
"Terekhov here, Admiral Khumalo," Terekhov said into his com pickup. "It's good to see you, Sir."
Their relative positions putHexapuma and Khumalo's flagship the better part of thirty light-minutes apart, and even with a grav-pulse com, that imposed a transmission delay of over twenty-seven seconds. Terekhov waited patiently for fifty-four seconds, and then Khumalo's eyes sharpened.
"I don't doubt that it is, Captain," he said. "May I assume there's a reason your ships are sitting where they are?"
"Yes, Sir, there is. We found it necessary to remain close enough to Eroica Station to keep an eye on the evidence and, ah, present President Tyler with an argument sufficient to prevent any hastiness on the part of his surviving navy."
" 'Surviving navy'?" Khumalo repeated the better part of a minute later. "It would appear you've been quite busy out here, Captain Terekhov." His smile was decidedly on the wintry side.
Terekhov thought about replying, then thought better of it and simply sat there, waiting.
"May I assume you've already written up your reports on this . . . incident?" Khumalo asked after several more moments.
"Yes, Sir. I have."
"Good. Let me have them now then, if you would. I should have ample time to review them, since my astrogator makes it roughly seven and a half hours for us to reach your current position. At that time, please be prepared to come aboard Hercules."
"Of course, Sir."
"In that case, Captain, I'll see you then, when we don't have to worry about transmission lag. Khumalo, clear."
Seven hours and forty-five minutes later, Aivars Terekhov's pi