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Needless to say, starships parked at a jump point could scarcely maneuver at all, for any lateral acceleration would distort, then shred the sail fabric. There were several starship-to-starship battles on record, ponderous affairs that had taken weeks of maneuvering to complete. Generally, when ship-to-ship combat was called for, heavily armed and maneuverable DropShips, or lighter, faster, and more maneuverable aerospace fighters were used. JumpShips are armed as a matter of course (including radar-directed lasers to defend against meteors), but a single DropShip provides enough threat against any unsupported ship that a ship captain would usually surrender immediately rather than risk damage to his precious, irreplaceable vessel.
It was a fascinating problem in space combat tactics, Tor decided. He had never paid much attention to space tactics, though any freighter captain knew enough to enable him to counter the maneuvers of a possibly hostile starship at an unfamiliar jump point. His problem here was to approach the Invidiouswithout giving away the fact that the DropShip was no longer under the control of the same people. There might be passwords or approach codes that he knew nothing about, though a search of the DropShip's operations programs revealed no new computer codes in the docking sequence. It lookedas though the pirates had left everything as they'd found it. Tor could only hope that that was the case.
The tactical complication for this mission was the Draconis Combine JumpShip parked 12,000 kilometers from the Invidious.While this distance was great enough to keep either vessel's stationkeeping thrusters from damaging the other's sail, twelve thousand kilometers was practically next door, by space navigation standards.
Tor could feel that other ship out there. It was too distant to show optically, but he could visualize it. He was certain that the warship was the same one that had stopped him en route from Sigurd to Trellwan in the first place. If it picked up even a hint that something was wrong aboard the freighter, a pair of UnionClass DropShips — or worse, a flight of aerospace fighters — could be positioned off the Invidious'sail within 30 minutes.
This particular hijacking had to be carried out with complete secrecy, or it would end almost before it had begun. Grayson and Tor had worked out the details in their walk on the shores of Thunder Rift's lake. The key to the plan was the knowledge that each JumpShip would have its directional ante
Tor's problems would begin if the Invidious'crew was able to alert the spaceport to the fact that he was boarding their ship. The spaceport would alert the warship, and the warship would have armed DropShips alongside almost at once. That warning would also spell trouble for Grayson on Trellwan. He was pla
It was for this reason that Tor's mission was coordinated so precisely with Grayson's forces on Trellwan. The Lancers would be in position to attack the spaceport at the same time Tor's DropShip approached the Invidious.The ground attack's first target would be the spaceport control tower, which housed the communications relays to the commnet dish ante
Too, the ground attack could not be launched before the DropShip reached the freighter. If it were, someone in the tower might alert the warship, and the warship's officers might become suspicious of the timing of that lone DropShip approaching the freighter. A laser's flare could end Tor's mission just kilometers short of its goal.
Tor looked at the computer screen on his console, which showed the elapsed days, hours, and minutes since launch. Their burn time had been carefully adjusted so that the DropShip would arrive at the Invidious'stationkeeping zone at precisely 55 hours, 30 minutes after launch.
T plus 55.5 hours was the jump-off time for both attacks. That was if everything had gone according to plan on Trellwan. Tor and his men were about to risk their lives on the assumption that it had.
* * * *
More than 50 hours after local sunrise, Trell had crawled clear of the horizon and was hanging low and to one side of the black silhouette of Mount Gayal. The swollen, mottled red disk could still be looked at without discomfort, but the red light had thrown the entire western face of Gayal into shadow so deep Grayson could not make out the Castle; The temperature was already several degrees above freezing. The faint and distant sussurration the 'Mechs were picking up on their external mikes was the first roar of falling meltwater from the depths of Thunder Rift.
The assault force was approaching from the west this time, making use of the rugged and water-tortured ground to shield the 'Mechs from enemy radar and other remote sensors. Grayson was in the newly captured Shadow Hawkseveral kilometers from the rest. He had found another arroyo southwest of the port, and he'd moved the Hawkinto the shelter of an undercut bank. A computer display on his instrument console flickered with the passing seconds. Fifty-five hours, twenty-eight minutes had passed since the DropShip's launch. In two minutes, the attack would begin.
The Lancers' assault of two days before had caught the Combine forces off guard, allowing Grayson and his men to retire to their hiding place in the Rift without being pursued. The enemy had managed to launch only one missile-firing helicopter, and that had been brought down by a salvo from one of the Lancer's missile-firing hovercraft
There was no way to achieve such surprise a second time. In the past 50 hours, Combine forces at Sarghad had offloaded and readied two full 'Mech companies — twenty-four BattleMechs of various models and sizes. Two Lances, totalling eight 'Mechs, had been deployed in the city around the Palace grounds, and another Lance had moved into the Castle shortly after Grayson's escape with the Shadow Hawk.The remaining company of twelve 'Mechs stood sentry at the spaceport. Eight were patrolling constantly while the remaining four were being serviced.
There was also at least one other 'Mech at the port, Lieutenant Vallendel's black and grey Marauder.Grayson wondered if Duke Ricol's own red and black Marauder,the Red Hunter, were also on Trellwan, though he'd seen no sign of it.
The Red Duke's forces also included ground troops, at least 250 soldiers equipped with a variety of hovercraft and light tracked vehicles suitable for rough mountain terrain that air cushion craft couldn't manage. These troops were armed with an impressive array of assault rifles, man-portable lasers, and shoulder-fired missile launchers.
A direct attack against such a force was clearly hopeless, but an attack was the only way to knock out the communications relay tower. Grayson looked at another screen, whose image was coming to him from a small camera at the top of the wadi's wall. The ante