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# Chapter Seventeen

"Tell him one more time, Mecia," Captain Erica Ferrero, commanding officer, HMS Jessica Epps, said. Her voice was cold and flat. "And tell him we won't ask again."

"Aye, aye, Ma'am!" Lieutenant Mecia McKee, Jessica Epps' communications officer replied crisply. She turned back to her panel, pushed an errant strand of long red hair behind her left ear and keyed her microphone.

"Unidentified starship, you are instructed to cut your wedge and stand by to be boarded. I repeat, you are instructed to cut your wedge and stand by to be boarded. If you do not comply, we will employ deadly force. This is your final warning. Jessica Epps, clear."

The crimson icon on Ferrero's plot made absolutely no response to her youthful com officer's warning. It simply continued to flee at its maximum acceleration, which was fairly stupid, the captain reflected. Admittedly, it represented a much smaller starship, which, with equally efficient inertial compensators, ought to have enjoyed an acceleration advantage of at least thirty or forty gravities over a ship of Jessica Epps' tonnage. Unhappily for whoever commanded that icon, however, it didn't enjoy equal efficiency, because Jessica Epps mounted the very latest version of the Royal Manticoran Navy's improved compensator. The suspect vessel's actual advantage, even at the eighty percent settings which represented the RMN's normal maximum power load, was barely twenty-one gravities, less than a quarter of a KPS². If Ferrero had chosen to go to maximum military power and run the risk of compensator failure, the advantage would have lain firmly in Jessica Epps's favor.

Not that it mattered either way, because Ferrero's cruiser had surprised the other ship skulking along at a low base velocity. That was what had attracted her tac officer's attention in the first place. Given its small size, its low velocity and position just inside the hyper limit of the Adelaide System, especially headed towards the primary, was a dead giveaway. The only logical reason for a vessel the size of a very small frigate to be moving in-system at such a low speed (especially in Silesia) was that it was a pirate or privateer trolling for prizes. The low velocity at which merchantmen normally made the final translation into normal-space from hyper made them extremely vulnerable to interception immediately upon arrival, particularly since it always took at least a short interval for their sensors to settle down enough for them to be able to detect anything in their vicinities. Until they could at least see what lay in proximity to them, they couldn't even know a threat was there to begin trying to evade it. Even when they realized they were in danger, merchantmen were slow and clumsy ships. When a potential enemy also had the advantage of surprise, the chance that a merchant skipper could evade him was remote, at best.

If evasion failed and an armed vessel, however small, managed to bring its weapons into range of an unarmed freighter, the merchant ship would find itself completely helpless. And the best way for an armed vessel to do that was to be moving at a relatively low velocity on the same approximate heading a merchie might be expected to arrive upon. Too much relative speed, and it would overrun its intended victim, unable to decelerate to rendezvous before the merchantman could reverse her own acceleration, break back across the hyper limit, and escape into hyper-space. Too little, and even a whalelike merchantman might be able to somehow twist aside and make it back into hyper before she could be overhauled.

That was obviously what the ship on Ferrero's plot had had in mind. The fact that it had gone to maximum acceleration directly away from her own command the moment she identified herself and instructed it to heave to for examination was ample confirmation in her own mind that it was a pirate. Unfortunately for it, the same tactical considerations which applied to merchantmen at low velocity evading pirates applied to pirates at low velocity evading heavy cruisers . . . with one notable exception. A pirate needed to rendezvous with its prize if it wanted to loot it; a heavy cruiser was under no obligation to rendezvous with a pirate, because said pirate could be blown out of space in passing just fine. And that was the situation which obtained in this instance.

Ferrero and her crew hadn't really planned on doing any pirate-hunting this afternoon, but sometimes God rewarded the virtuous when they expected it least. This was clearly one of those times, and Jessica Epps had found herself heading in-system at just over sixty-three thousand KPS. Given the geometry of the cruiser's pursuit curve, that had worked out to an overtake advantage of forty-two thousand kilometers per second—well, 40,007.162 KPS, if Ferrero wanted to be fussy about it—over an initial range of three and a half light-minutes. Which meant that even with its slight acceleration advantage, the ship she was pursuing couldn't possibly evade her. In fact, assuming constant acceleration for both ships, Jessica Epps would overtake her prey completely in just under twenty-five minutes, and bring it into missile range well before that.

So it had to be obvious to the other ship's commander that Ferrero's only problem was when to begin reducing her own acceleration still further in order to give her sufficient time in passing to do a proper job of reducing her target to dispersing wreckage. Under the circumstances, his only real option was to heave to and allow her Marines to board him, and common prudence should have suggested that it would be wise of him to do that promptly, before Jessica Epps' obviously short-tempered captain decided it was too much bother to take prisoners and worry about trials.

It appeared, however, that prudence was in somewhat short supply aboard the fleeing vessel. Either that, or its crew was on the list of convicted pirates for whom no trials—beyond the necessary establishment of their identities—would be in order, anyway. This was Silesia, after all, and Silesian governors had a bad habit of "losing" condemned pirates whom the Star Kingdom had turned over to them rather than keeping said pirates safely locked up or executing them. That was the reason the RMN had authorized its skippers to summarily execute such "escapees" if they were captured by Manticoran ships a second time. Given that interstellar law mandated the death sentence for piracy, that authorization was completely legal, and Ferrero strongly suspected that the crew in front of her knew its names were on her list somewhere. In that case, being boarded and captured would leave them just as dead as being blown apart in combat, and there was always a possibility, however remote, that they might somehow manage to roll ship and squirm away from Jessica Epps.

They'll be ice skating in Hell before that happens, Mr. Pirate! she thought coldly. But at least my conscience will be clear, because you'll have had your warning . . . and your chance.

Which was just fine with Erica Ferrero, who liked pirates even less than most Manticoran officers.

"No response, Ma'am," Lieutenant McKee reported unnecessarily, and Ferrero nodded.

"Understood, Mecia," she said, and turned her attention towards the tactical section of the command deck. "I don't see any reason to muck around with this idiot, Shawn."

Lieutenant Commander Shawn Harris, Jessica Epps' tactical officer looked up from his own plot, and she smiled at him thinly.

"We'll give him a single warning shot," she said flatly. "Just like the rules of engagement require. After all, I suppose it's remotely possible that his com is down and no one in his entire crew knows how to fix it. But if he decides not to stop even after that hint, I want a full missile broadside right up the kilt of his wedge. No demonstration nukes, either; we'll go with laser heads."

"Yes, Ma'am," Harris acknowledged without surprise. At a hundred and ninety-one centimeters, the brown haired, mustachioed tac officer towered over his petite captain, but Erica Ferrero's record was ample proof that nasty things could come in small packages. She had a short way with pirates, did Captain Ferrero, and it had quickly become apparent to Harris that she regarded trials as an inefficient technique for dealing with them. She made it a point not to automatically assume guilt, and she was always scrupulous about giving any suspected pirate the chance to surrender—at least once. But if they declined the invitation to allow her to board and examine them in accordance with interstellar law, that was more than sufficient indication of a guilty conscience to satisfy her. In which case, she was perfectly prepared to pursue the options available to her under that same established interstellar law and give them a demonstration of peace through superior firepower.

Which, upon mature reflection, was perfectly all right with Lieutenant Commander Harris. It only took cleaning up the aftermath of one or two pirate attacks to make any naval officer . . . impatient with the entire breed.

He turned back to his own panel and began setting up his attack profile. It didn't look like it was going to be very difficult. The ship they were pursuing massed no more than fifty thousand tons, little more than twelve percent of an Edward Saganami-class cruiser like Jessica Epps, and no hyper-capable warship could mount very much offense or defense on that limited a displacement. Of course, she wouldn't have needed a lot of armament to deal with the completely unarmed and defenseless merchies upon which she preyed, and he felt a grim satisfaction at the way the tables had been turned in this instance.

He'd just locked his launch sequence into the loading queue for his broadside launchers when his earbug buzzed. He listened for a moment, eyebrows rising in surprise, and then turned towards his captain.

"CIC's just picked up another impeller signature, Ma'am," he reported.

"What?" Ferrero turned her chair to face him. "Where?"

"Approximately seventy million klicks at one-zero-seven by zero-two-niner," he replied. "She's headed straight for our bogey, too, Ma'am," he added, and the captain frowned.

"Why the hell didn't we see her sooner?" she asked. It was probably a rhetorical question, but it carried a lot of irritation, and Harris understood perfectly.

"I don't know for certain, Ma'am," he told her, "but from the accel she appears to be pulling, she's got to be military. Either that, or another pirate, and CIC estimates her tonnage is around three-fifty k-tons."

"What is her accel?" Ferrero asked, eyes narrowing. Assuming that displacement figure was even remotely accurate, the heavy cruiser-sized newcomer was much too large for a typical pirate. It might be a privateer licensed by one of the Confederacy's innumerable "revolutionary governments," but that seemed unlikely.

"CIC makes it right on five hundred and ten gravities from a base velocity of right on six-point-five thousand KPS," Harris replied. The captain's surprise showed, and he nodded. "Like I say, Skipper—she's got to be military, and she's running her wedge with just about zero safety margin on her compensator. Our closing velocity is approximately seventy thousand KPS on her current heading, and the only reason we wouldn't have seen a wedge pulling that kind of power and coming almost straight towards us a lot sooner than this is because she was hiding it under stealth."

"Any com traffic from her, Mecia?" Ferrero demanded.

"None, Ma'am," the lieutenant replied.

"Well, see if you can raise her," the captain directed. "At that much tonnage, she's almost got to be a warship, not another pirate coming to our idiots' assistance. Still, I don't want any misunderstandings here. Be polite and extend my compliments, but this is our bird, not anyone else's."

"Aye, aye, Ma'am," McKee agreed, and began speaking into her hush mike. "Unknown vessel bearing zero-three-seven, zero-two-niner, this is Her Majesty's Ship Jessica Epps, Captain Erica Ferrero, commanding, in pursuit of suspected pirate bearing zero-zero-six, zero-one-five from our position. Captain Ferrero extends her compliments and requests that you identify yourself and advise us of your intentions. Jessica Epps, clear."

Given the distance, it took three minutes and fifty-three seconds for McKee's hail to cross the vacuum between Jessica Epps and the unknown warship. Their closing velocity reduced the range by almost sixteen and a half million kilometers during that time, which meant that it required only a shade over two minutes and a half for the other captain's reply to arrive.

McKee twitched visibly in her chair when it did. Then she turned to her captain.

"I think you'd better listen to the direct feed, Ma'am," she said.

Ferrero started to ask her why, but then she shrugged and nodded, and a harsh, strongly accented Andermani voice sounded from the bridge speaker.

"Jessica Epps, this is His Imperial Majesty's Ship Hellbarde, Kapitän der Sterne Gortz, commanding." The male voice's tone carried a powerful dose of something. Ferrero couldn't precisely identify what that "something" was, but she didn't much care for it. "We are in a superior position to intercept the vessel you are pursuing. We will deal with it. Break off. Hellbarde, clear."

Ferrero understood McKee's reaction to that brusque message perfectly. Captains of warships of sovereign star nations didn't necessarily have to waste fulsome military punctilio on one another, but there were certain standards of courtesy. This message was little more than a curt dismissal, an instruction to get out of Hellbarde's way which did not even respond to Ferrero by name. Addressed to a warship of a navy which had so recently ratified its claim as the most powerful one within several hundred light-years, it amounted to a studied insult. Moreover, under established interstellar naval protocols, the fact that Jessica Epps was already clearly in pursuit and overhauling before Hellbarde entered the chase gave her priority in claiming the prize. As Ferrero had just observed, this was her bird, not Hellbarde's.

"Put me on-mike, Mecia," she said flatly.

"Aye, aye, Ma'am." McKee tapped a command into her panel, then nodded to her commander. "Live mike, Ma'am."

"Hellbarde, this is Captain Ferrero." The CO forced her tone to remain pleasant but allowed an edge of crispness to intrude. "We appreciate the offer of assistance, but we have the situation in hand. Be advised that we will be firing our initial warning shot in approximately—" she checked the sidebar on her tactical plot "—eighteen standard minutes. Captain Ferrero, clear."

She waved one hand, gesturing for McKee to go ahead and transmit, then leaned back in her chair, wondering what in the hell this Kapitän der Sterne Gortz thought she was playing at. It wasn't as if a ship the size of the pirate they were chasing was going to be worth an enormous amount of prize money. No navy would buy something as small and lightly armed as a typical pirate vessel into service, so the only real possibility for prize money would be the thousand dollars of "head money" the Star Kingdom paid for each pirate captured—or killed resisting capture—in the course of a warship's cruise. Given the small size of the current candidate, that probably wouldn't amount to much more than forty or fifty thousand to be divided amongst Jessica Epps' entire crew. Neither Ferrero nor her personnel were out here expecting to get wealthy capturing pirates, but there was still a principle involved. Not to mention the fact that routine relations between interstellar navies required a certain minimum level of courtesy to be maintained. After all—"Missile launch!" Harris snapped suddenly. "Confirmed multiple missile launches!"

Ferrero jerked upright in her chair, spinning towards Tactical in astonishment. Harris took another fraction of a second to confirm the preposterous readings, then looked up.

"The Andy just launched on the pirate, Skipper! I have three birds in acquisition!"

Ferrero's eyes dropped to her own repeater plot, and she swallowed a curse of disbelief as it updated. Harris was right. Preposterous as it sounded, Hellbarde had just launched missiles at Jessica Epps' prize in complete violation of all interstellar naval practice. Not to mention at least half a dozen solemn protocols Ferrero could think of right off hand.

There was nothing she—or anyone in the universe—could have done to change what happened next. Hellbarde was much closer to the target than Jessica Epps was, and the flight time on her missiles was little more than seventy seconds. None of them were warning shots, either.

The hapless suspected pirate altered course, rolling ship frantically in an effort to interpose the roof of its impeller wedge between it and the incoming warheads. It was wasted effort, and its pathetically outclassed counter missiles and point defense were equally useless. Seventy-four seconds after Hellbarde's launch, what had been a forty-seven thousand-ton starship had become a spreading pattern of very small pieces of wreckage.

"Jessica Epps, this is Hellbarde," the same harsh, hard voice said from the bridge speakers. "As we said, we will deal with it. Hellbarde, clear."

Every eye on Jessica Epps' command deck turned to Erica Ferrero. Most of them turned away, almost as quickly, for not one of her officers could ever recall having seen so much raw fury on their captain's face. She glared at her plot, lips tight in a snarl of anger, and every fiber of her being wanted to lash out at that smug, disdainful voice.

But a small, clear voice of warning sounded in the back of her brain, despite her rage. She had no doubt that Kapitän der Sterne Gortz—whoever the hell she was—had enjoyed what she'd just done, but the fact that she'd done it at all, coupled with the increased Andermani presence throughout this entire region, suggested a great many unpleasant possibilities. No warship captain in her right mind would gratuitously violate all accepted interstellar law and standards of behavior and simultaneously insult another navy the way Gortz just had . . . unless there was a very good reason for it.

It was always possible that Gortz wasn't in her right mind, but that seemed unlikely, to say the least. Another possibility was that she was one of the Andies who particularly resented the RMN's presence in Silesia—or, at least, the Star Kingdom's refusal to give her own star nation a free hand in the Confederacy—and who believed she was sufficiently well born (or had sufficiently powerful personal patrons within the IAN) to escape the consequences of her actions.

Or, Fererro thought, it's also possible that she was under orders to do precisely what she just did. Or something else like it.

The Andies had been confronting Manticoran warships more and more openly and aggressively for months now. There'd never been anything else quite this blatant, but if Gortz's actions did represent a deliberate, pre-sanctioned act, it was arguably a direct, straight-line evolution of what they'd already been doing. Yet if that were the case, it was also a substantial escalation, a deliberate provocation.

And whatever it was, it was Erica Ferrero's job to respond to it.

"Skipper?"

Lieutenant Commander Harris's voice drew her attention, and she looked up from the plot at which she'd been glaring.

"Yes, Shawn?" She was just a bit surprised by how calm her own voice sounded.

"CIC's just completed an analysis of the Andy missiles, Ma'am," Harris told her. "They were pulling ninety-one thousand gees. And they detonated over fifty thousand klicks from the target." Her eyes widened in surprise, and he nodded. "Not only that, but CIC estimates that they scored at least eighty-five percent of possible hits."

Ferrero understood immediately why CIC had passed its analysis on to Harris . . . and why Shawn had passed it on to her so quickly in turn. Those figures represented an increase of over seven percent in what ONI listed as the maximum acceleration for an Andermani shipkiller missile, and fifty thousand kilometers represented an increase of well over sixty percent in any standoff attack range the RMN had ever previously observed out of an Andy laser head, as well.

And eighty-five percent of possible is damned impressive targeting for a laser head at any range, she thought.

The question was why Gortz should choose to deliberately reveal that improvement in capabilities to Jessica Epps. And it had to have been deliberate. She certainly hadn't needed to launch her birds at maximum accel—assuming, of course, that that was what she'd done, and that she hadn't had still more drive power in reserve—just as there'd been no compelling tactical need to show off her laser heads' reach and accuracy. It was entirely possible that the Andy had had still more performance in reserve, she reflected. Even if Gortz was deliberately making a statement, it would make sense to keep at least a little bit back to use as a surprise in an emergency. But whether or not what they'd just seen was the maximum possible performance envelope for the IAN's current generation of missiles, it was a substantial improvement in what everyone had thought were the limits of the Andies' hardware.

Which suggested that this entire episode did indeed reflect a new and even more dangerous level in the Empire's aggressive foreign and naval policy.

"Record for transmission, Mecia," Ferrero said after a moment.

"Recording, Ma'am," Lieutenant McKee acknowledged.

"Captain Gortz," Erica Ferrero said in icy tones, "this is Captain Ferrero. Your high-handed intervention in my pursuit of a suspected pirate represents a violation of the established protocols in existence between the Andermani Empire and the Star Kingdom of Manticore. Your destruction of the vessel in question, leading to the death of all aboard, whose guilt or innocence had not been confirmed and who had not received the warning shot specified by numerous interstellar accords, also represents an unacceptable violation of customary naval usage and interstellar law and arguably constitutes an act of cold-blooded murder. I protest your actions in the strongest terms, and I will be filing a record of this incident with my own command authorities and the Star Kingdom's Foreign Office. My recommendation will be that interstellar legal proceedings against you and your bridge officers be initiated immediately, and I look forward with anticipation to the time at which you may be invited before a court of admiralty to explain and justify your performance here this afternoon. Ferrero, clear."

"On the chip, Ma'am. " McKee's confirmation was soft, and Ferrero smiled humorlessly at the com officer's tone. Yet she had no choice but to respond to Gortz's actions in uncompromising terms . . . especially if they did represent a deliberate shift in the IAN's policy towards the Royal Navy. Higher authority could always back off from her initial hard-line position, but until those same higher authorities could be advised of what had just happened, it was up to her to do anything she could to make the Andermani rethink any inclination towards confrontation.

"Send it," she told McKee, then turned to Lieutenant McClelland, her astrogator.

"Turn us around, James," she told him. "Take us back out across the limit. And calculate a least-time transit to Marsh."

"Aye, aye, Ma'am." The short, brown-haired, brown-eyed officer—one of the few native Sidemorians in Jessica Epps' company—studied his plot, then looked at the cruiser's helmsman.

"Helm, reverse heading and go to five-zero-five gravities," he said.

"Reversing heading and going to five-zero-five gravities, aye, Sir," the helmsman replied, and Jessica Epps turned end-for-end and began decelerating towards the hyper limit.

"Captain," McKee said in a very formal voice, "Hellbarde is hailing us. They sound . . . pretty insistent about speaking to you."

"Ignore them," Ferrero told her in a voice of liquid helium.

"Aye, aye, Ma'am," McKee acknowledged, and Ferrero returned her attention to her plot.

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