David Weber - The Service of the Sword

"... so for right now, I want you t' head back t' Refuge. We'll return t' collect you and your people after we investigate this contact."

Abigail watched Captain Oversteegen's face on the small com screen. He looked calm and confident, despite the fact that CIC had confirmed that both of the incoming impeller signatures belonged to something at least the size of heavy cruisers. That was big for a pirate vessel, yet far too small to be any sort of merchant ship. Of course, no pirate was going to be able to match either the technology or the training of the RMN. But still...

"Understood, Sir," she told him, and waited out the light-speed communications delay until he nodded in satisfaction.

"Keep an eye out," he said. "Right now, it looks like we're lookin' at only a pair of ships. And it's still possible we're goin' t' find out that they're regular warships here for a legitimate purpose, too. But whatever they are, they're maintainin' their course along the outer edge of the limit. That's... unusual enough t' make me suspicious, but it also means they're not immediately tryin' t' evade us. So if it turns out they're pirates, they're mighty gutsy ones. Either that, or they've got something t' hide that's important enough for them t' risk taking on a heavy cruiser. And if they do, they're not goin' t' hesitate t' go after a pinnace, as well. Exercise your discretion... and try not t' get the Refugians involved. Oversteegen, clear."

The screen blanked. Abigail sat and gazed at it for a moment, then shook herself, stood, and stepped forward from the flight engineer's cramped cubbyhole of a compartment to the flight deck.

"You heard, PO?" she asked the pilot.

"Yes, Ma'am," Petty Officer First Class Hoskins replied. She gestured at her maneuvering plot, which was currently configured to display the entire system. The small display was too tiny to show much detail on such a large scale, but it was more than enough to show Gauntlet 's friendly green icon speeding rapidly away from the pinnace towards the two unknowns. "'Bout to get kind of lonely, Ma'am," she observed.

"I think I feel sorrier for whoever that is, assuming they're bad guys, than I do for the Captain," Abigail said, and realized she wasn't just preserving a confident front for Hoskins' benefit. "But in the meantime, I suppose we should do what we were told. Let's turn it around, PO."

"Yes, Ma'am. Should I head for Zion, or just for planetary orbit?"

"I think we'll want to stay away from Zion, whatever happens," Abigail said slowly. "For right now, plan on sliding us back into orbit when we reach the planet. We can always change our minds later, if we have to."

"Aye, aye, Ma'am," Hoskins said, and Abigail nodded and turned to make her way back to the passenger compartment.

Sergeant Gutierrez looked up alertly, and she parked herself back in her own chair, across the aisle from the Marine.

" Gauntlet has picked up a couple of unknown hyper footprints," she told him. "She's moving to investigate them now."

"I see, Ma'am." Gutierrez considered her with neutral eyes. "And what about us, if I can ask?"

"The Captain wants us to head back towards Refuge. We can't match Gauntlet 's acceleration rate, and he doesn't want to delay to pick us up."

"I see," Gutierrez repeated.

"He doesn't want us to involve the Refugians if anything... unexpected happens," Abigail continued.

"Do we have some reason to expect that something will happen, Ma'am?"

"Not that I'm aware of, Sergeant," Abigail replied. "On the other hand, there are two of them. That we know of," she added, and Gutierrez looked at her for a moment.

"Do you really think there could be more of them hiding out there, somewhere, Ma'am?" The sergeant's tone was respectful enough, but that didn't keep him from sounding just a little incredulous.

"I think that, as far as we know, the Alliance has the best sensor technology in space, Sergeant," Abigail told him, keeping her own voice serene. "I also think a star system represents a very large volume of very empty space, and we don't have a system-wide surveillance net in place. So while I don't necessarily think it's likely there are more of them around, I also don't think it's impossible. Which is why I'd like to be prepared for the possibility."

"Yes, Ma'am."

It was plain to Abigail that Gutierrez was humoring her, however respectfully he was doing it. Obviously, he was of the opinion that a midshipwoman who left her Marine bodyguards behind while she wandered off into the middle of an unknown settlement without a qualm and then worried about invisible bogeymen ambushing a Queen's ship had certain problems rationally ordering threat hierarchies. Not that he would ever dream of saying so, of course.

"What sort of preparations did you have in mind, Ma'am?" he asked after a brief pause.

"Well," Abigail said in a thoughtfully serious tone, moved by a sudden visitation from the imp of the perverse, "as I said, the Captain doesn't want us to involve the Refugians. So that seems to me to rule out a return to Zion. In fact, it would probably be a good idea for us to stay as far away from any of the Refugians' settlements as possible. After all, if there are other pirates in the system, they might decide to send one of their other ships after us, as well."

Gutierrez didn't say a word, but Abigail found it difficult not to giggle at his expression. Clearly, he was becoming even more convinced the midshipwoman with whom he'd been saddled was a dip. Now she thought pirates confronted by a Royal Manticoran Navy heavy cruiser would worry about chasing down a single pinnace ?It must have been all he could do to not shake his head in disbelief, she reflected, but she kept her own expression completely serious.

"PO Hoskins is a very good pilot," she continued, "but there's no way a pinnace could avoid a regular warship in space. So if someone does come after us, I'm going to have her set us down somewhere on the planet—preferably clear on the other side of it from the closest Refugian settlement. Of course, if they track us in, they'll be able to find the pinnace without too much difficulty, whatever we might do to conceal it. So, in a worst-case scenario like that, we'll have to abandon the pinnace and seek to evade any pursuers groundside until Gauntlet can return to pick us up."

Gutierrez's eyes were almost bulging by now, and Abigail smiled at him with an expression of becoming earnestness.

"Bearing all of that in mind, Sergeant," she told him, "I think it would be a good idea for you to make a complete survey of the survival gear we have on board. Decide what would be useful to us and get it organized into man-portable packs in case we do have to abandon."

Gutierrez hovered on the brink of protest, but he was a Marine. He couldn't quite bring himself to explain to Abigail that she was a lunatic, so instead he swallowed all of the many arguments which must have presented themselves to him and simply nodded.

"Aye, aye, Ma'am. I'll... get right on it."

"You know, Captain," Commander Blumenthal said thoughtfully, "these guys seem to have really good EW."

"What d'you mean, Guns?" Captain Oversteegen asked, turning his command chair to gaze in Blumenthal's direction.

"It's really more of a feeling than anything else at this point," Blumenthal said slowly. "But I'm having a lot more trouble getting a lock on their emissions signatures than I ought to be." He gestured at his display. "The recon platforms are less than two million klicks out, and they still aren't getting as much as they ought to. If they were still under stealth, that would be one thing, but they aren't. Instead, they seem to be doing some sort of weird jingle-jangle on our drones' passives. I haven't seen anything quite like it before."