David Weber - Torch of Freedom

On the other hand, he might just be wrong about whether or not the Manties could have shaken a task group loose for something like this, especially if they'd had enough warning to know it was coming.

"Time for us to get back across the limit, Astro?"

"Just a moment, Citizen Commodore," Citizen Lieutenant Commander Philippine Christiansen replied. She punched numbers quickly, then looked back at him. "Approximately thirty-nine minutes assuming current acceleration, Citizen Commodore. Twenty-one minutes if we go to maximum military power."

"And how long for these bogeys to reach missile range of the hyper limit, Citizen Commander Stravinsky?" Luff asked.

"Assuming they maintain their acceleration profile and that their missiles have a powered range of seven-point-five million kilometers from rest, approximately . . . seventeen minutes, Citizen Commodore."

Luff grunted. He strongly suspected that whoever that was back there had undershot his planned translation point. Unless he had multidrive missiles, he was a good four million-plus kilometers outside his own missile range at the moment, and that had to represent an astrogation error. Luff rather doubted that he'd wanted to arrive at a range where he couldn't immediately engage the people attacking Torch, after all. But if he'd undershot, he hadn't undershot by a large enough margin for Luff to change his mind, reverse acceleration, kill his current velocity, and then get back across the hyper limit and disappear into the alpha bands before he could be engaged.

Of course, any engaging would take place at very long-range , he reflected. They probably couldn't score a whole lot of hits before we hypered out, no matter what they've got back there .

He glanced once more at Maddock, this time unobtrusively, out of the corner of one eye. The Mesan captain had to know why Luff had asked Christiansen those two questions, but if he was concerned about the citizen commodore's possible decision, no sign of it showed in his expression. Which could mean confidence on his part, or simply that he knew Luff knew what would happen to any hope of further support from Manpower if he blew this mission off. Or, for that matter, it could even mean Maddock would be simply delighted if the PNE scampered off to safety, taking his own personal skin along with it.

Part of Luff wanted to do exactly that. There was always the distinct possibility that the people chasing him truly were confident of their ability to deal with him if they caught him. And if they were, they might be right.

Of course, they might be wrong, too , he told himself. Especially if they don't know about the Cataphracts. But be honest with yourself, Adrian. What you're really thinking is that this could offer you an excuse not to do something you don't want to do, anyway .

"Citizen Commodore, we're getting some tonnage estimates from CIC," Stravinsky said.

"What kind of estimates?"

"According to CIC, it looks like eight units in the hundred and twenty-five-ton range, six in the two hundred and eighty-five hundred-ton range, and two at around two million tons, Citizen Commodore."

"And they're all pulling four-point-seven-five KPS-squared?" Hartman asked just a bit sharply.

"Yes, Citizen Commander," Stravinsky replied, and Hartman grimaced.

"It seems the Erewhonese are here after all, Citizen Commodore," she said, turning back to Luff. "Nothing that size could pull that much accel without an improved compensator."

"Excuse me, Citizen Commodore," Citizen Lieutenant Yvonne Kamerling, Luff's staff communications officer, said. Luff frowned reflexively at the interruption, but he smoothed the expression quickly. He knew Kamerling wouldn't have broken in on him and Hartman at a moment like this if she hadn't believed it was important.

"What is it, Yvonne?"

"Sir, we're beginning to pick up grav pulses. Whoever that is behind us is using an FTL com to talk to someone further in-system."

"Manties?" Luff asked rather more sharply than he'd intended to as visions of great big, nasty multidrive missiles flickered through his brain.

"I don't think so, Citizen Commodore," Kamerling replied. "The pulse rate and the modulation are both wrong. It's a bit more sophisticated than we were seeing out of the Manties during the final phases of the last war, but based on our current intel, it's a lot less sophisticated than anything we'd expect to see out of them now."

"I see."

Kamerling was probably right, Luff thought. It made sense, anyway. Then again . . .

"How confident is CIC about those tonnage estimates?" he asked Stravinsky. The ops officer looked at him, and the citizen commodore waved a hand. "I'm thinking about those reports on the Manties' new battlecruiser class. Two million tons is too small to be a waller, even a dreadnought, but isn't that new battlecruiser of theirs supposed to mass right around that much?"

"The Nikes actually come in at around two and a half million, Citizen Commodore," Captain Maddock said before Stravinsky could respond. Luff transferred his gaze to the Mesan, who shrugged. "That intelligence has been pretty conclusively confirmed, according to our sources," he said. "And I think your CIC crews are too good to underestimate a mass reading by twenty percent at this short a range."

"Captain Maddock has a point, Citizen Commodore," Hartman said. "Coupled with what Yvonne's just told us about their communications, it's got to be the Erewhonese."

"But Erewhon doesn't have anything anywhere near that tonnage range," Luff pointed out.

"They don't have any warships in that tonnage range, Citizen Commodore," Hartman replied grimly. "What they could have back there, though, is a couple of smallish freighters with mil-spec compensators and cargo holds packed full of missile pods."

Luff felt his stomach muscles tighten. Their "benefactors' " latest intelligence reports all insisted that Erewhon's multidrive missile capability was extremely limited compared to that of Manticore. Or, for that matter, of the counterrevolutionaries in Nouveau Paris, at this point. But even with the original, first-generation Manty MDMs they would outrange anything he had. Except—

"If they had MDMs, they'd already be shooting at us," he heard his own voice say calmly. "Twelve million kilometers is less than a quarter of the powered range they're supposed to have."

"Agreed, Citizen Commodore," Hartman said. "But everything we've seen suggests the real problem is that they've got more range than they have fire control capability. If they're chasing us with a pair of missile freighters, then those six heavy cruisers are probably planning on acting as forward fire control platforms. They'll try to bring them in close enough to improve their hit probabilities—probably just to the edge of single-drive missile range—while they keep the freighters far enough back to be outside our own range of them when they roll the pods."

"That makes a lot of sense, Citizen Commodore," Stravinsky said. "Assuming they are Erewhonese—and given what Yvonne's just said about their FTL com, I think the Citizen Commander's right about that—I agree they could be firing on us now, if our two bigger bogies are freighters and they are carrying MDMs. But Citizen Commander Hartman's also absolutely right about the accuracy penalty they'd pay at this range. Manties might not worry about that, if there's anything to the scraps we've heard about the Battle of Lovat, but Erewhon's accuracy at extended MDM range is going to be extremely poor. At the same time, they brought a lot more velocity over the alpha wall with them than we did, and they've got the acceleration edge on us—or, at least, their heavy cruisers do—so they must figure they can bring us into the range they want before we get into our own powered envelope of the planet. They may have lots of missiles, but why waste a bunch of them at this kind of range when they don't have to?"