David Weber - The Shadow of Saganami

With the sensor suite a typical merchie carried, it was improbable to the point of impossibility that the prize ship-and Kaplan had no more doubt than the Captain or FitzGerald of what the lurking freighter was-could pick up Hexapuma , coming in under stealth, before she got well into the powered envelope of her multi-drive missiles. If she didn't, she couldn't possibly escape into hyper in the interval between the time Hexapuma fired and the time the attack birds arrived on target. And no merchie in the galaxy was going to survive a full missile broadside from an Edward Saganami-C -class cruiser.

Unfortunately, blowing her out of space wasn't exactly the best way to rescue any merchant spacers who might still be on board her.

"Letting One and Two operate freely would be unacceptable, even if it let us get all the way into energy range and take out the merchie's impellers before she could translate clear," Terekhov began mildly, then paused as the briefing room hatch slid open.

Joanna Agnelli walked through it, carrying a tray which bore three coffee cups, a plate of bran muffins, liberally stuffed with raisins and still steaming from the oven, and a covered butter dish. She crossed to the conference table, set down the tray, poured a cup of coffee and settled it on a saucer in front of Terekhov, and then poured cups for FitzGerald and Bagwell. Then she took the cover off the butter dish, handed each bemused officer a snow-white linen napkin, cast one final look around the briefing room, as if searching for something to straighten or dust, and withdrew… all without a single word.

Terekhov and his subordinates looked at one another for a moment. Then the exec grinned and shrugged, and all three of them picked up their coffee cups.

"As I say," Terekhov picked up his previous thought along with his cup, "pulling Hexapuma out of the inner system's unacceptable. There's no way we could expect Commodore Karlberg to take on two modern warships. And, frankly, capturing or destroying those two ships has a far higher priority than retaking a single captured merchie."

"Agreed, Sir," Kaplan said, but her tone was sour. It cut across the grain for any naval officer to abandon possible survivors to pirates, and the naturally combative tactical officer found the notion even more repugnant than most.

"I don't especially like that either, Guns." Terekhov's tone was mild, but his expression wasn't, and Kaplan sat just a bit straighter in her quarters. "In this case, however, it's possible that what we're looking at aren't your regular, run-of-the-mill pirates."

He paused, holding the coffee cup in his left hand as he gazed back and forth between his subordinates with an oddly expectant light in his eyes, as if waiting for something.

"Sir?" FitzGerald said, and Terekhov made the right-handed throwing away gesture he used to punctuate his thought processes.

"Think about it, Ansten. We've got two warships here. So far, we don't know much about them, except that their stealth capabilities and EW were good enough to keep our sensor array from getting a hard read. Admittedly, we're only using passives, they're coming in under emcon, and the range is very long, but there's no way a typical pirate has that kind of capability. Especially not the sort who'd normally operate out here in the Verge. And while word of the Lynx Terminus must have spread pretty much through the League by now, along with the news that shipping is going to be picking up in the vicinity, we're quite a long way from Lynx at the moment. So just what's sufficiently important about a system as poverty stricken as Nuncio to attract pirates with relatively modern vessels?"

FitzGerald frowned. He'd been focused on the tactical aspects of the situation, and the Captain's question hadn't even occurred to him. It took him a few more seconds to work through the logic chain which Terekhov had obviously already considered, but Bagwell got there first. He looked at Terekhov, tilting his head to the side.

"Sir," he said slowly, "are you suggesting they weren't 'attracted' at all? That they were sent ?"

"I think it's possible." Terekhov tilted his chair back and sipped coffee, gazing up at the holo display as if it were a seer's crystal ball. "I can't assess how probable it is, Guthrie, but I find those ships' presence here… disturbing. Not the fact that raiders are operating in the area." The right hand moved again. "Weakness always invites predators, even when the hunting isn't all that good. But I am disturbed by their evident capability. And if I were an outside power intent on destabilizing the area to hinder or prevent the annexation, I'd certainly consider subsidizing an increased level of pirate activity."

"That's not a happy thought, Skipper," FitzGerald said.

"No, it's not," Terekhov agreed. "And I'd say the odds are at least even that I'm being overly suspicious. It's entirely possible we have two genuine pirates here, and that they're simply taking the long view and scouting the area with an eye to future operations. In either case, taking them out has a higher priority than retaking the merchie. But the need to determine which they really are, if we can, lends weight to the desirability of taking at least one of them more or less intact."

"Yes, Sir," FitzGerald agreed, and Kaplan nodded.

"But that's going to mean getting them in a lot closer," the exec went on. "I think Abigail's right, and these people aren't any bigger than a pair of cruisers. In that case, taking them with missiles would be fairly straightforward. Unless they're Peeps with heavy pods on tow, of course, which is sort of unlikely this far from home."

Terekhov's lips twitched in a smile at FitzGerald's massive understatement, and the commander continued.

"Range advantage or no, though, we don't want to be throwing full broadsides at them unless we intend to go for quick kills and risk destroying them outright. And unlike their merchie, these people will have hot nodes and generators, despite the wear on the components. If they're outside the hyper limit, they'll probably have time to duck back across it before we can disable them with smaller salvos. So we need to let them in deep enough to give us some time to work on them before they can make a break over the hyper wall."

"At least." Terekhov nodded. "And, while taking out the actual pirates may have a higher priority than retaking the freighter, I fully intend to attempt both."

All three of his subordinates looked at him in surprise. Surprise, he noticed, which held more than a hint of incredulity, and he smiled again, thinly.

"No, I haven't taken leave of my senses. And I'm not at all sure we can pull off what I have in mind. But there's at least a chance, I think, if we play our cards properly. And if we can pull the preparations together fast enough."

He set down his coffee cup and let his chair come fully upright, and all three of his officers found themselves leaning forward in theirs.

"First," he said, "we have to deal with Bogey One and Bogey Two. As you say, Ansten, that's going to require getting them close enough to Hexapuma for us to work on them. If I were in their place, I wouldn't come inside the system hyper limit at all. If these ships are as modern and capable as their stealth capabilities seem to suggest, they probably have the sensor reach to get a good read on any active impeller signatures from at least twelve or thirteen light-minutes. So they could stop that far from Pontifex, which would leave them at least two light-minutes outside the limit, and easily spot any of Commodore Karlberg's LACs which happened to be under way. They probably wouldn't be able to pick up anything in a parking orbit with its impellers down, but if they're really modern units and they're prepared to expend the assets, they could punch recon drones past the planet. And they could feel fairly confident that nothing Nuncio has could intercept their drones even if they managed to detect them in time to try.