Jack Campbell: The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Steadfast

“I’ll see if I can tweak our gear to mask what they’re picking up,” the flight engineer added, concentrating on her controls.

A few minutes passed, the shuttle making gentle adjustments up, down, right, left, to weave along vectors toward the most open path between their hunters and all the other objects moving through this portion of space, all while still heading toward an intercept with Dauntless .

Geary had almost relaxed when he heard Tanya draw in breath in a hiss between her teeth. “Something’s happened. Those guys are zeroing in on us.”

The pilot nodded, stress visible on his face. “They shouldn’t be. But they’ve started reacting to our movements as if they’ve got a much better idea of where we are than they should.”

“Whatever gear they’ve just activated, it’s not as good as what Dauntless is using to track them.” Desjani switched her gaze to Geary. “About a generation behind our best gear, I’d guess.”

“Which means a generation ahead of what’s in this star system?” he asked. “It looks like whoever wants us provided money and some equipment.”

“Can I do anything against it?” the flight engineer asked.

Desjani made an angry gesture. “I don’t know. I’m not a tech. If we had Senior Chief Tarrini here, she’d probably know exactly what to do with your gear to confuse the guys hunting us.”

“We could have Tarrini pass instructions to the flight engineer over my comm unit,” Geary suggested.

Tanya shook her head. “It would take too long for her to study the equipment remotely, figure out how it’s configured and what to tweak. By the time that was done, Dauntless would already be here, or we’d already be screwed. It is older stuff, though. Do you know anything about it, Admiral?”

It was his turn to make a negating motion. “The gear I trained on was at least three generations behind what the Alliance uses now. Maybe four generations. And I wasn’t a tech, either. I just have a general knowledge of how it works.”

“This is what happens when you only have officers and no chiefs or other enlisted,” Desjani grumbled. “Plenty of people to give orders but no one who knows how to carry them out. How good are you?” she asked the pilot.

The pilot smiled crookedly. “Pretty damned good.”

“Every pilot thinks that.” Desjani looked to the flight engineer, who nodded confirmation.

“He’s not bad,” the engineer said. “Got a decent feel for the bird. Only crashed once since I’ve known him.”

“That wasn’t a crash,” the pilot replied, his voice sharp. “It was an abrupt landing aggravated by adverse conditions.”

“Glad to hear it,” Desjani said. “Because it’s up to you to get us through those guys. What do I tell Dauntless , Admiral?”

He knew what she meant. Do I give the Alliance battle cruiser permission to fire on the three pursuers if necessary? It shouldn’t have been that hard a question to answer; except from the way these people of Earth had reacted to the idea it was clear that doing so would cause a huge outcry, far greater than any upset over the annihilation of the Shield of Sol ships in the outer reaches of the star system.

“Just tell Dauntless to get here as quickly as she can,” Geary said.

“She’s coming around the curve of the planet now and braking to match velocity with us. Estimate three more minutes until we’re along-side.”

The shuttle lurched up, swinging to the left as it did so. “Weren’t expecting that, were you?” the pilot muttered fiercely, his eyes fixed on the display over Desjani’s comm unit.

The closest hunter slid past just beneath them, not realizing it had missed by a few hundred meters getting close enough to establish a firm lock on the shuttle’s position.

But the evasive maneuver had brought them up toward the higher hunter, and now the pilot brought the shuttle back down with a swift change in vector. “They’ll see that!” the flight engineer warned the pilot. “You’re maneuvering too hard.”

“I know! They’re getting too close! We can’t hide any longer. Our only chance is to keep dodging away from them until that battle cruiser gets here!”

“But they might—”

“I don’t have any other options!”

The shuttle ducked and darted through space, evading each time one of the hunters threatened to get too close, maneuvers complicated by the need to avoid hitting anything else around them. Geary’s breath caught as they zipped over a stodgy tug plodding obliviously through space, then narrowly avoided hitting a satellite racing along on its fixed orbit. Despite the pilot’s evasive moves, the net kept tightening around them, the distances to the pursuers shrinking as they gradually converged on the desperate flight of the shuttle.

“One minute until Dauntless gets here,” Desjani reported.

A high-pitched keening sounded just as she finished speaking. The flight engineer silenced the alarm and called to the pilot. “They’re targeting us! Trying for a lock-on!”

“Try active jamming!”

“If I do, they’ll fire on the jamming source! We wouldn’t last five seconds! I’m doing all I can with passive countermeasures.”

“ Dauntless ,” Desjani said in a voice whose calm tone contrasted with the frantic words of the pilot and the flight engineer. “We are being targeted. I see you forty seconds from intercept, stern on. Override the collision-avoidance systems and maximize after shields. Your relative speed at contact should be enough to brush aside the two closest of our pursuers without hazarding the ship.”

“Captain?” the reply came. “We can nail them with hell lances easy.”

“Firing is not authorized,” Desjani said.

“Captain, just to be clear, you are directing us to make shield contact with the closest pursuers of your shuttle.”

“That’s correct. Do it.”

“Follow your captain’s orders,” Geary said, leaning in toward her comm unit. I just concurred in ordering my flagship to deliberately collide with other spacecraft. “Are you sure?” he muttered to Desjani.

“I know my ship,” she insisted. “And I know maneuvering in space. Right now, those guys after us are moving just a little faster than we are and in the same direction, so they can stay close. Dauntless is slowing to match our speed, so when her shields make contact with any of them, the impact should be at a relative velocity of only about ten meters per second and dropping.”

“About ten meters per second? There’s a significant amount of mass in whatever is hunting us. That will still be a dangerous impact.”

“ Dauntless ’s shields can handle it.”

It was one of those moments in which he either accepted her judgment or undercut her, and he knew that Tanya had a lot more combat experience than he did, as well as a lot more experience with current warships. “All right.”

“Steady out,” Desjani ordered the pilot. “Get on a vector and hold it. I don’t want my ship hitting you, too, because you’re bouncing around.”

With a stunned look at her, the pilot did as he was told, settling the shuttle onto a single course and speed. Almost instantly, the three pursuers, unaware of how accurately they were being tracked by Dauntless , turned onto intercept vectors that would get them close enough to lock onto the stealthed shuttle and open fire.

A bright star coming toward them grew rapidly in size as the remaining distance dwindled, Dauntless ’s main propulsion units straining at full capacity to reduce her speed to match that of the shuttle. Her dark, shark-shaped hull was invisible behind the hellish glare from the propulsion units.