Shattered Spear

Chapter Six

“The Mahadhevan is changing vector,” the senior watch specialist announced.

Marphissa eyed her display, watching the HuK accelerating and coming around, using her experience to guess its path even before it had settled out. “An intercept. The man is a fool.”

“Power up weapons?” Diaz asked hopefully.

“Not yet.” She slouched back a little in her command seat, then tapped the control to contact the HuK again. “Mahadhevan, I am happy to accept your offer to serve as our escort while Manticore heads to a meeting with Imallye.” Marphissa could only guess that the pirate queen would be aboard the battle cruiser, but Imallye’s forces couldn’t include that many ships of that size. Imallye would almost certainly be riding the battle cruiser, and perhaps was acting as the warship’s commanding officer.

“Just let me know if Mahadhevan requires specific stationing instructions relative to Manticore,” Marphissa continued with cheerful confidence. “It would be very unfortunate if any accidents occurred while your ship was close to my heavy cruiser. For the people, Marphissa, out.”

Diaz looked from Marphissa to his display and back again. “May I ask what you are doing, Kommodor?”

It was an exceptionally bold question for anyone trained in the Syndicate system of absolute obedience. Marphissa gave him a stern look, then laughed. “I am responding to Mahadhevan on his own terms. Do you not recognize what he was doing? Trying to overawe me and dare me to dispute his status and his orders?”

“I saw that,” Diaz said. “And now you are going back at him in the same way?”

“Exactly. You must have seen the same game played a thousand times or more when you were in school.”

“Yes.” Diaz looked at his display again, where the HuK Mahadhevan was continuing on a course to intercept Manticore. “But I have never seen that schoolyard game played with warships carrying arsenals of deadly weapons.”

“The ball is in his court,” Marphissa said. “He must decide whether to throw a punch or take advantage of the out I gave him and pretend that it was always about his escorting us to his superiors. That’s what he’ll do if he’s smart.”

“And if he’s stupid?”

Marphissa gave Diaz a serious look this time. “He is in command of one of the warships of Granaile Imallye. What intelligence we have on Imallye says that she has amassed a significant fighting force and established control of more than one star system. We see evidence here at Moorea supporting that intelligence. Would such a capable commander allow a reckless fool to command a warship? The Syndicate may see HuKs as throwaways, warships that last only moments in most combat situations, but neither we nor Imallye have so many warships that we can afford to think that way. So, if what we have been told of Imallye is right, if what we see here at Moorea before us is as it seems, then for all his posturing Mahadhevan must have some intelligence and skills. I tell you this to explain my reasons for acting as I am. I am not simply responding to a schoolyard bluff with another bluff, but made my decisions based on analyzing this particular situation.”

“Thank you, Kommodor,” Diaz said. “Even after serving with you for a while I am still surprised, and grateful, to have you explain your reasons and plans to me.”

“If worse came to worst for me, you’d have to carry out this mission,” Marphissa said, waving away his words to cover her inner embarrassment at Diaz’s admiration. “And you may command a force on your own someday. I hope to provide you with good training for that.” She smiled. “Despite my own lack of experience.”

The combat systems specialist broke into their conversation. “The HuK Mahadhevan will be within our weapons range in seven minutes, Kommodor. He will be close enough to fire on us in eight and a half minutes.”

On Marphissa’s display a translucent globe appeared around the Hunter-Killer, depicting the effective range of its weapons. Another, larger, globe centered on Manticore showed the longer range of the missiles and more powerful hell lance particle beams that the heavy cruiser carried. After the heavy cruiser had changed vectors to accelerate toward the inner star system, the HuK had been positioned slightly above and just forward of Manticore. As the HuK dove toward an intercept with the heavy cruiser, its relative position did not change, but the other warship drew steadily closer.

Marphissa watched the edges of the globes approaching each other as the minutes passed.

“Kommodor,” Diaz said respectfully, “the Mahadhevan will be within range of our weapons in three minutes. I recommend targeting the Mahadhevan at this time but holding fire until the HuK fires upon us.”

“Do not target the other ship yet,” Marphissa said. “We must allow Mahadhevan the man to pretend that his actions are not driven by fear of us.”

Diaz nodded, biting his lip as he watched the distance between the two warships dwindle. “You appear to have an insightful knowledge of the workings of the male mind, Kommodor.”

“One of the benefits of an unsuccessful dating history,” Marphissa replied dryly. “Ah,” she added with satisfaction as her display showed new movement. “Here he goes.”

“Mahadhevan is altering vector,” the combat systems specialist reported. “Rate of closure has dropped… rate of closure has come to zero. Mahadhevan has taken up relative position just ahead of us, proceeding along the same vector toward the primary inhabited world.”

“As if he is escorting us,” Diaz said scornfully. “But he is staying just outside of our weapons range. That’s foolish. We could put on a burst of full acceleration, get him inside our missile engagement range, and launch at him before he could accelerate out of reach again.”

“Yes,” Marphissa agreed. “But Mahadhevan the man is not experienced enough in command to know that. We won’t tell him. With any luck, we won’t have to engage any of the forces of Granaile Imallye.”

“How close are we going to get to that battle cruiser?” Diaz asked.

“No closer than I have to in order to carry out a real-time conversation,” Marphissa said. “We’ll see whether Imallye contacts us before we get that close.” It would still be about fifty-nine hours before Manticore intercepted the planet along its orbit and the warships near it. Plenty of time for Imallye to hear Marphissa’s message, which, traveling at the speed of light, should arrive in about five more hours, and send a reply, which would take almost five hours on top of that to be received by Marphissa. Light was very fast, but in the immense distances of space it often felt very slow as well.

It actually took nearly twelve hours before Imallye’s reply came in. In the interim, Marphissa had worked for some hours, ate, slept, had a breakfast, then returned to the bridge to work on some more of what was still called “paperwork” even though little of it was ever printed out on paper.

Imallye, sprawled in the fleet command seat on the battle cruiser, wasn’t wearing a cast-off Syndicate CEO’s suit. She was in a skin suit meant to be worn under battle armor, the suit’s dull, black shade set off by gold insignia that glittered at her neck and on her sleeves. A large sidearm in a worn-looking holster was on one hip. A big, standard-issue Syndicate close-combat knife was sheathed on her other hip. It was, Marphissa had to admit, a very effective image.

“I have received your message, Kommodor Marphissa,” Imallye said without any indication of how she felt about the warning it contained. “Proceed to a rendezvous with my flagship Vengeance so we can conduct a real-time conversation about these critical matters.” Imallye paused, then smiled. “Please proceed. We will speak again when you are less than one light minute from Vengeance. Imallye, out.”

“Vengeance?” Diaz said. “That’s not a very reassuring name for a battle cruiser.”

“No.” Marphissa called up a still from the message and studied Imallye. “What do you think of her?”

“She looks… strong,” Diaz said. “Confident. Powerful. Dangerous. Overtly so.”

“Yes,” Marphissa agreed. “It’s a show, but a very good one. That skin suit she’s wearing. Maybe Imallye is former Syndicate ground forces. No one else wears those.”

“Vipers do.”

“Mutinous workers following a former viper? I don’t think so. They would rip her into pieces no matter how dangerous she looked.” Marphissa scowled at the image. “What’s her game? How did she get her hands on that battle cruiser? I admit to being worried about getting too close to that warship, but we need to find out more about Imallye. I need to talk to her, and I am certain if we try to talk again from any distance farther out than one light minute, she will refuse to answer.”

“Notice what we can see of the bridge of the Vengeance?” Diaz added. “It looks neat and well kept. The bridge of Mahadhevan had some signs of sloppiness, but what is visible inside Vengeance shows a tight ship.”

“She knows her business,” Marphissa agreed. “Let’s hope she is willing to work with President Iceni. I have no doubt that Kapitan Kontos and Pele could take apart Vengeance, but Pele might take a lot of damage in the process. We couldn’t afford that, not with both the Syndicate and the enigmas to worry about.”

She could not share with Diaz the confidential words of President Iceni before Manticore had left Midway. Marphissa had replayed that private message again just a few hours ago, studying the somber expression on Iceni’s face as she spoke. “Kommodor, be wary of Imallye. What she has accomplished already indicates that Imallye is both resourceful and driven. She could be an important ally. Or an implacable enemy. Do all you can to convince her of the need to work together against the enigma threat to this region of space. But just because she is an enemy of the Syndicate does not mean that she will be a friend to us. General Drakon and I are former CEOs, and if Imallye is driven by a desire for reprisal against senior Syndicate officials, our prior status may be all she cares about.”

In light of that warning, the name of Imallye’s battle cruiser, the Vengeance, felt even more worrisome.

Point two light speed worked out to about sixty thousand kilometers per second, an almost unimaginably fast velocity for humans to contemplate. But the distance to cover to reach the primary inhabited planet along its orbit was about six light hours, which came to nearly six and a half billion kilometers. A distance so great that even light required six hours to make the journey did not quickly yield to velocities measured in mere thousands of kilometers.

And so it was nearly two and a half days later that Manticore reached the vicinity of the planet, swooping in from the outer star system on a curving path that intercepted the world as it raced along its orbit about the star Moorea at a piddling twenty-eight kilometers per second.

“I want us brought into an orbit exactly fifty-nine light seconds from Imallye’s battle cruiser Vengeance,” Marphissa directed. “Make certain we are at a dead stop relative to Vengeance. Do not use more than seventy-five percent power on your main propulsion when braking. I want to conceal our maximum capability.”

Manticore’s automated maneuvering systems could handle that kind of challenge fairly easily. Pivoting under the push of thrusters so that her bow faced backward and her main propulsion forward along their path, Manticore began firing her main propulsion, fighting momentum and slowing her progress through space. The ship’s inertial dampers ran their stress readings up toward the red danger zones, but stayed well out of trouble as the heavy cruiser braked.

It took a while to kill such immense velocity, but eventually Diaz smiled triumphantly as Manticore came to a halt relative to Vengeance. Both ships were still moving through space along their orbits, but their vectors matched exactly, so they were apparently sitting still compared to each other. “Exactly fifty-nine light seconds from Vengeance, Kommodor,” he announced.

“Thank you, Kapitan,” Marphissa said. “Well done. Now, let us see what Granaile Imallye will say to us.”

This time, Marphissa sat straight and tried to look as professional as possible. She couldn’t match the informal deadliness of Imallye’s outfit and posture, and so did not even try. Imallye would see that Midway’s Kommodor was no slacker.

“Honored Granaile Imallye,” Marphissa began, “I have come to Moorea on orders from President Iceni of the Free and Independent Midway Star System. I am to convey to you and everyone else the dangers posed by our discovery that the alien enigma species has developed enough range on their jump drives to reach Iwa Star System directly. I am also to offer our willingness to reach peace agreements, trade agreements, and even mutual defense agreements with the star systems under your control.”

It would only have taken two minutes for a reply (one minute for Marphissa’s transmission to reach Vengeance and another minute for the return journey of Imallye’s reply), but more than ten minutes elapsed before the answer came. Imallye was clearly trying to establish herself as superior in status to Marphissa.

The pirate queen was wearing the same outfit and was in nearly the same pose as before. But her expression was harder as she gazed out at Marphissa. “So, you came to offer us deals and favors, Kommodor. And a peace agreement. On behalf of CEO Iceni.”

The reference to Iceni’s Syndicate past brought up worrisome memories of Iceni’s warning. Marphissa tried to look unruffled and to keep her voice even. “President Iceni sent us here. She has renounced the Syndicate and their ways, and governs Midway Star System by the will of the people. We do not wish hostilities with your forces. The Syndicate is a threat to us all, and so are the enigmas. I have sent you our records of what the enigmas did to Iwa Star System. Moorea may be their next target. A mutual defense agreement would serve us all well.”

When her response came two minutes later, Imallye did not appear to be impressed by Marphissa’s argument. “I know nothing about the so-called enigmas except that the Syndicate claimed that they existed. Since the Syndicate lied about so much else, that means little to me. I also know the damage your records show at Iwa, if those records have not been manipulated, could have been inflicted by weapons fired from ships such as yours, Kommodor. And I know that no matter what she calls herself or what flattery her minions offer up in describing her, CEO Iceni is fully capable of ordering such an attack. I do not see grounds for peace in such a situation.”

That sounded very much like personal animosity toward Iceni. Where had that come from?

Before she could touch the transmit command to answer, Kapitan Diaz halted Marphissa with an urgent gesture. “My systems specialists inform me that there are intrusion attempts being made against our software. At least one of Imallye’s ships is trying to use the Syndicate unit net to break into our systems.”

“Is there any danger of their succeeding?” Marphissa asked.

“My specialists are certain they can maintain the firewalls. They say the intrusion attempts are using Syndicate-origin malware which is a few revisions behind that which our forces captured from the snakes at Ulindi, so our systems can easily spot it and stop it.”

“Good. I won’t let Imallye know that her efforts have been detected and neutralized.” Marphissa composed her expression once more before touching the transmit command and kept her reply even in tone as if nothing untoward had occurred. “Honored Granaile Imallye, I know little of President Iceni’s past. Like all of us who were forced to serve the Syndicate, she doubtless has her share of skeletons in her closet. I can only speak to who she has been since arriving at Midway. As a CEO, she worked for the people. As soon as a good opportunity arose, she rebelled against the Syndicate and destroyed the snake presence in Midway Star System. Since then, she has overseen reforms of the election system and the legal system at Midway to grant real rights to the people, and to protect the people and their rights from those in power. Whatever has led to your skepticism regarding President Iceni’s nature and motives, I ask that you become familiar with her record at Midway.”

Imallye smiled without visible humor. “I will become very familiar with it when I sift through the rubble of her headquarters in that star system.”

That sounded more like a promise than a threat. To hell with diplomacy. Marphissa drew herself up and gazed sternly at Imallye. “The only wreckage that will be produced if you attack Midway will be the debris from the remains of your ships,” she said coldly. “We have already driven off multiple attacks by the Syndicate. We have substantial forces, very capable commanders, and the loyalty of our crews. They will fight for their homes and their families and destroy anyone who endangers them. We would, however, much rather fight alongside your ships against those mutual threats we face.”

“Indeed?” Imallye displayed that grim smile again. “I can’t help but wonder why such a powerful foe would come to me begging for peace and support against her enemies. Is Iceni trying to buy time to set up defenses at Iwa against me? Does she fear that Iwa will fall to me before she can snatch it up?”

Marphissa blinked, surprised by the statement. “There is nothing left at Iwa to fall, nothing to conquer. No defenses. I sent you the records of what we saw there. You know that every aspect of the human presence at Iwa has been devastated.”

“What I know is that, if your records are accurate and not manipulated, then Iwa is unoccupied, and therefore easily available to me as a base,” Imallye said.

“A base?” Marphissa failed to hide her incredulity. “When the enigmas can hit it again at any time? Iwa is a death trap!”

“And yet you are working so hard to keep me from going there.” Imallye’s image glared at Marphissa. “I don’t believe you. You work for Iceni, so you’ll say anything. And I know that if I leave myself exposed to Iceni at all I will end up with a knife in my back.”

“President Iceni does not want hostilities with you! Midway wants to free star systems from the Syndicate. We threaten no one!”

“As long as Iceni has a flotilla of warships, she is a threat,” Imallye said flatly.

And Manticore was part of that flotilla. Marphissa made sure her comm control was off before flinging an order at Diaz. “Kapitan, head for the jump point back to Iwa. Now. Maximum acceleration.”

She faced forward, composed her expression, then hit transmit again. “Honored Granaile Imallye, you are mistaken. I ask again that you familiarize yourself with the situation at Midway before you reach a decision. The enigmas are real, and they are resolved to destroy any human presence. Please accept President Iceni’s offer of peace.”

Manticore was pivoting around under the push of her thrusters putting out their full force, her bow nearly lined up with the vector back to the jump point.

Forty seconds into the maneuver the combat systems specialist called out a warning. “Vengeance began altering vector fifty-nine seconds ago!”

“He started maneuvering before he could have seen our moves,” Diaz said.

“I had a hunch that conversation was at an end,” Marphissa replied.

“All hands brace for full acceleration!” Diaz warned a moment before Manticore’s main propulsion lit off and hurled the heavy cruiser out of her orbit. High-pitched whines of complaint issued from the inertial dampers as they tried to keep the strains on the crew and the ship’s structure from tearing both apart.

“Vengeance lit off her main propulsion fifty-nine seconds ago! Estimate the battle cruiser is accelerating on an intercept with our previous orbit.”

Diaz, back pressed against his seat by the acceleration, still managed to shake his head. “Anticipating what Vengeance would do bought us a little advantage starting out. But we can’t outrun a battle cruiser. They’ve got a higher thrust-to-mass ratio than we do.”

“Maybe we got enough of a head start,” Marphissa said. “And we were already fifty-nine light seconds ahead of them. Maybe that will be enough.” She didn’t believe that, but she still nursed an irrational hope.

“We’ll know for sure when the vectors steady down,” Diaz said. But from the way he said it, Manticore’s captain didn’t expect to see good news when that happened.

Caught flat-footed by the sudden maneuvers, the nearest of Imallye’s warships, the HuK Mahadhevan, had been left behind when Manticore bolted. The HuK began pivoting to join in the chase, then abruptly stopped.

“None of Imallye’s light cruisers or HuKs are pursuing us,” Diaz said. “It looks as if Mahadhevan started to but then received orders to stay in orbit.”

“Imallye doesn’t need the HuKs or light cruisers if that battle cruiser catches us,” Marphissa said angrily. “And a prolonged chase would run through the fuel cell supply on the HuKs and leave them in trouble. She’s probably leaving the light cruisers here to keep an eye on that planet, which may not be as securely under her control as she implied.”

An alarm pulsed on Marphissa’s display, accompanied by a red flashing symbol. “Hull stress is exceeding safety parameters,” the senior specialist reported.

“Kommodor?” Diaz asked.

Marphissa took a moment to think, breathing deeply, and weighing the need to maintain the highest possible acceleration against the certain disintegration of both ship and crew if the hull or the inertial dampers failed. She nodded to Diaz. “You may reduce acceleration to stay within safe limits, Kapitan. Do not reduce it even a tiny amount below that level.”

Rather than order a specialist to do it, Diaz brought up the thrust controls on his own display and carefully lowered the output from Manticore’s main propulsion until the red symbol shaded into a cautionary yellow. “We can hold this as long as our fuel cells hold out, Kommodor.”

Both the heavy cruiser and the pursuing Vengeance had steadied out on their vectors. Manticore’s projected course was a very long, shallow curve that would bring her back to the jump point for Iwa, the time until that arrival still slowly diminishing as the heavy cruiser continued to accelerate. Behind her, Vengeance’s projected path was another shallow curve, this one aimed to intercept Manticore’s course far ahead of where both ships were now located, and far short of the jump point that would allow the heavy cruiser’s escape.

“Assuming both units continue operating main propulsion at their current rates, maneuvering systems project intercept of Manticore by Vengeance in fifteen point three hours,” the senior specialist reported in an admirably calm voice.

Marphissa tried to relax even though the acceleration leaking past the inertial dampers was still pushing her back against her seat. Her display showed the same information the specialist had reported. Her attempt to stay as far from Vengeance as possible while meeting Imallye’s demands, and her anticipation of the battle cruiser’s attack, had bought some time and space, but not nearly enough.

It wasn’t a wildly difficult problem for the automated systems to calculate. The most complex aspect of it was how much acceleration would slow as the velocity of both ships climbed ever higher. Relativity was unforgiving. As Manticore moved at ever-higher fractions of the speed of light, the warship’s mass would inexorably increase as well, making it harder for the same amount of thrust to push the ship even faster. If Manticore could somehow get close to the speed of light, the ship’s mass would grow so huge that it became impossible for any amount of thrust to keep accelerating her.

But such an effort would burn far too much of the heavy cruiser’s fuel cells, and in any event, Manticore’s velocity would be limited by another consideration. A ship could only enter jump if it were going at point two light speed or less. Manticore would have to limit her maximum velocity so that she could brake back down to point two light speed by the time she reached that jump point.

But Vengeance wasn’t planning on jumping, so the battle cruiser wasn’t worried about braking his velocity. And this was exactly the kind of situation that battle cruisers were built for, with massive main propulsion that let them accelerate faster than any other warship despite the large mass of a battle cruiser. The price for that was in far less armor than battleships, and not as many weapons as a ship that size could have carried. But battle cruisers carried plenty enough weapons to annihilate most of the warships they could chase down.

Diaz leaned close to Marphissa and spoke in a very low voice. “What is our plan, Kommodor?”

“Right now, I am praying for a miracle,” she murmured in reply. “Captain Bradamont taught me how to do that.”

Kapitan Diaz hesitated, licking his lips nervously. “Kommodor, Captain Bradamont has also instructed me. She told me that the situation is never hopeless as long as you can still move or fight.”

“I agree. But I am not seeing any alternative at this point to moving until we are caught by Vengeance, then fighting until we are destroyed. Help me find an alternative, Kapitan. We have fifteen hours until we are within range of the battle cruiser’s weapons.” Marphissa nodded to herself. “And if that happens, I intend engaging Vengeance and inflicting so much damage that Imallye’s battle cruiser will pose no threat to anyone afterward. Manticore will be destroyed, but Imallye will deeply regret the price of her victory.”

Diaz nodded as well. “Yes, Kommodor. My ship will not fail you.”

Marphissa turned her head to look at him and forced a smile. “Not your ship, nor its commander, nor its crew, have ever failed me, Kapitan Diaz, and I am certain that they never will.” She had let her voice rise in volume so the words carried, wanting the specialists to hear them as well. Word would have already spread through the ship of Manticore’s apparently helpless situation. Anything that would help morale, no matter how little, was important right now.

And Diaz deserved the public praise as well.

He flushed slightly, nodded again, then sat back and began tapping in internal comm connections. “I will speak with all of my officers and senior specialists to let them know that recommendations would be welcome.”

The next several hours passed with increasing slowness, as if relativity had already placed an iron grip of time’s rate of progression on the perceptions of those aboard Manticore. Marphissa had to use a down patch to get some sleep so she would not be exhausted when Vengeance finally caught Manticore. The rest of the time she spent running simulations of different attempts to avoid that intercept, each attempt only succeeding in bringing about the clash a little sooner. After a while, Marphissa abandoned that effort and began gaming out the battle between her heavy cruiser and Vengeance, trying to work out the best possible means of inflicting maximum damage on the battle cruiser before Manticore was destroyed. The results of those simulations were also discouraging, but she worked away at them stubbornly.

“Kommodor?”

Diaz’s voice roused Marphissa from a dark reverie of dying warships. She glanced around the bridge, noticing that everyone was quieter than usual as they contemplated the apparently inevitable, then focused back on Diaz. “Yes, Kapitan?”

“Senior Specialist Beltsios has an idea, Kommodor.”

Marphissa roused herself fully, tapping her controls to bring up a virtual window showing Beltsios. “What do you have, Senior Specialist?”

“Kommodor,” Beltsios said, speaking clearly and carefully, “I understand that you were informed of attempts by Imallye’s forces to plant malware in our systems.”

“Yes. I was told such attempts were all blocked.”

“They were, Kommodor! Are you familiar with the standing instructions we software specialists have always had when encountering non-Syndicate ships?”

Marphissa shook her head, frowning. “You mean standing instructions under the Syndicate? You are still following those?”

“Some of them, Kommodor, that do not conflict with the orders of our president,” Beltsios hastened to assure her. “One of those instructions is that when we encounter a ship not under Syndicate control, we are required to test its software defenses to see if it is vulnerable.”

Relieved, Marphissa nodded. “There is nothing objectionable about that. It is a good policy. You tested the defenses of Imallye’s ships, then? Just as her ships tested ours?”

“Yes, Kommodor, and Imallye’s ships were found to have effective defenses against any intrusion attempts on our part.” Beltsios paused, concentrating on his next words. “But, I thought, we have copies of the snake software captured at Ulindi. We have employed it defensively against intrusion attempts. The software we were given after Ulindi does not identify itself as offensive. It self-describes as defensive. But could it nonetheless be used offensively against Imallye’s ships despite their firewalls and other software defenses?”

Marphissa felt a stirring of hope. “And?”

Beltsios smiled triumphantly. “It is possible, Kommodor. I went into the menus and the code and I dug, looking for eggs and rocks and land mines and treasure chests,” he explained, giving the nicknames for various hidden software features, some good, some bad. “And I found something that calls itself Blindfold.”

“What does it do?”

“From what I and my coworker can tell, it is an attempt to use our kinds of software weapons to mimic what the enigma worms did to our sensors.”

That took a moment to sink in, then Marphissa gave Diaz a startled look. “The enigma worms selectively blinded our sensors so our systems could not see enigma ships. If we can get that into Vengeance’s systems—”

She faced Beltsios again. “Can we get it into the battle cruiser’s systems?”

“I do not know, Kommodor. I can tell that Blindfold contains the very latest snake tunneling worms. If Imallye’s ships do not have defenses against those, they can tunnel through the firewalls.”

Diaz gazed at the depiction of Vengeance on his display. “Doesn’t that require our systems to shake hands with the systems on the battle cruiser? Why would they do that instead of rejecting our attempt to link?”

“It does not require a handshake, Kapitan,” Beltsios said confidently. “The tunneling worms and Blindfold itself are contained in the initial contact attempt. When we knock on the battle cruiser’s firewall, the firewall’s defensive responses will give the worms the openings they need to exploit.”

“How did you think to look for that hidden program inside the snake software?” Diaz asked.

“It is a trick used by code monkeys,” Beltsios explained. “Hiding something inside another piece of software. Officially, it is never supposed to be done. Under Syndicate instructions,” he added quickly. “It is something that software inspectors were always searching for when they audited our systems. So no one thought that snakes would employ it. But, I thought, the snakes always had a visible presence, and a hidden presence, so we would never know when we were being watched. Maybe they would also do that in official software, have an open function and a hidden one, even though their own rules prohibited it.”

“Good thinking,” Marphissa said. She checked her own display. “Imallye’s battle cruiser is twenty-three light seconds from us and closing at an ever-faster rate. Send that software to knock on Vengeance’s firewall, and let us see what happens.”

“Vengeance could have defenses against that generation of tunneling worms, Kommodor,” Beltsios said. “It is possible our intrusion attempt will fail.”

“It is still a far better option than any other we have,” Marphissa said. “Kapitan?”

Diaz nodded. “Senior Specialist Beltsios, attempt the intrusion as soon as possible.”

“I understand and will comply!”

As Beltsios’s image vanished, Diaz looked suddenly startled and gazed at Marphissa again. “It just occurred to me that even if we manage to blind Vengeance, Imallye will still know that we have to leave this star system through the jump point for Iwa. She can keep heading that way while working to clear her sensor systems of the snake worms. She’ll get there before us and wait for us like a cat at a mouse hole.”

“Damn! Couldn’t you have mentioned that thirty seconds ago?” Marphissa demanded. “Call that senior specialist and tell him not to send that knock yet!”

Diaz hastily conveyed the order. “It had not been sent. Senior Specialist Beltsios will hold it ready to send on our command.”

“Good.” Marphissa frowned, doing the thinking she should have done before too-eagerly ordering the employment of the malware. “Even if we get it into Vengeance’s systems, there is no telling how long it would take the code monkeys on the battle cruiser to neutralize the malware. It might take them hours, or only minutes. More likely minutes, if they are any good.”

“Then no matter when we send it—”

“Now you are being too pessimistic,” Marphissa chided him. “Kapitan, you were quite right that we could not send that malware too soon. We must wait until just the right moment.”

“But it might not work, Kommodor,” Diaz pointed out.

“Then we are no worse off than before,” Marphissa said, thinking that there probably weren’t a lot of ways in which they could be worse off. “But if it works, it can give us a small window of opportunity. Thank you for realizing that we must wait to try it and giving us that chance.”

“Senior Specialist Beltsios should have told us how limited the effectiveness of that snake malware is,” Diaz grumbled, his expression dark.

“Do not blame him,” Marphissa said, shaking her head. “He knows nothing of tactics and maneuvers and combat. Not our kind of combat. His job was to provide us with a weapon to use, and he did that. We are the ones who are supposed to know how to best employ that weapon.”

She checked her display, focusing on not only the position of Vengeance and the battle cruiser’s rate of closure but also on Manticore’s fuel state. “We’re burning through fuel cells, Kapitan. Cease accelerating. Hold our current velocity.”

“Kommodor?” Diaz looked and sounded bewildered by the command. “If we cease accelerating in order to conserve fuel cells, the battle cruiser will overtake us quicker.”

Marphissa nodded. “And without having built up as much velocity, so our relative speeds will still be fairly close. I want an extended opportunity to engage that battle cruiser, Kapitan. Our hope lies in that.”

“You want to be within weapons’ range of the battle cruiser longer? Yes, Kommodor.” Though clearly not understanding why, Diaz gave the orders, and Manticore’s main propulsion units cut off with what almost felt like a collective sigh of relief after the extended period of acceleration. “You have a plan?”

“I have a plan,” Marphissa announced assuredly, knowing that the specialists on the bridge would hear and convey the news throughout the ship so that Manticore’s crew would feel hope.

Diaz shrugged and smiled. “We all have confidence in you, Kommodor.”

Marphissa smiled herself and leaned back in her seat again, the very picture of poise on the outside. Inside, she felt fortunate that no one else aboard the heavy cruiser knew just how tiny were the odds of success.

But if Manticore was destroyed, she would go down fighting.