Tenacious

35

“Where are we?” Captain Drago asked.

Being an admiral had certain downsides, like letting your flag captain ask the question you desperately wanted answered.

“We covered six hundred and fifty-three light-years,” Nelly answered.

“We’ve picked up a trail of reaction mass,” came from the Musashi chief on sensors.

“I have two ship reactors,” Senior Chief Beni, retired, said. “Scanda make. I think we have the Sisu.”

“She’s making for the system’s fuzzy jump,” Nelly added.

“I wonder how she got her hands on a Mark XII sensor suite,” Captain Drago said with evil intent.

“Let’s just make sure no alien gets their hands on that ship,” Kris said.

“With pleasure, Admiral. With pleasure.”

“Can we intercept her in this system, or will we have to wait for the next jump?” Kris asked.

“We’re working on that,” Captain Drago said.

On the screen above the navigator’s board, vector lines formed, crisscrossed, then re-formed and crisscrossed again.

Captain Drago looked at them from his station, frowned, and motored over to look over the young Musashi woman’s shoulder. Kris knew her place was to stay put and wait, but she was moving a split second before Drago said, “Admiral, would you come take a look at this?”

“Yes, Captain,” Kris said, and daintily motored over to look over his shoulder looking over the young lieutenant’s shoulder.

“If we go to 3.5 gees and stay there, it looks like we can intercept her a good five minutes before she jumps out of here.”

“You’re going to have to give me a hint. Is that good or bad?”

“Getting her while we have her here is good. But I’ll have to keep the reactors pushing us at 3.5 gees the whole time. We’ll also be cutting straight across the plain of this system and I make out a couple of gas bags with rings and an asteroid belt between here and there.”

“Meaning, you’d like to take it up above the plain again.”

“Yep. It takes time, but it makes sure we arrive safe and sound to bash her ears back.”

“Pin her ears back,” Nelly corrected.

“You pin them, Nelly. For me, it’s bashing time,” the captain said.

“Kris, is that what is called walking into one?”

“Exactly, Nelly.”

“I’ll remember that.”

“Getting back to the matter at hand,” Kris said. “Captain, what’s this about pushing things at 3.5 gees? I thought the new ships were good for more than that.”

“They are, Kris, but we haven’t had a serious reduced availability for maintenance for a while. We’ve been riding the Wasp pretty hard, and while we take good care of her, I’d hate to find that I didn’t take good enough care of her.”

“What I’m hearing is you want to tighten up your safety margin.”

“That, and I really don’t want to be doing my final deceleration as I’m approaching the jump with her still on this side of it. Those might be dinky 18-inch pulse lasers, but if she’s aiming them up my engines, things could get deadly in a hurry. No. Let’s catch her with our forward batteries and thickened forward armor.”

Kris nodded. “Conduct this pursuit as you see fit, Captain.”

“My, a Longknife that has learned caution and prudence,” Drago said. “As I live and breathe.”

Kris smiled at the jab. “So long as it ends with me having Sampson’s guts for garters, I have no problems with what you do between now and then.”

“Then let’s slow to three gees and take the high road, Admiral.”

“Nelly, send to squadron. ‘On my mark, reduce speed to three gees and conform to the flag’s movements.’”

“The squadron’s ships are standing by, Kris.”

“Mark,” Kris said.

In the egg, she hardly felt the lessened acceleration.

Kris half expected to hear from Sampson, but she had nothing to say, and Kris did not choose to taunt her. A woman like her was unstable enough without Kris’s adding more to it. She wanted her ship back, and, as livid as she was at Sampson, she wanted her crew back as well.

No doubt they’d spend the next long years as loader operators on the guano island, but they’d be alive. Too many people who had crossed Kris’s path weren’t.

Around Kris, the ship went about its prebattle drill. The lasers were charged and dialed in. The armor was strengthened on the bow. Kris brought up the Weapons board on her egg.

Captain Drago must have had an alert on that. He immediately looked in Kris’s direction, then motored over to her.

“You want to handle the shoot?” he asked.

“You think I shouldn’t?”

“It’s just that there’s bad blood between you and her, between Sampsons and Longknifes. If things go well, that’s nice. If they don’t, it might be better if someone else closed the firing circuits.”

“Captain, do you honestly think anyone is better on Weapons than me and Nelly?”

“No.”

“Do we want to capture that ship in as close to one piece as possible?”

“Yes. From my viewpoint.”

“Yes, from my viewpoint, too.”

“Then the shoot is yours.”

By slowing and taking the long road, they arrived at the jump a half hour after the Sisu. Once again, the boffins and Nelly had dialed the jump in to the last possible decimal place.

Once more, the squadron followed the Wasp through the jump.