"Initiate Decoy," she said.
"Aye, Ma'am," Ericsson said , and nodded to the com officer. "Send 'Initiate Decoy.'"
"I have something, Sir!" Lieutenant Commander Gohr said sharply. "The Gamma-Three array is picking up what looks like stealthed impeller wedges. Bearing three-four-niner, zero-zero-niner from the ship, range approximately five-six-point-eight million klicks!"
Michael Oversteegen punched a command into the small-scale plot deployed from the arm of his command chair, and his eyes narrowed as the display zoomed in on the indicated datum.
Nike and Hector were still 20,589,000 kilometers from Vespasien, but their velocity was down to a mere 5,265 KPS as they continued to decelerate at a steady 5.31 KPS2. Their present flight profile would bring them to a halt, relative to the system primary, one light-minute short of the planet. That was close enough to bring all the near-planet orbital infrastructure into sufficiently short range to avoid any embarrassing accidents... like unintentional missile strikes on an inhabited world. But it was also far enough out to keep him at least two light-minutes from his own estimate of the enemy's closest probable position.
Commander Dillinger's Katanas were continuing to close from astern. Their higher acceleration rate meant they'd been able to attain a higher base velocity before they began decelerating towards a rendezvous, and their current velocity was 6,197 KPS. Their vectors would merge with Nike's in another ten minutes, at which point they would both be down to a velocity of 2,079 KPS and less than four hundred thousand kilometers from their planned zero-zero point-or about 18,400,000 kilometers from Vespasien.
The new emission signatures Gohr had picked up were just over two light-minutes inside Vespasien's orbit. Assuming the ships responsible for the signatures had pods of multi-drive missiles, that would put his ships inside their effective range, but far enough out for Havenite accuracy to be very, very poor.
"Move the platforms closer, Betty," he said, after a moment. "And don't forget t' watch the other approaches, as well."
"Yes, Sir."
Jennifer Bellefeuille watched her own plot, gray-green eyes slitted in concentration. It was impossible to tell whether or not the Manties had bitten, but the decoy emissions looked very convincing to her own recon platforms. She didn't have much faith in their ability to fool the Manties for long, but if CIC's projection of their recon shell's probable deployment was correct, it would take them precious minutes to get even one of their drones close enough to realize the units they were picking up were actually the recon variant of the Cimeterre. There were eight of them out there, each with a standard tethered decoy tractored to it, and their only job was to "leak" enough of an impeller signature to keep the Manties looking in their direction just a little longer.
"Dagger Flight will match vectors with us in about six minutes, Sir," Lieutenant Commander Gohr announced.
"Very good. Anythin' more on those impeller signatures?"
"Not a lot, Sir. But the arrays are closing in, and so far it looks like a half-dozen or so point sources. Maybe a few more."
"I see." Michael Oversteegen grimaced. Over the years, he'd learned to trust his instincts, and those instincts told him something wasn't quite right. He looked up and waved Blumenthal closer to his command chair.
"Yes, Sir?"
"Why d'you suppose these fellows are just sittin' there?"
Blumenthal frowned. He gazed down into Oversteegen's plot for a second or two, then looked back up.
"If they're planning to let us continue to close, which seems to be what they've been doing so far, then they're probably waiting until they're sure they've been detected," he said, in the tone of a man who wondered if he'd just been asked a trick question.
"Unless they're complete and total idiots, like my beloved cousin, Countess Fraser," Oversteegen replied, "they've got t' have a pretty shrewd notion we've already picked them up." He pointed an index finger at the blue-white icon of Vespasien. "One thing Commander Sturgis was able t' positively confirm, Joel, is that the space around Vespasien is crawlin' with Havenite reconnaissance assets. D'you seriously think we managed t' get that many of our own drones right past the planet without any of those assets noticin' as they went by?"
"Well, no, Sir. Of course, they are very stealthy."
"Yes, they are," Oversteegen agreed dryly. "But good as our stealth technology is, it's not yet perfect. And, much as it pains me t' admit it, between what they got from the Erewhonese and what they've probably managed t' pick up on their own from examinin' captured hardware, our cloak of invisibility's probably just a tad thinner than any of us would like t' think. I'm not sayin' they can get solid lockups on our platforms. But when we operate this many of them, in such close proximity and so deep into the other side's sensor envelope, they're bound t' pick up at least some of them. And if they've managed t' do that, any tac officer worth his salt should be able t' project our basic deployment pattern. In which case, they damned well ought t' know that if they're sittin' there with active impeller wedges, we're goin' t' have picked them up by now."
"Put that way, Sir, you may have a point," Blumenthal conceded. "At the same time, they may be waiting until our platforms go active and they know we've got them."
"Maybe so, but why put themselves that far from the planet?" Oversteegen asked. "It puts Vespasien outside their best MDM envelope by a considerable margin, which means they're riskin' an accidental hit on the planet if they engage us. They didn't have t' let us this close t' the planet in the first place. They ought t' be at least a light-minute closer, and if they aren't, then they ought t' still be lyin' doggo." He shook his head. "No, they've got somethin' else in mind."
He brooded down at the plot for a few more seconds, then looked up at Gohr.
"Launch another shell," he said. "I want t' sweep this area again."
He tapped a command into his armrest alphanumeric pad, highlighting the indicated volume of space on Gohr's larger plot.
"Sir, I can recall the Beta platforms to cover that volume," she pointed out.
"I'm certain you could," he agreed pleasantly. "Unfortunately, that would require at least twenty minutes, and I want it swept now."
"Yes, Sir."
Gohr beckoned to her assistant, and the two of them began punching in commands to deploy the specified drone shell to cover the area to system north of Vespasien once again.
"Crap," Leonardo Ericsson muttered as the fresh drones began deploying from the outsized Manty battlecruiser.
"So they didn't buy the decoys after all," deCastro said.
"No." Bellefeuille shook her head. "They bought them-for a little while, at least. But whoever that is over there, she's a suspicious one. So she's doublechecking the 'clear areas' just in case."
"Well, they're going to pick us up, emissions control or no emissions control, in about another seven minutes, Ma'am," Ericsson pointed out. "These two, especially, are coming straight down our throats."
He tapped two light codes on his display, and this time Bellefeuille nodded.
"Yes, they are. And they're about where we wanted them anyway." She straightened, inhaled deeply, and nodded to deCastro.
"It's time," she said.
"Missile launch!" Betty Gohr barked suddenly. "Multiple missile launches!"
Oversteegen looked up sharply as the deadly, blood-red icons appeared on the master plot.
"Range at launch eight-five-point-two light-seconds," Gohr said flatly. "Time to attack range six-point-one-three minutes!"
Jennifer Bellefeuille and her staff had devised the operational plan she'd dubbed "Smoke and Mirrors" in response to the Manticorans' first set of raids. Although Chantilly had been assigned a substantially heavier system defense force than Gaston or Hera to begin with, she'd known it was grossly insufficient to hold off attacks in such strength using any conventional defensive plan, so she'd had to go outside the box.