For all the pirates knew, anyone could’ve stumbled across the dead luxury liner. And they shouldn’t know Midway was in the system…should they?
“The pirate is picking up speed,” the tactical officer reported. “I think I have an identification, sir; she’s a North Carolina-class light cruiser. Several hundred of them were sold into self-defense forces or commercial shipping interests after the Inheritance Wars, and quite a few of them became pirate ships.”
Roman nodded. The North Carolina ships had been withdrawn from service, according to his implant records, because they had major failings in their design that had become apparent when the Federation Navy tried to refit them. They operated fine with their original power cores, but more powerful fusion plants and drive fields had shaken several starships apart. The designers had rapidly produced a more suitable design, and the North Carolinas had been relegated to convoy escort before being decommissioned at the end of the war.
Unless the pirates had risked installing newer drive systems, she couldn’t hope to outrun Midway.
He felt his lips draw back into a snarl as the distance between the two ships narrowed sharply. Admiral Drake’s intelligence officers might want to encourage piracy in the hopes that it would set the two warlords at each other’s throats, yet there was no way he was going to allow scum like that to live. There hadn’t been any justice for his dead parents, not when pirates had killed them and vanished into the darkness of space, but there would be justice for the Harmonious Repose and her crew. The pirate ship would be obliterated.
“I think they know we’re following them now,” the sensor officer said as the main display flashed red. “They just swept us with high-powered, active sensors.”
“Drop the cloak,” Roman ordered. There was no point in attempting to hide now. Their pursuit had clearly created enough turbulence to allow their position to be located. “Bring up active sensors and lock onto them. Make sure they know that they can’t escape.”
He pushed his rage into the back of his mind and concentrated. How would the pirates play it? They might try to surrender and attempt to claim that they should be tried by a planetary court, or they might try to fight. It would be a very short battle, under normal circumstances, and yet…
Roman had standing orders to attempt to take pirate ships intact, if possible. The real problem with finding pirate bases was locating them. The intelligence officers wanted to brain-suck pirate crews to locate their bases and their support network within Federation space. Once they were found, a single battlecruiser would usually suffice to blow them to hell and gone.
“They’re locking weapons on us,” the sensor officer reported. There was a very brief pause. “Missile separation; I say again, missile separation! I count ten inbounds toward our location!”
“Bring up the point defense,” Roman ordered, as tracking data flowed up in front of him. Compared to the massive salvos thrown around during the Battle of Jefferson, it was hardly impressive. And, given that the missiles were at least ninety years out of date, they weren’t particularly threatening either. “Deploy ECM drones; take the missiles out only as a last resort.”
His lips twitched as Midway flew through the missile salvo. The pirates hadn’t invested in the latest counter-ECM technology, although few pirates wanted to tangle with a warship under any circumstances. Only one missile refused to be distracted and had to be picked off by a point defence pulse cannon; the remainder flew off into the endless void, completely harmless. Roman could have returned fire, fairly sure of a kill, but he chose not to do so. Besides, the closer they were when his ship opened fire, the greater the chance of scoring a quick kill.
“Open communications channels,” he ordered. The communications officer nodded and activated the ship-to-ship frequencies. “Pirate vessel; this is the Federation Navy.” Normally, he would have identified himself, but he had no idea who else might be listening in from cloak. “Cut your drives, lower your shields and prepare to be boarded. If you offer any resistance, we will destroy your vessel.”
He waited as the message flashed to the pirate ship. It was a bluff, of sorts; even if the Federation Navy hadn’t ordained the death of every pirate encountered while on patrol, he had no intention of letting them live. But if he could arrange for their interrogation first, it might allow him to salvage something from the disaster. Admiral Mason wouldn’t be too pleased to discover that Roman had been chasing pirates instead of scouting their area of operations. His operations, no matter how strongly they aligned with tradition, might well have revealed their presence to prying eyes.
“No response, sir,” the communications officer reported.
“I think they did respond,” the tactical officer said. “I have another wave of missiles heading towards us.”
“Deploy countermeasures,” Roman ordered dispassionately. The targeting systems were systematically drawing a bead on the pirate ship. He’d be able to open fire and cripple her drives within minutes, and then she could be boarded at leisure. The only danger would be the pirates attempting to trigger the self-destruct once the Marines started to swarm over her, but that would have been surprisingly brave of them. Pirates were rarely the bravest of men. “Prepare to engage…”
“Navy ship, we have hostages,” a male voice broke into the circuit. The pirate sounded terrified, and yet determined to hold on to his ship. “We have hundreds of well-connected civilians on this ship. If you fire, you’ll kill them as well.”
Roman ground his teeth. He’d known—known—that the pirates had captured the liner’s passengers, and yet he hadn’t thought about the danger in his desire to blow away the pirate ship and crew. Using the passengers as human shields was an old pirate tactic. Given that anyone wealthy enough to travel on a White Swan liner was clearly very rich and would have friends among the wealthy and powerful, destroying the ship would have unpleasant repercussions for his career. And even if he pushed that aside, he didn’t want to kill hundreds of innocent people. They didn’t deserve to die.
“Elf,” he said, keying his private channel, “can you liberate the ship?”
“Not easily,” Elf said grimly. “The bastards would see us coming. They’d be able to blow the ship or kill the hostages before we landed—it isn’t as if they have a future now we’ve caught them. And what happens when you fire on the ship?”
Roman felt like screaming. She was right. A well-tended light cruiser would survive the crippling blow he’d planned to inflict, but a pirate ship might be destroyed, as pirates were notoriously sloppy about preventive maintenance. And considering there might be human shields on board the pirate ship…
He keyed the ship-to-ship intercom.
“Pirate ship, face facts,” he said, hating what he was about to say. “You cannot escape. I will not let you take hostages over the mass limit. And if you start killing hostages, I’m simply going to put a missile in your hull. Now, you can try and delay matters, but I really don’t have that much patience.”