Wrath looked at him levelly. Both men of course knew the real reason for the war, but neither had ever mentioned it, not even in private. "I suppose you're right," he said. "And I suppose we can let those men from the bridge know exactly what they're facing if they go around telling lies about how they were attacked by a nuclear weapon."
"Such things have been done before," Jules said. "Many times. We'll place the blame for the collision on the captain of the Camel, since all hands were lost there. We'll portray the bridge crew of the Mule as heroic in the attempts to avoid the collision and in their diligence for saving the surviving men. As for our CIC crew, I'll speak to each one of them personally and make sure they understand what the stakes are. They stick to the story, they'll move up the ladder. If they go telling lies about nuclear weapons, they'll be destroyed, both in their career and their reputation."
"Sounds good," Wrath said. "But in the meantime, you have to find that ship. And you have to make sure that there aren't any others out there."
"I can't possibly imagine that the greenies could have manned more than one ship," Jules said. "I'm frankly quite amazed that they were even able to do that."
"And I'm sure you're right about that, but we underestimated them once. Let's make sure we don't do it again."
Sugi and Brett were watching the display of enemy vessels carefully, both of them very tense. For the past forty minutes more than sixty A-22's had been circling around them. They were teamed up in pairs and performing careful grid searches as they moved through the area. As their colleagues had been before them, they were somewhat hampered by the fact that they were moving roughly seventy kilometers per second through the search area, but they had also been given much more time to perform their search and were able to be a little more thorough.
So far, none had come within 10,000 kilometers of Mermaid, although they had passed on both sides and though their active systems were slashing all over her. Brett was certain that they had not gotten so much as a sniff from him yet, but that was only because all heat emitting systems had been shut down.
"Brett," said Mandall from the helm, "our waste heat is becoming critical. We need to make a dump soon."
Brett nodded, stifling a yawn as he looked at the display. The excess heat should have been released into space more than twenty minutes ago, but to do so now was to risk giving the A-22s a source to lock in on. If those ships found their position, they would be on them in minutes, blasting them with heavy lasers.
"We'll have to hold a little longer," he said. "I don't want to risk it until those ships are at least 40,000 kilometers out. They're coming to the end of their search arc now it looks like."
"Okay," she said worriedly.
As if that wasn't bad enough news, Sugi soon had worse. "Brett," he said, "I've just plotted out a course for target 46. It's a Seattle class and it's heading pretty much right towards us. If both of us keep on current courses, they'll pass within 12,000 kilometers. All of her systems are active too."
"Are you sure on that plot?" Brett asked.
"I've run it three times now," Sugi answered. "It looks like the closure will occur in forty-three minutes."
"That's well inside detection range for one of those vessels," Brett said. "Well inside. Especially if we don't get rid of some of this heat before then."
Worried looks passed among the crew at these words. What were they to do? Just sit there and hope that the Seattle didn't see them? Try to fight it out and get destroyed by the A-22s? The fact that Brett, their commanding officer, the man who was supposed to know what to do in these situations, looked just as helpless as they felt, didn't make them feel much better.
"Brett?" Sugi said.
He took a few deep breaths, running the problem through his head. Until now he'd never really appreciated just what kind of pressure the captain of a ship was put under. What he decided now would make the difference between them living and dying.
"We can't just hope that it'll change course," Brett said, mostly thinking aloud but wanting his crew to hear his thoughts. "They seem to be on a search course. It's unlikely that they'll deviate from it."
"It would seem so," Sugi said.
"Helm, start calculating the minimum amount that we'd have to burn the engines in order to clear them by more than 20,000 kilometers."
"Right," she said, bending to her screen. She worked the numbers for more than three minutes before coming up with an answer. "We'll have to burn at point zero eight G on a course of 139 mark 180 in order to clear that range," she announced.
He shook his head. "That's too damn much," he said. "If we light up the engines that much they'll detect us for sure." He took a few deep breaths, looking around, trying to find some inspiration. Finally, the glimmer of an idea came. It would be risky, but he didn't really see any other option. "Helm, put us on an intercept course towards them. Get us aligned to firing range as quickly as possible using as little engine power as possible."
"An intercept course?" she said doubtfully.
"You heard me," he told her. "If we can't run away from them and we can't hide from them, we'll have to fight them." He pushed a button on his panel. "Torpedo room, get a weapon ready for launch."
Since the ship was already heading almost directly towards them, it didn't take much maneuvering to put them on a collision course. A short burst of the thrusters and a five minute burn at .02G did the trick. The A-22s, which were still circling about, were on the far end of their latest circle as the burn took place and therefore didn't see it.
"Timing is the key here," Brett said, watching as the Seattle grew closer and closer to them. "We have to wait until those 22s have moved far enough past us so that they won't be able to engage us when we start our separation burn. Because once we start that, the whole fleet is going to know we're out here."
"Will we be able to clear the area?" Sugi asked.
Brett gave a worried smile. "We'll have to hope so I guess, won't we?"
The minutes ticked by, the atmosphere on the bridge thick with tension. The A-22s, which were identifiable by the heat of their thrusters and the frequent burns of their main engines, continued to circle about, their distance getting further and further away with each arc that they made. Finally they went beyond 40,000 kilometers, still blind to the enemy ship they had just encircled. There was no way that they could circle back at the speed they were moving without burning up all of their maneuvering fuel.
"Okay," Brett said, "let's get it on here. Sugi, what's the distance to that Seattle?"
"86,000 kilometers and closing rapidly," he replied.
"Got it," Brett said. "Helm, go ahead and dump the waste heat now. We should be safe from detection."
"Dumping," she said, flipping the switch that controlled that.
"Torpedo room," Brett then said into the intercom, "launch tube one immediately. Set detonation for sixty kilometers and get a lock on that thing as quick as you can."
"Launching now," was the response.
Once more the torpedo tube irised open and the hydraulic arm pushed out a weapon into space. It drifted forward, moving slightly faster than the ship, and the laser system achieved a lock on it.
"Sugi," Brett said, "get ready to employ every piece of jamming equipment at your disposal. The moment we light those engines up they're going to see us. It won't be more than a few seconds after that before they try to engage us. Your job will be to make sure that they don't get a laser locked onto us before that torpedo gets on target."