Ulpreln turned. His voice was careful, respectful. “Can we be so sure that the Slaasriithi ship is still capable of shift? Or that it even has enough antimatter aboard? Or enough fuel for preacceleration after we destroyed two of their tanks?”
“We may be nearly certain of all those things,” Nezdeh answered. “We have no evidence that we inflicted any damage upon their shift drive, so it would be irresponsible to base any plans on such a hope. Next, they have made only one shift since taking on supplies at the meridiate world they last visited. It is inconceivable that they would not have replenished their antimatter stocks there. Lastly, even with the loss of two fuel tanks—”
“Nezdeh,” Tegrese interrupted. “All lasers have struck the closest cannonball. But—”
Nezdeh looked in the plot, glanced at the sensors and then the viewscreen: although trailing debris, and no longer firing, the cannonball was still boring in on them.
Sehtrek was hoarse. “Range closing, bearing constant.”
“Ulpreln, evasive maneuvers! Time until impact?”
Sehtrek had trouble finding his voice. “Ninety seconds.”
Nezdeh wondered at the cannonball’s design, that it could absorb that kind of punishment and still function. “Tegrese, maintain firing.”
“I am. Continuing to degrade target.”
But not fast enough. “Ulpreln, discontinue evasive. Release bearing control to gunnery station. Tegrese—”
She was already yawing the ship hard to starboard to face the oncoming cannonball; they leaned with the maneuver. “Target telemetry constant. Acquiring lock. Seventy percent confidence, seventy-five—”
Nezdeh interrupted. “At eighty-five percent, commence firing. Single penetrator rods, one every three seconds, maximum power.”
“And — firing!”
The tremendous energies being discharged pulsed the deck under their feet like the slow heart of a great beast. In the plot, thin tines of green jetted toward the onrushing orange globe—
The fifth rod struck the cannonball dead center. Nezdeh almost sighed out her relief — then remembered to look in the plot:
Orange specks tumbled toward the green delta that marked the position of Red Lurker. “Brace for impact!” Nezdeh shouted at the same moment that Sehtrek yelled, “Debris still on intercept vector. Secure for—”
Red Lurker shuddered, pitched, then was righted to her prior orientation by her automatic attitude control system.
Nezdeh had managed to stay in her acceleration couch, glanced at the holosphere. “Sehtrek — damage?”
“Not critical. Report follows—”
“No time.” Nezdeh jabbed a finger at the plot: the two remaining cannonballs were now speeding directly toward Red Lurker at a separation of over one hundred and forty degrees and widening quickly. She remembered her war tutor’s wisdom: Evading flanking pursuers is a difficult task that often ends in disaster. “Ulpreln, reverse course, full thrust. Tegrese, acquire aft-facing lock as possible. If you have a shot, take it.”
“I cannot promise hits, Nezdeh.”
“I just want them to take evasive maneuvers and give us more time.”
“They will catch us.” Sehtrek commented. It was not a criticism, just a statement of fact.
“If they are so instructed,” Nezdeh replied, and settled in to watch the pursuit.
At precisely four light-seconds from the planet, the two surviving cannonballs began counterboosting at the same blistering six-gee acceleration they had maintained during their pursuit.
“They’re breaking off?” Tegrese wondered.
“Given the distance, I suspect it is an automated protocol,” Nezdeh observed, hearing the iris valve open behind her. “It is consistent with what we know of the Slaasriithi. They intrinsically focus on defense. Beyond a certain limit, and probably influenced by whether or not they are still taking fire, the intelligence or expert system controlling these cannonballs informs them that the fleeing target is no longer a credible threat. And so the cannonballs break off to resume their orbital defense duties. Otherwise, feints could easily pull them too far off their patrol circuits and leave the planet unprotected.”
The voice from the iris valve was Idrem’s. “And I suspect there is another reason for their constant proximity to the world they defend.”
Nezdeh turned. “What do you conjecture, Idrem?” She had come to love hearing her own voice say his name. It was not a sign of which the Progenitors — or her own Breedmothers — would have approved. But she did not care.
“There is the problem of control range,” Idrem answered. He nodded toward the holosphere. “At four light-seconds, it is reasonable to suspect that the cannonballs’ reaction time to new events is ten seconds. Four seconds to communicate the event to the planetary defense planner, two seconds for that planner to decide upon and transmit a response, and four more seconds for the response to reach the cannonball. All too often,” he concluded, “that would result in a destroyed cannonball. Even assuming they have excellent on-board expert systems, a battlefield is Fate’s laboratory for crafting novel challenges and unexpected conditions. The Slaasriithi will not be sanguine sending these drone-ships beyond the limit of optimal control.”
“Yes, they must be centrally controlled.” Nezdeh called up a holosphere image from earlier in the battle. “Notice how the two cannonballs were held back while our advance upon the Slaasriithi shift carrier increasingly put us on a predictable trajectory. They did not attack until we were as firmly set on our course as a fly is affixed to flypaper.”
Sehtrek leaned back from his console, frowning. “Srina Perekhmeres, I must point out the dire situation in which we now find ourselves.”
“Speak,” she said.
“Arbitrage and the tug did not have time to fully refuel, and have been unable to produce antimatter for want of that fuel, as well as the need to avoid generating high-energy emissions. If the Slaasriithi ship can still effect shift, then they will have carried news of this attack to their homeworld at Beta Aquilae within nine days. Logically, we must assume that within three to four weeks, they will return here with a force over which we shall have — excuse me — no hope of acheiving dominion.”
“This is well spoken, and true besides,” Nezdeh acknowledged with a nod. “What do you recommend?”
Sehtrek folded his hands. “We must send Arbitrage and the tug to the gas giant to commence fueling and antimatter production immediately. If we are very lucky, that will have furnished us with enough antimatter to shift before the enemy relief forces arrive. We must then refuel and produce more antimatter in the next system as quickly as possible and shift again. Otherwise, the enemy ships shall surely expand their search radius faster than we may escape it. And they will have access to various prepositioned caches of fuel and antimatter.” He sighed. “At the best, I consider our chances of survival uncertain.”
Nezdeh nodded. “Your reasoning and your plan are both sound. But they are uninformed by one crucial datum.” Nezdeh activated one of the bridge’s hardware screens; it showed a bright red dot mixed into the sparse trojan point debris preceding the first planet.
“What is that?” Tegrese’s curiosity was childlike, unguarded.
In every regard, she has poor control. “That is an automated base,” Nezdeh said with a disarming smile. “It was identified by sensor operators on board the Arbitrage, shortly before we commenced our attack. Judging from the thermal and radioactive output, it is also an antimatter manufactory. Its stores of fuel and antimatter will not only allow us to expend energy lavishly in resuming our attacks upon the cannonballs and any humans who survived this combat, but will ensure our escape from Slaasriithi space. Within thirty hours, we should have fully loaded—”