She called Hollister up to the bridge, to ask about their capabilities. It would be lovely if they could spring a trap on the pirates - although how to arrange that without revealing their existence was a bit tricky.
Far sooner than she expected, they intercepted another Fleet signal - evidently the Commodore had elected to come in fast, leapfrogging his smaller vessels ahead of the cruisers. The Scratch, an escort-class ship, was now sunward of them, scanning the entire “back” side of the planet system for any activity. Sassinak put a single coded message burst onto the tightest focus she could manage, and then waited. With any luck, the pirates wouldn’t have anything around to notice that transmission.
Within seconds, she had a reply, and then a relayed link to Commodore Verstan. He wanted a rendezvous, and insisted that she move theZaid-Dayan from its hidden location. Her suggestion that they arrange a trap, in which her concealed ship could suddenly intercept ships fleeing from his more obvious attack force was denied.
There was nothing to do but comply. The outside crew retrieved the sensors and nets it had deployed on nearby chunks of rock, and when they were all back inside, Hollister gave the various drive components a last check. Then they waited over two hours, to clear the pirate surveillance.
“I may have to give up a good observation post,” said Sass, “but I’m not about to jump out in front of them and say ‘Boo.’ We might be able to sneak away without their knowing we existed.”
Carefully, delicately, the pilots extricated theZaid-Dayan from the rocky cleft in which it had been hidden, and boosted away from the moonlet. Once free of it, Sassinak took a deep breath. Although it had given them safety at a critical time, a moon’s surface was not her ship’s natural home, and she felt irrationally safer in free flight. Besides, they could now “see” all around them, no longer confined to the narrowed angle of vision imposed by the moon and its rugged surface.
As the ship came up to speed, all systems functioned perfectly - no red lights flared on the bridge to warn of imminent disaster. If she had not known about the damaged pods, and the patched hole in the port side docking bay, Sassinak would have thought the ship in perfect condition.
Navigating through the planet’s cluttered space required all her concentration for the next few hours. By the time they were outside all the satellites and rings, the Fleet attack force was only a couple of light minutes away. She elected not to hop it, but continued on the insystem main drives, spending the hours of approach to ensure that her ship and its crew were ready for inspection. A couple of minutes with the personnel files had reminded her that Commodore Verstan had a reputation for being finicky. She had a feeling he would have plenty to say about the appearance of her ship.
Meanwhile, she noted that his approach to the pirate base followed precisely the recommendations of the Rules of Engagement. Two escort-class vessels.Scratch andDarkwatch, were positioned sunward of the planet, no doubt “to catch strays.” The command cruiser,Seb Harr, and the two light cruisers formed a wedge; three patrol craft were positioned one on either flank and one trailing. They held these positions as theZaid-Dayan approached, rather than closing with the planet system.
Sassinak brought theZaid-Dayan neatly into place behind the Seb Harr, and opened the tightly shielded link to Commodore Verstan. He looked just like his holo in the Flag Officer Directory, a lean, pink-faced man with thick gray hair and bright blue eyes. Behind him, she could see Huron watching the screen anxiously.
“Commander Sassinak,” said Verstan, formally. “We received signals from a Fleet distress beacon.”
Sassinak’s heart sank. If he was going to takethat approach…
“But I see that was some kind of… misunderstanding.” She started to speak but he was going on without waiting. “Lieutenant Commander Huron had suggested the possibility that the apparent explosion of your ship was staged somehow, though I believe… uh… tradition favors disabling the beacon if this is done…”
“Sir, in this instance the beacon’s signal was necessary to fool the pirates - “
“Ah, yes. The pirates. And how many armed ships were you facing, Commander?”
Sassinak gritted her teeth. There would be a court of inquiry; there was always a court of inquiry in circumstances like these, andthat was the place for these questions. “The first armed ship,” she said, “was escorting the slaver transport. We did not know at that time if the slaver were armed - “
“But it wasn’t. You had the IFF signal - “
“We knew the IFF of the escort had been falsified, and weren’t sure of the transport. Some of them are: you will recall theCles Prel loss, when a supposedly unarmed transport blew a light cruiser away - “ That was a low blow, she knew: the captain of theClesPrel had been Verstan’s classmate at the Academy. His face stiffened, then she saw dawning respect in his eyes: he was a stickler for protocol, but he liked people with gumption.
“You said ‘the first armed ship,’ “ he went on. “Was there another?”
Sassinak explained about the well-defended base, and the ships that had boosted off to join the battle. She knew Huron would have told him about the weaponry on the first ship - if he’d listened. Then, before he could ask details of the battle, she told him about the traffic in the system since.
“They’ve had three Gourney-class transports land in the past few days, and there’s a Hall-Kir in low orbit. One of the Gourney-class is definitely from a heavyworlder system, and it’s made unclassified trips before. I think they’re planning to evacuate the base; we monitored considerable shuttle activity up to the orbital ship.”
“Any idea how big the base is?”
“Not really. We were on the back side of that moonlet, with only a small sensor net deployed for line of sight to the planet. The thermal profile is consistent with anything from one thousand to fifteen thousand, depending on associated activities. If we knew for sure what they were doing, we could come closer to a figure. I can dump the data for you - “
“Please do.”
Sassinak matched channels, and sent the data. “If their turnaround is typical. Commodore, they could be loaded and ready to lift in another couple of days.”
“I see. Do you think they’ll do it with our force here?”
“Probably - they won’t gain anything by waiting for you to put them under siege. Oh - that outer moon - did Huron tell you about their detection profile?”
“Yes. I know they know we’ve entered the system - we also stripped their outer warning beacon. But that’s exactly what I’m hoping for. Three medium transports, one Hall-Kir hull… we should be able to trail several of them, if we can tag them. If we wait another week, we may have more in the net when we attack. How about you?”
She wanted to join the hunt more than anything in years, but Hollister was shaking his head at her. “Sir, my environmental system is overloaded, and my portside pods sustained considerable damage… the engineers tell me we can’t do another long chase.”
“Humph. Can you give us a visual? Maybe we have something you can use for repairs?”
Apparently one of the other cruisers had a visual on them, for before Sassinak could reply, she saw a picture come up on the screen behind Commodore Verstan. One of his bridge officers pointed it out to him, and he turned - then swung back to face Sassinak with a startled expression.