There. The blue cone caught fire; the tip burned orange. If she were Livadhi, she’d go ballistic, using the planetary satellite’s mass to redevelop velocity and swing around, then push the cruiser’s insystem drive to its limit to catch up with the trader. That is, knowing what she wanted him to know; Better Luck, as built, could not possibly outrun the cruiser to the standard jump distance. Why stress his ship and waste power, when the easy way would work?
But if he knew all of it—if he knew what ship this really was, and who captained her, and what she’d done leaving Rockhouse Major . . . I do wish we’d been able to mount really effective screens on a hull this size, she thought. To Sirkin she said, “Display the remaining time to the closest computed jump distance, and give me thirty-second counts.” Then, to Ginese, “I expect pursuit and warning. I prefer not to engage at this time.” She preferred not to engage at any time, certainly not with Arash Livadhi’s cruiser. By any sensible calculation, he could blow them away easily. The orange-tipped blue cone, she saw, was now leaning drunkenly to one side as the scan computer calculated new possibilities. He wasn’t going to do it the easy way; he was wasting considerable power to make the course correction necessary for a direct pursuit. That suggested he knew too much already.
Another hail, this one demanding voice communication. Heris grimaced. “At least he’s still calling us Better Luck,” she said. “There’s a chance—”
But there wasn’t. The scan display showed a white star where the last fleck of orange had been: a microjump. It lit again to show the cruiser much closer, its vector now approaching theirs. Heris admired the precision and daring of that maneuver, even as she wished his navigator had miscalculated.
“Nine minutes, thirty seconds,” Sirkin said.
Heris sent a voiceburst, the reply expected from a ship requested to give voice communication, in a directional beam aimed toward the cruiser’s previous course prediction but intersecting the new. Livadhi couldn’t know about their new scans; he would expect that. He might pick up the reply, or he might hail again. The seconds crawled past; the displays showed their velocity increasing, the distance to a safe jump point decreasing, and the cruiser coming up behind them with a clear advantage in acceleration. Only five gravs, but enough to cut their margin to the jump point dangerously close. Moreover, he had more in reserve once past the kink of the course change, and onto the flatter curve of their own course.
“Nine minutes,” said Sirkin.
If he knew, if he guessed, that the ship he chased was Sweet Delight, he’d know she had more acceleration in reserve. He’d account for that. But if he thought he was overhauling a ship already at full power, he might not expect that last burst; she might be able to get into FTL before he got her. Heris weighed possibilities. His aggressive pursuit suggested he knew; his use of their faked identity suggested he didn’t . . .
“His communications to the Station should be blurring out,” Oblo said. “Screens are up, half-power, and his own turbulence is in the way.”
“He got something,” Heris said. “Something he didn’t like.”
“Yes, but they’re not shooting at us.” The unspoken yet rang in her ears.
“There might be another reason for that,” Heris said, putting her worst fears out for them all. “If they’ve missed the prince, onstation . . . and if they told Livadhi . . . he won’t blow us away, but he’ll be on our track forever.”
“So the good news would be a shot across the bows?” asked Ginese. Sirkin gave a sudden twitch, as if she’d only now realized what was going on.
“In a way. Thing is, if he knows who I am, then he knows how I would’ve reacted—”
“Would have?”
“I’ve changed,” Heris said. “So have we all.” The veterans settled; without a word spoken, she knew she had reassured them about something no one could articulate. Sirkin glanced at the display.
“Eight minutes, thirty seconds.”
Another request for voice communications, as if he had not received the first; he might not have, if his shields distorted the angled beam. Heris checked. If she had the standard civilian-quality scans, would she have had time to notice the new position? Yes. She sent the same packaged burst. It didn’t sound much like her, she thought, though a comparison to her own voiceprint would show that it was. At the least, the accent suggested someone with years of spacer experience, commercial or military. Heris wondered how long it would take him to react to this. Several seconds to arrive, several seconds to decompress and play—she had made the message longer than strictly necessary. A few seconds for the return . . . any additional time off the clock was his reaction time.
“His optical weapons are just within range,” Ginese reported. “They still have active scans on us, and theirs are hot, but I’m not detecting the targeting bursts I’d expect.”
Would he wait until he could deliver more firepower, or would he act now? It was harder to deliver a warning shot from behind but easier to blow someone away . . . was he wondering which to do? He would need to be much closer to deliver a warning in front of them; he had to be sure it went off far enough in front. The seconds ran on.
“Eight minutes,” said Sirkin.
This time it was a voiceburst hail; Oblo had it running almost as Heris saw the communications board flicker.
“F.R.C.S. Better Luck,” came the voice. “This is the Familias Regular Space Service frigate Skyfarer. You are suspected of carrying contraband. Heave to for inspection.” An old term, and not what they would do if they were going to comply . . . and . . . frigate? Named the Skyfarer? Heris stared across the bridge at Oblo, who shook his head.
“No, sir—ma’am—that’s no frigate. But look at the old scan.”
On the original scan board, which they’d left in because it was the standard required, the R.S.S. ship’s profile did indeed resemble a frigate—half the mass of a cruiser. That made no sense. Why would a captain misrepresent his ship that way? Did he expect her to willingly engage a frigate? Surely in attempting to stop a civilian vessel, it was better to claim all the ship size you had . . . she’d always done so.
“Our weapons profile should look to him about even, if he were a frigate,” Ginese pointed out. “If we engaged, then he’d be legally in his rights—”
“To blow us away,” Heris said. “I do remember that much. But if that’s his game, he can’t know the prince is aboard.” Or can he? she wondered. If the king—or anyone else—wanted to get rid of the inconveniently stupid prince, this would be a way . . . a tragedy of course, but one to be blamed on the unstable Captain Serrano. And perhaps on her employer or the employer’s family.
“You’re going to tell him?” Petris’s eyebrows rose.
“Of course not. We’re not supposed to have tight beam capability; it would be telling him and everyone else in this system.”
On the tight beam, Livadhi’s familiar face had an earnest expression that sat oddly with the rumpled red curls she remembered. Behind his head was the curved wall of the communications booth, which meant he hoped his crew wasn’t spiking into this conversation.
“Captain Serrano, it is imperative that we keep this as short as possible.” His stubby hands raked his hair again, so that one lock stuck straight up. “You have . . . er . . . the wrong person aboard your ship.”
“Four minutes,” Sirkin said.
“I know you can make jump inside the usual radius; you did it before. But don’t do it now. Please.”