The captain rubbed his lower lip while he furrowed his brow in thought. The visual imagery wasn't as good as he might have wished, and the angle was poor. But it was the first real look they'd gotten, and there was something about it. Something about the turn of the cruiser's forward hammerhead and the angle of the impeller ring . . .
"That's a Solarian design," he said suddenly, his aristocratic drawl momentarily in total abeyance.
"A Solly?" Blumenthal looked up over his shoulder in disbelief.
"I'm almost certain," Oversteegen said, and leaned closer to point at the visual image. "Look at that gravitic array," he said as more recognition features sprang out at him now that he knew what to look for. "And look at the impeller ring. See the offset on the beta nodes?" He shook his head. "And that might explain how good their EW is."
Blumenthal stared back down at the image, as if seeing it for the first time.
"You could be right, Sir," he said slowly. "But what in God's name would Solly heavy cruisers be doing here?"
"I don't have the least idea," Oversteegen admitted. "Except for one thing, Guns. If what they're here for was legitimate, they would have responded t' our challenges by now. And the fact that they're Solly-built, doesn't mean a thing about who's crewin' them, now does it?"
"But how would garden variety pirates this far from the League get their hands on Solly hardware? And if they could do that in the first place, then why waste their time on chicken-stealing level piracy in an area where all of the system economies are so marginal?"
"All very good questions, Guns," Oversteegen acknowledged. He straightened and clasped his hands behind him. "And it occurs t' me that they're also the sort of questions our friends out there aren't goin' t' want anyone to be askin' . . . much less answerin'. Which may explain why they're comin' in on us so steadily now. Of course, it still leaves the question of why they waited so long before they did, now doesn't it?"
He rocked slightly on the balls of his feet, eyes slightly unfocused as he thought hard. Then he nodded to himself.
"A nasty thought just occurred t' me, Guns. If these are Sollies—or, at least, Solly-built—and if the EW we've actually observed is this good, then what's their stealth technology like?"
"You think there are more of them around, Sir?"
"If there's two of them, I don't see any reason why there couldn't be more. After all, two of them are so unlikely, on the face of things, that I'm no longer prepared t' even hazard a guess as t' what they could be up to. But I think it's time we checked our back."
"Absolutely, Sir," Blumenthal agreed, and looked at his assistant.
"Deploy four more of the Sierra Romeo platforms, Mr. Aitschuler. I want a conic sweep of our after aspect immediately!"
"Shit!" Jerome Tyler, captain of the heavy cruiser Fortune Hunter, swore with feeling. No ship he'd ever commanded, or even served upon, before Fortune Hunter would have boasted the sensor sensitivity to have spotted the Manty's recon platform when it came in on her. Nor would they have been capable of spotting the additional platforms the bastard had just deployed astern of himself. Not even Fortune Hunter's systems could manage to hold the drones once they cleared their mother ship's wedge and brought their own stealth systems fully online, but he knew where they had to be headed. Which meant they were probably going to find Juliette Morakis' Cutthroat and Dongcai Maurersberger's Mörder before they got properly into position.
This was all that asshole Ringstorff's fault! He was the one who'd figured it had to be the Erewhonese again. Now he'd committed them to taking on the Royal Manticoran Navy, and the one thing anyone who had ever operated in Silesia knew was that if you took on a single Manty warship, you'd better be damned sure you killed every member of its crew. Because if the Manties knew you'd hit one of their ships, and they had any clue that would let them identify you, they would stop coming after you only after you were dead . . . or Hell was a skating rink.
Tyler forced his thoughts out of their ever tightening circle and drew a deep breath.
Yes, it was all Ringstorff's fault. And, yes, they were up against a Manty. But that just meant their options were clearer.
And that they couldn't let there be any survivors at all.
"There is another one back there, Sir!"
Michael Oversteegen frowned ever so slightly as his repeater plot updated with the drones' report. The stealthed cruiser creeping up on Gauntlet's port quarter was much closer than any Peep could have gotten without being detected. On the other hand, she wasn't as close as another Manticoran ship might have managed, which suggested that the RMN's hardware remained superior to the other side's, even if those were Solly-built ships. Unfortunately, the margin of superiority looked like being much thinner than it should have been, and there were three of them.
That he knew about so far, that was.
He crossed his legs, considering the situation. The two ships he'd already known about were almost dead ahead of him now, but they'd been cautious, maneuvering along the outside arc of the hyper limit without ever crossing it while letting Gauntlet gradually close the range. The discovery of the third unknown unit might very well explain that caution; they'd shaped their course to draw Oversteegen into a position which would permit their consort to maneuver around astern of him.
But now that the third cruiser was almost into position, they'd changed their own vectors to head directly towards him. The current range was just over fourteen million kilometers, with a closing velocity of just over sixty thousand kilometers per second. Given that geometry, the effective powered missile range for a Peep missile would have been just over fifteen million klicks at 42,500 g, which would give them a minute and a half of drive time. Gauntlet's missiles could pull 46,000 g over the same time envelope, which gave her a current powered engagement range of over sixteen-point-three million klicks, but that theoretical advantage was rather cold comfort, given that both sides were already in their own range of the other. On the other hand, the other side's timing hadn't been perfect—not surprisingly, given the limitations of light-speed communications and the perennial difficulty of coordinating with someone whose stealth systems hid him from your sensors as completely as from the enemy's. Oversteegen knew the trailer coming up astern was there now, and that she'd need over eleven more minutes to get into missile range at all . . . assuming he let her do so.
"Things seem t' be gettin' a little complicated," he observed mildly into the silently roaring tension of his bridge. He drummed the fingers of his right hand lightly on his command chair's armrest and considered his options, which were becoming progressively less palatable.
"How do your targetin' solutions on Number One and Number Two look, Guns?" he asked.
"They're not as good as I'd like, Sir," Blumenthal replied honestly. "Against a Peep, my confidence would be high. Against whoever these people are, though—" He shrugged. "They haven't brought their ECM fully on line yet, so I can't be certain how it will affect our targeting solutions when they do. But given what they seem to be able to do to our passive sensors, I have to say I'd be cautious about their reliability."
"But they don't have it up yet," Oversteegen murmured.
"Not fully, no, Sir."
"Captain," Commander Watson said quietly from the com screen at Oversteegen's right knee which linked him to the exec and her backup command crew in Auxiliary Control, "it's my duty to remind you that the current Rules of Engagement require demonstration of hostile intent before one of Her Majesty's starships is authorized to open fire."
"Thank you, Ms. Exec." Oversteegen smiled thinly at her. "I'm aware of the ROE, but you're quite correct t' remind me of them, and the log will indicate you did so. However, under the existin' circumstances, and given these people's refusal t' respond t' any of our challenges, coupled with the obvious effort t' position their third ship t' ambush us from behind, I'm willin' t' consider that they've already demonstrated hostile intent."
A chill wind seemed to blow briefly around Gauntlet'
s command deck and the already palpable tension ratcheted higher.
"For what it's worth, Sir," Watson replied, "I concur in your evaluation."
"It would be nice if we were both wrong," Oversteegen observed. "Unfortunately, I don't think we are. Commander Atkins."
"Yes, Sir," the astrogator responded.
"Time t' hyper limit at constant accelerations and headin's?"
"Approximately twelve minutes, Sir."
"And how much can we shorten that?"
"Just a moment, please, Sir." Atkins punched new acceleration values and courses into her running plot, then looked back up. "If we go to max military power, Sir, we can hit the limit in ten-point-five minutes, assuming we change heading seventeen degrees to port for a least-time heading."
"Guns."
"Yes, Sir," Blumenthal responded.
"Number Three's current time t' maximum powered missile range at constant accelerations?"
"Assuming constant accelerations, and assigning Peep missile ranges, approximately ten minutes before Number Three enters her estimated engagement range, Sir," Blumenthal replied promptly. "However, I should point out that if these are Solarian-built units, they may be carrying Solly ordnance, as well, and we have no definitive figures on Solarian League missile performance."
"Noted," Oversteegen replied. "And if we go t' Astro's least-time course t' the limit?"
"Approximately nine-point-three minutes. The course change will let her cut the chord on us just a bit. But, again, Sir, that assumes Peep compensator efficiency at max military power, and a Solly-built ship may be able to pull a higher accel than that."
"Understood." It seemed to Gauntlet's bridge crew that a small eternity passed, but it was actually less than five seconds before Captain Michael Oversteegen made his decision.
"Helm, when I give the word, put us on Astro's course for the limit."
"Aye, aye, Sir," the helmswoman said tautly.
"Guns, the instant we change headin', I want full broadsides and the chase tubes on Number One. I know you'll have t' share uplinks, but I want maximum weight of fire. Hit him hard, because I've got a feelin' any of these people who can are goin' t' follow us right across the wall."
"Aye, aye, Sir," Commander Blumenthal acknowledged in a crisp voice.
"Very well, Helm. Execute!"
"What the f—?!"
Jerome Tyler stared at his plot in disbelief as no less than sixty missiles suddenly came roaring towards Fortune Hunter. No heavy cruiser packed a missile broadside that heavy! Had the bastards had missile pods on tow the entire time?
"Tactical! Bring up our EW! Point defense free! And open fire on that son-of-a-bitch!"
"There goes their EW, Sir," Blumenthal reported, and Oversteegen nodded. He also frowned, because the target's electronic warfare capability was enormously better than anything he'd ever seen out of any non-Manticoran unit. It came up faster, and it was far more effective.
The missiles' target faded into a fuzzy ball of jamming, and fiendishly effective decoys came to life on their tethering tractors. Blumenthal's systems didn't quite lose lock completely, but that lock became much looser and more tentative, and at least a quarter of Gauntlet's missiles veered off to target the decoys as the combination of limited telemetry links and the decoys' efficiency came into play. The fact that Gauntlet was bows-on to her target even after course change let her engage with both broadsides and her bow chasers alike, but she had links for little more than a quarter of that many birds without sharing them, and it showed.
Yet however good their EW might be, it was evident that they couldn't match Ghost Rider's capabilities. Both Number One and Number Two returned Gauntlet's fire almost instantly, but they fired only eight missiles between them. Clearly, those birds came solely from their chase tubes, which suggested that their broadside tubes couldn't match Manticore's off-bore capability.
But that was the only really good news, and Oversteegen watched as his own counter missiles and point defense engaged the incoming fire.
Just as the opposing cruisers' electronic warfare capability was far better than any Peep's would have been, so was their missiles' ECM. Point defense's firing solutions were much poorer than usual, and two of the incoming birds evaded no fewer than three counter missiles each. Blumenthal's last-ditch laser clusters managed to nail both of them before they reached laser head attack range, but Manticoran missile defenses shouldn't have let anything get that close from such a small salvo.
"Two hits on Number One!" one of Blumenthal's ratings announced just as the lasers stopped the second of the near-misses. Which, Oversteegen told himself sourly, wasn't anything to write home about coming out of a sixty-missile launch.
Still, it was better than the other side had done.
Fortune Hunter bucked, and alarms shrilled, as two X-ray lasers slammed into her bow. They came in from almost dead ahead, with no sidewall to interdict, and armor shattered under their ferocious power. Point Defense Four blew apart, and the same hit drove deep, severely damaging Gravitic One and breaching Magazine Two. The second hit came in at a broader angle, with no carry back into the hull, but it also came in directly on top of Missile Four. Seventeen men and women died under those two hits, and six more were wounded, and Tyler felt a deep, panicky stab of near-superstitious dread.
But then the Manty's change of course registered, and his eyes narrowed. He still didn't have any idea how the other cruiser had managed to target him with what had to be both broadsides simultaneously, but it was obvious that the enemy ship was running for the hyper limit. In the Manty's position, Tyler would have been attempting to avoid action from the very beginning against such numerical odds, but that wasn't the way Manties normally handled pirates. Now, though . . .
"The bastards are running," he muttered, and looked up from his plot. "They're running!" he repeated.
"Maybe so, but they're also hammering us a lot harder than we're hammering them!" his executive officer shot back.
"Hell, yes, they are," Tyler agreed with a snort. "And if we'd fired fifteen times as many missiles at them, we'd probably have hit them more often, too! Look at how close two of our birds did get before they stopped them!"
"Well, yeah . . ."
The exec had been with Tyler for almost four T-years, and he had a tendency to try to second-guess his CO. And he was also a fellow Silesian, with the same near phobic respect for the Royal Manticoran Navy. But his panic seemed to ease slightly as he considered the pirate captain's point.
"Damned right, 'well'!" Tyler shot back now, and looked past the other man at his helmsman. "Bring us hard to starboard! Put us as close to parallel with them as you can!"
"They're changing heading to open their broadsides, Sir," Blumenthal reported as Gauntlet's third double broadside blasted from her tubes.
"Not surprisin'," Oversteegen replied in a calm, cool voice. "Only thing they can do, really. But they're not goin' t' be able t' put themselves on a headin' t' follow us across the wall. Stay with Number One, Guns."
Jerome Tyler had already reached the same conclusion as Michael Oversteegen. Whatever he did, Fortune Hunter and Samson Lamar's Predator were going to slide in-system past Gauntlet. But they'd have time for at least eight or nine more broadsides first, and his lips skinned back from his teeth in an ugly smile. No Silesian raider had ever willingly engaged a Manticoran cruiser, but many of them had dreamed of the freak set of circumstances which might have let them do so successfully. The fact that the Manty had to be destroyed was the only thing which had inspired him to engage in the first place, but now that it had been forced upon him, he scented victory, and he wanted it. Badly.
"Pour it on, Tactical!" he snapped. "Communications, raise Mörder! Get her current position—now!"
Joel Blumenthal focused on his plot more intensely than he'd ever done anything before in his life. His eyes flicked across the display, noting shifting vectors, the enemy's fire patterns, and CIC's analysis of the other side's EW and decoys, and he
grunted in partial satisfaction.
Number One and Number Two were firing full broadsides, now, and their turn had taken the vulnerable open front aspects of their wedges away from Gauntlet. Worse, the penetration aids and ECM of their attacking missiles were even harder to compensate for as the threat numbers multiplied. But his Ghost Rider recon platforms were real-timing close-range observations of the other ships' EW to him, which gave CIC's computers a much better look at them than the other side had at his own electronic defenses. And good as the pirates' EW might be, it wasn't as good as Blumenthal had originally believed. Or possibly it was; it could be lack of skill on its operators' part.
Whatever the cause, the enemy's EW was slow. However effective their decoys might be, they were much slower to adapt their emissions than Manticoran decoys would have been. Perhaps even more importantly, their mother ships' onboard EW was slow to adapt to the active sensors aboard Blumenthal's remote recon platforms.
Those platforms' FTL grav-pulse transmitters fed his targeting computers with real-time data, and their radar and lidar was getting far better hits off of their targets than they should have done against jammers that capable. He wondered if the pirates even realized how close the platforms were. Or how quickly their targeting info could make its way back to Gauntlet. There was no way to tell, and it didn't really matter, he thought, as he updated his current missile salvo's attack profiles.
"Yes!"
Tyler pounded jubilantly on the arm of his command chair, and a hungry sound of triumph rippled around Fortune Hunter's bridge as two of their laser heads broke through the Manty's defenses. The enemy cruiser's sidewall intercepted them, bending and blunting them, and it was unlikely they'd inflicted heavy damage, but it was a start, and more broadsides were already in space.
"I've got Mörder," Tyler's com officer announced. "I'm feeding her current position directly to Tactical."