Free Trial by Fire - eARC by Charles E. Gannon Page A

lost the preignition torus and power to the starboard plasma thrusters. If we don’t—”
    “Son, has anyone else been hit yet?”
    “Erm—no; we’re the lucky first.”
    “Then you have to break silence and send this tactical update out on general broadcast. Give our current range to the enemy’s capital ships and attach the damage report.”
    “Sir, I don’t under—”
    “Just do it, Lieutenant. The admiral and line captains will know what to make of it.”
    Hazawa signed off. Trevor brought up a screen which duplicated the bridge’s engineering board. He shook his head. “Not good. The portside pulse fusion engine is completely gone. We still might get away if they fix the preignition torus for the plasma thrusters.”
    “That’s a big ‘if.’”
    “You bet,” agreed Trevor. “Half of everything else is fried. Countermeasures are gone. So’s one of the PDF defense pods. At this point, they could finish us off with a few thrown rocks and sharp insults.”
    “Structural integrity?”
    “Hard to say. No problem amidships or up at the bow, but to aft, most of the hull sensors in engineering are out.”
    “Usually not a good sign.”
    “No, not at all.”
    “Sensors and commo?”
    “Not much damage there. They’re all up front, near the bridge module.”
    “One last question: how many friendlies are in scanning range, and how close are they?”
    Trevor shifted to the close range plot. “Nothing big: an autonomous drone carrier deploying its complement, two tenders, a tanker, another cutter. And a missile frigate, coming up from The Pearl, probably trying to buy time for evacuation and for getting the carriers out of the slips.”
    “Any pattern to the vectors of those ships?”
    “They’re all over the place, although the frigate and the drone carrier are heading to engage.”
    “Which means they’ll be coming right through our current position.”
    “More or less. The others are maneuvering away, but every one of those ships is still going to be in the neighborhood when the party starts.”
    Caine checked his chronometer. “Okay. If our first guesses about the enemy’s speed are correct, we’ve now got between five and six minutes before their drones can start pranging us. And let’s assume they’ve got better range, too.”
    “Okay, so that means we’ve got three or four minutes. What’s your point?”
    “Right now, what do you think this ship should be doing?”
    Trevor looked sideways. “Well, not standing toe to toe with drones, let alone battlewagons. We’ve got one remaining PDF system for knocking down missiles that come within five hundred klicks. It might put a few dents in a small craft, if one strays within a few kiloklicks of us. But that’s the extent of our offensive potential.”
    “Do you think that’s how Hazawa is going to see it?”
    Trevor looked down, considering. “Probably not. He’s young, true-blue, eager to prove he’s not scared—so he’ll have a tendency to try to fight his ship. And kill himself.”
    “And us.”
    Trevor nodded. “So I’ll have to talk him out of that, and also out of maneuvering. Because if Hazawa gets mobility back, his immediate reflex will be to run or hide. And they’re both suicide. Even if we get the preignition torus running, we still can’t pull ahead of their main hulls, even if we jettisoned all the modules. And their drones—at eight gee minimum—will be all over us long before then.”
    Caine shrugged “So, with no place to hide, no way to fight, and not enough speed to run, we’ve got only one choice left.”
    “You mean we should play dead? How’s that going to help?”
    “Well…it might not. But it has this advantage over the other three alternatives: it might work.”
    Caine nodded. “Remember, the Ktor categorized us and the Hkh’Rkh as warlike, but not the Arat Kur. So, given the superior tech we’ve observed, let’s assume we’re being invaded by the Arat Kur. Being busy and not innately