Starhold by J. Alan Field Read Free Book Online Page A

busy trying to kill you.”
    Parker Knox unsuccessfully tried to suppress a small laugh. “That explains a lot.”
    “Meaning, Mr. Knox?” Adams’s eyes bore into the XO.
    “I simply meant,” Knox fumbled for words “that your planet sounds somewhat, well, uninviting.”
    Adams turned away from him, attending to her station. “Perhaps you should visit it sometime, then you’d be better informed—sir,” she said loud enough to make sure everyone heard.
    Ten more minutes went by with nothing happening. “He’s not going to bite,” Adams said. “I advise a straight forward attack, before he decides to destroy the station and make a run for it.”
    “Not yet, Commander,” Pettigrew disagreed. “He just needs a little more incentive to believe us. Ms. Nyondo,” he addressed the helm, “very slowly and very clumsily, turn us around a hundred-eighty degrees, like we were going to do a turn and burn, but make it look like you’re really having trouble with helm response.”
    “Aye, sir.” Nyondo slowly rotated the ship, but the enemy did nothing. Once she had completed the turning maneuver, Pettigrew ordered the Tempest to proceed away from the hostile vessel.
    Both Knox and Adams left their consoles to stand on either side of their captain’s chair.
    “Make it very slow, Ms. Nyondo, no more than six percent I-drive and vary the speed a bit. I want it to look like we’re struggling just to go that fast,” Pettigrew instructed.
    “Sir,” began Adams in a quiet voice, obviously wanting to keep the conversation private. She also had her hands clasped behind her back. It was a gesture that Pettigrew recognized as her ‘I’m going to tell you something you don’t want to hear’ stance. “If that ship destroys the station while we’re pretending to run away, that could get a lot of people killed, not to mention the court-martial. Your head would be on the block.”
    “Probably ours too,” Knox squirmed. “And another thing, sir—the longer we wait to attack, the more likely it is that enemy reinforcements might arrive.”
    Pettigrew knew they both had valid observations, points he had already considered. Whoever these people were, they were nothing if not stubborn. Also, many of the thirty-three officers and 340 crewmembers aboard his own ship were probably having their doubts about the Old Man right now. Perhaps he had over—
    “Enemy ship turning toward us and increasing speed!” called out Lieutenant Commander Swoboda from his console. Knox and Adams dashed back to their stations.
    “He’s coming fast— very fast! I’ve never seen a warship accelerate like this,” Adams reported. “ETA to intercept is just nine minutes.”
    At the helm, Lieutenant Nyondo seemed slightly unnerved by that last report. “Orders, sir?” she asked her captain.
    “Steady as she goes, Lieutenant. We’ve worked very hard to get him to do this, now let’s see it through.” He turned toward the fire control officer. “Mr. Swoboda, prepare to deploy stealth mines.”
    “How many, sir?”
    “All of them.”
    The distance between the two antagonists shrunk as Pettigrew ordered the mines released. The Tempest disgorged two hundred mines whose micro-thrusters deployed them in a pattern across the path of the oncoming vessel. If the enemy had not detected the subtle wake of the small mines’ deployment; if Sarissan stealth tech was better than the enemy’s detection tech; if Tempest got lucky… There were quite a few ‘ifs,’ even for a gambler like Pettigrew.
    Knox spoke up from his post. “Sir, we have missiles ready to fire at your command.”
    “Not yet, Mr. Knox. If we fire missiles prematurely, he may counter by changing course and if he does that, he’ll miss the minefield.” Pettigrew spoke to Swoboda again. “Fire control, I want a full missile spread ready to fire at Bandit Alpha just as he makes contact with our minefield, but not before. He’s got to hit the mines before he sees us