But if Radiance wasn’t a bolthole, at least it was big enough to stop Alliance missiles and direct observation. Daniel was diving toward the planet as the only chance the Princess Cecile had of surviving the next five minutes. After that—well, first get the five minutes.
“Betts, fire at will!” Daniel shouted over the command push as he tried to do three things at once. It’d be tempting to conserve the Princess Cecile’s slight stock of missiles, but unless they managed to screw up the Bluecher’s plans, the corvette would shortly take a direct hit that’d vaporize the missile magazine along with everything else.
Not even the coolest officer likes to see hostile missiles streaking across his attack board toward him. The slight chance of disconcerting the cruiser’s command group was worth all the “what if?” fairy gold of saving rounds for later.
Daniel had programmed the first two missiles, but the rest Betts would have to aim. It was his job, after all, and he was perfectly able—he wouldn’t have been aboard the Princess Cecile at this time if he weren’t. He couldn’t read Daniel’s mind, though. In a perfect universe the Sissie’s missile launches and maneuvers would be parts of a choreographed whole.
Well, in a perfect universe the Sissie wouldn’t have been trapped by a heavy cruiser commanded by a man who’d get Daniel’s vote for Best Captain in the Alliance Fleet. And if it came to that, a perfect universe wouldn’t need warships and fighting officers to command them. Daniel’d play the hand he’d been dealt.
There was only so much he could do. Semmes hadn’t expected his prey to dive for the planet, but his twelve-missile salvo had allowed him to hedge his bets. Space might be infinite, but in human terms a corvette covered a considerable volume of it with her antennas extended seventy feet from the hull in all directions.
Daniel’s Plot Position Indicator was three-dimensional and multi-colored. The incoming missile tracks were blue with their predicted continuations in purple. A purple trace appeared to intersect with the yellow line of the Princess Cecile’s course. Daniel expanded that tiny segment till the corvette’s 230-foot length filled the width of the display. The purple line was still there, merely a thread even at the larger scale.
Bloody Hell, it was going to—
Daniel couldn’t add power, so he shut off the thrusters instead. The High Drive took thirty seconds to build or collapse, so he didn’t bother with it. The effect of reduced braking was to move the Sissie slightly higher above Radiance and slightly forward of the path the astrogational computer had predicted.
The incoming missile segment slipped beneath her hull. If they’d been lucky it would’ve missed entirely, but it clipped Antenna Ventral B. The impact converted twenty feet of the mast to vapor which shredded the sails of VA and VC. Expanding gases rang the hull like a steel drum.
Daniel lit the thrusters again, knowing he was stressing the corvette beyond what her frames were meant to bear. He loved the Princess Cecile as much as a man could love a machine, but if she got her crew clear of this and back to Cinnabar then they could scrap her. Pray God, just get the Sissies back to Cinnabar!
Daniel reverted to a standard PPI. Instinct showed him the opportunity that the software couldn’t have computed. He throttled the thrusters back to 70%, a slight but calculable reduction. The Bluecher’s sensors noticed the change and fed it into the attack computer. Three seconds later, the cruiser launched another salvo of missiles.
Missiles under power could follow a curving course. The Princess Cecile was ducking into the ballistic shadow of Radiance, but the cruiser’s attack computer could send missiles into her predicted position even though there was no line of sight between the Bluecher and her prey.
“Chewning, get the riggers inside!” Daniel ordered, wishing he’d thought to say that before they lost people—almost certainly—on Ventral B. The riggers were of no use outside as things were. If the Sissie escaped into the Matrix they could go out again, but they weren’t going to attempt to enter the Matrix while the Bluecher followed.