Charlie felt a general sense of relief wash through everyone on the bridge. His immediate reaction was to start issuing orders, but The Headsman was Darmczek’s command, so Charlie bit his tongue and sat without comment. Darmczek knew what he had to do, and they had about ten hours in which to do it.
The tension on the bridge declined further as Darmczek barked out orders. They were a quarter of a light-year to one side of Paradise’s course. They spent three hours driving hard to build sufficient sublight velocity, then up-transited, pushed their transition drive to the limit for a half hour, down-transited and spent another three hours killing their sublight velocity.
“Two light-years and closing, sir,” the navigator barked. “We’ve got a little over an hour and a half.”
Darmczek lined them up on a coarse parallel to Paradise’s and they started building up sublight vector. If they succeeded in knocking Paradise out of transition, she’d hold on to a lot of sublight velocity, so they needed to build up as much as they could to match her speed when the time came.
“Point-one light-year and closing, sir. We’re at a velocity of point-nine lights.”
Darmczek pushed The Headsman’s sublight drive to the limit. They were a tenth of a light-year in front of Paradise, both heading inward toward Dumark, but with the liner in transition she was overtaking them rapidly.
“Com, signal Turmoil that we made it on point. They can stand down.”
Turmoil’s primary purpose had been to help them be sure they were targeting Paradise, and not some other wake in the busy Cathan-Dumark shipping lane. As a secondary purpose, Turmoil was there as backup should they be unable to position The Headsman properly in front of Paradise.
“Fire control,” Darmczek ordered. “Arm a ten-kilotonne warhead, target for detonation five kilometers in front of their bow. That should disrupt their transition field nicely. And tell all weapons stations to stand by.”
“Sir, she’s closing rapidly.” Darmczek had positioned them so that Paradise would pass about one hundred thousand kilometers to one side of their own line.
“Stand by with that warhead. You’ve got your targeting solution. Follow it.”
The Headsman’s hull thrummed with the sound of a transition launch. “Missile away, sir.”
The missile only took a fraction of a second to cross the intervening space, and all data from exterior sensors froze momentarily as the incandescent glare of the detonation overloaded them. The tension grew for several seconds as they waited to learn the fate of the liner. “We got her, sir. She’s in sublight.”
As Charlie’s screens came back to life he could see that for himself. The data showed Paradise coasting in space, her automated distress systems broadcasting a call for help to Dumark. Turmoil had down-transited nearby and was running silent; no sense in letting anyone know of the existence of such ships.
“All forward main batteries,” Darmczek barked. “One shot, across her bow, fire.” The hull thrummed again to the beat of the transition batteries.
Darmczek continued snapping out orders. “Helm, match their vector. Com, open a channel to Paradise and get Drakwin on it.”
Roacka had outdone himself, staging the whole pirate thing like a prep-school play. Since they were supposedly Syndonese outlaws, Drakwin, who stood almost two meters tall and spoke with a thick Syndonese accent, would be the infamous pirate Raul the Damned. “Where the hell did you come up with that?” Charlie asked Roacka.
“Just my vivid imagination, lad. I think I should have been a vid writer. Bet I could have made a fortune.”
“This is Raul the Damned,” Drakwin crowed over the com, sitting at a station near Charlie and hamming it up badly. “Heave to and prepare to be boarded. If you try to run we’ll fire on you, and no shot across the bow next time. Lives will be lost, possibly everyone on your ship. Heave to as ordered, and only money will be lost.”
They cut the com link and waited for a reply.
“Forward main batteries,” Darmczek barked. “Target on their drive and stand by in case they try to run.”
Charlie leaned toward Drakwin and said, “Heave to and prepare to be boarded? You’ve got to be kidding.”
Drakwin grinned like a schoolboy. “Saw it in a costume drama once, Your Grace. Always wanted to say it myself.”
Paradise had popped out of transition at point-eight lights and one hundred thousand kilometers to one side of their line. The Headsman was still decelerating from point-nine lights, which meant they were pulling away from her rapidly, though