With a soft triple-jolt, the three breacher missiles blasted away, skimming past the gunboats on their way to the Battle Dreadnought.
They’d barely cleared the gunboats’ hulls when six spectrum lasers lashed out from the Dreadnought, catching the breachers and blowing them to shreds.
Sooner than Samakro had hoped. But with breachers, destruction of the missiles themselves wasn’t the last word. The released masses of acid were still in motion, the tendrils still twisting and spinning as their initial momentum continued to carry them toward their target. Unless the Dreadnought could get out of the way—and the acid was already too close for that—it was going to get hit. Samakro held his breath…
And then, almost at the last moment, one of the Nikardun patrol craft shot in from the side, braking hard to put itself directly in the path of the three incoming acid globs.
“It’s not big enough,” Kharill muttered hopefully. “It can’t block all three of them.” The words were barely out of his mouth when the Dreadnought again opened fire.
Only this time, the target was the Nikardun patrol craft in front of it. Even as Samakro felt his mouth drop open in disbelief the ship exploded, scattering debris in all directions.
And the debris cloud, unfortunately, was big enough to block all three acid globs.
“Curse it,” Kharill bit out. “These guys are crazy.”
“Springhawk, what’s your status?” Ar’alani’s voice came over the speaker.
“We’re still here, Admiral,” Samakro said. “But we wouldn’t turn down any timely aid you wanted to offer.”
“Timely aid it is,” Ar’alani said grimly. “I was hoping we wouldn’t have to go with this, but so be it. Do you remember the maneuver Thrawn used against the Paataatus when he first took command of the Springhawk?”
Samakro looked up at Kharill, found the other staring back with a sour expression. They both remembered, all right. “Yes, ma’am,” Samakro said. “When?”
“Hold behind the gunboats you flickered another few seconds, then come out and angle toward low orbit. I’ll tell you when to go dark.”
“Acknowledged,” Samakro said, wondering what this was supposed to accomplish. The Battle Dreadnought had already shown it was willing to go anywhere and through anyone—including its own people—in order to keep pressure on the Springhawk. “Azmordi, get ready…go.” With a wrenching twist, the Springhawk pitched away from the gunboats and blasted across the battlefield toward the planet below. “Stand by to go dark.” He counted out three seconds—
“Go,” Ar’alani ordered.
“Acknowledged,” Samakro said. Across the bridge, his officers shut off their systems, their boards going dark, dim emergency lighting coming on.
And with that, the Springhawk had become nearly as helpless as it was possible for a warship to be.
Though for the moment, at least, their imminent destruction would be postponed a bit. The firing lines from the Battle Dreadnought were currently blocked by a running battle between two of the Chiss missile boats and a Nikardun destroyer. Another few seconds, though, and the Springhawk’s vector would take it into the clear. “Captain?” Kharill prompted.
“I don’t know,” Samakro said. “Let’s see what the admiral has in mind.”
They didn’t have long to wait. “Vak patrol boat, we have a ship with critical life-support failure,” Ar’alani called. “None of our ships are close enough to offer assistance. Can any of your ships render aid?”
“Chiss warship, we are not combatants,” a Vak voice came back. “We cannot interfere in your war.”
Samakro felt his lip twist. Your war? The Chiss were trying to defend the Vak homeworld, for hell’s sake. How was that your war?
“I know, and I accept that,” Ar’alani said, apparently not wanting to get into the politics of the situation. “But under the circumstances surely you can offer humanitarian aid?”
“We will,” the Vak said reluctantly. “Nikardun warships, two patrol ships are moving to render humanitarian aid. Do not fire upon them. Repeat, do not fire upon them.”
“I confirm that, Nikardun commander,” Ar’alani added. “The Vak ships are not entering combat, but only rendering humanitarian aid. Do not, repeat, do not fire on them.”
Ahead, just off the Springhawk’s starboard bow, two Vak patrol ships were on the move, heading toward the supposedly crippled ship. “So do we continue to play dead?” Kharill asked. “Somehow, I can’t see the Nikardun standing off and courteously letting us recover before trying to stomp us again.”
“I assume Ar’alani’s got a plan—”
An instant later the sky lit up as one of the two Vak ships disintegrated in a blaze of Nikardun laserfire. “Nikardun!” Ar’alani snapped again. “Do not attack! Do not attack!”
She might as well have saved her breath. There was a second laser barrage, and the other patrol ship was gone as well. “Nikardun, those were not combatants,” Ar’alani ground out.
“Maybe they weren’t before,” Kharill said, an odd tone to his voice. “But I do believe they are now.”
Samakro frowned. He was right. All around them, the Vak patrol ships that had been studiously staying away from the combat zone were suddenly on the move. In groups of three and four they were converging on the Battle Dreadnought, their missiles blazing toward the huge ship, their lasers flashing against its electrostatic barriers and digging into its hull.
“Lesson for today,” Kharill continued. “Don’t get so focused on one enemy that you end up making another one. Ready to come back to life?”
“Let’s not,” Samakro said. “Ar’alani said we were teetering on the edge of disaster. It wouldn’t look very good if we suddenly showed we weren’t.”
“Yes, I doubt the Vaks would be happy to know they were betrayed by one side and manipulated by the other,” Kharill agreed. “Then…?”
“We sit back,” Samakro said. “Try to avoid any obvious attacks.
“And watch the show.”
* * *
—
“What is his plan?” Yiv shouted, leaning over to slap Thalias across the back of her head. “What is his plan?”
“I don’t know,” Thalias said.
“He brings in Chiss warships to attack me,” Yiv snarled as if she hadn’t spoken. “He goads the Vaks into conspiring with them against me. What is his purpose? What is his goal?”