The Long Voyage of the Little Fleet (Family Law) by Mackey Chandler

Author:Mackey Chandler [Chandler, Mackey]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Mackey Chandler
Published: 2014-06-11T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

The Roadrunner grabbed the boom without any problems. Fat and Timely suited up. They didn't wear any arms externally on the suits, but Chance told them to wear side arms under, for after they removed their suits, to walk around.

"We see the Badgers and others have personal arms. No reason you should be their social inferiors. Mr. Wilson, I see you have had a sleep period recently. I intend to take a rest period now in the comfort of my bunk instead of on an acceleration couch. You are technically officer of the day at dock, but you may rest at the board if you set an alarm sufficient to wake you up for incoming calls. The Sharp Claws has more people than us to do shifts and can watch the radar and system com and alert us at your request instead of just relaying data to us. Good night sir."

Persevere was resting, eyes closed, when the board jarred him awake later. It took a minute for him to read the messages and check the clock before he decided he should disturb Chance.

"Sir," Persevere Wilson called from the tiny flight deck of the courier, "station com reports a force of six Biter vessels was in system transit, however upon requesting recent system scan and seeing our arrival, they have changed course to make planetary orbit or dock. They asked if the Sharp Claws was part of the force that engaged their ship in system 80 and the station com answered them truthfully that it was."

"Well I wouldn't ask them to lie for us and if they did it would hardly be believable." Chance looked at the com clock. He'd managed less than two hours of sleep. If things went really bad he wanted a clear mind. "Ask Sharp Claws how long until they are in missile range if we stay put right here?"

After a short delay, to inquire, Persevere informed him seven to seven and a half hours.

"Have the Badgers finished fueling?"

"Yes and they are free to take crew back aboard on short notice and have just now asked if we would prefer to leave in approximately the opposite direction from which the Biters are approaching."

"Leave? Run from only six of them? I don't think so. If we don't deal with them here, the Retribution and Murphy's Law will just have to deal with them back in system 80. Gordon would certainly wonder why we ran. Running would look really bad to our potential new allies. They can of course retreat if they have a sudden change of heart and no longer want our protection. In which case they are on their own again. Let them decide however, without suggesting the option."

"I got the impression they thought it might be the smart thing to do. Any one of the approaching Biter ships outweigh the Sharp Claws by at least a factor of two."

Chance ignored that. He wasn't planning on ramming them. "Have our crew on station called in?"

"Fat did a com check recently, sir.

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