The Terran Allegiance (Terran Menace, Book 3) by J.R. Robertson

Author:J.R. Robertson [Robertson, J.R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: JR Robertson
Published: 2022-08-07T16:00:00+00:00

25

HOT EXTRACTION

“Ma’am, one of the targets the SEARs flagged as a possible Federation Q-ship has broken from the traffic pattern ahead of schedule.”

Captain Samantha Collins looked up from her command multi-function display and raised an eyebrow at her operations officer, Lieutenant Seymour. She’d ordered her ship into a lower orbit when the SEARs called in an update to inform her that they’d successfully recovered Ben and Zheng—though the CID agent had been killed before they got to him. At present, the SEARs were high-tailing it back to Liberty Spaceport for a dust-off to orbit. Given that Collins and the Wraith had been loitering well outside any of the established shipping lanes to ensure they avoided detection, it was going to take the better part of an hour to get into position for a quick intercept of the SEARs’ shuttle.

“Did they inform Newman’s Rock orbital control, or does it look like they’re trying to make a run for it? It’s possible they just got word of the SEARs hitting their team on the ground, and they’re trying to make a run for it before the planetary government becomes aware of their presence.”

“Neither, ma’am,” came the reply, and Collins frowned. “They appear to be transferring to a different orbit that will bring them to within a thousand kilometers of us soon after we pick up the SEARs, but they’re taking their time about it.”

“Put the tracks on the big screen, please,” Collins said, and her frown deepened after her ops officer sent the predicted orbital tracks to the main bridge display.

The Wraith was stealthy enough that they very likely had remained undetected by the ground-based tracking stations that monitored shipping traffic in and around Newman’s Rock, despite the burn required to insert her ship into its new orbit. Indeed, the lack of any hails from either the civilian orbital control authority or the Newman’s Rock Territorial Defense Forces after the Wraith fired her engines would seem to indicate just that. But Collins wasn’t inclined to believe it was a coincidence that one of the few ships Mabel flagged as a possible Federation intelligence vessel was suddenly on the move and working to position itself above and behind her ship at the same time the SEARs should be making their way back to the shuttle for extraction.

So what to do? Collins could order her ship out of orbit and make the shuttle rendezvous with them somewhere else—it did have limited facilities for an extended flight, after all. But that would put them at risk of being picked up or picked off by their adversary. She could also try to lose them by taking advantage of her ship’s remarkable agility to shift orbits when they went over the horizon, then rely on the Wraith’s excellent stealth capability to keep them from being spotted again until it was too late.

“Still no word from orbital control regarding her shifting position?” Collins asked.

“Not yet, ma’am, but the spacelanes are so crowded right now it might take a bit for them to get around to posting a notice, if it’s not an immediate hazard to anyone.

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