Chapter 10
DaGama shuttle Oeiras
28-29 June, 2787
The two assault shuttles under Vasconcellos' command, Oeiras and Caxias, lifted cleanly from the small base tucked away in the system's asteroid belt and settled on an appropriate vector for their intercept of Pathfinder's current track. Acceleration was kept low, less than 50 g, in order to keep their target from knowing they were there for as long as could be managed. Once they approached too closely and were spotted there would be no disengaging. Their best hope of success could be found in delaying that moment for as long as possible.
Vasconcellos settled himself into the proper mental track as easily as he had directed the ships. This was yet another example of the military's "hurry up and wait". It was so familiar by now that he couldn't imagine life being any other way. As always, he used the wait time to prepare himself for all of the things that might or might not happen during those hectic hurry up moments. At this velocity, he would have plenty of opportunity to prepare.
He ran through the status of all of the shuttles' systems, marking each green light off his mental checklist. He called his noncoms for each squad's readiness. He ran a passive scan of Pathfinder and found that it had not altered course.
Those items cleared from his task list, he went through the plan of attack step by step, looking for potential problems, as he had many dozens of times already. The two shuttles he commanded were headed, not for a direct rendezvous with their objective, but for a point well behind it. There was no possibility of getting within striking distance while approaching broadside. Instead, phase one of the plan would have them limit their emissions while moving behind Pathfinder and then use the interference of the larger vessel's engines to mask their attack run.
Once in position, phase two was to disarm the ship. The first difficulty to overcome would be the two chase missile tubes. Each of the shuttles would target one of them, and hold fire until either it was clear they had been spotted or they were within 10,000 km, whichever came first. The same distortion which would mask their presence would create problems with accurately targeting their tubes, but the benefit of using high-powered lasers was that you could hit whatever you could see.
Vasconcellos hoped to close with their wounded prey quickly at that point. He was not expecting to make it without any return fire coming his way, of course. Only a fool expects his enemy to make his life easy for him, or that every break will fall his way in an engagement. The best you could do was to prepare for the worst and hope to be pleasantly surprised.
The worst that could happen was for Pathfinder to react immediately to the attack, turn to face them and open up with their three remaining missile tubes and single laser mount. Even then, it would be close to a fair fight. The two shuttles had two lasers and four tubes a bit smaller than the enemy's between them. Still, evading a counterattack would be difficult at such short range.
They would have surprise of their side, as long as they could successfully sneak into position without being spotted. The shock of the unexpected attack should be sufficient to slow their response by as much as a minute or more. That much time would allow them to destroy the remainder of the target's offensive weapons before they could be brought to bear.
Once the external defenses were dispatched, phase three was to board and take the ship. Caxias' marines would board through the boat bay, with ready access to Engineering, while Vasconcellos and Oeiras would enter directly behind and above Pathfinder's bridge. The assault shuttles were designed for just this kind of boarding. Each would seal itself to the outer hull of the target, then use controlled plasma bursts to create a sizeable entrance.
Once inside, the four squads of marines in battle armor should find little resistance. Data from their source claimed there were only three security personnel aboard Pathfinder. It took fifteen minutes for a top-notch and motivated soldier to don protective gear. Vasconcellos didn't plan to allow them that much time. That left the crew of swabbies, which would be no threat at all.
His mind at rest, the lieutenant decided to work on the second most important preparation for the coming conflict. He went to sleep.
"Lieutenant, you'd best take a look at this." The words were not spoken loudly, but it immediately brought his mind back into focus. A quick glance at the chrono showed that he had at least managed a few hours of sack time.
"What is it, Mark?"
"Passives are returning two signals now. Looks like Pathfinder sent Vanguard out to survey on its own." Second Lieutenant Cinquini, First Platoon's leader, did not look the least bit pleased. Vasconcellos felt much the same.
This was not an eventuality that had been considered in their planning or training. They could not capture either of the ships and leave the other active to raise the alarm, and they did not have the ships and men to take them both at the same time. He was going to have to contact the base for new orders. He hated to do that. Especially when the smart money said Agostinho was going to scrub the whole op. He had no choice, though. This scenario was not covered in the current plan, and his orders did not allow for this much discretion in forming a new plan on his own.
"Fire up the directional comms, Mark. We need to take this up with the Old Lady."
"Yes, sir." He still didn't sound happy.
When he got the commander on the horn, she didn't either.
"Well, there goes six weeks of planning straight down the toilet!" was probably the mildest thing she had to say on the subject. After the initial venting, though, she was quiet for some time. Vasconcellos could tell she was percolating a new idea, so he also said nothing and waited.
"Where is Vanguard headed, Lieutenant?"
Vasconcellos checked the plot on the tactical display and saw that the ship in question was currently decelerating hard to approach the third planet on this side of the system. He passed that information on.
"Perfect!" Vasconcellos could hear the grin in her voice.
"How so, m'am?"
"One of the big worries about our plan was that it might backfire on us. Instead of making sure we guaranteed our share of the prize, we could have made Forrest so pissed off that we went to war over it.
"Opportunity may be knocking, Steve. With the two ships separated, we can take Vanguard, and leave Pathfinder for Forrest to scoop up. We get our hands on the new technology without the need for conflict with Forrest. In fact, if we do it right, Forrest never even needs to know."
Vasconcellos could see the truth in that, once it was pointed out. He liked the new objective better for selfish reasons as well. With a smaller ship, fewer crew, and no armaments, taking Vanguard would involve much less risk for him and his team.
"All right, what is the right way to do it?" he asked.
"Can you make it to the planet before they get there?"
"No, ma'am. Not without being spotted. If we alter course now and keep our accel under the detection threshold, we're still…thirty-eight hours from planetfall," he said, reading off the numbers the comm sergeant held up for him. Onboard a ship was not his natural environment, and the complex physics involved in calculating trajectories was not in his line of work. He was the proverbial ground-pounder, and proud of it.
"Okay, I think your best bet would be to pose as the terraforming team we cleaned out of the system. Get them to let their guard down and then make your move. You may not be able to be believable if they get to the terraformer's encampment before you do, in which case, make the best tactical assault you can, given the circumstances."
"Understood, ma'am. Vasconcellos clear." He keyed the system off, then headed out to the main cabin.
"All right, you apes, listen hard. As is usual, the other side is not acting like we told them to, so there's been a change of plan…"
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