Read Online The Oncoming Storm by Christopher Nuttall - Free Book Online

But she’d clearly failed.
    Roach put it into words. “Captain,” he said, “we can’t guarantee security for nine freighters in hyperspace.”
    “I know,” the captain said. Her mouth twisted, as though she had bitten into a lemon. “We might lose one of our ships in a distortion zone and never realize it.”
    She was right, William knew. Hyperspace played merry hell with sensors, particularly long-range sensors. It was quite possible for a pirate ship to shadow the convoy, satisfy itself that it could pick off one of the freighters, then attack during an energy distortion that would make it impossible to tell that something had gone wrong. It would be hours before the freighter failed to check in, at which point it would be countless light years away, being looted by the pirates. The crew would be in for a fate worse than death.
    He rather doubted their weapons would make any difference. The big corporations could afford weapons licenses, cramming as many armaments into their freighter hulls as they liked, but it wouldn’t make them effective warships. Freighters wallowed like pigs in mud, their sensors and shields rarely military-grade . . . hell, there were restrictions on selling military-grade technology to civilians, even for the big corporations. There was just too great a chance of it falling into very unfriendly hands.
    And it was starting to look as though someone had set the captain up to fail.
    “We cannot hope to hide the convoy,” Captain Falcone said. “The scheduled departure date cannot be put back any further. Anyone with eyes on the system will be able to track our numbers, course, and speed, then make a rough estimate of our location. And ten ships are easier to locate in hyperspace than one.”
    She took a breath. It was easy to see she was nervous. “I plan to turn our weakness into a strength,” she continued. “Standard doctrine places the escorting warship at the prow of the convoy. I intend to place us at the rear. We will pose as a freighter.”
    There was a long pause. No one spoke.
    William evaluated it rapidly. It was risky, he had to admit; if they ran into an ambush, the first freighters would be hammered before Lightning even realized they were under attack. But few pirates would dare to take on a heavy cruiser, even if they thought they had the firepower advantage—and few pirate groups had anything larger than a frigate under their command. It was much more likely that they would try to pick off the freighter at the rear of the convoy, rather than challenge a warship directly . . .
    And, if the Captain’s plan worked, they would run right into a heavy cruiser instead.
    “Workable,” William said. “Do you intend to use drones to ensure that any observers see us at the prow of the convoy?”
    “One of the freighters carries a modified Electronic Countermeasures package,” the captain said briskly. “Mother’s Milk will pose as Lightning. She wouldn’t fool anyone in normal space, but in hyperspace sensors are unreliable enough to create reasonable doubt.”
    She smiled coldly. “Maybe next time we can have all the freighters posing as warships,” she added. “Make them guess which of us is the real contender.”
    “The odds would favor them,” William pointed out.
    “We could run a pair of drones forward, if we mounted a control station on Mother’s Milk,” Roach offered. “Their sensors would give us some additional warning if anyone took up position in front of us.”
    “Costly,” William pointed out. Drones configured to work in hyperspace cost a cool five million crowns apiece. The bean counters would be furious, even if the drones were recovered and recycled. “They might garnish your wages to pay for them.”
    “But worthwhile,” Captain Falcone said. “See to it.”
    William made a note of it on his terminal, thinking hard. The captain was from an aristocratic family. She would, if the scandal pages were accurate, have a trust fund, a share