Courier boats didn’t mount point defense, and they weren’t equipped with the sophisticated electronic warfare suites of warships. But the shuttle didn’t carry the nuclear and laser warheads which warships normally fired at one another, either. Even its limited number of impeller-head missiles, designed for combat with other small craft, had been expended during the breakout from Tepes. Those which remained were intended primarily for short-range work against planetary targets, and they all carried chemical warheads, and that was the problem. Although those warheads were many times as efficient as any chemical explosives from pre-Diaspora history, they still required direct hits, and at this range, scoring a direct hit against a nonevading target would be hard enough with ground attack missiles. Worse, stopping anything the size of that courier boat would require multiple hits, not just one. All of which meant that at this range, they would have to fire without warning to prevent the target from taking evasive action or rolling to interpose its impeller wedge… and they couldn’t reduce the range enough to change that.

Which meant they couldn’t take the risk of even trying to convince the crew to surrender alive.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. They were supposed to be too confused to light their drive off this quickly, and we were supposed to get here sooner. It wouldn’t matter how short-legged our birds are if they couldn’t move. Hell, for that matter we could’ve forced them to surrender with plain old pulsers, because there wouldn’t have been anything else they could do! But now—

Now if she took a chance, demanded their surrender, gave them even the tiniest warning, they just might get clean away. And if they did, they would bring back enough firepower to turn Hell into a glazed billiard ball. And that meant—

All her flashing thoughts took less than three seconds, and she inhaled deeply.

“Take the shot,” Lieutenant Commander Geraldine Metcalf said quietly.

And may God have mercy on us all.

· · • · ·

“Sir, I’m picking up something overtaking from astern.”

“What?” Proxmire spun his command chair to face his astrogator. “What kind of ‘something’?”

“I’m not certain, Sir.” The woman was doubling for the courier boat’s absent tactical officer (although applying the term “tactical officer” to someone who controlled only sensors and no weapons had always struck Proxmire as a bit ridiculous), and she sounded doubtful as she tapped keys.

“It’s some kind of small craft,” she announced a second later, “but I’m not getting a transponder code from it.”

“No IFF?” Proxmire demanded as an icy fist seemed to grip his stomach and squeeze.

“No, Sir. It’s—” The woman froze, and then her head whipped towards Proxmire. “It’s launching on us!”

But by then the first of sixteen missiles were in final acquisition, and it was much too late.

· · • · ·

“Wolf, this is Cub.” The voice in Honor’s earbug sounded drained. “The target is dead. I repeat, the target is dead. We’re closing to look for survivors… but I don’t think there’ll be many.”