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infamous title given those who trod the decks of those woodenships-
pirates. Like a shark that srnelled blood, Lung T'ou circled its prey.
It-or its captain-bided his time, waiting for the moment to move in for
thekill. That moment rapidly approached. 9 1 Through eyes that were not
eyes,
Dorjan of Harb scanned the control console's flashing lights, monitors,
andmini-displays. Each told him something, whether he wanted to know it
or not.
He narrowed his three-hundred-sixty-degree telepresence vision to focus
on agreen phosphor screen to his left. A trajectory readout listed down
the leftside of the monitor. Right of the column of figures, high
resolution graphicsbracketed the other spacecraft's minute course
change. "Bastard!" Dorjan'sfingers danced over a series of glo-red
buttons on the console's face. A hintof vibration ran through the deck.
Maneuvering rockets ignited to synchronizethe ship-his ship, Misfit-with
the trajectory of the other, which floated
twenty-five kloms out in space. Prow facing prow, the death-dance of the
twospacers had continued in a sort of slow-motion tarantella for five
hours. LungT'ou led; Misfit followed. Neither captain exposed his ship's
sides to theother. To have done so would have been instantaneous suicide
for the captainmaking that elementary mistake in tactics. When humankind
sailed wooden shipsacross the oceans of Homeworld, warring vessels
maneuvered for hours in anattempt to expose the cannons positioned 10 11
along their great lengths totheir opponents. If a vulnerable bow or
stern were presented to an attacker,
the ship was soon raked by a bellowing broadside. The tactic was
calledcrossing the T. Cap'n Harry Morgan loved it. So did once-pirate
Captain JohnPaul Jones. And so did Captain Jonuta. In space the name
remained. WithDefense Systernry located in the prows of most spacers,
the tactic wasreversed. To expose a side to an aggressor was to create a
prime target-abroad indefensible target for forward-mounted gunnery.
Spaceships facednose-to-nose presented smaller targets for enemy gunners
(human or automated).
And it was far easier to maneuver out of the line of direct fire. So it
was
that Misfit and Lung T'ou danced in circles twenty-five kilometers from
eachother. Neither ship fired on the other. For Lung T'ou there was no
need toattack. Misfit was already crippled. A polarization cell in the
spacer'sdouble P drive had done its best to vaporize when the ship
punched from theTachyon Trail-"subspace"-for a navigation check in the
Ahura Mazda System. ForMisfit to attack its pirate opponent would have
been yet another form ofsuicide for Dorjan and his six crew members.
Misfit's tachyon propulsionsystem was now vulnerably open and totally
useless. Songan, Misfit's massivelytattooed First Mate, labored within
the drive's housing to replace thedis-functioning polarization cell.
Inside with him-as they had been for thepast six hours-were crewmates
Iniko and Hedeon. Dorjan had only his ship'schemical maneuvering rockets
at the command of his fingertips. And those . .
. "MR system check?" Dorjan brought the mentally controlled necklace-
like rowof TPs inset in the skin at the base of his neck back to full
three-hundred-sixty-degree scope. 12 "Two-minute continuous burn. Five
minutesworth of short bursts. If Lung T'ou makes a radical change in its
course ..."
Varnalgeran Yuw's answer faded in hopeless silence. Dorjan suppressed
thepanic that squirmed in his gut. Five minutes-at most! Then?
