“Matching us. Shot down the first two torpedoes, now staying just out of effective range.”
“Could you give me an evasion plan for the Derecho, please?” she asked, and saw Caspar and Feil exchange a look. They knew when she got polite, things were bad.
Caspar spoke, his voice steady. “If we break directly away and make the highest sustainable burn, their long-range missiles will be good to go in eighteen hours, fifteen minutes. Solutions drop quickly from there.”
“What’s the status from Draper Station?”
“They’ve gone dark, Captain,” Feil said.
She felt Bobbie Draper beside her. Not a ghost or a spirit, but a memory. The older woman’s smirk that might have been to condemn Jillian’s naive fuckup or God’s sense of humor or both.
If the Rocinante didn’t get out—if Kamal and Nagata and the rest of them died where they were—there were options. Assuming Trejo’s bullshit emissary stayed alive, one of the ships would have to stop and pick her up. If it was the Sparrowhawk, that meant it had to break away and give the Storm a head start. If the Derecho went after Tanaka, that meant they intended to let the Sparrowhawk do the fighting. But that was one she thought she’d be able to win. She could escape.
Freehold, on the other hand, couldn’t. If she killed their sister ship, would the Derecho chase her or turn back to punish the underground by leveling the colony? Could the underground’s other ships run interference? If she could lure the destroyer into joint action against her and her scattered militia at the same time … Well, the ice hauler wouldn’t make it, but it might give her enough of an edge to win that fight. And then it would be the Storm and whatever damage it had sustained against the one remaining Laconian ship . . .
“It’s okay, Captain,” Caspar said, and Jillian looked up at him. Her lip had gone numb where she’d been pushing at it without realizing. The pilot’s face was meant to be consoling. “We understand. It’s okay.”
Jillian fought the urge to unstrap, walk over, and hit him. Or dress him down at least. Lash out somehow. If they lived through this, she would have a long and very unpleasant talk with him about morale and faith in her command, but that was for later. Now, things were happening.
“Rocinante has cleared Draper Station,” Feil said. “They made it.”
A third icon appeared on her display, stacked on top of Draper Station and the Storm like they all shared the same shirt.
“Get me a tightbeam,” Jillian said.
Seconds later, Kamal was on her screen. Familiar as he was, she found herself caught by the small details of his face: the way his skin darkened at the eyelid, the whiteness of the stubble on his chin and neck, the laugh lines at his mouth. If he was frightened, he didn’t show it.
“What’s your status?” Jillian asked.
“We’re all on the ship. The girl and her dog too. It was closer than I would have liked, but we made it.”
“Injuries?”
“We’re good.”
The map of the system still on her screen rearranged itself without any of the designator icons moving. The Rocinante was only one more piece on the board, but it changed the logic behind everything. She saw the flaws in her plans and the stakes she was playing for. The despair felt almost like relief.
“All right,” Jillian said with a sigh. “Set your course for the ring gate. I’ll buy as much time as I can. Tell Nagata I’m sorry.”
“She’s right here, if—”
“No,” Jillian said. “You can do it for me.”
She dropped the connection, took a moment for a long, slow breath, then checked status. The Derecho was upping its burn, leaping after them now that Teresa Duarte was in play. The Sparrowhawk was shifting away too, ready to take another shot at the Rocinante. Get even. That made her target selection easy enough.
“Keep us between the Sparrowhawk and the Rocinante. As many gs as you need,” she said, and her voice was calm and steady. Caspar’s copy that was too. As the Storm—as her ship—shifted under her and her limbs grew heavy with the acceleration, she went on. “How does this affect the Derecho’s arrival?”
“Effective missile range will be two hours for the Derecho assuming it keeps its present course. Overshoot will put us behind them and out of range fifteen minutes after that unless we brake significantly or they do.”
“Overshoot won’t be an option,” she said. “We’re looking at direct engagement.”