Charter 7 Part 1

Chapter 7


"Oh, they definitely know we are here now," Lady Luck announced as her sensors lit up from all the scanning energy directed at them.

"Uh, Boss?" Roulette muttered hesitantly.

"What is it," Blackjack answered.

"There are a lot of really big rocks at the outer edge of that asteroid group."

"So?"

"If we can get some of them between us and those sensors, we could cruise right up to their doorstep and ring the bell without their being any the wiser."

"You know," Lady Luck cut in, "he's right. A lot of our training has been in terrain masking. Well there isn't any terrain out here, but asteroid fields are as close as it gets."

Blackjack mulled it over briefly then keyed the intercom. "Lead, this is Wildcard, we have an idea."

Spectre listened as Blackjack outlined the plan. There was a long few seconds as he conferred with his own crew.

"Lead to two, run silent and follow us."

"I guess he bought it," Longshot offered.

"Never mind," Blackjack ordered. "Everyone run silent."

As the crew complied, Blackjack kept the Wildcard in the tail of the Wraith as the latter ship changed to a new heading."

"Three and four this is lead. Good luck and keep em busy until we can sneak in their back door."

"Roger, lead," the commander of Bandit replied. "We will throw enough jamming out to hide your maneuver. Good luck to yourselves."

"Two this is lead," Spectre called to them. "There has been a slight change in plans. We are going to skirt the edge of the asteroid field and try to keep the larger bodies between us and their base until we can get close enough to attack."

"Are you sure it will work?" Blackjack asked.

"It worked last month in the mountains of Callisto when you waxed our rear ends. We will mask ourselves with the bulk of that asteroid field."

"You realize we are giving that big pop gun of theirs another shot at us," Blackjack pointed out.

"They won't even be looking for us," Spectre replied. "Bandit and Storm are going to keep jamming their sensors and making enough of a fuss out there to keep them occupied."

"Don't you think they got a count of our numbers?"

"Poltergeist tells me that they didn't have time," Spectre relayed his own EW crewman's analysis.

Blackjack glanced over his shoulder at Lady Luck. She nodded her agreement.

"Okay," Blackjack conceded, "we'll follow your leader, but if we get blasted out of the sky, you are buying every drink we can chug until we get back to Terra."

"Agreed," Spectre said. "Haunt will hardwire the course to your nav."
Momentarily, an data stream came across Roulette's console via a direct interface between VR modules. Roulette worked quickly and soon the new course was plotted and a fresh navigational cursor appeared on Blackjack's HUD.

They flew for several long minutes in silence. The nagging doubt that their plan would work played on each mind. If they had been detected moving away from the other two VRADs they would be sitting ducks because the petawatt particle cannon would recharge and blow them from existence.

Over their com, they could hear the Bandit and Storm engaged in combat and meeting token resistance.

"It sounds like the fighter patrol is learning about the capabilities of a VRAD," Longshot murdered.

"It won't be patrol fighters for long," Lady Luck assured him. "You can bet they launched everything they had as soon as they picked us up. When seventy fighters and a battle fleet catch up to the others, it won't be a pretty sight."

"The sooner we get in and take out the primary targets, the sooner we can get in on the action," Longshot urged.

"That shouldn't be too long," Blackjack interrupted. "Now keep still and concentrate on what we are doing.