"He's pacing us, Colonel," the operator said. "Either they've got better instrumentation than we thought, or this chap has had a stroke of blind luck. He was lying in wait."
Both of us were assuming the stranger could be nothing but a B-I Two vessel.
The operator tensed up suddenly, hands frozen. "He's coming in on us, Colonel," he said. "He's going to ram. We'll blow sky-high if he crosses our fix."
My thoughts ran like lightning over my slug-gun—the hollow tooth; I wondered what would happen when he hit. Somehow, I hadn't expected it to end here. The impossible tension lasted only a few seconds. The operator relaxed.
"Missed," he said. "Apparently his spatial maneuvering isn't as good as his Net mobility. But he'll be back; he's after blood."
I had a thought. "Our maximum rate is controlled by the energy of normal entropy, isn't it?" I asked.
He nodded.
"What about going slower," I said. "Maybe he'll over-shoot."
I could see the sweat start on the back of his neck from here.
"A bit risky in the Blight, sir," he said, "but we'll have a go at it."