"This is the end for us!" he exclaimed.
"It seems to me this is more like the beginning," North replied, and in his voice—so tired and despondent just moments before—there was a hint of a laugh. He gave a quick, clear command that revealed his intention. "Let's turn on the Dominion transponder code and order Barrow to fire a salvo at the Harpy from the forward cannons when we begin our turn."
Larkin quickly entered the new course, and under the hum of straining reactors, the Alatris slowly turned, its transponder now displaying the identification codes of the Holy Dominion. A moment later, two plasma cannons on its bow thundered—quite useless in one respect, but highly effective in another. Their salvo told the Dominion ship more clearly than any words that it was looking at a fellow countryman pursuing a pirate.
Undoubtedly, explanations would have to be concocted later, especially if it turned out the Dominion soldiers knew the recent history of the Alatris. But they would only have to provide explanations after dealing with the Harpy, and that was all North cared about now.
Meanwhile, the Dominion battleship, on patrol duty at the sector border, had been attracted by the flashes of plasma fire and, rounding the moon Espada, behaved exactly as expected. Even without the identification codes, the form and silhouette of the Alatris clearly testified to its Dominion origins, and at the same time it was obvious that it was engaged in battle with a pirate frigate. The Dominion vessel, without a moment's hesitation, intervened in the fight and unleashed a full broadside from all one hundred and twenty of its guns at the Harpy at the very moment Chad was turning to avoid this new and unforeseen danger.
When the frigate shuddered under the impacts fore and aft and its shattered forward engines died, Chad was seized with mad rage. Beside himself with fury, he ordered a return salvo, which caused some damage to the Dominion ship, though it did not rob it of maneuverability. The Dominion vessel, filled with martial fervor, turned to strike the frigate with another salvo, and Chad—by now having lost all capacity for reason due to anger—also turned, striving to answer this salvo or even preempt it.
Only after executing this maneuver did he realize that his overheated guns would turn him into a helpless target for the attacking Alatris. For North, anticipating this opportune moment, immediately brought his ship broadside to the frigate and unleashed a salvo from his heavy cannons. This salvo, from relatively close range, swept everything from the Harpy's hull, shattered its sensor antennas, and one well-aimed plasma charge pierced the frigate's bow almost at the reactor compartment, and radiation began seeping into the damaged sections.
Chad understood his fate was sealed, and the rage consuming him became even more agonizing when he realized what misunderstanding had caused his destruction. He saw the Dominion identification codes on the Alatris's transponder and grinned in powerless fury.
Then a desperate thought came to him, and he shut down the engines, signaling surrender. Chad's risky calculation was based on the hope that the Dominion ship, not knowing the size of his crew, would take the bait, move in close to land a prize party, and, caught off guard, fall into his power. By seizing such a ship, he could emerge from this predicament safely and with honor.
But the vigilant Captain North foresaw the possibility of such a maneuver and understood that in any case, a meeting between Chad and the Dominion ship's captain threatened him with serious danger. So he sent for Barrow, and at his command, the skilled weapons systems operator struck the midsection of the Harpy with a plasma blast to accelerate the destruction already underway.
The patrol ship's captain might have wondered why his fellow countryman continued firing at a surrendered vessel, but this could hardly seem particularly suspicious to him, though it probably annoyed him, since the ship that could have been taken as a prize was now inevitably doomed...
And Chad had no time left for thinking. The Harpy was losing energy so rapidly that Chad could only save himself and his crew by attempting an emergency landing on the moon Espada. So he turned toward the moon, grateful that the vector now favored him. But the frigate's speed was dropping ominously, even though the pirates, to lighten it, jettisoned all containers of plasma ammunition, all missiles, and even some now-unneeded armor plates. Finally, the Harpy entered the upper layers of the atmosphere, leaving a fiery trail behind. The ship's hull was already melting, and the pirates sought refuge in escape pods. The Dominion ship, meanwhile, drifted, its captain watching in bewilderment as, half a minute away, the Alatris turned north and began rapidly retreating.
Aboard the Alatris, Captain North asked Larkin if his spacefaring knowledge included Dominion codes and signals, and if so, could he decipher the message sent by the patrol ship. The young navigator confessed his ignorance and suggested that perhaps they had jumped from the frying pan into the fire.
"Well, how can you have so little trust in Lady Fortune!" North remarked. "We'll simply leave the Dominion transponder on, as a sign that we're hurrying off on some other business. In appearance, we are true Dominion subjects. In this armor, Vane and I can't be distinguished from Dominion citizens, even by sensors. And it's high time we saw how things are going with the cunning Craig. In my opinion, the time has come to get acquainted with him more closely."
Even if the patrol ship was surprised that the cruiser which had helped it dispose of the pirate frigate was retreating so unceremoniously, it still could not suspect the true state of affairs. And its captain, reasoning that the corvette was hurrying off on its own business—and he himself was in a hurry to capture the Harpy's crew, which had landed on a moon belonging to the Dominion—made no attempt to pursue the Alatris.