Later turned out to be late morning by Eamon’s reckoning as he was comfortably seated before what looked like a fire of burning coals, deep in a book. There was a quiet knock at the door.
“Come.” Eamon called placing a marker in the book and looking up to see the door swing open and Guardian’s manifestation enter. The apparition was accompanied by the strange itching sensation within his head that told him that Guardian was scrutinising him.
“You seem very comfortable.” Guardian commented with a slight frown.
“Yes thanks, is that a problem?”
“We are under joint sentence of termination, relaxing and reading do not seem a very productive ways of preparing our defences.” Guardian admonished him.
“Ahh.” Eamon said with a slight grin, “You are equating reading with recreation, which it can be, but this” he tapped the book, “this is a book of military tactics my friend.”
The frown became puzzlement.
“Data input by this means is so limiting.”
“Direct input would save time but not necessarily lead to greater understanding. But that’s another matter, listen to this.”
Flicking back a couple of pages from his marker he found the passage he wanted.
“When facing a superior force, be it in numbers or weaponry, the hit and run tactics practised by many guerrilla forces have succeeded in effectively neutralising much larger and well organised armies. A well executed ambush will inflict heavy casualties upon the enemy for little or no loss to the attacking group.” Eamon looked up from the text. “That’s how we need to proceed, ambush and retreat.”
Ambush. It was not a concept that Guardian found natural despite the many gigabytes of information it held on just that subject. It was designed to protect, not to strike first. But Eamon’s quote had explained the alien concept to it with startling clarity.
“My apologies for my earlier criticism, it was unfounded.”
“No problem Guardian, you still have to learn how to deal with information.”
“I have no problems with information.” Guardian protested.
“Maybe not with the gathering, storing and filing, but the interpretation.” Eamon wagged a finger. “There, I think, our makers didn’t intend that you should dabble.”
“Indeed, and those same makers did not intend that a Traveller should go native Eamon.”
“Touché Guardian. Now I presume this isn’t a social call, what’s on your mind?”
“I have selected several nearby star systems for consideration in our coming conflict with the Hunter ship. We should make a choice and depart without delay.”
“Okay, show me what you’ve got.”
Half a dozen holographic images appeared before them in stunning detail.
“Hubble eat your heart out.” Eamon murmured appreciatively.

“Number one.” Guardian began.
“Don’t stand on ceremony, pull up a chair.” Eamon interrupted warmly and indicated the chair on the other side of the fireplace.
“Thank you.” Guardian nodded and crossed to sit down in it.
“Number one, I shall not bore you with its proper system designation.”
Eamon smiled, Guardian was getting good at the game of social interaction.
The first miniature expanded considerably to fill the space between them so that Eamon could clearly see the many planetary bodies.
“This has just six planets, two inner planets that are rocky but devoid of biospheres, three gas giants and one planetoid at the system periphery. As you specified this system has a large asteroid belt containing approximately three times the total mass of the Solar Systems asteroid belt. This density of material makes it significantly hazardous to navigate through.
Number two, ...”
The images swapped sizes.
“… sixteen planets, seven are rocky, none have biospheres, nine gas giants, and an asteroid belt approximately twice the mass of the Solar Sytem belt. Eamon?”
Eamon was ignoring the large image and staring at another of the miniatures intently.
“This one Guardian.”
“Number five.”
Once more the images changed sizes and the dusty ring expanded.
“This is a very primitive system, perhaps seven planets in total, depending upon your definition of what constitutes a planet. The three inner planets all have large debris belts in the same orbital path, while the outer planets have very extended discs of dust and proto moons in orbit around them. The system as a whole has a very high level of dust and small debris, in fact the entire system could be thought of as an extended asteroid belt.”
“Perfect. Just the place for an ambush.” Eamon concluded.
“May I remind you that my own weapons and propulsion system would be as compromised as the Hunter’s in this system Eamon.”
“I can understand the weapons, all that dust will attenuate them but what’s the problem with the drive?” Eamon quizzed.
“The warp drive causes a local gravity well of sufficient depth to accelerate surrounding matter towards us at damaging velocities. Every move we made would provoke a bombardment that could damage the hull and all exposed systems.”
“Bummer.”

“I offered it as a choice that would limit the manoeuvrability of the Hunter ship, a last refuge.”
“We can do better than that.”
“I agree, number three…”
“No, no Guardian.” Eamon interrupted. “I mean that just because your current systems aren’t good enough to handle number five there is nothing to stop us upgrading what you’ve got so that we can operate there.”
“Upgrade? Warp displacement is the most efficient propulsion system available.”
Eamon merely grinned at Guardian’s protestations.
“We’ve got energy to spare, we can afford to burn it.”
Guardian’s manifestation looked puzzled, just what was Eamon alluding to?
“Think about it Guardian. If you can’t use the warp drive in number five then how about upgrading your docking thrusters to something with real grunt?”
Guardian calculated for a microsecond, this was viable but still not problem free.
“You are overlooking the loss of efficiency of my weapon systems in such a dusty milieu, I would need them to clear the larger and potentially damaging debris in our path, this would leave little capacity to fight the Hunter ship.”
“The Hunter would also suffer loss of weapons capacity, even the disruption beam would be attenuated in that goop.” Eamon pointed out before Guardian could gainsay him.
“That is true.”
“So here’s another little gem from my reading.” Eamon announced picking up a slender book. “Ever heard of railguns?”
“You are referring to electromagnetic accelerators?”
“You got it.”
“My internal transport systems.” Guardian surmised whilst pondering how Eamon had recalled such a detail from his Traveller core data.
“You got it in one.”
“But they are vital to my operation.”
We would only need to divert their operation for limited times, I don’t plan a slugging match with the Hunter, just hit and run. Of course you’d need to put in more exit ports and add some kind of targeting gear.”
“Agreed, but firing what? My acceleration abilities are not very great, any missile capable of hull penetration would necessarily be of small mass, too small to cause much damage beyond holing the hull.”
“High explosives.” Eamon countered.
“Artillery shells?”
“Armour piercing.”

Guardian ran the scenarios, drawing upon the many designs of shell from Eamon’s home world, several could indeed provide high levels of penetration and damage and were easily adapted to rail gun launch.
“Your proposal is sound only if the shells can successfully reach the Hunter ship without being intercepted.” Guardian commented without a perceptible pause.
“Why shouldn’t the shells get through?”
“The Hunter will defend itself vigorously.”
“Whilst having to move rapidly through all of that.” Eamon pointed back to the image.
The logic was attractive. The Hunter ship would have to commit most of its offensive capacity to self-defence to fend off the excessive debris, the shells might slip through.
“There is a problem with your scenario.”
“Go on.”
“The Hunter ship will scan all objects of significant size to assign a hazard factor to each, a clearly manufactured object amongst the debris would alert it to its origin and it would be likely to deal with those threats first.”
“Yeah, you’re right.” Eamon nodded and thought for a while. “Run some simulations, based upon the density of the dust and crap and the Hunters weapons, could you saturate its defences with shells?”
“Yes, that is possible, but I cannot be certain I will have manufactured sufficient projectiles by the time we fight the Hunter ship.
Eamon frowned it was the first time that he had been exposed to the possibility that Guardian couldn’t deliver.
“What’s the limiting factor?”
“The explosives are organic compounds. I do not routinely carry large stocks of organic precursors. In fact you have most of them here.”
“Oh.” Eamon felt guilty at having ‘consumed’ the best part of their offensive capacity.
“It is not a problem to acquire more organic base compounds, any gas giant will provide them, but the manufacture of the complex compounds will still be slow.”
“So you could make the shell casings but not fill them.”
“That is a distinct possibility.”
“Empty shells.” Eamon mused. “Decoys! What level of scan would the Hunter use?”
“Given the envisaged environment and the number of objects to be scanned, it would only have time to conduct a surface scan.”
“Excellent. You turn out as many shells as possible and stuff them with any old mass if you can’t make sufficient explosives. By mixing the two types the Hunter won’t know the real McCoys from the decoys, enough of the real rounds should get through. How about that?”
“I believe you are correct, but I am still of the opinion that such weapons will only disable, not destroy the Hunter.”
“You think we need a fall back position?”
“It is highly likely. I recommend system three. Three rocky inner planets, five gas giants and a substantive asteroid belt.”

Eamon studied the image for a few moments.
“Okay. Supposing the Hunter is in hot pursuit, what would its tactics be as it followed us?”
“First it would measure the size and vectors of my warpfield; it would cross check the calculated emergence point with that reported by my automatic beacon. From this data it would calculate my likely trajectory through the new star system and then warp into the system as close to my emergence point to commence the pursuit on the calculated vectors.”
“Interesting.” Eamon commented, one finger lightly tapping the book he still held.
“Ambush again? We must presume that our stock of projectiles would be exhausted.” Guardian cautioned him.
“Yeah, but supposing the Hunter dewarped in the middle of the asteroid belt, what then?”
“It would not do such a thing.”
“If it was following us why wouldn’t it?”
“It has the same system data as I do, it would know that I would not attempt such a reckless manoeuvre…”
“Because.” Eamon interrupted.
“Because the warpfield would cause every object within a thousand kilometres to fly in towards the ship at extremely damaging velocities.”
“Plan B then.”
“Plan B?”
“You won’t jump into an asteroid belt.”
“Of course not.”
“But how about us creating a little asteroid field behind us after we dewarp? What happens to our little Hunter then?”
Guardian’s manifestation opened his mouth but said nothing as emotions that only a machine could feel attempted to play out on the human face that was designed for an altogether alien set of emotions.
“That is both brilliant and insane.” Guardian announced after the pause. “Where do you get such ideas from?”
“I have the same data as you have Guardian, but I do have a messed up noodle too.” He said with a wink.
“But I could never conceive of such a scheme, it is the antithesis of warp space flight, to create a hazardous obstacle.”
“There’s a saying back home, Earth that is, necessity is the mother of invention. Mankind has made some of its greatest advances during its many wars, the survival stress brings out the best thinking.”
“Best is not a term I would apply to the creation of destructive technologies.” Guardian informed him coolly as it considered Eamon’s words in the light of their present predicament. True they were hunted and sought ways to protect themselves, yet Guardian still calculated their odds of survival as insignificant. But there was still that tiny chance and with each new strategy that Eamon created that chance was getting bigger. What would be the outcome if they achieved the near impossible? What would the ultimate survivor do? Would it then become the ultimate predator? Was their survival at any cost a truly beneficial outcome?