Hello Sci-fi fans and writers, I hope that this here is the correct spot to ask this question regarding a conundrum I have come about during my work on a sci-fi short Story.
Outline
In said Short Story, I have some people (Agents) chasing after some other people (Heroes). The heroes stumbled upon some critical information that could damage the faction (Bad Guy) that employs the chasing party. The information got intercepted in time, but to make sure that the information wouldn’t be leaked again, they would need to silence the heroes.
Technology
In space there are two modes of flight: conventional reaction based propulsion and a higher speed propulsion which uses a so-called jump drive which flings the spaceship along a predetermined trajectory at high sub-light speeds (max speeds would be 0.5c). There is near instantaneous communications, but you would need to be in coverage of the network itself, which is flaky at best.
Conundrum
So how would agents be able to intercept / interdict the heroes in a plausible fashion? Would it be reasonable to have a micro wormhole generator or some other way to deploy gravimetric wells, which would destabilize the entire star system? Would it be anticlimactic to just have the agents wait for the heroes to finish their jump, as they would know where they would drop out?
I would love to hear opinions and suggestions from you.
You can take an idea from real life(very sad news though when I heard).
The MagLev trains run very fast through a predetermined route. Technically they can go really really fast. But they have to run through a pre-determined route. However, it is through a series of magnets. Earlier iirc, there was a train when some evil people removed just a single magnet and caused the train to crash.
In your novel, the heroes are taking the predetermined route. The main challenge for agents should be to figure out the route. Then pay some mercenaries along a route which cannot be well monitored (due to being remote or conflict zone) to sabotage the route. As the route is predetermined, exact position of the vessel at exact time is known in an unmonitored area. This can be used to create a simpler electromagnetic trap which would reduce the speed over a long distance, or divert the route. EMP can be used to disable the ship, making the ship just a container being transported. The trap later being destroyed, but still leading a trail behind for someone to find what happened. This should work as long as speed is less than light, should work for <0.5c. But the area of influence where control is not possible should be a large geograhic area due to speed.
You can also have that at that particular spot the speed is slow due to a curve etc. And villians are just removing what is causing the route to bend for just an exact moment when heroes are travelling there.