“You’re going to have to dig deep for those battle stations,” Penny said.
“That should leave you a lot of gravel and rocks, assuming you don’t just laser your way down as far as you want to go,” Masao pointed out.
“And rocks are good for?” Kris said.
“To throw at the aliens,” he said. “They don’t like anything close to them. Right? They even lazed that little rock that drifted near when they were attacking us last.”
“Yes,” Kris said.
“So we give them a lot of rocks out by that jump. Let them run into a few of them. Laser a whole lot of them. Lasers get hot when you use them a lot, right?”
“Right,” Kris said, starting to grin.
“They tend to go all in, feetfirst and overpower the opposition. Let’s see how they take to a war of attrition,” Penny finished for the both of them. Clearly, they’d given the situation a lot of thought.
Of course, Penny had a kind of glow about her, and the way Masao looked whenever his glance passed her way told a wonderful story.
Or maybe Kris was just so much in love, she wanted everyone in love.
“We’re still going to need some awfully brave people to man those missile stations,” Jack pointed out.
“We may have found some Alwans to fit that bill.”
“Fighting Alwans?”
“Yes. They hail from the south, down near the equator. They’re taller and thicker, and you have to watch their legs. They’ll kick your head right off.” A new picture showed up on the wall of something that might have passed for an ostrich from old Earth. It had the long legs but the neck and body were fuller. On screen, two of them ran at each other and butted their chests together. One fell down, and the one left standing clearly celebrated some sort of victory.
“They like to fight,” Masao said. “The scientists who made contact with them showed them the picture of the space battles we’ve had and they were all ready to butt chests with anyone who’d fight like that.”
“I like their enthusiasm,” Kris said.
“They’ll need a lot of education,” Penny said, “but they’re willing. A couple of them have been flown back to Haven, and we’re trying to master their language and see how well they do with technology. They’ve done well on basic aptitude tests.”
“By the way, the scientists are creating a problem for the Navy,” Masao said. “They want shuttles to bounce researchers from place to place, just short hops. What they really need are transport planes down there. It would save wear and tear on the shuttles and give scientists more control over their missions.”
“One of the many things I’m trying to balance. Right now, we have less than fifteen thousand tons of Smart Metal to meet all our needs. Maybe we can get more when we pull the Hellburners off the frigates.”
“But no frigate skipper or defense wants to give up a gram of the stuff,” Penny finished. She was not only Kris’s intelligence officer but usually handled defense for the Wasp.
“So what do I get the mining and industry guys working on first? Finding bauxite to make aluminum for aircraft and boats or the ingredients for Smart Metal to make more frigates? Of course, if we go for frigates, we better also find the stuff for lasers, reactors, and all the electronics that go into one of these war wagons.”
“You think you can build a frigate out here?” Masao asked.
“It’s my opinion that the only reason King Ray brought all this industrial stuff out here was so that, if the aliens do stomp us into the ground, they find enough high tech to fool them into thinking that Alwa made all of these frigates on her own, and there’s no need to look further. Nothing to see here. Move along.”
That left both Penny and Masao nodding gently. “Yes, it fits together.”
“So we can just let the business types run off and do what they think can make them a buck this far across the galaxy, or we can make them see that their necks are on the chopping block, too, and they need to get behind a defense program.”
“When are you going to try to do this?” Penny asked.
“Nine tonight.”
“You hungry?”
“I’m getting there,” Kris admitted to her friend.
“We’ll, we’ve found this place on B deck that serves really good Thai food. How about we discuss this more over dinner?”
26
Prepared as much as she felt she’d ever be, Her Royal Highness, Viceroy of Alwa as well as Commodore of Frigate Squadron 4 and Commander, Alwa Defense Sector made her way toward her office with Jack, Penny, and Masao in tow.
On the A deck, they’d picked up Amanda and Jacques, both looking so much in love and terrified, as if some horrible beast had showed up at the wedding.
Or maybe before the wedding.
Kris got them all to her office a good half hour before the meeting was due to start.
She walked in to find that Captain Drago had done his miracle. Her lovely wooden desk was there. Her sofas and chairs were there.
Also there were fifteen entrepreneurs who fully expected to make their fortune here, on the other side of the galaxy from the rest of human capital, arranged around her table.
One of them was already sitting in her chair. The one closest to the desk and the one with an ever so slightly higher back that helped when you’re six feet tall.
Kris walked up to him, and said politely, “You’re in my chair.”
“So glad you could join us,” the short man said. “I’ve been elected spokesman to bring you up to date on our plans for the development and exploitation of this system.”
“You are in my chair,” Kris repeated. More firmly this time.
“There’s plenty of chairs.”
There was exactly one left. It was at the foot of the table.
Kris had not approached this meeting with any feelings of fondness. Now, she was rapidly moving from disgust to open hostility.
NELLY, TAKE AWAY HIS CHAIR. NO, TAKE AWAY ALL THE CHAIRS.
Suddenly fifteen confident men and women found themselves sitting on air. They promptly landed on their rumps.
“What was that for?” the small man grouched from where he now sat on the floor.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is my office. I called this meeting, but you showing up thirty minutes early to take over my office is no way to start our business. Nelly, expand the table to accommodate all present. You, move. I will sit at the head of my table with my immediate staff. The rest of you can arrange yourselves as you see fit.”
Nelly immediately lengthened the table. However, only after several suits pulled themselves up from the floor and moved down, did chairs again appear.
Kris settled herself in her chair, with Jack at her right and Penny at her left. Masao was beside her. Amanda took the chair next to Jack . . . an interesting test for a new husband . . . but Amanda’s own new husband imposed himself between her and the business types.
Kris hoped that didn’t mean the young anthropologist feared open violence or the throwing of poop to be a likely outcome to this meeting.
Kris was none too sure about that.
Either Captain Drago or Kitano had arranged for two of the screens to be moved to this office. While Kris’s screens on the Wasp ran from deck to overhead on the walls in her Tac Center, these two screen were positioned to form one long landscape.
It fit Kris’s objective well.
Kris began the meeting by having Nelly project the alien mother ship as it appeared just through the jump. She did it with an added roar to emphasize the huge rocket motors on the aft end of the ship shooting plasma out into space.
The business folks jumped and, as one, focused on the screens, even if it meant swiveling in their seats. As the Hellburners began to eat into the ship, Nelly stayed with it while our rockets did their destruction, then switched to the dead, rolling hulk in space.