When the fleet continued to fail to meet Kris’s expectations, she took action.
“Nelly, project what I’m seeing on all the ship’s main screens. Captains, the execution of this maneuver is sloppy. In a fight, we’d be picked off like tulips in a garden. Does anyone have an explanation?”
There was only silence on the net for half a minute as matters got no better.
“Your Highness, if I may put in my two cents’ worth, this is Captain Drago of the Wasp. We’ve been in a fight or two and we’ve survived them because of the combat evasion plans like these developed by your Commodore’s rather smart, or smart-alecky, computer.”
KRIS, I’VE BEEN INSULTED.
SHUT UP, NELLY.
OKAY, BUT HE OWES ME AN APOLOGY.
What Captain Drago had gotten was a snicker on this bridge and likely from everyone in the fleet. “What we on the Wasp found was that Nelly was right. We needed to be elsewhere when lasers reach for us. It’s nice to have armor. It’s better not to get hit.”
APOLOGY ACCEPTED, Nelly said to Kris.
“In order to meet Nelly’s stiff requirements, we needed more maneuvering jets. That meant bigger rocket motors and wider pipes pushing steam to them. We did that on the old Wasp, and it helped us survive one hell of a fight. As soon as I took possession of the new Wasp, I had my ship maintainers redo the maneuvering jets to our specs, not the official ones.
“If the skipper of the Princess Royal would permit me, I and the chief here are prepared to reprogram your Smart Metal to meet our jitterbugging standards.”
“Please do, Captain Drago,” Captain Kitano said.
“We’ll need five minutes, I think.”
“Send to squadron from flag, cease Combat Evasion Plan 1, reduce acceleration to one gee,” Kris ordered. All the ships settled down to normal. The Connie, trailing the fleet, took the opportunity to catch up.
During the same five minutes, Captain Kitano issued a slew of orders having her damage control teams fix what they could and other teams reprogram Smart MetalTM to shore up what had proven to be under specs.
KRIS, WE MAY HAVE MADE A MISTAKE, ORDERING THREE-GEE MANEUVERING WHILE AT CONDITION ABLE.
Oops, Kris thought. YOU MAY WELL BE RIGHT, NELLY. WE’LL KEEP THINGS SIMPLE UNTIL WE GET EVERYTHING STRAIGHTENED OUT. WHAT DO YOU THINK IS THE MAXIMUM WE CAN DO IN CONDITION ABLE?
Nelly thought on that for a nanosecond or three. TWO AND A HALF GEES AND COMBAT EVASION PLAN 3.
“Commodore, Captain, we’ve completed our changes to the maneuvering reaction jets. Feel free to do what you want at any time,” had more than a hint of a smile from Captain Drago.
“Captain Kitano?”
“Ready to be your test subject, Your Highness.”
“Send to squadron. Except for Constellation, which will continue at two-gee acceleration, fleet speed will go to 2.5 gees. Flag prepare to implement Combat Evasion Plan 3 on my order.”
Most of the fleet took off at 2.5 gees, and the Connie started falling behind again.
“Execute,” Kris ordered.
The Princess Royal took off in a jig that would have taken their breath away, except the eggs insisted they keep breathing. She jumped up, then left, down, then left again, then right and up. She slammed them against their restraints as they suddenly reduced their acceleration to 1.5 gees, then sideslipped right and shot ahead at 2.5 gees again.
On the screen, the frigate followed exactly the plan that was laid out for her.
Kris let that go on for close to a minute, listening as more reports came in that the ship really wasn’t ready for this kind of hard usage.
“Flag to Princess Royal. Cease evasion.”
“Navigator, terminate evasion,” Captain Kitano ordered.
The entire bridge crew breathed a sigh of relief. Kris suspected it was echoed throughout the ship.
“I’ve been doing these evasion maneuvers since I first climbed aboard a fast attack boat. It always takes one or two runs to nail down everything that can come loose.”
“Everything will be nailed down the next time we go out, Commodore. That’s a promise,” Captain Kitano said with firm intent.
The fleet decelerated to make its swing around the moon. It spread out again as it did a two-gee cruise home. There was one more test Kris needed to make, maybe not for the entire squadron, but for at least one ship and its captain.
“Flag sends to squadron. On my mark, begin test firing aft batteries. There is no target. After first salvo, fire at will. Single shots will be allowed if salvos are not possible.”
She took several deep breaths, then said, “Mark.”
Three of her four ships immediately fired full salvos. Four for the big frigates, two for smaller Intrepid.
The Constellation fired a single shot from her four aft lasers.
Since the aft batteries were smaller than the forward ones, five seconds later, the Intrepid got more shots from her aft battery of two 18-inchers. Both frigates followed with salvos five seconds later.
The Connie stayed silent.
A third salvo came from the Intrepid and another set from the two big ones again before Kris gave up on Sampson getting a second shot off from the Constellation.
“Cease fire,” she ordered, voice hard.
“The fleet has ceased fire,” the comm reported.
In silence, the fleet proceeded back to Canopus Station. Once the P Royal was settled on her course, Kris motored her egg for her quarters. As she passed Captain Kitano, she said, “A moment of your time, please.”
The skipper of the Princess Royal followed Kris into her quarters and closed the door. Kris turned her egg to face her.
“Who had command of this squadron before me?”
“No one, Commodore. I think the king always intended for you to command it.”
Kris mulled that over for a moment. Then she slowly asked a second question.
“Who was in charge of your shakedown and workup? Certainly you had a type commander.”
Captain Kitano worried her lip for a second. If it were possible to fidget in an egg, she did. “We didn’t, ma’am.”
“No type commander?” Kris said, raising an eyebrow.
“No. It seemed the Navy couldn’t decide who we belonged to. Battle Force said we had battleship guns and were theirs. Scout Force said our displacement fell in the range of their cruisers and destroyers, so we belonged to them. They were still arguing when the Sakura showed up. The king went aboard her, and suddenly we weren’t shaking down anymore. We had orders to sail in a week.”
“So, you had no type commander?” Kris said, trying to get a good feel for what her frigates had been through.
“Lieutenant Commander Sampson was quick to point out she was senior officer present, but the type commanders kept telling us they were appointing a squadron commander and never did. Also, none of us much cared for the tactics Sampson was pushing. Battle line with all of us following in the wake of her flagship.
“Commodore, I’ve fought under your command and I know you want every ship to maneuver on its own. We all studied up on your battles, all but Sampson, and we wanted to do it your way. We thought we were.”
Here Kitano chuckled. “We thought we were doing pretty good until a couple of hours ago. That, and none of us much cared for the hard-assed Mickey Mouse Sampson was pushing. We kind of used the confusion to ignore her. She tried calling in her contacts with Battle Force, but that only got Scout Force coming at us harder.”
Kris tried to place herself in Sampson’s shoes. She’d been a lieutenant when Kris was a boot ensign. Her dad had died under a cloud that was never proven. Clearly, Sampson had something to prove . . . and was working way too hard to prove it.