“Good, that brings me to my second offer. Do you want to spend the next fight here, a sitting duck, or would you like the plates of a fighting ship under your feet?”
He eyed her. “The answer is obvious, but, no doubt, the devil is in the details.”
“So true. Here’s the situation. We’ve recovered almost all the Smart Metal from the moon base. Can you believe some of it was replaced with stone?”
“The aliens are using stone for armor. What’s wrong with simple?”
“Well, we’ve got Smart Metal and reactors enough to spin out two frigates. When you add the ore carriers and mining ships, I think we could patch together another four.”
“Assuming the bastards give us time.”
“Yes. If we have the time, how many lasers can you produce?”
“I’ve got a dozen ready now and we’re doing four a day. We could go to eight if we got the materials.”
“Which are on the ore carriers we want to convert.”
“What about crews?” the retired admiral said, his face slipping into something sly and not at all ready to buy a pig in a poke.
“That is a problem. How many of your yard personnel are old Navy and don’t like being sitting ducks? How many Ostriches have you trained to fire the lasers? How many of the merchant crews will volunteer?”
“And are they any good? I’d trust a Rooster before I’d trust some merchies.”
“Down, Admiral. We’re all in this boat together, and we sink or swim together.”
“So I’ve heard. I haven’t heard it from any of them.” He paused, then said, “What do you propose to do with this bunch of untrained amateurs? I can’t picture Drago wanting them in a line with his Wasp.”
“He’s already suggested I not do that.”
“Smart man.”
“How about you commanding the auxiliary squadron?”
The old Navy man said nothing, just pushed back in his chair, gaining distance from Kris. “That’s what my wife warned me about. An offer of a fighting command in a hopeless situation. Damn you, Temptress!”
“It has been a long peace, hasn’t it?” Kris said. She knew she was talking to a highly trained and experienced leader of men who’d spent his entire career training for one thing that never happened. He had probably dreamed all his life of a fight in the worst way. And now Kris was offering him a chance to wade into a fight, but in the worst possible way.
He took a deep breath. “How long do I have to decide?”
“The longer you take, the less time you have to make it happen.”
“I hate your logic,” he said, as he tapped his wrist unit. “Send out Standard Memo A to all hands. Tell them they have two hours to volunteer or they get to wave good-bye to us warriors from the pier.”
“You already had the memo written!”
“The day after my wife warned me this would happen. She knew me better than I did myself. Smart woman. Promised she’d never speak to me again if I got myself killed.”
“I’m going to have Mitsubishi start spinning out the first two frigates, what with you up-armoring BatRon 1.”
“You tell Admiral Hiroshi that he can’t have more than one of those ships for his volunteers. And we all have to contribute crews to the other four.”
“The yard superintendent there is old Navy, too?”
“Who else do you think would volunteer for this kind of duty? The Emperor said there was a good chance of a hopeless fight with no survivors, and Hiroshi was out the gate a running. Just like me. Don’t worry, Admiral, Your Highness, Viceroy. You’ll have your ships.”
“BatRon 5,” Kris said. “In reserve, behind the line, and I’ll go easy on you old-timers when it comes to jinking.”
“You young brat. Remember, you’re getting older every day. Someday, you’ll be as old as I am if you’re smart enough to live that long.”
“No one is taking bets that I will,” Kris said as she headed for the door.
By the time she closed it, Benson was already talking to Hiroshi.
That evening, Kris got a surprise she didn’t want.
50
Kris was halfway through her supper when Captain Drago hurried in and took the empty chair next to her. “We’ve lost the probe in Hot Datum 3’s system.”
It took Kris a moment to switch gears. “Weren’t we supposed to keep that until tomorrow morning, even if they headed for it at two gees?”
“Yes, Kris,” Nelly said. “My calculations say they must have had a ship cross the system at 3.5 gees.”
“They either squished the dickens out of the crew of one of their monster ships, or they have knocked together some speedsters,” Drago said.
“Just a second,” Kris said, glancing down at where Nelly rode below her collarbone. “How come you’re telling me this, and not Nelly?”
“I told Nelly I wanted to tell you,” Captain Drago said.
“And I concluded,” Nelly said, “that no harm would come from this being delivered a bit slow. Having a human do it might help you.”
“I guess I thank you, both. Don’t do it when time matters.”
“I won’t,” both said at once. Maybe Nelly was a bit faster.
“Have they made the next jump?” Kris asked.
“No. I think they will wait until the mother ship is ready to go through with them.”
“Why?” both Nelly and Kris asked.
“We’re waiting for them here because you have the Hellburners up your sleeve. They don’t know that. They don’t know that you won’t cut behind them and hit their mother ship when the fleet is rushing off to meet us. No, if the mother ship has most of their people, they will protect it. Somewhere, there’s a report from the boffins on the wreck you brought in. When they sorted out the bodies, we found a six-to-four ratio of men to women. About like our warships. Want to bet the mother ship has more women and children?”
“No bet, Captain. You want to organize an attack from their rear?”
“No. Not unless they actually do move faster than the mother ship can. I think after the way you smashed up the last one, these folks are taking very good care of mother.”
Kris thought for a long minute. “Nelly, design me some low-tech probes that can do a good job of tracking them. That can get me a real count on the number of reactors; maybe lasers, too. Drago, alert the Intrepid that she’ll be sortieing at once to drop those probes off in the systems in the aliens’ direct path.”
“They’ll be tiptoeing right up to a jump the aliens could be on the other side of,” the captain pointed out.
“It’s a risk we have to take. Tell her to run if she sees anything. No fighting allowed until the rest of us can get a piece of the action.”
“You’re telling a lot of folks to get close but not touch.”
“Trust me, when the time comes, I’ll switch gears without a thought.”
The captain left to give the orders. Nelly went quiet for a while, then said, “I’ve got the shipyard knocking out six probes. They’re large and clunky with optics, radar, and a crude atom laser to count alien noses. An old type computer with plenty of storage. They’ll be ready in two hours. Kris, could the Intrepid be up-armored before she leaves?”
“Ask Superintendent Benson if he can do it before they finish the probes?”
“He says no. They aren’t ready to begin uploading the Smart Metal. They’d need two more hours.”
“I’m not willing to trust we’ll have those two extra hours. Tell the skipper to have the Intrepid ready to go in two hours and to put the spurs to it—3.5 gees or more all the way.”
“I passed along your order, Kris. Doesn’t it bother you to send them out to face the enemy with less than they should have?”
That was not a question Kris had expected from Nelly, but then, she’d never expected Captain Drago to persuade Nelly to hold her tongue so he could talk first. More surprises.