“Yes, Nelly, it bothers me, but the Wasp fought its last battle with thin armor, and we had the wreckage of the Hornet aboard. In situations like this, risk is just a part of the job.”
“You have a dangerous job, Kris. But then, you usually have a dangerous job. I’m just now realizing how dangerous it is. I guess I’ll have to get used to it.”
“Sorry, Nelly. Next time we’re back on Wardhaven, would you like me to give you to one of my nieces? One of them should be getting school-tall soon.”
“No, Kris. I’m your computer, and you’re my person. I see the difference between me and my children growing every day as they relate to their own human. Your niece might be safer to be around, but I’d be so bored singing nursery rhymes like we once did.”
Kris did a walk-around after dinner. More material had arrived from the moon fabricators. Eight 20-inch lasers were laid out and under construction on the shop floor at one yard. Kris dropped in on all four of her commodores. Each was happy to see her but busy. Apparently more gear had come loose during yesterday’s training cruise than had been passed up the chain of command. The repair ships and ship personnel were busy.
In the Mitsubishi yard, two frigates were already spinning themselves into shape. It had taken months to build the Wasp. Admittedly, here they had the reactors, lasers, and merchant ships to form the seed around. Still, the speed at which they took shape amazed Kris.
One ship already had her name visible. Temptress, no doubt, would be Benson’s flag.
Kris crossed the brow of the Intrepid a good fifteen minutes before it was scheduled to depart. She found the young captain busy on the bridge and managed to suppress their immediate reaction before they started it.
“I want to wish you good luck and Godspeed,” she told the bridge crew. “I know this mission is risky, but we need to know what we’re facing. Is this one alien mother ship or two? How many escort ships do they have? Go quickly, avoid a fight, deploy your probes, and get back here fast. If your orders don’t fit your situation, please be guided by the principle of calculated risk. We need the probes out there, but we need you here when the fight starts.”
“You can count on us, Admiral,” the captain assured her. Kris shook her hand, then left. Again, she’d done all she could do to emphasize her orders. Do the job and run.
Before long, she would have to issue different orders, but for the moment, running for home was what she wanted. No heroics for now. Tomorrow, Kris would somehow have to figure out a way for each of her ships to kill seven or eight of the aliens’.
That assumed there were only two hundred coming. The corvette Fearless had killed her seven or eight, but at the cost of her life. Kris didn’t want to trade one of her ships for eight of the aliens’. That wouldn’t guarantee that Jack and Granny Rita would not be pounded by the survivors. No, Kris had to repel the aliens with as much of her fleet intact as possible.
How would she do that?
Kris returned to the Wasp. There were no new surprises. The aliens were still in Hot Datum 3, doing whatever they wanted to do, with Kris none the wiser.
Kris went to bed with visions of ships sweeping through space. Her fleet would flee, as long as it could, to keep the range open for the 20-inch guns.
Assuming the aliens didn’t have a surprise of their own in the gun category.
But Kris could only run so far before she had her back to Alwa.
Kris brought Nelly into her thoughts, and the two of them studied the battles that Grampa Ray and Granny Rita had fought against the Iteeche. Kris examined them and found them wanting. The frigates really did mean a new way of fighting. They reached back farther into the appalling history of human slaughter. In the bloody twentieth century, Kris began to find bits and pieces that seemed to fit into her puzzle.
She finally fell asleep to dream of aircraft climbing and diving as freely as her frigates in a three-dimensional battlefield.
51
Two days later, Kris was on the pier, impatiently waiting for the Intrepid to lock down and unseal her quarterdeck. As soon as she did, Kris was aboard and headed for the bridge. Someone from the quarterdeck must have been on their toes this time. The captain called “Atten-hut” even before Kris entered the bridge. For the first time in her life, Kris let them stay at attention.
“I thought I ordered you not to get in a fight.”
“We didn’t, Admiral. The lasers never fired.” The captain was trying to avoid smiling, but it was clear she was proud of herself and her crew.
Kris knew exactly how it felt. She’d done that often enough when she was a junior officer and hung a senior officer on his own petard. Kris didn’t like being that senior.
“You came very close to having to unload a few rounds. I’ve seen the reports. Their fast squadron was closing in on you.”
“We left an hour before they got there, Admiral. You told me to be guided by calculated risk. We detached the first probe at the farthest jump, and it came up dead. I launched the next two and sent them through while we retrieved the first probe and fixed it. Then one of the probes returned and gave us a picture of what was happening on the other side. Yes, there were three ships headed for us at 3.5 gees, but they were hours away. So we hung there, switching probes through the jump point and getting a better and better picture of what was on the other side.”
“Yes,” Kris said. “You got very good intel. You deserve a very well done.”
“Thank you, ma’am.” Now the proud smile did slip out. “We left an hour before they were in range of the probe. They did enter the system, but when they saw us an hour ahead of them, they went back, after blowing up our probes. Ma’am, I was an hour ahead of them, and if I’d had to, I could have gone to four gees.”
“And showed them what we have,” Kris pointed out.
“Yes, ma’am, but if they had gotten there any sooner, they would have showed me what they had. Our cursory review of the intel says the big monsters are stuck at two gees and the mother ship is holding at around .75 gees. The new fast ones can’t beat 3.5. From the look of smaller ships spread out behind the three that reached our jump, I’d say they built a lot of fast ships, but most of them can’t hold 3.5 gees.”
Kris’s analysis of the report agreed with hers. “Thank you, Captain. I’m glad to see you back. Now, the yard is waiting to reinforce your armor. Next time out, I’m sure you’ll need it.”
“Yes, ma’am,” sounded way too eager for the coming fight.
Two days later, Kris was at the Mitsubishi yard to christen ships: the Temptress and the Kikukei, which someone said meant Lucky Chrysanthemum. If so, Admiral Benson’s Temptress had started something of a competition for the most outrageous name. The next two ships spinning at Mitsubishi were the Proud Unicorn and the Lucky Leprechaun. The two forming at the Canopus yard would be the Fairy Princess, with hints Kris should use it for her flag, and the Mischievous Pixie.
While Kris had her reservations about approving the names, they seemed to be working. Crews were lined up for all six ships, and they might go to space with more than they needed.
Kris said a few encouraging words, then stood by as two lovely young women from each of the yards broke a bottle of water over each ship’s bows.
“Lovely girl, isn’t she?” Admiral Benson said as the girl emptied the water on the Temptress.