''So what do you need to get the motor going?''
''I don't know, Kris! They snuck a bunch of plumbers on board to shut down the motor. On a Saturday. When even the duty crew had been shanghaied off to straighten paper clips or some stupid duty around the station. Pandori really had it in for the PFs. Said they were just a—''
Kris had to cut this off. ''I know the political spiel, Tom. What do you need to get the ship up and running?''
''I don't know, Kris. I can't find out what's wrong. I'm trying, but I can't.''
''So we pull old components and replace them with new ones until we find the ones that are dead and the motor works.''
''That's—'' Tom started.
Kris cut him off. ''Not the way you do things on Santa Maria. I know. But Tom, I got the entire Nuu Dockyard next door with its whole workforce at our disposal. We got twelve PFs and half a dozen armed yachts to get battle ready. We got two, maybe part of a third day. Elegant ain't a word I want to hear. Quick, dirty, ugly. I'll take them all if it gets me ‘All power on-line. Ready to answer the helm.' You hear me, Captain?''
Tom breathed out what might have been an argument. With a shiver, he nodded. ''I hear you, Longknife. Loud and clear. How fast can you get me a dock crew with a full set of replacements for this haywire engine of mine?''
''How about before the Chief gets back with that cup of coffee. You can offer it to the yard boss. Tell him it was a princess's, but he can have it instead.''
''I'll do that. See what extra it gets me.''
Kris headed up the ladder. Jack didn't quite make the electric runabout lay rubber gunning for the yard with Kris's orders for not one but two engine overhaul teams, but he came close. With a sigh, Kris headed for PF-105. It was a coin flip as to how Babs Thompson would take having the dockyard folks take over her engine room. Wounded pride versus relief. Kris found the cheerleader and prom queen up to her elbows in engine room parts and studying schematics with her Chief of the Boat. She accepted Kris's transfer of a portion of her domain to Nuu Docks with poor grace, but not a word. Once the hatch was closed on Babs's exit, the Chief turned to Kris.
''Thank you, ma'am. There's nothing more dangerous in the Navy, not even battleship guns, compared to a junior officer with a screwdriver. If you'll pardon me saying so, ma'am.''
''I'll try to remember that, Chief,'' Kris said, suppressing a sigh as she remembered her own wish for a few moments alone with her boat, a chance to get her hands covered with honest dirt.
10
Those two ship visits spotlighted what her job had become. The skippers and crews would fight the ships. She would get anything and everything out of their way that might interfere with them putting up the best fight possible.
The fact that some of that interference might be coming from those very skippers was a new thought for Kris, but not a totally alien one. In school she'd studied managers that were too hands-on. Micromanagers. Now she was getting a chance to help some of her friends avoid it. Oh, and avoid it herself.
Help ships get ready for the fight.
Find more ships and draft them into the fight.
That's what a princess does.
Chapter one for a book she might write someday on the proper etiquette and education of a princess.
Kris laughed and headed for her next PF. NELLY, KEEP COUNT OF WHICH BOATS I VISIT. TICK THEM OFF FOR ME AND LET ME KNOW IF I MISS ONE.
YES, MA'AM. WHILE YOU ARE WORKING ON THESE, I AM WORKING ON MORE COMPLEX EVASION SYSTEMS, FASTER EVASION MANEUVERS. I AM ALSO WORKING ON SEVERAL FINAL ATTACK RUN-INS, DEPENDING ON HOW OUR EVASION EFFORTS SPREAD US OUT. AND HOW MANY OF US SURVIVE THE RUN-IN..
VERY GOOD, NELLY. YOU COVER THAT.
DID YOU KNOW THE CHIEF OF 109 HAD ORDERED NEW HELMETS FOR THE CREW BEFORE PANDON CLOSED THINGS DOWN?
NO. ARE THEY GOOD ONES?
YES. THE BEST, BY MY MEASURE.
PLEASE ORDER THEM FOR ALL THE BOAT CREWS. AND THE ARMED YACHTS.
WE WILL NOT WANT THE ORDER TO RAISE A FLAG TO THE MEDIA.
NO. WE DON'T WANT THAT.
HOWEVER YOUR GRAMPA AL SPONSORS SEVERAL FOOTBALL TEAMS. I COULD ORDER NEW HELMETS UNDER THEIR COST CODE AND HAVE THEM MAILED TO THEIR PROPER ADDRESS, THEN MISDIRECT THEM UP THE BEANSTALK TO THE ATHLETIC DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVAL STATION. THAT SHOULD GO UNNOTICED.
YES, NELLY, THAT SHOULD.
KRIS, IS THIS WHAT YOU WOULD CALL FUN?
YES, OUTSMARTING PEOPLE WHO REALLY SHOULDN'T BE ALL THAT INTERESTED IN WHAT YOU ARE DOING IS WHAT I CALL FUN.
YES, I FIND THIS FUN. I WILL ALSO REPROGRAM THE HIGH-G STATIONS TO ALLOW FOR THE HELMETS. THE YACHTS HAVE SMART METAL STATIONS, SO I COULD MODIFY THEM AS WELL, THOUGH MOST HAVE SECURITY SYSTEMS IN PLACE THAT WILL STOP ME. I WILL EXPLAIN TO THEM THAT WE HAVE ORDERED HELMETS THAT WILL HELP THEIR HUMANS AND THAT MY ADJUSTMENTS WILL MAKE THEM SAFER. I THINK THEY WILL ADOPT MY CHANGES.
YOU'LL NEGOTIATE WITH THE YACHT'S COMPUTER SYSTEMS?
I THINK THAT IS WHAT YOU WOULD CALL IT.
That was something worth thinking more about. NELLY, MENTION THAT TO AUNT TRU'S COMPUTER NEXT TIME YOU TALK TO IT. I THINK TRU WOULD FIND IT INTERESTING THAT YOU AND THE OTHER COMPUTERS ARE NEGOTIATING THINGS JUST NOW.
YOU THINK SO? IT SEEMED ONLY REASONABLE.
Yeah. Right.
The other boats were in various degrees of disarray. Kris expected Phil or Chandra would prove an exception to that, but they rather proudly pointed out the extent to which they were a mess. Chandra was testing the AGM-944s. Though the same diameter as the Foxer charges, they were four times as long. That required ripping out two of the four Foxer tubes to install missile-size ones.
''Nelly's working on several more radical evasion schemes.''
''Good.'' Chandra nodded. ''I think we will need to be more wily than we ever thought we needed to be. Better we cut corners faster than we have to, than cut slower than we should have.''
''We may need more Foxers.''
Chandra blinked. ''I will have to arrange for us to load new Foxer magazines while we are moving. It can be done.''
''Commander Santiago on the Halsey is looking at how many tugs we can get standing by. Just in case we use up all our consumables and need help slowing down.''
''Are we going to be diving out of the moon at them?''
''That's one option.''
''A good one. We can maneuver behind the moon, come out on a different vector from what we went in on.''
''It could have us diving straight at Wardhaven.''
''That's what the tugs are for,'' the mustang said with a fatalistic shrug. ''First we kill the battlewagons, then we worry about the rest of our lives.''
Phil's engines were torn apart, his radiators in the yard being reworked. ''If I can get an extra ten percent output from the matter-antimatter reaction, even if it's for only the last thirty seconds, it could put me that much closer, that much faster. I'll use the radiators to cool the engines down as far as I dare before we start the charge, then close them off to give off as little infrared as I can. Then, once we've blown them to hell, we can spread the radiators out and get the reactors out of the red fast. If this works, the yard can redo all the other boats before we leave. How's Tom doing on the 109?''
''The yard's helping on the 109 and 105. I see that you've got the yard working with you. Chandra has them helping her up-gun the 105. You need anything else?''
''Not now. I'm gonna let them work out the kinks in the Foxer to 944 thing on the 105 before I let them mess with my boat. You going down the squadron?''
''That seems to be my ticket. You look over the shoulders of your chiefs and techs to make sure they got everything they need to get the job done. Me, I get to look over your shoulder to see if there's anything I can get you. Sometimes I even help you before you realize it. We've ordered new helmets.'' Kris updated Phil on Nelly's new evasion plan and the helmets that might keep them from addling the crews' brains while they did the evading.