''I have it, too,'' Sandy said. ''Their lasers aren't as efficient as ours. They're generating a whole lot of heat, and it has to go somewhere. They tried feeding it into their reaction mass fuel tanks, but they're a lot closer to empty than their boss man would like them to be. I'm betting he'd love to stream his radiators out behind him right about now.''
There was a cough behind Kris; she turned to Moose. ''Ma'am, I'm getting more reactor signals than I was a minute ago.''
''More reactors?''
''I'm getting it, too,'' Sandy said. ''My folks are scratching their heads. How can battleships have more than two reactors?''
''If they're built with three. Four,'' Moose said.
''Four reactors?''
''Did anybody get a good readout on the main battery that they brought to bear on the freighters a couple of times?''
''My people did,'' Sandy reported. ''But we thought it was some kind of mistake.''
''My readings show triple lasers discharging,'' Moose said. ''Not twins. What did you get?''
''Triples,'' Sandy said softly.
Kris called up the specs on the largest battleship in human space, the President-class. Designed to fight the Iteeche Noble Deathship, it had three 18-inch turrets strung around its forward hull. Three more around its bulging amidships, and a final three aft where the hull again tapered. All were buried under meters of ice except when they popped up to fire, and all were evenly spaced at different intervals around the hull's circumference.
And all the turrets held just two lasers.
That gave the Presidents a whopping eighteen monster lasers.
If you put three guns in each turret, you had twenty-seven of them. Kris gulped. ''That would take a lot of power.''
''I'm showing four reactors on each of those ships ahead of us,'' Moose said. Penny nodded.
''Ah, Kris,'' Penny said. ''We intercepted a message from the flag ordering fire against the Reno Task Group. It was in a code very much like the one Sandfire used, so we cracked it a lot faster than I expected. He named two ships. Revenge and Ravager. In a later signal, he identified the Avenger!''
''Friendly bunch,'' van Horn said dryly.
''No hidden agendas from the Peterwalds,'' Sandy said.
''So what kind of ship do you get with twenty-seven big lasers and four reactors?'' Kris asked.
''I'm trying for measurements, now that we had Reno's ships somewhat close to it,'' Moose said. He sent a scale drawing to Kris's board. The President-class weighed in at 150,000 tons of steel, ice, and electronics. The picture he put over it was big.
''It could be nearly 300,000 tons, ma'am.''
Kris let out a low whistle.
''And aren't the bigger they are, the harder they fall?'' Tom said, but he was a mite pale around the freckles.
''Anything built by men can be blown up by women.'' Penny grinned.
''Then it's time we start breaking a few things,'' Kris decided. ''Task Force Custer. Will you please lob more missiles their way. Start easy. Let's see how they react to them. Then pick up the pace. We want to heat them up before Squadron 8 punches some big holes in them. Squadron 8, rig your 944 missiles to home on heat. If Custer is kind enough to overheat the secondary battery for us, no reason we can't knock them out on our way in.'' That brought a cheer on net.
''Nelly, work with Moose. I want to know exactly where those four reactors are in those ships. As I see it, we got twice as many targets to aim for now.''
There were more cheers as the computer replied, ''Yes, ma'am.''
''Custer 3 through 6, you have your targets,'' van Horn ordered. ''You heard the princess, let's heat them up for Eight to knock them down.'' On Kris's battle board, Custer sprouted missiles. Behind her, Moose talked to Nelly, the computer's voice coming not from its usual place at Kris's neck but from his own computer. Kris eyed the situation.
In five, maybe ten minutes, she'd commit her tiny command to its first test. She might be planning to take a second bite out of this apple, but she wanted her first one to be big and whoever was running that show to know he'd been bit.
''Here comes trouble,'' the Duty Lieutenant announced just as the relieved Chief came through flag plot's aft hatch. ''The first enemy group is launching missiles, Admiral.''
''Tell me about them.''
''Can't we just shoot the enemy ships launching them?'' the future governor asked.
''They are staying five thousand kilometers outside the range of our 18-inch lasers, Mr. Governor,'' Saris answered for the Admiral.
''Then go after them,'' the civilian said simply.
''Sir, we are decelerating into High Wardhaven's orbit to begin our ordered planetary bombardment,'' Saris said, choosing words a child might understand. ''If we deviate from our course, we very likely would miss that orbit. At this stage of our approach, we could even end up crashing into the planet.''
''Oh,'' came very softly.
''Believe me, sir. They want us to juggle our approach,'' the Admiral assured the future governor. ''No doubt those are small, say thirty, forty thousand-ton ships. You can horse them around in orbit easy. Our planet killers are 325,000 tons of power. We have solid ice as our defense. We can take what they can dish out.'' The Admiral tried to sound full of confidence. He was … as far as it went. He did not mention the deficiencies in heat management that still bedeviled the squadron. The yard had been so sure they could solve the heat buildup problem from all the extra weapons they'd slapped on the Revenge-class ships. If not this week then next week. Well, maybe the week after.
They'd sailed, assured that it would not matter. There would be no fight. ''The whole Wardhaven fleet is at Boynton.'' So what was coming at them just now? Al Longknife's private yacht?
The Chief took a station. The Admiral noticed that he didn't relieve the man who'd replaced him but rather tapped the most junior tech. The youngster reluctantly made for the door, but the Duty Lieutenant had the makings of a good leader. He sent him instead to a spare jump seat. Good. An extra pair of eyes might come in handy, and the young man would talk about being in flag plot for the Battle of Wardhaven until the end of his days. Unfortunately, the Battle of Wardhaven was making itself into something much more two-sided than the Admiral had expected or wanted to fight. ''Talk to me, Chief.''
''The incoming missiles are AGM 832s. Standard Wardhaven Army issue. They have fully selective seekers. Their warheads may be high-explosive general purpose, sub munitions dispensers or armor-piercing. No way for us to tell until they hit. Sir, I notice that some of my sensors are offline.''
''The ships making for Jump Point Barbie turned out to be loaded with ancient missiles,'' the Duty Lieutenant said.
The Chief said nothing but eyed his board. ''The incoming wave is heavy, and it is deep. Sir, there is movement behind the missile ships. Four, six, uh, nine, twelve small blips are decelerating out of their shadow. I make twelve system runabouts. No, some of them may have full reactors. Some of them may have capacitors for lasers. Sir, there's a lot of masking. I can't say anything for sure about those boats.''
''Except there are twelve of them.''
''There are definitely twelve, sir.''
''How many PFs were put up for sale, Mr. Governor, by Wardhaven's temporary government?'' the Admiral asked.
''Ah, twelve.''
''Think that might be them?''
''They were ordered demilitarized.''
''Yes, it was on all the talk shows,'' the Chief of Staff said with a slight cough.
''Missiles to ding us. Fast boats to damage us with lasers, then a gun line to hit what is left of us. Not a bad battle plan.'' The Admiral smiled, letting his teeth show. ''Sadly for them, we are not your usual battle squadron, and, I suspect, they are a very old bunch of relics. But it is nice to know what the battle will be. Very nice to know. Finally.
''Lieutenant, send to fleet: ‘Prepare to repel missile attack. Withdraw unneeded sensors to protected positions. Prepare to repel fast attack boats armed with pulse lasers. Use main battery if necessary, but watch your heat budgets. Continue deceleration at one g unless I order differently.' ''