''Aye aye, ma'am. One point five g's to jump point Kilo.''
Kris tapped her commlink. ''Chief Bo.''
''Yes, ma' am,'' came instantly.
''Would you mind doing a walk-around. Reassure any scared kids that they are on the right side. Let me know if there's any trouble. You know, what I'd be doing if I wasn't kind of busy doing two jobs at once.''
''Understand, Skipper. Glad to.''
Skipper. That was a title Kris hadn't expected to earn for a long time. Well, she hadn't finished earning it today.
She studied her board. At three g's, the vector symbol for the Hurricane and Scirocco had just about bled off all their motion toward the Earth fleet and would soon be making speed back toward the jump point. The Typhoon, now decelerating, was still making plenty of kilometers per second away from the jump. However, Kris didn't need to catch the flagship, only hit its engines, and as long as the flag was running, its engines were a prime target.
Kris dialed the power on her lasers down to one-tenth strength and started plunking away at Hurricane's and Scirocco's sterns as their zigs and zags offered opportunities. Her first shot was off to the left. Next was to the right. Third shot was again to the right as the flag altered course to the left. Kris tapped her commlink. ''Commodore Sampson, I can keep this up all day. Sooner or later, I'll get you. If not now, I'll get you at the jump point. It's a losing proposition.''
Two shots later, the commodore's two ships, instead of zigzagging around the course they needed for the Kilo jump point, took off on a long tack to the right that quickly took them out of reach of Kilo. ''Where they headed?'' Tom asked.
''I think they just picked another jump point, one they can outrun us to. Addison, any suggestions?''
The map of the star system appeared on the main screen. Four jump points were highlighted in red. ''They could be making for any of those. Orders, ma'am.''
Kris rubbed her eyes, trying to remember what a captain was supposed to think about at a time like this. She mashed her commlink. ''Engineering, what's our fuel state?''
''Your shooting put a dent in it, but we've still around sixty percent.''
''ComAttackRon Six is running, and the Wardhaven Chief of Staff would sure like a few words with him. Any suggestions?''
''We got a lot of green hands aboard, Skipper,'' that one word, coming from a lieutenant commander who might well have been in on the conspiracy, was good to hear. ''You may not have noticed, the way Thorpe was keeping you deep in sims, but we never drilled at greater than 1.5 g's. I would suggest, ma'am, that you give all hands a half hour at 1.5 before going to two g's. If we don't find any problems, then take us to three. I know that's slow, but we've got a lot of green spacers who've never been in a high-g operation.''
Which sounded good but could be an excuse to let Hurricane escape. But engineering and his snipes had tended to be their own clique. Hell, if he wanted to stop the pursuit, all he had to do was dump the reactor core. ''Thanks, engineering, we'll follow that. Commander Paulus, in case you haven't noticed, you're the senior officer aboard. The spare chair here on the bridge is yours.''
''If you'll excuse me, Ms. Longknife, I expect I'll be needed here if you put any kind of load on these engines. I know the yard's advertising says these liquid metal boats are supposed to switch to all configurations with no pain, but every time we shorten up the hull, my snipes and I go through the tortures of the damned to keep plasma flowing. You fought us fine, Ensign. Until you can get me a relief I trust as good as myself to keep these engines from blowing us to pieces, I'll stay here.''
Which was the first Kris had heard about engineering having problems with the liquid metal. ''How bad is it, Commander?''
''Nothing I can't handle. And if I can't, I'll holler.'' Kris was rapidly discovering a captain's job was not all skittles and beer. ''Yeoman, announce to all hands we go to two g's in thirty minutes and three g's as soon as we can.''
It took the Typhoon almost three hours to work up to 3.25 g's. Among other things, the brig had bare metal for beds. Tempting as it was to let Thorpe take his g's the hard way, Kris had the marines scare up air mattresses. By the time Kris had the Typhoon up to full acceleration, the Hurricane and Scirocco were out of laser range.
Well behind Kris, the four ships of the second division fought their own battle, two experienced captains against jumped-up JOs who were getting their first taste of command in the middle of a fight. However, the decisions made by the designers of the fast attack corvettes came home to haunt the two rebels. Running, their weapons were pointed in the wrong direction, their engines fatally open to damage. It took Santiago and Harlan a while, but time was on their side and luck was against the Monsoon and Shamal. Long before they made it to the jump, their engines were nicked and their skippers replaced by subordinates who were not at all interested in fighting for a small group of officers who hadn't told them what they were fighting for.
That left Grampa Ray plenty of prisoners to interrogate, but Kris wouldn't bet that even Thorpe knew the whole story. If Attack Squadron Six had managed to decimate the Earth battle fleet, what did it do next? Ships might sail the stars, but they had to go somewhere for food, repairs, and refit. Hurricane was running. Where?
Once the Typhoon was up to speed, Kris got all the loyal officers on a hookup. ''Engineering, how are we doing?''
''Lost power to laser three. Don't know why. With your permission, ma'am, I'd prefer not to send a repair crew nosing around it while we're on high boost. I've got my best ship maintainers down on the engines.''
''Commander, engineering is your domain. You run it your way. Is our acceleration causing you any problems?
''No ma'am, not the way you put it on slowly, but if I was the skipper of the Hurricane, I'd be a bit worried about how fast the commodore put pedal to the damn liquid metal. Me, we're under control. It's them I'd worry about.''
Which offered Kris a negotiating option. Why not make a friendly call to the commodore and suggest he review his engineering boards? That brought a chuckle to her, not a pleasant experience at 3.25 g's. ''What else do I need to know?''
''Chief Bo, here, Skipper. The mess crew have never cooked a meal under high g. I suggest cold cuts until we slow down.''
''Make it so, Chief. Any other problems?''
''None, ma'am. You got a good crew here, and we're rooting for you.'' That was good to hear.
The problem with a stern chase is that it is long and, at three and a quarter g's Kris weighed nearly four hundred pounds. Just breathing exhausted a person. Moreover, the peacetime staffing level for a fast attack corvette didn't make allowances for a battle running over normal work hours. The usual underway bridge watch was two. The engineering watch was a similar pair. At three and a quarter g's, Commander Paulus kept his entire watch and maintenance team on duty. On the bridge, there was no way Kris was leaving the attack board or relieving Tom from defenses. Addison was just as reluctant to go below. ''Who knows when they're going to turn and fight. I'm here as long as you are.''
So Kris scheduled Tom, then Addison, then herself for a two-hour doze at their stations and had the ship's officers and petty officers do the same for the entire crew, two-thirds alert at their posts, one-third resting. By the time Kris awoke from her nap, it was clear the Hurricane was headed for jump point Mike.