“Will do, Admiral.”
Kris surveyed the situation and found it good.
A few minutes later, she motored onto the bridge. “I hope I didn’t cause you any trouble,” she told Captain Drago.
“Nope, no bother at all. How are our passengers?”
“In their eggs, surrounded by Marines, and trying to adjust to star walking.”
“I like the idea of their being surrounded by Marines. I’d hate to have to chase them down at high gees.”
“It shouldn’t happen. What’s our course?”
“Nelly has drawn us a very fast course back to Alwa. We will come flying into the system at a high speed, but it shouldn’t be a problem. No one uses the Alpha Jump, and we’ll have one of the gas giants capture us. It may involve some 3.5-gee deceleration, but what’s a little gee among friends?”
“Let’s get home. I have a lot to report.”
“Report to Alwa or report to the king?” Captain Drago asked.
“That is something I will use this short trip to meditate on,” Kris said, and guided her egg into her day quarters.
32
The Wasp led the rest of the squadron through the Alpha Jump and into the Alwa System. As soon as all the ships were through, they flipped ship and began applying a full 3.5-gee deceleration burn.
From her day quarters, Kris began making her report to Alwa. “We are back, and our investigation was very fruitful. We found the alien home world and have even recruited twenty of them. Since the home world has returned to the Stone Age, I’m not sure what we’ve recruited them for, but for better or worse, we have some aliens aboard and talking, such as they can.”
Kris paused to collect her thoughts. She knew it would take quite a while for this message to reach Alwa, and just as long for any response to get by.
“Kris, I think we have a problem,” Nelly said.
“What kind of problem?”
“There is no message traffic directed at us, but there is a lot of traffic going out from Canopus Station. I think someone has hijacked a freighter.”
“What?” didn’t say much, but it was all Kris could get out.
“A freighter is making for the Beta Jump. It was supposed to stop at an asteroid mine, but instead of flipping ship and decelerating, it took off at 1.25 gee for the jump.”
“Nelly, get my team up here,” Kris said as she guided her egg onto the bridge.
“Captain Drago, we may need to keep all our velocity. Please send to squadron, ‘On my mark we will kill the deceleration burn, please acknowledge.’”
“We have acknowledgments from all the squadron,” the comm immediately reported.
“Mark,” Kris said. And the Wasp went zero gee.
“The squadron is still in formation,” the navigator reported. “No problems reported.”
“Very good,” Captain Drago said as he rolled his egg off his bridge and into the admiral’s bridge.
Once in, he paused. “Now, Your Highness, would you mind telling this poor working stiff what the hell is going on here?”
“It appears that someone hijacked a freighter and is making for the Beta Jump,” Kris said.
“Christ on a crutch,” Drago said. “Who would do that?”
“Apparently,” Nelly provided, “Commander Sampson managed to pull it off.”
“You should have hung that bad apple when you had the chance,” Drago said.
“I may have definitely failed that leadership challenge,” Kris admitted. “Nelly, get my battle staff in here, if you please.”
“Yes, Admiral.”
Moments later, Kris had her key fighters assembled. Jack arrived with Amanda and Jacques. Penny rolled in right behind them with Masao.
Kris quickly filled them all in.
“Nelly, are you sure?” Captain Drago asked.
“None of this traffic is aimed at us,” Nelly said, “and we did arrive in the middle of it. However, I am now 99.9 percent sure that I understand it correctly. Commander Sampson managed to get aboard a freighter headed for an asteroid mine.”
“She’s risking long space jumps with a single reactor,” Captain Drago growled. “She’s a bigger fool than I thought. The greater fools are those who went with her.”
“That turns out not to be the case,” Nelly said. “The mine had a very productive two weeks and had an extralarge load of ore for Smart Metal production. Someone assigned one of the empty supply ships, still with its two reactors, so it could get the entire load in one lift and do it fast.”
“When luck goes bad, it just doesn’t quit,” Jack muttered.
“Sampson took off with the freighter for the asteroid belt at 1.25 gees and it wasn’t until the Sisu failed to flip and begin a deceleration burn that anyone was the wiser. She’s now headed for the jump and will hit there going at close to four hundred thousand kilometers an hour.”
“That will be a long jump,” Kris said.
“At least seven hundred light-years, maybe more, if she puts revolutions on the ship and gooses its acceleration up just before the jump,” Nelly said. “Kris, Sampson didn’t make any jumps like that on her way out here on the Constellation, what with Canopus Station and the factories tagging along.”
“No, but if she’s done any reading about the way we jumped around on the way back to human space after the first battle, she’ll know something about it,” Kris said.
“Will the people with her be prepared for high gees?” Penny asked.
“How hard is it to make an egg?” Kris asked.
“It’s easy,” Nelly said. “If you have the software.”
“What’s the rest of the fleet doing about this renegade?” Jack asked.
“No warships are out in that sector of the system. No ships are expected through the jump point, so there is not much chance of an easy intercept.”
“Trying to intercept a ship coming at you at four hundred thousand klicks is not something I’d want to do,” Drago admitted.
“The fleet is basically tied up at the pier on Canopus Station, doing fix and mend from a practice exercise they finished yesterday,” Nelly reported. “They are refueling as fast as they can, but it will be a long and slow stern chase for them.”
Kris stared at the overhead for a moment, then made her call. “Captain Drago, what is the squadron’s fuel state?”
“We’re around eighty percent, plus or minus a few points, Admiral.”
“It appears to me that we are in the best position for a stern chase. Do you foresee a problem?”
“None at the moment, Admiral.”
“Then send to squadron. ‘Set course for Jump Point Beta. On my mark, you will begin a 3.5-gee acceleration.’”
“The message is sent,” Drago reported. “We have acknowledgments.”
“Mark,” Kris said.
In her day quarters, dust motes that had been floating in zero gee began a dive for the deck.
“Captain, set a course and speed that will get us to Jump Point Beta with a velocity of four hundred thousand klicks on the squadron. Be prepared to adjust that speed based upon our observations of the renegade’s speed as it enters the jump.”
“Aye, aye, Admiral. Nelly, if you will work with my navigator, I would appreciate the effort.”
“Most certainly, Captain,” Nelly said most primly, then added, “Captain, Admiral, I foresee a small but not insignificant probability of a collision at extremely high speed with an asteroid or ship if we follow a course direct from here to Jump Point Beta. May I recommend that we adjust our course to take us outside the plane of the Alwa System. It will add time, but be safer.”
Kris raised an eyebrow to Captain Drago. He nodded. “Nelly, send to the squadron, ‘Conform to flag’s movement,’ then adjust our course up or down.”