“I’m on it,” Penny said with a huge sigh her late husband’s Irish grandma would have been proud of.
Whether it was Penny, or, more likely, a lot of good chiefs on the Wasp and Hornet, the two ships did end up docking hard but docking enough that between the Wasp’s two good reactors, and the one they could keep running on the Hornet, they made orbit.
Once Penny and the chiefs had shown it could be done, the Constellation and the Royal got cozy, and the Bulwark sidled up and not quite rammed her bow into the Congress.
Captain O’dell asked permission to try the same with the Intrepid. One of the Endeavor’s reactors was out, and the other two were none too reliable.
Eight ships had gone out to face the aliens. Four of sorts succeeded in reaching orbit again.
On the ground, you could easily see fireworks and great rejoicing. In Kris’s day quarters, there was little to celebrate.
She had the butcher’s bill to read.
The frigates were crewed by four hundred men and women; two hundred and fifty boffins and fifty Marines topped them out at seven hundred. The Wasp tipped in at some nine hundred, what with extra Marines and scientists.
Her squadron had avoided the catastrophic failure of a reactor that consigned all aboard to a fiery grave. Still, the enemy lasers had cut deep.
Kris read the list: 612 dead, 1,452 wounded with some still likely to die despite all that modern medicine could do. The Hornet, Connie, and Bulwark were hardest hit, although the Endeavor’s smaller crew had suffered heavier casualties in proportion.
What had shown up on Kris’s boards as bright red for damaged armor, lasers, and engineering had been real men and women dying as lasers slashed hard into their ships and defensive stations juggled armor around desperately to keep disaster at bay.
Kris leaned back in her chair, stared at the overhead, and found she could fervently pray. “Please, dear God, may I never fight another one like this.”
But there was more to do than mourn the dead. The living needed to eat, and they needed to celebrate that they’d once again faced death, looked it in the eye, and walked away from its hungry scythe.
“Kris, do you have a moment?” Captain Drago said after knocking on the doorsill.
“Talk to me,” Kris said, putting down the report of blood and loss.
“Cookie tells me that he’s got a deal on meat. Cheap. As in free. All we have to do is go down and get it.”
“Can we afford the reaction mass?”
“When our longboats go down for chow, they’ll be bringing back water as well. That’s one way to feed the reactor and feed the crew.”
“Free meat. Are you sure we can eat it?”
“The boffins are pretty sure. The meat offer came with a full scientific analysis of what goes into the local’s digestion. A certain President Almar wanted you to know that they were providing the full details on their physiology. To make sure, I’ll be sending down a doc to make the necessary tests, but I’d rather try it than not.”
“If Cookie says he can make it taste good, go for it. And the water. We aren’t bone dry on reaction mass, but we’ll need to refuel before we leave here.”
Captain Drago stepped in and closed the door. “Let me guess. You want to refuel from the gas giant on the other side of the system. The one where the aliens set up a base.”
Kris made a sour face. “I’d like to wipe this system clean, but these damage reports,” she said, waving her hands at her boards.
“Yeah. It would be nice if we had a repair ship to tie up to, but we have a lot of good ship maintainers, and we can do a lot with this Smart Metal.”
“We’ve done a lot.”
“I’ve got some folks working on figuring out if we can drain the Smart Metal from our two wrecked ships. Maybe move the reactors out of them and into a ship that still has some fight in it. I’ll have that report cycled through to you as soon as they’re done.”
“Do,” Kris said.
She ended up studying reports for the rest of the evening. Jack brought her a meal from the wardroom, and Kris ate it at her desk.
It was quite late when Jack finally hauled her off to bed.
When she ignored the wonderful things he was doing to her breasts, he rolled her over like a log and began doing even more wonderful things to her back.
“Am I distracting you, yet?” he asked.
“Well, you are definitely attracting my attention,” Kris admitted. She stretched and found it made a lot of her feel very good.
“Good, because I am not stopping, young lady.”
“Persistent, huh,” she said into her pillow as he did something wonderful to the lower part of her back. And then went lower.
“You fought your fight. You won. I’d like to celebrate that I’m alive if you don’t mind.”
“And you want to celebrate it with me?”
“Most definitely.”
She rolled over and smiled at her persistent husband. “Then I guess I’d better let you celebrate.”
So he did. Then she did. Then they both did until they fell asleep in each other’s arms.
49
The ship’s moaning around them woke Kris in time for breakfast. They quickly showered. Jack kissed her very black-and-blue spots where she’d been shot, then found some cream to put on them.
It seemed he now had a supply of medical ointments and drugs for all the particulars that ailed her.
Husbands were nice.
They made it to the wardroom while the officers were still eating.
“What’s with the racket?” Jack asked, as they found a space at Captain Drago’s table.
“We’re pulling the Smart Metal out of the Hornet and re-
spinning it into the Wasp. The Hornet’s hull was barely holding out the vacuum by the time the shooting stopped. Their wardroom and mess, along with most everything else, got smashed up pretty bad, so you may notice some new faces at our tables.”
Captain Phil Taussig of the Hornet arrived as he spoke. He had a bandage over one eye and an arm in a sling, but he was balancing a plate full of eggs and bacon with great aplomb.
“Welcome aboard,” Kris said.
“I can’t tell you how glad I am to be aboard. I seem to be making a habit of this. Coming aboard your flag in a roughed-up state. I’ll try to avoid it in the future.”
“If you need a port, we’ll provide the storm,” Nelly said.
“That was a joke,” Kris said.
“Of course.”
Phil took a bite of his bacon and made a face. “I’m not complaining, but this is a bit on the strange side.”
“Locally grown,” Drago said. “Just arrived last night.”
Phil took another bite. “Not bad. Will it mess up my gut anything like the last local rations I had to share?”
“I have it on the best of confidences,” Captain Drago said, “that this chow is as good for you as any you got from your mama’s breast.”
“I was a bottle baby,” Phil said, “much to my wife’s delight in my adult fixations. So, we have ourselves some locals that are really glad for something our princess did. Isn’t that unusual.”
“No doubt, and totally,” Captain Drago agreed. “But there is no accounting for tastes, and we are enjoying their, no doubt, short-lived appreciation.”