49
One did not often get permission to blow up a space station and the squadron of ships attached. Kris felt no sense of elation, since that was a prospect she hoped to avoid.
She turned to Drago. “Get this ship under way— ASAP.”
“Aye, aye, ma’am. I have had men stripping the antimatter pods from the landers. They should be done soon.”
“Two have been off-loaded, Captain,” Sulwan reported.
“Have them plugged into the emergency generators,” Captain Drago ordered.
“No,” came from around Kris’s neck. “The pods that will be fed into the reactors need to be carefully aligned and balanced for the dump,” Nelly said. “That’s your critical path. The auxiliary power is pretty much a standard rig.”
“Captain?” Kris said, raising an eyebrow. Around her, quite a few eyebrows were bouncing off the overhead.
“Let’s do it the lady’s way,” he ordered,
“Nelly, are there any scientists that can help you on this?” Kris asked her computer.
“A few; I’ve alerted them to get down to Engineering. There are several assumptions about the status of the antimatter that we will need to create if they are not already so.”
“You go, gal,” Kris said, then, confident that the technical was in the best putative hands available, she turned to Captain Krätz. “Certainly, we’ll have to advise the port authorities that we are getting under way.”
“Even a blind man would notice what we’re attempting.”
“When do we have to tell them?”
The captain mulled Kris’s question for half a second. “Usually it’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission.”
“So I’ve observed,” Kris agreed.
“However, I’m not sure that I’d apply that rule, what with all the security paranoids running around the station just now. Sudden moves could have very immediate and violent results.”
“If you say so.”
“Let me talk to my political officer,” Krätz said, and tapped a few buttons on his wrist unit. “Sooner or later we’ll have to bring them in on this.” Nothing happened for a long moment, leaving the captain frowning at his wrist. “What call is he taking that is more important than mine?”
He was still frowning when a hurried voice came on. “Sorry, Captain, I have Lieutenant General Boyng on the line, sir. May I pass him to you, sir?” hardly sounded like a question.
Captain Krätz turned white as a sheet. Behind him, Vicky went up on tiptoes with glee. “Uncle Eddie. He’ll help.”
Those two reactions told Kris all she needed to know about this new man walking into her life.
“Put the captain’s call on-screen,” Kris ordered.
And found herself facing a thin-faced man whose appearance could make a hatchet look dull. His pristine black uniform was crisp, with more sharp edges than military law allowed. Kris went down his ribbons. . . they told her nothing. Greenfeld State Security’s awards had nothing to do with the rest of their military.
Kris made a mental note to herself to save this call. Ten to one, this would be the first time Admiral Crossenshield got a look at his opposite number.
That, of course, assumed Kris got out of here.
There was no time like the present to start getting out of here. “General, I am Lieutenant Longknife, Princess of Wardhaven. I and my staff have been examining the behavior of the starliner
Dedicated Workers of Tourin
. It is our opinion that it is on a suicide dive into South Continent, intent on assassinating your First Citizen. It must be stopped.”
Kris paused. She was getting no reaction from Hatchet Face. No reaction at all. You’d think that announcing a plot was afoot to kill someone’s beloved boss would get a blink.
Not from this guy.
“Go on,” he said.
Not on my dime,
Kris thought. “What conclusions have you and your staff drawn from the behavior of this starliner?”
This is a conversation we’re having. I talk. You talk. Didn’t your mother teach you anything?
The general finally did blink. “The liner’s behavior is out of the usual. However, the drill presently going on in your ship is also unusual. This makes us wonder if you are not intent on some suicide mission.” The words came out as cold as ice. Kris had met a few cold-blooded people. Now she faced an ice man.
“There are two faults in that logic, General.”
“Would you care to enumerate my errors?”
Kris raised one finger, not giving in to the temptation to make it the middle one. “First, you know from all the attempts made on my life that there isn’t a suicidal bone in my body. I very much like being alive and will fight to stay that way.”
“So it would seem. However, things might change. High objectives might be worth a high price.”
“Not in my book. Secondly, your First Citizen is down on South Continent. My blowing up this station would hardly ruffle the hair on his head.”
“Yes, but you might be trading a queen for a queen.”
Again the same cold calculations. Kris had had enough. “That does not even qualify as a jest, General. No offense, Vicky, but I am a full-fledged queen in this game the likes of your general and my admiral play. You are at best a pawn, maybe someday to be a queen, but you have a way to go.”
“No offense taken,” Vicky said. “Now, Uncle Eddie, are we going to sit here arguing who might be doing something while doing nothing for my dad? Are the rumors true that you’d just as soon see him dead? Is that why you sit here jabbering while time ticks away from the one ship that could save his life?”
Before, Kris had considered the general stiff as a board. Under Vicky’s upbraiding, he became as solid as marble. “It was necessary for me to assure myself that a treacherous Longknife was not playing us for fools. They’ve done that often enough.”
“That is why I’m aboard. I have satisfied myself that this ship can do this difficult evolution,” Vicky shot back.
“Maybe you would like State Security’s best troops to take over the ship and do what is necessary.”
“Eddie, when I need your State Security hacks to gun down a few hundred unarmed peasants, I’ll call for you. I need a ship sailed and a battle fought and won. Let’s leave that to a crew that knows how to do it.”
“Yes, Citizen Victoria,” the general said, almost bowing. “May I send a security team to assure your safety?”
“If you wish, but make them few and see that they keep out of the way. Oh, and send us a different colonel. One that isn’t the dullest in your collection.”
“Yes, Citizen Victoria. If you will excuse me, I will see that these things are done.”
“One more thing. This ship needs power. Have the station give it full access to electricity.” She turned to her captain. “What about plasma?”
“That would take too long. Electricity will do.”
“To hear is to obey,” the general said, and rung off.
The silence on the bridge was broken only by the necessary sounds of a spaceship. Pumps pumped, fans spun. Here and there, a light blinked. No one spoke.
Captain Krätz was white as a sheet. Kris suspected that Vicky’s next lesson would have to come from her. “Ah, you may have been a little hard on that general, Ensign.”
Vicky pursed her full lips. “You think so? Always when he came around the house, he was so friendly. Almost fawning. A new toy when I was young. A fancy dress later. After he was gone, Dad would say things like ‘two-faced.’ That comment about shooting peasants, that was one of Dad’s sayings.”
“But did he ever say it to his face?” Kris asked.
Vicky thought for a moment, then looked embarrassed. “You’re right. I don’t remember his actually saying it to him.”
“You might want to tell your dad when next you see him that that particular cat is out of the bag,” Captain Krätz said.
“We’re getting extra power from the station,” Sulwan announced. “I’m sending it straight to Engineering.”
“Well, he’s carrying out his orders,” Captain Drago said. “Now let’s see how huge Princess Vicky’s ‘security team’ is.
“I’m not a princess,” Vicky snapped, “except I guess you have a point. My dad is acting like an emperor or something, and I guess that makes me a princess or something.”
“Mostly, it makes you a target or something,” Kris observed.
Five minutes later, a large squad of black security types double-timed up to the gangway. Gunny met them with an equal-size Marine team and invited them aboard.
“I know that colonel,” Vicky said, as they watched the exchange. “He’s got a head on his shoulders, and he uses it.”
“Let’s see how good he is,” Kris said, and tapped her commlink. “Gunny, advise the new colonel that this ship will be doing three gees plus when we sortie to contact. High-gee stations will be limited by space on the bridge. If he wants, he may join Citizen Victoria on the bridge. You’ll need to find space and stations for his squad.”
In silence, they watched the exchange between Gunny and he colonel. The colonel turned to talk to his captain, who listened, saluted, shouted orders, and led the squad after Sergeant Bruce.
Gunny and the colonel watched them go, then boarded the
Wasp
together.
“That went smoothly enough,” Vicky said.
“Captain Drago,” Kris said, “we’re going to need some high-gee stations on this bridge real soon now.”
“I’ve got a chief working on that. What station will you take, Your Highness?”
“Weapons, Captain.” Someone would be taking a couple of shots at that liner with its five thousand souls aboard. Fast shots as the
Tourin
and
Wasp
passed each other at millions of klicks an hour. That was not something Kris would delegate.
Kris turned toward the bridge hatch. “Sulwan, could you send the information on the
Tourin
to my Tac Room?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Nelly, if you have any spare capacity, could you search for more data on the
Tourin
.”
“Yes, ma’am,” came back in a raw computer voice. Nelly was very busy.
“Let me check with my political officer,” Captain Krätz said. “He may have information that has not been published.”
He did, but he most certainly would not send it to a Wardhaven ship. Krätz tried reasoning with him. That didn’t work. He was on the verge of losing his temper when Ensign Peterwald stepped forward and raised his commlink to her lips.
“This is Citizen Victoria Peterwald, daughter to the First Citizen,” was hard enough to cut marble. “His life is in danger. Is it your intent to hinder the fight to save his life?”
“No, ma’am,” came back in a stutter.
“Then get those plans and files over here, or I will personally come over there and see you shot.”
“Yes, ma’am. The files are on the way.”
Vicky released her captain’s wrist. He retrieved his arm as if he wasn’t sure it was still attached to him.
“I’m sorry, Captain,” Vicky said. “I know that is not how you taught me to lead. However, that is what I learned at my dad’s knee. I am just starting to learn that there is a time to do things your way. . . and a time to do things Dad’s way.”
“It’s not an easy lesson,” Kris said.
“No,” Vicky said, seeming to look inside herself, note the particular set of her soul. “You are right, Kris. It is not at all easy. Was it like this for you?”
“I think you’ll find it harder. I get the feeling there’s a bigger gap between the way your dad does things and the Navy way and the way my father goes about his business and the Navy way.”
“That’s something I hope we can talk about.”
“First we save your dad.”
50
Kris’s staff room, now changed by the situation into a Tac Room, was just the way they’d left it during the stampede to the bridge. A chair was overturned on the floor.
One wall showed a schematic of the
Dedicated Workers of Tourin
. The wall next to it was covered with opened files. The wall across from it showed. . . a spiderweb. Beside it was a series of files not found, and similar error messages.
At the table, Chief Beni was alternately cursing, pulling his hair out, and pounding on his own large unit, which he’d plugged into the table. He looked up as Kris came in. “What kind of junk is this we’re getting from that Peterwald ship? Are they trying to bring down our main ship’s computer?”
“They better not be,” Vicky said, and rattled off a long string of letters, numbers, words, and even a whistle at the end.
The wall of spiderwebbing blinked black for a moment, then came up steady with a schematic of the
Tourin
not at all different from that on the opposite wall.
“Sorry,” Vicky said. “It’s all password encrypted. I didn’t expect the files to get here so fast.”
“You did threaten to shoot the man,” Kris pointed out.
“Yes, but I still thought it would take more time to get the information together and over the net.”
“I think State Security has a priority for ‘it gets there now, or I get shot,’ ” Captain Krätz said.
Kris hoped he was joking, but wouldn’t have taken the bet. The nod from Vicky looked far too
of course
for her to even consider that bet. For the first time in her life Kris could honestly think,
Thank God I was born a Longknife.
How can the Peterwalds run an empire this way?
Are they running it, or is it running them? Killing them?
Point taken.
Kris focused on the
Tourin
. Where warships like the
Typhoon
were built small and slim and rounded to offer lasers less of a target, the
Tourin
was huge and built like a brick to contain more cabin space and, apparently, to give each premium cabin its own view out. Forward, the ship tapered deck by deck with the most expensive rooms having both views out and ahead. The bridge was at the very apex of the stepped pyramid.
“Do we target the bridge?” Kris asked, half to herself, half to those around her. Captain Drago had stayed on his own bridge to oversee the powering-up process. Still, Kris had one cruiser captain. He was shaking his head.
“I don’t think the bridge will get you anything. There’s a backup control room well aft, just before Engineering,” Krätz said. On the schematic behind Kris, a space glowed red just forward of where she’d expect the power plant to begin. “These liners are intended to be easily converted to either troop transports, or, if big lasers are provided, ships able to stand against anything but a battleship.”
“Might explain your security man’s reluctance to provide this to us,” Abby said.
Captain Krätz gently cleared his throat. “You do know, Your Highness, that your maid, now apparently Army officer, regularly publishes information about what you do?”
“Oh,” Kris said, a puzzle piece falling into place. “Is that why that Security colonel was about to swallow his cud? He was meeting Abby face-to-face and couldn’t figure out how to react to a spy being in our midst.”
Abby, for her part, did a letter-perfect curtsy.
“You don’t sound surprised,” Krätz said.
“Abby, what’s it worth to you not to have your cover blown?” Kris called cheerfully over her shoulder.
“Hey, not fair. You’re supposed to be paying me for early copies of my reports and slightly modified ones that you can use for your paperwork.” The maid sounded very unhappy.
“It’s not me you need to bribe. Looks to me like you better buy this captain’s silence.”
“Me, too,” Vicky called. “I always need a new dress.”
“What bribe?” was a low growl coming from the door as the State Security colonel followed Gunny in.
“A bit of levity,” Kris growled right back, “to lighten the burden of figuring out how to damage a starliner with five thousand souls aboard.”
“Why damage it?” the colonel said. “Just blow it up.”
That brought a strained silence.
“Kris,” Vicky said in a low voice, “that is how I feel too. It’s my dad’s life we’re talking about.”
“Your dad and a whole lot of people down on that planet,” Kris agreed. “But it’s not as easy as that. Has anyone calculated the kinetic power of one of our pulse lasers?” Normally Kris would have asked Nelly to do it, but the low hum in the back of Kris’s head said that the old girl was fully occupied.
“I’ve got it,” Penny said. “Entered it before that battle above Chance and never purged it.”
Beside Kris, Vicky swallowed hard at the mention of the battle in which her brother died. She also threw Penny a hard glance, as if memorizing her face.
Penny looked back just as hard. “A lot of us fought at Chance, and my husband died stopping those battleships above Wardhaven.”
Vicky started to open her mouth.
Kris cut her off. “Enough, girls. A lot of people are hurting from a lot of things that might have been better not done. Today, we have today’s problems. Captain, can you tell us something about the thickness of the hide on this thing? The decks and strength girders.”
“That is a state secret,” the colonel pointed out.
“You can keep the secret and start looking for a new First Citizen, or you can tell us and maybe we can save his life. Your call. Or should I have Miss Victoria call Lieutenant General Boyng again?”
The colonel in black looked like he’d swallowed something bitter, but he nodded Captain Krätz’s way. That Greenfeld officer ran off a list of numbers.
Penny fed them into her computer, then paused a moment before announcing, “Not good. We’ll achieve complete burn through, one side to the other, using only twenty-five percent of the power of one of our four pulse lasers.”
“So we can punch four or maybe sixteen holes in that can,” Kris said. “Can we slice it in half? Quarters? Sixteenths?”
Penny eyed her wrist unit. “Half, definitely. Maybe into three chunks. Not four.”
“And they would hit the planet in three places with one-third the power,” Colonel Cortez said.
“No,” Kris said at the same time Krätz did. Kris deferred to the Greenfeld captain.
“If we do anything to the engines as we pass, the ship stops accelerating. Its course assumes that it will keep its acceleration constant right up to collision. If we stop its acceleration, it will miss the planet entirely.”
“Assuming they do not change its course,” the security colonel snapped. “Just one hit in the right part of its power plant, and the containment field collapses. The ship and terrorists vanish, and we have no more problem.”
“Kris. . .” Vicky said, not quite pleading.
“That is an option,” Kris said slowly. “But it is my last option. I did not put on this uniform to kill five thousand people whose only crime was buying a ticket to ride or taking a job to pander to them. Am I understood, Colonel!”
Kris locked eyes with the man from State Security. He glared right back at her.
“My duty is to the state, and the First Citizen.”
“And you know way too much about blowing up a ship for my liking and seem only too quick to do it.”
“Enough, the two of you!” Vicky shouted. “If you don’t want to hit the electric generators, what do you intend to hit?”
Kris ran her hands along the schematic on the wall. “The bridge, the living spaces have no value to us. The colonel is right, we need to hit the engineering area,” she said, coming to rest there. “The question is how do we cripple and drive the ship hopelessly off course, so that it can’t be put back on course,” Kris glanced at the colonel. “But not blow it apart.”
“The engines,” Penny and Captain Krätz said together.
“Will someone turn the ship engine-on to me?” Kris asked, again not wanting to bother Nelly. For once her pet computer did not cut in with some snide remark about her being able to calculate pi and chew gum at the same time. Nelly was busy!
“I got it moving,” Chief Beni said from where he still sat at the table, quietly observing the rest.
Kris found herself facing a three-quarters on view of the aft end of the
Tourin
. Four huge rocket motors glowed along the middle of the ship’s end. Above and below them nestled three more equally huge bells. A short row of two topped the three.
Fourteen huge rocket motors pumped tons of hot plasma into space, so a million tons of human engineering could safely travel among the stars— normally.
Now it was a million tons of death for those aboard and those on the planet below. Unless Kris stopped it.
“Can the jets move?” Kris asked. “How do they steer?”
“Very carefully,” Captain Krätz said dryly. “Assuming a speed of between .95 and 1.05 gees, there is a battery of steering jets circling the bow, amidships, and aft that make it as maneuverable as a ballet dancer. . . at 1 gee. At this speed, God only knows what they would do if you cut away three or four of the rocket motors. Nip three or four more, the thing will take off doing loops. They’ll never get it back under control.”
“How much time will we have to take our shot?” Kris asked.
“Somewhere between 1 and 1.5 seconds. Assume 1.25 as most likely,” Chief Beni said.
The wall went blank, speckled by a few unblinking stars. Then one of them grew huge, filled the screen, and was gone. If anyone blinked, they didn’t see a thing.
“Thank you, Chief, I expected something like that.”
“But now you’ve seen it,” he said. “By the way, the reason we don’t know just how much time you’ll be in range of the
Tourin
is because we aren’t sure just what our acceleration will be.”
“Captain Drago said 3.2 gees,” Kris said. “Maybe more.”
“Or maybe less. I called one of my buddies who has a buddy down in Engineering. Turns out they never tested this ship above 2.25 gees, Your Highness.”
“Didn’t we do 3 gees or so around Panda’s moon?” Penny asked.
“Yeah,” the chief agreed, “and the snipes sweated blood. We do it steady for three, four hours this time.”
“Thanks for the clarification,” Kris said. . . and meant it.
“So all is not so well in the vaunted Wardhaven Navy,” the security colonel said with a smile.
“Whose ship is ready to split its guts to get under way and whose ships are tied up like beached whales?” Vicky shot back.
The colonel swallowed his smile.
“Chief, give me the broadside view, again.” The wall changed. “Where are the main electrical generators?”
Captain Krätz eyed the other schematic, then indicated an area forward of the engines. A bit farther forward were two huge areas that could only be the fusion reactors.
Kris put her finger on one. “I hit here, and what happens?”
“Nothing or everything,” Krätz said.
Kris nodded along with him. “My shot could go through and do nothing but stir the plasma the wrong way. Or I could take out enough superconductors to let the plasma eat the ship.”
“Everyone dies,” Jack concluded.
“Farther aft, I hit the electrical generators and, again, everyone dies. Only if I hit the rocket engines do people live.”
“But if you miss aft,” Vicky pointed out, “my dad dies.”
“Yes,” Kris whispered softly.
“Could you slice the ship in half?” Colonel Cortez asked.
“Why?” Jack asked.
“Well, the other young lady mentioned a few moments ago that you might be able to cut it in half or thirds.”
“Yes,” Penny said. “Our lasers have the power for it.”
“And the ship is a huge target, is it not?”
“It looks that way,” Kris agreed.
“Where is the reaction mass carried?” the infantry colonel went on.
Captain Krätz eyed the other files for a moment, then said, “In huge tanks in the center of the ship.” He stepped to Kris’s schematic and ran his hands along the middle of the drawing. “From just where it starts to taper at the bow to where it starts to narrow at the stern.”
“And what if you cut into those tanks? Where would the reaction mass go? Could the engines continue their huge acceleration if that reaction mass was bleeding out elsewhere than the reactors?”
“Captain Krätz, how much reaction mass would the
Tourin
have on board at this point in her voyage? How much is she gulping down to keep up this acceleration? Could we damage her enough to make this whole stunt impossible?”
The Greenfeld captain just shook his head.
“And assuming we unleashed the reaction mass into the ship, what would it do to the people on board?” Kris said.
“And if we did separate the forward half of the ship from the aft half,” Penny pointed out, “the havoc as different parts of the ship lost power, the wrenching as the forward portion twisted away from the aft portion with its reactors still trying to push the ship. No, I’m sorry, it would be more merciful to grant these people a quick death. I have been on a wrecked ship.”
Once again, the room fell silent.
Kris spread her arms to reach back for the engineering spaces and ran her fingers over the tiny target she and Nelly would be aiming for. “So this is it. The engines themselves.”
“That or the containment field,” the colonel said.
“We are Wardhaven Navy, not murderers.”
“If your softheartedness causes our First Citizen to die, there will be a lot to talk about.”
“Enough,” Vicky half shouted. She walked in Kris’s footsteps, running her hands along the large bulk of passenger area, and deep within it, the reaction mass to feed the reactor.
“It’s a big, easy target. Are you sure it’s not the best?”
“We don’t know how much reaction mass is in it,” Kris pointed out, raising a finger. “We’d have to use two of our lasers to burn through any try at cutting the ship in half. That would be chancy at the best of times.” A second finger came up. “At the speed we’d be traveling, it’s a huge gamble.” A third finger joined the others. “We could punch lots of holes in the tanks, and they’d still have enough to complete their suicidal dive.” All four fingers were up now. “Yes, Vicky, it would be the easiest to hit, but no, there is no good chance that we’d be hitting what we need to hit.”