Kris Longknife 13 - Unrelenting (28 page)

All Kris could do was shrug. “It sure looks like our summer vacation is over, folks. What’s it look like to you?”

“A long, cold winter,” Jacques said.

Admiral Benson showed up with Admiral Hiroshi of the Kure Docks on one elbow and a newcomer on the other. “Kris, may I introduce Admiral Ellen Tirpitz, supervisor of Gosport Docks. She came out with Admiral Yi from Earth.”

Kris knew that the Earth fleet had brought its own port. Gosport Station was trailing Cannopus by fifty clicks, and Admiral Yi had made it into a private fiefdom. Kris had chosen to let that happen rather than risk a break with Earth. That
Admiral Tirpitz had chosen now to show up with Admiral Benson suggested that Yi’s hold on Earth’s assets was now tenuous.

“I’m glad to have you here,” Kris said, shaking Tirpitz’s offered hand.

“Glad to finally be making your acquaintance. Marty here has been telling me how he’s putting his yard to a lot more use than taking dents out of ships. I’m looking forward to trying a few new twists of my own.”

“Good,” Kris said. “There are a lot more twists and turns headed our way.”

Kris noted that Nelly had been expanding the U-shaped table and Kris’s day quarters as the size of the meeting grew. Kitano had brought the other two fleet commanders, Admirals Miyoshi and Bethea, as well as some of her key staff. The duty officer who had made the initial report was there though she looked a bit wilted.

Pipra with Abby and a dozen other managers filled one leg of the table. Captain Drago just happened to drop in and sit himself down next to Admiral Furzah, along with Penny and Masao, Amanda and Jacques. On the far wall, the representation for the colonials included not only Granny Rita and Ada but also the Speaker for the Association of Associations, if Kris wasn’t mistaken.

Even the birds are learning to go to meetings,
Kris thought, and called the meeting to order.

“While we’ve been developing things like 22-inch lasers and crystal armor, it appears the aliens have come up with a few tricks as well. Admiral Kitano, please report on last night’s developments.”

Kitano passed the ball to the lieutenant who took a breath and launched into telling all these elephants that the cows had learned a new way to eat the cabbage.

“We have now identified thirty-eight alien suicide ships within our established warning network traced back to eighteen different systems. They don’t appear to have a refined knowledge of the jumps. They’re just hitting them at high speeds and seeing where it takes them. Two have arrived so far. Six have jumped past us. The rest are still en route.”

“That seems like an awful waste of life and resources,”
Admiral Kitano said. “Three misses, maybe more, for every arrival.”

“It’s worse. Three have blown up,” the lieutenant added.

“Someone doesn’t count the cost,” Pipra said, darkly.

“No,” Kris said. “Their Enlightened Ones are only interested in killing us. The ships are of hasty construction: one reactor, weight for the hit, and a small crew. They seem willing to throw as many at us as it takes to get a hit.”

“We’ll need an alert defense at the jumps into our system,” Kitano said. “They haven’t thrown atomics through the jump ahead of them yet, but it’s only a matter of time. As I see it, we can only adjust the lasers up or down fifteen degrees. If we want to keep our ships anchored and rotating for gravity, we’ll need to synchronize twelve ships at each jump. Twenty-four at both of them. Allowing for relief, that could tie up our entire fleet.”

“So we don’t,” Admiral Benson said. “There’s nothing written in stone that says lasers can only adjust through thirty degrees. Yes, for a fighting frigate that has to defend itself, you don’t want too much of a hole in your bow. However, to defend our own jump points, we could damn near park a barge out there.”

“Wouldn’t a rotating station be a bit much?” Admiral Kitano asked. “What if the jump moved?”

“I’m not talking about a true barge, but we could knock together three ships out of merchant hulls, arm them with leftover 20-inch lasers, and allow the gun cradles to rotate sixty degrees.”

“That would only cover half the rotation,” Kris said.

“Not if we anchor the ships in threes and rig the bow guns to shoot around the mooring lines.”

“Can you do that?” Captain Drago said.

“We rig the lasers outboard of the moorings.”

“We have nine empty freighters,” Admiral Tirpitz offered. “The Apple Blossom class has two reactors. If we merge the nine into six, you’d have reactors to charge lasers but not a lot of armor.”

“We don’t expect these jump guards to have to fight, just shoot,” Kris said, and wished she had some wood to knock on. She might be making a terrible mistake, but she needed
her frigates ready to fight, not rotating through static-station-ship duties at the jumps.

“I can get you a good three dozen 20-inch laser systems to mount on them,” Benson offered. “What about crews, Admiral Tirpitz?”

“Out of the nine, we ought to be able to put together six good sailing crews. But we don’t have anyone to man the lasers. Certainly not in a twenty-four/seven mode.”

Benson grinned. “Have I got some birds for you?”

“Mixed crews with the Alwans,” Tirpitz said. Clearly, she’d acquired Admiral Yi’s low opinion of the locals.

“You might want to talk to Admiral Cochrane,” Kris said. “We’ll likely steal a few from his ships to crew your jump guards.”

“I’ve also got a few colonials and birds to work on your yard, if you’ll take them.”

Tirpitz worried her lower lip. “Do I need Admiral Yi’s authorization for these changes?”

“Do you need Yi’s permission to convert the freighters into fighters?” Kris asked.

Tirpitz shook her head. “Three of the freighter skippers came to me this morning. They’d heard about the fight at the jump points and wanted to know if they could have lasers mounted on their ships. Two others will likely want in on the fight. Of the rest, I just don’t know, but they are civilian and not under Navy authority. Although I’m not sure Yi agrees with that.”

“Admiral Miyoshi,” Kris said, “you see to it that Yi understands that we are going to do this. You might also tell him that his task force should be here on the Cannopus Station with the rest of Second Fleet. Admiral Bethea, I’m moving all of your ships to Gosport.”

“There won’t be a lot of them. Most of my ships are deployed.”

“Still,” Kris said, “I want you on Gosport Station. We might as well bite whatever bullet we have to.”

“I’ll tell Rear Admiral Yi he’s moving,” Vice Admiral Miyoshi said.

Kris nodded. Yi was a hardcase, and having his former
subordinate, and a woman, tell him he was moving out of his familiar stomping grounds was likely not the best way to go.

Managing people
—Kris sighed—
was as much of a pain in the butt as killing aliens.

“Okay, it looks like we can guard the jump points without tying up the fleet,” Kris said. “Now, how fast can we grow the fleet?” she asked, staring straight at Pipra.

“No doubt, faster than I want to, but slower than you’d like,” she answered, and they began to dicker.

43

The
sense of ease that had gripped the fleet, station, and workers, whether on the moon or the asteroid mines, was gone. The yards worked around the clock, now with immigrants, colonials, and Alwans.

There was no talk of low morale.

The courier boats were the first to flow out from the yards.
Hermes
,
Mercury
, and
Apollo
were hardly finished before they jumped for the three squadrons watching the approaches to System X. They returned just as swiftly to report that there was nothing to report.

No aliens had shown up in their systems to either peel off warning buoys or try fast jumps to Alwa.

The same couldn’t be said for Alwa itself.

Rarely did Kris rise in the morning to find fewer than fifty aliens somewhere in the picketed zone. Many missed on their way to frozen hell, but more were incoming, hunting for that right combination of speed and location that would give them a chance to dash themselves against Kris’s defenses.

That was the thing about a suicide mission; hit or miss, it never reported back. The handful that did find the lucky numbers died in seconds.

But that didn’t stop them from coming.

Kris watched this tragedy unfolding before her, and like the rest of humanity, shook her head.

It was now clear that eighteen systems were launching these one-way attacks. Kris eyed the map and gnawed her lower lip. Should she take the bait and go for one of them? Would she find a base ship, or a few dozen huge warships if she did?

She called in her key staff.

She stood before them as usual. Only now, her left hand had a tendency to brush the growing bulge beneath her heart.

What great commander ever took that stance?
the joker inside her chided.

They’ll have to find room for it in the Longknife legend,
she chided right back.

“I do not like sitting here while the aliens take potshots. We’ve slapped down everyone that got through, but I refuse their right to the initiative.”

“So, what do you
want
to do?” Jack asked.

“I don’t know what I
can
do,” Kris answered, “until we get a look at what’s out there.”

Penny smiled. “So you want someone to go take a look. Do I have to volunteer?”

“I’m thinking of someone else,” Kris said, “though the job is the same: go, look, run home quick. The buoy tenders aren’t doing anything. If we need to replace a jump buoy, I’ll likely send a division of frigates.”

“A scout will need at least three reactors,” Penny said.

“So we merge three of the tenders into one,” Kris answered.

“If I don’t get the job, who does?” Penny asked.

“There’s a former frigate commander running the guano mines,” Kris said.

“The one who couldn’t take no from one of his prettier Sailors,” Jack said.

“Yes. He’d be commanding a bunch of birds.”

“He’d still have some Navy types and colonials,” Penny pointed out.

“So he gets a chance to keep his nose clean, or he gets to shovel the bird shit,” Kris said.

“Make sure he has a good XO,” Jack said.

“I will.”

It was tempting to give him an all-male crew, but it didn’t work out that way. Kris asked for volunteers for a dangerous mission. This time she wasn’t flooded; too many were already on dangerous missions. As it turned out, his XO was a woman, former second officer off one of the freighters that was now a jump-guard ship. His engineering officer was a younger woman also from the Merchant Marine. They were about the
only experienced hands he got. The rest of his crew were colonial or birds; his entire gun crew were Ostriches.

Kris personally told Commander Hanson of his mission and the makeup of his crew for the USS
Challenger
.

“Are you giving me a second chance or a suicide mission?” he said, evenly.

“I have better use for you, your crew, and your ship, than throwing you away on a suicide mission,” Kris said. “You aren’t doing bad, running the guano mine. I have need for as many ships and as many trained people as I can lay my hands on, so no, this mission is exactly what I’m telling you it is. I want to know who’s sending suicide ships at me. Are their bases weak or strong? Am I up against two, three, or a dozen base ships?”

Hanson nodded. “I heard about the mission you sent your intel officer on, going out to get a peek at what turned out to be the alien home world. I take it you want me to get a peek and report back. Do I just go to one launch site or more?”

“We’ve laid out a course that should run you by three of them. You’ll be using the fast jumps we’ve found that the aliens don’t know exist. Needless to say, that knowledge is something we can’t afford to fall into the alien hands.”

“Understood. I run like hell, but if I can’t escape, we blow ourselves to kingdom come.”

“In that respect, we’re just like the aliens,” Kris said.

“Okay, let me have a look at my ship and crew,” Hanson said, then he paused. “Thank you for this second chance, Admiral. I won’t screw up again.”

“Make sure you don’t,” Kris said.

He saluted. She returned it, and he departed.

Jack had come into her day quarters halfway through the meeting but kept silent. He returned Commander Hanson’s salute as he left, then went to take the now-vacant chair beside Kris’s desk.

“You’re giving him a second chance?”

“Yes, we need experienced ship drivers.”

“Do you trust him to do what you’re ordering him to do?”

“I have no doubt that he will. Besides, most of his crew are locals, colonials or Ostriches. I can’t see them letting him get away with anything flaky.”

“No, I don’t see an Ostrich doing that,” Jack agreed. “Okay, answer me this question. He’s getting a second chance. What about Sampson? She’s an experienced ship driver, too.”

“She got her second chance, and a third,” Kris said, patting the little one on his or her head. Or rump. She was never sure which end was up. “Sampson got sent to the yard and stole a ship. We gave her brain surgery, and she dreams up this scheme to get me pregger and unfit for command. As I see it, that’s three strikes, and she can shovel shit until . . . well, I don’t know when, but certainly for a lot more time than I’m thinking of today.”

“Seems fair to me. You want to come dirtside with me tomorrow? We’re standing up the Second and Third Divisions, Alwa National Guard. There may be several Rooster militia battalions marching in the review as well. It should be quite a show.”

“You now have three divisions under your command?” Kris said, raising an expressive eyebrow.

“Don’t you go making me a corps commander. If anyone gets three stars, it should be Hayakawa. He’s the man commanding the troops dirtside. He certainly deserves more than the brigadier star he’s got.”

“Give me a report on who’s commanding what down there with your suggestions for ranks, and we’ll see what tomorrow’s parade looks like.”