Kris Longknife 13 - Unrelenting (34 page)

“I would, honey. I would. Being out here is one huge danger. You’ll have to go pretty far to rise above the background noise, but if I think this is a totally harebrained suicide stunt, I and a half dozen Marines will lock you in your quarters. Your Highness.”

Kris eyed Jack hard. He did not flinch.

“Totally harebrained suicide stunt, huh. That gives me a lot of rope.”

“We are on Alwa Station,” he said with a shrug.

“Okay, let’s look at what we have. Admiral Benson, what’s the status of the
Tenacious
squadron?”

“Not too bad now. They’d be better after a week of shaking down. Damn good and up to Alwa Station standards by next month. But you aren’t asking me about next month, are you?”

“Two days. Three at the most. Nelly, how fast can we get out to this target?”

“Accelerate through Alpha Jump, use the fuzzy jump in the next system with plenty of rpms on the hull, pass through another fuzzy jump and drop right in on them. Four days, ten hours, thirty minutes from Cannopus Station to that system.”

“A day of fighting in the system, then four and a half days back. Ten days away from here. The aliens are hunting for a less deadly pass around the blocks we’ve set up. I’ve got courier ships taking orders out to the pickets to outpost their flanks so the aliens don’t steal a march around them. I want to be back here before things get too hot out there.”

Kris paused to take the measure of the men who would judge her. “I want to move on this now or not at all.”

“Why must you move at all?” said Admiral Hiroshi, sometimes retired from the Musashi Navy, and always superintendent on the Kure Docks on Cannopus Station.

“The three wolf packs attacking toward System X will likely sweep in from there to hit our Beta Jump. The two wolf packs that have so far been content to throw suicide boats at us could hit us through our Alpha Jump. Need I say anything about the problems of fighting an assault coming at us from both jumps at once?”

“So you wish to launch a spoiling attack to push them back.”

“To let them know that they can’t hit us without us biting a chunk out of their hide,” Kris said. “We are not a tethered goat waiting for them to ring the dinner bell.”

Admiral Hiroshi nodded. “This is not a foolish vanity. Many generals and admirals in history have done just as she wishes to do. Marty, is there any chance we could finish some of
Victorious
squadron and join her in this gallant ride?”

“Don’t I wish, Hiroshi, don’t I wish,” Benson said, “but I think she’s kind of counting on us to provide some sort of backup to the Birds out on the line. Am I guessing right, Your Highness?”

“The sooner you can have some sort of reserve force laid up at your yard but ready to go to space on a moment’s notice, the happier I suspect Ada and my Granny Rita will be.”

“The
Victorious
is coming along fine. Building all these ships to a single design is letting us just spin out the kernel and plug in the furnishings that we’re getting from those moon fabs. Which brings us to the point, Admiral. I’d suggest that
you visit each of the new ships in the
Tenacious
squadron. Those officers have come along mighty quickly, and some of the crew aren’t all that far from the bird farm.”

“You think a chance to see their admiral might help?”

“It can’t hurt.”

Kris eyed her belly. “You sure of that?”

“If you don’t think so, then maybe you shouldn’t be taking the fleet out,” came in an even voice. There was no flinch behind it.

If I can’t face those I’m leading, then I shouldn’t be leading them.

Kris nodded. “That’s what I’ll do tomorrow.”

50

Kris
made one last pit stop. Resting a hand on top of baby, she whispered, “Be good for Mommy, dearest. This is only the first of many fights we will no doubt be in,” she said, and smiled at the memory of her and her own mother duking it out in her teen years.

If I could see myself now, would I have been a little happier with my lot in life then?

An old question, no closer to an answer than it had been ten years ago.

First, Kris marched for
Wasp
’s Forward Lounge, there to meet her senior officers. Those ranged from Admiral Yi down to division officers on her new frigates, like gunnery and engineering.

Kris was struck by just how young they were. Take the skipper of the
Tenacious
. Becky Kaeyat looked like she should hardly have the family car keys. But Nelly explained as she shook her hand that Becky had come out as gunnery officer for the
Congress
and had handled her job well during the first Battle of Alwa. She’d gotten XO of the
Resolute
when promotions to flag opened up a vacancy and had fought her well during the expedition to take down the first suicide base. Now she not only commanded the
Tenacious
, but was brevet squadron commander.

She carried the burden of command cheerfully and with a firm handshake.

If she was bothered that her commanding admiral was bulging, she didn’t show it.

None of the officers did, but met her eye to eye with confident handshakes. Kris called each by name as Nelly passed along where they’d come from to get these new ships into
fighting trim. Many of them were promoted to their jobs from Yi’s own battle squadrons.

Kris went through BatRon 16, then started with Yi and went down his ships. While few of his captains had been promoted after the dismal showing during the last expedition, many of the ranks below them showed men and women promoted to fill in behind. Kris even shook the wing of an Ostrich that was now the gunnery officer for the
Admiral Yamamoto
and a Rooster who had come from the reactors on Cannopus Station to take command of the
Franklin D. Roosevelt
’s engineering department.

Yi might have had to be dragged kicking and screaming into accepting locals, but given the choice of leaving empty billets aboard his ships, he’d adjusted.

Done with going eye to eye and hand to hand through her officers, Kris marched to her place at the head table, where Penny and Jack were holding the fort.

But Kris didn’t sit down. Neither did she stand her troops at ease.

“We have won victory after victory here on Alwa Station. We had to. Victory meant the alien bastards died. Defeat means we die and everyone on the planet beneath us. As we stand here, three fleets from our station are harrowing the alien wolf packs, pushing them back from the system they have chosen as their rallying point. That point from which they will all advance on Alwa with murderous intent.

“Even as they defend us on their far-flung stations, from the other side of space, two alien base ships are hurling venomous suicidal attacks at Alwa. Attacks we have defeated one after another. Attacks we must defeat or see a horrible price extracted from those below.

“So far, all we can do is sit here and hit them as they come in. However, the aliens have gotten sloppy. They apparently think it is their job to strike out and ours to take it. They’ve spread themselves out to cover sixteen launching systems. They’ve left only a handful to guard their base ship.”

Young officers leaned forward, eager for what would come next. Kris felt the energy in the room charging her. Even as she took that in, her eyes fell on Admiral Yi. He alone was standing hunched over, staring morosely at the table in front of him.

Kris felt the energy sink that was that admiral and made a note to talk to him afterward.

“We will show them that they can never count on Alwa Station to take what they hand out and not slap the hand that gives it.”

The room took in a breath.

“We will make that base ship pay for its reckless disregard for its own defenses.”

“Yes,” came as a low hiss from her gathered officers.

“We will show those aliens the risk of turning their backs on an armed human.”

Now the “Yes” was more than a hiss. Now it was a vow and a promise.

“We sail at 0900 tomorrow. Make ready for a fast cruise and a hard fight. Good hunting to us all. Dismissed.”

The room filled with the cheers of hunters who saw the prey and were ready to take it down. They knew they faced a hard job but went at it with a will.

Fighters looking for a fight.

In an isolated island stood Admiral Yi. Beside him, his chief of staff looked almost as worried as Kris felt.

She made her way through the happy throng to Rear Admiral Yi.

“You ready for a fight?” Kris asked.

“Of course. Of course I’m up to a fight,” he said, almost stuttered.

Kris glanced at the chief of staff.

“We’ll be right with you, Admiral,” Captain Nottingham said.

“Good. I’ll have a council of war this afternoon to brief the senior officers down to squadron leaders.”

“We’ll be there, ma’am,” the chief of staff said when Admiral Yi failed to answer.

The Forward Lounge had begun to empty as officers hurried off to make sure their ships would be shipshape and battle-ready. Kris rode the ebbing tide out until someone hollered, “Make a hole for the Admiral.” Then she walked as quickly as she could, both to let them be about their duty and because baby was tap-dancing on her bladder.

51

The
final jump was coming up fast—360,000 klicks fast. But then, the entire operation had been fast.

Kris’s brief to her command staff had been quick; there was little to go on. To her surprise, Admiral Yi had been quiet through the entire meeting. She put that down to keeping her tiny fleet in one compact strike force.

Apparently “Don’t divide your forces” was all he’d learned in his Navy.

The course Nelly laid in had been obtuse to say the least. The first jump had taken them 750 light-years toward the center of the galaxy. The speed and rpms Nelly laid in for this next one took them back out to the edge a good 350 light-years from Alwa and directly into the system with the alien mother ship.

While the trip so far had held to below 1.5 gees, things would get rather wild on the other side of this jump. Jack was naked, helping Kris out of her uniform.

He paused to caress her baby bulge. “You sure you’re going to take good care of her?” he asked.

“Nelly promises me that she’s fine-tuned the egg to take very gentle care of us both,” Kris assured him, holding him close, skin to skin.

If only we had more time.

But time was fast running out, so she stepped into her egg and Jack helped the two of them settle gently within the confines of the Smart Metal
^TM
. He gave her a final peck and quickstepped to his egg.

“Seal the egg, Nelly.”

“Is it too tight?” Jack asked.

“It’s fine. It’s better than fine. If baby starts doing the can-can thing she does on my bladder, I can just let the egg take care of things. It saves me running to the head every hour.”

“Always the optimist,” Jack said.

Kris motored into flag plot. Admiral Furzah was already there, along with Penny and Masao. Kris had left Amanda and Jacques behind. There wasn’t a lot here for an economist or anthropologist.

Kris studied her array. All twenty-four ships of the Fourth Fleet were in line behind
Wasp
. She and Jack had gone around and around about where
Wasp
belonged.

“The flag should not go first. You don’t know what’s out there,” Jack had argued.

“You’re right, Jack, we don’t know what’s out there, but we’re going to be headed for it at over three hundred thousand klicks, and there’s no way to peek through the jump or turn around and come back. We’re committed.”

“What if there’s something there? A suicide ship or something?”

“Jack, the fuzzy jump is well away from the direct path to any of the normal jumps. There’s no reason for anything to be there.”

“But you don’t know anything about that system. Where the enemy is? What they’re doing? Anything!”

“Correct, Jack, and as soon as I’m in the system, we can begin planning the actual move to contact. Any ships that jump through ahead of me will just have to twiddle their thumbs until I get there and start giving orders. I go through first, check things out, and holler orders as they come through.”

“I hate to agree with her when she’s in this kind of mode,” Penny said, “but she has the better of this argument.”

“I know. I just want to make sure we haven’t overlooked something.”

“I see no better way to go about this than the one she has laid out,” Admiral Furzah said. “We cannot leap a twenty-foot-wide chasm with two ten-foot hops.”

With that settled, Kris had the fleet in line, five thousand kilometers apart. Still, at the speed they were going, they’d be hitting the jump at five-second intervals. In two short minutes, they’d all be through.

Trailing
Wasp
was the Helvetican Confederacy’s division of four ships. Captain Zermatt’s flagship
Triumph
led
Swiftsure
,
Hotspur II
, and
Spitfire
. Directly behind them came BatRon 16 with Commander Kaeyat’s
Tenacious
, followed by
Persistent
,
Steadfast
,
Relentless
,
Vigilant
,
Insistent
,
Stonewall
, and
Unrelenting
. Last through the jump would be Rear Admiral Yi’s Task Force 7, with twelve Earth ships, three to each reduced division.

Kris hoped she wasn’t making a mistake leaving Yi on one side of the jump after she’d led the way to the next.

The chronometer in front of Kris reached 00:00.00. In place of the usual hint of dizziness was something closer to the nausea Kris had experienced from that tiny passenger she bore beneath her heart.

One screen showed the stars ahead. It went blank, then re-formed a distinctly different view. They waited.

“We made the jump to our target system,” the navigator reported.