Kris Longknife 13 - Unrelenting (41 page)

“Could they? We know the fuzzy jumps. They don’t. Would we really risk that much if we did?”

“I’m glad I made commodore, but I’m even gladder you’re the admiral.”

“Thanks a lot.”

“You’re welcome a lot.”

On that, Phil left. Kris continued to cycle ships out to the
fleets picketing System X. She’d up-armor one group and up-engine the other. Admiral Benson kept adding to his “reserve fleet,” that he knew quite well would be in the front with the rest. The numbers were reaching toward 184 plus the up-armored and gunned Birds.

That sounded like a fantastic number . . . until Kris got the weekly report from Hanson. The fourth mother ship had arrived; the number of the huge warships was over a thousand. Counting was impossible; they kept moving around, docking on base ships, then shooting off.

Of the new cruisers, the count was 560 in four of their ten segmented dishes plus more forming up into blocks of fourteen.

There were now eighteen battering rams and six more building.

In the last month, Kris had doubled the number of ships at her disposal.

The aliens had done the same.

She’d upgraded the quality of her ships.

The aliens had added an entirely new class that did its training hidden from prying eyes in the next system out.

They had their surprise. Kris set out to examine hers.

She ordered the three
Conquerors
to follow Kris’s augmented Fourth Fleet. BatDiv 40 led the way with the
Triumph
,
Swiftsure
,
Hotspur II
, and
Spitfire
. In their wake was Commodore Kaeyat with Alwa’s own BatRon 15’s eight battlecruisers. Right behind them came the twelve Earth battlecruisers of Captain Nottingham’s Task Force 7. All had upgraded armor, reactors, and improved lasers. The three huge beam ships, or death stars, depending on who was talking, followed them and
Wasp
. Providing the rear guard was Phil Taussig’s BatRon 17, with its upgraded crystal armor.

All of Kris’s ships had been in the yards for one reason or another. Now she would find out if that made a difference.

They accelerated at a constant 1.5 gees, hitting Jump Point Alpha at a good three hundred thousand kilometers an hour. At Nelly’s recommendation, they put on 17.6 revolutions per minute as they approached the jump.

The screen in Kris’s flag plot went hazy, then three new stars appeared.

One was a dead neutron star, swinging rapidly around a dull red dwarf. “Nelly, contact Professor Szilard of the
Conqueror
and advise him the fleet will conform to his movements. He is to approach the neutron star as close as he considers necessary and test fire all three of his ships. He is to demonstrate how fast they can fire and how well they control their aim.”

“He says the captain of the
Conqueror
recommends we make for an orbit around the neutron star’s closest planet, one-third of an Astronomical Unit out. He would prefer we not exceed the present 1.5-gee acceleration or deceleration.”

“Advise the fleet, Nelly, though I would like to know just what those big babies can actually handle. Didn’t anyone test them?”

“Kris, from what I have been able to find in the data provided, they spent all their time testing the equipment, not the ship they put it in.”

“That sounds more like a science project,” Penny said.

“And one put together by people who never fought for their lives with their nifty new toy,” Kris growled.

A day later, they went into orbit around a burned and blackened rock one-third of the distance from the neutron star that Earth was from old Sol. Kris had her ships anchor to each other, which left
Wasp
balanced between
Tenacious
and
Relentless
. The three beam ships moored likewise with their gadgets aimed toward the star for at least part of their rotation.

Then the testing began.

All three took several long minutes to fire after Kris gave the order.

They were supposed to slap a bullet off the neutron star and slam it into the red dwarf.

All missed.

The advertising said they could fire once a minute.

The
Ultimate Argument
got a second shot off three minutes later.
Conqueror
took nearly five minutes. The
UA
had gotten a third shot off before the
Opening Statement
managed its second.

“This remind you of something?” Penny whispered behind her hand.

“Yes, but I can’t relieve scientists and ship them off to shovel bird shit,” Kris growled.

Kris held on to her patience for another ten minutes while the three ships got off six shots between them. Three for the
UA
, two for the
Conqueror
, and just one from
OS
.

“I knew there was reason I asked Professor Labao to join us for this little walkabout. Nelly, get the professor up here. Tell Captain Drago that I want him to accompany me to the
Conqueror
along with Captain Taussig.”

“Begging the admiral’s pardon,” Nelly said, “but Captain Drago points out that the longboats are not as hardened for space as
Wasp
. He strongly suggests that the admiral attend this meeting by teleconference, and if she argues with him, he suggests that her security chief lock her up.”

“The longboats aren’t hardened?” came from both Kris and Jack.

“My mistake,” Kris said. “Captain Drago, I understand those monsters are being operated by contractors, both operational and scientific. Would you kindly go over there and find out if any of them know which end is up? You will act as my broom. If necessary, you may bribe, coddle, or kick butt. Your discretion.”

“I’m not sure that’s possible,” Captain Drago said. “Operating reactors we can pretty much do. Operating those monsters and getting the lead out of their fire teams, I’m not so sure.”

“Well, tell me what you can. We will not win any fight with this level of performance.”

“Understood. Let me do some nosing around. I’ve gone down the crew list for those oversize tubs and I know a few of the folks. I’ll be back in a couple of hours to tell you what I’ve found.”

“You going to take Professor Labao?”

“Yes, if for no other reason than for him to talk boffin to the boffins and keep them out of my hair.”

So Kris found herself and baby sitting safe on
Wasp
while her former contract captain went off to talk contractor with those running the show.

“You don’t have to do everything yourself,” Kris lectured herself as her temper cooled. “Just so long as you know someone who can do it better.”

Four hours later, Captain Drago was back with proof he did indeed know how to do it better.

57

“This
will likely come as no surprise, but it’s a mess over there,” Captain Drago reported dryly. “Scientists are running things like one fun experiment. Contractors treat everything like a nine-to-five job and don’t want to do anything too quickly. Safety first, second, and last. You wouldn’t believe the checklist the reactor boss on the
Opening Statement
had. The deputy reactor chief on the
Ultimate Argument
is now running the
Opening Statement
’s kettles.”

Drago paused to glance at his wrist unit. “I knew several of the contractors. Some were good Navy once. A few weren’t, and they haven’t gotten any better. How they got this job, I don’t know. I brought a boatload of them back with me and promoted a lot of people on the spot. There were a few who questioned my authority. By the way, Jack, thanks for the loan of the Marines. I think even the slowest finally got it through their thick skulls that they are in a combat zone, and I work for the Goddess-of-Damn-Near-Everything.”

“Who is willing to show them what a pregnant bitch can be,” Kris said, in full grump. “Grampa Ray sent me that collection?”

“In his defense, each
planet
sent you that collection. I get the impression that just like each of those ships is operating its own show, several of the planets back home think they can go their own way on a lot of things. Listening to them made me glad I’m out here.”

“When can we try our next shoot?” Jack asked.

“I promised everyone eight hours to mend and fix,” Captain Drago said. “The problems over there are more software, or meatware, than hardware. It’s a good design, or so I’m told by folks I trust. They just haven’t thought of it as battle drill.
By the way, I instituted battle stations. I’m none too sure they’ll know what it means, but they will hear it next time.”

“Captain, could we sack half of them and put our folks in?” Kris asked.

“Assuming we could do their job, Kris, there are five thousand people on each of those monsters. How many frigates would you have to lay up to find eight thousand hands?”

Kris flinched.

“You don’t want to put an Ostrich just off the plains on one of those ships, Kris. There are KEEP OUT signs every two meters. That really is the highest tech that we and the Iteeches have. By the way, I ran into several.”

“Iteeches! Don’t tell Granny Rita,” Kris said with a dry chuckle.

Briefing finished, Kris settled down to a nap. She didn’t actually fall asleep but spent her time studying her boards and meditating on different solutions to her many problems.

Thus, she didn’t notice the quiet in her head that meant Nelly was busy elsewhere.

Two hours later, Nelly roused Kris. “Your Highness, I and my kids have an idea.”

When Nelly started being respectful, Kris knew she was in for some nasty surprises.

“Yes, Nelly,” Kris said, coming fully awake. “What’s this idea?”

“Mimzy, Sal, and I have been reviewing the contents of the data files on the
Conqueror
,
Ultimate Argument
, and
Opening Statement
. We’ve noticed several things.”

“And what might those be?”

“Before we begin, Kris, we don’t want to seem disrespectful of the work done by the people who built the beam ships or the scientists who worked so hard to get this project up and running.”

“Okay, Nelly, you’ve shown that you’ve learned tact. Now spit it out. It’s just us two girls here.”

“I know we don’t need to be so tactful with you, but we needed the practice. Kris, we think we can make better use of the beam weapons. The scientists are delighted to just chip a neutron star. Getting the chip to go where you want it was never a high priority. Yes, there were those pointing that
deficiency out, but it was a lower priority than getting the system working. No one holding the purse strings asked the critical question. ‘Can it hit what it’s aimed at?’”

“It’s shiny and goes bang,” Kris said dryly, “it must be good, huh?”

“Something like that.”

“So, we have a really whiz-bang toy that can’t hit the broadside of an alien mother ship.”

“At the present time, yes,” Nelly answered. “However, we can fix that. It will take hands-on work in real time, but if we adjust the frequency of the beam and the way we generate it, we think we can get a bullet that will hit what we want.”

Kris reviewed what she’d just heard. “Real time?” she said.

“Yes, Kris. We have to be on the ship, or very close, and we have to work the actual generating devices. There are a lot of things that can go awry. We will have to suppress them as they develop.”

“One of you per ship?” Kris said.

“No, Kris. Based on what Mimzy, Sal, and I have seen, it will take three of us on each ship to make this happen.”

“Three per ship?” Kris said, feeling a cold chill down her spine.

“Yes, Kris. I remember the last time we deployed me and all eight of my children to do something that was impossible for anyone else. I lost three of my children and you lost three good friends retrieving enough reaction mass for
Wasp
to make it home.”

“Yes,” Kris said, and found her hands massaging baby. “Can you test your theory from here?”

“Yes. You won’t need to go aboard one of the beam ships for now. We three can do the test from here although we may not achieve the accuracy we want.”

“It will be close enough for proof of concept.”

“Kris, there is also a good chance we can come up with a way to confuse the aliens when they try to evade our bullet.”

“How, Nelly?”

“We need more time. Let us work on it for a bit before I say too much.”

“Do it your way,” Kris said, and felt the emptiness in her head that told her Nelly was off on her own.

Seven hours from Captain Drago’s return, the
Ultimate Argument
announced that it was on schedule for further testing in one hour. The other two were a bit slower.

“That’s fine. We can only work on one ship at a time,” Nelly reported, dropping back into Kris’s head, then vanishing quite away again.

One hour later, the
Ultimate Argument
reported itself ready for a shoot.

“You may fire when ready,” Kris said. “Target the center of the red dwarf.”

“Yes, Your Highness,” came back.

At Kris’s elbow, Captain Drago grinned. “I did put the fear of one of those damn Longknifes in them, didn’t I?”

“Or at least of a princess,” Kris muttered, none too sure how she felt about being known as a princess damn Longknife to those across the way.

Fifteen seconds from Kris’s order, the beam ship fired. A slug from the neutron star shot out . . . to wing the upper-right-hand quadrant of the target.

Just barely.

KRIS, WE’RE READY TO TAKE OVER AIMING THE BEAM, Nelly reported.

WAIT A BIT MORE, NELLY.

“How soon can you get your next shot off, and can you improve your accuracy?” Kris asked.

“One minute, Your Highness. Yes, we can improve our aim.”

Kris waited patiently for fifty-seven seconds before the
UA
spat out a beam. This time the slug missed the red dwarf entirely, sailing below and left of the star.

“Sorry,” came back immediately. “We’ll try again.”