Kris Longknife: Defender (33 page)

Kris
was halfway through her supper when Captain Drago hurried in and took the empty chair next to her. “We’ve lost the probe in Hot Datum 3’s system.”

It took Kris a moment to switch gears. “Weren’t we supposed to keep that until tomorrow morning, even if they headed for it at two gees?”

“Yes, Kris,” Nelly said. “My calculations say they must have had a ship cross the system at 3.5 gees.”

“They either squished the dickens out of the crew of one of their monster ships, or they have knocked together some speedsters,” Drago said.

“Just a second,” Kris said, glancing down at where Nelly rode below her collarbone. “How come you’re telling me this, and not Nelly?”

“I told Nelly I wanted to tell you,” Captain Drago said.

“And I concluded,” Nelly said, “that no harm would come from this being delivered a bit slow. Having a human do it might help you.”

“I guess I thank you, both. Don’t do it when time matters.”

“I won’t,” both said at once. Maybe Nelly was a bit faster.

“Have they made the next jump?” Kris asked.

“No. I think they will wait until the mother ship is ready to go through with them.”

“Why?” both Nelly and Kris asked.

“We’re waiting for them here because you have the Hellburners up your sleeve. They don’t know that. They don’t know that you won’t cut behind them and hit their mother ship when the fleet is rushing off to meet us. No, if the mother ship has most of their people, they will protect it. Somewhere, there’s a report from the boffins on the wreck you brought in. When they sorted out the bodies, we found a six-to-four ratio of men to women. About like our warships. Want to bet the mother ship has more women and children?”

“No bet, Captain. You want to organize an attack from their rear?”

“No. Not unless they actually do move faster than the mother ship can. I think after the way you smashed up the last one, these folks are taking very good care of mother.”

Kris thought for a long minute. “Nelly, design me some low-tech probes that can do a good job of tracking them. That can get me a real count on the number of reactors; maybe lasers, too. Drago, alert the
Intrepid
that she’ll be sortieing at once to drop those probes off in the systems in the aliens’ direct path.”

“They’ll be tiptoeing right up to a jump the aliens could be on the other side of,” the captain pointed out.

“It’s a risk we have to take. Tell her to run if she sees anything. No fighting allowed until the rest of us can get a piece of the action.”

“You’re telling a lot of folks to get close but not touch.”

“Trust me, when the time comes, I’ll switch gears without a thought.”

The captain left to give the orders. Nelly went quiet for a while, then said, “I’ve got the shipyard knocking out six probes. They’re large and clunky with optics, radar, and a crude atom laser to count alien noses. An old type computer with plenty of storage. They’ll be ready in two hours. Kris, could the
Intrepid
be up-armored before she leaves?”

“Ask Superintendent Benson if he can do it before they finish the probes?”

“He says no. They aren’t ready to begin uploading the Smart Metal. They’d need two more hours.”

“I’m not willing to trust we’ll have those two extra hours. Tell the skipper to have the
Intrepid
ready to go in two hours and to put the spurs to it—3.5 gees or more all the way.”

“I passed along your order, Kris. Doesn’t it bother you to send them out to face the enemy with less than they should have?”

That was not a question Kris had expected from Nelly, but then, she’d never expected Captain Drago to persuade Nelly to hold her tongue so he could talk first. More surprises.

“Yes, Nelly, it bothers me, but the
Wasp
fought its last battle with thin armor, and we had the wreckage of the
Hornet
aboard. In situations like this, risk is just a part of the job.”

“You have a dangerous job, Kris. But then, you usually have a dangerous job. I’m just now realizing how dangerous it is. I guess I’ll have to get used to it.”

“Sorry, Nelly. Next time we’re back on Wardhaven, would you like me to give you to one of my nieces? One of them should be getting school-tall soon.”

“No, Kris. I’m your computer, and you’re my person. I see the difference between me and my children growing every day as they relate to their own human. Your niece might be safer to be around, but I’d be so bored singing nursery rhymes like we once did.”

Kris did a walk-around after dinner. More material had arrived from the moon fabricators. Eight 20-inch lasers were laid out and under construction on the shop floor at one yard. Kris dropped in on all four of her commodores. Each was happy to see her but busy. Apparently more gear had come loose during yesterday’s training cruise than had been passed up the chain of command. The repair ships and ship personnel were busy.

In the Mitsubishi yard, two frigates were already spinning themselves into shape. It had taken months to build the
Wasp
. Admittedly, here they had the reactors, lasers, and merchant ships to form the seed around. Still, the speed at which they took shape amazed Kris.

One ship already had her name visible.
Temptress
, no doubt, would be Benson’s flag.

Kris crossed the brow of the
Intrepid
a good fifteen minutes before it was scheduled to depart. She found the young captain busy on the bridge and managed to suppress their immediate reaction before they started it.

“I want to wish you good luck and Godspeed,” she told the bridge crew. “I know this mission is risky, but we need to know what we’re facing. Is this one alien mother ship or two? How many escort ships do they have? Go quickly, avoid a fight, deploy your probes, and get back here fast. If your orders don’t fit your situation, please be guided by the principle of calculated risk. We need the probes out there, but we need you here when the fight starts.”

“You can count on us, Admiral,” the captain assured her. Kris shook her hand, then left. Again, she’d done all she could do to emphasize her orders.
Do the job and run.

Before long, she would have to issue different orders, but for the moment, running for home was what she wanted. No heroics for now. Tomorrow, Kris would somehow have to figure out a way for each of her ships to kill seven or eight of the aliens’.

That assumed there were only two hundred coming. The corvette
Fearless
had killed her seven or eight, but at the cost of her life. Kris didn’t want to trade one of her ships for eight of the aliens’. That wouldn’t guarantee that Jack and Granny Rita would not be pounded by the survivors. No, Kris had to repel the aliens with as much of her fleet intact as possible.

How would she do that?

Kris returned to the
Wasp
. There were no new surprises. The aliens were still in Hot Datum 3, doing whatever they wanted to do, with Kris none the wiser.

Kris went to bed with visions of ships sweeping through space. Her fleet would flee, as long as it could, to keep the range open for the 20-inch guns.

Assuming the aliens didn’t have a surprise of their own in the gun category.

But Kris could only run so far before she had her back to Alwa.

Kris brought Nelly into her thoughts, and the two of them studied the battles that Grampa Ray and Granny Rita had fought against the Iteeche. Kris examined them and found them wanting. The frigates really did mean a new way of fighting. They reached back farther into the appalling history of human slaughter. In the bloody twentieth century, Kris began to find bits and pieces that seemed to fit into her puzzle.

She finally fell asleep to dream of aircraft climbing and diving as freely as her frigates in a three-dimensional battlefield.

Two
days later, Kris was on the pier, impatiently waiting for the
Intrepid
to lock down and unseal her quarterdeck. As soon as she did, Kris was aboard and headed for the bridge. Someone from the quarterdeck must have been on their toes this time. The captain called “Atten-hut” even before Kris entered the bridge. For the first time in her life, Kris let them stay at attention.

“I thought I ordered you not to get in a fight.”

“We didn’t, Admiral. The lasers never fired.” The captain was trying to avoid smiling, but it was clear she was proud of herself and her crew.

Kris knew exactly how it felt. She’d done that often enough when she was a junior officer and hung a senior officer on his own petard. Kris didn’t like being that senior.

“You came very close to having to unload a few rounds. I’ve seen the reports. Their fast squadron was closing in on you.”

“We left an hour before they got there, Admiral. You told me to be guided by calculated risk. We detached the first probe at the farthest jump, and it came up dead. I launched the next two and sent them through while we retrieved the first probe and fixed it. Then one of the probes returned and gave us a picture of what was happening on the other side. Yes, there were three ships headed for us at 3.5 gees, but they were hours away. So we hung there, switching probes through the jump point and getting a better and better picture of what was on the other side.”

“Yes,” Kris said. “You got very good intel. You deserve a very well done.”

“Thank you, ma’am.” Now the proud smile did slip out. “We left an hour before they were in range of the probe. They did enter the system, but when they saw us an hour ahead of them, they went back, after blowing up our probes. Ma’am, I was an hour ahead of them, and if I’d had to, I could have gone to four gees.”

“And showed them what we have,” Kris pointed out.

“Yes, ma’am, but if they had gotten there any sooner, they would have showed me what
they
had. Our cursory review of the intel says the big monsters are stuck at two gees and the mother ship is holding at around .75 gees. The new fast ones can’t beat 3.5. From the look of smaller ships spread out behind the three that reached our jump, I’d say they built a lot of fast ships, but most of them can’t hold 3.5 gees.”

Kris’s analysis of the report agreed with hers. “Thank you, Captain. I’m glad to see you back. Now, the yard is waiting to reinforce your armor. Next time out, I’m sure you’ll need it.”

“Yes, ma’am,” sounded way too eager for the coming fight.

Two days later, Kris was at the Mitsubishi yard to christen ships: the
Temptress
and the
Kikukei
, which someone said meant
Lucky Chrysanthemum
. If so, Admiral Benson’s
Temptress
had started something of a competition for the most outrageous name. The next two ships spinning at Mitsubishi were the
Proud Unicorn
and the
Lucky Leprechaun
. The two forming at the Canopus yard would be the
Fairy Princess
, with hints Kris should use it for her flag, and the
Mischievous Pixie
.

While Kris had her reservations about approving the names, they seemed to be working. Crews were lined up for all six ships, and they might go to space with more than they needed.

Kris said a few encouraging words, then stood by as two lovely young women from each of the yards broke a bottle of water over each ship’s bows.

“Lovely girl, isn’t she?” Admiral Benson said as the girl emptied the water on the
Temptress
.

“Very lovely,” Kris agreed, hoping her new policy hadn’t started April to December hookups.

“My granddaughter,” the retired admiral said.

“Your wife let her come?” Kris said, raising an eyebrow to back up the question.

“My granddaughter signed up on her own. I spotted her name on the crew list and ordered her ashore. She hid out until we sailed. That little pixie has a heart of oak and a whim of iron.”

“Will she be fighting with you on the
Temptress
?”

“I’ve tried to persuade her she should join the Marines dirtside. How much luck do you think I’ve had?”

The young woman caught sight of her grandfather. She gave him a sassy wave.

“About as much luck as my great-grandfather had keeping me safe,” Kris said.

“Oh, the younger generation. Thank God they aren’t as bad as my generation was.”

And with that Kris returned to work.

The aliens were in the last system out. Their speedy scouts had blown away the probes at the last jump, but not before the probes had gotten solid intel. Kris knew exactly what she faced.

One mother ship, of the gigantic variety. Of the four- or five-hundred-tonners, there were 257 in two flavors. Most shared the same power plants as the three raiders Kris had fought around the dead mother ship and the
Hornet
’s refuge. Forty-five had different reactors, of the kind Kris had fought with the first alien horde. Apparently, the survivors had transferred their allegiance to this swarm.

And swarm they were. Kris had poured over the reports, studying the way the smaller monsters huddled around the slow-moving mother ship or came to roost on it. Of squadrons or divisions, she could spot nothing. The ships seemed to ebb and flow around the central ship like a hive of bees.

Would they fight that way?

Kris arranged for one last probe to be deployed at the jump point. This tiny spy alternately deployed two different periscopes through the jump, getting a visual and a sensor fix on the advancing death. Together, they told Kris she had a good seventy-two hours before the mother ship would be ready to come through the jump.

The twenty-four smaller but high-speed ships that lurked around the jump failed to detect the periscopes. Kris hoped they stayed as blind while she readied her deployment for battle.

Kris had finally come up with an idea for how to get a Hellburner on that third, watery moon. Kris’s research in the twentieth century had given her the hint. They’d quickly spun out a submarine from the last of the Smart Metal
TM
and shipped it off. They drilled a hole through the kilometer-thick ice to launch it. The aliens could scorch a lot of ice and not get close to the sub deep in the ocean below. They would have to retrieve the sub as soon as the battle was over; it had only a week’s worth of oxygen.

If the fleet died in battle, the sub crew would die a long, slow, and cold death.

All through the system, operations were closing down. The last loads of ore and their miners had ridden in on the carriers that were now being converted to fighting ships. The moon fabricators were processing their final stock and shipping most personnel to Alwa, where they’d at least have air to breathe and a fighting chance. A handful of volunteers would keep the reactors going. In the event of the fleet’s defeat, they’d make sure the reactors lost containment. The aliens would find little to examine in their victory.

When the fleet sortied, Canopus Station would not be totally abandoned. The fleet’s auxiliaries, the repair and replenishment ships, were still tied up to their piers. Their reactors produced enough plasma to blow them to gas. The last of the 18-inch lasers were being mounted on the station. Several teams of trained Ostriches had refused to withdraw and were demanding the chance to fight. Other than the Alwans and a volunteer reactor watch, the last humans would depart for Alwa in a matter of hours to hide away. There to await the victory or a long, bitter war of wits against overwhelming force.

If Kris’s fleet couldn’t keep the aliens out of Alwa’s orbit, the station and the attached auxiliaries would also blow themselves to atoms. There was one last shuttle still attached. The crew on final reactor watch could use it to try for Alwa.

They might make it if they were lucky.

Very lucky.

Kris’s next reinforcements weren’t due for at least a month, probably two. Those would be cruel days on Alwa if Kris’s fleet couldn’t stop the aliens.

Kris went down her to-do list and found very little left. Nelly interrupted. “Kris, there’s a call from Jack.”

“Hi, love. Have you found a nice south sea island to sit out the war on?” she asked.

“Any south sea island here would be surrounded by ‘eats everythings’ and no fun to be on. How are you doing, Kris?”

“I’m about done. We’re closing up shop and sending you everyone but the reactor operators and a few die-hard laser gunners.”

“I know. We’re putting folks to work digging shelters in the deep woods or anyplace else we think they won’t flatten. There are a lot of colonials and elders who don’t want to abandon their homes. Despite my best effort, the bombardment may get a few people.”

“You can only advise folk. This is a democracy, I think.”

Jack paused to think long and hard before he asked, “Do you want me back?”

“Of course I do, but you’ve got your job, and I’ve got mine. Isn’t that the way it goes?”

“How are you making do? Your entire team is scattered to the winds.”

“Lord, do I miss a good argument with you or Penny or lots of folks,” Kris said, seeing ghosts around herself.

“When this is over, we’ve got to take a hard look at setting you up a staff,” Jack said.

“
When
this is done,” Kris repeated. Emphasizing the “when.” No “if.”

“Have you come up with a battle plan?”

“I’ve got an idea that should take advantage of all we’ve got,” she said.

“I know it’s a good one, honey, trust your gut. It’s taken good care of you so far.”

“Thanks, love. You take care. I’ll see you in a little bit.”

“I’m looking forward to that. I’ve reserved our cabin on the beach for us once this is over.”

“I’ll take you up on that promise. As I see it, I deserve a monthlong honeymoon, and only one day’s been used up.”

Jack chuckled. “I like a girl who keeps count.”

Maybe Jack ended the call with a kiss. Kris knew she did.

She looked around the station. The silence echoed. Somewhere, Ostriches shouted in their own language as they rigged the last laser. They’d be sitting ducks if the fleet lost, but at least they would not be shot in the rear with their head in the sand. Kris found she was beginning to like those crazy folks. Maybe she should have one on her staff.

She boarded the
Wasp
. This time out, it would be the last to leave the station. The battle squadrons were already launched and forming up. It was time to go.

Kris crossed the brow and turned to salute the flag painted on the aft bulkhead, then saluted the OOD. “Permission to come aboard,” she said.

“Permission granted.”

Somewhere, the 1MC announced, “Alwa Defense Commander arriving.”

Immediately, the order came down. “Seal hatches. Single up the lines. Prepare to stand out.”

Kris headed for her command center. The final battle. No.
This
battle had just begun.