“Do you think there are any survivors in airtight compartments?” Jack asked, clearly getting ready to lead a boarding party.
“I doubt it,” Kris said. “There weren’t many airtight bulkheads on the mother ship we examined.”
“So it’s not just Victory or Death,” Captain Drago said, “but everything goes fine or death. I know you want to take that thing home to granny and the good professor, but I’m not taking this ship within fifty klicks of that out-of-control hulk.”
“Nelly, we need to stabilize that mess,” Kris said, then glanced at the course that appeared on the main screen. The hulk was in a wildly elliptical orbit with a high apogee, but its plunge back to the planet would be a close graze on the first orbit followed by a spectacular crash the second. “And we need to do it fast.”
“Like in this orbit,” the captain muttered. “I’ve had my ship’s feathers singed once today. I will not risk it again.”
Kris noted the possessiveness Captain Drago was showing toward the Wasp. There would be no more pushing him where his ship was concerned.
“I’ll need all the longboats,” Nelly said. “No crew; we’ll control them from here.”
Fast as only a computer can do, Nelly and her brood had the launches away and reconfiguring in flight. All eight of the Wasp’s auxiliary antimatter power plants were also drafted into the mission, rerigged to power reaction motors and sent on their way.
“Kris, I really love this new Smart Metal. It’s like magic.”
“We all do, Nelly.”
All this time they had been doing their best to map the spinning, tumbling wreck. The damage control teams on the Wasp helped Nelly spot the alien ship’s primary hull strength members where they’d been revealed by Kris’s laser slices. Nelly and family plotted courses for the auxiliary rocket motors and had them dart in as their targets spun into view. Only one motor missed and got batted out fast, narrowly missing the Wasp and just barely avoiding a dive into the planet.
“Damn,” Nelly said.
“Doing it right eleven out of twelve times at bat would put you in the record books for baseball,” Jack pointed out.
“Yes, for a human,” Nelly agreed.
Kris and Jack just shook their heads.
They were approaching apogee when the eleven rocket motors fired. First they took the spin off. Then, with the problem more manageable, they adjusted the rockets to suppress the tumbling. Faster than Kris would have expected, Nelly had the alien wreck lying docile in space.
And beginning its dive back to the planet’s flaming embrace.
“There are twelve main hull longitudinal strength members poking out the aft end,” Nelly reported. “Kris cut them off a bit ragged, but that may help us make a solid connection.”
Kris was glad her computer found her work acceptable. Jack just grinned.
As the Wasp extended twelve girders of Smart MetalTM out to connect with the target, Captain Drago brought the Wasp close alongside the battered stern of the alien. Soon, it loomed over them. He halted his approach five klicks out.
“I’m not going any closer until someone assures me that hulk is dead and no one has hung around to blow me up.”
“There’s not enough time for my Marines to get over there if you also want to get this mess nudged into a high orbit.”
“Then have your marvelous Nelly send her minions over there for a quick look-see.”
“Nanos on their way,” Nelly replied as a swarm of them departed from the tips of the docking girders. “I’ll replace them before you need to dock,” she assured the humans.
For a long fifteen minutes, the nanos scoured the aft-most compartments of the hulk. All showed signs of explosive decompression as the departure of the engineering section opened the stern to space. There was no evidence of explosives or booby traps left behind.
There were lots of bodies. A horrible lot of them.
Even Jack gulped as the picture became clear. “I think we’ll leave the examination of the hulk to nanos. I’m not sure I could get my Marines through that.”
Kris agreed.
Captain Drago brought his Wasp in to mate with the alien wreck a good half hour before they were due to graze the atmosphere. By applying power in a slow, gently rising fashion, they secured the mating and got themselves edged into an orbit that never came closer than 150 klicks to the grasping planet below.
“That is one huge hood ornament,” Captain Drago said finally with a major sigh. “I hope Your Highness wasn’t expecting us to make more than one gee on our way back to Alwa.”
“One gee was more than I dared hope for,” Kris admitted.
They strengthened the docking with the hulk as they swung around the planet and headed back out to a second apogee. The Wasp began applying power to the jury-rigged docking collar as they approached their highest point and had them drawing free of the distant planet before they began another dive.
Around them, the hull of the Wasp groaned and moaned, but nothing broke loose. “Quarters are going to be a bit tight. I’m going to keep the Wasp at something between Condition Baker and Charlie,” Captain Drago announced to all hands, “but we’re headed home.”
In the privacy of her day quarters Kris wondered aloud to Jack, “You think Captain Drago would appreciate it if you moved in with me? Think of the space we’d save.”
Jack gave her a good-night kiss and sent her on her way to her lonely night cabin.
But the question would soon come up again.
43
Two days later, they were accelerating at one gee on approach to their jump out. There was no question of hitting it with the speed they’d come in with, nor was anyone willing to put twenty revolutions per minute on the jury-rigged wreck hanging on the Wasp’s nose.
The way home would be a different set of jumps from the way here.
Kris wasn’t expecting Captain Drago when he came in and plopped down on her couch.
“Something on your mind?” Kris asked.
“Jack’s been spending a lot of time here.”
“Yes,” Kris was quick to point out, “in my day quarters. He has his own night cabin a deck down and halfway around the ship.”
“Yes, I know. You two have been scrupulous to give the ship’s company a good example.” The conversation hung there for a long time. Kris joined the captain, taking an overstuffed chair beside his couch. Jack took the chair opposite her.
“What’s on your mind, Captain?” Kris finally said. She knew how to wait out a reluctant petitioner, but being Commodore was teaching her the bad habit of not wasting time.
“Cookie’s moved in with Mother MacCreedy,” Captain Drago finally spat out.
“Those two must be approaching eighty,” Kris said.
The captain scowled. “Trust me, young lady, when you are old and gray, you will find the comfort of human companionship no less desirable.”
“That wasn’t what I meant,” Kris said, then realized it was what she meant. “Well, they’re both contractors, consenting adults, and old enough to know better. I don’t see how it’s a Navy problem.”
So the captain told her. “In the last two days, with quarters shrunk, a lot of folks have chosen to merge their living space, and no doubt other things as well. I suspect the vast majority of my contractors and your boffins have set up abbreviated housekeeping.”
“Still not my problem,” Kris pointed out.
“You know that cute astrophysicist that made the diagnosis of heavy-metal poisoning? Well, at breakfast she suggested to the skipper of the Musashi Marine detachment that he move in with her.”
“Now that’s my problem,” Jack said.
“It’s not your only one,” the captain said. “Abby and Sergeant Bruce are a couple.”
“What about Cara?” Kris asked. She would have considered a teenager as good a chap
erone as any seventy-year-old.
“Cara is spending most of her time with your younger women Marines,” Captain Drago said. “They’ve even fitted her for a uniform of sorts and have found her a battle station with their central aid station. She’s almost fourteen and getting quite handy.”
“And leaving my maid free time on her hands to get in trouble.”
“I think we can count on Abby to take care of herself,” Jack put in.
“How far has this, ah, adjustment of quarters gone?” Kris asked.
“I really don’t know,” the captain said, raising his eyes to the overhead. Which meant he had a pretty good idea but officially was working hard not to notice.
“Ah,” Nelly said. “I can get you an answer, ah, if you want it.”
“Nelly, you’re getting quite tactful,” Kris said. “Captain, do we want it?”
“Before we decide that,” Jack said, “can we first examine the situation we’re in?”
“Such as?” Kris said.
“We’ve come close to being killed twice in the last month. Only one fight was at close to even odds. We’re all the way across the galaxy from most of our next of kin. Or any kin at all. I’d also like to point out we don’t have any shore establishment to speak of. It’s not like we can reassign one-half of a couple, wed or otherwise, dirtside. And if we start shuffling crews because folks are seeking creature comforts, we’ll be breaking up trained teams on the eve of battle, and we are always on the eve of some battle. Kris, Captain, this is one major problem, and it’s not going to fit into any of the usual answers.”
“And we do know that the other ships of the squadron were having issues with people using that app to open doors between quarters,” Kris said, “and we chose to look the other way.”
“I wonder what we’ll be going back to,” the captain said with a frown that had way too much grin in it.
“So, what I’m hearing is that we need a solution for the moment, here on the Wasp, but we better be ready to apply it throughout the squadron when we get back.”
“And, we hope,” Jack pointed out, “that the squadron will be reinforced.”
“Jack, I love you, but I’m hating you at the moment,” Kris replied.
“You’re the commodore, viceroy, and CEO, dearest love.”
Kris would have stuck her tongue out at Jack, but they weren’t alone. She chose to let him have the last word and turned to Captain Drago.
“So you brought this monkey in. Are you just dumping it on my back, or do you have some idea for getting it off all of our backs?”
“I have discussed it with the Wasp’s senior chiefs, but I didn’t want you hearing it the first time when you go to dinner.”
“Thank you for caring about my digestion,” Kris said dryly.
“I intend to let my division heads and leading chiefs know that I’m willing to loosen the rules on Navy personnel since it’s already come loose for all the contractors. We couldn’t limit the Forward Lounge to just civilians, could we?”
“Good analogy,” Jack said.
“I’ll tell them this is just a Wasp practice and we’ll see how things go when we get back to the squadron.”
“Where this will land in my lap,” Kris said.
“Yep.”
“Tell me, Captain, is there a girl you have your eye on?” Kris asked.
“No,” Captain Drago shot back bluntly. “I don’t think there’s anyone willing or able to break the splendid solitude of my command.” He paused. “Though I might have trouble saying no to a few of the more mature women aboard. Let us pray that I am not led into temptation.”
“One question,” Kris said as the captain stood to go. “I’m assuming that your female contractor personnel have been issued the same birth-control implants that are required by the Navy for all females signing up.” Kris had been issued her first set right after she was sworn in. Three years in, she’d been issued a second set. What with Jack around, she’d better make sure she got her new implants in a couple of months, when she passed her sixth year in the Navy.
“You don’t think Admiral Crossenshield would forget a thing like that, do you? Strange, if I do say so after some thirty years of service, how we insist that our men and women not use certain gear God issued them, but we make real sure that nothing can come of it if they do.”
“The right way, the wrong way, and the Navy way,” Kris said for the millionth or more time since she’d raised her right hand and been sworn in.
With that, the captain left, leaving Kris and Jack alone.
“You know, this is going to cause trouble,” Kris said.
“Men and women, being men and women, have caused trouble since time began,” Jack pointed out.
“We’ll have spats and breakups and love triangles,” Kris said.
“Just like they do in the civilian world. Ever watched the movies?”
“I found those topics deadly dull.”
“Somehow, I don’t think there will be any dull in our future. Still, if things get too messed up for anyone, we can ship them off to another frigate, and we do have the station to keep staffed.”
“The worst offenders can find themselves protecting the fisherfolk,” Kris muttered.
“That’s my girl, solving every problem before we come to it.”
Which left Kris staring at Jack as he stared at her. The question hung in the air between them, thick enough to stab with a knife.
At the same moment, both shook their head. Maybe Nelly could have spotted who started shaking first, but Kris really didn’t want to know who first came to the obvious conclusion and who took a split second longer.
“I’ll keep my separate quarters,” Jack said, “and I will sleep there.”
“I think that’s a good idea. At least until, and if, this question is dumped in my lap for the whole squadron.”
For a moment longer, they stared at each other, tasting their decision and finding it good. Then Kris let herself slip on an impish grin. “But we can save water if we shower together.”
“That sounds like a great idea,” Jack said. “And I could use a shower about now.”
As soon as he had shucked his uniform, it was clear he needed a shower. A cold one.
Kris was only too happy to provide an alternate solution to his problem.
44
The trip back held few other surprises. The Wasp and the wreck held together. Nelly found a route that almost landed them in Alwa. They dropped into a system with a working jump buoy just as Captain Drago called time to refuel. While they used the jump buoy to message Alwa that they would be home in a just a few days, they settled into orbit around a gas giant, and the Wasp’s pinnace did two refueling runs.
That made it possible for Captain Drago to accelerate at one gee until halfway to the jumps, then decelerate the rest of the way. They went through dead slow and on an even keel. Three days later, they nudged their way into Alwa system to find the Princess Royal and the Constellation waiting for them.
“Good Lord, Wasp,” Captain Kitano said on screen. “What happened to you?”
“Look what followed me home,” Kris said proudly.
“More like what you pushed home,” Kitano replied.
“It does kind of look that way. Nelly, send to the professor. ‘Have I got an alien artifact for you to study!’”
“It doesn’t look in very good shape,” Kitano said.
“Again, no survivors, but this time I sliced the reactors off so they couldn’t blow themselves to dust. No one has been aboard the wreck, but our nanos report it’s crammed with bodies. They popped the hatches at the last second and spaced themselves.”
Kitano just shook her head. Then she seemed to change her thoughts. “Commodore, I hate to say it, but I’m very glad to see you back. Is it safe for me to come aboard the Wasp, or would you p
refer to come to the P Royal?”
“The Wasp is quite safe. We’ve proved it through more jumps than I care to count. Come aboard, Captain. I would like a full report on what’s happened. By the way, we saved the Hornet’s crew. All but three. We arrived in the nick of time.”
“I’m glad to hear that, ma’am. I’ll be with you in fifteen minutes.”
“I’ll have Captain Drago delay starting our acceleration until you’re here.”
Ten minutes later, as the Princess Royal’s gig docked solidly with the Wasp, Captain Drago put on one gee of acceleration, and the deck was once again down. A few minutes later, Captain Kitano joined Kris in her day quarters. Jack and Captain Drago came in a second later.
“What’s our situation?” Kris asked, as the four of them settled onto the couch and stuffed chairs.
“We deployed the buoys, as you no doubt noticed. We’ve lost one, six jumps out from the one the aliens would have used if they made it past your fleet, Commodore.”
“So they’re out there and nibbling, but they’re keeping their distance.”
“It seems that way.”
“And our defensive efforts?”
“We’ve dug bases a thousand meters down on all three moons. One is mainly ice, but we found something solid. We’ve got two launch tunnels dug on all three and are working on a third one for each. The Hellburners have gone live on all those satellites. The crews are mainly the Ostriches with a few Roosters, colonial and Navy thrown in. The second division of the squadron is online and has shaken down very well.”
“Well done,” Kris said.
“I’ll leave the situation dirtside to Granny Rita, and the industrial situation to Pipra, but I think you’ll find them all satisfactory or better. It’s my handling of the Navy personnel that may be a problem, ma’am.”
“That app that opens doors between quarters?” Kris said, to save the young woman from beating around the bush.
“Yes, ma’am. I thought that when we off-loaded most of the boffins, our problem would go with them, but no. Many that went dirtside to work on the food supply came back with attachments. Some local, but lots of Navy. Once some officers relaxed discipline, others followed. I tried jacking up the security on the Smart Metal and having only the chiefs be able to move metal. But we want people to do damage control, and the chiefs don’t want to be answering calls for every little thing.” Katano shrugged.
Kris Longknife: Defender Page 30