There were complaints about this whole process from the Navy Chief of Staff as well as the Council of Advisors, however, Kris just turned them over to Ron and Admiral Coth to handle. She’d glance at what they prepared for her, signed it, and sent it on its way.
She got no visits from the Navy General Staff.
Kris knew she was skating on thin ice. Hopefully, she’d get where she was headed before the cracking noises behind her caught up with her.
11
Too much of Kris’s time was taken up with photo ops.
However, there was one ceremony she did appreciate. She went up the beanstalk to stand before rank on rank of ships’ companies to pin the Battle Medal on the chest of Admiral Coth and his most senior admirals.
Upon further consideration, Kris had admitted that she expected a lot of battles in her future. What she needed was not a medal to celebrate the most recent battle, but one medal that could have stars added to it for the battles to come.
Once Kris had awarded the Gold Battle Medal to the senior Iteeche and Human admirals, she stepped aside. They marched smartly to their subordinates and awarded the medal to junior admirals, captains, and senior staff.
The officers in the smart gray and gold uniforms were then dismissed. Further ceremonies would take place aboard ship as the rapidly mass-produced medals went down the ranks: silver for officers not in command and bronze for all other ranks.
That, and an extra month’s pay made for a lot of happy sailors, and not a few tap men and bar girls.
It was during a conversation about this that Kris discovered another thing about the Iteeche. With the proper bar girl, a male Iteeche might be made to disperse his sperm packets with much pleasure for both involved.
Nelly thought this was very informative. Kris thought it too much information, but Nelly passed the word to Jacques and Amanda, and they were just as excited as Nelly.
Kris’s other major photo op was the Embassy’s Formal Reception and Sing-along.
Abby did a bang-up job of bringing all the pieces together. She got the finest delicacies. She located and hired the most sought-after singing groups. She even had Mata redo the gardens, raising the castle up higher so that more of the sky was visible. The lighting for the garden was nothing short of spectacular as different colored lights shown around the plaza, then changed slowly to another color.
Ron came early and pronounced it the most spectacular sing-along he had ever attended.
Kris established a receiving line. She stood at the head of it with a long line of human ambassadors to her right. Since most of the ambassadors had fled leaving behind only charge d’affaires, Kris promoted them all to ambassador rank and Abby arranged to get them all the proper uniform for their new status.
Fifteen minutes into the soiree, Roth’sum’We’sum Quin,Chap’sum’We arrived with a large contingent from his clan. Thirty minutes later, some minor mandarins from the Hoff’sum’Seava clan waltzed in and ignored the receiving line. The same happened a few minutes later when minor clan officials of the Don’sum’Wo clan showed up.
Kris remembered that clan. It was the one that cooperated under the table with Dani Ishmay of Nuu Enterprises to massacre the human embassy, take Roth down, and leave the court to themselves. Whether or not Dani would have gotten a monopoly on Iteeche trade would have been determined later. Likely not to his liking, the fool.
While these junior clan leaders circulated. Ron watched them from Kris’s elbow.
“They are guzzling down your fine repast with disgusting abandon, as if they had not fed in years,” Ron growled. “They have no culture.”
Kris had kind of been expecting a disaster. She moved the starting time for the music up. All the attending Iteeche sang lustily along with the a capella singers. After the second song, the other clans that had crashed the party made a show of walking out. After the third song, Roth gave his sincere excuses, but led his clan out the door.
“I’m sorry, Kris,” Ron said. “With the others gone, my eminent chooser could not remain.”
“I understand,” she said. “Ron, would you like to stay for a bit?”
“Isn’t this sing-along done? You humans cannot sing with our people.”
Kris had to agree with that. Iteeche singing was horrible to the human ear.
“You are right,” she said, “but I have invited some more guests.”
So saying, a wide staircase opened up and led down into the garden from the Navy Staff building Kris had built over the gate. Down that staircase flooded a long line of admirals and captains, many with a female companion. They quickly joined in the next song as they circulated around the garden, finding drinks and tasting the hors d’oeuvres.
This was rich food for them, and the entertainment was several notches above what a Navy officer, even a senior one, might expect. All of them now sported their battle medal. Most had a gleaming command crest on the left breast of their uniform.
“Were you expecting this social snub?” Ron asked Kris.
“I was hoping for better,” she admitted, “but I planned for the worst. I had a small party arranged in the enlarged staff lounge of my Navy Annex. If we had been flooded by clan leaders, the Navy officers would have enjoyed a fine evening. I might have even piped in the singing and allowed them to sing along. But . . .” Kris ended with a shrug.
The night went long and was thoroughly enjoyed by all. The diplomatic personnel circulated among the Iteeche, listening to their talk, gleaning what they could, maybe even asking questions that took the conversation in the direction they wanted.
Diplomats were good listeners.
At the end of the evening, Kris’s commanding officers left, feeling very affirmed by this strange human commander they now served.
Kris sent them on their way, knowing she’d soon be leading them into another battle.
12
On Kris’s orders, Admiral Kitano had dispatched a division of four battlecruisers. Maybe it was just an accident, but all four had proud names that went back to the days of wet Navies. Even back to the age of wood and sails. They also bore the names of well-fought battles: the Lexington, Saratoga, Yorktown and Bonhomme Richard.
The last one required an explanation from Nelly. These ships had been bought and paid for by several cities on New Eden that claimed their roots went back all the way to the North American District of old Earth.
The division arrived at the jump into the Zargoth system with no misadventures. It was as if no one wanted to be caught along the path that the defeated rebel fleet had trod.
The Lexington sent a probe up to the jump. A few minutes looking through the periscope showed that this jump was both unguarded and had no traffic headed for it. A second probe was formed from the first one and dispatched through the jump.
It passively collected data for an hour on the single occupied planet some twenty-four light minutes from the jump. It reported its findings only after it returned through the jump.
Five minutes later, the captain commanding the division knew what he faced on the other side of the jump. He provided a full report to Admiral Kitano and dispatched the Bonhomme Richard back to the Imperial Capital.
The probe was sent back to monitor things. It reported back four hours before the Bonny Dick jumped out of the system. A review of the data showed refinements, but no basic change in the first examination.
The update was sent to the courier battlecruiser and the other three settled down to watch a very empty mouse hole.
A week later, Grand Admiral Kris Longknife and Admiral Amber Kitano were eyeing the report.
“No warship activity in the system,” Amber said. “None at all.”
“Not much ship traffic either,” Kris added.
“I think they’re loathe to let anyone run for the exit. If they let a few get out, they’d have a mass panic on their hands.”
Kris nodded. “If that message traffic is right, there are one whale of a lot of armed Iteeche on the ground.”
“Under arms of some sort,” Kris corrected. “As to training . . .?”
Intercepted messages offered no answer to that critical question.
“Nelly, ask Admiral Coth if he would mind dropping into my flag plot.”
The two admirals and their key human Navy staff had just time for a cup of tea before the Admiral trotted in, followed by his intelligence admiral and several others.
Kris took only a minute to share their data on Zargoth with him and pose her question concerning the quality of the ten to fifteen billion Iteeche under arms on the planet.
Coth barked his version of a laugh. “What planetary lord would risk his own life arming the people he rules? There is enough risk that they may wake up dead some morning thanks to a brother, uncle, or son. The thought of the peasants, what do you say, ‘storming the castle,’ is a repugnant reality. More than one rebellion has been quelled when the peasants took it into their own hands to bring down a planetary lord rather than risk an invasion fleet and the soldiers wading through their blood to the lord’s throne.”
“Don’t the lords have a major bodyguard?” Amber asked.
“Of course, but you throw a hundred thousand desperate people, even if they are armed with knives and clubs and whatever they may find at hand, at a thousand guards, and you tell me how many of them will run for their lives.”
Kris knew that the king’s coin only went so far.
“So, most of these billions suddenly armed are lightly armed and not very well trained.”
“Most of them have no training and their main weapon is likely a sack of gunpowder they are expected to light and throw at your people. Many are being exhorted to strap on the explosives and hurl their bodies at you.”
“Ugh,” Kris said. “This sounds like a bloody mess.”
“No,” Coth answered so matter-of-factly. “We just bring enough troops and plenty of ammunition and we kill them all. They’re rebels.”
The right way, the wrong way, the Navy way, and now the Iteeche way. God help us, Kris thought.
“We try to avoid civilian casualties,” was all Kris said.
“But why? The lower the population after the rebellion, the more of your own people you can bring in. Certainly, the rebels will be spending no time in the mating ponds. In twenty years, the planet will have no loyalty but to your clan.”
Kris found herself wondering if she’d been hired to oversee a blood bath.
“Why don’t you just gas the planet from orbit?” Admiral Kitano asked. “They were planning on doing that to the Capital.”
“Yes, but that is so inefficient. Yes, they could not trust a soul in the Capital and gassing would have to be done. Still, if you gas a planet, you have a lot of accidents. Fires can get out of control. Aircraft crash into buildings. And the machinery rusts while you’re bringing in your own population. You need the captured population to keep things going.”
“But with an invasion army marching through blood?” Jack asked.
“The planetary capital may be destroyed. There may be a campaign around the capital to find a weakness in its defenses. Yes, that area may be reduced to rubble, but most of the planet, maybe ninety percent of it, will be captured intact.”
Kris had to make an effort not to run screaming from such cold-blooded policy. This might be the Iteeche Way, but there was no way she would go there.
“Admiral Coth,” Kris said, with careful, formal precision, “please have five wings of at least four hundred ships ready to sail within the week. Admiral Kitano, I want your First Battlecruiser Task Force to be included in this fleet. Coth, I’ll need enough merchant ships to carry an army of, what, half a billion soldiers?”
“That is a large force,” Coth replied. “Most of the time we’d send maybe two hundred million. After all, they are fully equipped soldiers and they face civilians that hardly qualify as armed.”
“Then get me enough ships to carry that many,” Kris said.
“It will take some time to pull that many troops from the satraps.”
“Don’t you have that many soldiers in the Capital and Guard systems?
“Many times that many, but no Iteeche commander would pull them away from their present duty.”
Why did Kris suspect that the army she wanted to borrow was fully committed to occupation duty? To making sure the peasants stayed pleasant to their clan overlords? The stink of this place was getting harder and harder to breathe.
“I don’t want the soldiers. Only the ships. In fact, you can use some of those loaded with manure and settlers. We can send them on their way after we capture the planet.”
“How will you?” Coth said, incredulous.
“If you can keep secret what is on those ships,” Kris said, “I will show you how we do this.”
Coth looked at Kris like she had lost her mind, but also as if that was all you could expect from a human. “Aye, aye, My Admiral,” he said, and the meeting ended.
Two days after the sing-along, Grand Admiral Kris Longknife, Imperial Admiral of the First Order of Steel, led her armada out from the space station above the Imperial Iteeche Capital. Trailing behind her 2,000 battlecruisers were another 2,000 merchant ships, each loaded with manure and over 100,000 involuntary settlers for some new systems. They came from eight different clans and were destined for five different planets.
But first, they had to perform a masquerade for one risk-taking human admiral.
13
That one human risk-taking admiral needed to say good-bye to two very wonderful children.
Gramma and Grampa Trouble brought Ruth and John up the beanstalk to see the fleet sail. On the quarterdeck of the Princess Royal, they hit Kris like wild tornados.
“Can we see the ship?” Johnnie demanded. “Grampa Trouble said we could see the ship! I want to see the ray-cor,” didn’t quite come out right.
Kris raised an eyebrow to her great-grandfather.
“The boy is very interested in what makes a spaceship run,” the old general answered.
“We’ve got on our red shipsuits,” Ruth put in, very prim and proper for a six-year-old lady.
“Yes, you do,” Kris admitted, lifting Ruth up, a process that was getting harder and harder to do these days.
Jack gave Johnnie a lift for a big hug, but it was clear that “little brother,” was now the bigger of the two.
“Well, if Grampa Trouble thinks you should see the reactor,” Jack said, “the three of us ought to go down and give engineering a look.”
“May I see your bridge?” Ruth piped up before she could be shuffled off to do what her younger brother wanted to do.
“I think that can be arranged. Oh, and we’re having ice cream for lunch, with different flavored syrups so you can make sundaes.”
That almost stopped Johnnie in his tracks, but after serious consideration, he headed for the stairway down. The ship was in Condition Able Royal, so it was very comfortable to get around in it.
Kris, Gramma Trouble, and Ruth took the stairways up to her the flag bridge. Ruth was excited at the sight of the place, but she put her hands in her pockets to make sure she didn’t touch anything and walked carefully around the flag plot.
She stopped at Sensors and Comm to get instructions on what they did and the equipment they did it with. Ruth got to sit in the Sensor watch chair and even order a sweep of the surrounding space.
She was elated as, first a map of the station and the ships tied up there formed in front of her, then, under the watchful eye of the senior duty officer, she expanded her search area to cover a million kilometers around the station. Ruth was elated to see ships moving in and out of the planetary space.
“How do you know if they are warships or freighters?”
“Now you’re really asking the right question,” the old chief said, and explained how the passive sensors identified reactors to determine how powerful they
were. She also explained how the mass detector showed how large the ship was.
“A small reactor on a big, heavy ship and you know you’ve got a freighter.”
“And a battlecruiser?” Ruth asked.
“We know the type of reactors they use. Even if their lasers aren’t on or their capacitors full, we can still tell that those eight ships over there are battlecruisers,” she said, pointing at a squadron formation.
“Wow!” Ruth said, eyes wide and bright.
Her last stop was the battle board. She approached it as if it was a holy relic. “Is this your battle board, Momma?”
“That’s what I use, my girl.”
“Can you show me a battle?”
“How about I show you our last drill? Would that be okay?” Kris really didn’t want to have her young daughter watch as hundreds, if not thousands of ships were snuffed out.
“Okay,” Ruth said, not at all crestfallen.
Kris ran her daughter through a drill where 770 traditional Iteeche battlecruisers took on 360 upgraded ships.
“We’re using real lasers, only Nelly has them dialed back to .01 percent power. You know when you’re hit, but nothing really happens. Ten hits and a ship is out of the fight. Okay?”
“Yes,” was more an aside as Ruth focused on the look of the ships moving around the battle board. Nelly had created a step under her and Ruth went from barely having a nose over the edge of the board to having the board at her middle.
Kris’s young daughter looked down on the ship formations, waiting.
“You ready for the shooting phase of the training exercise?” Kris asked.
“Yes, mother,” was quite formal.
“Nelly, jump ahead to just before we unleashed the lasers.”
“Done, Admiral. In five, four, three, two, one. Fire!
At five, the small force under Admiral Coth threw itself into Evasion Plan 3. By one, most of his ships had danced well away from where they were going, even as they maintained the base course.
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