"Yep. I wonder what the bounty is on my head," Vicky said.
The admiral shrugged. "Since they don't care how much they hurt people, they can give away several planets as private fiefdoms for your dead body."
"True," Vicky said, dryly. She'd seen what could happen to several planets when the Bowlingames gave them away to one of their dukes or counts.
She had to put an end to this.
"So," Vicky said, "we can assume that I am the target and they will go for me as soon as they get the chance."
"That is a very reliable assumption," the admiral agreed. "You know, this goulash tastes a lot better than it looks."
"I hope our odds are good as well," Vicky said. "Victorious out-ranges both of their battleships, but their four heavy cruisers outnumber our one heavy, and outrange our two light cruisers. I guess we could send the destroyers around on a sweep at the armed merchant cruisers, but their 150 mm guns outrange the destroyer's 125 mm lasers."
Vicky paused. "The Victorious is our queen. So long as we have her on the board, this chess game is a match. If we lose her, we lose this battle."
"Your Grace, if we lose the Victorious, we lose you and the battle is over."
Vicky couldn't disagree with the admiral.
"Which raises the question," Admiral Bolesław said. "Should you be on the Victorious or stay dirtside?"
"If I'm down there, they go for the planet and lase it all to hell. No. I stay here and fight."
"I didn't doubt that, but I had to ask."
"Still, you have a point. I'll need to make it clear to them that I am aboard the Victorious, so they don't make the mistake of going for all those people I just liberated."
"We could still beat feet for one of the other jumps out of here, Your Grace. There is no reason for you to stand here and fight."
Vicky gave the admiral a sour look. "If I don't stay and fight, they'll take it out of the people below. Everyone knows they're vicious bastards. It won't bother them to slaughter another million or so more people."
The admiral sighed. "You'd think, now that everyone knows they're vicious bastards, they wouldn't need to give any more demonstrations."
"Planets are cheap when you don't care about them and their people," Vicky said. "Lazing a couple of planets down to slag is no skin off their noses. No. I'm sure they'd rape and pillage and burn. Oh, right, they already did the raping and pillaging. All they have left to do is the burning."
Now it was the admiral's turn to give Vicky a sour look.
"Okay, we let them know you're on the Victorious and we fight them."
"It will be a running gunfight, with us doing the running for as long as we can to keep the range where we want it. Lethal for 460 mm lasers while they can only boil water with their 410 mm guns."
"We'll need to depart the station with a full fuel load," Admiral Bolesław said. "If they chase us away from Oryol's gravity, we'll have to work hard to get back in orbit."
"Yeah. I wonder what their fuel situation is?"
The admiral gave her a stoic shrug, "We'll know it when they run out of reaction mass."
"So, we'll put our task force into a looping orbit," Vicky said, bringing out her portable battle board and laying it down on the wardroom table between them. "They'll be headed for the station. We can use a loop around Oryol that swings us way out to bring us swinging back on roughly a parallel course. We begin the shoot with both of us on about the same course but well-distant."
The battle board showed the Victorious in a high, looping orbit that began to circle back toward Oryol just as the enemy battleships got in their range.
"We can adjust the range by steering ourselves out of our orbit. The turn can be harder, depending on how hard they turn into us."
Admiral Bolesław studied the board as he used a piece of brown bread to sop up the last of his goulash. Vicky would likely leave some in her bowl. However, if you stayed Navy long enough, she guessed a taste for the stuff could be acquired.
"What if they cut their deceleration and come at you fast? You're assuming that they will be slowing down to make the space station. What if they keep enough velocity on their ships to cut toward you faster than you can turn away?"
"That would put them into a quick fire and fly-by course," Vicky pointed out.
"Yes, but they'd have more fire power once they got in range, and they could brake to extend their time in range. All they want to do is blow up the Victorious or leave it as a dead hulk spinning in space that they can board or blow up whenever they get back here again."
"Maggie, how long could they stay in range if they came at us fast?"
"That is impossible for me to determine, Your Grace. While we know the range, I cannot determine what velocity they will have. It could be a little as a minute. It could be longer if they slow more or cut in close."
"There are too many variables there, Your Grace, to ask a computer for an answer. Even a computer as smart as Maggie."
"Thank you, Admiral Bolesław," Maggie said, "though I wish you hadn't used computer so often. Most computers are very dumb machines."
"Yes they are, Miss Maggie," the admiral said.
"So," Vicky said, returning to the intractable problem at hand, "what do we do if they don't cut their acceleration?"
With no food to distract him, the admiral eyed the battle board for a long moment. "We will just have to decide when they make their move. If they do it farther out, that will tell us they are intent on missing the station and Oryol. If they can't make orbit there, you can decide how much you want to concentrate on them, or if you want to take the chance they've offered you to back off and make them come at you again. Have you ever seen video of that ancient and banned sport of bull fighting?"
"I've heard of it," Vicky said.
"The matador distracts the bull, encouraging it to charge him over and over again. Then, when the bull is fully enraged, he slips a sword into the bull's brain and kills it."
"I see why it's banned," Vicky said.
"Some people enjoyed the sport. Sometimes the bull won," the admiral pointed out. "I believe there are several planets in the Hispania League that still have bull fighting rings. Anyway, it appears to me that you and the Victorious are the matador and the cape. They are the bull. If the bull gets too close to the matador, they can gore him and the bull wins. I fear the simile is quite exact."
"Yes," Vicky muttered softly. "I suspect that it takes split second decisions by the matador to keep those horns a fraction of an inch away from disemboweling him."
"Precisely."
"Have the captain keep drilling the crews, Admiral. Our survival may depend on getting off more broadsides per minute than they can."
"Every time you met the Empress in battle, her crews were poorly trained compared to your crews."
"And you and the other admirals that chose my side deserved all the credit for that."
"Us, and the crews, Your Grace. Never forget the sweating Sailors at their battle stations."
"Never, Admiral. Never."
Vicky skipped dessert and returned to her quarters. There, Maggie helped her take the hostile fleet through an entire series of possible changes in their approach. There, the two of them fought through the various responses to each of them until they had the best choices.
They worked quite late into the night. When Vicky finally fell into bed, she hardly missed that Mannie was not in it waiting for her.
No, it was best that he was planet-side, waiting to see if she'd be coming back, or if he was now the single father to their as-yet unborn children.
"I really must create him a Grand Dukedom. If I get myself killed, he could carry on. If not him, who could?"
She fell asleep with no answer to that troubling question.
41
The hostile squadron accelerated from the jump at 1.3 gees. Vicky found that interesting. One gee was comfortable. Vicky would have chosen 1.5 gees. Her crew would find themselves moving around the ship carrying half
-again their weight.
That was usually manageable. Few of the professional crew wrenched their backs or blew out their knees at that acceleration. The opposition's choice of a lower acceleration, but not one gee, presented Vicky with information. What story it was telling was more than elusive.
Clearly, someone wanted to get here faster than they could at one gee. Just as clearly, they didn't want to make the crew walk around with more than a third of their normal weight. Vicky considered that a compromise between wanting to get at her throat quickly and maybe a crew that wasn't as physically fit or highly trained as hers.
Did that also mean they weren't as trained at their weapons as her crew was?
Vicky shook her head. She could ruminate over this tidbit of information for as long as she wanted to. Until the enemy actually closed with her and they began exchanging shots, it was all guess work.
The bad thing about being an honorary admiral and a Grand Duchess was just that. Everyone on board had a battle station and work to do that could mean victory or death.
She had nothing to do but wait the enemy's final actions.
Vicky kind of wished Mannie was aboard with her. Guilt, however, kept her from asking him to come up the beanstalk. With the crew drilling constantly, how could she retreat to her night cabin and hold a private orgy with her husband?
Besides, she needed to keep him dirt-side. Someone had to take care of their children if this didn't go well.
Vicky knew, in the back of her mind that if she lost this battle, there was a good chance the planet below would be heavily lazed as punishment for fighting their way out from under the tyranny of their so-called "Security Specialists." She hoped everyone below was scattering out from the cities and towns. The urban areas would be the targets; open land was a waste of lasers.
The Grand Duchess shook her head. These people had just regained control of their fate, freedom to return to their normal lives and live in peace again. Now, once again, through no fault of their own, this sword of Damocles dangled over their head, twisting in the breeze.
People should live in peace, to work out their own prosperity with their own two hands. The government should be there to make that safe and possible, not demand rapnious taxes to build worthless palaces or enrich a few.
With a sigh, Vicky took herself to the ship's gym. An hour of lifting weights would do more to prepare her for the high gees of the coming battle. Maybe it would also clear her mind.
"Come now, that man is not here," Kit purred, sexy as a naked kitten.
"It's been so long, Your Grace. I've gotten to know all of Kit's few moves," Kat whimpered.
"Can't you find a man of your own?" Vicky shot back, doing her best to keep lifting weights while the two nude assassins did their best to distract her.
"Who wants a man if he's going to go all possessive and monogamous on a girl?" Kit answered.
"Can you imagine the fun we could have, the four of us," and Kit and Kat proceeded to tell Vicky in very precise detail exactly what they wanted to do to both her and Mannie if she'd just give them a chance.
"I've agreed to try his monogamous ways for the first year of our marriage," Vicky muttered to them as she concentrated on pumping iron. "Next anniversary we can talk about trying something different."
"Doesn't he even give you time off for good behavior?" Kat said. "Even prisoners get time off if they're good," she cooed.
That struck a nerve.
"I'm not sure I've deserved any time off for being good," she muttered.
The two assassins glanced at each other. "Vicky, we would have killed those criminals for you if you'd just asked.
Vicky did five lifts before she answered. "It was mine to do," she muttered. "Even if you had pulled the trigger, you'd only be doing what I told you to do."
"But that is what we always do. You tell us who needs dead and we make them dead," Kat said.
"But how does that fit under the rule of law?"
"Rule of law?" Kit asked, as innocent as a kitten of law and consequences.
Vicky sat up and shook her head. Serious thoughts made it easy to resist the blandishments of who two tiny assassins and body servants.
If she couldn't have Mannie, she really didn't want anyone else. The realization of just how badly she'd been bitten by this monogamy bug came as a surprise to her.
After a good workout and a nice warm shower with the two assassins who both soaped her up and rinsed her off, she agreed to a massage, knowing full well that a massage from these two always led to a happy ending.
Despite the need, when the time came, she waved off the offered extra care and headed for her locker. Two very unhappy assassins helped her, begrudgingly, to dress.
After a "thank you," that she sincerely meant, Vicky went back to her battle board with Maggie, trying to lift the veil of the unknown from the future.
Vicky knew what she would do for an attack. At the right point, she'd reduce her deceleration by a fraction of a gee, adjust her course, and come down on the defenders with additional velocity, ready to swerve and chase them no matter where they went.
That was what the book that Kris Longknife had rewritten said you should do. Had these fools, however, read the book? Did they have any idea how to chase her? Engage her? Kill her before she killed them?
Vicky knew what she would be doing. Get her guns in range, then concentrate on one battleship until it blew up. After that, again, keep the range right and go after the second one. Of course, all the time this one-sided duel was going on, they'd be doing their best to close the range so they could bring their guns to bear on her and the Victorious.
The laws of gravity and motion defined very tight limits for her battle space. Unless the commander of the incoming battle squadron was stupid beyond belief, the battle would take place within those limits.
"Maggie, could you get me Admiral Bolesław, please."
"Yes, Your Grace," came back from her commlink amazingly fast.
"Admiral, do you know who commands the attacking squadron?"
"I'm sorry, Your Grace, but whoever commands it hasn't said a word. Why?"
"I was just wondering if we faced someone who knew the limits that gravity and the laws of motion put on the coming battle. Alternately, is he the type who might make all sorts of stupid moves that, individually, are folly, but taken as a whole could surprise us most unpleasantly?"
"I understand your concern, ma'am. Captain Blue has been keeping the incoming squadron under tight surveillance. However, he has picked up no communication identifying who commands the 12th Battle Group. That's their designation."
"Twelfth Battle Group, huh?" Vicky said. "Does that mean we must assume there are at least eleven more of these raider squadrons wandering this space?"
"There's no way to tell, Your Grace. They could be the only group, but the commander thinks twelve is his lucky number."
"Don't you hate it when amateurs mess around in your profession?" Vicky said.
"I don't know. I know a desperate kid with no skills who’s survived the worst and learned from her and her family's mistakes. She's pretty skilled at my profession these days. Or so I hear."
"Thank you, Admiral. I assure you, I didn't call you to have my ego stroked."
"Everyone needs a pat on the back some days. Everyone needs to know that people believe in them."
"Now, good admiral, you're making me blush."
They returned to their own work. Vicky did touch base with Mannie to see how getting a new government was going.
He told her that most of the people of Kromy had fled to the hills and lakes. Now that the city government controlled the money supply, bank deposits were returned to people who put the money in. Unidentified money went to the farmers for food.
Out in the hinterland, everyone dug in and did their best to offer as small a target as possible.
Still, up by a lake with a large natural amphitheater, ringed by summer homes hiding in the woods, the People's House had for
med itself into a constitutional congress. There, they were trying to hammer out the makeup of their civil structure.
Vicky, of course, would be the head of state, but her first minister would be the chief of state with all the real power. There was also a bit of a problem. Everyone knew that the Grand Duchy was also trying to come up with a senate or something for the entire shebang, if not the Empire. Just how would the two centers of power dovetail? Where did one authority begin and the other end?
Mannie called it federalism.
Vicky listened to Mannie drone on, delighted to be up to his lovely elbows in the future of her people. She wanted to be at his side when he got all the puzzle pieces together.
Vicky must not have been doing a good job of holding up her end of the conversation. He wound down to silence. Then asked, "Is it that bad?"
"I don't know," Vicky answered. "I don't honestly know, Mannie. Too many unknowns. Are our crews better trained than theirs? How good is their fire control? I know how good our crew is and Admiral Bolesław has got them drilling twelve hours a day or more to make them better."
"Still?"
"Still, sweetheart, after we've won this battle, would you please let me create you a Grand Duke?"
"It's that bad, huh?"
"We can't have a head of state if the Grand Duchess gets herself blown to pieces. I need for you to step in, raise our kids, and make this dream of yours come together for both of us."
"Do you think anyone would accept me as a Grand Duke?"
"When you almost shot me down, did you think anyone would accept me as a Grand Duchess?"
"You're a lot prettier than I am."
"You'll have cute kids to bounce on your knees. You can always claim that you are only regent until the oldest girl comes of age."
"It could be a boy."
"Not if you check for two X chromosomes and make sure the first one you put in the can is a girl."
"You think a girl might rule better?"
"She'd certainly do no worse than my dad and granddad.”
"Well, Mary Queen of Scots had one husband die early, then was kidnapped and raped until she married the second one. That went downhill fast."
Implacable: Vicky Peterwald, #5 Page 21