"He's going to go left and down," Vicky told Maggie.
"Assumption locked in," Maggie answered.
Three seconds later, he did, indeed go left and down. "Fire as soon as you have a firing solution," Vicky told Maggie.
Two seconds later, he went left and up. "Keep on your solution. Wide pattern."
Two seconds later, the Victorious fired half a broadside from its aft battery.
"We winged him again," Admiral Bolesław reported.
"Now we wait to see," Vicky whispered, "if he settles down on a steady course for the next twenty seconds. Maggie a tight salvo, if you please."
"Firing," Maggie shouted.
If Vicky wasn't positive that was a computer at her neck, she'd say that Maggie was excited.
"Three hits!" Admiral Bolesław shouted. He was definitely an excited human.
"Any good ones?" Vicky asked.
"Sorry. We're just burning ice off him."
"Maggie, when he gets in range of us, I don't want to stay on any course for more than four seconds. Steer curves, constantly change the angle; sharper, then softer. Never be headed the same place from second to second."
"Aye, aye, Your Grace. Do we do a two-stage volley again?"
"I think we have his attention. Let's see how long it takes us to get a good shot for the first half. Maybe we'll have to wait until the second gun is reloaded in each turret."
"Understood," Maggie said.
The reload clock was ticking down by seconds and hundredths of a second. The first two numbers spun at a dizzying rate.
The time came for half the batteries to be loaded. The timer reset for five seconds.
The enemy had jinked two seconds before the timer ended.
"Hold your fire," Vicky whispered. "Hold your fire."
Four seconds into his last dip and dodge, he changed course again.
"Wide volley," Vicky ordered, "as soon as all guns are loaded."
"Aye, aye, Your Grace," Maggie answered. A moment later, the lights dimmed as the aft lasers let loose.
"He dodged a second before we fired," Admiral Bolesław reported. "We got one solid hit and a second grazing hit."
"How solid?"
"He's trailing a lot of steam," the admiral reported. "A lot."
"Now if only we could get lucky and hit there again," Vicky said, not really hoping. The odds were way too long.
Together, they waited through the seconds again. Now the enemy changed course every three seconds. Of course, that ran the risk of dipping and dodging its way back into the space it had just aimed away from.
Whoever was controlling the helm on that ship was having problems remembering what its last course adjustment had been. Now, occasionally, it went left then right, or up then down.
"Maggie, are you tracking the course adjustments?"
"Yes, Your Grace. There must be a human at the helm."
"Consider their pattern."
"Doing so."
However, there was no time to do that before the next salvo had to be fired, then the next. Each scored minor hits, but nothing to cause any major damage.
They were coming up on the time the hostile would have its minute to shoot. They had just enough time in for two more volleys.
"He goofed," Maggie crowed as she fired a full sixteen gun broadside.
"He doubled back right into the area I was aiming for. I adjusted my volley too tight."
"Two solid hits, two grazing hits," Admiral Bolesław reported in an excited voice. "I've got an internal explosion. I think we hit a full capacitor. God, it must be hell around that battery."
"Finally," Vicky sighed then immediately was back to business. “Admiral Bolesław, we're afraid of them shooting a laser up our rear end into one of our rectors, right?"
"Yes, Your Grace," the admiral said, cautiously.
"Why do we have to keep running away from him when he's in range? Couldn't we flip ship, fire our forward batteries and keep our own thick bow armor aimed at him?"
"You wouldn't want to be accelerating at three gees toward him."
"But we'd want to keep enough way on the ship to jink properly," Vicky said.
"Definitely. Maggie, can you adjust your jinking?" Admiral Bolesław asked Vicky's computer.
"Certainly. I could juggle our acceleration so that it adds further confusion to his targeting solution. He has been a fool to keep up his three-point-something acceleration the entire time we've been shooting at him."
"Prepare to put a twenty-revolution-per-minute spin on and flip ship. Put us into a soft left turn now. Something that we might do if one of our directional jets was leaking. Then, two seconds before he comes in range, jink hard right," Vicky ordered.
It was time for one more shot without having to dodge. This time he did a better job of dodging and they only got a grazing hit. However, the hostile was trailing a lot of steam and still sparking from the turret hit.
"I wonder if he'll have a full twelve guns in his bow battery?" Admiral Bolesław asked, softly."
"We'll know in a minute."
They felt it when Maggie began the jinking. She flipped ship, cut acceleration to one gee, and put the ship into a soft, then hard right turn, with a hard, then soft drop.
This wrecked his firing solution. He should have canceled the salvo to give his fire control time to come up with a new targeting solution.
He didn't.
"Missed to our right. He aimed for where we would have been," Admiral Bolesław crowed.
"Maggie, change course, assuming the part he held back is his broadside."
"Aye, aye, Your Grace, though Sensors says he fired his entire forward battery."
"Are you sure?"
"His ice armor is still boiling off enough for us to get a sensor report. Oh, and he only fired a ten-gun salvo. I don’t think he has twelve anymore."
"Thanks Maggie," Vicky said. "Flip ship. Let's see what our forward battery is good for."
Whoever had the conn on the bridge of the hostile battleship didn't expect a second broadside this quickly. He allowed the ship to wander a bit, but not seriously dip or dodge.
"Four hits," Admiral Bolesław reported. "He's really shedding chunks of ice now, not just steam."
"Very good," Vicky whispered softly, her eyes boring into the main screen as if she might see her future, or that of one enemy battleship on it. "Now we wait."
Both ships continued their ducking and dodging as their lasers reloaded. The Victorious came online first, and Maggie put a tight salvo where she expected the battleship to be.
Whether she guessed or predicted it, she was right.
"Two solid hits!" Admiral Bolesław shouted with the glee of a man who enjoyed his job. "Three grazing hits. One may have nipped a rocket motor aft. He laid himself over a bit too much and I think we got to his rear end."
"The hostile is struggling to keep his nose to us," Maggie reported. "I think we hit one of his maneuvering jets. He's going hard left. He may flip ship."
The rebel ship was indeed going all the way around to the left. Battleships were designed with three rings of maneuvering jets forward and another three aft. One damaged jet should not be causing this much trouble. What was going on a hundred thousand klicks behind her?
"How soon will the bow battery be reloaded?" she snapped.
"Thirty seconds," Admiral Bolesław shot back. "Now that we're reloading all our guns, it's taking a bit more time."
As the reload clocks ran down, the enemy battleship was struggling to jink, but it had to go left. A little or a lot was its only choice.
And it was flipping ship. When its aft rocket motors were aimed at the Victorious, they reduced their acceleration to one gee. Someone didn't want to open the range. When they got back closer to her course, the acceleration went up.
"Maggie, does them taking acceleration off the boat make it easier for you?"
"Oh, yes."
"Take the rear shot."
"Firing a tight salvo," Maggi
e shouted.
"Hits!" Admiral Bolesław shouted back. "Three solid hits aft."
Vicky waited for the next report. Had they hit the reactors?"
Hooters went off in the Victorious. "Hull breach aft. Hull breach aft."
Somebody had discovered that he had an aft battery. If he was going to aim his rear end at Vicky, they might as well fire.
Vicky held her breath. Was her reactor about to blow her ship to atoms?
The Victorious took off on a wild course, somehow corkscrewing through space. Vicky was thrown hard against one side of her high gee station while her body grew heavier than she ever remembered it being before.
A moment later, the Victorious took on a blessed steadiness.
"Recommencing jinking," Maggie announced, and the ship returned to its dodging and dipping.
"What happened?" Vicky asked no one in particular.
"They got a good hit on one of our aft rocket motors," Admiral Bolesław reported. "Engineering managed to cut the plasma flow to the wrecked jet. The laser did not hit a reactor. Yes, we're lucky."
"What about the enemy battlewagon?" Vicky asked. Somehow the guy who wanted her dead had become her second priority. Still, he was a high priority.
"Secondary explosions on board," Admiral Bolesław reported, all calm voice now. He sounded like the voice of doom.
He was.
"More explosions aft. I think at least one of the reactors is out of control."
A moment later, he added. "Make that two reactors. The aft end of the battleship is exploding. Chunks of hull are flying everywhere. Lots of steam."
After a brief pause, he added in a whisper, "She's going."
The tiny image on the screen suddenly became a blinding flash, expanded into a multicolored ball of gas . . . then it vanished from sight.
A mighty ship of a hundred thousand tons and a thousand people was simply gone.
Vicky suddenly had a wish that she and her computer had not taken control of the Victorious' guns away from its crew. She found herself wishing that she alone did not have to carry the burden of all those dead Sailors.
I've got so many dead souls on my conscience.
And the day was not yet done.
46
Vicky stuffed her feelings of guilt and regret into that black hole that Peterwalds had where other men and women had hearts. She still had a battle to win.
"Maggie, set me a course that will intercept the second battleship soonest."
"Yes, Your Grace. What acceleration?"
"I said soonest. Three gees," she snapped.
"That will give us a very fast closing rate," Admiral Bolesław pointed out.
"I know. We'll worry about it when we get there. I'm betting that us heading at him like an avenging angel is going to get more results in the next few minutes than any tiptoeing around would."
"You may have that right, Your Grace," Admiral Bolesław agreed.
Vicky spent a long moment examining her options and chose the one she figured to be the best, even if it did mean changing her mind on a ten pfennig coin.
"Maggie, take us down to two gees acceleration."
"Aye, aye, Your Grace."
"Comm, get me on the main screens of the bridge on that battleship and those heavy cruisers."
"We've got you there," Comm replied.
The main screen before Vicky opened onto five bridges. What she saw were a lot of high gee stations pointed at her. Some showed faces going pale with terror. None looked very stalwart.
Vicky stood up at double her weight and went to stand in the center of her screen. She locked her hands behind her back and glared at the screen.
One window showed her what she looked like.
An avenging angel wasn't far off.
"I am Admiral, Her Imperial Grace Victoria, the Grand Duchess of half the Greenfeld Empire and the Protector of the Peace for the entire empire. You have violated that peace. We are not pleased. You will surrender your ships immediately or face Our further displeasure. You have seen what Our displeasure cost that other ship and crew."
Her short speech was followed by a long pause.
"You're charging at us," a trembling voice said. Vicky wasn't sure which ship it came from.
"Yes. We are prepared to hunt each one of you down and reduce you to a smear of hot gas in space if you don't surrender."
"Can she do that?" was a different quaking voice.
"She's got a lot more reaction mass than we've got," was dry and professional. "I'd take her at her word."
"I surrender," came back fast from all five screens.
"Cut your acceleration to one gee and smash your main battle busbar."
"What's a main battle busbar?" someone asked.
"Ask your Maintenance or Gunnery Officer," came in that dry, knowing voice. "If they can't tell you, ask an old chief, one of the Navy types. If you come up dry, ask me."
"May We ask who you are, Sailor?" Vicky asked.
"Commander Blucher, Your Grace. Navigator on the battleship Vigilante, the next ship on your hit list."
"Then you know how to comply with Our orders."
"Captain, if you don't mind, I'm taking the con. Helm, go to one gee. Use it for deceleration. I'll get you a course and acceleration as soon as possible."
"Aye, aye, sir."
"Is your captain qualified to stand a watch?" Vicky asked.
"The greenest of Landsman, Your Grace. All our captains are Bowlingame appointments."
"I assume you know the more skilled officers on the heavy cruisers."
"Yes, Your Grace."
"Please relieve the men dumped on you by that crime family and stand up qualified skippers."
"It will be done, Your Grace."
"Now, one more question. Can you tell me where that main Bowlingame fleet is at present?"
"Regretfully, ma'am, they don't trust us with that kind of information. Maybe you can get it out of this toad, but I suspect the only ship that had that information was the Savage, that you just blew to bits. We have intercepted messages in a cypher that we have no access to."
"Do you have an opinion where we might find that fleet?"
"Your Grace, I'm not sure that it is a fleet at the moment. We were ordered here. I don't know that other small squadrons haven't been sent hither and tither to find subsistence."
"Oh, so other planets are drying up just like Oryol and Dresden," Vicky said.
"Ma'am, you're getting my best guess. I hardly consider it a basis for policy."
"Thank you, Commander. Please have the Marines put the Bowlingame criminals in the brig."
"We don't have Marines, Your Grace."
"More security consultants?"
"Redcoats."
"Tell them that if they don't want to hang like every last one of them that I hung on Dresden and Oryol, they're on your side now."
"We'll see what we can do," the commander said, eyeing the other windows on her screen. Each had at least one man standing. Most two or three.
It would be interesting to see how the crews managed to get back control of their ships.
"Can't we run for the jump and get out of here?" a trembling voice asked.
"Skipper, you lost that option when you followed that shithead you called an admiral and didn’t maintain a 1.3 gee deceleration. Now we can't reach an orbit around Oryol. We're headed for the sun. We've got a long slow voyage and you may end up losing that fat ass you've been throwing around before we get a fresh meal. That's the mess you've got us in."
"We're going to starve?"
"If that ass you call a supply officer hasn't robbed you blind, we may survive. Otherwise, we may serve you and him up for dinner."
"Cut the screen," Vicky said. "I don't need to know what happens next. Maggie, let me know when the busbars are smashed."
"The Vigilante has smashed hers. The Duke of Greenfeld, Duke of this, Count of that, and . . . the Baron of something have now smashed their buses. There was at least one offic
er on board each ship who knew how to avoid your great displeasure.”
"Admiral Bolesław, is there any way to make an educated guess as to how long those ships are going to be looping around the sun? They are headed for the sun, right?"
"Unless they've got a lot more reaction mass than I think they do, yes, Your Grace. They won't be back for a bit."
"Actually, Vicky, if you had just asked me, I could have told you," Maggie said with an injured sniff.
"Oh, Maggie," Vicky said, not missing the sudden familiarity from her electronic assistant. "What is their fuel situation and how do you manage to know it?"
"They will all make it back. I am checking on their supply situation as we speak. While you were in communication with them, I slipped into their ship computers. I know exactly how much reaction mass they have aboard, as well as fuel for their reactors. I would say I know their food situation, but from what I just heard, the books I checked may not be trustworthy. If they are, they will have no problem making it back here in three months without eating anyone."
Maggie paused. "However, since they will be surviving on porridge, beans, and rice, they might wish to slaughter the culprits to add some protein to their meals."
"Thank you very much, Miss Maggie," Vicky said, seeing how giving her computer some respect might get her some in return.
"I would prefer something like my mother, The Magnificent Nelly. How about the Superb Maggie? Terrific Maggie?"
"We'll try some of those out, Maggie, if you'll promise to cure yourself of that swelled head you're developing."
"Harumph," was all Vicky got from Maggie.
"Admiral Bolesław, can you set us a course for the jump point and Dresden? I think we need to get back there, soonest."
"What about Oryol?"
"If that fleet won't be back here very quickly, we can get a message to Brunswick to add two or three battleships to the force being sent here. They should be here well before that squadron drifts back this way."
"What about your husband, Your Grace?" Admiral Bolesław asked, carefully, as one might when crossing a matrimonial mine field.
"Mannie has a planet's government to work on. It should keep him busy at least until I can get a fleet organized to see about liberating Lublin, maybe Helsingborg as we fly by."
Implacable: Vicky Peterwald, #5 Page 24