“So we don’t,” Admiral Benson said. “There’s nothing written in stone that says lasers can only adjust through thirty degrees. Yes, for a fighting frigate that has to defend itself, you don’t want too much of a hole in your bow. However, to defend our own jump points, we could damn near park a barge out there.”
“Wouldn’t a rotating station be a bit much?” Admiral Kitano asked. “What if the jump moved?”
“I’m not talking about a true barge, but we could knock together three ships out of merchant hulls, arm them with leftover 20-inch lasers, and allow the gun cradles to rotate sixty degrees.”
“That would only cover half the rotation,” Kris said.
“Not if we anchor the ships in threes and rig the bow guns to shoot around the mooring lines.”
“Can you do that?” Captain Drago said.
“We rig the lasers outboard of the moorings.”
“We have nine empty freighters,” Admiral Tirpitz offered. “The Apple Blossom class has two reactors. If we merge the nine into six, you’d have reactors to charge lasers but not a lot of armor.”
“We don’t expect these jump guards to have to fight, just shoot,” Kris said, and wished she had some wood to knock on. She might be making a terrible mistake, but she needed her frigates ready to fight, not rotating through static-station-ship duties at the jumps.
“I can get you a good three dozen 20-inch laser systems to mount on them,” Benson offered. “What about crews, Admiral Tirpitz?”
“Out of the nine, we ought to be able to put together six good sailing crews. But we don’t have anyone to man the lasers. Certainly not in a twenty-four/seven mode.”
Benson grinned. “Have I got some birds for you?”
“Mixed crews with the Alwans,” Tirpitz said. Clearly, she’d acquired Admiral Yi’s low opinion of the locals.
“You might want to talk to Admiral Cochrane,” Kris said. “We’ll likely steal a few from his ships to crew your jump guards.”
“I’ve also got a few colonials and birds to work on your yard, if you’ll take them.”
Tirpitz worried her lower lip. “Do I need Admiral Yi’s authorization for these changes?”
“Do you need Yi’s permission to convert the freighters into fighters?” Kris asked.
Tirpitz shook her head. “Three of the freighter skippers came to me this morning. They’d heard about the fight at the jump points and wanted to know if they could have lasers mounted on their ships. Two others will likely want in on the fight. Of the rest, I just don’t know, but they are civilian and not under Navy authority. Although I’m not sure Yi agrees with that.”
“Admiral Miyoshi,” Kris said, “you see to it that Yi understands that we are going to do this. You might also tell him that his task force should be here on the Cannopus Station with the rest of Second Fleet. Admiral Bethea, I’m moving all of your ships to Gosport.”
“There won’t be a lot of them. Most of my ships are deployed.”
“Still,” Kris said, “I want you on Gosport Station. We might as well bite whatever bullet we have to.”
“I’ll tell Rear Admiral Yi he’s moving,” Vice Admiral Miyoshi said.
Kris nodded. Yi was a hardcase, and having his former subordinate, and a woman, tell him he was moving out of his familiar stomping grounds was likely not the best way to go.
Managing people—Kris sighed—was as much of a pain in the butt as killing aliens.
“Okay, it looks like we can guard the jump points without tying up the fleet,” Kris said. “Now, how fast can we grow the fleet?” she asked, staring straight at Pipra.
“No doubt, faster than I want to, but slower than you’d like,” she answered, and they began to dicker.
43
The sense of ease that had gripped the fleet, station, and workers, whether on the moon or the asteroid mines, was gone. The yards worked around the clock, now with immigrants, colonials, and Alwans.
There was no talk of low morale.
The courier boats were the first to flow out from the yards. Hermes, Mercury, and Apollo were hardly finished before they jumped for the three squadrons watching the approaches to System X. They returned just as swiftly to report that there was nothing to report.
No aliens had shown up in their systems to either peel off warning buoys or try fast jumps to Alwa.
The same couldn’t be said for Alwa itself.
Rarely did Kris rise in the morning to find fewer than fifty aliens somewhere in the picketed zone. Many missed on their way to frozen hell, but more were incoming, hunting for that right combination of speed and location that would give them a chance to dash themselves against Kris’s defenses.
That was the thing about a suicide mission; hit or miss, it never reported back. The handful that did find the lucky numbers died in seconds.
But that didn’t stop them from coming.
Kris watched this tragedy unfolding before her, and like the rest of humanity, shook her head.
It was now clear that eighteen systems were launching these one-way attacks. Kris eyed the map and gnawed her lower lip. Should she take the bait and go for one of them? Would she find a base ship, or a few dozen huge warships if she did?
She called in her key staff.
She stood before them as usual. Only now, her left hand had a tendency to brush the growing bulge beneath her heart.
What great commander ever took that stance? the joker inside her chided.
They’ll have to find room for it in the Longknife legend, she chided right back.
“I do not like sitting here while the aliens take potshots. We’ve slapped down everyone that got through, but I refuse their right to the initiative.”
“So, what do you want to do?” Jack asked.
“I don’t know what I can do,” Kris answered, “until we get a look at what’s out there.”
Penny smiled. “So you want someone to go take a look. Do I have to volunteer?”
“I’m thinking of someone else,” Kris said, “though the job is the same: go, look, run home quick. The buoy tenders aren’t doing anything. If we need to replace a jump buoy, I’ll likely send a division of frigates.”
“A scout will need at least three reactors,” Penny said.
“So we merge three of the tenders into one,” Kris answered.
“If I don’t get the job, who does?” Penny asked.
“There’s a former frigate commander running the guano mines,” Kris said.
“The one who couldn’t take no from one of his prettier Sailors,” Jack said.
“Yes. He’d be commanding a bunch of birds.”
“He’d still have some Navy types and colonials,” Penny pointed out.
“So he gets a chance to keep his nose clean, or he gets to shovel the bird shit,” Kris said.
“Make sure he has a good XO,” Jack said.
“I will.”
It was tempting to give him an all-male crew, but it didn’t work out that way. Kris asked for volunteers for a dangerous mission. This time she wasn’t flooded; too many were already on dangerous missions. As it turned out, his XO was a woman, former second officer off one of the freighters that was now a jump-guard ship. His engineering officer was a younger woman also from the Merchant Marine. They were about the only experienced hands he got. The rest of his crew were colonial or birds; his entire gun crew were Ostriches.
Kris personally told Commander Hanson of his mission and the makeup of his crew for the USS Challenger.
“Are you giving me a second chance or a suicide mission?” he said, evenly.
“I have better use for you, your crew, and your ship, than throwing you away on a suicide mission,” Kris said. “You aren’t doing bad, running the guano mine. I have need for as many ships and as many trained people as I can lay my hands on, so no, this mission is exactly what I’m telling you it is. I want to know who’s sending suicide ships at me. Are their bases weak or strong? Am I up against two, three, or a dozen base ships
?”
Hanson nodded. “I heard about the mission you sent your intel officer on, going out to get a peek at what turned out to be the alien home world. I take it you want me to get a peek and report back. Do I just go to one launch site or more?”
“We’ve laid out a course that should run you by three of them. You’ll be using the fast jumps we’ve found that the aliens don’t know exist. Needless to say, that knowledge is something we can’t afford to fall into the alien hands.”
“Understood. I run like hell, but if I can’t escape, we blow ourselves to kingdom come.”
“In that respect, we’re just like the aliens,” Kris said.
“Okay, let me have a look at my ship and crew,” Hanson said, then he paused. “Thank you for this second chance, Admiral. I won’t screw up again.”
“Make sure you don’t,” Kris said.
He saluted. She returned it, and he departed.
Jack had come into her day quarters halfway through the meeting but kept silent. He returned Commander Hanson’s salute as he left, then went to take the now-vacant chair beside Kris’s desk.
“You’re giving him a second chance?”
“Yes, we need experienced ship drivers.”
“Do you trust him to do what you’re ordering him to do?”
“I have no doubt that he will. Besides, most of his crew are locals, colonials or Ostriches. I can’t see them letting him get away with anything flaky.”
“No, I don’t see an Ostrich doing that,” Jack agreed. “Okay, answer me this question. He’s getting a second chance. What about Sampson? She’s an experienced ship driver, too.”
“She got her second chance, and a third,” Kris said, patting the little one on his or her head. Or rump. She was never sure which end was up. “Sampson got sent to the yard and stole a ship. We gave her brain surgery, and she dreams up this scheme to get me pregger and unfit for command. As I see it, that’s three strikes, and she can shovel shit until . . . well, I don’t know when, but certainly for a lot more time than I’m thinking of today.”
“Seems fair to me. You want to come dirtside with me tomorrow? We’re standing up the Second and Third Divisions, Alwa National Guard. There may be several Rooster militia battalions marching in the review as well. It should be quite a show.”
“You now have three divisions under your command?” Kris said, raising an expressive eyebrow.
“Don’t you go making me a corps commander. If anyone gets three stars, it should be Hayakawa. He’s the man commanding the troops dirtside. He certainly deserves more than the brigadier star he’s got.”
“Give me a report on who’s commanding what down there with your suggestions for ranks, and we’ll see what tomorrow’s parade looks like.”
“Please don’t go promoting folks before the parade starts,” Jack said. “They’ve only got the ranks they’re wearing. We don’t have a BX with loads of spare eagles and stuff.”
“Thank you, Husband, I will keep that in mind,” Kris said.
NELLY, CAN YOU MANUFACTURE SOME EAGLES, SINGLE, TWIN, AND THREE STARS FOR ME WITHOUT ANYONE THE SMARTER?
I MAY NEED ABBY’S HELP.
I THINK I CAN TRUST HER.
So Jack presented Kris with a promotion list for the two new divisions. At the top of it was brevet Brigadier General Hayakawa with a recommendation for three stars and overall command of all troops stationed on Alwa. Kris signed off on colonelcies for the regimental commanders, which, she noted included Abby’s Sergeant Bruce, and two stars for the two Marine officers who had come out a few short months ago from human space as company commanders.
There was risk there, but if they didn’t turn out, she’d sack them and give some other jumped-up company skipper a crack at the job. And she’d likely be doing it based on the recommendation of Lieutenant General Hayakawa.
But did she want him outranking Jack?
Kris mulled that one. She solved it by promoting Jack to Lieutenant General, Commander of the Alwa Expeditionary Force, Alwa system, with the Commander, First Corps, Alwa Defense Force reporting to him.
She signed Jack’s promotion before she went to bed and Hayakawa’s the next morning.
Jack didn’t seem at all surprised when she called him front and center before the parade next day. Hayakawa must have been warned as well; a certain young colonial woman was standing close by and did the honors of pinning his three stars on his red uniform. The rest of the officers were read their new promotions but paraded in their old ranks. There was a lot of pinning going on as soon as the two divisions were dismissed.
Two reinforced divisions did march by. Three regiments of over three thousand, plus an artillery brigade of mortars. It was extremely light, but it was a fighting force, and marching in between the regiments of colonial and Rooster units were battalions of Ostrich militia. They held their rifles smartly and even got the cadence close to right.
“They take it for a dance,” Granny Rita whispered to Kris as the first militia battalion marched by.
“Can they fight as well as they march?” Kris whispered back.
“God help us if we ever have to find out.” Rita made it sound like a sincere prayer.
Kris got back from the dirtside honors just in time to make a quick visit to the Challenger before she sealed locks and headed out.
“Have you read your orders?” Kris asked Commander Hanson.
“I read them to the entire crew and got a cheer for it. I notice I’ve got three 20-inch lasers pointed aft and three forward.”
“I’m as interested in you running as I am in you chasing,” Kris said, and glanced at his XO. “Do you have a problem with that?”
“No, ma’am.” She grinned. “I knew Captain O’dell. I’m amazed you got her to run away from a fight. Me, I like running. Better yet, don’t get in a place you have to run or fight, that’s me. Does this periscope really let us peek in the next system without having to go there?”
“Trust your boffin. If he says there are dragons in the next system, be assured, there are dragons, and you don’t want to go there.”
“Great,” both Commander Hanson and his XO said.
“Now, off with you. Godspeed and a fair wind. A lot will depend on what you bring back, so come back.”
“Aye, aye, Admiral,” Command Hanson said, and Kris left them to get under way.
They cast off from the pier before she was off it herself.
Now all she could do was wait. Wait, and try to bring everything together.
The problem was, even if she could patch together a few ships here, an extra squadron there, she was still way too weak to take on three alien mother ships.
Who was she kidding? Unless there was another miracle in the Longknife bag of tricks, all of this was just the final act in a too-short play.
Baby took that moment to do some somersaults. Yes, little one, I know you’re there. How do I give you a chance to play in some lazy summer sun?
Admiral Kris Longknife marched for her flag plot, perchance to find some hidden miracle.
44
A week later, the Albatross streaked in with a report from the B approach to System X. Rear Admiral Zingi and his squadron from Yamato had gotten their baptism of fire.
Zingi’s squadron had arrived after the Battle of Alwa and he’d been left defending the system when Kris took two fleets out to nail the assassins. Still, he’d studied her reports, apparently better than the Earth admiral.
The aliens had sent him a full dish, thirty strong. Zingi surprised them; he defended in the fifth system out. There was no buoy in the sixth system to warn the bastards, and they sailed up to the jump in a loose formation.
Zingi had his periscope out; it warned him what was coming. He arranged his two divisions in squares behind the jump.
The first three aliens came through fat, dumb, and sassy. Not even firing. They died before they knew what hit them. The next three ships were at least shooting as they came through. The frigates took them full in the
ir vulnerable sterns.
The last ship apparently had orders to return immediately and report. It was rotating even as 22-inch lasers slashed into engineering space, destroying containment fields and letting plasma loose in flaming streams. The ship came apart, pieces spinning off in every direction.
Six ships jumped in next; six ships died.
With no report, the alien commander must have wised up to his problem. Next through was a tiny atomic package. Zingi’s ships nailed it before it could do anything.
And nailed the next ship as it came through and tried to twist around and return.
Thirteen ships and no report back.
The alien commander must have been sincerely pissed. Three ships came through in rapid succession, firing everything at anything. But firing at a lot of empty space couldn’t protect their vulnerable sterns with all the reactors and rockets that it took to propel a ship of four-hundred-thousand-plus tons.
Again, 22-inch lasers sliced into alien ships, reducing them to hot gases and wreckage in little more than the blink of an eye.
Having lost half his force, you would think that he’d cut his losses and go home. Apparently, “retreat” was no more in the alien dictionary than “surrender.”
After a long pause, three more atomics came through, one right after the other. One managed a low-order explosion, but did nothing to the frigates holding in formation a hundred thousand kilometers back from the jump.
Then matters changed. A tiny vessel, little larger than a human longboat, appeared, flipped and made to head back.
It didn’t make it through the jump before four 20-inch lasers pinned it in place. From the looks of the explosion, its antimatter containment field failed.
Ten seconds later, a second boat appeared. This time, only two lasers took it under fire. It didn’t matter, it died just as fast.
In rapid succession, eight shuttles appeared, and eight shuttles died.
Apparently, the commander assumed the weak human frigates would have shot their few lasers dry. Three ships shot through.
And blew as frigates showed they could take out large and small targets and keep their lasers charged.
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