They took flight again. Birds were flying off in every direction; Nelly picked a large flock that was streaming off in one direction. The flight was far too short for Megan’s delight. They soon found themselves over a pond. The birds ahead of them were splattering its surface with their droppings. Eel or worm like creatures were swimming in the water. Regularly, they would break the surface, eat the floating bird droppings, and then settle back into the water.
It was easy to watch this process. The eels glowed with lights that pulsed and changed colors rapidly.
“Is this the final interface?” Megan asked Nelly.
“I think we have found it,” Nelly said. “At least I don’t see those fish pooping anything for someone else to digest.”
“No wonder their computers take so long to do anything,” Megan observed. “Why would they pass data through so many hoops?”
“It may be that the horned herd beasts process the data that is fed to them, then leave them for the birds to deliver to the interface,” Nelly supposed. “I wonder if we could convert our data directly to bird droppings and slip them into the ponds without all the intermediaries.”
“Use human computers to process the data,” Sal said, “then feed it directly into the pond for the Iteeche to read and react to.”
“It would still be slower,” Megan said.
“Are you sure?” Nelly said. “How long do you think it takes the fish to convert the bird droppings into useable readouts?”
“I guess we’ll have to mess with an Iteeche computer and see,” Megan admitted.
And found herself staring blankly at a gray box of Iteeche origin. She was again seated at a table in the Forward Lounge.
24
“Could I have a glass of water?” Lieutenant Megan Longknife croaked out through a mouth dry as a desert. “I’d kill for a sandwich,” she managed to add.
“Nelly, place that order,” Kris Longknife ordered.
“The water is on its way. A ham and cheese sandwich will be only a few seconds more.”
“Do you have a better understanding of Iteeche computing?” Kris asked.
“We think so,” Meg whispered hoarsely. “Please, the water.”
Kris put a leash on her temper, and yanked hard on her own chain. The poor gal looked wrung out by what she’d been through.
NELLY, YOU WANT TO TALK TO ME?
KRIS, I WOULD PREFER FOR YOU TO TALK TO MEGAN, HUMAN TO HUMAN. WE HAD A ‘DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE’ EXPERIENCE. ALL THAT WAS MISSING WAS A MAD HATTER AND A QUEEN SHOUTING ‘OFF WITH THEIR HEADS.’ I WILL TELL YOU THAT WE THINK WE HAVE A BETTER HANDLE ON THE ITEECHE COMPUTATIONAL SYSTEM. ITS VERY NATURE MAKES IT SLOWER THAN OURS. I THINK WE NOW KNOW HOW TO WORK AROUND SOME OF THAT, BUT UNTIL WE PUT IT TO THE TEST, I AM ONLY GUESSING, AS YOU HUMANS WOULD SAY.
THANK YOU, NELLY.
Kris rejoined the conversation around her. Questions flew fast and loose, but no one had any answers. She and Jack exchanged knowing glances, but they let the tension build among the Iteeche as they all waited for the young human woman to guzzle down a very large glass of water, then sip a very sweet tea.
Finally, Megan sighed. “That is much better. I must say, this dive into the Iteeche computer system went much better. Thank you, Admiral Coth for admitting us to your system.”
Admiral Coth head snapped around to eye Kris. He hadn’t missed the reference to an early try at their system. Still, he said nothing.
“Have you learned anything?” he asked the human junior Navy officer.
“I think we have learned some essential information,” Megan said, as a sandwich was set at her elbow. She grabbed a quarter, took a bite, and talked as she chewed. “You have to understand, all that we experience inside a computer is metaphorical. The four of us started out armed with swords and in a jungle. We ended up as lovely little birds. By the way, General, your computer is one hunky guy, or in this case, little bird.”
That got a smattering of laughter, which grew louder after Kris and Jack joined in.
“Admiral Coth,” Megan began, addressing the senior Iteeche present, “Nelly would like to take a dive into the computer system of one of your battlecruisers. She plans to create some human computers out of Smart Metal and have them feed data directly to your Iteeche interface devices. We can’t be sure this will work until we do it and see how it goes.”
“I understand,” Coth said. “You may have access to my flagship. Should I open a commlink to it now?”
“I would like to start immediately,” Nelly said from Kris’s collar bone. “If we need Megan’s assistance, we can delay further progress until she has a bite to eat.”
“My commlink is in communication with the radio on my barge. It is in contact with my flag. Through it, you should be able to access our system. Since I have all access, you should not find anything blocked to you.”
“I will be careful inside your systems, Admiral,” Nelly said. “I have done modifications to many human battlecruisers and broke not a one of them.”
“There is always a first,” the Admiral of the First Order of Iron said, darkly.
There was a pause, then Nelly said, “Your commlink is capable of many links. The radio comm line from the barge to your flagship is narrow. It’s enough for me, but not for my children. Could you open a link from two more of your barges or longboats to your flagship?”
The admiral called up two more barges, used by captains who had found themselves aboard ships from which their admirals had decamped post haste, and soon Jack was nodding.
“Sal’s gone.”
“So is Lily,” Megan said as she took another huge bite out of her sandwich.
“Actually, we are only half gone,” Nelly said. “Maybe less. The bandwidth is rather narrow. However, I would like to say that we are in, and we do have the proper identity to create the desired computer for your fire control system.”
“That’s a good beginning,” Kris said.
“Gentlemen, I would like to talk to the human admiral privately,” Admiral Coth said, sitting down beside Megan. The officers who had been with him walked away, ostensibly to try out the wine.
“Now, Admiral, youngling, tell me about this other experience you had with Iteeche computers.”
“Admiral?” Megan said, kicking this hot problem up the chain of command.
“On my orders, we attempted to access your communication net using certain data links left behind in the Pink Coral Palace. It was unsuccessful. We could not grasp your data transfer system.”
“And now you can?”
Kris raised an eyebrow in Megan’s direction. She’d just taken a bite of sandwich, so she stalled while she chewed it up and swallowed it down. Then she took a sip of tea.
As her delay stretched, Admiral Coth, chortled. “You have a very adept youngling, Admiral. I doubt if any of my junior officers could have avoided for so long answering an admiral.”
“Yes, but she is in my chain of command. I suspect if I had posed a question, she would have talked while her mouth was full.”
“But that would be bad manners, ma’am,” Megan said. “Now, Admiral, I do not know if you giving us access to your fleet system will be of any good to us in accessing the communications net in the Capitol. You have given us credentials so that we do not have to fight our way into a battlecruiser’s network. You have identified us as acceptable, so we are able to work with your systems without data being encrypted. Of course, I will not know much of anything until we get back to our palace and try it.”
“So, I may have betrayed my people.”
“To an ally?” Kris asked.
“There is that matter,” the Iteeche replied.
The wait went on at length, but Kris let the officers circulate. Several of the battle-tested Iteeche captains were talking to groups that included both their skippers and human captains. Commodore Ajax moved from group to group before she settled in one and joined the conversation herself. Having commanded a ship in a fight under Admiral Longknife
’s command, she had been to the rodeo herself. The conversation went long, and drew in more observers.
Kris smiled. This unstructured part of her meeting was likely the most profitable. Of course, it would take second to Nelly’s efforts if they panned out.
It was a long thirty minutes before Nelly said, “I think we have succeeded. Admiral, could you order your ship to undertake a fire control drill? I think my admiral would prefer if you were to target one of your own ships.”
“I certainly would,” Kris said.
Admiral Coth spoke quickly into his commlink. Two minutes went by.
It was Nelly who said, “That drill was a failure. We saw what we got wrong. Give us a minute to make a correction and then ask to have the drill run again.”
About that time, the admiral’s commlink informed him that the sensors had done their sweep but it had failed to identify any targets in the area. “There are over a hundred battlecruisers here, Admiral, that I could have thrown a rock at, but we could not sense one of them.”
“Yes, there was a glitch. It is being corrected,” Nelly said, “Please stand by to perform another test when I ask you to.”
“Yes, Admiral.”
Kris could almost hear heels clicking together. Both pairs.
“We are ready,” Nelly said.
“Execute another drill,” the admiral ordered.
“We encountered another failure point. We are correcting it,” Nelly said.
In a moment, Admiral Coth got his own notification.
This cycle of test, fail, test, fail went through four more iterations.
By the fifth one, Admiral Coth was scowling as badly as an Iteeche can do with a beak. “Will this ever work?”
“Sir,” Nelly said. “Each time we fail further along in the process. Each time we identify something that tells us to try something differently. I know of no way to do it any better than this. As we humans say, ‘Rome was not built in a day’.”
“Rome?”
“An ancient capital. It ruled a major part of our home world for several hundred years. Few Empires lasted as longer.”
Another test was ordered.
“We almost made it that time. I had wondered from the start if our solution to this part would work. It may take several tests to resolve this point of the interface, but I think it is the last failure point.”
Several more tries and fails later Nelly reported proudly, “We got it.”
“Admiral,” came over Coth’s commlink, “we have ranged the most distant warship from us and cut two seconds off of our best time.”
“So, you humans have shaved two seconds off of our range, analyze and fire cycle,” Admiral Coth said. “Very good. Nelly, can you do better?”
“We think we could shave another second off of the cycle, but it would involve inserting human computers into both the sensor identification phase and gun laying mechanisms. I am concerned if we do this, will you have technical experts to reprogram them in battle if they are damaged or fail?”
“If you have taken the heart of the fire control processing and inserted human computers in it, then I will have to acquire an expert programmer for that. What are a few more items for him to maintain? It is better to keep him busy rather than sitting on his fanny in his high gee station.”
“My attitude exactly,” Kris said. “For now, could we reprogram the eight ships in your squadron? That will include tightening down the gun cradles and getting high gee stations for all hands. We can show your people how to program them.”
“Yes, do that. We only allow certain, trained, and certified officers to reprogram any of the smart metal. One must be careful. Why are you smiling, Admiral Longknife?”
“Because every seaman has a commlink and they all have an app that allows them to design more comfortable chairs and rearrange their quarters. Our petty officers can make walls move aboard ships so that supplies and gear may be accessed more readily.”
“Can any sailor on your ship open a hole in the ship’s hull?” Admiral Coth asked, incredulously.
“No.” Kris said. “Hull material, my confidential safe, and other secure devices are under much more complex encryption that often require biometric recognition. My voice, for example. A scan of my retina. Some even require the pricking of my thumb and a check of my DNA.”
“And you humans do this every day?”
“I try not to do things that require a needle in my thumb too often,” Kris said, dryly.
“Yes,” Jack said. “She hates needles.”
“You give away too many state secrets,” Kris said, sternly, if with a bit too much smile, “and I may lock you up.”
Admiral Coth eyed the two humans, accepted that an in joke had just flown over his head and said, “Nelly, how long will it take you to make your modifications to the eight battlecruisers in my immediate squadron?”
“Not long, sir. If you will be so kind as to call up three of your ships, I and my two children can make the mods at the same time. With any luck, the ships will be updated before you return to your flag.”
“Good, I want to see how the next shoot goes.”
“Shall we back off to 250,000 kilometers?” Kris asked.
“By all means.”
25
Once again, Grand Admiral Kris Longknife sat in her high gee station. She’d made a detour through her night quarters to strip out of her uniform with shoulder boards, ribbons, and a belt buckle. She was, once again, clad only in her egg.
She expected some hard sailing in the very near future.
“All ships. We will target your opposite number in the first flotilla, then the last flotilla. We will target the central flotilla last. Prepare to go to 2.8 gees and Evasion Plan 2 on my execute order. Any ship that receives 5 hits may go to 3.3 gees and Evasion Plan 6 on its own. A damaged ship will advise the fleet and then all ships will follow suit.”
“You giving Coth a bit of a pass?” Jack asked Kris.
“But only a bit,” Kris answered.
“All ships are ready and standing by,” Captain Tosan informed Kris.
Kris watched as the timer counted down the seconds to the beginning of the exercise.
“Execute,” she ordered at the five second mark.
“Fire,” began the exercise.
Kris’s fleet aimed for the forward flotilla and began its annihilation.
Sensors shouted, “Every Iteeche ship is engaging the P. Royal.”
Kris’s flagship took off at 3.5 gees and began whipping itself around in space, adjusting course ever two seconds, three at the most.
It took a long second for that to have any change in the number of hits being made on the Princess Royal. Six seconds after the exercise started, all the lasers on both sides fell silent.
“We took six hits, Admiral,” Sensors reported. “Three of the ships around us took one hit.”
“How do you miss your target by five to ten thousand klicks?” Kris muttered to herself.
“Comm, send to BatCruRon 14, you may stay at Evasion Plan 2 or even 1. Let’s see how your shooting goes.” That battlecruiser squadron was the lowest squadron, and the farthest from Kris’s flagship. How the Iteeche reacted to one of their opposite numbers making themselves an easy target would be interesting.
During the few seconds left before the forward battery would be reloaded, the captains eased back on the evasion and deceleration, only to go back to Evasion Plan 6 three seconds before the Iteeche battlecruisers would have a new salvo ready.
As the reload countdown reached zero, the battlecruisers opened fire at each other.
During the five seconds since the Iteeche ranging sensors had taken a fix on their target, the P. Royal had changed direction and deceleration four times. When their lasers opened fire, they were aiming for a ship that had distanced itself from their aim point quite a bit. That had included a sudden drop in deceleration by half which threw Kris forward and almost jammed her teeth into her battle board.
Still, t
he Iteeche were firing wide salvos, hoping to get a bit of a laser burst out there where Kris’s flag might run into it.
When the lasers fell silent, Sensors reported they’d taken three more hits on the P. Royal, two more on the ships around her.
Once again, the ships eased back on the hammering the crew had taken for the last nineteen seconds. Again, the flag’s skipper kept the ship in slow mode until three seconds before the last remaining Iteeche flotilla could reload their bow lasers. Then, he jumped the deceleration up to 3.9 gees and began slamming the ship through hard turns to the right and up. A second before the salvos were likely to start coming, he switched to left and up
The young lieutenant on Sensors waited, intently staring at his board, to report if the Sweet P had taken its tenth hit.
One second. Two seconds. Three seconds.
“They tagged us. Ten hits.
The Iteeche bow guns fell silent, the stern batteries came onto targets and fired.
One second. Two seconds. Three seconds. Four seconds. “Eleven,” Sensors reported.
The flag fell out of formation on the unengaged side and dropped its deceleration to one gee,
Coth’s gleeful visage promptly appeared on Kris’s main screen. “Did we finally get you?” he chortled as only an Iteeche could.
“Your aft battery got the eleventh hit. However, fighting ninety-six to one, I don’t think the Sweet P did so bad.”
“That fact is not lost on us, Grand Admiral. You were zipping about like a walzib on a double dose of Dastil. We had thought a human ship without a masker could not be worth more than three quarters of an Iteeche ship in a fight. I would not like to be the rebel commander who faces your flotilla with such foolish optimism.”
“Do you think just the word of the results of this exercise will bring forth a return of allegiance to the Emperor?”
“I would hope that they would not learn of this until they are under our guns, but we both know how bad this Navy leaks. Still, I doubt that any rebel commander who hears this will believe one word from that spy again, until he, too, sees for himself what I saw.”
Kris Longknife - Admiral Page 16