Captain Bolesław pointed at the chief, and he twisted some dials. Suddenly, the bridge was filled with more clapping and shouting.
Vicky’s eyebrows raised with a question.
“Ours isn’t the only live mic. That’s coming from the bridges and mess decks of all the ships in your fleet. I definitely think you have them.”
Vicky blew out a breath she didn’t know she was holding. She just managed to stumble her way to her station chair next to the captain’s.
She’d talked several ships into coming over to her side. With any luck, the Butcher of Dresden would not surprise her in the worst moment of the coming battle by talking any of her own ships over to his side.
Vicky crossed her fingers and sent up a silent prayer to whoever it was that granted people like her luck. She was going to need a whole lot more than her misspent youth had earned. But from the sound of things just now, she might be getting it anyway.
CHAPTER 47
BY that afternoon, Vicky was invited to rechristen the Silver Flyer and the Diamond Flyer, freighters of the High Flyer Lines. When they sailed next, they would be the Imperial rocket boats Gnat and Spider. There was no busting of a bottle of champagne on the now-missing nose of the former cargo hauler though Vicky did spill a half glass of the liquid on the deck plates of what now passed for a quarterdeck.
She got a tour of the Gnat.
“Our fire control system is pretty basic,” the skipper of the Gnat told her as he guided her through his truncated ship. He had been the skipper of the Silver Flyer. “We plan to get a firing solution tight beamed over from the nearest battleship and slave our rockets to their attack. We have jacked up the minimal optical and radar sensing gear we had as a freighter with some stuff we knocked together from ships on the Middle Sea. We’re binding it all together with computers pulled out of gaming consoles if you can believe that. However, if worse comes to worst, and we lose our link with the battleship we’re working with, we can still launch some sort of attack on our own.”
Commander Boch shook his head in dismay, but he said nothing against it until he and Vicky were alone. “These guys have a whole new brand of courage, to go into battle on something as clapped together as those things.”
“It may save the Navy’s bacon,” Vicky said.
“Yeah,” he agreed. “We’ve come to the point where the Navy has cobbled together rockets and patched them into a weapons system with fishing gear and kids’ gaming stuff. My dad was an admiral, like his dad before him, and they’d both be laughing their fool heads off if they knew their kid was going into battle holding his breath for support like this.”
“A win is a win, no matter how you get it,” Vicky pointed out.
The commander just shook his head.
A tour of the engine room got her a briefing on how they expected to get extra speed out of the old cargo hauler. “We’re taking on the best reaction mass the station can give us. They’re hauling up water from St. Petersburg to give us as much oxygen in our reaction mass as possible. There’s even some nitrogen in the mix. I figure we can boost the old girl with a bit of the heavy stuff if we got to punch it to keep up with those battlewagons. They’re also out there welding an extra half meter to lengthen our six rocket engines. With any luck, keeping the plasma in the bell for a few extra nanoseconds will give us that extra push.”
The chief engineer seemed happy with his prospects.
The commander turned to the captain who’d let the plasma jockey handle this show. “Can your Gnat take three gees?”
Vicky found herself holding her breath, something she seemed to be doing a lot of lately. The answer to this question might make or break her “crazy, insane” idea.
“Don’t you worry, sonny, you don’t need to teach this old granny how to suck eggs,” said the former merchant skipper, now wearing an Imperial Greenfeld Navy green shipsuit. “The first thing I asked for was some testing equipment to go over my hull strength members. We’ll make sure we don’t have any bum welds and see exactly how thick they are, what they can bear. I got engineers going over the results of those tests even as we speak. They’ll have all the bad welding spots fixed before we move over to the fitting out pier in a couple of hours.
“If that ain’t enough to keep you and me happy, they’re bringing in reinforcing strakes to buck up the old girl. She’ll be pulling gees like her old owner never intended me to, and she’ll be dancing just fine with your big war wagons. Don’t you worry none.”
To Vicky’s surprise, the commander did look much less worried.
“No worry, Navy, we’ve thought of the stuff you have and a couple more besides. We’ll do our job. We won’t let the Grand Duchess down. You just make sure the Navy gets its shit together.”
The commander allowed himself a chuckle at that. The skipper and the chief engineer of this bucket of kludged-together bolts joined in.
The rest of the tour went quite well.
Vicky was invited to Admiral von Mittleburg’s wardroom for lunch. She found him surrounded by a dozen captains, Captain Bolesław among them. He was in the middle of how they had talked Engle Rachinsky into switching sides by a combination of good shooting and Vicky’s words.
At Vicky’s entrance, the conversation died as all eyes turned to her. The old her would have licked up the attention. Now, she would have preferred to find her seat quietly and listen to Alîs tell the tale and observe the captains’ reaction to it.
“I assure you,” she said, as she took her seat next to the admiral’s vacant chair at the head of the table, “Engle’s changing sides had a lot more to do with Captain Bolesław’s cagey shooting than anything I said.”
“A Peterwald giving credit where it’s due,” one captain said. “Now I can die. I’ve seen everything.”
“Be nice to our gracious Grand Duchess,” Captain Bolesław said. “I’ve sailed with her, and you can bet your last gold mark that we’d all be in a pickle if we didn’t have her. She’s one unique woman.”
Vicky found herself blushing at the look he gave her.
She never would have believed it was possible for anything to make her blush.
Before she could stammer anything in reply, someone shouted “Atten hut,” and chairs scraped as the officers got to their feet.
“As you were,” from Admiral von Mittleburg stopped the movement before anyone could rise. The admiral quickly strode to his chair, spread a linen napkin in his lap, and told the chief steward’s mate at the door to begin serving.
“Unfortunately, it’s goulash again, but there is plenty of it.”
“Can’t we get anything better out of that planet?” one captain said. “God knows, we’re all that stands between it and their being lased to dust.”
“That planet is all that stands between starvation and cannibalism for several planets in this neighborhood,” Admiral von Mittleburg said. “That includes the one that is shipping us crystal. Have you all read my report on how this economic crash was created?”
The officers nodded.
“Then you know that we’re all riding a thin margin. I’ll settle for goulash if that planet below us also ships me up the weapons and gear we need to patch up our fleet. Captain”—now he studied with hawk eyes the officer who wanted better fare—“how long has it been since your Relentless had a serious yard period?”
“Not counting the one we just had here, four years, sir.”
“Right. Every one of our ships has gotten some serious yard time, thanks to the equipment that planet turned out, using the fabs that the Navy helped them ship in from places like Metzburg and Brunswick. We wash their hands, they wash ours.”
Steward’s mates began placing bowls of goulash before the officers. “Enjoy it, gentlemen, there are a whole lot of people only a few jumps away that would gladly have a few spoonfuls of what we have today.”
There were no more remarks on the table the admiral set as the officers turned to and made the food disappear. Only when the last of the g
oulash had been chased by the last of the delicious brown bread did the admiral pat his lips with his napkin and lay it on the table.
“Grand Duchess, gentlemen, I didn’t call you here to discuss my table. We have a problem. No doubt, any of you could list me a dozen problems we have, but I am concerned now with only one of them.”
The captains listened silently.
“The Grand Duchess here has come up with an idea that may give us an edge in the coming battle. Your Grace, I am told you were given a tour of the newly commissioned Gnat.”
“Yes, I was. The captain demonstrated several ways they had improved upon my simple idea, far beyond the basics I thought of. Commander, your thoughts?”
The commander quickly briefed them on the backup fire control, the tweaks being made to the engines to get them extra acceleration, and the reinforcement of the hull. “I think the former merchant captain has a good team of engineers and technicians doing everything possible to make that ship a decent war fighter.”
“Good,” the admiral said. “Now, how do we fight such a sawed-off runt of a ship? It brings rockets to the battle that may serve as a distraction. They may even make a few hits. Who can guess how the ships of the Empress will do against a swarm attack? But, having a ship is not the same as fighting a ship. What doctrine do we use? What fleet evolutions will allow those ships to support the battle line? Gentlemen, the Grand Duchess needs ideas. I expect us to give her those ideas before suppertime. You will earn your goulash tonight.”
The last was delivered with a smile and met with groans from the captains, but, as one, they turned to with a will, forming themselves into four groups.
Vicky watched as the severe, white bulkheads of the wardroom turned into screens. Each group gathered around one of the screens and began to operate it as if it were a battle board. Ships formed into lines and swept across virtual space, doing battle with each other.
First they tried one way, then another. Admiral von Mittleburg offered Vicky his arm and guided her from one group to the next. They said nothing, only observed. The officers said nothing to them but went about their business.
Vicky watched silently as some of the more oddball ideas were tried and found wanting. Gradually, as the battles repeated themselves, the formations the four different groups used became more and more alike.
Admiral von Mittleburg nodded. Soft, “good, good,” became his comment to all four groups.
An hour before the supper goulash was due, the four groups had three different formations. Now two took the role of the Butcher and formed the ships they knew he had into a standard attack formation as taught at the Imperial War College outside Anholt in the shadow of the palace.
The other two formed up the ships they had in orbit above St. Petersburg and swept them out to swing around the moon and take the Butcher under attack as quickly as they could.
They did well—sometimes.
Other times, things went sideways in a hurry.
“We need to do better,” Admiral von Mittleburg said firmly. “What was it that made things go so well?”
“Luck?” a doubting Thomas suggested.
“The way we held the rocket boats in close to the battleships,” Captain Bolesław offered tentatively.
“I think so,” the admiral said.
“But what if they break down, or suffer a casualty and ram my battleship?” one captain said.
“They are doing all they can to become a reliable part of our battle array,” Vicky said. “It seems untrusting of us to assume they will not hold up their part of the battle plan.”
“No battle plan survives contact with the enemy,” one captain offered Vicky.
“No doubt this one won’t survive any better than the rest,” Admiral von Mittleburg said, then turned his agreement around. “Still, there is no reason not to make the battle plan as good as we can make it. Let’s assume our truncated little boys can bear up under the burden of what we need if we are to win.”
Vicky watched as the whole collection of captains took a deep breath.
“We are betting the entire effort to save the Empire on this battle,” she said, careful to avoid the word “rebellion.” “Let us assume that every ship and every man will strive to do his utmost for his future and that of the Empire.”
On that, they returned to their chairs at the table and partook of yet another bowl of goulash. This one, at least, had lamb for its base. Vicky was not the only one getting tired of beef.
CHAPTER 48
FOR the next week, the High St. Petersburg shipyard maintained a frantic pace. Retribution and Slinger were no sooner clear of space docks than the newly arrived Ravager and Trouncer slipped into their vacated spots. Both were new 18-inch battleships and should have been in good shape. Remarkably, both had had no yardwork done in the last four years.
“I still have a page’s worth of discrepancies I made up on builders trials that no one’s looked at,” one skipper told Admiral von Mittleburg. The fabs down on St. Petersburg had gotten a long list of gear that needed repair or replacement. They’d been working on it for a week. Much of what was needed was already waiting at the space docks.
But time was what they needed most.
How much time would the Butcher of Dresden give them?
Vicky wasn’t the only one who wanted to know.
“I’ve had the artificers knock this together,” Lieutenant Blue told Vicky and Captain Bolesław. In the palm of his hand was something the size of a grasshopper—but no grasshopper ever looked like this. It was black as space, such a deep blue-black that Vicky could almost see rainbows in its multifaceted sides. There were no ninety-degree corners—every one of them was angled in or out at odd degrees. Vicky bent down to look at the end that faced away from the lieutenant.
“Are those rocket engines inside it?” she asked, seriously puzzled by the what’s-it.
“Yes, the shrouding around the engines should give it a very small radar cross section even from aft on,” the lieutenant said. “The bulges along its sides are antennas. If everything goes according to plan, they’ll take a snapshot of all electromagnetic activity in the system beyond the jump.”
“We’ve shot up everything they’ve sent through the jump,” Vicky pointed out.
“The Butcher seems to have given up on scouting our defenses,” Captain Bolesław added.
“Yes, I know,” Lieutenant Blue said. “That’s why we designed this little bug. We send it through the jump backward, let it coast for two seconds, then the rockets cut in, and we’re back through the jump in a second, no more. We’re back with three seconds of data on their radio traffic and reactors. Three seconds is all they get to spot this little bit of nothing. It gives almost no radar reflection. It’s passive, so it has the tiniest possible electronic signature. There’s nothing iron in it, so it has nothing for a magnetic anomaly detector to latch onto. The best part is that it only weighs fifteen grams. No gravity detectors will spot it.”
“Will it get enough data?” Vicky asked.
“We’ll definitely get readouts on the ships around the jumps. The data about the more distant ships, like the Empress’s battleships, will be attenuated, what with only three seconds to gather it. Still, we should get something.”
“And if they don’t shoot it up, we can always send it back for a longer visit,” Captain Bolesław said.
“Precisely.”
“Can one of the cruisers on duty at the jump point print one of these out?”
“Yes. We only built this one as a proof of concept,” the lieutenant said.
“Then let’s go see the admiral,” Vicky decided.
Thirty minutes later, with the admiral’s chop on the order, a message went out to the cruisers on guard station with a file attached.
Six hours later, the Mischievous Pixie accelerated itself slowly toward the jump, flipped, and coasted through it. Three seconds later, it was back. It downloaded its data to the Halum. Four hours later, Vicky was rousted out of bed
to see what there was to see.
“They’ve got no guard ships at the jump?” Vicky demanded, out of breath from an 0200 hour trot from Retribution to admiral’s country on the station.
“Not so much as a merchant ship with a peashooter,” Lieutenant Blue assured Vicky, Admiral von Mittleburg, and Captain Bolesław.
“What can you tell me about the Butcher’s fleet?” the admiral demanded.
“Not a lot from this three-second scan. If the first peek was a success, the Halum had orders to send the Pixie back for a ten-minute look, then, after reporting back, it will stay an hour.”
“They have nothing at the jump that can burn our tiny spy down to atoms?” the captain asked again as he turned and paced a few steps away, then back.
“There is no question from this scan that there are no ships within a million klicks of the jump,” the lieutenant assured them.
“There were few who came back from Kris Longknife’s Voyage of Discovery who would know about Admiral Krätz’s idea of mooring ships together,” Vicky pointed out.
“We haven’t used it until now,” Captain Bolesław said, nodding.
The admiral briskly rubbed his chin. Vicky had never before seen him in need of a shave. Some of the bristles were gray. “So another report with better information is likely already on its way here.”
“Very likely,” Lieutenant Blue assured him.
“Then I suggest we order up some tea,” Admiral von Mittleburg said, settling into a comfortable armchair in his day quarters. Vicky took the chair across from the admiral. Captain Bolesław and Lieutenant Blue took the other two. The coffee table between them went from a dark teak to an even darker representation of the system on the other side of the jump.
A chief steward’s mate brought in water for the admiral’s samovar. When he was satisfied that the temperature was just right, he filled four small, individual teapots. Before he could finish his “tea ceremony,” Lieutenant Blue muttered something that might have been “Hot damn!”
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