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Bold Page 28

by Mike Shepherd


  Vicky just shook her head, then thought better of it.

  What will I do when I have a baby at my breast?

  That brought a whole lot of thoughts Vicky wasn’t ready to contemplate. She did ask Kris about the small army of nannies on board.

  The Wardhaven Princess just shrugged. “I’m trying to have it all. If I can borrow reinforcements, I’m good to go with it.”

  The nannies weren’t the only ones who looked after Ruth. It looked like half the young women in the Marine detachment spent some of their spare time playing with Ruth.

  “That infant has this ship wrapped around her little finger,” Admiral Bolesław muttered, but he was smiling softly as he muttered.

  “It’s nice that the ship is Smart Metal.” Vicky grinned back. “It makes it easier to bend the ship around her tiny finger, don’t you think?”

  “I was going to say I was rethinking having women on a warship,” the admiral growled, “but I think one woman on my ship is quite enough . . . for a lifetime.”

  Vicky enjoyed the laugh, and the admiral soon joined in.

  They were deep in unknown space, headed for a near jump that would take them back toward human space, when Nelly told Kris, “We have signal traffic in this system.”

  Kris sat bolt upright in her chair. “What kind of signal traffic?”

  “They are conventional radio and TV traffic. There are no fusion reactors operational in the system.”

  “Thank God for that favor,” Jack muttered.

  “Record all the message traffic, Nelly, and try to triangulate on the source of the signal.”

  “We are doing that, Kris.”

  Kris was up, nervously pacing the length of her flag plot before turning back. “Whatever it is, we keep going. If it’s another sentient race, we’ll have to come back later.”

  “We come back?” Jack asked, leaving a lot hanging unsaid.

  Kris paused in her pacing and turned beet red. “We’ll send someone else back to look it over,” she corrected herself.

  What is that all about? Vicky wondered but said nothing.

  Kris slumped back into her chair, she and Jack still holding aggressive eye contact.

  Maybe Kris Longknife is not the one I want to ask about how to keep a husband happy.

  As soon as they were out of the system, Nelly reported on what they’d found.

  “It is a primitive civilization. They have radio and television but no atomics. I think I made out some small satellites with weak transmitters. None were communications satellites. A few years ago, I would have suggested that they bear watching. However . . .”

  Did Nelly just leave it to us to figure out where the data leads? Maybe her attitude is worth putting up with, not that Kris would ever allow me such a computer.

  “Yeah,” Kris growled. “We can’t leave them hanging out there for the bug-eyed monsters to sniff out. Nelly, log your findings and forward them to the King as soon as we are back in communications with the US net.”

  “Yes, Kris.”

  Kris turned to her husband. “I wonder how Sandy’s making out with the cats.”

  “Better her than us,” Jack answered.

  “The cats?” Vicky asked.

  “Another race we stumbled across,” Kris said, but added nothing more to that bit of vagueness.

  “Greenfeld isn’t the only place we’re trying to protect,” Jack said.

  “I hope we can protect ourselves,” Vicky said. “I expect that once this war is over, we will need to continue building battleships.”

  “Or something,” Kris said, and again left Vicky with more questions than answers.

  Now the division of frigates turned back toward human space. For several days, it decelerated more than it accelerated, slowing until it took the last jump at a mere fifty thousand klicks per hour.

  They jumped into the target system to find it empty.

  “Either we’re early, or we missed them,” Admiral Bolesław said.

  “We’re early,” Kris said, with all the definiteness in her voice that admirals and ship’s captains were wont to muster.

  Admiral Bolesław raised a questioning eyebrow to Vicky, but she just shrugged. “I trust Kris,” she mouthed silently to him.

  Now both of the admiral’s eyebrows went up, but he said nothing.

  Ten minutes later, the debate ended. Eight Deneb class battleships began jumping into the system. Nelly reported them, one after another.

  “Aldebaran, Arcturus, Sirius, Rigel, Leonis, Ursae, Vega, and Alpha Ceti. All present and accounted for, sir,” her computer said, and seemed to finish with a proper English foot stomp.

  Vicky wasn’t the only one trying to squelch a grin.

  “Thank you, Nelly. Is that what they’re squawking, or is that who they are?”

  “Kris,” had hurt in it. “I’ve checked their registration against their reactors and capacitors. They are Denebs right down to the moonshine stills in the goat lockers. And may I point out to the doubting Thomases among you that my readings are off ships that jumped into the system two hours ago. Right when I expected them to.”

  “Yes, Nelly. You are magnificent,” Kris drawled.

  “Kris, I find your attitude unbecoming one of your nobility,” Nelly said with a sniff.

  “Nelly, I don’t have time for this. Save it for later when I do.”

  “Kris, you never have time.”

  “Trust me, I will after this is over.”

  “I don’t think Jack or I believe you.”

  “Nelly, what are the battleships doing?” Kris said, cutting off further complaining by her computer.

  “They are on course to the nearest standard jump in this system. It will be a while before they discover we are here. You don’t really think I would be having this much fun giving you lip if everything wasn’t under control, do you?”

  “I never know with you, Nelly. Not anymore.” But Kris was now grinning. “What do you say we do something to prepare for the coming battle?”

  “Okay, Kris.”

  “All ships, go to Condition Charlie. All hands should be dismissed into high-gee acceleration stations in rotations. We will go to Condition Zed at any time after we close with the hostiles to four hundred thousand klicks. Captain Ajax, set an intercept course for the division.”

  Acknowledgments came back immediately.

  “Okay, folks,” Kris said, cheerfully, “now we make this happen.

  Vicky and Admiral Bolesław just shook their heads. Mannie looked from her to the Wardhaven Princess and back to Vicky, clearly puzzled.

  “Eight battleships,” Vicky whispered to him. “Four frigates. We’re doomed.”

  “Watch and learn,” Kris said. “Watch and learn.”

  51

  The four frigates closed inexorably on the battle line. Vicky watched the screen on Kris’s flag plot as the lines representing the two of them closed, heading for a single point.

  Before any of them arrived at that point, there would be mayhem and death.

  Vicky had already been dismissed back to her room to find two Smart MetalTM high-gee stations: one for her and one for Mannie. Kris had told her that she’d likely want to strip before she got in the station. “They fit you like a second skin.”

  Vicky and Mannie did strip, but only after taking a few moments for themselves did they take their seats in the stations and order them to close up.

  Kris, you are so mean, to lead a poor girl into temptation when she knows she’s going to be blown to dust.

  Still, it was nice to have the scent of Mannie on her as she prepared to face whatever death wish Kris had for them all.

  Strange. None of the crew seemed at all worried about what’s ahead. Does Kris know something she’s not telling?

  “Range is four hundred thousand klicks,
” Nelly announced.

  “All ships, go to Condition Zed,” Kris ordered.

  Vicky had been told her quarters would disappear when the ship shrunk to this. Still, she was surprised as Kris’s flag plot shrunk to half its previous size.

  “If I need to pee, can I use the bathroom in your night quarters?” she asked Kris.

  “My night quarters are boxed up, too, Vicky. If you need to pee, do it in your high-gee station. It was made for that. Late in my pregnancy, when I was peeing all the time, it was kind of nice to go into a battle and have the high-gee station take care of that for me.” Kris actually chuckled at that.

  “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “Nope. Trust me, when you’ve got a little one bouncing on your bladder, you’ll think time in a high-gee station is worth a fight or two.”

  “I will use a uterine replicator,” Vicky spat, and gave Mannie the evil eye.

  “That sounds great by me,” he said, edging his station a bit away from Vicky’s.

  “Kids, we’ve got a battle coming up here,” Nelly said. “Kris, when do you want to tell those battleship folks they ain’t going anywhere?”

  “I was figuring on two hundred thousand klicks.”

  “Okay.”

  “Are we going to start shooting then?” Jack asked.

  “Nope. I don’t want to fire first.”

  “Two hundred thousand klicks?” Admiral Bolesław asked before Vicky got her mouth around that huge number.

  “Yep,” Kris said.

  “Those battleships’ 15-inch lasers can reach out eighty thousand klicks. Your pulse lasers, even if they’re 24-inchers, don’t have that range,” the Greenfeld admiral pointed out.

  “Yep, it would be a real pain if we were only packing pulse lasers, now wouldn’t it?” Kris answered with a question of her own.

  “So?” Vicky said, when Admiral Bolesław proved to be speechless.

  “Do you want me to tell you now, or wouldn’t you rather see how this all ends up?”

  Vicky blinked several times as she took that in and parsed the sentence. “Can you tell me if we’ll be alive when this is over?”

  “Most definitely. You will live to enjoy tonight,” Kris said with one of those smiles a newlywed bride tends to give the gal who caught her bouquet.

  Vicky settled back in her station and prepared to see the rabbit this Longknife was clearly intent on pulling out of a hat. She hoped the poor thing didn’t mind being held by its ears. Whatever Longknifes did, they did with a flourish.

  The battleships stayed silent, intent on their course and ignoring the small combatants approaching them. At two hundred thousand klicks, Kris stood up from her high-gee station.

  “Hold it, you’re in uniform,” Vicky snarled.

  “Yep, I figured I’d better be. Who surrenders to a gal in the nude?”

  “I’m supposed to take their surrender!” Vicky snapped.

  “We can focus the camera on just your face and keep the station out of the picture.”

  “I’m getting in uniform,” Vicky grumbled, and got her station in motion.

  “Your quarters are all folded up,” Mannie pointed out.

  “Unfold them,” Vicky growled.

  “I can do that,” Nelly said helpfully.

  “Do it,” Kris said. “Oh, Vicky, you don’t want to wear ribbons or anything with sharp corners. I did once when we went to high-gee maneuvering, and one of my boobs was black-and-blue for a week.”

  Mannie followed Vicky out the door. They found themselves in a very small space that had Vicky’s uniforms and a chair. Quickly both were out of their eggs and a delightfully naked Mannie was helping Vicky into a shipsuit of Navy blue with the proper loops to feed her vice admiral’s shoulder boards through.

  With a glance at a mirror that suddenly materialized, Vicky decided she was properly dressed to attend a funeral or accept the surrender of part of the Empress’s fleet. Done, she gave Mannie a quick kiss, settled back into her egg, and motored quickly back to flag plot.

  “You ready?” Kris asked.

  “Yes,” Vicky answered curtly. She had a bone to pick with Kris. A whole pile of bones, really. She’d just have to wait until things slowed down.

  Yeah, right.

  Again, Kris stood up. “Open a hailing frequency,” she ordered.

  A bored lieutenant filled the screen. “Yeah.”

  “We are Admiral, Her Royal Highness, Princess Kristine of the United Society commanding Frigate Squadron 22. We will speak to your captain.”

  “Admiral Dirk’s busy. You can leave a message,” was surly to the core.

  Kris gave the lieutenant the look. The look that Admiral Krätz had and that Vicky had done her best to learn. The junior officer should have been crawling under his workstation to get away from it.

  But, then, he wasn’t meeting Kris’s eyes.

  “Sorry, lady. Don’t bother us,” he said, and cut the comm.

  Kris sat back down into her egg.

  “That didn’t go very well,” Jack said.

  “It went exactly the way I expected it to,” Kris said. “Nelly, tell me when we hit the hundred-thousand-klick mark.”

  It wasn’t long before Nelly announced they were there.

  Again, Kris stood and ordered hailing frequency open.

  The screen remained blank.

  “We know you are listening,” Kris said in a voice that was measured and cold as death. “Know this, if you do not vent your reactors to space, discharge your capacitors, and prepare to be boarded, you will all die.”

  “That’s a laugh,” came from a screen that suddenly showed a pudgy man in an Imperial Navy’s vice admiral’s uniform. “You’re threatening me? I got your piss pots outnumbered two to one. Let me tell you this. You turn around and run away home, little girl, and I’ll let you live, okay?”

  “You have been warned,” Kris said, but she was talking to a blank screen.

  “Do you think it would help if I talked to them?” Vicky offered.

  Kris shook her head. “I doubt it. Well, at least my message got through to all the ships. We’ll see how things work out after I blow the flagship to hell.”

  Vicky found that both of her eyebrows were up so far they were about to the back of her head, but Kris only gave her that fey smile and turned to her screens to watch the developments in the two fleets.

  “They’ve armed their lasers,” the Wardhaven Princess muttered to herself. “I guess it’s time to load ours. Nelly, advise Captain Ajax to charge the Princess Royal’s capacitors.”

  “What about the other ships?” Nelly asked.

  “No. Tell them to stand by but not load until I give the word. Our other three ships are not weapons free until I order them free.”

  “Yes, Admiral,” said the computer.

  Admiral Bolesław glanced at Vicky. Consternation flooded his face. Eight battleships against four frigates was suicide. Eight of them against one frigate!

  It boggled the mind.

  Vicky just shrugged. It’s way too late to get out of this now.

  “We’re coming up on eighty thousand klicks to the flagship,” Nelly announced.

  “Is the armor solid and tight in place, Nelly?”

  “Now you ask, Kris? Of course it is, or I would have mentioned it sooner.”

  Had the great Kris Longknife actually shown a bit of nervousness?

  “We’re coming up on eighty thousand klicks between us and the last ship in the battle line. Kris,” Nelly said. “Should we be jinking or something?”

  “Nope, we let them plant one on our chin,” Kris almost whispered.

  “The hostile battle line is firing on us, Kris. All ninety-six 15-inch guns at little old us,” Nelly reported.

  “Is our hull overheating?”

 
“No, Admiral,” Nelly said. “We’re radiating the laser energy back into space. No burn-through. Quite a few missed. I don’t think they’ve got their lasers bore sighted all that well.”

  “Thank you, Nelly. Captain Ajax, you may fire on the flagship. All the forward battery if you please.”

  Around Vicky, the Princess Royal swung quickly but smoothly to bring herself bow on to the battle line. The light didn’t even dim, but Vicky spotted a representation of a ship on Kris’s board. One of four. Only this ship showed twelve beams leaving it.

  “You’ve got twelve pulse lasers?” Vicky asked in a whisper.

  “No, I’ve just hit the Aldebaran with twelve 22-inch lasers at well inside their normal range. I’m afraid that battleship is toast.”

  On another screen, said battleship was indeed toast. Its ice armor boiled off it, making the lasers piercing through it visible. The huge battleship looked like a butterfly mounted by a pin-happy six-year-old.

  And then the battleship was no more. Where it had been was a boiling, roiling ball of fire and gas; and then there was nothing. Only a few bits and pieces were visible in the light of the lasers exciting the steam that had once been ice armor.

  Then the lasers cut out.

  “Holy Mother of God,” Admiral Bolesław said. “What just happened?”

  “The battle line fired on the Princes Royal,” Kris said. “Our new crystal armor took their light in, diffused it around the hull, and radiated it back into space before it could do any damage. Then my battlecruiser returned fire on the Aldebaran with its forward battery of twelve 22-inch lasers. You saw how well its old-fashioned armor stood up to those new lasers.”

  “Longknifes have all of that?” Vicky asked, her voice a strained whisper.

  “The US does, and quite a few other alliances who have joined us in defending the Alwa system against the aliens. Two years ago, I would have considered an 18-inch laser the top of the line. We expect to have 24-inch lasers in the near future.”

  “Our battleships are like dust to your frigates,” Admiral Bolesław whispered.

  “Battlecruisers,” Kris corrected. “Your Grace, please see what you can do to get those other poor doomed souls to surrender before I have to slaughter more of them.”

 

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