Kris Longknife: Defender

by Mike Shepherd

  “Granny Rita is not going to be happy. She wanted specific stuff out of all four of them in her own order.”

  “Leave Granny to me. Whether or not we survive the next attack depends on this.”

  “Understood, Longknife. There goes my lunch. Now you’ve fixed it so I won’t have a chance to gossip about all my inside tidbits.”

  “You can tell everyone whose day you have to ruin by changing their priorities all about how you learned it from rubbing elbows with that damn Longknife.”

  “You took the words right out of my mouth. Pipra out.”

  “That young woman is downright insubordinate,” Hawkings said.

  “She’s a civilian. They don’t have to be subordinate. And whether or not we win the next battle depends as much on what those civilians do as what we war fighters do. Get used to it.” Kris paused a moment to let that sink in, then went on.

  “Captain Drago, run though the situation with these warning buoys for the new members of our command staff.”

  “Nelly, could you please call up the system where we just lost our buoy?” the captain said.

  Nelly did. It showed a worthless system with three jumps. Two led into it. One led inward toward Alwa. “The buoy we lost was this one.” One of the outer jumps lit up. “Immediately upon its falling silent, the buoy at the inbound jump slipped out of the system and started the report coming in.”

  “Could it tell how strong the force entering the system was,” Commodore Miyoshi asked, “or how many reactors jumped in?”

  “Our jump buoys have been modified,” Penny put in. “Yes, they identify reactors, so even if they aren’t shot up, we know they’ve been visited.”

  “The bastards, however,” Kris said, “always shoot. Shoot and never talk.”

  “Would it help if you knew how many reactors had jumped in the system?” Nelly asked.

  “Definitely,” Kris said, as the commodores nodded.

  “I can do a software mod and add that capability to the buoys. It might take a few days for the upload to reach the outer buoys.”

  “Is there a downside to the change?”

  “None that I can project, Kris.”

  “Then get started immediately. Nelly, change the screen to show all the systems we’ve put buoys in.” Nelly did. “We lost sensors in these two systems. So now we have two buoys waiting at the next jump. We only need one. Nelly, after you get the updated software to these two outer buoys, order one of them to duck back into the silenced system, do a reactor count for thirty minutes, then come back.”

  “Good,” Jack said. “We’ll know if those systems are now bases or were just hit-and-run raids.”

  “Do you think they’re playing with us?” Commodore Hawkings asked.

  “I would be very surprised if the bastards even allowed their children to play,” Kris said. “No, I think they are feeling around our perimeter. They lost a mother ship and a whole lot of her little monsters. Now they’ve lost a few more. We would recon a target more thoroughly that gave us a bloody nose. Especially if this is the first bloody nose we’d had in a long time. They are feeling us out.”

  “Do they have to come through all six layers of our buoys?” Commodore Miyoshi asked.

  “No,” Nelly said. “There are several of the systems four out that they could jump into directly. That is why I recommended as thick a warning perimeter as we could make.”

  The commodores seemed startled that Kris’s computer would answer them direct. All but Miyoshi, who only smiled at the others’ surprise.

  “Exactly,” Kris agreed. “Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming. Now, I suggest we all get back to work. The bastards are out there. I’m not surprised they are threatening us. They won’t be here today. Let’s get ready for them when they do come.”

  The commodores left with hurried steps.

  Throughout the station, people walked faster, looked more intent. The enemy wasn’t something just seen in media reports. It was blasting human gear out of space scant jumps from them. Things needed doing that might just save lives, your own life. Time was blood.

  The Altair finished unloading and was moved into the yard for reconstruction.

  Granny Rita complained she had containers dirtside that needed to be on the moon. There were plenty of lighters going down, so that meant plenty to get stuff back up. Still, cargo masters were warned to be more careful.

  The team of diggers who had just finished arming three moons around one gas giant took off at two gees for the other one a third of the way across the system. No one complained about the weight.

  Even before the Algol was unloaded, it gave up a reactor to the Endeavor. That scout would still be underpowered compared to the Wasp, but that was the best Kris could do for Penny. Once unloaded, the Algol would take on two huge reactors from the former Kagu Maru and ship them to the factories on the moon. That would free up several ship-size reactors to power potential armed merchant cruisers.

  The engines from the old Hornet could not be recertified for space. They also headed for the moon to release more power plants for ships.

  A suggestion came from one of the loadmasters that the three cargo ships just park their containers in orbit a few klicks from the station. Then they could start splitting the cargo ships into smaller ore carriers and get them headed for the asteroid belt.

  Kris slapped her forehead and agreed to the change. That likely meant more containers routed wrong, but there was nothing critical for the moon in the shipment, and the asteroid ore was desperately needed for the laser-building program. The change was made smoothly.

  The ordered chaos lasted all day as decisions were made and their application identified problems. Those were examined by not only the command staff but the people doing the work and better ideas often came up. Kris was amazed at how fast the decision cycle could whirl through that process, but her people were good.

  They knew their lives were on the line.

  Jack took Kris to dinner. This time it was Kiet’s Thai Food, and the stir-fry was distinctively local. Even the spices had been replaced with things available dirtside. “Some of my customers are telling me I should change the sign to KIET’S ALWAN FOOD, but a couple of Alwans have dropped by,” Kiet himself explained to Kris as he seated them. “Both the Roosters and the Ostriches turned up their noses at my best.”

  “No accounting for taste,” Jack said, and ordered from the menu for Kris. “One of my officers suggested this. I think I can trust her taste.”

  As it turned out, they very much could. The food served them had the echo of ancient Earth behind it, but it clearly was something new. It delighted Kris’s taste buds.

  “This is the first time humanity and another species have come together without trying to kill each other,” Kris muttered when the meal was done. “We’ve got to save these people.”

  “That’s what you’re doing your level best to do,” Jack said.

  The meal was wonderful, romantic, and relaxing, even if they were interrupted twice. Jack took Kris back to their quarters and insisted on taking his time to fill the evening with slow lovemaking. Kris smiled and relaxed into his arms, knowing full well they’d be interrupted before Jack got too far along.

  Surprise! Kris’s expected calls never came. Next morning, Jack admitted to having bribed Nelly to hold all calls. How he bribed a computer he didn’t say, but Kris’s call-back list didn’t turn up anything during breakfast that hadn’t been solved without her.

  “Who says you Longknifes are indispensable?” Jack said with a knowing grin.

  The fleet sortied at exactly 0900. Division 10 with the Wasp and Intrepid dropped back to a trailing orbit while Div 9’s four frigates pulled away to form up forward of the station. That smartly done, the four battle squadrons began to spin off the station smoothly. Each BatRon was to form on the station at ninety-degree interv
als—north, east, south, and west of the station’s long axes. Each rotation, a ship would spin off at each major point of the compass and head out to join its squadron flag. Eight rotations, and the eight ships of each squadron were in line.

  Kris looked upon what she had ordered and found it good. “Deorbiting Burn 3 on my mark,” she sent. It had been years since battle fleets had formed up. And those fleets had been ponderous, ice-encrusted monsters that lumbered along in formation, hardly budging in their course, confident in their powerful lasers and thick ice armor.

  Kris had never gone to war in such a line, and she had no intention of doing so now. She was a product of the fast attack boats: nimble, quick, thin-skinned but heavily armed, and deadly. That was how she intended to fight this new enemy. In a battle formation, but with each ship free to do its own dance with death, dodging and thrusting while laying on heavy laser fire at the longest range possible.

  It had worked for her before. She intended to make it work now.

  Nelly had come up with a series of fleet orders. Kris had reviewed them with Jack the night before and found them probably workable. Nelly had issued the fleet its new order books with graphics to show her dozen jinks patterns.

  Now they would find out if it worked. Today, all ships were at triple intervals. If this didn’t work as well as it should, hopefully they wouldn’t dent any of their Smart MetalTM.

  The deorbiting burn worked as planned. They dropped no lower than Kris wanted, then blasted off for the closest gas giant. Along the way, Kris had the fleet form a line ahead of her.

  “Yes, Jack, I’m keeping my flag at the rear of the line,” she told her security chief.

  “Fine, Admiral. I really don’t see any reason for you to be at the head of it. Do you?”

  Kris didn’t offer an answer, but then ordered the fleet to Condition Charlie and upped acceleration to two gees. Not an engine sputtered. This was going better than she’d expected.

  Then again, they’d spent a day getting ready for this and weren’t making any of the mistakes Kris’s first squadron had in their first drill.

  Kris crossed her fingers and ordered the fleet into a line abreast to the left. Ponderous battle lines had done this in years gone by, with the lead ship making a hard left turn and then having all the ships follow, making their turn at the same point in space. Then, when all the ships were in a column going left, or whatever degree had been ordered, they would all turn ninety degrees again and be in the desired column abreast.

  Kris very much doubted the bastards would give them time for all those twists and turns.

  Her fleet did it differently. The lead ship held its course and acceleration. The other ships altered course a few degrees in the desired direction and added a fraction of a gee to their speed. The entire line swung wide into the line Kris wanted. Once in position, the ships altered course and acceleration back to the fleet’s course, and there they were. All thirty-four of them with their six 20-inch lasers pointed at whatever they were headed toward.

  “About-turn on my mark,” Kris ordered. She paused for acknowledgments from the squadron leaders to come in. They waited until all of their division flags reported that each ship had The Word.

  This takes way too long!

  Kris drew up a revised plan for her fighting instructions, where every ship would send its acknowledgment straight to her board. She’d implement that before they finished today’s exercises, but for now she was doing it the old Navy way.

  “Execute about-turn,” she said, and the fleet did it at two gees. There were some interesting burbles in the drill. Some ships flipped up, others down. One ship swung to the right. Kris smiled. An old-line admiral would probably throw a fit, but she wanted her ships to be unpredictable.

  “Well done, fleet. I liked the uncertainty in your maneuver. We never help the enemy by being predictable.”

  How many of you commodores are biting your nails at that?

  They went through the order book, with Nelly sounding more and more proud of herself. There were no surprises though Kris decided that she’d never have her ships at less than double interval when hard maneuvering was expected. Ships needed their room.

  They were in two lines abreast, one atop the other, doing 3.75 gees and following Nelly’s jinks pattern 6, the toughest, when they approached the asteroid belt. Kris had altered the course to keep them clear of the big ones that had mining operations going full tilt. Still, she restricted her target practice to rocks of less than half a meter in size. There were plenty of targets, and few of them survived long enough to need a second shot.

  Kris had wondered how good her personnel were. A cursory review of their files showed them young, fit, and all volunteers. Their officers were young, too, promoted ahead of their classmates. Often twice. The records had given Kris pause. Now she saw she had no reason to doubt them.

  They drilled like grizzled vets. When they faced a wall of hostile fire, would it be another matter?

  They made orbit around the gas giant, and each ship deployed a pinnace to refuel it. Again, Kris had the ships convert to Condition Able with extra fuel tankage. They loaded almost four times their maximum reaction mass and headed back to Alwa, looking like a maternity ward waiting to happen. Kris held the acceleration down to 1.5 gees and no jinks. Still, they went through different maneuvering drills and swept another section of the asteroid belt free of small targets.

  They were back by 0900 the next day.

  Docking didn’t go as smoothly as the departure. Several ships missed their hook to the station and had to wait for a second revolution to catch the pier. Still, when the Wasp came in last, the fleet landing had taken less than twice as long as it would have if done perfectly.

  Kris called for her commodores and independent division heads to report.

  “Well done. I know the book I gave you just hours before we sortied was different from any you ever would have expected.”

  “I know Longknifes,” Commodore Miyoshi said, “and I expected strange, but you managed to surprise me.”

  “With any luck, we’ll surprise the enemy. Have you reviewed thoroughly the reports of my last two fights?”

  “Yes,” Hawkings said. “They’ve added some kind of stone armor, at least to their bows, but the 20-inch laser seems to have the range on them.”

  “Exactly,” Kris said. “Our maneuvers are designed to take advantage of the longer range. We can expect to fight running away from them, so flipping ship will be a regular and reoccurring maneuver. Did jinking at 3.5 gees cause any crew casualties?”

  Commodore Bethea from Savannah shook her head. “They told us you preferred young crews. I thought it was just because of your youth. Now I see why.”

  “I’ve tried those jinks patterns with fortysomething officers and CPOs with disastrous results,” Kris said, and found herself wondering how Cookie, Mother MacCreedy, and some of the older boffins managed. None had ever complained. Likely it was a secret the old farts were keeping to themselves. Kris wondered if the day would ever come when she’d need to beg admission to their secret society.

  “Kris, the Endeavor is about to seal locks,” Nelly reported.

  “If we have nothing else, I’d like to see that ship off. Maybe it will find some answers about the people who insist we kill them or they will kill us.”

  No one had any further business, so Kris fast-walked the short distance to where the Endeavor was tied up. Kris requested permission to come aboard from an Ostrich who seemed very serious about being the OOD. She quickly passed through familiar territory. The Endeavor was a replica of the earlier Wasp before the recent changes.

  “Admiral on deck,” surprised Kris as much as it did the bridge crew.

  “As you were,” still left a bridge watch of civilians, borrowed Navy, and Alwans of both varieties a bit flustered. Before anyone could speak, Kris said, “I’m just here to sa
y good luck and Godspeed. I want you to come home with information.”

  “We’ll do you proud,” Captain O’dell said.

  “And we’ll come home, with as much to report as we timid souls can find,” Penny added.

  “Fair winds,” Kris said, and excused herself.

  As she walked back, the Endeavor was already backing out. Was that quick visit a waste of her time? Kris shook her head. A fighting team is a lot more than metal and circuitry. It was human heart and blood. Had Grampa Ray forgotten that, or was it just harder to spot under all the scar tissue? Jack was waiting as she returned to the Wasp.

  “You give them a good send-off?”

  “The best a Longknife can do.”

  “Then they are well sent.”

  “So why are you here?”

  “We’ve got a report from one of our probes, and it’s ugly.”

  Kris started to jog for the Wasp, then slowed. Admirals don’t jog. Not in public. Not when people around the A deck of the station are watching and looking worried. Kris walked briskly beside Jack, smiling, and even managed a laugh. Let the watchers wonder about the joke her security chief had told her.

  She arrived in her command center only a few seconds later than a jog would have gotten her there. “What do we have?” she asked Captain Drago.

  “A series of reports, of sorts, from our probes at Datum 2, the one that leads to the Beta Jump. We sent a probe through, and it reported several thousand reactors. More than it could specifically count.”

  “That’s a mother ship and brood,” Kris said.

  “Likely,” Drago agreed. “It pulled back and sent the report as expected. Then we sent the other through with orders to stay an hour and report back. It never did.”

  “So they either don’t like us peeking at them, or they’re coming,” Jack said.

  “Anything from the next system in?” Kris asked.

  “Nothing, but remember we’re dealing with a lot of speed-of-light lag time.”