What Kris had just proposed to Min, the members of her staff, and General Corhaine, who’d come over from Penthesileia, was simple enough in principle: storm Bolimov and capture her. It might also be more than a little ridiculous. To begin with, they lacked small craft and shipbreakers and sappers . . .
She put her hands on the table, palm up. “Well?”
Min put one fingertip to her chin. “So . . . we lock up Penthesileia on one side and Polidor on the other. Launch our marines outta the missile tubes—damn clever idea that, by the way—and if we don’t all end up six inches tall . . .” She directed a sidelong glance down the table at Drake Jeffers, who’d said he was pretty sure he could derate the power so they could use impeller plates to boost people out of Polidor’s one-meter tubes without squashing everyone. “And then we bust through the lower-deck gunports and overrun the joint. Is that about it?”
Strictly speaking, it wasn’t. That was just how Kris proposed to get Min and her marines aboard. Then they have to take the boat deck and hopefully one of more of the main forward hatches to allow Corhaine’s marines in. And there were other minor details, like: could they really bust the gunports? Ports for 18-inch railguns were huge and only things she could think of that might be soft enough to tackle without shipbreakers. And being huge didn’t mean they offered enough room to get people through without being slaughtered. And whatever else she hadn’t considered yet. But as she’d said, Min was the expert. Kris had no qualms about dropping those other considerations in her lap.
Eyeing the major, she lifted her good shoulder in a half-shrug. “Close enough.”
“If we can get our people through the ports fast enough, it might do.
“Ma’am,” Lieutenant Mason spoke up. “With the keels locked, they’ll bleed a hell of a lot of radiation out there.”
Kris hadn’t thought of that. She swore to herself. Considerations . . . “Enough to be a problem?”
“Not for combat suits, ma’am. But the crew’s suits won’t take it long.”
“Give me a safe time, Lieutenant.”
Mason looked a little pale at the implied responsibility. “Maybe ninety to a hundred seconds.”
That didn’t sound good. They needed to get their gun crews across to operate Bolimov’s railguns. That was whole point of the scheme. Kris had figured half the crews from Polidor and Penthesileia would be enough to man one deck. That was a lot of people to move in ninety seconds.
“Major Lewis?”
“Not a problem as long as we clear the gundeck with the first assault. Then we can bring the crew across fast.” Min’s voice was uncharacteristically careful. “Or if we get to the main hatches, we can use lampreys. That’ll take more time, though.”
Down the table, Robyn Gomez straightened in her seat. “Ah . . . ma’am?” Both Kris and Min turned towards the young captain as the whole table gave her their attention. “If we break the gunports, that’ll flood the deck with radiation. Dom crew suits aren’t any better than ours—I don’t think they’re as good, actually—so won’t they have to clear the deck in a big hurry?”
For a moment, there was blank silence. Then Min laughed. “Captain, you just earned yourself a big-ass bonus! Send me a memo when we’re all done here.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Gomez said, dropping her eyes.
“We’ll have to use marine crews, if we want to man those guns,” Min added. “That’s a bridge to cross when we come to it.”
If they don’t blow the bridge first, Kris reflected. Before Min’s expertise and Captain Gomez’s excellent observation could come into play, they’d have to get there, and that was a problem they still hadn’t solved. Kris’s initial whack at it had been shaky and it was looking shakier.
As General Corhaine had said, it appeared Caneris was onto their game. If you imagined that game as a roulette table with only five squares, it was obvious how Caneris had placed his bets. He’d assessed—correctly—that, short of ramming, the only weapons Kris and company possessed which could pose a threat to his dreadnought or his battleship were torpedoes, and he’d distributed his surviving destroyers accordingly. Over half of them were attached to Bolimov and Condorcet, though not equally: Condorcet got six; the dreadnought only three. This was telling: six destroyers would provide an effective screen for a single ship— Condorcet was his fastest remaining ship and he wanted to keep her unscathed. Bolimov could absorb tremendous punishment, so merely blunting an attack was acceptable.
His cruisers, he’d formed into three widely dispersed groups, so tight there could be no repetition of their successful attack on Orion. In truth, that attack only succeeded because of Yanazuka’s ambush and her squadron was no longer in the picture. But Caneris did not know that and he was taking no chances. While Trumpet V could concentrate and overwhelm any one of the cruiser formations, and given time, probably any two, their combined firepower would make that costly and their distribution saw to it Trumpet V wouldn’t have the time, unless they got very lucky. Caneris had turned this into a race, and placed his bets to ensure he won it.
He’d thrown this into high relief by putting his cruisers out front and Condorcet at the back of his quincunx. To attack the battleship, they’d have to let two of the cruiser groups go, perhaps all three. If they attacked the cruisers, even dividing their force to engage two at once, the battleship could shoot the gap, followed by Bolimov (in the center, as expected), and gain Deep Six.
Finally, Caneris had hedged his bets. His dispositions told Kris he took the possibility of suicidal attacks seriously. The way to beat a suicidal attack was to engage it in depth, with salvos at long range. That—as much as the torpedo threat—was why he’d dedicated six destroyers to Condorcet. The cruisers could employ the same tactics, and suicidal attacks against them would be wasteful.
The only formation that appeared vulnerable was Bolimov’s, almost as if he was dangling the big dreadnought as bait. Not easy bait: Bolimov could defeat any single ramming attack by interposing her keel and nothing smaller than a cruiser could do her much harm, so to have any chance of success, they’d have to attack with no less than three ships and those, their heaviest. That would severely degrade their ability to stop any significant portion of the rest of his fleet.
Recalling the general’s admonition about this being a context of wills being her and Caneris—that her job was to figure out how to “scare the shit of him”—Kris had an eerie feeling the Halith admiral saw it exactly the same way and was, by putting himself and his flagship on the line, daring her to do exactly that.
Therefore, she would. But not in the way he expected. The one thing Caneris had not considered (or so she believed) was capturing Bolimov. If they could take over the dreadnought and bring her firepower to bear on the Dom fleet, the calculus changed completely. Even if all the other units made it to Deep Six, they couldn’t hold it against Bolimov and Huron’s force, when he arrived. Bolimov could make short work of the harbors, as well. All they had to do was keep her in one piece.
Now she waited for everyone else to tell her why this wouldn’t fly.
“How about it?” she asked the room in general. “If this is the dumbass stunt it could be, I wanna know.” Dalton looked especially dubious. “Jeremy?”
Dalton wrinkled his mouth. “This intercept course. Even with the ice and the ECM and doing a weave, it seems like we’re allowing a long time for their 18-inchers come aboard.”
Kris had proposed using Penthesileia and Polidor for the assault, covered only by Osiris. Fast and wonderfully agile, Osiris was the ideal ice-layer, and while she only had ammunition for a short engagement, the Ionian had graciously rebuilt her with a lovely ECM suite (Kris figured they’d want it back if she survived) which, in this instance, was even more valuable. Combined, the three cruisers were more than a match for the trio of tin cans accompanying Bolimov. The dreadnought was the threat, most especially her guns, but she’d be firing into at ice cloud at maneuvering targets, as long as her guns would bear.
Dalton took the point grudgingly. “Why not break off and toast us with their chase mounts while we close?”
Wishing she had a better answer to that, Kris nodded to General Corhaine. “What do you say, General?”
“I think the Captain may be right. With a sound ship, I’d risk it, but in her current condition, it’s tempting fate. My larger concern, however, is Condorcet. As it is, the timing is too tight. I think we could be asking more of our people than anyone can give.”
That was a killing blow and Kris slumped inside. Keeping the battleship occupied was imperative because Seventh Angel had reported that all of Caneris’ marines were embarked on Condorcet and Bolimov, meaning the DOM cruisers were outta the game once the boarding was in progress. Between the two companies of marines they had and the three they believed were on Bolimov, it could be reckoned a far fight. With the battleship’s marines added to the mix, it wasn’t. She’d based her whole concept on freeing all the rest of Trumpet V to concentrate on Condorcet and hold her back. And if that wasn’t enough . . .
“How much time do think ya think we need?”—working hard to cover the limpness she felt.
“We can count on holding Condorcet longer, but if we cut our approach to Bolimov to just under ten minutes, I’d sign up for that.”
“Nat,” Kris asked Nathanial Cardenas, sitting to her right, “is there a way we can close Bolimov in under ten minutes given the current drive conditions?”
The answer was obvious, but the conning officer, junior for that post and afraid he’d overlooked something, temporized. “Well, ma’am, I can’t be absolutely—”
Kris cut him off with a frown. “Just serve it up cold, Lieutenant.”
Cardenas blinked. “Yes, ma’am. In that case, ’fraid there’s not a chance in hell . . . ah, ma’am.”
“Put the latest plot on the table, please.”
Taking out his xel, Cardenas obliged. Silence, as though no one breathed while they studied it. Then, chewing her lip, Kris reached out and tapped a point on the plot.
“Drake, what’s the chances we can get one short hop outta this barky?”
“If we all link arms and hold onto the frame members real tight, it might do,” the engineer answered in his lank, easy drawl.
“Can you put a number on that?” asked Kris with a slight dilations of her nostrils. Jeffers would be facetious at his own funeral—something she might not mind seeing if he kept it up.
“No, ma’am”—with an uncouth grin. “But if you wanna try it, I’ll see what I can do.”
If they could jump to the point Kris had put her finger on, their added exit vee would allow them to intercept Bolimov in eight or nine minutes, depending on what the dreadnought did. It also made their ramming threat all that much more serious.
“Alright, then. Go see what you can do.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
As Jeffers levered himself out of his chair in his slow awkward manner—the engineer seemed be possess an extra set of elbows and knees—Kris scanned the table. “That’s it, people. Let’s pretend we get a green light on this and plan accordingly. Pick the gun crews to go across and brief ’em on what to expect.” A swarm of unanswerable minutiae crowded in: how many rounds would each mount have stacked? The standard six, or less? Could they get the shot trains back in operation if they had to? How long would local power last? With an effort, she fought through them. “Once we hear from Engineering, I’ll address the crew. Maybe think about what you’re gonna hold on to.” As a joke, it didn’t fully succeed, but the grins as her people left were real enough. “General? Major? You mind staying for a sec?”
“So,” Kris said when the wardroom had cleared and the two women were sitting next to her. “There are a few details I wanna go over. Can Captain Anders handle getting your people spun up, Major?”
“As we speak,” Min answered, in a gentle tone that told Kris she’d asked a stupid question. And Kris felt sure she was about to ask another.
“Details?” Min prompted when Kris hesitated a moment longer.
“Yeah.” Kris exhaled. “Okay. Just how the fuck do you take over a dreadnought? ”
A deep, rich chuckle answered, but Min did not supply the flip answer Kris half expected.
“We have to take engineering first. If we don’t secure engineering before they get their defense organized, we’ve wasted a trip. Once we control their power, propulsion and life-support, we can take more time with CIC and all the rest.”
“Got it,” Kris said. “Which target is the toughest?”
Min exchanged glances with Corhaine, her head cocked to one side. “Probably CIC. The way they feel about their brass hats, they’ll likely focus their defense there. So we try to pin the bulk of their marines outside CIC, secure the main ladder wells, and go after engineering five-by-five.”
Corhaine looked mildly skeptical. “You don’t think it’s likely they’ll just activate CIC’s citadel and try to hold engineering while Condorcet comes up in relief?”
Min stroked the side of her jaw. “They might, but the moment they engage Citadel, their fleet commander is trapped. If they lose to ship, he’s dead or a POW. Can’t imagine they’d allow that. So as long as he’s onboard, I think they have to defend CIC. But if he transfers his flag, you’re exactly right: they’ll put everything into holding engineering and wait for their BB to bail them out. So we have to get a hold of it ASAP. Then their brass can stew in CIC while we figure out what to do about them.”
Corhaine nodded. “Good points, certainly.”
“Any objections?” asked Kris.
“No. I’ll defer to the Major’s judgment.”
“Okay,” Kris agreed. Since they’d need marines to hold and lower gundeck and man those guns, it seemed to only make sense to use the general’s people for that. But she didn’t wanna set on any proud marine toes either. “What about your people, General? How do we use ’em?”
That didn’t come out as diplomatically as Kris wanted, but Corhaine seemed not at all bothered by the question and answered with no hint of ruffled pride. “Frankly, your people have greater experience with this sort of thing than mine. We can hold that gundeck and work those guns, but I think your people are better employed taking over the ship. Mine can provide any desired support, of course.”
Relieved, Kris asked, “Then can we make Colonel Easterling the Major’s deputy?” The colonel commanded Penthesileia’s marines. “I know that’s kinda bass-ackwards. Do you think she’d mind?”
“Shannon will have no objection, Commodore.”
“I appreciate it,” Kris said, and did. “Major, can you direct ops from gundeck? We can’t afford you getting shot. Anders and Gomez can go out to pacify the rest of the ship.”
“What? And miss all the fun?”
“Let’s give the kids a chance, Major,” Kris said, secure in the knowledge that she was about half Min’s age. Anders was hardly a kid though, and then there was her next question. “Who do we put in charge of engineering? Vasquez?” The corporal seem the obvious choice.
“That’s my pick. But she’ll have to be promoted.”
“Fine. She’s promoted. To whatever it takes.”
Min smiled. “She won’t like it.”
“She can file a complaint with me later.”
Min sketched a mock salute. “I’ll tell her. She should have someone with her who knows his way around Halith drive plants and power systems. Two, in case one gets knocked on the head.”
Excellent point. Why hadn’t she thought of it? “Take Jeffers and anybody he nominates.”
Min
arched an eyebrow. “Sure he’ll want to go?”
“Are you kidding? Miss a chance to hack around in someone else’s engineering section? Of course, he’ll go.”
Min shrugged with a slight sideways nod of her head. “Yeah, when you put it like that.”
Kris looked at the woman next to her. “Anything to add?”
General Corhaine shook her head and Kris thought she detected a hint of that smile in what followed. “You seem to have things in hand, Commodore.”
“Thanks.” Kris took a deep breath. “General, I wanna leave you in command if this thing tanks. Do whatever you think best.”
Now she did smile—a benevolent smile, oddly out of place. “As you wish, Commodore.”
“Good.” Something in that smile made Kris twinge deep inside, almost like a nerve being poked. “I’m gonna go talk to Jeffers. See if we’re all gonna get deep-fried.”
Out in the passageway, General Corhaine having departed, Min laid a confidential hand on Kris’s arm. “Between us—strictly, you understand—you did good in there.”
“Shit,” Kris muttered, acutely embarrassed. “All I did was come up with a half-assed idea and then forget a bunch of stuff.”
“What’dya think command is all about?”
Shaking her head, Kris snorted.
“You got a smile outta the General. That doesn’t happen every day. More like alternate leap years, to tell the truth.”
Unsure how to take the praise, Kris shook it off. “Is this want you guys call an op-plan in the marines?”
Min flashed her usual devil-may-care smile. “I think it’s what you stick-jockeys call a wing and a prayer.”
Kris shook her head again. “Not sure about the prayer part. You’re right about winging it, though.”
* * *
How green Drake Jeffers’ green light was, was a matter of some debate, and descriptions of the perceived color were, as Jeffers himself tended to be, uncouth. Two things only would he definitely assert. First, that even if Polidor survived this jump, “she’s gonna be a permanent resident, or her parts are”; and second, that before they attempted it: “Tell folks they oughta make peace with their fluffy inner-goddess.”
Loralynn Kennakris 4: Apollyon's Gambit Page 58
