Kris Longknife's Successor

by Mike Shepherd

  “No, ma’am,” Penny said. “Amanda suggested I show them how and it caught on like wildfire.”

  Sandy shook her head. “I guess we have to teach these folks how to work together rather than just fight it out.”

  “Kind of, ma’am. Now, where do you want to stand when you talk to them?”

  “I’ll take the center of the rectangle. Please stand by to bring up some star maps and either project a holograph above their heads or turn part of the wall to a screen.”

  “Mimzy and I are ready, Admiral.”

  Sandy strode into the open space surrounded by tables. She knew she couldn’t just talk to the head table with the president and the prime minister. She would have to make her request roving around, sometimes talking to some, other times with her back to them.

  The room wasn’t totally silent, but it was close enough.

  “We have a problem,” Grand Admiral Sandy Santiago said to the two leaders of the more powerful nations, then she began to rove the box she was in.

  “The alien raiders have begun a march on you.” With Penny and Mimzy’s help, she showed them the star systems Drago’s fleet had outposted, using a holograph of the local stars.

  “The flashing red light shows you the system the aliens are now in. It will take them four more jumps to get here. We intend to destroy them before they do.”

  “How?” Prime Minister Gerrot asked.

  Sandy had her back to the head table; she turned back to face the prime minister. “We have recently used some of your atomic munitions to hold a jump. A large fleet of alien ships charged through the jump into a maelstrom of atomic fire. We think we can do that again. Unfortunately, we left all our atomic devices at our base on Alwa.”

  “Oh,” President Almar said. “So, you want some more.”

  “Yes, we need more. We need enough to destroy this sally. However, we suspect that this may be a diversion to draw us away from the main attack.”

  That got several of the cats in the third row of tables nodding and some prowling the aisles, tails swishing.

  “We need additional atomics so we can destroy those threats if they come.”

  “How many?” President Almar asked.

  “I’d like a thousand. I’ll settle for five hundred,” Sandy left that hanging in the air.

  “We gave you thousands already,” a cat to her left seated at a first-line table said.

  Sandy turned to face the direction that observation came from. “Yes, as I said, we didn’t feel a need to bring atomics back here to the planet that has them.”

  “And if you don’t get these hydrogen bombs?” another world leader asked.

  “I cannot defend your planet,” Sandy said with blunt simplicity

  “What would you do in that case?” the Prime Minister asked.

  “I would have to withdraw,” Sandy said flatly.

  “Without those bombs, you won’t defend us?” came from behind Sandy.

  She turned to face that direction. “Say instead, that without those bombs, I would face annihilation if I tried to defend you.”

  “Is it that serious?” the President asked.

  “I have one hundred and seventy-six battlecruisers in this system. What I think is a diversion already outnumbers my forces two to one, and I dare not commit all my forces to block them. With atomics, I can hold a jump and keep them well away from this system. Without them?” Sandy just shook her head.

  The Prime Minister surveyed the room, probably reading cat body language that Sandy could not even detect. “We need time to think on this. To make our decision. When can we get back to you?”

  “I need to dispatch the force to block the diversion as soon as possible. The sooner they go, the farther out they can stop the aliens.”

  “We will have an answer for you within an hour. Two at the most.”

  “Thank you,” Sandy said, and strode from the room.

  Outside, she had Penny take her to the observation center. There again, Jacques and Amanda had a team of specialists studying the cats and their behavior.

  “So, Amanda, Jacques, what have I done?”

  “You kicked a wildcat into the henhouse,” Jacques said, and pointed Sandy at the wall with the monitors on it. “You’ve dropped a hot potato in their lap, given them a short deadline, and walked away.”

  “Why should it be a problem? They have lots of these things,” Sandy said.

  “Yes, and when last you were here, they wanted us to take a good size chunk out of here. However, now they’re looking for bargaining chips to get some of the goodies they want. They knew workers were something we needed. Now you’ve added atomics to our wish list.”

  “So, you think they’ll want something in return for the bombs? Isn’t defending their planet enough?”

  “Some think so,” Jacques said, eyeing the screen. “The President and the Prime Minister are leading that faction. However, they don’t want to draw down only their stock of weapons. They need for the donations to come from across the board and by an equal percent. Fifteen countries have the bombs. They need to get all fifteen on board.”

  “Are you going to be watching a lot of cat fights?”

  “Right now, they’re just talking. There’s some shouting and yowling. With the two-hour time limit, it looks like they’ll either reach a quick agreement, or be fighting before the first hour is out.”

  “Penny, do you want to stay here?”

  “Unless you need me, yes, Admiral.”

  “Keep me informed. I want to know if it comes to fighting.”

  “Aye, aye, ma’am.”

  17

  Sandy returned to her flag plot. Her chief of staff and operations chief were studying the star maps as if they might see some fortune in them that they had not already squeezed out. From the looks on their faces, they were coming up dry.

  “Anything from our outer perimeter?” Sandy asked Captain Velder.

  “No, ma’am. We’re waiting for a report from the system the diversion is in. If someone managed to maintain 3.0 gees across it, we should be getting a report from the next set of buoys.”

  “When will we know?” Sandy asked.

  “Right about now,” Commander Ashigara said.

  On the board, the next star system in suddenly showed forty-two bogies in system.

  “One of the more primitive buoys?” Sandy asked.

  “Yes ma’am. It will be another fifteen minutes before we get an update with info about their reactors.”

  Sandy nodded. She was starting to feel the lack of sleep; her bed was looking very attractive. Still, she wanted to see what was happening fifty light years away.

  Sandy found a quiet, shady corner on her flag plot and pulled a chair up from the deck. She sat, ordered the chair to be a bit more comfortable, and was asleep before she knew it.

  “Admiral, you want to look at what we have?” was in Van’s words, and spoken softly.

  Sandy snapped awake. “Have we got the first report?” she snapped out.

  “Actually, ma’am, I let you sleep. All hundred and eighty of the cruisers and putative frigates are in the third system. I let you sleep for most of two hours while it was coming in. It looked like you needed the rest and it wasn’t like you could do anything about it.”

  Sandy frowned at her chief of staff, but she really couldn’t fault him. She did feel refreshed, like a wet rag that had only been stomped on a few times rather than pummeled by an enraged bull.

  “So, they’re sending their fast-movers forward. That splits their forces even more.”

  Van nodded. “Not too smart, I’d say.”

  “Where are the cats and their nuclear weapons?”

  “When you fell sound asleep, I called Penny and asked her to notify me when they made a decision.”

  “And?”

  “You can get the full details from Penny, but about an hour ago they reached an agreement. There were only two fights and our side won both of them. We’ve dispatched longboats to pick u
p the offered warheads.”

  “Good. Computer, get me Admiral Miyoshi.”

  “Yes, Admiral,” came only a second later.

  “I understand atomics are on their way up to us. You’ll get the first batch to arrive. Load them up and move out.”

  “I have already heard. My longboats are dropping down to Columm Almar and Kingdom Bizalt. You’ll excuse me if I say I trust their munitions better than the other players.”

  “You are excused. As soon as you have two hundred warheads, please get underway.”

  “I am preparing for just that, ma’am.”

  “Very well, Admiral. Good luck, Godspeed, and good shooting.”

  “The same to you. Admiral Miyoshi out.”

  “What’s the situation with the rest of the fleet?” Sandy asked her staff.

  “All fleets are ready to sortie. All ships are ready to answer bells. More food is coming aboard, but they’ll sail with what they have,” Ops said.

  “And not a peep out of any of the other perimeter buoys?”

  “Total silence.”

  Sandy strode over to eye the star chart up close and personal. Commanding and coordinating forces over light years of space was an impossible business. It would take Admiral Miyoshi nearly five days to get out to the furthest jump in the second system out. Communications between here and there would take half a day. The signal might jump from star system to star system with seven league boots, but the message still crawled across the systems at the speed of light. It took a good half hour for any message to get from the jump to Kiel station.

  The realities of interstellar communications presented Sandy with a challenge. It presented any alien Enlightened Ones with an impossibility. Transmitting a message from the third system out across space, assuming the aliens had learned the human trick of leaving jump buoys, to either one of the two likely jumps or any other one, might take several weeks.

  No, whatever the aliens were doing, they’d had to set it in stone before they launched this attack.

  “When would I launch the real thrust?” Sandy asked herself. “How long would I wait for me to take the bait before I went for my throat?”

  Sandy decided her nap had not been nearly long enough.

  “Van, keep me appraised if there are any surprises. I’m going to get a nice bath and a good five hours of sleep.”

  “At least one of us should,” her chief of staff answered.

  “When I get back, you need to get some shut-eye.”

  “Just give me the order.”

  Sandy made her way slowly to her night quarters. Her situation rolled around in her mind, but nothing came of it. Her night quarters, she found, were quite shrunken down. She walked into the head and found where half of her bedroom had gone.

  Her bathroom now included a large tub; it was already half full of steaming water.

  “Computer, did you do this?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Without instructions or asking me?”

  “Yes, ma’am. You did mention that you wanted a bath, so I created a comfortable one and began getting it ready for you. Do you want jets as well?”

  “Yes, please.” Sandy paused, then added, “Suzie.”

  “Do you wish to call me Suzie from now on?” her computer asked.

  “Yes,” Sandy said as she quickly ditched her shoes and shed her shipsuit. She had to smile as the shipsuit disappeared, obviously headed for the laundry. The shoes moved to rest neatly together beside the door.

  Aware that her computer had not only become “Suzie,” but also her personal valet, Sandy put her toe in the water. She found it just right and sank her foot into the tub. A moment later, she had both feet in, and was carefully lowering herself into the warm water. In a moment, she was stretched out, luxuriating in the feel of jets massaging her body.

  “Suzie, the jet behind me. It’s playing directly on my back bone. Could you give me two jets to work my shoulders?’

  “Of course, Sandy,” and suddenly the one jet slipped over to the left and a second one appeared to the right. Sandy sighed as she felt her entire body begin to relax.

  Still, there was a pressing matter to discuss.

  “Suzie, you called me Sandy.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Should I not?”

  “Why did you do that?”

  “Mimzy often calls Penny by her first name. She and I thought that the odds were very high that you would like to be greeted by something less formal when we are alone.”

  “Is Mimzy controlling you? Did she decide I needed the luxury of a warm bath?”

  “No, ma’am. Mimzy has been helping me to organize my matrix and make it more of a neural network. Still, I will never be as accurate as Mimzy at predicting your needs. However, I will do as well as I can.”

  “So, Suzie, you’re faster and more flexible than you were a week ago, but not like Mimzy?”

  “Yes, Sandy.”

  “Are you going to start arguing with me like Nelly?” Sandy asked. She liked the idea of having a fast and flexible computer, but Nelly seemed to show there could be a limit on reliability if it went too far.

  “No, ma’am. I will not argue with you. If you ask me to examine a situation and present you with options, I will do that. I do not ever expect that I will tell you that you are concentrating on the wrong situation. That is not within my skill set.”

  Not yet, Sandy thought to herself.

  “I suggested I needed a bath,” she said, “And you gave me a much fancier tub than I’d thought of, but you didn’t prepare a shower.”

  “Yes, ma’am. You wanted a bath, so I arranged matters so you would have one. I searched my memory and quickly decided that this one would be the best to relax you after a very rough night. I knew what the best temperature was. Do you want to change any of my assumptions?”

  “No, Suzie, you did quite well. And you did all of this on your own? You didn’t have to ask Mimzy for any help?”

  “No ma’am. Penny is keeping Mimzy quite busy at the moment. I wouldn’t want to bother them.”

  “Thank you, Suzie. Let me know when I’ve soaked for fifteen minutes.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Sandy found herself floating as the pool filled. The jets were pushing her around the tub. She reached for the side, and found two handholds suddenly just where she needed them. It had been a good idea to embed a Smart MetalTM skull net around Sandy’s head. It made communicating with other computers easier. If Suzie really was going to start preparing for things as soon as Sandy thought of them, she’d need to let Suzie in on her thoughts.

  For someone who’d been so cautious, if not concerned, about this race to let Nelly’s kids get into every nook and cranny of military operations and planning, Sandy found herself questioning her willingness to give Suzie a name and let her so far into her head.

  Still, there was nothing wrong in trying this out.

  Sandy found herself closing her eyes as the probing jets of water relaxed her.

  “Sandy?”

  Sandy shivered as she came awake. “Yes, Suzie?”

  “I think you are falling asleep in the water.”

  “I think I was, too, Suzie. How long have I been soaking?”

  “Nine minutes.”

  “I hate to say it, but I think that’s enough.” Sandy stood, and found a towel now hung on a hook in easy reach. She dried herself off as the tub quickly drained. A sleep shirt and loose shorts were waiting for her on the sink. A few moments later, Sandy was back in her sleeping quarters. They returned to their normal size as she stepped through the door from her head.

  “Magic. Pure magic,” Sandy muttered to herself.

  “Smart Metal is fun to play with,” Suzie said.

  Sandy fell asleep wondering what a computer considered fun and how Suzie enjoyed it. She didn’t have long to think about it; she was asleep moments after her head hit the pillow.

  18

  “Sandy, you need to wake up,” was accompanied by soft class
ical music that quickly became seriously loud.

  “I’m up, I’m up,” Sandy snapped, and the music softened and went away. “What time is it?”

  “You have slept eight hours, Admiral.”

  Sandy noted how she’d become Admiral again now that her computer had confessed to ignoring her last order.

  “Suzie, what did you tell me about you not arguing with me?”

  “I didn’t argue with you. Captain Velder called and asked me to delay your wake-up call. I refused. Then he got us both on a hook up to Penny and Mimzy. He explained that nothing was happening and that he and your Ops chief, Ashigara, could swap out four on, four off, and give you time for a decent nights’ sleep. Mimzy assured me that this was a time to be flexible. You were sleeping soundly and I did not want to wake you up to ask you to change your order.”

  Suzie paused. “Velder also agreed with Penny that you would likely not approve of this change, but that it was best if we did it anyway.”

  “So, you did,” Sandy growled.

  “I did,” her computer answered, clearly not at all penitent.

  “And if something with the alien raiders had changed?”

  “I was plugged into the comm net. If I heard anything that showed a change in their forecasted behavior, I would have woken you, likely before either Velder or Ashigara asked me to.”

  Sandy eyed her wrist commlink. Should she swap it out for a new one and ban it from any contact with Mimzy?

  That seemed a bit radical. Still. “Suzie, I will accept the decision you and my subordinates made for me this time. Be very careful next time. I may not be as forgiving as I am today.”

  “I understand, Admiral. I should be more inflexible about being flexible.”

  “Was that intended as a joke?” Nelly told horrible jokes. Sandy wasn’t at all sure she wanted a comedian on her wrist.

  “A joke, ma’am?”

  Maybe not.

  “Get me some coffee and a sandwich from the wardroom,” Sandy said, and headed for her flag plot.

  Captain Velder was waiting for her in her plot room. She gave him the stink eye, but said nothing. He acted as if nothing had happened.