With nineteen ships lost, the alien commander didn’t run but instead charged the jump, sending ships through at ten-second intervals.
Rear Admiral Zingi was ready for them. His Yamato frigates fired half broadsides from their bow lasers. Twenty-four lasers would bludgeon the stern of the first vessel. Ten seconds later, another twenty-four would slash into the second. Even as the forward batteries recharged, Zingi would flip ship, ready to take out the next ship with the four aft lasers on his eight ships, then flip again and use the half of his fully charged forward lasers.
Fire, fire, flip, fire. The drill went on for a minute before the Enlightened commander’s nerves broke. More atomics sailed through the jump, to be swatted down before they could do any harm.
Then nothing. Nothing at all.
Cautiously, Admiral Zingi sent his probe with the periscope up to the jump. It showed five ships in full retreat, accelerating away at their maximum of 2.5 gees.
Zingi pulled his ships up to the jump and formed a line. Once the fleeing alien was a hundred thousand klicks out, he ran his squadron through at five-second intervals.
Now the alien had no choice but to fight or flee. He lost two ships before he could make up his mind, then ordered the remaining three to flip and attack.
Now it was Zingi’s turn to flip and run, but he ran with his stern 22-inch guns slashing at the alien. The three alien ships had been modified with a thick coating of volcanic rock. Under laser fire, the pumice boiled, spattered, and fell off in globs. A flip, and the forward batteries were burning off more rock. A second flip, and the eight human frigates danced away from the charging alien trio.
It went that way until there was no more stone to burn and lasers speared deep into the vulnerable innards of the ships.
One blew when a reactor along the central spine lost control of its demons. The second died as fire engulfed it faster than the damage opened it up to the quenching emptiness of space.
The last ship didn’t give up the chase but hurled itself onto the combined fire of eight frigates. They cut it up but, for this one, there was no sudden end. Reactors went cold as more and more of the ship gave way under the pressure of human lasers and the heavy stress of 2.5 gees acceleration. For this one, the reactors went silent, not vicious.
It charged the humans until it had nothing left but its own momentum, and then it continued to drift at them, with one or two lasers still lashing out when they could be brought to bear.
This one died hard, but it died. And even as it drifted, helpless in space, no one sped away from it in a survival pod. No one tried to save themselves. Open to space, its crew died.
Kris found herself joining her staff in shaking their heads.
“They know how to die,” Jack said. “If only they knew how to live half as well.”
The report concluded that there was no observer on distant overwatch. “If the aliens sent these ships to find out what happened to their last lost ships, they have even more questions now,” Rear Admiral Zingi finished dryly.
“So what will they do next?” Penny asked no one in particular.
“I’d send a Marshall forward under a branch of green to parley,” Admiral Furzah said.
“They don’t know how to do that,” Kris said.
“In a hundred thousand years, none of them ever fought each other?” the feline asked. “Hard to believe that.”
“Maybe not,” Jacques said, an anthropologist in full lecture mode. “They have the entire galaxy to wander in. How often do you think two shared the same star system?”
“Hmm,” the admiral purred. “How well do you think three of them will do allying to fight us?”
“A good question,” Kris said. “A better question is do we send a copy of this report to the other two squadrons that we’ve got deployed and have them repeat the treatment if the opportunity presents itself?”
“Nelly, show me the other two approaches,” Jack ordered. “Specifically, the two systems where our squadrons are operating.”
Nelly did.
“Note how both of these, as well as Admiral Zingi’s system, has more than one jump into it. Nelly, trace them back until you find crossroad jumps, jumps that would allow you to leave the approach the aliens have used and head for the system on another track.”
Nelly did. It didn’t take more than about eight jumps to sidestep one approach and slip over to another.
Jack turned to Kris. “If you want to suggest we try and nip off another dish, I’d go for it, but you might want to put a picket in these flanking systems to give your squadrons a warning if the aliens get smart.”
“They always get smarter,” Kris muttered, but she gave the orders to both set up the ambush and look out for a return of the favor.
It was well she did. Over the next two weeks, Admiral L’Estock’s Battleax and other Sharp Steel Squadron ships got their chance to take out thirty alien warships from a second wolf pack in a near replay of Admiral Zingi’s fight.
However, Admiral Shoalter had to pull his Phantom and other wild creatures back from his exposed position as sixty alien ships in two dishes made a move on his flank, using a different jump to enter his system. Without the alert from the jump buoy, he’d have been caught in a race to see who could get to the exit jump before the other.
The aliens from the Anton Wolf Pack didn’t follow him though the jump. One dish set up shop guarding it, while the second dish jumped out and showed up a week later, again, flanking him.
Admiral Shoalter again chose discretion as the better part of valor and withdrew. Slowly, but surely, he fell back toward System X.
45
Soon the Hermes and the Apollo raced in to report that the Beulah and Clairissa Wolf Packs were conducting the same flanking maneuver on Kris’s other far-flung ambushes. Admirals Zingi and L’Estock pulled back although Zingi risked splitting his forces. One of his divisions managed to give the aliens a bloody nose before turning to race them for the exit.
It was a close run thing at the start, with the aliens doing their best to nail them. Idzumo and her three sisters raced off at nearly four gees, leaving the aliens far behind as they struggled to push themselves past 2.5 gees. After a few salvos, there was little left to do but growl at each other as the aliens fell behind.
Kris had strong suspicions that the aliens were now communicating with each other. Those suspicions were confirmed when the Challenger returned. Commander Hanson made his report personally to Kris.
“We nailed one of their fast movers,” he said, grinning from ear to ear, as he and Kris exchanged salutes. “We weren’t looking for a fight, Admiral. We understood our orders,” he said before Kris could even begin to form an opinion on his kill.
“We were coming up to a jump. We expected a nest of bastards to be on the other side, so we were slowing for a dead stop. One of those fast movers shot through the jump heading right at us. It only had one reactor, but our sensors identified two lasers charged and ready. We didn’t attempt to talk to them, ma’am. We were in their laser range and in damn short range for our 20-inchers. Apparently, their gunners don’t sleep by their lasers the way our Ostriches do. I ordered a shoot for the aft battery, and we hit them good. Then I flipped ship and gave them the forward guns. They never had a chance.”
He paused for a moment. “Apparently, their single reactor vented somewhere other than at the ship, so there were plenty of chunks left when we were done with them. We retrieved pieces and turned them over to the boffins for analysis.”
“I have the initial report,” Nelly said.
“Don’t keep us waiting,” Kris said.
“The isotopic makeup of the metals are different from any ship we’ve encountered, different from this local arm of the galaxy. Likely, Admiral, we are dealing with another mother ship built thousands of light-years from here.”
“Damn,” Kris said. “Continue.”
“We found three nests of alien warships. Each time we peeked into a suspected system, we f
ound sixteen warships in a kind of rotating lattice structure. Apparently, their equivalent of our anchorages. The four- to five-hundred-thousand-ton warships had a half dozen or so single-reactor suicide boats laid alongside, getting ready to launch. But it was the design of the warships that told me we had something different here. While they all had three large reactors aft to power their rockets, instead of three identical reactors laid out along the keel line, there was one huge reactor, say, mother-ship size, situated forward. It’s a very different design.”
Kris nodded; she hadn’t figured out how to handle three, and now she was facing a fourth monster coming in from a totally different threat axis.
I will not think this can’t get any worse. I won’t. I won’t, because it likely will.
Kris forced herself to keep her rising panic down. Well down. Away from baby, down.
“Thank you, Commander, and well done. Have your crew get some shore leave. I’ll be assigning the Challenger to the courier squadron. When a frigate command comes up next, I’ll keep you in mind.”
“Thank you, ma’am, I’d love one of the new frigates, but, with your permission, can I take the Challenger’s crew with me? They’re good, ma’am. Very good.”
Kris smiled. He was talking what she liked to hear.
“And if it’s the same to you, ma’am, I’d like to take the Challenger out for another run. Me and my XO think we can find the mother ship. If she’s not in the middle of the line, she has to be close to it. If you don’t need us all that much running messages, we’d like to find where the queen spider is lurking in that web.”
Kris glanced at her board. She had five of the couriers out with the retrograding forces. The Kestrel was just back with a report from Admiral L’Estock. The Merlin was already away to replace her on station.
It would be nice to have a third backup courier, but it would be better to know what she faced. The yards could knock together another courier. It didn’t have to be armed.
No, that was a mistake. If the aliens were running couriers around armed, there was always a chance that they’d take a stab at cutting out one of Kris’s message boats. No, the couriers had to have a fighting chance.
“Thank you, Commander. Yes, I would like to know what’s out there. Refuel, resupply, and head out. Let us know your plan. If you aren’t as lucky with this scouting cruise as you were last time, I’d like to know where to look for the wreckage.”
“Don’t you worry about us, Admiral. It’s not luck that brought us back but seriously applied caution.”
“Good luck and good scouting,” Kris said, and made her dismissal salute sharp. He’d earned the honor.
Kris called in her staff. She briefed them quickly, then posed a question.
“The aliens are proving painfully quick studies. Without intending to, Commander Hanson picked off one of their courier boats. Once they realize it’s missing, they’ll know they’ve been scouted and they’ll know there is an advantage to killing the messenger. Do we need to start patrolling our lines of communication?”
“Better yet,” Admiral Furzah said, “when will they move from threatening your flank to trying to cut you off entirely? If they can figure a way to seize a jump between one of our exposed squadrons and Alwa, they can ambush you.”
“I don’t think we have to worry about being ambushed,” Jack said. “We’ve got enough pickets out at each jump point. If one of our jumps goes silent, we know something hostile is going on when the connected buoys report back. No, they can’t set up an ambush, but they most certainly can cut our most direct line of retreat and force a squadron to take the long way home.”
Kris found herself patting her bulging tummy. The terror that she’d felt when Hanson reported the presence of a fourth mother ship, a ship she’d suspected but, apparently, denied deep in her bones, was rising again. She felt an almost uncontrollable urge to pack it in and run for home. She was breathing faster. Her mouth was dry. She’d known panic, and she was making its close acquaintance once more.
She gritted her teeth and forced her hand away from her belly. She laid both flat on the table. “Any suggestions?” she asked her staff.
“I’ve thought of putting Hellburners on some of the moons around the gas giants in System X,” Penny said. “The problem is, even if we pick the right moon, without a maneuvering force to distract, they’d just shoot out the missiles before they got anywhere.”
Jack shook his head. “How do we defend a system as huge as X from three base ships and all those damn warships? Three, four, maybe as many as five hundred.”
“Let’s not take counsel with our fears,” Kris said, even as she struggled to take her own advice. “We don’t know how many warships they have, and we’ve peeled off sixty, seventy, maybe eighty already.”
“Ever the optimist,” Amanda said.
“I try to be,” Kris said.
“Sometimes she’s even more successful than today,” Jacques said.
“You’ll excuse me for interrupting your little panic party,” Abby said, dryly, “but you got me out of a nice warm bed, and I’m figuring you had some purpose. Mind sharing it with me?”
“We need to start patrolling our line of communications,” Kris said, tackling the problem she could. It helped her ignore the monster challenge she couldn’t. “How soon before we can see some more frigates?”
“Admiral Cochrane’s new squadron is starting to take shape. The yards aren’t spinning them out together. Roger Young is coming along as fast as they can push it. Erwin Rommel is only a bit behind it. Vo Nguyen Giap and George Patton are a bit behind the two lead ships. Grant, Lee, Napoleon, and Marlborough are just starting to form. We’re giving priority to the more complete ship whenever we can and only adding resources to the later ships when they aren’t needed for the lead ships.” Abby shrugged. “We figured four fighting ships now might be of more use to you than eight nearly complete ones later.”
“Outstanding logic,” Kris said. “Tell Admiral Cochrane that he better start exercising his crews full-time, blue and gold style. When those new ships come online, their crews won’t have a hell of a lot of time to shake down.”
“I have passed the word to him, Kris. He was already doing that, but he thanks you for the suggestion.”
That brought a laugh from around the table.
“I guess that puts me in my micromanager’s place,” Kris admitted.
The meeting struggled on for a few minutes longer. The elephant in the room trumpeted silently while they ignored it. Finally, Abby sniffed that she had enough from them and needed to get some real work done, and one by one, the others followed her out, leaving just Jack and Kris to stare at the screens.
“You’re trembling,” he said softly.
Kris wrapped her arms around herself. She could feel the shaking. Try as she might, she could not still it. Jack came over and put an arm around her. In a moment, she turned to lose herself in his strong embrace. A few moments later, they were on the couch.
“I don’t quite fit like I used to,” she laughed as she struggled to find a way for her and baby to fit in his lap.
“You two fit just fine,” he assured her.
She breathed in his masculine scent. Masculine warmth. Deep inside her, she knew that he was just as at sea as she was, but there was something about being held by him that made all the dragons nipping at her butt somehow more distant.
She accepted the illusion for the moment and let it warm her.
Slowly, she found the shakes taking their leave. Slowly, she found her center settling in place, on an even keel. Slowly, she felt less a terrified little girl and more the woman who was the terror of these aliens.
How many have I killed? How many billions? One hundred? Two hundred? Two hundred billion dead, she repeated to herself. Even if they win in the end, they’ve paid a hell of a price for our dead bodies.
And we will have bought time for humanity and the Iteeche to make the blood price for them way more than these dogs c
an pay.
Done with the shakes, but not yet willing to leave the warmth of Jack’s arms, she said, “You have any idea how we stop them next time?”
He shook his head. “From where I sit, it can only get worse. Why haven’t they sent a ship through the jump backward? Accelerate it and flip it on the other side, let it come through the jump firing everything it has and boosting to go back through? Even if we do shoot it to crap, some of the crap will drift through, and they’ll know it’s an ambush.”
“Ouch. Jack, I was hoping for something we could use. You’re not supposed to be thinking for them.”
“Yes, but if we’re not one step ahead of them, we’ll be one step behind them, and you know what it has cost them to be a step behind you.”
“You say the nicest things to me, which means the worst things for me,” Kris said, smiling up at Jack.
“What can you expect from the worst half of the human race?”
“I don’t think you’re the worst half of the race. I kind of like you.”
“Thank you very much,” he said, and kissed her. Not a peck, but one that felt all the love, respect, and value that he held for her. Considering that, at least for a few moments there, Kris was none too sure what use she was as an admiral, a woman, and a future mother, it was nice to feel that someone believed in her.
“Hm, keep this up and we’ll need a shower,” she said, breaking for air.
“And I have to check on ammunition production for our M-6s,” Jack said. “We’ve been practicing a lot with the locals. If we assign Marines to ship defense, we’ll need more ammo.”
“Is it a problem?” Kris asked, putting her admiral’s hat on.
“I don’t think so. We’ve had a good supply of nitrates on hand. The stuff was supposed to be for civilian use, but I don’t think anyone will begrudge us Marines a couple of tons.”
“You’re robbing consumer goods for guns?”
“Yep.”
“Thanks for telling me. I’ll at least be ready when Granny Rita and Ada ambush me with their complaints.”
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