“Aye, aye, Admiral Longknife. Good shooting.”
The exercise commenced with Kris’s usual maneuver of going to 3.5 gees and Evasion Plan 3. The opposing force held a steady course, but upped its acceleration to two gees. The captains had agreed to concentrate the fire of four flotillas on each of Kris’s flotillas. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
The forward flotilla vanished in the first salvo from the forward batteries of Kris's fleet. By the time Kris’s ships had flipped, their aft batteries were engaging targets in the second flotilla. Few of its ships were still in the exercise by the time those lasers fell silent.
Admiral Coth’s ships did very well. By the time they’d given their targets both forward and aft batteries, almost all of three flotillas were falling out of formation.
Over ten thousand lasers fired very low and very short bursts at Kris’s fleet of evading ships. They scored three hits on Kris’s ships, thirty on Coth’s.
It was like a child’s game of dodge ball. Except only one side had dodged and the other side couldn’t shoot straight. Kris felt none of the elation she had as a kid at winning the game.
While the ships on both sides recharged their lasers, and waited out the normal reload time of twenty seconds, the Iteeche skippers realized the error of their ways and began jinking. They went at it slowly, but they had learned that their enemy could do it, and they hadn’t hit them that much. Now they tried to do the same.
It didn’t save them. By the time both sides had emptied their lasers, five more flotillas joined the ‘destroyed’ ships falling out of formation on the unengaged side. Worse, the weak jinking had made hash of their fire controls. There were only eighteen hits this time, none on the human battlecruisers.
The third set of salvos took out most of the warships left in the six remaining flotillas. The leader of the opposing ships then threw in the towel, so to speak.
“What are you doing? How can you do this?”
Kris let Admiral Coth do the talking. An Iteeche warrior was by far the best person to tell other Iteeche sailormen that they needed to not only change their ways, but they needed to let the hated humans do it.
One skipper actually took his ship out of formation, unvolunteered for Kris’s command and set his own course.
Kris had four computers with her: Nelly, Sal, Lily, and Sam. Nelly assigned each one to a different ship and together they went down the opposing battle line. Of course, each computer was assigned over a hundred ships and, even without the practice on Coth’s ships, it still took over fifteen hours to make the adjustments to the entire fleet. Once they looped around the nearby planet, they went to battle stations and fought each other again.
The first drill went poorly for the new ships. Their skippers were loath to honk their ships around hard in the evasion plan. By the third drill, the other side was jitterbugging at least as Evasion Plan 3 and some got up to Plan 4. The accuracy of their fire also held up.
By the fourth drill, they’d fought each other to a bloody draw. Kris even had two ships counted as lost. She could have mentioned their armor, but she didn’t. These people would be risking their ships and their lives in a fight. There was no need to point out the humans had an ace up their sleeve.
Two hours out from the station, a call came through from Abby.
“Kris, we’ve got a lot of Iteeche gathering on the streets around the palace.”
“Have they tried anything?”
“So far, not so much as a rock thrown.”
“But it doesn’t take much of a spark to turn a crowd this big into a mob. Yes, I know. Okay, keep things quiet. No one leaves. If it starts to look ugly, turn the embassy into a turtle.”
“Mata has the program on standby," Abby reported. "I’m spreading the word that we may adjust the Smart Metal part of the castle. Folks know to stand by.”
Kris made a call to a certain Marine Lieutenant Colonel that she’d left behind on the station with two companies of ship Marines. She gave him her arrival time and an execute order for fifteen minutes before she would dock.
That done, Kris went back to her fleet and its challenges. She now commanded slightly more than six hundred upgraded battlecruisers. Coth was confident that, after today, they could easily double that number.
Kris wondered how large a fleet she’d have if things got out of hand at the embassy.
34
Kris rendered honors and crossed the brow of the Royal Princess not five minutes after they caught the first pier tie down. A station cart was standing by to take her immediately to the civilian side. They pulled up just short of the Pride of the Free Market. There were people milling about. Most looked unsure of what they should do or where they should go. Dani Ishmay was in the face of a Marine Lieutenant Colonel, haranguing him for doing what Kris had ordered. The Marine appeared to be giving the man his full attention.
Kris would pay money for the Marine’s internal monologue.
It was clear that the station cart was going nowhere, so Kris dismounted. Jack was quickly by her side, with Megan coming up the rear. Kris stepped off and headed straight into the crowd, making purposeful strides toward the noisy civilian and stoic colonel who listened attentively to the shouting . . . and then did nothing.
Kris’s firm march quickly drew the attention of those standing around. They saw the three officers coming at them and flinched out of their way.
“Is there a problem here, Colonel?” Kris asked.
She’d slipped up so quietly behind Dani, and he’d been so busy making noise, that he jumped half out of his skin when Kris spoke. Kris decided to test just how surprised he was.
“We found your fingerprints on the nanos,” Kris said, channeling her Grampa Al and his angry way of talking to any mere mortal. “You should not have used your own metal.”
The man whipped around. “They are not. I ordered them . . .” ended with a strangled screech. Then he recovered, stood up straight, facing Kris and said, “You cannot confiscate our second ship. We won’t be able to get our people back.”
“You should have thought about that when you set out to wreck my mission, and likely get us all killed. Strange, they’ve got a riot starting below and you’ve popped up here. For safety?”
“For a dinner party,” he snapped.
“Well, you’ll just have to miss it. Colonel.”
He snapped to, “Ma’am.”
“I need most of your battalion at the embassy tonight. However, we can afford to detach two troopers to see that my honored guest makes it from here to the Princess Royal’s brig.”
Mr. Ishmay had spun on his heels and clearly wanted to be anywhere else but here. He was almost out of reach when Kris got to the word brig.
The colonel proved that he hadn’t lost any of his edge. His grab got him a handful of shirt. He used that to yank the businessman off balance. By the time the two Marines from the top of the brow made it across, the colonel had Grampa Al’s representative on the deck and going nowhere.
About that time, two station carts full of Marines arrived.
“Admiral, my two men,” one of whom was a woman, “are really hyped up for this drop mission. Could you let the ship Marines handle your man?”
“By all means, Colonel,” and Kris turned the man over to the Marines from the Princess Royal. Those minor details taken care of, Kris turned her attention to the next challenge.
Landing 65,000 tons of metal right on the dot below might have been done before. Still, it wouldn’t do have the second dive end in disaster.
Nelly was already converting the ship into a brick. This turned out to be harder than expected.
The Marines had rousted the crew and passengers out of the ship and onto the pier before anyone had time to so much as save gramma’s silver or granddad’s portrait. Nelly, Sal, and Lily collected up everything that wasn’t Smart MetalTM, boxed it, and moved it through the ship to disgorge onto a conveyer belt that suddenly had appeared beside the gangplank. It had started gro
wing only a second ago. Now, it was stretching out farther and farther. At the end, the contents of the conveyer belt would slide off to a smooth landing, alternating on either side of the growing line of boxes.
Then someone spotted their own gear and rushed for it. They got their gear collected on a station pushcart and headed off. They were lucky.
Each set of boxes had a room number associated with it. Unfortunately, they were arriving in no order. People began running up and down the line, checking for their number. That option lasted for about sixty seconds. Then there were too many people trying to occupy the same space at the same time. Even this far from old Earth, that laws of physics had not changed one bit.
Kris could think of two or three ways to straighten up the mess, but it wasn’t her mess. She grinned, not quite evilly. Not quite. “Let’s leave the civilians to solve their own problems.”
At the moment, one of the civilians shouted, “I’ve got room 3G102. I’ve got room 3G102. Who does it belong to?”
“Me! That’s mine!” was shouted from well up the line. Soon a small man had pulled out of the mob and was running along the edge of it toward the man with his personal items.
Soon everyone was calling numbers. After two or three minutes, there was so much yelling that no one could understand a word.
But by that time, Kris was facing a whole different set of challenges.
35
Landing 65,000 tons of Smart MetalTM on a dot that was thousands of kilometers away and far below had been done before. Of course, before it could become routine, it had to be done a second time. Hopefully without digging a deep, smoldering hole in some Iteeche’s back yard.
That job would have to be left up to Nelly, Sal, and Lily.
Still, Kris went down her own checklist for proper readouts from the instrument panels around her and Jack. If somehow Nelly and every computer on board vanished, Kris would be using every hint of what these gauges told her to try to save her life and those of thousands on the ground.
Kris finished her preflight checklist about the same time that Nelly finished creating the craft she was going to fly. Unfortunately, they had just gone past their window for a drop to the Imperial Precincts. The passengers’ personal effects may have slowed the process down. While they circled the planet beneath them, Nelly continued to land people’s gear.
Kris took the time to check in with Abby and General Bruce.
“I’ve locked the embassy down,” Steve told her from his command post at the highest point of the castle. “The crowd is growing, but still quiet. I know that can change in a second. Chesty,” his computer, “has several .5 mm lasers ready. They likely could melt a gun barrel enough to make it worthless. We’ve got nanos out sniffing for explosives. So far, nothing.”
“Abby, are all of our children accounted for?” Kris asked.
“My short people are as delightful as ever,” Abby said, likely intentionally answering the wrong question. “As to my overblown kids with big egos and few brains, I have managed to keep them indoors. We set up an observation deck around the pool, so gawkers can go take a look themselves at what a whale of a lot of Iteeche look like. We also are giving out several camera feeds so anyone who wants to check can do so from the comfort of their recliners.”
Abby paused for a second. “I did have a couple of Nuu Enterprise types try to beat feet out of here just before the fun really got going. The Marines held them at the gate until I could talk to them in my usual dulcet tones. They grumbled, but they went back to their rooms.”
“So they were in the know, but a bit late on their exit. Poor little rats,” Kris said, not at all concerned for the human rodents. At least no more concerned for them than she was for everyone in her embassy and the buildings around them.
“Abby, Steve, could you prepare a celebration for our arrival? Say fireworks with no bits of aluminum to jam our radar and some light frequencies open for our laser range finder. You might want to put on a laser light display to help everyone think this is just another show.”
“Chesty is already working on the fireworks,” General Bruce said.
“Mata is thinking up some new and exotic twists for a light display,” Abby said.
“Please keep your computers standing by,” Kris said, “in case my three need some help.”
“Will do. Now, don’t you have an overweight ton of bricks to land?” Abby asked.
“We missed our window of opportunity this orbit. We’ve got seventy-three minutes to wait for our next window.”
“Well, I can’t keep yammering at you for the next hour, your Longknifeship,” Abby drawled.
“Then I’ll ring off.”
Kris did, then got a connection with her kids. She ended up re-reading that same book three times, much to the kids’ delight. The nurse was ready to put the kids down; Kris enjoyed reading them to sleep.
The kids fell asleep just as they were coming up on fifteen minutes to separation from the station. She and Jack did another quick check list and found everything in the green.
Kris made a public announcement for the benefit of the Marines on board. “This is your pilot speaking, or at least your pilot computer’s human.” Even as distant as she was from the Marines, she heard the laugh that got. “You should be warned that this brick may change shape at any time. I expect to end the flight with this vehicle melting into the existing palace. You may find yourself shuttled about in that process. Don’t worry. I survived it last time.”
Kris wasn’t able to make out the response to that message. It was likely best she didn’t. There are some things a good officer doesn’t hear.
“When do you intend to let Imperial air space control know we’re inbound?” Jack asked.
“As late as possible,” Kris answered.
“If you’re too late on that, we may have a surface-to-air missile headed our way.”
“Yes, but if I call too soon, we might be ordered away from the embassy. I am not going to try landing anywhere else.”
“Thank you, Kris,” Nelly said. “I know the palace and having it as a target makes all this easier. No need making it any harder than we have to.”
With everything done that she could, Kris leaned back in her seat, checked her safety harness for the tenth time, then centered herself. She slowed her breathing until she was in the relaxed state she wanted, and in the lovely place she would have preferred to be. There, she waited for the clock to count down.
“One minute, Kris,” brought her to instant alertness. She checked her short list and found everything green
As the clock reached all zeros, the Big Brick II began to slide down the pier. Once free of the last tie down, Nelly rotated it and began a slow burn to drop her away from the station. Once in a solid orbit, she warned Kris, “Here comes a kick in the pants.”
“All hands, prepare for de-orbit burn.”
When the kick hit, Kris went from weighing nothing to more than twice her weight. Still, her finger rested on the flip lid of the red button. Flip it open, punch the button, and Kris would take over flying this thing.
She trusted Nelly with her life, but . . .
The burn lasted long enough to have Kris wondering, then cut off. They plummeted toward the planet below. A few minutes later, the hull began to warm.
“Unidentified craft that just departed the station, identify yourself, your apparent deorbit will place you in restricted air space.” The last part of the concerned message was garbled by the ionization coming off the hull around Kris.
“No doubt, they’ll be only too eager to talk to us some more when we can,” Kris said.
“I hope they wait to launch intercept missiles until after the two of you can exchange pleasantries,” Jack said.
“Me, too. Are anti-missile lasers on standby?”
“As much as they can be with this gunk messing up our sensors, Kris.”
“Very good.”
The two of them carried out this conversation sitting in their ejection se
at, all hands in their laps. Their arms and elbows kept well within the confines of the seat’s possible path out of here.
The end of the ionization phase of their reentry announced itself by the radio crackling to life in mid-sentence. “. . . departed the station, identify yourself. Your reentry path will take you to restricted air space. Adjust your course or you will be destroyed. You have been warned.”
The controller must have paused for a breath. Kris took advantage of that moment of silence.
“Hello, Airspace Control, this is Big Flying Brick II, inbound from the station to the human embassy with sixty-seven thousand tons of construction material. We’ve had this conversation before. I am Imperial Admiral of the First Order of Steel, Kris Longknife, a human present in Iteeche space at the express invitation of your Imperial master.”
Kris paused to let that sink in then continued. “This is Big Flying Brick II. Airspace Control, please get the most senior lord on duty on this line. We need to talk.”
“Wait one,” came back at Kris, leaving her to wonder. Had the Iteeche come up with the same method of putting you on hold, or was Nelly translating something different as the human phrase.
This entire experience is totally beyond crazy.
It took a bit more than one minute. Indeed, Nelly made a time clock appear on Kris’s board 55 seconds after she talked with Airspace Control. The clock was past three minutes and still counting when a voice came on the line.
“Is this the same Kris Longknife, denizen of the darkest deep, who did this before?”
“The very same.”
“Kris, we’ve been tracked by search radars,” Jack said evenly. “Now some acquisition radars are dialing us in.”
“Admiral, please stand down your surface-to-air missiles.”
“And why should I?” didn’t quite have ‘pay attention to a mere human’ appended to it.
Kris Longknife - Admiral Page 22
