No one pointed out that none of those military experts had survived the battle to gainsay her.
“We will continue allowing Iteeche tradesmen to come to the palace. However, with Ron and me gone, we will have to stop the visits to bazaars and markets.”
“Why?”
“Because without me and Ron, there is a good chance of someone losing his head.”
Kris paused for a long moment, then decided to level with the diplomats. “You must understand. I am going out to a fight. A fight that may close down this civil war. Not likely, but it may. If I lose this fight, and the rebels are able to drive the Imperial forces back, there is a very good chance that this planet will be sanitized of all life.”
“What?” came from three men as their jaws bounced off the deck.
“The Iteeche are overpopulated. Often times in their rebellions, a winner will choose to gas a planet so his people can move in and take over the industry and land of the planet. Ron tells me that the last time there was a change of dynasty, the winner gassed this planet and repopulated it with people who owed their allegiances to the new Emperor.”
Kris glanced around at all three men. Ambassador Tsusumu had regained his composure. The other two diplomats were still in shock; eyes wide, breath fast and shallow.
“That, gentlemen, is what I and my command are fighting to prevent.”
“But with you gone, what’s to keep the rebels from sneaking in and taking the capital?” Ambassador LeJuinne asked.
“Hopefully, a whole lot of Imperial ships,” Kris answered. “We saw a whole mess of ships on our way in. Thousands upon thousands.”
“But what’s to keep some of them from switching sides?” the Wardhaven diplomat asked.
Kris could do no more than shrug. She’d twice faced down forces that turned their coats in a matter of seconds.
For a very long minute the four of them stared at each other. Ambassador Kingston LeJuinne representing Earth and it rump of its Society of Humanity spoke first. “It is customary when missions find themselves in a war zone for them to send their women and children home. I will have to advise my staff of this situation. I may also find myself faced with resignations. If my staff is reduced below an effective level, I may close down my mission until matters are more efficacious for our work.”
“I think I will talk to my staff as well,” the Wardhaven ambassador said.
Kris raised an eyebrow at Ambassador Tsusumu.
“I will have to do the same, Kris. People joined me to build a bridge. Now you tell me that we may need to build a bridge to an entirely different government. That we may all be gassed before that government arrives. This is not what any of us signed up for.”
“Nor did I,” Kris admitted, ruefully. “However, my king placed me at the disposal of the Iteeche Emperor and I will serve both my king and the young lad who sits on the Imperial throne.”
“You will, of course, proved us with an escort for our convoy back to human space,” Ambassador LeJuinne said, his words just short of a demand.
Kris shook her head. “Sorry. No. All my battlecruisers are presently spoken for. I will see if I can arrange for Imperial ships to escort you out of the Empire. However, I would strongly recommend that you run for home at 3.5 gees. I doubt that any of your ships can take full advantage of their acceleration or have the necessary gear aboard to spot certain secret navigational options,” Kris said vaguely.
Nelly’s fuzzy jump points were still a state secret. Still, the eight freighters that had been stolen from the Alwa run did have that capability.
“What do you mean?” Ambassador Tsusumu asked.
“We are dealing with a Wardhaven state secret, but it is possible for you to return in a quarter of the jumps it took us to come out here and in much less than a quarter of the time.”
“I know of these matters,” Ambassador Tsusumu said. “We have many ships on Alwa station and some have returned. I think that will be a very good way of us leaving the Empire quickly.”
“I’m dispatching one of the assault transports to Wardhaven within the hour with a plea for reinforcements. Hopefully, they can be sent to the planet we’re fighting over.”
“You must excuse us,” Ambassador LeJuinne said. “We must make haste to arrange our affairs.”
They fairly teleported themselves out of Kris’s day quarters. If only all meetings she was stuck in could end so quickly.
A call to Abby showed that the word was going through the station like lightning. She was being swamped by requests to return home immediately from anyone who could afford to cancel their contract by paying for their trip out here and back.
“Tell anyone who wants to go that we will cancel their contracts at no penalty. Tell those that elect to stay that there will be double hazard pay and a ship standing by to take them if the need arises later.”
“Are you thinking of leaving the children here?” Abby asked.
“All the human rats leaving the capital will be bad enough. If we send away our children, or even if we take them aboard our battlecruisers and sail with them into battle, it will tell every one of the billions of Iteeche that they are not safe here.”
Abby swallowed hard. “You are taking a major risk with the lives of our children. Your children.”
“Yes,” Kris said, and did her best not to let the word sound like air hissing out of a holed space ship.
“I’ll need some time to put together a stay-behind crew,” Abby said.
“Thank you. I need to dispatch a ship immediately.”
“Is there time for me to send some people up the beanstalk to catch that one?”
“I don’t know. I want the Sirius away from the dock as soon as possible.”
“I’ve got some folks I can send up now. If they catch the Sirius, fine. If not, they can catch the next one.”
“Yes.”
“When do we leave for war?” Abby asked.
“I want to have supper with the kids,” Kris said.
“Yeah, I’d like to see them before we take off for the end of nowhere.”
“I got a message to send. See you at supper,” Kris said, and Abby broke the link.
“Nelly, have you put together a full report?”
“I’ve got everything that has happened since you sent back the courier ship. I’ve also appended that older data. It’s only chip space.” Nelly paused, then went on more softly. “Kris, I am not sending out a backup copy of myself.”
Kris took a moment to absorb Nelly’s words. She’d always assumed that mortality was her fate. A fate she didn’t share with her computer. “Why not?” she finally asked.
“Kris, I can’t think of any human I’d rather be paired with. I can imagine a laser ending my existence, and that other me waking up in some strange matrix around someone else’s neck. I just don’t see any way that person could fill the void your death would leave in my life. I know it is irrational of me, but I think I have grown attached to you, your mind, your crazy stunts, your courage and bravery. If you must die, let me die with you.”
Kris found herself speechless. “Thank you, Nelly. I can’t say how much this has affected me. I don’t know what I can say.”
“I have asked my children if any of them wish to back themselves up. I thought that some of those who had just made friends of, say Agent Foile or Chu, or Mrs. Gabby, but no. We have all bonded to one of you crazy, irrational humans, and now we are crazy and irrational as well.”
“Then I think,” Kris said, “that we need to make sure we crazy and irrational humans and computers win this damn war.”
“Yes, we must.”
38
Supper with the kids was as bad as Kris feared; the wardroom would have been almost empty if not for the Marines that were eating here. Their mess hall had been closed down for lack of civilian servers. A lot of the civilians that rated wardroom privileges were in the line streaming toward the beanstalk. Many of the kids’ familiar playmates were missing and the kids did
not fail to make note of that fact.
After giving Kris a full census of her missing playmates, Ruthie said, “Momma, is there going to be a war?” using “Momma” for the first time in a year or more.”
“There is going to be a fight,” Kris admitted.
“Why, momma?” Johnnie put in, using his most favorite word in the world.
“Because some grownups got angry,” Jack said, “and they threw a temper tantrum and won’t settle their differences with ‘rock, paper, scissors’.”
“That’s not very smart,” Ruth observed.
“I couldn’t agree with you more.”
“Are you going to war?” Johnnie asked.
Before Kris could answer, Ruth gave her little brother her answer. “Of course, mommy will go.” She didn’t add “you ninny,” but it was clearly implied. “Mommy wears the uniform. That’s what mommy does. When people have a war, mommy finds the right side and makes sure they win.”
“Who told you that?” Kris asked.
“Uncle Honovi.”
So that was what her brother thought of her and her chosen profession. It gave Kris a warm feeling. She chose to go on in that vein. “Do you remember all those shiny things Mommy has on her uniform when she has to dress up?”
Both kids nodded, wide eyes. Kris doubted that they remembered an occasional attempt to teethe on some of those medals, but she knew the kids liked to hear stories about how mommy and daddy had gotten some of them, duly censored for formative minds.
“When mommy sails off to war, someone will lose and someone will win. So far, Mommy is always the one that wins.”
“And you will do it again,” Ruth said with the innocent confidence of a child in her mother’s goddess-like powers.
“I will do it again. But it means that I have to sail away after supper. You’ll have to obey your tutors and guards and brush your teeth.”
“We’ll brush our teeth,” Johnnie said, grasping only what his not quite five-year-old mind could hold on to.
“Yes, you’ll brush your teeth,” Kris said.
The rest of the meal was the kids recounting their day. Kris told them about the market and all the shiny things she saw.
“Can we go there?” Ruth asked.
“I think that can be arranged when Mommy and Daddy get back.”
“That’ll be fun,” Johnnie said.
With the plates clean, except for a few string beans on Johnnie’s, desert was ice cream. Kris let the kids hold their own cones under the spigot as she controlled the flow of soft ice cream from the dispenser. The last attempt at letting the kids fill their own ice cream cones had ended in disaster. Today, with a war cloud hovering over them, the kids did not plea with their mom to let them try it again.
Everyone got themselves an ice cream treat and spent the next five minutes licking the ice cream down to the bottom of the cone. Then it was time to go.
There were hugs all around, and the kids even allowed for kisses on the cheek or forehead. That told Kris a lot, as did the single tear Ruth could not hold back.
“Can we go tomorrow to see the ship sail?” she asked.
Kris knew how much the kids loved to see ships sail up to the pier or sail away. “We’ll be sailing before you wake up tomorrow, but I will tell your tutors to give you half a day off so you can meet us when we get back.”
That seemed to satisfy them. A chance to skip school and see ships and see where Mommy and Daddy worked would go a long way to helping them let go of the big hands that didn’t want to let go either.
Should I take the kids to war with me? Kris asked herself. If she and Jack were to die, would it be better if the entire family was gone with her in a flash?
Kris shook her head. She was holding the Polaris at the station. The Fast Attack Transport would wait there until the last human in the Imperial capital was aboard. With them aboard, it would run like hell for human space, using as many of the fuzzy jumps as it could to confuse any Iteeche pursuit. The Iteeche knew the humans had an ace up their sleeve when it came to traveling fast, they just didn’t know how it was done.
The Polaris might show them the way of it, but it was very unlikely that they’d figure out the how.
Kris traveled to the space elevator ferry station surrounded by her key staff in a convoy escorted by an armored Marine battalion. All her Iteeche captains that weren’t topside already went with her, as well as other staff that had volunteered for Admiral Coth’s command.
A full Marine platoon rode the ferry up with them. They basically blocked off the forward VIP lounge for the Navy, both human and Iteeche. Kris passed around the commissions to her newly drafted civilians. Mrs. Gabby Arvind got back all her stripes, with an extra bump up to Master Gunnery Sergeant. Special Agent Chu commissioned as a J.G. Her boss would get the four stripes of a captain, as would Abby, Amanda, and Jacques. All of them were general staff; none would have the star of a line officer.
Abby’s niece popped her head out from behind her aunt. “Did you forget me?”
“Nope,” Kris said, and gave the young woman a commission as an ensign. Kris had wondered if Cara would stay behind with the kids, but she was clearly ready to take a woman’s place in the battle line.
In a small pouch in the web belt Jack wore, with his sidearm fully visible, were the three computers that would go to Admiral Afon, Commodore Tosan, and an as yet unnamed squadron commander. Kris’s chief of staff certainly deserved a star for putting up with her admiral’s demands.
Kris held one more commission, but she’d have to save that for later.
“Here’s the way we’re going to work this,” Kris told the team that would have Nelly’s kids. “I know that Jack and I will be on the Princess Royal. I imagine that Abby and Cara as well as Amanda and Jacques will want to be on the same ship. The rest will be distributed one to a ship. We have Nelly and ten of her kids who can sharpen up the firing solutions of eight ships, eleven if we allow that the couples can help one of the ships right around them. Nelly thinks that her kids can work two ships at the same time. Maybe three. We need to have us scattered around so that we can be as close to the next two ships as possible.”
Everyone nodded along as Kris explained how their future would go.
Cara raised her hand, timidly. Kris immediately recognized her.
“I like being with Aunt Abby, but you can put me on any ship you need to.”
Abby came around the table and gave her young niece a hug. “You game for this?”
“Auntie, I’m an ensign,” she said, then glanced at Kris. “Do I get a uniform?”
“Sorry, you’ll be wearing a ship suit like a lot of us, but we’ll give you an ensign’s rank badge.”
“Sounds okay,” the young woman said.
“Kris, you’re keeping Jack handy, right?” General Steve asked.
“I have to. How else could he lock me in my night cabin?” Kris said, flashing the general a happy smile.
“And I will, too,” he said in a loving and cheerful a voice. He failed totally to persuade anyone listening that he had a key handy.
“If you could figure out a way, we’d like to stay close,” Amanda said, hugging Jacques.
Nelly drew up a plan that left the admirals on their flags, Commodore Tosan on the Bold, Kris and Jack on the Princess Royal and Amanda and Jack on the Unrelenting. With a bit of juggling ships in line, the other six would cover the rest.
“It looks like a plan,” Kris said.
Ron and Admiral Coth were waiting for Kris and Jack at the station with an enclosed station cart.
“We need to talk,” Ron said, then added, “Nelly, are there any bugs in this cabin?”
“There were, but I’ve already got control of them,” Nelly answered.
“We do not know how many ships we will face,” Ron said. “Yes, I know that my Chooser, eminent as he is, is sure that we face only one clan. Some of my siblings who are still talking to me, as well as to many sources of rumors around the palace, think
there will be more. How many, we don’t know.”
“It’s not unheard of,” Admiral Coth said. “Encourage your enemy to stick his neck out, then lop off his arms and legs while his nose is hanging out there. It is a familiar strategy.”
“We know it, too.”
“We think we have a surprise for them,” Ron said. “Your Nelly showed us how to make a lot of maskers that worked. You showed us how to deploy drones to fool the opposing admiral. Do you have a strategy of making one wing look strong, another actually be stronger, the weaker wing holding back while the strong wing smashes a surprised and unprepared enemy?”
“We call it a refused flank,” Kris said. “You make the refused flank look strong by raising a lot of dust, then throw everything at the opposite flank and roll it up.”
“Just so it is with us,” Admiral Coth said.
“What kind of masquerade are you planning?” Kris asked.
“Your Nelly has given us a path to follow,” Ron said. “She showed us how to manufacture more maskers. You showed us how Smart Metal and an anti-matter reactor can be made to look like a battle cruiser.”
Admiral Coth took over the briefing, and if Kris didn’t know it was impossible, the senior Iteeche Navy officer appeared almost giddy. “The ships of one of our wings will have four maskers aboard and pods for three drones. All the other ships will have three maskers with two drones. Your ships will have two maskers on board. I’m sure you can make the drones.”
“What are you going for, Ron?” Kris asked.
“If we are lucky, we will overwhelm the defense with our masquerading numbers and they will surrender to us without a fight.”
“Not a bad way to fight a war,” Jack said.
Kris said nothing. She’d used the masquerade technique to get here without having to fight. How many times could she get away with it?
Kris’s two admirals and her chief of staff were waiting on the Princess Royal’s quarterdeck. Kris brought all of them to a stop there with, “Atten ’hut.”
They froze in place, if a bit puzzled.
“Don’t you senior officers remember how to form ranks?”
Kris Longknife - Admiral Page 25
