“What have you got so far?” Vicky asked as she led them and her entourage into her day quarters.
“Not a lot,” the admiral growled. “What looks to be three heavy cruisers are leading in three ships that have declared themselves the Golden Empress 1, 2, and 3. The cruisers have throttled their squawkers so we can’t identify them, but the Golden Empresses are being quite bold, even if they aren’t talking to us.”
“You can’t tell me anything about the ships but that?” Vicky asked.
“What more could we tell you?” Captain Etterlin countered.
Vicky rolled her eyes. “Computer, get me Lieutenant Blue.”
“Yes, Your Grace,” came immediately in the voice of the enthusiastic young officer.
“What can you tell me about the six ships that just entered the system?”
“The three heavy cruisers are not telling us anything, but we have identified them as Wittenberg, Augsburg, and Ulm. According to our data files, they carry twelve 9.2-inch lasers. Interesting enough, none of their capacitors are charged.”
“And the three other ships?” Vicky prodded.
“They identify themselves as the Golden Empress 1, 2, and 3, but they were, until lately, the Germanica, the Europa, and the Constantinia, all eighty-thousand-tonners of the Greenfeld-Earth lines. Our sensors show them armed with six 18-inch pulse lasers and three 5-inch long guns. Their capacitors are charged; however, their fire control systems, assuming they have any, are inactive.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant Blue. Will you please report to me in my cabin.”
“On my way, Your Grace.”
Vicky rang off and faced her two superior officers. Admiral von Mittleburg had a quizzical look on his face. Captain Etterlin looked in danger of a heart attack.
“And who is this Lieutenant Blue?” the captain demanded.
“I believe he and his staff and equipment came aboard at Bayern, a gift to me from some retired admirals.”
“Why wasn’t I informed?”
“No doubt you were,” Vicky answered the steaming officer. “No doubt you didn’t know what you had been given,” she added.
“Captain,” the admiral said, stepping between the Grand Duchess and the skipper of her putative yacht. “Why don’t you get the Retribution ready to sail. No doubt, there is a good chance we will be in a fight soon.”
The man saluted, happy to have something he understood handed to him, and left.
“He is a good ship handler,” the admiral noted.
“But I need a man of imagination, not a plodding cow.”
“Yes. Now, if you will, just who is this Lieutenant Blue?”
“He heads a sensor team with capabilities that go far beyond what our usual sensor suites can produce. I noticed that Kris Longknife had a major sensor suite on her ship. Her corvette was much better outfitted than one of our battleships. I put that down to the nosy Longknifes wanting to know everything. Then I watched her in action. Information is power, and she had more information at her fingertips than I have ever seen.
“I might have mentioned that to our friendly neighborhood spy. Possible he passed it along to someone in the Navy. Or maybe I dropped a hint to Admiral Waller. I don’t know how it happened, but I was delighted to be invited into Lieutenant Blue’s inner sanctum and shown what his toys could do. My own computer had told me more about the two Golden Empresses we ran into that were intent on recapturing Presov than the ship’s systems. Mr. Blue’s, however, actually stripped data off their computers, which gave me an update on what was happening in the Empire while I was out here.”
Vicky finished with a simple, “It was most informative.”
Tired of standing, she offered the admiral his chair and took hers across from him. Mr. Smith and the commander settled into one couch between them. Mannie took the other. Kit and Kat found chairs against the wall and took up alert stations.
“I want Lieutenant Blue to have a station on the bridge where he can keep me informed of what is happening as it develops. I suggested he do that, but, last I was on the bridge, nothing had been done.”
“No doubt he would be quite useful. Assuming the captain does not keelhaul him,” the admiral said dryly.
“Is there any chance I could have Captain Bolesław of the Attacker as my captain, Admiral?”
“My immediate answer to that is no, but I doubt that was what you wanted to hear.”
“In that, you are correct.”
“Let me consider this. If we can lay our hands on enough ships, I might actually get a chance to take a squadron to space and command it from this ship. That might open a lot of opportunities to you and put a cushion between you and Captain Etterlin.”
“It would be appreciated. You understand the value of a Grand Duchess. I fear that Captain Etterlin can only see a lieutenant commander.”
“That will, no doubt, be his mistake,” the admiral said.
At that moment, Lieutenant Blue presented himself. He was delighted to have a chance to explain to an admiral how he had managed to strip the IDs off three cruisers that were not squawking and how he knew what was and was not charged in the weapons they might be facing. When he’d finished, the admiral eyed Vicky with raised eyebrows.
“If the Wardhaven princess has this kind of information at her fingertips, no wonder she is such a pain in our behinds.”
“Yes.” Vicky agreed. “That is just the pain I wish to be if it comes to a fight.”
“I believe the Retribution has a flag bridge,” the admiral said.
“It does, sir,” the lieutenant reported.
“Please arrange to have a sensor station with feeds from your instruments located on that bridge. If you need any paperwork signed, contact my chief of staff.”
“I will contact him immediately, sir.”
“By the way, Lieutenant,” Vicky said. “What is your name? Blue is a nice code word, but if we are going to work together, I would like to know whom I am addressing.”
“Blue is my name, Your Grace. Lieutenant Odo Blue, at your service,” came with a bow from the waist and a full click of his heels.
“I am glad to have you in my service,” Vicky answered, and the lieutenant went on his way.
Vicky turned back to her admiral. “It seems we must find you a fleet to command so I can stand at your elbow and not someone less impressionable.”
“We have the Rostock,” the admiral provided.
“What kind of a battle can one battleship and one light cruiser put up against three heavies and a trio of armed liners?”
The admiral stared at the overhead. “It all depends. If the battleship can open fire at its maximum range, it could do a lot of damage before the others got close enough to lay a finger on it. If, however, politics or something else allowed the cruisers and jumped-up merchant ships to close to within their range before a shot is fired, it would be a bloody brawl. No matter who was left standing at the end, they’d be in a lot of hurt.”
“I kind of figured you’d say that,” Vicky said. “So, we either fire first and start this war without any defiances given, or we let them get in close and start the war, and maybe make it a very short one, at that.”
“None of that sounds good to me,” the admiral admitted.
“I remember you telling me you had two armed merchant ships of your own fitting out.”
“Yes, the Sovereign of the Stars and the Sovereign of the Sky are both about ready to sail. They are now armed with six 21-inch pulse lasers and six 6-inch long guns.”
“Better than the blackhearted Empress’s ships, but we only have two to her three.”
“Yes,” the admiral agreed. “It might be better for us, but it would still be a bloody mess.”
“It seems to me that we need to figure out some way not to fight this battle.”
“That would be my first choice,” the admiral agreed, “but how?”
“What if the two Sovereigns pass themselves off as Attacker and Kamchatka?”
The admiral frowned at Vicky. “Attacker has twelve 8-inch lasers. The Kamchatka is older, but she has twelve 9.2-inch lasers in her main battery. Older. Slower to recharge. Still, with the Retribution backing them up, I’d be reluctant to get in a fight if I only had the three Wittenbergs. But how would anyone mistake the Sovereigns for heavy cruisers?”
“Computer, get me Lieutenant Blue.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“I need to pass off two armed merchant cruisers as the heavy cruisers Attacker and Kamchatka. Any suggestions how I do it?”
“Well, Your Grace, it’s against the law for a ship to squawk as another ship.”
“What if I didn’t care about that law?”
“Assuming the sensors aboard the cruisers coming in aren’t any better than the sensors on most Greenfeld ships, it should be pretty easy to mess with them. I’ve always wanted to try it, but, you know, ma’am, it being illegal and all that, I’d never think of actually doing it.”
“Which is to say that you’ve never done it for very long and gotten caught,” Vicky said dryly.
“Not more than a few seconds, ma’am.”
“Can you do it for several long hours?”
“Most certainly,” sounded boyishly eager.
“Admiral, could you advise the skippers of the necessary ships that we will be making some unusual modifications to them in the next hour.”
“Unusual or illegal?”
“No need to put too fine a point on it, is there?”
“Of course not, Your Grace.” With a grin, he tapped his commlink. “Bruno, have I got some work for you, and it’s not even all that illegal.”
Vicky went over to the bulkhead that separated her day cabin from her night cabin. “Computer, show me the system with all the ships under way in it.”
The bulkhead screen came to life. There was only the one dot representing the incoming six ships from her stepmother.
Mannie now came to stand at her elbow. “What are you thinking of?” he asked.
“How to not fight a battle but win one anyway,” Vicky said vaguely.
“To use cunning rather than brute force, huh.”
“Something like that,” Vicky admitted. “Kris Longknife does this all the time. This is the first time I’m trying my hand at it.”
“You going to go charging out at them?” Mannie asked.
“If I did, the admiral here would tan my bottom, right?”
“I don’t know about your bottom,” the admiral said, carefully, “but I would strongly recommend against you charging at the incoming ships. Once you shot past them, you’d have a hell of a time turning around, and they’d be closing on St. Petersburg and this station with a free hand.”
“I did learn something following Admiral Krätz and Kris Longknife around,” Vicky said. “Never let the enemy get between you and the base you have to defend. No. We stay here for as long as I dare. I just wish something would force them to tip their hand . . . give away their intentions.”
The admiral’s shrug was full stoic.
Then the jump coughed out a new set of dots.
“The heavy cruiser Biter has just entered the system,” Vicky’s computer announced.
“I think I hear a hand tipping,” Vicky whispered.
CHAPTER 6
“ THE Biter was escorting a trade convoy on a swing through Good Luck, Finster, Ormuzd, Kazan, and Presov,” the admiral said, as freighters followed the cruiser through the jump.
“So those cargo ships are loaded with crystal and rare earths,” Vicky said.
“Among other resources,” the admiral agreed.
“Which we need.”
“Definitely,” Mannie said.
“Your Grace,” came from Lieutenant Blue, “the Golden Empress 1 has just ordered the Biter and the arriving convoy to match course and acceleration with them.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant.”
“I wondered why those ships were only accelerating at point seven five gees,” the admiral said. “They were waiting for the convoy to come through so they could shanghai it.”
“Apparently. How bad are the odds against the Biter?”
“She has twelve 8-inch lasers. She faces thirty-six 9.2-inch ones. Not good.”
“Admiral, if you will, please advise the convoy and its escort to comply with the threats being leveled at them.”
The admiral raised a quizzical eyebrow.
“One could say that they are being attacked by pirates, could one not?” Vicky said, oh so delicately.
“Assuming the color of the demands is piratical and not official,” the admiral agreed.
“Only time will tell, but we don’t want to fire the first shot, do we?”
“No,” and the admiral tapped his commlink and sent the suggested order to Biter.
It took a while for all the messages to pass through space this way and that. While Vicky went about her own work, messages came in from the Biter demanding to know who was ordering her and her convoy to deviate from their course. The three Navy cruisers stayed quiet through the exchange. A Lord High Commissioner for the Safety of St. Petersburg aboard the Golden Empress 1 informed them he held a warrant direct from the Empress’s hand and that all must comply with his commands. The skipper of the Biter delayed answering that one, but he did accelerate away from the jump at one gee and slowly overtook the early arrivals.
Once they got close enough, the Lord High Commissioner for Safety announced that they should prepare to be boarded. The Biter’s initial answer to that was a strong negative. Luckily, the admiral’s instructions arrived about that time, and Biter then matched its course and acceleration smoothly with the other convoy. Longboats quickly covered the distance between the freighters and cruiser from the armed merchant ships or maybe pirates.
“I would call that an attack, wouldn’t you?” Vicky said.
“I doubt if the Empress would,” the admiral pointed out.
“Mannie, what do you call it?”
“Interference with the free trade of ships registered to my planet,” the mayor snapped.
“I think we might give his opinion on this matter some weight,” Vicky said.
“Maybe we can,” the admiral agreed, rubbing his chin. “Maybe we can. Now what?”
“We wait until they are close enough,” Vicky said slowly, “then we loop out to do our own matching of orbits with them. You and your task force of three cruisers and a battleship.”
“Since all we can do is wait, I’m hungry,” Mannie said. “Don’t you sailormen eat?”
“I’ll have the galley send a meal to my wardroom, or the admiral’s wardroom,” Vicky said. “If he’s coming aboard, I imagine I’ll have to find someplace else to hang my dainties out to dry.”
“I suspect it will be a quick in and out, all in one day,” the admiral said. “No doubt you can leave your dainties drying where they are.”
“You are most gracious,” Vicky allowed.
“Is she always this nice?” Mannie asked the admiral.
“I think she’s trying to pull the wool over someone’s eyes. It’s certainly not working on me,” the admiral answered.
“Hmm,” was all the mayor said.
The commander announced that supper was served in the admiral’s wardroom, and the seven of them adjourned next door to taste a decent goulash the cook was rumored to be famous for. If you didn’t believe it, you only had to ask the chief petty officer yourself.
Kit hunted up a screen they could glance at during supper. It continued to show the progression of the ships closing in on High St. Petersburg.
After his second spoonful of goulash, the admiral put down his spoon and turned to Vicky. “How would you fight this coming battle?”
Vicky had a spoon of the quite tasty stew halfway to her mouth. She put it down, patted her lips with the linen napkin, and thought for a moment more. “First, the objective is to overawe the other side into not fighting. Somehow, I would want to put them in a position where
they knew they were in trouble and would be badly bloodied if it came to a fight, and thus, would call it quits before it came to one.”
“A commendable objective,” the admiral said, “considering that some of my friends are on those ships. So, how would you do that?”
Vicky leaned back in her chair and stared at the overhead for a long moment. She found herself worrying her lips as she thought. Clearly, the admiral was not about to turn his fleet over to a green lieutenant commander. This was an exercise to see if a Grand Duchess could be trusted on his bridge as he figured this one out for himself.
Still, this was a test she very much wanted to pass.
“Kris Longknife had a battle very much like this one,” Vicky finally said, remembering a very long analysis that someone had added to Kris’s file.
Vicky wondered how many friends the man writing that analysis had lost when Kris Longknife won that battle.
“Which one was that?” Mannie asked. “She seems to have fought a lot of battles if the stories are to be believed.”
“It was in defense of her home planet,” Vicky said, “when pirate battleships suddenly appeared and demanded its surrender.”
“Oh, that one,” Mannie said.
Vicky had noted the slight wince from the admiral when she said “pirate battleships.” No doubt he knew the real reason for the empty seats at Greenfeld Navy Academy reunions of late. In present company, he kept his silence.
“Yes,” Vicky said, “that one. Six battleships headed for her planet. Only twelve mosquito boats to defend it because of an unbelievable blunder by some politicians.”
Again, Vicky had a pretty good idea who had encouraged those Wardhaven politicians to make such a botch of matters, but it was not something to talk about here and now. The look the admiral gave Vicky told her he wanted that talk, and soon.
“So, Kris Longknife had this same problem,” Mannie said, playing the straight man to Vicky. “What did she do?”
“She put her fast attack boats, along with anything else she could scrape together, kind of like us and our armed merchant cruisers, in a high orbit that reached out to meet the incoming battleships without charging right past them. That put her in a position to fight them all the way in. Is that what you intend to do, Admiral von Mittleburg?”
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