Kris Longknife's Replacement: Admiral Santiago on Alwa Station Read online

  Kris Longknife’s Replacement

  By

  Mike Shepherd

  Grand Admiral Sandy Santiago is a woman with a very big problem. How does a mere mortal fill the shoes of one of those damn Longknifes? Worse, the shoes she has to fill are Kris Longknife’s. She’s got birds, and cats, oh, and the occasion murderous alien. How does a girl get this lucky?

  Published by KL & MM Books

  December 2016

  Copyright © 2016 by Mike Moscoe

  All right reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or any other information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher.

  This book is a work of fiction set 400 years in humanities future. Any similarity between present people, places or events would be spectacularly unlikely and is purely coincidental.

  This book is written and published by the author. Please don’t pirate it. I’m self-employed. The money I earn from these sales allow me to produce more stories to entertain you. I’d hate to have to get a day job again. If this book comes into your hands free, please consider going to your favorite e-book provider and investing in a copy so I can continue to earn a living at this wonderful art.

  I would like to thank my wonderful cover artist, Scott Grimando, who did all my Ace covers and will continue doing my own book covers. I also am grateful for the editing skill of Lisa Muller and, as ever, Ellen Moscoe.

  Chapter 1

  Grand Admiral Sandy Santiago paused at the top of the gangplank of the USS Wasp to take a deep breath. It came in tasting of the usual mixtures she’d come to expect on a space station: machine oil, plastics, and human sweat with undertones of other, less savory scents we humans gave the air. This breath, however, was loaded with a whole lot more. Sand had come face to face with just how big a challenge she faced.

  She was taking over a command from Admiral, Her Royal Highness, Kris Longknife.

  Of course, there was also the added spice to her life of very likely getting killed. As a Santiago, she well knew how many of her family had bled and died for the Longknife legend.

  Still, a command on the far side of the galaxy had to be about as independent as an admiral could ask for. That challenge had grabbed her and propelled her all the way out here.

  And now that she’d gotten her first briefing from Kris Longknife herself, she felt a little bit poleaxed.

  I didn’t see any of that coming.

  Sandy rendered proper honors and crossed the brow. As she strode along, she began organizing all that had been thrown at her: an admiral pregnant, suicide missions fought off, every single one of them. Five, no six huge alien mother ships fought and destroyed in three different battles, the last one involving thousands of ships on their side against all that we humans had managed to scrape up, a little over two hundred. Oh, and one hundred and sixty of that huge human battle fleet had burned their reaction tanks dry and were drifting in orbit hundreds of light years from their base in desperate need of a refueling mission.

  Kris had had a busy couple of months. Fortunately, Sandy was well past that baby thing and looking forward to spoiling grandkids and returning them to her sons and daughters when they became troublesome. She chuckled to herself. She’d started longevity at thirty. While she could still do PT with the Marines on the USS Victory, there was no way this admiral was going to get pregnant.

  No way, no how.

  Which still left a whole lot on Sandy’s plate.

  She was so lost in her thoughts about all she needed to do that she hardly noticed when a three star admiral, tall, chiseled and graying, along with a petite, young, female civilian that looked ready to explode, crossed her path.

  When their presence impinged on Sandy’s notice, she fixed them with a jaundice eye and cleared her throat.

  The two of them eyed one another, then, evidently experienced with each other enough to read the other’s mind, the young woman said, “You go first, Admiral Benson.”

  “Benson?” Sandy echoed, “I thought the king sent you out here for a civilian post. Dockyards or something.”

  “Out on Alwa Station, Admiral, we repair them, we build more, and then, when the time comes, we fight them as well. I commanded the Reserve Fleet under the admiral, here,” he said with a nod toward the Wasp where said admiral was busy gestating – and recovering from one hell of a battle.

  “Reserve Fleet?” Sandy said, frowning as her mind raced through the skimpy debriefing she’d just gotten from Kris Longknife. “Didn’t you just hold the last jump into Alwa against the final push by the bug-eyed monsters?”

  The man’s face lit up with pure, one hundred percent pride. “That we did, ma’am. Me, and most of my yard birds along with any of Pipra’s factory workers willing to volunteer, or Granny Rita’s Colonials or the odd and sod Rooster or Ostrich that we could train up to stand a watch. We may have been a very mixed bag and nowhere near Navy squared away, but we fought the damn bug-eyed monsters and we got’em good.”

  “Well done, Admiral. Now, would you mind following me back to my flag? I think there’s some odds and ends that need tidying up.”

  “That’s what we need to talk about, ma’am. Those odds, and the next set of ins. Grand Admiral, may I present Pipra Strongarm, Kris’s right arm gal running the industrial side of the show out here. She oversees the independent operators out in the asteroids that mine the stuff that’s shipped down to the moon fabricators that Pipra also bosses. A lot of the stuff that comes out of them gets shipped up here. Then me and my yard birds use it to patch together ships that the Navy dings, dents and busts up. With what’s left over, we spin together brand spanking new ships. You wouldn’t believe what comes out of my yard and the three or four other dockyards that nice folks back home have been kind enough to ship out here. Besides me and defense gobbling stuff up, her fabs also make the goodies that the Colonials like and the Alwans demand.”

  Sandy nodded at the young woman, not sure how this all fit together . . . or mattered to her. “Fine, I’d be glad to talk to both of you later, but I’ve got the wreckage of a battle to police up. I understand from Kris that she’s got much of a Battle Fleet out there to hell and gone, running on fumes and I need to get some reaction mass out to them soonest,” Sandy said, quick marching for her flag.

  Both the Navy officer and the civilian quick marched right along beside her. “Yes, Admiral, that’s why we think you need to talk to both of us now, and maybe Granny Rita and the Colonial’s First Minister Ada, too.”

  Sandy gave him a gimlet eye, but didn’t quite give him the line that demanded, “If you’re so smart, why ain’t there more stripes on your coat than mine?”

  “Begging your pardon, ma’am,” Admiral Benson went on, if a bit uncomfortably, “it’s likely not safe for you to send the ships you just brought in out there. Leastwise, you’re more likely to lose more of yours than I’d lose of mine.”

  Now Sandy did give him the Look. “You want to explain yourself, admiral?”

  And be fast about it, went unsaid.

  “Are you aware of something called crystal armor that they’ve developed on Earth?”

  “I’m aware of it. None of it has gotten out to the rim yet. Why?”

  “Well, ma’am, a couple of squadrons of Earth battlecruisers showed up out here a while back. Between the scientists and engineers we had on station, Pipra’s industries and my yard hands, we kind of reverse engineered the stuff and managed to coat every ship in our fleet with
it before this last dust up.”

  Sandy came to a halt. The look she now gave him was full on surprise. With maybe a bit of awe tossed in.

  “You put that weird armor on your entire fleet?”

  “Yes, Admiral,” Benson said with a proud grin. “And there are a lot fewer dead Sailors out there because we did, ma’am.”

  “And you got all of that stuff out of your moon fabricators?” she said, glancing at the civilian.

  “You’re damn right we did, ma’am. You ever try to tell a Longknife you couldn’t give her what she wanted?”

  “Not recently,” Sandy muttered, then, remembering she needed to be on her flag bridge, kept walking, but slower, so the woman wouldn’t have to run so much to keep up.

  “Okay, Admiral Benson, tell me what you think I need to know about operations on Alwa Station.”

  “You got a week?”

  She glared at him.

  “He’s not joking, ma’am,” Pipra put in, defending the Navy man. “The way Kris Longknife has been running things, it doesn’t fit any book, and frankly, if she hadn’t, I don’t think any of us would still be alive.”

  “Okay, give me the short form. You can give me the long one later.”

  Again, the two locals exchanged glances. This time, the young woman took over the conversation. “I’m assuming that you don’t want to be running your ships around here without a coating of crystal armor.”

  “How long will it take you to glue or whatever you do with the crystal to get it wrapped around my ships? I brought in sixty-four of what Kris is calling battlecruisers.”

  The business woman rubbed her eyes, then looked off toward the distant end of the space station, when she started speaking, it was slowly. “That all depends on how fast we can get production up and running again. Ben, can you stand down some of my workers?”

  “BatRon 13 is first on my decommissioning list,” Admiral Benson answered. “Furious, Enterprise, Audacious, Resolute, Proud Unicorn, Lucky Leprechaun, Kikukei and Temptress are crewed pretty much by my dockyard workers with some of your people added on and a few Roosters and Ostriches tossed in for good measure. We’ll get the most labor out of those ships. If I shake out the V class, Valiant, Vanguard, Vindictive and Victorious, I should have enough to handle our damaged ships as well as up armor at least sixteen of your ships, Admiral.”

  “Assuming I can get the crystal growing again,” Pipra growled.

  “Assuming?” Sandy demanded.

  “You know, Granny Rita’s going to be screaming for farming equipment and the Alwans will be hooting for their trade goods.”

  Admiral Santiago was not following this conversation. Grand Admirals do not appreciate having to listen to conversations that meant nothing to them.

  Grand admirals did not have to put up with this kind of noise, either.

  “Explain yourselves,” she demanded.

  Again, the young woman took the lead. “My fabricators knock out what the admiral here needs for his yards, but they also have to meet the demands of the human Colonials and the Alwan birds. As you may have heard a moment ago, we’ve got Colonials and Alwans standing watch side by side with your Sailors. I’ve got Colonials and Alwans doing shifts in my fabs. We’re getting pretty mixed up and matched, but you got to feed the cow’s front end before you can milk guns and butter out her back end. You following me?”

  Sandy scowled. “The picture is disgusting, but you say Kris has been juggling all of this?”

  “We’ve been juggling all this,” Pipra said, forcefully. “Kris, us, them, all, anyone handy. You following me?”

  “I think so,” Sandy admitted. “I was briefed that some factories and yards had been flown out here to provide some sort of support force. I didn’t really expect, from the tone of voice of those who mentioned all this stuff, that you’d be running all of it at full bore.”

  “Full bore and balls to the wall,” Admiral Benson said. “I’m not sure any of us thought we could do half of what we’ve done, but when you’ve got Kris Longknife giving you that Look, you don’t tell her you can’t, you tell her she’ll have it ahead of schedule and under price.”

  “Even if we haven’t figured out how to price anything in this crazy economy,” Pipra added, making a face like she’d been made to swallow a lemon.

  They had reached Sandy’s flagship. The canvas stretched between the guardrails on either side of the brow was blue with the proud name Victory in bold white letters. Someone had added five stars in a circle as well.

  “Please come aboard,” Admiral Santiago said, leading the way. “I know we’ve only scratched the surface of the mess you’re dropping in my lap. Remember, there are still those hungry ships out there, starving for reaction mass.”

  Chapter 2

  “If I may,” Admiral Benson noted, settling into a seat across from Sandy at the conference table in her day quarters, “you face three problems.”

  Benson had waited to make his point while Sandy had coffee and sandwiches brought in. That also allowed time for Captain Van Velder, Sandy’s chief of staff, and Mondi Ashigara, her operations chief, to join them.

  “Only three problems?” Mondi asked. The tall, thin woman was a stickler for details.

  “No doubt, these three will spawn their own crop with more heads to lop off,” Pipra answered.

  “Getting back to our three problems,” Benson said, going forward. “The alien wolf packs have designed two new classes of ships. One is fast, though lightly armed and armored. Some of them may be wandering around our flanks or rear areas. The other class is the opposite: huge things we call door knockers. They have thick rock armor and a massive number of lasers ready to fire in all directions. They weren’t included in the main battle Kris just fought. Those door knockers were seen to slip out one of the more distant jumps after we annihilated the main force. Admiral, it might behoove you to chase them down and destroy them before they report back to whatever wolf packs are still out there. We really don’t want them all in the know of how we demolished these last four.”

  Mondi was taking furious notes, calling up reports on her reader and looked ready to come out of her chair. There was a lot to like about Mondi’s eagerness. Still, Sandy knew when to keep her leash tight.

  “And the other two?” Sandy said.

  “We’ve got something like a hundred and sixty ships, minus loses, out there at what we call System X that are sucking the last fumes from their reaction mass tanks. They’ve got to be refueled, and the damaged ones convoyed back here for some serious repair work in the yards. There are also three massive and heavily damaged beam ships that are likewise in desperate need of a return escort. The worst damaged one was last seen limping out of the system in any direction that didn’t look to have any bug-eyed monsters. We used all three of them desperately hard. Likely we’ll need to completely rebuild them before we dare fire one of them again. Even after we do that, the good Lord only knows what kind of work we can expect to get out of them.”

  “And lastly?” Sandy said, not happy about the length of this problem list, but not able to find fault with it, either.

  “There’s the matter of whether or not your new arrivals are up to fighting by Alwa standards, ma’am.”

  “We arrived ready for a fight,” Van put in, storm clouds forming in his bushy eyebrows.

  “No, doubt, Captain, but did you arrive ready to fight the Kris Longknife and Alwa Defense Sector’s way? Begging the admiral’s pardon, but did Phil Taussig get a chance to pass along to the home fleet how Kris fights her battlecruisers?”

  “You mean jinksing all over the place?” Sandy replied. “He mentioned something about that. Admiral, I was there when Lieutenant Kris Longknife took her fast attack boats in to get those six battleships someone sent out to blast Wardhaven back into the stone age. She and those boats did some wild jigs. She’s not trying to do something like that with a ship this big, is she?” Sandy said, glancing around at the bulkheads and overhead.

  “
A tiny slip of a mosquito boat was one thing. A sixty or seventy thousand ton near capital ship? Even a Longknife couldn’t be that crazy.”

  The two locals exchanged glances.

  Damn, she is that crazy.

  Admiral Benson chose his words carefully, as you’d expect from a Navy officer who had thirty plus years of explaining the facts to ignorant elephants. “Begging the admiral’s pardon, ma’am, but yes, the admiral won’t have any ship, picket or battlecruiser, stay on any set course for more than two, maybe three seconds. That’s how we fight, win, and stay alive on Alwa Station.”

  “You can’t jump a ship this size around like a spit kit,” Van said, as absolute as any Navy captain ever had been.

  “You’ll want to have your ships’ computers talk to Kris’s Nelly. It involves widening the piping between the reactor to the maneuvering jets, and doubling the number of those suckers, as well,” Benson said. When faced with the look of rejection, he didn’t wilt, but went on. “You’ll also likely want to upgrade your high gee stations. On Alwa Station, they not only have to accommodate acceleration along a single axis, but also right, left, up down, faster, slower, and maybe even a bit of torque. Kris Longknife is as rough on her crew as she is on her ships.”

  “You’re serious,” Van said, playing devil’s advocate so his boss wouldn’t have to.

  “Dead serious,” Benson answered. “That’s why I was suggesting that if you do decide to send out a squadron or two on a refueling mission, that you also take along a squadron and a half of mine to escort you. That way, on the way to System X, they can help you drill in some of the bobbing and weaving we do out here. You don’t want to be unprepared if you run into any stray monsters that didn’t get The Word they lost.”

  “And I’m thinking of chasing myself some of those door knockers you mentioned,” Sandy said.