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  She glanced around the bridge. A lot of good people would be waiting with her.

  Captain Bolesław went on. “Of course, the Retribution will be a tough nut to crack. The Reprisal and Revenge have ice armor three meters thick. Ours is six meters where it counts. Their 15-inch lasers will spend a lot of time nibbling at us. If, however, we concentrate our 18-inch salvos down tight, we might get burnthrough after a broadside or two.”

  “You going to try to blow one of them out of space?” Vicky asked.

  “I’d rather not. I’ve got friends on those ships. The Wittenberg and Augsburg were against us last trip, and now they’re with us. I’d rather persuade Engle to come over to our side, or at least to leave here with fond memories.”

  Vicky listened to the skipper of her flagship. No doubt her father would have his head for being so soft. Vicky wondered if now was a time for such softness. Part of her was only too glad to leave the decision to the experienced Navy officer. He knew the men who’d be on the receiving end of his guns. A civil war was a war of brothers against brothers. She should trust his instincts.

  On the other hand, someone was about to start a shooting war. Wasn’t now the time to pack away all milk of human kindness? No question, her loving stepmom was rubber-stamping death sentences by the hundreds. Count what’s-his-name was only too quick to crow he’d take no prisoners.

  Should I let the other side have a monopoly on slaughter? Is it better to offer everyone two solid choices? Should I stand for something different from the evil Empress?

  Her father’s choices had led the entire Empire to this. Where would her choices lead?

  “Captain Bolesław, make this Engle’s lucky day.”

  “As you would have it, Your Grace,” came with a new edge to the skipper’s voice.

  I just hope this works. Vicky sighed.

  The opposing squadron got away from High Brunswick Station in reasonable order, did a deorbital burn, and ducked down toward the planet. When they came back around, they headed straight for Vicky’s squadron, accelerating at one gee.

  “It seems that our idiot of a Count is indeed conducting a cavalry charge,” Captain Bolesław observed dryly.

  “Isn’t that the way it’s done in all the videos?” Vicky pointed out through a grin.

  “And, as Admiral Krätz no doubt told you, in the videos, the other side is kind enough to be blown to bits. In real operations, the two passing sides are only in range of each other long enough for a few salvos, then the defender is headed off into the void and the attacker is closing rapidly on what the defender was supposed to defend.”

  “I do recall Admiral Krätz hammering that into my thick skull a dozen times or ninety,” Vicky said.

  “Defense, warn the crew we are about to put five revolutions on the ship.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  Warships had ice armor. The more the better. It absorbed laser hits and ablated away the heat. Occasionally, it mucked up space between the battle lines so that lasers bloomed and did less damage. However, even the six-meter-thick armor of a super battleship like the Retribution couldn’t stand solid hits.

  So all warships rotated along their long axes, spinning their iced hide away from a laser hit. Instead of burnthrough, the laser had to burn up a lot more ice.

  It frequently worked. Not all the time, but often enough that warships lugged around a lot of extra weight, coating their skins with frozen water.

  There were, however, problems with all that heavy ice. The ship had to be perfectly balanced. You put a spin on a hundred-thousand-ton warship that was out of balance, it could tear itself apart.

  Captain Bolesław was following the advice Admiral Krätz had hammered into Vicky. “Test the ice. Test the ship. Put your spin on slowly.”

  The Retribution slowly spun up to five RPMs. Vicky listened as pumps worked to move reaction mass around the ship, balancing it out.

  “The ship is solid at five revolutions per minute, sir,” Defense reported.

  “All hands, this is the captain speaking. We are about to go to battle stations. We’ll likely stay at battle stations for the next couple of hours. If you have to hit the head, now would be a good time.”

  Suddenly, Vicky felt a strong need to void her bladder. “If I may be excused, Captain.”

  “By all means, Your Grace.”

  Vicky motored down to her quarters. It was that or the nurses’ quarters. Kit and Kat were in their high-gee stations but were out in a flash to help Vicky get out of hers and make her way to the head. With the ship spinning at five RPMs, it was no easy operation.

  Done, they helped Vicky back into her cart, this time attaching the necessary fixtures to her plumbing. The high-gee station was designed with a man in mind. No doubt, the adjustments to accommodate Vicky would leak under high gees and rotations. Still, it was all she’d have until the battle was decided.

  Kit and Kat provided quick pecks on her cheeks, and Vicky rolled out to see what the day would bring.

  CHAPTER 19

  ON the trip back to the bridge, Vicky reflected on the battles she’d been in with Kris Longknife. Vicky had always been the cute little girl in the new dress. As she maneuvered her cart through traffic, it dawned on her she was likely one of the few battle veterans aboard.

  Now that’s a frightening thought.

  She reviewed what Kris Longknife would be doing to get ready for battle and found that Captain Bolesław might be missing something.

  On the bridge, Vicky motored over to the skipper and leaned her head close to his. “Sir, have you got any evasion plans in your computers?”

  “Evasion plans?” had the question mark Vicky had feared.

  “Kris Longknife in her battles has her ships follow a pattern of zigs and zags, ducking up and down, juggling the throttle back and forth. Jinking to confuse the enemy’s firing solution.”

  “It would mess up our own firing solutions,” Captain Bolesław muttered.

  “Not if your fire control computer knows where the pattern will take you and adjusts your fire accordingly.”

  Now the captain seemed intrigued.

  “Computer,” Vicky said to her own personal computer, made of the same self-organizing matrix as Kris Longknife’s Nelly, but without the attitude, “show the captain some of the moves you captured when you were with Kris Longknife’s ships.”

  The image of a small corvette appeared. It did a wild jig in space for a half minute.

  “Kris says the idea is to never go the same direction for more than two seconds, three at most.”

  “And she gave you this evasion scheme?”

  “Not exactly,” Vicky admitted. “Kris was very much into not sharing too much with anyone she thought might become the enemy. No, my computer captured this during one situation when we were on distant approach. I’ve tamed it down a bit. Some of the more energetic ones were downright frantic.”

  “I imagine they were,” the captain said, rubbing his chin. “I remember reading histories of the Iteeche War that mentioned evasive actions, but none of the historians seemed to know what they were talking about. Now I’m beginning to understand. No wonder this got lost in the long peace. I bet this is hell on bad backs.”

  “I believe our files on Kris Longknife mentioned that she retired almost an entire Navy back in the days when she was with Training Command introducing Navies to the fast attack boats and her tactics for them.”

  “We may have to adjust this a bit, hold course for at least three seconds, maybe four. Our maneuvering jets restrict just how hard we can zig and zag. Still, this beats doing nothing,” he said. “Let’s see if your computer can come up with a program for three minutes of jinking that the squadron can do together when Count Crow is at his closest.”

  For the next five minutes, Vicky and Captain Bolesław jiggered Kris Longknife’s stolen evasion plan. When the skipper was satisfied, he sent it to the squadron with a request for comments from the other captains.

  The general res
ponse seemed to center on, “So that was what those old after action reports were getting at,” followed by, “We can do that.”

  “Now, let’s get back to our RPM drill,” Captain Bolesław said, and jacked up the RPMs to ten, then fifteen, and finally twenty. The Retro bumped and groaned a bit, but they moved reaction mass around to calm her down. The real test would come when hostile lasers were slicing gashes in her hide, and the pumps had to make adjustments in fractions of a second.

  Satisfied, the skipper took the rotations off the ship. “No need to stress the Retro or give anyone coming at us any ideas.”

  Vicky raised a questioning eyebrow.

  “Sensors, have you seen the Brunswick squadron doing any RPMs?”

  “No, sir. They are steady at one gee and no battle tests,” Lieutenant Blue reported.

  “Idiot landsman,” Captain Bolesław growled.

  The four onrushing ships, the battleships Reprisal and Revenge trailed by Emden and Koln, bore down on them on a course that would sweep them past at a closest range of seventy-five thousand klicks.

  “That should be just inside the 8-inch range of their cruisers. Maybe time for two broadsides unless they hold their fire for closest approach. I wonder who makes that call.”

  “Count Crow said ‘charge,’” Vicky said. “He didn’t say anything about how they do it.”

  “At least not while we were listening,” Captain Bolesław pointed out.

  Vicky shrugged.

  “Comm, send to Sovereign of the Stars, ‘Reorganize the freighters into two columns, twenty-five and thirty thousand klicks off our starboard side.’ That should keep them far enough away to avoid becoming targets yet close enough to not become targets of opportunity once that carrion eater’s battle line is out of range.”

  Together, Vicky and Captain Bolesław watched as the two forces closed rapidly. The Brunswick fleet was accelerating, which allowed them to bring their forward battery to bear. Vicky’s fleet was decelerating to make orbit around Brunswick. Unfortunately, that left their vulnerable sterns with unarmored rocket engines hanging out there for the Count’s ships to shoot.

  Vicky was pretty sure what Captain Bolesław would do then, but it was kind of him to explain it to her beforehand. “Just before we come in range, I’ll flip ship and present them with our bow armor to shoot at. Bow on also makes us a harder target to hit. Usually, for a school problem, I’d cut my engines to idle. With your evasion scheme, I must keep some way on the ship, say a quarter gee to start with, then juggle it to make hash of their firing solution. Likely, my aft batteries will be brought to bear if I need them.”

  “Or you could do what Kris Longknife does,” Vicky said.

  “And what would the inimitable Wardhaven princess do?” the captain said, evenly.

  “Wait until the forward batteries fire themselves dry, then flip ship and give them the aft battery.”

  “Hmm,” the captain said, rubbing his scalp. “That might work if they keep their full broadside to us, but if I know Engle at all, he’ll be as edge-on to us as I’m trying to get to him. If I flip ship, he’s likely to learn from me. Do you really want to teach your opposition so many new tricks the first time we go at them? This could be a long war.”

  And Engle is your friend. If you can hit his ship as light a blow as possible . . . Vicky did not finish the thought.

  “Just a thought you might use,” Vicky said.

  “I might. We’ll see what we shall see.” Captain Bolesław glanced at the screen. “When do we get in extreme range?”

  “For us, sir, fifteen minutes,” Nav said. “For him, sixteen at the most.”

  “Guns, do you recognize my voice?”

  “Your voice is recognized and logged.”

  “You will not open fire until I give you an express order. No one else may give you that order.”

  “Understood, sir. We are not weapons free until you say we are weapons free. Sir, may I ask a question?”

  “Ask.”

  “If we are fired upon and the bridge is hit, what are your orders?”

  The captain glanced at Vicky. “Guns, if you aren’t hearing anything from this bridge, you can assume that it has been a very short war.”

  “Understood, sir, and thanks for taking us off the hook.”

  “Guns, starting a war is way above your pay grade.”

  “And it’s not above yours, sir?”

  Bolesław almost snorted but answered with a curt, “Captain off.”

  Now Vicky eyed Captain Bolesław. “I thought starting a war was reserved for my pay grade.”

  “I considered that, and letting you give the order, but this is a Navy thing. I’m the captain, Lieutenant Commander, and you’re just a passenger aboard my ship. One overweight political elephant, but still just a passenger. I will decide when and where my ship fires.”

  Vicky glanced down demurely. “I try to watch my cellulite, but it so does stick to my hips.”

  “If it makes you feel better, you as the Grand Duchess may order me to return fire. I assume you’re only talking about returning fire after they started this shindig.”

  “Most definitely.”

  “Then you say your piece and I’ll give my order and we’ll get to Scotland together.”

  “We have got to get better jokes,” Vicky said.

  “After we win this war, we can hire a writer. Until then, we’ll just have to make do with what we can come up with in our stressed-out situation.”

  Together, they stared at the screen.

  “Ten minutes until we are in extreme range,” Nav reported.

  The ship got very quiet.

  “Five minutes until we are in extreme range.” Guns had taken over the litany on net from his station in fire control. At four, three, and two minutes, he updated the report.

  “Guns, cancel all reference to our time to firing range,” Captain Bolesław said. “Report me the range to the approaching battleships with reference to the maximum range of a 15-inch gun.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain. One hundred thousand klicks to maximum 15-inch range.”

  “Guns, I want you to concentrate the two lasers in each turret at a single spot on the Reprisal. For the four forward turrets, pick four targets well apart.”

  “Aye, aye, sir. Seventy-five thousand klicks.

  “Fifty thousand klicks. We have dialed in the Reprisal, sir.”

  “Very good, Guns.”

  “Twenty-five thousand klicks.”

  “Defense, put a full battle spin on the ship,” Captain Bolesław ordered.

  “Spin is five . . . ten . . . fifteen . . . a full twenty RPMs. Ship is stable.”

  “All squadron ships report battle RPMs and stable,” Comm announced.

  “Five thousand klicks,” said Guns.

  “Helm, one-quarter gee, put us bow on to the approaching ships. Begin Evasion Plan Addled.”

  “One-quarter gee. Helm over. Commencing Evasion Plan Addled, sir.”

  In her high-gee station, Vicky felt the ship slow hard, then swerve.

  “We are taking laser fire, forward,” Defense reported. “One hit. No burnthrough. I am moving reaction mass to balance.”

  Captain Bolesław turned to face Vicky.

  “Captain, you may fire when ready,” she said without even taking a breath.

  “Guns. Fire. You have weapons release,” the captain said with utmost calm.

  “Fire,” Guns replied over the rest of the captain’s words. “We have weapons release,” was an afterthought. Admittedly, an important one, but firing circuits were closed on the order, well before weapons release was echoed.

  “Comm. Order the fleet to open fire. Concentrate on the Revenge.”

  “Squadron replies they are firing. Revenge is the target.”

  The war Vicky so wanted to avoid had started.

  CHAPTER 20

  “PER your orders, sir, we are concentrating all four turrets forward in tight, two-shot spreads,” Guns reported.

 
“Very good.”

  On screen, the Reprisal had turned bow on to the Retribution. It glowed as lasers boiled ice to steam and sent waves rolling off it into the space around the battleship. Now it was easy to see the invisible lasers as they showed bright red in the roiling gases. The Reprisal was taking one concentration of hits to the right of center and two others widely scattered to left and right of the bow.

  There was no evidence of burnthrough.

  The lasers fell silent as capacitors ran down and began to recharge.

  The Reprisal finally began to spin. Even Vicky could see the deep hole in the ice on its bow as it began to revolve around the battleship’s bow. Reprisal did a drunken jig; it was way out of balance and struggling. Still, it rotated.

  “Good, Engle, you’re learning,” the skipper whispered.

  “Damage Control here. We took only one glancing hit. Our spin reduced its impact, and we jinked out of it before it took off more than a few centimeters.”

  “Lucky us,” the captain observed dryly. “Have they hit any of the other ships?”

  “No, sir. It appears the Revenge missed entirely.”

  “Give me a rundown until they finish reloading, Defense.”

  “Seven . . . six . . . five . . . four . . . three . . .”

  “Helm, jink down, now.”

  “Helm down now.”

  “One,” Defense finished. There was a pause. “We are not taking hits at this time.”

  “Guns, concentrate our fire on four points. Two guns for each one.”

  “I was going to aim for the hole we made.”

  “Aim for a new place. Peel him, don’t gut him.”

  “Aye, aye, sir. Retarget. Fire.”

  “Peel him, don’t gut him?” Vicky asked.

  “He saw what I did to him last time. He’ll know what I’m doing to him this time. I’ve only got three, maybe four shots at him. He will understand what I am telling him.”

  I hope I understand what you’re telling him. But Vicky said nothing.

  A lot of steam came off the Reprisal this shoot. Sensors got a good view of the lasers aiming for the Retribution. Both hostile battleships fired their forward battery. None hit.