Kris Longknife's Successor Read online

  Sandy had almost assigned Jacques to the job, then she caught herself. When dealing with the cats, it was always better to have a woman provide the buffer.

  COMPUTER, PLEASE ASK AMANDA TO COME IN HERE.

  SHE IS ON HER WAY, ADMIRAL.

  Less than a minute later, both Amanda and Jacques joined them. Most of the cat leaders recognized the two of them and seemed pleased to be working with them again. They quickly packed up their papers and followed Penny, Amanda, and Jacques out of the ballroom.

  Sandy watched them go before asking her computer, “Can you make the ballroom melt back into the ship?”

  “No ma’am. There are too many variables involving moving space around inside the ship and shrinking the outer hull. Very few computers have access to the codes to access that particular area of Smart Metal. I can, however, inform the captain that you no longer require this space and he will have his damage control officer see that a programmer does it with the main ship’s computer.”

  “Very well. Do that,” Sandy said, and turned to retrace her steps back to her flag plot.

  In the short time she’d been gone, another report had come in, but it was from the low-tech buoy. Another sixty ships had entered the system in the last fifteen minutes. Since neither observer had the ability to range the bogies, there was no way to tell how fast they were going when they entered the system or how much acceleration they had on the boat.

  Sandy was left with far too few answers to a whole boatload of critical questions.

  The admiral decided that she needed to do some thinking where she wasn’t under scrutiny by every man Jack or Jill in her crew. She turned to her fleet commanders, “Admirals, chief of staff, ops, meet in my day quarters. Computer, tell Penny to meet us there when she gets back.”

  “Aye, aye ma’am.”

  So, the seven of them left flag plot and made their way down to Sandy’s day quarters.

  14

  Sandy had her computer produce a conference table with eight comfortable chairs. She took the head, with her chief of staff, Captain Van Velder at one elbow, her ops officer, Captain Mindi Ashigara at her other. The fleet commanders arrayed themselves down the sides, leaving the foot of the table for Captain Penny Paisley, the fleet’s chief of alien intel.

  “Computer, can you duplicate the screens from my flag plot on the walls here?”

  “I can, but they will have to be smaller, ma’am.”

  “Go ahead. We can expand some and shrink others. Please also order us up some coffee or hot water for tea. This is going to be a long morning,” Sandy said and found herself yawning.

  The cat naps had been way too short.

  Sandy waited while the walls turned to screens, then waited some more for her beverages. The door finally opened and a steward’s mate wheeled in a cart of carafes as well as sandwiches.

  Right behind him ran Penny.

  Sandy eyed the cart. No doubt, if she’d had Mimzy, all of it would have arrived right on her conference room table, but, lacking Penny’s presence, Sandy’s own computer had gone back to basics and requested a human to deliver the order.

  The meeting was further delayed as officers served themselves. It seemed that everyone was hungry. It had been a long time since the banquet. With a mug and a sandwich in hand, they settled back down around the table. Sandy let them finish eating, then refill their mugs. Most of her admirals wandered around the room with their steaming mugs. They eyed the different screens, enlarged some, and shrunk others until they were satisfied.

  Only then did they return to the table and wait for their commanding admiral to say what she wanted to say.

  “As I see it, we’ve got two possible options in front of us. One, this bunch of raiders hasn’t gotten the word yet and they are charging right into our guns,” Sandy said.

  Heads nodded. “That’s understandable,” Penny said, “it’s a large galaxy and there aren’t a lot of mother ships.”

  “Yes,” Sandy said. “Two, this is a diversion to lure us away from here so they can slip in a force while we’re occupied elsewhere. Can anyone think of a third?”

  The table remained silent.

  “Okay, Penny, could you have Mimzy give us a briefing on the terrain of this area of the star map? Are there any double or triple jumps that could let them jump from far away to right on our door step?”

  Mimzy began to speak from where she sat as a choker high around Penny’s neck.

  “This area seems to be a spur off the main transit lines that the three alien races set up to zip around the galaxy a couple of million years ago. There are only a few systems with fuzzy points. Most are the older, slower jumps,” the computer said. “That is bad for us because it means we don’t have as many chances to outflank them.”

  Mimzy paused before going on. “However, being on a spur line also means that there are not a lot of jumps that go where you might want them to go, not unless you took a slow local jump. We’ve got three jumps where they can jump from outside our pickets to the third system in. However, if they hit the jump out and headed for Sasquan, at a high speed they’ll jump way past us. Simply put, there are only two systems in the outer ring that allow them to jump from four out to two out. None of those systems allow for a direct jump into the cat system.”

  “Is it that simple?” Sandy asked. Maybe the cats wouldn’t be that hard to protect.

  “Based on the map that General Ray Longknife discovered on Santa Maria, that’s the lay of the land,” Mimzy said. “If I was a bloodthirsty alien raider, I’d hunt for some fruit that was easier to pick.”

  “Are there any systems that we’ve got pickets in that would allow the aliens to jump from them right into this system?” Admiral Drago asked.

  “No, sir, but there are two that would allow them to pass through a fourth layer and cross the third layer before they could make the jump into the next system out.”

  Suddenly, Sandy wasn’t so sure that it was all that easy. “How many?” Sandy asked.

  “Two,” Mimzy said.

  To Sandy’s right, a screen expanded. Two stars in the third line around Sasquan blinked a bright red.

  Deep in thought, the admiral rose from her chair and walked over to study the map carefully. Hidden in the puzzle of star systems and scattered jumps was a path to life for her and the cats below. That, or death.

  While Sandy’s eyes wandered the star map, a back part of her mind was taking stock of her recent history.

  Twice she’d chased the aliens. The first time, intent on ambushing them, she’d led a force that was too small for its mission. Her ambush turned into an alien ambush because she was too new to this war and underestimated her enemy. The second time she chased the aliens, they led her right into a trap. The fact that she’d managed to use the atomics given her by the cats to spring their trap on them was more luck than any skill on her part.

  So far, she was zero for two when attacking the aliens.

  However, she had also defended against them twice and wiped out two huge fleets, with Admiral Miyoshi bagging a third. She’d been sticking her nose into the alien home world and they seemed all too ready to cut her nose off at her neck.

  Again, the illegal atomics that were gifts from the cats below had helped her massacre aliens and save her own skin.

  Three times the cats’ atomics had saved her neck.

  I owe these cats. Owe them big time.

  Her four other fleet commanders had come to stand beside her.

  “Admiral Miyoshi, the aliens split their forces the last time we faced them. What do you think? Is this force a diversion?”

  “If it is a diversion, it’s an awfully big one,” the admiral from Musashi answered.

  “One that we likely can’t ignore,” Sandy said.

  “No,” Admiral Drago agreed.

  “But then we have these two,” Sandy said, eying the two systems that would allow a quick jump into the next system out from Sasquan. Do we wait until we get a signal from an outer buoy bef
ore we move to block them?”

  Sandy thought on that for a long minute, then realized she had an answer at her fingertips. “Mimzy, allowing for the time delay in getting us a warning, how long would it take the aliens to jump into the third layer out?”

  “Assuming the aliens hold to their maximum two gee acceleration from the time they enter the fourth layer picketed system until they make the jump into the third, we could get to their jump into the third system before they could get to the other side of it. That assumes that we make 3.5 gees the entire time.”

  “A hard passage,” Admiral Bethea said.

  “But one we can do,” Sandy concluded.

  “May I point out one possible problem?” The speaker was Admiral Nottingham of Earth. Just promoted to fleet commander, he’d kept silent during most discussions.

  “Yes, Admiral?” Sandy said.

  Nottingham took a deep breath. “That two gee acceleration is based on the maximum that the alien battleships have been able to maintain. Their cruisers have been able to hold 3.0 gees for long speed runs. Sometimes a bit more. What about those new ships we’re calling frigates? They’ve got a lot of reactor power. How much of that can they convert to velocity?”

  “Mimzy, if the aliens advanced at 3.0 gees acceleration and deceleration, where would our force coming out from here at 3.5 gees run into them?”

  “Somewhere in the middle of the second system,” Mimzy answered.

  Immediately, two star systems enlarged on the screen. Both showed red lines and blue lines. Both crossed somewhere past the star as the humans were making their way to the far jump.

  “We have a problem,” Sandy said.

  15

  The numbers which counted intruders crossing the system four jumps out from the cats had quit growing. They totaled one hundred and seventy-nine battleships, eighty-nine cruisers and ninety-one of the new type. In addition, there was a second new type of ship. It had only two reactors. Forty-two of them trailed the fleet.

  “Assuming their battle array follows their standard of thirty ships to a dish,” Penny said, speaking quickly. As her chief of alien intelligence, Sandy listened when Penny spoke. “The battleships look like six dishes of thirty, with one ship missing. The cruisers are also missing a ship to fill up three dishes. The new kid has an extra ship for the three dishes.”

  “And the tail-end Charlies?” Sandy asked.

  “They don’t fit anything we’ve seen before. This is just a hunch, and I wouldn’t take it to any bank, but,” Penny paused before finishing in a rush. “They’ve only got two reactors. Their numbers are all wrong. Halfway between one dish and two. Lastly, their placement at the rear of the fleet. Admiral, where did you put our fast transports on the voyage out from human space and from Alwa to here?”

  “At the rear,” Sandy said. “Are you thinking they’re carrying a landing party?”

  “It’s possible. I think the mother ship usually provides the people that strip a planet. I’m guessing after Kris blew away eight mother ships, that these bastards are keeping mommy somewhere safe. Safe and making as many ships as she can.”

  “Haven’t the aliens been using small suicide attack boats?” Admiral Drago put in. “Didn’t they send individuals in wearing rocket-powered suits?”

  “Yes, they have. If these ships were way out front, I’d assume that, but they’re in the rear,” Sandy pointed out.

  “It’s a few adjustments to their formations, and that can change,” Admiral Bethea noted.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Penny answered, but added nothing more, leaving the admirals to mull over her hunch.

  Sandy shook her head. “If I was going to use suicide teams, I’d place them with the forward elements of my force and see if I could mine the space that we’d have to pass through. Let’s keep these ships in mind, but, until we know more about them, let’s call them transports.”

  Sandy led her team back to the table.

  “So, do we send one fleet out to hold a jump into the second system out from the enemy we know, as well as rush two fleets out to guard those two mouse holes that are, as yet, not a problem?”

  “Are we sure the aliens even know those two jumps could skip over a system to the one on our door step?” Captain Velder asked.

  “Bret, have you had any aliens sniffing around this cat house?”

  “No ma’am, but that’s not to say that they haven’t done some recon work. Kris stumbled upon the flotsam and jetsam from her first destroyed mother ship. We don’t know how they got here and who may have left before we arrived. Sorry, Admiral, but I can’t offer anything that makes our problem more tractable.”

  “So, we split up our forces and scatter them across three systems several days from here,” Sandy concluded. “Needless to say, I don’t like that deployment.”

  Sandy eyed the Musashi admiral before saying, “Admiral Miyoshi, are you prepared to play out Horatio at the bridge again?”

  “I’d be glad to. However, we left all the atomics at home. We’ll need to borrow some more bombs from the cats. The reports we’re getting here say that all hundred and eighty battlewagons are the standard garden variety, but who’s to say that they haven’t added two to three hundred thousand tons of rock, ice, and whatnot to a battleship and kept the usual number of reactors and lasers?”

  That sent a shiver down Sandy’s spine. The aliens had taken to wrapping their ships in granite and basalt, often honeycombed with ice. The idea was to have the stone ablate away the energy of a laser hit. A hundred thousand tons of that stuff made the alien battlewagons harder to kill.

  They’d also come up with a really nasty bit of work. A door knocker, as it had been named. This ship had half the reactors to make it less susceptible to self-inflicted damage when United Society lasers burned through into the ships’ insides. They’d cut the number of lasers in half, again to reduce the amount of damage we could do. Then they added three hundred thousand more tons of rock and ice. They’d used them to bust through jumps, expecting them to take so long to die that we’d still be trying to kill them when the battle fleet started barging in.

  The first time we’d run into them, we had to run from the jump. The last time they tried to use them, we mined the jump with atomics on loan from the cats. Twenty megaton explosions weren’t bothered by a couple of yards of rock.

  “I’ll ask the cats for some more warheads,” Sandy said. That was something she’d have to do herself. If you’re going hat in hand, it’s best done face to face.

  “Now, about those two systems three rings out. I’d rather wait to know which one is the problem rather than scatter my forces to the wind before they make their move. Just as bad, I don’t want to have only a few seconds to shoot up their fleet while we race past each other. Not when it puts them between me and my base. We need something better.”

  Admiral Drago turned in his seat to look at the two offending star systems. He then turned back to the table. “Who says we have to race to the jump point on the far side of the system?”

  “We usually try to hold at a jump point. They make for a good choke point,” the chief of staff said.

  “Yes,” Bret answered, “however, there is too high a chance that we’ll race past them and then have to wheel around and chase them. Remember, they love to seed their wake with nasty stuff.”

  “What do you have in mind, Bret?” Sandy asked.

  “Kris hated to risk letting an enemy get in her rear. Wherever she could, she’d swing herself around a planet and get on something close to a parallel course. Preferably, at a range where her long-range lasers could blow them away well outside of their shorter-ranged lasers. Now, if our reports on those two systems are correct, there is a planet in both of them not that far off of the direct course from the jump in, to the jump out to here. What do you say that we hold our horses and wait to see what we’re going to face, then march the king’s troops up the hill?”

  Sandy nodded. She sometimes forgot that Admiral Drago had been Kris Longkni
fe’s ship’s captain for many years before he got a fleet. God knows, anyone who shared a ship with that woman deserved a fleet as a reward just for surviving.

  “I like that. Okay, Bret, make sure we have the right skinny on those systems. I’d hate to get there and find a planet misplaced. I want all of you to detach a division of four battlecruisers to Admiral Drago’s 4th fleet. That should give all of you forty-four battlecruisers. Admiral Miyoshi, prepare to get underway as soon as I get some atomic devices from the cats.”

  “Ah, ma’am,” Bret said, “I’ve got a whole lot of those infernal machines broken down to their parts and those parts locked away under a stiff guard. You could use some of them.”

  “Yes, I could,” Sandy said, knowing full well where most of the donated atomics had ended up. “However, the cats don’t know where the devices are. I want to see what happens if I ask for something to aid in their immediate defense. What with them withholding workers from us, I have to wonder what they’ll think of those bombs.”

  “So, the sly fox is about to go see just how stupid the feisty cat is, huh?”

  “Yep.”

  16

  Sandy had Penny accompany her to where the cat leaders were negotiating their opening position for negotiations with her. That sounded a bit like a wheel going around inside a wheel, but if the cats couldn’t figure out what they wanted, Sandy couldn’t get them what they needed. That would be essential before they could figure out what kind of tech transfer they were going to give the cats.

  Penny asked Sandy to wait outside while she let the cats know she wanted to talk to them. A minute later, her computer told Sandy they were ready for her.

  Once again, the cats had organized themselves into a rectangle of separate tables, with more tables radiating out in rows upon rows. Some of the cats, however, were marking up large sheets of paper and taping them to the walls for all to see.

  “Is that part of their normal behavior?” Sandy asked.