Kris Longknife 13 - Unrelenting (33 page)

That allowed for only five or six ships on each side of a jump.

It could have been tough fight, but the Beulah Wolf Pack’s Enlightened One didn’t seem to have the stomach for slaughtering his people with nothing to show for it. Each of the three jumps were tested with a trio of ships. The supporting dish stayed well back from the jump, and when nothing came back, immediately flipped ship and boosted away.

With so few ships to guard each jump, Vice Admiral Miyoshi chose caution and made no move to attack the withdrawing ships.

Two days later, the
Hermes
reported that Vice Admiral Kitano’s First Fleet had rebuffed pretty much the same kind of attempt by Wolf Pack Clairissa.

“Nelly, can we hold along this line?” Kris asked.

“I’d like to say we could, Kris, but those fast-moving suicide boats tell me that the aliens know how to make long jumps. There are several jumps that wouldn’t require more than four hundred thousand klicks an hour to take them into the jumps behind those systems.”

“And we’d end up with a couple of dishes defending the jump we need to go through,” Kris muttered.

“We could use a long jump to get out of that trap, Kris, but it might take our ships a while to get back to Alwa.”

“Give me a list of the jumps, Nelly. We’ll picket them. With luck, we can pick off their scouts, and they won’t discover we’ve got a trail behind our Thermopylae.”

“I didn’t know you remembered that battle, Kris.”

“Nelly, I do have a meat part of my brain that I use occasionally.”

“I keep forgetting that part of your anatomy.”

“Is that because you’re only thinking about that parts of me that Jack likes?”

“Kris, I don’t know if I should continue this fun game of pretending what I do and don’t think about your physical makeup or whether I should get back to something serious.”

“Nelly, if you want to be just one of the girls, you need to sound like us.”

“But I am not now, nor will I ever be, one of you girls,” Nelly sniffed.

“Well, it was fun thinking you were for a moment. Now, yes, we are holding several ‘Hot Gates,’ but it looks like we need to hold a few mountain trails as well. Get the couriers headed back with that data just as fast as they can be made ready.”

“They report that they are ready now, just give them time to refuel and resupply.”

“They’ve got to be doing 3.5 gees or better.”

“A check of their vitals shows you’re right, Kris, but the skippers are already taking on fuel and frozen meals.”

“See if you can get them some decent box lunches from the station’s restaurants and tell them the chow’s on me.”

“Done, Kris. I’m telling them what’s available for takeout. These meals may be a bit spendy. They’re ordering the most expensive stuff on the menu.”

“They earned it.”

Kris took a deep breath and eyed her board. Three suiciders had come through to impale themselves on the guard ships’ lasers. The number had gone from one every couple of days to one a day, then two. Today was the second in a row with three.

Kris shook her head. “I may finally get to see what happens when two ships try to use a jump at the same time. I hope they’re both suicide boats and not one of ours.”

Then Jump Point Beta coughed up a normal warning buoy, followed a few moments later by the
Challenger
, and Kris found herself with a whole new set of problems.

No, a challenge. Not a problem, but an opportunity.
She smiled.

49

“We
found the alien base ships that are spawning the suicide boats right where you expected,” Commander Hanson reported.

Kris grinned; even a Longknife liked it when they guessed right. Even a tired, pregnant, Longknife. She put her feet up on her desk, relaxed into her chair, which she had Nelly adjust until it fit her and baby as well as could be expected, and stared at the wall screen that showed the spread of systems spawning ten-thousand-ton boats that could make a very big hole in Alwa if they got through.

So far, the Birds had stopped every one.

Kris should be happy they were content to throw away their people in such an easily defeated way.

Instead, Kris eyed the screen.

She hated doing nothing, even if the aliens were doing little better than nothing.

“Nelly, talk to me about the two systems with the alien base ships.”

“Kris, you aren’t thinking of doing something to one of them, are you?”

“Nelly, thinking about something isn’t doing something.”

“I know many philosophies that say to think about a sin is the same as committing it.”

“Since when did you take up philosophy?”

“Since it dawned on me that if you die out here, I and my children will die with you.”

Kris patted the bulge at her waist. “Motherhood does things to you, doesn’t it?”

Nelly said nothing.

The door to Kris’s quarters opened, and Jack entered. “Nelly tells me you’re examining options.”

“Nelly is a snitch.”

“Well, she only snitched to your husband and security chief.”

Kris kept her feet up. “I just got comfortable. Pull up a chair, and we’ll talk if you insist.”

He pulled up a chair. “You planning on doing something wild?”

Kris mulled that over. “I haven’t decided. I want to look at my options, Jack. Every girl grows up being told to sit there like a good girl. Hell, I’m a knocked-up girl. I didn’t get this way by being good.”

“Your husband might hold a different opinion,” Jack said with a happy grin.

For once, Kris ignored him. “So, is there any weakness in the alien suicide array? They’ve scattered themselves over eighteen systems. ‘He who tries to be strong everywhere is strong nowhere.’ Didn’t Colonel Cortez tell me that a while back?”

“If he didn’t, a whole lot of other people might’ve said the same,” Jack allowed.

“The
Challenger
checked on three systems and found sixteen ships in some kind of dock spawning suicide boats. Nelly, what’s in the systems with base ships?”

“One base ship has sixty-eight warships guarding it. The other has eighty-four.”

“So two or three dishes,” Kris said.

“But you’d have to come through a jump and close the distance to the base ship,” Jack pointed out. “They could be running away the whole time. You planning on doing a hammer and anvil on them? I don’t see much of a hammer and damn little of an anvil at your disposal.”

“We’ll talk about what I can lay my hands on later. For now, let’s look at the nut I might be tempted to crack. Nelly, put one of the systems up on the nearest screen and make it big. I’m comfortable, finally, and I don’t want to have to waddle over to get a good look.”

“You do not waddle, wife of mine.”

“If I say I’m waddling compared to the dainty way I used to mince around, I’m waddling, husband, and you will agree under pain of losing way more husbandly points than you can afford at the moment.”

“I will only stipulate to your opinion of your gait if I may enter into the record my delight in your glowing countenance.”

“I’ll give you a 5.9 for your save, lover boy. Now, foreplay complete, let’s see if there’s any way I can blow another base ship to hell. What have you got, Nelly?”

“What I will call System One is a mess. Three suns. Six jumps. Lots of gas and rock crap wandering around them in odd obits. The alien is close to one jump. That makes it easier to get the suicide boats running for it. There’s another jump fairly close by, but it wouldn’t help all that much if you wanted to use it for a pincer movement. The base ship would have a pretty easy run for any of the other four jumps.”

Nelly made the system large and easy for Kris to follow as she walked her through it. Kris shook her head.

“Nothing nice there. What’s the other one like?”

“This one is a simpler situation. One nice yellow dwarf. Three normal jumps. The aliens are orbiting a gas giant close to one of them.”

“Nelly, you said three normal jumps. Does that mean there’s a fuzzy jump?” Jack asked.

“Two of them,” Nelly said, and showed them.

Both were close to the gas giant the aliens orbited.

Kris whistled. “We got a back door right into their nice party, and they don’t even know it’s there.”

“Kris, we’ve been keeping those fuzzy jumps a secret,” Jack said. “Is now a good time to show we can pop out of thin air?”

“You’re assuming that they’ll have any survivors to report what happened,” Kris pointed right back.

“You think you could fight a battle of annihilation? How many warships does this one have, Nelly?”

“This is the larger force. One honking big mother ship and eighty-four of her huge kitten warships.”

“And what have you got to take a shot at them?” Jack asked. Most likely he knew the present count of ships in port or fitting
out, but he was leaving it to Kris to put her best spin on them or settle for a lower count.

“We don’t have the Birds,” Kris said. “They stay at the jumps and keep swatting suicide boats. I’ve got the good old, no, new
Wasp
.
Triumph
,
Swiftsure
,
Spitfire
, and new
Hotspur
from Helvetia now with 22-inch lasers. I’ve got that darling Admiral Yi and the twelve Earth frigates he didn’t throw away on our last shoot.”

“Assuming he follows orders better than last time,” Jack said.

“Are any of his Marines talking to your Marines about his maybe having a drinking problem?”

“None within my hearing. Sorry. Do you think he does?”

Kris winced. “I have no proof.”

“Can’t you just relieve him because you’ve, what’s the wording, ‘lost confidence’ in his leadership or ability to command or fight or something?”

Kris chuckled bitterly. “It does say that somewhere in the book, but it also says that coalition warfare is the pits. You can’t just go around firing officers other people have put in charge.”

“And if it wasn’t for a coalition, we’d be mighty weak,” Jack added.

“Exactly. If there were a senior Earth officer out here I could go to, I would. But Yi
is
the senior Earth officer. That complicates things. And no, I will not go to his subordinate officers and ask them for a vote of confidence in him. That’s no way to command.”

“I didn’t suggest it.”

“Correct, you didn’t, and thank you, but I felt the need to clear the air. Nelly, get me Admiral Benson.”

“Yes, Your Problem-ness.”

“How is the
Tenacious
squadron coming along?”

“The first division is making a gentle tour around the moon. The last four are in the final stages of fitting out. Be warned, some of the locals on those ships are pretty raw. Pipra and I are holding on to our more experienced folks at the moment. Something about production being priority one, or so I’m told.”

“And the
Victorious
squadron?”

“Just starting to quicken, Admiral. Likely we’ll need a week
before one of them can risk getting away from the pier. Tirpitz just laid her last one down a few hours ago. Can I ask why you’re joggling my elbow?”

“I’m thinking of taking a few ships out for a spin.”

“How long a spin?”

“The aliens have a mother ship sixteen jumps out, as the crow flies. I’m thinking of making a few fast jumps and seeing how they take to surprises.”

“I’m wondering how I take to surprises. Would you mind if I dropped by? Maybe brought Admiral Hiroshi with me?”

“Feel free to. Jack’s trying to talk me out of this jaunt even as we speak.”

“Jack. Good man, even if he did marry a crazy woman.”

“Be careful. That crazy woman may be throwing crockery by the time you get here.”

Silently, Kris mulled the screen with Jack. Silently, she tried to imagine how a mere twenty-five frigates could take on eighty-four huge warships and one honking big mother ship. Not just take them on, but wipe them out. Leave no one to tell the tale of how it happened.

The smart thing would be to stay home.

Home here, or home on the other side of the galaxy?
Kris answered herself.

The two admirals arrived and seemed to have somehow caught up Abby in their wake. They eyed the screen, then silently took seats around Kris’s desk. Being comfortable, and baby presently engaged in doing backflips on her bladder, Kris stayed with her feet up, knowing very well this would have to end soon when she made one of her frequent trips to the head.

Nelly briefed them on the potential target.

“You going to drive them to the nearest jump?” Benson asked when Nelly was finished.

Kris shook her head. “I was thinking of something like a wild highland charge. Pop in on them from the nearest fuzzy jump, barrel at them with all I’ve got, and take them by surprise.”

“Kris,” Nelly said diffidently. “Even if you jump in at four hundred thousand klicks an hour and brake at four gees, they’ll get a good six hours’ warning, and you’ll still be braking as you hit them.”

“I was thinking of flipping ship, going through them fast, and using an orbit around that gas bag of theirs to sling back at them.”

“And if they charged right at you? Through you and off to who knows where?” Benson asked.

“I’ve never known them to run from us while there was still any chance they could kill some of us.”

“She has a point,” Jack admitted.

“But she’s basing her plan of attack on the enemy’s not having learned a lesson. If I heard right about those latest fights out on the picket line of System X, some have learned to tiptoe away when we slam the door in their face.”

“Those were probes looking for a weak spot. This is a fight for their mother ship. That hunk of steaming hate can’t run nearly fast enough to get away from an attack,” Kris said, rubbing circles on her belly.

“Another point for my gal,” Jack said.

“You keeping score, General?” Admiral Benson asked.

“No, but I am remembering a certain law that allows me to cancel any order a certain serving member of the royal blood gives if I consider it dangerous.”

“You wouldn’t,” Kris said, giving her husband, and security chief, the eye.