Tenacious

36

“We jumped a bit over a thousand light-years,” Nelly reported.

“The Sisu is four hundred thousand kilometers ahead of us, accelerating at 2.1. No, make that 2.0. Correction, she’s down to 1.9 gees acceleration,” the Musashi chief reported from sensors.

“Someone’s engines are hot,” Senior Chief Beni, ret, reported.

“Hold at three gees,” Captain Drago ordered. “We’ll overtake her carefully. Wouldn’t do to be too close if she blows her reactors.”

“Captain. Admiral,” Chief Beni said, his voice even, careful, but intent. “I have radio traffic in system. I think it’s coming from a planet closer to the sun. But I’ve also got reactors. Thermonuclear reactors with an alien raider signature.”

“Where?” came in two-part harmony from Kris and Captain Drago.

“The alien-type reactors are all the way on the other side of the system. There’s a gas giant with a major moon and ring system. The reactors are orbiting that giant.”

“Any make on the reactors?” Kris asked.

“They appear to be like the first batch you tangled with. The ones my son fought.” That made it personal.

“We’ll handle those other situations when we finish with Sampson,” Kris said, running all the complications that had suddenly appeared through in her mind. She had a subordinate who had mutinied against her and stolen a ship. She had a newfound world with a civilization at least at the early-electromagnetic stage, and she had bug-eyed monsters.

Dear God, Kris almost prayed, do I deserve all of this on the same plate?

God did not answer her question.

Smart of Her, no doubt.

Hurriedly, Kris filed the new alien and the old alien away in an ever-growing box marked TO BE OPENED LATER, and fixed her sights ahead on the ship well out of range.

It fled from them. They pursued faster.

The range closed inexorably.

“Sisu, cease your acceleration, or you will be fired upon,” Kris ordered as the renegade came into extreme range.

“You wouldn’t dare fire on a neutral flag,” Sampson shot back. “Scanda isn’t part of your old man’s bunch of political patsies.”

“The Scanda ships are under my command,” Kris said. “However, I don’t think you’re up to date on my latest wild goings-on. I fired on a Helvetican flag freighter at M-688. I have yet to add a Scandian to my collection. Don’t mind if I do, though.”

“You’re crazy,” Sampson shot back.

“You are in violation of orders. Cease acceleration and surrender your ship.”

“You’re a fine one to talk about violating orders.”

“Tell me, Carolyn, which engine do you want me to shoot out? Both your reactors are running in the red. Which one can better take a hit? I really don’t want to kill anyone, but I will not have you running away. Do you know there are aliens in this system?”

“Aliens!” came in a several-part harmony from voices not heard from before on net.

“Yeah, I know we’ve got a mudball down there with low-tech stuff.”

“And a dozen alien raiders, too. They’re on the far side of the system, but, no doubt, they’ll be headed this way as soon as they get a good look at you.”

“You said we wouldn’t have to worry about those bloodthirsty-type aliens,” came through the net hookup.

“And we won’t. They can’t catch us.” Sampson’s voice cracked as she spoke.

“Their acceleration just fell off to 1.8 gees,” Chief Beni announced.

“How are you going to outrun the aliens when your reactors are going down on you, Carolyn?” Kris asked.

“She’s right, we can’t keep this up,” said a very scared voice.

“She wouldn’t dare fire on us.” Now Sampson sounded frantic.

“We are overtaking the Sisu,” the navigator said. “We will soon be in range of those 18-inch pulse lasers.”

“Did you hear that?” Kris said. “My navigator is warning me that you’re slowing down so much that I’m at risk of overtaking you, even passing you. If I do that, Sampson will get a shot at our stern. I can’t allow that. I’ll have to shoot out your reactors before then.”

“Damn it, Sampson,” came in a tense voice on net, “you swore those guns would make us invulnerable. Now that Longknife dame says she’s gonna blow out our reactors because of them!”

“Shut up,” Sampson shrieked.

“Shut up yourself,” came right back at her.

Drago grinned. “And we thought we had a leadership challenge from that gal,” he said softly.

“Listen, Longknife, you let us go.”

“No can do, Sampson. Even if I were crazy enough to consider that for a moment, there’s the minor matter of the aliens on the other side of this system. I’m told they’re already getting underway and are headed this way. You think you can get out of this system before they get to you? You think with your red-hot engines, you can outrun them?”

Chief Beni looked rather startled to hear that the aliens were headed this way when he hadn’t announced it. Still, he reported. “They’ve fallen off to 1.7 gees acceleration.”

“Slow to one gee,” Captain Drago ordered. With the momentum already on the boat, the Wasp continued to close, but not at the eye-blinking speed it had been.

“I will fire in five,” Kris began. “Four. Three. Two.”

There was noise of a scuffle on the Sisu’s commlink.

“Don’t shoot. We’ve got Sampson under control.”

“Take all acceleration off the boat,” Kris ordered.

“Kill the engines?” someone over there demanded, incredulously.

“We better before they kill us,” someone else answered.

The Wasp flipped ship and went to three gees deceleration. Strung out behind the Wasp were the other ships of the squadron. Most had not put on the high acceleration needed to catch up so quickly. Now they closed even as they flipped ship and began to decelerate. All these ships matching velocity vectors would no doubt be fun to watch.

Kris, never actually having had command of a ship, could watch it with fascination.

But she didn’t miss when Jack began to head his egg off the bridge. She followed him. “Where are you going, General?”

“I’ve got a ship to board,” he said.

“Can’t you delegate it? After all, you are a brigadier general.”

“When was the last time anyone boarded a ship making eight hundred thousand klicks an hour?”

Kris made a face. “Never, I think.”

“You don’t delegate that kind of job. I’ll be careful. Trust me. The entire crew of the pinnace and my Marine company will be careful. The Musashi company got to land at the pyramid. My team gets this landing. Fair is fair.”

“You’ll be careful.”

“That’s what I said.”

“No, I mean you be careful.”

“Of course.”

“That’s wife to husband, you know.”

“Yes, I know, hon,” he said, smiling.

In the eggs, you couldn’t give a good-bye hug and kiss.

Damn the things, anyway.

The pinnace pulled away from the Wasp, taking a third of the ship’s reactors with it. It matched speed with the Sisu, and two Sailors maneuvered a connecting tube between the ships’ main hatches. Ten minutes later, the two ships pulled well apart and began decelerating, braking toward the closest gas giant.

The squadron followed.

“Captain, can the Wasp keep this deceleration up?” Kris asked.

He winced. “I don’t think so. At least, not for long. My engines aren’t as large as the big frigates’.”

“Hornet, could you please have your pinnace replace the Wasp’s riding herd on the Sisu?” Kris asked of Captain Taussig. If the freighter’s reactors failed, someone would need to be close to evacuate the crew.

“We’d be glad to, Admiral.”

While that evolution proceeded, Kris turned her egg to face sensors. “Okay, folks, you have my undivided attention. What can you tell me about our competing alien finds?”

“The planet that’s the source of all the radio and TV is down system toward the sun,” Chief Beni said. “Its orbit has it presently on our side of the sun. Besides all the electronic emitters, there are quite a few nuclear reactors though they are of the obsolete fission type.”

“Any presence in space?”

“There appear to be quite a few orbiting satellites, but nothing that looks large enough to be occupied.”

“So it appears that they are tough enough to give our alien raiders a bloody nose?” Captain Drago asked.

“Normally, no, sir,” the chief said. “However, what we’re looking at on the other side of the system is not a normal alien horde. I really do mean the reactors I’m looking at are the kind you first ran into, Your Highness. I’m reading about two dozen ships. Large, but the kind we whipped real good.”

“Are they headed for us?” Drago wanted to know.

“We’ve got a speed-of-light problem, sir. That’s over a day as the electron flies. But then, they may not be all that interested into running into us?”

“Explain that, Chief,” Kris said.

“I’m making out four large reactors. You know, the kind that you get on the huge mother ships?”

“Usually, there are a couple of hundred of them on one of their moon-size mothers,” Kris pointed out.

“Yes, Admiral, exactly. If these little beggars’ last mother ship is the hulk we left rolling in space, then they might be starting to build another one. Or maybe a tiny huge mother ship. I don’t know, ma’am. I’m guessing, and I know that’s usually reserved for officers.”

“Feel free to take a swing, Chief,” Kris said.

“That’s reasonable,” Captain Drago said. “The survivors either have to join another horde or rebuild. If they evacuated any of their women and children who survived our messing up their original mother ship, they’d have to find someplace for them.”

“But why not just take a planet?” the navigator asked. “Maybe not this one if it’s too tough, but another one?”

Captain Drago shook his head. “Why mess with a major gravity well if you don’t have to? What with that big gas bag’s system of moons and the asteroid belt, they have all the resources they need to rebuild. No, a planet is the last place they’d go to lick their wounds.”

“It’s always bothered me,” Kris said, “that they slaughtered life on planets. Now I understand. They do it because they’re afraid, but you’re right, Captain. If they need to build another ship for their women and children, space is the place to do it.”

Kris paused for a moment to think. “My main question is how many survived the wreck we made of the mother ship and who? Did the Enlightened One live through all that? How many Black Hats did they get off?”

“Are the people over there still enthralled to one man, or have they gone through the process of having someone else step into the top slot?” Captain Drago asked.

“And how smoothly did that process go?” Kris asked, smiling, no doubt, with plenty of teeth. “This could get interesting. We know some of their warships were with the last horde that attacked us. Why did they but not these people change allegiance?”

Now Captain Drago was grinning big. “Who changed allegiances to whom may be the sticking point. Division is a hell of a reality when you’ve been used to all for one and one for himself alone.”

“So,” Kris said slowly, “is there any chance I could cut some more of them out? Maybe get my hands on a dissident ship or three?”

“I hope that doesn’t mean you’re going to let them get in close range?” Drago said, his grin gone.

“I’ll try not to,” Kris said. “No promises, though.”

“Longknifes.” The skipper made it sound like a cussword.