Defender

28

Commodore Kris Longknife, ComFrigRon 4, rolled her high-gee egg out of her quarters and onto the bridge of her flagship, the Princess Royal. Captain Drago and a ship maintenance chief were already there, eggs parked against the bridge’s aft bulkhead.

They were observers and would play no part in this exercise.

Unless or until something went wrong and Kris ordered them forward.

Captain Kitano of the Princess Royal sat in her high-gee egg in the middle of her bridge, surrounded by the watch. Kris noticed that someone had made all the combat stations disappear into the deck. A good idea, one she wished she’d thought of.

If you’re in an egg, who needs a board you can’t get your hands on?

With no flag bridge, Kris chose to roll her egg over next to the skipper’s before she ordered, “Signal the squadron to sortie. The flag first followed by the others in order of their berth.”

That order was passed to her command . . . and then the fun started.

The little Intrepid wasn’t supposed to sortie next, but after waiting four minutes for the Constellation to get underway ahead of her, she requested permission and departed, taking second station behind the flag.

Six minutes later, the Constitution also requested permission to get underway, and took third slot.

The Connie didn’t get away from the pier for another ten minutes and trailed well after the rest of the squadron.

Not a good start, Lieutenant Commander Sampson, Kris thought.

Kris set the fleet speed at one-gee acceleration and, at the last second, set ship interval at one thousand kilometers, echeloned left at two hundred kilometers.

She’d planned for a shorter, 250-kilometer interval but something told her if she didn’t want dings on her ships, she’d better give them a lot of room.

The squadron spread out as it followed her toward Alwa’s large moon. The plan was to swing around it and return to Canopus Station without doing any harm.

Ships deployed to her satisfaction, Kris gave her next order. “The fleet will go to two gees on my mark.”

The P Royal’s comm reported the order received and acknowledged. Then Kris said, “Mark,” and the egg gave her a kick in the seat of her pants.

Beside her, Captain Kitano grunted. “That wasn’t in any of the manuals I read.”

“I think they want you to know you’ve just jacked up your acceleration. I’ve been meaning to write a letter to Mitsubishi and ask them to make the kick a bit less. In my spare time.”

“I’ll add that letter to my to-do list, in my spare time,” the skipper of Kris’s flag said.

“Let’s see what we can do with all those nifty toys the taxpayers gave us. Signal to squadron, discharge main forward battery on my mark. Target empty space.”

Comm quickly reported the squadron ready, and Kris gave her mark.

All four ships immediately fired. For the little Intrepid, it was a four 18-inch volley reaching out one hundred thousand kilometers into space. For the big frigates it was supposed to be a six gun shoot. It was for the lead two. Six 20-inch lasers reached out to 150,000 kilometers.

Constellation only managed a three gun volley.

“Did I count that right?” Kris asked Nelly.

“It was only three lasers.”

“Send to squadron. Fire at will. Single shots will be fine if that is what you have.”

Ten seconds later, the Intrepid had reloaded and blasted away with a four shoot. Five seconds later, two of three heavies let loose with 20-inch lasers, in volleys six strong.

The Intrepid had gotten off a second four shots before the Connie got a single second shot off. The other two big frigates spoke again before that weak sister got off another single shot.

“Cease fire,” Kris ordered. NELLY, WHAT EXACTLY WAS THE CONSTELLATION’S AVAILABILITY REPORT THIS MORNING?

THE SAME AS IT WAS FOR THE LAST WEEK, MA’AM. ALL GUNS READY. FULL SPEED AVAILABLE. NINETY-NINE PERCENT OF SYSTEMS ONLINE.

AND THE OTHER FRIGATES?

SAME AS TO GUNS AND SPEED. ALL SYSTEMS FLUCTUATED BETWEEN NINETY-SIX AND NINETY-EIGHT PERCENT.

Kris held on to her temper with her fingernails. A commander could not afford to lose her temper. “Send to squadron. Make fleet speed three-gee acceleration on my mark.”

The communication cycle was quickly completed in the Navy way and Kris gave her mark.

Again, she got a solid kick in her rump.

“I was ready for it this time,” the skipper of the P Royal said, then went about her business.

Kris watched on her own screen as her squadron accelerated smoothly to three gees.

Except for the Connie. She stalled out at 2.46 and held at that acceleration, slowly falling behind.

NELLY, WHAT’S THE PROBLEM WITH THE CONNIE?

MA’AM, ONE OF HER REACTORS HAS GONE OFF-LINE. THE OTHER TWO ARE REDLINING. IF HER CAPTAIN KEEPS PUSHING HER AT THIS ACCELERATION, SHE’S LIKELY TO BLOW HER UP.

Or have a mutiny on her hands. Kris scowled to herself.

“Signal from flag to Constellation, fall out of formation and reduce acceleration to two gees.”

“Sent and acknowledged,” the comm reported.

The trailing war wagon quit struggling and fell quickly behind.

“Flag to squadron,” Kris said, “Prepare to initiate Combat Evasion Plan 1.”

Kris gave the ships’ bridge crews time to load Nelly’s most gentle jinks program. This one was for the distant approach when the force was well out of range of their target. It had the ships moving right, left, up, down in a random pattern. If the enemy analyzed and assumed that was what they’d be facing the entire fight, that was just too bad for them. They’d be confused, and their targeting computers outfoxed when the final run in used Combat Evasion Plan 6.

“Execute,” Kris ordered, and the ships began a dance that was not quite what she intended. Even the trailing Connie did something. Nelly projected on the battle board in Kris’s egg just what the ships should have been doing.

What the ships were doing was not even close.

Around Kris, reports came in of material and ship fixtures failing to stay where they were supposed to as the ship went one way and equipment and gear went another. Kris politely ignored that and let Captain Kitano handle them as best she could.

When the fleet continued to fail to meet Kris’s expectations, she took action.

“Nelly, project what I’m seeing on all the ship’s main screens. Captains, the execution of this maneuver is sloppy. In a fight, we’d be picked off like tulips in a garden. Does anyone have an explanation?”

There was only silence on the net for half a minute as matters got no better.

“Your Highness, if I may put in my two cents’ worth, this is Captain Drago of the Wasp. We’ve been in a fight or two and we’ve survived them because of the combat evasion plans like these developed by your Commodore’s rather smart, or smart-alecky, computer.”

KRIS, I’VE BEEN INSULTED.

SHUT UP, NELLY.

OKAY, BUT HE OWES ME AN APOLOGY.

What Captain Drago had gotten was a snicker on this bridge and likely from everyone in the fleet. “What we on the Wasp found was that Nelly was right. We needed to be elsewhere when lasers reach for us. It’s nice to have armor. It’s better not to get hit.”

APOLOGY ACCEPTED, Nelly said to Kris.

“In order to meet Nelly’s stiff requirements, we needed more maneuvering jets. That meant bigger rocket motors and wider pipes pushing steam to them. We did that on the old Wasp, and it helped us survive one hell of a fight. As soon as I took possession of the new Wasp, I had my ship maintainers redo the maneuvering jets to our specs, not the official ones.

“If the skipper of the Princess Royal would permit me, I and the chief here are prepared to reprogram your Smart Metal to meet our jitterbugging standards.”

“Please do, Captain Drago,” Captain Kitano said.

“We’ll need five minutes, I think.”

“Send to squadron from flag, cease Combat Evasion Plan 1, reduce acceleration to one gee,” Kris ordered. All the ships settled down to normal. The Connie, trailing the fleet, took the opportunity to catch up.

During the same five minutes, Captain Kitano issued a slew of orders having her damage control teams fix what they could and other teams reprogram Smart MetalTM to shore up what had proven to be under specs.

KRIS, WE MAY HAVE MADE A MISTAKE, ORDERING THREE-GEE MANEUVERING WHILE AT CONDITION ABLE.

Oops, Kris thought. YOU MAY WELL BE RIGHT, NELLY. WE’LL KEEP THINGS SIMPLE UNTIL WE GET EVERYTHING STRAIGHTENED OUT. WHAT DO YOU THINK IS THE MAXIMUM WE CAN DO IN CONDITION ABLE?

Nelly thought on that for a nanosecond or three. TWO AND A HALF GEES AND COMBAT EVASION PLAN 3.

“Commodore, Captain, we’ve completed our changes to the maneuvering reaction jets. Feel free to do what you want at any time,” had more than a hint of a smile from Captain Drago.

“Captain Kitano?”

“Ready to be your test subject, Your Highness.”

“Send to squadron. Except for Constellation, which will continue at two-gee acceleration, fleet speed will go to 2.5 gees. Flag prepare to implement Combat Evasion Plan 3 on my order.”

Most of the fleet took off at 2.5 gees, and the Connie started falling behind again.

“Execute,” Kris ordered.

The Princess Royal took off in a jig that would have taken their breath away, except the eggs insisted they keep breathing. She jumped up, then left, down, then left again, then right and up. She slammed them against their restraints as they suddenly reduced their acceleration to 1.5 gees, then sideslipped right and shot ahead at 2.5 gees again.

On the screen, the frigate followed exactly the plan that was laid out for her.

Kris let that go on for close to a minute, listening as more reports came in that the ship really wasn’t ready for this kind of hard usage.

“Flag to Princess Royal. Cease evasion.”

“Navigator, terminate evasion,” Captain Kitano ordered.

The entire bridge crew breathed a sigh of relief. Kris suspected it was echoed throughout the ship.

“I’ve been doing these evasion maneuvers since I first climbed aboard a fast attack boat. It always takes one or two runs to nail down everything that can come loose.”

“Everything will be nailed down the next time we go out, Commodore. That’s a promise,” Captain Kitano said with firm intent.

The fleet decelerated to make its swing around the moon. It spread out again as it did a two-gee cruise home. There was one more test Kris needed to make, maybe not for the entire squadron, but for at least one ship and its captain.

“Flag sends to squadron. On my mark, begin test firing aft batteries. There is no target. After first salvo, fire at will. Single shots will be allowed if salvos are not possible.”

She took several deep breaths, then said, “Mark.”

Three of her four ships immediately fired full salvos. Four for the big frigates, two for smaller Intrepid.

The Constellation fired a single shot from her four aft lasers.

Since the aft batteries were smaller than the forward ones, five seconds later, the Intrepid got more shots from her aft battery of two 18-inchers. Both frigates followed with salvos five seconds later.

The Connie stayed silent.

A third salvo came from the Intrepid and another set from the two big ones again before Kris gave up on Sampson getting a second shot off from the Constellation.

“Cease fire,” she ordered, voice hard.

“The fleet has ceased fire,” the comm reported.

In silence, the fleet proceeded back to Canopus Station. Once the P Royal was settled on her course, Kris motored her egg for her quarters. As she passed Captain Kitano, she said, “A moment of your time, please.”

The skipper of the Princess Royal followed Kris into her quarters and closed the door. Kris turned her egg to face her.

“Who had command of this squadron before me?”

“No one, Commodore. I think the king always intended for you to command it.”

Kris mulled that over for a moment. Then she slowly asked a second question.

“Who was in charge of your shakedown and workup? Certainly you had a type commander.”

Captain Kitano worried her lip for a second. If it were possible to fidget in an egg, she did. “We didn’t, ma’am.”

“No type commander?” Kris said, raising an eyebrow.

“No. It seemed the Navy couldn’t decide who we belonged to. Battle Force said we had battleship guns and were theirs. Scout Force said our displacement fell in the range of their cruisers and destroyers, so we belonged to them. They were still arguing when the Sakura showed up. The king went aboard her, and suddenly we weren’t shaking down anymore. We had orders to sail in a week.”

“So, you had no type commander?” Kris said, trying to get a good feel for what her frigates had been through.

“Lieutenant Commander Sampson was quick to point out she was senior officer present, but the type commanders kept telling us they were appointing a squadron commander and never did. Also, none of us much cared for the tactics Sampson was pushing. Battle line with all of us following in the wake of her flagship.

“Commodore, I’ve fought under your command and I know you want every ship to maneuver on its own. We all studied up on your battles, all but Sampson, and we wanted to do it your way. We thought we were.”

Here Kitano chuckled. “We thought we were doing pretty good until a couple of hours ago. That, and none of us much cared for the hard-assed Mickey Mouse Sampson was pushing. We kind of used the confusion to ignore her. She tried calling in her contacts with Battle Force, but that only got Scout Force coming at us harder.”

Kris tried to place herself in Sampson’s shoes. She’d been a lieutenant when Kris was a boot ensign. Her dad had died under a cloud that was never proven. Clearly, Sampson had something to prove . . . and was working way too hard to prove it.

Kris shook her head. “A bad situation,” she said, then quickly appended, “Most of you did very well,” when Kitano looked taken back.

“We did as best we could, ma’am.”

Kris nodded, then remembered an extraneous question she couldn’t ignore. “Did the king really get you underway in a week?”

“Even a Longknife couldn’t do that, ma’am. Getting the civilian ships out of the builders yard and fit to sail took a month.”

“And you continued to work up on your own?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Kris tried not to frown. Grampa Ray should have put someone in command when he knew they were headed for a potential fight. Had he been too busy, or was he so intent on dropping this hot potato of an honor in her lap? Kris had no answer for that.

“Thank you,” Kris said, and they returned to the bridge.

There were no surprises there. Nelly did suggest that they lower the fleet speed to 1.75 gees. The Connie’s reactors were getting more into the red, but no request or report came from her skipper. Kris slowed the fleet.

If Nelly hadn’t kept an eye on the Connie’s engineering state, the captain might have very well let her blow herself out of space before she admitted she had a problem. Kris could only imagine the language being used by the snipes as they went about their work, one eye on the dials as they edged more into the red.

Kris didn’t issue another order until they approached Canopus Station.

“Send from flag to squadron. We will dock in order, flag to aft-most ship. There will be an immediate meeting of captains in the commodore’s day quarters upon docking. XOs, chief engineers, chief scientists, skippers of Marine detachments and command senior chiefs report to the wardroom of the Princess Royal for a later briefing.”

The Princess Royal caught the first tie-down and was towed into its pier on the spinning Canopus Station. Each of the next two frigates smartly performed the landing.

The Connie botched her approach and had to back out, wait for its dock to come around again, and make another pass at the initial tie-down. She missed the hook again and only docked on the third try.

Nelly reported all of this as Kris got out of her egg and pulled on her undress whites with hardly a thought to what she was doing. Nelly fed Kris reports on what the Marine detachments had or had not accomplished. She heard them and stored the information away for later use. However, her mind was already lost to a series of meetings she did not want to have. She’d been preparing herself for two of them since last night.

Now she had to add a third.

Abby made sure Kris’s uniform passed inspection, then grinned, and added, “Good luck, baby duck. Ain’t being a grown-up the pits?”

Kris found she had to chuckle at that. “If we told kids what waited for them at the end of high school and college, do you think we’d ever get them out of the house?”

“My house, yes. Your house, never,” Abby said, reminding Kris that a lot of folks had it a whole lot worse than her.

“Kris,” Nelly said, “all the captains have arrived. Oh, Mr. Benson just walked in. I need to extend the table.”

“Do it, Nelly. Don’t wait up for me, Abby,” Kris said, and turned to do what Longknifes did best: what had to be done.