Defender

50

Kris was halfway through her supper when Captain Drago hurried in and took the empty chair next to her. “We’ve lost the probe in Hot Datum 3’s system.”

It took Kris a moment to switch gears. “Weren’t we supposed to keep that until tomorrow morning, even if they headed for it at two gees?”

“Yes, Kris,” Nelly said. “My calculations say they must have had a ship cross the system at 3.5 gees.”

“They either squished the dickens out of the crew of one of their monster ships, or they have knocked together some speedsters,” Drago said.

“Just a second,” Kris said, glancing down at where Nelly rode below her collarbone. “How come you’re telling me this, and not Nelly?”

“I told Nelly I wanted to tell you,” Captain Drago said.

“And I concluded,” Nelly said, “that no harm would come from this being delivered a bit slow. Having a human do it might help you.”

“I guess I thank you, both. Don’t do it when time matters.”

“I won’t,” both said at once. Maybe Nelly was a bit faster.

“Have they made the next jump?” Kris asked.

“No. I think they will wait until the mother ship is ready to go through with them.”

“Why?” both Nelly and Kris asked.

“We’re waiting for them here because you have the Hellburners up your sleeve. They don’t know that. They don’t know that you won’t cut behind them and hit their mother ship when the fleet is rushing off to meet us. No, if the mother ship has most of their people, they will protect it. Somewhere, there’s a report from the boffins on the wreck you brought in. When they sorted out the bodies, we found a six-to-four ratio of men to women. About like our warships. Want to bet the mother ship has more women and children?”

“No bet, Captain. You want to organize an attack from their rear?”

“No. Not unless they actually do move faster than the mother ship can. I think after the way you smashed up the last one, these folks are taking very good care of mother.”

Kris thought for a long minute. “Nelly, design me some low-tech probes that can do a good job of tracking them. That can get me a real count on the number of reactors; maybe lasers, too. Drago, alert the Intrepid that she’ll be sortieing at once to drop those probes off in the systems in the aliens’ direct path.”

“They’ll be tiptoeing right up to a jump the aliens could be on the other side of,” the captain pointed out.

“It’s a risk we have to take. Tell her to run if she sees anything. No fighting allowed until the rest of us can get a piece of the action.”

“You’re telling a lot of folks to get close but not touch.”

“Trust me, when the time comes, I’ll switch gears without a thought.”

The captain left to give the orders. Nelly went quiet for a while, then said, “I’ve got the shipyard knocking out six probes. They’re large and clunky with optics, radar, and a crude atom laser to count alien noses. An old type computer with plenty of storage. They’ll be ready in two hours. Kris, could the Intrepid be up-armored before she leaves?”

“Ask Superintendent Benson if he can do it before they finish the probes?”

“He says no. They aren’t ready to begin uploading the Smart Metal. They’d need two more hours.”

“I’m not willing to trust we’ll have those two extra hours. Tell the skipper to have the Intrepid ready to go in two hours and to put the spurs to it—3.5 gees or more all the way.”

“I passed along your order, Kris. Doesn’t it bother you to send them out to face the enemy with less than they should have?”

That was not a question Kris had expected from Nelly, but then, she’d never expected Captain Drago to persuade Nelly to hold her tongue so he could talk first. More surprises.

“Yes, Nelly, it bothers me, but the Wasp fought its last battle with thin armor, and we had the wreckage of the Hornet aboard. In situations like this, risk is just a part of the job.”

“You have a dangerous job, Kris. But then, you usually have a dangerous job. I’m just now realizing how dangerous it is. I guess I’ll have to get used to it.”

“Sorry, Nelly. Next time we’re back on Wardhaven, would you like me to give you to one of my nieces? One of them should be getting school-tall soon.”

“No, Kris. I’m your computer, and you’re my person. I see the difference between me and my children growing every day as they relate to their own human. Your niece might be safer to be around, but I’d be so bored singing nursery rhymes like we once did.”

Kris did a walk-around after dinner. More material had arrived from the moon fabricators. Eight 20-inch lasers were laid out and under construction on the shop floor at one yard. Kris dropped in on all four of her commodores. Each was happy to see her but busy. Apparently more gear had come loose during yesterday’s training cruise than had been passed up the chain of command. The repair ships and ship personnel were busy.

In the Mitsubishi yard, two frigates were already spinning themselves into shape. It had taken months to build the Wasp. Admittedly, here they had the reactors, lasers, and merchant ships to form the seed around. Still, the speed at which they took shape amazed Kris.

One ship already had her name visible. Temptress, no doubt, would be Benson’s flag.

Kris crossed the brow of the Intrepid a good fifteen minutes before it was scheduled to depart. She found the young captain busy on the bridge and managed to suppress their immediate reaction before they started it.

“I want to wish you good luck and Godspeed,” she told the bridge crew. “I know this mission is risky, but we need to know what we’re facing. Is this one alien mother ship or two? How many escort ships do they have? Go quickly, avoid a fight, deploy your probes, and get back here fast. If your orders don’t fit your situation, please be guided by the principle of calculated risk. We need the probes out there, but we need you here when the fight starts.”

“You can count on us, Admiral,” the captain assured her. Kris shook her hand, then left. Again, she’d done all she could do to emphasize her orders. Do the job and run.

Before long, she would have to issue different orders, but for the moment, running for home was what she wanted. No heroics for now. Tomorrow, Kris would somehow have to figure out a way for each of her ships to kill seven or eight of the aliens’.

That assumed there were only two hundred coming. The corvette Fearless had killed her seven or eight, but at the cost of her life. Kris didn’t want to trade one of her ships for eight of the aliens’. That wouldn’t guarantee that Jack and Granny Rita would not be pounded by the survivors. No, Kris had to repel the aliens with as much of her fleet intact as possible.

How would she do that?

Kris returned to the Wasp. There were no new surprises. The aliens were still in Hot Datum 3, doing whatever they wanted to do, with Kris none the wiser.

Kris went to bed with visions of ships sweeping through space. Her fleet would flee, as long as it could, to keep the range open for the 20-inch guns.

Assuming the aliens didn’t have a surprise of their own in the gun category.

But Kris could only run so far before she had her back to Alwa.

Kris brought Nelly into her thoughts, and the two of them studied the battles that Grampa Ray and Granny Rita had fought against the Iteeche. Kris examined them and found them wanting. The frigates really did mean a new way of fighting. They reached back farther into the appalling history of human slaughter. In the bloody twentieth century, Kris began to find bits and pieces that seemed to fit into her puzzle.

She finally fell asleep to dream of aircraft climbing and diving as freely as her frigates in a three-dimensional battlefield.