Defiant

11

If Sandy got the Word late, milling around the pier was evidence that others had gotten the Word wrong. The armed yacht skippers stood there at the 4 o'clock meeting beside the Cushing instead of their own 4:30. Rather than send them back to their boats to grumble for half an hour, Kris invited them to lend an ear to what the fast boats were doing.

It was a good idea.

''Can we have some of those? Anything that will keep those damn battlewagons busy elsewhere has got my vote,'' was Captain Luna's response to Chandra's briefing on the AGM 944 missiles. She got solid nods from her fellow yacht skippers.

Van Horn turned wordlessly to the Army Colonel who'd arrived late and breathless from his supply trove. ''The Navy's pretty much stole all my 944s,'' the soldier said. Before a groan could get really going, he added, ''But I got plenty of AGM-832s. I even got the launchers they come in. Normally truck mounted, they ought to go nicely on your boat hulls. The 832s aren't as quick on the acceleration as the 944s but they still kick like a mule, and we pack twelve of them to a box.'' He grinned to show one gold tooth in front. ''And we got loads and loads of them.''

''Anybody told you lately that they love you?'' Luna said.

''Not since my wife left town with a traveling Bible salesman,'' the Colonel said. ''I'll start shipping 832s to the Nuu yard just as soon as I get back.''

''You do that, love.''

''Moving right along,'' Roy said, turning to Phil, who launched quickly into his efforts to cool his engines down fast by replacing the radiators with ones of his own design. He finished with a big grin on his face.

Then Tom took a step forward. ''And if we do it that way, we'll end up dead in space with our coolant blown.''

''What'da'ya mean?'' Phil shot back.

''You're using small-tubed radiators. Small tubes from beginning to end.''

''The smallest possible to get the maximum radiation area.''

''You also get the maximum turbulence in the coolant mixture. On Santa Maria, we intentionally use something we call Nano Mix Overheat to get the max from our mining slurry. But to keep from wrecking the nanos, we cool them down before they overheat. We tried the small tubes. And kept blowing them out. Perturbation in the liquid mix when the outside cools too fast and tries to swap with the inside but there ain't enough inside. You need a larger tube to start with at the front end of the radiator, then it narrows and splits into finer tubes. Fast, but not too fast.''

''We did a computer simulation on this,'' the yard worker at Roy's elbow put in.

''You have any solid data to simulate from?''

''Well…'' he started.

''Did you do a search of the literature from Santa Maria?''

''We did a search. We didn't get anything from Santa Maria.''

''Man!'' Tom spat. His lips got thin as he shook his head in short, choppy snaps. Kris made a note that this was what Tom looked like angry; too bad Penny wasn't here to see. ''We're halfway across the galaxy. Transportation costs eat our hide. We have to have some ways of being competitive,'' Tom said, the true son of a Santa Maria mining family. Then he rattled off a long search string that only ended with ''heat transfer.''

At Roy's elbow, the yard worker talked rapidly to his computer, but Nelly was faster. A hologram sprang from Kris's chest. A schematic of a reactor, small-tube heat exchanger, red-lined. Explosion. New schematic of the same reactor, a heat exchanger that blended larger tubes that fed into smaller tubes. This time the red line bled smoothly to green.

About the time the second hologram ended, the yard worker looked up. ''I found it. That's about what it says, and no, I'd never have found it doing a regular search. Damn.''

''I guess I need Tom's designs and a new set of heat exchangers,'' Phil said, quick to change from he-bull facing he-bull to student bowing to teacher.

Tom shrugged, lopsided grin out to deflect so much of the bad that the world might have thrown at him. ''I'm just glad I could help. It is an old family secret, and I'm gonna get my hide walloped for talking out of school about it.''

''We'll try to keep it a family secret, just between us and Nuu Enterprises,'' Kris said, then leaned close as Tom stepped back into the circle of skippers. ''There was a reason I wanted your nose out of that engine room,'' she whispered. ''You're better used here than at a job the yard could do just as well.''

Now Tom blushed.

''Now that that's settled, I been thinking,'' Luna said … to catcalls from her fellow skippers. ''Back at the yacht basin, there's a few armed yachts that ain't going nowhere, just gathering dust. I figure one bit of brilliance deserves another, and what with us using bubble gum to stick some of that nice man's rockets on our boats, why don't we borrow some of those and stick a few rockets on them? So, what do you say to us dropping by, and, real friendly like, taking what we need?''

''There must be a guard or two,'' Kris said, suspecting larceny like this must normally be frowned on.

''There are, honey, but they're old and decrepit or young and want to live to be old and decrepit. What say you and I and a few of my crew go pay them a friendly visit. I really think you ought to come along. That bit of frippery around your neck is good at picking locks, I hear.''

Kris turned to Captain van Horn. ''Sir, you strike me as none too happy watching us kids having all the fun. Want to put together a hooligan flotilla of your own?''

''I was planning on calling up more reserves to man the tugs and other yard craft. Use them to provide search and rescue in orbit,'' van Horn said, pausing for a moment in thought. ''Maybe a couple of armed yachts backing them up might come in handy.''

''Some of the larger unarmed runabouts might handle the ship-to-ship rescue work very well,'' Kris said. ''The Coast Guard Reserve could crew them.'' Most of the time, the Coastie Reserve just did safety checks and caught the odd boat that got in trouble before it burned itself up on reentry or vanished forever into deep space. They were civilians for the most part, owners of small-system runabouts. Kris had gotten to know them during her skiff racing days. They were good people; would they appreciate the job she was calling them in on?

Van Horn nodded. ''I have a liaison with the Coasties. I'll see if I can't get some of them up here and give them the Search and Rescue job. That would free mine up for something.'' The Navy Captain turned to the Colonel. ''How many of those AGM-832 missiles can you lay your hands on?''

''How many you want?''

''What if I were to load up two, four small container ships with your missiles?''

The Colonel whistled. ''A whole arsenal. Hmm. You swabbies would need some help aiming them. I know just the red legs to do that. Let's you and me talk.''

Kris found herself ignored as the Captain and the Colonel walked off in animated conversation. Luna shook her head. ''Now that looks damn dangerous. There's a reason we like the Navy and Army hating each other's guts and brawling properly in any good bar. When they start working together, freedom for dishonest people like me is seriously in jeopardy.''

''Then we better be off quickly and commit whatever piracy you have planned before they can get the world so organized and law abiding that there's no room for an honest and free woman.''

''I knew a Longknife would understand,'' Luna said, grinning. ''Now, do we take the sabers, or just our smiles?''

At Kris's suggestion, they settled on smiles. With Jack at one elbow and Luna and her crew of time-displaced pirates at the other, Kris quickly found herself at the yacht docks. They were pretty much abandoned, as was most of the space station once you got away from the yards. Only an old man and his teenage grandson stood guard at the gate to the main pier.

''Was wondering when you'd show up,'' the old man said, staring up at her from where he sat in a small guardhouse beside a flimsy gate that hardly blocked the main pier's access road.

''Wondering,'' Kris echoed, trying not to give away anything more than the presence of her and Luna's crew did.

''Yeah. The Shipwright's Daughter just outside Nuu Docks' gate is the only place open an old man or his grandson can get a bite to eat. Luna and her cutthroats move their overstoked tubs there. And there's talk of a Longknife on the base.'' The man's grin at Kris was missing three teeth. ''I served with your great-grampa at the Battle of the Big Orange Nebula.''

He glanced over to where long, wide windows on the floor of the station showed row upon row of yachts tied up. ''Owners that buy armed yachts don't do a lot of talking about what they got under the hood, but I'll bet you that you've come for the five, six boats that are still parked and that have lasers behind their brightwork. And I'll bet you I know which ones they are.''

''Sorry, Gabby. Betting against you would be betting against a sure thing,'' Luna said. ''You gonna let us at them, or do we need to rough you up for appearances?''

At the suggestion of hurting his grandfather, the kid moved forward, a baseball bat with a lead weight ready in his hand.

''No, Cory,'' the old man said. ''She was just asking me what I needed for job security. Luna'd never hurt me more than she needed to, to get a job done,'' he grinned, gap-toothed.

''What do you say I let you in and we wait and see what comes of it. Who knows, we may all end up heroes. If it don't turn out that way, I'm sure me and Cory can find a couple of flights of stairs to fall down. Now come on, I know where they keep the spare keys to most of these.''

Unfortunately, getting access to the armed ships turned out to be the least of the problems. Getting into their systems, especially gun systems, turned out to be a lot tougher. Nelly did her usual hack effort and found them as well secured as Peterwald's yacht had been on Turantic. Rather than force them by raw power, Kris called Nuu Docks; all of them had started life there. All had a standard set of ship systems from the yard… and all had system back doors that all but one of the owners hadn't bothered to change. And that one had not bought nearly as good a security system as he thought. Well before lights out, Nelly had all six armed yachts and eight large runabouts ready to follow them back to Nuu Docks like nice little ducklings.

Next morning, the yard was a madhouse, with more ships to work on, more work to do, and more people doing it. At the 0800 stand-up beside the Cushing, Roy from the yard proudly reported the last discrepancies with the PFs had been cured during the night. The installation of AGM-944s had been successfully completed on Singh's boat, and they were ready to proceed with the rest. Tests with the new radiators had been completed in the yard. If Phil and Tom agreed, they'd start installing new ones by noon. Both Lieutenants agreed to make that review their first order of business after the meeting.

That meeting over, Kris headed for her next one with the armed yacht skippers trailing a fast-stepping Captain van Horn and Colonel Tye. Kris should have recognized that for trouble, but her lack of sleep or tendency to view higher-ranking officers as hopelessly harmless led her astray.

The 0830 stand-up was a mob scene. But then, Nuu yards now sported a rather large mob of ships. It had started with armed yachts learning to fake it as cruisers and battleships. Now there were more armed yachts, as well as rescue runabouts that had started life unarmed but looked to be acquiring Army rockets. A quick glance showed Kris that anywhere anybody could find a spare inch of deck was fast filling with rocket launchers. And four medium-size Navy container ships usually plying quiet resupply routes now occupied docks at Nuu and were growing antennas of several makes and many models.

''That yours, Captain?'' Kris asked.

''Ours,'' the Army Colonel cut in.

''Navy-Army combined effort,'' Van Horn agreed.

''Army-Navy,'' the Colonel corrected.

''As soon as we get the Navy sensor containers loaded, an idea left over from the Iteeche Wars, we'll take those four ships over to the Army Depot and start loading containers of the 832 missiles and even older birds. Anyway, between the Navy sensor suite to fix a target—''

''And the artillery crews programming missiles to go for targets without grid coordinates or GPS,'' the Colonel cut in, ''we should have a major annoyance for our uninvited guests.''

''We might even do a little damage if we get lucky,'' Van Horn added drolly.

''A lot of damage if they hit. Pile-driving warheads on those old 722s can cut through six meters of concrete. Wonder what they'll do to ice?'' The Army Colonel grinned. ''Who says old is useless?''

''Those missiles will definitely get those battleships' attention. Maybe five, ten percent,'' the Navy officer added.

''But sometimes, it's the last fraction of a percent that matters,'' the soldier whispered.

Kris nodded agreement.

That was the last bit of agreement she got for quite a while as she slipped into a knot of arguing yacht skippers surrounding Roy. The bottom line was there were a lot more spots on yachts where skippers wanted to mount rocket launchers than there were rocket launchers. So everyone wanted what there was to be had.

''Hold it, hold it,'' Kris said, raising her arms and shouting to be heard. ''First thing, you don't decide who gets rockets.''

''Who does?'' several of the skippers demanded, Captain Luna first among them.

''The battle plan does,'' Kris said.

''And what's it say?'' Luna growled.

''That some of you might get a chance to use those missiles, and others of you won't get any such chance. Nelly, show them a hologram of what those rockets can do.'' A sphere appeared in front of Kris. ''In space, these rocket seekers should be good for twenty thousand kilometers. But better to hold them until you're ten K out. You have to be close enough for the warhead's seeker to home on heat, like a battleship's engine.'' The hologram showed a battleship with a rocket heading for the medium heat around the engines, not the extreme heat of the thermonuclear exhaust.

''But the key words in what I just said were the ten to twenty thousand kilometers. If you go up against a fully operational battleship, it will shoot you down before you get anywhere near missile range. You've got to go in after other ships have taken a lot of the fight out of the battleships.''

''The Captain and the Colonel are making noises about using missiles. Lots of them, from a damn bunch of tramp container scows,'' Luna pointed out. ''Don't sound like they're planning on waiting for things to get peaceful.''

''We're putting sensors and guidance on those ships. We're going to use them different from you. We don't have enough of the stuff we're concentrating on those scows to share among all of you. You're gonna have to go in close and use the warhead seekers to get your job done. Sorry, that's just the way it's gonna be.'' Kris cut off further debate on that.

''So how many missile launcher boxes do I get?'' Luna said.

''None.''

''What!''

''Remember, you're faking it as a cruiser. Navy cruisers do not fire Army surplus rockets.''

''But once I shuck those duds, I could.''

''Not likely.'' Kris shook her head. ''Backing your boat out of the fake front is going to be hard enough without trying not to rip off the launcher. Face it, Luna, if you just knock it a bit, it's gonna break. No, the six of you that are pushing the drones will have your hands full during the early part of the fight just faking it. After that, you can do what you want with your lasers. The other yachts will get the launchers.''

''Damn.'' Luna looked around at the new skippers. ''Any of you want to trade ships?''

Kris suppressed a grin. What happened to all that ''I know my boat. I'm the best one to drive it.'' But she was busy counting noses. Yes, they did have a round dozen extra yachts. Half of them sported some sort of burst laser. The others had been planned for rescue, but maybe …

''There are twelve fast patrol boats. There are twelve yachts. That gives us a chance to complicate the battleship's firing solutions for the early part of the attack. If you're game.''

The new bunch of yacht skippers were a mixed crew. Some were hired, like Luna; a few were actually the owners. Others were Navy, reassigned from tugs and other yard craft now that the Coasties had been brought in to run the rescue effort. One was a Coast Guard reservist. They eyed each other; one muttered, ''I should have known, with a Longknife on board, it'd get terminal,'' but they all nodded when one said, ''What do you have in mind?''

''We start the charge at 1.5 g's. Then work up to 2.0 g's, then 2.5 as we close. The final approach will be at a good 3.5 or better. I know you can't make accelerations like those.''

Faces suddenly gone pale nodded back at her.

''But if you were with us for the trot, maybe stay with us for the canter,'' Kris said, falling into horse talk.

''It would help?'' one skipper said.

''Give the battlewagons more targets,'' another answered.

''They'd be at extreme main battery range,'' Kris pointed out. ''You'd drop out well before we got into the secondary battery envelope, where the fire would get rough.''

''Where's the help in that?'' one skipper asked.

''I don't know about yours, but my wife would kind of find it a help,'' another snorted.

''But would it do any good?'' another said. ''Don't they have some kind of electronic stuff? Couldn't they tell us from you?''

Among the decoy yachts, a Navy OIC coughed. ''We were talking about just this kind of thing yesterday evening, when all those yachts came toddling over to the yard. No one's using any of the stuff on the old MK Vis yet. We could cobble together some decent maskers from them.''

The woman glanced around her fellow Navy types, got nods. ''It wouldn't work perfectly, but if we did a few things with your PFs, Your Highness, and a few things with your yachts, ladies and gentlemen, we could fix it so those bastards would be stuck scratching their heads for a whole lot longer than I'd want if I was in their shoes. Which I never want to be.''

This was going farther than Kris had intended. These were civilians, dragooned in at the last moment. She had hoped to talk them into starting the charge with her boats, then falling out quickly. She hadn't expected they could do anything else.

Suddenly, it was looking like they could do a whole lot more. But at a horrible price. Kris wanted to beg off, excuse herself, tell them to forget that she'd ever mentioned it.

Yet, if her PFs were to deliver their 18-inch laser blasts to those battleships, they needed all the help they could get. Might the sacrifice of these twelve be critical to victory?

Kris remembered Phil's story of the earlier Torpedo 8. Fifteen hopelessly outnumbered planes had bored in and been slaughtered. At the moment, their sacrifice had seemed a horrible waste. But the enemy defenses had been lured down low. They didn't notice the bombers up high. And those bombers had smashed them, redeeming Torpedo 8's sacrifice.

I can't not ask these civilians to do this. I'll hate myself, but Kris kept silent, let an icy cold freeze her heart. Allowed granite, hard and unfeeling, to replace the churning in her gut. She stood as men and women, some with cracking voices, talked themselves into a death ride.

''We have to. There's no other choice,'' was the final word from one woman, tears streaming down her face.

God, I'm coming to hate that phrase.

''Nelly, order more helmets for these boats.''

''Yes, ma'am. I placed the order as they were talking. Express to the Navy athletic center. They should be here today. We'll need to install high-g stations on all the yachts.''

''I figured as much,'' Roy said. ''I'll get my shops working on that. Can each of you report your needs ASAP?''

''Some of us have high-g stations,'' one Captain said.

''Very likely you'll want better,'' Kris said. ''You'll not only need to go straight ahead at two or more g's, but you'll need to be dodging right, left, up, down every two, three seconds.''

Several Captains gulped. ''That's gonna take a lot of reaction mass. Some of our directional thrusters weren't designed with things like that in mind.'' That started a lengthy discussion that ended with some of the Army rockets being stripped down to raw motor segments and strapped to the noses of some of the yachts. As they built up to higher g's, they'd use those solid rocket motor bursts to augment their thrusters.

''When you've used them up, drop out of the charge,'' Kris told them. And chose to believe the nods they gave her. Maybe they believed them themselves.

At two g's, with directional thrusters minimal, how do you break away from a charge? Don't ask the question, Kris, if you don't want the answer.

Kris sent the yard crews and the yacht personnel on their ways to load rocket launchers. She needed to study the battle board. She needed to study it a lot. This battle was getting more and more complicated.

Winnable?

She wanted to think so. But there was a long way between a battle being winnable and it being won. A long way.

Kris looked around, found she wasn't needed, and headed for the Halsey. She found Sandy hunched over the battle board and quickly brought her up to date on the changes agreed to at the meeting. Or started to.

Sandy knew what van Horn was up to. She waved Kris to a halt at the idea of stripping the MK VIs to outfit the yachts.

''No can do. Van Horn will need them. We can't have cargo ships running around a Navy gun line. Looks funny. I use a couple of tugs to fake it like tin cans and the gear from the MK VI on the freighters to fake them as cruisers.''

''So, how do I hide my PFs among some fast yachts for at least the first part of the charge?''

''Let's see what we can do about you having your cake while I eat it.'' She tapped her commlink. ''Beni?''

''This better be good news''—punctuated by a yawn—'' ‘cause I just got back… three hours ago from fixin' that PF's sensors.'' After another yawn, a ''ma'am,'' was appended.

''I got bad news and good news, Beni. There's a Longknife at my elbow, and she wants lots of electronic countermeasures.''

''And the good news is…''

''Doesn't your old man know most of Wardhaven's old crows?''

''Yeah.''

''Well, we need them and all the gadgets and potions they can lay their hands on up the beanstalk, say, in the next hour.''

''That's gonna be kind of noticeable.''

''We'll worry about the noticing. You worry about landing that flock on our doorstep soonest.''

''Yes, ma'am.''

Kris leaned over the commlink. ''And Beni, can I borrow your phone to call home, if it's not too much trouble?''

''Trouble's all I seem to get since a Longknife showed up. For sure not much sleep.''

''You got to apply to OCS,'' Kris said through a grin. ''You'll get plenty of sleep at OCS.''

''That's what I heard. Hearing it from a Longknife, I kind of find myself doubting the story now. You know what I mean.''

''Call your old man,'' Sandy said. ''Then get to CIC.''

''Yes, ma'am. Out.''

Sandy punched her side of the commlink. ''We'll see what that starts moving up the elevator. Singer, Sperry, lots of folks have stuff we can use. I expect to see a lot of lab stuff. Gear they think they can twist or tweak for us.''

''Non-standard. I thought you liked standard.''

Sandy sighed. ''I love standard. I love well-tested and proven. I like not being dead day after tomorrow even more. One out of three won't be too bad.'' A quick call to the yard made sure the MK Vis didn't get broken out for spare parts. About that time, Beni showed up with his phone and Kris called Honovi.

''You okay?'' was his first question.

''I'm fine. You making progress?''

''Slowly. I'm in a meeting just now. Father and her father, so I can't talk long.''

''We're needing to call out for pizza, several other things. It may start getting harder for us to go unnoticed.''

''You have hardly escaped notice, Sis. But the bugs and rats are no more interested in selling soap to certain approaching markets than you and I are, so they're willing to sit on it. They want to know when they can stop sitting on it, though.''

Kris looked at Sandy. She shrugged. ''I'll give you a guesstimate on that next call,'' Kris said.

''Well, thanks for the early notice. Now, I have to go.''

''Good-bye,'' Kris said to a silent line.

''You'd think they were building a battleship,'' Sandy said.

''Politics is their life,'' Kris answered lamely.

''Well, this could be our death. I wish they'd pay a bit more attention to us.'' So the two of them did pay attention. They studied the battle board and the pieces they had to move around it. They studied the hostiles … no change there. They examined, questioned, and modified their assumptions about the six battleships, then did the same for their own units.

When the first lunch sitting was piped, Sandy ordered something sent down; meatloaf sandwiches with potato salad swallowed with red bug juice. Captain van Horn joined them, borrowed half of Kris's sandwich, and examined how to get the best use out of his missile ships. He tapped the final stretch of yellow approach mapped for the hostiles. ''They'll be coming in on deceleration. Rear end to Wardhaven. Get my missile ships across their sterns early to fire up their soft rears. Sooner or later one of our rockets will hit something that'll hurt them.

''Then you charge in and smash them. Let the rest of the hellions rip what you leave behind, and then I'll mosey in close and send salvos into the shattered wrecks. Take no prisoners.''

''I hadn't thought about prisoners,'' Kris said.

''We'd better. Do we offer them a chance to surrender or no? ‘Cause once the fight gets hot, it'll be real hard to put a stop to it.'' The Captain looked slowly around their small circle.

''If they want to give up,'' Sandy said, ''I'm all for it. But we can't call for their surrender too early. It'll make us look weak. Considering how weak we are, we can't look weak.''

''I agree,'' was all Kris could add. She'd spent all her time thinking how she couldn't surrender. It felt strange planning how to offer that to her enemy. Even stranger to realize that the very offer of surrender was a carefully balanced ploy.

Good Lord, let me do this right, she prayed softly to herself … and any listening God.

''I say we let them surrender when we have them on the ropes and begging,'' van Horn said. ''They call us, we don't call them.''

''They might surrender a bit earlier if we reminded them the offer was on the table,'' Sandy said.

''And they might get all hard and John Paul Jones on us. ‘I have not yet begun to fight,' and such,'' said the Captain.

''Gosh,'' Kris said, all wide-eyed, ''And I took us for the underdog and them for the overconfident ones.''

''Hard to tell,'' the Captain said, dusting sandwich crumbs from his hands and heading for the hatch.

''Very hard to tell,'' Sandy said in agreement.