Defiant

1

Lieutenant Kris Longknife grinned from ear to ear, no minor accomplishment at 2.5 g's. The short hairs on the back of her neck were standing up. At a brace. And saluting. She was scared spitless and had never had so much fun in her life.

This being Tuesday, under Commodore Mandanti's rotation system, she commanded Division 3, four dinky fast patrol boats, as they charged the battleship-size target ahead of them. And, if she trusted those little hairs on the back of her neck at all, the Commodore and his gunners on the Cushing had the PF-109, Kris's very first command, and the other boats of Div 3, pinned in the crosshairs of their defensive lasers.

It was time to get her boats moving to a different evasion pattern or they'd be left powerless, drifting in space … like the eight boats of Division 1 and 2 that had failed in their attack just minutes before her.

And she and the other eleven skippers of the fast patrol boats would be buying the beer for the Commodore's gunners.

And there would be a very critical report filed saying the PFs—small, easy, and quick to build with semi-smart metal—were failures, unable to defend a planet from attack. If that was true, each planet in the newly formed United Sentients would need a full, heavy battle fleet in its orbit if it was to weather the unknowns rapidly developing in these troubled times.

The political ramifications of that were something Kris Longknife, Prime Minister's daughter and great-granddaughter to King Raymond I of the U.S. alliance of ninety planets, did not want to think about. Far better for each planet to see to its own defense with a tiny mosquito fleet like her boat and let the heavy ships handle the problems of the whole alliance.

You're thinking too much again, Longknife. Get out of your head and kick some battleship butt.

Kris mashed the comm button under her thumb. The order that went out was short and scrambled. What it meant was, ''Division 3, prepare to change to Evasion Plan 5 on my mark.''

Kris waited. Waited for her own helmswoman to switch to the new plan, waited for three other boats to make the same switch.

''Ready,'' Boson 3/c Fintch reported from her station beside Kris on the tiny bridge. The small brunet's voice was hoarse under heavy acceleration. Kris gave the other boats a slow three count.

THEY SHOULD BE READY TO EXECUTE NOW, Nelly said directly into Kris's brain. To call the tiny computer at Kris's neck a supercomputer would probably offend Nelly's growing sense of her own self-importance. What Kris spent on Nelly's last upgrade would have bought and paid for one of the battlewagons Kris and her crew were practicing to kill.

SEND MY MARK, Kris ordered, and the computer not only sent the execute to all four boats, but made the evasion pattern change within the same nanosecond—something no mere human could do. This computer intervention was not standard Navy procedure, and it had not been easily won. But it was at the heart of the plan of attack that Kris and her division skippers had knocked together last week at the O club—with Nelly's avid help.

''Executing Evasion Plan 5,'' Fintch reported.

And Kris's tiny command slammed her hard against the left headrest of her high-acceleration chair as what had been a soft left turn converted to a hard right turn and dive.

Kris swallowed and tightened her gut muscles. Again.

The division has started its wild charge from 150,000 klicks out, well beyond even 18-inch laser range. They'd gone to 1.5, 2.0, 2.5 g's acceleration, mixing up their growing speed with erratic right and left, up and down swerves. Sometimes hard, sometimes easy, sometimes in between. Always unpredictable. The tiny fast patrol boats were small as bugs beside the huge battlewagon they sought to slay. Now they danced like June bugs.

If they danced just right, they would live. And the battleship would die.

Because the fast patrol boats, though tiny, were deadly, too. Each PF carried four 18-inch pulse lasers. The quick burst from one of them could gut a cruiser or knock a gaping hole in a battleship's ice armor. Maybe even burn through to the mass of weapons, machinery, and humanity below.

So cruisers and battleships mounted secondary guns that fired fast and often and tried to slash through small stuff like the PFs. And big ships spun on their long axis, rotating slashing lasers away from damaged ice and into thick, unhurt ice before burn-through into vitals could happen.

Measure, countermeasure, counter-countermeasure, layered thick and heavy. That was the way it had been since the time beyond recall when some human first set out to kill his brother. It wasn't enough to just have a fast ship, good weapons, and solid teamwork. You needed a plan and skill… and luck.

Or so Phil had told them all when he invited them out to dinner at the O club a week ago.

***

Wardhaven O club, two blocks from Main Navy, had been ancient when Kris's Great-grampa Ray was a freshly commissioned subaltern. Its carpeted and thickly curtained rooms were perfect for fine dinning between the wars. On its walls hung battle trophies from Wardhaven's first unpleasantness with fellow Rim worlds. Rich oil paintings celebrating victories going back to mother Earth's dim, bloody past before humanity spread into space four hundred years ago.

Kris wasn't tempted to drink here; she got high on just the ambiance. But the white-jacketed waiter led the twelve junior officers right through the main dinning rooms to a small one off to the side, smelling of fresh paint and new, cheap carpet.

''What did we do to deserve this?'' Kris frowned.

''Not us,'' Phil Taussig said, his perpetual smile only slightly dampened by the toxic outgassing from the recent refurbishment. ''Being junior officers, and somewhat less reputable than swine to the president of this august mess, we are cast out into this for our dinner tonight.''

''It stinks,'' Babs Thompson said, making a face, which on her, the scion of one of the wealthier families on Hurtford, still was beautiful.

''Probably because they had to rebuild it after the last herd of JOs got through with it,'' Heather Alexander said, another rich offspring who had been shuttled to Fast Patrol Squadron 8 for crimes yet unconfessed. With the war scares, lots of young men and women were signing up to do their patriotic duty. Several of them were causing General Mac McMorrison, chair of the Joint Staff, fits as they struggled with greater or lesser success to fit their own strong heads into uniform hats.

None of them had come as close to open mutiny as Kris had. But then, no charges had been filed, so Kris wasn't officially a mutineer. It was now generally agreed—behind closed doors—that she had been right to relieve her first Captain of his command during what was about to become wartime.

Of course, that hadn't made it any easier for Mac to find Kris a second, now third commanding officer. Squadron 8, with its bunch of spoiled, hotshot orbital skiff-racing hooligans, at least looked like a safe place to dump Kris. With any luck, Mac probably figured, the troublesome JOs would take each other down a peg or twelve, teach each other a few desperately needed lessons in humility, proper social behavior, military deportment, what all. All the Navy risked was a few tiny toys half the fleet considered worthless anyway. And the last few wisps of hair on Commodore Mandanti's shiny pate.

How often had Kris heard her father, the Prime Minister, mutter about bringing all his problems together in a small room and letting them solve themselves? Kris savored the pleasure of being one of someone's too many problems as she glanced around at her fellow skippers and wondered if they would find a way to prove Mac and all the other top brass wrong … or all too right.

Dinner was ordered and eaten as the twelve took each other's measures again. Most knew or had heard of each other from the skiff racing championships. Taking a thin eggshell of a craft from orbit to a one-meter-square target on the planet below while using the least amount of fuel had taught them to feel ballistics in their bones. But a racing skiff didn't have a crew of fifteen nor did it work as part of a squadron of twelve.

Kris kept up her end of the table banter while thanking whatever bureaucratic god it was that gave her the crew she drew. Her XO was Tommy Lien from Santa Maria's asteroid mines. Her buddy from OCS had backed her up through thick and a whole lot of thin. Of all the crews, she and Tommy were the only two that had actually heard shots fired at them in anger. A few of the shots Tommy had dodged had actually been in legitimate firelights, not assassins' bullets that had missed Kris first.

Chief ''Stan'' Stanislaus was her only crew member who'd earned any hashmarks for his dress uniform. Ten years in the Navy, Kris would be losing him soon to OCS. Until then, she counted on him to see that PF-109 was real Navy rather than the playboy/girl toy flotilla that the media tagged them.

The rest of the crew of PF-109 were a challenge. Raw and new, Kris and Tommy spent most of their time trying to come up with ways to get them past green to something close to practiced. Take Fintch at the helm. She was a whiz at ballistics and tested out of sight on the Navy's aptitude scores… all involving computer games with her bottom comfortably seated on firm ground. But she'd never actually steered anything bigger than a motorbike. And never been off planet in her life!

Fintch was actually an easy one; Kris took her over to the Wardhaven Space Yacht Club, rented a two-seat racing skiff, and took her backseat on a skiff drop. Halfway down, Kris handed Fintch the spare stick she'd hidden aboard.

''You land her. Crash her. Your call.''

''Yes, ma'am,'' Fintch said, ignoring the offered stick. And she did manage to put them down. Just over a mile from the target. Next to the number-three green at Wardhaven's most exclusive country club. At least they didn't scorch that much grass.

''Sorry, ma'am. I'll do better next time, ma'am,'' Fintch insisted as the two of them hotfooted it off the course, the still cooling skiff dangling between them.

''Let this be our little secret,'' Kris said. And it was. Until the five o'clock news featured them.

But Fintch did better the second drop, and Kris stood her for membership in the Wardhaven Skiff Club, paid her first year's dues, and got out of her way.

If only it was half as easy to come up with ways that made it as much fun to maintain and calibrate the ship's lasers, electronics, motors, sensors, and all the other drudgeries that went into converting a very small chunk of space into one deadly little warship.

Dessert was on order when Phil Taussig rapped on his crystal water glass. Most fell silent, though Ted Rockefeller and Andy Gates had a problem with who-gets-in-the-last-word and didn't shut up until they noticed ten very silent peers staring at them.

''It could not have escaped your notice,'' Phil said, ''that should hostilities ever come to the space above Wardhaven, we are its last line of defense.''

''And its worst,'' Babs put in.

''Speak for yourself,'' Andy said.

''Well, folks,'' Phil said, trying to cut through the usual banter. ''I, for one, would like to see us take out a battleship or two. Hopefully without being annihilated like a torpedo squadron namesake of ours was a few centuries back that I've mentioned once or twice.''

''Or forty-eleven times,'' Babs sighed.

Phil Taussig was one of the two exceptions to the rule of spoiled rich kids among the boat commanders. His family was Navy, going back to the times when navies were wet water affairs. Kris suspected that Phil had been added to the mix by Mac in an effort to reduce the hooligan factor. Among his several contributions was digging up the story of Torpedo 8, a flying squadron that sounded very much like them. They'd taken on some ocean type battleships and been annihilated, almost to a man. Though Babs rolled her eyes at the ceiling, even jolly Andy Gates now gave Phil his undivided serious attention.

''As I see it,'' Phil went on, ''our problem breaks down into several easy phases.'' He held up a hand. ''Find the enemy, approach the enemy, destroy the enemy, exit the battle area in one piece.'' Phil counted each on a finger. ''That says it all.''

''Shouldn't be any trouble finding the battleships,'' Andy Gates put in. ''Since our PFs don't do star jumps, we'll just be lounging around here in orbit when the big boys waddle in.''

No one laughed.

''I would suggest surviving our approach to the enemy battle line deserves one of your fingers, Phil.'' Chandra Singh said, her voice slightly singsong. ''If we are not alive to shoot our lasers, all else is mere sorrow.''

Dark-eyed Chandra was the second exception to the rule. Older than the other skippers … she actually had two children waving from her husband's side on the pier when the squadron pulled away. She was a mustang. She'd come up through the enlisted rates, earning her commission even before the present emergency had the Navy combing its ranks for chiefs to leaven the ranks of green college kids like Kris and her fellow skippers.

''We're mighty small targets,'' Ted Rockefeller of Pitts Hope pointed out. His trust fund wasn't quite as well-stocked as Kris's. He was cute but not very smart, which he regularly showed by the misconclusions he drew. ''It'll be mighty hard for an old battlewagon to draw a bead on one of us tiny targets.''

''Kind of like you shooting skeet,'' Andy Gates said, nudging him with an elbow.

''If they have fire control systems anything like I broke many a screwdriver over, they will spot you,'' Singh said.

''So we dodge,'' Gates said. ''That's what Commodore Mandanti says. Dodge. Never go straight for more than five seconds.''

''And if you follow his advice,'' Taussig cut in, eyes locked on Kris, ''you'll be dead in three seconds. Right Kris?''

''More likely in two,'' she said. The room got very quiet as she put down her water tumbler.

''The Commodore is a good man,'' she continued, ''but he was retired to his chicken ranch for fifteen years before they brought him back to ride herd on us juvenile delinquents.'' That was the PF commanders' secret name for themselves. Kris doubted it was any secret from the Commodore.

''For most of the last fifty, sixty years, not much changed on a warship from what came out of the Iteeche Wars. No need. The Society of Humanity kept the peace throughout human space. Now human space is in pieces and… Well, you hear the news.'' Heads nodded. Wars and war rumors sold a lot of soap these days.

''The technologies developed in the long peace have been finding their way aboard warships. Last ten years, things have been changing. Singh, you must have noticed it as a maintainer.''

The old Chief, now lieutenant, nodded.

''My grandfather's bottom line has made a few terabucks off of the new stuff. I doubt he's been alone,'' Kris said dryly, giving the rest of her mates a smile that was pure cynic. They nodded back. The technical growth had driven a long economic expansion. All peaceful. Now the plowshares were being hammered into swords and the money their families had all banked in the good times just might be in line to kill their heirs real soon. Great thought to take home to the next Christmas dinner.

''So we need to dodge a lot,'' Heather said, bringing them back to the matter at hand.

''Jinks, I'm told, is the military term for it,'' Kris supplied, Phil nodded. ''And you need to do it both faster than any human can think it through and in a more random pattern than any fire control computer can analyze. Be slow. Be predictable. You'll be dead and your ship and crew with you.''

The servers delivered slices of pie, cake, and bowls of ice cream into that silence. From the wide-eyed looks that passed between them, it was apparent they'd never been in a room full of JOs that were quite as subdued as this bunch. Alone in their room once more, no one seemed to have any appetite.

''Is this where I come in?'' came a pleasant voice from around Kris's neck.

Kris undid the top button on her undress whites. This put her out of uniform, but with her depressingly small chest measurements, she'd be no distraction to the male half of the room. ''Does anyone object to my computer, Nelly, joining us?''

''I was hoping she would,'' Singh said.

''So, Nelly,'' Phil began, ''can you give us an erratic enough approach course?''

''I have already given this question some thought, since I did not doubt that you would come to me for my expertise on this,'' Nelly said.

Kris rolled her eyes at the ceiling. Humility might be something ten rich kids could teach each other the hard way. But how do you teach virtue to a computer? Especially one you'd paid top dollar to make the best and who knew very well that she was. What did Singh say? ''Some things in life just must be suffered.''

Of course, after saying that to her crew, the old mustang was wont to borrow a toolbox and fix just the thing the crew insisted couldn't be fixed.

''What have you got for us?'' Kris said.

Nelly immediately flashed a holograph of a battleship at one end, a tiny replica of a PF at the other end. The PF started its approach at full power and maximum evasion: up down, right left, fast, slow. Its course was a corkscrew of twists and turns that made several captains at the table turn a fine shade of green.

''You will want to start at a lower acceleration,'' Singh pointed out. ''Our engines are small. If we spread radiators to dissipate the heat, we present a bigger target. If we don't, we risk overheating if we abuse them for too long. Begin the approach at one point five g's acceleration, then build up.''

''I don't know,'' Gates said. ''Balls to the wall sounds like a great way to go to me.''

Kris made a mental note to do it Singh's way.

''So each of us does our own evasion pattern and charges in,'' Rockefeller said.

''I would not suggest that,'' Kris said.

''Why? You aren't going to say that we all have to evade the same way. What happened to unpredictable?'' Alexander asked.

Kris glanced around the table; all she got back were blank stares. She'd even managed to get ahead of Phil this time. Most of them were smart, but they hadn't been shot at. They hadn't gotten that gut kick that came when your best plan fell apart despite your best effort. They had yet to be left standing there, or lying, or running, and wondering what you should have done better… different. Kris took a deep breath and swore that she'd do this slow, earn everyone's support.

It had to be all for one and one for all.

''If I zig away from a chunk of space, just as you zag into it,'' Kris used her hands to show ships passing, ''the shot intended for me becomes a shot that hits you.''

''The chances against that are a million to one,'' Gates spat.

''Yes, and you'll be just as dead,'' Phil said. He chewed on his lower lip for a second. ''We're training so we can do it right the first time, every time. But we can't expect bad luck to stay off the battlefield. Nelly, could you develop a different jinks pattern for all twelve boats? One that lets us jink all over, each boat fully random but never close to the other's space anytime near to when another boat was in it?''

There was a longer pause than Kris had come to expect when talking to Nelly. Long pauses were happening regularly now as Nelly gained more comprehension of the full extent and the size of the problems humans faced regularly. Nelly might be a supercomputer, but her decision trees were getting supersized. ''Yes, I can do that. Each boat will need to start the attack from well-spaced positions. The Commodore usually has you in line behind the flagship. You will need more space than that to maneuver.''

''Good observation, Nelly,'' Kris said. Yes, Nelly was even responding to praise. Exactly what had Kris bought with her latest upgrade, and with that bit of Santa Maria rock in the self-organizing matrix that she'd told Nelly not to look at but…? Well, there was one more spoiled brat on the PFs than the Navy had assigned.

Phil leaned close to Kris's ear. ''I'd heard stories about your Nelly. This is the first I've seen her in action. Nice.''

''You caught her on one of her better days.''

''I heard that.''

''Good, because I want five different evasion approach plans for all twelve boats,'' Kris snapped. No use having all that computing power if she wasn't going to put it to use. And an idle Nelly was something to avoid at all cost.

''We can never tell when we'll need to switch to a new random route. Face it, Nelly, they've got computers, too. And if they figure out one of your random sets, we need a backup and another, and another. Got it?''

''Yes, Your slave-driving Princessship,'' Nelly said.

Around the room, hands covered poorly suppressed grins. None of them referred to Kris as anything but Lieutenant. Aboard ship or ashore, she was Navy, never Princess, to her shipmates.

But what her own computer did to her… Well, that was a hoist of another petard.

''One more thing,'' Kris said. ''We've got 18-inch pulse lasers. They give out a quick, powerful burst of energy on our target. But there are no reloads. We have motors, not reactors that could refill our capacitors. It's one shot and then we're done.''

Heads nodded. They'd all read the manuals.

''We need to make sure that our shots do as much damage as they can. If we're coordinating our approaches, maybe we could do something else.''

Phil and Singh leaned close. Others folded their arms; they'd be a hard sell. Kris ignored her melting ice cream and got into sales mode.

''Thirty thousand kilometers to the target,'' Tom reported from his station on weapons at Kris's elbow. ''Close range for the secondary armament.''

And this close, the battlewagon's ranging and search systems, radar, lasers, magnetic and gravitational measurements would be picking up solid returns on even the tiny signatures of the fast patrol boats. Time to make their firing solutions as complicated as possible.

''Take the division up to three g's acceleration. Implement evasion scheme 1 on my mark,'' Kris ordered. ''Begin Foxing.'' She paused for the other boats to make ready, then ordered, ''Mark.''

Evasion scheme 1 was nothing if not more evasive. And now when each PF changed direction—more often, more wildly—it launched Foxing decoys as well. At each course change, a mist of iron needles, aluminum strips, and phosphorus pellets shot out just as the boat made the turn. The chaff showered out along the old course as the PF turned toward the battleship for a new course. For that fraction of a second, while the boat itself was nose on, the Foxer decoyed the radar, laser, infrared, and magnetic sensors into showing the boat on the same old course.

That was usually just long enough to get a shot off from the battleship's secondary lasers—at empty space.

The Foxer's chaff also gave color to the lasers as they cut through the space where your ship wasn't.

Unlike dances and fancy planet-bound fireworks shows, Navy lasers in space should show nothing. A hammer and tongs battle between a dozen ships of the line is a dark, silent affair with nothing more to show than when the ships are swinging around the station. At first, at least. For a while.

Then laser hits flash ice armor into steam that shoots off in jets that quickly freeze again. Those crystals catch laser light, reflect it, refract it, and turn horrible murder and butchery into something unspeakably lovely that the poets write about. If they survive. That artists try to capture in paint and steel and graphics for the rest of their lives. If they live to old age. Like twenty-five.

But PFs like Kris's had no ice to boil off. For them, the chaff created the living color that just might let them live.

''Wow. Did you see that?'' Fintch gaped at the main ahead screen for a moment as near misses lit up the decoys around them.

''Pass it along to all hands,'' Kris said. There was painfully little to do as they raced toward simulated death, their death or a battleship's. It was either done and done right, and all the crew had left to do was watch gauges stay in the green, or it was done poorly and they'd fail as badly as the other two divisions.

''Twenty thousand kilometers,'' Tom said. ''All four lasers are nominal and hot.''

''Division, go to evasion scheme 6. Prepare to execute evasion and attack on my mark,'' Kris said.

''Yeah. Go, girls,'' Nelly said, breaking her ordered quiet.

Kris waited, gave the division an extra count. Do it, Nelly.

The division scattered, going into a dance that left them high, low, and medium on the battlewagon. Then, after a series of twists and turns that left Kris's head bouncing off her headrest, it was time.

''Fire,'' Kris ordered. If Nelly had done her work right, the order was unnecessary, but this was Kris's command, and she'd give the order herself, thank you very much.

''Lasers firing,'' Tom yelled. ''All four away at sixteen thousand kilometers. All fired by the timer.''

''Begin escape evasion,'' Kris ordered. And held her breath.

Was the battleship still there? Blown up? Damaged but still fighting?

''Just what do you young rascals think you just did?'' came over the command channel. At least Commodore Mandanti was calling them rascals today, not hooligans.

''A coordinated attack, sir,'' Kris answered. It being Tuesday, she had the lead of the division, so it fell to her to explain just what they had decided to do, her and Phil and Chandra. Heather had gone along with them, though she had her doubts. They'd persuaded the tall redhead that the entire division had to do it if it was to work at all.

''Well, quit your bouncing around, put some decent deceleration on your boats, and explain to an old man who only happens to be your commanding officer just what this is that you call a coordinated attack, Lieutenant.''

''Yes, sir, cease evasive maneuvering. Rotate ship, begin deceleration at one point five g's. Motors, spread the radiators.'' When she got her replies, Kris took a deep breath and began the explanation she'd prepared for.

''Sir, an 18-inch pulse laser sounds mighty powerful when you read the book on it, but even the smallest battleship has a lot of ice armor, and it's rotating at a clip intended to prevent our laser from burning through in the short time that we're hitting their ice.''

''That's just part of the sad realities of being a mosquito boat skipper in a big-ship Navy.''

''Yes sir, but what if we hit the same spot on the battlewagon with two pulse lasers simultaneously?''

''There you go using that ‘we' again. Who am I talking to, a princess or a Navy Lieutenant?''

Kris gritted her teeth; the Commodore had only hit her with the princess gig two or three times. Kris was about to reply when she found she didn't have to.

''That ‘we,' sir, includes me,'' Phil said. ''And me,'' said Chandra. ''And me,'' said Heather. ''We all kind of figured,'' Phil went on, ''that there wasn't much good of going through all this risking of our fair young necks—''

''Or old ones,'' Chandra cut in.

''If we weren't going to leave some dead battlewagons lying around when we were done. As you saw, sir, by coordinating our approach evasion courses, we managed not to step into each other's paths and let your defense gunners get two hits for the price of one, or hit one when they were aiming at the other.

''Anyway, Kris suggested that if we coordinated our final approach, we might get some solid double hits on the battlewagon that would cut through the armor to the soft, chewy insides.''

Kris was content to leave the talking to Phil now. It seemed that the Navy Way included its own way of talking about murder and mayhem. Kids brought up Navy knew how to talk to their elders. Kris wasn't always sure the English she spoke did the job as well.

It was good to have Phil and Chandra along to translate.

''Hmm,'' came back. ''Well, then. I was going to give you credit for thirteen hits out of sixteen on the old target drone, but since you raised the stakes, let me see how many of your shots qualified as solid double hits.''

''Damn,'' Tom whispered beside Kris. ''I bet if the old man found a pile of presents under his Christmas tree, he'd first check to see if Saint Nick tracked in any reindeer dung.''

''Of course he would, Mr. Lien,'' came Chief Stanislaus over the ship's net. ''The Navy Way don't include having no reindeer crap all over the front parlor when visitors might come calling.''

At least the boat got a laugh. Off command net. To itself.

''Well, now, you kids didn't do too bad, even under the goals you set for yourselves,'' came from the Commodore after a long minute. ''Drone Five isn't exactly rigged to measure what you were trying to do, but it looks like ten of your hits were pretty close in both time and space. Say you got five double hits. Call it enough to burn through a President-class battleship's main belt. I definitely think I'm buying the beer tonight.

''And you ladies and gentlemen by an act of Parliament leading the erstwhile boats of Division 1 and 2 who no doubt attended whatever conspiratorial den in which Div 3 hatched their plan, why didn't you try the same instead of letting good old Drone Five and my fine bunch of gunners shoot you down like delicate butterflies pinned to a piece of cheap cardboard?''

Kris tried to swallow a grin that seemed to infect her entire crew. Before the silence on net stretched too far, the Commodore filled it.

''Never mind. You can all explain yourselves to me over beers tonight. All divisions, set course and speed to form on my flagship within the next three hours. We should be alongside the pier by seventeen hundred hours. Party starts at twenty-one hundred.''

The net went silent. Beside her, Tommy tapped the central comm to take PF-109's ship net off the main battle net, and cheers erupted around Kris.

''You did a damn fine job, all of you,'' Kris said into their happy noises. ''Tononi, I don't know how you kept the engines cool for the run-in, but you did it.''

''I had ma pet goat piss on ‘em when they got too hot, ma'am,'' he said, alluding to one of the farm animals he was reported to keep penned up in the engine room.

''Just so long as you get your space Shipshape and Bristol fashion to please the chief,'' Kris said, ''I don't care how you kept your cool.''

Chief Stanislaus, at his battle station backing Tom up on weapons, scowled, but his reputation as a hard-driving old chief was in serious danger, there being way too much up in evidence around the edges of that particular scowl.

''You heard the Commodore. We only have four hours alongside the pier before he wants to throw that party, so let's get the whole ship back to Bristol fashion now rather than later.''

Kris leaned forward in her chair as it went from heavily inflated high-g station to a normal acceleration station. Feet on the deck, she turned to face the helm. ''You have a course laid in for the flag?''

''Flag has established a stately point eighty-five g course for the station,'' Fintch reported. ''Computer has generated a course that puts us in line aft of the flag in exactly three hours, ma'am.''

NELLY? Kris asked her own computer through the plug that fed her thoughts directly to Nelly. There were risks in having too easy a connection, but when a gun was at her head, Kris didn't want to be subvocalizing and trying not to move her jaw.

NAVY-ISSUE COMPUTER IS DUMB AS A STUMP, BUT A ONE-HANDED MONKEY WITH AN ABACUS COULD SOLVE THAT BALLISTICS PROBLEM.

I AM SO GLAD YOU DIDN'T SAY THAT OUT LOUD TO FINTCH.

I AM NOT LACKING IN THE SOCIAL GRACES, PRINCESS. IT IS JUST THAT THEY—AND TRYING TO RESOLVE PROBLEMS WHILE THE MINIMUM DAMAGE TO WHAT YOU HUMANS CALL FEELINGS—ARE JUST SO TIME-CONSUMING

THINK OF IT AS AN ART FORM. NOW, CHECK OUT THE SHIP AND MAKE A LIST OF DEFICIENCIES. BET YOU THAT YOUR LIST ISN'T MORE THAN HALF AGAIN AS LONG AS THE LIST THAT THE CREW SPOT.

YOU ARE ON. AND IF I WIN?

WE'LL TALK ABOUT IT LATER.

I WOULD LOVE TO SPEND SOME TIME EXAMINING THAT PIECE OF ROCK FROM SANTA MARIA THAT IS STILL SITTING IN MY MATRIX. I BET I COULD INVESTIGATE ITS ALIEN CONTENTS AND NOT LOCK UP.

THAT BET IS NOT ON THE TABLE. NOW, MISS NELLY, IF YOU DON'T MIND, I HAVE A SHIP TO COMMAND. BUZZ OFF.

AYE, AYE, YOUR SKIPPERSHIP.

The Navy listed the crew size for PF-109 at fourteen. Kris counted fifteen. And that last crew member brought with her all kinds of advantages … and pains in the butt.

Kris turned to Tom and the Chief. ''I don't know about you, but my head did an awful lot of banging around. Is my skull just kind of small, or do the high-g stations need some adjustment?''

The Chief shook his head. ''The stations are a problem, ma'am. Maybe we ought to fit all hands with brain buckets. But I don't think that's our worst problem. I was watching the laser fire from that old tub. I know the official Navy take is that the drone has the same defensive suite as a battleship, but I'm not buying that we got a full workout. And even with that, there were an awful lot of too damn close near misses.'' The chief of the boat, an old man of thirty, shrugged. ''If it was a real fight, we'd have to do better.''

''Ah, man, that's not what I was wanting to hear,'' Tom said, his grandmother's brogue leaking out.

''Chief, you look into those helmets, and I'll have Nelly adjusting each high-g station to personally fit each crewman, helmet and all.'' Kris shook her head. ''You know, after this one practice run, the idea of us taking on battlewagons with these splinters isn't nearly as frightening as it sounded the day we commissioned the squadron.''

''Not likely we'll be defending Wardhaven from battlewagons,'' Lien said. ''Look at the size of the fleet your da has swinging around the station. Me, I'm surprised we haven't been run down, turned into some battleship's bowsprit.''

''Figurehead,'' both Kris and the Chief said together.

''If you'll excuse me, ma'am,'' the Chief said, ''I'll be taking my falling arches off to see what's happening in the rest of this rust bucket. I think you have the bridge as well under control as any captain can.''

Kris let that rattle around in her head for a second … and decided it was as close to a compliment as a Chief could give a junior officer. ''You do that, Chief.''

She watched him leave, which left her eyes resting on the empty station directly behind her. ''I see you got the intel battle station set up.''

''And didn't I say I would,'' Lien said, getting up from his own gunnery station and slipping into the seat of the new one. ''Having Penny on that intel station of that yacht that you, ah, borrowed off Turantic was a godsend. I got one set up here just as fast as I could find a spare station lying around the dock and no one paying too much attention to its ownership,'' he said with his lopsided grin taking a most definite lean to port.

''You stole it.''

''Not all of us can have your petty change purse, Kris.'' The smile made it almost a joke. Without the smile, it would have hurt. Still, the truth was, she could have bought the entire squadron out of her last year's earnings and not touched the principal of her trust fund. There were some advantages to being one of those damn Longknifes.

''Penny still coming for breakfast tomorrow?'' Kris asked.

Tommy's grin got even wider, passing aft of his ears and probably meeting somewhere in back. Well, that was the way a guy was supposed to react when you mentioned his future bride. At least they always did around Kris. All the guys who Kris met and who ended up asking gals that Kris knew to be their brides. And brides who always asked Kris to be their maid of honor.

Kris had given up trying to figure out what it was about her bubbling personality that was such a catalyst for other people meeting and falling happily in love. At least she told herself she was going to give up trying to figure it all out. Give it up by next Thursday.

''Penny is so tickled you offered us the garden at Nuu House for the wedding. Her mom is living on Cambria now with her present husband. My folks are all on Santa Maria. We don't have a place to call home. But to be married in the gardens where King Raymond and Rita were married. Kris, you're wonderful.''

There were many answers to that. Kris settled on ''I'm glad to offer a quiet place for your families to get together.''

''Well, I think mainly it will be the squadron, unless there's some cheap fares between Santa Maria and here for my family. Her da,'' Tommy shrugged. ''Penny sent out a chaser mail three days ago, but she doesn't really know where he is. Probably just a quiet wedding among us sailors.''

''You want crossed sabers?''

''I think she would like it. You know, I'm not sure if she intends to wear a white dress or dress whites.''

''Just be glad we're keeping this whole affair a secret from my mother. If she got ahold of it…'' Kris shivered at the mere thought of Mother planning a wedding.

Maybe that was the best reason for staying single. ''So,'' Kris pointed at the intel station. ''Any idea who might crew it?''

''How about Penny?'' Tom said, almost sounding serious. ''She knows just about all there is to know about the warships a Wardhaven fleet might face. She has a full range of intel skills. You can't keep holding her duty of interrogating us ‘mutineers' against her.''

''Don't even use that word as a joke,'' Kris said, blanching.

''Then you hire a PR firm to come up with a nice short term for what we did on the Typhoon,'' Tom said. ''Anyway, we'll need someone with all Penny's skills, so why not ask for Penny? She's done enough desk time. She'd love some ship duty.''

And Tom would love to have his wife stationed right behind him. And the minor fact that Penny had held her Lieutenant rank for a whole year longer than Kris shouldn't cause any trouble in the chain of command of a ship as tiny as PF-109.

Yeah. Right.

But Penny had done fine work on Turantic when Kris had needed some very fine work if she was to stay alive. She could do worse than have someone like Penny backing her up. The chief might be right; any real targets they went up against might well be shooting back with a whole lot nastier stuff than the antiques that the Commodore had them training against.

But PF boats defending Wardhaven! Who was kidding who? If they were lucky, they'd all be shipped off to some backwater planet. Ordered to defend some place that no one thought needed all that much defending when things changed suddenly and …

Hmm, maybe having a full intel officer and a full intel report might not be a bad idea for wherever they ended up having to show that these toys could fight.

Three hours later they were all tucked right in behind the flagship, tiny ducklings following in the wake of the Cushing, an antique destroyer, the last of her class not yet sent to the breakers, kept around only to nursemaid this harebrained idea that you could use penny boats to blast dollar bill battleships.

Stan brought Kris the list of ship deficiencies. It was long. Nelly's list was longer, but fell four short of exceeding the Chief's list by half. ''Nelly, pass your list to the Chief.''

Stan looked at the longer list, pursed his lips, then went to check it out.

''So I don't get to mess with the rock chip,'' Nelly said, sounding as sad as a computer could. ''Auntie Tru would be so happy if I discovered whatever secrets of the Three races that built the jump points that might still be recoverable on that data source. She might even cook you up a batch of chocolate chip cookies.''

''Nor can you bring up the topic for a month,'' Kris said, ignoring the rest of the blandishment.

''A week,'' Nelly countered. ''You didn't specify a length when we made the bet.''

''Two weeks,'' Kris said. Nelly went quiet in her head. It's really weird when you can tell your computer is pouting by just the way your skull feels.

''Is that the way it works?'' Tommy asked.

''What works?''

''Keeping Nelly under control?''

''She is never under control.''

''You got that right, Your Skippership.''

''Sorry I asked,'' Tommy said, swallowing something halfway between a snarf and a chuckle.

''Nelly, I want you to research the best helmets for the crew to reduce brain damage and neck strain when we're whipping around at high-g's on evasion. Then reprogram the battle stations to secure the head and neck supports tightly on the helmets so our heads don't take as much battering as we did today.''

''If you'd just let me run the ship, you could all stay home,'' Nelly said.

Fintch at the helm did a double take.

''Yes, Nelly, but the Navy Way is old-fashion about that. So you just do what I tell you, and we'll get along fine.''

The rest of the cruise back was quiet as all hands turned to make right as many of the deficiencies on the Chief's list as they could without a dock to help. The list was noticeably shorter when Kris ordered all hands to pier detail.

Kris watched over Fintch's shoulder as she brought the boat smartly alongside the pier, caught the bow lockdown on the first try, and followed it as it smoothly pulled the boat to the pier.

''Well done,'' Kris said, giving Fintch a well-earned pat on the shoulder.

''Power line passed to the pier,'' the chief reported from his special space detail station at the quarterdeck amidships. ''Air, comm, and water connected. The hatch is opened.''

The pressure in the boat changed the tiniest bit. No ship ever managed to maintain the same atmosphere as the station, even for only a one-day out and back in.

''Captain, we've got—'' was cut short.

''Chief, do we have a problem?'' Kris demanded as her eyes went over the board. All lights were green. There was nothing wrong with the boat. Nothing showing.

Nelly?

''I'm being jammed,'' the computer said, surprise flooding its voice. ''I'm trying to…''

Kris turned in her command seat as five MPs in Army khaki marched onto her bridge, a major in the lead.

''Are you Lieutenant Kristine Anne Longknife, sometimes styled Princess?'' he demanded.

There are some moments in your life that you know are coming for you. Moments that, when you are just a kid, you know will happen to you before you die. It's probably different for different kids. If your folks are farmers, maybe it's a plague of locusts at harvest time or that one great crop that will never be equaled. If you're an army brat, you know that somewhere out there is a battle, a fight for your life, that will find you.

Kris was a politician's daughter; somehow she knew that they would come for her one day. As a kid of nine, she'd watched a vid of Marie Antoinette and wondered what it had been like to face that first arrest, to walk those final steps to the guillotine.

All her life, Kris had wondered how she'd handle this moment, so it both surprised her… and failed to.

She stood, faced her accuser, and answered simply, ''I am Kris Longknife.'' Strange, at the moment, how all titles fell away.

''I have orders to relieve you of your command and place you under arrest. Sergeant, cuff her.''

Kris's mind raced. What to do next? She turned to Tom. ''You have the conn,'' she said. The command had to be transferred clearly. That was the Navy Way. Then she turned back to this Army invasion on her bridge.

''May I ask what for?'' Kris said, keeping her hands at her side. Resistance was futile … worse … undignified. But she'd be damned if she'd help them.

An Army Sergeant, no Marines or Navy in sight, whipped out a pair of cuffs and shoved Tom aside. The Navy Lieutenant reached for the ruffian.

''Stand down,'' Kris ordered.

Tommy did, though tiny Fintch took a step forward and slowed down the other Sergeant charging in on Kris's other side.

The major whipped out his sidearm as did the two MPs behind him.

''Stand down,'' Kris ordered, louder. ''Neither I nor my crew are under arms. We cannot nor will we offer you any resistance. Fintch, let the men through, even if they are barging around on our ship without so much as a by-your-leave.''

Kris had dreamed this scene asleep and awake too many times. Sometimes it ended peacefully. Other times not. She knew how she wanted it to end.

The MPs had their guns out; they nervously eyed the bridge crew. ''Major, the only people on this bridge armed are your people. No one is going to resist you, so relax.'' Kris tried to make that last sound like an obvious invitation. ''But would you mind telling me what this is all about?''

''Lady, I got my orders. It says arrest you, and it don't say why. Some of us do what we're told, see. Now, are you coming with me, or do we carry you?''

Mac had warned Kris that not everyone was happy about the way she'd been stopping wars of late. Apparently, this party had not been recruited from among her fans.

Okay, the idea is to live through this day, girl. From the looks of the goons beside her and behind the Major, they dearly wanted to carry her. And once they got their mitts on her, she'd just happen to resist arrest and just happen to deserve the maximum application of force and restraint allowed by law.

''I may be Navy, Major, but I do know how to walk.'' The Sergeant with the cuffs had grabbed both of Kris's hands and locked them down behind her back. She felt vulnerable. Terribly vulnerable. Still, she could walk.

Kris stepped forward, two guards behind her; two fell in ahead of her. They turned to head back the way they'd come, and the major bounced his skull off the overhead. PFs were not designed with six footers in mind.

''Watch your step,'' Kris said. ''Tom, call Harvey at the house.''

''Yes, Your Highness,'' her XO answered. They knew. This was political theater; each had their part. If they played it right, they'd all live to tell their grandkids about it and laugh.

The climb down to the quarterdeck was none too easy, but Kris made it before her knees started shaking. A fire-fight with a gun in her hand and an enemy to run at was one thing. Being cuffed and shoved around by guards was something else entirely. At the hatch, the Chief and the special detail stood at their stations. Stan was developing what looked to be a real shiner.

''Sorry, ma'am.''

''No problem, Chief. Send my regrets to the Commodore for missing tonight's beer bash.''

''Yes, ma'am.''

''Do you want my coat?'' the Chief asked. Kris wasn't cold. Then she heard the shutters and saw the flashes. Twenty, thirty camera crews waited outside. The Chief wasn't offering a coat to keep her warm but a hood to hide her face.

''No thank you, Chief, this is all part of the drill,'' Kris said. She raised her head high and stepped across the brow of her boat without missing a step.

That was important. Not to look like a prisoner. That was the impression to project. That was what she'd always planned for this moment.

Her guards moved along, and Kris moved right with them. Let the commentator report she was their prisoner. Let the image show Princess Longknife advancing to meet the people with her honor guard. Kris set her face neither in a smile nor a scowl. Neither frown nor blank stare for this moment. Dare you to use these pictures.

Just please, dear God, don't let my knees give out.

She made one exception to her no-reaction policy. There, off to the left, peering through a mob of newsies, was Mr. Singh with his two kids, a boy and a girl. They stared at Kris through eyes gone wide—in fright? Wonder? What must their three- and five-year-old world make of this? Kris chipped a smile off the marble she'd hardened her lips into. She nodded a centimeter in their direction. They waved enthusiastically, all joy at the attention. Goran Singh gave her a thumbs-up.

A moment later she was at the door of the waiting station cart. She settled inside, then turned back to the cameras to give them the required princess smile. Just another day of doing that royal thing. The sergeant slammed the door shut with unnecessary violence, leaving her alone with her guards as the electric cart motored off quietly.

Now, with the cameras gone, Kris would find out just what her chances were of living until morning.