Tenacious

39

“I know we’ve only begun our study of this new bunch of aliens,” Kris said, beginning her staff meeting. “But I’ve sworn that no more new heads get added to that trophy room under their pyramid. However, Alwa is my first responsibility.”

Kris made a face. “So what do we do about these felines down sun from us? We’ve got an eighth of Alwa’s defending frigates here, maybe more, depending on if the Smart Metal work is not going well.”

She paused to look at everyone around the table. She had their attention.

“What is the best course of action? Do we attack the aliens on the other side of this system? Should we make contact with the aliens down system and tell them who’s sharing their sun with them now? Could we give them some advanced technology that would let them do a better job of holding their own against any space-based attack?”

Kris paused, then added the final option. “Or do we do nothing? Mark this place on our charts for later contact and get back to Alwa. Do any of you see some other option that I missed?”

Again, Kris was met with a silent table.

I’m getting a bit tired of this silent treatment.

But then, they could remain silent and do nothing. She was the one who had to choose action over inaction.

A lot of people exchanged glances, but no one spoke for a long time. Finally, the looks between Jacques and Amanda sprouted words.

“The cat people, as some of us have taken to calling them. I think that’s better than furries,” Amanda said. “Anyway, they are firmly into their industrial age. Jet aircraft, early rockets, lots and lots of personal transportation. They do not yet have any of the computational power that will put them into the information age.” She glanced at Professor Labao to see if he would contradict her, but the administrator seemed happy with her words.

“However, that may be changing. The three biggest groups are making noises about a race to their moon. If they do that, they will have to develop better and smaller computers, and that could launch them into the information age and major changes to their economies. How that will turn out is anyone’s guess.”

Amanda eyed Kris as if deciding what to say next, then glanced at Jacques. He took over the story. “The problem Amanda and I are struggling with is the question of how well these people can learn to work together. We make a joke of ‘it’s like herding cats,’ but they are living that problem.”

“But they have a military, don’t they?” Kris asked. “A successful military requires discipline, working together, following orders.”

“Yes, Kris, but a lot of warlike people in human history have succeeded in war without giving up a lot of individual prerogatives. Not all warrior societies want every soldier walking in lockstep. Some pride themselves on the Berserker mentality or the Samurai spirit. You can march in step and still get all kinds of independent action.”

“Where did I first hear the virtue of ‘Improvise. Improvise. Damn it, improvise’?” Kris said.

“Precisely,” Jack said.

“Oh, Colonel Cortez, how I wish you were here,” Kris said.

“I feel his ghost at my elbow,” Jack said, “and he is laughing his head off.”

Kris paused a moment to see if she could hear the good colonel’s pleasant chuckle. Hearing nothing, she went on. “Okay, so my anthropologists and economists tell me that these felines are very independent but dangerous as hell,” Kris said. “I get the feeling that all this beating around the bush is intended to slowly work me away from putting any high technology in their paws. It would be worse than petting their fur the wrong way.”

“I wouldn’t agree with that imagery,” Jacques said, “but I sure wouldn’t want to artificially inject advanced technology into their civilization. The outcome could be ugly.”

“So, one of my options is off the table. That still leaves two. Do we risk this squadron in taking out the aliens across the system, or do we quietly leave and shut the door on this Pandora’s box? Maybe come back in a year or two and see what we find?”

“Kris,” said Nelly, “I don’t think the matter is in your hands anymore.”

“Why, Nelly?”

“Twenty-two alien warships just boosted out from the gas giant’s orbit.”

Kris allowed herself a deep breath. She would not panic. She’d fought and killed them before. She would do it again. Letting out her breath, she put on her war face as she glanced around the table. Jack and Penny were already back in battle harness. Masao looked inscrutable. The three boffins looked surprised.

Bet they didn’t see this one coming.

“Report on the aliens’ movement, Nelly,” Kris ordered.

To their right, a screen came to life. It showed the entire system from well above the sun.

“The aliens have begun a one-gee acceleration that will take them toward the sun and, assuming some modifications to accommodate the solar presence, I calculate it is very likely that they will swing around the sun and arrive at the fourth planet. Kris, they are launching an attack on the cat people.”

“Why would they do that now?” Jack asked.

“Nelly, has there been any evidence in the cat people’s radio transmissions that they are aware of the aliens?”

“No, Kris. There are no references to an alien attack in their news. Their fiction, as distributed in their media, has no genre for alien attack. I also find it hard to accept that they would be continuing their minor war if they were fighting for their existence with the aliens. No, this is the first attack by the aliens,” Nelly said, drawing a conclusion from what Kris would have considered incomplete data.

“But that still leaves the question, why now?” Jack repeated himself.

“Maybe they needed time to refuel,” Kris said. “Maybe they needed time to prepare. Or maybe they even had an argument as to what to do next. Nelly, is that all of their warships?”

“Two are remaining behind with the four large reactors.”

“So it’s seven heavy frigates and the Endeavor against twenty-two of their monsters,” Kris said. “Those are the best odds I’ve faced yet. Nelly, send to the squadron. ‘Prepare for battle. We get underway in two hours. Longknife sends.’”

“I guess I’ll be getting back to my Hornet sooner than I expected,” Captain Taussig said, standing up.

“Good luck and Godspeed,” Kris said.

“The same to us all,” Taussig replied.

Despite Kris’s early alert, they were still at anchor twelve hours later. There was no rush; even with the later start, they would reach the felines well ahead of the bug-eyed monsters that looked too much like humans.

They spent the extra time absorbing the Sisu into the Wasp and the Intrepid.

These two frigates had begun life with only five 18-inch guns. Now they sported ten 20-inchers. That made them better in a fight, but their power generation meant it took far too long to reload the lasers.

Over the next couple of hours, one of the reactors from the Sisu was swallowed by each of the other two ships. They wouldn’t be used for propulsion, but they could be used to recharge the lasers.

When the occupants of the brig discovered they were going into a fight, the engineers among them begged for a chance to run their own reactor to power the guns that might just save their lives.

While they might or might not have heard much about why they’d been detained in the Alwa System, they certainly had learned that the bug-eyed monsters did not take prisoners.

Kris granted them their desire but assigned engineers from her own watch to keep an eye on them. As well as Marines to do the same, only armed.

When the rest of the engineers stepped forward to help with their new fourth reactor, Intrepid also took them up on the offer. And detached Marines to keep them straight up.

The extra Smart Metal^TM was also much approved of by Penny when she got half of the Sisu’s hull, scantlings and fittings. Nelly and her kids had to work hard with both the Wasp’s and Intrepid’s ship maintainers to get the stuff smoothed into their own structure.

Kris thought long and hard on it, then decided to keep the ship at Condition Baker for the one-gee acceleration and deceleration down to the fourth planet.

She delegated to Jacques and Amanda the job of explaining to the newly recruited aliens that they were going to war. “Don’t say who with, just let them know that we have run into someone who owes us their head,” Kris said. “See if they can get the concept.”

An hour later, Nelly reported back that the aliens didn’t have a problem with the Sky Gods fighting other Sky Gods. The path of the People was often bloody. Why shouldn’t the path among the stars be red as well?

Kris shivered at the thought but took her blessings where she found them.

With fuel topped off and enough reaction mass both for the trip sunward and plenty extra to pad their armor with cooling liquid and dispersant to vent if hit, they began a carefully measured one-gee burn for the Cat Planet. If things went as planned, they would flip ship at midcourse and go into orbit just as the alien fleet was rounding the sun and decelerating toward them.

Their presence did not go unnoticed. As Nelly pieced it together from the local news, a ten-year-old amateur astronomer with eagle vision spotted them against the gas giant as they accelerated away. He lost them after that but caught sight of them again when they flipped ship to start their deceleration burn.

Once their engines were pointed at his planet, he reported the eight moving lights on their amateur astronomy network, and the kitty litter hit the fan, so to speak.

Some of the largest telescopes were brought online to track them as they rocketed in. With eight sets of engines burning bright against the stellar backdrop, the cats went crazy.

“We’re getting questions aimed at us from everyone and his dog,” Nelly said.

“That’s a joke, right? Dog?” Kris said.

“Yes, it’s a joke. Not a good one?”

“No, Nelly. Very good. So, who wants to know what?”

“The questions are all the same: What are we doing here and what are our intentions? They come from all sorts of media outlets. Every one of their hundred fifty-seven governments, no one hundred and sixty-two. There were a couple of small ones we missed. Or maybe they’re that new. It’s hard to tell with precision. Oh, and there must be a million news organizations begging for an exclusive. I guess news organizations are the same wherever you are in the galaxy.”

“Is that all of them?” Kris asked.

“Well, the boy who first spotted us is using a friend’s radio to ask us where we came from and why we are here.”

“A kid, huh?” Jack said.

“A kid,” Kris repeated.

“Both of them, the astronomer and the radio operator,” Nelly said.

“But if we reply to them, everyone will get it, right?” Kris asked.

“No doubt, Kris. Even if we tried to send it on a tight beam, I’m not sure their antenna could pick it up. It’s very primitive technology.”

“How sure are you that you understand their language?”

“Languages, Kris. We’ve identified fifty-three being broadcast so far. There may be some weak signals we’re ignoring.”

“What language are the kids calling us in?” Jack put in.

“One of the dozen or so major ones. The one that calls themselves Sasquans. I’ve got over fifty thousand hours of recordings, both radio and TV. I’m 99.99 percent sure of the words for ‘We come in peace. We mean you no harm. You are about to be attacked by starships coming around your sun. We will protect you as best we can.’”

“Have they spotted the alien warships coming around the sun?”

“I don’t think so. There is a lot of encrypted radio transmissions. Some are pretty easy to crack, but others are on throwaway ciphers. There just isn’t enough there for me to hack it, Kris.”

“Send the message. You better not append ‘Longknife sends.’ Longknife is rather aggressive, or so I’ve been told.”

“The name, or just you?” Nelly asked.

“Not funny,” Kris said.

“But a good bit of sarcasm,” Jack added.

“Message sent,” Nelly reported.

“Now we wait and see what happens next. Nelly, will the BEMs get the message you just sent?”

“I sent it on a wide beam, Kris. Very likely, they will get it, too.”

“Send it again. This time append, ‘Longknife sends.’ Do the cat folk have military ranks?”

“Yes, Kris. They have air, land, and naval ranks. If your next question is, do I know what Vice Admiral translates to, yes, I do.”

“Then make it ‘Vice Admiral Longknife sends.’”

“Do you want ‘Princess’ added, too?”

“Do they have a lot of royalty down there?”

“I don’t think so. Most of the governments are democratic, or pretend to be. I’ve identified several presidents for life and something called ‘The Leader of the People.’ Three of them leading three different peoples. Also two of them are shooting at each other but not officially at war. Kris, it’s a mess down there.”

“‘Vice Admiral’ will be enough.”

“Sent a second time. I’m sending it repeatedly.”

“Now we see what happens,” Kris said.