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.''