“I don’t think she’ll be too bothered by being left behind. Her Princess Royal is one of the ships that took so much damage that it’s tied up to the pier awaiting more Smart Metal.”
“It is?”
“Yep.”
“Skipper, we’ve got action at one of our close-in systems,” came from the bridge. Drago trotted out of Kris’s quarters. She followed him, with Pipra at her elbow.
“How could the aliens jump into one of the systems so close?” Pipra asked.
“They couldn’t, not the last time we saw them,” Kris said grimly, wondering just how much of a fight she could put up against whatever was headed her way.
“Talk to me,” Drago ordered his bridge crew.
Old Chief Beni was on sensors. “The reporting buoy is in the next system. It jumped immediately into ours to holler a warning. The receiving buoy ducked back into the other system to gather more information.”
“The next system? Didn’t we make a long jump into that system on our own voyage out here and use it to slow down in before jumping into this system?” Kris said, trying to keep Pipra from panicking. Maybe keep herself from panicking, too.
“Did the reporting buoy say anything about the arriving ships?” the captain asked.
“No, sir, it just reported ships in the system,” the chief answered. “It didn’t say which jump they used or how many of them there were. A reactor shows up, and it jumps in and reports. We’re lucky it was the next system out, or we’d be having all kinds of delays for the information to travel across the system by speed of light. If it’s the sixth system out, it might take us a couple of days to even know it happened.”
“The good news and the bad,” Pipra said with a nervous laugh. “It’s close enough to not make us bite our nails while waiting. And, if it’s bad news, we won’t have to worry too much before it kills us.”
The skipper scowled at the businesswoman, but said, “Chief, when will we get an update?”
“The second buoy is supposed to jump back into our system and give us a report in five to fifteen minutes, depending on how much it’s learning. Sir, it’s already happened. We’re just waiting to hear what the automatics did hours ago.”
“Yes, Chief, I know,” Captain Drago said, not enjoying the reminder.
“Report coming in,” Chief Beni announced. “Fifty-nine groups of reactors have been identified. They match human production models.”
Kris turned to Pipra. “It appears that our reinforcements are arriving early.”
Pipra, with no need to appear fearless in the face of the Sailors on the bridge, leaned back against the bulkhead and let out a long sigh of relief. “Give me a minute. I’m not sure my legs will support me.”
“When you feel up to it, we have further problems to juggle. Food, general production, and rearmoring ten of my plucked chickens.”
“Yes,” Pipra said, a bit breathless, “and it looks like we’ll have the time to do something about all of those.”
“Food,” Kris said, remembering that her salvation also meant more mouths to feed. “More ships mean we need more food. I hope they brought along their own supplies. Chief, can you tell me how many of those reactors are warship types and how many are freighters?”
“No, ma’am. Sorry, but I can only tell you what I’m told, and they’re busy telling me what we ordered them to get fast and easy. If you want a specific question answered, I can send it off. It will likely take twenty, thirty hours to get an answer. More than likely, if you just wait, you’ll get the answer in a couple of hours, anyway.”
The retired chief had one of those looks on his face that senior NCOs used for particularly dumb questions from officers.
“No, Chief. No rush. Just tell me what you know when you know it.”
“Will do, Admiral.”
Back in Kris’s day cabin, Pipra was on her phone, telling her chief associates that help was coming. If information was power, it was a power whose Sell By date could be very short.
Kris settled at her conference table and drummed her nails for only a few seconds before her business subordinate rang off and got down to work.
5
Rear Admiral Kris Longknife and her acting, Commodore Kitano, watched the reinforcements pop into the system from Kris’s flag bridge on the Wasp. The flag bridge and Kris’s day quarters were the same space made different only by Kris’s frame of mind. If she was stuck in a meeting, it was her day quarters. If she was commanding a fleet or a battle, it was a bridge.
Either way, the sign on the door said ADMIRAL’S QUARTERS.
The Wasp, like the other ships of Battle Squadron One, was in the final stages of getting underway for their voyage of discovery to the alien home world.
BatRon 1 was down to five ships, what with the Constitution lost and the Princess Royal and Resistance tied up awaiting new armor. To bring it up to a full eight, Kris was borrowing the Wasp, her own flagship, and the Intrepid. Also, despite her initial intent, she’d added the Endeavor, now loaded with low-tech jump-point buoys and designed to shoot just as much while running as chasing.
Commodore Kitano would be left with fifteen experienced fighting ships under her command, now organized into three reduced squadrons.
Together with Jack, Penny, and Captain Drago, they watched as the ships allotted to the Alwa Defense Sector grew.
Kris had thought long and hard about departing before the reinforcements arrived. She’d made the call to stay. What these ships were sailing into deserved a greeting from their commander.
And besides, who would miss a chance to see the fleet come in. It was quite a sight. As well as full of surprises.
The first into the system was a big surprise. “That’s the Odin?” Jack asked no one in particular as the first blip appeared on Kris’s battle board.
So Nelly gave an answer. “She reports herself as the flag of a squadron of frigates from the Scanda Confederacy. The Odin is followed by the Thor, Loki, Frigga, Brage, Heimdallr, Hodur, and Baldur. There are two merchants tailing them, the Valhalla and the Sisu.”
“The Scanda Confederacy isn’t in King Raymond’s United Society,” Penny pointed out.
“And they’re only four planets,” Nelly added. “That’s a lot of ships from so small a confederacy.”
“Somebody wants in on the fight,” Jack said. He might have started his career as a Secret Service Agent, but he’d spent the last five years with the Marines. He’d come to understand the need of some to be there when there was a fight brewing, no matter what the odds.
“The merchant ships are Smart Metal,” Nelly reported before Kris asked.
Good. More ships to convert from starship to system cargo hauler. It would be a downgrade for the crew, but it just might decide whether they all lived or died.
Another set of pips appeared at the jump. No doubt they had arrived several hours ago, but the report was only now reaching Kris’s command above Alwa.
“The Phantom reports she’s the flag of a squadron from New Eden,” Nelly reported as the jump began to spit out more ships. “Voodoo, Banshee, Daemon, Vampire, Werewolf, Fury, and Fire Drake. They’ve got the Proximus, Mary Allen Carter, and James Nathan Carter trailing them. It looks like a repair ship and two supply ships. All Smart Metal.”