36
The old cook did indeed have some cranberry bread fresh from the oven. He even had butter, scrounged from one of the restaurants being off-loaded along with most of the boffins.
What he didn’t have was any sea stories he was willing to share with the two young women. He smiled cheerfully at their request and excused himself to watch over his dinner preparations.
The Wasp was changing around them even as they walked its passageways. The skipper was now sporting a Navy blueand-gold uniform with a lieutenant’s two stripes, but he was still the captain to everyone Kris met. Another reason not to try to change what everyone was used to.
The Wasp itself shrank as shipping containers were cut free from their hold-downs on the ship. After threatening to hurl all the finely decked-out containers that held not only quarters and restaurants but also research labs and tons of equipment into the gas giant they were orbiting, Captain Drago relented and agreed to winch the boxes over to one of the freighters.
No one was very happy about letting those running back home do it in the fine quarters they were giving up. Still, there were fond hopes that the shipping containers would be waiting for the Wasp to come home, too, load back up, and head out for exploration again.
That slim handhold on a future that was as good as the past seemed to make it easier for people to face the unknown ahead of them.
The freighter that rendezvoused with them also brought along sixteen more antimatter torpedoes, so Kris was glad of the visit at least as much as the departing hands were glad for the use of the cargo containers.
Kris and Vicky stopped by Iteeche country to bring Ron up to date on what the humans had decided to do. It turned out he was already up to speed. Whenever Kris had talked to her own captains or the admirals, Nelly opened his communications link.
“So you are going to war for these people we have never met.”
“Is that something the Iteeche would never do?” Kris asked.
“Never. I do not think anyone could get the Imperial Mind to turn that way. I do not think the Imperial counselors would ever permit such a thing to even be discussed outside of chambers. We would prepare for our first encounter with these homicidal aliens, but we would never rush out to meet them. Not like you have chosen to do.”
“So you think Kris is wrong,” Vicky said.
“My chooser taught me to think like a human, twisted though that is. Even if you are wrong, I think you are magnificent. Is that twisted?”
“No,” Kris said. “Just very human.”
“Are you committed to swim this course?” Ron asked.
“I’m still hoping we can get them talking to us,” Kris admitted.
“Hmm,” was all Ron said.
Four hours later, only two hours behind schedule, the Vulcan announced that its work there was done. The Hellburners were operational, and the squadron was good to go. The muster of personnel requesting a trip home topped out at fewer than a hundred; no ship was left in any danger of being undermanned.
The freighters, repair ship, and three courier ships headed for the first of the jumps that would take them back to Santa Maria. They carried The Word to the rest of humanity that a small squadron of their own was about to do battle against unknown but probably impossible odds in defense of a race of aliens they had yet to talk to.
The Hermes popped out of Jump Point Delta. She’d seen nothing of the aliens in the last system the Hornet had jumped from. That was a relief.
Now Kris settled into her battle station on the bridge of the Wasp at Weapons. She tightened her belt as the ship began its acceleration to fifty thousand kilometers per hour and aimed for the first jump. Three jumps would be fast and risky, leaping before they had any chance to look where they were going. The last one, if the maps were still accurate, would put them one small jump away from the final jump the hostile aliens would make before they descended on the bird people’s system.
From one jump away, Kris’s fleet could peek through and make sure the hostiles were not yet in the next system. If the aliens had beaten the humans there, Kris’s plan would have fallen apart before she even began it.
The team had invested quite a bit of time trying to figure out an alternative battle plan if that happened.
No one had come up with anything that sounded at all good.
With luck, they’d just get there before the hostiles did.
The first two jumps went fine. The third jump, the one into the system where they’d slow down and take a careful look through the next jump to see how things were, didn’t go so well.
“We’re through,” Sulwan announced from her post as navigator. Now her usual cutoffs and tank tops had been replaced with a blue ship jumper sporting a lieutenant’s two stripes.
“We’re where we want to be,” she quickly added, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Once again, they’d taken the risky jump and not had to pay the price for it.
“I’ve got activity in the system,” Chief Beni reported.
“What kind of activity?” Captain Drago demanded. He still sat in the captain’s chair even though his blue ship jumper also showed only two stripes.
“Give me a moment,” the chief snapped.
“I wish the professor was here,” he muttered under his breath.
“My children have been analyzing the video and audio take,” Nelly announced. “It uses the same strange encryption system as Taussig’s aliens. We are trying to translate them into pictures we can see, but this may take time.”
“The hostile emissions are coming from a stationary source,” the chief reported. “There are no hostile ships in the system. Just one reactor.”
“Where?” Captain Drago said.
“That small planet slightly sunward between us and our next jump point.”
Behind the Wasp, the rest of the fleet poured into the system. PatRon 10 was now augmented by the courier boat Hermes. Lieutenant Song had won her battle duty. Kris hoped she would survive her wishes. Admiral Krätz insisted that the Greenfeld squadron, by right of it being double the size of the other contingents, should lead the battleships. No one had argued with him.
Maybe being in the lead had encouraged him to go where the other admirals intended to go. He had followed Kris through three jumps.
Now he did not follow her toward the next jump.
“Hey, if our aliens have a small outpost here, maybe we can talk to them,” he announced with cheer that would have struck no one as sincere.
“We have a deadline to meet in the next system,” Kris pointed out.
“But you always said you really wish you could talk to them. Well, here’s a few of them. Let’s see if we can get them to talk to you.”
“I think the admiral is hoisting you on your own petard,” Captain Drago said.
“And I am very highly hoist,” Kris said. “Captain, if you will, set a course for that occupied planet. Chief Beni, tell me everything you know about it as soon as you know about it.”
“It’s not going to be easy, Your Highness. We don’t have all the resources of the boffins to call on.”
“Don’t I know,” Kris said. “Give me what you’ve got, Chief, and give it to me quick.”