Intrepid (31 page)

“Which brings us to Engineering,” Vicky said. “I’ve never understood power plants. I’ve had to walk through several. They make a lot of noise and have huge things spinning around and a lot of places marked ‘Do Not Enter.’ I will have to trust that you are aiming at the right target.”

“I tell you she is wrong,” the security colonel snapped.

“Don’t be tiresome, Colonel. It is the measures of State Security that have left my captain’s ship a beached observer of this drama. Has someone chosen to take advantage of your brain-dead measures, or were State Security’s orders an integral part of this plan? I wonder.”

The colonel opened his mouth several times before “Of course not. You can’t even think such things” finally got out.

“Oh, but I can, and I think my dad will, if he lives. Captain Krätz, may I have a word with you? In private.”

The ensign led the captain into the passageway. The colonel made to follow.

At a nod from Kris, Gunny stepped on the colonel’s polished toes. “Pardon me, sir,” Gunny said, but by the time the colonel recovered, he found himself surrounded by an infantry colonel and a Marine captain. An Army lieutenant and a Navy lieutenant, too.

Kris looked at the schematics one more time. “I am finished here. Jack, I’ll be on the bridge, setting up a shoot with Nelly as soon as she’s available. Tell Ensign Peterwald that she is free to join me with her associates when she is done.”

Kris passed the ensign and her captain in the passageway, their heads together. So that was what a palace coup looked like. Kris hoped it didn’t come down to that. Vicky deserved a better chance at survival than she’d have today. Given three or four years, who knew what the woman could grow into.

Hopefully, someone who liked Longknifes better than most Peterwalds did.

51

“We’ve got the minimum containment field up. Prepare to release antimatter into Reactor A,” Captain Drago said, as Kris entered the bridge. Silently, she slipped into a high-gee station that was in the usual place for weapons. Careful not to jiggle any elbows, she left the station cold and inert.

“Captain, we’ve got a steep drop in power from the station,” Sulwan suddenly announced. “Containment is weakening.”

“Hold the antimatter,” the captain ordered.

Kris snapped her commlink and raised the station chief. “This is Princess Kristine. We were promised power. We are at a critical stage. Who cut it? They are criminals and enemies of the state. Do I need to talk to General Boyng?”

“No. No, ma’am, I swear it’s just a glitch. We got a lot of ships making demands we aren’t anywhere close to rated for it.”

“Get us power,” Kris demanded.

“Yes, ma’am,” and the man was off-screen.

“Should I rely on our own auxiliary power?” Drago asked. “I wanted to save it to jump-start our second reactor. Get us out of here faster.”

“Keep auxiliary ready to use antimatter, but see if we can get a start using station power the next time it comes up.”

“Station power coming up to specs,” Sulwan announced.

“Engineering ready to bleed antimatter into the reactor.”

“Everything is ready,” Nelly said in her normal voice.

“No questions?” Kris asked.

“I think we will rewrite the procedures on how to do this,” Nelly said. “Nothing our boffins and I couldn’t handle. But I’d hate to see anyone do it without all we have here.”

“Nelly, we need to work on a firing solution when this is done.”

“I figured we would. First things first. We have plasma. The containment is holding. We have enough plasma to start our own power generation. Yes!” The computer’s cheer was echoed by several on the bridge and over the commlink.

“We have fusion,” Captain Drago announced. “We are growing the plasma core. Thank God we are taking electricity directly from the core. Give me another five minutes, and I’ll be ready to jump-start Reactor B. Sortie in fifteen minutes, Princess.”

“What do you mean you’re drawing power directly from the core?” Captain Krätz asked as he escorted his ensign onto the bridge. The colonel behind him had heard the question; he said nothing but seemed to want to look at everything at once.

“Something we can’t talk about,” one captain said to the other. “However, we do have plasma and should be under way in fifteen minutes.” Drago tapped his commlink. “Set getting-under way details, minimum.” Throughout the ship, came the noise of hands moving to stations.

“I understand we are going into another battle,” announced Professor mFumbo, following Vicky’s team onto the bridge.

“You want to get off?” Kris asked.

“If I wanted off this tub, I would have left before these mad scientists jump-started the reactor. No, I’m not leaving, but do we really have to be confined to bed?”

“Afraid so,” Drago cut in. “Unless you like the idea of standing around at three times your own weight, maybe more, I’d suggest you get in bed. A nice soft one.”

mFumbo scowled. “Could we at least see what’s going on?”

“Won’t be much to see, but I’ll send you the picture,” Drago said, and ordered his quartermaster to get the scientists off his neck. With quick efficiency, the
Wasp
prepared to get under way. Today, some things were different. Kris’s station came up as a fire-control post. Vicky’s high-gee station next to hers had all the readouts of Kris’s. Just none of the active controls.

Captain Krätz settled into a high-gee couch next to Captain Drago’s station. The State Security colonel was parked at the rear of the bridge, where he could see everything and touch nothing. He had two Marines behind him and Gunny in front.

Jack took position closer to Kris, where he could keep an eye on all of the strangers aboard. With a glint in his eye, he looked ready for anything.

Exactly thirty minutes from when Captain Drago said he could get the
Wasp
under way in a half hour, the pier tie-downs began to rattle backward, and the
Wasp
smartly backed away from the dock.

“Nelly, start an intercept clock,” Kris ordered. A clock before her began to count down. The initial display was 3 HR 24 MIN 24.242 SEC, but it quickly changed.

52

For the rest of Kris’s life, she would know exactly when things began to go wrong. And like so many of the things that would go wrong, Kris made the decision herself.

It seemed like a very good idea at the time.

“Stand by for high gee in five minutes,” Captain Drago announced as soon as the
Wasp
was away from the pier. “If you need more time, holler, but don’t expect to get it,” he finished.

Kris mashed her own commlink. “Professor mFumbo, can your scientists get their best sensors up and running? I want to know everything I can about that ship. If its reactors burp every five minutes, I want to know.”

“We were expecting this call, Your Highness. Our people should have everything we have online well before our captain starts putting on weight. You can count on us.”

“Thank you, Professor, I expected I could.”

Beside Kris, Vicky had a strange look on her face. “Courtesy, huh. Does it work?”

“When you have the best people who can think for themselves, honey is a whole lot better than a baseball bat.”

Which left Vicky with a thoughtful look.

“Captain Drago, do we gain anything by putting on more than 2.5 gees. I understand the
Wasp
was only tested up to there.”

“That, sadly, is true. Sulwan, could you please calculate two intercept courses. One at 2.5, the other at 3.2.”

Two lines appeared on the main screen, showing close encounters for both accelerations. “If we intercept and damage them closer to Birridas, we need to do more damage to their engines, but they have less time to repair them or correct course. Farther back, they have more time to effect repairs, but they are farther off course for a collision.”

Kris studied the lines and the tables. While the distance was measured in millions of kilometers, it didn’t really seem to matter all that much on the cosmic scale of things.

“Captain, it’s your call, but pushing the
Wasp
above 2.5 gees doesn’t seem to gain me anything.”

The captain said, “2.5 it is.” There might have been a hint of a sigh behind his words, but Kris was too busy with her next question to be sure.

“Captain, do we gain any advantage by being under acceleration when we actually make the flyby of the
Tourin
?”

“Help me follow your thinking, Your Highness.”

“Our closing speed is going to be nothing short of breathtaking. We’re going to have to track that ship while firing at close to maximum range. Any wobble could be the difference between hitting it and missing. Between hitting the aiming point and slashing the ship somewhere that could start catastrophic failure for the people aboard.”

The captain was nodding before Kris was half-done. “Sulwan, can we go from 2.5 gee to zero acceleration?”

“I don’t see any reason why not. Though I’d like to practice it at least once before we do it.”

“How long would you need to make sure the ship was rock steady?” Kris asked the navigator.

“A minute, two to be on the safe side.” Sulwan glanced at the screen with its expected tracks to flyby. “Three today.”

“Sounds good to me,” the captain said.

“One more thing,” Kris said.

“You are just full of questions, Your Highness,” the captain said, but his eyes were on his board, monitoring the
Wasp
’s departure from High Birridas at a full gee.

“Chief Beni said I’d have as much as 1.5 seconds at close encounter to shoot. The pulse lasers have a maximum range of forty thousand kilometers. Was he assuming that I’d be firing at them for eighty thousand klicks, both coming and going?”

“Yes,” Nelly said. “With the
Wasp
slowing down on its approach, you may have as much as 1.76 seconds to fire.”

“Captain Drago, how much can you swivel the laser mounts from dead ahead?” Kris asked.

“Hardly at all. Fifteen degrees to right or left. Battery 1 and 2 have an up thirty degrees. Battery 3 and 4 a down thirty. We can’t rotate the batteries to follow the
Tourin
.”

“Can we rotate ship?” Kris asked.

“Of course,” came back immediately.

“How fast?”

All eyes turned to Sulwan. “Usually it takes a second or two. I hit the jets to get us going. When we get there, I hit the opposite jets to stop us.”

“And if you use the jets the full time you’re starting and stopping?” Kris asked.

“That’s in the book under DON’T NORMALLY THINK ABOUT IT. You’ve only got so much fuel for the reaction jets.”

“How much fuel do we have?”

“We’re pretty much topped off. If we have to load more, it’s a manual job.”

“We could do it after the flyby,” the captain said.

“Let’s plan on it,” Kris said.

“High gee in one minute,” the quartermaster announced.

“Bridge crew, let’s get cracking,” Captain Drago said.

Kris turned back to her board. “Nelly, show me the stern rocket engines of the
Tourin
.” They appeared on Kris’s board.

“Now, assuming I fire two lasers at thirty thousand klicks from close encounter, what kind of an angle could I get on those jets?”

A red wash swept over the right side of the rocket engines, cutting the two outer ones off at their tops, the next three in their middles, and even taking a nip out of the four inners.

“That’s optimum?” Kris said.

“Yes,” Nelly said. “We would need all the luck in the world to pull that off.” Beside Kris, Vicky raised an eyebrow.

“Nelly’s been reading fiction for several years now. It makes her easier to talk to.”

“Makes you easier to understand,” the computer added.

“Assuming I fire two more lasers at thirty thousand klicks, or as soon as we can get the
Wasp
settled down after a flip, what kind of damage can I do to the left side?”

The red wash now took out most of that side.

“Assuming we have all the luck in the world,” Vicky said.

“Assuming,” Kris agreed.

“Is it always like this?” Vicky asked.

“Always like what?”

“Your planning. You start with one plan. Bounce it around among your team, get it better, then have some others look at it, and it keeps getting better.”

Kris thought for a moment. “It was like this at Wardhaven.” Then Kris remembered her audience and cut off the longer explanation. “At Chance, your brother didn’t give us a lot of time to plan.”

“Do you think he’d be alive if he had?” came across as an honest question.

“I really don’t know. I tried and tried to talk him down. He had a captain with him, just like you do, but he was the commodore, and I understand Captain Slovo spent the first half of the battle in the brig.”

“Poor planning on my brother’s part.”

“And part of the reason you’re an ensign.”

“That’s the story of my life, doing penance for my brother’s sins. What about on Eden, did you plan for that?”

“Not for any of the things you threw my way. Those were run-and-shoot, shoot-and-run affairs.”

“I didn’t do any planning,” Vicky said, shaking her head thoughtfully. “Just hired whoever I could find available. Very poor planning on my part.”

“I hope you aren’t thinking of having me plan your next assassination attempt on me,” Kris said, trying to make it into a joke. . . but only half of one.

“No. I’m sorry, Kris. I’m not
ever
planning another attack on you.” But she left unsaid whom she might be planning for.

And Kris doubted Vicky’s promise of peace between the two of them would hold up in a court of law.

“Are you aware the target is rotating?”

“No, we weren’t,” Kris said.

“Kind of hard to tell, but there’s a dull part on the ship. We clock it as coming by about every fifty-six seconds. That puppy is making 3.2457 gees acceleration and rotating about every minute. God help the passenger that tries to get up and walk.”

“Send me your data,” Kris said. “That may have an impact on my targeting the lasers.”

“It’s on its way, Miss Longknife.”

Vicky gave Kris a look. “Miss Longknife?”

“With the mad scientists, I can never tell what they’re going to call me. My father cut back long-term research this budget, and half of them aren’t talking to me at all.”

“So it’s not all crumpets and cream on Wardhaven.”

“I never told you it was.”

“I don’t know if the
Tourin
is having trouble keeping up its acceleration,” Nelly said, “or if your boffins are giving me better data, but it appears the acceleration is falling a bit.”

“What about the rotation?” Kris asked.

“If I was a bunch of gomers,” Captain Drago said, “flying a ship into a planet, I’d put on rotation. Right, Captain Krätz?”

“Yes, we should have expected it. By rotating the ship, they don’t have to correct for any rocket engine that can’t quite keep up the demanded thrust. Just as an arrow spins to balance any wobble in its flight.”

“So now we don’t know exactly which way is down for the stern when we hit it,” Vicky said.

“I should have mentioned that,” Kris said. “No battle plan survives contact with the enemy. That’s what makes sure that all our planning doesn’t make life boring for us.”

Once again, the Peterwald heir looked lost in thought.

With a sigh, Kris said, “Let’s see what our last ace can give us.” She tapped her commlink.

“Mr. Prometheus, we think we’ve found your son.”

The former official of Xanadu came up on Kris’s display. Behind him, she could just make out cramped scientist’s quarters. “Where do you think my son is?” the father pleaded.

“Diving a loaded starliner into a planet at about .03 the speed of light,” Kris said. “When he hits, there’ll be an explosion like a trillion tons of dynamite.”

The man said something that might have been a prayer or a curse for an Abdicationist. It meant nothing to Kris. “What can I do?” he said.

“In half an hour, I’ll try to shoot the engines out of the ship. Could you say something to him that would make him change his mind, slow his ship, turn away from the planet?”

“I will try.”

Kris turned the man over to the comm chief on the
Wasp
, an old chief with kids of his own. The two hit it off. In five minutes, a message for Lucifer was on its way to the
Tourin
.

Fifteen minutes later, a reply came back. There was no question it was laced with curses. “You have thrown yourself against the Guides. You are no better than a nonbeliever. Your eyeballs should be boiled in blood with all the heretics.”

“Should I pass this to his father?” the comm chief asked.

Kris shook her head. “The man’s hurting enough. This won’t help. If he asks, tell him we’re still waiting.”

At Kris’s elbow, Vicky took a sip of water from her high-gee station before whispering, “So Longknifes do lie.”

Kris rotated her shoulders, trying to make the padding just right for a body that suddenly weighed over 250 kilos. “Yeah, sometimes I’d rather lie to an old man than tell him the truth. Next time you hear tell of a Peterwald lie, see if it does as much good as my last one.”

Vicky said nothing to that.

The clock on Kris’s station counted down the last five minutes. The target ship was one of the brightest stars on the screen. Their encounter would be very soon.