Rebel (6 page)

The bulkhead screen came to life. There was only the one dot representing the incoming six ships from her stepmother.

Mannie now came to stand at her elbow. “What are you thinking of?” he asked.

“How to not fight a battle but win one anyway,” Vicky said vaguely.

“To use cunning rather than brute force, huh.”

“Something like that,” Vicky admitted. “Kris Longknife does this all the time. This is the first time I’m trying my hand at it.”

“You going to go charging out at them?” Mannie asked.

“If I did, the admiral here would tan my bottom, right?”

“I don’t know about your bottom,” the admiral said, carefully, “but I would strongly recommend against you charging at the incoming ships. Once you shot past them, you’d have a hell of a time turning around, and they’d be closing on St. Petersburg and this station with a free hand.”

“I did learn something following Admiral Krätz and Kris Longknife around,” Vicky said. “Never let the enemy get between you and the base you have to defend. No. We stay here for as long as I dare. I just wish something would force them to tip their hand . . . give away their intentions.”

The admiral’s shrug was full stoic.

Then the jump coughed out a new set of dots.

“The heavy cruiser
Biter
has just entered the system,” Vicky’s computer announced.

“I think I hear a hand tipping,” Vicky whispered.

CHAPTER 6

“ T
HE
Biter
was escorting a trade convoy on a swing through Good Luck, Finster, Ormuzd, Kazan, and Presov,” the admiral said, as freighters followed the cruiser through the jump.

“So those cargo ships are loaded with crystal and rare earths,” Vicky said.

“Among other resources,” the admiral agreed.

“Which we need.”

“Definitely,” Mannie said.

“Your Grace,” came from Lieutenant Blue, “the
Golden Empress 1
has just ordered the
Biter
and the arriving convoy to match course and acceleration with them.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant.”

“I wondered why those ships were only accelerating at point seven five gees,” the admiral said. “They were waiting for the convoy to come through so they could shanghai it.”

“Apparently. How bad are the odds against the
Biter
?”

“She has twelve 8-inch lasers. She faces thirty-six 9.2-inch ones. Not good.”

“Admiral, if you will, please advise the convoy and its escort to comply with the threats being leveled at them.”

The admiral raised a quizzical eyebrow.

“One could say that they are being attacked by pirates, could one not?” Vicky said, oh so delicately.

“Assuming the color of the demands is piratical and not official,” the admiral agreed.

“Only time will tell, but we don’t want to fire the first shot, do we?”

“No,” and the admiral tapped his commlink and sent the suggested order to
Biter
.

It took a while for all the messages to pass through space this way and that. While Vicky went about her own work, messages came in from the
Biter
demanding to know who was ordering her and her convoy to deviate from their course. The three Navy cruisers stayed quiet through the exchange. A Lord High Commissioner for the Safety of St. Petersburg aboard the
Golden Empress 1
informed them he held a warrant direct from the Empress’s hand and that all must comply with his commands. The skipper of the
Biter
delayed answering that one, but he did accelerate away from the jump at one gee and slowly overtook the early arrivals.

Once they got close enough, the Lord High Commissioner for Safety announced that they should prepare to be boarded. The
Biter
’s initial answer to that was a strong negative. Luckily, the admiral’s instructions arrived about that time, and
Biter
then matched its course and acceleration smoothly with the other convoy. Longboats quickly covered the distance between the freighters and cruiser from the armed merchant ships or maybe pirates.

“I would call that an attack, wouldn’t you?” Vicky said.

“I doubt if the Empress would,” the admiral pointed out.

“Mannie, what do you call it?”

“Interference with the free trade of ships registered to my planet,” the mayor snapped.

“I think we might give his opinion on this matter some weight,” Vicky said.

“Maybe we can,” the admiral agreed, rubbing his chin. “Maybe we can. Now what?”

“We wait until they are close enough,” Vicky said slowly, “then we loop out to do our own matching of orbits with them. You and your task force of three cruisers and a battleship.”

“Since all we can do is wait, I’m hungry,” Mannie said. “Don’t you sailormen eat?”

“I’ll have the galley send a meal to my wardroom, or the admiral’s wardroom,” Vicky said. “If he’s coming aboard, I imagine I’ll have to find someplace else to hang my dainties out to dry.”

“I suspect it will be a quick in and out, all in one day,” the admiral said. “No doubt you can leave your dainties drying where they are.”

“You are most gracious,” Vicky allowed.

“Is she always this nice?” Mannie asked the admiral.

“I think she’s trying to pull the wool over someone’s eyes. It’s certainly not working on me,” the admiral answered.

“Hmm,” was all the mayor said.

The commander announced that supper was served in the admiral’s wardroom, and the seven of them adjourned next door to taste a decent goulash the cook was rumored to be famous for. If you didn’t believe it, you only had to ask the chief petty officer yourself.

Kit hunted up a screen they could glance at during supper. It continued to show the progression of the ships closing in on High St. Petersburg.

After his second spoonful of goulash, the admiral put down his spoon and turned to Vicky. “How would you fight this coming battle?”

Vicky had a spoon of the quite tasty stew halfway to her mouth. She put it down, patted her lips with the linen napkin, and thought for a moment more. “First, the objective is to overawe the other side into not fighting. Somehow, I would want to put them in a position where they knew they were in trouble and would be badly bloodied if it came to a fight, and thus, would call it quits before it came to one.”

“A commendable objective,” the admiral said, “considering that some of my friends are on those ships. So, how would you do that?”

Vicky leaned back in her chair and stared at the overhead for a long moment. She found herself worrying her lips as she thought. Clearly, the admiral was not about to turn his fleet over to a green lieutenant commander. This was an exercise to see if a Grand Duchess could be trusted on his bridge as he figured this one out for himself.

Still, this was a test she very much wanted to pass.

“Kris Longknife had a battle very much like this one,”
Vicky finally said, remembering a very long analysis that someone had added to Kris’s file.

Vicky wondered how many friends the man writing that analysis had lost when Kris Longknife won that battle.

“Which one was that?” Mannie asked. “She seems to have fought a lot of battles if the stories are to be believed.”

“It was in defense of her home planet,” Vicky said, “when pirate battleships suddenly appeared and demanded its surrender.”

“Oh, that one,” Mannie said.

Vicky had noted the slight wince from the admiral when she said “pirate battleships.” No doubt he knew the real reason for the empty seats at Greenfeld Navy Academy reunions of late. In present company, he kept his silence.

“Yes,” Vicky said, “that one. Six battleships headed for her planet. Only twelve mosquito boats to defend it because of an unbelievable blunder by some politicians.”

Again, Vicky had a pretty good idea who had encouraged those Wardhaven politicians to make such a botch of matters, but it was not something to talk about here and now. The look the admiral gave Vicky told her he wanted that talk, and soon.

“So, Kris Longknife had this same problem,” Mannie said, playing the straight man to Vicky. “What did she do?”

“She put her fast attack boats, along with anything else she could scrape together, kind of like us and our armed merchant cruisers, in a high orbit that reached out to meet the incoming battleships without charging right past them. That put her in a position to fight them all the way in. Is that what you intend to do, Admiral von Mittleburg?”

“Gravity tends to limit our options in situations like these,” the admiral said, “but yes, that would be my choice. The incoming ships will be braking toward an orbit. We will meet them at a point that allows us to bring them under fire at the extreme effective range of our lasers, where their guns are barely able to heat water. That will give us time to talk. Hopefully, to talk them down.”

“You might be able to talk the Navy down, but I’m not so sure about that Lord High Commissioner for Safety on St. Petersburg,” Vicky said.

Mannie scowled. “We can take care of our own safety, thank you very much.”

“Yes, but can you keep yourself safe from a Lord High Commissioner for
your
Safety?” Admiral von Mittleburg asked.

“I’m hoping you will save me from that problem,” Mannie said. “We’ve smuggled some books on irregular warfare in from Longknife territory. It makes interesting reading. The Lord High Commissioner may have no idea what he’s in for, but then, suppression of guerrilla wars can be very bloody to all concerned.”

“We will try to save you from that,” Vicky said.

“If your Lieutenant Blue is correct, and
Wittenberg
is leading the cruisers in, its skipper, Staale Sandback, will not be enthusiastic about firing the first shot, not on his own Navy, but he is an honorable man. Speaking of your Mr. Blue, it is one thing to switch squawkers from one ship to the next. It is another thing to have sensors report that the reactors match those the database has for those ships. How will he manage that?”

Vicky shrugged. “I have no idea. I certainly have no idea how to do it myself. Do you know anyone on board more likely to come up with such an idea?”

The admiral chuckled. “Not on my life.”

“So, sir, shall we enjoy this delicious goulash before it gets too much colder and trust more twisted brains than ours to come up with what we need?”

“I doubt,” Mannie said, “that there are more twisted brains in the worlds than those seated around this table.”

That got a general laugh, and they returned to their dinner with a hearty appetite.

CHAPTER 7

E
ARLY
the next morning, the
Retribution
led a small task force away from High St. Petersburg Station. The
Rostock
quickly slipped into the lead while the putative
Attacker
and
Kamchatka
pulled up the rear.

Vicky and Mannie stood beside Admiral von Mittleburg on the flag bridge of the
Retribution
. Lieutenant Blue had a station just off to their right. Mr. Smith had pulled up a seat at the lieutenant’s elbow and was dividing his attention between the sensor station and his own computer.

The admiral eyed the spy but kept his opinions to himself.

“Tell me, Lieutenant Blue,” Vicky said when the young officer paused from what he had been so intently doing. “The reactors on the
Sovereign
s are not the same as the heavy cruisers they are trying to pass for. How do you propose we pull that off?”

“We can’t, Your Grace. Reactors can’t be faked.”

“So, as soon as their sensor team gets a good look at the reactors on those ships,” the admiral snapped, “they will know we are faking it.”

“Yes and no, sir.”

“That is not an answer, Lieutenant,” the admiral growled, his poor humor getting worse.

“It’s the only answer I can give you, sir. What the other ships’ sensors will actually get off all our ships, including the
Rostock
and the
Retribution
will be hash, sir. One of my petty officers came up with this noisemaker idea that we’ve installed in all four of our ships. They will generate all sorts of static where a sensor usually finds data on reactors. When the captain of the oncoming cruisers asks his sensor officer to identify the ships coming at him, he will have to painfully answer that there is something wrong with his instruments. He has some data, but it might be right. It might be wrong. He just isn’t sure.”

Mannie barked a laugh. “I’ve never met a Navy officer who didn’t like to be sure of himself. That is going to be one painful report to make and receive.”

“No doubt,” the admiral admitted dryly.

The short line of ships decelerated to pass close aboard St. Petersburg, then accelerated into a much higher orbit. At apogee, it would bring them close to the incoming ships, putting the decelerating convoy’s vulnerable rears in the
Retribution
’s crosshairs while the cruiser’s guns were far out of range.

That would be the critical time for this battle. If it was to become a battle.

The
Wittenberg
,
Augsburg
, and
Ulm
continued to lead the transports, each ship keeping a comfortable five-hundred-kilometer interval. The trade convoy from Presov now docilely trailed the first group, a thousand kilometers from
Golden Empress 3
to the
Biter
, then five hundred klicks between each freighter.

The clock ticked off the seconds as the ships closed.

“
Retribution
will be in extreme range of
Wittenberg
in one minute,” Lieutenant Blue reported.