Twenty days later, they had made several easy jumps and were across the old demilitarized zone into the Empire. Kris had spent the time getting eight hours sleep a night, enjoying her kids and reading the classics. Iteeche classics. Nelly and Ron were expanding their translation program by converting to Standard the classic books that Iteeche had been reading for thousands of years.
Nelly also threw in a few new ones to make sure that Kris didn’t sound like a dinosaur.
What Kris noticed not happening were fleet drills. The skipper of the Princess Royal saw to it that his crew were drilled thoroughly. Twice a week, all hands had abandon ship drills, which included every civilian on board.
The kids loved it.
The ship drilled, but the divisions and squadrons stayed steadily in line behind the task force flag. Every day or so, an itch would get to bothering Kris, and she’d scratch it by studying the fleet array.
Squadron 13 was in line at precisely five hundred kilometers, one right behind the other. You could draw a straight line from first to last and none in between would be more than half a meter either way. Not so for the battlecruisers not under Commodore Ajax’s command. The interval varied from 475 to 530 kilometers and ships were as much as ten kilometers out of line.
Kris was aware that most of her fleet had been chosen from shiny new construction to show the flag. Most of the ships had little more time in space beyond their shakedown cruise. Still, they ought to be better at maintaining formation than this
All of which reminded Kris of why she’d down-checked both of Admiral Darlan’s commands during readiness inspections.
How did he get this assignment? Kris asked herself again and again. He said he had friends in high places, and it was not like King Raymond could give a direct order to the Navy as to who should get this or that command. Maybe Kris had been too busy taking care of important matters to check with her own friends in high places.
Still, she had to remind herself that she was the passenger here, and a diplomat on her way on a diplomatic mission. Her title of Grand Admiral wasn’t supposed to matter.
“Like hell it doesn’t matter. Nelly, draft a scathing letter for my signature.”
“Shall I draft it and send it, Kris?”
“No, let me see the copy first.”
“So, this is one of those memos I write, you read, and then it calms you down, huh?”
Kris scowled. “Something like that.”
Nelly drafted a very blistering letter; reading it did help Kris calm down. In the end, Kris saved the letter to be reconsidered the next time Vice Admiral Darlan frosted her buns.
The next jump took them deep into Iteeche territory, halfway to the capital. They were approaching the flip over point, midway between the next jump and their last when the jump ahead of them began spitting out battlecruisers.
Kris stood on her flag bridge as the chief on sensors counted out the arrivals. He stopped at sixty-four. “They’re putting on one gee and heading for us.”
“Comm, get me the Red Sunset on the Water,” Kris ordered, and was quickly connected to Ron’s flagship.
“Were you expecting a greeting committee before we reached the capital system?” she asked.
“No. At least there were no plans before I left.”
“Any idea why plans might have changed?”
“Not that I can think of,” sounded too evasive for Kris’s tastes. She rang off.
“Chief, I want to know how those sixty-four ships match up against the sixteen Iteeche ships with us.”
“Aye, aye, ma’am,” she said and eyed her boards. “Reactors seem to fall into two different types, with only minor variations from the ones with us,” she said, slowly. “Half have 24-inch lasers, the other half are 22-inchers. Those are split between the two types of reactors. Also, one reactor type is larger than our 24 or 22-inch standard battlecruiser. The other is a bit smaller.”
“So, we’re looking at two different production lines,” Jack said.
“If you insist I bet, I’d bet on that,” sensors replied.
“Oh,” the sensor chief exclaimed, just as the lieutenant pulled out a seat at the console beside her. “Admiral, we’ve got ships coming through the jump behind us.”
“What kind of ships?” Kris demanded.
“Battlecruisers, Admiral,” the lieutenant reported.
“They are slightly different from the group ahead of us,” the chief added.
“So, another bunch of squids want into our party,” Jack muttered to Kris.
She eyed him, he wasn’t the type to call the Iteeche names. “You don’t like this?” she asked him.
“Not at all. Even if we assume Ron is in the dark and not intentionally keeping us there, now we’ve got unknowns both in front of us and behind.”
“Nelly?” Kris asked.
“I know nothing more than you do, Kris. Belay that. We’re intercepting a message to Ron. It’s from the signal buoy of the jump we came through yesterday. Somebody must have waited until we got well away and sent it to reach us now.”
“We’re at the worst time,” Jack pointed out.
“Yeah,” Kris said, dryly. “Nelly, I sure would like a translation of that message.”
“I’m trying to. The opening is full of flowers and unicorns, such as the Iteeche have them, and . . . oh, they just got to the point.”
“And it is?” Kris asked.
“They very politely invite Ron to surrender his ships and ours to them or they will blast us out of space.”
“How diplomatic of them,” Jacques, ever the sociologist, said.
“Nelly, have you been passing along your new translation program to all the ships of the fleet?”
“Yes, Kris.”
“So Vice Admiral Darlan’s flag could have just as easily picked up the message and translated it.”
“Yes, Kris.”
Kris thought. She thought for a full five seconds about how she was a passenger and shouldn’t put her oar in another admiral’s water. Another admiral’s battle.
She was just opening her mouth when the Princess Royal’s battle claxon began to sound. “All hands to battle stations. This is not a drill.”
“Nelly, get me the command network.”
“You’re piped in.”
“Set course for the jump ahead of us. Prepare to engage the sixty-four possible hostiles. Acceleration is one point five gees,” came in a strained voice that was clearly Admiral Darlan’s.
Kris shot a look at the system display on her closest wall. It showed the three fleets and the layout of the system. She shook her head.
“That is a stupid order,” she snapped. “Nelly, put me on the command net.”
“You’re on, Kris.”
She drew in a deep breath, gave Jack a quick glance and got a slow nod of his head, with a thumbs-up before the second nod.
Her Highness, Grand Admiral Kris Longknife prepared to get herself in a whole lot of trouble. She had to if she was to save her kids’ lives. Her kids and a whole lot of other people.