The next morning started early. Kris awoke to Jack softly stroking her back. They took the first moments of the day for themselves before showering and dressing. Normally the nannies took care of the children’s morning routine, although Kris occasionally stepped in. Today, she did. Ruth dressed herself; Johnnie insisted on taking care of himself, too, but the sleeves on the ship suit got all balled up and he allowed his mommy to help “a little bit.”
They trooped down to breakfast in the wardroom and made the first seating. Done, Ruth insisted on giving mommy a kiss, and when Kris stooped for Ruth, she got a hug and a kiss from Johnnie, too. Kris watched as two nannies herded them and several other kids off to play.
“You’re worried,” Jack whispered as they turned to their duties.
“What gave you that idea?”
“The kids sense that you’re spending more time with them, but you’re only half there. They know something’s up.”
“You think they’re scared?”
Jack shook his head. “They trust you to take care of them.”
“God help me if I can’t,” Kris whispered.
“You’ve always figured a way out. You’ll find a way out of this.”
“How? I’m outnumbered so bad that there is no way I should be able to win, and I’m fighting ships just as good as my own with lasers that have as much reach as I’ve got. Worse, I’m headed for a jump that goes nowhere. We can’t fight and we can’t run.”
“But they know they’re chasing Kris Longknife, the one of those damn Longknifes you don’t want to cross.”
“So how do I make my forces match my reputation?”
Jack met that question with two raised eyebrows and not one word of suggestion.
Kris settled into a chair in the middle of her flag bridge. Nelly made it comfortable as Kris studied the layout of the system she was racing across and the ships that faced each other.
She’d fought pirates. They’d been easy. Almost.
She’d fought aliens. They had huge ships and vast numbers, but they hadn’t fought anyone for a long time. They were sloppy and their lasers had very short range. Kris figured out a good way to take them on, and then beat them like a drum.
Wonder what they’re up to out there? she thought, but had no time to follow that question.
Now, for the first time, she was faced with ships just as good as her own manned by Sailors and officers who were trained professionals. Their crews might be trained better or worse than hers. Heavens knows, she’d found that the training in her own squadrons was spotty.
Still, if it came to a fight, they’d have three ships to her one and those ships were constructed from the same designs as her own, firing lasers with the same range as hers.
Kris shook her head. “This will be a slaughter, if it comes to a fight,” she muttered to herself.
“So,” Jack answered what she thought was not a question, “how do we avoid a fight?”
“Nelly, talk to me about that next system.”
“The sun is a red dwarf. It has both rocky and gas planets. There is just the one jump in.”
“Any fuzzy jumps?”
“The fuzzy jumps were built after the map your great grandfather discovered on Santa Maria was done. I won’t know if there is or isn’t a fuzzy jump there until we’re in system.”
“But there could be one,” Kris said.
“Or not,” Nelly answered.
“But we could get reinforcements through that hypothetical fuzzy jump?”
“Hypothetically, yes.”
An idea started to form in Kris’s head.
“Comm.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I want to set up a very low-powered, tight-beam communication net between us and the other flags.”
“Aye, aye, ma’am.”
A moment later, Kris was facing Ron, Commodores Ajax and Afon, as well as the fleet’s chief of staff.
“I want to reorganize the fleet by divisions. Each task force will reform into four divisions in ranks. While we’re doing that, I want the Princess Royal and the Bold brought to the head of their division.”
The commodores had followed Kris right up to the point of flipping the two flags with their division flags. Ajax blinked, but the chief of staff immediately answered, “Aye, aye, Admiral. When do you want this done?”
“Soonest,” Kris answered.
“We should be able to execute in ten minutes, if that’s acceptable to you.”
“Ten minutes it is.”
Ron coughed softly on net. “Am I to assume that you wish the Iteeche contingent to reorganize itself in a similar fashion?”
“Yes, Ron, if you could. Please assure that your ship is at the lead of a division.”
All four of his eyes blinked three times, leaving Kris to wonder if she now had a new way of learning if she had puzzled an Iteeche.
“It will be done,” Ron said.
Kris closed the comm circuit and leaned back in her chair.
“It’s started,” she muttered to herself.
“If I may ask, what has started?” Jack said.
“Us outsmarting one honking big Iteeche fleet,” Kris said.
Ten minutes later, Kris gained a few more pounds as the Princess Royal accelerated into the lead of her division, then lightened up as it reduced acceleration to match with the other ships. On Kris’s screen, the fleet went from three long lines of sixteen ships, accelerating in ranks beside each other, to something totally different. Now each of the task forces split into four divisions of four ships, forming a filled-in box. The fleet had gone from having only three ships with their forward batteries unmasked to fire at anything ahead of them to having twelve.
The transports and freighters following behind the warships were still in their rough line, thirty-five successfully, more or less, following one behind the other. Now, however, they were farther behind the closest warship. Calls came in asking if they should catch up, but Kris left them following along where they were.
Returning to her battlecruiser force, Kris noted that her chief of staff, Captain Tosan, had taken this opportunity to open up the distance between the three ranks. The two outer task forces now had plenty of room to open up their divisions, swinging them out in echelon so that all sixteen ships could fire ahead. Now there was enough distance between the two outer task forces to allow the middle one to deploy its ships forward.
Good move, Captain. Good initiative.
Now it was time for Kris to make something happen.
First, however, “Comm, what are the chances that there will be any scatter off our low power tight comm beam between the flagships that could reach the aliens behind us?”
“Very slim chance, Admiral, almost nil now that you have all the flag ships even with each other. Our tight beam is aimed at ninety degrees from their course. Even if they do get something, we’ll be scrambling your conversation and I can hop frequencies so even if they get a fragment of it, they’ll have to chase it down on another frequency. They won’t get enough signal to make anything out of it.”
“Well done, Comm, thank you.” Kris said, then began the laborious process of pulling a reluctant rabbit out of a very small hat.