Matters started getting interesting as they approached the jump into the last system out from the Imperial capital. Two Imperial battlecruisers detached themselves from the station orbiting the nearest planet and headed for the jump.
“Admiral, they’ll arrive at the jump two minutes before we will,” the flag navigator reported. “Also, ma’am, I’m getting changes to the deceleration of several merchant ships. Some have lowered their deceleration and adjusted their course so they will arrive at least ten minutes before us. Others have put on more deceleration to delay their arrival until ten minutes after we will get there. Someone is going to great measures to see that we have that jump all to ourselves for a good fifteen minutes.”
“Thank you, Commander,” Kris said thoughtfully. The navigator was right: quite a few merchant ships were burning a lot of reaction mass to give her some serious quality time at that jump. Kris could just imagine Grampa Al screaming at the waste of good money being blown out into space and trimming his bottom line. No doubt, some Iteeche merchant princes were fuming, too.
Still, all those ships had changed their course quickly. Someone had issued an order and it has been obeyed immediately. Interesting people, these Iteeche.
“Sensors, Comm, did you get any interesting communications between the effected merchant bottoms and the Navy’s station close aboard?”
“No, Admiral,” Comm answered. “We've copied message traffic ordering each individual ship to adjust its course by a specific fraction of a gee so that they arrive before or after us. The order was immediate followed by an acknowledgment.”
“No sooner was the message received than the ship adjusted its course,” Sensors added.
Kris shook her head. She’d once had to shoot out an engine on one of Grampa Al’s ships to get its skipper to follow her orders. Here the senior issued explicit orders and the junior hopped to it and asked how high on the way up.
Of course, they also have a rebellion going on.
Hmm.
“Comm, get me the four flagships.”
A moment later, Kris was looking at Ron, Commodores Ajax and Afon, as well as Captain Tosan.
“I want to make our passage through the next jump smart and quickly done. The Iteeche have cleared the jump for two minutes before us and ten after. We’d have to be awful sloppy to take all ten minutes. Commodores, Captain, how fast can we take our ships through?”
The chief of staff glanced off screen for only a moment. “We’re in a line by divisions, Admiral. Fifteen minutes out, we could form back into a single line, first by squadrons, then task forces. We’ll be pretty slow. I don’t think we’d have any problem going through the jump at two second intervals.”
“I want a four second interval between divisions,” Kris said.
“No problem, Admiral,” Captain Tosen answered promptly, but Kris had enough time in the Navy to hear the ever so slight question mark wishing the elephant would give the poor worker bee some enlightenment as to what the hell was going on.
“Commodore Afon, I want your task force to lead the way and I want your division to be the first through. You are to immediately take a snapshot of the space around the jump and flash it back to the last ship in your division the very second it arrives. It is to load that data on a message rocket and shoot it back through the jump. Nelly, I want you to grab that message and let me know if there is trouble on the other side.”
“And what if I’m evaporated before I send that message to the Dependable, Admiral?” Commodore Afon asked.
“That message rocket is to be launched immediately by the Dependable as soon as the data can be loaded. If there is nothing to load, it comes back empty, but it comes back immediately. That will tell us as much as your message.”
“Understood, I’m to lead the jump myself. If I find a beasty on the other side, I’m to floss its dentures while sending you a message concerning the new greetings that await Your Highness. Hopefully, you’ll come through shooting and avenge my vanished corpse.”
“I’ll decide what I’ll do when I need to do it,” Kris answered. She was tempted to wait on this side of the jump to see who tried to come through. With luck, the battlecruisers on the Iteeche station would come out to reinforce her. If her luck was running to its usual norms, no doubt they’d attack her.
Another wonderful day for a Longknife in the Na-a-vy.
Several hours later, Kris was seated in her chair on her fully manned flag bridge as her escorting fleet came up on the two hour mark before the jump. The battlecruisers were at Condition Charlie, tight, but folks still had room to breathe. Throughout the fleet, they weren’t quite at battle stations. Still, anyone with nothing to do was doing it pretty near close to their general quarters; a call to battle stations would only take seconds to answer. The Sailors knew by now, as well as their officers, that someone didn’t want them fulfilling their mission.
“Sensors, what’s the status of the Imperial battlecruisers tied up to that station?” Kris asked.
“No change, Admiral. Communications levels holding steady, no sudden spike in chatter. The reactors are warm, but no one’s preparing to sortie.”
Kris nodded. The largest collection of firepower underway in this system was under her command. The battlecruisers around that station could change that in a real hurry. If they pulled away and headed for the jump, Kris would not only be outnumbered three-to-two, but she would be very close to dead in space. No question, she would slam her fleet up to combat energy, but she would miss making the jump.
Behind Kris’s battlecruisers came Ron’s two squadrons. Tailing them ten seconds back came her own merchant ships. Kris had ordered them to a five second interval. You could never count on a merchie not to make your day more exciting by doing its best to ram you.
An hour out from the jump, Comm piped up. “I have a request from Lord Hoff’sum’Seava, Captain of the Defender of the Emperor No. 207.”
“Put it on screen,” Kris ordered.
An Iteeche officer in Navy gray and gold stared out at Kris. He began speaking in Iteeche, but what came from the screen over his words were, “I have the honor in the name of His Worshipful Majesty to be called by my Lord Commander to pass through the jump you are about to travel and report back to you that all is safe on the other side. I will,” what followed took a lot of words but came out in Standard as “observe traffic on the other side and send you back a picture of it.”
Kris stood. “We are grateful to your Honored Emperor, your Lord Commander, and you, for your service to our Royal Majesty,” Kris said. The precise order of gratefulness had been an important point Ron had lectured Kris on. From the look of the Iteeche captain, her words appeared to have passed muster.
Once that communication was finished, Kris found herself on the receiving end of a call from Commodore Afon, “Do you still want me to follow the drill we worked out?”
“Of course, Commodore, I’m a belt and suspenders kind of gal,” Kris said with an encouraging smile.
“Aye, aye, Admiral,” and Afon clicked off.
“Has my eager tiger changed her stripes?” Jack muttered, hand over his mouth.
“Even a Longknife can learn if you rub her face in it often enough.”
They continued to close on the jump.
The Defender of the Emperor No. 207 went through the jump two minutes ahead of Afon. Thirty seconds later the jump buoy popped back into space and broadcast a snapshot of the area a million kilometers around the jump. There was nothing closer than the stream of merchant ships that had gone for the last four minutes ahead of the Iteeche battlecruiser. There was a long line of merchant ships approaching the jump, but none would arrive in the next twenty minutes.
Kris whistled softly. Controlling this jump’s traffic must take a whole lot of computer sweat and obedience to orders.
MY THOUGHTS EXACTLY, Nelly added.
Kris now ordered her battlecruisers to Condition Zed and beat all hands to battle stations. A minute later, all her battlecruisers reported ready for action. Interesting enough, Ron’s battlecruisers were still at Condition Baker, and had been since the last jump. Still, Kris stayed attentive to everything. The jump ahead. The traffic behind. The battlecruisers at the nearby station.
Nothing appeared threatening.
It looked peaceful and continued to be peaceful.
But how often has ‘looking peaceful’ gone to hell in a blink?
Afon’s flagship went through the jump. Six seconds later, the Dependable followed it through. Less than a second later, a message rocket shot back through the jump. Kris sat forward in her chair as the screens before her filled with the data from the messenger.
Then she let out a sigh of relief.
Afon’s rocket carried a scan of the area five million klicks around the jump. It showed the same merchant ships headed for the jump and Defender of the Emperor No. 207 as well as those headed away that Kris’s navigator identified as ones they’d tracked before their jump out of this system.
Of warships, there were only the two Iteeche and four human battlecruisers.
Kris leaned back and watched placidly as the next twelve battlecruisers of Task Force 2 made their jump, then waited as the Princess Royal led Task Force 1 through. Once through the jump, her screens quickly filled with data showing the entire system.
Beside her, Jack whistled softly. “Talk about a traffic control challenge.”
Kris nodded before whispering, “Yes.”
There were six jumps into and out of the system. Only one of them led toward the Imperial system and traffic was streaming toward it from the other five jumps. Each of the inbound jumps had a huge space station hanging in space a couple of million klicks from it, and from them came the emissions of several battle fleets along with plenty of honking big laser cannons. The jump into the Imperial system had three of the biggest stations Kris had ever seen, each with its own battle fleet.
Kris gulped as she took it all in.
“I think they want to keep the Emperor safe,” she muttered.
“Ya think?” Jack said.
Kris very much wished she had more ships. For someone charged with representing all humanity, she very much felt like a mouse that had wandered into a cage full of hungry lions and tigers. She’d already run into the bears not so long ago.
Hopefully, one Royal Princess was not on the dinner menu.