Defiant

16

''They just lit up like a Christmas tree,'' Moose said.

Kris unstrapped and stepped around to study Sandy's and the raven's boards. Multicolored bar graphs danced everywhere, circles made sweeps, and lists grew as fast as cryptic letters could appear in small windows.

''He's searching us, full active,'' Penny said.

''Active with everything he's got,'' Moose said softly. ''And he brought the whole friggin' farm with him. Before he was pinging us with some off-the-shelf stuff I could have picked up in any secondhand ship store on Earth. No-account stuff that said nothing. This new stuff says he's good. He's very good.''

''Too good?'' Kris whispered.

Moose glanced up from his board, a tight grin on his face. ''Not as good as me and my raven buddies. No, he's not as good as he thinks he is. If he was, he'd have brought this stuff up a bit at a time. Tickled us with one, see how we react. Play with us, the way a good fly fisherman plays a wily trout. Let it ran a bit, pull to set the hook, then ran, pull, ran, pull.'' He shook his head. ''This fellow is all brute force.''

Kris hoped brute force was not all it took to win.

''Young man, I understand you have a song for the battle net, a song to cheer us on our way and make it harder to crack our communications,'' Moose said.

''Just a moment,'' Tom said, and tapped his board. ''Battle net going active … now,'' he announced.

Drumming began, then a distant pipe, growing closer. A woman's voice, husky with confidence, filled the bridge.

Axes flash, broadsword swing,

Shining armour's piercing ring

Horses run with polished shield,

Fight Those Bastards till They Yield

Midnight mare and blood red roan,

Fight to Keep this Land Your Own

Sound the horn and call the cry,

How Many of Them Can We Make Die!

Follow orders as you're told.

Make Their Yellow Blood Run Cold

Fight until you die or drop,

A Force Like Ours is Hard to Stop

Close your mind to stress and pain,

Fight till You're No Longer Sane

Let not one damn cur pass by,

Kris eyed the main screen with its six red hostile dots coming at them. She mouthed the refrain as the singer came to it: ''How Many of Them Can We Make Die!'' She wasn't alone.

Guard your women and children well,

Send These Bastards Back to Hell

We'll teach them the ways of war,

They Won't Come Here Any More

Use your shield and use your head,

Fight till Every One is Dead

Raise the flag up to the sky,

How Many of Them Can We Make Die!

Now the whole bridge echoed as each word was bitten out. The singer took a step back, leaving the music to drum and pipe and other things Kris couldn't quite place. Studying the music just wasn't in her. Feeling it riff up her back, harden the muscles of her gut, her fists. Now that was something she felt like doing. The singer tiptoed back.

Dawn has broke, the time has come,

Move Your Feet to a Marching Drum

We'll win the war and pay the toll,

We'll Fight as One in Heart and Soul

Midnight mare and blood red roan,

Fight to Keep this Land Your Own

Sound the horn and call the cry,

How Many of Them Can We Make Die!

Axes flash, broadsword swing,

Shining armour's piercing ring

Horses run with polished shield,

Fight Those Bastards till They Yield

Midnight mare and blood red roan,

Fight to Keep this Land Your Own

Sound the horn and call the cry,

How Many of Them Can We Make Die!

''Da … amn,'' the raven breathed. ''I'm supposed to slip message packets in among that.''

''Where did a nice peaceful boy from Santa Maria lay his hands on something like that?'' Kris asked.

Tom actually turned a light pink around the edges. ''When I wrote my granddame about how hard it was for me to become a trigger puller for you on Olympia, no matter how bad the hard men were, she asked me if I didn't remember that song, ‘The March of Cambreadth.' I told her of course I did. I'd sung it since I was a wee kid, but, well, it was just a song.

''When she came to our wedding, she took me aside, told me that maybe she and Granny Good Good had been, well, maybe a bit too good. They didn't tell us kids, growing up, how it came to be that we still sang that song on Santa Maria.

''You see, back when the lost scientists finally realized they were lost and never going to see Earth again, we were all taught in school that they had a rough hundred years, the Hungry Years, when the colony could have died. What they don't teach us kids in school is that not all the grownups were as willing as the textbooks say they were to go to bed hungry and get up to hard, killing work every day. Some took to the hills.

''And some came back as raiders. Trying to steal what they weren't willing to work to grow. There were fights, and men died to keep food in their kids' mouths.

''Me, now, I'm thinking it was stupid of them not to tell us kids the real history, especially now that we're heading our separate ways to face what we are, but Granddame gave me back a song I've known all me life, and now I've given it to you.''

Behind Tom, the song was on repeat: ''Guard your women and children well.'' Yes, in the long peace, maybe a lot had been forgotten. A lot had been softened too much.

''Granddame says the song came with the original crew from Earth, that it dates from the twentieth century. With all its talk of axes and swords, armor and horns, I kind of think it's older than that, but it was good enough to get us through the hungry time.''

''How Many of Them Can We Make Die!'' Kris and Tom, Penny and Fintch sang together.

''It ought to get us through today,'' Tom finished.

''Yes,'' Kris agreed.

''Follow orders as you're told,

Make Their Yellow Blood Run Cold.''

''What the hell is that?'' the Admiral snapped.

''We're intercepting their battle net, sir,'' the Duty Lieutenant said. ''That's playing on all their ships. Intel thinks they're burying message packets somewhere in the carrier wave, the song or somewhere. We're searching it, sir.''

''Well, what's it telling us?''

''There seem to be a dozen or so ships separating from the transports, sir. They appear to be on a one-g course to a lunar orbit, sir. Intel expects they will do a midcourse flip, decelerate at one g, and loop around the moon—it's called Milna, sir—and then come at us on a converging course. They should be sending it to your battle board very soon, sir.''

The battle board winked, and the course was now displayed as the net announced, ''How Many of Them Can We Make Die!''

''How many ships do we face? What types? Are they armed with anything but this song?''

''Just a moment, sir. They are reviewing the data.''

The Admiral stomped over to the intel boards that his own technicians were overseeing. He watched lines of all different colors go up and down, squiggles that told him nothing while a woman sang, ''Send These Bastards Back to Hell / We'll teach them the ways of war, / They Won't Come Here Any More.''

''Cut that damn noise off,'' the Admiral snapped. He did not want that playing throughout his fleet.

''Yes, sir. Luister, cut the sound feed.''

''Done, sir,'' and quiet descended on flag plot.

''An interesting bit of ancient lore,'' Saris noted. ''Axes, horses. Do they intended to scare us with that?''

''Or laugh us to death.'' The future governor chuckled.

''I will find more humor when I know something about those ships that are headed for the moon. We know they have one destroyer. Maybe a second that's an escapee from a breaker's torch. What are these other six, no twelve?''

The Admiral's question was met with strained silence.

''They can't be very good, or they'd have been sent to Boynton,'' the future governor offered from his vast store of military knowledge.

The Admiral tapped the senior technician on the shoulder. ''Talk to me. Tell me something. Anything about those ships.''

''Sir, it's not that I can't tell you anything about them. It's that it changes every second. It won't stay the same, sir.''

''Changes?'' The Admiral frowned.

''Yes, sir. The first ship, sir, that's the Admiral-class destroyer we were told to look for. Engines fit. Laser capacitors are loaded and humming. We've got noise off its passive sensor suit. Our lasers are painting it. It's an Admiral-class destroyer match to the third decimal place, sir.''

''I like what you're telling me. Keep talking.''

''Second ship is an old John Paul Jones-class. As close to a wreck as ever managed to drift away from a pier. But her reactor is going, her laser capacitors are holding 84 percent of their charge. I'd say they've been worked on recently. Some new Westinghouse cells in place of the original GEs. It's also making more noise with its passive suite than it has any right to, sir. There's a lot more stuff in their CIC than that ship was built with. Some of it doesn't match against anything in our Jane's All the Worlds' Electronic Countermeasures. I'd guess that's why intel is taking so long to hammer out a report. He can't just search and copy from the usual book. Something is very weird out there.''

''Keep talking. I don't like what you're telling me, but I like it better than silence.''

''The Halsey, that's the ship, isn't it, sir?''

''Yes, she's the ship.''

''Well, the Halsey isn't just screening the ships behind her, she's streaming chaff, crystals, and needles, sir. Our radars, lasers, and magnetics get through sometimes, other times just bounce off that crud. Makes it hard to know what is real, what isn't. Also, and I'm not sure of this, sir, but I'd swear that some of our signals—radar, lasers, and the like—are being messed with, captured, processed, resent back to us. Those ships move, wiggle, grow, shrink, do all kinds of stuff.''

''That's impossible!'' Saris snapped.

''Yes, sir. I know, sir. But it explains why the Commander down at intel doesn't want to go on the record, sir. Me, I'm just a tech. I'm not bucking to make Captain, sir.''

''But you just made Chief. Lieutenant, log the promotion.''

''Yes, sir,'' the Duty Lieutenant said, eyes wide.

''Admiral, the man hasn't told you anything,'' the future governor snapped.

''No, but he will. What do you know, Chief? What do you think you might know? And what do you think that they want you to think you know?'' Behind him, the governor snickered.

The new Chief studied his board with its different gauges and displays. He pointed at one. ''There, in the lead is the Halsey followed by the old Cushing. On that I would wager my life, and the life of my wife and child.''

''You may be,'' Maskalyne said darkly.

''Go on, Chief,'' the Admiral said.

''Behind them are six ships. Definitely six ships. Then a space and six more, sir. Other than the raw count, I am not sure what I can tell you about these twelve targets.''

''Nothing about their engines?'' the Chief of Staff cut in.

''Sir, the two ships following the destroyers appear to have a pair of GE-2700 reactors. The ones after them sport either Westinghouse 3500 or Tumanskii 3200. The first would be appropriate for two old converted light cruisers, the last for four ancient battle cruisers from the Iteeche Wars, even the Unity War. However, sir, there is something soft about the data. Some fluctuations that just don't belong there, sir. I can't help but wonder, sir, if they aren't somehow masking or faking their reactors' magnetic signatures, sir.''

''We are not masking our active reactors,'' the Admiral said.

''No, sir. The magnetic signatures put out by our reactors are too large. Our fleet has no capability to mask or modify the signatures put out by our active reactors,'' the Chief replied as if reading from the official manual.

''Yet you think they are?'' the Chief of Staff snapped.

''Because of the softness of that line on that scope, sir,'' he said, pointing with a finger whose nail was bitten off to the quick. ''It should be sharp. It is not. And because some of us technicians think that, with the right equipment, we might be able to mask the flux field around our reactors. Redirect them. Certainly create more than they were generating. Sir. Some of us technicians talk about doing what I think they are doing.''

''Because that line is hazy,'' the Chief of Staff said.

''It would be interesting to see what some of you senior techs could do, with some equipment… and money,'' the Admiral grunted. But what he needed now was time. And time was something he didn't have.

''What about those last six?''

''They appear to be two destroyers and four cruisers, sir, but I'm not sure. Still, their lines are more defined. It is as if the reactors they are masking were a closer fit.''

''Hmm,'' the Admiral said, rubbing his chin. ''You may have told me a lot. Or you may have told me nothing. Is there anything else you wish to add to your lot of nothing, Chief?''

''One more thing, sir, and it may be even more of a phantom than the rest, sir.''

The Admiral nodded.

''Our sensors keep getting echoes or ghosts as they try to paint the targets. As if for a moment we see something more than the ship. It could just be a reflection off the chaff. It could be part of the decoy signals I talked about. Or there could be more targets.''

''Now you are seeing ghosts,'' the Chief of Staff said. ''Lieutenant, call for this man's relief. We can not have a rumormonger in flag plot.'' He glanced back at the Admiral as he shoved the Chief/technician from his seat.

''Do we have anything from intel?'' the Admiral asked.

The Duty Lieutenant nodded, pressing his commlink tighter to his ear. ''He is making his report now, sir. His assessment is that the two destroyers in system are making a run for the moon, streaming target decoys behind them to make them look like a major force. He says we have nothing to fear from them. Most likely they will not even use the moon to orbit back toward us but will continue on the run.''

''Then why didn't they just run for the Adele jump point?'' The Admiral sighed. The relieved Chief said nothing. ''And how is it that the Longknifes have target drones that can fake their reactor signatures, and we do not?'' he added. The newly promoted and relieved Chief gave the Admiral the fatalistic shrug that peasants had been giving their lords for centuries as he left.

''It will be interesting to see, Chief, whose estimates are more correct,'' the Admiral said. The Chief turned, stood tall, and saluted him, then passed his replacement on the way out.

''You should not still be calling him Chief,'' Saris said.

''And I am not sure that you should have relieved him,'' the Admiral said, going back to his battle board. Once again he stared at it. It precisely told him the location of ships. Beyond that, it told him nothing.

''Keep her steady,'' Tom told Fintch.

''Steady, aye, sir,'' the helmswoman repeated. The 109 was fifth in line for Squadron 8. Fintch had the lead fake battleship barely five hundred meters off her starboard side. She tracked the ship with a short-range laser bought at the local sporting goods store, used by mountain climbers to measure their work. The laser only reached out two kilometers and was guaranteed not to damage your eyes even if you accidentally looked into it while holding it yourself. It certainly wouldn't go the 400,000 kilometers or so to the approaching enemy fleet.

On the 109's left, an armed yacht was doing the same, hugging close enough to give any insurance man a heart attack. Kris wondered how the Coast Guard Reservists, who usually handed out tickets for violating such safety rules, must feel now as they broke them themselves.

She suspected they were getting a huge kick out of it.

''Penny, Moose. You know anything about those battleships that you didn't know before?''

The older fellow raised an eyebrow at Penny. She nodded his way. ''I wish I could tell you something, ma'am,'' he said, ''but now that they've lit up their active lasers and radar, all I'm getting from them is what I'd expect to get from one mean and nasty Wilson-class battlewagon. Now, these are from Greenfeld, not Earth, so there's bound to be some differences in them, but so far, I can't tell you anything more than what we pretty much knew when they first popped in system. They're big. They can do a lot of damage, and they are probably lugging a lot of ice.''

Kris nodded. Off to the right, two freighters and those three lost runabouts of Division Seven boosted toward Jump Point Beta and the intruders. Van Horn hadn't told her what he planned from the freighters. Having some ships take an early swipe at the battleships looked like a good idea. Whoever commanded the invaders was playing his cards close to his vest, not even broadcasting his ultimatum now. A batch of missiles might force his hand. Part of it. She listened to the music for a moment.

Close your mind to stress and pain,

Fight till You're No Longer Sane

Let not one damn cur pass by,

How Many of Them Can We Make Die!

Yes, but her lost division? What did they think they were doing? Time passed with no answers, the ships did their flip, going from accelerating toward the moon at one g to decelerating into lunar orbit at one g. It was not easy, because Sandy wanted to keep the Halsey firing and spreading ''fairy dust'' as she called her chaff. First the Halsey flipped, then the Cushing, then Captain Luna's ''cruiser,'' and so on. And, in their shadow, each of the PFs and each of their yachts or runabouts. One of the yachts slipped up, flipped late. If that told the enemy anything, it didn't matter. They were on a course set by the laws of gravity and physics. In time they would collide, and then other laws of thermodynamics and light would apply. Everything was governed by laws.

Except the outcome. That would be governed by lasers and luck. And raw human willpower.

Kris sat with a lot less to do than Tom, who walked his bridge, occasionally checked with his other stations, making sure the 109 was ready for what was to come. Kris could do nothing but sit tight and wait. NELLY, DO YOU HAVE ALL YOUR EVASION SCHEMES DONE?

DONE, DISTRIBUTED, CHECKED, DOUBLE-CHECKED, AND RECHECKED. KRIS, THERE IS NOTHING TO DO, AND I WANT TO DO SOMETHING.

WE ALL DO, NELLY, BUT THERE IS NOTHING TO DO BUT WAIT.

I DO NOT LIKE WAITING.

NEITHER DO WE.

''Take your seats, folks; we're going to be going to zero g for a while,'' Tom announced as they approached Milna. Kris checked her seat belt. It was already as tight as it would go.

''Like why are we even here?'' Adorable Dora complained. ''I'm not close enough to the action … if there was any … to get pictures. All I'm hearing is that lame song. What's going on!''

''Nothing,'' Jack said, trying to stay as calm as the circumstances would allow, and finding they didn't allow all that much. Kris was up ahead, doing her best to get herself blown to atoms, and he was back here baby-sitting a woman who never lacked for something to complain about.

He'd thought that walking beside Kris as she played target to half the universe was the worst part of knowing the woman, but he was wrong. Here, tagging along behind her as she did what she wanted, led a tiny bunch of optimists out against impossible odds, this had to be the worst day of his life.

''Well, can't we do something?''

''No,'' Jack said. ''She is up there. We are back here. They are about to go behind the moon. While they're behind it, if something comes from Wardhaven, it will be our job to transmit it to them. Now, why don't you sit down and compose something.''

''I never compose. I'm perfect in my spontaneity. It says so in all my reviews.'' Not in the ones Jack read, but now was no time to educate someone who was oblivious to most of her life.

Jack sat, composed himself, and watched the carrier wave on the tight beam between High Wardhaven and their boat, between Kris's fleet and their boat. Nothing.

Kris watched as Milna slid between them and the intruders. With the moon's solid bulk blocking observation, it was time to act. ''Task Force Custer, may I suggest you edge further into the lead, say ten or fifteen thousand klicks ahead of us, tossing rockets up his rear at his vulnerable motors. Any discussion?'' Kris offered as she finished.

''It'll be harder to keep them in sparkles,'' Sandy said.

''I think we've kept them in the dark as long as we can,'' van Horn answered. ''We're forty-eight minutes from Task Group Reno doing its thing. Once they do, I doubt there will be all that much question that some of us are playing the missile arsenal role. I concur with Princess Longknife's orders. We'll do a quick burn, take a lower orbit, and come out ahead of you two.''

''Singh, follow Custer. I want you offset when we start.''

''Understood. We stay with Custer. Use him as our kick-off point. Has Nelly included this in our plan of approach?''

YES, I HAVE, Nelly answered.

''She has. If you are too far off, we will make adjustments.''

I INCLUDED OPTIONS FOR THEM TO BE AS FAR AS 150,000 KLICKS.

THANK YOU, GIRL. AND THANK YOU FOR KEEPING IT JUST BETWEEN US GIRLS.

YOU ARE WELCOME.

''Horatio, stay behind Custer and keep faking it as a gun line as long as possible. I will launch the Light Brigade's attack ten minutes after the Reno attacks. I want Divisions 4, 5, and 6 to hold at the line of departure and stay with Horatio.''

''Why?'' came from an unidentified boat, but Kris suspected it was being asked on every one of them.

''Because I still don't know enough about these battleships. If the Reno attack tells us something, I may give you different orders at the last minute, but just now, I want to save you for the final attack as they're coming up on the station.''

''I thought you wanted to have this settled before the station guns started shooting at all of us?''

''I wanted a lot of things,'' Kris snapped. She paused. The song on net was coming up on ''Follow orders as your told, / Make Their Yellow Blood Run Cold.'' ''What part of following orders don't you understand? Division 7 didn't follow orders. What's about to happen to them is going to be ugly. You going to do what you're told, or you want to get out and start walking back? Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got this battle to manage.''

''Horatio, Custer, Squadron 8 will do a loop around Wardhaven after our attack. That'll have me coming back at the battleships at a steep angle. You see a problem with that?''

''It should make it easier for the tugs to capture you,'' van Horn said. ''And for you to make a lunar orbit after your second attack. With you attacking earlier, it'll work better that way.''

''Fine,'' Kris said. NELLY, ORGANIZE THE ORDERS FOR THE TUGS, SEND THEM TIGHT BEAM TO JACK, AND LET ME KNOW WHEN HE ACKNOWLEDGES SENDING THEM ON TO HIGH WARDHAVEN.

There was a pause. JACK ACKNOWLEDGES THEM. More of a pause. JACK SAYS THE TUGS HAVE THEM AND WILL COMPLY. JACK SAYS BE CAREFUL.

HE DOES, DOES HE? TELL HIM TO BE CAREFUL HIMSELF.

HE SAYS HIS ONLY RISK IS KILLING ONE REPORTER.

TELL HIM THAT'S NO RISK, IT'S A NATIONAL SERVICE.

HE SAYS YOU DO YOUR JOB, HE WILL DO HIS JOB. OUT.

Kris leaned back in her chair as the ships around her accelerated in obedience to her orders. She'd placed her bets on some pretty slim data. Hunches really. She tried not to grit her teeth. She did her best to look loose, confident to those around her on the bridge. She had committed every ship that Wardhaven had in its defense. Every last one. Had Grampa Ray ever done anything so outlandish? Betting the entire future of Wardhaven on a single throw of a very small pair of dice.

Suddenly Kris knew what it must have been like to confront President Urm with nothing but a briefcase bomb. Or face an entire Iteeche fleet inbound for a planet and your defense forces outnumbered four to one. Or to know at that final battle that all of human existence hung on what you'd done last week, would do in the next few moments, and it might not be enough.

How had Grampa faced those burdens and stayed sane? One thing Kris did know. He had. And if he could, so could she. She tightened her belt… again. They were coming out from around the moon, accelerating at a full g … again. The battleships were there … again, on her board.

''Anything new?'' she asked.

''The same old same old,'' Penny answered.

''They're showing the same noise they were,'' Moose said.

''Let's see if we can teach them something new,'' Kris said.

***

The Admiral studied his battle board. The enemy was coming out from behind the moon in a different formation from the one it had been in when it entered.

''The six in the rear now lead,'' the Duty Lieutenant told the Admiral what his eyes already saw, ''but we can not tell you anything more about them. The eight now trailing them still seem to be led by the Halsey. While behind the moon, they did send a tight beam message to the single runabout trailing them. It relayed it to High Wardhaven. We do not know the content of the message, but based on it, a dozen tugs got under way and are going into orbit now. Intel identifies them as rescue and salvage.''

''Good, good,'' the future governor chortled. ''Let them keep the space around Wardhaven clear for our trade vessels. Don't want too much mess, now do we.''

The Admiral slammed his fist down on the battle board. ''I'm not worried about scrap iron in orbit. I am worried about those ships. Can't anyone tell me something about them?''

The Duty Lieutenant worried his lower lip. ''When they did their flip over on the way to the moon, there was an anomaly. Intel didn't report anything on it, but my technicians identified it. It was a fusion reactor ship. Small, yacht size, sir. Hiding in the shadow of the fleet ships.''

''Why didn't you mention that?'' the Chief of Staff demanded.

The Duty Lieutenant stiffened. ''I was waiting for intel to report it, sir. I kept waiting.''

''And they never did because it didn't fit their picture,'' the Admiral said. ''And they do like a nice, complete picture. Right up to when it falls apart.'' He tapped his board, where the two freighters made their way toward him, toward Jump Point Barbie. ''Sing to me,'' but all he got was silence. He sat back. Soon enough he would have plenty of noise. Then he would make his decisions. God help him if he decided wrong.