Furious

62

They were only a half hour late getting under way.

Then, as they backed out of dock, the first surprise arose.

“Pier Tie-Down 1 refuses to release.”

“Can you give me a picture of the problem?” Katsu was in full engineering mode. The picture appeared in a small window of the main screen. He studied it.

“Ah, some extra Smart Metal is clogging the tie-down. I can fix that.” He started tapping on his Smart Metal ControllerTM.

“The Sakura is having the same problem,” Senior Chief Beni, ret., called from sensors. He was sharing it with a much younger chief from Musashi who nodded in agreement but seemed a bit too shy to point out the failure of her elders.

“I’m sending the correction to Sakura,” Katsu announced.

There was a slight catch as each pier tie-down came up for release, but no further hang-ups. The undocking took only two minutes more than expected.

They quickly cleared the controlled space around High Kyoto station and went to two gees acceleration for Jump Point Gamma, with the Wasp ahead by a hundred klicks and the Sakura offset fifty klicks to port.

The trip should have taken four hours. It took more.

Guaranteed for five gees, things still broke loose at two. Four times they had to slow to one gee. Once, they even went into free fall. The captain was philosophical about it. “New ships need shakedowns. New designs really need a shakedown.”

Kris didn’t have time for a shakedown cruise. She didn’t have time for much of anything. Katsu was both her enemy and her hero at the same time. She demanded that he quit apologizing for everything that went wrong. “Don’t apologize. Fix it!”

She relented on her plan to go slow with Katsu and his new computer Fumio. Nelly helped sync Fumio with the Smart Metal ControllerTM, and things moved faster.

Kris wished she could have arranged for a better interface between her engineer and his new gadget, but there wasn’t time for that. When things slowed down, Kris would fix that.

No, when things sped up.

No, when they got where they were going, then she’d take time.

Right now, time was what she didn’t have enough of, and it was running away from her faster and faster.

Five hours into the four-hour trip, things seemed to have settled into their new normal. Kris turned to Captain Drago. “If we’re going to high gees after the jump, shouldn’t we be getting into our high-gee stations?”

“You’ll want to go to your quarters,” Katsu told Kris. “The new system works best as a second skin,” he said with a blush.

“Well, that should simplify the uniform of the day,” Kris growled, and headed for her room to find . . . something . . . waiting for her. It looked like an egg on tiny wheels. She tapped the OPEN HERE spot, and something that might have been a chair appeared. Stripping quickly, she settled herself into the egg, and it closed around her.

Just like that, the double weight she’d been feeling at two gees vanished. She wiggled, and the thing wiggled with her. She knew the thing was in touch with every inch of her body, but she didn’t feel that way. Her memories of a summer day at the lake in a bikini seemed more confining.

She pointed her right index finger at the door, and the egg moved off. The door opened automatically before Kris. Her door was a door, not an airtight hatch. Kris headed for the bridge and found that the egg flowed easily over the hatch coaming.

“Enjoying your new toy?” Captain Drago asked drolly from his own shiny egg.

“I think so,” Kris said. “How does it work when nature calls?”

“It’s supposed to handle both liquid and solid waste. I’m told it will even give you a bath. It would be nice to come out of high gee without the crew smelling like they’d lived in a stable for a month.”

“We’ll see what we see,” Kris said, only seconds before Katsu rolled onto the bridge in his own egg.

“What do you think of it? I designed it myself,” he said.

“Feels pretty good, Katsu-san. Can I fight from in it?”

“The station will sync with your battle station. As you move your hands, finger, and feet, the station will react as if you were touching it.”

Kris rolled over to her Weapons station, said “Sync” and immediately began moving her hands and fingers.

And almost fired Laser 1.

“Safety this station,” she snapped, and the firing sequence stopped. “Let’s try that again,” and Kris went through the motions of setting up a firing solution with the board flashing THIS IS A DRILL.

Two hours, thirty-five minutes behind schedule, the Wasp kicked it up to three gees, took on 20 RPMs clockwise, and vanished into the Gamma Jump.

* * *

It took the navigator a few moments to identify the star field in front of them. The Sakura joined them as the young lieutenant at Nav announced, “We covered some six hundred light-years. We jumped right across the Iteeche Empire, I think.”

“She’s got that right,” Nelly said. “This is within five light-years of the system I was aiming for. It should have two of the new jumps.”

“I only see one jump,” the navigator said, more puzzled than disagreeing.

“Turn up the gain on your atom laser,” Kris said. “The Mod 12 is very sensitive. We’re looking for only a breath of gravity disturbance.”

The young woman adjusted her board, and two fuzzy points in space appeared in the space ahead of them.

“Nelly, which one?” Kris said.

“Aim for the farthest one,” Nelly said. “If we keep four-gee acceleration on, we should reach it in nine hours and be making close to five hundred thousand klicks per hour. Go to thirty-five revolutions per minute, but in a counterclockwise direction.”

“For someone who’s guessing, your computer seems to be very exact,” Captain Drago said.

“It’s a computer thing. So sue me,” Nelly said.

The young lieutenant on Nav looked dismayed, but the skipper growled, “Make it so,” and she did. She also radioed the Sakura its new course. If there was dismay at the other end of the line, it was not given voice.

Nine hours later, the Wasp disappeared into the fuzzy jump. Kris no longer had any idea whether they were on schedule or not.

The Sakura had hardly had time to join them when the navigator said, “We have jumped three thousand light-years. And there are three of those strange jump points in this system.”

“I show no activity in this system,” Senior Chief Beni reported to Kris’s relief. This far out, anything was possible. So far, her Longknife luck was holding.

The good Longknife luck.

“Time to head back, Nelly.”

“Reduce acceleration to two gees. Head for the closest jump. We’ll be using 25 RPMs, still counterclockwise,” Nelly said cryptically.

Kris did not ask if this was the system Nelly had been aiming for, and Nelly did not offer it. If where they were was close enough, it was good enough for Kris.

Kris tried to catch a nap while they covered the distance to the next jump. She ended up sleeping through the next jump only to awaken to Nelly’s saying, “That wasn’t what I wanted.”

“How bad is it?” Kris and the skipper asked together.

“We’re farther out toward the rim of our arm,” Nelly said. “We’ve got the entire Iteeche Empire between us and M-688. It’s time to start decelerating, but if I’m wrong on this next jump, I may need to use my Iteeche.”

Now the young navigator did look terrified.

“Don’t worry,” Kris said. “I have friends at the Iteeche Emperor’s court.”

Both the navigator and Katsu showed disbelief.

“Nelly, try to aim us carefully this time,” Kris said.

“I’m always aiming us carefully,” Nelly said. “If we decelerate at 3.85 gees and take the next jump at three hundred thousand klicks and 20 RPMs clockwise, I think we’ll be just one jump from M-688.”

BUT WE WILL LIKELY BE ON THE ITEECHE SIDE OF THE LINE, KRIS.

SO LONG AS IT PUTS US IN REACH OF M-688, NELLY, I’LL TAKE THE RISK.

Which left Kris wondering if she should spend the remaining time checking out her Weapons station or composing a “We come in peace” speech in Iteeche.

“Penny, let’s get the Wasp into a good defensive mode. At this acceleration, no one is using their bed or research station. We may have to fight at M-688.”

“You think those merchant ships will be armed?” Penny asked.

“With all they’re carrying and the problems we’ve had with pirates in out-of-the-way places, I certainly wouldn’t go out here unarmed. I can’t see my Grampa Al being any less ready to defend what’s his.”

“You have a point,” Penny said.

After giving all hands thirty minutes of warning, Penny selected CONDITION ZED on her board, and the Wasp began to change around them.

“Did you ever test this change of system at near four gees, Katsu-san?” Kris suddenly thought to ask.

“No,” he admitted.

Kris adjusted her board to show defense on half of it. NELLY, HAVE YOU TALKED TO FUMIO-SAN ABOUT ALL THIS NEW STUFF?

YES, KRIS. ALL OF MY KIDS ARE WORKING WITH FUMIO-SAN TO MONITOR THIS, THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR FINALLY THINKING OF THAT.

Katsu only had to intervene twice during the five minutes the Wasp took to shrink down into fighting form.

“I’m not sure,” Chief Beni reported, “but I think the Sakura just got smaller and tighter.”

No one was asleep nine hours later as they took the next jump.

“That’s not good,” Nelly said, even before the navigator made a report. “We’re in Iteeche territory. One advanced planet and some asteroid-mining operations. The jump we want is a normal one, and it’s three hours away, Kris.”

“Chief, any Iteeche ships close by?”

“None that I’d call close, but there are several deeper in the system near the colony.”

“Nelly, send this message. This is Princess Kris Longknife of United Society. I am on a mission for Roth’sum’We’sum’Quin Cap’sum’We related to hostile alien sighting by Iteeche ships. We will be departing this system in three hours. Please advise the Imperial court of our visit.”

“Think that will work?” Captain Drago asked.

“We’ll know in what, forty minutes?”

In twenty minutes, one of the Iteeche Death Balls well sunward suddenly went to two gees and headed in their direction. “They spotted us,” Kris whispered. “Now what happens when they get our message?”

Ten minutes later, the Death Ball slowed to only one-gee acceleration. It was still headed their way, but they would be long gone before it got in range.

Kris started breathing again.

Katsu brought his egg close to Kris’s. “I saw that you had friends in high places in the Emperor’s court of Musashi, but the Iteeche high court as well?”

“Sometimes I even surprise myself,” Kris admitted.

Now only one problem remained. If the next jump went right, she’d be arriving a good hour before the exodus of the trading, or traitor, fleet began. How would she handle that?

It was a sure bet that giving commands naked would not carry the full power of her convictions. The egg hardly could be better. She steered back to her cabin and, despite weighing three times normal, managed to put on undress whites with ribbons. If she had to make a statement, she’d have all of her history backing her up.

And, of course, there would be the Longknife thing. She’d use everything in her quiver before she’d use the 18-inch guns.

She motored back to the bridge a good thirty minutes before the jump. Katsu was right. The seams in the uniform, to say nothing of the belt and clutch backs on her ribbons, were a real pain. Clearly, for the foreseeable future, until someone came up with a seamless shipsuit, the new battle dress would be bare-ass naked in an egg.

That was bound to cause talk.

The time came for the jump. Since it was to be a more conventional jump, Kris ordered a messenger buoy sent through three minutes before the Wasp. Its message was simple. Ship coming through. She’d let the folks on the other side stew about what ship and whose.

At the right second, they entered the jump doing fifty thousand klicks an hour and with the ship rock steady.