Tenacious

62

Rear Admiral Kitano was waiting for Kris in her own day cabin, which looked very much like a flag bridge at the moment.

The place looked downright homey. It had a wooden desk just like on the Wasp, only its carvings looked like angels rather than Greek pillars. It had several sofas and armchairs. These were in a lovely royal blue rather than the Wasp’s earth tones.

Kitano wasn’t seated at any of them but stood before one of several large screens.

“You didn’t rob the chief’s mess for the screens, did you?” Kris asked.

“I wouldn’t dare. These are all local production. Among hardworking Alwans, sixty-inch screens are catching on. I got half of the first production.”

Kris went to stand by her subordinate. The screens showed the Alwa System in the middle and jumps covering a dozen systems out.

Two were flashing red.

“Is there a problem?” Kris asked.

“No and yes. Or maybe yes. Do you want the good news or the bad news first, Admiral?”

“Make it Kris among admirals.”

“And I’m Amber,” Kitano said.

“And we are faced with?”

“What looks like incoming reinforcements, headed for Alpha Jump. That’s nice, but also headed for Alpha is something else.”

“Does this something else have some substance?”

“It just jumped into that red system farthest out. Six I think, but if we’re right, if it’s going fast enough and puts on some turns, its next jump takes it to our system.”

Kris frowned. “You know about what we found when we caught up with Sampson and her mutineers.”

“It’s a big report, Kris. Did I skim over something I shouldn’t have?”

“Some of the alien warships from the mother ship we first blew away put on some speed and revolutions and didn’t try to slow down until they were quite a ways from here. I don’t know if what they did was common knowledge or just something they stumbled across.”

“It looks to be developing into common knowledge, Kris. A week ago we had a ship jump into a system five out from our Beta Jump. It built up speed crossing the system and hit the jump at close to eight hundred thousand klicks an hour.”

“What did it do here?”

“It never got here,” Amber said. “It must have missed the jump. You know how the normal jumps do wiggles. We figure it zigged out of their way, and they went flying past it.”

“I wonder if they had enough fuel to slow down?” Kris said.

“We don’t think they did. Not if it was like the fast movers they used against us last time.”

Kris mulled that over for a bit. “So they sent a fast mover on what can only be a suicide mission, and it killed itself with nothing to show for it.”

“It looks that way. Now we’ve got another one incoming. I don’t think we can expect to be that lucky again.”

“Admiral, please get two 22-inch frigates moving toward both of your jump points.”

“You think we can shoot it down?”

“We better be able to. Because, if we don’t, I suspect it intends to make one hell of a hole in the planet below.”