Tenacious

70

The Wasp was in dockyard hands and likely to stay there for some time.

“Couldn’t you at least have kept the eight ships separate?” Benson asked as he reported to Kris upon her return from a hard day dirtside.

“I had a fight on my hands,” Kris pointed out. “I needed four patched-together warships more than I needed eight wrecks.”

“Well, while you may have gotten yourself something you could fight, what you did was totally scramble those eight ships’ basic matrices. If you ask me, you’d be better off just sucking this metal into a holding tank to use to patch the other ships with human-space Smart Metal. We could start all over again with eight new ships. Say we use our Smart Metal and pour it around new reactors and 22-inch lasers. I’d bet Drago would love that.”

“No doubt he would. How long will it take?”

The yard manager shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine, but, for what it’s worth, I’ve already told Amber to get your flag quarters ready on the P Royal.”

So it was that Kris found herself again in the comfortable quarters of her flag bridge on the Princess Royal.

At the moment, the screens running around her bulkheads showed her new order of battle. With Jack at her side, she studied it. Two divisions of four ships made up a squadron of eight under a commodore. Two squadrons could make a task force under a rear admiral. Two task forces could make up a task fleet of thirty-two war wagons commanded by one of her new vice admirals.

Only who gets what?

“It looks nice and simple, if I go by the numbers,” Kris said. “I’ve got twelve squadrons. They fold into three task fleets under three vice admirals.”

“Only which squadrons go into which fleets?” Jack said. He had such a wonderful ability to put into words what was nagging at her gut.

Kris sighed. “I’ve got four squadrons with combat experience, but their ships are all the old 20-inch frigates. The six squadrons with those nifty new 22-inchers have never been shot at. They have never dodged and weaved the way you have to to survive the way I fight.”

“And who will fight best alongside whom?” Jack added.

“Yeah, do I show some respect for local alliances back home, or just dump ships where I think best? I’ve already done that, merging the Helvetican ships into other squadrons to bring them up to strength.”

Jack nodded. “All except Miyoshi’s BatRon 3. He’s still down one.”

Kris nodded, her mind already racing. “I’ll need to keep ships grouped by their support ships?”

Jack nodded. “Are you feeling the headache I’m feeling just looking at this?”

“Where’d you hide the painkillers?”

“I’ll get you one.”

“Please do. I don’t usually complain about cramps, but between this pain in my head and that pain in my belly, I could use something.”

“Going to bite my head off?”

“Have I ever?”

“Nope, but the last couple of days have been a bit more of a pain in the ass than usual.”

In a moment, Jack returned with two capsules and water.

“The first two vice admirals are easy. I already gave Kitano her third star. Miyoshi is easily my second pick.”

“He’s been good to us,” Jack said. “He didn’t have to take us aboard the Mutsu when you called.”

“He’s getting his third star because he fought his battle well, not because he saved my head from the chopping block.”

“I know. So, who gets the third?”

“Hawkings is from Wardhaven. Bethea is from Savannah. Both are battle experienced, but they’re both from the U.S., as is Kitano. Do I go with two U.S. task fleet commanders even though we’re only putting up a third of the ships?”

“Who else is there? No one else is battle experienced.”

Kris nodded, but something told her it wouldn’t be that easy. “Earth just gave us three squadrons,” she pointed out. “That’s only one squadron shy of a task fleet. And they are all 22-inchers.” Kris brought Jack up to date on the new Earth armor.

“Interesting, if it works,” Jack said.

Kris started moved squadrons around on her board.

“If I gave Yi the third star and build a task fleet around the Earth contingent, would that make him happy enough to give up one squadron of 22-inch frigates with their fancy armor? I’d swap in the two 20-inch squadrons from Scanda and Savannah. Bethea would be rear admiral commanding that task force . . . ?”

“That might work,” Jack said. “The Earth battle fleet would have one battle-tested squadron, and if Yi listened to Bethea, he might save himself some time adapting to our way of fighting.”

“Then, if I give Miyoshi both the Musashi squadron of 20-inchers and the Yamato squadron of 22-inchers, we’d have another. Add in the New Eden squadron of 22-inchers and the Esperanto and Hispania squadron of 20-inchers, that would give us another, well-balanced fleet.”

“And if Kitano had an Earth squadron and the Pitt’s Hope contingent mounting 22-inchers, you’d be pairing them with the battle-experienced 20-inchers of old BatRon 1 and 2, what’s left of them,” Jack muttered.

Kris nodded. Of course, right now BatRon 1 was pretty much the Princess Royal that she was riding in at the moment and the Resistance. Until Benson worked a miracle of spinning up new ships for the crews that had followed Kris into that hellish alien world and back, Amber’s fleet would be a bit short.

Kris looked it all over and found it good. Still, before she spoke, she ambled over to her desk and knocked on its wood.

“That looks good. As good as we’re going to get. I don’t want to sound unusually optimistic, but it doesn’t look like anything can go wrong with this.”

Later, she wished she’d knocked a whole lot harder.