Free Daring by Mike Shepherd Page A

the best idea. It was a seaman recruit’s notion. Have you ever seen a yo-yo?”
    Kris admitted that she had once played with one as a girl. “I couldn’t make it do anything.”
    â€œWell, Seaman Welt can do anything with one of those spinning things. He can do it with two at the same time. That got me thinking,” the admiral said, beaming.
    Kris could see no reason why two spinning yo-yos should give anyone an idea to spin two ships around the same point, connected by a long beam or, in the case of the Wasp and the Intrepid , a long spun bar of Smart Metal TM . Still, while the ships swung around, there was at least half a gee of fake gravity.
    And no barfing.
    This idea had been floated before the fleet left Wardhaven space. Admiral Kōta tried it with the Haruna and Chikuma using a cable. They were sister ships and supposed to displace the same tonnage. Still, there was enough difference in weight and the distribution of that weight to cause the ships to do a little dance around each other and the point that was supposed to be their mutual center of gravity. The line tended to go very taut, then limp, then taut again.
    What would happen if, no, when it snapped was not something to contemplate. Nuu Yards got a quick contract to knock together several harnesses, and each of the ships adopted a “dance” partner. For the warships, it wasn’t too bad. Each of them had a sister ship close to its tonnage at hand.
    For the auxiliaries, it was a completely different story. They were exiled to the far end of the fleet-line anchorage as they orbited the small moon . . . and given wide berths. To which several of the merchant captains had added double the planned distance.
    Still, no one was complaining about the problem. No sailor really liked microgravity.
    The grim tour got worse. Most of the technicians were left behind in the forward holds when the admirals and their chief doctors headed aft. The last hold was still open to space. One hundred and twelve bodies floated in frozen preservation there.
    â€œDamn, they look so much like us,” Vicky said.
    â€œYeah. We run into the first alien that really looks like our brother,” Kris said, “and all it wants to do is kill us.”
    â€œSo we killed them,” Admiral Krätz said.
    â€œThey didn’t leave me much of a choice,” Kris said.
    â€œYes, yes,” Admiral Kōta said. “Still, it would be nice to be able to talk to them. Have you recovered any computers? Any books?”
    â€œWe’ll cover that in more depth on the Wasp ,” Kris said. “It is possible that all the computers were located right by the explosives. That would expose them to a lot of heat and force and leave them in very tiny pieces.”
    â€œAlmost as if someone didn’t want us to have anything to look at,” said Admiral Krätz.
    â€œIf that wasn’t their intention, they sure achieved it,” Kris said.
    â€œWhat would lie at the root of that kind of behavior?” whispered Admiral Channing.
    â€œThat is something that we can only guess at,” Kris said. “I’d like to give everyone a chance to do some of that guessing before I put the finishing touches on my report. I suspect you are all writing reports of your own?”
    The admirals nodded in various shades of noncommittal.
    â€œHow many of them were there?” Vicky asked.
    â€œSo far we’ve recovered all or major portions of 132 bodies,” Kris said. “Men, women, children. Elderly and babes in arms. There might be a few more out there. We’re still hunting.”
    â€œHow big was that ship?” Vicky asked. From the open mouths, she’d only beaten the admirals to the question by a moment.
    â€œAbout the size of one of our courier ships,” Kris said.
    â€œWhat have you got, ten people on those?” Admiral Krätz asked.
    â€œYes. When they were pirate schooners they used to cram