Kris Longknife Stalwart

by Mike Shepherd

  "Okay, Kris, we know they've made a major industrial effort to slap together ships from spare parts, old designs, and whatever they could pull together. Nelly, are these ships Smart Metal?"

  "I don't hear any hum from that frequency, Jack. I think they threw whatever they had at this project."

  "Ouch," Jack said.

  "Ouch," Kris repeated. After taking five deep breaths, she focused on the battle board. "So, we've got an unknown lot of small attack craft. Likely fast as well. We can't get a solid count because they've got themselves clumped so close that all their reactor noise merges together."

  "Sooner or later," Jack said, "Someone's bound to screw up and ram someone else."

  "We can only hope so," Kris muttered. "We can only hope."

  49

  Hope is not a solid strategy or a battle plan. However, as Kris continued toward Longnae, that was all she had. No enemy skipper made any mistake. Not one of them took it in his head to ram the ship nearest him.

  However, the time came for the fleet around Longnae 4 to sortie if they intended to join the fleet coming from Longnae 3. That finally answered Kris's question.

  Ten thousand more battlecruisers were not what Kris wanted to face. Still, she expected her fleet to be able to fight outnumbered three-to-one and win. Fifteen- to sixteen-thousand rebel battlecruisers would amount to less than three-to-one odds.

  However, it was the smaller ships that Kris wanted to observe. They were close enough to get a solid visual on them. The first pictures cleared up a lot of questions . . . and left Kris with more.

  In order to get enough range for the smaller ships to circle Longnae 5 and turn back to engage Kris's fleet, all those small ships with their different reactors were lashed to a central fuel tank. The reactors on the six to eight ships connected to that auxiliary tank of reaction mass were so close as to make sensors go bonkers.

  To make matters worse, it seemed like every collection of small ships was different. Any effort to extract data from one clump fell apart when Nelly tried to match it against any noise coming from another close to it.

  The signals from the different configurations simply merged into one huge scream of static.

  Kris had to take her hat off to this bunch. They not only had thrown together a huge scratch force that was very likely going to make a hash of Kris's fleet's fire control computers, but by mixing and matching, they'd confused the best and suckered Kris right into their trap.

  Which missed the point entirely. Kris was exactly where she wanted to be.

  So, she called a council of war on net with Admirals Tong and Kitano.

  Quickly, Kris brought them up to date on the latest intel. "So, we face 16,000 battlecruisers when the two forces merge. As for the new ships, let's call them cruisers, it looks like there are at least twenty thousand strong. Maybe twenty-five. Nelly's still prying each cluster apart and counting noses."

  "The Magnificent Nelly is having trouble?" Jack asked.

  "Each cluster has to be individually looked at," Nelly said. "Worse, some of the reactors are heterodyning on each other so that two or three appear to be one. I believe that my estimate based on signal noise will likely be off by as much as ten percent, plus or minus."

  "That bad?" Admiral Kitano remarked.

  "Pretty much," Kris's computer answered. "Until we have a solid visual on all of them, we're going to be in the dark.

  Admiral Tong cleared his throat. "Pardon me for asking, but could the different cruisers that are clustered around that reaction fuel tank possibly be hiding more ships that have their reactors closed down?"

  "I wish you hadn't mentioned that," Kris answered. "Yes, you're right. I have a hard time believing that even a system as large as this one could knock together this swarm of attack craft. However, there could be one more surprise in store for us."

  "If I was in their shoes," Admiral Kitano said, slowly, "I'd pick a highly productive system and concentrate my forces there. They know you go for the wealthy systems. It's kind of hard to maintain surprise when you're picking your targets from a short list of the rebellion's most productive planets."

  Kris couldn't disagree with that. Could it be that she'd finally bit off more than she could chew? She had certainly taken bites out of the rebels. Could she have gone hunting a fox and ended up facing a bear?

  Shaking her head, Kris chose to bull through this. "Their level of training has to be low. The quality of their equipment also is questionable considering its likely obsolescence as well as hasty construction. Remember folks, the view from the other side is likely just as scary as the view was from this side."

  Kris found a feral grin spreading across her face. Not only was the view from the other side likely very troubled, but she could make their situation even scarier.

  "Admirals Tong and Kitano, let's steer a course closer to Longnae 5. Why not start this fight sooner and see how they take to that?"

  "It will also give us more room to maneuver as we close Longnae 4," Admiral Tong said.

  "Yep. Let's see how he reacts to us serving up a change to his battle plan."

  She issued the order, and 6,000 battlecruisers edged over ten degrees but kept their deceleration at one gee.

  Kris waited to see how her opposite would react to her not only not running but steering her ships closer.

  50

  Zom'sum'Ka'sum'Quin, of the Quin'sum'Domm clan, Imperial Admiral of the Second order of Steel, stared at his battle board as if it might show him the thoughts of his old teacher Commander Tong. For a Last Chosen with no clan, that man was one fine teacher at the academy.

  He was also his opponent for this developing battle. True, the Human Kris Longknife was somewhere in the pile of stinking seaweed and dead fish left high and dry by a storm. Still, the word was that Tong had been raised up by the loyalists to command this fleet of the combined fleets.

  It was he that Zom must defeat. With a third to a half of the Combined Fleet wreckage in the Longnae System, it would be an easy matter to sail his fleet to the Imperial Capital and put an end to that poseur the senior clans had raised up to sit as their puppet on the throne.

  His enemy was following a standard five-wing formation: van, main body, and a rear guard with an upper and lower wing protecting the flanks of the main body. That allowed them to concentrate their firepower where they wanted without allowing him to flank and engulf them. That might have worked if he had 10,000 ships to face their 6,000.

  Zom, however, had his own plans. His 16,000 battlecruisers were divided into nine wings. Two extra wings extended the line fore and aft of the usual three wings. The other two extra wings were above and below the high and low wings.

  Four of Tong's wings would be rolled up by a force double that number.

  If that wasn't enough of a problem, 25,000 unarmored cruisers with lasers big enough to burn the hide off of a battlecruiser would be mingled in with the battlecruisers, filling in the intervals between wings, charging through those holes in the line to close with the enemy, pouring on more gees than any Iteeche warship had ever taken.

  Tong would find himself engulfed both by stinging bees as well as battlecruisers easily his equal in speed and maneuverability. With Zom’s fleets outfitted with new high gee couches, this would be a very different battle from any ever fought in the Empire.

  This victory would lead the way for a new Empire. The ocean was about to suffer a sea change. The water that had grown cold, the fish who had grown sluggish, were about to be upset and overthrown by an upwelling of warm water, full of young and eager fish, ready to feed on those that were fat and slow.

  The old Empire would be preserved. These fools who dragged the Humans into the Empire's private affairs could rot in the dark depths.

  Zom's ruminations were interrupted as his number one staff officer cleared his throat. "Sir, it appears that the Imperial admiral has made an adjustment to his course."

  "What is old Tong up to, Number One?" Zom asked.

  "He is
now on a course to pass closer to Longnae 5, Sir. The battle will be joined sooner and last longer."

  "That is not something that I expected of Tong. He always struck me as a bit of an old ninny, always following the War College’s standard solution," Zom said, eyeing the change in course. For a bunch of green skippers, those six thousand battlecruisers did the course change quite smartly. Still, he would expect nothing less from ship drivers drilled by his old teacher.

  "Sir, is it possible that he may be under the influence of the Human Kris Longknife more than you expect?" his Number One asked, most tactfully.

  "Tong was never under anyone's influence. Would a battlecruiser captain who allowed himself to be swayed easily have turned away from a lost battle and come back alive?"

  "No, sir."

  "Of course not," Zom answered both his Number One and himself. He gazed long and hard at his battle board, studying the developing battle from every angle. He had a good eyeball for the way battles developed on the board. He'd won many a simulation with just a glance at the board.

  Now, his instincts said it was time to sail for battle.

  "Number One, order the fleet to up acceleration to 2.5 gees. Set a course for Longnae 5 that will have us joining up with the Longnae 3 fleet sooner. We can then form up before we swing around that small gas bag."

  "To hear is to obey, Admiral," the junior officer said, and stepped back to give the execute order for the plans already distributed to the fleet.

  Admiral Zom took a deep breath as his body grew heavier on his high gee couch. He had seen this battle many times in his mind's eyes. Now he would make it a fact in space.

  51

  Admiral Kris Longknife studied the vectors as the two rebel fleets upped their acceleration, then she went to supper. By the time she dropped by her flag bridge to make a final check before hitting the rack, the rebel commander’s intent was clear.

  Nelly reported she had found it quite a struggle to get a head count.

  "Each cluster around a huge fuel tank had to be analyzed individually. Each cluster was a different collection of types of ships," she told Kris.

  "There were six different reactor types, five of which dated back to the Iteeche War almost a hundred years ago. Their designs have been updated a bit. The sixth reactor is the one presently used by most Iteeche freighters built in the last ten years."

  Six different reactor signatures showed up in windows flowing down the right side of her board.

  "Still, the noise coming off of those six reactors should not have delayed me as much as it has. However, there was a different mix of six or more reactors coming off many of the clusters," Nelly reported.

  On the board, each of the six reactor signatures however, had been broken down to five to twelve slightly different signatures.

  "I doubt if they did this intentionally," Nelly said.

  Kris studied the various reactors’ electronic signatures. Some were wildly different. Some were hardly noticeable. Taken as a whole, however, they created a racket that made them hard to get a handle on.

  "So, "Kris said, "could this be a function of the production methods? Are we looking at the product of a whole lot of different fabrication plants?"

  "Kris, these may be handmade in factories. They could be the product of machinery and Iteeche labor rather than a standardized and automated fabrication plant. Even among these half-dozen there are too many variations for anything fabricated by standardized production functions. When they turn on all these dissimilar reactors at the same time, I get a hash of a signals like the ones that have been making it so hard for me to count noses around these tanks."

  "Have you got an estimate, yet?" Kris asked.

  "I know that you are facing sixteen thousand battlecruisers. Traveling with them are somewhere between twenty to twenty-five thousand single reactor cruisers with lasers ranging from 16-inches to 22-inches. All appear to be using smaller capacitors and more of them."

  "So, we're facing something like a garage sale of reactors, motors, and weapons. Any idea which are newly built and which were pulled out of long storage or a museum?"

  "Impossible to guess, Kris. The question I do find intriguing is this: did the Longnae system manage to knock all these cruisers together? You know that the fleet in front of us has to be a concentration of battlecruisers from several systems. Did they also send along their hand-me-down flotsam and jetsam?"

  "Would it matter, Nelly?"

  "It would mean there are likely several more thinly defended planets ready for the picking," Jack put in.

  "Nelly?" Kris asked again.

  "Jack has a good point," Kris's computer said.

  "There's also the matter of the fleet you’re facing," Jack continued.

  "It's thrown together," Kris pointed out. "Where did they get their ranging sensors and fire control computers, assuming they have any?" Lasers were worthless without the complete system to aim them.

  Jack shook his head, his eyes still on the battle board and the developing fleet action. "Kris, you know as well as I do that quantity has a quality all its own. If they get enough laser fire criss-crossing space, we're bound to run into some of it."

  Kris didn't like Jack's point, but, still, he had one. "Nelly, could we turn this fleet around and get out of here?"

  "It would be a tight run, but we could swing around Longnae 6 and head back for the jump."

  "And our transports?"

  Nelly took a bit longer to answer that one. "It would require some very smart ship handling. Any collisions at the jump point could leave a lot of wreckage drifting there. More ships would pile into them and the entire fleet could become backed up for some time."

  Kris spent a long moment examining her options. They boiled down to one, really. Charge her way through. Fight them, even if they were using her own defensive battle plan against her.

  "Jack, I've always wondered how I'd do fighting my own plan. He's hoisting me on my own petard. He's got his fleet out here and intends to spend as much time on a parallel course as he can. That is exactly what I would do if I was him."

  "So," Jack said, "what would you do if you were you on the offensive?"

  Kris let her eyes wander the battle board, measuring distance and accelerations for two different forces.

  "Nelly," she said, still thinking, "we're close to the point of flipping ship. How much sooner would we pass Longnae 5 if I set our deceleration at half a gee?"

  The battle board blinked, and new vectors replaced the ones that had been there for most of a day. It showed Kris's 2nd Battlecruiser Fleet arriving ahead of the rebel's main force and a bit more ahead of the smaller one.

  Kris's battlecruiser force would sweep by the enemy ships while they were slowing before their swing around Longnae 5. She'd have time for several broadsides at them as the two forces raced by each other. The shooting done, Kris would head direct for Longnae 4 and the rebels would be faced with a long rear chase.

  "That looks good," Jack said, "but it leaves our transports hanging out there in our rear."

  "Yeah, that was a bad idea, wasn't it?" Kris admitted. It was a bad idea to let the enemy get between her and her vulnerable transports. She again studied vectors and accelerations.

  "We could have them change course for Longnae 7," she muttered, finally.

  "Keep our transports well out of reach of his guns," Jack observed.

  "Yeah. We could always send them on a grand tour of the star system until we've taken Longnae 4 and can take off after whatever ships they have chasing them," Kris answered.

  "That might do it, Admiral," Jack admitted.

  "Nelly, pass along our latest intel to Admirals Tong and Kitano. Tell them I want to talk to them at 0830 tomorrow morning. If anyone has any idea how we catch these bastards in their own trap, I'd be glad to hear about it."

  "Aye, aye, Admiral," Nelly said. "The message is sent. They will be waiting for you to call them right after breakfast."

  "Now, Nelly, inform Admiral
Tong that I wish to steer five degrees closer to Longnae 5 and cut deceleration to .5 gee."

  Aye, aye, Admiral," Nelly again replied. "The order has been received. Admiral Tong has issued preparatory orders to the fleet."

  "Tell him to execute."

  "Aye, aye, Admiral. It is done."

  Kris felt herself get lighter as her weight dropped by half. She did not feel a five-degree change in course.

  Over the next several minutes, Kris peeled a flotilla out of each of her wings, a total of 160 battlecruisers and got them and her transport fleet on a course that would take them well out of the way of the coming fight.

  "Very good, Nelly. Now, Jack, I'm tired and I'd like to have my mind emptied of my worries for a few hours. Do you have any suggestions?"

  "I may have a few, Admiral," Jack said.

  His long legs got him to the hatch that entered their day quarters faster than Kris's tired legs could. He opened the door and ushered her into their quarters, not at all like a general, but definitely like a lover.

  52

  Admiral Zom, Commanding the First Combined Fleets of the True Loyalists was awoken from a sound sleep by his Number One Staff Officer.

  "The Human Kris Longknife," he almost spat the word, "has sent her ships in all sorts of wild directions as if they were mindless pollywogs dodging hungry fingerlings."

  Zom dressed and carefully covered the distance to his flag bridge in less than five minutes. Walking at two and a half times his usual weight was a pain. However, he liked to sleep in his own bed. Many of his crew were already sleeping at their battle stations in their high gee couches.

  On the way, he wondered what had caused his Number One to assume the Longknife Human was commanding the fleet opposite them.

  He eyed his battle board for a moment as he slipped onto his high gee couch, then frowned. "Are these projected vectors correct? How long have her ships been on these insane courses?"