Kris Longknife Stalwart

by Mike Shepherd

  "Nelly, is Admiral Tong awake?"

  "Yes, ma'am. His Number One staff officer woke him about the time I woke you."

  "Amber as well?"

  "Do you really think that if you're awake, everyone else isn't as well?" Nelly said, giving Kris some attitude.

  "Please ask both of them to join our discussion."

  A moment later, the main screen filled with an Iteeche and a Human, both in soft shipsuits.

  "What may I do for you, My Most Eminent Admiral?" Admiral Tong said.

  "Hi, Kris. No rest for the wicked," Admiral Amber Kitano tossed at Kris, along with a broad grin. "When do we start the shoot?"

  "That all depends on when and if our illustrious enemy gets in range. Admirals Tong and Kitano, are your boards the same as mine?"

  Nelly projected Kris's battle board on another edge of the screen. Both admirals glanced down at their own boards.

  "One-for-one match," Amber said.

  "I concur, My Most Eminent Admiral."

  "Admiral Tong," Kris said, "We're likely to be short on time and long on problems today. Could you allow yourself to call me Kris? Amber does.”

  It took Admiral Tong a long moment to process Kris's request. When he answered, it was with a question of his own. "You want me to adopt your informal Human ways of address. Yes?"

  "To me, Admiral Tong, you are both a professional associate and a personal friend. We have a hard job ahead of us. My friends call me Kris. Can you accept me as a friend? Admittedly, I will always be admiral in public, but in private, we can let our hair down and move the conversation along quickly."

  The Iteeche admiral nodded slowly. "Yes, I can accept your offer to be informal as you Humans are. Thank you for this honor . . . Kris."

  "Good. Now, Tong," suddenly Kris stopped. "You don't have any other name, do you?"

  "No, I am Tong."

  "Good. Tong, does your intelligence have any reports on the rebels getting better high gee stations?"

  "We have a lot of reports, Kris. The few times we managed to get schematics of the upgraded high gee stations and made a test model, they failed miserably when used above three gees. It is my opinion that they don't have anything that will help them take more than what they are taking right now."

  "It sure looks like they intend to take a try at it," Kris said.

  "Yes," Tong said. "I think we are about to see someone try. His best option would be to head for Jump Point 5 or 3 and get out of here. However, since he likely has a nominal superiority of three to one or so, he has to attack or be ready to make a formal apology to someone."

  "Yeah," Jack said dryly. "Who does an Iteeche apologize to if he's in rebellion against the Emperor?"

  "I'm sure his clan chiefs will come up with someone," Tong answered back, just as dryly.

  Kris, however, was eyeing her board. "I have a feeling some of those cruisers are going to skid right out of orbit and come careening our way. Nelly, what happens if a ship can't hold more than three gees as it goes into the turn?"

  "It depends, Kris. If they hold four or five gees for part of the turn, they could come out anywhere along our path. If they slow too soon, they end up way behind us and will be wandering off to nowhere."

  "After we win, we'll have to send some ships off to rescue the crew before their air runs out." Kris said.

  "You're assuming we win," Jack said.

  "I always assume we win. If I ever face defeat, I prefer it to come as a surprise," Kris muttered as she studied her board. "There's not much we can do for the next dozen hours. I suggest we go back to bed and get some rest. Then we can come out swinging later. I'm sure nothing will happen the way our opposite number thinks it will, or anywhere close to what I want."

  With a chuckle, the two admirals cut the call and the flag bridge again became the quiet domain of shadows. Watch standers sat at their stations, tending the data that streamed into the bridge. Some monitored the loyal fleet. Others watched the rebel fleet. For now, no one had anything to say. There were no changes in their readouts to remark upon.

  "Has anyone ordered up midrats?" Kris asked no one in particular.

  Heads turned in her direction, but no one said anything. Finally, the captain commanding the watch came out of the gloom. "No ma'am. The hostiles have been too rambunctious for us to take time out for coffee."

  "God willing, you've got a long and boring watch ahead of you. Call down to the galley and tell them you deserve fresh bread and plenty of whatever goes on it."

  "Thank you, ma'am. I will, though I doubt anything less will show up."

  "No doubt. Now, if you will excuse me, I need my beauty rest."

  The captain raised his eyebrows, more to Jack than Kris. Clearly, Kris would have to be more reserved. She didn't want people to think her vanity was fishing to be stroked.

  Admirals couldn't afford vanity or strokes.

  54

  Admiral Zom watched the tracks extend slowly on his battle board. It was like watching paint dry, only worse.

  That Human admiral Kris Longknife held her forces at a deceleration of hardly more than two thirds of a gee.

  "Battle board, what is the enemy task force deceleration in Human gees?"

  It took a moment, but the answer came back, "Half of a Human gee."

  Zom slowly shook his head against his high gee station. The Human was flaunting her strength and her position. Decelerating at little more than two thirds of an Iteeche gee, she was letting her fleet build up energy as it fell deeper into the system. At some point, she would have to go to higher gees. Maybe much higher gees, to make orbit around Longnae 4.

  How punishing would those deceleration gees be to his ships and crew?

  Even after little more than an hour at three gees the woven mats of the high gee station were being crushed by the weight of his body. They had been told that these mats would absorb the pressure of 4.0 gees. They had been told that when they were crushed in one spot, they would still support the other parts of the Iteeche body.

  Zom would like to have whoever designed this mat on a couch on his bridge. He'd cut off his tentacles and feed them to him an inch at a time. The matting had collapsed under his hips and shoulders. He was rubbing himself raw on fragments of matting. The rest of his body was doing pretty much the same. Even his knees were feeling the weight and the cuts of raw matting.

  Zom activated the water tank and water began to fill the space below the mat on his couch. As it filled, the admiral still had to tolerate the fiber of the matting, but at least he didn't feel his body rubbing against the hard steel of the high gee station.

  A nasty voice niggled at the back of the admiral's mind. The fiber mats were supposed to have lasted longer. Would the waterbeds also fail?

  Zom eyed the board. His fleet took on velocity as it accelerated to the flip point, then it would start shedding energy. Still, all of this happened at such a slow pace on his battle board. Having had enough of watching paint dry, Zom closed his four eyes and did his best to drift off to sleep.

  When he weighed over three times what he should have, it was no easy job to slow his labored breathing, calm his heart, and drift off to sleep.

  Somehow, Zom'sum'Ka'sum'Quin of the Quin'sum'Domm Clan did.

  55

  The next morning Admiral Kris Longknife, commanding admiral of the Imperial Iteeche Combined Fleet, and presently in command of the 2nd Battlecruiser Fleet stopped by her flag bridge as soon as she had showered and dressed. No surprise, nothing had changed.

  Once again, Kris and thousands of ships and crews that might live or might die in the coming clash, were in the unrelenting grasp of physics. The gravity well around Longnae 5 dictated every move her ships and her opposing fleet could make.

  For Kris, it was slowing down her deceleration so that she zipped by the planet faster than she would have preferred. Every minute she kept her fleet at less than one gee deceleration, the longer she'd have to have her ships blast at two or even three gees to catch the gravity
well of the target, Longnae 4.

  However, her move was forcing her opposite number to burn a lot of reaction mass, getting to Longnae 5 faster so he could twist his course around that planet's gravity well and send his ships hurtling toward Kris's ships.

  The rebel admiral would get a chance to exchange laser fire with Kris's fleet as the two zoomed by each other. Still, Kris's would have enough velocity on her ships to quickly leave the rebels behind.

  No doubt, the Iteeche admiral would then pour on as much acceleration as his ships could bear. His aim would be to catch up with her and fight her for the rest of the run into Longnae 4.

  The approach to the resource-rich industrialized planet would be a wild and bloody business.

  "Nelly, are we getting anything new off of our enemy?" Kris asked.

  "Many of their reactors are in distress," her computer reported. "Up to this moment, no ship has suffered an engineering casualty and had to fall out of formation. However, I expect that to change quickly when he increases his deceleration to four or even five gees."

  "So, he's burning his candle at both ends," Kris said.

  "And he's got a stick of dynamite in the middle of his candle. Sooner or later, things are going to go boom."

  Kris frowned at the board. She had 6,000 battlecruisers in her force. The rebels had 16,000. Kris was comfortable with odds of less than three-to-one. However, the 25,000 single reactor cruisers were a question mark to her. They carried just a few lasers, but there were a lot of them.

  Just how well these strange new additions to the enemy fleet would do in battle was a huge question in Kris's mind.

  With a shake of her head, she went to breakfast with Jack.

  In the wardroom, Kris found herself looking around as if something was missing.

  "You miss the kids mobbing us for breakfast?" Jack asked.

  Kris sighed. "I think you're right. Their noise. Their enthusiasm. Their questions. They can be annoying when they come at you like puppies, but still, I love it, and yes, I'm missing them. Regardless, I'm glad they are back at the embassy, safe with their grandparents and far away from all these threats."

  Neither she nor Jack could add anything more to that thought, so they got their breakfast and settled down at an open table to eat. There wasn't a lot to say, so the meal went quickly and in silence. Megan joined them halfway through, but she was good about spotting when Kris needed silence and said nothing.

  Done, Kris bussed her own table. She was a grand admiral, but she preferred to hold to the simple things of life as long as she could. There was no reason to ask some steward's mate to wait on her. Soon enough, she'd be demanding much more of everyone. Demanding their sweat and tears if not their life's blood.

  Kris returned to her battle board. There wasn't a lot she could do at the moment. Even her in-basket was empty. Everyone was preparing for battle; no one had time to generate reports.

  The important reports were on the screen now. The status of every one of the six thousand ships was visible on the main screen. A question to Nelly could call up any ship.

  "Nelly, give me a look at the ten battlecruisers with the worst performing reactors and motors."

  Ten ships names cascaded down a new window. Bar graphs showed their reactors all in the green. They were closer to the yellow zone than the average for the fleet which Nelly also projected in a bar graph.

  "Very good. Keep an eye on the fleet and let me know as soon as a ship touches upon the yellow."

  "What do you intend to do with ships that are at risk of engineering casualties?" Jack asked.

  "If I can, I'll likely detach them to look after the damaged ships," Kris said. "If I am too hard pressed, I'll have to keep them in the line and hope for the best."

  Jack nodded. Kris had made those hard calls before. She was willing to make them again.

  "Kris, the rebel fleet has their first reactor problem."

  "Show me," Kris said.

  Nelly quickly zoomed the system map down until it just showed the rebel battle array.

  Kris had the standard five wings formed into a cross with each wing 1,200 strong. The advanced guard held the seven flotillas of 224 Human battlecruisers. The Human warships were the ace up Kris's sleeve.

  Earth's massive R&D base had come up with a surprise. Quantum computers worked by slowing light down for a tiny fraction of a second while the calculations were done. Someone back on that crowded planet had developed slow crystal. It slowed the light of a laser down and let it scatter all along the hull of a Human battlecruiser, where it radiated most of the damaging energy back out into space.

  Only someone with Nelly's sentience could watch this happen, and she described it to Kris as water cascading over a fall. "If you look closely, you can even see a bit of a rainbow."

  The crystal armor could be overwhelmed with enough hits, but the Human warships were usually able to withdraw from the heat of battle for a bit. There they'd cool down, mend ship, and then return to the fight. Kris could count on one hand the number of crystal-clad ships she'd lost.

  Now Kris studied the enemy battle array. It might have intimidated anyone less confident than a Longknife.

  Her opposing admiral had changed the basic array. He'd added a scouting wing ahead of his advanced guard. Another wing trailed the rear guard. Both the upper and lower wing had a top and bottom wing above or below them.

  Each wing had 55 flotillas of over 1,700 ships. The five traditional wings would fix Kris's fleet in place while the four more widely spread wings engulfed her from the top, bottom, and sides.

  But that wasn't her worst challenge.

  Forward and aft of the top and bottom wings were the hordes of massed new ships. Kris had no idea what their fighting quality was, but 6,000 ships, each with three-to-one lasers, even in a mob formation, had to prove the maxim that numbers produce a quality all their own.

  Maybe her battlecruisers could take one of them out with each salvo. It would still take 15 broadsides to eliminate them all . . . more than likely, twenty. That would tie up her fleet for five to ten minutes. What would the rest of the rebel fleet be doing while she concentrated on these annoyances?

  In the end, the question came down to whether or not her ships were good enough to kill seven or eight enemy ships for every one of them.

  For the closest she could get to that question in the present, Kris asked, "Nelly, is Admiral Tong awake?"

  "Yes, Kris."

  Without further request, the Iteeche Admiral appeared on Kris's screen. "Did you rest well?" he asked her.

  "Very well," Kris answered. Iteeche officers always said they rested well before battle, whether they did or not.

  "How are our green sailors shaking down?" she asked him.

  "Amazingly well. The ones that sailed with us from the capital are almost old salts. The new crews and ships from Balan are coming along. Like every admiral in our Empire's long history, I would prefer more time to train, but with the changes you and your Nelly have made to our ships, their lasers and their fire control systems, we should fight with the fury of ten because our hearts are pure." The admiral coughed softly, then added softly, "And our ships are better."

  "Let us hope so," Kris said.

  "I have drills going on every waking moment," the Iteeche admiral said. "Our ships are trimmed to Condition Baker so that a quarter of each battle station can get something to eat from the mess deck or wardroom. The high gee stations are already parked at their battle stations, and one quarter of them are sleeping in their high gee stations. It will only take us five minutes to go from Baker or Charlie to fighting Condition Zed.

  Each of those conditions reduced the size of the ship as more Smart Metal™ flowed from habitability to armor. Corridors narrowed and staterooms shrank at Condition Baker. At Charlie, one could hardly move around the ship and most quarters were packed up and stowed away. At Condition Zed, you could hardly move from your battle station, but the ship was small, hard, and target-ready to snap out at any
ship that dared cross its path.

  Kris was half a day away from ordering Condition Zed.

  Satisfied that all that could be done was being done, Kris stood. She took a final glance at her battle board. The ships on it continued to hurtle toward their coming fight. Only reactor failures could save the rebel ships from their rendezvous with Kris's battlecruisers.

  She turned her back on the questions and went to lunch.

  The officers had only a single wardroom at Condition Baker for junior and senior officers. Kris could have kept her flag mess but didn't. She listened to the hard edge on voices. Laugher was a bit brittle, but everyone seemed eager. No one was sitting in a corner morosely staring at their food.

  Kris walked her own tray through the steam tables, then found a seat in the middle of the wardroom. She was available if anyone felt the urgent need to bend her ear, but the junior and senior officers left her to herself and her table mates.

  Jack and Megan joined her. They ate in silence, each of them more interested in the conversations going on around them than any they might need to share at the moment.

  After what would likely be their last hot meal eaten before battle, Kris returned to her flag bridge. Nothing had changed on the board.

  Someone, however, had brought up the high gee stations for her, Jack, and Megan. As Kris stripped out of her shipsuit and slid down into the high gee stations that looked for all the world like an Easter egg with its bright blue paint job, trouble began.

  On her board, a rebel ship suddenly blossomed into a bright star, then vanished away to nothing.

  Somewhere among the new construction, one of the single reactors had been pushed too far . . . a failure occurred and promulgated at the speed of light.

  It might have been in the magnetohydrodynamic electrical generation system, or the superconducting magnetic containment field for the plasma reactor. Whatever it was, the failure occurred in less time than it took to bat an eye.