Kris Longknife Stalwart

by Mike Shepherd

  Where once had been a ship with its crew of eager rebels, now only a cooling ball of gas spread through space.

  With grim determination, Kris let her high gee egg tighten its mesh close around her. Then she filled the sides of the egg with hydraulic fluids to absorb four gees easily. Maybe five, if Kris had to order it.

  The egg elevated so Kris could still see the battle board and share it with Jack and Megan as they studied it for surprises. If some awaited her, they were well hidden at the moment.

  Another small ship sparked into a star as its reactor ate it.

  Kris would not want to be the admiral facing her. He had some horrible decisions to make.

  56

  Admiral Zom blinked as a third one of his gunboats blew up in less than a minute. He'd expected problems, but nothing this bad. Over the next minute, two more ships self-destructed.

  As he weighed his response to this developing disaster, a full two minutes went by without any ship destroying itself. He allowed himself a breath of relief.

  Just then, a ship cut its deceleration. That sent it careening through the forward upper wing. It survived a glancing blow to another one reactor ship before slamming into a second. Both gunboats blew themselves to pieces.

  That defined the two extremes of the problem facing Admiral Zom. If he did nothing, he risked destroying his ships as engineering casualties blew ships to atoms. Alternately, he could authorize captains to reduce deceleration before their reactors failed. That, however, ran the risk of a ship colliding with another as it shot through the rest of the fleet that was still decelerating.

  His third option, ordering the entire fleet to reduce deceleration, was out of the question. The reduced deceleration would send the fleet whipping around Longnae 5 and hurl it off on a course that would totally miss the enemy fleet.

  There would be no battle.

  Admiral Zom placed a call to the skipper of the Defender of the Domm Clan's Honor No. 273.

  "How are your reactors handling the pressure?" he asked.

  "Let me check with Engineering, Most Eminent Admiral."

  A moment later, the captain of his flagship was back. "Our reactors are fine. They are still in the green. We should have no problem maintaining a 4.0 gee deceleration and even going to 4.5 gees as we round Longnae 5. Engineering says we could even do 5.0 gees."

  "Yes, Captain. Good. Let me know immediately if that changes."

  "To hear is to make it so," the skipper answered as Zom cut the call.

  If his hands did not weigh so much, the Iteeche admiral would have pounded the arm rest. Of course, the Human-designed battlecruisers could manage 4.5 gees for the Humans, even if it was a killing 5.0 gees for an Iteeche.

  No, the 16,000 battlecruisers of his fleet were not the problem. Now, it was the hastily designed and built Iteeche gunboats with single reactors that were failing as they struggled to decelerate at 3.5 Iteeche gees.

  Who had set the specs for those ships? Hadn't anyone told them of how the Humans slammed themselves around in space at absurd speeds?

  Of course, the Human-commanded fleet was decelerating at a lethargic half of a Human gee. It was that Longknife woman's decision to race by distant Longnae 5 that had forced him to risk his fleet at this absurd high gee deceleration.

  Had she known the new construction was not so well tested? That its engineering crews and hastily built reactors might fail under the pressure?

  There was no way to tell if she'd just gotten lucky or had known what she was getting him into. Either way, he damned her to the deepest abyss of the dark deep for doing this to him.

  As he dithered, four more ships sparked themselves into tiny stars, then disappeared into the cold void of space.

  There remained only two choices for him. He could authorize every skipper on one of those death traps to reduce deceleration if their reactor or supporting engineering activities began to show signs of failure. Alternately, he could order them to take courage, like cavalry men of old, committed to a charge against the guns, to carry through to saber the gunners at the end of their charge. At least, those that survived until the end of the charge.

  Admiral Zom had often thrilled to the songs of those old battles. As a youngling, he'd reveled in the courage of warriors who sought immortality in songs in the mouth of the cannon. He had often wondered if he would have the bravery to do something as glorious as they had. To risk all to be remembered in song.

  Now, he found himself facing just such a charge. Only it was not him hurtling himself and his beast at the guns. No. He was safe on a battlecruiser. It was others he was ordering to charge the guns on faltering mounts. It was others whose equipment would immolate themselves before they could come to grips with the enemy. Would his role in this magnificent charge even be remembered?

  He wondered if he should order the ships' companies to sing one of those proud ballads. If he did, would they? Were his sailors as courageous as those riders of old? Would they respond with bitterness as he ordered them to sing even as he ordered them to die?

  Admiral Zom shook his head, as much as he could at 3.5 gees. How could he even be thinking thoughts like these? Of course, his men were as bold and courageous as those Iteeche of old. What had gotten into his head?

  It was those damn Humans. Somehow, some of their poisoned thinking must have seeped into his head. He had heard how the Human Kris Longknife always seemed overly concerned with saving lives.

  She would take a planet with hardly a death among the clan lords and never a fight on the planet. She even bragged about how the planets she captured were in such pristine condition after she took them. Dishonored clan lords were even shipped back to their clans for reassignment.

  More of those Humans and their cursed dishonor!

  Admiral Zom ground his beak together and sat tight in his high gee station. On his battle board, ships would sparkle for a moment, then vanish into the emptiness of space.

  Admiral Zom remembered a message that one Human admiral had sent as he took his men into battle, a battle he did not live to see the end of.

  "Comm, send to the fleet. 'Your clans expect every one of you to do your duty to the greatest destiny of our people. Let us fight so that they will sing songs about us for a thousand years'."

  With a sigh, the rebel admiral gazed at his battle board. All of his problems came from that Longknife woman's decision to cut her deceleration and zoom by his fleet. Tong would never have done this; this had to come from the twisted mind of the Human Longknife. The War College would flunk any student who risked such high gees so close to the planet that was the invasion target.

  Of course, he was risking such high gees to get into the fight with the despised Human. What would War College teachers say about him in the years to come? That he had met the Human insanity with insanity of his own?

  What they said would depend on him winning.

  Zom settled back into his high gee station. The fibers of the compression mat had been worn down until they no longer bothered him. The layer of water under him did a much better job of supporting him against the pressure of three gees.

  The merchant who sold him on adding a cushion of water to the high gee couches said that the idea had been found in the romance stories of the Humans. They used it for their obscenely incessant mating that led to no procreation.

  Only the Humans would do such a thing.

  At least, for the moment, it allowed his fleet to hurtle toward the enemy ships at high gees. That would be a joke. The defeat of the Human-led fleet came to be because of an obscene Human tool.

  57

  "Kris, the enemy admiral has just sent a message to his fleet," Nelly reported.

  "What does he have to say?" Kris asked. Despite her fleets’ half-gee deceleration, Kris was snuggled naked in her high gee egg. It would be a while before she began ordering her fleet around at high gees. Still, she and her entire fleet had moved to high gee stations in preparations for the coming fight.

  "Your op
posite number has just exhorted his fleet that, 'Your clans expect,' or maybe that's demand, 'every one of you to do your duty to the greatest destiny of our people.' That could mean race. 'Let us fight so that they will sing songs about us for a thousand years.' What do you think of that, Kris? Unless there are some Iteeche exhortations like those that I don't know of, Zom has borrowed from Admiral Nelson before the Battle of Trafalgar and Prime Minister Churchill before the Battle of Britain. Who would have thought we had an anglophile across the battlefield from us?"

  "I'm not surprised," Kris answered. "I've been devoting as much of my spare time as I could to the history of the Iteeche Empire. No doubt, you have translated every book you could get your hands on, Nelly."

  "Yes, Kris."

  "In many ways, we are cross-pollinating each other."

  "Some might say poisoning," Jack put in.

  "No doubt," Kris agreed.

  "Still," Jack went on, "It is strange to hear someone who very likely considers everything from us Humans as poison allowing the thoughts of Humans to seep unexamined into his own exhortation to his fleet."

  Kris didn't have a quick comeback for Jack. It left her very thoughtful. Soon, in the heat of battle, she'd need to get inside the head of her opposite number. She'd need to figure out his next move before he even did. Would this reflection from her husband help her?"

  "Thank you, Jack. I think you have something I need to mull over."

  "You think the enemy admiral may have read too much of your file?"

  "He's trying to fight his battle the way I would, so yes, he's read a very big file on my fighting methods. But it's not me he's studied, not if he's quoting Nelson before Trafalgar or Churchill during the pivotal war of the bloody twentieth century. He's done his best to get inside my head. That may give me a special hook into his head."

  Another light sparked among the 25,000 single reactor warships of the enemy fleet. The four divisions of them were organized rank-on-rank, with some ships struggling to hold their place in formation. Even if the reactor wasn't blowing up, they were not providing a steady stream of plasma.

  Ships jockeyed constantly to hold their place in the line. Long lines were their basic formation. They looked like a phalanx of old, men standing shoulder-to-shoulder and back-to-back. It had been the first organized battle array, and the most primitive. The phalanx could stand strong on defense, but it had a nearly impossible time maneuvering in battle.

  It could charge forward, or fall back, often in a rout, but it could not face right or left if it was taken on the flank and moving over even moderately rough space would break it up.

  Kris had to wonder how much tactical mobility her enemy admiral expected from this mob of newly designed, constructed, and crewed warships. She had her own problems. His must be much worse.

  Could those small ships charge down on her in swarms that complicated her firing computer solutions? If she ignored them, could they slip in among her ships and cause havoc and destruction? Did she risk overestimating them and tie up her fleet's guns, or underestimate them and risking the loose of her battle?

  "Jack, when the battle is joined, I'm going to have to make a split-second decision on what the fighting value is of those new warships. If you think I need to revisit my initial estimate, please tell me."

  Jack nodded. "Understood. They look to be slippery little bastards. If they appear to be worth more or less than you're valuing them, I'll let you know."

  "Thanks. This looks to be one fast and slippery battle. Help me not get fixated on one of these threats and miss another."

  Meanwhile, several ships had struggled out of formation. Most had dodged their way out of the mass of new warships. However, one had slashed a sister ship in two before exploding. A second ship had nipped the stern of a ship still under full deceleration and had ruptured its reactor. Both the ships had vanished in one huge gas cloud.

  "Nelly, do you have any estimate of how many of these new warships will be left when we engage the enemy?"

  "I cannot but guess, Kris. I still expect the hostile fleet to have to go to four or even five gees as it rounds Longnae 5. Any estimate developed based on casualties at 3.5 gees deceleration will be worthless at that brutal deceleration."

  "Right, Nelly. Thanks for the advice."

  "I can have an estimate after one minute into the highest gees, Kris."

  "I expect that engineering casualties are only going to get worse as engines and reactors heat up."

  "That is true."

  "Keep paying close attention to our reactor readouts and let me know if anything changes, either with our engines or theirs."

  "Will, do," Nelly said.

  Kris eyed the battle board. Her main interest was the angle on the bow when she engaged the enemy.

  The fleet would likely be broadside to broadside, not that the battlecruisers fought that way. Like ancient submarines, their weapons were in their bows and sterns. Still, if they were on a parallel course, she'd have on fight on her hands.

  If the enemy swung around and came at her on her forward quarter, she'd be shooting up their stern if they began decelerating immediately. That would give her some good shots at their vulnerable sterns with their reactors.

  Kris blinked her eyes closed for a moment, then groaned.

  She'd misjudged the battle. Badly.

  "Nelly, show me what the situation will look like if they manage to swing around Longnae 5 the way we think they will."

  The enemy force swung wide and began immediately to accelerate toward Longnae 4. Kris's fleet, having put off serious deceleration, whipped past them with time enough for a few salvoes, then continued to fall faster toward their target.

  Meanwhile, the enemy fleet put on acceleration, aiming to catch up.

  Kris, for her part, would have to order her fleet to begin deceleration sooner, using two or three gees, or later, applying three, four, or maybe even 4.5 gees. All that time, the enemy fleet would be juggling their acceleration and deceleration, trying for an advantageous position.

  The most important question for Kris was: would her enemy give up his chance to make orbit around Longnae 4? Kris had to make orbit.

  If the rebel commander decided that he didn't, then he'd have the advantage on Kris for the rest of the battle. At any particular point, he could command his ships to juggle their gees to achieve a preferred range or angle on the bow.

  Kris reflected on that for a long five minutes. She finally concluded that she might have to split her forces again, having a small detachment aim for the planet while her larger force parried the rebel's actions. She had a small enough force as it was. To pare it down even further sounded like folly.

  Still, she'd seen it done before.

  Oh, right, and she'd also picked off the smaller force.

  Then again, she'd gotten between that force and their target. Was there any way the rebels could get between her and the planet?

  She didn't think so. Still, she'd have to keep her eyes open. Every move she made gave the enemy a vote and a move of their own.

  For the next two hours, she and Jack tried different ways to strike at her fleet and foil those strikes. It was enough to make her brain spin.

  In the end, time came for supper. The Princess Royal was still at Condition Baker, so the three of them dismounted their high gee eggs, pulled back on their shipsuits and went to the wardroom for another warm meal.

  The wardroom was quieter now. The loudest noise was the crash of trays and crockery when two ensigns collided on their way to return the dirty dishes.

  Most of those eating had the cold determination of those who knew what was coming and were ready for it. The Princess Royal's crew had been through this all before. Several times before. They knew to trust their shipmates and trust their training.

  Still, a few of them threw Kris furtive looks, as if they wondered how she might pull this one off. They'd been with her when she'd used this very same tactic to beat her enemy like a drum.

&nbs
p; How would she do against her own game plan?

  Kris returned to her egg and got comfortable. A glance at the board showed her enemy was entering his approach to Longnae 5. When would he slam on the brakes and hike up the deceleration? Sooner and he might be able to keep it at four gees. Later and he'd have to jack it up to five gees.

  Still, the longer he kept his ships pushing their reactors, the more likely they were to overheat and fail with catastrophic results.

  Even in the few moments that she watched, waiting to see what he'd do next, four ships sparked into tiny stars. Just as quickly, they vanished from view.

  Kris would not want to be in his shoes.

  58

  Admiral Zom could only stare at his battle board as ship after ship exploded. Others broke ranks, cut their deceleration, and threaded their way through the crammed ships in formation with them until they fell out the bottom.

  That worked fine for the two huge forward masses of gunboats. The two rear groups were more complicated. Most managed to steer out the unengaged side of the array and avoid the battlecruiser wings and gunboat phalanxes.

  Every once in a while, an overheated reactor would fail or burp and send a ship careening through the formation until not one, but two ships ended up blowing themselves into expanding clouds of superheated gas.

  All of this took place without an order from him. Admiral Zom had not been able to bring himself to give the order to the fleet captains to use their discretion to withdraw from the formation if their reactors were close to failure. No Iteeche commanding officer had ever given such a lame order and he could not bring himself to be the first.

  Still, what admiral in the last 5,000 years had been sent into battle with ships that blew up one after another long before they came in range of the enemy guns? The entire situation left a bitter taste in his mouth. He could only guess what the captains and crews of the pieces of floating crap called gunboats must feel like as they watched their reactors go slowly into the red and measured their honor against their life.