Kris Longknife Stalwart

by Mike Shepherd

  "What will you do, Human, with my fleet? What poison will you have me take?"

  He could only wait helplessly while the last of this tragedy played itself out.

  Admiral Kris Longknife could almost feel sorry for the poor dumb bastard commanding the rebel fleet. Correction, who had commanded the rebel fleet.

  From the looks of it, no one commanded there now. It was every man for himself and devil take the hindmost.

  Admiral Tong had flipped his fleet and now was in hot pursuit. One wing admiral was negotiating the surrender of the cruisers. Most now drifted as they emptied their lasers into empty space and smashed their main armament bus bars.

  They had no other choice. The fleet would be passing close among them as they pursued their larger brethren. If they didn't surrender and become harmless, they'd have to die.

  Even as she looked, one of the few surviving large cruisers, one with castoff battleship lasers, went to nearly 4.0 gees, charging her fleet.

  A battlecruiser blew it to dust.

  In a moment, no other cruisers had a charge on their laser capacitors as they drifted silently in blackest space. Admiral Tong peeled off a dozen of his most damaged battlecruisers to ride herd on them, and led the rest of his battlecruisers after the fleeing battle fleet.

  Kris took in the entire wreckage of the enemy's forces and knew that the rebel admiral had put her on the horns of a dilemma.

  His ships were running helter-skelter for the exits. If she wanted to force all of them to surrender, she'd have to scatter her fleet after them.

  That, of course, meant dividing up her forces. Every boot ensign who ever dreamed of commanding a fleet knew that you didn't divide your force. That allowed the enemy to concentrate and defeat you in detail.

  If Kris scattered her ships to chase the running rebel ships, she risked some of them concentrating back together. Then they could overpower a small detachment of her ships.

  However, if she didn't release her battlecruisers to chase the fleeing rebels, she risked letting most of them get away.

  Kris very much wanted those ships. She could add them to her fleet without having to worry about clan connections. They were in rebellion against their Emperor. Once captured, they had no further allegiance to any clan, rebellious or otherwise.

  Kris liked ships that came with no strings attached.

  She settled on a middle road.

  "Admiral Tong, Admiral Kitano, may I have your attention?"

  Both immediately appeared on her forward screen.

  "I want to capture all or at least most of those rebel ships."

  "Yes, My Admiral," Tong quickly replied.

  "However, I don’t want them picking off my ships, so I propose to order your five wings, Admiral Tong, to pursue the six rebel wings that are closest to us. Admiral Tong, please order the wing commanders to pursue the ships of their assigned wing. Spread out as much as may be necessary, however, have the wing commanders keep an eye out for any effort to pick off some of our ships."

  "Yes, Admiral," Tong said, "I will have each wing commander open up the intervals between ships and flotillas. That should spread us out enough to chase down most of the fleeting rebels. It will also keep our ships close enough to support each other if the rebels try to lure them into a trap."

  "Very good. One of your wings will have to chase two of theirs."

  "Yes, our rear guard has suffered less. I will divide it and send it after the two top wings."

  "Very good. Now, Admiral Kitano, I want you to operate independently. The three wings pulling up the rear and now in the lead of the flight look to me to be perfect targets for the Human battlecruisers. You have seven flotillas. Split them up to chase down the two on either end of the reserve line. We'll leave the middle wing for later. No doubt, if you collect the two flank wings, the guy in the middle will be comfortable being collected later."

  "Hmm," Kitano mused. "Twenty-five hundred surviving rebel ships in those two wings, two hundred twenty-four Human battlecruisers. As the guy said, 'One riot, one ranger, even odds.' Yeah, I think we can handle that."

  "If you can't, there's nothing dishonorable about flipping ship and pulling out of range."

  "No doubt. Now they're running, and it looks to me like we'll be gunning for their sterns. How many of those ships am I permitted to blow to atoms, Admiral?" Kitano asked.

  "Nelly, how much laser power would it take to slice a part of a rocket motor's bell off of a battlecruiser at near maximum range?"

  "Five percent will likely do damage without burning through to the reactors. There's no guarantee you won't slice and dice a few reactors, but the odds are better that you don't."

  "Okay," Kris said, "Tong, Kitano, have your ships reduce power on their lasers to five percent. That should keep the capacitors pretty full if some problem raises its miserable head. Any questions?"

  "No, ma'am." "I will make it so," and the faces vanished.

  Moments later, Kris knew her orders were being carried out. The Human battleships were not in range of the three distant reserve wings. Apparently, Admiral Kitano ordered the Human warships under her command to 4.3 gees in pursuit of the distant rebels.

  Kris's weight grew until she could only breathe with effort. She'd known this would happen when she gave the order.

  As luck would have it, the Human ships were in the vanguard. That put half of them in a good position to pursue one of the fleeing reserve wings. However, the other wing was on the other side of the line. It seemed that Kris's flag was one of the ships that drew the short straw. Now it headed up to clear the forward part of the battle line while also taking a diagonal course to chase down the distant wing and capture it.

  Kris took the measure of the battle.

  Most of the rebel wings in the forward battle line had suffered badly. The six wings each numbered approximately 900 fleeing battlecruisers.

  Tong was in the process of detaching Kitano's seven Human flotillas and shuffling five of his wings into six. Each would have some number of battlecruisers. For once, he would be fighting against even odds.

  Pity the rebels.

  Admiral Kitano split her seven flotillas unevenly. What was left of the rebel vanguard was dispirited and down to barely a thousand warships. With luck, her 128 ships would roll them up quickly. After all, the Human battle cruisers had the crystal armor.

  Kris was in the smaller force of 96. They headed for a wing that had been out of the fight. It still had over 1,700 ships.

  "How do you eat an elephant?" Kris muttered to herself.

  Jack provided the advice they regularly gave the kids, "One bite at a time."

  Kris considered taking command of her small task group, but a check showed that Admiral Ajax from her flagship Intrepid had assumed command.

  With a blink of her eye, no way could she shrug at 4.5 gees, Kris gave over the smaller battle to her junior officers and concentrated on keeping an eye on the big picture.

  Many of the rebel battlecruisers were so desperate to escape that they failed to keep up their dodge and duck routine. They headed off in the straightest line that put the most distance between themselves and their pursuer.

  The first time Admiral Tong's battlecruisers fired their underpowered salvos, they hit over a thousand rebel battlecruisers. A handful exploded, but the vast majority took off in wild aerobatics as one or more of their rocket motors were damaged. A hole in the huge bell of the motor or, better yet, slicing a chunk of it off, left plasma going in all the wrong places.

  All but a few of those thousand immediately begged to surrender. Several hundred that weren't hit decided to throw in the towel as well.

  Kris's fleet now had 1,500 prizes and the enemy had 30,000 fewer high energy lasers.

  The capacitors of the loyalist battlecruisers were topped off by the time the fire control computers spit out another target. Another 800 suffered some damage to their engines and cut power.

  "Kris, we have a problem," Nelly said from Kris's neck.r />
  "I see it too, Nelly," Kris answered.

  Her situation had just changed . . . drastically.

  77

  The rebel fleet had flipped and put on 3.5 gees. The former vanguard continued to flee, drawing Admiral Kitano after it.

  Two of the rebels’ reserve wings had taken advantage of being out of range. They had put all their speed into increasing the distance between them and their pursuers. The two undamaged wings now aimed for fifteen degrees to the right or left, up or down of the base course. They'd opened the distance between their flotillas, but not between ships.

  Kris thought they were running.

  That may have been correct a moment ago. It wasn't now. The two undamaged wings leading the flight of the rebel battlecruisers were now steering a course to concentrate again.

  Ninety-six Human battlecruisers now faced a potential rebel force of 3,500 ships. Suddenly, that was one huge elephant that Kris would be taking very small bites out of.

  Before Kris could open her mouth, Admiral Ajax ordered her three flotillas to edge their course back toward Admiral Kitano's four. Kris had fought battle before where a small, concentrated force had nibbled at the edges of a larger force until there was nothing left. It was a delicate dance, but survivable.

  She had not, however, taken 200 warships up against nearly 5,000 charging down her throat.

  "Are you having second thoughts?" Jack asked from beside her.

  "Sort of," Kris admitted.

  "Admiral Kitano shared with me a bit of poetry from way back during the European Imperial times of old Earth."

  "Yeah?"

  "Something like 'the single man, he fights for one. The married soldier fights for him and her and them.' Or something like that."

  "Yeah," Kris said, then realized that Jack had nailed exactly what was racing through the back of her mind. It wasn't just Ruth and Johnnie she was seeing, but Amber Kitano's two darling girls as well. How many other men and women of her battlecruisers had left their kids behind in the care of Abby and the embassy?

  "Yeah," Kris repeated.

  "It's not so easy to throw the dice when you want to see two young lives blossom and unfold."

  "Nope," Kris said, then folded those thoughts up and saved them for later.

  "Admiral Kitano, may I suggest that we concentrate the Human battlecruisers against the far flank of what's left of the rebel vanguard? There are more of them, but their morale has to be shaken."

  "That's what I'm aiming for. Admiral Ajax, keep your distance from the ships of the main body as you come up on my flank."

  "Already tiptoeing around the rear of those bad boys. I'm cutting gees to 3.8 while I cross their rear."

  Two more salvos from Admiral Tong's ships had reduced the main body by another 2,000 battlecruisers. . . some destroyed but most surrendered. What was left were few and scattering desperately. Admiral Tong ordered his ships to scatter by files of flotillas. That kept approximately 150 together as they hunted down the remnants for the rebel force.

  Kris weighed letting the 5,000 ships fleeing ahead of the Human battlecruisers go on their way, but quickly gave up that idea. Five thousand warships was too large a force for her to leave wandering around this system. She had two planets on opposite sides of its sun to occupy; she could not have 5,000 ships show up at the wrong time and place.

  No, these loose cannons had to be destroyed or captured.

  While Ajax and her three flotillas slipped back across the rear of the new main force, Kitano began to nip at the heels of the fleeing rebel battlecruisers. Many of the Human admirals commanding task groups of flotillas had one of Nelly's kids at their throat. That jacked up both the speed of their fire control computers as well as the accuracy of the results.

  Every ten seconds or less, two ship sections would send out a series of short, sharp jabs and 50 or so battlecruisers would flip out of control. Most immediately pleaded for surrender. Those that didn't discovered that they were on a highly erratic, but predictable course.

  If they didn't surrender, they were dust ten seconds later.

  Sixty seconds, and 200 battlecruisers among the former vanguards had killed their acceleration, emptied their capacitors, and smashed the main bus to those capacitors. No more work for those lasers today. Those who were either unlucky or foolish were dust.

  Over the next minute, the process repeated itself.

  Now it was the rebels who found themselves on the horns of a dilemma. Having foresworn all allegiance to a central command, the three admirals commanding the wings could find no one that they were willing to subordinate themselves to.

  While the vanguard screamed for help, the other two wings began to wear away from it and upped their acceleration to 3.6, then 3.7 gees.

  Confronted by open abandonment, the remnants of the vanguard wings flew to pieces. Many put on as many gees as they could and tried to catch up with the other two wings. Others split up, some going off to the right, others up, still others down, distancing themselves from each other and the implacable pursuit.

  Admiral Kitano ordered one flotilla to scatter, first by squadrons, then by divisions, and finally, by pairs or even single ships as they chased down the fleeing rebels. Few ships from the vanguards succeeded in their escape.

  That left Ajax picking off 40 or so with her remaining three flotillas even as Kitano's force came up.

  Now rebel ships that had spent too much time at 3.5 gees or worse began to suffer the consequences. Here and there, a battlecruiser vanished in a huge ball of gas. After a few of those, other ships began to fall out of line as their reactors overheated and they had to reduce the acceleration of their flight to 3.3, then 3.0, then fewer gees.

  A few tried to go out in a blaze of glory, charging the loyalists. Only one or two succeeded in getting themselves killed. Kris's old friend, mutiny, hopped and skipped through the fleet as crews took it upon themselves to choose that surrender was better than annihilation.

  Admiral Tong's Iteeche battlecruisers continued to cut their way through the routed rebels of the main battle line. There were few ships left, and they were widely dispersed. Tong detached pairs of his own ships to chase them down, but kept most of his wings together. Now, he was clearly aiming for the two wings retreating as fast as they could.

  More ships had to be detached. A few of the ships that were the first to surrender took it upon themselves to bring their reactors back online and take off at 3.5 gees in the opposite direction from Tong's battle line.

  A strong warning went out to all those who had surrendered that if they violated their parole, they would be blown out of space. Six of the battlecruisers left behind to guard the cruisers headed for the deceitful.

  After two were blown out of space, the crews of the others decided to lock up their captains and bring the ship back again to drifting in space.

  Still, Tong kept a flotilla of ships scattered among the white flag fleet to remind them that he hadn't forgotten them.

  Meanwhile, the white flag fleet grew minute by minute as rebel ships were chased down and either surrendered or were nipped in their rocket motors and then chose to surrender.

  While the Admiral Tong herded and chivvied the wreckage of the rebel battle line into surrendering, there were still two wings left with some 3,500 battlecruisers. They represented a force not that much smaller than the strength of loyalists had in the system.

  As it turned out, they had more fight left in them than smarts.

  While a few of Admiral Kitano's ships mopped up the fleeing ships of the vanguard, six flotillas of her and Admiral Ajax's force started taking small bites out of the middle nearest wing.

  Four quick, low power salvoes in one minute clipped the rocket motors on nearly over 200 warships. Tagged and sent spinning out of line, they reduced their reactors to the minimum level, smashed the bus bars to their capacitors, and waited for collection.

  It looked like Admiral Kitano was about to eat up another wing one bite at a time.


  That was when the rebel fleet showed it still had fight in it. While the most advanced half of each wing continued its headlong flight, the rear half of each one flipped ship and charged directly for the three closest flotillas – under Commander Ajax’s command.

  Suddenly, the 96 Human battlecruisers faced the fire from the 24-inch lasers of several hundred rebel warships. Some admiral among the charging ships ordered them to concentrate on the top squadron of the top flotilla.

  They did.

  Fire was unevenly spread over the eight ships of the squadron. Apparently most concentrated on the flagship, USS Royalist. It glowed bright as it took hit after hit. Some beams caught her. Other hits she ran into as she zigged and zagged to try and get out of the laser fire.

  When the enemy laser salvo ended, it looked like the Royalist might survive the blazing heat it was wrapped in. However, over the next few seconds, it became apparent that the ship was being boiled from the outside-in. It maintained its crumbling front, but then the attacking rebel battlecruisers finished their flipping of ship. Now every gun in the fleet's aft batteries concentrated on that one glowing hull.

  It didn't have a chance.

  Meanwhile, the rest of Ajax's ships had flipped ship and could bring their rear batteries to bear on the enemy's fantails. Another 40 ships spun out of control even as the Loyalist blew itself into a thin cloud of hot gasses.

  Ajax chose to keep her ships headed away from the rebels until just before she expected them to fire their next salvo. Then she ordered them to flip ship and to execute Evasion Plan 6. The enemy still concentrated on the top squadron.

  However, the time it had taken them to ravage the Loyalist had given the other ships time to shed much of their heat.

  Now, having directed all ships to increase from 3.5 to 3.7 gees toward Ajax's fleet, more rebel ships were pulling in range. The next salvo came from nearly a thousand battlecruisers.

  Again, the top squadron with its seven ships was the target, and again the targeting was left up to the flotilla commander or even ship skippers. All of the seven took heat, however, the Stalwart and Valor took a major portion of the fire.