The admiral nodded. He’d heard much about the two-eyed alien monsters, but no Iteeche except the renegade human boot licker Ron had ever actually seen one. No, not even he had seen one. Still, after action reports came from human space of what was taking place on that unpronounceable planet Alwa.
“Could I really be facing three times as many ships?” Suddenly his eight thousand did not look like so much. If the mis-chosen Longknife human had six thousand six hundred ships, his superiority was suddenly not nearly enough.
“We only see two shadows around the three ships,” Number one staff officer noted. “Could it be that the Imperial lackeys have split out their pinnaces? Might we be facing the same twenty lasers divided between two smaller hulls?”
“That would be folly,” Number three staff officer said. “They’d have to protect more hull surface with the same amount of armor. It would be easier for us to slice through each of the two ships.”
Admiral Donn shook his body from his hips. “I agree, that would be a foolish plan, still, if she wanted to frighten us and get us to run away like those fools that were supposed to have intercepted her on her way to the Emperor, she has come to the wrong place.”
“How could it be that our brothers ran away from some two hundred and fifty ships there, but when that Longknife woman made port at the station, there were only forty-eight?” Number 3 staff officer said. It was his job to remember all the information about the opposition. What the humans would call intelligence. He was not a war fighter, but he did have a very good memory and often dredged up the right fact for the situation.
“Yes, this Longknife admiral is a slippery one. She faked us out one time. We will not let her fake us out again,” Admiral Donn said with finality.
“Yes, M’Lord Admiral, but which ship do we fight?” said the number one staff officer.
Admiral Don found his outer arms rising up, palms up as well. “All of them.”
45
Grand Admiral Kris Longknife studied the rapidly approaching enemy formation.
“Clearly, they want to close with us,” she said to Jack.
“And I think, just as clearly, we don’t want them in our faces,” the Marine general answered.
“Agreed. Comm, send to wing commanders, return to base course.”
“Aye, aye, Admiral, return to base course. The order is sent.”
In a few moments, it became apparent that Kris’s fleet was now decelerating toward the jump. While the enemy fleet continued to close, Kris’s ships made no effort to shorten the range.
“We’re one minute away from maximum range for 24-inch lasers,” Sensors reported.
“Comm, send to fleet. ‘Prepare to implement Evasion Plan 4. Put 60 revolutions per minute on the outer hull. Increase deceleration to 2.8 gees’.” Three point two was the maximum her Iteeche crews had shown that they could manage. This would leave each captain some wiggle room within the fleet deceleration.
Soon her board showed every ship ready to begin evasions and to jack up their deceleration.
Now the clock slowed to a crawl. Kris felt like she was living a lifetime as each second ticked away. This was it. She was about to start the biggest fight of her life. Even the bug-eyed monsters hadn’t had this many ships, and she, certainly, had never commanded a fleet this huge.
There was a tiny voice, whispering from deep down inside her. “This is stupid. Surely we can talk this out.”
But Kris knew that rational voice was not wanted here. The Emperor had power that these rebels wanted. He and those with him would not give up what they had. The rebels would not stop trying to take it until one or the other of them was a cold, dead carcass spinning in space.
“Execute,” Kris said, firmly.
“Execution sent,” Comm reported.
The Princess Royal dropped out from under Kris as it made a hard left, downward turn. It stayed on that course for four seconds, then switched to up and left. Four seconds on that course and they were doing up right, then they dropped into down and jacked up the deceleration to 3.5 gees.
Kris had been here before. Not in the last five years, but it was like riding a bicycle. It all came back. She held herself loose in her high gee station, swaying easily. Thank God for her morning PT with the Marines and the yoga she’d taken up. Her morning stretches had prepared her for this.
They were seconds from coming in range. “Comm, advice the wing commanders, ‘You have weapons release. You may fire when ready’.”
Every captain in Kris’s fleet must have been monitoring her command channel. The board lit up as Kris’s Iteeche battlecruisers and human ships rolled to meet the onrushing enemy. Half of her Iteeche ships and all her human ones let loose their first salvo.
The wing commanders were targeting ten enemy flotillas to their ten. After they’d wrecked a major part of that flotilla, they’d pass along to the next one, then the next. Kris ships had to destroy five ships for every one she lost if she was to have a battle fleet left at the end of this. If she lost one ship for every four rebels, she’d be left with only two hundred survivors.
That bleeding, struggling force could be swept up with a broom.
The first salvo from the bow guns was aimed by whatever method the flotilla commander fancied. In the human fashion, the Imperial Iteeche tried to concentrate four lasers on one place on the opponent’s hull. When they practiced, they often managed to get two beams fairly close together with the other two not too far away.
Now the loyal Iteeche got to see the full impact of all the things they’d learned from the humans and all the changes they’d let the humans make to their ships.
The first results were brutal. Eleven hundred loyal ships opened fire with twelve 24-inch lasers. Across from them, some three thousand Iteeche did the same. Some of the rebels had heard that their lasers might be loose in their cradles and had done something about it.
They did something, but nothing like Nelly and her kids did to the ships opposing them.
Almost all of the rebel Iteeche had agreed to install the reclining and padded seats at their combat stations. Admiral Donn had seen to that and ordered evasion before they came in range of the Earth-led scum. The ships jinked.
But they did not jink like the Imperial Iteeche and nowhere near as wild as the human battlecruisers.
Some two hundred of the rebel battlecruisers exploded or fell out of the line, their hulls engulfed in electrical fires or exploded capacitors as the first salvo sliced into them. More ships struggled with the damage done to them, but held to their station.
Now the ships flipped. This time, thanks to sensors made more sensitive by Nelly and her kids, many of the loyal skippers knew which ships across from them had the big guns and had fired on them. Now the rear battery, only eight lasers, took on those rebel ships.
Another hundred or so blew up or straggled out of the battle line.
Nelly kept a running tally for Kris to see. Enemy ships blown up: 108. Enemy ships out of the battle line: 191.
Loyal Iteeche ships blown up: 12. Loyal Iteeche ships falling out of the line: 32.
In addition, fifty foxers were disabled. More were hit, but the lasers went right through them without knocking them out.
Kris shook her head. One complete pair of salvos and the Iteeche admiral had to know this wasn’t going to work for him.
“This is not working,” Admiral Donn growled through a clinched beak. “Order all ships to evade more. Faster. No more than three seconds on a single course. Go to 3.8 gee acceleration. Charge the enemy. Let us get in close where they can’t escape our fire.”
Beneath him, his flagship jumped as it leaped toward the enemy, eager for blood. He’d named it Shark when he removed the old Imperial name. Admiral Donn wanted blood on its teeth.
46
Kris watched, wide-eyed as the enemy force changed course. It had been decelerating toward the jump with two-thirds of its vector aiming at her. Now its course was right at her fleet as they upped their a
cceleration to 3.25 gees. Likely the best they could do.
“He’s charging us,” Jack snapped.
“Fleet, alter course, ninety degrees from baseline. Acceleration 3.25 gees.”
The Princess Royal immediately showed the change as they swung their sterns around through a full one hundred and fifty degrees. Now they showed their vulnerable sterns to the onrushing enemy fleet’s bow batteries.
Kris eyed the clock that counted down the seconds until the forward laser capacitors would be full.
“Fire at will, but keep the rebels at arms’ length. Angle base course fifteen degrees toward the jump.”
That fifteen degrees just might protect their vulnerable stern rockets and engineering spaces as well as decelerate them a smidgen.
As the reload clock hit zero, the Princess Royal flipped over and fired her forward battery. Now the twelve lasers aimed for four sections on the nose of a rebel battlecruisers. Their own well-protected bows with the reinforced armor and crystal cladding would take any hits.
Twenty-seven hostile 24-inch battlecruisers vanished from three different flotillas as Nelly and her kids helped dial the human ships right in on the more powerful enemy ships.
Up and down the line, Iteeche fire wasn’t nearly as accurate as it had been. The rebels had learned their lesson; they were jinking hard and it messed with the loyalist’s fire solutions. The enemy’s bouncing around, however, did no favor to their own shooting.
Still, a dozen of Kris’s allied ships blew up as rebel lasers found them, pinned them, slashed them open, or blew them up. The rebels lost a dozen more as well.
Now, both fleets flipped to bring their stern batteries to bear. Now both faced fire aimed at their vulnerable quarter.
The rebels lost 53 ships as they blew up. Kris watched as 27 of her own Iteeche ships exploded or fell out.
Then the Princess Royal flipped over, back to her base course, as Kris’s fleet raced to keep the Iteeche fleet at arms’ length. Kris shook her head. If she kept running, she risked more of her ships getting punched in their reactors.
If she didn’t keep running, she would face thousands of ships at close range where even an Iteeche computer would give them a deadly firing solution.
For a moment, Kris studied her human battlecruisers. So far, they’d taken all their hits on the crystal armor. They glowed as the energy from laser hits radiated back out into space. Each ship had angled its vulnerable stern fifteen degrees off from the onrushing Iteeche ships. That, along with the rapid dance of their course changes had been enough for them to catch most of their hits on their armor. A rocket engine or two had been nipped, but defense was repairing the damage and getting the ship back fully up to speed.
Kris nodded. So far, so good. “I wonder what that other poor slob is thinking about.”
“I hope those poor slobs lived long enough to regret not joining the new alliance,” Admiral Donn said to himself as over twenty-five ships in the opposite fleet immolated themselves as lasers from his ships slashed into their reactors.
That twice as many of his own had done the same thing was something he could easily ignore. He could lose three ships to every one that the human lackeys lost. It had been bad at first, but he was getting the feel of it.
Now it was time to mix things up.
“Number one staff officer, send to the fleet. No more flipping to bring the aft batteries to bear. Nothing must keep us from closing until our beaks are ripping their guts out.”
“It will be done, M’Lord Admiral.”
47
Grand Admiral Kris Longknife looked at the screen and the battle it displayed. Her fleet fled the racing attackers at 3.25. Some ships, damaged and out of the fight had slapped on 3.5 gees, the maximum the Iteeche could take with their new high gee couches. Those battlecruisers pulled out of range of the rebels.
Regretfully, other ships, too badly damaged to maintain their speed, fell behind into the no man’s land between the two forces.
“Admiral Coth, is there a guard circuit that I could use to talk to my opposite number?”
“I can put you on it,” he answered immediately.
“This is Grand Admiral Kris Longknife, Imperial Admiral of the First Order of Steel, calling my opposite number from the forces across from me. Whom do I have to honor of addressing?” Hopefully, nothing she’d said would irritate its receiver.
“Wait one,” came back at her.
The fleets emptied their forward batteries at each other, raking each other with laser fire but only destroying ten ships on the attacking side, two on Kris’s. Then her fleet flipped to bring their aft batteries to bear . . . and the enemy kept right on closing the distance.
“This is Donn’sum’Zu’sum’NamquHav’sum’Domm, Admiral of the First Grand Order of Iron. I bet you did not see that coming.”
“I expected you to do that, but I thought you’d wait one or two more volleys.
Six of Kris’s ships blew up as their sterns were slashed through. Apparently, not all the bow lasers had been emptied.
Kris would have to work on that next time.
“That is not why I ask to parley with you under a white flag of truce, as is the custom of my people,” Kris said.
“And what does this flag of truce mean?”
“At the moment, only that I ask you not to waste your fire smashing my cripples as you come up to them. I will order them to hold their fire if you will agree not to blow them all to bits. Yes, this is a civil war. A war among brothers, but there is no need to make it any bloodier than it has to be.”
“You are surrendering those ships?” the Iteeche admiral said, his voice actually sounding surprised.
“Yes. Those ships will take no further part in this battle. If you wish, you may put boarding parties aboard them and their crew will offer no resistance. Can that be done under some Iteeche tradition?”
“It has never been done. The losers die. The winners live.”
“Yes, I can imagine that is the way of it. However, look at the way our ships are spread out. Your damaged ships fall out of the battle line to fall behind and out of the fight. My damaged ships fall out of the battle line and fall behind into the space between our ships where unengaged ships with 22-inch lasers can take them under fire.”
“So, why should I not blot them from the face of the universe?”
“Because this battle is not yet won or lost. By the end of this day, it may be my forces that have possession of this battle field. It could be my victorious ships that go about this space, destroying what could not flee fast enough.”
“That is the way of it,” Admiral Donn said.
“That is not my way of it,” Kris growled. “I give you my word that your damaged ships that do not engage in further fighting will be allowed to surrender in peace. Among my people, the defeated warrior is sacred and may not be harmed in any way.”
“Your people are crazy.”
The reload clock reached zero for the forward battery, and the Iteeche chasing them fired. Ten seconds later, the rear batteries were reloaded, and Kris’s fleet fired a full salvo at those chasing them. Kris waited for a more reasoned response from the rebel admiral.
“You may be right, Longknife. This battle still very much hangs in the balance. I will try your way.”
“Admiral Coth, order all ships that have fallen back into the space between our two fleets to cease fire, empty their capacitors, smash their main weapons bus, and take no more part in this battle.”
“Admiral, I must point out that the ships in the middle ground are still targets the rebels must use their 24-inch lasers on. What they absorb saves the rest of us for a longer fight.”
“I beg to differ, Admiral. I would waste no big guns on ships that will soon be in range of my 22-inch lasers. Did anyone fire at our stragglers the last one or two salvos?”
Coth did not look happy, but he said, “No, My Admiral. None of the stragglers were hit.”
“I rest my case. Order the cri
pples to cease fire. The ships that are still maintaining fleet speed or better may do what they can to mend ship and reenter the fight, but those falling behind are out of it.”
“As your people say, aye, aye, Admiral,” Coth said, and dropped off the circuit.
“You are an interesting puzzle, human,” Admiral Donn said.
“I hope we can have dinner some time and discuss how interesting our different ways are,” Kris said. “Now, I, like you, have a battle to win or lose. See you around.”
The circuit went dead.
Kris concentrated on her battle. She’d refused to let her eyes wonder from the developments on her screen and battle board even as she negotiated a parole for her battered ships and their crews.
Now she had some serious problems.
48
“Nelly, can you come up with an evasion plan optimized for a stern chase?”
“The human battlecruisers have been using one since it became clear the rebels were not flipping ship anymore.”
“Optimize it for the capabilities of the Iteeche ships in the fleet. Transmit it.”
“Done, Kris.”
Kris studied her general situation. The battle had started with her outnumbered almost four to one. At present, her nearly eleven hundred battlecruisers armed with 24-inch lasers were only outnumbered three to one. Less after casualties. Only now, it was worse again.
With her running and them gunning, her thousand or so ships could only bring their aft battery of eight 24-inch lasers to bear. The rebels had their forward batteries always aimed in her direction with twelve guns. Gun for gun, Kris was now outnumbered more than four to one.
Not good.
Kris eyed the fleet acceleration. The rebels were chasing her at 3.25 gees. In theory, the high gee couches on her Iteeche battlecruisers could handle 3.5 gees. It would be brutal on the sailors, but, in theory, they could take it. Could she pull ahead enough to afford the occasional flip to fire her forward batteries?
Kris Longknife - Admiral Page 29
