Kris Longknife Stalwart

by Mike Shepherd

  The Marines’ quarters had the misfortune to catch the attention of too many laser beams all at the same time. Nearly half of the company died in less than a second. Many of those that survived were in pods that were splashed with failing liquid Smart Metal™ and had to be cut out.

  Other compartments forward of the flag bridge suffered casualties when lasers broke through them. While some contained crew at their battle stations, most of those compartments did not.

  When the Princess Royal went to Condition Zed, most of the supply spaces were shuffled around until they lay next to the hull armor. A lot of those were freezers for frozen meat, fruits, and vegetables.

  Most of the meat aboard was parboiled when the ship structures were red hot and the atmosphere steamy. With three weeks of frozen rations on board, the crew ate a lot of meat during the hard trip down to the planet, even if it was lacking in taste.

  Most of the vegetables were gone. Fortunately, the first compartment opened had contained salad fixings. The lettuce and tomatoes had wilted in the heat, as had most of the rest. However, a glance in the storage cooler showed the walls to be seriously dished in.

  That led to an investigation of storage compartments forward of that one. Inventory discovered it had stored several tons of dried beans. Between the heat and the steam, they had been thoroughly cooked. In the process, they had done what dried beans are wont to do. They expanded.

  Fortunately, before anyone opened that hatch, Nelly ran a probe into the room. Not only had the beans expanded, but the room was a mush of lima beans, kidney beans, and navy beans. Every type of bean stowed aboard was now mixed into the most revolting mass possible.

  Most of the specially encrypted hull metal around those storage spaces had boiled away. Nelly had hastily filled the gaping holes in the hull with any Smart Metal™ handy. That made it easy to vent the compartment to space. Rather than lose air they couldn’t afford, Nelly used the walls to push the ugly mess out into space.

  That, however, brought its own problems. Suddenly, the Princess Royal was surrounded by a halo of bean mush: large chunks, small clumps, and here or there, an actual solitary bean.

  Now frozen in space's vacuum, they became a threat to navigation or a shotgun blast headed for Longnae 4. That could not be allowed.

  The 5-inch secondary guns had not had an active role in the battle so far. Now, they were unlimbered and given the job of cleaning up the space around the Princess Royal.

  It became a humorous pastime for the off-duty sailors and officers to spend time as part of a 5-inch gun crew blasting beans out of space.

  The beans weren't the only target. The compartment on the other side of the salad locker held the popcorn stash for movie night. Hit with extreme temperatures, it cooked and expanded. The Princess Royal had an entire compartment stuffed with popcorn!

  Worse, Nelly had noticed the pressure building up and had opened that space to the next one over. It held mops, brooms, and cleaning supplies.

  When Nelly vented the popcorn to space, the cleaning gear went with it.

  The sailors came up with a game where mops and brooms had double the value of cleaning supplies. Corn earned fewer points than the beans because there was so much of it and it was mostly single kernels.

  It was a silly game, but it helped the crew keep their minds off of the other compartments that had to be emptied. Compartments with crew members whose survival pods had failed.

  Every day, there was another set of funerals. The battlecruiser had lost almost a quarter of the 500 souls aboard.

  Thus, the ship that the space station pulled alongside the pier was a somber affair. The crew went about their duties in a much-enlarged battlecruiser now in Condition Able+. The extra included several small chapels where the crew could spend a few moments alone with their thoughts and memories.

  There was no way to avoid the painful fact that many quarters that had been shared were now single occupancy. Kris felt almost guilty that none of the people who moved in her orbit had died. Both her and the captain's bridge had not taken direct hits or lost those standing watch.

  Of course, the Marines standing guard at the rear of the bridge were often strangers.

  Kris refused to allow herself to dwell on the thought of how close she had come to making Ruth and Johnnie orphans. Instead, she set herself to do what she'd come to do.

  80

  Admiral Kris Longknife informed the Overlord of Longnae 4 that she would meet with him or a fully empowered representative to discuss the unconditional surrender of the planet.

  Two hours later, she, Jack, and Megan sat across a large wooden table from eight very nervous Iteeche. Kris had eight Marines in full battle rattle behind her. No one stood behind the Iteeche.

  Kris did not like the situation across from her. The head of the Iteeche delegation was a deputy assistant to the Planetary Overlord. That sounded too far down the food chain for her taste. That there were eight of them hinted strongly that any four of them could veto anything the other four were willing to accept. Worse, eight people talking very likely meant nine opinions on everything and no agreement on anything.

  The silence went long. She could hear feet shuffling under the table. Wordlessly, Kris reached out to Megan. The aide de camp just as wordlessly handed her admiral a large, sealed parchment scroll with magnificent calligraphy. After glancing at it as if she hadn't seen it before, Kris waved casually to Megan and the commander retrieved the document and carried it around the table.

  She sat the scroll before the deputy assist to the Planetary Overlord and withdrew. All seven of the other Iteeche gathered around him to look over his shoulders.

  Iteeche skin appeared to Humans as doughy by nature. These eight were now ashen pale.

  "Wh- wh- where is the rest of the surrender document?" the deputy assistant sputtered.

  "There is nothing more to be said. You surrender the Longnae system to the Imperium unconditionally. You will surrender all weapons. None will be destroyed. Neither shall the warships and naval stores on either planet be harmed. They are now the property of the Imperial Combined Fleets to do with as I shall chose. There is no need for anything else to be said."

  The eight Iteeche slowly returned to their seats. Where Kris had expected a tsunami of words, she was met by abject silence as all eight of them stared at the table in front of them. They neither met her eyes, nor each other’s.

  "There is a place for the Planetary Overlords’ representative to sign," Kris snapped before the silence grew malignant. "There is a place for me. There is also a place for the Planetary Overlord to personally sign the surrender instrument for Longnae 4. I expect him up here in six hours or less to sign in his place."

  That drew no reaction from those across from her. They continued to avoid meeting anyone's eyes.

  Finally, the deputy assistant whispered so softly that it took Nelly's hearing to catch his words, "We had hoped for better terms. Balan received better terms."

  Kris cut him off. "Balan received better terms because Balan surrendered without a fight. Ten thousand rebel ships have been blown to bits in the recent battle in your system. Over ten thousand ships have surrendered. Over a thousand of my ships were destroyed with their crews. I was almost burned alive. No, you don’t get easy terms. Surrender now, or the ships I have here will begin to burn the planet down to lifeless slag."

  Now the eight did exchange worried glances.

  "Yes. Yes, of course," the deputy assistant said and hastily reached for a pen to sign his name.

  "Nelly, will you open a circuit to the Planetary Overlord so this underling can report what he has done and what he has committed the Overlord to do?"

  "The circuit is open," Nelly said from Kris's neck.

  The deputy assistant looked startled when the Overlord's startled voice came from no place in particular around the room.

  The Planetary Overlord had apparently been in the middle of a call when Nelly cut in. Now a small holographic figure of a very shocke
d politician was projected onto the middle of the conference table. From the way the image twisted around to stare up at Kris and his delegation, she had the strong impression that Nelly was somehow projecting their holographic images to surround the Overlord in a similar scale to their appearance in the room.

  The Iteeche negotiator stammered out a recapitulation of the negotiations. The Overlord bellowed his objection to the unconditional surrender. His negotiator stuttered as he explained the pressure Kris had brought to bear.

  That resulted in the Overlord whirling around to look up at Kris.

  "I can begin the destruction of your planet immediately, starting with your capital. When the rest of my fleet arrives, I'm sure we can slag the planet down to bedrock."

  The Overlord's mouth dropped open. When he got control of his vocal cords again, it was his turn to stammer, "Let's not be hasty. I'm sure I can arrange to be up to sign the document some time tomorrow."

  Kris noticed that he said document rather than instrument of surrender. She also didn't like the vagueness of his time commitment.

  "Now that I have your attention," Kris said. "There is no reason to wait six hours. If you have not affixed your signature to the instrument of surrender in three hours, I will order the destruction of your capital. We can start with the government district."

  The Overlord allowed that he might be there in four hours. Kris agreed to let him have the extra hour, but assured him that she would be following him and would know exactly where to aim laser batteries to destroy the kilometer around his location if he wasn't in this room in four hours.

  A very humbled and crestfallen Planetary Overlord agreed to Kris's demands and the line was broken.

  Kris left the eight defeated and subdued negotiators at the table, guarded by four of her Marines. Her team, escorted by the other four Marines, went back to the Princess Royal for lunch. There, the cooks had thrown together a stew of questionable origin.

  As luck would have it, the ship's spud locker had survived the battle undamaged. They'd swapped a ton of potatoes for a half ton of carrots and a few other odds and ends with other ships that resulted in the crew of all twelve of the damaged ships having a decent lunch with garlic bread and a low-alcohol ale.

  Kris suspected and wouldn't mind that she'd have leftovers for supper.

  Three hours later, Kris was alerted that the Planetary Overlord and his entourage were coming up the beanstalk.

  Admiral Kris Longknife ordered a Marine platoon to greet the Planetary Overlord at the ferry and inform him that he could bring a military honor guard of a dozen soldiers. No more.

  Several damaged Iteeche-crewed battlecruisers had made port in the last several hours. She drew another Marine platoon and a company of armed sailors to reinforce her Human Marines. Kris did not want snakes or axes anywhere near the surrender site.

  The Overlord had to accept before signing that his days of power and authority were gone. They'd vanished with the fleet he called to his defense.

  Kris also included in the reception committee the only Iteeche admiral she had on hand. Her suspicions were confirmed via spy bot that the admiral brought along most of his staff. The officers certainly showed their delight at meeting a much humbled Clan Lord and blocking most of his retinue from exiting the ferry.

  With his small guard buried in the column of Human and Iteeche Marines and sailors, it was rather hard to tell if they were his honor guard . . . or arresting officers.

  Kris chose to meet the outgoing Planetary Overlord at a large wooden table on A deck. There was plenty of room for onlookers and many sailors from the ships in port as well as station workers made time to be there to see a Planetary Overlord eat humble pie before an admiral, even if that admiral was a Human.

  He stood on one side of the table with his eight-member negotiation team. They were backed up by the twelve guards that he'd been allowed to bring. They and the table were surrounded by sailors and Marines in ranks.

  Kris and her staff invited the Planetary Overlord to sign the instrument of surrender. He insisted on reading it; it didn't take him very long. With a sour face, he bent over and signed his name.

  Kris came forward, settled into the available chair, and checked to make sure that everything was in order. Nelly had done her usual officious best. Kris signed with a flourish.

  She stood. "These ceremonies are over." She turned to the deputy assistant and said, "You and your team may return to the ferry with these soldiers." Then she turned to the former Planetary Overlord. "Will you please come with me?"

  "No," the former lord snapped. "I will not!"

  "I wish you had not said that," Kris said and turned to the senior Iteeche officer present. "Admiral, please detain this man and house him in the brig of my flagship."

  "Aye, aye, Admiral. Major," he snapped.

  An Iteeche Marine officer snapped to attention, issued several terse orders, and a dozen Marines moved on the double to surround and apprehend the fallen lord.

  "Soldiers," the now deposed Planetary Overlord screamed, "save me!"

  The captain commanding the small honor guard glanced around and took the measure of the odds against him.

  "Stand fast," he ordered in a voice that only cracked a little bit. He cautiously removed his pistol from the holster at his side, then lowered it to the deck. Behind him, his troops did likewise.

  The ex-clan lord was screaming as Iteeche Marines bore him away to his new quarters in the Princess Royal. No doubt, they would not be as big as the mating pool in his palace.

  With the surrender done, Kris dispatched her admiral down the beanstalk with Marines and armed sailors to assure that the minimum instructions in the surrender were obeyed. No military equipment or supplies were destroyed. Even the battlecruisers under construction in the space stations' yard were left in their partially completed stages.

  Apparently, watching such a large fleet be beaten by such a smaller one was enough to petrify the people of the two planets. Of the clan lordlings, they were too frozen in place to issue orders for the destruction of anything. Alternately, those who received such orders misplaced them and then forgot to carry them out.

  However it was, Kris found herself in possession of two million Iteeche armies, one was on one planet, the other on the second. They were fully equipped for mobile warfare, even if the tanks and vehicles were made of traditional metal.

  The situation out in space continued to sort itself out. The cruisers and gunboats sought to surrender. They all needed refueling to stagger back to Longnae 4. Admiral Tong detached a flotilla of his loyalists along with a dozen flotillas of recently surrendered battlecruisers to refuel at either Longnae 5 or 7. From there, they ran down ships that had spent their reaction mass.

  Some were so damaged that they took the crew off and reduced the rest to dust. Others had their weapons rendered harmless and were sent on their way toward Longnae 4.

  The same was done to help the battlecruisers that found themselves low on fuel. Some of them had to aim for Longnae 8. That meant a long voyage. Fortunately, ten flotillas of mixed loyalists and recent rebels could reach the gas planet before them, refuel, and match orbit with them. With help refueling, the former rebels managed to swing around the gas giant and make for Longnae 4.

  It would be a long, slow voyage.

  The troop ships broke into two task groups. Two-thirds headed for Longnae 4 with six of the Battleships of State and the politicians that occupied them. The remaining troopers and politicians set course for Longnae 3 with the clear desire to take it over, supervise its return to loyalty to the Emperor, and profit from the process. They were soon joined on the long voyage by 20 flotillas of battlecruisers to reinforce the 5 protecting them.

  More ships, most damaged, continued to straggle in. They provided sailors to guard the key installations on the planet and technicians to assure that key services continued like power, water, sewage, and communications. Although, not necessarily in that order.

  The occupa
nts of the planet below seemed to be holding their breath, waiting to see what was in store.

  Kris decided to resolve some of the tension. She had her senior Iteeche admiral begin to assign rooms on the Battleships of State for the clan lordlings that would be leaving.

  The feeling of relief was palpable as more of the minor and major officials got their tickets home. Moreover, they got them in a stateroom rather than a jail cell. Kris personally gave the former Planetary Overlord his ticket.

  "Why are you giving me the largest suite on the Golden Emperor of the Stars? he asked, incredulously.

  "You surrendered," she answered. "I have asked for and received from the Emperor authority to grant pardons to rebel officials. That assumes that they surrender and do not wreck their planet in a senseless battle of resistance. You surrendered, so you get a ride back. You will likely be assigned a much less prestigious job by your clan, but there will be no snakes."

  Mentally, Kris added, that is, unless we lose control of our side.

  81

  During the next week nothing happened, which was exactly the way Kris wanted it to be. The yards at the four space stations commissioned twenty new battlecruisers and laid down another twenty. What was there to complain about?

  The prospective captains who had overseen their fitting out stood aside while an XO from one of the newly arrived Imperial fleet ordered the raising of the commissioning pennant, or whatever it was the Iteeche did. The ships then entered Kris's fleet and began working up under a loyalist captain who would become their flotilla commander.

  All over Longnae 4 matters progressed as normal.

  Then, over the course of a morning, the fleet arrived.

  The Battleships of State insisted on docking ahead of the troopships. They took the three piers next to the Princess Royal. Meanwhile, the troopers divided and docked one quarter of their army at each of the four space stations.