Kris Longknife

by Mike Shepherd

  The enemy vanguard, however, was still trying to close with Kris’s vanguard.

  “Comm, send to Admiral Kitano. ‘Wear away from the enemy vanguard. We want to keep them just inside 270,000 kilometers.’”

  “Sent and acknowledged,” came back only a second later.

  The vanguard began to adjust its course almost immediately.

  Kris checked the re-arm clock that had been started the moment the forward batteries fell silent. It took twenty seconds to reload the 24-inch lasers. The bow batteries had been reloading while the aft batteries were firing. Ten seconds after the aft lasers fell silent, the fleet would swing their bows around to bring the reloaded forward battery to bear.

  Kris was in her high gee station, but her fleet was only using one gee to decelerate and edge the ships closer or farther from the enemy. They were jinking about, juggling the deceleration a bit, but holding at Evasion Plan 2.

  Again, she studied her battle board. The two fleets were spread out. Her fleet had fired two salvos. So far, the rebels were silent. Her ships were almost reloaded. She would hate to be in her opponent’s shoes.

  Admiral Karl stared at his battle board, his jaw slack, his mouth gaping open.

  “That’s impossible,” he screamed in shock.

  “No, My Lord Admiral,” Captain Sidd said. “Our ships are on predictable courses. The visual sensors on the human and loyalist ships capture where we have been and are, then their fire control computers predict where we will be. Since we are staying on the same course, they are slaughtering us. We need to jitter, My Lord Admiral. Jitter and open fire.”

  Karl stared at the staff officer who had spoken without being spoken to. He heard his words, but it took him a moment to understand them. Finally, he shouted, “Fire! Fire! All ships fire!”

  “It is done as you say, My Lord Admiral,” Comm answered back.

  A moment later, his flag ship swung around, bow-on to the loyalists, and Admiral Karl had to grab an overhead bar.

  In those few seconds he stared in shock, another 438 of his ships disappeared. As his fleet swung around to bring their lasers to bear, 318 ships were added to the scroll of ships lost with all hands.

  Finally, his fleet began to fire. At least the wing commanders reported they were firing. As Karl watched, he could see no effect on the enemy ships. Here and there, a ship from the other battle line might fall out, blasting toward the unengaged side. One ship blew up, leaving a blotch that quickly disappeared.

  “Why aren’t we doing anything?” Karl screamed.

  “The helmsmen have had little training on how to bring their bow around and aim it at a target, My Lord Admiral,” Sidd answered softly, then added, his gentle voice dripping with sarcasm, “Remember, My Lord Admiral, your crews didn’t need any training. You refused to train them and now your fleet can’t hit the broadside of a Longknife battle line.”

  “Off my bridge, you incompetent, improper mal-chosen spawn!” Karl shouted at Sidd.

  “As you wish it, it shall be done,” the captain said with a bow, and stormed off the bridge.

  Karl turned back to his battle board. He stared in horror as more of his ships vanished in another salvo from that Longknife human female. “What must I do?” he muttered to himself in panic. “What must I do?”

  “My Lord Admiral,” the Number 1 Staff Officer shouted, “should we not be jittering our ships like the enemy is doing?”

  “Yes! Yes! Start jittering! Start jittering and firing!”

  “As you say, it will be done,” the senior staff officer shouted and raced to the comm desk.

  Then the bottom dropped out of the bridge as the ship flipped to bring its aft battery to bear. The Number 1 Staff Officer grabbed for a chair, missed it, and was halfway to the overhead before the ship came to a halt and he was slammed down to the deck. He stumbled painfully to the comm officer and shouted out the admiral’s orders.

  “It is sent,” Comm shouted.

  “Good, good, good,” Karl muttered.

  His ships were still struggling to bring their forward and aft batteries to bear. Now they began to jitter up and down, right and left.

  The next salvo from the loyalist fleet only blew away 297 of his ships.

  For a moment, he couldn’t believe what his board was showing him. Because of the way that Longknife human woman had crunched her fleet up together, his rear guard was too far in the rear to fight, either to engage the enemy or to be engaged by them. He realized that most all of his casualties were coming from the vanguard’s top and center wing, with a few from the lower wing and none from the rear guard.

  “Comm, order the rear guard to close up with the center. Order the lower wing to do the same.”

  “As you say, it has been done,” Comm answered.

  Number 1 Staff Officer was limping back toward Admiral Karl. He moved carefully, moving from one overhead handhold to the next. He did not seem to mind that his admiral was issuing orders directly to the Comm unit.

  Karl swayed as his flagships jittered around him. Ha! The weak humans made their Iteeche lackeys into weak warriors. Karl stood at his post, held on to the bar over his head and watched the battle evolve.

  Again, his flagship flipped. He didn’t know whether it was to fire its forward or aft battery.

  Again, hundreds of ships disappeared from his vanguard and top-most wing, although some of the upper flotillas in the center were also being raked.

  Karl began to identify a pattern. That Longknife human female would have her ships concentrate on a flotilla. Twice they would fire their forward battery, twice the aft. Twenty-five or so of the thirty-two ships in the flotilla would vanish. Then they moved on to another flotilla.

  Karl watched as they did this twice. Ninety-one of his 438 flotillas were reduced to remnants. Many of the surviving ships were slipping away, decelerating and aiming well away from the enemy.

  “Number 1 Staff Officer, order the ships that are fleeing to reform into flotillas and return to the fight.”

  “As you say, so it will be done,” the staff officer shouted, but he made his way carefully, from one overhead handhold to the next, to the Comm unit.

  Karl studied the battle line of loyalist ships that submitted to the so-called orders of the Longknife human female. Where he had gaping holes in his battle array, especially in his vanguard and top wings, he saw few of the loyalists either blowing themselves to atoms or limping out of the line.

  Certainly, no great number were fleeing. Not like his hundreds or thousands.

  This mere human could not be doing this to an Iteeche Admiral of the First Order of Steel, fourth chosen of the Pasha for the Golden Flying Fish Satrap! She just couldn’t!

  51

  Kris Longknife shook her head. The Princess Royal was back on base course, having just finished the fifth salvo from its aft battery. The battle had been raging for only two and a half minutes. The counter that Nelly was running was appalling.

  Of the near 14,000 ships the rebels had begun the fight with, over 3,700 were space dust!

  There were as many as a thousand officers and sailors on each of the rebel warships. That thousand was crammed into a ship about the size of one of Kris’s ships at Condition Charlie. Well, maybe it was a bit larger. Still, the ship was cramped and the target they presented was nearly twice that of one of Kris’s ships at Condition Zed.

  And they fought their ships without going to Zed!

  Every Iteeche in the fleet knew about the four sizes the human ships used as they cruised the galaxy. The humans that programmed the ships as they grew from a seed to a full, operational warship, showed them the four sizes their ships were capable of.

  As one, the Iteeche ordered their fifth configuration. Horribly cramped for their oversize crew, but large for a target.

  Thirty-seven hundred ships had been blown to dust or, if they were lucky, limped out of the line. That meant over three and a half million Iteeche had died in the last two and a half minutes.

 
As Kris watched, her fleet flipped again. While she’d been reflecting on the horror, another 700 ships and 700,000 Iteeche crew had been blasted into whatever their hereafter was.

  The admiral across from her had lost over thirty percent of his battle fleet.

  She’d had 29 ships blown up. Another 19 had fallen out of the line on the disengaged side and were making repairs. Kris ordered the damaged ships to limp back to the transports. She doubted there would be any fight near them. Still, it let an Iteeche feel that they were serving honorably during the battle.

  As far as Kris was concerned every Iteeche, on either side, was serving honorably.

  Grand Admiral Kris Longknife, worried her lower lip. This carnage had to stop.

  “Comm, send on all circuits monitored on both sides, ‘This is Grand Admiral, Her Royal Highness, Kris Longknife, Imperial Admiral of the First Order of Steel and Commander, Imperial Combined Fleets. You have fought honorably. You are being led by senior officers who have poorly prepared you for this battle. You are suffering brutal casualties and are hardly able to strike a blow for your cause. Already, nearly a third of your force has been reduced to dust. Nearly five million of you have been blown to bits in this uneven fight. I call upon you to surrender. I offer terms of surrender that will allow all of you, from your captains on down, to live long and prosperous lives. You do not need to continue to suffer this slaughter. Every thirty seconds, another seven hundred thousand of you will die.

  ‘To show us you are surrendering, turn away from my battle line. Smash the main weapons power busses to your lasers. We can identify a ship with no charge in their capacitors. Do this, and you will live. Refuse, and you will die’.”

  “Got it, Admiral. I sent it as you spoke it. I’ll repeat it on all the channels I know. I’ve passed it through to Admiral Coth and he’ll have his comm people cover anything I missed.”

  “Well done,” Kris answered.

  Beneath her, the Princess Royal fell out from under her. Once again, for the eighth time, her ships sent salvoes at the confused and ineffective rebel fleet. This time, the casualties were only approximately 650 ships when the aft batteries fell silent.

  Nelly’s counter showed almost 5,800 battlecruisers destroyed out of the near 14,000 this idiot of a commander had brought to battle. Over forty percent of his force was no more. Surely, he’d have to accept her offer. If for nothing else, to save those serving loyally under his command.

  Assuming Iteeche admirals had any loyalty to those they led into battle.

  Kris swallowed bile as she waited for some response to her offer.

  Admiral Karl of the First Order of Steel, fourth chosen son of the Pasha of the Golden Flying Fish Satrap, stared at the large forward screen on his flag bridge. His eyes were wide. Each breath came to him in small gasps through his wide-open mouth, his jaw hung slack and unnoticed. Though his four eyes were wide, his vision had narrowed. He could see the battle screen, but all around it was a red fog.

  Karl, not having been trained in his own biology, could not know that his body was directing most of his blood down, away from his head and brain, to feed the muscles in all four of his legs and arms. All of them would be needed to swim away quickly.

  In his gut, something clenched and then released. Clenched and then released. Karl, though an admiral, struggled to keep his sphincter closed. A tiny sack, the vestigial remains of a much larger one, his body was getting ready to shoot black ink out, giving him camouflage, encouraging jet propulsion to speed his flight away from danger.

  Admiral Karl wrapped his arms around himself and struggled to hold himself together. As he stared, mouth agape, more of his fleet vanished, as if a huge net had been cast over it and then had been reeled in, thrashing, and fighting, until the fisherman ended their sad fight by slamming a mallet to their head.

  He tore his eyes away from his own disaster to measure the effect of his fire on the loyalist fleet. Here and there, a ship might vanish, but they were so few. So very few.

  The Longknife human female had devastated four of his five wings. Half of the ships in the vanguard, top, and central wings were gone. Some of the flotillas in the lower wing had also been decimated.

  Only the rearguard still existed as a fighting force.

  “Comm.” Admiral Karl opened his mouth to order the rear guard to move up faster. Then, he saw it on the screen. Something he never thought any Iteeche admiral would ever see. The entire wing of the rearguard had swung around. They were presenting their sterns to the enemy and blasting at two gees away from the fight. Away from the enemy!

  “Comm, get me the commander of the rearguard on screen. Now!”

  “As you say, it will . . . My Lord Admiral, I am told there is no circuit on net to the rearguard. Every time we try to make a connection, we are told that all circuits are busy.”

  “I will have his head for this!”

  “My Lord Admiral, what are we to do?” pleaded Number 3 Staff Officer.

  “Fight! Fight! We fight!” shouted Admiral of the First Order of Steel Karl’sum’Ton’sum’Go qu Chap’sum’We, fourth chosen son of the Pasha of the Golden Flying Fish Satrap.

  Then, there was a blinding light. When his eyes let him see again, all he saw were the holes made by two huge 24-inch lasers as they shot through his bridge. His two left arms were cut off, as if by a huge meat cleaver. He looked at the holes in the hull. He could see stars through them.

  Then the reactors let loose the wild demons of the ship’s own plasma and there were no holes, no ship, no Admiral Karl, nothing but heated gas, cooling rapidly.

  Hot gasses from the destruction of Admiral Karl’s flagship slammed Captain Sidd back into his restraints as the longboat he and some 23 rational associates were in, fled that disaster. Fate was with them. They survived what few others did.

  Still, they were in great danger. At any moment, a stray laser beam from a loyalist battlecruiser could convert their small craft into nothing.

  “Good pilot, get us out of here,” he ordered.

  “To where, my Captain?”

  “There is no place we can reach in this glass jar,” his friend, Commander Tarr said. He was a superb virtuoso on sensors. He had brought a complete record of this disaster with him as he raced to the longboat. That needed to live.

  “Is there a ship we could land on?” Sidd asked.

  Tarr stood in the co-pilot’s place. He studied the displays in front of him. Then he stabbed at a screen. “The Emperor Que-Long IV Number 512 is withdrawing from the line. Before it builds up too many gees, can we board it?”

  “I will call it,” the pilot said, tensely.

  A brief exchange and they had permission to board, “If you can catch the hook on the first try. We are not waiting for something out of the deep abyss to bite us on the ass.”

  It required them to use up just about all the fuel on their small craft, but the pilot was good. He put them aboard their ticket out of the abyss even as the ship passed two gees and kept accelerating.

  The Emperor Que-Long IV Number 512 was not the only ship turning its tail to the enemy and fleeing at best speed.

  The battle was over. Now all that remained for any warrior was surviving this disaster.

  52

  Admiral Kris Longknife breathed a sigh of relief as the battle line off of her starboard quarter disintegrated. Unfortunately, it did not disintegrate quite sufficiently to her liking.

  The rearguard had suffered few casualties, both because of its place in the back of the line, and the apparent reluctance of its commander to close up when he was, no doubt, ordered to do so. At the moment, he was blasting at 2.4 gees away from Kris’s battle line.

  If Kris remembered correctly, that was about 3.0 gees to an Iteeche. Someone was in a hurry to get out of here.

  Unfortunately, there was no place to go. There were no jumps in that general direction. The rearguard was fleeing, but it was fleeing to nowhere.

  Here and there among the other four wings, three o
f which had suffered well over fifty percent casualties, some ships were drifting, waiting for orders. Others were joining the rear guard in senseless flight at 2.4 gees perpendicular to Kris’s course.

  Kris needed to set things straight.

  “This is Admiral Kris Longknife to all rebel Iteeche ships in this system. The battle is lost. I have promised you, from ship captains to the lowliest seaman, your lives. In order to receive my parole, you must cut all acceleration, empty your capacitors, and smash your main weapons bus bars. If you continue to accelerate away from my forces, I will assume that you are still in rebellion against the Emperor and I will destroy you. This offer will not be repeated. You have fifteen minutes to determine your fate.”

  “Fifteen minutes?” Jack asked.

  “I figure it will be obvious really quick who’s willing to slow and who isn’t. Then it’s up to the crew to persuade those recalcitrant admirals that they really want to surrender.”

  “Are you going to require that they turn over their admirals to you?” Jack asked.

  Kris shook her head. “You’ve seen what a formal and complete apology involves. Given a choice between that and a long walk out a short airlock, which would you take?”

  “Good point.”

  “Comm, get me Admiral Coth on the screen.”

  A moment later a very happy Iteeche admiral appeared on a portion of Kris’s forward screen. “Sky, sun, and stars, Longknife, how did we win this one with a much desirable and lopsided victory?”

  “You remember all the training we did back at Zargoth and on the way here?”

  “I heard many a grumble about it, yes.”

  “Did you see any training cruises while we were in this system?”

  “You don’t mean?”