Kris Longknife's Successor

by Mike Shepherd

  There next salvos only heated up the Voodoo. Over the next two minutes, Betsy lost no more ships and the enemy force was wiped out. Unfortunately, even the few alien ships that had been left as rolling hulks managed to blow themselves up in the last moments of the battle.

  Whatever lasers the enemy was using would remain a mystery.

  “Navigator, can we make that jump?”

  “Only if we go to 4.5 gees deceleration, ma’am.”

  “Engineering, talk to me.”

  “I can’t recommend holding 4.2 gees for more than a quarter hour. I’d hope we could take some heat off of the reactors, Admiral. We’re heating up everything we’ve got. Several ships are almost in the red.”

  “Thank you,” Admiral Bethea said. For a long moment, she considered her options.

  During that time, two of the cruisers that were reaching for the jump, and pushing themselves to decelerate at 4.0 gees, failed catastrophically. Where they had been only a second before, there was now a cloud of hot gas, expanding and cooling as she watched.

  Admiral Bethea had suffered heavier casualties than what Admiral Kitano’s entire battle fleet had suffered in its fight at System X. Clearly, the enemy had come up with a game-changer of their own.

  “Comm, send to Admiral Santiago. ‘I have engaged the enemy. I have destroyed one hundred and forty-nine frigates and one hundred and twenty light cruisers at a cost of sixteen battlecruisers. They have a new laser that is good to 150,000 kilometers. Their cruisers are also good to 4.0 gees. Frigates can accelerate at something close to 3.0 gees and appear to have basalt cladding on their bows. Advise Admiral Drago of new and improved threat. I have not stopped thirty frigates and fifty-eight cruisers. They are headed your way. Admiral Bethea sends.’ Get that off immediately. Let’s get that through the jump buoy before the alien ships heading for the jump can blast it out of space.”

  “On its way, ma’am.”

  Betsy had done her duty. It had been a stern duty, but she’d stopped most of the alien thrust and gathered needed intelligence on this new threat. Hopefully, it would help Admiral Drago against what he faced.

  “Comm, send to fleet, cut deceleration to 2.5 gees. Nav, give me a course that will bring us back around to the jump.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Betsy leaned back in her egg. Slowly she let the tension that had turned her body into a tightly wound spring relax. Her mind spun over what she’d just experienced.

  The enemy had fought too damn well. It was clear they were learning. The longer a war went, the longer a loser had to learn their lessons. The worse it got for the winner if they didn’t stay ahead of their game.

  “Comm, take a back-up of my battle board. Ship it off to Admiral Santiago with my respect and a note, ‘The enemy is learning new tricks. We need to dig some new ones out of our own bag of tricks’.”

  It took a few minutes, but the Comm officer quickly reported. “Full battle report sent.”

  Having done all she could do, Betsy gave herself over to her egg and let it massage the knots out of her body. She’d done her best. She’d lost sixteen ships with three hundred men, women, birds, and cats on each of them. She’d suffered the worst casualties of any command since the aliens had almost wiped out the fleet Kris Longknife deployed to destroy the first mother ship she came upon.

  She’d done the best she could. She’d have to do better next time.

  35

  Grand Admiral Santiago read the initial battle report from Admiral Bethea. “Sixteen battlecruisers lost!”

  Still, Sandy did her best to suppress her reaction to that news.

  How had the enemy managed to destroy over a third of Bethea’s fleet?

  That would likely come in a later report. Right now, Sandy had an incoming attack that had slipped by Betsy’s fleet.

  “Captain Velder, order Admiral Nottingham to move his remaining squadrons out to Jump Point Beta and prepare to engage the incoming light units.”

  “Aye, aye, ma’am,” the chief of staff said. He’d taken the initial battle report from the comm duty runner. He’d only glanced at it as he walked from the door to Sandy’s desk. The way his face blanched had given Sandy a bit of a warning that the news was bad.

  Had Bethea mishandled the fight, or had the aliens learned a lesson after having their hide beat like a drum for so long? Bethea had been out here from the start. She’d fought through just about every battle they’d had here. Sandy would bet her pension that Betsy did not make a mistake.

  That made the situation even worse.

  “I have the log of Admiral Bethea’s battle board,” Suzie advised Sandy. “I have also alerted Penny, Amanda, Jacques, as well as Captain Ashigara to meet with you.”

  “Tell them to get here as fast as they can,” Sandy said. “Meanwhile, run me through this battle as quickly as you can.”

  Before the others arrived, Sandy and Velder had followed Betsy’s battle as it flowed across space. She knew the surprises the aliens had come up with.

  She did not like them.

  When her team arrived, Sandy had Mimzy put the battle up on one wall of her day quarters. They started just before the enemy turned toward Betsy’s fleet,

  “That’s no surprise,” Penny said. “They often send a suicide force, though this is the first time they sent most of their force.”

  “Keep watching.”

  They watched as she went to stutter shots, then cut the power in half.

  “She’s still killing these ships,” Velder noted.

  Then the cruisers cut across the front of the line and started laying down a screen.

  “I didn’t see that coming,” Penny said.

  They watched as Betsy lost time swatting at the smaller cruisers. Penny remarked in surprise at the cruisers’ four gee acceleration.

  “I wonder how long they could hold that acceleration before they blew a reactor?” Penny asked no one.

  “Yeah,” Sandy agreed.

  “Is she still trying to reach for the jump?” Ashigara asked.

  “Yes,” Sandy said. “She’s got her potential course along the bottom of the board. She knows she doesn’t have much leeway left.”

  Then frigates charged out of the screen making 3.2 knots.

  “That’s more than we’ve seen anything but their light cruisers make,” Penny pointed out.

  “And now the cruisers are making 4.0 gees.” Velder reminded them.

  “They’re concentrating all their fire on just a few ships,” Ashigara noted.

  “And they’re catching us while we’re still under no acceleration from firing a salvo,” Sandy pointed out.

  “It’s one thing to drift for six seconds; it’s something else to be out of acceleration for fifteen to twenty seconds,” Velder pointed out.

  “They’re thin-skinned, but hard to catch with a laser,” Sandy said.

  “It’s a new kind of battle,” Penny said.

  “Yes. Velder, get a copy of this off to Admirals Miyoshi and Drago. Advise them to expect trouble if they try the meeting engagement on the approach to a jump. It still looks like we can run away from them and shoot them down as we lead them.”

  “I see a problem with those light cruisers,” Velder said. “If we hold at, say, 2.5 gees so we can shoot up the battleships, cruisers and frigates can close on us at 3.0 or even 4.0 gees. We didn’t see how strong the light cruiser’s lasers were, did we?”

  “No, they died before they got within 150,000 klicks,” Penny answered.

  “So the range of their weapons is still unknown,” Sandy said. “Any more thoughts?”

  “I’d recommend that if the aliens manage to force Admiral Drago’s jump, that he fall back using a parting Parthian shot,” the chief of staff said. “Keep the aliens at arms’ length and shoot them down as they chase you.”

  “That may be easier said than done,” Penny pointed out. “Say the battleships hold at a sedate and safe 2.2 gees. They’re the ones we want to kill. The cruisers can jack up
their speed to 3.0 or even 4.0 gees. Maybe the frigates are slower, but they’ll still be faster than the battlewagons. The alien fast-movers will outflank your Parthian shooters.”

  “Then we just back off and kill the fast-movers,” Velder said. “After we get rid of them, we slow and let the battlewagons catch up, then clobber them.”

  “That seems like a plan,” Sandy said. “Van, get a copy of this meeting off after the copy of the battle report we sent out. Tell everyone we recommend holding any jump we can, and give ground slowly where we can’t. It’s clear we have to stay out of their range. The lasers they have now can do too much damage to battlecruisers when they concentrate thirty of them against one of us.”

  “I can have it on the way immediately,” Mimzy said.

  “Do so under my signature,” Sandy said.

  “Now, I’ve sent Admiral Nottingham over to Jump Point Beta. I can’t think of anything more to do. Twenty-two of our ships should be able to hold a jump against thirty frigates and twice that number of light cruisers.”

  “The reinforcements from Admiral Miyoshi have just jumped into the system,” Mimzy told those around the table.

  “Van, get them down here. I want to start rebuilding a reserve. I don’t like Victory being the sum total of my hold cards.”

  “Immediately, ma’am.”

  “One question, Admiral,” Jacques said.

  “Yes?”

  “Do we want to let the cats know that we’ve won a hard-fought battle?”

  “Do we want them to know that we lost sixteen ships?” Sandy said, redefining the question.

  “My reading of the cats is that winning is everything to them. To die in battle is a great honor,” Jacques noted.

  “Is it really?” Amanda asked. “I know what’s in the literature and media. Still, I’d like to have a sit down with a mother, father, or husband before I accept that they’re all for guts, glory, and victory.”

  “Penny?” Sandy asked.

  “We’re fighting for them, ma’am. We’re fighting outnumbered. Fighting when anyone else would have packed it in and gone home. I think they have a right to know what it’s costing us. Besides, some of those lost ships had cats on them. Shouldn’t we ask the cats to help us notify next of kin? I think most of the cats they sent to us are young. There must be some folks that are worried.”

  “Penny, let the cat leaders know there has been a fight and that while we won, we suffered the worst casualties we’ve had since we started fighting these monsters. You can take Amanda and Jacques with you. I want each of you to give me your thoughts on how this goes. Okay?”

  “Understood, Admiral.”

  The meeting was clearly over. The others left Sandy’s day quarters to her. She sat at the head of the table, staring at the bulkhead. It still showed the final phase of the battle. A list of sixteen lost ships ran down the side of Betsy’s battle board.

  Without asking permission, Suzie turned the chair into a more comfortable one. It began to massage Sandy’s back.

  “The butcher’s bill is just part of the price of putting on the uniform,” Sandy said to herself. “Still, during the long peace, the only wives, husbands, or parents I had to meet with had lost their loved ones in training accidents. Now, I have at least forty-eight hundred letters to write!”

  Sandy shook her head. She’d known she was taking on heavy odds when she started this fight. It was either turn every cat on that planet below over to the nonexistent mercy of the alien monsters, or fight.

  So, the enemy had gotten smarter. You knew that was going to happen sooner or later. It’s happening now. Get over it.

  What Sandy really wished was that there was some bug-eyed monster whose face she could stomp in. Some throat she could get her hands around. This being at the top of the command chain was a bitch. There was too much waiting.

  Had she done everything?

  She shook her head. Everything she could do, she’d done.

  “Suzie, draw me a bath.”

  “Yes, Sandy.”

  So, Grand Admiral Sandy Santiago went to do the only thing she could do. Soak away her tension and get ready for the next surprise.

  36

  Admiral Miyoshi studied the feed from the probe at the jump. It showed the deployment of the aliens on the other side of the jump, a dozen or more light years away. They hung in space, in the same positions they’d been in for the last two weeks.

  While Miyoshi’s ships were moored to each other in groups of three and swung around, affording their crews at least a sense of a comfortable down, the aliens were floating in zero gravity. That couldn’t be good for anyone.

  Every day or so, an alien cruiser would approach the jump. First, they’d toss a few atomic devices through. So far, the gunners of the Second Fleet had managed to nail each bomb before it had time to arm itself and detonate.

  The atomic attack would end with the alien cruiser slipping through the jump to see what the bombs had done. So far, no cruiser had survived long enough to get itself back through the jump.

  For their part, the humans would send an armed probe through the jump every day or so. It would shoot up half a dozen or more of the atomic mines located around the jump, then be blasted out of existence by the massed lasers of the alien fleet. While the cruiser the aliens sacrificed might have a thousand souls on board, the human probe was fully automated.

  That was the difference between the humans and the aliens. Humans used machines to save lives. They didn’t count the cost of the lives they squandered.

  Admiral Miyoshi had to wonder how the sacrificial cruiser was chosen. Was it crewed by enthusiastic zealots, eager to close with the humans and kill them? Had their skipper lost heavy at last Friday’s poker game? Won too much off the Enlightened One? Did the aliens even play games of chance?

  The aliens might look painfully like humans, but what made them tick was still a mystery.

  Still, they were not born to zero gravity. Over the last couple of weeks, the effectiveness of the gunners had gone downhill. The first armed probe Miyoshi had ordered through the jump had died in ten seconds. The last one had survived for over sixteen seconds.

  The alien crews were losing their edge. Maybe it was time to put them to a test.

  The latest probe had managed to shoot up twelve mines in its brief fifteen-second war cruise. Actually, it had gotten ten, and the aliens had blown up two with their counter-fire.

  At the moment, three small mine layers were advancing from behind where the main battle fleet floated a hundred thousand klicks back from the jump. If this went as usual, they’d advance as far as they needed to replace the mines, drop off new ones, and retreat back.

  Maybe it was time to surprise the enemy with a new twist.

  “Aki, advise the Tone to advance quickly to the jump. Once there, I want it to proceed through the jump and fire on the alien mine layers. If they have the chance, I wouldn’t mind if they fired a few rounds at those fast cruisers, say one shot each.”

  “Tone reports they thank you for this honor. Their fire plan will stutter fire one laser at the mine layers. The rest of the forward battery will be aimed at eleven cruisers,” Aki said, a moment later.

  “Very good. Make sure they are back to this side of the jump in no more than twelve seconds.”

  “They plan to make it back in ten.”

  “Very good.”

  Forty minutes later, the Tone floated in space, only meters from the jump. The probe that supported the periscope through the jump withdrew, after giving the Tone the best possible picture of the other side that it fed to its fire control computer.

  With a tiny burst of jets, the Tone vanished into the jump. Eleven seconds later, it was back. The crystal armor on its hull showed its usual bright silver, but radiated no heat.

  “Banzai!” the skipper of the Tone reported. “Three mine layers, ten cruisers, and one frigate destroyed. We shot for the last one because it had drifted out of place and was not bow-on to the jump. They a
re getting sloppy.”

  “Yes, they are getting sloppy,” Miyoshi agreed.

  The probe was back at the jump; the periscope slipped through. The scene it showed of the other side was a mad house. Hundreds of ships were getting underway, but in no sort of order. It was shear panic.

  Miyoshi smiled contentedly. What had an Earth captain told him once? They had tossed a skunk into the ladies’ bridge game. Yep, the ladies were indeed running from this smelly surprise.

  “Admiral, a message is coming in from Admiral Santiago,” Aki announced.

  “Coming in?”

  “It has a rather large attachment. The message says it’s a report on a battle Admiral Bethea fought with the fast alien wing.”

  In a few minutes, the report was complete and Miyoshi and Aki watched as a battle unfolded a hundred or more light years away from them. It was hard fought. Bethea lost a third of her force and failed to keep a small force from getting past her.

  “It would seem,” Aki mused, “that those frigates may have a hard nose.”

  “We were lucky to catch one presenting its broadside to us,” Miyoshi agreed.

  “So, any thoughts, sir, on what we do if they try to force the jump?”

  “Nuke them until they glow,” Miyoshi said, quoting a phrase he’d heard the cats use. “And if they force the jump, fall back in good order and snipe them at long range.”

  “And if the frigates and cruisers put pressure on us?”

  “Hope we can nail them before they cost us too much or we let the battlewagons through.”

  “Are you sorry you sent away half your fleet, sir?”

  Admiral Miyoshi shook his head. “Those aliens across from us are content to contemplate their stone garden. I fear that Admiral Drago will need them more than I. Possibly Admiral Santiago as well, if they can force the jumps through our dragon friend.”

  Again, Miyoshi eyed the screen where the periscope take was projected. The aliens were still in disarray. Hopefully, they would stay that way. With only twenty-two ships, he had no desire to take on the remaining three hundred and four alien warships.