Kris Longknife 13 - Unrelenting

by Mike Shepherd

  “Damn,” she finally said. “We will concentrate on the ships facing us. As soon as we finish this fight, we will turn what we can around and chase those bastards. Hopefully, a few fast jumps will put us ahead of them. For now, we concentrate on what’s in front of us. Nelly, send these orders to Kitano from me. Attack what’s here. We’ll chase the others later.”

  “Sent,” Nelly said.

  Kris looked at her staff. They did not meet her eyes.

  “Kris,” Nelly said, “would you like me to make an estimate for time and movement to see where we will intercept the breakaway alien fleet?”

  “No, Nelly. Any estimate you make will not reflect damage we suffer or fuel expended. All the gas giants we can refuel from are either on the other side of the system, or in the next system. We will tackle that problem when we finish with this one.”

  “Spoken like one of those damn Longknifes,” Penny spat. “For God’s sake, Kris, that’s Granny Rita out there.”

  “Penny, take a walk,” Kris ordered. “Masao, go with her, please.”

  For a moment, Penny and Kris stood face-to-face, Penny’s an angry red, Kris cold and committed. Her gut was another matter. No doubt, baby was not enjoying sharing space with the venomous void that passed for Kris’s stomach at the moment.

  For a moment they continued to lock eyes . . . then Penny broke for the door, and her friend followed in her wake. Still, as he closed the door behind them, his eyes met Kris’s. There was dismay at what he’d seen.

  Then the door was closed, and Kris turned back to her screens.

  “Tough call,” Jack said, coming up to rub her aching shoulders.

  “God help us all if we don’t have enough fuel when this is done to at least make it back to a gas giant. Back to a gas giant and fast passage to Alwa,” Kris whispered.

  “And you will see what you see when it’s there to see,” Jack said.

  “Yes. Jack, I can’t worry about what I can’t do anything about. I’ve got to fight the battle I’ve got before I chase down a new one.”

  “I understand, Kris.”

  “I know you do, Jack. I know you do. Just don’t call me Ray. Okay?”

  “Never.”

  “You have made a hard but correct call,” Admiral Furzah said.

  “Thank you,” Kris said, and hoped she meant it.

  “The other hundred warships have altered course to join the fifty headed for Alwa,” Nelly reported.

  “I expected they would,” Kris said. She patted baby. That was all she could do.

  64

  “What the hell,” Jack said, unusually venting surprise.

  Kris was busy grabbing for something to hold on to. “Nelly, drop this footrest.”

  Around her, the Conqueror was doing some kind of bump and grind. Then it went sideways, and all gravity fled. Kris held tight to the table and tried to protect baby.

  “The Ultimate Argument has blown out a capacitor,” Nelly reported. “They’ve got a fire on board. One of the reactors is out of control, and they’re venting it to space. Its feedback is affecting four more. They may have to dump them. The UA’s skipper broke his ship out of the mooring. Conqueror and Last Word have also cut loose and are distancing themselves from the UA.

  Kris waited as the skippers and crews did what they had to do to survive. That did not include sending any darts at the approaching enemy.

  It was an hour later before the captains of the Conqueror and Last Word reported they were ready to anchor again to each other and commence firing.

  Kris ordered UA to make for the distant Zeta Jump Point. She’d suffered five hundred casualties, killed, wounded, and missing.

  What would have happen to UA if they didn’t hold the line was not worth thinking about.

  Kris ordered Conqueror and Last Word to limit their fire. “One shot a minute. Let’s make sure everything is shipshape.”

  It took an hour to work up to two shots a minute.

  “That long firing sequence Last Word used,” Nelly said. “They’ve gone over it again and are using half of it. It’s still twice as long as UA’s.”

  Kris eyed the incoming attack waves. “We may have no choice but to go back to rapid fire, but we can put that call off a while.”

  The first wave of eighth- and sixteenth-size bullets were approaching the onrushing cruisers. The ships charged headlong into a trap that rapidly turned marvelous works of high tech into wrecks and ruin.

  A dozen cruisers vanished in the blink of an eye. More the next minute. In the face of onrushing death, cruisers tried to evade, to dodge after days of 3.5-gee acceleration. The inertia on the thinly built speedsters was brutal. Two ships bent in the middle. Since one took a pellet a moment later, it likely was doomed either way.

  For fifteen minutes, the onrushing wave of barbs devastated the cruisers. They died in twos and threes. Once, six blew out in a single second.

  “I think I got the fragmentation pattern just right,” Nelly said, but she did not crow. A deadly pall hung over flag plot. This was not so much battle as murder.

  Of course, if these murderers got half a chance, they’d make a suicide dive right down the humans’ throats.

  Kris ordered the beam ships to aim more pellets at the onrushing cruisers. She also ordered Wasp to lead her last-ditch defense squadrons out to make a quick orbit around the neutron star, rising high and passing low to stay out of the line of fire, and to come up along the path of the incoming cruisers. No doubt the speed difference would give them little time to shoot, but they’d have more time to aim than holding formation with the beam ships.

  “There’s a risk,” Kris told Wasp’s new skipper, “that you’ll be in heavy traffic when you come back at us: cruisers and the wreckage of cruisers as well as our outgoing shots. We’ll try to give you a good idea of where that is, so you can dodge, but we can’t make any promises.”

  “Admiral, we knew the score when we shipped out. Give us targets. That’s all we ask.”

  “Good luck,” Kris said, and cut the link.

  She turned to Jack. “Hold me.”

  He did.

  What kind of a woman am I, sending so many out to die? What kind of an admiral am I, needing a man to hold me?

  NO DOUBT, A LOT OF GENERALS AND ADMIRALS NEEDED SOME HUMAN COMFORT WHEN THINGS GOT BAD, Jack answered on Nelly net.

  WHAT?

  YOU WERE THINKING IT RATHER LOUDLY, Nelly answered. MAYBE I SHOULDN’T HAVE PASSED IT ALONG TO JACK. YOU CAN SUE ME LATER, WHEN ALL THIS IS DONE.

  Kris let Jack hold her. She felt the buzz in her bones, not shaking like before but something different, as if every bone in her body had taken on a resonance. Slowly, in Jack’s arms, it died away.

  “Thank you,” she said, stepping away.

  “Can I come back in?” came plaintively from the door.

  “Certainly,” Kris said, “although I’ve just sent our last defenses out to make a quick swing by our local star and come back up, possibly in neutron traffic, to get the best shots they can at the incoming cruisers.”

  “I was going to suggest that,” Penny said, coming gingerly back into flag plot. “Kris, I’m sorry. I was out of order. It won’t happen again.”

  “Yes, it will, Penny. That’s why I have you here. We both knew that was the only order I could give, but neither one of us liked it. You had to say it. I had to do it. Now get caught up and let me have the benefit of your thoughts.”

  Penny studied the board for a bit, then turned to Kris. “You remember when you told me you wanted Endeavor to run away, not fight?”

  “Yes. Someone suggested I turn in my Longknife ‘Do or Die’ merit badge.”

  “I was wondering. Is there any reason we have to stand and fight these cruisers? Could we maybe duck out when they get here?”

  Kris slapped her forehead. “Right. We spend fifteen minutes every twelve hours behind this cinder of a planet. Why not spend the few minutes they’re in range hiding there?”

  “With all the e
nergy they have on their boats,” Masao said, “there is no way they could bend their course to an orbit. They are coming at us hell-for-leather. Let them eat hell.”

  Kris found herself hugging her friend, not a hug for her, but a hug for joy. She even planted a kiss on Penny’s cheek. “You are a genius, woman. A defensive genius. Nelly, calculate what changes we need to make to our orbit to accomplish this.”

  “If we make a minor adjustment this orbit, we can make a second adjustment an hour before they pass through, and yes, Penny is right. From the lead ship to the last one is less than five minutes.”

  “Nelly, advise the captains of the change in orbits. Also, adjust our targeting. The cruisers still get one shot out of ten. We don’t want them to think we’re ignoring them. Nelly, are the ships headed for the Alwa jump holding a steady course?”

  “Yes, Kris.”

  “Are you thinking what I think you’re thinking?” Penny asked.

  “Why not? Nelly, the next ten minutes, we concentrate on the wayward detachment. Give them one-sixteenth pellets. They’re far enough out that any damage is better than none. Then, once the original storm is on its way, they get one shot in five. That leaves seven shots in ten for our friends out Admiral Kitano’s way. By the way, Nelly, advise Kitano of both our plans to dodge the cruisers and the bullets we’ve sent at those who skipped out on her. We need to keep her in the loop.”

  “Done, Kris.”

  Kris glanced around her flag plot. A few minutes ago it looked like a funeral. Now it was more like the early stages of a victory party. Kris knew this could change, but it felt good for now.

  She rubbed her belly and felt baby settle down with her to wait.

  She hadn’t long.

  65

  The aliens didn’t wait for Admiral Kitano’s battlecruisers to attack them. Instead, they wore away from them and invited Kitano to try the deadly space they’d been in.

  Kitano declined the honor, instead leading her ships up and over the clouds of racing neutron fragments.

  Kris studied the situation and decided it was too ambiguous for her long-range fire. She ordered the beam ships to slow fire, one round every minute, and send three out to the far force headed for the jump and one at the cruisers. Again, Kris advised Kitano of developments and that she’d have clean space to fight five hours from now.

  Before her, cruisers died. What would happen to the far-flung forces would be a long time coming.

  Jack took Kris out for a candlelit dinner at an Italian restaurant. Kris was again struck by a surreal feeling as the waiters went about their business and off-duty workers sat at tables, chatting as normally as any day while ships did battle and people died only a few Astronomical Units away. Of course, those units were measured in millions of kilometers. Still, in Kris’s flag plot, they fought a battle.

  Here, they dined on veal parmigiana and a truly unique and very fresh Caesar salad.

  “We grow the lettuce aboard ship, Your Highness,” the waiter said as he set the plate before her.

  “This is not relaxing,” Kris told Jack after the wine waiter retreated with no order.

  “I know, but imagine the report these other diners will take to their shipmates. ‘I ate with the princess at Luigi’s. It can’t be all that bad.’”

  Kris winced. “Is that the message we want?”

  “When all hell breaks loose, it will be soon enough to worry. For now, everyone does their job, and things will work out,” Jack said, saluting Kris with a water goblet.

  Kris saluted back. “Leave tomorrow’s evil to tomorrow, huh?”

  “Unless you can send some neutron slag at it, yes,” Jack answered.

  Kris left half her delicious meal on the plate. Between baby taking up so much room and the nervousness that she could not shed, her stomach had little interest.

  They walked, hand in hand, back to flag plot. “Anything pop while we were at supper?” Jack asked as soon as they stepped through the door.

  “Just the usual,” Penny reported. “Is Luigi’s as good as they say?”

  “Very good,” Kris said, “assuming you don’t have a baby shoving your stomach up into your throat.”

  “Mind if Masao and I take a break?” Penny asked. “I’m a bit hungry.”

  “With gratitude for watching the store while we did,” Kris said, and sent her friends on their way.

  With Admiral Furzah, she studied the boards.

  “Is it as strange for you as it is for me to watch this slow-motion battle?” Admiral Furzah asked. “In our histories, there are stories of sieges that lasted for years, but this. This is strange.”

  “The time for terror will come.”

  “Hmm. I think the time of terror is coming to your Fast Fleets,” she said.

  Kris had noticed that. While she’d dined with Jack, the neutron darts launched hours ago had been racing through the empty space that both the aliens and Admiral Kitano were carefully avoiding. Soon, their battlefield would be clear; Kitano was already edging closer to the aliens.

  They had spread out, loosening their dishes to let ships dodge. Many hadn’t. “Nelly, what’s the count on alien warships?”

  “We’ve destroyed a hundred and twenty-three. There are six hundred and ninety-seven left, Kris. Oh, and while you were out, Lorna Do’s Churchill didn’t quite dodge. A dart winged her. She’s still holding out space, but her crystal armor got knocked off, and her lasers are questionable. She’s trailing the fleet.”

  “We knew the risk when we laid on this battle,” Kris whispered.

  The battle began to develop. The aliens were in a diamond array, each corner made up of six dishes of roughly thirty warships each. Here Kris got to see the difference between the Enlightened Ones. One array was an open, six-pointed star. The next was two columns of three. The third was a pentagon with one dish in the middle. The last was more a swarm with six loose formations that constantly changed shape.

  “That’s got to be a bitch to control,” Jack said.

  “Are you sure it is controlled?” Admiral Furzah asked. “It looks like no one commands there.”

  “She may be right,” Kris said. “I think Kitano will try that one first.”

  Kitano’s four fleets were in a diamond formation of their own. Admiral Drago’s Fourth Fleet held a bit back, facing three of the alien dishes as Kitano slipped the other three down to engage the loosely formed enemy.

  That alien commander must have seen what was coming. Either he gave the order to charge, or his skippers got it into their own heads to do so. However it happened, nearly two hundred warships flipped over, aimed themselves at the approaching battlecruisers, and charged. They’d been maintaining 2.5 gees for days. They had a lot of energy on every ship, all headed for Kris. Now they bent their course with anywhere from 2.6 to 3.1 gees straight at the battlecruisers.

  Kitano saw it coming. She slowly pulled back, not letting the aliens get too much of an advantage in acceleration, then she gave them a blast from the forward batteries, flipped, and took off at three gees, giving them a taste of the aft batteries.

  Now the aliens gave chase, doing everything they could to catch the battlecruisers. The humans reloaded their aft batteries every five to seven seconds, depending on whether they were the new ships with eight guns aft or the upgraded battlecruisers with four.

  Once, Kitano ordered a flip and let them have it with the forward batteries, six or twelve for a full five seconds, then flipped over again.

  The alien charge was mad, wild . . . and erratic. The faster ships were the first to die as Kitano concentrated on them. Then the next wave and the next. Warships might be five hundred thousand tons of anger coated with slabs of granite and basalt, but they were mortal, and could only take so much from 22-inch lasers.

  “The battlecruisers are concentrating two or three lasers on the same point,” Nelly reported. “Five seconds worth of that from 22-inch lasers will burn a hole in anything.”

  And it did. Kris had to remind he
rself that what she saw was hours old. Warships surged ahead and died in fiery explosions as lasers slashed them. Some battlecruisers took hits; they glowed their response.

  Battlecruisers glowed and cooled as alien warships burned and vaporized.

  “When will they learn this is suicide?” Penny whispered.

  “They know it is,” Kris said. “That Enlightened One is willing to send them to their deaths. Why?”

  The aliens played the suicide card again. Smaller boats launched from the larger warships, aimed for the nearest human ship. Secondary batteries slapped them down. Big warships burned, and little suicide ships sparkled in death. Smaller explosions lit up.

  “That rocket-launcher defense is working,” Jack said.

  “Did we mount any rocket launchers on this big target?” Kris asked Jack.

  “No, this huge target has no secondary armament. No defense at all.”

  Kris’s eyes grew wide.

  “And yes, I’ve had all the Marine rocket launchers we brought aboard mounted on the hull. They’ll have to be operated by Marines on line of sight. The huge sensor suite this tub has is all aimed at targets way out there. Nothing for right at your elbow.”

  “Nelly, can you do anything about that?”

  “No, Kris. Jack already raised this with Sal. My kids are smart, Kris, but we need something to work with. These sensors can’t track anything as close as a million klicks.”

  “Oh, brilliant,” Kris said. “I should have spent a week crawling over this monster, getting a feel for what they’d given us.”

  “You were rather busy, my loving Admiral,” Jack said, “and we did have to dock these monsters two hundred clicks ahead of the station to make sure ships didn’t run into them. There wasn’t time.”

  “No, we couldn’t delay this attack,” Kris agreed.

  “Let’s just pray they don’t get near us,” Penny said.

  “Prayer is not a strategy,” Admiral Furzah said. “At least, not a winning strategy.”

  Kris said a hearty amen to that.

  The battle of the first array resolved itself while they talked. While one corner died, the others did not sit idle. The three remaining arrays, in their different formations, closed on Admiral Drago’s Fourth Fleet, trying to get in range of him and do to him what the rest of the fleets were doing for their brothers.