Coming up the rear, Intrepid had the rear guard. She would herd any ships that missed through the jump, likely at a much later time. At a hundred thousand kilometers per hour, it takes time to slow down, turn around, retrace your path to well past the jump, accelerate to a hundred thousand kph, and try to hit the jump again.
Kris had left specific orders with the skipper of the Intrepid as to what she wanted him to do if he was late to the party.
Once the Princess Royal made the jump, Nelly reported that they had jumped four-hundred fifty-two light years to the system she was aiming for. The P. Royal joined the Undaunted in accelerating away from the jump at 2.5 gees, thus clearing the jump for the next one to arrive. Three seconds later, the commander of Flotilla 30 popped into space, followed by ninety more Iteeche battlecruisers.
Thus it went, for most of the next two hours, every three seconds, a ship jumped into this distant system and accelerated away from the jump point at 2.5 gees. That is, except for when the flow of ships paused for three or six or nine seconds before it began again. Once, four ships missed the jump and a full twelve seconds elapsed before a human cruiser led two Iteeche flotillas through.
“I wonder if they just missed the jump,” Jack muttered in Kris’s ear, “or whether they are off in some horrible sour jump.”
“Let’s hope they just missed and the Intrepid will bring them home.”
“Wagging their tails behind them?” Jack said through a grin.
“Or their tentacles,” Kris suggested, then went back to counting her sheep.
Two hours later, they were missing thirty-one ships: thirty Iteeche and the Intrepid. It would be three to five hours before they could join them; Kris ordered the fleet at 2.0 gees for a spot in space identified by the Princess Royal’s navigator.
“Kris, Admiral Coth is calling,” Nelly announced.
“Deep darkness of greatest deeps, Admiral! My navigator tells me that we’ve jumped over four hundred light years!”
“Four hundred and fifty-two light years to be precise.”
“Yes, let us be precise, by all means. Now I see what you meant when I heard we would go farther and arrive faster. I assume we will arrive faster.”
“Three more jumps. Maybe four,” Kris added. The three jumps verses four was troubling her at the moment. “For the next jump, we’ll need to get up to three hundred thousand kilometers an hour on the boats. We’ll need to thread this needle very carefully.”
“You wouldn’t be willing to tell me just how you do that, would you, Admiral?”
“I would be glad to share our secret with you. My king, however, forbids me to do that.”
“Ah, yes, matters of state. Someday they really must let us fight a war without an arm tied behind our back.”
“Admiral, do you think the rebels already know that we jink ships hard in battle?”
“That was in your battle reports a lot of us read,” the Iteeche officer answered.
“Do you think that they have descriptions of the high gee stations your sailors use?” Kris asked.
“Not the better ones you just spun out after we left the pier, but, no doubt, they’ve heard of the rough ones you gave us earlier.”
“Do you think they’ve heard that lasers need to be tightened down in their cradles?”
“No need to say more. By the fates, I’m glad you’re holding some cards back up your two sleeves.”
“Thank you, Admiral. Now, shall we spread our ships out to 250,000 kilometers and have another gunnery practice?”
They went through battle drills until the range between columns had opened out to 250,000 klicks, then went at each other, dodging and jinking, shooting weak lasers and, in general, trying to acquire the battle skills they needed for the fight ahead. Through the next three jumps they repeated the same drill: jump, spread out, conduct evasion drills, and gunnery practice, then close up and shoot through the next jump. By the third jump, everyone was able to take it on the first try.
As Kris closed on the final jump, she chose to add an extra jump. Instead of racing into the target system at 100,000 kph, her fleet entered the next system out and slowed down. This both allowed them to cruise up to the jump into the next system at a few klicks per hour, but it also let them do a quick pass by a gas giant and refuel.
The Undaunted again led the fleet through the jump into the Moon Rising Over Gold system. Again, a messenger rocket came back through the jump right after her. Nelly did a quick survey and allowed that space around the jump was safe out to a million klicks.
Wing 1 followed the Princess Royal through the jump.
As they cleared the jump at .5 gees, Sensors extended its data intake further and further afield. Kris waited patiently for the report on the enemy in system to come to her.
Then she began to wait impatiently for a report on the rebel deployment.
Finally, she said, “Nelly.”
“Yes, Kris.”
“Where’s my report on enemy activity?”
“Kris, it is hard to prove a negative.”
“Prove a negative?”
“Yes, Kris. I have not been able to identify any activity in this system. There is a planet down there where it should be. It is making all kind of noise, like a planet should. There is a huge ice giant within six hours sailing at two gees. It is making all sorts of noise, jamming the passive sensors, and it has several ice rings that are a bitch to search. So far, however, the only ships in this system are the ones under your command.”
Kris said a word she would not want little Ruth to hear, much less use.
“You think we’ve been out maneuvered?” Jack asked.
“I’m trying not to think anything until I have more to go on,” Kris answered.
For two hours, Kris’s fleet trailed her into the system. Just as the last ship showed up, a message arrived from the one colonized planet.
“I don’t know who you are,” an Iteeche in the rainbow dress of an Imperial counselor said, “but there’s nothing here. The other ships blew away everything in orbit except the space station and elevator. They hung around for a while, then took off, out the other jump. We reported this development to the Emperor. Whose side are you on and can you tell us what is going on in the Empire?”
“Reverse course,’ Kris snapped. “Intrepid, you will lead us back through the jump.”
“Aye, aye, Admiral,” and all twenty-two hundred ships in her vast armada, flipped ship and began to decelerate at 1.5 gees. As soon as they were dead in space, they would head for the jump, putting on more energy as they went.
“I guess us taking the long way around for speed put us out of touch with news,” Jack muttered. Maybe to himself.
“Yeah,” Kris growled in response.
“What do you think is going on?” Jack asked.
“Roth is our principal patron,” Kris said. “Threaten one of his wealthiest planets and you almost guarantee that he will send us off to keep it safe.”
Jack nodded.
“When better to strike at the capital than when we’re way the hell and gone.”
“You think they would?”
“Jack, the rebels only sent five hundred ships, that we know of, to this system. Where are the rest of them? Nelly, set in the fastest course for the Imperial capital. I don’t care how fast we’re going when we get there.”
“Kris, there are no fuzzy jumps into the Imperial Capitol system. The closest we can get is the Guard system.”
“Then punch it, Nelly.”
41
The Intrepid led Kris’s fleet through the fuzzy jump into the Imperial Guard system. Even at 500,000 kph, it managed to get a messenger pod back to Kris. It was safe to jump.
Kris led Wing 1 through the jump; it took only half a minute for Nelly to paint a picture of the situation in the system.
It was bloody carnage.
There were five normal jumps into the Guard system, each defended by an armed space station with a fleet of close to two hundred
battlecruisers docked at it. Around the jump that took traffic into the Imperial Capital’s system were three huge armed space stations with several hundred battlecruisers stationed at each one.
When Kris left the system six days ago, it had been an imposing force.
Now, wreckage and helpless ships drifted all around the stations. Having achieved sea room, a good hundred thousand kilometers from the stations, detachments of ten, fifteen or twenty ships fought it out with each other.
All were Iteeche-built battlecruisers. All were at each other’s throats.
And while these ships fought for control of the space around a station, a massive force streamed from Gamma Jump toward the jump into the Imperial Capital system.
“Nelly, talk to me about that force.”
“Kris, the opposing force is over five thousand battlecruisers and growing. There are four bi-hexaremes and a single tri-hexareme. I think some satrap honchos have come to see the fun.”
“Or to take the throne,” Jack said.
Looking at the numbers piling up on the other side of the system, Kris wished she had deployed her drones before she jumped. Still, at 500,000 kph, the drones could never have slowed down, much less fought as if they were a ship. Kris had accepted tradeoffs.
Getting here fast was proving to be the right choice.
“Nelly, let’s look at our intercept options,” Grand Admiral Kris Longknife asked her computer.
“May I suggest,” Nelly said softly, “that while we discuss our options, the fleet set a course to sling around the nearby gas giant. It will swing us closer to the enemy and we can refuel.”
Nelly showed a curving course that swung around the gas bag, and then cut straight at the incoming alien armada.
“Commodore Tosan, have the fleet lay in the course Nelly is feeding you. Let’s stay in line ahead for a while.”
“Aye, aye, Admiral,” Tosan said and rang off.
“Okay, Nelly, how are we going to fight this battle?”
“I would suggest one gee until we round the gas giant. Then I’d suggest two gees for three hours before we flip the entire fleet and go to 2.5 gee deceleration. This assumes the rebel battle fleet continues at one gee acceleration and deceleration.”
Kris nodded. “That’s a safe bet.”
“That should put us in range of them twelve hours before they reach the jump.”
“A twelve-hour running gun battle,” Kris said slowly, tasting the blood and fire of those words.
“A hell of a lot of ships,” Jack said, “are going to take a hell of a lot of damage.”
Kris couldn’t agree more.
Her armada stayed in line astern as they approached the gas giant with its rings of ice and many small moons. There, Kris ordered her human battlecruisers to fall back and form a flotilla at the lead of Wing 3.
That would concentrate the US battlecruisers, with their fire power and armor, where she could hammer one rebel wing or slam into the center.
It was best to keep her options open.
As they came out from behind the gas giant, Kris ordered the five wings to form line abreast. Now, instead of having one long line, she was leading five lines in column. The rebels had taken that time as well to begin to organize themselves into four wings forming a cross around a center that was the same size as the other wings.
Kris eyed the rebel fleet as it struggled to organize itself into a battle array. Each wing looked to have close to two thousand ships. Her five wings would account for four hundred and forty ships. She'd be outnumbered four to one or a bit less.
Kris ran both hands through her hair. Her scalp was feeling the tension of this business. She'd told everyone she could fight three to one and win. So, of course, the enemy would show up with four ships for every one of hers.
“Now with ships firing lasers with an effective range of 270,000 kilometers, they can concentrate their fire any place they bloody well want to," she muttered to herself. "If I bring Wing 3 in close to the alien’s leading wing, every 24-inch laser in the rebel fleet will have a clear shot at us.”
Kris shook her head. “Damn, this fighting same-on-same is a bitch.”
“Yes,” Jack agreed.
The battling around the stations reached a bloody conclusion. The ships from the three inner stations that guarded the jump into the Imperial system fought to the end. The rebels gained control of the space around one station. About the same time, the opposite station annihilated the rebels. Then both sides charged over to reinforce their ships at the central station.
There was some talk on the net of a cease fire to allow them to rescue Iteeche trapped in the tumbling hulks, but the two forces smashed into each other before any agreement could be reached. The fight continued until only a single, badly damaged battlecruiser from each side was left.
Badly damaged they might be, but both had at least one operational laser. Each fired. Each blew the other to hot gas.
With all the killing done around those three stations, longboats and merchant ships slipped their moorings and began to slowly comb through the wreckage for survivors.
The battle of the outer systems also showed no willingness to retreat. None to surrender.
When Kris had entered the system, hundreds of ships were in ad hoc flotillas, steaming away from the six stations. At some distance, the columns would reverse course and steam back toward the station, all the time exchanging salvo after salvo with each other. Ships blew up. Others fell out of the battle array as they suffered casualties and destruction. Some two dozen ships were all that was left out of a thousand or more when all the slaughter was done. Those ships set course to intercept the incoming rebels, either to join them or to fight them.
Kris had Admiral Coth send the loyal survivors a course to rendezvous with Kris’s ships. Throwing fifteen battle-exhausted ships at a fresh battle line of seven or eight thousand battlecruisers did not strike Kris as a good use of her assets.
The parade of ships through Jump Point Gamma ended. Nelly tallied up the entire list of opposition forces. Eight thousand battlecruisers organized into two hundred and fifty flotillas of thirty-two ships. It was hard to tell how many would end up in the center or the wings. Flotillas kept edging up or down or over. Sometimes the center was heavy, other times, there were balanced, say sixteen hundred ships in each.
She’d ordered the tag end flotillas in her five columns to join the center, then moved them over to Wing 1 or 3. Two could play this game.
The battle looked to be a good twelve hours away. With the ships now at 2.5 gees deceleration, she ordered her ships to Condition Charlie. “Get the crew some hot food and sleep. We’ll go back to drills in eight hours.”
Kris’s two thousand two hundred ships with over a million Iteeche and humans aboard, steamed toward their destiny with the fate of an Empire, its Emperor and billions of Iteeche riding on its shoulders.
42
Kris awoke to find Jack asleep at her side, an arm thrown protectively over her. She appreciated the thought, but there was no way for anyone to protect her from what this day would take away or give to her.
Kris slipped away without waking Jack, took care of the morning chores, did her stretches . . . it was a lot harder to stay flexible than it had been five years ago. Done, she pulled on a shipsuit with five stars painted on it to show who she was. She might or might not wear it into her egg. There might be no belt or ribbon clutch backs, but a zipper at 3.8 gees might not be at all comfortable.
In the wardroom, Kris chose ham, eggs, roasted potatoes, and several glasses of milk and juice. She had a long day ahead of her.
The wardroom was less than half full and most were keeping to themselves. Even people that Kris recognized as couples were silently and methodically eating.
“Kris,” Nelly said.
“Yes,” Kris answered, speaking softly, as if in church or the library.
“We’ve modified all the drones in the fleet.”
“How so?”
“
The first batch we knocked together so we could fool the rebels on our way to the capital could not jink like a battlecruiser. We realized that we not only needed the drones to bounce around as much as a battlecruiser, but they also needed to look like they were firing lasers.”
“You can’t see lasers in space,” Kris reminded her computer.
“That is correct, Kris, but not accurate.”
“Okay, Nelly,” Kris said with a chuckle, “set me straight.”
“Under normal conditions, you can’t see a laser in space. Yes, I have created some seriously heavy-duty optics that can spot the way a beam excites the few molecules it hits in space. Those molecules disperse and bloom the beam until it is finally ineffective at 200,000 to 270,000 kilometers.”
“Thank you, Nelly, for the review of the basics,” Kris said dryly. She was discovering that she really would have preferred to eat her meal in peace.
“Battlecruisers, ours or theirs, leak reaction mass. Because the laser hits puncture the outer armor into the cooling honeycomb underneath, we vent reaction mass around a hit to try to disrupt the beam. Every little bit helps.”
“So the reaction mass that we’re streaming out could serve as a medium to show that our own laser are firing,” Kris said slowly. “And if two thirds of our ships are not showing anything . . .”
“Correct, Kris. It will be pretty obvious which is the real battlecruiser and which is the fake one.”
“And you’ve fixed that.”
“We’ve added twenty ultra, low power lasers and enlarged the reaction mass tanks. We’ve added the necessary tubing to vent that mass around the drone.”
“That’s good. Nelly, while I was asleep, did anyone come up with a deployment process to make sure all our ships aren’t right smack dab in the middle of the two drones?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Get me Commodore Tosan.”
“Admiral?”
“Next time, we’ve got to keep my staff to the Princess Royal.”
“Yes, ma’am, but I doubt that’s why you’re calling me.”
Kris Longknife - Admiral Page 27