Kris Longknife - Admiral

by Mike Shepherd

  “Right. When we launch drones and pop maskers, how do we keep from all our ships being the one in the middle of the three?”

  “Yes, ma’am. There are several ways. If anyone has a six-sided die, they roll it and take the station it directs. Alternatively, I could generate a set of random zeros, ones, and twos then generate a different set of random numbers to tell each ship which one of these numbers it belongs to.”

  “Nelly, can you generate a six-sided die on each bridge?”

  “Of course, Kris.”

  “Tosan, distribute the die roll policy to the fleet. If they don’t have a die or six-sided randomizer, Nelly will make them one.”

  “Kris, the Iteeche do have dice games,” Nelly put in. “They use two twelve-sided dice for a game of chance.”

  “Three can go into twelve as well as six,” Kris said. “Tell Admiral Coth that his ships can use their own die.”

  “Done,” Nelly said.

  “I’m available if you need me, Admiral,” the commodore said, and rang off.

  Kris munched a potato half for a moment, thinking. What other surprise had she missed? What surprise was an Iteeche admiral even now planning on popping on her?

  They had mass . . . and likely some improvements in their ships. Maybe in their training. Kris had ships that were seriously improved with crews that she’d drilled for the last week or more. Which would tell the most?

  “What are you thinking?” Jack said as he slipped into the chair beside her. He also was in a simple ship suit. It fit him like a second skin; she had to be careful not to ogle what it showed. Then she glanced down at her ship suit. It was just as tight and hugged her curves. Kris noticed her body was showing him just how glad she was to see him.

  “I’m thinking that I’ve fought enough fights to know that there’s no way that I can think of everything before the battle starts. I’ll surprise him. He’ll surprise me. I’ll make mistakes. He’ll make mistakes. Hopefully, he’ll make more than I do.”

  “And you’ve defeated everyone who has crossed swords with you, my dear admiral,” Jack pointed out as he forked a bite of scrambled eggs into his mouth.

  “There’s always a first time for everything,” Kris said.

  “Harrumph,” Jack said as he chewed.

  “Over two thousand ships to get in order. I’ve never commanded more than a couple of dozen.”

  “That last battle at System X,” Jack pointed out.

  “Amber had command of the battlecruiser force. All I had were those three huge beam ships and a dozen or so escorts.”

  “Commodore Tosan and Admiral Coth have experience with large forces,” Jack pointed out.

  “I wonder how many ships Coth has actually led, and, except for Admiral Santiago’s command, most humans have only drilled in task fleets of thirty-two to forty-eight ships. Jack, we’re in way over our head.”

  “And the rebel commander,” Jack said, shaking a fork with a bite of ham on it at Kris. “Both the battles they’ve fought had forces of a thousand or so on each side. None of those admirals survived. How much you want to bet the guy across the way from you is worrying about the same damn thing?”

  “Has anyone told you, General, that you’re too damn rational?”

  “My wife complains about it all the time,” he said, with a lopsided grin.

  “I wonder what the kids are doing about now?” Kris said, changing the topic.

  For the rest of breakfast, they guessed what time it was at the Imperial Capital and what the kid might be doing. “The pool. Most likely the pool,” Kris said.

  “Definitely.”

  43

  Kris sat in her high gee station on her shrunken flag bridge. They were only at Condition Charlie, but it was still tight. As admiral, she studied the developing battle before her. In four hours, the battle would be joined. For the next hour, she, Coth, Tosan, and the other three wing commanders went over Kris’s tactics and strategy for the coming battle.

  That was all fine, but Kris had to move flotillas from one wing to another. That drill was worked out and passed down to flotilla and ship commanders. Those same flotilla commanders would decide when to flip ship or let skippers fire at will. Wing commanders would be the ones that opened the intervals between ships. Kris set the interval between flotillas and wings.

  So many decisions. Nelly reminded everyone of a naval battle early in the twentieth century where one commander had trained his skippers to all turn at the same time. His opposing number had only trained his captains to turn in column, with all the ships turning in the same place.

  The last ship in the column was brutally savaged when its turn came.

  A lot could turn on how ships turned.

  For an hour, Kris and her team tried to think about all they would need.

  Then it got complicated.

  Donn’sum’Zu’sum’NamquHav’sum’Domm, Admiral of the First Grand Order of Iron did not like this mud-forsaken seat or bed or whatever they were calling this nest that he sat in. He’d been told it was what the humans called a high gee station. Somehow, this would allow him and his crew to survive the brutal accelerations and jumping around that the humans did when they fought.

  As far as Donn was concerned, it just made his hip hurt where it mashed down to the hard seat below. The thing seemed poorly designed. Had some spy gotten it wrong, or had someone lied to the spy? Or had the humans played them all, rebel and loyalist alike, for fools, giving them something that turned them into lazy slatterns, rolling around in the mud, waiting for some low cast worker to pay for her eggs?

  Warriors were meant to stand when they fought. They had since they first picked up a stick or threw a rock. Now he was lying down.

  Still, his ship was decelerating at 2.98 gees. Standing gave a sailor flat feet above 2.5 gees.

  “Get me a programmer in here,” the admiral ordered.

  Moments later, a young, lower-class sailor presented himself to the admiral.

  “I want this mesh, or whatever you call it, thicker.”

  “Where, M’Lord Admiral?”

  “Everywhere. On the bottom. On the sides. Up here where my head rests. I don’t want to break my mud-caked neck when the ship whips around.”

  “Yes, M’Lord Admiral,” the sailor said and went to work with the computer that he had rolled in behind him. He did not complain about being out of his high gee station. His was probably even less comfortable than the admiral’s.

  If the sailor could sit there on the deck plates playing games with his computer, the admiral could stand in place, thank you very much. He stood, held onto the support bar that had been the traditional place for a commanding admiral since time immemorial, and studied the battle screen.

  The human-led traitors to their species, and betrayers of the True Way of the Emperor, were decelerating at 2.98 gees, just as he was. The physics of the battle was iron clad. The two forces would come within range of their type 4A lasers in three hours. The newest and most powerful lasers would battle it out for an hour before they closed so that the 3A lasers on the older ships could be brought to bear.

  He could, of course, shorten that time.

  “Staff officer number one, pass the word immediately. I will have the fleet steer six points closer to the enemy when I give the order.”

  “As you would have it, M’Lord Admiral,” his number one staff officer answered and began immediately issuing orders to a board of Comm officers.

  Despite Admiral Donn’s demand that the order be passed immediately, it could not be.

  There were seventeen satraps represented in this huge space host. Each of those satraps had sent ships crewed by sixteen or more clans. While some of those clans bore the same name and blood as clans in other satraps, their particular part of the clan owed their power and wealth to the satrap’s pasha.

  Donn had asked that orders be given by wing, then sub wing, then flotilla, but he could not win unanimous agreement to that rational approach. At times, there were disadvant
ages to being the fifth Chosen of a clan chief. Every other clan chief’s chosen admiral was afraid that Donn might do anything it took to get his clan chief from his battleship of state to the Imperial stool before anyone else could.

  Donn nodded his head. The delay in giving orders would not be crucial. They outnumbered the stupid Imperials four to one. By all that swam in the fertile shallows, they should surrender.

  But that human Longknife, long gutting knife as she was, held the command of the fleet he faced. Everyone knew that a Longknife never ran.

  That a Longknife never surrendered.

  Admiral Donn eyed his screen and waited to see how long it would take the human to do something. What would she, a female of the species, do?

  Donn spat on the deck. Nothing was right with those other ships. Nothing.

  44

  “Kris, there has been a change in the enemy disposition,” Nelly said.

  “What’s up Nelly?” Kris said as she wheeled her station around to gaze at the forward screen. It sure looked the same.

  “We have a slight Doppler change in the return from the Iteeche battle line. In a minute, I think we will have evidence of a course change. One that would close the range faster.”

  “Comm, send to Wings. Course change to thirty degrees closer to the enemy.”

  “Comm sending,” came back at her. At the top of the main screen was a counter for all five wings. It was in percentages and stood at zero. A moment later, the counters for all five fleets began to change. In half a minute, every ship in the armada had reported itself ready to alter course.

  “Comm, send execute.”

  “Execute,” went out as a single word.

  On that word, every ship in the fleet swung its rocket motors around to face thirty degrees away from the rebel fleet. Now, one hundred and fifty degrees of the deceleration vector was devoted to deceleration toward the jump. The other thirty degrees went to pushing all two thousand two hundred of Kris’s ships toward the enemy.

  “We will be in range of the rebels fifty-three minutes sooner,” Nelly said.

  “Very well,” Kris said and turned back to her planning.”

  “Kris, I hate to interrupt again.”

  “Yes, Nelly.”

  “The Iteeche admiral across from us is steering sixty degrees toward us, not thirty.”

  “Comm, send for another thirty degrees closer to the enemy.”

  Half a minute later, the two fleets were heading more toward each other and less toward the jump. They would not be able to hold this course for too long. They’d have to jack up their deceleration a lot if they wanted to make that jump, but the physics of their engagement had changed radically.

  “Kris, we will now be in range of 24-inch lasers in twenty-one minutes.”

  “Thank you, Nelly.”

  Kris eyed the new lines on her battle board. The two fleets would be in range of each other for thirteen and a half hours. During that time, they might as well be handcuffed to each other. They’d be drawn inexorably to closer and closer ranges if they wanted to make the jump point. In the end, they’d be firing at a range where ranging and forecasting would matter not a fig. The lasers would aim and fire, and they would hit the ship before it could wiggle out of that firing solution.

  It would be murder, if it came to that.

  Kris shivered.

  “Let’s organize the wings,” Kris said. Nelly had the distance for each wing and its precise place in the array already plotted. She sent the orders to each wing commander, then Kris gave them the authentication. The wing’s line astern detached into groups of forty-four or forty-five battlecruisers. Each wing went from one long line to a fighting array of ten flotillas in columns, each with nine battlecruisers stacked five high. The wings then organized their flotillas into three high, three low and four middle flotillas.

  The initial array put each ship within five thousand klicks of the ships around it. The flotillas were spaced ten thousand kilometers apart. The wings had forty thousand kilometers between them.

  Then the order went out to spread out. Like a wave, starting from the back, the entire armada opened up its ranks until there were ten thousand kilometers between each ship, front, back and both sides.

  The flotillas opened the distance between themselves to twenty thousand kilometers, the wings kept the forty thousand klick distance. The distance from the lead squadron of the vanguard wing through the center wing to the trailing squadron of the rear guard was now over 1.2 million kilometers. With the maximum gunnery range 270,000 klicks, the fight would be every wing engaging its opposite number, at least for a start.

  “It looks like the rebel admiral is also deploying his ships into a battle array,” Jack said as the enemy went from long lines astern into an array of flotillas and wings. Like Kris’s armada, they formed a center with four wings.

  Beyond that, there were no similarities.

  Kris eyed the developing situation and half-talked to herself, half to Jack. “The Iteeche flotilla are smaller; thirty-two ships, arranged in four columns of eight ships. Mine are nine ships long stacked five high. So much for flotilla on flotilla. However, when you look at a wing, we’ve got no more than four hundred and forty ships. The Iteeche wing across from us will have sixteen hundred.”

  “The odds for each wing are close to four to one,” Jack observed.

  Kris ran a worried hand through her short hair. “The Iteeche array has two more advantages. With the rebel ships keeping a distance of five thousand kilometers between them, they can concentrate the fire of four ships on any one of mine. At the same time, the total length of the Iteeche column from vanguard to rear guard was,” Kris glanced at her battle board. Nelly had the answer flashing, “One point five million clicks. The two ends of the column are in a perfect position to swing around my flanks. Worse, from the lowest ship in my bottom flotilla to the highest ships of my top flank, ships stretch seven hundred thousand kilometers. For the Iteeche commander with his wings stacking five flotillas on top of each other, the distance is nine hundred thousand. He could bring two entire rows, totaling twenty flotillas, down on my top three or up on my bottom three.”

  “You’ll have to avoid being swamped and surrounded by that mob,” Jack said.

  “Kris will need for her ships to destroy five ships for every one she loses,” Nelly said. “Even if they do, she’ll be left with only six hundred ships, all very likely badly banged up.”

  Kris sighed. They had the picture right. At least the picture they were looking at. “Just how many ships does the Iteeche Empire have?” she wondered aloud. “I suspect my grandparents were just as interested in that answer.”

  Jack chuckled. "You’ll have to ask Grampa Ray, or better yet, Granny Rita, the next time you have the misfortune to cross paths with them.”

  The Iteeche armada was getting close to maximum 24-inch laser range. Kris knew that all thirty-two of her human battlecruisers had the 24-inchers. It was not so with the ships that had joined Admiral Coth. About half had 24-inch lasers, the rest were 22-inchers.

  Would the same hold true with the rebels? Was there any chance they had less of the newer ships than the fleet around the Imperial Capital system had?

  Like so many questions nagging at Kris’s brain, she had no answer.

  She’d know soon enough.

  “Let’s prepare to go to Condition Zed and deploy foxers and maskers,” Kris ordered.

  There were so many drones in the human fleet that the ones designed to masquerade as battlecruisers had been given their own name. Foxers. Kris knew what a fox was. She even knew about fox hunts. ‘Foxer’ was not a bad name for these sacrificial decoys.

  The preliminary order went out to the fleet. When all wings reported ready to deploy, Kris gave the execute order. Even as her flag bridge shrank to minimum size, the Princess Royal did a hard left. Only Kris’s high gee station’s quick reaction cushioned her head as it bounced off the side of the headrest.

  At Kris’s command,
each of the two thousand two hundred ships shrunk down to fighting size even as they deployed the two foxers and activated the two maskers on board. Where a second ago only one larger ship had been, suddenly there were three much smaller ones. Suddenly, two masses were projected around the three, but none in the same space as the foxers or the ship.

  Kris smiled. She would love to see the look on her enemy’s face right now.

  “What demon from out of the deepest, darkest abyss is this?” Admiral Donn growled as he came out of his seat. He stood, in front of his main screen, hands on the fighter’s bar and forced his eyes to see what he was looking at.

  “Can this be true?” his number one staff officer said, his mouth hanging open.

  “Sensors, I will turn you to chum and scatter you in my clan’s mating ponds if your equipment is giving me false information.”

  “M’Lord Admiral,” a frightened senior sept banner carrier cried, “we have recycled our sensors and we get the same results. We will take our equipment down and run diagnostics. Please give us five minutes.”

  “Diagnostics,” the number one staff officer growled, then spat. “Humans and their diagnostics. If we had a good ten technicians on board for every one they have us sailing with, we would not have these problems.”

  “And if we had five thousand crewmen aboard, we would be a fat target for the humans to pop like a balloon,” Admiral Donn snapped. “No, we have yet to find anything wrong with what the humans have given us. Let us see what we shall see.”

  Falling silent, he stood at the bar. He could stand with double and half again his weight for a little while. He stared at the enemy array.

  “What has she done?” he said do himself. “Could the unchosen Longknife human have had three ships merged together and only now moved them apart?”

  Staff officer number three coughed. “We have heard reports of the humans lashing two, three, or even four ships together, gluing their hulls to one another, so they could go through a jump point all at the same time. I believe the two-eyed alien monsters did it before them.”