All of that took time. Time that Kris’s vanguard did not have.
There was no doubt in Kris’s mind or on the board showing Nelly’s calculations for Kris. The main enemy fleet would get to her before she could get a solid handle on the flotillas headed for the jump.
“Nelly, send a copy of that board to Admiral Coth.”
“He has it, Kris.”
“Get me Admiral Coth.”
“Yes, my Admiral,” Coth said a second later.
“Have you had a chance to study the board I just sent you?”
“Sadly, it looks very much like the board I was studying before yours arrived. Was this done by your Magnificent Nelly?”
“Yes, it was,” Kris admitted.
“So, if I cannot reduce the main force to impotency, it will destroy you and allow the smaller force to jump into my Emperor’s system.”
“That is what I see, yes.”
“Then I must destroy more rebel ships, mustn’t I?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Human, it has been an honor and a pleasure to serve under your command. I think you for coming to the aid of my Emperor. It is now my honor to come to your aid.”
“Thank you, Admiral Coth.”
“Thank you, Your Royal Highness, Grand Admiral Longknife.”
The signal went dead.
Kris eyed the board. Admiral Coth’s ships edged closer to the huge rebel force.
Admiral Donn looked at the calculations that his number two staff officer had put together. His fleet was losing six or seven ships for every one of the ships loyal to the child Emperor that they were intent on destroying . . . and it was likely to get worse. If this kept up, there would be none of them left and the loyalists would still have a thousand ships.
If he had not weighed four times what he was supposed to, Donn would have shaken his head. “It does not matter that this fleet be blown to bits so long as we get ten flotillas into the Imperial System. Don’t you understand that?”
“Yes, M’Lord Admiral,” his number one staff officer said.
“I want ideas on how we do that.”
“Yes, M’Lord Admiral.”
While his staff wandered like brainless bugs, the enemy made their own decision.
The fleet that had been hovering just out of range and suffering a few losses while he lost far too many ships, edged in. They crossed the line where the 22-inch lasers lost their effectiveness and into the space where they had a chance of doing damage. Of course, that also meant that half the loyalist fleet also got into the act.
In the exchange of laser fire, he lost another fifty or so ships. The enemy, though, saw ten of their ships ravaged. Donn grinned. Five to one. That was more like it.
As if stung, his opposite number had his forces skid out of range again. That didn’t keep the two fleets from shooting at each other. Donn lost twelve; the enemy had one pull out of line and surge farther out of range.
Then, the enemy fleet edged back into range and Donn watched as another fifty of his ships died or were ravaged so bad that they fell out of the fight. Six of the loyalist ships were knocked out.
Before he could get the next salvo away, they were back out of range.
For several minutes, this strange dance with death went on. Sometimes he’d lose fifty-two ships, other times, forty-seven. Sometimes the enemy bled nine, ten, or eleven ships as the ships closed the range.
Then they’d pull back out of range, and he’d only smash one or two while the enemy would pick off ten or twelve of his ships.
They were bleeding him dry, but it was a slow bleed. So long as enough of his ships were left by the time he caught up with the vanguard, he could wipe it out, and with it, any hope the loyalists had to stop the rebellion.
“Number one staff officer,”
“Yes, M’Lord Admiral.”
“Order the fleet to prepare to steer one point closer to the enemy. We will execute the order the next time the enemy risks closing the range.”
“It will be done, M’Lord Admiral.”
61
Kris Longknife was sick to her stomach.
Kris knew that hurling ships of near equal power at each other could only lead to bloody slaughter. She’d known that when she accepted the Empire’s commission. She’d known it when she led this fleet out to battle.
Knowing something and experiencing it were two different things.
She was now in a battle, watching ten thousand battlecruisers slashing and tearing at each other. Hundreds of the ships that had followed her into battle had been blown to bits or sent reeling out of the battle line, fighting damage fighting to stay alive.
Thousands of the rebel ships had been speared, smashed, destroyed, or knocked out of the battle. Thousands!
Yet, there were still thousand more doing their best to climb down her throat and rip out her guts from the inside.
And she, of course, was about to add more flesh and blood to the slaughter.
The twelve degraded flotillas, intent on intercepting Kris while she strove to intercept the ships headed for the Imperial System, had formed up into four groups of sixty or so each. Now those four had come together. In only moments, all two hundred and forty would come in range of Kris’s large battlecruisers.
The odds were practically nil that they could survive crossing the death ground between the extreme range of Kris’s 24-inch lasers and the extreme range of their own 22-inchers.
Any rational person would accept the hopelessness of their situation and turn away.
There didn’t seem to be any rational people on this battlefield today.
Kris shook her head. Actually, at 4.4 gees, about all she could manage was to swing her eyeballs from side to side. The rebels had no goal but her destruction and the murder of the young boy on the throne.
She had no choice but to destroy them.
Kris should count them fools, but following her commands were more Iteeche so intent on saving that lad’s life that they would give up their own lives without a questioning thought.
What was it with the Iteeche?
The Iteeche, Kris? Why are you and a fleet of humans just as bent on killing and being killed? Another part of her questioned
Kris closed her eyes for a moment. No one mentioned how much effort it took to keep eyelids open that weighted four and a half times what mother nature intended.
No matter how many calculations Nelly ran, there was no way for the numbers to prove that Admiral Coth would wipe out the huge force breathing down Kris’s neck. Kris would not know if this day was her last until it either was or wasn’t.
Why aren’t you running? Why aren’t you leading your humans out of the line and toward safety? The boy holds no sovereignty over you.
Before the battle, Kris had known an answer for that question. The young Emperor and his advisors would be more willing to work with the humans. The rebels intended to wall up the Empire from the humans.
That had seemed like a good enough reason to fight.
Was it a good enough reason to die?
Kris wondered how many sailors and officers aboard her ships were thinking the same thing. Unfortunately, their thoughts didn’t matter. So long as she gave the order for the fleet to hold its course and the squadron commanders passed along her orders, no ship would break out of the line.
Sailors and officers might harbor doubts, but none dare voice them. Only she could do that. Only she could save her life, and Jack’s and so very many others.
Should I?
“Kris, the enemy detachment is coming in range.”
Kris roused herself from her thoughts and doubts. She already knew the orders she would give. “Comm, send to the Wing. ‘Prepare to engage the approaching detachment by pairs of flotillas. One and two. Five and six. Seven and eight. Nine and ten. Three and four will fire separately. You have weapons release as soon as they come in range. Cut acceleration to zero while flipping ship’.”
“The order is sent, ma’
am,” Comm replied.
“Comm, send to Task Fleet 6, ‘Engage the enemy by divisions. Task force commanders, coordinate the fire plan’.”
“The order is acknowledged, ma’am.”
Kris knew what she had just ordered was not a fire plan but an execution.
A moment later, the oppressive weight on Kris went from horrible to nothing as the Princess Royal cut power, swung ninety degrees off of her base course, and joined her division in aiming at the oncoming rebels.
Along the line, four pairs of flotillas with thirty-six ships in them sent four hundred and thirty-two questing laser beams at a single ship 270,000 kilometers away. Among Kris’s human fleet, eight divisions of four battlecruisers sent forty-eight beams at the enemy.
In six seconds, ten enemy battlecruisers were blown away or rolled dead out of the line.
Still at zero acceleration, the vanguard flipped ship and fired their aft battery, two-thirds as many as the first salvo. Eight more ships blew up or fell off.
The vanguard returned to its base force and slammed to 4.4 gees deceleration toward the jump they and the rebels were headed for.
Ten seconds later, the loyalists repeated the process, going to zero acceleration, rotating ships, firing, flipping ship, firing, then returning to base course and a hellacious weight.
Fourteen rebel ships suffered or died that time.
Kris had thought that she needed thirty-six Iteeche battlecruisers to make a kill, however, the fourth flotilla seemed to have gotten its ship twice.
“Comm, change order. ‘Each Iteeche flotilla will engage an enemy ship’.”
“Sent.”
The next pair of salvos left twenty-seven rebel ships blown up, burned out, or careening out of the line.
The sight of fifty-nine of their own so brutally handled in only two minutes was daunting to the rebel witnesses. The thought that another four minutes of this would leave none of them alive and they’d have nothing to show for it galvanized action on near two hundred bridges.
Over the next ten seconds, one hundred and twelve enemy ships cut their acceleration to one gee.
Sensors half shouted, “The enemy force is discharging their lasers, fore and aft. Main weapons buses are being smashed.”
“Check fire. Maintain course and acceleration,” Kris ordered.
“Done, ma’am.”
Seventy-seven enemy battlecruisers were still on course, still aimed at Kris’s throat.
“Surrender, God damn you,” someone growled through gritted teeth.
Kris thought a hearty “Amen.”
First one, then another, then several more discharged their lasers into empty space and rendered their weapons inoperable. More followed until there was only one ship left closing on them. Kris watched it for a long five minutes, every moment wondering if it was time for her to settle the matter.
Finally, that ship fired its lasers and destroyed its bus bar.
Kris’s soul felt a little lighter. Today, she would murder a few less poor Iteeche sailors.
Her eyes flicked back to the huge battle raging behind her as Admiral Coth and the rebel main force played cat and mouse, neither sure exactly who the mouse was. There it still mattered how many ships lived and how many died.
As Kris watched them, breathless, for several long minutes, hundreds of ships died.
Admiral Donn pried his eyes away from the battle close at hand when number three staff officer cried out. He watched in horror as the ships he had sent to weaken the enemy’s vanguard wing gave up the fight.
The filthy scum.
Those were the words he’d been taught to say to any coward since the days before he was old enough to put to space. Every Iteeche sailor or soldier knew it was their duty, honor, and glory to die for the Emperor. Those who shirked their duty were nothing but worthless trash, not worth the air they breathed.
Still, today, those words rang hollow. He could do the calculations at a glance. There was no chance that the detachment could do more than die. And they’d die long before they could so much as warm the skin of a loyal battlecruiser.
He’d sent them on a suicidal mission. Worse, he’d sent them on a mission that would do nothing to the enemy.
Any rational Iteeche, faced with nearly a quarter of their number being blown away so quickly, would have done what they did.
But Iteeche sailors were not chosen to be rational. Their political masters picked them out of the lowest of the low’s mating pond. They fed them and taught them to obey orders. Even to die when ordered.
Most officers were little better than the lower decks as far as the masters of the clans and counselors to the Emperor were concerned. Donn, himself, knew there was no place for him in his clan’s inner circle. He’d been last chosen and had many siblings between him and the clan chief’s throne. He’d known from the moment he became aware that he was destined for the Navy. Destined to do the bidding of others. All his life, Donn had accepted that for a fact, as unquestionable as the cold of space or the blazing heat of a laser.
Then that human, Admiral Longknife, had asked him to spare her damaged and helpless ships. She had asked him to let her Iteeche live when killing them would serve no purpose. It was her idea to have her ships smash their buss bars and pass through his ranks unarmed and unharmed.
He managed a chuckle. I wonder how some of them have managed to repair the damage, or did my sensors fail to spot those who did not obey their human admiral?
Still, the sight of a hundred ships surrendering saddened him, even as it angered him. Those poor captains. They all faced being summarily spaced. By the rebels for surrendering or by loyalists for rebelling.
That battle was over. He turned his eyes back to what Admiral Coth was doing opposite him.
The two of them were playing a bloody game. Coth had edged in for a quick smash and run once too often. Donn had met him by having his own ships steer closer to the enemy. That time, when Coth edged back, they followed and the battle had gotten hot and deadly.
Coth continued to edge just a bit away, and Donn’s wings had chased him, not sharp enough to drive him hard away, but not so little that the loyalists could slip out of range.
Ships blew up, burned out, fell out in groups of forty to sixty among Donn’s forces, in groups of fives, tens, and fifteens in Coth’s wings.
Donn knew very well what Coth was doing. The more he edged away, the more Donn was led to follow. If he followed him enough, Donn would no longer be able to reach back enough to catch the vanguard intent on destroying the rebel’s last hope for winning this war.
Donn knew exactly what his old friend Coth was trying to do. Still, he let him do it.
He let Coth entice him toward a mistake, knowing that, at the last moment, he could wear ship and tack back toward the vanguard. In the meantime, he destroyed scores of the loyalists’ ships.
Of course, they were destroying hundreds of his.
“Sensors, where are the battleships of state?” he asked.
“M’Lord Admiral, all five of the battleships of state are making their way toward the jump at one gee.”
Donn refused to allow himself a grimace. The clan overlords and satrap pashas lazed back there, no doubt being fed the most succulent of delicacies by their servants who met their every need before they even realized they had it.
What rebel bug has bitten me that I even think such thoughts? Donn thought to himself.
True, he was leading a rebellious fleet against his Emperor’s forces. There was that.
And there was that human, Kris Longknife. What was she among the humans? A clan chief and war chief. A Chosen by the human that the Emperor, foolish child that he was, accepted as his equal.
How long had it been since blood of the Emperor’s own blood had lead a fleet into battle? How long since an admiral had been the first chosen of a clan chief?
Donn had heard from every corner that the humans were going to destroy all that was good with the Iteeche Empire and race. He fo
und himself wondering if the humans weren’t actually showing every Iteeche in the Empire a way to return to their greatness.
Where are such thoughts coming from? Admiral Donn snarled at himself. Yet such thoughts were coming to him. Were such thoughts loose among his officers and on the lower decks?
Donn’s eyes wandered his screen. As he watched, another fifty or so of his ships were slashed by lasers. Across the battlefield, another eight of Coth’s ships were hammered and smashed.
Donn studied the lay of his battle array. He could not help but notice that Coth was peeling his flotillas away with care and purpose. Each flotilla in each of the loyal four wings, forty in all, would target ships in four of Donn’s flotillas. Twenty-five or thirty of his ships would vanish or fall out with the first salvo, then another twenty or so when the aft battery spoke.
Two salvos later, four of Donn’s flotillas would be cut from twenty to four or five. Hardly an effective force.
After ten seconds to reload, they would pick a different flotilla and do it again.
At the same time, Donn’s fleet concentrated twenty of his flotillas, or three hundred and fifty ships at one of the loyalist ships. Of the eight that were targeted, three, five, or seven might suffer destruction. The second half of the volley would leave another two or three burned out.
Donn spotted three critical factors in the way this battle was going. Any one ship on the loyalist side faced about ten chances out of fifteen hundred of being slaughtered with each salvo. On his side, if you were in one of the four flotillas chosen for destruction by Admiral Coth, you faced as much as one chance in five that you would be alive when the lasers fell silent sixteen or forty seconds later.
Worse, each of the loyalist wings had started at one end of their opposing wing and was working their way through his opposite number. Two of Coth’s wings had started with the number one flotilla and was working his way up the list. The other two wings had started with the number forty flotilla and was working their way down.
As of this moment, they had just smashed their tenth flotilla. Of the eight half wings Donn was using to concentrate his fire, four of them had a pretty addled bunch of survivors among the gunners in half their flotillas.
Kris Longknife - Admiral Page 34