Kris Longknife 13 - Unrelenting Read online

  “All the shooting ships are Bethea’s,” Nelly said. “The Earth squadrons appear to be taking the time to catch their breath.”

  “Damn,” escaped Kris’s lips. In the last battle, she’d done to the aliens just what it looked like they were doing to him.

  “Damn,” Jack repeated. “Didn’t Yi read the report on how we won the last battle and how there were three ships studying our tactics? Three ships that got away.”

  The anthropologist Jacques shook his head. “Yi doesn’t strike me as a man who sees the need to learn anything new. Certainly not from Rim rats. How did Earth ever give him command of a fleet of new ships that would need to fight a new way?”

  “I think it’s safe to assume,” Penny said, “that he’s the best they have.”

  “I’d hate to have the worst,” Kris muttered.

  Third Fleet was coming up on the area Nelly suspected was mined. Now, even Yi’s ships were shooting at the space ahead of them.

  There was a blinding flash. A huge one. Then another, and three more in rapid succession.

  “More atomic explosions,” Nelly reported.

  “God help them,” Penny said.

  One of Yi’s ships was caught between two explosions. A moment later, it converted to an expanding ball of gas.

  Another ship was close to an atomic mine. It lost acceleration, tumbling in space.

  Now all the human ships had cut their acceleration and were devoting all their weapons, main and secondary, to sweeping the space in front of them.

  More explosions went off as someone made the decision to use them before they lost them.

  And the alien fleet flipped ship and charged in.

  Maybe Yi’s sensors had been damaged by the atomic explosions. Maybe he couldn’t see what was happening. What was clear was that he was drifting in space with no weigh on, no way to jink his ships, and a whole lot of enemy charging down his throat.

  Worse, the alien base ship had flipped as well and was now headed for the battle scene.

  Yi’s ships were from Earth. They had new, bigger lasers. They had new, fancy armor. What they didn’t have was Hellburners that could rip apart moon-size mother ships.

  Just exactly how Yi would handle being caught between a base ship and a lot of angry monstrous warships would be anyone’s guess.

  Kris wasn’t ready to see how he’d guess.

  “So much for my battle plan,” Kris snapped, and made her decision as she did. “Admirals Hawkings and L’Estock, take your squadrons through the jump. L’Estock, have Earth’s BatRon 12 lead the way. Hawkings, the Wardhaven division of BatRon 2 will go last after they retrieve the deployed Hellburners.”

  “Understood,” quickly answered her.

  The Hellburners were a uniquely Wardhaven weapon. Renown, Repulse, Royal Sovereign, and Resolute all had headed toward this fight with two aboard. Four had been deployed as mines; four had been held in reserve on the ships as weapons for the final coup de grace for the base ship. Now it would take time for them to retrieve the deployed mines.

  Exactly how the “R’s” would close on the alien base ship with all its lasers firing was a question Kris desperately needed an answer for.

  Kris’s staff headed out on the double to get themselves into high-gee eggs, something that wasn’t on the schedule for another hour. Jack pulled Kris’s chair back, and whispered, “After you, my love.”

  Kris would have loved to give him a kiss, but they were already overdue for those eggs.

  “Captain Gathmann,” Kris called as she raced into her quarters, already unzipping her shipsuit, “Take us through the jump right at the end of Commodore Zingi’s BatRon 9.”

  “Aye, aye, Admiral.”

  Jack was just helping a naked Kris into her egg, him already naked as well, when the Princess Royal suddenly lost all sense of down. The high-gravity station eggs fit the Sailor like a second skin. With the ship maybe making four gees and going every which way to jink out of laser fire, you didn’t want anything between your skin and your second one. Buck naked was the uniform of the day in an egg.

  Around Kris, her fleet was slipping their moorings and pulling away from the ships they’d been paired with as they prepared to depart the anchorage. That meant ships went every which way and, if you weren’t holding on to anything, so did you.

  Kris’s egg held her tight, and used its Smart MetalTM to secure it to the Smart MetalTM deck. Jack, however, was a good meter away from his egg; his only hold was on Kris’s shoulder.

  She grinned like a loving wife, and motored her way over to his egg so he could secure himself in it before the ship accelerated away, and there was a down to fall into.

  “Thanks,” Jack said. “You’re a good egg.”

  “Bad joke,” Kris said, and headed back to her flag plot as soon as Jack was halfway in his egg.

  The attack was already under way. The screens showed the Saladin, the last of BatRon 12, disappearing through the jump just as Kris did her check. L’Estock’s flag, the Battleax, led the eight ships of the Sharp Steel Squadron toward the jump.

  The Princess Royal was moving, along with Commodore Zingi’s BatRon 9 from Yamato, to be next into that bit of roiling space that let them jump from one star system to the next.

  Then the universe farted.

  No sooner was the Grenade through than the jump did a boogaloo.

  One moment the jump was there, the next . . . it wasn’t!

  Kris knew these things could happen. It had happened during the Unity and Iteeche Wars, sometimes at the worst of times.

  She knew it, but it had never happened to her!

  Now it had.

  It took everything she had not to dash onto the bridge of the P. Royal and demand that they find where the jump had wandered off to. The jumps orbited several suns; some six or even eight. The influence of all of those suns decided how any one jump behaved.

  Most of the time, they docilely followed their own way around any one sun. Sometimes, for no apparent reason that we humans had figured out . . . they jumped tens of thousands of kilometers.

  “I got it,” was shouted loud enough from the P. Royal’s bridge for Kris to hear.

  “Where?” from the captain was not quite as loud.

  “There.”

  “Pass it to the squadron flag.”

  “They got it, too,” and the squadron suddenly jerked to three gees and took off for the new jump location, twelve hundred kilometers away.

  It took some smart ship handling to accelerate at three gees for six hundred klicks, then flip ship and decelerate at the same hard pace to arrive at the jump as close to dead in space as possible.

  Kris spent the time hardly breathing. No doubt, captains, navigators, and helms personnel were chewing nails at a dangerous rate.

  Coming to a dead stop with no collisions had to be a minor miracle of naval proportions. Then, as if they did this every day, each of the Yamato frigates followed the Mikasa placidly through the jump.

  And the Princess Royal brought up the rear, following Toikiwa.

  Kris checked her boards. The frigates from Lorna Do were right behind them. The “R’s” from Wardhaven had collected their Hellburners and were already doing a hell-raising three-gee acceleration for the new jump location.

  A moment later, Kris got her first good look at the battle in the targeted star. Her boards filled up with data, encrypted and sent via tight beam at the jump nearly five minutes ago from the ships of the Third Fleet and their fight.

  Kris’s boards showed ships in the red and getting worse.

  5

  During their planning, Admiral Yi had repeatedly warned Kris that she was dividing her forces. He’d charge into the system using one jump while she would lurk on the other side of the one they intended the aliens to flee through.

  Kris had countered that the aliens would find themselves split as well, with half on her side of the jump and half fleeing from his forces on the other.

  Admiral Furzah had named se
veral battles won when a force found itself engaged while straddling a river. Nelly had matched the feline admiral example for example.

  It had almost been funny, but it had ended Yi’s objections to her orders.

  Now, Kris was in the system and all the surviving aliens were between her and Admiral Yi.

  In theory, the aliens were in a perfect position to divide and conquer. In reality, they were in a world of hurt.

  Only a dozen or so ships stood between Kris’s fleet and the huge, unarmored, but way-too-armed alien mother ship.

  Kris had never attacked one of those monsters without some dirty, sneaky, or underhanded trick up her sleeve. But then, Grampa Trouble always said the only fair fight was the one you lost.

  Now, with the alien base ship open to her attack, Kris was left struggling to come up with a good way to clobber the damn thing.

  If she assaulted the base, they’d throw the whole fleet at her. The odds were only four to one, but they’d be desperate to defend the base ship with their women and children. The crews of alien warships were a sixty-forty split, with males dominant. No doubt, the base ship was skewed the other way around, if not more so.

  Kris’s flag plot filled up as her staff rejoined her, now in their eggs and ready for the fight. They silently studied the battle readouts from all of her ships as Kris did the same. Finally, full information was coming in on what she’d seen dimly through the jump.

  Of Admiral Yi’s sixteen super frigates, the Lincoln, Lenin, Clemenceau, Chairman Mao, and Togo were gone. The Bismarck was trailing, well behind the line. Bethea had lost the Heimdallr and Loki; with the Puma out of the line and trailing as well. The remaining twenty-three showed plenty of damage to their weapons, reactors, and hulls as their displays glowed red on Kris’s screen.

  At the moment, Yi was slowing but holding his fleet in good order.

  That left the aliens free to turn on Kris.

  “For what we are about to receive may we be truly grateful,” Kris muttered.

  “Amen,” Penny added.

  At the moment, Kris’s fleet was scattered, thanks to the jump’s meandering.

  “Admiral L’Estock, kindly re-form your ships into a square while at the charge. Three gees acceleration toward the enemy base ship, if you will,” Kris ordered.

  “Aye, aye, Admiral,” came back at her quickly, followed by orders for BatRon 12 to keep up its advance at 3 gees and BatRon 8 and 9 to join using up to 3.5 gees.

  Kris felt a kick in the rump as the Princess Royal responded to his orders.

  Behind her, Hawkings’s BatRon 2 began jumping into the system, the Lorna Do warrior class first and in line, followed by the Wardhaven “R’s” in a somewhat disorganized flow.

  Ahead, the base ship went to a full 1.25-gee acceleration as it fled toward its returning dishes while the thirty-odd ships that had been a close escort charged in open ranks at the onrushing humans. While most were holding at 2.5 gees, a few were edging up close to three.

  “Nelly, project the enemy course.”

  The main screen revised itself to show red lines pulsing toward her own blue lines. A green arc showed when the human ships would be in range to open fire on the charging alien warships.

  The fast-moving aliens would be in trouble. The entire three squadrons of human frigates could slash them to bits.

  Then the main alien force would pass quickly through the one-way killing zone, and Kris’s forces would find themselves in range of the massive broadsides the aliens so loved.

  Things would get rough then.

  “Nelly, I want to try something.”

  “I’m all ears.”

  Kris shared her idea with Nelly and her key staff. Nelly made the plan appear as squiggles on the main screen. Kris listened as Jack, Penny, and Masao gave their thoughts, then Nelly revised the display.

  When Kris was satisfied, she began to issue orders.

  6

  “Admiral L’Estock, this is Admiral Longknife. I am taking tactical command of First Fleet,” Kris said tersely. Admiral L’Estock was a good administrator, but he’d never commanded a fight. This battle, Kris’s command could not afford any first-timer mistakes.

  Any more of them.

  “Aye, aye, Admiral, you have command,” came back just as tersely. Combat was only moments away; there was no time for niceties.

  “Three ships are out in front,” Kris said. “BatRon 12, you will take the one to our right. Eight, you have the left one. Nine, take the middle. We will engage them as they come in range with a single shot from each ship’s bow batteries. I want to know how strong their rock armor is. Understood?”

  “Aye, aye,” came back from her squadron commanders.

  “Hawkings, hold fire on your 20-inch frigates. I’m holding you in reserve for the next echelon.”

  “Understood, Admiral, I’m reserve when I come up.” The four “R’s” armed with Hellburners were just catching up with the Lorna Do division, which still trailed the rest of the fleet. Kris was making a virtue of necessity. Only time would tell if it was a true virtue.

  The enemy’s thirty-two ships had lost cohesion in their mad charge for the newly arrived humans. Three were out in front. Six more were in a loose line some ten thousand klicks behind them. Fifteen formed what was left of the dish some twenty thousand kilometers behind them while a trailing eight who had either been out of position or were having engine problems were scattered in twos and threes over the next twenty thousand kilometers.

  That was it. Thirty-two huge, overgunned warships scattered along a fifty-thousand-klick approach charged hell-bent for Kris’s throat.

  So what else is new?

  The first three ships were approaching the maximum range, two hundred thousand kilometers, for the new 22-inch lasers on the frigates.

  “Begin Evasion Pattern 1. Fire one round per ship,” Kris ordered.

  The eight ships in each squadron hit their targeted ship.

  The warships lit up as rock melted away and spewed flaming droplets out into space and down their sides.

  They kept coming.

  “Engage your ship with your full forward battery,” Kris ordered.

  Now five big lasers reached out from each frigate to slash into the racing enemy. Pinned by forty big guns, the alien ships bent, folded, and blew as lasers blasted through rock to slash stressed hull-strength members or pierced into reactors and their containment gear.

  In the blink of an eye, where three ships had been was a long trail of fire, gas, and wreckage.

  But six more were closing fast.

  “Flip ships,” Kris ordered, and her gut did a twist as the Princess Royal, still under way at three gees, did a one-eighty in space.

  “Slow to one gee. Engage hostiles by divisions with aft batteries.”

  Despite the egg’s protection, Kris felt thrown forward as the ship slowed drastically. Still, her boards showed all twenty-four ships emptying their four aft lasers at the six onrushing aliens.

  Those six aliens were taking only about a third as much fire as the first three. Worse, two of the targets managed to put the wreckage of the first ships between them and their antagonists.

  Three aliens blew up. While one staggered forward, the other two were coming on fast and eager.

  But Kris’s ships had shot themselves empty. They needed time to recharge their lasers. Seconds ticked past as the aliens closed.

  Kris could have accelerated away from the onrushing aliens. But that would have put herself farther from the huge base ship. If she took too long to reach it, the other ships would be back.

  Kris accepted the risk and held to one-gee deceleration while the aliens rushed at her with all the energy their reactors could generate.

  Previously, the aliens had demonstrated that their lasers were good out to 120,000 klicks.

  Today, they opened fire at 160,000 klicks.

  Their lasers were weak. Their power attenuated. Still, the engines on the Mandela and Saber took hits. Their course
went wild, and jink patterns failed for a full two seconds.

  They took more hits.

  Per Kris’s standing orders, both ships went to three gees and pulled away from their tormentors.

  “Flip ship,” Kris ordered. “Engage the closest targets with three lasers per ship by divisions.”

  The division commanders called “Right,” “Left,” “Middle,” and in a moment, the three ships died.

  That left Kris counting the seconds as the largest alien group closed. Her ships were heading at them at only one-gee acceleration, but the others were as close to 2.5 gees as they could manage.

  Kris kept one eye on the reloading process for her ships’ lasers and the other eye on the closing aliens. It looked like the aliens would be in maximum range for a full two seconds before Kris would have a forward salvo ready.

  “Go to Evasion Pattern 3,” Kris ordered. “Prepare to engage targets by two-ship sections with fire from forward batteries, then flip ship and fire aft batteries. I will then order a three-gee deceleration burn to keep the aliens in our range and us out of theirs for as long as possible.”

  “Aye, aye,” came back at her on net from her admirals and commodores. On her battle board, the name of each ship blinked as the captain acknowledged the message.

  “Fire,” Kris ordered.

  Twenty-two frigates emptied their forward batteries at fifteen big alien warships.

  Or that was the plan. Actually, it was more like ten.

  Just as they came into range, the alien commander must have ordered evasion maneuvers. Maybe he didn’t, but eight of his ships did it anyway. The evasion wasn’t nearly as good as Nelly would have designed, but it threw off frigates that weren’t expecting any.

  On top of that, there was the confusion created by having sixteen two-frigate sections firing at fifteen ships. Worse, two sections were down to only one ship. Several aliens were not targeted.

  “Flip ships,” Kris ordered. “Commodores, correct your ship assignments. Fire aft batteries when ready.”

  The squadron commanders reallocated targets among their sections and fired. The huge aliens took more hits this time, but the aft batteries were only four guns strong.