Kris Longknife: Tenacious (Kris Longknife novellas Book 12) (26 page)

“First, let me be very clear. If any of you launch a nuclear war, or any war of conquest that exhausts your resources and lays waste your lands, all bets are off. You will be on your own.”

Kris paused. She knew she’d spoken too fast for the translator. Besides, there were several aides who were elbowing others in the ribs. No doubt, someone had brought up the idea.

“Secondly, yes, a planet must have a united government to apply for membership in the United Societies. It must be democratic and have arrangements to see that the will of the majority rules while protecting any minorities under a rule of law.”

Again Kris paused.

“It sounds like you have had plenty of experience with fractured governance,” President Almar said dryly.

“Yes, it lacks balance. Finding that balance is often bloody.”

“But you will not impose that single governance,” Madame Gerrot said.

“That always leads to more blood, not less,” Kris said.

That brought what Kris took for grim chuckles from both leaders.

“But you, yourself, have said that we cannot stand against these aliens. We might as well roll over on our backs, show our bellies to be scratched, and piss ourselves. What are we to do?” Madame Gerrot said.

“You have not yet sent one of your own to walk your moon,” Kris said.

“We have talked about it. It will be very expensive,” President Almar said.

“It will also be very productive. It will require you to advance your science and technology. It will put you into space.”

“But we still won’t be able to stop these attackers,” snapped Almar.

“But you will have started down that path.”

“And if we are attacked in the meantime?”

“Empty your cities. Spread out. Be prepared to be attacked with nerve gas. Fight them. Make this victory so expensive that they turn away in disgust,” Kris said.

“But you will not sign a defensive pact with us,” Madame Gerrot said.

“No,” Kris answered.

Madame Gerrot’s tail was thrashing now.

“Mort, don’t have yourself a coronary,” President Almar said to her sister politician. “She’s an admiral, for pity’s sake. Yes, she may be the whelp of her king, but still, she’s just an admiral here. Would you want some admiral, even of your royal bloodline, negotiating a military treaty for you to sign? And negotiating it with no authority and no guidelines?”

“Thank you for understanding the limits of my authority here,” Kris said.

“I think there are more limits here than you want to talk about. You are going into battle at three-to-one odds. Something tells me that you don’t have the resources to protect us if you did sign that treaty Mort is so hot to get your paw print on.”

“You will understand that such issues might be covered by the State Secrecy Act.”

“We have one, too,” Almar agreed.

“Just how much danger are we in?” Almar asked after a pause. “What do these aliens want? Slaves? Resources? Control of the means of production?”

“They want your heads,” Kris said bluntly. “They want to sanitize your planet down to the smallest signs of life.”

The big cat visibly gulped at that. Madame Gerrot had been consulting with her aides. Now she turned back to Kris. “Our heads?”

N
ELLY, PROJECT THE INSIDE OF THAT P
YRAMID FOR THEM,
Kris thought as she turned to face the opposing wall.

The hologram was very solid. Suddenly, the walls were no longer marble but lightly worked granite. The pillars became figures encased in cubes of glass.

The floor showed piles of heads. Skulls, carapaces, whatever.

“Sweet ancestors,” came from somewhere, but otherwise, the room was dead silence.

“These aliens are not like any other aliens my species has encountered,” Kris said slowly. “We enjoy encountering different species.”
Unless, of course, they go to war with us, but the less said about the Iteeche the better.
“These people hate all life not of their own kind. They search space, hunting for life, and then kill it.”

Kris let that sink in.

“Then, once they have plundered a planet down to even its air and water, they take one sample of that life, encase in this plastic cube, and a pile of heads, and take it back to their trophy room. Their room of horrors.”

Kris left the hologram up for a bit longer, then had Nelly kill it. She said nothing as she turned back to the two leaders of this planet’s most powerful governments.

“It seems we have our work cut out for us,” said President Almar, “if we are to keep our heads on our shoulders.”

“Yes. It seems we do,” Madame Gerrot agreed.

Kris’s address to the Associated Assembly after that was a minor affair. She gave the nice, generic speech she had planned, adding in the foolish vs stupid reference to Solzen. It went over big now that she was assumed dead.

Kris made no references to heads or raped planets but left it to her listeners to assume the worst.

No doubt, they would assume far less than what they faced, but hopefully, their fear would be enough to unite them.

She, Jack, and Penny were back aboard the
Wasp
before it was time for lunch.

Kris still hurt quite a bit from those two slugs. Nelly told her that several religious groups on Sasquan were claiming the miracle of her survival for their gods.

That was another opinion Kris was willing to leave open to whatever interpretation people wanted to put on it.

Captain Drago interrupted her lunch. “The aliens are braking as they come around the sun, but they have launched stone, iron, and lead bullets at the planet. These are not slowing. They’re headed our way at several hundred thousand kilometers an hour, and it looks like they are aiming for major cities.”

Kris tossed her napkin on the table. “Enough of diplomacy. Now we get to fight,” she said.

The
five-hundred-ton bullets were coming in fast. Twelve of them, each made of whatever the aliens had been able to get their hands on. No doubt, they’d make a major hole in whatever they hit.

And what they would hit would very likely be a major city. If not intercepted, every one of them was headed for an impact within one or two kilometers of the center of a major urban area.

The twelve largest cities on the planet.

“Good shooting,” Captain Drago was heard to mutter.

“Too bad we’ll have to spoil their shoot,” Kris said.

She’d ordered the
Endeavor
to cast off and head out immediately. As she did, Nelly and Kris went over several possible shoot scenarios.

They ordered the simplest one.

The
Endeavor
did a deorbital burn, dropped down to graze the planet’s atmosphere, then slingshot herself up into an orbit that put her fifty thousand kilometers above the planet, headed for the incoming slugs.

A hundred thousand kilometers below the targets, she hit the first three with a head-on shot, cutting them in half.
Endeavor
then did a flip ship and deceleration maneuver, while using her aft batteries to filet the next three. She repeated that again, and there were twenty-four half-size bullets headed in, but on slightly different courses than they had been a few minutes before.

Kris could only imagine the rejoicing among the Ostriches as their lasers sliced targets exactly as they intended. No doubt, there would be a lot of chest bumping later, but not now.

Now they sliced and diced what was left of the bullets hurtling toward the cat world. Every fifteen seconds or so, the
Endeavor
would lash out at the bullets, dicing them into quarters, eighths, sixteenths, and smaller.

Whatever energy wasn’t needed to recharge the lasers went into the engines, braking the
Endeavor
in orbit and heading her back down.

It wouldn’t do for the little
Endeavor
to run into the entire enemy fleet all by herself. Captain O’dell reported, however, that the Ostriches were quite willing to do so.

The aliens’ first shots did slam into Sasquan, but not as five-hundred-ton streamlined bullets. Instead, they hit the atmosphere as ragged, jagged chunks of thirty tons or less, rolling and out of control. By the time the atmosphere had its go at eroding them, they hit the ground as meteorites of ten tons or less.

That might be hard on the two or three dwellings that got flattened, but they were no longer city killers.

Whatever doubts the cats might have held about Kris’s true intent vanished with the demise of the slug strike. The airwaves were unanimous in their praise of Kris as their planet’s savior.

“Let’s hope they’re still saying that after the battle,” Kris muttered.

The
Endeavor
made orbit again and rejoined the squadron. The problem was, she was low on reaction mass. She’d used a lot going against the laws of physics.

The
Bulwark
launched its pinnace over to refuel her. The
Bulwark
had come out from the gas giant with more fuel than the other frigates. It was a joke among the skippers that the skipper of the
Bulwark
was always afraid of running out of fuel and always took on extra.

Now, no one kidded him, and Captain O’dell was grateful for the help.

For the upcoming battle, Kris intended to use a similar orbit to the one
Endeavor
had used, only she’d sling herself around the moon to get farther out and be on a better-angled orbit. Like her enemy, Kris would be braking.

But with any luck, Kris would be closer to the cat world as she did so. That would put her in the perfect position to cross the T of the alien line, able to shoot up their vulnerable sterns, hit their engines, and rake their reactors with all her ships while few of them could reply.

At least that was the plan.

And like all battle plans, it didn’t survive contact with the enemy.

Kris’s
squadron had reached the apogee of their orbit above the moon and were beginning to fall back toward the cat planet. The aliens were off to her left, still braking.

Kris studied their deployment from her flag plot. On other days, it was her day quarters, but today it was organized to command the developing battle. Screens around her reported the availability of every ship’s lasers, armor, reactors, and other critical systems.

Kris had been alone when she fought her last battle from this same space. Today, Jack kept her company. It was nice to have his supporting presence, but she somehow doubted she’d find time to even notice him.

Her eyes roved from screen to screen.

No surprise, the aliens had upped their deceleration for a bit and were farther out than Kris had planned for. The extra deceleration meant they would have to do some reaching to make orbit, but it would allow them more maneuverability when the shooting started. Kris would not always be able to count on having their vulnerable engines and reactors pointed her way.

Trade-offs, trade-offs. This was a surprise Kris had ex-
pected.

Then they did the unexpected.

The first seven upped their deceleration, which put the other fifteen rapidly climbing up their rear. However, as the next eight overtook the vanguard, they slewed aside to take station on their far side. Then they also upped their deceleration. The last seven ships slid in smoothly on the side closest to Kris’s squadron. That done, they all resumed their previously scheduled fleet deceleration.

Instead of facing a long line whose T Kris could easily cross, she now was confronted by three much shorter lines. One was a few hundred kilometers closer to her, but the other two were in a perfect position to flank Kris if she tried to have her squadron take that line on alone.

“They’ve formed squadrons,” Kris said softly to herself.

“I bet you didn’t see that coming,” Jack said.

“Actually, I kind of expected something like that,” Kris said, still half talking to herself. “I was thinking they’d form a dish like in the last fight, but three lines have advantages as well.”

“They aren’t dumb,” Jack said.

“I never said they were.”

“No, I don’t believe you have,” he agreed. “So, now what?”

“We use our 20-inch lasers for best effect, and boy, do I wish I’d brought along just two of those 22-inch war wagons.”

“This will be a slugfest,” Jack concluded.

“It’s looking that way. They outweigh us. If they manage to come alongside and board, they’ll bury us in bodies. However, we have the reach, and, unless I’m mistaken, they don’t have any armor.”

“Kris, Chief Beni has been doing his best to get a solid-mass determination on those ships,” Nelly said.

“And they do have armor,” Jack said softly.

“The ships are massing more than they did the last time we met them. Every one of them is different, but there seems to be between forty-five and seventy-five thousand tons more ship there.”

“Nelly, how many extra tons were on the ship we shot up at the
Hornet
’s arsenic planet?”

“I estimate there were fifteen to twenty thousand tons of rock, Kris, that we had to punch through before we could hit the soft, chewy center. There is likely double or more armor on these hulls.”

“So it’s maybe twice as bad as the last time?”

“It looks that way, Kris.”

“Pass that word to all the captains with my compliments and suggest that they plan on hitting the same place on their target’s hull as hard as they can, as often as they can.”

“I’ve sent it, Kris.”

They were at three hundred thousand klicks and closing when Kris ordered the fleet to set Condition Charlie. She saw no reason to let the aliens know any sooner than she had to that their targets could get smaller. The former mutineers pitched in, manning the
Wasp
’s extra reactor. Those who weren’t engineers mustered with the Marines to repel boarders.

Sampson stayed sedated in the brig. It was tiny, but it was locked.

Jacques and Amanda joined the twenty alien recruits in a space reserved for them at the center of gravity for the
Wasp
. Hopefully, that would make the jinking around easier on them.

And hopefully, Jacques could find words to explain what was going on.

Kris had so wanted to talk to an alien, ever since the first time they gave her a choice between killing them or dying herself. Now she had her own pet aliens, and she hadn’t found a second to talk to them.

The problem, of course, was that these aliens were of a different tribe from the strong, silent types that wanted her dead.

Oh, and the tame aliens didn’t have all that big of a vocabulary.

Someday, the world would have to present Kris with a few easy problems.

Someday, hopefully, sooner rather than later.

Physics ruled space warfare. In ancient days, ship battles had depended on the wind. No wind, no battle. Too much wind, and the ships might find themselves struggling to stay afloat more than fight each other.

Space battles were very much like that, only it was gravity that ruled the roost. And while gravity might be more constant than the wind, it was no less a master of the battle.

The alien warships were decelerating, aiming to make orbit around the cat world. What they’d do there was an exercise best left to horror.

Kris was on a course to intercept them.

Gravity ruled both their vectors.

But laser power might very well trump gravity’s vectors.

At 160,000 klicks, Kris ordered all her ships to Condition Zed. Thirty seconds later, she ordered them to cut deceleration and face the enemy. Seven of her ships lashed out at the closest seven enemy ships with six 20-inch lasers each.

No surprise, the targets shed rock and droplets of steel. Some shot off steam as ice burned away to gas. The targets got fuzzy but showed no serious damage.

Kris flipped ships, paused for a second or two for the gunk to fall behind, then hit them with the aft batteries.

The targets fizzed as ice and rock armor ablated away under the lasers’ probing, but again, no explosions.

Kris brought her squadron back on course and returned to a deceleration burn as her lasers recharged.

Twenty seconds later, she repeated the double volley.

Twenty seconds after that, she did it again.

This time, the closest enemy squadron showed damage from the pounding. One blew up, and two staggered out of line, their engines firing in directions they weren’t intended to.

The other four turned bow on to Kris’s squadron and charged.

Above and below those surviving four, the other two lines of ships did the same. Their commander was now much less concerned with making orbit than getting in range of Kris’s ships and slamming them with their main battery of more lasers than Kris had ever had a chance to count.

Maybe whoever was giving the orders didn’t care if they made orbit so long as they destroyed Kris’s ships.

Who’s your Enlightened One?

Kris ignored the question and ordered her ships to flip. They began jinking and danced away.

Now Kris was between a rock and a hard place. Specifically, the moon she’d been using to swing above now was coming up fast below her. The enemy, desperate to get in range to use their own huge battery of lasers, were coming up nearly as fast behind her.

Kris’s ships emptied their now-recharged aft batteries. One more ship blew up, but the surviving close-in three absorbed their hits and kept coming.

The
Hornet
at one end and the
Bulwark
at the other end of Kris’s line took on the new ships coming in range. They fired . . . and got only fuzz to show for their shooting.

Kris flipped ships again. Her middle three ships finished off the first squadron they’d attacked. Two ships blew, and the last lost all acceleration and just drifted in space.

However, the other two squadrons had closed the range as Kris’s ships exterminated their fellows. Enemy lasers began to crisscross the space around her ships. In her flag plot, boards began to slip from green to yellow as ships reported their armor taking hits.

Reaction mass and water bled out of the damage into space to disrupt the lasers just as the enemy’s rock, ice, and steel armor had splayed out Kris’s lasers.

It was the same for both sides, except that while the aliens’ gunk quickly fell behind the decelerating ships, Kris’s bleed of ice and hydrogen fouled the middle ground between them for a few critical moments more.

Now, fifteen alien ships charged in to narrow the range for their four to five hundred tons of angry, suicidal commitment to Kris’s doom.

“Kris, we will miss the moon,” Nelly reported, “But if we keep this up, we’ll have trouble making a good orbit around the planet.”

“We’ll worry about that later, Nelly.”

Kris studied her boards. Now her ships were slugging it out as best as they could, dancing the crazy jig that never kept them on a straight course for more than two seconds. A dance that dodged the aimed enemy fire.

The enemy’s fifteen ships were huge and overweight. They were too heavy on their feet to dance like Kris’s, but what they lacked in finesse, they more than made up for with their huge batteries.

Kris’s ships fired and reloaded. The aliens fired and fired and fired; never for a moment were they silent. Worse, most of Kris’s ships now faced two of them. Only at the head of the line was the
Endeavor
able to fight a single alien, applying her limited battery of six 18-inch lasers as best she could.

The big war wagons, the
Hornet
,
Constellation
,
Royal
,
Wasp
,
Congress
,
Intrepid
, and
Bulwark
,
each divided its attention between two ships, firing bow batteries at one, aft batteries at the other. This kept each of the enemy ships shedding bow armor; rock, steel, and steam spread down the hull, dispersing their own lasers and occasionally causing damage.

That was good. The bad news was that her ships weren’t hammering through the alien armor to smash reactors inside.

The worst news was Kris’s ships were taking hits; damage was accumulating.

Kris could lose this battle if she kept fighting it this way.

“
Wasp
.
Congress
.
Intrepid
. Concentrate on one ship opposite you and kill it,” she ordered bluntly.

Seconds seemed to take forever, and minutes vanished in a blink. The battle went on with her ships firing, flipping, firing, recharging, then doing it over and over again.

The enemy fire hammered them. The
Constellation
suffered damage to a rocket motor and zigged out of her place in the line. Unfortunately, she also steadied on a course for more than two seconds.

The luckless
Connie
took more hits.

The
Royal
changed fire from the two she faced to slice at the one that had the
Connie
’s number. It worked . . . for a second. The enemy ship’s fire faltered and the
Connie
got her engines under control.

But
Royal
paid for saving her shipmate as her own two targets got off scot-free for a few seconds. Now her armor showed bright red on Kris’s boards.

Across from the
Wasp
, the enemy ship rocked as a laser slashed through its bow and cut deep inside. It hit a reactor and freed the demons inside. Gouts of plasma shot out its sides, but its huge batteries kept shooting.

Kris watched the readout on her board as the
Wasp
’s armor went from yellow to red.

The
Wasp
flipped, and the bow lasers fired. There must have been nothing left of the aliens’ bow. Six lasers cut through it and deep into its guts.

More fire blossomed within the shattered hull. But angry lasers still reached out, cutting through the thin vapor of the space around the ship. Even as the reactors lost containment and the plasma demons gobbled up the ship, it was still spitting death at the
Wasp
.

“Captain Drago, engage one of the ships fighting the
Royal
.”

“On it, Admiral.” The
Wasp
didn’t miss a beat as it flipped ship and began slicing into the ship that
Royal
had been splitting its fire with.

“
Royal
, the
Wasp
has the ship closest to it. You concentrate on the other one,” Kris ordered.

“Great, an even fight,”
Royal
’s skipper said, and laid into the one target.

The
Intrepid
did not finish off its ship in quite as spectacular fashion as the
Wasp
. Its target ended up rolling in space, a silenced hulk with fires gutting it from stem to stern.

Kris ordered
Intrepid
to turn its attention to the ships attacking the
Bulwark
. She did it none too soon.

The poor
Endeavor
was in trouble. She only had six 18-inch lasers, and her armor had been thin to begin with. She was hurting.

The
Bulwark
switched fire to engage the
Endeavor
’s ship. The forward end of Kris’s line was still two ships against four, with the
Endeavor
giving all that it could.

In front of Kris, her boards showed way too much red.

Suddenly, two alien ships blossomed into gas, and there were no ships facing the
Royal
and the
Wasp
.

“
Royal
, help the
Connie
.
Wasp
, help the
Intrepid
.”

Now there were four fair fights. The gallant
Hornet
was still being hammered by two, as was the
Bulwark
, but the enemy ships must have been hit just as hard as Kris’s.

The end came quickly, but none too soon. Enemy ships began to burn and explode even as the
Connie
,
Hornet
, and
Bulwark
limped out of the fight, reactors dead, overheated, or redlined.