The fleet accelerated away from the aliens, who settled back to two gees.
Kris’s board was red. Constitution, Tiger, Hotspur, and Spitfire reported damage to their engines. Kris ordered them to three gees to form up as a reserve. All obeyed except Hotspur, who couldn’t manage even the fleet’s 2.75.
Four alien ships accelerated away from the rest and leapt out to engage the trailing Hotspur. They shot it out, with the other three ships from of the Helvetican Ninth Div trying to support their sister. Two more alien ships died, but so did Hotspur.
The three other ships, what Kris labeled CripDiv 1, for crippled division, pulled ahead.
Each side paused to lick its wounds.
The aliens reorganized themselves. The three remaining dishes re-formed in a triangle.
Kris reorganized, too. Despite showing yellow for damage, Triumph and Swiftsure moved up from BatDiv 9 to replace Constitution and Tiger in BatRons 1 and 2. Spitfire swung around to join Captain Drago’s BatDiv 10, pretty much eliminating not only one division but half of Kris’s reserves.
Kris did get to smile at one thing. Their pressure on the aliens’ right had driven the mother ship to the left. Her course was edging closer to the gas giant.
Good!
The aliens had a problem. They could not handle the edge Kris’s long-range 20-inch lasers gave her.
The fight drew away from the jump point, but three ships still hovered there. That puzzled Kris. “Chief, talk to me about those three aliens holding back.”
“I’ve been meaning to mention those, ma’am. Their reactor configuration is different from the ones fighting us. One has ten smaller reactors. One has eight. Even the one with six is different. I think its reactors are more powerful than the ones we’re fighting.”
“Opinion, Captain Drago?” Kris asked.
“Military observers from other countries. It’s an old tradition.”
“So our next visitors are watching how we handle this bunch for future reference.”
“I hate to say so, but it looks that way.”
“Oh, God,” Kris kind of prayed. “We haven’t figured out how to handle this bunch, and someone is setting us up for the next match.”
“That’s what happens when you’re the champ.”
“And if we aren’t the champ, we’re dead,” Kris muttered. “Thank you, Captain.”
“Anytime, Admiral. How long are we going to hang out here, catching our breath?”
“They’re on the course I want. Let’s see what they do next.”
The aliens chased. Kris fled, now at a sedate 1.75 gees. Once, she ordered an attack at long range on the lower dish, but they quickly killed their acceleration, inviting Kris to close on them while the other two dishes advanced above her.
She declined.
“Smart move. You’re learning,” Kris mused. “You’re advancing, which you want to do. I’m falling back, which I don’t want to do.”
Kris adjusted her course to take her close to the gas giant and between two Hellburner command stations, then made a feint at the higher dish. When it flinched back, she swung toward the middle one.
They all fell back and ended up pretty much in line again.
Kris’s fleet kept littering their retreat with chaff. Soon, Professor Labao reported the aliens’ lasers were heating up, and they were cutting back on sweeping their path. Kris dropped off a half dozen mines along with more chaff.
Three mines caught ships.
The aliens went back to blasting everything in front of them.
Kris smiled as they developed the habit she wanted.
The dish opposite the hooligan of BatRon 5 suddenly went to 2.5 acceleration, closing the distance between them in a leap. Commodore Benson saw his danger and upped the acceleration, too, but his ships had suffered more damage than they knew. The Proud Unicorn’s motors sputtered, and one blew away into space. The Lucky Leprechaun was no luckier. They failed to pull away. Kris ordered BatRons 1, 2, and 3 to swing inward, threatening the attacking dish’s flank.
Still, the aliens came on. The other two dishes now were back up to two gees and edging closer. Kris ordered missiles fired at them and had Drago move BatDiv 10 in to support BatRon 4’s efforts to meet those two.
On her left flank, the hooligans fought their battle with one dish, aided by the arrival of most of the fleet. The Unicorn and Leprechaun struggled to keep up, then flipped and fired full bow batteries at their tormentors. That cost the aliens two ships, but it cost the two volunteers seconds of precious acceleration. The aliens came on.
Now the dish’s flank burned under the fire of three battle squadrons. Ship after ship blew or stumbled out of formation, internal explosions erupting into space. Still, what was left of the dish locked its teeth onto its two unlucky victims and a third, the Kikukei, was proving no luckier than the Leprechaun.
Commodore Miyashi’s ships concentrated on supporting the Kikukei, and that may have saved her. Still, both the Unicorn and the Leprechaun fell farther behind, bleeding steam and armor from hits even as they fired ever-decreasing salvos. At close range, they both managed a missile salvo that took their closest enemies with them as their final moment came.
Suddenly, the fight was over as quickly as it had begun. Two more of Kris’s ships were gone, but an alien dish was gone with them. The Kikukei managed to put on enough gees to crawl ahead and join CripDiv 1.
With BatRon 5 reduced to three ships, Kris offered Commodore Benson the chance to take all his ships out of the line and join the cripples in reserve.
“We’ve just begun to fight, Admiral,” was his reply. On Kris’s board, many of her ships were showing some red for damaged. However, as the quiet between storms stretched out, Temptress’s, Fairy Princess’s, and Pixie’s hardworking damage control parties brought them back into yellow.
The alien commander also seemed to need time to reassess the situation. The two remaining dishes, both battered, slowed their advance to half a gee. The rear four dishes and mother ship closed on them at one gee.
The clan was gathering, and their swords were sharp.
Kris had started with forty-four ships. She’d lost three and held four damaged ships in reserve. The tip of her spear, the four battle squadrons still had eight ships each, but she had little to play with otherwise. The remnants of BatRon 5 weren’t even a full division, and she wasn’t supposed to send her flagship charging into the line.
Across space, some 180 monsters formed a hexagon. Possibly worse, eighteen speedy small boys were doing a fast run, dropping well below the lowest dish to get behind Kris. So far, those little boys hadn’t shown a lot of firepower, but if they got across Kris’s line of flight and started tossing atomics at her, things could get messy.
“Constitution, Tiger, and Spitfire, you up for a high-speed run and some shooting?” Kris asked. In theory, their boards showed green again, but Kris didn’t trust she was getting the real word. She left the Kikukei out. It showed only two lasers online.
“We’re ready now,” the skipper of the Constitution said for all.
“You see their little boys. We can’t have them behind us. Proceed independently and stop them.”