“I’d better pass the word up to Captain-General Herakles. He’ll want to hear about this,” said the first Lancer.
All over the factory, word began to trickle up the chain of command regarding the new bug threat they were facing. otherwise regular-looking warrior bugs with a dark metallic sheen to their claws and carapaces that made them resistant but not immune, to regular blaster weapons and vibro-blades.
It was enough to slow but not halt the MSP’s sweep of the orbital factories.
All over the Hot Cross orbitals, battalions of lancers and marines worked to clear the system’s industry of non-human habitation.
“How’s the extermination effort going?” I asked, opening a direct line to my ship’s Lancer Commander.
“The clearing efforts are behind schedule. The bugs we’ve been facing show clear signs of anti-marine adaptation, something that’s only seen after a hive has experienced significant ground forces or space marine resistance,” the Tractoan said with a hungry gleam in his eye.
That didn’t sound good.
“Despite this setback, we’ve almost finished clearing the first factory. The plan is to shift those forces over to the second factory as soon as we’ve finished clearing it, Warlord,” he added.
“I see you’ve spent some time studying up on bugs, Colonel,” I said.
The Colonel bared his teeth in an otherwise happy expression.
“You’ve fought bugs before and this is a bug-hunting campaign, Warlord. My officers had every reason to study both the Confederation and Empire’s history of battling against these creatures. I, of course, couldn’t let an under-officer surpass his leader,” he said with total confidence, “besides, studying battles using the holo-vid is the next best thing to battle itself.”
“I can see that,” I said.
“Thank you, Warlord,” he dipped his head.
“Just keep up the good work and clear those factories, Colonel. I have big plans for them,” I said.
Colonel Demeter looked interested.
“For now, let’s just say they’re a contingency plan,” I said confidently, “but as you’re going along, if you’d take notes and let me know which of the factories looks to be in the best condition, I’d really appreciate it.”
“As you command, Warlord,” he said.
“Also, because you’re experiencing greater than expected resistance, I’m going to have Rear Admiral Druid send in the marines,” I said.
“We will redouble our efforts, there’s no need to send in the marines, Sir,” Colonel Demeter protested, “my Lancers will be back on schedule shortly.”
“I don’t want to risk your people trying to catch up to some imaginary schedule, Colonel,” I immediately disagreed, “we’re here to kill bugs, not die fighting them. Prepare to coordinate with your counterpart among Druid’s forces.”
“Understood,” he replied unhappily.
“Montagne out,” I said, cutting the channel.
After telling Druid to release his shuttles and checking with sensors and navigation, I ensured we still had plenty of time to clear the orbitals before the arrival of the main force.
Not that I intended to stand around waiting for the main Swarm to arrive.
I decided to go for a walk.
It was a short walk to my ready room and a few minutes to stretch and take a drink before I returned to the flag bridge.
By the time I was back on the bridge, the first of the battleship complements were landing on the orbital factory complexes.
Ranging from an oversized battalion of battle armor to a dreadnaught class’s short brigade, the lancers and marines of the recently reinforced Multi-Sector Patrol began landing on the stations, factories and damaged defensive platforms that circled Hot Cross Prime.
With a fleet of right under two hundred warships, I felt confident we could liberate this star system and cleanse it of bugs, give or take something unexpected like massive out-system bug reinforcements showing up at the last moment, that is.
The only real question was whether my current force structure was up to the task and I didn’t mean the ships.
With my original fleet force of sixty fully-manned warships and the bare bones command teams and skeleton crews to bring another sixty into combat during an emergency, making that a total of 120 warships I could call up in a pinch, I’d felt completely confident. My people were veterans and the only issues that might crop up were due to insufficient crew, not the professionalism, training or ability and willingness to follow command.
My current fleet of 198 warships, twenty of them battleships, was a completely different kettle of fish and it was going to have to shake out fast. More than half of my personnel, a third of my captains and slightly more than that of the bridge crews were Caprian transplants.
That wasn’t a bad thing. Most of our protocols were originally based off of the Caprian way of doing things. The royal Caprian way, which was slightly different, but ultimately not really enough to make a difference and many of our personnel, especially in key positions, were former Caprians themselves. That said, most of the new people knew ‘of’ me but I didn’t know them.
I’d also been so cautious in where and how I placed my crews, command teams and, the ace in my deck, the lancer contingents.
As I watched the lancer reinforcements land and deploy against the bugs from a series of close up holo-feeds direct from battlesuit cameras and holo-pickups, I was already planning my strategy.
I needed a win to help solidify confidence in my command abilities, better yet a series of victories. Hearing about me was one thing, seeing a clear-cut victory another, and I labored under no illusions. My every defeat and pyrrhic win had been played up in the media before I started to fade into obscurity.
The terribly embarrassing series of web-videos and documentaries my people put out toward the end of my Spineward Sector campaigns and afterward helped mitigate those images somewhat, but only with those who cared to hear my side of the things.
Over the next hour, we cleared half a dozen orbital factories and warehouses and General Wainwright called in.
“Greetings, General,” I said after accepting the call.
“A-, Your Majesty,” he acknowledged.
I hid a smile. Most of my battleships were crewed by a majority of MSP originals and their lancer contingents were all originals or Tractoan-based units. However, now that we were all part of one big happy King’s Own Multi-Sector Patrol Fleet, I didn’t want to be too blatant in my favoritism so I’d decided to extend an olive branch to Capria’s marines and invited back onboard a pair of my battleships, General Wainwright, and the members of his command.
“What can I do for you, General?” I asked.
“I was doing quite nicely in command of an active reserve formation back home, Sir. I got to see the family every day. Even got to the beaches one weekend a month in the summer if I wanted. I was even looking at buying a vacation home. You could send me back home, Sire,” he grumbled.
“Sadly, the people back home decided they needed me, or at least my money, and I told them I need you,” I shrugged, not caring about his whining in the slightest, “so I’m afraid you’re stink out of luck, at least until after things settle down. If your King has to go risk a hand-to-hand encounter with bugs, you’re not getting out of things that easily. But I assume you called for some reason other to bend my ear about beachfront property and the need for more vacation time, considering we’ve just started our Bug Campaign. What gives?”
“I don’t see how I’m all that useful,” he sighed but considering he was the only one I halfway trusted inside the Caprian SDF and, more specifically, the Marine Branch of the SDF, he could keep on dreaming.
Considering more than half the Caprian units I’d placed onboard the new cruiser commands joining our fleet had been officers or units he’d recommended to me as being solid, I felt free to file his bellyaching under the completely-without-merit category
.
“Is this how you teach your junior officers to report to their senior officers up the chain of command, or is this reserved only for how you teach them to respond to their Monarchs, General?” I asked pointedly.
Wainwright winced.
“Sorry, Sir. I guess I deserved that,” he said.
“I guess you did,” I agreed sternly.
“I was just calling to say we’ve got the bugs over here under control, assuming Fleet doesn’t let anything else slip through. So, it’ll take a while to clear everything though and I wasn’t sure if you wanted to leave us out here on clean-up or start rotating half the units back home to their warships,” he inquired.
I pursed my lips.
We still had a good couple days before the bugs reached Hot Cross in force. Were things on the factories that hot? Had it been too long since my lancers and marines had been in combat and they needed some time to rest or was there some other factor?
For a moment, I was tempted to keep them out there full force until the bugs were taken care of. The sooner this local infestation was crushed, the faster I could sally the fleet out to finish off the main force.
Based off my past encounters, any force of bugs against an equal force of modern warships was an easy victory. That was when I realized Wainwright and his marines might not be the only people in this fleet that needed a wakeup call and a chance to get their heads on straight, always assuming there wasn’t some other reason he wanted my lancer and marine compliments back onboard their ships.
“Alright, I’ll trust your judgment. Rotate out the smaller units, and the larger brigade-sized forces, depending on their individual circumstances, can start coming back home as a whole or by individual contingents. If too many are being pulled back, I’m sure the cruisers contingents would like a chance to see these new bugs in action personally,” I said, coming to a decision after some silent rumination.
“Good,” Wainwright said with relief after hearing my decision, “I know it’s an unlikely proposition but I just can’t shake the thought of what a force of stealth bugs coming in ballistic could do to a battleship without any of its power-armor aboard. Men with skinsuits and blaster pistols are not going to want to deal with this new kind of warrior bug,” he said.
I felt a flash of alarm and a silent shiver. True, we were well ahead of the main bug force but the bugs here weren’t acting like the normal bugs we’d been facing before. These bugs were different and showed all the classic signs of a Hive that had started to adapt to strong human ground resistance. But what if modern ground forces weren’t the only things they’d started to adapt to?
“I’ll issue orders for the shuttles to start retrieving our lancers and marines momentarily. I’ll have Fleet Flight Ops coordinate with you and the various lancer and marine commands,” I said.
“Thank you, Sir,” he said.
“No. Thank you, General,” I said, genuinely meaning it. Wainwright used to be in command of my entire ground forces and after his departure, things had never quite jelled the same. I got that his people wanted to go home and he felt it was his duty to return to protect Capria now that they were once again willing to have him, but the loss had stung.
Falling back into old patterns was a nice feeling but could prove deceptive. Still, I was happy for the input.
After relaying to Flight Ops the need to coordinate the fleet’s shuttle recovery efforts, I opened a group channel to our carrier force.
“What can we do for you, Sir?” asked the Captain of Piece-Meal, the senior of the two Jumble Carriers currently in service.
“I’d like you to get your birds out into space at your earliest convenience and start a sweep in the general direction of the main bug Swarm, Captains,” I said, nodding toward each of the two captains although my main focus was on the Captain of Piece-Meal.
The Captain looked alarmed.
“Is there a specific threat, Sir?” he asked, tensing up.
“Nothing yet. This is just a better safe than sorry situation. The last thing we need is a surprise force of bugs hitting us while we’re distracted. You can just consider this the usual Montagne paranoia rearing its ugly head,” I said, glad that we’d started to produce a standardized version of one of our top gunboat models and promulgated it to each of the carriers, while at the same time wishing I’d had the spare hands and yard capacity to give them entirely new carriers.
We’d offloaded those old boats to system defense platforms on Tracto and at Omicron Space Station, but there had been no way to swap out the carriers themselves and those old battleship hulls they were using weren’t even close to fully optimized for carrier operations.
“I’ll take your feelings over most people’s sensor returns any day of the week, King Jason,” the Captain of the Piece-Meal said, “we’ll get right on it.”
“Make sure you coordinate with Flight Ops if you find anything,” I said.
“Will do,” he said.
After that, it was time to just sit back and wait until the shuttles started returning. For the gunboats, the carriers to send out the boats, and for them in turn to start sending back sensor results.
A whole lot of hurry up and wait.
Chapter 35
Hot Cross III in Search of the Clean Sweep
Fortunately for my peace of mind and my legacy, the bugs didn’t arrive before the lancers started trickling back to their ships. Even better, the gunboat returns showed no signs of a secret wave of bug marines about to fall upon an unwary fleet.
With Rear Admiral Laurent’s light forces sweeping the orbitals for bugs, Rear Admiral Druid’s battleships coordinating with Hot Cross ground command and slashing and burning anything they could on the surface with their heavy and turbo-lasers, I was starting to feel less and less like a hammer was about to drop on my head.
Finishing up the sweep of the orbitals, I detached a heavy cruiser and two squadrons of destroyers to patrol the planet and keep the bugs off it.
“Fleet, now that we’ve finished an initial sweep of Hot Cross Prime’s orbit and cleared it of bugs, it’s time to go out there and deal with the main source of the infestation,” I said in a fleet-wide broadcast.
“Whoever or whatever sent these bugs out to destroy as many of the defenseless star systems of the Spine as they could, did so not knowing that Admiral Jason Montagne and the Multi-Sector Patrol Fleet were still on duty. The Spine may reject us and the Known Galaxy might malign us, but once again, we prove that sometimes all the stands between the light of civilization and the darkness that lurks beyond our border is your King’s Own: Multi-Sector Patrol Fleet,” I said passionately.
“So, to whomever or whatever entity or entities out there perpetrated this dastardly deed, be they dead AI’s, angry Imperials or the space gods themselves, I have just one thing to say to you. We’ll be watching. We’ll be waiting. And we will find you. When we do, know that we won’t just shame you. We. Will. Come. For. You!” I finished with righteous anger.
A lot of people might point out the fact it might seem a little hypocritical to call out using bugs in space warfare when I had done so myself. The main difference, though, was I’d never introduced them to an inhabited star system or used them on non-military targets.
The same could not be said for whoever perpetrated this heinous crime.
It could be droids or pirates, or the plan of some long-dead AI, but my money was on the Empire. When I found out for sure… heads would roll.
“Blasted imperials can’t even take yes for an answer. A win isn’t good enough. They’ve always got to go for the jugular,” I muttered, not blind to the fact that it was almost certainly my own action of returning Tracto’s bugs to sender that had caused the Imperials to escalate.
In a very real way, every citizen that was eaten, every world that was rendered uninhabitable, was because the Empire couldn’t stand it when you hit them back. Maybe if I’d just stood by and done nothing, the death count would onl
y be in the millions or low billions of people eaten by imperial-sent bugs, instead of this massive billions upon tens of billions or even more that were destined to die in this latest series of attacks.
“Sir?” asked the First Officer.
“Nothing,” I dismissed, “just a little angry speculation. I was only wondering if I’d let them kill a few million people without the responsible parties being held to account, then maybe whoever it was that decided to launch these attacks wouldn’t have decided that billions more dying was the right response.”
The First Officer eyed me with concern.
I ignored him and watched as the fleet started to break orbit. Sometimes, being at the top was a heavy burden.
No sooner had the fleet started to break orbit than a bevy of planetary officials, desperately seeking assurance that we weren’t leaving for good started gumming up the com-channels.
“Is that all of them?” I asked Lisa Steiner after she’d given me the whole list.
“Yes, Sir,” she said.
“Alright, put the Prime-Lord on and refer everyone else to the Fleet’s PR department. Have PR put out a canned statement that a Task Group comprised of a heavy cruiser and two destroyer squadrons are staying back on planetary patrol while the rest of the fleet goes out to smash the main bug Swarm before it can hit orbit,” I said.
“I’ll make sure PR passes that to all the relevant authorities, as well as all the major star system and planet-based news networks,” she said.
“Good idea. Make it happen,” I said.
After she turned away to carry out her portion of the job, I accepted the blinking icon that was the Prime-Lord’s com-call.
“This is Jason Montagne,” I said, opening the channel.
“I would like to personally thank you for the actions of your fleet in helping to break the back of the bug infestation on our planet, King Jason,” he said with a nod.
“Happy to help,” I said, silently adding for a fee. I’d given up on verbalizations of thanks and settled on money as the only tangible form of thanks I’d receive in this life. It was sad but true that a fleet couldn’t fight without a base of support and that cost cold, hard credits. In a way, paying to fund my operations was the most tangible form of thanks these people could ever give me.
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