Every one of the first set of boarding bugs was annihilated but that first light harvester was followed by a dozen more, and within seconds, dozens of boarding bugs had become hundreds.
Our gunners did their best, but before a minute had passed, half the light harvesters had bypassed the flagship and the first of the boarding bugs ducked under the lowering edge of our starboard shields.
As the light harvesters ran into our reinforcements, the first of the boarding bugs slammed into our hull, destroying both themselves and the warrior and technician models that clung so desperately to their sides. Nothing more than green stains on the side of the hull and a series of dull thumps remained to announce the end of their part in this brewing conflict.
The second wave wasn’t so unlucky and a handful of the two dozen that made it through succeeded in landing.
“Bugs on the hull,” Adrienne Blythe reported in a clinical voice from her position at damage control.
“Get me the Lancer Colonel,” I said.
Within seconds, the eager face of my Tractoan Lancer Colonel was on my screen.
“We have bugs, Colonel. Wait a minute for the shields to finish getting between us and those harvester light lasers and you’re free to get out on the hull and take action,” I said.
“We’ll clear out those bugs in nothing flat, Warlord,” said the Colonel.
“Go get them, Colonel,” I said and cut the channel.
DuPont finished interposing the starboard shield between us and the rest of the harvesters when we started to get system updates from the rest of the force.
The main screen cleared, and on it I we could see a large red icon where the Mothership used to reside and a Swarm of heavy harvesters tearing one another apart as someone in there tried to decide who was going to be the next bug Queen. Either that, or now that their Queen was gone, a lot of old scores were being settled. Either way, give them enough time and one of those heavy harvesters would reestablish control.
Something I wasn’t about to give them.
Ignoring the renewed, if now uncoordinated hail of light and medium laser fire from the light harvesters all around us, I opened a channel to Officer Druid.
“I want you to take in your heavies and finish off as many of those heavies as you can while they’re distracted, Rear Admiral. Understood?” I asked.
“Not a problem, Sire,” said Druid.
Within moments, the Wall was on its way to a rendezvous with the three hundred surviving heavy harvesters.
Not to be outdone, Admiral Laurent, proving once again why I’d put him in command of our lighter units, was already bringing the rest of the MSP’s cruisers and destroyers around to hammer the light harvesters.
Now leaderless, the light harvesters were easily picked off one by one into individual ship-to-light harvester combats that frittered away their strength and let us team up on them two or even three to one.
More than half the light harvesters were peeled away from the main force this way, while another twenty or thirty started randomly moving away from combat, courses already locked on the nearest inhabitable world filled with fresh biomass. They wouldn’t get far.
Ignoring the stragglers, the Sector Guard slammed into one side of the fast-moving light harvester Swarm while the local System Defense Fleet pushed their engines to the red line in order to concentrate and slam into them on the other.
“A lucky hit, Weapons,” the Executive Officer said, clapping the weaponeer on the shoulder, “keep it up!”
I nodded. We could use some more gunnery like that, one hit one kill, targeting a Mothership in the middle of a Swarm of overprotective heavy harvesters.
I made a mental note to add a combat bonus to that weaponeer’s next monthly paystub.
The ship surrounded now both broadsides and were firing as rapidly as they could cycle their laser mounts and focusing crystals.
The bugs might have been decapitated but they were the last thing from down and out. They still had a lot of fight in them, especially their boarding bugs.’
Over the next fifteen minutes, the light harvesters were destroyed as a unified force, their survivors scattered. Casualties on our side were up thanks to the over-eager actions of the Sector Guard and System Defense Forces but there was nothing I could do about that.
On the other hand, while the light harvesters were scattered and the heavy harvesters too slow to catch the rest of the fleet, the more than one hundred boarding bugs successfully landed on the hull of the Lucky Clover were something else entirely.
“Colonel Demeter is calling out two battalions of reinforcements,” reported Akantha.
I looked over at her with concern.
“Is that your way of saying you’re taking off?” I asked.
She gave me a cross look.
“Do you want me to go?” she asked.
“Not particularly,” I said.
“Then know I’ll be staying here,” she said.
“Good,” I sighed with relief.
“I was just pointing it out in case there was anything you wanted done,” she said.
I paused to consider and ran a hand through my hair.
“I don’t want to jog Demeter’s elbow,” I said pursing my lips, “however, this would probably be an ideal time for the armory team to start passing out handheld weapons to the crew.”
She gave me a skeptical look but within moments, the team had unlocked the armory and began passing out weapons.
We were stuck in it now but this was our battle to lose.
While our lancers worked on clearing the hull and DuPont at the helm began slowly but surely backing the Lucky Clover away from the heavy harvesters, I scanned the battlespace looking for trouble.
The light harvesters had been irritating, and as a group, potentially deadly—but now that things were scattered, the Clover’s main gun was back in operation.
Unless the bugs came up with a new trick, it was just a matter of time.
Chapter 51
Operation Light Fingers
Silent as the grave and stealthier than an asteroid, the three squadrons of raptor-class destroyers slid into position around the target.
“Threat assessment, Commander?” asked Agent-in-Charge Gustavus Adolphus.
“Minimal, for achieving our primary objective of denying alien technology to the designated party. That should be easily achievable. The threat level rises from minimal to moderate if we attempt our secondary objective of bringing a working sample of this technology back to the Empire,” the Commander in charge of the three-squadron-strong attack force said with confidence.
“I can make no promises, Agent,” said the Commander.
“I can’t either, Commander,” the Agent said with a frown, but in the back of his eyes lurked a hunger to complete all the mission objectives and bring the Alien Jump Spindles back home.
“What do you think of our mission? Should we settle for the primary objective or snatch them from the MSP?” asked Gustavus Adolphus.
The Commander nodded.
“My squadrons can take them, Sir. Getting the technology out of the star system successfully will be the trick. For that, we must rely upon the Intelligence Directorate,” he said with a shrug.
“Imperial hackers are the best in the galaxy, Commander,” the Agent said confidently, “while there are no guarantees in life, I can’t imagine that a secondary rate power using a mismatch of first- and second-rate operating systems and third rate military encryption programs can stop us. Given enough time of course.”
“We’ll give you everything we can, Agent. But the laws of physics are unavoidable. My men and I do not want to die for an unsecurable piece of technology,” he warned.
“Nor would I ask it of you, Commander. Especially considering I’ll be sharing your fate,” said the Agent.
He took a deep breath.
“Then we proceed as outlined in Operations Plan Alpha-2. Take out their g
uard ships and secure those spindles. Even just the chance to take deep detailed scans and copy its operation systems will give us invaluable data for reverse engineering the technology. I’m officially turning the next portion of this operation over to you as outlined in our mission orders, Commander,” said the Agent.
“I receive operational command, Agent. We’ll bring those Spindles with us or render them non-operational,” he said.
***
With the Lucky Clover surrounded by bug harvesters and the entire fleet engaged deep in the outer star system, the imperial black ops destroyers began to creep into the sensor perimeter of the guard ships surrounding the Elder Tech Jump Spindles.
Upon achieving minimum effective range, nine of the thirteen imperial destroyers abruptly brought up their shields and engaged engines.
“We’re receiving a warning hail. The designated unaffiliated third party are threatening to destroy us, Commander,” said Lieutenant Jarvis.
“Ignore them,” the Commander said with an amused expression.
The Agent, on the other hand, had a puckered look.
“Why do you look like someone stole your cream?” asked the Commander.
“Unaffiliated third party? We know exactly who they are, Commander, and they are not some bogey man we should fear to name,” said Agent Gustavus Adolphus.
The Commander’s face shuttered.
“You may be inured to the idea of being sacrificed for the cause after a successful mission, but I will not make it any easier than I have to for my officers and crew to be dragged before a tribunal. If a little name obfuscation makes it that much more difficult for the censors and their monitoring programs to find us with a voice-to-text keyword search, then that’s what we’ll do, Agent Adolphus.”
“I didn’t mean anything by it,” said the Agent, making his face deliberately expressionless.
***
The dozen MSP warships assigned to Jump Spindle Protection duties all had varying levels of damage. The heavy cruiser in command of the defense force, for instance, had a damaged secondary engine and no shields on one side of the ship.
When two squadrons of destroyers appeared suddenly within their threat radius, the warships of the MSP Spindle Protective Detail didn’t hesitate. They fired their engines and gave their first and final warning.
In response, the unidentified destroyers ignored all hails, lit off their engines and opened fire from spinal-mounted triple-linked medium lasers. After firing, they made a beeline toward the jump spindles.
Taking active fire, the destroyers and cruisers scrambled into formation between the spindles and the now hostile destroyers and presented their broadsides.
At the same time, one of the MSP destroyers in the formation made a second demand to stop and be identified or destroyed five seconds before the enemy destroyers opened fire yet again.
Other than a pair of destroyers with heavy engine damage thanks to the Imperial Destroyers, all the MSP warships were now in a line between the attackers and the Spindles. They opened fire.
The forward-facing and, most importantly, load-distributing regenerative shields of the imperial destroyers shrugged off every attack with ease except for the heavy cruiser’s broadside.
Four turbo-lasers and a mix of twenty-odd other medium and heavy lasers punch-dropped its forward-facing shields to dangerous levels and proceeded to damaged its triple forward-facing medium lasers, rendering them combat ineffective.
In return, they concentrated their fire on a pair of the destroyers. Medium lasers punched through shields and into the hulls. A second enemy destroyer fell out of position with a damaged forward spinal mount and for a minute, it looked like the MSP warships with their heavy cruiser had the upper hand.
The five hidden destroyers that had been sneaking closer to the jump spindles still unnoticed thanks to the ship-to-ship combat already taking place, moved into position for up-the-kilt shots. All five destroyers opened fire.
Alarms sounded in every bridge in the Spindle patrol group as energy spikes sent bridge crews into a tizzy. Captains issued urgent orders and the line of MSP warships scrambled to reposition, only two of them managing to move in time to take glancing blows. The others were too slow to take action and all three of the other targeted warships, including the heavy cruiser, took shots to their engines.
Unfortunately for the Multi-Sector Patrol Fleet, one of the reasons the heavy cruiser was stuck on guard duty was because one of its main shield generators was down, leaving half the ship, the side facing away from the force of nine imperial destroyers, entirely unshielded.
Taking advantage of this complete lack of shields on the port side of the MSP cruiser, the triple laser shot pierced straight into the main engine of the cruiser before its captain and crew could try to cover their mistake.
“Enemy cruiser neutralized!” crowed Lieutenant Snyder as the rear end of the MSP heavy cruiser erupted in flames and the heavy cruiser’s main engine quickly tore itself apart.
“Decorum, Lieutenant. We are not some hum-scrum system militia,” scolded the Commander.
“Apologies, Commander,” said Lieutenant Snyder, face turning back to his console.
On the screen, a pair of MSP destroyers turned to double-team an imperial destroyer.
“Tactical shift; fire and press those warships,” ordered the Imperial Commander, gesturing to a pair of over-eager local destroyers that were about to be taught a lesson.
“Aye-aye, Sir,” the Officer at the tactical console said stolidly.
Hands clasped behind his back, the Commodore watched as his highly-trained predator class destroyers began shifting formation to spread the load on their shields equally across all warships. On the face of it, even with the heavy cruiser heavily damaged and down to its maneuvering thrusters, the Spineward Sector guard detail looked like it still had a fighting chance.
Of course, the locals still had no clue about the knife in the dark that was about to land, making all of their current efforts irrelevant.
“Message the task group; the new order of the day is a fighting withdrawal,” the Imperial Commander ordered confidently, “let us lure the locals away from those Spindles. Carefully though, there is no need to arouse their suspicions,” he added with a grin.
The message was relayed and the two groups of imperial destroyers soon linked up to within supporting range. For now, the Commander kept the two formations separate.
Eager to ‘drive off’ their stealth attackers all surviving MSP warships, minus the three that couldn’t maneuver any longer, began an aggressive pursuit.
But even as they were pursuing the retreating imperial destroyers, a small fleet of Black Ops recon shuttles with their contingents of technicians and marines descended on the jump spindles.
As the Jacks spread out across the surface of each spindle and sappers ran detonation cord and placed scuttling charges, the imperial technicians headed toward the nearest electrical conduits and jacked into the alien devices. Their goal? Take what they could and destroy the rest.
It was inconceivable that any power in the galaxy could have sole possession of an alien technology of such magnitude, let alone a small unaffiliated power on the Rim. The old Confederation getting their hands on such a device was barely allowable. But a third-rate power from a second-rate region of the galaxy like the Spine, one that challenged the Empire, had killed an Imperial Senator and lived to tell the tale? That was a situation the Imperial Intelligence Directorate could not allow and it was now up to the Black Ops forces of Agent Adolphus to make that decision a reality.
Chapter 52
Disaster!
The Fleet was still cleaning up something of the order of three hundred scattered harvesters, marauders and scout survivors of the original Swarm, along with an unidentified number of boring bugs and boarding beetles, numbers that might reach into the low thousands—and I was still busy directing the efforts.
“Admiral, there’s
an ongoing active attempt on the Spindles,” my Staff Intelligence Officer said, leaning in close.
“What, Bridget?” I asked absently, waving her away as a small clot of heavy harvesters started to do some damage to a group of SDF warships that had drifted too deep inside their firing radius and now needed to be bailed out. Whatever it was could wait if it didn’t have to do with the battle…
Her words finally registered. I jerked in my chair and rounded on her with a wild-eyed look.
“Are you serious?” I asked.
“As a heart attack, Sir. Thirteen destroyers have been identified so far; the Spindle guard is trying to drive them off,” Officer Kelly replied.
“You’d better be joking because this isn’t funny, Lieutenant,” I informed her, feeling a cold sensation sending a chill running down my spine.
“They snuck into range and engaged the Spindle guard before our ships were even aware they were there and then they took out our heavy cruiser’s last engine in less than a minute. If this is a joke, I’m waiting for the punch-line, Sir,” said Lieutenant Kelly, the scar running down her face turning even whiter than usual.
“Demon Murphy, avert,” I swore and quickly passed temporary command of the battle to Rear Admiral Laurent while I turned my attention to our only way home. Or at least our fastest. If we lost those Spindles…. It didn’t bear thinking about.
The fly was definitely in the ointment. Fortunately, there was a plan in place for just this contingency.
“Give me a breakdown,” I said, shooting out orders like blaster bolts.
Within moments, the best images our sensors could give from this rang up on my screen.
The tactical picture was dire.
The heavy cruiser and two destroyers were man down with disabled engines, leaving nine defenders, a light cruiser and eight destroyers against thirteen hostile destroyers.
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