“You hard work is appreciated. Unless they’d be uncovering a soft target, I want your forces to collapse back on Belter Station and aid the defense of Tracto Prime. The Multi-Sector Patrol Fleet will take it from here and deal with the main Swarm,” I said.
“Aye-aye, Sir,” Tully said with relief.
“Montagne out,” I said.
“Tully out,” he replied.
Looking back up at the main screen, I felt a chill. If we’d been even a week later arriving, the surface could have been ravaged and our orbitals swept clear. So much as three days might have been too much considering the bugs were an estimated two days away from Tracto. As it was, the massive orbital defenses erected around the planet and our mining operations in the outer star system could have been swept clean.
“Twelve hundred bugs is not a small number, Admiral,” said Manblaster.
“No, it’s not, XO,” I agreed.
But it was something we were going to have to deal with, and fast. Unfortunately, with the main Swarm already inside the inner star system, I didn’t have as much time to play with as I hoped. Trading space for time and harassing attacks was not an option if they were only two days away from the planet.
Chapter 59
The Battle of the Bulge
Since there wasn’t time to wait, the Fleet immediately began moving to put itself between the bug Swarm and Tracto.
The Multi-Sector Patrol Fleet started in the inner star system and moved much faster than the sluggish bug Swarm. Their scout-ships and scout marauders could move at something less than glacial speed but the harvesters and Mothership in the main body generally kept things down to a slow crawl.
On the way to Tracto, we received a routine update that sent my blood pressure rising.
“What’s this, Chief of Staff?” I asked, pulling up the latest update from the Tractoan SDF based around Belter Station.
“Sir?” she asked.
“This,” I said walking over and showing her the readiness report that was attached.
“I’m unaware of any… What!” she exclaimed.
“Our defense network was degraded by 40% but we’ve only lost a handful of turrets,” I said through my teeth.
Within minutes, I was in the middle of a long-distance tele-conference with the SDF where we learned of a series of coordinated strikes by stealth destroyers, very similar in nature to the ones that attacked the Spindles in Sector 26.
While the majority of the Fleet was gone, a coordinated strike had crippled our auxiliary command and control nodes for the orbital defenses. They’d also destroyed half our mining nodes and processors. Only the routine escorts had at all deterred them and all of this had taken place after the bulk of the SDF was repositioned to face the bugs.
To add salt to the wound, several fast freighters carrying mercenaries in power armor had landed on our processors and filled their holds with trillium.
Fortunately for us, they hadn’t planned on the pair of orbital fortresses we’d taken as payment for services rendered during the Bug Campaign and had been forced to withdraw before doing even more damage.
“It would appear the attack on our Spindles was part of a coordinated series of attacks,” I said with simmering anger.
“They waited until our back was turned and struck. Reprehensible, Sir,” said Steiner.
“We’ll look for clues later,” I said, resolve hardening. There was a limited number of suspects. I put my money on the Empire. But right now was not the time to make dire threats and great protestations of fiery vengeance. As they say, vengeance is best served cold.
In less than three hours, the main body of the MSP repositioned itself between Tracto and the bug Swarm. Our damaged ships had been dispatched to Tracto, and they were still en route.
Pulling up the latest updated Swarm list, I ruminated on the force disparity.
I basically had two hundred and fifty warships to deal with more than twelve hundred bugships. There were a few damaged and light warships stationed at Tracto that I could throw into the fray but for the moment, I was hoping to avoid it.
A pair of images popped up on my screen.
“Druid. Laurent,” I nodded to my two subordinate officers.
“Admiral what’s the plan?” Druid said seriously.
Meanwhile, Laurent just nodded.
“Fifty heavy harvesters, fifty-four medium harvesters, ninety-three light harvesters, three hundred scout marauders, five hundred scouts. More than two hundred boarding beetles and various other unidentified possible mutations,” said Druid.
“We’ve dealt with these kinds of numbers before,” I dismissed, determined to put a good face on things, “is there any indication these bugs have any of the sorts of mutations we’ve seen cropping up lately? Stealth? Laser resistance? Improved smart bombs or missiles?” I asked, rattling off the potential upgrades one at a time.
“Speed, Sire,” Laurent said finally.
“Knock off the Sire business, Laurent,” I said testily, “while I’m out here leading a fleet, I’m an Admiral first and King second but… speed… that’s… interesting.”
“It makes our job that much more difficult. We don’t have enough time to wear them down,” sighed Druid.
“Yes. Almost as if someone planned it,” I said coldly.
My two under-officers shared a look.
“That seems unlikely,” Druid said slowly.
“Like the two totally independent strikes on our interests by unmarked warships shortly after the bugs attacked the sector capital and Tracto,” I said calmly.
“It does sound like enemy action,” said Laurent.
“Correlation does not mean causation,” Druid said.
“No, it doesn’t. But only a fool waits for confirmation when the blaster bolts start flying,” I said.
“There’s a difference between taking preventative action or even measured attempts at striking back and rushing in where even fools hesitate to tread,” warned Laurent.
“Meaning I’m a fool?” I asked.
“You know that’s not what I meant,” snapped Laurent.
“Fair enough,” I replied shortly.
I took a deep breath.
“We’ll look into those matters more deeply later. In the meantime, we’re going to save Tracto,” I said.
“We should keep an eye out for stealth boarding bugs and boring beetles,” said Druid.
“Agreed. Now here’s my plan,” I said, laying out my quick and dirty vision of the future.
There was a moment of silence on the conference channel.
“It’s risky,” Laurent finally said.
“I’m in,” Druid’s eyes were as hard as agates.
“Of course, I’m in as well but it’s still risky,” glowered Laurent.
“Alright, let’s do this,” I said.
Unfortunately, we didn’t have enough time to wear down the bugs as I would have liked. But that was okay. I still had the best fleet in the entire galaxy at my back.
And as long as I had the MSP, I could do anything I set my mind to. Bar a few things like overturn the Empire of Man but hey, we were still growing. Anything was possible…right?
Snorting at my own irrational flight of fancy, I turned back to the grim business of ridding the Tractoan Star System of the bugs.
“Just call me the Exterminator,” I muttered after cutting the channel and then gave the order to advance.
The Fleet was on the move.
Filled with steely determination, the warships of the fleet, having recovered from the bad jump the Spindle gave when bringing us back to Tracto, fell out into battle formation.
Once again, we split up into two groups with the lighter warships splitting off to begin a corkscrew dance around the edge of the bug Swarm while the heavies formed up around the Lucky Clover II.
“Take us in, Helm,” I said, eyes hard and cold as the battleships formed up into a square hammer four rows d
eep to our front and the heavy cruisers formed up to our side and rear.
“Aye-aye, Sir,” said DuPont.
We then began moving forward as fast as the Lucky Clover II could manage.
“Are you sure this is wise, Admiral?” asked Manblaster.
“Wise, no. But if we can take out that Queen in one blow, then the Swarm will fall apart and the only thing left will be the clean-up,” I said, coldly.
“You’re the Admiral, Sir, but wouldn’t it be better to fall back on the orbital defenses and deal with the Swarm there?” he asked.
“You’ve seen the damage one scout can do to a small community. If we try to hold them at the orbitals, we could have hundreds fall upon our community centers. Worse they could land and start multiplying. Tracto isn’t a heavily settled world with multiple sensor nets all over the planet. We could spend months digging them out meanwhile the cost could be irreparable. We have to at least try,” I said.
“We won’t save anyone if we’re killed here, Sir,” he said pulling back.
“We’re not going to die today,” I said.
While the lighter units pulled around the side of the bug Swarm lasers burning into the scouts in the outer areas the hard core that was our Wall of Battle smashed through the outskirts of the Swarm.
While the light warships were doing their best to peel the onion that was the Swarm we were diving right into its midst and the bugs weren’t just ignoring us.
Forty battleships and an equal number of heavy cruisers fried everything in their path as we broke through the outer guard of scouts and scout marauders. Point defense in the form of light lasers and chain guns smashed dozens of boarding bugs—and still the bugs kept coming.
Then the harvesters stirred into action.
“I’m reading multiple medium and heavy harvesters moving into position in front of the Queen ship, Sir,” reported Lieutenant Harp.
“Take us in, Mr. DuPont,” I said.
“We’re already on course, Sir,” DuPont reminded respectfully.
I nodded.
The fleet continued to bore in on the bug fleet and our lead battleships opened fire, their turbo-lasers targeting the first harvesters.
The harvesters began taking damage but in response, they opened fire in all directions and although the majority of it was aimed in our direction, it was from too far away. A minor course adjustment when the bomb’s drives began to sputter sent them flying harmlessly past us.
Around the harvesters flew a stream of boring beetles.
The small bugs streamed toward us and though the Wall of Battle, opened fire with every point defense weapon we could bring to bear, whipping dozens of beetles out of the sky; each second, a hundred more seemed to take their place.
“Rotate the front warships,” I instructed.
The com-department relayed my orders and under Rear Admiral Druid’s direction, the lead battleships peeled off half to either side, opening fire with a full broadside, rolling to present their next, opening fire with them and then moving to slide back into formation directly in front of the Lucky Clover II.
A renewed flurry of fire broke out as the eight battleships now in the lead repeated the motion, falling out of formation to either side and opening fire.
One after another, the forty battleships in the lead blasted their full weight of fire into the bug harvesters.
First one harvester fell out of position and then a second, but the battleships were approaching too fast and by the time the main body of the MSP came into range of the harvesters, more than two dozen harvesters had been smashed into pieces.
The frontline harvesters opened fire as more and more of their brethren moved to interpose themselves between their beloved Queen onboard her Mothership and the main body of the MSP. First dozens, then hundreds, and finally thousands of lasers slashed into the lead battleships.
At first, the shield shrugged off the attack but too many lasers soon brought them down. This was the moment when weeks of bitter campaigning, each battle accruing a steady toll of battle damage on our ships, left most of our heavies with something between 70-90% of their original hull armor strength. The fact was, they weren’t as sturdy as they had been immediately after being released from the yards for combat, and now they were paying for my rush to finish this battle.
First one battleship fell out of formation, then two more, and suddenly one of our battleships rocked with explosions and began drifting toward the ship beside it.
I could see the writing on the wall.
“Tell the main body they are to maneuver as necessary to avoid a collision,” I instructed.
“Rear Admiral Druid asks if you want to pull back and make another run?” reported Lisa Steiner.
“No,” I said as the fleet spread out to avoid the damaged battleships, and bug lasers started targeting our shields.
Our formation was loose and more battleships were firing as the harvesters began to envelop us, but we continued to push forward. As boring beetles pressed forward and our shields lowered, a dozen battleships reported bugs landing on their hulls.
While our lancers were dealing with the intruders throughout the fleet, dozens of lighter bugs, scout marauders and scouts came charging in, only to be swept out of the sky.
I looked at the screen with narrowed eyes; our push forward was stalling as more warships peeled off, mainly due to battle damage, and began engaging individual harvesters. We were taking damage but the harvesters were having a worse time of it.
“Sir?” asked First Officer Manblaster, seeing my intent look at the main screen.
“I’m not seeing the sort of hull strengthening or laser resistance we saw in previous battles, XO,” I said.
Another battleship took fire from half a dozen harvesters at the same time and started venting atmosphere before ejecting two of its fusion generators. As I watched, the beleaguered ship was engulfed by a small cloud of boarding bugs, so many I didn’t think it would be able to fight them off without outside help.
It was another battleship I’d just doomed.
I was going to kill someone for this.
My knuckles popped and we continued to push forward when a heavy harvester put itself on a collision course with the flagship.
“Can we maneuver to avoid?” I asked dispassionately.
“No, sir, Admiral Montagne,” DuPont reported tensely.
I waved two fingers at the com-officer as my eyes picked out a pair of battleships.
“Tell the new Metal Titan to move that harvester out of my way and tell Messene’s Shield they are ordered to assist Metal Titan if there are any problems,” I said.
“Aye-aye,” the officer said in a subdued voice.
Our sensors continued searching in vain for an elusive signature in the middle of the bug Swarm.
“Do you want to fire the main gun, Admiral?” urged the Weaponeer.
“Hold your thunder, Weapons; we could only get one shot at this and we need to make it count,” I said.
But when three more harvesters pointed their noses directly at us and went to full-powered burn with no regard for a potential collision, things started to look grim.
“Three battleships have put out their emergency beacons, registering them as combat-destroyed. Another seven battleships report heavy damage. Another eighteen battleships have fallen out of formation due to various reasons and are actively engaged in combat,” reported Hart.
“That leaves us with a dozen battleships to break through,” I said.
“With respect, it’s not enough; we can’t push through those harvesters without a collision. We’re down to maneuvering and the slower we go, the more of the smaller bugs we’re attracting,” said Hart.
“Shields down to 50% and holding,” reported Shields.
I nodded sharply.
“Instruct the cruisers to push forward; they need to pick up the slack,” I ordered.
“Sir,” Manblaster said firmly
.
“I want to finish this battle in one go as badly as the next man, but we’re not going to be able to withdraw for another attack run if we don’t pull back now,” he said.
I turned a hot gaze on him.
“Send forward the cruisers,” I grated.
Manblaster stiffened and then snapped off a salute, stalking over to another area of the bridge.
Following orders, the cruisers doggedly pushed forward unleashing a series of calculated broadsides, destroying a trio of harvesters and forcing aside several more by encouraging the bugs to focus on them.
We were almost there but no matter how hard we pushed, there always seemed to be yet another mass of bugs.
By now, the Lucky Clover II was firing simultaneously from both broadsides and our shield strength had dropped enough that we were spotting.
“Boarding bug on the hull. I repeat, boarding bugs on the hull. Dispatch Lancers immediately,” said Warrant Adrienne Blythe from Damage Control.
Those bugs weren’t the last to reach our hull.
“Sir, we’re being overwhelmed. We must withdraw! Or else, order in the light units in for support. Our battleships are being overwhelmed,” urged Lieutenant-Commander Hart.
“Blast,” I cursed. Had we come this close only to fail? I refused to believe it. Just a little bit more…
A little bit more wasn’t enough.
The bitter taste of ashes and failure in my mouth, I ordered the cruisers to cover our withdrawal and sent the battleships off at a 30-degree angle. We had to fight our way out but reversing course was only going to take longer.
Several battleships had taken too much damage to follow the main body, but if I turned, we were only going to lose more. It was a devil’s bargain but I could only hope that by heading off at an angle and breaking free, the majority of the bugs would follow the main body.
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