Admiral's Challenge (A Spineward Sectors Novel: Book 8)

by Luke Sky Wachter

  “On it,” Spalding agreed, “as for the rest of the Fleet…we have two Cruisers. The Stone Rhino is off to Sector 24 to support things over there. The Furious Phoenix is doing better, but she’s still a mess. She’s been in and out of our flexible ship slip, but I wouldn’t trust her as far as I could throw her. We thought we had her all patched up last week but one of the life support tanks exploded; apparently, someone cut a man sized hole through it, of all things, during the boarding operation in Elysium and did a shoddy job of patching her back together afterward. But that’s Environmental techs for you; can’t run a proper wield to save their lives,” Spalding sighed, while I looked to the side and felt the urge to whistle. “There was sewage and algae cultures backed up everywhere. Three entire decks needed to be cleaned after her latest space trials. Beyond that, there have been reports of a strange vibration when she gets up to speed. I’m taking a look at the new engine housings we had to reinstall, and I’ve had them shore up the outer hull. But we lost even more mono-locsium in that last battle and while we’ve replaced it with Duralloy II, I worry that at some point we might start getting stress fractures on the internal supports. While she could fight in an emergency, I’d like to see how well this latest repair job and engine alignment takes before giving it my blessing.”

  “We’ll designate her for Yard and System defense duties for the moment then,” I said with resignation. The Phoenix had proven itself time and again, and it looked like it would be out of the rotation for the foreseeable future.

  “Finally, for the Cruisers we’ve got that Harmony job; I don’t think we’ll be able to make use of her myself,” Spalding said seriously. “I figure we’re better off patchin’ her up, putting her through her paces and then gutting her. If we do a full disassembly, we’ll pick up some new tech and get a full readout on Harmony gear. We’ve also got the remaining Conformity Motherships. They’re built on a Cruiser platform, but I wouldn’t want to get rid of them just yet. They might only be good for short-range operations due to the lack of life support systems, but I need some of the power plants and spinal weapons for the Clover 2.0 if we ever decide to get rid of them. The parts and pieces we stripped from the hulks we couldn’t bring back with us help, but…”

  “Unless we need to trade the rest of them to those Assembly Droids for some reason, they’re yours,” I said, waving my hand.

  “Right,” Spalding said with a satisfied nod, “Destroyer-wise, fleet strength is at five, but” he held up a hand haltingly, “two of those are droid captures and the other two are those new Border Alliance ships out of Tracto. Older ships, oddball Heavy Destroyers, that last pair and because they’re not here it’s been mostly those Belters who have been working to bring them up to spec. They requested materials for the job, but we’ve been kind of strapped. The Destroyers we took out to Elysium were all beyond repair, so I sent them what we’d stripped off of them but I’m not sure how much good it’ll do.”

  I cocked a brow.

  “Incompatible tech’s my fear; forget the same class, those ships weren’t even made in the same system as the stuff we’ve got. It’ll be a miracle if everything’s working with just a bunch of civilians and minor world militia personnel trying to upgrade or replace it.”

  “I see…well that’s an engineering call. So long as the Alliance Council doesn’t make any waves, I’ll just leave it to you to keep an eye on. Destroyers of questionable providence aren’t at the top of my priority list at the moment,” I said firmly.

  “Finally, at last tally we had a total of twenty two corvettes and,” the Chief Engineer checked his slate, “twenty two cutters,” he finished, looking pleased with himself.

  I blinked. “Twenty two…of each?” I reiterated, floored by the numbers if not the actual combat strength represented by the two tallies.

  “Right,” Spalding said, “two of the corvettes are here on picket/escort duty, bringing ships in and out of Gambit for operational security, and one of the cutters is assigned out of theater with the McKnight group, and another is attached to the Power. But the rest of the small fry have all converged on Tracto.”

  “I’ll want to pair up cutters with the rest of our battleships, to increase our patrols potential speed if they need to capture a speedy merchant or something,” I said, when what I was really concerned about was Akantha climbing on another shuttle during a boarding action. A cutter was faster, better armed, and could jump out of danger if it came knocking—a shuttle couldn’t. There were plenty of other perfectly good reasons for wanting cutters attached to the battleships

  “Well tactics and fleet assignments are your business, Sir. I just patch ‘em back up when you break ‘em,” Spalding complained happily—a unique affect I’d only considered possible for him to display.

  Pulling up the numbers on the cutters and corvettes, I saw that while the corvettes were a mix of Sundered, Tracto Guard, former Sector Guard, and new Alliance-MSP ships, fifteen of the twenty two cutters were straight out Alliance warships. It appeared that when the Alliance had been formed, most of the worlds immediately sent at least one of their smallest warships out to join our suddenly growing fleet.

  I rapidly sifted through the information; most of it was already known to me, but getting reports in daily piecemeal was different than when it was all shown in one big lump.

  “Cutters…” my breath hissed out between my teeth and I pulled up the latest Omicron update, “while I’m happy for the influx of ships, I don’t like that we only have three cutters assigned to the Omicron. I know we pulled off a bunch of ships for our last campaign and we’ve been building up, but we can’t just rely on station defenses. I think we need to assign more ships there.” After all the blood, sweat and tears we’d shed there, it was simply unacceptable to leave it so lightly defended.

  “That station’s got more guns than a squadron of battleships,” Spalding pointed out.

  “Most of them aren’t what I would call ‘fully operational’,” I disagreed, making a note on my pad to beef up the station guard squadron and at least send over some more Lancers. I suddenly bared my teeth as two problems intersected in my mind: the former pirate station and a certain group of disloyal officers and warriors who thought they could take what was mine.

  Exile in everything but name on a rough-and-tumble station, where the Lancers’ barbarian ways weren’t likely to cause the civilian population to rise up in outrage…and even if they did ruffle feathers, it would be among a population of murderers, smugglers, extortionists and former pirates. I really wasn’t going to be shedding too many tears when I was ‘forced’ to come down on those dastardly Tracto-an primitives like a ton of bricks.

  An evil smile crept onto my face while I wasn’t looking. Yes, I think it was time to let two of my problems solve one another.

  Spalding cleared his throat giving me a strange look, causing me to snap back to reality. “Yes?” I asked innocently.

  “I think that’s everything I’ve got for the Fleet status update, so if there’s nothing else then I’ve got ships that still need straightening out,” Spalding said.

  “Keep after it,” I said formally and then when he kept looking at me added, “dismissed.”

  “Aye aye, Admiral,” Spalding said gathering up his pad and data chips and heading for the door.

  As far as I could see, the MSP had never been bigger or better armed. We still had a few repairs to get through, but after we hit our stride I would defy any force in the Spine to cause us trouble.

  I gave a shark-like smile and, for the first time in what felt like months, I allowed myself to relax as one thought ran through my mind: we had five battleships and a real fleet of lighter warships. Sure, we were light on Cruisers and Destroyers, but I’d get around to addressing that eventually.

  With these lighter ships, we’d soon be patrolling the border of 25 in force and once again laying down the law. Pirates, would-be warlords, and alien space bugs had better beware—the MSP was about to be back in business! Str
onger, better armed, and more experienced than ever before, even fully-fledged Core Worlds would be wise to walk lightly around us with our firepower.

  Even the Sector Assembly, looking at these kinds of numbers, would be hesitant to cross the MSP. Only a fool would mess with this kind of fleet strength. Maybe the old Confederation or the Empire had the kind of size to put us back on our heels. But in today’s Spine?

  At this point, I had to ask: barring a surprise attack while we were in space dock, what could possibly go wrong?

  Chapter Sixty-two: Prometheus Burns

  “No…no!” cried Costel Iorghu from his command chair as his ship orbited the gas giant mines of Cyclopes Doom. He watched helplessly as an actual, honest-to-the-gods, Imperial Command Carrier—surrounded by a host of lesser fleet elements—continued to pursue the fleeing battleship, Mighty Prometheus.

  The Imperial’s nearly thousand-strong swarm of fighters constantly pecked away at the pride of the Promethean SDF, while the slightly slower Command Carrier slugged and slaughtered its way through the Core World’s defenses protecting the home world.

  After the last fateful stint on convoy duty, the Prometheus Fire hadn’t even been considered worthy of being cannon fodder and, since returning from that patrol, they had been posted in overwatch position orbiting Cyclopes Doom. It was a posting that normally boasted a squadron of corvettes for guard duty, but now had a mere four corvettes and his Medium Cruiser.

  The implications were clear: no matter where it was posted, or how oversized it was for the stated mission, High Command didn’t dare remove even one of the normal overwatch corvettes from duty. The Prometheus Fire wasn’t even considered competent enough to take the spot of one corvette.

  As Costel Iorghu watched, the mightiest battle-station in the system, Stygian’s Rock, came under the unimaginably powerful main cannon of the Command Carrier. While the Imperial Command Carrier shrugged off the storm of heavy and turbo-laser fire from the battle-station, Stygian’s Rock was not so fortunate and the first evil white beam rocked the station, breaking its shields and tearing through the outer hull.

  The second beam landed on the same spot with almost surgical precision, cutting clean through the station and erupting out the other side. While the station was not destroyed outright, it lost all power instantly. With barely a flicker of the external lights, Stygian’s Rock turned dark and all communications relayed through it went silent.

  The handful of shots it had hammered through the Carrier’s shields were seemingly shrugged off by the mighty Imperial ship. It now seemed to be only a matter of time before the pirates, or Imperials, or whoever this so-called Reclamation Fleet organization they now claimed to belong to, brought Mighty Prometheus to bay and completed their conquest of the Prometheus Star System.

  “Dear gods…deliver us in our hour of need,” wept one of the Sensor operators as troop transports started to detach from the Reclamation Fleet and descended toward the planet. A number of bays on the Command Carrier opened, and a hundred atmospheric capable aero-space fighters launching out to join the transports.

  The ground invasion of the Promethean home world was about to commence, and it was a sight which brought tears to the eyes of every person present on the Prometheus Fire’s bridge.

  “Captain, what should we do,” asked the Damage Control Officer numbly. “We have orders to hold until relieved, Ensign,” hissed the XO.

  “Only because they didn’t even trust us to join the defense of Prometheus while the rest of the Fleet assembled to fight off the invaders,” shouted the Sensor Officer.

  “We’ll do our duty is what we’ll do!” cried the XO, turning his anger toward the other officer when it rightly should have been directed to the Imperial war fleet burning their home world.

  “Futilely defending prisoners so they can serve every hour possible of their mandated sentence? What kind of insanity is that? We’re better than this, XO,” retorted the Sensor Officer.

  “Captain, the Corvette skippers are calling…they want to speak with you, Sir,” said the Comm. Officer.

  “What could they possibly want to hear from me?” Captain Iorghu asked, despair settling in his heart as his bridge fell into chaos around him.

  “They say…they say, Sir,” the Com-Tech said holding a hand to his ear, “that with High Command on Stygian’s Rock dead or out of contact, and Mighty Prometheus about to follow and already in com-blackout, that you’re the senior surviving space-based officer in the SDF…they’re waiting for your orders.”

  “My orders?” Costel started laughing hysterically and couldn’t stop himself. “They want to hear my orders…why in the world would they care a farthing for what I have to say,” he snickered.

  The Fire’s Tactical Officer stood up and turned to look at him. “I think I know, Sir,” he said, taking control of the main screen and zooming in on two squadrons of ships breaking off from the main formation.

  Costel Iorghu blinked at the surprise—the inanity—of Tactical simply taking control of the bridge screen without asking, and this effrontery temporarily knocked him out of his hysterical laughter.

  “I have taken the liberty of pulling up this formation of ships, Sir,” Tactical said formally.

  “What am I seeing?” Costel finally asked the leading question.

  “As I’m sure the Corvette commanders are now aware, five minutes ago this group of ships broke off from the enemy’s main body,” the other officer said, drawing a deep breath.

  “Okay,” Costel said, quickly losing interest.

  “Their trajectory will lead them directly here, Sir,” Tactical said forcefully. “Now that the Fleet has been defeated, they’ll need to clean up the rest of the system and, as far as I can tell, we’re the largest major unit left outside of their control.”

  “You mean…us,” Captain Iorghu said shocked back into reality as his ship, and their fellow prison guard ships, were abruptly no longer passive observers in a star system gone insane with war but suddenly active participants.

  “Yes, Sir, Captain,” Tactical Officer nodded, “as of a few minutes from now, maybe as much as an hour, we are the Flagship of the Promethean Fleet.”

  “Right…” Costel said in a daze. He never thought that he and the Fire—the dregs of the SDF—would ever possibly one day become the fleet flagship.

  “You’re orders, Sir?” asked the XO, giving Tactical an enigmatic look—a look which Tactical returned.

  “As the senior surviving actual in this star system, you’ll have operational control of all remaining forces, Captain,” said Tactical.

  “Get the other captains on the line,” Costel Iorghu finally ordered, once again feeling the weight of command settling on him like a heavy oppressive cloak.

  “What are your orders, Captain Iorghu?” demanded a Captain of one of the Corvettes on his four way split screen. Costel Iorghu had never bothered to learn the other man’s name, preferring instead to wallow in his despair at the latest assignment. That would have to change—both the wallowing and the lack of knowing his subordinates’ names.

  “If the Mighty can’t hold them off then there’s nothing more we can do here,” Costel said simply, “we have to leave.”

  “And go where? This is our home, Captain,” said another one of the Corvette commanders, and Iorghu could see them wavering. Although they were following proper protocol, his status as the dunce of the fleet’s captains—and his ship’s reputation as an unlucky one—weighed heavily against him. If he didn’t pull this off, right now, he would lose them.

  Costel opened his mouth and then hesitated. He had nothing to tell them. Saying they needed to leave was easy…but where could they go?

  His mouth opened and closed and he’d never felt more helpless in his life. Seeing the other captains start to turn away in disgust, he felt a lump in his throat and suddenly a fire lit in his stomach. Why was he, the object of pity and scorn throughout the entire star system? It wasn’t his fault. Everything could be laid at th
e feet of one man: the Tyrant of Cold Space, Jason Montagne Vekna….

  Then suddenly he had it, and Captain Costel Iorghu cleared his throat. “There’s only one place we can go,” he said abruptly.

  The Corvette captains looked at him in surprise and no little measure of skepticism.

  “What do you mean; there are any number of places we could go,” the first Captain to speak to him said bullishly, “the Sector Capital, for one, or any number of Core Worlds for another—any of which have the power to send a relief fleet to Prometheus, if only we can let them know what’s going on.”

  “If they don’t know already, it’s because they don’t care to know,” Costel Iorghu said flatly. “Besides, no single member world of this Sector—or even the vaunted Sector Guard—has the numbers to deal with a fleet that has an Imperial Command Carrier. Name me one, if you can—I dare you.”

  Mouths opened and closed before the first captain finally shook his head. “So we’ll need more than one major world’s navy is what you’re saying?” the other commander asked.

  “Getting the major powers in this sector to pull together is harder than herding cats. What Prometheus needs—or will need, by the time we could get back here—is not a relief fleet, but a fleet of liberation…and the Sector Assembly is a weak reed to rely on. As for the other worlds, individually, no Core World in the Sector would risk its entire mobile panoply to save us,” said Costel.

  “So what you’re saying is that it’s hopeless, yes?” the First Captain said with disgust.

  “No,” Costel shook his head, “there is one force in the Spine with both the power to help us and the mandate to do so.”

  “I don’t follow…” the first captain shook his head.

  “Have you so easily forgotten this ship’s disgrace, that the Confederation’s Multi-Sector Patrol Fleet has slipped your mind?” Captain Iorghu asked scornfully.