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

by Luke Sky Wachter

  “The MSP? Isn’t that a joke fleet run by some punk pirate, and not a real organization?” said the third Captain with surprise.

  “Sometimes it takes a pirate to catch a pirate,” Costel grimaced, “and, last I heard, the MSP and its Tyrant of Cold Space destroyed a major Droid invasion fleet in Sector 24. CNN reports also mention them bringing home a great number of large ships—much to the chagrin of the local authorities. With its flagship, the Lucky Clover, already a battleship, I can only imagine that when they speak of large ships, they mean Heavy Cruiser and up.”

  “But…going to a pirate for help!” exclaimed more than one captain.

  “Either he’s deluded enough to think himself a real Confederation officer—with his printed-on-gift-card-stationary honorary commission—or he really does believe he’s the biggest, baddest pirate in the Sector.” Costel shrugged, as if he didn’t care which it was.

  But, in reality, all he could hope to do at this point was drag back as much trouble for Admiral Montagne—and his fleet of Confederation wannabes—as he could, and hope that the two enemies eventually destroyed one another, leaving him and his men and now ships to pick up the pieces back here in the home world.

  “Like I said: Confederation Admiral or megalomaniacal Pirate Lord, neither would easily allow a major pirate fleet to sack a Core World.”

  Several captains were shaking their heads with dismay, until the first corvette captain finally nodded his head. “It’s not worse than anything I could come up with…and you’re probably right: getting the other Core Worlds to come to save us doesn’t have more than a comet’s chance in a corona,” he grudged.

  Costel nodded. “Then those are your orders,” he said with a slow nod. Over the next few minutes his Cruiser and accompanying Corvette Squadron began to make for the hyper-limit at best speed while charging their star drives.

  In their wakes, more and more Reclamation Fleet warships broke off in pursuit of the last major unit left in the Prometheus SDF.

  Captain Costel Iorghu had a queasy feeling about his choice, but there was no turning back now. It was his duty to do what he could for the people who counted on him for protection.

  The fate of his world now rested squarely on his shoulders, and he would die before shirking his duty.

  Chapter Sixty-three: Disaster

  My com-link chimed and then started to buzz continuously.

  Sitting up in my chair, I slapped the button on my desk, blinking sleep out of my eyes. My heart was in my throat and I was ready to strangle someone for being startled like this while catching an unscheduled nap in my office.

  “Admiral!” said the com-tech on duty in the station’s Comm. section, his rank and position obvious from the full field pick up of his chair and the area behind him.

  “Who is this, and why isn’t Lieutenant Steiner—or your duty officer—managing my calls?” I grunted, hoping this was just an overexcited tech and the worst thing I’d have to do was land on him with both feet over following proper protocol.

  “Sorry, Sir; I was just following protocol. I’ve got a Code Omega attached to an urgent priority message from the Commodore; it says here I’m supposed to contact you at once,” the Tech said, sounding alarmed and not just because he was talking to me. Code Omega meant we’d lost a warship.

  “Is the message from Commodore Druid or Commodore LeGodat?” I asked, urgently hoping it was LeGodat and not Druid. But that if the message was from Druid then it meant he’d only lost the cutter assigned to his battleship. The alternative was too terrible to contemplate.

  “It’s Commodore Druid’s, Sir,” the tech said looking at me with terrified eyes, “he reports the Parliamentary Power destroyed by the enemy.”

  Suppressing the urge to shout ‘What enemy?!’ at the top of my lungs, I shook my head like a punch-drunk fighter and snapped, “Send me the communiqué and then report to my ready room on the double. You are not to repeat a word of this to your co-workers until after I’ve had time to debrief you personally—not one word, you hear!” I demanded, not really planning to debrief him. I’d soon learn everything possible from the message but not wanting his mouth to run and spread rumors all over the station.

  “Yes, Sir,” the tech swallowed, but I had bigger fish to fry than him. Even if he followed my order to the letter, it was only going to buy time. I hoped it would be important time—possibly enough to grasp what was happening and put the right slant on the story. Although, how it was possible to slant such a loss in a positive way was currently unfathomable to me. Losing that battleship hurt.

  Still in a state of reaction and disbelief, I pulled up the file transfer and opened Druid’s reported. I held onto a sliver of hope that my information so far was somehow wrong.

  The opening video file of his report showed the sensor feed on their arrival, clearly indicating a small fleet accompanied by two battleships—and then fast forwarded to the short jump and arrival of the Imperial Command Carrier. Heart in my throat, I observed a fast-forwarded version of exactly what had taken place.

  When I finished viewing the recording for the second time, I fell back to my chair in a state of shock. The main cannon on the Command Carrier was simply unbelievable…but, believable or not, the Parliamentary Power was lost along with all hands aboard either killed, captured by this Reclamation Fleet, or fled via the cutter. The cutter had also needed to come all the way to Tracto to relay the news of this disaster for lack of a long-range array—which meant that this enemy fleet could be anywhere by now.

  The worst of it wasn’t even that we’d lost a battleship, as unbelievable as that might have sounded before this exact moment. No…the worst, most morale-crushing thing was seeing exactly what had destroyed or captured my newly repaired Dreadnaught class battleship: an Imperial Command Carrier. And the only Imperial Command Carrier that I knew of in the Spine was the one that belonged to a certain Imperial Officer of my former acquaintance.

  “Admiral Janeski,” I hissed, anger clouding my vision. Rear Admiral Arnold Janeski, the very man who’d humiliated me at every turn back when I’d still been a pretend public relations admiral. Looking back on things, his contempt for me must have run deep.

  This was an Imperial Naval Officer who had declared the Spineward Sectors an ‘Empire-free zone’ and then dumped the Multi-Sector Patrol Fleet on my shoulders without so much as a warning. More than that, he was a man I had received information—in the form of data files and captured intercepts retrieved from the personal data logs of one Jean Luc Montagne and the Lucky Clover’s original Security Officer—that said clear as day that he had ordered my assassination shortly after his disembarkation of the Lucky Clover years ago.

  Everything pointed to the fact that Janeski had never expected me to take actual command of the Lucky Clover or the MSP Fleet but rather to spectacularly fail or be caused to fail by his paid operative the security officer who tried to arrest me within minutes of my taking command of the Clover, thus giving him—Janeski—a convenient scrape goat to blame everything on.

  Right at that moment—with a lost or captured battleship and its crew fresh in my mind—I surged to my feet, knocking over my chair and then slammed my hands on the desk.

  I’d been willing to forget about that man, his Empire, and their despicable withdrawal from the Spine they had sworn to defend—breaking more than a dozen treaties in the process. But he’d finally gone a road too far; this was beyond personal insult, stung pride, or historical atrocities against my house and people—he had killed my men and destroyed one of my ships!

  “He tests me…” I said, hunching my shoulders and once again pulling up the data files and captured communication intercepts from the enemy so-called Reclamation Fleet. Who was this Captain Goddard who tried to get Druid to surrender, anyway? Janeski’s Flag Captain aboard the Clover had been named Taggart or something like that.

  I had no confirmation it was Janeski behind all of this, but I could feel in my bones it was the Imperial Admiral. Just ho
w many Command Carriers did the Empire have, anyway?

  No, it was him. It had to be him; the very man who had orbitally bombarded my home world at the command of then-Admiral, now-Senator Cornwallis—the Butcher of Capria and destroyer of the old Summer Palace.

  “You’ve gone too far this time, Admiral Janeski…or whoever you are,” I said coldly, righting my chair and then sitting back down in it. I was no longer the pitiful political puppet left to die on the edge of known space, a victim of my own incompetence. Now I had a mission, a new home world to look after, and a fleet that would soon be looking to me to make this right. For that fleet, and the Caprian home world, I was going to have my pound of flesh, “If you want a war…then I’ll give you a war, Admiral!”

  I didn’t care that they had a Command Carrier, a pair of battleships, and who knew what else hidden up their sleeve. No one slaughtered my men in job lots and got away with it, or my name wasn’t Jason Montagne, the Tyrant of Cold Space and Vice-Admiral of the Confederation Multi-Sector Patrol Fleet!

  Just then another priority alert came jumping onto my computer screen this time again from Tracto. When it rained, it truly poured.

  Chapter Sixty-four: Urgent Arrivals

  “Transmission received, Sir,” said the Ensign and former com-tech manning the Cutter’s Comm. console, and Druid sighed with relief, “the long-range array is being activated and our report to Gambit will be relayed at top speed.”

  “Well, at least that’s done with,” Druid said, his shoulders slumping. If there was a good way to report that you’d just lost one of the most powerful warships—not just in the fleet, but in all of humanity—then he didn’t know it.

  That the Parliamentary Power had been literally up against the most powerful ship class in the known galaxy did nothing to sooth the wound. He hadn’t just lost his ship, but he’d also lost the vast overwhelming majority of his crew. He doubted he would ever get over that particular fact.

  “We’ve also received a greeting, and a personal invitation from the Station Master to dock at one of the prime slips in his facility and come over for dinner, Commodore,” said the Ensign.

  Druid barked out a laugh. If the Station Master wasn’t quietly panicking and desperate for any news he could get, he’d be surprised. It wasn’t every day that the commander of a battleship returned to a home system riding a Cutter and bearing an urgent, top priority, encrypted message for High Command.

  However, he wouldn’t have to put up with this condition for much longer. He presumed he’d be relieved of command and sent back to Gambit in disgrace, in order to pump him for any and all information about the fleet that had killed his ship. Not that he was likely to resist; the cries of the crew he had abandoned had haunted his sleep the entire slow trip back to Tracto. No, he thought with cold fury, I’ve earned nothing less than to be beached—and probably a lot worse still.

  “Relay to the Station Master that I’m grateful for his offer, but I’ll have to decline until such a time as I have received new orders from the Admiral after which we’ll see,” the Commodore said wearily. “Oh, and take us back to full communications lock down; nothing gets out of this ship until we’ve heard back from Admiral Montagne.”

  It was bad enough that he had lost a battleship; the last thing he needed to add to his rapidly plummeting resume was starting a panic as soon as he returned to base.

  “Aye, Commodore,” agreed the Ensign turning back to work his console.

  “And Helm, lay in a course for Tracto Station but hold off for now. We’ll wait out here a day or two until we receive word back with new orders. If we haven’t heard anything by that time, we’ll head in,” he instructed.

  “On it, Commodore,” the Helmsman nodded.

  “If anyone needs me, I’ll be in the captain’s cabin,” he said turning to leave.

  “Aye, aye, Sir,” said the ship’s XO, and former First Shift Tactical Officer for the Parliamentary Power, “we’ll guard the fort.”

  Lifting his hand and giving a two finger salute, it was a tired and defeated Commodore Druid who left the bridge to go and lay down in his quarters.

  ****************************************************

  Druid was halfway to his room when the hall lighting turned red, in order to conserve power, and the red alert klaxon started sounding throughout the cramped and over-crowded ship.

  “All hands to battle stations. I say again: all hands to battle stations this is not a drill. Commodore Druid to the bridge immediately,” the voice of the young Ensign managing ship coms sounded throughout the ship.

  Eyes widening with alarm, Druid turned on his heel and ran flat-out back to the bridge. Being a much smaller ship than his last command, it took him mere moments to return to the bridge.

  “Report!” he called out, rushing back to the cramped little seat that masqueraded as a command chair on the miniscule little cutter.

  “We’ve got multiple point transfers on the edge of this star system and five degrees around the elliptic from our position, Commodore!” replied Tactical in a staccato voice.

  “Number and classification of contacts,” Druid barked, his eyes scanning the cramped viewer that passed for a main screen on the small warship.

  “I’m reading three…no, it’s now five bogeys on the edge of this system,” reported Sensors, “it looks like they came in squadron strength, Sir.”

  “Hold the speculation until we have more information, Mister,” Druid growled and turned to Comm. “Relay an order to that quick-reaction squadron of corvettes that was on the way out to meet us; tell them to get themselves turned around on the double.”

  “Relaying now,” said the Ensign.

  “Sensors are tentatively identifying one of the contacts as Cruiser size,” Sensors reported urgently. “She’s a noisy one, sir; and relaying the information to Tactical now for identification. I’m still working on the other four for now.”

  “Ship recognition database has a hit,” exclaimed Tactical.

  “That was fast,” muttered Druid. A smaller ship meant a smaller bridge team, as well as a more limited database. They could have gotten lucky with the idents, but still…

  “Tentative classification is a modified Hammerhead—or Hydra—class Medium Cruiser, Commodore,” continued Tactical.

  “Blast,” Druid cursed.

  “Two more contacts are tentatively confirmed as Corvettes,” reported Sensors tightly, “still gathering data, sir.”

  “Send out a hail and the routine challenge package, Ensign,” Druid ordered the Comm. Officer. “I want to know who we’re dealing with.”

  “Aye, aye, sir!” said the Ensign.

  “Helm, remember that course I had you lay in for Tracto Station?” Druid asked.

  “I do,” the Helmsman said laconically.

  Druid gave him a sharp look. “Well, engage it and start taking us into the system at half speed,” he said sharply. “A Cutter has no business mixing it up with a Corvette and a Medium Cruiser, regardless of whatever else those other two ships turn out to be. I’m not going to lose another ship and crew under my command if I can help it,” he said, that last sentence coming out in a quieter voice than he had expected.

  “I’m receiving multiple IFF beacons; it’s the old MSP protocol from back before the Imperials pulled out and Admiral Montagne expanded the Fleet,” yelped the Ensign.

  “What! What have you got, Comm.?” Commodore Druid demanded.

  “I’m getting beacon signals for one Medium Cruiser, the Prometheus Fire—a former Multi-Sector Patrol Fleet warship, listed as one of the inactive originals—and four corvettes with temporary codes that aren’t listed in the data base,” the Ensign lifted a hand to his ear and pressed his ear bud. “I’m also receiving a transmission.”

  “Hold that transmission for just a second,” Druid ordered, punching buttons on his data-slate.

  “The Prometheus Fire…I’ve never heard of it,” said Druid’s current XO and former Tactical Officer.

&nbs
p; “Here it is,” Druid said abruptly his eyes scanning rapidly through the file on the Prometheus Fire, “looks as if the last known contact was back at 1st Easy Haven. Where the Fire was part of a two cruiser compliment that withdrew from the MSP and turned on the Admiral during battle! One of the ships was kept, the Pride of Prometheus…that’s Middleton’s former ship!” he exclaimed with no small amount of surprise. “The other was sent back to Prometheus Star System with the survivors of both ship’s companies.”

  “Hardly the most trustworthy report,” the XO said.

  Druid looked up from the pad. “Put the transmission through, Ensign,” he instructed.

  “-say again: this is Captain Iorghu of the Promethean Fire, a Medium Cruiser belonging to the System Defense Force of the Prometheus Star System. Prometheus burns,” he said, the words striking Druid harder than he would have thought possible. “We are the only known survivors of a vicious series of raids by a force calling itself the Spineward Sectors Reclamation Fleet. That force has invaded and, by now, is presumed to have subjugated our home world with ground pacification forces,” said the Captain on the screen.

  A quick check of the data base confirmed that this Captain Iorghu was the same Costel Iorghu who had formerly captained a ship in the MSP Fleet—the very same ship he still captained, apparently.

  “They arrived in overwhelming numbers, and they had a Command Carrier. They destroyed our most powerful battlestation, Stygian’s Rock, along with the Flagship of our home fleet, Mighty Prometheus. Our Fleet was helpless,” Captain Iorghu continued, a grim look in his eye as he retold the sacking of his home system. “This squadron left the Prometheus System for Tracto as soon as the defeat and occupation of our home world became a foregone conclusion,” said Captain Iorghu. He lifted his eyes, and a fire burned within them that Druid wondered if he, himself, would ever feel again, “If they can destroy a Core World like Prometheus, they can destroy any of us!”