First Admiral 01 First Admiral

by William J. Benning

  The Thexxian people had needed this moment, and Falkus Margallan had delivered it. He had emphatically and decisively drawn a symbolic line beneath the horrors and trauma of Thexxian Exodus. It was over, and nothing like it would ever happen again to the Thexxian people whilst they were part of the Universal Alliance. These traumatised people had needed to know that. They had needed, and prayed for, that reassurance from their leader. Falkus Margallan, like any good leader had instinctively known that need, and he had delivered it to them, symbolised by the might of the massive Garmaurian Star-Cruiser that hung in low orbit over New Thexxia, and his ruthless suppression of the Separatists. With that knowledge, the people in the Great Auditorium, and in their homes, had responded to him.

  They yelled and screamed at the top of their lungs giving voice to their deepest fears and agonies, but also their hopes for a better future. Most stood and applauded with tears glistening in their eyes, cheering themselves hoarse. Some just sat down and wept quietly in their seats over too many painful memories and too many lost loved ones. More than a few physically collapsed, and had to be helped to the extensive medical facilities in the building. When the cheering had died down, an emotional Falkus returned to the lectern and finished his address.

  “Now, we are safe. Our enemies cannot reach us,” he began softly and paused, “Our stomachs are filled and we want for nothing,” he continued with another pause.

  “Our children and grandchildren will grow up without hunger or fear; strong, healthy, and confident,” he paused again and let his words sink deeply into the minds of those Thexxians who needed to hear this. “And one day, who knows, we may even vanquish our enemies and return to our old homes, our beloved Thexxia. But until that day, we will build a new life for ourselves here.” He paused for the murmurs of approval.

  “Today, we have taken that first step to a new and better life. In our tomorrows, we shall welcome others to share in our new life with open arms and hearts. In this spirit of welcome and forgiveness, I declare an amnesty for all those who opposed this Alliance, and who were prepared to kill Thexxians to prevent it,” he announced and the applause and cheering broke out again.

  “Let us have no more killing on New Thexxia!” he shouted, “Anyone who does not wish to live with us in the new Alliance, I say to you, go, in the name of The Great Power, go and find your own paths. You are not welcome on New Thexxia!” he shouted again and let the audience cheer themselves hoarse again.

  “Anyone who wishes to leave will be given a ship, food and safe passage” Falkus announced.

  Billy, standing behind Falkus on stage summoned Karap Sownus over to him. The Praetor Maximus’ last announcement had sparked an idea in his mind.

  “I want that fleet followed, monitored and shadowed,” Billy whispered in Sownus’ ear, “discreetly,” he added.

  Sownus nodded, and returned to his station on the edge of the stage.

  “To our new friend First Admiral Caudwell, I can only express the deepest and most sincere gratitude of the entire Thexxian people,” Margallan continued which led to a spatter of applause and cheering, which Billy acknowledged shyly, “without First Admiral Caudwell we would have been in a position I cannot even bear to contemplate. It is an honour for the Thexxian people to join with you in this new Alliance,” he finally finished his address and stood back from the lectern to more resounding cheers and applause from the audience.

  Now it was Billy’s turn to respond. With his heart almost in his mouth, he stepped up to the lectern.

  “Praetor Maximus, honoured guests and fellow Citizens of the Universal Alliance,” Billy began formally, and then paused. “How on New Thexxia, do you follow a speech like that?” he smiled and set aside his prepared notes.

  He noticed a number of other smiles amongst the polite laughter and muted applause; slightly more relaxed he carried on.

  “I thank the Praetor Maximus for his kind words, and for the welcome and kindness shown to me by the Thexxian people. In the short time I have known the Thexxian people I have observed many of your wonderful qualities. I have seen courage and perseverance. I have seen kindness and compassion. I have seen a hard working people struggling against the worst of adversities, with a tremendous sense of what is fair and a deep seated hatred of injustice and tyranny. These are exactly the things that the Universal Alliance stands for.”

  In the short pause there was a burst of applause. Holding up his hand to quiet the audience Billy continued.

  “I welcome the Thexxian people to the Universal Alliance, and I welcome their magnificent qualities. The Thexxian people have chosen to be the foundation stone of the Universal Alliance. I, for one, can think of no finer a people to be that foundation. Thank you,” he finished.

  Once again the audience began to applaud and stamp their feet. As one million pairs of Thexxian feet stamped out their tattoo of approval amidst the cheers, Billy Caudwell smiled, waved and stood back from the lectern with a nervous upwards glance.

  Please God, don’t let those Tele-screens fall on me, he thought.

  Chapter 48

  Billy Caudwell stood, alone in the dark, on the massive Observation Deck of the Aquarius, and watched the war games going on around the Star-Cruiser. Eagle fighters darted swiftly across his line of vision, swarming and clustering in their formations. Then they jinked and dodged as they carried out practice dogfights with their colleagues. Familiarising the new Thexxian recruits with the most advanced single-seater fighter craft in the universe had been something that took time. However, Billy was confident that these pilots were almost ready. Mock battles and exercises were all very good for training, but there was no substitute for actual combat experience, Billy considered.

  “Sorry to disturb you, sir,” a voice cut in from the Internal Comms network, disturbing Billy’s enjoyment of the mock battles, “the Separatists’ fleet is being attacked by the Bardomil.”

  “Very well, recall the Eagles and have the latest intelligence ready when I reach the War Room,” Billy ordered “and evacuate all non-essential personnel down to New Thexxia.”

  “Yes, sir,” the disembodied voice on the network responded.

  “Well, it looks like we’re going to put your training into action,” Billy said softly to the Eagle fighters that still darted and swooped around the Aquarius, and headed towards the teleport.

  As he walked, Billy went over in his mind the potential scenario. Billy was confident of victory. They had superior vessels, in all categories, and far superior firepower to the Bardomil. They would be outnumbered, but that mattered little to Billy Caudwell. What he was really concerned about was the psychological state of the Thexxian pilots. For too many years the Thexxians had been running away from the Bardomil. He wondered if that almost inbuilt hatred and dreadful fear of their Bardomil enemies would compromise his new Thexxian pilots.

  Hitting the button on the teleport console to take him to the War Room, Billy considered that he was just about to find out.

  Chapter 49

  When Billy and the Alliance flotilla arrived, the rout of the Thexxian Separatists was in full swing. The unmistakable curved arrowhead-shaped Bardomil Harpoon fighters were running rampage and dealing death to the woefully inadequate Thexxian vessels.

  “Activate View Screens and War Table,” Billy ordered, immediately plunging the War Room aboard the Aquarius into darkness.

  What Billy Caudwell saw in the two-dimensional Tactical View Screen images, next to the War Table, made his heart sink into his boots. Three hundred Harpoon and one hundred larger Flying Devil fighters had outflanked the Thexxians on both sides of their straggling formation, and were seeking to complete a total encirclement of the entire fleet. The surviving two hundred Thexxian Fighting Saucers were already surrounded and struggling to hold a losing rear-guard action at the centre of the far superior Bardomil force of a further five hundred fighters. Some of the smaller and faster Thexxian transport vessels were trying to escape the situation before the vicious jaws of t
he Bardomil pincer closed on them.

  The Bardomil vessels attacking the Thexxian transports were mainly the single engine, single-seat, Harpoon fighters, whilst the Fighting Saucers were being engaged by the larger and more heavily armed Flying Devils. The Bardomil strategy was immediately clear to Billy. They had lured the Fighting Saucers forward, and then encircled them, which allowed their comrades to attack the undefended transports. At a distance from the battle, Billy could see the images of the pride of the Bardomil fleet, their Imperial Fighter Carriers. The Imperial Fighter Carriers, of which Billy counted nine, were surrounded by their protective screen of M-Cruisers of which Billy could see around thirty. This was an entire Bardomil Battle Group, and breaking them would not be an easy task.

  “War Table activating, sir,” the voice of the WATO boomed through the darkness, and a flickering series of three images in Real View mode became clear and were projected above the Table’s surface.

  With increasing horror, Billy watched the action unfold on the Real View images.

  On the left image, Billy saw that the huge Agricultural vessels, so vital to the future survival of the Separatists, were being strafed by Flying Devils in attack after attack that had already destroyed one ship and set two more ablaze. Three more of the huge domed ships were surrounded by Harpoons. Amongst the great cascade of Bardomil weapons fire, they were attempting slow ponderous turns to try to get away from the situation. Already Billy could see the mushrooms of flame and destruction blossoming on the great domes.

  Billy watched, helplessly, as on the centre image, a swarm of Bardomil Harpoon fighters, buzzed around like angry wasps, and, slammed their weapons fire into the huge rectangular Accommodation block. There were almost forty-thousand Thexxians aboard that ship, and Billy was aware that the Aquarius’ crew knew it. Some of his crew may have had friends or relatives on the Accommodation block. Great gouts of blood red flame and debris sprouted like spring flowers from the dark grey hull. In every one of those blossoms, Billy knew that Thexxian civilians would be dying violent, horrible and painful deaths. Nearby, one of the huge Agricultural Vessels, that was intended to feed the Thexxians, burned ferociously.

  Clenching his fists by his sides, Billy felt the anger, frustration and outrage of his own personal impotence.

  On the right Screen, Billy could see the Thexxian Fighting Saucers attempting to break out from their encirclement to fight their way back to the civilian vessels. As with most fighter-on-fighter combats it was a huge confused, snarling, scratching and darting melee shot through with deep explosions.

  “Get the Eagles launched!” Billy ordered angrily, his gaze never leaving the images.

  Thinking quickly, Billy knew that his first priority had to be the Accommodation block ship. The Fighting Saucers could look after themselves for a short while and some of the faster transports could run for cover, whilst the Agricultural Ships would just have to be sacrificed. Each Agricultural Ship had a crew of several hundred aboard. But, Billy Caudwell knew that it was better to lose a few hundred as opposed to the tens of thousands on the Accommodation block. Sometimes the burden of command asked hard questions, and there were no easy or comfortable answers.

  “All of them, sir?” the WATO’s voice cut quizzically through the darkness.

  “Yes, WATO, all of them!” Billy responded loudly, “the first two squadrons formed up, send them to the big Accommodation Ship.”

  “Yes, sir!” the WATO replied.

  A moment later, the alarms began blaring to alert the Eagle fighter crews that an immediate launch was required of them, and calling the rest of the crews to their battle stations. Throughout the Aquarius, Thexxian pilots in Garmaurian blue flight suits and helmets dashed to their fighters, from their ready rooms and hurried briefings. They scrambled into their cockpits assisted by their equally alerted technicians.

  “Sir, distress calls coming in from multiple sources!” the anxious voice of a Communications Officer cut through the darkness.

  “Give them the standard response, and that we are moving to assist them!” Billy ordered, “Tell them to attempt to move to our location; give them the coordinates.”

  “Yes, Sir!” came the Communications Officer’s response.

  “Get these View Screen images merged,” Billy ordered the WATO.

  A moment later the Tactical View Screens went dark and then jumped back into life to show the full extent of the battle zone. The two-dimensional image on the View Screens showed the Thexxian military Fighting Saucers in orange, the Bardomil vessels in red and the Thexxian civilian ships in brown. The projection told its own story. To the left of the image, in a highlighted yellow, the Aquarius and the three Explorers were approaching the battle area. In the centre, the battle for the Thexxian Separatists raged. Dozens of brown Thexxian civilian vessels were attempting to flee from the battle, heading towards the stealthed Alliance warships. The ragged, semi-circular line of Thexxian Fighting Saucers was surrounded and gradually being overwhelmed by the red Bardomil vessels as they struggled to get back to the civilian ships. To the right of the image, nine of the Bardomil Imperial Fighter Carriers were holding a diamond formation, whilst in front of them, shielding them from the battle, stood almost thirty M-Cruisers in a ragged defensive screen.

  “WATO, hurry those Eagles up!” Billy yelled irritatedly at the Weapons and Tactical Officer who stood in the shadowy margins of the War Table.

  “First five formations are already away, sir!” came the response from the WATO indicating that almost fifty Alliance Eagle fighters were speeding to the rescue.

  “Hurry up, hurry up!” Billy muttered softly to himself, knowing that delay was costing lives.

  On the View Screen image, he could see the first fifty Eagles formed into a loose “V” formation heading towards the Thexxian centre. On the right of the Thexxian formation, the civilian ships were scattering like panic-stricken hens in a chicken coop being attacked by marauding hungry foxes. The first of the Alliance Eagles would have the job of distracting the Bardomil whilst the civilians tried to make good an escape to the safety of Aquarius. In the centre, the hard-pressed Fighting Saucers were clinging on by their proverbial fingernails to the situation.

  The crew in the War Room, focussed on their duties, also watched in impotent rage as their fellow Thexxians fought and struggled and died.

  “Open fire with the pulsar-cannons on the Bardomil fighters on the Thexxian right flank,” Billy ordered angrily, knowing that even the symbolic gesture of opening fire with the heavy weaponry of the Star-Cruiser, the effectiveness of which was limited for the situation, was better than doing nothing.

  Almost instantaneously, the ten pulsar-cannons, in the five turrets, aboard Aquarius sprang into life and began to send a salvo of white hot-pulsar-bolts slashing downrange onto the unsuspecting Bardomil ships. The three Explorers, armed with one high-yield pulsar-cannon and two medium-yield weapons, added their contribution to the carnage.

  As they watched what the Bardomil attackers thought would be the death throes of this group of Thexxians, the pulsar-cannons of the Aquarius and the Explorers began to sing their own songs of death. From the darkness of space the Bardomil found themselves under attack from strange new weapons that they could not see, and, had never faced before.

  The Aquarius and Explorer pulsar-cannon gunners, limited in their ability to hit fast moving targets so close to friendly vessels, could only take out targets on the periphery of the battle. When the Eagle fighters arrived, Billy knew that the pulsar-cannons would have to cease fire, however, for now they began to pick off targets on the battlefield. Several of the white-hot pulsar-bolts missed their intended targets entirely; the gunners were still only newly trained and had never fired their weapons in anger. However, their training had been good enough for the majority of pulsar-bolts from the first salvo to strike home. On the right wing of the Thexxian position, the Bardomil Flying Devils suddenly found themselves under attack.

  Seven pulsar-bolts from the
first salvo struck home on the hulls of Flying Devils. The result was an instantaneous annihilation of the Bardomil vessels in a deep red blossom of roaring flame. Of the dozens of Flying Devils that harried and pursued the Thexxian civilian ships, the loss of seven of their number was not of any major tactical significance. However, that an invisible enemy appeared to be firing from some undisclosed location, did have the effect of startling, and, in some cases, panicking the Bardomil crews. With no visible enemy to return fire upon, many of the Bardomil crews began to interrogate their Controllers anxiously to locate the unseen and mysterious enemy.

  Scanning the battle area for any sign of this new aggressor, the Bardomil Flying Devils were just analysing their first scanner sweeps when the second salvo from Aquarius struck.

  “Yesssss!” hissed one of the Thexxian crew members punching the air with triumph, standing up from her console, in the War Room of the Aquarius.

  A single high-yield pulsar-bolt had just found one of the larger Bardomil Flying Devils. The single bolt had destroyed it in a huge burst of orange-yellow flame and debris. Like a large ripe melon, the Bardomil ship exploded into thousands of fragments. The second salvo had been better aimed and had eliminated nine more Bardomil ships.

  “That’ll do Ensign Markan,” the WATO reproached the excited crewmember with a soft, yet stern, voice.