Admiral's Fall

by Luke Sky Wachter

  “It will be as you say, Sir,” replied Commander Xipper.

  “I’m going to squeeze this ship like an orange and see what comes out,” Norfolk said tensely.

  “Sir what about the rest of their fleet?” Wilkins asked again.

  “Deploy the Rat Pack and the rest of the screen to slow them down, Commodore Serge to take temporary command. All I need is a little more time,” Norfolk said dismissively.

  Chapter 42: On the Gun Deck

  “Enemy is preparing to roll,” Tactical Officer Hart’s voice echoed in the Chief Gunner's ears.

  Lesner stared down the sights of his targeting computer, letting everything roll off him like water off the back of a duck.

  Nothing mattered but the shot.

  Just then, his sights settled over a well-lit opening in the hull of the enemy Battleship and he squeezed the double handle trigger of his old style, tried-and-true turbo-laser.

  “Yes,” he hissed as his laser punched through the Battleship’s shields and into the hull. An explosion immediately rocked the hull of the ship where he’d been targeting, and from the glints of light mixed in with the explosion of air and atmosphere it was almost as if he could see space-suited figures floating out into the dark maw of the void.

  He started to pull his focus away when he froze. It wasn’t almost as if he could see figures. He’d been a chief gunner for a long time, those glints were the bodies of people thrown out into the void. Only no space suit he knew of would have been visible to the targeting sensors of his laser mount, not at this range, not for a metallic return like this.

  There was only one kind of suit he knew that could explain what he was seeing. And if he was seeing these, how many more wasn’t he seeing?

  In a flash, he released his targeting grips and grabbed the handheld receiver attached to his targeting computer.

  “Mr. Hart, we may have a problem,” the Chief Gunner reported grimly.

  Chapter 43: The Lucky Clover in the Thick of It

  I was sitting on my throne, trying to appear cool and collected and not at all concerned with the two squadrons of Battleships so close to our hull they were practically limpet mines.

  All we had to do was hold out until reinforcements in the form of the rest of the fleet arrived.

  “The HPC is ready to fire,” said the Weaponeer.

  “They’re hiding on the other side of our Battleships; we’ll let you know as soon as we have a target,” Manblaster said shortly.

  “If you give me firing authority I can line up with the helmsman and hit one of theirs when they come out from behind one of ours,” said the Weaponeer.

  “I’ll keep that under advisement,” said the First Officer.

  Seeing he was getting nowhere fast the weaponeer sat back down unhappily.

  I could see he was itching to put his weapon into action but for right now there was nothing that could be done.

  “How are our shields doing?” I asked the shield operator.

  “Not bad, Sir,” said a familiar voice, and I looked over in time to see that Junior Lieutenant Longbottom had slid into the hot seat and had taken over the shield station, “the reserve system is working as well as could be expected. The secondary bank is only able to hold 30% as much as the primary shields but they’re able to draw from the main banks which we’ve been charging.”

  “Excellent,” I said brightly.

  “I’m just concerned that we haven’t had a single laser on us from any of the Battleships. Oh, sure, the Cruisers and Destroyers are giving us what for, but several of their Battleships should have fired by now given their previous cycle rate,” continued the recently promoted Junior Lieutenant.

  “Is that true?” I demanded.

  Lieutenant Hart placed a hand to his ear and made a motion for me to wait. I stared at him, and eventually Hart looked back up.

  “Sorry, Sir. An urgent message from the gun deck,” he said with concern, “the Chief Gunner reports what looked like a fair number of battle-suited figures were blasted free of the enemy flanker's hull after his last shot and he wondered if he’s seeing them how many others are out there he hasn’t seen, and wished to report it up the chain of command.”

  I paused, my eyes hardening as the implications of a delayed firing rate combined with battle-suited figures penetrated.

  “Ask the Chief Gunner to ready the plasma guns and prepare for point defense duty, and somebody get the General on the horn. Tell him he needs to get his people out of our shuttles and redeployed to repel boarders,” I snapped.

  I just hoped that they weren’t too little too late.

  “All ships report ready to fire, Admiral,” reported Operations.

  “Tell them all ships are to fire in five seconds beginning on my mark,” Norfolk paused while the com-system relayed the message. “Mark.”

  Almost as one, eight Battleships opened fire and broke the Lucky Clover’s shields like an egg shell. More than half the lasers slammed into the hull of the Super Battleship which, despite the incredible coordinated attack, still managed to shrug most of it off without any signs of major damage.

  “Bucking cables away!” reported Engineering.

  Seconds later the engineer looked back and gave the thumbs up sign.

  “We have good lock,” reported the petty officer manning the bucking cables.

  “Launch Marines and tell Gunnery to target those shield generators—both sets,” growled Norfolk, “this ends here. Our losses at Easy Haven will be avenged and this region of space brought into the Empire. We’ve bled too much to give up now.”

  Within minutes, more than eight hundred Marines, either by shuttle or via grav-harness, launched themselves into the void from each of the eight Battleships surrounding the Lucky Clover.

  “I’m going to peel you out of your shell like a crab,” muttered Norfolk, “and then we’ll see what you have to say for yourself then.”

  There were going to be losses, and they were bound to be heavy getting those Marines over there but he was ready to see just how the ‘Grand Admiral’ dealt with more than six thousand Marines, all equipped with Predator Armor.

  “Shields down! Automatic shutdown and reboot sequence initiated,” reported Longbottom as the Lucky Clover rocked from side to side from the fury of the enemy’s latest attack.

  “Get those shields back up. If the secondary system’s rebooting, use the primary,” snapped First Officer Manblaster.

  “I’m trying!” snapped Longbottom as the ship rocked again.

  “We’ve just been grappled!” reported Adrienne Blythe.

  “I’m reading multiple shuttles approaching at close range,” reported Sensors.

  “Chain guns!” roared Manblaster, marching over to the Tactical station to help out.

  “Plasma turrets and chain guns: stop those shuttles and Marines. I say again: we have Marines inbound via shuttle and grav-boards,” Hart said urgently.

  “Prepare to repel boarders,” I ordered feeling a chill.

  “Aye aye, Sir,” said Steiner, heading over to the Comm. section.

  A red klaxon went off overhead.

  “Marines are to prepare to repel boarders. All non-essential crew are to report to the Armory or your nearest weapons locker for small arms. All essential crew: stay at your post and don head-bags, attach oxygen lines, and check for good seal between your skin suit and rebreather units. I say again: prepare to repel boarders,” Lisa Steiner’s calm voice instructed via the overhead system.

  While she was speaking, the blast doors leading into the flag bridge opened and an additional squad of Lancers came in to take up position on the bridge.

  “What’s the ETA on our reinforcements?” I asked.

  “The boats were sent ahead as you previously ordered; they’re still five minutes out. The rest of the fleet is between five and ten minutes behind them,” reported First Officer Manblaster.

  “Thank you, Joe,” I said.

  Now it was all up to Gunnery and the Lancer depar
tments.

  “All point defense lasers, plasma and kinetics are to stop those shuttles and battle-suits,” shouted Lesner, abandoning his turbo-laser to his assistant gunner and hurrying down the gun deck to ensure his orders were being carried out.

  There was no room for mistakes here.

  “Everything relies on us, people, and by the Sweet Saint I’m not going be the man to tell the Little Admiral we let him down,” barked Lesner as his short-ranged gun teams opened fire.

  Metal, plasma and light laser beams swept the sky between the Lucky Clover. Shuttles exploded and large swaths of battle-suited figures disappeared, never to be seen again as they were engulfed in plasma.

  Thousands died—and thousands more cleared the gauntlet for final approach.

  “Chain guns!” roared Lesner, calling on the only weapons that could fire until it was aimed almost directly at the hull of the Super Battleship. In reply, the chain guns went into emergency firing mode.

  Behind him, counter-fire knocked out a battery of fire-linked heavy lasers and three light laser mounts. But the Chief Gunner didn’t have time to worry about men screaming as they were bathed in super-heated hydraulic fluid.

  All that mattered was defending the ship, and then the last shuttle was gone and there were no more power-armored Marines in their targeting lasers.

  “Sir, what do we do?” asked an assistant gunner, leaving her mount to consult the chief gunner.

  “Tell your people to put their eyes back on those Reclamation Battleships. We’ve done our part in stopping those Marines; the rest is up to the Lancer department,” Lesner shook his head.

  “Aye aye, Chief,” said the assistant gunner.

  “And some fool had better start getting rid of those bucking cables before I come over there and shove my foot where the sun don’t shine,” yelled Lesner.

  Norfolk stared at the screen. “How many do we estimate got in to the hull?” he asked calmly.

  “Of the six thousand four hundred Marines we sent over, fewer than half made it,” started the Fleet Tactical Officer who then paused and looked back up at the Admiral bleakly. “Belay that, Sir,” he said taking a breath, “two shuttles and an estimated fifteen hundred gravity-harnessed Marines made it to the hull.

  “Eighteen hundred men...that’s less than a third,” Chief of Staff Wilkins said, closing his eyes reverently. “It was a massacre.”

  “At least they’ll have a few boarding tubes with them,” said the Flag Captain.

  “It was also far less than even our best case estimates say would be needed to take that Super Battleship. We have no choice but to send in the second wave. It’s time to call in the reserves,” Norfolk said grimly.

  “But sir, if we send in the second wave we’ll have entirely stripped our Battleships of any defense force. If they counter board we won’t be able to stop them,” warned the Captain of the Flagship.

  “We don’t have a choice,” Norfolk said steadily.

  “Aye aye, Sir,” said Commander Xipper as he turned to pass along the orders to the rest of the fleet.

  Within minutes, an additional four hundred Marines threw themselves off the ship and into the gap between the Lucky Clover and the Reclamation Battleships.

  Even as they were passing in between ships, the first of the bucking cables lashing the vessels together was targeted and destroyed by MSP guns.

  “Here they come again! Up the Gun Deck, down the Empire,” shouted Lesner right before every light weapon in the broadside once again opened fire.

  Once again it was a slaughter, and once again several hundred Marines, in this case less than a thousand, made it across.

  While their lighter brethren had been fighting to defend the Clover, the larger lasers hadn’t been silent and yet another broadside slammed into the lead enemy Battleships. Only this time the port side Battleship didn’t just soak up the damage, it rocked with secondary explosions and fell out of formation.

  For a long moment, the Chief Gunner stared at the big gaping hole in the side of the ship where one of its fusion generators used to be housed—and he grinned like the Demon himself.

  Then, wiping his face free of expression, he rounded on the gun deck with a scowl.

  “Only one ship?” he demanded, striding over to the nearest heavy laser mount, “only one? We can do better than that!”

  “There she goes, Sir,” reported Lieutenant Hart as the first enemy Battleship was taken out of action and the second lead ship on the starboard side released its bucking cables and belatedly began to roll.

  “Good. What’s the status of the Lancers and Marines?” I asked intently.

  “General Wainwright reports they’re holding the enemy on the hull of the ship, so far at least,” said Steiner from her position in Communications.

  Over the next several minutes, the first company of enemy Marines cut their way into the hull—where they were promptly slaughtered by a defense company headed with Devastator class battle-suits—and were promptly forced back onto the hull.

  The fighting was going back and forth out there as the enemy tried to force a breach and then began advancing on the front and rear of the ship.

  “They intend to target the HPC and our engines,” advised Manblaster.

  “This isn’t my first rodeo. But thanks for the advisement,” I said, more worried about the exact location of my wife right then than I was the condition and safety of the main gun.

  All around the Lucky Clover, the battle whirled as the Reclamation Fleet’s lighter units devastated the remaining Flotilla warships, taking out everything larger than a Destroyer—and half the Destroyers as well.

  For their part, our Battleships were giving almost as good as they were getting and when you added in the damaged Flotilla Battleships, we were actually holding our own.

  For what seemed like forever, but must have been less than five minutes, the battle raged both inside, outside and on the hull of the ship, and then Steiner made a shocking announcement.

  “I just picked up a message: Rear Admiral Bluetooth is ordering his surviving warships to withdraw if they can do so safely. He says they’ve done their job and it's time to let the MSP do the rest of the dying here today,” she said.

  “That blighter,” said Manblaster, turning red in the face.

  “It almost doesn’t matter anymore,” I dismissed. The leading edge of the rest of our fleet was almost here and I wasn’t convinced the Reclamation warships would let the rest of them go anyway even if they wanted to turn tail and run like cowards, “order them to stay if they want to live since their best chance is with us, and then let them do whatever they want.”

  I turned back to the main screen, where the leading formation of more than two hundred and fifty boat-class gunships was just about ready to slam into the rear of the enemy formation like Saint Murphy’s Hammer.

  Within seconds the boats once again proved hundreds of light lasers, when all applied on the same target, could cut a hole in the enemy’s screening units—even if they were Cruisers—pretty quickly. Minutes later, the gunboats had carved up three larger warships and were nearing the battle taking place around the Lucky Clover.

  “Let’s see if they want to hold still for this,” I said, eyeing Norfolk’s Battleships as the gunboats reached us and the first of our Destroyers, Cruisers and Corvettes arrived, forcing the enemy’s screening units to give up the chase on the boats and turn at bay or risk up-the-kilt shots on their engines.

  “Turnabout is definitely fair play,” I said coldly.

  “Blast,” Norfolk cursed. The reports from the Marines hadn’t been encouraging, they’d probably be able to block that big cannon in the front of the ship but the attack on the rear engines had stalled out and they weren’t getting anywhere on the inside. Montagne must have been a paranoid bugger because even with three thousand Marines on their hull his onboard defense force hadn’t been close to outnumbered.

  On top of that, more than two hundred gunboats were threatening his rea
r and his screen was engaged with a fresh force of enemy units.

  This was rapidly turning from a knockout punch to a battle to the death...and one he wasn’t certain he could win. Either way, the Reclamation Fleet, win or lose, would be finished as a Sector-conquering force.

  “What are your orders, Sir?” asked Senior Captain Wilkins.

  For several hot moments, Rear Admiral Norfolk considered ordering his Battleships to ram the Lucky Clover after telling the rest of his forces to fight to the death. But then the moment passed and he took a deep, steadying breath. He could still win this if he played it right' there was no need for a suicidal charge guns blazing.

  That said, a good ramming event might sacrifice one or two ships but it would put this beast in front of him out of commission for a while…

  He gave himself a shake. “If we wait here those boats are going to tear our engines out of their housings and a lot of good men are going to die for nothing. Prepare to cut us loose,” he ordered.

  “But if we let go our grapples we’ll be at the mercy of that monster over there,” pointed out the captain of the flagship.

  “Release them anyway, and tell General McKraken everything rests on the actions of our Marines forces now,” Norfolk said bleakly, his mind already racing with calculations. “Our mission orders, recently updated by Admiral Davenport, are to conquer the Spine or withdraw if our forces prove insufficient. We are not to get ourselves killed for no reason.”

  “But,” protested Wilkins, “we can still win this!”

  “I don’t doubt that,” Norfolk said as the lead Battleship on the starboard side took heavy damage and was rocked by internal explosions. That hurt. He could have ordered all hands to abandon ship and sent it straight at that big titan.