“Okay, change of tactics. First thing is I calm down.”
Alice looked at her, nodding her head in agreement with a smirk on her face.
“Second thing, we move the Hania to the middle of the formation, two battleships from the rear move to the front.”
“Why change it up?”
“Easier to spread out the firepower,” Jackie responded.
Alice’s smirk continued, knowing Jackie was making excuses for her boredom.
“We’ll do it. But it’s going to be okay. We’ll get these people there safely.”
“I’m a pain in the butt when I’m bored, aren’t I?”
Alice laughed this time.
“Were you this much fun as Captain De Vitis’ XO?”
This time Jackie laughed.
“No! It’s just…he’s always been a mentor to me, and all I had to do was work within my little sandbox. And now? There are over a million people in this convoy, and we’re responsible.”
“It’s a big sandbox.”
“Yeah.”
##
“FTL emergence!”
Alice responded, “show me!”
The hologram in the center of the room changed to show where every ship was, color coding the convoy, the navy and the unknown ships.
“Identify!” Alice quipped.
“Uh,” the officer at tactical on the flag bridge was a bit unsure of himself, having never been in a combat situation, “there are over two hundred ships! The disposition of the fleet is similar to ours in the ratio of tonnage for large to smallest ships.”
“Tell me about their capital ships!” Alice demanded.
“Two dreadnoughts, ten battleships and twelve heavy cruisers!”
In the back of her mind, Jackie knew there was no way for a group of pirates to field a fleet of this size, no matter the condition of the individual ships. This group of thugs had a backer. She pondered if it was ‘The Chosen’ or the Zikars behind this.
“High Queen?” Alice turned to her.
“How far away?”
“Half hour.”
“Maneuver the uncloaked ships to be between them and the convoy, start moving the cloaked ships to encircle the unknowns, placing ships of similar tonnage as close as possible to them without being detected. Lastly, launch drop ships from the heavy troop transport, and MACs from our other ships under stealth protocol. Lastly, make sure it’s not all robots, or our marines are going to be severely disappointed.”
The heavy transports had a drop ship that was like the assault craft used by the marines. Atmospheric drops at high velocity were their primary function, but recent changes made them useful for boarding actions as well.
As the unknown ships approached the convoy, they slowed and spread out. The sight would have been intimidating if it was not laughable. Jackie knew how pirates maintained their ships, which is to say they didn’t. And to try to show some level of coordination meant they were working too hard to impress their would-be prey.
“A message is being sent,” the communications officer said.
“Put it thru.”
“Ah, yes, the mighty Reslorian fleet! Ha, we’ve been waiting for this!” the pirate started. “This is how it’s going to be! Your warships are vastly outnumbered and outgunned! You have nowhere to run! You will stand down now and prepare to be boarded, or you will die! It’s just that simple!”
The channel closed.
“Not a complicated guy,” Alice stated.
“Send a message through the light cruiser Dunamo,” Jackie said. “Tell our newcomers to stand down or be fired upon. Also, tell the ships in the fleet to launch all their Smitz drones, but in stealth-mode, we don’t want these guys to know we’re ready for them.”
The Smitz drones were a constellation of tiny, automated ships that attached to the exterior of the hull until activated. Upon activation, they detached and encircled their charge thereby providing enhanced point-defense.
“Attention pirate scum,” Alice started, “if you want to live, you will stand down, shut your engines off, disarm your weapons systems, and prepare to be boarded.”
“Message sent,” the communications officer responded.
Suddenly one hundred missiles were in space, racing towards the Dunamo. The light cruiser was surrounded by Smitz drones, which easily took out these slow, dumb missiles. The ship’s primary point defense never even kicked in.
Just after that, the same pirate came back on.
“That was just a test! Stand down now, or we’ll destroy you all!”
The giggles could be heard on the flag bridge.
Shortly after the pirate spoke the buzzing of carbines could be heard through the still open comm link, then from the back of the bridge as a battle broke out. A few grenades went flying, then one by one the pirate bridge crew all died. Within a few moments, it was over.
“Hania, this is Major Ellison. The bridge is secure, though it will take time to secure the rest of the ship.”
Jackie could see several marines on the bridge from the channel that had been previously opened, but was unsure which marine was speaking as they were all in armored suits.
Other marines started reporting in that the respective pirate ships were secured.
Just then, one of the pirate heavy cruisers exploded.
“Damnit! What happened!” Jackie demanded.
“They must have self-destructed!” Alice answered.
The operation had been going so well up to that point.
“How many did we lose?” Jackie asked.
“Twenty marines, and two hundred ACUs.”
Jackie did not care about the ACUs as those were replaceable, she would just build more. But twenty marines…she closed her eyes for a moment then asked, “what is the status of the rest of the ships?”
“All secured,” Alice answered.
Over two hundred ships, all captured, would be converted to Askirti Royal Navy after major refits. Still, it was hard to consider it a success with the deaths of twenty marines.
“Send prize crews to each of the ships, along with engineers to determine if the ships are safe for transit. Any of the smaller ships that aren’t, we’ll scuttle them, but I want the larger ships,” Jackie said.
“Understood.”
“Also, inform everyone, including the civilians, we will hold a memorial for those marines at eighteen-hundred hours.
##
Two of the captured battleships had reactors behaving quite dangerously, but repairs had been made in under a day and certified by the engineers to be safe-ish. Some of the smaller pirate ships had to be scuttled as they were too heavily damaged and not worth holding up the convoy for the days of repair they would require.
“Sir, some of the convoy is becoming quite restless. The commercial shipping most notably,” the communications officer stated.
“Tell them they are free to go anytime. We are holding nobody hostage,” Jackie replied.
They only had one more stop before getting to Reslorian space, as such the risk was minimal.
“Um, I sent that, and they stopped complaining.”
“Huh. I guess reminding them of their freedom of choice after almost being enslaved by pirates was satisfactory.”
“Sir, we’ve also received multiple questions as to how we, um, appropriated so many pirate ships so quickly.”
“Tell them ‘fairies and unicorns,’” Jackie said evenly.
A few on the bridge giggled.
Alice raised an eyebrow her way.
<
It’s more fun this way. And it is safer. Besides, I’m not sure I want to tell everyone we have cloaked heavy transports having over thirty-five thousand killer robots in each!
<
They are robots, and they kill. Killer robots.
Amending her earlier answer, she said “ok, tell them revealing our secrets would undermine their safety should we choose to provide e
scort again. Also, inform them we will be underway in less than an hour.”
Giving the convey a timeframe of departure seemed to help. Jackie would just be relieved when these were someone else’s problem.
##
Jackie was in her private suite, which was very plush, which annoyed her to no end. No matter how much she complained early in the refit process, the designers had seen fit that any ship that could carry the flag had many suites that were well endowed.
She was lost deep in thought as her door beeped.
“Enter.”
“There you are!” Rick said. “Brought food!”
The look on her face was that of relief.
“Someone has to feed you!”
Indeed, when Jackie was stressed, she forgot to eat, and it had been over twelve hours since her last meal. She appreciated that Rick took care of her like that. Oh, it wasn’t that she couldn’t have folks for that, both the captain and the commodore had a personal steward. They tried to get her to accept one, but she refused. Seeing the mess in her suite and forgetting to take care of herself, she had to wonder how much wisdom she brought to the table to be the leader of this multinational military force if she could not decide on a simple steward.
Very shortly, they were digging into an assortment of unhealthy but tasty finger foods.
“Rick, I forgot to ask how you are doing with all this.”
“I thought it wouldn’t bother me, but it does,” he said, putting his food down.
“Care to talk about it?”
Jackie had gotten close to Rick this past year. She did not have these types of conversations with people for many years after the death of her family as she was so deeply traumatized that she had retreated into a cold, hard shell. But with Rick, she found she wanted to invest and wanted him to invest into her. For her, it was just a very slow process.
“I found myself jealous that I wasn’t part of the team taking them out.”
“You said your place was with me,” Jackie tried responded in a soft voice.
“I know. And it is. It’s just, I want to be the one to spill their blood,” he said, gritting his teeth. “Back on the Colt, when you went down with us on that rock out in the middle of nowhere, that was a thrill! Taking it to the scum of the universe next to a woman that puts my best marines to shame! I couldn’t wait to bring the pain!”
When she was still a member of the Westerly Federation, Jackie was allowed to join the marines in the invasion of a pirate base and had proven herself to be a most deadly opponent.
“It wasn’t enough, was it?”
“Was it for you?” Rick asked, using the same soft tone lacking malice.
“No,” Jackie responded. “I want to hurt them again and again,” she said, now looking deep into his eyes. “I want to kill and to keep killing until they are all dead. I want to track every last one of them down, and cut them into pieces.”
“My family died the way this convoy would have, had we not been here. Their convey was only a few ships, but it had…them.”
This time, Jackie took her hand and placed it on his to comfort him.
##
“Quite the party, High Queen!”
“Thank you, Your Majesty!” Jackie replied.
“You don’t know how much this means to us! The goods that made it here are important for some of the manufacturing capabilities Pari has planned out! And those liners? Hundreds of some of the best scientists were on board with their families. I know it was an enormous risk having a convoy that size, but you did it!” King Eisenberg said.
“I’m glad we could be of service,” she said, meaning it. The Reslorians had welcomed her with open arms, and the thought that she had kept over a million people from falling prey to the scum of the universe was very satisfying. Plus, the idea that so many needed goods and materials made it only deepened that feeling.
The icing on the cake was the pillage of a major piracy ring in the area. Two hundred ships, regardless of condition, was a significant investment whose loss would seriously hurt someone.
“I wanted to communicate to you on behalf of the Reslorian Empire our gratitude to the twenty marines you lost, and to their families,” he added very solemnly.
Jackie was touched by his gesture, only responded, “Thank you. And I will convey your gratitude as well.”
This was the first social Jackie had hosted in her five-thousand square meter, multi-story penthouse in the middle of Breton, the capital of Avalon.
She had wanted to keep the get together small, but as soon as word got out that a “few” dignitaries were coming, she had to invite them all, plus their guests. She was in overload as to the number of people here.
Soon another song started. “May I have this dance?” a familiar voice said.
Turning around was Colonel Amori, in his dress blacks. Jackie gave one of those hard to find smiles.
“Yes, that would be great.”
He took her by the hand, leading her to where some others were dancing, placed his other hand on her waist and just slowly swayed.
“It-it’s been so long!” Jackie said nervously.
“I would think someone of your stature would be used to this sort of thing,” Rick quipped with a smirk.
“I know, and I am. Wait, are you referencing my height?” she quipped back.
She was not on the tall side as a woman, and was kind of short.
“Ha! Perhaps!”
She teasingly punched him in the arm.
“Remember what we talked about a few days ago?” she asked, referencing about killing pirates.
“Yes, I do.”
“We were able to retrieve data from the computers on a few of the pirate ships that failed to wipe their cores.”
“And?”
“And we have the coordinates for a base, a large one.”
Rick’s eyes grew wide.
“When do we leave?”
“Tomorrow.”
After a few more minutes, they were swaying very closely to one another. The closeness of the moment acted to relax them both.
“Rick?”
“Yes?” he whispered.
“Kiss me.”
“Yes, High Queen.”
He lowered his head down and kissed the love of his life.
Immediately she felt heat course throughout her body and felt like she was on fire!
It’s been so long since I felt worth loving.
<
After a few moments, she heard audible gasps from more than a few, followed by clapping. She turned to look, and people around them were smiling and clapping for them, for her and Rick. She just looked back at them, smiling and placing her head against Rick’s chest.
Rick did not think her pale white skin could turn such deep shades of red.
Chapter 7
Askirti Task Force, First Fleet
En Route to Section 4-2 of the Non-Aligned Zone
“THE GREAT THAW!” read one headline. “THE ICE AGE IS OVER!” read another. “IF SHE SEES HER SHADOW WILL SHE GO BACK INTO HIDING!” read yet another.
Rick just sat there, snickering.
“You don’t think you’re newsworthy?”
“I-I…NO!”
He laughed some more.
Rick had met her in her suite after he caught the news that she caught the news.
“I don’t want to be news!” she exclaimed.
“Ha, you are, High Queen,” he said with another grin. This comment earning him a couch pillow thrown his direction.
“Look,” he started. “The people just want to know you. You are interesting. And you are the most powerful woman there is!”
“Is that why you are interested?”
I walked into that one, Rick grimaced.
“I’ve always seen you, Jackie. Past the green glowy eye thing, past the reigning fire down on your enemies thing. I will admit, I find that part incredibly attractive! But honestly, I’ve
always just seen Jacqueline Campo, the woman. The woman I can identify with. The woman whom I will go any length for. The woman I will wait an eternity for.”
That shut her up.
“I am difficult, aren’t I?”
New tactical plan. Don’t guilt her, he quickly thought.
“You’re hurt,” he said calmly. “The past hurt you. You now have this heritage you were previously unaware of, and now you are thrust into the seat of power. I know your world is spinning right now. It is not difficult for me to care about you, so don’t go there.”
She calmed down, then sat on the couch.
Crisis averted.
“Seeing the news was perhaps startling to know you’re part of it, and areas of your life that you wish to remain private are right there for all to see,” he said.
“They had a picture of us kissing on the front page of fifteen publications. And those are the ones I could find.”
“Okay, so what? They saw that you are capable of caring, this isn’t something I needed to be informed about, but some nasty rumors were flying around concerning you. This helps people to see you as more like them.”
She took a deep breath.
“You would really wait an eternity for me?” she asked with sheepish eyes.
“Yes!” he quickly answered, knowing hesitation would cost him. Besides, he did feel that way.
##
A trio of corvettes had been sent in-system after the task force exited FTL short of the coordinates provided while maintaining stealth. The corvettes had the most stealth and the smallest power signature of all their ships, as such were the perfect spy ships.
Most nations utilized corvette-class warships as spy ships, though the rumor was a few had been specially built for the purpose of espionage. And boast all they wanted, none of them had stealth like Jackie’s ships. Additionally, Pari had enhanced the eyes and ears of the ship to far beyond that of contemporary spy ships.
In any case, the ships each had a crew of less than sixty and a better cloak than the rest of the fleet, so the risk was minimal.
Rumors of Wars: The Askirti Chronicles - Book 2 Page 7