Spineward Sectors 6: Admiral's Spine

by Luke Sky Wachter

  “It is with my deepest regret that I inform you the Star System of Shaanxi is under attack, presumably by a Droid Fleet,” the Lieutenant Commander said calmly, interrupting the other man as politely as he could.

  Irritation and condescension turned to a flash of outright fear and the façade of a busy bureaucrat in control of at least his little piece of the galaxy crumbled before the Lieutenant Commander’s eyes.

  “Do we know how big the Fleet is?” the Ambassador Select Folsom asked with honest alarm.

  “No, sir, we have nothing on scans yet,” replied Captain Quark.

  A look of relief settled upon the Select’s face. “Then we have no firm knowledge of an enemy attack?” said the Ambassador. “I understand your concern for my safety but there’s no need act the alarmist, Lieutenant Commander—”

  “The perimeter defense squadrons are pulling back and the inner system flotilla is being mobilized, Ambassador Select,” Quark said with forced patience. “I’m afraid this is no drill, sir.”

  Ambassador Folsom blinked rapidly before nodding several times. “Send a shuttle for me at once, Quark. Do you hear me, at once!” he ordered frantically before turning away. “Get my things and be ready to leave!” the Select shouted at someone off camera, probably one of his aids. “This is an outrage. Why wasn’t I notified by at least Foreign Minister the moment they knew they were under attack?”

  A moment later the feed went dead.

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

  “I can’t shake ’em!” cried the Helmsman.

  “Dear gods; were all going to die!” shrieked the Select.

  “Shut up or get off of my bridge, your Excellence!” shouted Lieutenant Commander Quark.

  “Helmsman, adjust heading by twenty eight degrees and make for a sling-shot maneuver around the Shaanxi VII’s moon. Your best speed, Mr. Waanx,” he ordered sharply.

  “Aye, Captain,” replied the Helmsman right before the ship shuddered, throwing everyone on the bridge against their seat restraints.

  “And someone tell gunnery to do something about those fighters!” he ordered.

  On screen a diamond formation of rakishly thin fighters, which according to the intelligence dump they’d received from system command, somebody in yet another system had dubbed the Needle Class, were in hot pursuit of the ADF Invincible Fire. A powerfully-built Droid Destroyer following along behind at full burn was waiting in the wings to finish them off just as soon as the fighters crippled their engines.

  “I sure wish we were facing an equal number of those mass-produced Unification Through Conformity bunch,” said his First Officer, a Lieutenant Jethro Hammer, “the data specs show that they’re the least effective, militarily, of the droid Invasion Fleets.”

  “You might as well wish for the moon while you’re at it, Mr. Hammer,” Quark said growled, “the reports show that Conformity always show up in overwhelming numbers.”

  “Blast the Harmony, and may the Space Gods burn their cold, mechanical, soul,” cursed the First Officer, referring to the Harmony Through Specialization Droids to which the ship and fighters chasing them owed their allegiance.

  The ship shuddered again.

  “Shields are fluctuating. I don’t know how much longer they’ll hold out,” reported Junior Lieutenant Irksome.

  “I think that’s a theological point that many would disagree with you on,” the Captain told his first officer as he grimly watched the Needle Class fighters rake his stern with their dual mounted light lasers. It was a stream of low-level blaster fire that would normally be used by the enemy fighter for anti-missile duty, but in this case those weapons were being used to harry the Invincible Fire.

  “What?” the First Officer looked at him, his face scrunching up and then his expression cleared. “Yes, they are a bunch of soulless blighters aren’t they. Well then in that case—”

  “Enough, Lieutenant,” Quark commanded and then turned to his Tactical Officer, “blast it, Ensign, why hasn’t gunnery picked off at least one fighter by now?”

  “They’ve got some kind of stealth coating like we’ve never seen before; between that and the Destroyer behind us using active jammers, our targeting computers are having a hard time getting a good lock,” replied the Ensign.

  Why he had an ensign in charge of his Tactical section and Junior Lieutenants or higher in every single one of his other departments on the bridge, when his ship was escorting a Select on an Ambassadorial mission to another world in a potential warzone, was something the Captain of the Invincible Fire was quite eager to take up with someone back home. Assuming the ship made it back home, of course—something that was very much in doubt at that particular moment.

  “Well, do better, Ensign, or if the Droids don’t get you I will,” Lieutenant-Commander Quark threatened. Then, figuring he would put as much of the fear of the gods into the Ensign as was safe while they were still taking fire, he turned over to the Communication’s Officer, “Get back on the horn and see if you can’t distract them and buy us some time.”

  Lieutenant Pierceson nodded. “Mayday, mayday, mayday; this is a flagged diplomatic vessel calling any and all ships in the vicinity. Stand off! I say again: stand off! This is the Aqua Novan chartered diplomatic starship Invincible Fire. We are on a diplomatic mission to Shaanxi,” the Comm. Officer said urgently. “Firing on a diplomatic mission carrying a credentialed Ambassador is against galactic conventions. To the pursuing fighters and destroyer, I say again: stand off! And to any ships in the area that can render assistance, we call upon you to perform your galactic mandate and provide an escort out of the warzone.”

  For a brief second, fighters twitched away from the Corvette and Quark almost hoped they’d get a small bit of breathing room before they came back at them twice as fierce.

  He wanted to curse until one of the Invincible Fire’s few medium lasers lanced out and struck one of the Droid Fighters, causing it to explode.

  The bridge gave a relieved cheer. But moments later the fighters were pouring laser strikes into their shields, and the bridge was back to the grim business of power management and evasive maneuvers.

  “Prepare to spin the ship, Helm,” ordered the Captain.

  “Spinning ship, aye,” replied the Helmsman.

  “Tell gunnery to be ready, Ensign Croft,” he told the Tactical Officer.

  “Ready and waiting, sir,” the Ensign said.

  “On my mark…now, Helm!” he cried.

  The corvette spun on its axis, slowly at first but with increasing speed and the Lieutenant Commander could tell the move had thrown the fighters off their game. The two explosions that quickly followed as lasers lanced out from the corvette to blast two more of the fighters out of the sky was even more gratifying to the Captain.

  “Scratch two fighters!” crowed the Ensign at Tactical.

  “Main engine is fluctuating,” reported the Helmsman, the report almost lost in all the hubbub over the destruction of another pair of fighters, bringing the number of those they faced down to only two.

  But Quark’s blood ran cold.

  “How much can we safely reduce our output and still keep ahead of that Droid Destroyer?” the Lieutenant-Commander asked, standing up.

  Silence spread like a ripple across the small little bridge.

  “We can safely go down by 14% right now, sir,” reported the Helmsman, “more than that and I’d have to run the calculations.”

  “Back it down, and you,” ordered the Captain who then turned to the Navigator, “run those calculations.”

  “Sir?” asked the First Officer.

  Quark ignored him. “And someone get me the Chief Engineer on the line!” Quark exclaimed just before Gunnery managed to tag another Fighter, causing the last Droid Needle to back off and return to a position in formation with the Destroyer.

  However, even such a victory tasted like ashes in his mouth because the Fighter’s primary mission might just have been accomplished. If their engines
failed them before they could clear the hyper limit, all their efforts and successes in getting the Ambassador back from the surface and making a run for the System’s border while avoiding being intercepted would be for naught.

  Moments later the Chief Engineer linked up to him and confirmed his worst fears: the engines needed to be stepped down a lot more than a mere 14%, and the Captain realized he was going to have to do something a little unorthodox if they were going to make it out of here with their skins intact.

  “Take us around the moon, Helmsman,” Captain Quark ordered, “at best speed and prepare to cut our engines as soon as we’re out of line of sight of the Destroyer,” he added.

  “Cut our engines, Captain?” the First Officer asked with concern.

  “You would leave us helpless and unable to move in the face of the mechanicals?” the Ambassador demanded in a rising voice.

  “Don’t worry, Select,” the Captain said with a confident expression he wasn’t feeling right at the moment and then he turned to the Engineering Officer on the bridge, “as soon as the Helmsman cuts the engines I want the ship taken to silent running and the fusion generator shut down.”

  “Stepped down, you mean, sir,” the Engineer said after a moment, his eyes wide.

  “I said ‘shut down’ and I meant it,” the Captain said grimly, “we can’t outfight that Droid warship and we can no longer out run it. Our only hope now is to hide and hope it can’t find us; we will run the stealth systems off emergency power.”

  The Ambassador made a strangled sound and looked like he was about to have apoplexy.

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

  “I can’t believe the Destroyer just went right past us without seeing us…and then didn’t even turn around,” said the First Officer.

  “I think the Squadron of Shaanxi SDF had a little something to do with the fact it didn’t come back around the moon for another pass,” the Captain said sardonically, “that and the fact they eventually destroyed it.”

  “The Chief Engineer has affected emergency repairs on the Main Drive; should we consider attempting to aid the system defenders?” asked the First Officer.

  Lieutenant Commander Quark opened his mouth, but was cut off.

  “No!” exclaimed the Aqua Nova Ambassador, “our mission has failed and the Droids arrived before we could effect a treaty. Our first and only priority is…it must be, to report back home and tell them of the invasion which is practically on our doorstep!”

  “So because the ink is not yet dry on the treaty, and there are no signatures, we are not legally obligated to do our duty…is what you’re saying,” Quark asked wryly.

  “I don’t like your tone, Captain,” Select Folsum glared, “check your orders. The safety of this diplomatic mission is your only concern here. Just follow your instructions and let me follow mine.”

  “Of course, Select,” the Lieutenant-Commander grated and, with one last look at the screen, saw where forces of the Droid Fleet were overrunning the remnants of the SDF Fleet. It was only a matter of time before this System was conquered. Even as he watched, a squadron of droid cruisers and two of destroyers surrounded this system’s single remaining mixed squadron of cruisers and destroyers like a pack of lions around a herd of gazelles.

  That squadron was the single most concentrated mass of human warships in the system; everything else was down to just isolated singletons. If and when they went down, the rest of the star system would be swept up quickly.

  “Continue with stealth protocols and get us out of the system at the best speed we can manage,” he said, hating the fact that he had to limp out of Shaanxi at less than 20% their top speed almost as much as the fact they were running away instead of continuing the fight…almost, but not quite. The knowledge of what humans had faced in the past from the Metal Plague sat like a solid lump of lead in the pit of his stomach.

  However he had his orders and even if he hadn’t there was very little a small corvette like his could have done anyways. Now, if he’d been the Master and Commander of a Battleship when this system had been invaded, Ambassador Select or no Ambassador Select, he would have stayed—at least until his ship was too damaged to be effective.

  Chapter 5: The Laurent Report

  I watched with narrowed eyes as Middleton, Captain Tyrone Middleton walked quickly out of the conference room, passing Captain Laurent who was on his way in at the same time he was walking out. I had a lot to think about.

  As soon as the door slid shut I turned to the Captain of my Flagship.

  “Everything go well?” Laurent asked with a lopsided grin, “I see that there are no blood or body parts; that’s always a good sign.”

  I gave the other man a flat look.

  “That man sure stepped in it,” I vented, “taking a relatively simple patrol and turning it into a one man, one ship, crusade across multiple sectors and then dragging it back home to roost! I did not need this…not today, of all days, Laurent.”

  “A one man, one ship, crusade…now where have I heard a story like that before,” my Flag Captain all but smirked. No, on second consideration, he was definitely smirking!

  “You say that like this is some kind of joke,” I said dangerously, “but it’s not—not by a long-shot. Thanks to that joker out there we’re now about to become embroiled in a droid invasion.”

  “If that’s all we’ll have to deal with it’ll be a nice change of pace around here…just to have one enemy to fight I mean,” Laurent added, reaching over and pouring himself a glass of water while I huffed with outrage. “I mean, over here we have to deal with pirates, Bugs, genetic uplifts and our own Provincial and Sector Governments all at the same time. Dealing with just one enemy at a time might almost be like a vacation,” he finished looking and sounding half serious.

  “Well don’t get your hopes up,” I snapped angrily, “according to Middleton, in addition to the three different Droid Factions we’re going to have to deal with, he already encountered Pirates financed, operated by—or with ties to—the Imperial House of Raubach. And did you know that he found a rogue Com-Stat network that’s at least semi-functional.”

  Laurent’s eyes widened. “I hadn’t heard that part. A Com-Stat network, you say?” he asked with disbelief.

  “Yes, but keep that part to yourself,” I warned him, “apparently he’s also got some kind of wunderkind, teenage, Asiatic hacker that helped him pull some ECM tricks on some missiles and penetrated the Com-Stat network—a network that pirates, but nobody legitimate, seemed to have access to.”

  “Pirates had ComStat access…” Laurent said with disbelief.

  “It was limited access; who knows who the ultimate owner of the thing is,” I said dismissively, deciding not to share everything I’d learned from Captain Middleton just yet. It was always wise for an Admiral to have a few cards up his sleeve after all.

  Laurent gave himself a shake.

  “You said something about the House of Raubach,” he pressed, “I can’t say as I’ve heard about them before.”

  “Apparently they are, or at least they were, a big cheese in the lower Spine: Sectors 23 and 24,” I grumbled.

  “Is that important, I mean other than the fact they’re Imperials of course?” he asked quizzically.

  “There are indications they might have had links to the Pirates, as well as the Demon only knows what else,” I paused and took a deep breath then released it through my nostrils. “Besides, have you ever heard of the Cornwallis-Raubach drive?”

  “Well, I’ll be jiggered,” Laurent said making a fist of his hand and then dropping it on the table.

  “My feelings exactly,” I said darkly. We were at the point of conjecture here, but it didn’t take a genius or a rocket science to know that the House of Cornwallis had been behind, either directly or indirectly, a lot of the troubles we’d been having lately. As a Caprian I’d known about them, and then later on as an Admiral I’d had to directly deal with their scheming destructive ways p
ersonally.

  First, then-Captain Janeski, now an Admiral and now-Senator Cornwallis had personally orbitally bombarded my home world, giving power back to Parliament in an orgy of blood and destruction.

  The now-Rear Admiral Janeski had pulled Rim Fleet right out from under our noses and then hatched a plot with a Security Officer on the Lucky Clover to eliminate me, hijack the Lucky Clover, and then pin everything that went wrong in the Sector that they possibly could on me. Who knew what Arnold Janeski was up to?

  I’d also had to deal with a rather irritating Captain Cornwallis, the nephew of Senator Cornwallis. The Captain was a man who had tried to nationalize all of our native built Constructors that he could get his hands on and, no doubt with the intent of leaving our Sector high and dry while he and his men went on their merry way.

  I’d turned the tables on that man, not only reclaiming the Constructors he’d tried to pirate but also taking his ship, our very own Furious Phoenix (although back then it had been called the Victorious Solar Flare) right out from under him when we stormed his ship. Personally I hoped the Captain was rotting in some Imperial prison for losing his ship, but I knew that with his family connections that was probably too much to hope for.

  Because of all that, when I heard of another Imperial House—with links to the Cornwallis House—up to its shadowy hands involved in a sector filled with pirates and Droid invasion, I automatically assumed the worst. As I’d painfully learned over the past year or so, where there was smoke there was almost certainly a fire.

  “Any other bombshells in the Captain’s report?” Laurent finally asked.

  I sighed. “The Captain wasn’t entirely remiss in his duties while on patrol. He captured a couple of pirate ships, as well as liberated one of our former MSP warships that was under pirate assault and returned it to its former owners,” I said sourly.

  “Ho-ho, are you sure he’s not trying to give you a run for your money?” Laurent asked with a lopsided grin.