With eagerness, Wessex watched as the first of the enemy Cruisers took damage, forcing them to divert. Then the enemy Battleships arrived and began to take fire as they charged straight at his formation.
“Tell gunnery to fire at will and ready the starboard side for when they pass,” Wessex said shaking his head as he saw the rustics weren’t even firing anything at his squadrons. He relaxed fractionally when he saw that the shields of his ships were fully charged. At worst, they’d only have to deal with a few shots as the enemy passed them by.
However, the next moment his smile froze on his face only to be replaced with a look of disbelief.
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With a forward lurch, the ship came to an abrupt rest and slid in between the two rows of enemy battleships. Stacked in a standard wall of battle formation, the two squadrons were stacked four in a line, one row on top of the other, with the individual ships lined up nose to tail.
In short: we had the hind ends of two ships to our port side and the noses of two more to starboard.
For two seconds, an unnatural silence filled the bridge as everyone realized they were still alive. Then the sudden silence was broken by the moans of a yeoman and cries of several bridge members who hadn’t properly secured themselves.
“Fire as she bears, Mr. Hart!” I roared, returning to myself in that exact instant and realizing we needed to pour it on if we were going to survive this trap we’d willingly thrown ourselves in the middle of. “Don’t stop until our focusing arrays melt down!”
“Medic!” called out an assistant sensor operator.
“The first volley was set to automatic, Admiral,” Hart coughed as the main screen seemed to explode with colorful lines of fire crisscrossing every which way. “We’re on it, Sir. And, by the way: beam arrays overheat and shatter, not melt, Sir.”
“I’m well aware of that, Lieutenant. Now focus on your duties and belay the terminology corrections!” I snapped.
“If that’s what you call ‘improved performance’ over the last time you did this maneuver then you can count me out for next one,” Hammer coughed, sagging to the side in her chair for a moment as if her ribs hurt. She then straightened herself with a fire in her eye that told me she was ready for the fight.
Shaking my head, I glanced over at the Captain and then back to the main screen. “It wasn’t quite that rough last time we did this, I think the process still needs some work,” I grunted eyes never leaving the screen. Even though we had four battleships and they had eight, being at the front of the enemy line the Royal Rage was surrounded by four enemy battleships. Two had their sterns nicely pointed toward us, and another pair showed us their bows.
I clenched my fist as fire lanced out from both sides of the Rage striking the enemy shields at close range.
“Take that, you bloodsucking Imperials,” I swore with delight.
The situation began to change as the Reclamation battleships started to lite off their engines and go to full burn for evasive maneuvers.
“You think? At least we’re not all dead,” the Captain replied to my earlier comment and then her head shot around. “I don’t care about damage to the secondary power systems unless it affects performance, Lieutenant! Fix it and make it work or find a workaround—that’s what we have Damage Control for,” she snapped, speaking to someone off-screen.
“Trouble?” I asked the Captain with concern but she have a negative shake of her head so I let it go.
“We came out lined up almost perfectly behind the rears of the first row; we’re perfectly set up for up the stern shots,” Lieutenant Hart crowed, even as the enemy battleships started to swivel in space and a deluge of fire erupted from both sides of the Rage. All up and down the line, other members the MSP squadron slammed volleys of fire into the sterns of the enemy warships.
The Rage’s gun decks continued to hammer away into the shields of the enemy ship to port, and shortly afterwards an explosion rocked the image on the main screen as our fire punched straight through the enemy’s stern shields.
“What was that?” I asked in disbelief and growing excitement. I looked like we’d punched through that ship’s shields much faster than I’d originally projected!
“The droids hit that ship with their antimatter-pumped lasers on the way past; they must have knocked their shields down to almost nothing on that facing!” Hart exclaimed, a fiercely exuberant expression on his face as a Sensor officer called out a report that the enemy battleship had just lost its shields to a cascade failure—along with its main engine.
“Excellent work, Lieutenant,” I exclaimed, “keep at it and keep up the pressure!” I turned to the helm and pounded the arm of my char, “Don’t let the other one get away, Mr. DuPont.” I was well aware of the second ship in front of us desperately trying to throw off our aim, “I want our guns locked onto their six even if it exposes us to fire from the rest of the enemy battleships! We can’t let it escape.”
“On it, Admiral,” DuPont replied happily.
“Shields down to 72% and 47% on port and starboard facings,” Longbottom cut in nervously.
“Single out a dozen and a half heavy lasers and have them switch to aimed shots at the secondary engines of Target One,” Lieutenant Hart instructed one of his assistant Tactical Officers before picking up the microphone at his desk. “General order: all gunners and turrets not specifically assigned to Target One are to switch over to Target Two!”
Hart paused a moment.
“Blast it, man, what happened to our shields? We’ve hardly been hit,” I demanded over the rising hubbub.
“Turbo-lasers and all remaining heavies except the twelve designated are to shift over to Target Two instantly or I’ll know the reason why,” the Tactical Officer roared, spit flying from his mouth as pulled the microphone so close to his lips I absentmindedly wondered about a feedback squeal on the other end.
“Sorry, Sir! The Montagne Maneuver drained the Shield banks and we started taking fire from starboard,” Longbottom called out.
“Blast it; keep those shield up,” I snapped, turning back to take in the battle raging across the main screen. Seeing another engine—one of the secondaries—explode and begin spewing plasma out into cold space from a series of ruptured lines, I cheered. “We’ve got them right where we want them boys!” I shouted.
The bridge crew cheered as the third and final engine on the first enemy battleship was holed.
“Take out their engines and they’re nothing but sitting ducks!” I proclaimed excitedly. If I could keep the enemy stuck in one place then I could come to extreme range and take them apart one by one. Or I could even send in the Lancers. Anything was possible if we could only take out those engines!
“Enemy warship to our starboard side is turning to present its broadsides,” reported Captain Hammer reported in a clinical voice. “Perhaps you should focus on the squadron as a whole and let the Captain fight her ship, Admiral.”
“Knock ‘em dead, Lieutenant Commander,” I said, immediately turning to pull up a view of the local battle-space and take in the current situation.
Druid and the Armor Prince was the last ship in line. I had wanted another combat veteran there at the tail end of this lash-up just in case everything went to pot. While he may not have been the sharpest tool in the box seeing as how he’d lost the Parliamentary Power, he had proven during the Battle for Elysium that if you put him in the middle of a slugfest he didn’t have a lot of quit in him.
Next to Druid was now-Captain Eastwood in command of Messene’s Shield, the ship captured by Akantha during First Elysium. Finally, the Rage’s immediate squadron mate on the other side of a pair of enemy battleships—which were even now turning to cut loose their broad sides on us—was the Battleship I’d traded the droids for and subsequently renamed the Metal Titan, captained by Druid’s former First Officer.
“Get me Lieutenant Commander Jackson on the line,” I barked, looking at the icon repre
senting the Metal Titan.
“The interference is too heavy for a visual link, Admiral Montagne,” Lieutenant Steiner reported, “best I can do for you is audio and they might try to squelch that. I can send an encrypted text, if you’d like, since I’m sure that will go through.”
“Open the voice channel and transcribe a voice to text message for the Metal Titan,” I rapped out quickly.
“Putting you through now,” said Steiner, on the ball as usual.
“This is Quentin Jackson of the Metal Titan, who am I speaking to?” interrupted the rough voice of the Lieutenant Commander in command of the other ship before I could actually begin dictating the message.
“I need you to stop one of those battleships between the Titan and the Flagship from turning to present her broadside,” I said without preamble.
“Admiral, we’ve damaged our primary target’s main engine but—” Captain Jackson started.
“By any means necessary, Captain!” I cut him off. “Make it happen. Neither of our ships needs to be caught in a two, three, or four-way broadside. I’m counting on you, Captain!”
There was a short pause. “Aye, Admiral. Titan on the rampage; we’ll get it done,” Captain Jackson said and cut the channel.
I turned back to see that the Royal Rage’s second target was still trying to bring her full broadside to bear and the shields on the facing nearest us was still up around the 50% mark.
“Captain Hammer, what’s the hold-up on Target Two? Put her engines in the ground before this becomes a slugfest. We need to put our two in the bag and move back to assist the Titan,” I snapped.
“DuPont is keeping us away from more than half their broadside and allowing us to keep a bead on her rear facing. But unlike Target One, Target Two had full shields upon our arrival, Sir. It’s taking time,” she reported.
“Time you don’t have, Lieutenant Commander,” my voice cracked like a whip. “I want that ship stopped and I want it done now! Put her out of action, Hammer, or I’ll find someone who can. Beams, marines, or sour cream—I don’t care how you do it just get it done, just make it happen.”
Hammer glared at me.
I was asking the improbable, if not the outright impossible, but this was ‘sink or swim’ time. If she didn’t want me taking over ‘her’ battleship then Leonora Hammer was going to have to show me what she could do.
“Aye aye, we’ll get it done for you, Sir,” she bit out turning back to her bridge.
“Not for me, Captain. For everyone out there whose dying while we chop Target Two down to size,” I declared with clenched teeth.
****************************************************
“Victorious Alignment and Norfolk both report their engines destroyed and the North Hampton reports they’re down to their last secondary, Admiral!” cried the Comm. Officer.
“Tell Pyramid to provide cover fire for the North Hampton along with the Flagship,” Wessex said, unable to believe that the Liberation of Persecution, his flagship, was the only ship of Squadron One that still had engines and mostly full shields. Or, rather, he was unable to believe that the enemy had suddenly stopped on a dime and blew out the engines of the other three in a handful of minutes.
“Enemy battleship to port is maneuvering to knock out the North Hampton’s engines while enemy to starboard is attempting to delay us with a full out attack!” reported Flag Captain Jenner.
“How does a battleship just suddenly stop like that?” Wessex raged. “How?!”
“Clearly our fleet is not the only one with a tech advantage,” Jenner said bitterly.
“Pour it on, Captain, and someone tell Squadron Two that they are to take the fight to the enemy. I may have just lost my command thanks to these rubes but I’ll see them in the Pit before today is over—every last one of them,” Wessex said frothing at the mouth.
He might have been able to make up for his previous losses by blaming subordinates and overcoming adversity with a speedy and complete victory over the enemy here, followed by the conquest of Hart’s World. But after the way the enemy had just shot out the engines of two of his battleships—and looked to shortly finish a third—he knew there was no hope.
This would probably be his last line command, but before he was recalled he was going to destroy these rubes.
“Link our fire with any available ships and kill them!” Wessex barked with rage. “Flaming atoms, but this fleet will not be defeated by a pack of brown monkeys. Not on my watch!”
****************************************************
Looking at the screen I could see that, in no small part thanks to the droids weakening their shields, three of the enemy battleships had lost all engine power and were basically down the maneuvering thrusters.
It seemed that after knocking out the engines of his first enemy ship, Target Five, Eastwood was determined to go broadside to broadside with the battleship in the enemy’s second squadron line, which I was designating Target Six. Eastwood was acting as if his shield-strong battleship was actually armor-strong, and was using his slight maneuverability advantage to the hilt but for some reason I wasn’t surprised. That man had always liked to get in close and pound the enemy into scrap.
Druid had also neutralized one of his opponents, not that this was surprising considering the fact he was commanding the Armor Prince. I knew that battleship and she was as strong—or stronger—than anything else he was likely to face out there. Ignoring the fire from his recently crippled opponent, he too was going head to head with his second target.
On the other hand, the Metal Titan and Captain Jackson were struggling as the pair of enemy warships, Targets Three and Four, which were still fully functional had busied themselves by vigorously pounding away at Jackson’s shields. The enemy ships had already completed a full turn and were slamming broadsides out in both directions as if their lives depended on it…which, in all likelihood, they probably did.
“Get me Captain Jackson on the line,” I demanded, anger liberally applied to disguise my growing concern. Even if I was no longer mono-focused on the Royal Rage, I could still hear the litany of falling shield reports in the background.
“I can’t get a hold of him, Admiral,” Steiner reported sounding put out, “the Titan’s Comm. Officer says the Captain’s too busy to talk.”
“Blast it all—” I started, only to be cut off.
“Metal Titan is coming about,” exclaimed the Sensor Officer, “she’s on course to go right between the bow and stern of the Targets Three and Four if they don’t move, Admiral!”
My fingers itched to be doing something. I wanted nothing more than to call the shots and give direct play-by-play orders to Captain Jackson and his command. I might have actually done so if he hadn’t done anything more than tried to win a two on one slug fest, but instead I settled back in my chair.
I had to let the Captain of the Metal Titan command his own ship…at least until after he was proven incompetent.
“Enemy battleships focusing fire on the Rage,” Hart yelped as four battleships, including both ships under attack by the Metal Titan, opened fire on the Rage.
“Shields down to 32% to port and 18% to starboard,” Longbottom reported in a high voice, “we have severe spotting to port and punch through to starboard. The starboard shields are starting to collapse!”
“Balance shields as best you can but sacrifice the starboard for the port if you have to, Mr. Longbottom,” Hammer ordered.
“Keep our port side aimed at the engines of Target Two, Helmsman,” I commanded as the enemy battleship pivoted its rear out and away, “straight at those engines as if you’re life depends on it, Mr. DuPont!”
“Aye, Admiral,” DuPont said.
“Starboard generator overloaded. It’s going into an automated shut down routine, Captain!” Longbottom yelled.
“Enemy lasers have degraded our starboard sensors by 20% and rising,” the Sensor Officer reported as heavy lasers and turbo-lasers from the pair of enemy battlesh
ips pounded the reinforced Duralloy II armor of our starboard side.
“We have burn-through on starboard airlock 16; damage contained by automatic emergency bulkheads,” reported Blythe.
“Those engines, Mr. Hart!” I roared, lunging out of my chair.
“Our main dish just took a hit,” Brightenbauc said with panic in his voice, “multiple hits! I don’t want to risk a jump until after a repair team has had time to evaluate and make emergency repairs.”
“We can worry about our hyper capability after this battle, Mr. Brightenbauc,” I barked.
“Our starboard side is being torn to pieces, Captain. We need to roll the ship,” advised Damage Control.
“The Chief Gunner begs the Captain’s indulgence for just one more minute and promises you’ll like the results,” Lieutenant Hart cut in. “But I have to agree with Damage Control: we need to turn before they hit something vital like our overheated shield generator.”
“Prepare to roll the ship,” growled Hammer.
“Belay that, Captain,” I said firmly, “give the Chief Gunner his minute.”
Hammer turned to give me an angry look. Although we’d succeeded at most everything I’d hoped for, going into this our ships were getting smashed. Something needed to break our way and I was ready to roll the dice on the Chief Gunner.
Chapter Sixteen: Resonating on the Gun deck
Superheated fluid spurted into the air and an emergency bulkhead slammed down before the entire heavy laser crew could jump clear.
Lesner winced and looked away as a man was cut in half but still kept screaming. Batting and clawing, the third and fourth degree burns covered him as that fluid splashed face—and eyes.
It was a grim enough sight to turn a man’s stomach—even a seasoned veteran’s. But unfortunately he had more important things to do than care for his injured men. The ship was caught in a heavy crossfire and one thing was clear: so far they’d gotten off surprisingly easy. The improved duralloy was proving worth its weight in trillium, and turned out not to be just as another one of Spalding’s pet pipe dreams. Even with the shields down he had lost fewer than half the beam mounts he’d have expected.
Admiral's War Part One Page 14