“I will not!” Jenner thundered back.
“Master-at-Arms,” Wessex cried, his eyes never leaving Jenner once.
“Sir?” asked the Warrant Officer.
“Captain, we’re reading multiple small contacts on a 45 degree arc directly away from the current local battle space!” exclaimed Lieutenant Commander Dunning, the current shift Sensor Officer.
“What?” Jenner whirled around with surprise.
“Belay that, Lieutenant Commander! I am not done with you, Captain,” snapped Wessex.
“But sir, they’re on a close approach and…now that we’re focusing our active sensor beams, we have multiple separations!” interrupted Lieutenant Commander Dunning. “It looks some kind of stealthed missile launch judging from our difficulty getting a lock. They’ll be on us in less than half a minute.”
“Admiral?” Jenner demanded.
Wessex’s teeth ground together so hard they audibly protested. “Fight your ship, Captain,” he bit out, “we’ll finish this after the battle.”
“Yes sir,” Jenner said stiffly, suppressed anger lacing his voice. The ship’s captain turned back to his bridge crew. “Sensors, find me those missiles. Tactical, prepare for point defense!” barked Jenner. “We’re only getting a few off line shots anyway; we need to go to full anti-missile defense.”
“Yes, Captain,” replied the other officers.
“Re-tasking the gun deck now. The Chief Gunner says—” the strident squeal of a close missile attack klaxon interrupted the Tactical Officer’s report.
“Stealthed missiles have just activated and gone into sprint mode! I’m detecting more than two hundred contacts and eighty—I say again: eight-zero—missiles are targeting the Flagship,” cried Lieutenant Nuttall, the ship’s 2nd assistant Tactical Officer.
“Full power to the port shields!” roared Jenner as the point-defense system locked onto the streaking missiles, “reinforce the shielding over grid 4!” Not surprisingly, the enemy missiles were all aimed at the same point on the ship’s port-side.
“I’m reading a second wave close behind the first,” reported Nuttall again, “it looks—”
The screen flared with the simultaneous impact of nearly twenty-five missiles—the ones not caught by the point defense action—which impacted the shields over outer hull grid 4, causing the ship to shudder. The missiles had punched through the shields and showered the hull with near-miss explosions—and electromagnetic pulses.
Close on the heels of the massive EMP bloom that scrambled their best sensors, the second wave of missiles dove into the gap caused by the missile impact and slipped through before the shield generators could compensate. Only a handful of the second wave contacts fell to the regenerating shields, and several more succumbed to precise shots of expert gunners firing by line of sight after their targeting computers were temporarily blinded.
“Landers!” screamed Nuttall as soon as the sensors cleared enough for the tactical computer to make a positive identification.
“What? That’s impossible, they’re moving too fast to…” the Admiral trailed off as the second wave of what he had previously assumed to be missiles lit off their drives at full burn. Their exhaust revealed that their engines where pointed straight at the battleship.
“Point defense!” roared Jenner.
“I’m reading a massive deceleration curve,” the ship’s Navigator protested, “the gravitational fluctuations are too strong for an unaugmented person to survive!”
Multiple thumps and clangs sounded throughout the ship as the stealth-coated assault landers struck by the ship’s laser beams slammed into the side of the ship, followed moments later by those landers that had slowed in time.
“Signal the Marines: ready to repel boarders!” shouted Senior Captain Jenner, cutting through the shock and surprise at the sudden turn of events.
“Signaling the Marines now, Captain,” said the Lieutenant Commander heading the communication’s section. Adding a beat later, “Brigadier General McGrath reports his men are on the way.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant Commander,” replied Jenner.
“You allowed us to be boarded, Captain?” Wessex hissed.
“I allowed? Just who is it whose in command of this Task Force, Admiral? I assure you it is not Senior Captain Siobad Jenner!” retorted the Flag Captain.
“Enemy boarders are flooding all non-hardline communications channels with their own signal—they’ve effectively jammed us, sirs,” reported the Com-LC and then he froze. “Flaming atoms!”
“What are they saying, Officer?” Wessex demanded. “Put the message up on the overhead coms.”
The Comm. Officer nodded. With a hiss and a crackle, a clearly synthesized voice came out of the speakers. “This ship has been boarded by forces of the United Sentient Assembly acting in conjunction with Confederation Forces which are operating under a legal space warrant. The charge is high piracy in cold space. Resistance is futile; if you stand down you will be spared. Refuse and you will be destroyed,” there was a slight pause, as if to emphasize those words and then the voice continued, taking on an almost eager cant when it finished, “Oh, and one more thing: John—I’m coming for you, John!” Then the line went dead.
“I think it’s safe to say we won’t be surrendering,” Jenner mocked laconically.
“How did they know my name,” Admiral Wessex asked, sounding genuinely spooked.
Jenner cocked his head looking and sounding surprised, “I thought your given name was Nicolas?”
“Every member of the main branch family is called Nicolas!” Wessex said with rising frustration. “That way, the head of our family will always be a Nicolas in honor of our founder. My middle name—and the one I’ve gone by all my life—is John!”
“I think you’re overreacting, Sir. But even if you’re right and they are targeting you personally, I don’t see how it matters. At this point, we either win or die,” Jenner said, a hard glint entering his eye as he glanced back at the blast doors leading into the battle bridge.
“Overreacting? Captain, you have allowed invaders—droid boarders—onto your battleship and you say I am the one overreacting!” bellowed Wessex.
Jenner shook his head. “You were the one in command of the task force, Admiral,” he said flatly.
“I told you to fight your ship and this is how you perform? By practically inviting stealthed boarders onto your ship?! For shame, Captain,” Wessex said harshly.
“The Marines report they are encountering stiff resistance and are having difficulty cordoning off the enemy beachheads into the ship!” exclaimed the Comm. Officer. “The first visuals of the enemy boarders are coming in now.”
Giving the Admiral one last glare, the Captain turned to the Com Station.
“Put it up,” he ordered, and the Lieutenant Commander nodded before putting the image of a giant battle droid on the screen.
“Surrender!” thundered the two-legged, comically oversized battle droid even as it pivoted to face the camera pick-up. It crouched down, thrusting its two arms forward—arms ending in a pair of mighty cannons, “You have one second to comply. One…zero,” it growled before immediately unleashing a thunder of chain-fired, high-powered blaster and plasma fire from its weaponized arms. Within seconds the vid-pickup had been lost, and the last thing they heard before the audio died were the screams of Marines and the sound of savage, animal-like snarling.
“What the blundering atoms was that?” Wessex demanded, his eyes wide.
“Computer lists it as a heavy assault battle droid. One of the ED series, Sir,” Tactical said crisply, “originally they were intended for use in police actions in gang territory and were sent to places where social order had completely broken down. As soon as the Unified Tech Commission saw the after action reports, they upgraded the model from a security droid to battle droid status and further construction was banned, with all active models recalled for use in Imperial service.”
“That thing was obviousl
y not recalled and it certainly isn’t working for us,” the Admiral said, replaying in his head how quickly the Marine squad had been suppressed by that metal monster. “How are the Marines doing?”
“They’re being pushed back with heavy losses, but General McGrath assures us that the Marines will soon be launching a counterattack which will stabilize the situation, Sir,” replied the Comm. Officer.
“Stabilize? All he can promise is to stabilize things?” Wessex shook his head. “That’s simply unacceptable, Captain!”
“What exactly would you like me to do about it…Sir?” the Captain said after a beat.
“I no longer know, nor do I care. You can be certain I will be reporting your incompetence to the High Admiral at the soonest opportunity, Senior Captain,” Wessex vowed, drawing himself up to his fullest height.
“You no longer care about the condition of your own flagship, Admiral?” Jenner demanded.
“My flagship no longer! Your incompetence has shown me that Task Force command would be better off in the hands of another ship—in my own personal opinion any other ship in the fleet would be better,” Wessex said, using a handkerchief to dab the sweat forming on his brow. “Gong-Hammer, gather up the rest of my staff: we’re heading to the Admiral’s Cutter,” he turned back to glare at the Senior Captain, “good day to you, Captain. If I am to get this fleet out of the disaster you have allowed it to fall into, I must transfer my flag to another battleship at the soonest opportunity.”
“I led this fleet into a disaster,” Jenner looked shocked. “Just how far lost to reality are you, Admiral-in-Command of Task Force 3? You’re aware that in addition to abandoning ship, you’re also trying to transfer in the middle of active combat. You’ll get yourself killed!”
“I’ll see you at your court martial, Captain. And right now, anything would be safer than staying onboard this ship,” Wessex turned on his heel and stomped out the blast doors. “Gong-Hammer!” he called out as he went, and the scurrying Chief of Staff quickly followed after him trailing a Flag Lieutenant and several other members of the Admiral’s staff.
“I can’t believe…” the ship’s Executive Officer trailed off from beside the Captain.
“The man was steady enough so long as nothing unexpected threw him off his game,” Jenner said neutrally as the blast doors finished cycling closed. “But now that the Task Force is losing to a smaller force with inferior technology, and his flagship is imperiled, he’s reverting to type: staff officers learn to cover their backsides first and foremost. Unfortunately for him, somehow I don’t think that will fly with the High Admiral.” The captain smiled coldly at the thought of High Admiral Janeski flaying what was left of Wessex’s dignity.
“Cowardice,” the Executive Officer hissed.
“Remember yourself, XO!” the Senior Captain rebuked in a low voice. “And whether or not I agree with you, I’m sure the man would say taking a Cutter into the middle of a battleship fight is hardly running away in fear.”
“There are many kinds of fear…but I take your point. Sir,” said the XO before drawing a deep breath, “what do you want to do now that he’s gone.”
The Senior Captain looked at him strangely. “There’s only one thing left to do: fight the ship. In this case that means standing off these boarders,” he replied. How he wished his ship had been granted some of the new Predator battlesuits they’d been hearing about through grapevine.
“And if we can’t? Stand off the boarders, I mean,” the XO asked quietly.
Glaring at his Executive Officer, with his nostrils flaring, the Captain almost looked like he was going to say something before turning away abruptly.
“Master-at-Arm, it’s time to start arming the crew,” the Captain said, looking at the internal schematics that showed the droid boarders inching closer to both the gun decks and Main Engineering. “In the name of the Creator, we must hold!”
“Aye, Captain,” the Warrant Officer said fiercely.
Chapter Twenty-One: Back on the Rage
“Droid boarders report they are continuing their advance on the three battleships they have targeted,” reported Captain Hammer.
I nodded my acknowledgment.
“We also have a new target,” she continued, pulling up a screen image and sending it to me.
“A Cutter?” I asked with surprise.
“It separated from one of the neutralized battleships and appears to be making a run for Target 4, the battleship we are currently engaged with,” she stated.
“Are they insane?” I asked with disbelief as the Royal Rage shuddered for the third time that minute. On the main screen, the Royal Rage was currently locked in a death roll with Target 4. We pounded her, she pounded us. As soon as our respective shields started to recover they were almost immediately destroyed as our two ships rotated around each other. It was only our new heavy armor that had saved us so far but while both the Rage and Target 4 were both shields down and streaming atmosphere we’d started off at a disadvantage. Right now that meant that we had only a little less than half our beam weapons remaining while the enemy battleship had around three fourths.
The enemy was doing their best to knock out our much less heavily-shielded heavy and turbo-lasers instead of punching through the our rock hard hull and into our vitals. We were trying to return the favor any way we could.
However, it wasn’t looking good.
While we were struggling against our own shield regenerating enemy, Messene’s Shield and the Armor Prince were currently locked into a battle for their own lives as well. The Shield was increasingly taking the worst of the pounding thanks to its relatively thinner armor, now that her shields were down and out for the count.
“Whatever they are, they’re about to make a high speed run to get around us and dock with Target Four,” replied Hammer, jerking me out of a contemplation of our increasingly desperate situation.
“Whatever the enemy wants to do, I’m more than willing to try and stop,” I grunted, piercing the Cutter’s icon with my eyes before dismissing it as a minor annoyance. “Send the word down to the gun deck, Captain: I want that Cutter taken out of my skies.”
“You realize we are operating in vacuum don’t you?” asked Hammer.
“Carry on, Lieutenant Commander,” I said dismissively, turning back to the life and death battle we were locked in.
The ship shuddered and lurched before recovering beneath us. The sensation was mirrored by a strange movement of the Rage on the main screen relative to the enemy Battleship.
“What just happened, Mr. DuPont?” I demanded.
“We just lost engine three,” the Helmsman grunted, “both secondaries are now gone. We’re down to our main engine only.”
“Demon Murphy,” I swore, silently cursing effective enemies everywhere. If this kept on, I was going to have to risk sending over the Lancers before the enemy’s point defense had degraded enough that they could safely attempt to board the enemy battleship. ‘Safely’ being a purely relative term, and one which I was putting at the ‘10-20% casualties’ mark. At this point, with the enemy’s surprisingly effective gunnery, I was looking at 50-80% losses just getting them over there which was simply too high.
Don’t get me wrong, I was in the mood to cry bloody tears if my recently mutinous Lancer force took a few losses. But there was a difference between doing what needed to be done—even if you had to take a few on the chin—and throwing away your personnel and right now, in my judgment, it would be the second.
I punched the arm rest on my chair. The Metal Titan could have solved all my problems by now—should have solved them—except not five minutes ago while trying to regain full control over their maneuvering thrusters, the Titan’s main engine had suffered a cascade failure and overheated. Right now it was running on secondaries and still trying to regain control over half of its maneuvering capability.
Like with the Lancers, I was seriously considering bringing back the wounded Metal Titan and rolling the dice if som
ething didn’t break my way.
“The Chief Gunner reports a glancing blow to the enemy Cutter; he’s going to try for another shot on our next rotation,” Hammer reported, referring to the fact that we were locked into a death spiral with the other battleship.
“Tell him to finish the job next time,” I said irritably.
Hammer gave me a look. “That’s a little cold, Sir. The Chief’s doing his best and that Cutter couldn’t last one minute against a fraction of our weaponry. She’s a minnow to our leviathan—not a genuine threat,” she commented.
“I am not in the habit of letting the enemy get away simply because they’re weaker than I am. They shouldn’t have invaded our territory in the first place. I’m here to win, Captain, and unless and until the enemy—including that Cutter—surrenders, that’s exactly what I’m going keep trying to do,” I scowled.
“I didn’t mean we should just let them go. I suppose I’ve just been focused on the big boys, Sir,” Hammer apologized.
I frowned. “You’re right in one thing: we shouldn’t be focusing on the small fry when we need every beam mount we have pointed at the enemy battleships,” I said, and then turned to the Comm. Station. “Signal the Titan to swing around and try for that Cutter. Then signal our communication relay Cutters that if she strays outside the defensive envelope of the enemy battleships, they are to try to take her.”
“Yes, Sir,” said Steiner.
“And by ‘take her’ you mean…?” asked Hammer.
“Destroy or capture. There might be something—or someone—valuable on that Cutter…and we can always use another warship,” I added with a snort after briefly checking the running damage report for the fleet.
“Boarding was never that much of an option back in the day—at least not during the middle of a fight,” Hammer said almost wistfully. “Afterward, sure, but otherwise it was viewed as too risky if not dangerously insane.”
Admiral's War Part One Page 16