I bared my teeth and smiled. Meanwhile, the Titan had ponderously swung around until her lasers could be brought to bear. As soon as the first laser had a shot lined up a heavy laser fired but missed, causing the little Cutter to dance around evasively.
“That’s odd,” Lieutenant Steiner said, cocking her head as she listened to something while looking at her screen.
“What have you got for me, Lieutenant?” I asked, looking over at her sharply.
Chapter Twenty-two: Making the Great Escape
The Cutter rocked around him, and it was all Admiral Wessex could do to keep from being thrown out of his chair.
“What in the name of the Creator was that?” he exclaimed.
“Enemy battleship is coming about—they just took out our shields!” said Commander Jessup, his Chief Operations staff officer. “Fortunately the beam wasn’t lined up with our ship because that laser just blasted through our shields and shot past the prow of this ship—all we lost was a backup transceiver array.”
“They’re targeting us specifically?” Wessex said with surprise and no little fear. First one battleship tried to take them out and now another?
“We initially thought that the second battleship was too heavily damaged to get back into the fight after nearly ramming the flagship, but it looks like they’ve made emergency repairs,” reported Jessup.
Wessex clenched his fist and stared at the plot. Right now the battle was effectively three on three, with five of his battleships neutralized but if this fourth enemy battleship lurched back into the fray then his remaining battleships could be destroyed.
Thinking furiously, after a moment he expanded the plot until it encompassed the entire sprawling region of this star system that was currently being contested.
His heart chilled as nearly everywhere he looked his warships were destroyed or in retreat. The few places where his Cruisers were present in strength were the site of hotly-contested battles involving large groups of enemy warships.
Nowhere were they winning: his Destroyer screen had nearly been annihilated; his Cruisers were hard pressed; three of his engine-damaged Battleships had been boarded in force; and as for his three still-functional battleships, they were shortly about to be outnumbered.
“Instruct the Cruisers to fall back on the Battleships; we have to receive support,” Wessex ordered.
“Sir, one or two might be able to break free and come to our aid. But if the majority of the Cruisers try to disengage and come to our support, at best speed they’ll be chased down and destroyed,” said Commander Jessup.
“If that fourth enemy battleship engages the Norfolk, our chances of winning this battle go down close to nil, Commander. The center cannot hold—we must have reinforcement,” Wessex snarled. “What’s the status on our crippled Battleships? How long before they can get their engines up and running again?”
“The best time estimate we have is at least two hours, Sir,” replied Jessup.
Wessex slammed his fist down on his chair. As if that was a signal to the divine, what felt like a hammer struck the Admiral’s Cutter in the next instant.
The lights died before flickering back under the red of emergency lighting.
“We can’t take too much more of this, Sir,” said the little Cutter’s pilot. “Another shot like that and we’re through.”
“Just get us on the Norfolk, pilot!” Wessex shouted.
“I’m trying to but the closer we get the more effective their weapons are. I can make another run at it but the next hit will finish us,” the pilot said, jerking the little warship from side to side as multiple heavy laser beams intersected the space they’d been occupying only seconds before.
“I don’t want excuses, I want results,” Wessex declared.
“All I can promise is our next run will be our last, Sir,” the pilot in command of the Cutter bit out.
The Admiral gnashed his teeth. Every way he turned, he was stymied. He had entered this star system certain in the inevitability of victory and the ultimate success of his command. And now look at him: on the run in a dinky little Cutter while his command died around him. Captured, killed, or run off thanks to an ambush comprised of local forces and a few off-their-rocker Confederation hold outs.
Closing his eyes, the Admiral took a deep breath.
“Pull back and get us out of beam range of those battleships, pilot,” he ordered keeping his eyes closed as he thought. The Fleet was in critical condition. It was also nearly impossible to run a battle from a Cutter like this. What’s more, if he kept trying to transfer to a larger ship he was almost certain to die in the attempt.
Worse, once he was gone the fleet would almost certainly follow him into defeat in short order.
It was an almost wholly unpalatable fact, but even if it cost him his career—and it almost certainly would—he refused to keep throwing good money after bad.
The rustics had gotten the drop on him. Fine he admitted that. If this somehow also proved him incompetent as a fleet commander then so be it. He’d take his lumps and spend the rest of his career running an ore refinery somewhere on the back end of nowhere.
As long as there was life, there was hope, and he had to save what he could. So with a heavy heart he turned to his Comm. Officer.
“Signal the fleet. This is the Admiral,” he instructed, and then released a shaky breath before taking the final plunge that would have him inevitably labeled a coward. Even if by doing so he managed to save a large portion of his original force, “All warships are to prepare for a general withdrawal. I say again: all warships are to disengage as they are able and proceed to the emergency rendezvous coordinates,” he stopped and then whispered, “may the Creator have mercy on us all.”
“Admiral,” his Chief of Staff said with shock, and for a moment nobody moved.
“Did you hear my orders?” Wessex barked.
“But sir!” Gong-Hammer protested. “What about our battleships with damaged engines.”
“It pains me as much as it does you, Chief,” Wessex said, feeling as if a lance had been run through his chest as he contemplated what they had to do next in order to save what remained of this fleet. “But right now all we’ll do by staying is ensure we lose all eight battleships instead of only five. The same goes for more than half of our Cruisers.”
“But sir, the fleet…your career? Surely…” Gong-Hammer trailed off.
“The High Admiral will have to do what he must do, but that will be later—after I’ve saved this Task Force,” Wessex said, his eyes burning with emotion.
He was finished, but at least he had the satisfaction of knowing Captain Jenner—that insufferable battle fleet officer—wouldn’t be free to gloat. At least not until after High Admiral Janeski was done reclaiming this Sector for the Empire and had freed any captured Reclamation Fleet prisoners from their provincial captors.
Who knows? The stiff-lipped Captain might even be killed during the fight for his ship.
Wessex sighed at that thought. One could only hope, he seethed. If only Jenner had supported him properly, none of this might have happened…
No ,that path was beneath a member of the House of Wessex. Jenner may have plagued him at every turn and dogged his heels relentlessly, but in the end a lesser man such as that could never bring down a man such as Nicolas Wessex. No, if anyone was to blame for this defeat then the flaw lay within himself.
“Send the signal and demand an immediate confirmation of my orders,” Wessex declared.
“Yes, Admiral,” Gong-Hammer said with despair.
Chapter Twenty-three: Jubilation on the Bridge
“Admiral, the enemy have turned and begun to withdraw. Sir they’re running away!” cried the ship’s Sensor Officer.
“Confirm that,” I demanded.
The individual operators in both the sensor and tactical sections both erupted in a flurry of activity. However, on the screen it was almost like a wave as every ship that could do so began to pull away from our for
ces.
“It’s confirmed, Admiral,” Lieutenant Hart said with a look of relief, “they’re pulling back!”
I narrowed one and cocked my head. This wasn’t what I’d been expecting. Of course, my general idea of what was going to happen had involved a long, drawn-out battle to the death that left both sides crippled. But I’d take what I could get.
“I want our eyes peeled and sensors focused, people,” I said sternly. “Are they really trying to retreat or are they just trying to pull a fast one where they’ll be back after they withdraw and regroup?”
“On it, Sir,” said Hart, and beside him the Sensor Officer nodded.
“Admiral Montagne, I’m not sure if someone of high rank transferred off her or not but I’m reading the same general level of comm. activity we were receiving off Target Three is now also being transmitted from that Cutter. We still can’t break the encryption and the enemy battleship hasn’t significantly slowed her com-casts, but compared to other smaller warships the activity level is rather high…” she splayed her hands as she spoke. It was her way of silently saying she could give me the information, but apparently interpreting it was up to me.
“Thank you, Lieutenant,” I said after a moment of thought, “keep an eye on it and inform me if anything significant changes.”
“Yes Sir,” she said.
“Admiral,” Captain Leonora Hammer said, deliberately drawing my attention her way.
I turned to her screen on my Throne’s arm panel and cocked an eyebrow.
“Do you intend to just let them get away?” she asked. “Because if we intend to pursue the enemy then this ship will need to get started right away, and a general order to the fleet at large would be useful to help head at least some of them off before they can jump.”
“Let them?” I asked allowing a touch of frost enter my voice.
“Sir, if you mean to finish these ships we need to attack now,” Leonora said urgently, pointing at the now wildly accelerating icon of Target Four. It had suddenly broken ranks and was now on a converging course with Targets Six and Eight, who were also attempting to disengage from Druid and Eastwood, neither of whom seemed intent on allowing them to simply run away. For that matter, our own ship was also following after Target Four.
I turned from her screen to look up at the main projector and the still somewhat numerous—too numerous, if you asked my opinion—enemy Cruisers and Destroyers and scowled. When combined with their functional battleships, the enemy still had a third of its strength left.
With that in mind, our side had hit hard and fast and strong. But our lighter warships had started the battle hours ago and with a two to one disadvantage in battleships, by now our heavies were in roughly the same condition.
Could we finish off the enemy fleet if we put our minds to it? Of that, I had no doubt. We might lose in doing so, but I didn’t think so. I thought we would win. But after that victory, how much would be left of the fleet—my fleet? Would it be enough to survive whatever evil plot was currently being dreamed up by the man behind the New Sector Guard?
Or worse, what if the enemy had reinforcements? They at least had to have garrison forces scattered and strewn throughout several words, not just the ones they’d conquered in this Sector, in order to support a fleet of this size. In the end it was unpalatable, but if the enemy wanted to run I was willing to let them. Reluctant, but willing.
Allowing my voice to thaw back out to normal, I looked back at the Captain. “Despite the unfortunate word choice, I see your point, Leonora,” I said and then sighed. “However, while we might win the battle, if we press and keep pressing I’m afraid we’d lose the war. Or at least we would put ourselves at the mercy of others and not in a position to affect its outcome. And I, for one, have no interest in the charity.”
“But Sir,” she said in a low voice, “if we smash them here they won’t be able to repair their ships and rebuild their strength. We have the chance to finish them once and for all!”
“No, Captain,” I said firmly.
“Admiral, I know that if we follow them we’re going to get hurt. Lord, are we going to be hurt, but we have them! We can save this Sector,” she continued, a burning fire in her eye and for the first time I wondered if I had been a little too hard on my new Confederation officers. I’d slammed them for lack of fighting spirit and now I was the one counseling caution, “All you have to do is give the order.”
Bringing my hands up to my temples, I slowly rubbed them.
“No,” I corrected sadly, “we can smash this Reclamationist Fleet, but that won’t save the Sector.”
“How the blazes do you figure that…Sir?” she demanded, adding my courtesy after a short pause.
“If I did what you propose, we’d either destroy the enemy here or die trying—and I do tend to believe we’d be the winner. But afterward we’d be wrecked. Not just the Multi-Sector Patrol Fleet, but the rest of our allies and supporters as well. Our entire base of support would be gone.”
“That sounds more political than anything else, Admiral,” Hammer said mulishly.
“Right now we could repair the Prince and the Rage as good as new, with just a little time in a yard, and be back in the fight. But with the Shield and the Titan, who knows? There could be serious structural problems. All I can say for sure is that if we finished off the enemy here, it wouldn’t be a fight of cute maneuvers and gutsy tactics that would inevitably win the day, but a series of bloody brawls that guaranteed the victor would be crippled in the end. What warships remained would have to find a shipyard for extensive repairs. Practically speaking, for the purposes of this war, we’d be finished,” I concluded.
“This war would be finished as well,” said Hammer, “and that’s still what we’re here for: to fight and die to save people.”
“Only the invasion would be finished, I’m afraid, and that’s assuming one thing. Let me pose you a question: how sure are you that this is the only fleet of warships the enemy has?” I asked reasonably.
Hammer looked troubled and then her mouth tightened.
“After all that hard-charging attitude in the conference room, somehow I expected more,” Hammer said a bit stiffly. Clearly she wanted this enemy dead and buried, to the point she was even willing to provoke me and risk her job.
“How willing are you to bet our lives on that assessment, along with the lives and freedom of every citizen in the Sector?” I asked sharply. “Say that all these Reclamationists have left are scattered garrison ships orbiting the worlds they’ve already conquered, both in this Sector and wherever it is they came from. We finish this battle and we’re on the bench for months. That means the enemy will still be out there, maybe unable to rally against us for weeks or months for another push. But we won’t be in any condition to chase them down. It’d be situation reset with us right back to square one. Now, say you’re wrong, and it’s game over. No, I want better than that. I want these guys as badly as you do; I just want to make sure we get them in one fell swoop if that’s possible.”
“We are not the only force in this Sector,” she pointed out reasonably. “Even if we falter, there are others to pick up cause and see to the defense.”
“You haven’t seen what treachery the worlds of this Sector—and its Sector government—are capable of,” I shook my head sadly. “They’d turn on us in a heartbeat if it meant more power for themselves and their narrow, individual special interests. Push comes to shove and they’ll gladly stand by while we take it on the chin, then they’ll move in to sweep up any pieces that remain—stabbing us in the back if necessary,” I finished bleakly. “They’ve already done that several times in the past and I can’t allow myself to be their victim again. There are too many billions of innocents—civilians without anyone to look after their galactic interests out there. And the local governments are simply not interested in the job unless it pays.”
“That’s a very cynical outlook, and borderline egotistical at the same time,” Hammer said.
“If you’d rather be on a beach sipping margaritas and reminiscing about the bad old days under Jason Montagne—or alternately onboard a freighter returning to the old Confederation as rapidly as it can jump—that can be arranged,” I said coolly.
“I’m in this for the duration,” she said with determination.
I eyed her calculatingly before finally deciding we didn’t have time for this anymore. Although, thanks to the extended question and answer session, the enemy battleships had continued to pull away from us.
“Then get with the program. I appreciate advice but not active resistance. And on that note let’s link up with Metal Titan, Messene’s Shield and the Armor Prince and escort our foes out of this system,” I said.
A long period of silence followed as the bridge crews continued their work and we monitored the enemy.
To my surprise, they seemed entirely willing to quit this star system as rapidly as they were able.
“Well that’s it,” Hammer sighed as they reached some invisible point in space I wasn’t aware the significance of, “those battleships are faster than us. So unless they suffer some kind of catastrophic engine failure, all we can do is continue herding them.”
“Faster, with more powerful beam weapons and slightly longer range, as well as regenerative shields and multiple generators,” I shook my head and slumped back into my Admiral’s throne. “Clearly they have the tech advantage on this one.”
Hammer nodded, turned to one of her officers off-screen and then when she turned back flicked me a data file.
“High intensity scans,” she explained, “if you look at the data closely enough, you can see that most of these ships—and all the battleships—were extensively refitted with this new technology.”
“You can, eh?” I said peering down at the scans and the color-coded schematics. I was no longer the neophyte I’d been on my first day in actual command of a battleship and, as such, I could generally tell what I was looking at. The color-coding helped immensely but while I knew that a shield generator was a shield generator—even if smaller than I was used to—or that this part was an engine, and generally what the other highlighted pieces of the ships were, identifying high tech upgrades by sight was still clearly beyond me.
Admiral's War Part One Page 17