That being the case, there was only one thing to be done: I had to salvage what I could. The rest of us were just going to have to take our chances with fate…and the Demon Murphy.
Chapter Forty-eight: Commodore Kling
“You want me to do what, Admiral?” Kling asked, his brows shooting for his forehead.
“You’re not going to be able to rejoin us without risking getting hammered, Commodore,” Admiral Montagne said from the other end of the main screen. “That’s why I want you to turn your formation in towards the star and head deeper into the system. After clearing the main area of combat operations, I believe that if you split your Corvettes up into forty different tracks the enemy will think you’ve fallen apart. After that, it will be too much trouble to chase you all down individually.”
“Or they might decide to send out a pursuit force, Sir,” Kling observed and then leaned forward. “What’s more, we won’t be in any kind of position to help you force your way out of this trap. Admiral, I have to protest—we can be of use here. Don’t send us away.”
The Admiral that was the heart and soul of the MSP—and the only thing currently holding the Grand Fleet together, if only by his fingernails and refusal to give up—shook his head sharply, “Your Corvettes aren’t going to last long if we get into the kind of fur ball I expect we’re in for. I doubt the enemy is done with his surprises yet. That being the case, the best thing you can do for me is preserve your force and return to Wolf-9 via the other side of this star system. Your Corvettes are fast; I doubt they’ll chase you when they have us in their target sites. But even if they do, well then…you’ll have what you want and some of the pressure will be off us, won’t it?”
“I dislike this, Sir,” Commodore Kling said with a frown.
“I know you do, but you’ll also follow orders. I’m not about to see this fleet massacred—not on my watch. Don’t worry, Commodore,” the Little Admiral said, showing the face that had inspired men more formidable than a trumped-up Commodore and former Lieutenant Commander in Capria’s SDF to follow him into battle. His expression was resolute, as if even an enemy force that outmatched and outnumbered his couldn’t stop his fleet.
But it was his eyes—calculating eyes that said that he didn’t just think they could survive this disaster, but that they could actually turn things around and win. It was eyes that didn’t just hunger for victory but assured a man that if only you tried hard enough and left it in his hands that this was one Montagne Prince who could deliver.
Kling had watched too many times, both in reports and from first hand observation during the battles for Tracto, as the Little Admiral snatched victory from the jaws of defeat to give up now.
“Just give me my orders, Admiral. I’ll make them happen,” Kling said, swallowing the bitter taste of abandoning his comrades in the middle of a battle and focusing on the task at hand.
“You’ve already got them, Commodore,” the Little Admiral said, one corner of his mouth lifting. “I’ll see you back at Easy Haven.”
“I won’t let you down, Sir. And if you change your mind, I don’t care if we’re on the other side of the star system charging our hyper drives, we’ll come running back to help,” Kling said resolutely. It was the least he could do in the face of a commander that was shielding his force of Corvettes. It didn’t matter that Battleships were called the ‘wall of battle’ for a reason—being as they were the wall between the rest of the fleet and the main enemy force—this was a matter of honor.
“Oh, and one more thing, Commodore,” the Admiral said with a gleam in his eye that did more to assure an old space dog than any amount of nice sounding words could. “I’d like you to drop any jammers you might have on your way out. Let’s call it a surprise for our Imperial friends.”
“Will do, Sir,” Kling said with a grim smile.
“Montagne, out,” said the Little Admiral, and connection was severed.
The Commodore turned back to his crew. “Alright, you heard the Admiral. We’re heading deeper into this star system,” Kling said and started nodding, “we might not like those orders but we’re going to carry them out. However,” he turned and glared at the icons representing the enemy, “there’s nothing in our orders about running away from any enemy ships that are in our path, and if we’re to distribute our jammers properly we’ll need to maneuver a bit on our way out of here.” He turned to his Tactical Officer. “I want you to get with Nav and plot us a course that will take us near a few enemy Destroyers. There’s nothing in our orders that says they can’t feel our sting as we go by,” he declared, determined to exit this battle in a way that showed the fighting spirit of the corvette force of Sub-formation 4.
“We’re with you, Commodore,” said the men and women of the bridge crew in near-unison.
“Then you have your orders,” he said gruffly.
His First Officer sidled up to him. “You know we don’t have more than a handful of jammers in the entire formation. Corvettes just aren’t normally loaded out with them,” he said quietly.
“The gorilla people have a few. I checked their manifests when they first joined the Coalition Fleet and came under my command,” explained Kling.
Looking surprised—and more than a little pleased—the First Officer nodded.
Chapter Forty-nine: Silverbacking it?
“You’ve got a lot of nerve calling me now,” Silverback snapped.
“There’s something I need you to do,” said the young man on the other end of the holo.
“You left us here to die, you blighter!” the veteran Admiral declared angrily. “I called for help but you turned like a rabbit and ran the other way—but now you need my help!? Don’t make me laugh.”
“I don’t have time for your histrionics,” the insufferable little twerp—who looked entirely too young for flag rank—mocked him. “Control yourself and be an example to your officers and men, Admiral.”
“I don’t answer to officers barely out of their diapers. Just who do you think you are—” he started with a good head of steam.
“I think that I’m your commanding officer by order of the Confederation Assembly, the Sector Governor, and the government of your own star system, Admiral,” the fake Confederation Admiral—known throughout the sector as a Tyrant, thanks to the media—had the nerve to upbraid him, “now are you prepared to listen, and maybe save yourself and some of your command, or have you resigned yourself to death and just want to get in another dig or three before you check out permanently?”
All he wanted to do at that exact moment was reach through the screen and throttle the arrogant little silver-spoon in his mouth. The little dastard had gotten everything handed to him his entire life, but at the first time things started getting rough—when the Imperials had withdrawn from the Spine—the little silverspoon threw a tantrum and took over command of a Battleship he should have never even so much as touched!
It was rank piracy, that’s what it was. Everyone—including the Old Confederation assembly—knew that the little Prince, Jason Montagne commanded the Rim Fleet’s replacement body in name only.
But the worst part of everything wasn’t his self-entitled highbred arrogance, the piracy, or even is his total lack of respect for those who actually had trained for the job and knew what they were doing. It was that despite his complete and utter lack of training or qualification, the little bigot had succeeded. It was as if everything he touched turned to gold, and everything his opponents tried in order to teach him the errors of his ways went to Hades.
“Perhaps I was mistaken? Perhaps you really do want to die and I should be speaking to someone else,” the little Tyrant said, launching another one of his barbed little dig.
At this point, the Aegis Admiral was past caring. “Tell me this great plan of yours, then,” he said abruptly. “It’s not like I have very many other options at this point,” he paused bitterly as his Battleship shuddered around him from the force of laser strikes punching through the hull before contin
uing. “So tell me what I need to do so that you can save us all, your majesty, Prince Admiral Tyrant, Sir.”
“You’re a real piece of work, you know that, Silverback?” Montagne said, his mouth working as if tasting something bitter. Inwardly, the Aegis Admiral chortled at having finally got a reaction from the insufferable should-be fool that was leading them to destruction, “Even as your own people are dying because you thought it’d be such a sweet deal to run forward like a bandit in search of loot—in open defiance of orders to the contrary—you still find the time to rant at me for not stopping you?” For a moment, Silverback felt a hot wash of shame. Even though it had been the right call at the time to push his forces forward and crush the convoy before it could get away, there was a grain of truth in the fake Admiral’s rebuke. Then his heart hardened.
“I’m not the one who ran away! But enough of this,” he said, breathing heavily as the weight of his own decisions—under order from Aegis High Command, of course—to showcase his planetary SDF’s effectiveness and ‘show up’ the pirate Admiral who’d somehow been given command in order to make a transfer of command down the road more achievable, “just tell me what you want…Sir.” He added the respect grudgingly.
“It should be simple enough even for you, Admiral Silverback,” the princeling all but sneered—at least that’s how Silverback interpreted his expression, “all I need you to do is drop as many jammers in as many different locations as you can. Contact your remaining ships and let them know to do the same. I’ll take care of the rest.”
“Jammers only work at long range,” he argued half-heartedly, “we can’t hide from them like they did from us behind their high tech stealth network. It only blocks long range sensors. There must be more to your plan than dropping a few jammers.”
“I said I’d take care of the rest,” Vice Admiral Montagne said strictly. “Handle your end and keep your people alive. Leave the rest to me.”
“You can’t—” the screen suddenly went blank. “Gaaah!” he shouted. Forcibly suppressing the urge to throw something, he glared at the blank screen where the image of that insufferable little silver-spoon used to be. “Someday you’ll get what you deserve,” he muttered, “Confederation Admiral, my foot.”
Turning to his subordinates, he glared around at no one in particular.
“Prepare to launch a jamming buoy and message the other ships in Formation 2. They are to deploy all available jammers in as wide a spread as they possibly can without endangering themselves,” he instructed, and then leaned back in his chair.
Half of his force was already gone, and his Battleships were being heavily pressured at two to one. One of his Battleships was heavily damaged and being boarded as he spoke and issued orders. Half of his Cruisers had already been incapacitated or destroyed—in short, things were not looking good.
That insufferable Montagne had better pull something out of his proverbial hat, or the entire Aegis contingent—along with their allies—was going to be destroyed.
Chapter Fifty: High Admiral Observes
“What is that fool doing?” Goddard asked with surprise. “First he sends his Corvettes deeper into the system, and now he’s turning back to help his surviving warships around Task Forces 2 and 3. Is he completely off his rocker or is there something I’m not seeing here, Admiral?”
Janeski rubbed his chin as he observed the disposition of forces. On the face of it, the Governor’s best move was to abandon those ships and strike out for the hyper limit as fast as his sniveling little feet could carry him.
The Sector 25 ‘Grand Fleet’ of his wasn’t exactly a joke. In fairness, it was no joke at all, but this would be the third so-called Grand Fleet his Reclamation Fleet had faced off against. One of these old Confederation fringe Sectors just didn’t have the hulls or firepower to face off against the fleet Janeski had built over the past years.
So while he might still be the fool, it appeared that Governor Montagne had grown something of a spine in the time since he’d last met him. The obsequious, spineless little princeling that he had left in his wake years ago—the one with a perpetual, arrogant smile plastered on his face—wouldn’t have had the starch for such a bold move.
It was bold because the best chance for any survivors of this Grand Fleet to escape this star system was to run for the hyper limit. But if a man wanted to do as much damage as he could…then coming about—like Montagne was now doing—was the only way. Linking back up with the rest of his fleet would only prolong the inevitable; this particular path would allow the locals to do as much damage as possible.
“And here I had been all but certain he would run for it,” the High Admiral sighed. Not that he’d been taken by surprise; his fleet was prepared for the locals turning and counterattacking. But it was going to increase the damage his fleet would take. Whereas, if the Governor runs then it would have been oh so much easier to hit them in the rear with laser strikes to cut down their engines and deal with them piecemeal.
“We’ll hammer them under—just like the last group of provincials,” the Flag Captain said with complete certainty.
“I agree. We just need to keep our eyes open,” Admiral Janeski warned. He had faced too many foes, and lost too many good men along the way to risk losing more to mere hubris.
While it was a surprise to see that the spineless cretin he remembered from his days with the Multi-Sector Patrol Fleet—which had made a half-hearted attempt at filling the gap left by the Rim Fleet’s departure—seemed to have found some starch somewhere ultimately it really was immaterial. One needed both brains and determination to win against an opponent of the High Admiral’s caliber. Despite seemingly having acquired the one, it was clear the little lordling had failed to acquire the other.
“Will do, Admiral,” Goddard nodded with determination to crush this latest local ‘Grand Fleet’ clear in his visage.
In a way it was almost nice to deal with an enemy with some grit in his stomach, if only to help forge his fleet into a proper fighting force. The lack of brainpower was obvious from the way that fool had walked right into the trap, and now there was no way out. Twist and turn as he might, he’d have to be a lot smarter than he appeared in order to—
There was a stir at Sensors. “The locals that are engaged with Task Forces 2 and 3’s survivors have started to drop jammers buoys, High Admiral,” that Sensor Officer said, turning with concern. “It’s obscuring the sensor feed.”
“We’re also starting to experience difficulty contacting the Task Force leaders, Sir,” reported Communications.
Admiral Janeski’s eyes narrowed. What is this? he wondered silently. “Interesting,” he rubbed his chin with one hand as he slowly observed the growing mess on the holo-display.
“That’s going to make coordinating with those two task forces difficult,” Goddard grumbled.
Janeski’s hand stilled mid-stroke of his chin. “Is that’s what he’s doing?” the High Admiral asked quietly, speaking to no one in particular.
“Sir?” Goddard inquired with surprise.
Is that what he’s doing…or, rather, attempting to do? he asked himself silently staring at the main screen. Perhaps I’ve been giving the little lordling too little credit…he mused before dismissing that particular thought.
“Admiral?” Captain Goddard asked with an unwanted trace of concern in his tone.
“It’s nothing, Captain,” the High Admiral dismissed and then gave him a penetrating look. “The Governor appears to be attempting to throw a joker onto the table, but it won’t work. He’s going to have to show me a lot more than desperation gambits if they want to survive,” he paused. “Increase the speed of the fleet to 105% of maximum.”
For a split second, a disturbed expression flittered across the Flag Captain’s face before the confidence and certainty expected of the Imperial Navy, and now Reclamation Fleet as well, settled on him once again.
“Will do, Admiral. You can count on us,” he assured Janeski.
“T
hen let’s be about it,” said High Admiral Arnold Janeski. They had a few rustics to finish winkling out.
Chapter Fifty-one: Shorthanded, and facing Budget Cuts
An old engineer stood staring at the enormous, 1800 meter long structure that would once again be the ship he had loved with all of his heart.
In his mind’s eye he could see her with perfect clarity: long, blocky, with a bulbous nose and a sheath of armor that would be second to none!
Of course, right now she looked more like a lamprey in the front due to the large, circular hole that would be the opening for her new—entirely legal, mind you—main weapon. There were no violations of the banned weapons act here, no sir; she’d be up to code for sure and certain!
“Article Seventeen of the Banned Weapons Act doesn’t apply,” he muttered belligerently.
He was interrupted from his thoughts by the sound of someone tapping away on a computer interface. “The Rail Guns & Mass Drivers Act, sir?” Bostwell sounded bewildered even as he asked the question. “What does that have to do with anything?”
The old engineer blinked, surprised to realize he had forgotten all about the younger man who’d taken to following him around like some sort of keeper. His gaze turned stormy since the most likely reason the boy had taken to tailing him closer than a burr on a good man’s shirt after a short walk in the woods was because of ‘outside’ interference.
And it was interference he was just going to have to put up with for the moment, or he’d risk setting her off again and losing the paltry number of work crews he’d managed to retain after the truncated ‘meeting’ he and Glenda had concluded during their last interaction.
“Shorthanded…and thanks to budget cuts we’ve lost all but a trickle of the new Duralloy,” he swore under his breath.
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