“Target Five just exceeded four and a half times its previous speed,” Tactical added, sounding more than a little surprised.
“Targets Two and One have increased their speeds between three and four times respectively!” Sensors declared, and then continued excitedly, “The higher speed seems to be affecting the jamming, Sir. We’re getting much better sensor penetration!”
“That won’t stop our fighter wings,” the fighter commander said confidently, “neither the jamming nor their speed are going to stop our boys and girls from making their runs and driving their attacks home.”
Zooming in for a close tactical view of the space around the nearest enemy formation showed the flickering images of warships. It was grainy and still almost impossible to see as anything other than a few big large blurs on the edge of the enemy formation, but it was a definite improvement.
“Working to resolve the sensor images,” Sensors relayed with eager tension in his voice.
“Those buoys were never intended to be mobile,” Janeski said with satisfaction.
“We’ll get you a proper image, Admiral,” said Sensors.
“Reports are coming in from the Fighter Wings,” the fighter commander said, holding a hand to his ear. “Wing One, the Screaming Eagles, report that so far all they’ve encountered are enemy Destroyers. Wing Two, the Fighting Furies, indicates initial resistance was Destroyers only but after pushing past the rear guard they laid sensors on a pair of Cruisers. Wing Three, Rage of Man, reports no sign of anything but Destroyers—the same as Wing One.” He paused, pushing in his ear bud and then looked back up at the High Admiral with a fierce expression, “Wing Four, Fist of the North Star, has just reported back on the furthest out of the enemy formations. The enemy force is comprised of an assortment of cripples and Battleships. They’ve identified at least six Battleships already. I think we’ve found them, Sir.”
Janeski’s eyes shot toward enemy formation one—the one furthest to the left of the enemy groups, as seen from the perspective of an officer with the sun to his back and ship pointed to the outside of a star system.
“Give the Fist of the North Star my compliments to their Wing for narrowing down the location of our main prey,” the High Admiral said speaking with reflection as he considered everything they knew so far. “And make sure the other Wings finish surveying the rest of the formations to the best of their abilities. I want an accurate count of the enemy forces, at least as it regards their heavier warships.”
“Will do, Admiral,” the Commander replied and then got on the horn to do just that.
“Admiral, Task Force Three just came out of the jammer field behind us and are requesting orders,” reported Comm.
“Have them detach their lighter warships and send them after the enemy groups four and five. Then turn the rest of their force toward the Group One at top speed. I want you to detach our own Cruisers and Destroyers; have them move at the best speed to continue intercepting Group Three with sufficient forces diverted to deal with the enemies’ second group. Invictus will continue with her centralized position to provide carrier support for our fighter forces, but I want our Battleships to change course and attack group one,” he ordered, thrusting a finger at the current only known force of enemy Battleships. Given the speed increases of groups two, four and five, the location of the Governor’s Battleships seemed clear.
Over the next twenty minutes, the fighters proceeded to do their bloody work and a series of ruined enemy Destroyers were cut out from formation with their engines crippled. Like dandruff falling from a dry scalp, the provincials started to falter one flake at a time.
****************************************************
“Drive it home, Red 5—drive it home!” shouted Red Squadron Leader.
“I’m going in,” cried the Red 5 Pilot, his fighter rushed forward to thread the needle that was enemy fire. The fire was intense but a moment later he saw a hole begin to form in the enemy Destroyer’s shields. With a deft twist of his fighter and a flick of the afterburners, Red 5 surged up to and through the short-lived gap in the enemy shields. The fighter’s laser cannons blasted the area, forcing the transient opening to grow a little wider with his expertly-placed shots.
“Go get ’em, Red 5!” howled Squadron Leader.
“Yeeehaw!” screamed the Pilot until his com-link started cutting out. Lasers blasting nonstop at an enemy point defense embankment, he succeeded in moving below 80% of the enemy counter-fire and survived the approach angle until he was mere meters from the hull of the enemy warship.
Flying nape of the hull, Red 5 shot out a communication array and a sensor node before reaching the stern of the ship and hurtling past.
“Take it like a provincial!” he hollered, cutting his engines and flipping his ship in a hard, 180 degree turn. Depressing the trigger, he fired off a pair of anti-ship missiles along with a rapid series of blasts from his quad-linked lasers. The salvo sent, he flipped his ship back around and red-lined his fighter’s engines to full burn.
Seeing another potential opening, he pointed his nimble craft at the rapidly-closing shield weakness and held down the trigger. Lasers thundered from his fighter in quad bursts as he tried to force the weak point back open.
He was almost out when a laser strike tagged his fighter’s stern, sending it spinning. But instead of crashing into the shields and being destroyed outright, the rapidly tumbling fighter passed through the enemy Destroyer’s shields.
“Hahaha; you did it, Red 5!” yelled the Squadron Leader.
“Good work,” said Red 2.
“I’ve seen better,” deadpanned Red 3 mockingly.
“Slam, bam, thank you, ma’am,” Red 5 chortled, unable to believe that he wasn’t dead but also unable to suppress the sheer, heart-thumping joy of being alive. Behind him, a series of delayed explosions rocked the Destroyer’s stern as its main engine literally tore itself apart, “I’d say you can take that and smoke it, Red 3! Except, of course, being an officer in this Man’s Navy such a course of action would be entirely unthinkable—”
“Oh, stuff it, you insufferable pipsqueak,” Red 3 tried to sniff, but only succeeded in snorting with laughter instead.
“Okay, the peanut gallery can lock it up for the duration,” chuckled the Squadron Leader. “Now that our target’s main engine is down, we’ll leave her for the rest of the fleet to sweep up at its leisure. We’re moving on to our next designated target.”
“Flaming locals,” cursed Red 2, “they wouldn’t know what’s good for them if it reached up and slapped them in the face half a dozen times and then handed them the winning ticket to the Stellar Lottery.”
“Just means more chances to distinguish ourselves through meritorious service!” crowed Red 5 as he ran a quick diagnostic on his craft’s drive system after seeing a series of warning lights go off on his HUD’s periphery.
“I’m afraid the only thing you’ll be distinguishing the various repair bays back at the barn. Your fighter’s looking a little extra crispy there, Red 5,” said the Red Squadron Leader, “time to fall out and let the rest of us handle this.”
“But Sir!” protested Red 5 as he worked around a pair of fuel leaks by shunting the flow from the starboard to the port system.
“You have your orders, Flyer,” the Squadron Leader said severely.
“Yes, Sir,” grumbled the irritated fighter pilot before turning his fighter around and pointing her toward the Command Carrier.
“Remember, children: every ship we force out of this provincial formation is one that won’t be around later to try stopping us from reclaiming this region of space for humanity,” said the Red Squadron Leader as Red 5 limped out of com-range.
“Haven’t seen a lot of non-humans in the area lately, Sir,” Red 3 said seriously.
“All of humanity, Red 3,” the Squadron Leader said sharply, “not just the bloated husk of the Confederation or the slack-jawed dimwits we mostly find out here who are more interested in their free health care and livi
ng wage checks than protecting humanity from alien scourges that exist beyond our borders.”
“I hear you, Sir. But again, not to put too fine a point on it,” Red 3 started, “it’s a rare world we’ve found out here in the Spine that even provides a living wage or free health care, let alone has the wealth and power to significantly contribute to the common good.”
“Social justice alone demands that everyone do their fair share, Three,” the Squadron Leader said. “If they don’t even have the funds to waste on a basic living wage or free health services then whose fault is that? The Confederation started out with more than ten times the area as the Empire, but is less than half again that size right now—f you don’t count these pitiful abandoned Sectors—has demonstrably failed humanity. No. Our duty’s clear: we will reclaim these Sectors for the good of humanity, for the good of the people living here, and for the demands of social justice which require each and every member of the human race to do his fair share!”
His point made, the Squadron leader then proceeded to lead the remainder of his squadron toward the next target on their list. It was their job—their duty!—as citizens of the Empire, to reclaim this patch of humanity. They would lift it back up—by its bootstraps if necessary—and rebuild the glory of the human race, one world at a time.
There were aliens and worse beyond the borders of known space, and it was the job of the Imperial Naval Service to ensure that humanity was ready to face that threat. No matter what the cost was to themselves, or to the slovenly ‘living wage babies’ that grew like fungus within the boundaries of Confederation space, it would to be done. For the betterment and survival of the human race, it had to be done.
Chapter Sixty-six: New Recruits – The Bad Apple
“Next,” said the bored-looking recruiter at the Belter Station Prime, located in orbit over Tracto.
“I’m here to sign up for the Fleet,” said the nondescript-looking man in well-used, generic spacer uniform.
“Lancer or general crew division?” asked the Recruiter looking up for the first time.
“General crew. I have my credentials here,” said the nondescript man, pulling out a reader chip and putting it on the desk.
The recruiter looked at the chip like it was trash. “General crew are a dime a dozen unless you have some actual experience. Do you have any experience, Mr….?” asked the Recruiter halfheartedly.
“Shrub. Nerium O. Shrub,” said the applicant.
“Alright, Mr. Shrub,” the recruiter said shaking his head, “like I said, you have any experience?”
“I can do basic comm. work and maintenance, but I’m expert rated in environmental systems. Did my time over in Wolfsbane, a small independent moon in the Omega Grion system—now part of the Border Alliance—before going independent freighter. After I cycled back through Omega Grion and heard we were part of this new Border Alliance, one thing led to another, I hopped a ride on a freighter and now I’m here. I’m ready to sign up,” he replied.
“Easy as that, ay?” said the Recruiters.
“Yes sir,” replied the applicant.
“Knock off the ‘sir’ stuff, brother—I work for living,” chuckled the recruiter.
The applicant eyed the small, cubicle office the recruiter occupied and then shrugged.
“Knock it off,” growled the recruiter, snatching up the chip and running it through the scanner. A moment later the computer chimed and the recruiter nodded. “Alright. Looks like subject to a skills verification check you’ve got yourself a job. You’re planning to go Confederation, right?”
“Right as rain,” said the applicant.
“Sure thing then,” grunted the Recruiter, “put your arm up against the scanner and we’ll take a blood sample to verify your identity in future records. Then I’ll pass you onto the quality inspection team to verify your skillset with a few written and practical tests. You may proceed,” he said, pointing to an arm cuff. The applicant paused for a second and then, with a shrug, he sat down and placed his arm in the cuff. The cuff tightened, there was a slight sting, and then it retracted and it was over.
There was another ding from the machine and the recruiter looked up. “Looks like you passed the initial screen, pending a full blood work up and verification. I’ll forward a program to your slate that will direct you to the next part of the process. Welcome to the Multi-Sector Patrol Fleet,” said the recruiter.
“You’ve been so welcoming it almost feels like I’m returning home,” smirked the applicant.
“Get out of here before I change my mind,” snapped the recruiter, waving him off.
“Not a problem,” said the applicant before heading off.
Once he was away from the recruiter, he pulled out a spare data slate from his off-duty bag, tapped out a message, and immediately after sending it pulled out the main memory chip. He broke it in half and threw both it and slate into the nearest public waste recycler.
He then moved over to a nearby station café and sat down to order a cheap meal. He was almost done with the meat when he could hear in the background a standard advertisement message which then flashed across all the screens in the café.
He gave a snort but noted a three digit and two letter string on the bottom left corner of the screen. Standing up, he picked up the remains of his meal and swept it into a recycle bin before heading off to the trade section of the station.
Walking over to the station business cubicle corresponding with the alphanumeric code on the advert, he couldn’t help but give a derisive snort before walking into the small store front.
“Hello?” asked as a woman in a long, flowing silk robe stepped out of a cloth partitions corner of the room.
“Madam Syburna’s. Really?” he asked.
“The House of Fortune and Palm Reading is surprisingly popular with the tramp freighter crews and off-duty military spacers,” she replied composedly. “You should try it sometime. I can give you a free reading but if you want a luck-changing crystal, that’s extra.”
He shook his head and tossed the woman a data chip. “Will this cover the crystal, or should I grow wings and fly home?” he asked, giving the recognition code phrase.
The fortune teller froze fractionally before picking up the chip, sliding it into her reader.
“Follow me,” she said, moving to the back corner of the room and inviting him into the cloth-covered partition.
“Sure,” he said dryly as he followed her.
“Sound-deadening fabric,” the woman smirked, gesturing to the cloth divider, “supposedly to keep the fortune reading private, but it’s ideal for conducting discrete conversations and no one in station security blinks an eye if they can’t scan through it,” she paused and then added. “The little brown fox jumps over the big log.”
“If we had houses in space, there’d be no need for airlocks,” he replied with a grimace and then added, “have you ever heard of a worse set of recognition codes?”
“I share your pain,” she said with a laugh that sounded like cymbals chiming together before turning serious again, “so tell me: how can I help you, Agent Oleander?”
“I have a date with destiny; after new fingerprints, new retinal scans and being genetically recoded, I’m eager to complete my mission. I’m sure you know how painful being genetically modified to pass security scans is, so let’s just say that after experiencing it I’m more than ready for some payback.”
“Where do you need to go?” she asked with a trace of sympathy in her voice.
“Ultimately I need to get aboard the Admiral’s flagship. But in the meantime just as close as any contacts you have can get me,” he replied.
“You missed the main fleet; they left weeks ago. Not that I could get you assigned to the flag, anyway…but I think we can do something to help get you where you need to go,” she said with a wink.
“Thanks,” he said with a sinister smile, knowing it wa
s well past time to finish his mission and redeem his former failures.
He couldn’t wait to get back to work.
Chapter Sixty-seven: The Damage is Done
“They’re coming around for another pass!” reported the Tactical Officer as Imperial Strike Fighters harried and harassed the crippled warships we had accompanying us.
They weren’t brave enough to risk the wrath of the Battleships. Not yet. Or rather, I thought grimly, not again.
“We’re losing too many ships,” I said harshly.
“The fighters are too fast,” Leonora Hammer growled, her jaw bunching even as she forced the words out.
“I know it,” I agreed.
“You picked the best plan. We couldn’t face them strength to strength. At least this way some of us will survive,” the Captain said, giving me a surprisingly sympathetic look.
My insides burned. I didn’t want sympathy or understanding. What I wanted was to save those warships. If not that then I wanted to at least save the crews, but it seemed even that was denied me. The cold, hard reality was that the fighters were too fleet of foot and our smaller warships were all the battered cripples. The fact that I’d separated them and brought them all over to the formation with the Battleships so that at least they’d have a fighting chance and not be left behind to be picked off one by one did little to assuage the sick anger in my belly.
I’d had to run before; I’d lost battles, been beaten, and even been left for dead. I had been brought so low as to find myself at the total and complete mercy of my captors, but through it all I’d never had to sit still while my own people were killed.
I realized after a moment’s stewing that my previous thought wasn’t exactly true. Memories burned into my consciousness resurfaced, and I dearly wished they hadn’t. I recalled my time in the brig of the Lucky Clover, when I’d been forced to watch over and over again as a Parliamentary Morale Officer tortured and killed my crew. They’d been dead at that time I had seen it happen, but watching it happen on the vid hadn’t made the feelings any easier. It was a time I wished I hadn’t remembered, but it did crystallize my thought processes.
Admiral's War Part One Page 37