Admiral Invincible (A Spineward Sectors Novel: Book 7)

by Luke Sky Wachter

  “But of course,” I said wryly, “you didn’t think the ‘Little Admiral’ went into this fight without an ace or three up his sleeve, did you?”

  “Of course not, sir,” Tactical said—not entirely convincingly.

  I suppressed a scowl. “I find your lack of faith disturbing,” I chided the bridge at large.

  Several tense minutes passed, but no Destroyers materialized.

  “Let them try to find us in that,” I whispered, looking out at the jamming field’s overlay on the main screen moments before that same field’s integrity flickered. The main screen momentarily populated with vessel icons before immediately going fuzzy from the jamming once again.

  “Someone took out a jammer satellite, but another one started up and took over the jamming field almost as soon as the first one stopped transmitting,” Tactical said with something like respect in his eyes—and voice—as he looked at me.

  “Of course,” I said playing it off as if I knew and was in complete control of Commodore Druid’s system, “I have very skilled support personnel in this fleet.”

  “Sir, although the enemy is blind, part of the reason we escaped their high-speed pincer maneuver. We are now just as blind as they are,” Tactical reported in a respectful voice.

  “We are, are we?” I said with affected surprise. “Well, let’s see what we can do to fix that.” I pulled up a file and then transferred it to the Tactical Section earmarked for the chief tactical officer and carbon copied to Lieutenant Steiner the head Comm. Officer.

  “In the file are the most probable locations of a series of relay drones, and the frequency they are programmed to recognize and respond to,” I said with a smile.

  “Uh, Admiral,” said the Tactical Officer, “our communications are jammed.”

  Steiner nodded in agreement.

  “Most communications,” I agreed, “but not whisker lasers. We can still engage in point to point communications—so long as we know where the receivers are located,” I finished smugly.

  Let the droids chew on that and smoke it, I thought with satisfaction.

  Chapter 32: A Sacrifice, made not in vain

  We were playing an elaborate game of cat and mouse, with only limited contact with the outside world due the data limits on the relay drones. But I was willing to wager that we were doing a darned sight better in that regard than the Droids we’d suckered into my jamming network.

  I much preferred to be the hunter over the hunted, I thought as Steiner stiffened in her chair.

  “I’m receiving a transmission from the Battleship Defiance, of the Grand Fleet Battleships, Admiral,” she said. “I’m pretty sure you’re going to want to see this.”

  “Alright,” I said, “put it up on the screen.”

  On the screen appeared the jolly old Commodore from the Fleet meetings. His uniform was damaged and torn, and a trail of blood ran from a superficial scalp wound, and I noted that he was brandishing a blaster pistol in his offhand.

  The Commodore and his Battleship had been knocked out of commission—and out of communication—for well over an hour.

  “This is Commodore Thadeus Mathew Douringcourt the Third, of the Battleship Defiance! We had to fight our way down to Main Engineering after they cut the main control lines to the bridge,” shouted the Commodore. In the background, swearing, yelling, the pounding of feet against the deck, and the sound of sporadic blaster fire could be heard. “What we do now, we do so that our families—including my own—will never have to labor under the merciless judgment of the Cost Benefit Ratio.”

  The Commodore tapped something out just under the field of the screen’s pick up.

  “Admiral, the Defiance’s thrusters just went active…they’re pushing her away from the other battleships!” exclaimed a Sensor Operator, who could see the drama taking place from the images on the main screen just as easily as I.

  “It has been my greatest honor to serve in this Fleet, the Grand Fleet of the MDL. Please tell my family that I love them!” he said, stabbing his finger into another button. Behind the Commodore, the sounds of chaos and confusion increased as multiple individual voices began babbling.

  “It’s not working,” someone cried off screen.

  “We’re going to have to do it manually!” screamed a second.

  The Commodore cursed, and eyes widening he turned and fired his hand blaster pistol into something off screen.

  “The Defiance has just moved outside the blast radius of a drive core overload,” cut in Tactical.

  Behind the Commodore, a mechanical arm wielding a vibro-blade appeared before unceremoniously slashing him in the neck.

  Several women—and a pair of men—on the Phoenix’s bridge choked off screams or yelps of surprise.

  Holding up a hand to stop the sort of bleeding that just couldn’t be stopped, the Commodore staggered. Rallying, Commodore Thadeus Mathew Douringcourt the Third, of the Battleship Defiance, fired several more shots and then fell on his side just at the edge of the screen’s pick up and expired.

  The screen’s image turns sideways, and was accompanied by the screams of men and the clomping of droid feet before the feed went silent and black.

  “Poor blighters,” Laurent sounded shaken.

  “Too bad they failed; they almost had it,” I said woodenly, my face as stiff and unmoving as if it made of stone.

  “That’s cold, sir,” Laurent muttered.

  “Cold?” I asked hotly, the question as well as the questioning itself igniting my sudden anger to a raging fury, “No. Wishing an attempt to take your enemies out with your success is not cold, especially not when those enemies are overrunning all the worlds of your home Sector. Cold is not wishing them success with every fiber of your being!”

  “I wasn’t attempting to denigrate their sacrifice—” Laurent protested, but I cut him off with a chop of my hand.

  A split second later, the icon representing the Battleship Defiance blinked and then changed to represent that a core overload had taken place.

  Silence fell over on the Phoenix’s bridge.

  “It looks like they only got one of the five fusion reactors to self-destruct, Admiral. The damage was enough to destroy the battleship and those gunboats attached to her, however,” reported Tactical.

  “They sold themselves dear,” I said quietly and then bowed my head, wondering if I would have the courage and intestinal fortitude to destroy my ship via core overload if we were about to be overrun. Where there was life, there was hope, but to be taken prisoners by evil droids…the closest comparison I had was Jean Luc and my time in durance vile. I knew, in that moment as I looked at the Defiance’s death throes, that I wouldn’t willingly go through worse than that.

  But I knew it was time to move past this latest blow to our Grand Fleet. The sacrifice had been made, and now it was up to the rest of us to make sure it had not been made in vain.

  My head snapped around, “DuPont, take us to the edge of the Jammer field,” I ordered sharply, “someone find me those Droids!”

  “On it, Admiral,” chimed the Sensor Warrant, while DuPont wordlessly gunned the engines.

  For a moment I considered dropping the jammer field and finding out just exactly where the Droids were. After all, I could turn it back on with the flip of a switch. But seeing clearly was a two way street: if I could see them then they could certainly see me, and right the nit was more important that I get the MSP into position than it was to know just exactly where everything was.

  I smiled wolfishly. Win or lose these Droids—and their human traitor allies—were going to know they were in a fight!

  Chapter 33: Closing on the Enemy

  “When will we reach the end of this infernal jammer?” I murmured mutinously. Well, as mutinously as the man who led the Multi-Sector Patrol Fleet and had ordered said jammer system set up.

  “We should be clear in three minutes, Admiral,” reported Captain Laurent.

  “Very good,” I said feeling as if it were anythi
ng but good.

  “Contact!” cried a Sensor Operator. “I have a sensor ghost twelve degrees off the starboard bow, running a parallel course!”

  My heart lurched in my chest.

  “Shall I close or pull away, Admiral,” asked DuPont shortly.

  “How big is she, Sensors?” I demanded.

  “Can’t say, sir; the jamming makes it impossible to tell,” reported the Sensor Warrant.

  To fight or run away, the decision was mine and potentially the fate of not just the ship, but the entire MSP, rested on my decision. My face hardened—this was why they paid me the big bucks.

  “Damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead, Mr. DuPont,” I ordered savagely. “New orders, Ms. Steiner: the fleet is to follow behind, but they to ensure that they stay outside of range of that Battleship. If necessary, the Admiral’s Gift is to close the distance to maintain comm. linkage.”

  “Full speed, Admiral!” DuPont said happily.

  “Orders relayed, sir,” added Steiner.

  “Call down to the shuttles and tell them now is the time; they are to launch as soon as feasible and take up station in our sensor shadow, placing the Phoenix between them and the enemy contact,” I ordered.

  “Aye, sir,” Laurent said sharply.

  “Someone call over to the Lancers on the portside and tell them it’s time they went out on the hull; this could be a hot insertion and we may need jumpers. If so, I want them ready,” I said quickly.

  “What if this is just a Destroyer, sir?” Laurent asked as soon as he was done relaying the orders to the shuttles.

  “Then there’s no harm done and they’ll most likely veer off,” I replied without rancor, since it really wasn’t a bad question. “Helm, make sure we keep the starboard side presented to the enemy contact unless and until I give you orders otherwise.”

  “Aye, Admiral,” said DuPont.

  “And if they’ve stayed together like we did and this is just the leading edge of the traitor’s squadron?” Laurent asked, sounding worried.

  My blood ran cold and then hardened into a block of ice lodged in my stomach.

  “Then we’d better pray that Gunnery is up to its job, and the port side Lancers probably won’t be landing on the same ship as the shuttles,” I said flatly.

  “Enemy ship just confirmed to be a Battleship!” cried the Sensor Warrant.

  “Sir, I’m picking up another ghost contact,” cut in one of the Sensor Operators.

  “I’ve got two more contacts on my screen,” shouted yet a third member of the Sensor Pit.

  “Supercharging the shields now,” reported Longbottom.

  This was going to get rough.

  Chapter 34: Down on the Gun Deck

  Lesner glared down at the readout in his gun sight. It was a Battleship, plain and simple, and they were approaching far too fast for his comfort.

  And that just wasn’t fair. The ‘Battleship’ part, that is, not the speed. He could compensate for the closure rate. But like his old Chief told him back when he was a new rate, fair was for sissies and lawmakers—it had no application to the lives of real men. Still, all fairness aside, they should have known better than to sneak up on him without warning, flaunting the fact they were a Battleship while he was still ramrodding the deck of a small Cruiser.

  It was time they shared his pain.

  “Do you hear me, Chief Gunner?!” shouted the First Officer in his ear-bud. “I want their shields annihilated; I want them so full of holes that a fleet of hover busses could slip through it. Our Lancers are dying to get their chance at the hull of that Battleship. Do you feel me, Gun Chief?” roared the First Officer, thumping and banging on his microphone for emphasis as was his custom.

  “Loud and clear,” Chief Gunner Lesner lied, for in truth he’d learned several engagements earlier to turn down the feed from Tactical whenever the First Officer was anywhere near a microphone on the bridge.

  “And another thing—” started the First Officer.

  “You’re breaking up, sir. Wait one while I transfer you to another line,” Lesner said, and with the flick of a switch the overly high-strung First Officer was connected to the port side Deck Chief. Tactical could still reach him via text, but he had his orders and didn’t need anyone jogging his elbow right now.

  “Here we go baby,” he said lining up his turbo-laser for a shot. Reaching up with his offhand, he flicked the switch to put him on the overhead. “This is the Chief Gunner; our boys down in the Lancer contingent need themselves an engraved invitation to the party. So let’s make some holes and engrave that invitation on the side of the traitor’s hull.”

  The gun deck gave a cheer.

  “And if either side, Port or Starboard, knocks me out a Battleship shield generator, that side gets fifty gallons of beer and my permission to graffiti the Lancer Quarters with leftover hull paint from our last refit at Gambit while they’re still off the ship!”

  If anything, the cheers got even louder to the point of being deafening, as the thought of beer and open permission to deface the quarters of their Lancer rivals took hold and fired the men’s imaginations to a fevered pitch.

  It was a dirty trick to play on the Lancers, hitting their quarters while they were in the middle of combat, and Lesner knew it. A man’s living space ought to be safe from his comrades while he was out in the black risking his life for the ship. On the other hand, three weeks of nothing but algae ration bars and beansprouts for two meals a day—thanks to the general Tracto-an insistence on non-edible flowers, plants and hideous shrubbery in celebration of the Lady Akantha’s pregnancy—had taken its toll.

  Of course, that’s not to say that he hadn’t sent a few shrubs—carefully selected by his Tracto-an gunner, Heirophant—over to the Lady on behalf of Gunnery. After all, if they were stuck eating algae bars and beansprouts anyway, they might as well follow whatever forms would best make the women folk happiest.

  But, just like defacing quarters during combat simply wasn’t done, messing with a man’s food supply on a closed system like a warship was beyond the pale and deserved an appropriate reply and this should send the proper message. “Nobody messes with the ’Deck,” he growled.

  Then there was no more time for lollygagging as the Battleship was in his sights—he had a turbo-laser just itching to fire, and he thankfully received the fire order from Tactical.

  Lesner pulled the triggers and bellowed wordlessly as his weapon drilled into the shields of the enemy Battleship, “C.S.S. Phoenix, and the MSP!!” he screamed after his first barrage had struck home.

  Chapter 35: Coming to Grips

  Like an out-of-control hover-convertible, the Furious Phoenix came screeching up alongside the enemy Battleship. Mere moments earlier we had come within range of the enemy ship and cut loose with everything we could throw at it.

  You could tell the moment we came within plasma cannon range, because even though they weren’t very effective against shields they immediately started targeting the enemy warship, throwing out a hailstorm of plasma balls that fuzzed up the screen and threatened to occlude our view of the space between our ship and theirs.

  “Enemy Battleship responding; we’re taking fire,” reported Tactical.

  “Shields are down to 95% and falling, Admiral,” Longbottom reported crisply, “82%…76%, 72%, sir!” he continued to call out the damage in a steady, yet clearly excited voice.

  “Can you hear me?” Eastwood screamed at someone on the other side of his hard line link down to the Gun Deck.

  “I’m reading multiple contacts. It’s the entire Battleship Squadron—and accompanying Heavy Cruisers!” cried the Senor Officer.

  “Prepare to take us right between these two Battleships on the outer edge of their formation on my order, DuPont,” I ordered, thrusting my finger out as if he had the time and inclination to figure out exactly where I was pointing at.

  But, fortunately, he knew right were to take us and aimed the ship right where I wanted.

  “Ho
w are those Battleship’s shields doing, Tactical?” I demanded.

  “Still holding strong, sir,” reported a Sensor Operator, “we’re only getting limited punch through from the turbo-lasers.”

  “Their targeting seems to have been thrown off by the plasma balls,” Laurent mused tightly. “Between the plasma cannons and the jammers, they’re having a harder time lining up proper shots than I would have expected.”

  “Are our computers having trouble lining up shots, Tactical? Because, judging by our hit ratios on their shields, it doesn’t look like it,” I demanded.

  “They are but our gun crews are easily able to compensate for the interference,” he reported, his brow furrowing. “Either their computers are a lot worse than ours, or their crews must be pretty green because they’re not compensating nearly as well as our gun crews.”

  “Shields are down to 40% and spotting,” Longbottom reported tensely, “do you want me to compensate from the port side?”

  “Negative, Ensign,” I said firmly, “we’re going to need those shields later.

  “Enemy Battleships are lining up and maneuvering to get a shot around their comrade,” reported Tactical.

  “Port shields are starting to take fire from the Battleships you want us to shoot between out here on the edge of their formation, Admiral,” DuPont said. “If you want us to perform your maneuver, it needs to be soon, sir.”

  “Just a little more time…we need to take down those shields,” I growled.

  Laurent hurried over. “I see what you’re trying to do but we can’t stand toe-to-toe with a Battleship, sir. We must withdraw,” insisted my Flag Captain in a rising voice.

  “Never!” I shouted. “This is our chance—maybe our only one—we can’t let it slip through our fingers.”

  “Admiral!” Laurent protested.

  “Sir, your orders?” called the Helmsman.

  “Hold,” I yelled over to DuPont. I’d been driven away when the Battleships of the Grand Fleet needed me once before—I wasn’t going to let myself be called off yet again. Not this time, I swore silently.