“Sorry, sir; won’t happen again,” said the Assistant Tactical Officer.
“Good enough,” I replied.
“We’ve just been painted by the Defense Station’s targeting array, sir,” the Sensor Officer reported tensely.
“Admiral,” Steiner said alarm, “we’re being hailed by the fort. They’re demanding to know our identity and warning us to steer clear.”
“We didn’t transmit that already? Send them our Grand Fleet ID immediately and tell them we’re in hot pursuit of those Harmony warships,” I ordered.
“Transmitting now,” she replied.
“Good,” I started to turn away I needed to stay focused on what was important, saving that orbital ore processing station if at all possible.
“The Station Commander is acknowledging our identity and is ordering us to turn around and break off pursuit of the cruiser and destroyer,” Steiner relayed the message.
“Has he lost his mind?” I growled. “Put this piker up on the screen—we don’t have time for this nonsense.”
“Opening an audio-visual channel now, Admiral,” said the Lieutenant.
The image of a haggard-looking officer with a small cut on his forehead appeared on the screen.
“This is Commander Jonathan Creed of the Elysium Battle-station Archangel. Under order of the Elysium System Government, I am informing you that this is restricted space and ordering you to steer clear of this battle-station and turn around,” the Elysium Station Commander said tightly. “I say again: steer clear and reverse your course. This is your first warning.”
“This is Admiral Montagne of the…Grand Fleet,” I said, switching the words MSP for Grand Fleet at the last moment, “and I don’t have a lot of time for bureaucratic nonsense right now, Commander. In case you hadn’t noticed, there is a pair of droid warships heading straight for your trillium mines—I aim to stop them before we all have a very bad day. Please, just stand back and let me do my job.”
The Commander’s jaw tightened. “Archangel thanks you on behalf of both us here at the Forge and the sovereign star nation of Elysium, but I say again my last: reduce your speed, come about, and depart from this restricted space,” the Commander said, his voice turning cold. “If you want to help, there are a number of Mothership-class warships we could use your help with.”
“Listen here, Commander, if you lose those mines then Elysium’s economy will be crippled—not to mention that half a Sector will lose its hyper-drive fuel. If we’re lucky we can get to those Harmony ships before they cripple your economy and then we’ll turn around and face those Motherships. As an Admiral in the Grand Fleet, I’m overriding whatever standing protocols you have in place and taking command of this area until the Droids are removed from the premises,” I argued. “Acknowledge my orders at once.”
“Negative, Grand Fleet,” Commander Creed said perfunctorily, “your orders are invalid and your ship is perilously close to entering our firing arc and crossing our go-no-go red line. This is your final warning: turn your ship and return the way you came or Battle-station Archangel will fire upon you using deadly force. I have my orders, straight from Elysium High Command, and I assure you that despite appearances the situation around this moon is still under control. This is Commander Creed, Archangel Actual, out,” the SDF Commander snapped.
I slammed my fist down onto the arm rest of my newest command chair with punishing force.
“That insufferable…rule-bound…barracks lawyer!” I cursed. “That Commander is going to get a lot of good men and women killed unless we can do something about it.” Blast it all, I thought hotly, how many more good men and officers do I have to sacrifice on the altar of saving these people?!
“Is it really your duty to save these people from themselves?” Akantha asked, appearing at my elbow.
I scowled, careful to keep that expression pointed at the screen. “People are going to die because of that idiot,” I grated.
“You assume he has no plan then,” she said with a nod that seemed to agree with me. “But what is the worst that can happen if we turn aside?”
I turned and looked at her bug-eyed. “What’s the worst that could happen? Like I just told the man: their trillium extraction would be halted; this system and Sector will be thrown into economic collapse—if this invasion wasn’t enough to do the job by itself; and merchant traffic will grind to a stop. Millions, or even billions, of lives will be affected.”
“So, then, none will die save some overly prideful Elysium Defenders?” she asked, seeming to clarify.
“Akantha, I can’t just allow half a Sector’s freight trade to collapse after everything we’ve already suffered!” I pounded the arm of my chair.
“If you feel that way, I understand,” she replied after a second and I started to calm down, a steely resolve entering my mind. Then she spoke again and sent everything I’d just concluded reeling, “You have my permission to send as many caravans of freighters to this Sector, loaded with trillium ore, as are needed to save these polities from monetary ruin…for whatever proper exchange is warranted.”
My mouth opened and closed like a fish. The biggest concern I had for not risking my life by getting shot up by this Battle-station just flying the coop.
“We’d need a lot of convoy protection,” I stuttered.
“Certainly that can be arranged?” she inquired leadingly. “But, if money and fuel are the only things forcing us to help those who do not desire our help—to the point of attacking us for doing so—then I say let us turn around. There are many, and more powerful, enemy warships behind us. There is no honor lost in facing the greater foe.”
For a moment I tried to figure out what exactly was wrong with her statement, and all I could come up with was that it didn’t seem properly heroic. Which, frankly, was a pretty stupid reason for fighting our allies and risking the lives of the men and women who followed me.
“Do you want me to skirt around the edge of the defense fort, Admiral?” DuPont prompted. “If they’re going to fire on us, we would face fewer lasers if we move around them into an area only covered by defense turrets.”
“Slow us down, turn us around, or whatever you have to do, Mr. DuPont,” I ordered irritably. “If these people don’t want our help, then far be it from me to accept laser fire for the crime of trying to save their mining operation.”
“Aye aye, sir,” said DuPont.
It took a lot of work and some tricky maneuvering at the helm—which involved Lieutenant Steiner coordinating with the Battle-station Archangel and maneuvering outside of range of the station and into that of the roving defense turrets—but soon enough we had reversed course and were heading back to the battle with the Motherships. In doing so we had left the Cruiser and Destroyer free to make their attack run unimpeded while I contemplated the long term joys of economic revenge.
“United Sentient Assembly Battleship is taking fire from the Mothership. Shield penetration detected…shield collapse!” shouted the Temporary Sensor Officer. “Droid antimatter-fueled lasers have just punched through the USA Battleship’s hull!”
“Droid lasers? I do believe both sides of the current conflict we are observing are Droids, Sensors,” I said dryly, causing the Sensor Officer, who was hopping from one foot to the other on a stim-induced high to flush.
“Sorry, sir,” she apologized.
My face tightened as a Conformity laser punched through the United Sentient Assembly, or USA, Battleship’s hull, going in one side and cleanly out the other.
“USA strike fighters and gunboat wave are entering close-range attack positions!” cried the Assistant Tactical Officer.
“How long before we’re back in range, Mr. DuPont?” I demanded.
“At least another three minutes, Admiral,” replied the Helmsman.
“Too long,” I muttered, cursing myself. I should have turned around sooner instead of spending time going round and round with that Station Commander.
The USA fighters and gunboa
ts tore into the mother ships in a swirl of action. Thankfully for the United Sentient Assembly, the Conformity Motherships had already lost most of their gunboats. Every gunboat attached to a Mothership meant one more point defense laser able to be used against those fighters.
“Enemy Mothership is taking heavy fire to her engines,” exclaimed Tactical. “Two gunboats have just destroyed one of another Mothership’s main anti-matter lasers!”
The tally of punch, and counterpunch, increased as the lighter warships of the United Sentient Assembly came out from the Battleship’s shadow and entered attack range.
A pair of Motherships went down, and then a third was destroyed by the relentless attack by the USA.
I was so caught up in the action and, straining against my seat to will us to reenter the fight more quickly, that I almost missed the two Harmony warships entering lunar orbit over the trillium mines. They were mere minutes away from laser range of the ore processing station when they opened fire on the surface.
I felt my guts twist in knots at the thought of millions, or billions, of credits in losses but I was cut off mid-recrimination by multiple tracks erupting from the surface.
“Missile launch!” yelped the temporary Sensor Officer. “I’m reading over three hundred unique contacts rising from the surface of the moon!”
The Harmony warships must have been seeing the same things we were, because they immediately stopped firing and started blasting away from the moon at top speed—which, for the cruiser, wasn’t nearly as much as it needed.
It must have realized its fate because it had barely started to blast away from the moon when it suddenly cut its engines and rotated back around until its broadside was again facing the moon.
The cruisers’ main weaponry once again started striking at surface targets while its point defense lasers started targeting missiles. However, after its initial flurry, the Droids’ point defense lasers started over heating and it was obvious that a single cruiser had no chance of stopping the overwhelming missile attack.
Meanwhile, the Destroyer was clearly alert to the probable fate of its counterpart and it adjusted its course for an attack run on the orbital processor.
Missiles slammed into the Cruiser one after another, while even more thundered past it and attempted to intercept the Destroyer—
“Entering attack range on the Motherships,” reported the Assistant Tactical Officer.
No longer able to justify merely observing the fate of the most valuable piece of property in this Sector of space—upon which the survival billions of lives hung in the balance—I turned back to the battle at hand.
“As soon as we enter range, present them our broadside and have Gunnery fire at will,” I ordered calmly.
“The Motherships are ignoring us, Admiral. They are continuing to focus on the USA battleship,” reported Assistant Tactical.
“Make them bleed, guns,” I said savagely.
“Turning to present our broadside, sir,” DuPont acknowledged, the desire for revenge evident in his voice.
“Fire!” ordered Assistant Tactical.
First one weapon fired, then a second, and finally every laser in our broadside opened fire on the four surviving Motherships. It wasn’t a well-coordinated attack like I was used to seeing from our increasingly experienced gunnery departments—first on the Lucky Clover, and then on the Furious Phoenix—but with four straight-up-the-kilt shots at their unprotected engines, they didn’t have to be.
Within minutes, the droid shields were down and my ‘new’ Battleship had eliminated their ability to move. It was only a matter of time, at that point.
“Gunboats launching from surviving Mothership #2; I’m reading twenty of the things,” reported Assistant Tactical, “USA fighters are moving to intercept…Mothership #3 just lost her engines; fifteen boats launched. That’s all of them, Admiral—all Motherships’ engines have been destroyed!”
“Keep up the good work, Tactical,” I said with a grim smile. “You are ordered to keep attacking those Motherships until their ability to fight has also been destroyed. However, if you see the opportunity for a boarding action, please coordinate with Lady Akantha.”
At the mere mention of a possible boarding action, I could all but hear my wife’s attention focusing on the Assistant Tactical Officer. However much I disliked the idea of my wife heading back into combat once again, I couldn’t help the notion that I might be able to introduce something unexpected back home in Sector 25 if I had a gunboat carrier or two that were disguised as cruisers…not to mention reverse-engineering those antimatter-pumped lasers.
However, neither of those were my main consideration for opening up the idea of a boarding action. If I knew my girl—and I did—the best way to distract her was to wave red meat in front of her face, and she’d charge after it like a greyhound after a rabbit. That would allow me to safely get her out of the range of the even greater danger I was considering throwing our surviving forces at.
Current combat situation taken care of for the minute, I took a moment to look back at the battle over the moon of the Forge. The station was damaged, having received serious fire to its port side but, other than an expanding debris field, there was no sign of the Harmony Destroyer.
Activating my tablet, I pulled up the last few minutes of sensor readings around the Forge. With our Sensors department so shorthanded, I was left with a lot of raw data but that was okay. Rewinding the feed from a single sensor, I watched as the Harmony first approached the Ore Processing Station, opened fire causing major damage and, within seconds, was pulverized by a massive overkill of planet-based missiles.
I slumped in my seat. The droids had managed to damage, but not totally kill, the trillium processing and mining operation on the moon.
Begrudgingly, I decided that maybe Commander Jonathan Creed of the Battle-station Archangel might not be as stupid as I originally thought. A fool, yes, but completely lacking in higher intelligence functions? No.
Rubbing a weary hand over my forehead, I took a moment of near exhaustion tinged relief to rest from my worries. It was a testament to how tired I was that I didn’t even care that we were technically still engaged in active combat operations, our lasers actively firing on the stranded Motherships and blasting gunboats out of cold space.
A hand landed on my shoulder.
“You look ready to collapse,” Akantha said quietly.
“I feel about ready to,” I replied, lacing my fingers through hers and then looking up into her eyes, “how are you holding up?”
“I am well enough; the little ones inside are safe,” she said, reaching down and guiding my hand until it was over her power-armored belly.
I, of course, couldn’t feel anything but the gesture itself was heartwarming.
“Mayhap you should consider taking one of those stim-patches,” she offered almost solicitously.
“I’ll think about it,” I said, every bone in my body resistant to the idea that I needed help. Unfortunately, all those bones were being actively opposed by all my aching muscles and joints—which wanted nothing more than for me to collapse into a bed—and I was reminded that, technically speaking, I should have been recuperating in a hospital bed and not leading warships into combat aboard a captured Battleship. “You know what…maybe you’re right,” I continued with a sigh.
“I know I am,” she said with a hint of that stiff, unbending, warrior princess attitude that I’d come to rely on. Then her tone changed, as she leaned down closer to take a look at me, “Your eyes are red and the circles under them look more like bruises than anything else.”
“Thanks,” I said wryly.
“If you need me to stay here, I can,” she said grudgingly, “we do not need you collapsing in your seat at the height of the battle.”
My eyes widened with alarm and I quickly grabbed her hand. “If it means the difference between capturing even one more gunboat or warship, I don’t want you to stay here on my account. Who knows how long it will be be
fore you’ll have another chance at some action?” I said, looking down significantly at the growing section in her middle.
Akantha flushed with irritation and then her expression softened—probably at the thought I cared so much about her that I would encourage her to go off and get herself killed. If I knew my girl—and I think I’ve established by now that I did—she would view it as a wholly romantic gesture.
Little did she know that my concern was that she would stay here with me and possibly be exposed to an even greater danger. Better if she was off dealing with a few shell-shocked droid survivors than what I had planned.
She leaned down and gave me a quick kiss on the forehead, for all the world acting like a girl who’d just received a bouquet of flowers. “I will not forget this,” she said graciously before hurrying off.
“I’ll bet you won’t,” I said with a faint smile. It was always nice when a plan came off without a hitch.
I waited until Akantha and her team were heading back down to the shuttle bays, and the bridge team finally ordered a stand-down of the Battleship’s weapons, before turning to Lisa Steiner.
“New orders to Commodore Druid and Captain Archibald,” I instructed.
The Lieutenant blinked and it took a few seconds for her turn look back at me with understanding in her eyes. Clearly, I wasn’t the only one on the end of his rope. But, like a trooper, the diminutive Caprian woman rallied.
“Whenever you’re ready, sir,” she said, straightening up in her chair and looking at me with something resembling crispness.
“Archibald and Druid: you are ordered to finish securing the area around your ships and neutralizing any remaining enemy threats to the best of your ability. Capture, secure, or destroy anything you can and isolate, or move away from, anything you cannot. You are then to consolidate everything under your command, including any damaged or undamaged ships of the MSP or Grand Fleet,” I instructed and then chopped my hand to indicate the message was done.
Steiner nodded. “Message sent,” she reported a moment later.
“Next message is to be a general hail, using Grand Fleet encryption,” I said, and then waited until she was ready before continuing. “To all undamaged MSP or Grand Fleet ships within the Jovian Sub-System, this is Admiral Montagne. Any ship that is combat capable and not otherwise engaged in emergency rescue operations,” I began, thinking, there, that should cover Druid, Archibald and anyone else they managed to rope in as well as anyone trying to recover escape pods from a fellow ship, “are hereby instructed on my authority as a Confederation Admiral to join my Flagship at these coordinates.” I looked down and quickly selected an area just outside the Jovian as my rally point, “Rendezvous there within the next half hour. Anyone who cannot make it to the rally point within that time frame is directed to fall back on the Forge for joint defense and emergency repair operations.”
Admiral Invincible (A Spineward Sectors Novel: Book 7) Page 42