Admiral's Nemesis Part II

by Luke Sky Wachter

  “I know you have a list of all the old Confederation Fleet officers. Contact them,” he said.

  “What do you want me to say?” asked Fritters.

  Front Admiral Featherby stared off into the distance. “Our chain of command just went up in flames and most of the Glorious Fleet leadership aren’t worth the paper their commissions are printed on. Tell them we could use their help. Tell them that the Spineward Sectors aren’t worth dying over. Tell them…instead say that if Cornwallis wants the Spine he should just go and do the dirty work himself,” said the Front Admiral.

  Fritters sucked in a surprise breath. “Treason,” he said. taken aback.

  “The truth,” Featherby corrected simply, “my loyalty is to the Confederation, not the Empire.”

  “But will the Grand Assembly understand? That’s the question,” said the Commodore.

  The Front Admiral shrugged, “I’m almost past caring. Almost.”

  “Hurry, Praetor! We’ve got to get you to a shuttle,” cried the head of his Marine guard detail.

  Cornwallis nodded gripping his blaster pistol.

  Ahead of them, Marines in power armor discharged their weapons as they fought hand to hand with the Bug invaders.

  Like an unstoppable army, the Marine Jacks of the Empire bulled their way forward literally crushing six foot tall Bugs under their feet, the crab-like arms of the Bugs completely ineffective against their armor.

  But while their attacks might be useless at penetrating the Imperial Predator battle armor, the sheer number of six footers slowed them down considerably, allowing the three footers running up the walls and hanging upside down from the ceiling the opportunity to deploy their cut-wheels at close range.

  The sound of multiple high-power saws digging into the armor of the Marines filled the air, and then a group of the insects surged up the corridor toward the Praetor. Their mandibles clacked and their cut-wheels spun to life as they caught sight of the unarmored Senator.

  “Die, you foul creatures,” Cornwallis said with cold fury. He depressed the trigger of his blaster pistol again and again as the tide of little three footers surged toward him, “I will not die here today.”

  There was a smashing sound as a large boarding Bug forced its way deeper into the hull and then grabbed an Imperial Marine with its mandibles. One clenching of its jaw and the Marine was cut in half, power armor and all.

  The Senator clenched his own jaw and kept firing.

  “I do not die like this,” he roared, firing again and again until his weapon shot empty.

  Fumbling at his belt, he produced a new power cell.

  Breaking open his blaster, he dropped the old power cell onto the floor.

  “I have too many things to do to die here,” he said angrily.

  He had just pushed the new cell into the butt of his blaster pistol, and was about to seal it back closed when a three footer dropped from the ceiling.

  The head of his Marine detail swatted the first one away, crushing it into paste. A split second later a second, struck in the leg by a Marine guard, fell from the floor with its cut-wheel tracing a line of fire down his leg as a saw designed to cut duralloy severed all but the last two inches of Cornwallis' leg below the knee.

  “Gah!” shouted the Senator, falling to the floor with blood spewing from his stump.

  “Protect the Praetor!” cried a Marine, throwing himself on top of Cornwallis right before another dozen three footers dropped from the ceiling.

  More guards joined the dog-pile to protect the Senator, protecting the vast majority of his body. Unfortunately, the little three footers were fast and nimble and, in addition to trying to cut through the metal bodies of the Marines, the little things especially delighted in cutting into everything that could provide fresh biomass for its swarm—biomass like a hand, or a foot that wasn’t covered quickly by power-armored body guards, for instance.

  Blood splattered across the deck and saws continued to whine as the little three footers chattered out their death cries. The noise of their passing all but drowned out the animal-like howls of one of the most powerful men in the Empire—and in all of human space—were soon joined by the frantic cries of his bodyguards.

  Those howls soon began to weaken and, despite the best the Marine Jacks could do, eventually fell silent.

  Like a firestorm we burst through the center of the enemy fleet, our formation pointed at the Imperial flotilla like a sword's tip.

  To my surprise, the majority of the Old Confederation warships scurried away the moment our main fleet entered attack range.

  “They have us completely outnumbered. All they have to do is attack. They wouldn’t even have to coordinate the attack, they’d take major losses but they’d win in the end,” said my Chief of Staff with evident surprise.

  “Too many police actions? Maybe they’re not used to an enemy that fights back?” First Officer Snyder wondered aloud.

  “We’re missing something but I am not about to look a gift horse in the mouth,” I commented, thinking that after the Command Carrier was attacked the Glorious Fleet of Liberation almost seemed to become paralyzed. Individual task force commanders had taken action and tried to stop us once we’d come in range of their forces, but so far nothing resembling a unified command had shown itself.

  “Do you want the main fleet to change course and engage the Old Confederation warships, Grand Admiral?” Hart asked eagerly.

  “The main thing is to hit the Imperials. We can worry about the Glorious Fleet afterwards. Besides, Druid’s in operational command right now,” I opined.

  “Yes, Sir,” my Tactical Officer sounded disheartened.

  In the area immediately surrounding the Bug Motherships, the Imperial Flotilla seemed to have gained the upper hand, cutting one of the Motherships in half right across the middle and punching so many holes right through two more that they just drifted like lifeless wrecks, leaking Bug fluids into space while remaining completely unresponsive as lighter warships continued to pound their lighter broadsides into its body.

  The three remaining Motherships, the largest of the group, were clearly suffering. The Planetoid also looked significantly worse for the wear and was missing a large chunk off the bottom third of its sphere, but it also looked infuriated with more than five hundred lasers and a slow but steady stream of fire and forget missiles being shot off its hull.

  The battle hadn’t been going all the Imperial’s way. More than half of the Imperial Battleships were down, destroyed or so seriously damaged that they were attempting to withdraw from the field.

  While more than thirty of the smaller Imperial flotilla’s warships were doing their best to fight off boarders, an almost unending stream of Bugs surged onto the Command Carrier. Normally a Command Carrier could deal with anything that attacked with the full brigade of Marine Jacks. Entire continents could be subjugated with expert deployment of those Imperial Marines.

  Repelling half a million Bugs was another matter entirely.

  The Spineward Sectors Fleet had almost reached the Bugs and the Imperial flotilla surrounding the Command Carrier, which was still stuck in the mouth of the Bug Planetoid, when the old Confederation Fleet suddenly took action.

  Although roughly half of the six hundred plus ships of the fleet continued to mill around, or slowly back away from the battle, the other three hundred broke into two distinct groups.

  The first group of just over one hundred warships began to pull away from the battle and assembled into a fighting formation. The other group of more than two hundred didn’t even pretend at making discipline, formed up into a large mass of warships, and rushed toward the main body of the Spineward Sectors Fleet.

  “Open a channel to Commodore Druid,” I instructed.

  “Channel open,” said Steiner.

  “Admiral Montagne,” Druid said the moment the channel was open.

  “Commodore, it’s urgent the fleet make a high speed attack through the Imperial flotilla and then swing back around
for another pass as quickly as possible,” I instructed.

  “I can do that,” he said slowly.

  “Good. Remember: don’t get bogged down, exchange fire and punch through,” I instructed.

  Druid nodded. “Sir. The Royal Rage is lagging badly behind and you only have less than a dozen escorts. Do you want me to try and detach a group of Cruisers to protect you?” he asked.

  “Run the numbers, Commodore,” I said dismissively, “anyone you tried to send would be overrun.

  “Then what about yourself?” he asked.

  “Worst case, it’s off to an escape pod for me. I’m not concerned,” I said.

  “You should be, Sir,” he told me. I gave him a stern look as he continued, “The level of outrage over your use of what they term ‘biological weapons of mass destruction’ is so bad that a number of ships have taken to spouting abuse at us over unencrypted lines,” warned Druid, “normally escape pods would be sacrosanct, but if they believe we’ve committed war crimes anything’s possible.”

  “You mean if they believe I’ve committed warcrimes,” I shook my head, “that’s rich, considering it was Imperials that seeded the Spine with these creatures to begin with.”

  Commodore Druid gave me a sharp look. “You have proof of this?” he asked.

  “Nothing that will hold up in an interstellar court, but their fingerprints are all over it if you know where to look,” I said.

  “That’s not going to help in this situation,” he warned.

  “I wouldn’t expect it to. But someone knew about the trillium and took Tracto off the map in the last century rather than exploit its wealth, and as soon as Rim Fleet and the Imperials withdrew from the Confederated Empire somehow the Empire immediately used Admiral Janeski and third party proxies to seize control of Tracto. The timing is too precise for coincidence,” I said.

  “I don’t think they’re going to care even if you told them exactly what you told me,” said Druid.

  “Of course not. It doesn’t matter,” I said making a slashing motion, “just make the attack, clear the area and come back and finish them.”

  “Even with the Lucky Clover and her escort’s support, I don’t think we’re going to be able to handle both the Imperials and the two hundred Confederation warships coming at us from the starboard flank—and those Imperial fighters aren’t going to just magically go away,” said Druid said grimly, “right now it looks like they’re going to all hit us at the same time.”

  I shot the Commodore a look, “Trust me.”

  “Aye aye,” said Druid before saluting and then cutting the channel.

  On the screen, the main fleet continued to advance and with enemies at the side, front and rear they tightened formation right before it entered attack range.

  Then the screen erupted with laser fire.

  It was a three way engagement with the MSP and her allies taking fire from the front and the side, all at the same time, before our own weapons could be brought to bear.

  Imperial ships temporarily turned away from the Bugs to present their broadsides, and then immediately opened fire. The two hundred Confederation warships attacked in an enthusiastic but uncoordinated barrage. Lasers struck, shields flared, and the First Fleet of the Spine was heavily outnumbered as well as out-gunned. Worse, our weapons had only just begun to range on the first of the spread-out Imperial warships.

  On our side, a dozen Destroyers were disabled and two Battleships fell out of formation streaming atmo and suffering power failures during the first attack as the Empire focused fire on just a few ships. The Old Confederation warships of the Glorious Fleet, on the other hand, spread out their fire much less effectively. It was only up to the point that their heavy warships focused fire on our heavy warships and its light warships did the same and focused on our smaller ships.

  With our noses pointed forward, we had to suffer through the first pass but when the first of the Imperial fleet’s warships came up alongside our ships the fleet opened fire. Broadsides smashing out both sides of our ships the Multi-Sector Patrol Fleet and our allies opened up with thunder and fury.

  With Battleships and Cruisers opening fire on Imperial Destroyers, it didn’t matter how effective your regenerative shields were. In the face of overwhelming firepower, a dozen Imperial Destroyers went up in flames.

  The Empire rolled its ships and opened fire with another broadside. Another pair of Battleships fell out of formation as nearly the entire flotilla concentrated fire on a trio of our Battleships, while the third almost seemed to shrug off the attacks and barreled forward.

  Beside and to the rear, the Confederation fleet sensed blood in the water and more than half their fleet turned to present broadsides for off-angle up-the-kilt shots while the rest continued to pursue at all speed.

  Once again, the firing was erratic and only a handful of Destroyers and Corvettes were knocked out of the fight, while three Battleships took significant damage to their engines.

  Then our fleet was in the heart of the enemy formation, and both the Imperials and the giant Bug Sphere seemed to recognize our people as enemies. With the Bugs adding their weight of fire to that of the Imperials, our number of active warships fell below one hundred and seventy.

  Meanwhile, fighters of all shapes and sizes took advantage of the chaos and spotting in our shields to slip in and do even more damage to our engines. There were so many fighters and at such close range that even more ships began to drop out due to engine damage.

  In response, our forces opened fire with a fury and once again an incredibly powerful double broadside opened up thinning out the Empire’s forces. Between the Bugs and us, the Imperial fleet now had just over eighty warships remaining—just thirteen of them Battleships.

  Then we flashed past them and the flotilla was turning to try for an up the kilt shot. In response, First Fleet turned to point their noses at the Imperials and slow down for a return pass.

  Chapter 63: Vantage of the Battlefield

  “Captain Spalding, we’re receiving a signal on an open frequency,” reported the First Officer.

  “Let me see it,” said the old Engineer who then smiled after reading it, “upload the code for our remaining jammers to cut all current activity and shut down and then prepare to transmit packet 784-F on every frequency.”

  “Every frequency, Captain?” asked the com-officer for clarification.

  “Yes, every frequency, Coms,” said the old engineer.

  “Transmitting,” said the Com-Officer.

  There was a pause.

  “The Empire has just activated its own jammers. I’m boosting the signal to compensate. Point to point lasers deployed,” reported the other officer.

  “How long before our stragglers get out of there?” asked Spalding.

  “Another three minutes, assuming nothing changes,” Navigation reported after running the numbers.

  “Too long, lad. We don’t have that kind of time,” Spalding sighed, “punch that signal through.”

  “I’m still trying; no confirmation of signal received though,” warned the officer.

  While the com-officer was still desperately trying to send packet 784-F and receive a verified confirmation, the first of over two hundred miniature machine minds activated and then began to share the data packet it had just received.

  Its mind was simple. All it had to do was refrain from activating in the presence of a spaceship with the correct IFF code. If it ran into a ship without a valid IFF, it was to approach and activate.

  Once it had received its instructions, it brought itself out of standby mode and identified valid targets before double and triple checking its data.

  Just then, the two hundred warships of the Confederation were passing through the same local area of space, this detachment of the Glorious Fleet in hot pursuit of the Spineward Sectors Fleet, and its targeting algorithms went crazy.

  Recognizing the danger, more than three hundred of those little minds suddenly decided to activate at the s
ame time.

  The screen rippled with fire as the mine field which had jumped into the star system with the Lucky Clover went from standby and then exploded.

  “Good lad,” Spalding said, clapping the com-officer on the shoulder.

  “Sweet Murphy,” whispered the com-officer.

  “I’m afraid the Demon’s in the driver’s seat tonight, lad,” said the Chief Engineer.

  “What’s all this!!?” Lieutenant Commander Snyder demanded as the entire holo-screen, or at least that part of it showing the nearly four hundred warships of the combined Imperial and Confederation fleet, went on the frtiz as explosions rocketed through the Glorious Fleet.

  When the screen cleared, more than half of the Old Confederation ships and two thirds of the Imperial flotilla had been damaged beyond repair. Mostly they were smaller, lighter ships, but the light warships weren’t the only one’s damaged by the attack. Even Battleships and Heavy Cruisers had their shields knocked down and had taken major damage.

  A pair of damaged First Fleet Battleships had been knocked the rest of the way out of action. As had the remaining Motherships. Right now only the giant Spheroid was still ‘mostly’ intact and operational.”

  “That number one is what happens when you tell an ornery old engineer to bring as many orbital defenses as possible,” I said.

  While the rest of the warships in this star system were still reeling the Lucky Clover opened fire, taking out another Battleship, and led by Commodore Druid the rest of the fleet came looping back around.

  “You mean you didn’t know about those…I believe they’re mines?” she asked.

  “I knew there was a surprise, that it would be stealthed and the code needed to activate them,” I said and then looked over at her, “do you think I needed to know more?” I asked.

  Dumbly Snyder shook her head.

  This time when First Fleet came back around they found themselves with a battered and shieldless foe.

  “It was a trap all along then,” Snyder said with wonder.