Admiral Who? (A Spineward Sectors Novel:)

by Luke Sky Wachter

  There wasn’t a lot of time after that for oration because the next thing I knew, we had reached the tiny pirate cutters.

  There was a loud bang that shook the ship with a sickening lurch and knocked my battle-suited bulk off my feet. This was rapidly followed by a series of small pops, like rain on a tin roof and the lights on the Flag Bridge flickered and dimmed before returning to full strength.

  Was it my imagination, or had the air recyclers stopped working as well? Perhaps ramming the pirate vessels might not have been the smartest thing to do after all.

  I started to pull myself to my feet, the battle suit servos whining in protest. I was only halfway up when the ship started to exert gee forces toward one of the walls. It was no worse than an air car making a hard turn, but still enough to return me reeling back to the floor.

  I tucked, rolled and slammed against one of the metal bulkheads, most of the force of the blow absorbed by the power armor but without the helmet on, the back of the my head hit the metal wall with enough force that I saw nothing but stars.

  Chapter 15: Tis-a-Pickle!

  He was the very model of an ancient, outdated Space Engineer:

  A few minutes earlier.

  “It won’t fit, Chief,” shouted one of the crewmen working with Spalding on the outside of the ship’s hull.

  Spalding popped his head out of the next laser pit in the series of gun placements along the hull to take a quick look. “Turbo-Lasers are all exactly the same size, it doesn't matter how old they are. That’s a turbo-laser pit, hence it's rated to take the blasted thing,” he barked.

  “I swear it won’t fit, Chief,” insisted the crewman.

  Spalding hopped out of the pit he’d been working in as fast as a man on a spacewalk, sporting a busted leg could manage. At this rate he was going to have to personally reinstall every one of the blasted things himself.

  "Pull that turret away from the laser pit, and by Saint Murphy's wretched wrench, do it carefully," he said as he drew nearer, "we only have a handful of the things the damned Imps failed to abscond with, and I don't want greenhorn incompetence to so much as scratch the paint on one!" As soon as the pit was cleared, the problem became obvious.

  "Space-rot," hissed the old engineer. "They didn't just take the aperture; they took the whole blasted power coupling assembly!" He bent down and nearly tore a hole in his suit when he bolted upright and went to pull out what remained of his old, grey hair. "They even tore the clamps out of their moorings! It'll take weeks to manufacture and calibrate all of these to battle-ready condition, and that's assuming we even have the proper materials left in the machine shops!"

  The crewman, likely fearing for his own safety, slowly backed to the edge of the pit. Spalding continued, seemingly oblivious to the crewman's reaction to his outburst. "Don't worry, ye can't get electrocuted down here, lad. The feedback system keeps power from flowin' until the gun control computer verifies that everything's on the up-and-up." Spalding laughed maniacally and continued, "And since those no-good thieves took all of the gun control hardware with 'em, even if you somehow managed to shunt enough juice back through the control lines from here, there's no computer left to create a connection between here and the power plant!"

  The Chief jumped up to the edge of the pit and, without looking, proceeded directly to the nearest heavy laser pit. The crewman had difficulty keeping up with the old man, struggling with the uneven surface of the hull, while the old man leapt spryly from one high point to another, like the old Billy-goat he still was. Upon clearing the edge of the pit, he looked down in dismay at the sight that greeted him.

  When the Imperials left the Clover, they took most of the new weapons they had installed with them. In the case of this particular laser pit, they hadn't even bothered to take the cannon out. They must have decided that the old-style, short range heavy lasers weren't worth removal even though they were the newest version of that particular weapon platform, developed and manufactured by none other than the Empire itself. Whatever crew had been given the job had made a right hash of the entire unit. Instead of taking the time to simply unbolt the thing from the pit, they used plasma torches to cut through pretty much anything which was attached to the ship, even going so far as to slag the end of the barrel with a high-powered plasma torch.

  He eyed the severed bolts and the bent housing for the power coupler at the bottom of the pit suspiciously. He looked at the plasma torch in his hand before shaking his head regretfully. They didn’t have time to fool around with this mess.

  “This pit’s a loss, until we have a day or two to put things right. We’d have to finish cutting the bolts free, fix any damage that procedure incurred, remove this sorry excuse of a barrel and replace it with one of our old reliable units, as well as machine a completely new housing for the power coupling,” he said and glared at the petty officer in charge of the team, silently rebuking him for not spotting the problem in the first place and costing them valuable time.

  “What are your orders, Chief,” asked the team leader.

  The old man considered briefly, before scowling and shaking his head. "There's nothin' for the turbolasers at this point. The ruination those Imps did in a shift will take us weeks to repair, and we don't have enough units to fill them all, anyways. Focus on the heavies, at least their pits aren't a complete loss, and we've got plenty o' spare parts down in storage." Spalding chuckled darkly, congratulating himself on quietly gathering every compatible old unit he could get his greasy old hands on over the last few decades, and squirreling them away to every out of the way or hidden compartment on the ship. The Imps might have found one or two of his stashes, but they never suspected that he'd been able to stockpile anywhere near as much as he'd managed.

  "Just yank out that whole newfangled assembly and put in the old units," Spalding barked. "We ought to be able to re-work the clamps and power couplers in a couple hours and get them back online. We won't have as much range as before, but the old girl will have her teeth back."

  He was still congratulating himself on his foresight when the Chief Engineer felt something through the deck plates and paused.

  “Sir,” inquired the team leader when the old man didn’t respond after a few moments.

  Spalding irritably waved him to silence. It took him a moment to place the change, but he was sure the engines were vibrating differently somehow. He was about to dismiss it and get back to work, but something in the back of his mind kept nagging at him. He hadn’t felt the engines vibrate like this in a long time, not since Captain Falcone-

  His eyes widened. He might be going senile and jumping at shadows. Surely even a half trained command crew like the one currently on the bridge wouldn’t make a mistake like that.

  After half a moment of consideration he dashed to the nearest exterior airlock. Once inside, he plugged into the internal communication system. He decided not to call the bridge in order to verify his suspicions because if he was wrong he’d just look like an old idiot. If he was right, he’d just waste precious time screaming at the space crazed fools. Engineering could tell him everything he needed to know in a hurry.

  “This is Bostwell,” answered the rating through the comm. system. “What do you need, Chief?”

  “Color me crazy and dip me in stupid, but did our normal space engines just shift from flank to ramming speed, Bostwell,” demanded the Chief Engineer.

  “Uh, just a second Chief,” said Bostwell, a moment later his voice came back on the line. “That’s right, Chief. The Helmsman just uploaded the automatic ramming protocols half a minute ago,” said the rating a hint of fear and a whole new level of respect for the crazy old Chief Engineer entering his voice. He started to say something else but Spalding was already out the airlock door.

  Waving his hands in the air he turned his suit communicator up to maximum. “Off the hull! Off the hull! Everyone off the hull and into an airlock,” he shrieked. “If you can’t tie it down on the double quick, abandon it. Just leave it and get
inside the ship!”

  He ran towards the nearest group of men not moving fast enough for his taste, the fire in his leg burning with every step. He ignored the sensation, the pain not so much forgotten as pushed firmly aside in favor of the safety of his men. “Prepare to receive shrapnel,” he shouted into his suit mike. Telling the men they were about to ram something was more likely to paralyze some of them with fear and indecision than get them moving when every second counted. “Shrapnel! Into the airlock,” he panted, his chest cramping with the effort.

  Seeing everyone within his line of sight making for an airlock, he started to think about his own safety for the first time. The way his heart was hammering and his breathing short, he knew he’d never make it in time. You didn’t go to ramming protocols unless slamming into another ship was imminent.

  Knowing that impact was surely imminent, he rolled into the nearest empty turret pit and used a handy strap from his space belt to tie himself down. It was the same pit with the cut bolts and damaged power housing he’d just surveyed. He warily tied his suit to two of the severed bolts and leaned back with a sigh. His vision was black and blurry. He suspected that if the pain in his leg wasn’t keeping him conscious he’d have passed out by now.

  He glared at the side of the laser pit. On any other ship set to ram, he would have said there was no point in strapping down because if you were on the hull then you were already dead, you just didn’t know it yet. He would have said that about any ship, it didn’t matter the age or size. Any ship but the Lucky Clover, that is. He’d known this ship was special the first time he laid eyes on her. She could survive anything the universe threw at her, even a deliberate attempt to ram another starship, which was why he had bothered to strap himself down. If his baby could survive this, then there was a chance he could too.

  One moment everything was fine and Spalding was wondering if he was an old fool for choosing the empty turret pit instead of an airlock, and the next moment the whole ship lurched, shields flaring white. By the time he realized shrapnel was raining down on the open hull, that part was over too. Finding that he was alive but with a shard as thick as his middle finger and longer than his forearm stuck through the foot of his good leg and into the Duralloy metal of the hull, the chief engineer praised his lucky stars. He was just starting to grab for his emergency patching kit when the ship then tried to throw him off the hull.

  Spalding screamed and let go of the kit to try to grab the safety straps. The hiss of air escaping through the hole in the foot of his suit filled his ears with the sound of doom, and the gee forces tried to break his straps and throw him off the ship. The old engineer was determined to ride out the high gee maneuver some idiot at the helm had decided was a good idea while there was still be most of an engineering shift on the hull of the ship.

  He would survive, if only so he could take his plasma torch to the lot of them when this was over.

  He screamed wordlessly as the gravity threatened to snap his safety lines and tear him away from his beloved Clover.

  Chapter 16: An Improbable Success

  One moment we were racing towards the pirate ships, and the next I was on the floor sliding across the deck towards the bulkhead. I blinked away the pain in my head and the stars in my eyes, and reached for a handhold along the wall to pull myself back to my feet.

  I looked to the main screen and I couldn’t see the pirate squadron in front of the ship anymore.

  “What’s going on,” I said rather thickly. My first attempt to wildly scan the bridge to make sure everyone was all right left me dizzy.

  Focusing forward, at least until I was somewhat recovered and the dizziness abated, I’m certain I would have staggered to the command chair if the power suit had allowed for that kind of movement. Instead, I stiffly walked over and sat down without appearing like a drunken sailor back from a binge.

  “We made it,” someone said. The bridge broke out in cheers.

  One of the sensor operators yelled, “You did it, Sir! We smashed two of them flat and another one is reeling away. Its shields are gone and one of its engines has been disabled, Admiral.”

  Another sensor operator chimed in, “I think the damaged one was caught in our engine wash when the Helmsman slewed the ship around. We didn’t hit it head on, that’s the only reason it survived,” he said, sounding proud of our big ship.

  “Where are the rest of the pirates,” I asked, unable to find them represented on the main screen.

  “We overshot them, Admiral,” DuPont said, his voice shaking, “coming about now.” The Helmsman's hands shook visibly, but he input the new ship course.

  The main screen shifted from its previous setting, which had shown a cone shaped patch of space directly in front of the ship. It now presented a downward looking, rather two dimensional, three hundred sixty degree view with the Lucky Clover in the middle of the plot. From this vantage point the pirate ships were shown to be falling behind them farther and farther by the second.

  “Turn around," I said, surprised at how quickly the pirate vessels appeared to be retreating, “we need to finish them off!”

  Tremblay spoke up and I looked at him, noting the pistol had disappeared, “You wanted to get there as fast as possible, so they wouldn’t have time to get away,” he said evenly. “They didn’t. But a battleship the size of this one doesn’t just stop on a dime, it takes a while to reverse our forward momentum. We have to turn around and slow down before we can try to catch them again. A more tactically sound approach would be to take up station around the Settlers to help fight off the remaining pirate cutters, now that they know we’re not on their side.”

  I blinked. It made perfect sense after the First Officer pointed it out. I supposed if I had stopped to think and consider the ship’s forward momentum, I might have remembered (from my now aborted studies) that ships took time to speed up and slow down.

  “Okay,” I said, nodding seriously, “put us between the settlers and those cutters, Mr. DuPont,” I ordered in a crisp voice.

  “Sir, we’re getting a transmission from the Pirates. They’re mighty upset, Admiral,” said the external communications technician with a wide grin.

  “Put him on the main screen,” I said with a smile of my own.

  A picture of the same pirate captain as last time materialized on the main screen. This time though he had a large bruise on his face and smoke filled the back of his miniature bridge.

  “Double-crossed! Betrayed! After an honest offer was extended,” roared the pirate captain. “When the League hears about this, you’ll be banned from every dark port and black net station this side of Omicron 5,” he bellowed, slamming his fist repeatedly against the arm of his command chair.

  I made a big show of yawning and then properly covering my yawn with my hand before gesturing to the Communications Tech. “Please transmit on both the pirate band and the open frequency,” I said, purposefully unconcerned that the pirate captain could hear my orders. As soon as the tech indicated we were live on both channels, I turned deliberately to face the screen. “This is Admiral Montagne of the Confederation Flag-Ship Lucky Clover. We are prepared to accept your surrender,” I said conversationally.

  The Pirate Captain look startled and blinked rapidly, a hint of real fear creeping through his angry pirate façade for the first time. “Admiral who? What the blazes…” he said, clearly startled. Then his face hardened. “So, I’m dealing with a bunch of Impie’s and your fancy Imperial tricks,” he said, spitting on the floor. “You might have broken our code and fooled us once, Admiral Schoolboy. But now that we know it’s Fleet regulars we’re up against, there’s not a man jack among us who’ll surrender now!” His face turned red as he worked himself into a fury. “We’ll spread the word and your stolen codes won’t be worth spit the next time you face Piranha Squadron or any other pirate in the whole Spineward Sectors of cold space."

  I have to admit that I was surprised the pirate thought I had somehow broken or stolen their code. I was e
ven more surprised they appeared willing to fight to the death. Still, I had to make one more try for the sake of those unarmed settlers. I didn’t know for sure, but the Clover seemed far enough away that the pirates might come back for another strafing run or two against the convoy before jumping through hyperspace ahead of us.

  “Haven’t you heard, Captain Spider,” I asked, once again twitting the pirate about his name. “The Imperial Navy pulled out of this sector and left me in command of the fleet,” I said, flashing a vicious smile. “Now that the Empire’s out and the Confederation’s back in, I can cut any sort of deal I want. I can order your lives spared and transfer you to a nice cushy agrarian prison world, equipped with the latest power tools to make your lives easier. On the other hand, I could order every Confederation unit in this sector of space to hunt you and your little squadron of biting fish until we track you back to whatever spider-hole you’re hiding in and blow the lot of you to space-dust.”