Their suits might be resistant, but the burning plasma sure slowed them down.
I used this to my advantage to put all of my two-handed, servo-assisted power behind the Minos Sword and thrust it into the visor of a fallen Imperial Marine Jack.
You can say it was unsportsmanlike, and as dishonorable an action as you care to throw around, but I was fighting for survival here. This was another Victory or Death scenario and so far, there had been a lot more death on my side than there had been victory. The sickening screech as my sword penetrated his suit and sank into the Jack’s head, set off a string of uncontrolled twitching in the man under my boot.
I looked away and moved on, too busy to be sick to my stomach.
We pushed forward, my men and I, heading deep into the ship in search of the Bridge or Engine Room.
I suspect the reason the Jacks eventually decided to come at us in force wasn’t because we were in a terrible position. Oh, it certainly wasn’t good, but it wasn’t as bad as some of the series of corridors we had passed through recently. It must have been because we were getting close to something important.
This time was different, though. This time, they came in serious numbers, not the little raiding teams that had been so devastatingly effective so far, and the Jacks were supported by a number of heavily armed members of the crew.
Whatever else you want to say about the Imperials, you have to give them this. They were tough sons-of-guns. However, while my Caprian and Promethean men were probably willing to concede them the honor as the toughest men in the galaxy, the Tracto-ans felt a little differently.
The Caprian and Promethean reaction to an unexpected attack that decimated your numbers was to turtle up and push them back. The Tracto-ans had a whole other way of thinking. When they were pressed, they pushed back. Hard. Where I and the men around me from the armory team crouched down to return fire, the Tracto-ans charged.
Taking a page from the Marine Jacks, my natives in provincial armor bounced off walls, they dived and rolled, anything to close to grips with the enemy. When that didn’t work, they’d get together and two of them would cut through a wall almost as fast as a single Jack working by himself could, then they’d try to go around.
They even came up with the idea of using grenades to blow a hole in the ceiling, and then two men would launch a steady stream of their fellows up onto the next floor. At least, they would do so until the Jacks cut the throwers down. All of this was in an attempt to get over the Jacks so they could cut a new hole and land on top of them.
It was all out, it was brutal and it was carnage. I think the Tracto-ans had less preconceived notions of what was and was not possible using power armor, and when they saw a Jack do something impossible, their response was to try and duplicate it. They didn’t stop to wonder if their old suit was up to the job or built for the task. There were some colossal failures, but unexpected successes as well.
However, the thing that told most in our favor was numbers. We were outnumbered by the unarmored crew. But they were nearly helpless against us unless they were sporting heavy weaponry. The Jacks had us outclassed, but there were fewer of them than I had expected.
So, despite brutal losses, my Lancers carried the day all the way to the Bridge of the Imperial Strike Cruiser.
We managed to blow open the doors to the Bridge using all the explosives we carried, along with whatever we could scrounge from the fallen Jacks. Marching into the Bridge in my armor, I was hit by a blaster bolt from a hand held weapon. I pretended to ignore it and planted my feet on the deck plating.
“Commander Marcus Cornwallis, in the name of the Confederation Fleet and its Government, I demand you surrender this ship and your person to my forces. You and your men will be taken before a High Justice, where you will be charged with the crime of cold space piracy and violating the sovereignty of Easy Haven, as well as the government of the Confederation in the Spine.” That was as far as I got before the commander decided to make his final stand.
“Charge,” screamed Commander Cornwallis, “let's get these provincial rubes,” he roared, unleashing a stream of blaster fire at my helmet.
I raised my bad hand to cover my face, and the next thing I knew the Imperial Commander had run himself through on my sword. I’m still not quite sure to this day if he did it on purpose, or if he was so caught up in putting down us provincial rubes that he forgot to look where he was going.
Either way, he had some starch, this Imperial Commander. He dropped his blaster pistol and pulled himself up the Minos Sword using his hands, until he was close enough to spit in my visor. Which he promptly did before slumping wearily to the floor.
His First Officer, one Lieutenant Commander George Franklin, was much more amenable to my suggestion that enough blood had been spilled already and accepted my offer.
“I formally surrender the Imperial Strike Cruiser, Victorious Solar-Flare, to…” he paused and looked at me, clearly wanting to know who I was.
“Admiral Jason Montagne of the Confederation Multi-Sector Patrol Fleet,” I said helpfully, then added, “And of the Tracto System Defense Force, of course,” I added, motioning toward some of the Tracto-an natives, who pumped their fists in the air in reply.
“I hereby surrender this Imperial ship to you, Admiral Montagne,” he said stiffly.
“Excellent. I accept your surrender,” I replied formally.
“Now,” I said with a quirk of the lips, “let's get on the speaker and let everyone know it’s time to stop killing each other. Your Jacks and my Lancers, especially. Don’t you agree?”
Not surprisingly, he agreed and we gave the necessary instructions over every com channel we could reach.
Then I, being no fool, called for a medic. The Commander was still breathing, and the last thing I needed was a dead Cornwallis on my hands.
The Confederation, or at least that part of it which was located in the Spine, was not at war with the Empire, and I was dead certain that any government replacing the Empire out here wouldn’t be very happy with an Admiral who decided to start such a conflict.
Seizing an Imperial ship for piracy was bad enough, even if the evidence seemed to be in our favor. But killing its Captain and a member of an influential senatorial family?
Far better to send him home in disgrace for over-reaching his authority and then going on to losing his ship to a bunch of ‘provincial rubes,’ like myself.
“Who are you,” asked the Imperial First Officer, “and where did you people come from? Most provincials turn and run at their first taste of real combat. I’ve never to meet anyone, Gorgon or Provincial, who’d board an Imperial ship with anything less than overwhelming force.”
I just gave him an enigmatic smile. I was tired of sounding my own horn and telling people exactly who I was. It was time for them to start finding that out for themselves.
“I’m just a Confederation Officer doing his duty,” I said.
Exactly what I thought that duty entailed, I didn’t say because at that moment, I honestly wasn’t sure. I did know that whatever it turned out to be, it definitely involved stopping piracy wherever I found it. If that meant I got to stick it to the Empire and put a finger in the eye of few certain Imperials along the way… well, that was more than just alright with me.
Admiral Who? (A Spineward Sectors Novel:) Page 48