by T S Paul
The station's counter-battery fire was working well against the missiles. Those few that we missed were picked up by Joshua and the support platforms. There just didn't appear to be enough incoming fire to overwhelm our defenses.
"Ma'am, we have movement. The fleet is dividing up and creating a space in the middle. I think they're going to bombard the planet!"
"George, notify the Allied ships that we have kinetic strikes inbound. Coordinate with my father and watch for ground based fire. Athena, fire up those engines we may have to use them."
I walked over to the rarely used engineering station on the bridge. There was a control panel that said engine controls. I called my crew down below in Engineering and let them know what we were doing. Pressing the button I said a small prayer to the Gods, both above and below. The whole station began to shimmy. It was a faint vibration that made your teeth chatter. This went on for a few moments as the engines started to spool up.
"Athena, what is happening why is the station shaking?"
"It's the big engines starting up, they've been cold for longer than we have been alive." The vibration stopped and then the shaking began.
I called down to Engineering. "Chief is everything OK, why is the station dancing?"
"Lieutenant, the engines both started up. That model just takes over a minute for the fusion engine to 'turn over' give it time."
The Station shook for a moment more and then the vibration stopped completely. Maybe it was just my imagination, but I would almost swear that I could hear a faint hum.
"Ma'am, they have fired the first rock." We all turned and saw the first Kinetic Strike used against a planet in over 15 years. When the other galactic governments found out about this, they would certainly bring sanctions against the Empire of Humanity that would make the Imperial Senate scream bloody murder!
The Allied ships joined the PDP's and the Paney in firing on the large rock headed toward the planet. After multiple tactical nuke strikes the rock was blasted into several smaller chunks which continued their downward arc. If they did not burn up on entry, the defensive batteries could handle them.
"Wilson, did you find out that information I asked for?
"Yes, Athena. There are two sets of orders. The first ones were from Fleet HQ: the Task Force was to observe and watch the conference. They were under orders not to interfere. The second set of orders were the exact opposite. These came from the offices of a Senator Colman, he is the Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, and then through Fleet HQ. The new orders were for them to disrupt the conference and kill or capture the leaders of the rebellion at all costs."
I relayed the new information to my sister and her intelligence officer. We looked at one another and both said the same thing, "The Cabal!"
"Min, they made a mistake here. They showed us their hand. If he," I pointed toward the fleet. "If he is Cabal, I would bet that the rest of his fleet is not. Or at least most are not. We saw how he treated his own ship's Captain."
"Ma'am we have another rock inbound. This one is headed away from us..it is aimed at the ice cap!"
"Min that could cause climate change or tidal waves!" Now I was worried. The PDP's were rather light in that direction.
"Commander George, launch everything we have, target that rock! Communications contact ground command, inform them of the situation and recommend that they support the PDP's in that area."
"Ma'am, navigation reports that two of the Allied ships have given chase and are pursuing that rock."
"Good! Send orders to the Beta, it's time to end this before they launch that big rock at us! They may fire when ready, target as many ships as possible starting with the destroyers, then the battlecruiser and carriers."
Beta was the specially modified freighter created by the shipyard techs. At Minerva's order, the ship's crews began rolling their pods out of the specially modified cargo doors.The plan was to hit a ship with an antimatter missile first, then follow with a series of normal explosives. The newly designed missiles began firing. As expected the screen of destroyers were the first casualties.
The four destroyers were hit in the aft section with an programmable antimatter missile. The damage caused by the explosion was enough to knock out their engines and in one case the elderly destroyer broke in half from the shock. Weapons Officer's switched targets and began firing on the the battlecruiser and the carriers.
Chapter 16
Commodore Vakulinchuk was incredulous. How? How had these rebels managed to destroy the two rocks he had thrown at them and then turn around and start blowing up his ships? He had stared in horror as his destroyer force was completely decimated.
"Sir, the rebels are targeting the carriers! What are your orders, Sir?"
Did he need the carriers to carry out his plan? No, not really, besides they had already lost their fighters. He needed to make sure that planet was secured. "Concentrate fire on the Station, keep those missiles off our ship and away from the space tug force!" No one on the bridge moved. They were in shock. There were thousands of their fellow Navy crewmen on those carriers and he was just going to 'throw them away.'
"Follow my orders or join your Captain outside, damn you!" The commodore had fire in his eyes.
"Sir, yes, Sir. Targeting the Station." The XO answered for the other crew.
The missile attack against the station failed miserably. Somehow, they had deployed planetary defense platforms that destroyed his missiles before they had a chance to hit. "Communications notify the tug fleet, tell them..."
He didn't get a chance to finish before the navigation officer interrupted him. "Sir, sensors report a small fleet of ships just jumped into the system, it's the Victorious."
"Sir, we are being hailed, it's Admiral Kane for you, Sir."
"Communications, follow my damn orders! Broadcast to the tug fleet: tell them to send the big rock, let's end this now!" Once again the officer did not move. "Send it damn you!" Faced with what he believed to be his certain death, the young lieutenant obeyed the order. The tug fleet was ordered to launch the big rock.
"Sir, orders have been sent. Sir, you have a message from Admiral Emily Kane, you are to stop all attacks against the planet Hong Kong and place yourself under arrest for crimes against humanity!"
The XO approached the Commodore. "Sir, I need you to place yourself under guard as ordered. Sergeant please place the Commodore under arrest."
Commodore Vakulinchuk began to laugh. He was still laughing when the sergeant and his men shot the XO with stunners and knocked him to the floor. A sharp kick to his head silenced the now bleeding officer. "You actually think you can give MY Marines orders to arrest me? I think not."
He motioned to the Marines, they followed him to the lift and the group left the bridge.
The antimatter missiles continued their course and began impacting on the sides of the Battlecruiser Ajax. Without a someone to give orders the bridge had been thrown into chaos. The antimatter blasts tore huge chunks of armor plating from the sides of the ship. Evacuation alarms began to sound across the ship but for some, it was too late. The old ship lacked the newer more effective emergency systems. The ships fusion engines, already heavily damaged, began to burn. When the fires reached the reactor fuel the ship exploded in a violent flash of light.
The few remaining ships surrendered to the 'rebel' forces. Admiral Kane, too far from the remaining ships watched in horror as her Navy surrendered.
___
Meanwhile back on the Station, the two sisters were staring in shock as the massive asteroid was literally thrown at the planet. Already the planet's gravity was beginning to pull the enormous rock down toward it.
"Min activate the evacuation alarms, anyone who can launch needs to go! Everyone else to the shelters! Go, get out of here!"
"Ma'am we have a jump detection in the system. Sensors say it is an Imperial cruiser, the Victorious, with escort ships."
"Nothing we can do about that right now. Athena are you sure you
can stop that rock using the station?"
"I'm not sure about stopping it, but we can change its orbit and prevent it from hitting the planet."
"OK sis, go for it, do what you can. George, lock down the station, full blast shields. Hit the sirens, everyone needs to be in a blast shelter or away from the outer walls." Alarms began sounding throughout the station.
"Ma'am we have a communication from an Admiral Emily Kane."
At the name Kane, I looked up from the engineering panel. "Min, Admiral Kane can mostly be trusted. She would never be a part of something like this."
"Athena you have my permission to talk to her, I have to get my people organized. Try and stay safe sis, be excellent."
"Party on, sis. Now get moving, the rock will impact in less than two minutes."
I was now alone on the bridge except for the XO, Commander George, who refused to leave. At my signal he connected me to the Admiral. I planned to talk to her while steering the station toward the rock. Grabbing the engine controls with both hands I activated the medium power units. The console whined in response but the station did not move. I switched to full power, the vibration had returned. Holding the controls tightly I began to feel the station begin to move. Very slowly, at first, the station left it's orbit.
"Admiral your timing is impeccable as usual." This was harder than it looked, this thing handled like a overloaded truck.
"Lieutenant Lee? What are you doing over there? Why was Commodore Vakulinchuk trying to destroy your planet?"
"Sorry if I can't answer all of your questions at the moment Admiral, it all boils down to the fact the Commodore is a member of the Cabal. And in case you haven't noticed, we have a very large rock about to blast this planet to bits if I don't stop it."
"Lieutenant Lee, are you moving the whole station?" I swear they have something in the water at HQ. It must make the higher ranked officers really stupid when they drink it.
"Yes, Ma'am. I am flying the station. Do you ever play billiards? Think of this station as a very large white ball. Now if I survive this I'll answer all of your questions. Lee, out."
"What do you think George? Are all officers as dumb as that one?"
"I think that you might have an edge on her, Athena." I smiled at him. The rock filled the view screens of the bridge. That thing was massive. "Brace yourself here we go!"
The station hit the enormous asteroid on the side as it began to angle downward toward the planet. There was a very loud metallic crunch followed by alarms, alerts, flashing lights, and the rush of atmosphere escaping. Wilson likened what I did to an out of control bus being hit by a slow moving cement truck. The impact of the station pushed the big rock into a different trajectory, it missed the planet and was now irregularly orbiting it.
The station sustained massive damage on the rear section. Naturally, my quarters were a complete loss along with those of most of the crew. My favorite lunch spot was also gone, to my dismay. But our injuries were slight in comparison to the Imperial fleet. They had lost four destroyers, two carriers, a frigate, and one battle cruiser. The James Cook arrived back in time to see me crash the station into the asteroid. Captain Gorshin now had his ship in a guard position opposite the Imperial ships. The message he send me said the he was going to start calling me "Crash Lee."
The Colonial office delegation that the Vanguard was escorting were horrified that the Empire had violated the kinetic strike treaties. The original conference was moved up and would be held on the planet. Even the Imperial representatives would be attending. It was going to be quite the circus, and might have been funny to watch if it wasn't all so deadly serious.
Chapter 17
The conference took place more than a week after the Battle for Freedom, took place. The Battle for Freedom, the fact that the space station is called Freedom did not slip my mind. I am not that dense. At least not today. I 'am' unbelievably tired. I talked the medical bay into giving me stims, under medical supervision. Even Wilson is keeping an eye on me. Not even counting the giant dent in this station, which will take months to repair, we have tons of work to do around here. We defeated a fleet just a week ago. There are ships and parts of ships floating around everywhere. Luckily, one thing we have lots of are shuttle pilots. A new class had just finished this week, we had to rush their graduation. They, along with some reprogrammed construction drones, and a veritable army of my new Volley series 'droids' have been cleaning up the mess I helped to make. I just shook my head, I still can't believe that damned name stuck to those little trash cans.
Several good things came from the battle. We now had several new allies. The visiting warships that had helped us fight off a kinetic attack on our planet sent word home and groups of delegates arrived. The idea that the Empire would do that to us got them thinking, that they could be next. Also, that we actually defeated an Imperial fleet with a space station, some space fighters, and a couple of freighters, that if anything, gave us what Wilson calls 'street cred,' and once again he really won't explain. Big surprise.
One thing that we had been missing around here was a supply of ships to refit for our own new navy. Now we had just a couple. Two carriers, a battle cruiser, four destroyers, a frigate and a whole bunch of fighter bits and pieces now filled the shipyard scrapheap. Admiral Kane tried to lay claim to some of it, but we point blank told her no. That was a bit of a shock to her. Sanctioned or not, ships from her Navy tried to destroy our planet. She had a lot of trust to earn back.
My crew and I have finally got the cafeteria system rewired and reopened again. Nutritious or not, emergency food bars taste like shit! The entire station crew quarters were destroyed. I am currently living with Dar, down in Marine country. The other Marines don't seem to care. She has been super busy too. Along with all the scrap metal are thousands of escape pods and floating crewman. The thought of a floating Dutchman without hope of being picked up gave me the shivers. Been there done that. Currently, I was on my way up to the bridge. Minerva had asked to see me.
I did not look my best when I entered the command deck. The two Marine guards on the door at the bridge, peered at me to make sure I was who I said I was. I looked like hell. They chuckled at my appearance and allowed me to pass.
When I stepped off the lift onto the bridge many of the officers turned and started clapping. I gave a weary bow and looked for my sister. I don't like being a 'hero' all I did was drive a space station.
"Athena, you look like hell! Can't you pass off some of that work to your crew?"
"I really can't, they know the systems but I need to be available to sign off on it. Other than Chief Tad, I am the only Fleet trained Engineer that you have. Don't worry, everyone is watching out for me, even Wilson. So, what's up? Do you need me to rewire your chair again?"
"No, not the chair. Father has informed me that you have been requested at the conference."
"Me? Why in the name of Spaghetti do I need to be there?"
"He said that he needs at least one member of the family to be present. I have to stay up here. There is way too much hardware in the system for me to ignore. Han... well, you know. So, that leaves you sister dear. Go down to uniform and get them to make you a dress uniform, again. Good news though."
"What's good about political dinners and social functions? You know I hate that crap."
"I was about to say that you're allowed an escort. I know of a cute Marine that could be available as both your escort and bodyguard."
"We better be thinking of the same cute Marine or I am going to 'pop' you one! OK, fine. Tell father that Dar and I will be on the first shuttle down, after I get a new uniform. OK?"
"Get moving Lieutenant!"
I broke military decorum and gave her the one finger salute as I got on the lift.
___
Dar was happy to be my escort and bodyguard. She intended to as she said, 'keep a close watch on your body' anyway. My girl was just goofy sometimes. She really was happy to leave the station for a while. Guarding and inter
rogating prisoners was getting old for her. The uniform shop was happy to make me a new dress uniform. My sister had already given them instructions, all they needed was my measurements.
"Athena, If you get a minute, I need to tell you a few things." Wilson, bringer of both good and bad news.
"How about now? What's up buddy?"
"I have been scanning the Imperial ships that the Admiral brought with her. Some of the communications are a bit strange."
"Strange how?"
"It's almost like there are two different communication nets on board one of them. I might be an echo or some kind of interference. I will check with the intelligence division. I just thought you might like to know. I found out something else, too."
"What? Did you get caught playing disco again?"