by T S Paul
“Admiral, the Melbourne is in trouble!” I looked at the plot and could see the Sidney’s sister ship taking an even bigger pounding from two Earth cruisers and a battleship class ship. Before I could send help, the explosion blinded all our sensors! I squinted at the monitors as the big carrier exploded in the engine room cutting the ship into two pieces. The aft section was incinerated in a series of secondary explosions as the fusion tanks let go. The forward section tumbled end-over-end through space. I said a silent prayer to FSM that the crew made it to the life pods.
The three Earth ships turned and directed their fire toward my ship. The last ship in our group was the battleship Kakadu. It brought its guns around and began to fire on the two cruisers. “Abigail, send half our destroyers to protect the Kakadu!” That only left us five ships, but they should be enough to at least keep any fighters off us.
“Did any of the fighters survive the Melbourne?”
“Yes, Ma’am. We have three squadrons out there right now.”
“Tell them to concentrate fire on that enemy battleship.”
It was starting to get too hot out here!
~~~~~~~
“… and I’m telling you I’m in charge of this cluster-frak! According to the code any captain with seniority can take control of a raider force. I’m that captain, and this is a raider force! Now orders have been given. Draw the fire off the Martian fleet and take off! We will meet back at the rendezvous point.” The other pirate captains nodded and agreed. Better him than them. Captain Middleton leaned back in his new chair.
“Don’t pat yourself on the back yet. We still have to get out of here ourselves.”
“Are you doubting me Mr. Cat? I can get up our of here.”
“The name is Edward, as I have mentioned more than once now. Get us out of here then.”
Captain Middleton gave the orders and Commodore Lonegan’s former cruisers all began firing on the Earth battleship. The rest of the pirate fleet formed up and began firing on the Earth support ships as they got into position to jump out. Frantic drop ships were still ascending from the planet attempting to escape. A few of the smaller and more daring freighters were picking them up as quickly as possible but too many would be left behind.
~~~~~
Sudden incoming fire distracted the enemy battleship. The pirate fleet was finally engaging and jumping at the same time. The three ancient Rus cruisers concentrated their fire on the Earth battleship. The Kakadu got in a lucky hit and disabled the enemy battleship knocking out the engines.
“Tell Kakadu to jump along with its escort. We will stick it out with the pirates for now.” The commander nodded and sent the orders.
It was just us and the remnants of the Pirate fleet. I ordered our last five destroyers to take the Paney and jump, we would be right behind them. “Tell those fighter jocks to get back here, or they have to walk home!”
In ones and threes, the fighters began landing. The remaining Earth fleet finished reforming and started firing at us again. The Pirates were down to the three cruisers and the battleship Lament. “Tell those pirates to get the hell out of here!”
“Admiral, Captain Middleton reports that the Lament is too damaged to jump. They say the engines are too damaged even to attempt it.”
“Tell them to abandon ship, we can try and pick them up on the way out!” Damn this was getting expensive.
The main screen lit up with the head and shoulders of an older, scruffy looking red-headed man. “Admiral, get your ship out of here. I’ve got this.”
“Captain Middleton? I can’t do that, this fleet is my responsibility.”
“Blast that! Take those little girls of yours and live to fight another battle! This is the pirate way. Why take all the glory for yourself? We will see you on the other side. This is our fight now. Go.”
“You heard the man Abigail. Jump us out of here.”
I felt the ship tremble and then nothing. “What happened?”
“Engineering reports the jump engines failed. They are going to try it again.” I felt the ship tremble and jump as the engine engaged. My last sight of the battle was the three cruisers and battleship closing with the Earth fleet to engage directly. Then we jumped.
I rubbed my hands over my face. If that was what engaging the fleet in our own system was going to be like I didn’t want to be in command of it. “Estimated time to rendezvous?”
“Four hours, Admiral.” I nodded.
So very few of our smaller vessels had escaped. For some reason, the Earth ships targeted them first. We did not know the fate of Middleton’s ships. They might have made it out. We would find out when we got to our destination. We decided that jumping in close to Mars or any other nearby colony world would only draw trouble to us if the mission failed.
I didn’t want this. The rank of Admiral was a total surprise. I suspect that they will make me keep the rank now that our not-so-secret-mission is over and we succeeded. It’s ironic that pirates saved the day. The Gods are laughing today. This was just one battle in the war to come. It was going to get very bloody before it is all over.
Don’t worry, Athena Lee and her whole crew will return for books 11 and 12 sometime in 2017.
I want to take time for a huge shout out to both the readers and the Fans of this series. You are the ones that got me here. You stuck by men as I learned to write better and faster. It’s because of Athena Lee that Agatha Blackmore was born. Without the skills that I learned from Athena the witch series may never have come about. So thanks!
I hope you enjoyed Book 10 -War to the knife. There will be an 11 and a 12. Look for those next year sometime. The same can be said for the next Tisiphone book (Athena Lee Universe). Coming up before the end of this year is Book 2 of the Federal Witch. I plan to start writing it in a few days. Wilson has a Christmas special coming out in November called Ghosts of Noodlemass past. Basically he gets to terrorize someone. Lots of fun there.
Be sure to check the blog for Wilson Wednesday stories. Those will eventually transition to Fergus Fridays in honor of the pesky Unicorn. You can follow me of Facebook here. Or check out my author pages on Goodreads and on BookBub.
Copyrights
This book is a work of fiction, All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Sometimes both.
Copyright (c) 2016 T S Paul
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.
Cover designed by Michael T. Anderle : http://kurtherianbooks.com/
Artwork is by Marcus Voigt http://www.markusvogt.eu/
Editing by Diane Velasquez, Dorene Johnson, David Brims
And ProWriter Aid.
All writing was done on Scrivener and Google Docs
Special thanks to Michael and to my wife Heather who keeps me grounded and to Merlin the Cat, we are his minions.
The Federal Witch
Born a Witch Drafted by the FBI! - Out Now!
Conjuring Quantico - Out Now!
Magical Probi - Nov 2016
Special Agent in Charge - Look for it Early 2017
Witness Enchantment - Look for it Mid 2017
Night of the Unicorn - TBD
Athena Lee Chronicles
The Forgotten Engineer
Engineering Murder
Ghost ships of Terra
Revolutionary
Insurrection
Imperial Subversion
The Martian Inheritance
Infiltration
Prelude to War
War to the Knife
Athena Lee Universe
Shades of Learning
Space Cadets - Coming Soon Early 2017
Short Story Collections
Wilson’s War
A Colony of CATTs
Box Sets
Chronicles of Athena Lee - Books 1-3
Chronicles of Athena Lee - Books 4-6
Chronicles of Athena Lee - Books 7-9 plus the prequel
Standalone or tie-ins
The Lost Pilot
Uncommon Life