“Not quite a ringing endorsement,” I steepled my fingers.
“If you wanted one of those, you should have won the last battle,” the Rear Admiral said seriously, “as it is, you’ll just have to be satisfied with what you can get—in this case, my full support in keeping this fleet together and ready to face the enemy.”
“And after all the good works this fleet has done for this Sector, too,” I said with a sigh. “Well, I suppose I’m as much to blame as anyone.”
“I’m glad that we can move past this and onto the reason for my visit today,” said Grantor.
“You know…you’re right,” I said ignoring him, “I did lose that battle, and people wouldn’t be human if they didn’t find that worrying. They should wonder if there wasn’t someone who could do a better job.”
The Rear Admiral sat back in his chair and eyed me.
“Of course, that’s only half of it,” I said carelessly. I looked off to the side, “The other half, of course, is that I was too worried with saving innocent lives that what little effort I spent outside of that was given over to worrying about what everyone thought about me instead of taking steps to tell them what they should be thinking.”
The Rear Admiral’s breath hissed out. “I’ll be honest with you: that sounds worrisome. Especially considering I’ve studied a little bit on your background, family history, and the resulting planetary history. It doesn’t make for lighthearted reading, let me tell you,” said the Rear Admiral.
“You know, in the beginning I was so concerned with being the fall guy for events outside of my control I was just happy to be alive. After that, I was so sure that if I just ran around saving lives, saving worlds, and then eventually saving Sectors of space that it would all turn out in the wash. But, as you have so aptly reminded me, I have the family history to know better. I mean to believe in such lighthearted drivel and in tales where the hero gets his parade, wins the girl, and then rides off happily into the sunset,” I said contemplatively. “Real life doesn’t work that way. You have to think that I’m pretty stupid.”
“Not the term I would use,” Nuttal said, his entire body gone still, “I’d say ‘fiendishly clever,’ given what information I’ve been able to scrounge up on you since you actual took command of the Lucky Clover. ‘Demonically lucky’ too, but that’s another matter entirely.”
“I don’t always seem to win the day,” I pointed out, “when it comes to luck I seem to be hit and miss.”
“Yet here you still are. That’s part of why I used the particular qualifier that I did,” said Grantor.
“Well I think that’s enough nonsense. I’m pretty much over my little pity party,” I said with a winning smile, “so you can rest assured that I don’t plan on changing how we go about doing things. I’ll still be the same man I was yesterday and the days before that. Nothing will change except that I think it’s high time to actually establish a PR department. I’m tired of letting others spin my fighting pirates as establishing myself as the Tyrant of Cold Space, saving a planet and people from Bugs as making myself a threat to the Sector at large, and helping stop a Droid invasion cold as me somehow becoming a pro-machine Droid lover.”
“Okaaay,” said Nuttal. “Sorry, I do seem to drone on and on. You were saying something about faint-hearted officers?” I motioned for him to carry on.
“Right…there’s growing concern within the fleet. As such, I think we can best address this with a personal address from you explaining the situation to the fleet at large and then possibly a formal briefing with key selected officers,” he said, starting to go into his entire reason for coming here today.
I’d wait, listen to his plan and see if he was here to help—or only thought he was here to help—or if this was yet another try against my interests.
Fleet command was a lonely business.
Chapter Twenty: Imperials move into position
The Commodore sat through yet another blindingly boring duty watch on the bridge. When it had just been a single Destroyer picket in this star system they had been able to come and go as they pleased without the locals being one wit wiser. As of a week ago the locals started to get serious with a roving patrol or both mixed and unmixed Corvettes and a Destroyer or just Corvettes. But with their aged tech and myopic sensor arrays, all the Imperials had to do was batten down the hatches, go to minimal power usage, and wait for them to fly on past. They never even got so much as a hint of their presence no matter how hard the yokels tried.
“Commodore Bruneswitch,” said the Comm. Officer.
“Yet another transmission from the yokels asking us to alternately surrender or come over for tea?” he sighed. “Log it as usual coms.”
“No, Sir,” the Officer gulped, “it’s not the locals, Sir.”
Bruneswitch straightened in his chair.
“It’s a coded message from the Destroyer Rat Pack. The fleet is moving, Sir, and the Pack would like permission to extend their docking tube and send over a hard copy of the orders,” he reported.
“Good news,” Bruneswitch smiled, “offer to have nav help guide them over for docking.”
The Comm. Officer nodded and then paled.
“Problem?” asked Bruneswitch.
“The Rat Pack says there’s no need for nav; if you look out the window you can see them off our starboard bow. They are once again requesting permission to extend their docking tube,” reported the Comm. Officer.
Bruneswitch purpled. “How in the name of Man did they get within docking tube range without our Sensor section hearing so much as a peep out of them?” he raged. “Get me Tactical. Get me Sensors. I want the entire department rousted out of their beds and ready to debrief in the conference room in ten minutes!”
“Yes, Commodore,” said the Officer, “um, Commodore, what about the Rat Pack? They’re still waiting for an answer.”
Bruneswitch pounded on the arm of his chair.
“Give those blighters permission and then cut the channel,” he snarled, “letting them sneak up into docking range—we’re going to be the laughingstock of the fleet for next two years!”
****************************************************
“So how did the courier run out to old Bruneswitch go?” asked Commodore Serge.
“They’ve got a significant gap in their starboard side sensor coverage. They do a pretty good job of covering for it with random rolls, but if you know about that and have the factory root kit codes for the BF-385 sensor you can manually flash the sensor on an ultraviolet frequency and temporarily send them into a ‘random’ reboot cycle. Knowing that, we managed to get within docking range,” smirked the Rat Pack Captain.
“Good job, Keath,” Commodore Serge said with a tight smile, “they’re not going to live that one down anytime soon.”
“Wasn’t really fair since we know there’s no way the locals would have the ability to remotely mess with their sensors, but all’s fair in love and war, yes?” said the Captain.
Serge’s eyes turned flinty.
“Bruneswitch was present for Wessex’s debacle and walked into that ambush right alongside him. Fair? Tell that to the men and women we lost to the yokels. I don’t care if he’s battle damaged,” Commodore Serge grunted.
“What about Bruneswitch’s request to help with taking down the picket?” asked Keath.
“We got all the information we need from his computers?” Serge asked.
“All the logs since our people entered the star system,” reported the Captain of the Rat Pack.
“Then he can sit and watch. Our squadron’s ready to go. While he and his team got their asses handed to them by the locals ours served with distinction using panther attacks to help taking down Prometheus. We don’t need his help and frankly I don’t want it,” the Commodore said decisively, “Operation Pacification may have hit a few road bumps thanks to the locals, but no thanks to Bruneswitch. I may be out of line speaking about a fellow Commodore this way but I honestly don’t care. The Gra
nd Reclamation will go onward.”
“To the Reclamation, Sir,” agreed Keath, “and, as always, to the First Galactic Empire.”
“To the Empire. Long may she reign,” agreed Commodore Serge, “get your ship into position, Captain. We have a few yokels to round up.”
“With pleasure!” said the Captain.
Chapter Twenty-one: Slashing Attacks
Like a deathly plague, unseen and unheard, the Imperial Destroyers moved into position shadowing both the picket and the roving patrol.
That last one was a little tricky but, being the seasoned professionals that they were, they managed it.
Then, at a predetermined time, they moved in to attack.
****************************************************
“Shields up,” screamed the Tactical Officer seconds before their enemy opened fire, “we’ve just been pinged!!!!”
The shield officer was slow, but the helmsman who’d been starting to drift off after a long boring shift of nothing to do jerked awake, slamming the Corvette into an uncontrolled corkscrew burn.
The Corvette rocked, taking a long glancing burn up her starboard side.
“Engine two is misfiring!” cried the Helmsman fighting the bucking Corvette.
“Shields coming up,” said the shield officer, sounding like she was about to have a heart attack.
“Somebody spin up the hyper drive,” roared the XO.
The door to the bridge opened and a coffee-stained Captain staggered onto the bridge.
“What the blazes?! A man steps for a cup of coffee and the engines—” he cut off at the sight of the bridge in chaos.
The Comm. Officer threw the red alert klaxon.
“Red Alert. Red Alert. This is the bridge we are under attack by unidentified flying—” the next words were drowned out by the screeching of metal.
“Hit! We’ve just been hit on the port side,” shouted Tactical.
“Port engines are down! Grav-plate system is compromised,” reported Damage Control.
“Starboard engine continuing to run hot and out of control,” cried the Helmsman, fighting his console to steer the star ship, “unable to maintain—”
“Pernicious Burn just blew up! I say again code Omega, Omega-Omega-Omega code Omega, the Pernicious Burn is gone,” shouted Sensors.
“Tell gunnery to unload with everything they’ve got,” snapped the Captain grabbing hold of his command chair with a death grip and physically dragged himself into his seat through sheer strength as the gravity systems continued to fluctuate, “and somebody get control of our grav-plates soon, preferably before we all turn into smears on the wall!”
“Juscar just took a major hit. Power is fluctuating!” reported Sensors.
“Move to cover,” snapped the Captain.
“Sir I’m not sure if—” began the XO.
“I don’t care about your surety, Executive Officer!” roared the Captain. “We will not leave a fellow ship and crew behind.”
“The Juscar is turning. It looks like she’s attempting to ram the enemy, Sir!” interrupted Tactical.
“Somebody get me Captain Franks on the line. NOW!” bellowed the Captain.
The bridge of the Juscar flickered to life, its paunchy and roughly fifty pounds overweight First Lieutenant Franks appeared in a scene of pure chaos.
“Franks, abort!” snapped the Captain.
Franks lifted his right fist, a wild, maniacal look appearing in his eyes.
“Sir the Juscar just started releasing escape pods,” reported Sensors.
“Franks!” shouted the Captain.
“For Sector 25! Our squadron mates! And the Border Allia—” right at that moment, Captain Franks brought his right fist down onto the arm of his console and the screen abruptly went black and dead.
“The Juscar just blew up. It looks like a fusion core overload, Sir,” reported the Engineering Watch Stander at damage control.
“Sweet Murphy Franks,” the Captain said briefly covering his eyebrows with a hand. “Enemy Destroyers maneuvered to avoid the blast! We’ve got a window,” exclaimed Tactical.
“We can’t let their sacrifice go to waste,” said the XO.
“Get us out of here, Helm,” the Captain ordered.
“I’m already on it,” snapped the Helmsman still fighting his console as the Corvette pointed its nose away from the hyper limit and burned for all its single, overheating, difficult to control, remaining engine was worth. “Blast,” cursed the Captain bringing a fist down on the arm of his command chair. “Blast,” he repeated, as behind them the wreckage of their two sister ships and the star system’s permanent Destroyer picket continued to expand.
Of the four ships patrolling this mess of a dead star system they’d been heavily damaged, ambushed by the very enemy they were supposed to be looking for and everyone else was already dead.
If they survived, this was not going to look good on a resume.
“Damn it, Franks,” he cursed again, squeezing his eyes shut.
Chapter Twenty-two: Survivors arrive
“Admiral, we’ve just got another hyper foot print on the edge of the system, Sir. Wait one…that’s now multiple hyper footprints, Sir,” reported Steiner.
“Pull up the sensor feed now, Coms,” I said, feeling that hint of a sudden thrill, no longer absent after being in this star system for so long without the enemy showing up, at the thought that this might just be the one.
Then the tactical picture of the whole easy haven system came back up and I could see that as of now it was only half a dozen sensor contacts of an estimated Corvette-to-Destroyer size.
If it was the Imperials, either it was an advanced guard or else it wasn’t much of an invasion force.
Many long, tension-filled minutes passed until we finally receive a friend-or-foe response from the warships.
“Tactical reports that it looks like Commodore Kling and his group, Sir,” Lisa Steiner reported with relief.
“Let me know the instant he makes contact,” I instructed leaning back in my chair and allowing the breath to whoosh out of me. The Commodore was back earlier than expected, but at least for now that was all we had to deal with.
Still, a part of me wished that the Imperials would just hurry up and get on with it. All this waiting for them to attack was worse than an actual attack. Well, minus the body count it was worse, I silently, amended. So even if it was wearing my nerves down waiting here for something that never happened, I was willing to sit here and ride it out.
“Another day, another dollar in the hot seat,” I muttered, turning back to the never ending electronic paperwork. For half a moment, I wondered if they’d ever run out of room and fill up all the buffers in the database with the never-ending reports and then smacked myself in the head. I’m sure if that happened they’d just add more data storage devices. The paperwork must go on!
My console chimed, breaking me out of my pleasant mental rambling instead of doing anything that actually resembled working.
“Admiral, you wanted me to contact you if anything happened,” said the Lieutenant as soon as I activated the channel.
“Yes, thank you, Lisa,” I said with a sigh, “what is it?”
“It’s a priority message from the Commodore. There’s been an attack,” she reported.
“Put him through,” I ordered.
Commodore Kling appeared on my holo-screen and the recorded message began to play. “I’m sorry be the one to report this, Admiral. You don’t know how sorry,” he paused to clench his eyes shut tightly, “but it appears the Imperials are on the move,” he said, opening his eyes, “they hit the picket two systems out and only the space gods know how many other picket systems they’ve hit. We stumbled across a Corvette on our way out down the chain, it was engine-down on the edge of the star system by the time we reached them and that ship was the only survivor from the entire picket and roving patrol force. I immediately sent out a recall order for our other pickets and turned the rema
inder of my roving patrol force back to Easy Haven to report. I think this is it, Sir. I’ll speak with you more in person when we get in closer and the light-speed lag on in-system communications is reduced. Kling Out.”
The breath whooshed out of me. “Thank you, Lieutenant,” I said cutting the transmission and powering down my entire console. I needed time to think without interruptions. We were about to make one final roll of the dice and I needed to get my head back in the game.
Saint Murphy, I should have known better than to wish for relief from the tedium of endless meetings, reports and handholding.
It was time to finish this and put an end to part two—or was it three, counting the ambush?—of this little war I was having with the Imperials.
It was time.
Firing back up my console I opened a channel to the Lieutenant.
“Message to the fleet. Set to Condition Two throughout the fleet. The enemy could be here at any time,” I instructed.
“Aye aye, Sir,” she replied faintly.
That was done. Now, where are you, Rear Admiral Janeski? I wondered, pulling up a star chart of all the nearest star systems and what direction will you be coming from.
Chapter Twenty-three: The Third Battle for Easy Haven
Not three hours after the intrepid Commodore had come running back with his message, the Second Battle for Sector 25 started with a bang.
“Admiral, you need to get up here on the bridge. Now,” said Lieutenant Lisa Steiner as soon I’d activated the blinking com-light.
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