Frankly, I’d rather go down with the ship. Which just might happen, I thought bleakly.
Finally, Captain Hammer cleared her throat.
“Yes,” I asked, giving her a withering look to make clear I wasn’t up for comments on my ‘failed’ parlay attempt.
“There’s another message from the Carrier,” she said. I opened my mouth to reject it but she quickly added, “It’s from the General.”
My mouth promptly closed. “Put him on,” I said, glancing over at Steiner—who should have been the one to pass me that little gem but she was staring studiously down at her console and avoided my gaze.
Hopefully Wainwright had some better news for me than when last we’d spoken.
Chapter One hundred five: Bad news from the Carrier
“Admiral, I’m sorry, but we won’t be able to neutralize the enemy’s main particle cannon in time,” Wainwright said sounding haggard, “they’ve realized our intent and have us pinned down near their forward turbo-laser batteries. I’ve taken the initiative to place breaching charges on the various batteries, as well as two small shield generators, but I’m afraid we’re going to need to extend the timeframe while I work to break out from this encirclement. Worse, many of my people are losing their grip on the hull as the stick in the temporary adhesive pads we added to their boots wears off. We didn’t envision spending as much time out on the hull as we have. If this trend continues, I may have no choice but to create a breach in their hull and attempt to make our way forward from inside the ship, despite how poorly our attempt worked out last time.”
“Blast it, General,” I said, feeling a headache coming on and a hole opening in my stomach.
“I know it’s not what you wanted to hear, Sir,” General Wainwright said stoutly, “but right now I just don’t see a way to end this quickly. The enemy is too well-trained, and their battlesuits are better than anything we have except the new Devastator suits—which are overwhelmingly superior in certain areas, but lacking in others such as maneuverability.”
I opened my mouth to bite his head off, but what came out instead was much more reasoned than I had expected, “That’s not what I’d hoped to hear. Carry on and do your best, General.”
“All we can do is Larry onward, Sir,” said the General, cutting the transmission.
‘Larry onward.’ Was that the best we could do? Follow in the footsteps of my often outnumbered, outgunned, and everything but out generaled-slash-admiraled forefather….? With hot eyes, and wondering if I’d not only led this fleet to yet another defeat but also condemned our various home worlds—along with every officer and crew member in this fleet to certain death—I stared at the new arrivals hoping against hope that some miracle would occur.
Something like Dark Matter pulling it out in the clutch, winning against the odds and defeating the Imperial’s repurposed Battleships, and coming out here to finish off the Command Carrier. Or one of the entrapped Lancer groups inside the Invictus Rising hitting something critical and giving us a chance, something.
We needed something big, and we needed it now. If only our reinforcements weren’t so far out of range maybe, they could have taken some of the heat off us. As it was, I didn’t know if we could last until they arrived.
Chapter One hundred six: She was the very model of dangerously outdated space technology.
“Sir, the weapons console is telling me we have just entered firing range,” reported the Ensign at Tactical.
“Eh?” Spalding said, temporarily confused because of the distance between them and the Command Carrier.
“Uh, the HPC says the Carrier is within firing range,” the Ensign said doubtfully, “but I’ve never seen anything with this long of a firing arc. Maybe it’s a mistake—an error with the program?”
Spalding cleared his throat and then scowled at the Ensign. “The program’s working fine,” he said shortly and shook his head as he walked over to the console. The Ensign’s doubt was understandable, but the old engineer had no excuse—he of all people ought to know the range specs of the hyper-plasma cannon he built. “Acquire the target and prepare to fire.” he commanded.
“Uh…yes Sir,” said the junior officer, looking like a fish out of water.
“Oh, of all the…” Spalding growled leaning. down to assist the floundering young man, “all you have to do is make sure the targeting array is working and place this reticule over the target icon. Then tell the program to prepare a firing solution the computer will do the rest.”
“Thank you, Commander,” the Ensign said with relief.
“You know, you’re really going to have to step up your game if you want to keep working on a bridge,” Spalding admonished.
The Ensign’s head bobbed up and down comically while Spalding stood there chewing on his lip. Then the Ensign’s console chimed, “It says we have a firing solution, Sir.”
“Good!” Spalding said, turning to the engineering console and making sure the grav-plates around the antimatter generators were set. He hesitated for a moment and then, reaching down, he shoved the power levels up to 110% and set it on a thirty second timer—just in case. There was no reason to go up in a big fiery explosion because the generators lost containment, causing an unscheduled social event between matter and antimatter—one which would, obviously, destroy the entire ship.
“Sir?” asked the Ensign at Tactical, looking tense, confused and nearly overwhelmed.
“Well, what are you waiting for lad?” barked the old
engineer. “Fire the main gun!”
“Uh…okay sir,” said the Ensign, reaching forward to unlock and then depress the large red button on his console.
The long spiral of grav-plates which ran from one end of the ship all the way to the other started to draw power from the ship’s powerful antimatter generators.
“Power drain on the energy banks,” reported Brence unnecessarily at the Engineering station.
The lights flickered.
“Discharge in five seconds,” reported the Ensign in a quavering voice.
There was a loud hum—similar to, but slightly different from when the HPC was used for propulsion.
“Four-three-two-” counted down the Ensign, who was interrupted by a loud thump which coincided with the entire ship surging backward.
“It’s trying to throw us off course!” cried the helmsman, fighting the helm as the front end of the ship fish tailed from side to side.
“Speed decreasing,” reported Shepherd at the same time in a rising voice.
“What’s going on, Sir?” cried Brence as everyone slammed back into their chairs.
“What did you expect? The HPC is the same system we’re using to move us forward, only instead of firing out the back end we narrowed the focus and fired off a round at the Imperials,” Spalding chortled, secretly wiping his forehead at the thought of what could have happened if the antimatter containment had been impacted by firing the HPC. He’d gotten the gravity fluctuations under control when firing aft, but this was the first time firing forward since the new generators were installed.
Unmindful of the glances exchanged behind his back, the old Engineer watched eager to see what his ‘plasma’ round was going to do to the enemy Carrier. Was it everything he’d ever hoped for, or was it just another dud that needed to go back to the drawing-board?
“Come on, ya pansies!” he yelled at the screen as the plasma ball neared the Imperial warship. “I know you Imps like to dish it out, but can you take it in return?! That’s the question!! Quick—begin recharging the capacitors and tell the Phoenix and North Hampton to close with the enemy! There’s no holding back now, lads,” he ordered without turning his eyes still locked on the main screen.
Chapter One hundred seven: Fire and Fury on the Command Deck
“Enemy ship has fired!” yelped a sensor operator.
“What?” demanded Janeski.
“Report through your chain of command, Specialist!” snarled Commander Stenson.
&nbs
p; “I’m sorry, Commander,” the Specialist said stiffening, “one of the three approaching enemy warships has just fired some kind of weapon—but they should be out of range!”
“Relay to Tactical and man your board properly, Specialist,” snapped the Commander.
With the flick of a few buttons, the information had gone over to Tactical.
“It’s too fast to be a missile!” reported Tactical anxiously.
“Show it on the screen,” Janeski ordered, and moments later the Command Carrier shook. Red lights flashed on the flag bridge before settling back to normal.
“We just took a hit on the starboard side—shields down to forty percent,” reported the Shields officer with overt bewilderment—and fear—in his voice. “I’ve got burnout and automatic resets on shield generators 20, 21, 24 and 36!”
“Damage to starboard hull—we have outgassing,” reported Damage control.
“What hit us?!” Janeski snapped.
“Shield regeneration set to maximum,” reported the Shields Officer frantically.
“Recommend we roll the ship, Sir,” reported the Helm.
A playback of the strike appeared on the screen. A seemingly small, innocuous-looking sensor contact appeared just outside the three ship formation that was approaching them from outside of standard turbo-laser range.
“And expose our damaged side to the Governor and his squadron of Battleships? Belay the roll,” Janeski scoffed.
“Sir, they are almost battered beyond recognition. We’ve all but won!” protested Goddard.
“And allow him another chance to cause mayhem—like by, say, ramming one of his Battleships into the gap in our shields and smashing directly into the hull?” Janeski sneered. “I won’t give him the satisfaction of even thinking he can succeed before he dies,” he turned to Tactical. “Which ship did the attack originate from? I want to know point of origin, what kind of weapon they’re using, and how high the yield is,” he demanded.
“The computer is identifying it as plasma, and it looks like it came from,” the screen shifted now, showing a dotted track extending from the Imperial Carrier back to the enemy troop transport.
“That’s no troop transport…” Captain Goddard declared ominously.
Janeski gave him a cold, derisive look and turned back.
“I have a fifty meter blast radius and a five meter open hole on the outer hull of my flagship, people. Belay the shield regeneration—set the main cannon to full recharge rate and get this ship moving,” he ordered, his jaw bunching, “let’s see how well they can hit a moving target. And message down to Gunnery: fire when she’s in range. It won’t take much to destroy that half-stripped bundle of girders.”
Chapter One hundred eight: Admiral’s Trouble
“The newly arrived squadron just fired and…hit the Command Carrier!” exclaimed Lieutenant Hart.
“They are now squawking IFF’s. It’s the Furious Phoenix, North Hampton and the third…. it says they’re the Lucky Clover, Sir!” exclaimed Lisa Steiner.
“Commander Spalding,” I breathed, quietly clenching my fist. There was only one man who would rename a new ship after the old one and then have the gall to show up here in the middle of a battle—with what had to be a half-built ship, to boot.
“The Command Carrier has started moving. I don’t know what they hit her with, but it punched through their shields in one shot, Admiral!” Hart reported excitedly.
“We’ve been here for how long and couldn’t make her so much as move, and in one shot the Imperials decide to take off?” Captain Hammer shook her head.
“They must have stung her good,” I said savagely and then glared at the screen, “if they punched through her shields, the Invictus Rising must be weak on the other side. Are they starting to roll?” I asked, my eyes shooting back to the enemy Command Carrier. If the shields were down, we might have a chance to…
“No indications of movement by the Command Carrier—belay that: there are a whole lot of fighters being launched and the rest are suddenly changing course all over the local battle space,” reported Hart.
“Blast it all, they’re going after the Clover—or whichever ship fired the attack that punched through their shields,” I cursed, straightening in my chair. “Notify all ships: direct all possible point defense fire toward those fighters! We have to thin them out before they get there. And Steiner, tell the other Battleships to notify their crews to be ready to abandon ship at any moment.”
“Sir?!” Steiner and Hammer exclaimed simultaneously.
“If the Imperials show us an area without shields and we see a chance,” I said shaking my head grimly, “the ship with the best position will set a collision course and ram.”
There was a sudden silence on the bridge—which said better than any words could have that we were all in agreement on that particular order.
Chapter One hundred nine: Gunboats to the rescue…is it enough?
“Look at them go!,” Harry exclaimed before seizing in a sudden, severe bout of coughing. “The Imperial Fighters are turning and running like cowards!” he added after mistakenly believing the coughing was over, and he began to pound his console angrily as he fought to regain control over his breathing.
“After them, Helm!” ordered O’Toole.
“Can’t we clear this any faster, Harry?” wheezed Danny from seat at the pilot’s console as he waved his hand in front of his face, trying to clear the smoke in air.
Inside the small gunboat’s cockpit—calling it a bridge was a stretch, but one the little crew was more than willing to go—even a small amount of smoke rapidly filled the area.
“The vents are set to maximum; they’re already running as fast as they can, Dan,” growled the former chef-turned-second-in-command of the boat.
“I can hardly breathe here, Harry!” snapped Danny before breaking into another spurt of coughing.
“Then put on a head bag, Dan!” snapped the former chef, “Because unless you’re looking for me to winkle up a hoagie on rye, there’s nothing more I can do for you,” he said and then, fitting words to action, he reached down under his seat and put on the self-sealing face mask. He then attached the oxygen hose attached to the base of the chair to the side of the mask. He breathed a sigh of relief as fresh, clear oxygen once again started filling his lungs.
There were a few tense moments as the smoke continued to linger and the whole crew put on head bags.
A beep sounded as the gunboat Captain received a message from the fleet on his console.
“There goes another squadron! They’re really pulling out all the stops, Captain,” reported Harry.
“Signal Killjoys Wing,” ordered Justin O’toole, “this is the Wing Commander: lock onto those fighter and set engines to maximum. Engage in hot pursuit! We have to stop those fighters.”
“That’s crazy, Justin—we’ll all be killed,” protested Harry. “We’ve been lucky to make it this long and we’re already up in smoke to our eyeballs. We need to take this chance to fix things before something critical breaks and I can’t fix it!”
“We have our orders. Svetlana: lock on target and fire at will,” ordered the little gunboat’s CO.
“Aye aye, Captain,” said the boat’s gunner.
The pilot nodded as well, and the little gunboat surged forward as its engines went to full power.
Like an angry bee chasing a swarm of fleet-winged flies, the little gunboat was soon joined by her sister boats. Before the fighters could clear the engagement area, they opened fire.
“Smoke one bogey!” cried Svetlana as an Imperial fighter took a hit from the boat’s fire-linked blaster cannons.
In ones and twos the fighters, who now had their engines pointed toward the much-reduced gunboat wing, started to flame out and explode.
“Pour it on! We’ve got to keep as many of them as we can off our reinforcements,” cried O’Toole.
Chapter One hundred ten: Under Threat
“Captain Spalding, I’ve got
over a hundred and fifty fighters on a course for this ship—and that Carrier keeps launching more of them!” cried the Ensign at Tactical.
“Are you wet behind the ears? I’m just here to fix things that are broke,” Spalding said scathingly in response to a greenhorn officer calling him a ‘Captain.’
“They’re still launching, Sir!” reported the Ensign.
“Now don’t go and get your knickers in a bunch—that never helped anything,” Spalding snorted, shaking his head and then laying a finger alongside his nose, “don’t you worry none. We’ll put a stop to them.”
“We will?” the Ensign asked, shoulders slumping with relief.
“Of course we will!” the Commander said stoutly. “Why, we’ve got enough antimatter on this grand lady to take care of more than a thousand fighters!”
“An…antimatter?” the Ensign looked numbed.
“I thought you swore you hadn’t weaponized the stuff! You swore, Terrance—you swore you hadn’t weaponized it,” screamed Baldwin.
“Now, now—that’s just a last resort,” Spalding said testily, “and it’s not ‘weaponized,’ just like I said. Why I just meant was that all we’d have to do is eject one of the antimatter generators, slow down, and then hit it a few times until matter met antimatter. We can’t be held accountable for what those generators do after they’ve been ejected,” he continued piously, a sincere look on his face before suddenly turning fierce. “But if you think for a moment I’m about to let this Battleship fall into the hands of those ham-fisted Imperials, you’ve got another think coming! Why, I’ve half a notion to—”
Admiral's War Part Two (A Spineward Sectors Novel: Book 10) Page 40