Admiral's Fall

by Luke Sky Wachter

  Chapter 49: The Storm is Here

  “We received the signal, Sir,” reported Magnus' Chief of Staff.

  “No changes, emergency updates, or notifications from the Reclamation Initiative?” Magnus asked her.

  “Everything is exactly as expected. Montagne and the MSP are now officially occupied in Sector 26. They should find themselves engaged with the remaining forces of the Reclamation Initiative any day now. That is if they haven’t already met for battle. The broken ComStat network and replacement courier system in this region of space leave much to be desired,” she replied with a sniff.

  “All glory to Man’s Empire, but you just can’t expect the Confederation to maintain and keep things running to Imperial standards,” said Admiral Davenport. “Especially a broken and isolated region of the Confederation such as this. Issue the order: we proceed at once.”

  “Fifth Fleet has been itching for a chance to give the Confederation a proper rebuke for the killing of Praetor Cornwallis. Having a Senator of the Empire eaten by a horde of Bugs has set any number of jaws,” she said.

  “The Confederation locals of this region will soon realize the error of their ways, CoS,” the Imperial Admiral said with certainty, “unlike our various Imperial predecessors in this region, we know what we’re up against; we have infiltrated the enemy and, more importantly, we have something they all lacked: a proper Imperial battle fleet.”

  “Aye aye, Admiral,” his Chief of Staff replied smartly.

  Using a series of quick jumps, now that they knew the defenders of the Spine’s were gone off to deal with the remnants of the Reclamation, Fleet Imperial Admiral Magnus Davenport broke his fleet into task forces and sent them off in a series of deep insertion and intimidation raids.

  Taking advantage of his orders to end the insurgency in the Spine and bring the region back into the welcoming arms of known space by any means necessary, he set out to do just exactly that as quickly and efficiently as possible.

  Half a dozen second tier worlds were hit in rapid succession, as were two important Core World: Hart’s World and the Kingdom of Capria.

  Tracto and Gambit Star system would have to wait for the moment. They were just too far out of the way to justify an attack.

  Plus there was the alien technology issue to take into consideration. After all, everyone knew there was no such thing as an instantaneous communication system but then everyone knew you couldn’t just jump a whole fleet in tandem in well past the officially accepted hyperspace limit either. Yet Grand Admiral Jason Montagne of the New Confederation Fleet was able to do both of those things.

  Who was to say that he didn’t have access to some sort of instant communication system or that, upon being attacked at home, he couldn’t just jump there in force? No one knew the jump range limits on those alien jump engines he’d purloined, after all.

  Half a dozen worlds were attacked and half a dozen worlds were reduced to a pre-industrial state with their entire orbital industries smashed and the largest concentrations of industry on the planet destroyed.

  As for the Core Worlds, Hart’s World fell within eight hours of its attack. The Caprian Star System repulsed its attack after heavy losses to its lighter forces, however a surprise reveal by the Royal SDF of eight newly constructed Battleships and twice as many in new construction Heavy Cruisers unexpectedly turned the tide of battle, and Davenport had to settle for heavily damaging its orbital industry.

  Then word came from Mr. Simpers that, for a few promises and a measly ten million Imperial credits, the information they’d been waiting for had arrived.

  Within two days every Imperial task force in the Sector was converging on one uninteresting, uninhabited, unexploited and unnamed star system.

  Chapter 50: The Assembly Must Recall the MSP!

  “The Empire has returned to the Spine and is smashing everything in sight! We must recall Grand Admiral Jason Montagne and the Multi-Sector Patrol Fleet to defend this Sector at once,” urged Anton Chat-Hammer, having temporarily regained his standing as a temporary Faction Leader after Isaak was publicly forced to recant his treatment of the former Grand Admiral and welcome him back into New Confederation space as an official Confederation ally.

  “Someone has to fight this new Imperial fleet, and despite the Grand Speaker’s repeated assurances we still do not have the forces at hand to fight off a simple pirate raid let alone the 5th Fleet of the Imperial Navy,” Chat-Hammer said, throwing his hands in the air.

  “Hear hear,” rumbled the Mutual Defense League faction members standing behind him.

  “My esteemed colleague, the Minority Leader’s hyperbolic assertions about pirates aside—pirates which, for the record, we’d crush without breaking a sweat—let me remind you that Admiral Manning has a sizable fleet at his beck and call. Let me also say that the situation in this Sector is not nearly as desperate as my colleague the Minority Leader would have you believe,” Isaak said, steeling himself to stand up before the Grand Assembly. He had a losing hand and he knew it, but if certain defeat was enough to keep a man off the playing field he wouldn’t go very far in galactic politics.

  “What are you playing at, Newton?” the Grand Assembly member from Aegis demanded, purpling with anger. “This whole bloody business has been a disaster from the moment you sacked the Grand Admiral! This is all your fault.”

  “My fault?” Isaak Newton retorted sharply. “As I recall, it was only at the urging of any number of Assembly representatives that I took the action I did. Among them the representative from Aegis, you, if I recall correctly, and please let’s not forget that there is more than one Grand Admiral out there when speaking.”

  “Yes, under your tenure the position of Grand Admiral has been handed out like it wasn’t worth the ink used to print the commission on paper,” sneered the Aegis Rep, “of course I called for his ouster! Are you a fool? I just never expected you to sack him mid-campaign.”

  “Yes of course you wanted me to fire him, called for it loudly, and now are so upset you’re frothing at the mouth that I did it. Very consistent, Grand Assemblyman,” sniffed the Speaker.

  “You can’t change horses mid-stream,” the Aegis Members all but screamed, “before or after, but not in the middle of a battle. You’ve killed millions with your bungling, Speaker Newton. My own home world is currently occupied by invaders from the Old Confederation. For all I know, Imperial Marines are rounding up my family even as we speak in order for them to be executed!”

  “No one is being executed. First, the regrettable occupation of Aegis is being carried out by entirely civilized Confederation Marines; and second, Grand Admiral Manning will liberate your home world any time,” Isaak soothed.

  “Do you take me for a fool? Unless he runs, Manning will be crushed between the combined forces of the Old Confederation Forces at Aegis and the newly-arrived Imperial 5th Fleet,” the Aegis Representative stood there breathing heavily. “We’re doomed,” he said finally and then fell back into his chair in defeat.

  “As my colleague from Aegis seems to endorse, there is no way Admiral Manning can handle both of these forces at once. Which is why I move that we summon Admiral Montagne back to this Sector immediately, if not sooner,” urged Anton Chat-Hammer.

  Isaak rolled his eyes. “Are we certain the Imperials cannot be negotiated with? We’re all reasonable men here,” Isaak spoke to the elected and appointed body of the Grand Assembly firmly. “I’m sure the Empire would much rather cut a deal than be forced to reduce every one of our home world’s in turn and then leave a giant garrison force to suppress region-wide insurgency efforts.”

  “You want to negotiate a surrender?” Chat-Hammer howled with disbelief.

  “No, you’ve got me all wrong. A temporary armistice until we can gather our strength. We negotiate for time, that’s all,” Isaak said with desperate passion.

  “I move a courier is sent to recall the MSP immediately. We must defend this Assembly,” Chat-Hammer said, pounding the podium in fr
ont of him, “who votes with me?”

  “Aye!” shouted a majority of the delegates.

  “Do the ayes have it or will you require an electronic vote count, Mr. Speaker?” Chat-Hammer asked with relief-tinged triumph.

  “The ayes have it,” Isaak said, tasting ashes as he spoke.

  Within the hour a message was sent via the ComStat network and shortly after that a courier was winging its way deep into Sector 26 with an urgent message for one Admiral Montagne.

  Chapter 51: The Old Confederation Returns to the Spine

  Somewhere in the Overton Expanse

  Officially it wasn’t a fleet. Massed on the border of Sector 25, the 4th Customs and Border Guard Flotilla had a name that only a Confederation bureaucrat could love, but it had a ship count on par with most full fleets.

  Despite both these things, it was still technically only a flotilla. That was because the Confederation’s Grand Assembly as a body retained control over fleet movements, but had delegated authority over sub-fleet flotillas to the Confederation Speaker since the Speaker was also tasked with ensuring adequate supply and reinforcements reached the Glorious Fleet of Liberation survivors holed up in Aegis Star System. The fact that it was only a Flotilla helped cut through a lot of red tape.

  Unofficially, everyone in the Grand Assembly would far rather prefer the Speaker just make sure the relief effort got where they needed to go with a minimum of fuss and without making the Grand Assembly go through all the work required to authorize another fleet. The fact they were also sticking it to old orange hair by making him divert funds from his wall initiative was just icing on the cake to a lot of politicians on all sides of the aisle.

  Many of those politicians would have been less than enthused to find out that Grand Assemblyman Charles Thomas, the Border Integrity Movement Leader and temporary Fleet Admiral, had been personally charged with ensuring that relief force made it to Aegis by no lesser personage than The Ronald, Majority Leader and Speaker of the Grand Assembly.

  “How are we looking?” asked the temporarily reactivated Admiral Charles Thomas, striding onto the bridge of his flagship.

  The Blunderbuss was an Old Confederation Battleship that had been placed on the reserve list, along with most of the rest of the fleet, when the military industrial complex had been disassembled and the Confederation Fleet stood down.

  “The hover bus is doing good, Sir,” Commodore Harkness said, stiffening to attention and visibly working to suck in his paunch.

  Charles Thomas ignored the paunch and focused on his top subordinate. “Hover bus…?” he asked with a hint of disapproval.

  The Commodore colored. Like a lot of people in the Fleet, he’d accepted—practically begged is more like it—to be reactivated. The fact there hadn’t been a Commodore’s slot open hadn’t deterred Harkness in the slightest, who’d openly campaigned for a ship command slot after learning all the top squadron slots had already been filled by reservist Admirals chomping at the bit to get back into space.

  Much as he hated to admit it, more than one Commodore had called in a favor and was even now commanding a warship in his fleet. Well, the fleet that was still called a flotilla anyway. Most of them were listed as second in command in their squadrons, although in one embarrassing case he had two Commodores and an Admiral.

  “This has to be the most top-heavy flotilla in the history of the Confederation,” he muttered.

  “Sorry, Sir?” asked Harkness, relaxing slightly and starting to wander away to check on one of his grey haired bridge crew.

  “Don’t run off,” Admiral Thomas said sharply, “you were about to explain yourself.”

  Harkness immediately re-sucked in his gut. “What can I say, Admiral? We have a few members of the original crew who followed the old girl into the yard-monitoring crew. Apparently back before the fleet was mostly stood down, they got to saying how hover buses were allowed to kill more people than the old Blunderbuss. Then someone pointed out how ‘bus’ was part of the old girls name, and they took it on for themselves as a point of pride,” the Commodore said helplessly.

  “Cruisers were no longer allowed to cruise. Destroyers couldn’t destroy. Even top named ships like Fighting Monarch or Pride of Battle might not be allowed out of the yard for fear she might actually hurt someone but, as they say, every day there’s another news story about how some hover-bus somewhere was still running someone over. What can I say? The name stuck,” Harkness shrugged.

  Charles Thomas felt a pain in his head and began to rub his temples. “Next time just remind me I told you to tell me not to ask,” he said wearily.

  “Outstanding, Sir,” Commodore Harkness said, visibly swelling until his gut once again popped out and he had to quickly release a breath in order to suck it back in.

  Thomas' headache began to grow more acute.

  There was a loud beeping noise and a stir in the Comm. pit.

  “What have you got, Senior Commander Noel?” Harkness asked, immediately waddling over.

  Against his better judgment, Charles Thomas followed.

  “We just got a report via ComStat, Captain…I mean Commodore,” realizing there was another, higher ranked officer standing behind his ship commander the Senior Commander nodded in acknowledgment, “Admiral.”

  “Senior Commander,” said Admiral Thomas, “what have you got?

  “We’re receiving reports from the Spine that an Imperial Fleet is on the move,” said the Senior Commander.

  “Really?” Charles Thomas perked up, “I thought we lost all our information assets. Did a reservist or former military man report in?”

  Senior Commander Noel shook his head and pressed a button. A news segment straight off of the Cosmic News Network affiliates in the Spine began to play.

  Some news anchor named Mathilda May gloated that the Empire had come to restore order while simultaneously berating the reporter on the ground.

  Charles Thomas drooped slightly.

  “So literally a report, just in this case an actual news report,” Charles Thomas temporized.

  “You got it in one,” said the Senior Commander.

  “Well that’s good,” said the Admiral, turning away.

  “Of course there’s also this,” added Noel.

  “What have you got?” the Grand Assemblyman asked, turning back despite himself.

  “Just some yahoo claiming to be a member of the Rebel Assembly asking for witness protection for himself and his family, resettlement in the Sector 18, and five million credits hard currency in exchange for the current location of the Monitor the Rebels are using as a mobile government headquarters for the region,” said the Senior Commander.

  “How would such an individual even know where we are or how to contact us?” Charles Thomas scoffed.

  “No idea. However, the moron failed to strip out the header files showing where the message was sent from,” said the Senior Commander.

  “And just where is that?” asked the Admiral.

  “Some place out in the middle of nowhere with an alphanumeric designation,” the Commander replied promptly.

  “Just the kind of place you’d park a mobile governmental headquarters,” observed Charles Thomas.

  “Are you thinking we should swing by and take a look on our way over to Aegis?” asked Harkness.

  “It’s out of the way if you’re going to Aegis. Past it a bit actually; you’d have to track back,” observed Noel.

  “We’ve got over three hundred ships, and more than one hundred of them part of the supply convoy. There’s no reason we couldn’t drop off the convoy and then swing on over to take a look,” Charles Thomas said, rubbing his chin.

  “Your orders, Sir?” asked the Commodore.

  “We’re strong enough to go out into the Spine. There really is no reason to keep hanging around out here,” observed Charles Thomas.

  “Half our warships are customs Corvettes...we’re a little light in the capital ship department,” pointed out Harkness.

&nbs
p; “I have the authority to issue orders to the Glorious Fleet of Liberation,” pointed out Charles Thomas, “more importantly, I have local assets available. Have Navigation plot a course and then update the rest of the fleet. We jump as one. Then, while the Commodore does that, I’d like to speak with Commodore McCruise. I need to pick her brain,” said Charles Thomas.

  Interlude: Movement on Many Fronts

  Less than a week and several jumps later, the message from the Grand Assembly was still on its way deep into Sector 26 when jump emergence alarms started going off all throughout the mobile government headquarters.

  In an uninhabited star system with no name, only an alphanumeric designation, the Grand Assembly of the New Confederation was caught flat-footed as an Imperial Fleet jumped into the same system as the New Confederation Government.

  While the Monitor’s Captain desperately tried to charge his jump engines faster than physically possible and the small defense force assigned to the New Confederation’s Grand Assembly assumed a defensive formation, an emergency meeting was called.

  “Brothers and sisters, there is a traitor in our midst. Someone has sold our jump route to the highest bidder or to cut a deal for their own little special interests and the Empire has just picked up their tab,” Isaak Newton said grimly. “We are betrayed by one of our own.”

  “Is it all over?” Kong Pao paled as he turned to another member of the MDL Faction, a woman on the War Committee, “I’m not a military expert but we seem to be heavily outnumbered.”

  She shook her head.

  “Can we flee before they get here?” Minority Leader Anton Chat-Hammer asked, stepping up to his podium. He looked exactly like what he was: a man grasping at straws.