I didn’t know what we were going to do, but I kept two things in the forefront of my mind. The first was that no one ever won a fight by running away, and the second was that ‘faint hearts never won fair lady.’ We might not win, but I wanted to at the very least take a few more shots at these guys before picking up my chips and going home.
I drummed my fingers on the arm of my chair.
“It doesn’t look good, Admiral,” Laurent said, and I looked back over at him and frowned. I could all but hear him advising me that we were so heavily outnumbered that the only valid option was to flee.
“They’ll make a mistake and leave us an opening,” I said confidently and, to my surprise, I found that I actually was confident. These droids fought like idiots, after all. There was some strategy to their tactics of always aiming at the largest and most powerful enemy first. But, as far as I could see, they preferred to attack with massive numbers of low budget hulls grouped together as closely as possible and didn’t try to do anything tricky like split their forces for pincer attacks.
“I sure hope so,” he replied respectfully.
Or maybe I’d just scared them by exceeding some kind of cost-benefit/ration when I knocked out that initial squadron, it was hard to say. It really was too soon to know for sure but I thought I was getting a handle on these droids. As far as I could see, their preferred modus operandi was to swamp their foes with weight and numbers. Which left little room for fancy footwork and cunning tactics…now, while I wasn’t a military genius—as I’d reminded my Flag Captain—this was far from my first rodeo. I knew that I could still play matador to their angry bull.
“I have every confidence,” I repeated with a shark-like smile before relaying a series of orders to the communication section for them to relay throughout the fleet.
This was going to get ugly.
Chapter 46: Multiple Attack Vectors
“Here we go!” shouted First Officer Eastwood before relaying the orders to fire at will down to the gunners waiting for just such directive.
On command, the entire MSP Fleet cut their engines and pivoted to face the swarm of droids.
First into the fray, as usual, was the Furious Phoenix with her longer-ranged weaponry. She unloaded her turbo-lasers into the midst of the Droid Swarm, setting off a series of explosions as she delivered her fury into the heart of the swarm.
“Mother-ships are burning hard to try and reach us before we’re out of range,” reported our Navigator from where he was running multiple enemy tracks. He stood ready to alert me if it looked like they were about to close the gap between us and get those overpowered spinal mounted lasers of theirs into the action.
“Sir!” exclaimed Steiner from over in the com-section, “I’m receiving orders from System Command. They’re waving us off and ordering us to get clear of the gunboats; they want us to make for the moon and put it be—”
I lifted a hand to silence her. “Cut the channel, Comm.,” I said abruptly, “I have neither the time nor the inclination to hold their hands. This is a Confederation Fleet and if anyone gives orders while we’re in this system, it is us.”
Even as I spoke, gunboats started to blink out of existence in ones, and twos, and sometimes even in fours and fives, as our gun teams cleared their turbos into the swarm as rapidly as they would cycle.
“Entering heavy laser range,” Tactical reported unnecessarily. I could already see our Light Cruiser and Destroyers opening up with their heaviest weapons.
“What’s the ETA on those mother-ships?” I demanded as we skirted around the edge of the gunboats.
“We need to break off now if we want to keep out of range,” replied Shepherd.
I stood up. “Relay to all ships,” I ordered, “full burn towards Aqua Prime; we’re going to skirt the planet for a sling shot maneuver.”
“Dangerous, sir,” Laurent told me into the silence as DuPont started to carry out my orders for the Phoenix and Steiner chattered into her com-link, “if we’re going too fast and run into a satellite, or enter range of a defense turret…”
“Life is about taking risks,” I said, shrugging off his concern. Either we’d be fine or we wouldn’t, but I wasn’t about to trust myself to the tender mercies of the Senior Select and the government that put him in charge of this system’s political process. That meant I wasn’t going near that moon without a lot more information—and assurances—than I had just then.
If there was one thing I’d learned in this job, it was that the political animal was a rabid creature more than willing to stab you in the back at the first opportunity. He was willing to sacrifice anything and everything for the visceral thrill of seeing his enemies burn, even if meant everything else would go down in flames with him. For them, everything revolved around the election cycle, and short-term benefits were infinitely superior to anything they could reap in the long run.
In short, I didn’t trust them and while their military was under civilian command that meant that anything System Command told me was suspect.
“Yes, sir,” Laurent nodded stepping back.
The acceleration was so fierce that I could even feel a slight increase in weight of my body into the back of the chair but slowly and surely we were pulling away.
“Any sign of defensive turrets or orbital forts?” Laurent snapped as we started accelerating away from the droids and toward the planet.
“Nothing on the scans yet, Captain,” the Sensor Warrant said confidently, then with an ‘urk’, his head shot around. “Correct that, sir: we’ve got a pair of them coming up on scans just now!”
“Adjust course to skirt around their firing range and then relay it to the rest of the Fleet, Mr. DuPont,” I instructed firmly.
“Yes sir, Admiral,” said the Helmsman.
Tense minutes followed as we cut to the side, around, and then back onto our original course after avoiding the pair of orbital fortresses and accompanying swarm of defensive turrets.
I smiled tightly as I watched with anticipation, waiting for the droid reaction to finding the defensive installations.
“The droids are adjusting course, Admiral!” exclaimed a Sensor Operator. “They’re now on a course directly toward the forts!”
My smile was now showing teeth. “When we clear the far side of the planet, if the mother-ships aren’t in the way I want us to swing wide around that moon, Helm,” I ordered calmly, as if I were a man in total and complete control of everything. Surprisingly I actually felt confident. I had a few moves left before things got desperate. I glanced back at where the droid gunboats were swarming around the planetary defenses and grimaced.
Well, desperate for me anyway.
“Mother-ships show every sign of continuing to follow us at their best speed,” Tactical cut in.
“I thought the machines would be smarter than that?” I frowned. If I had been the droids, knowing I could never catch up with a faster force like the MSP, I would have cut around the other side of the planet planning to catch my foes with those spinal lasers on a short engagement window. I could then slow a few ships by crippling their engines, and then once they were cut out of the herd, fall on them like the rabid wolves of cold space.
Behind us, every defensive weapon among the forts and turrets opened fire. Lasers and missiles lanced out into the cloud of nearly fourteen hundred gunboats bearing down on them. For long seconds, a weight of fire equal to a pair of battleship lanced out from the Orbital Fortresses and their accompanying defensive turrets, sweeping gunboats from the sky and creating a long, visible trail of debris in the wake of the undeterred droid horde.
“We’re getting a transmission from the Sundered,” reported Steiner, “the Primarch says he wouldn’t take a droid gunboat even if they were offered to him for free." Here, her voice changed from her usual, alto register, to a husky attempt at the Uplifts usual deep voice, “They are after being flying death traps,” she mimicked.
I snorted, struggling to keep from laughing out-loud. “That’
s enough of that, Warrant Officer,” I chortled.
She gave me a mock offended look—at least I hoped it was a mock one. Her imitation had simply sounded too funny, and I feared it would disrupt bridge operations to have her continue.
“Oh, and tell the Primarch to stay off the channels unless he has something relevant to add,” I instructed her, because no matter how funny she had sounded relaying his message, I didn’t need comments from the peanut gallery clogging up my communication department. We couldn’t risk missing an important communiqué because every captain and their first officer felt free to start blathering to the admiral, “And remind him please, that the fewer transmissions the enemy has to intercept, the harder it will be for them to crack our encryption—and the safer we’ll all be.”
“Aye, Admiral,” she said, a bit more subdued as she started to relay my reminder to the Primarch.
Looking back at the battle taking place behind us I winced as the droid gunboats descended on the fortresses like a swarm of angriest hornets I’d ever seen.
Fifteen seconds of furious combat later, and the first orbital fortress lost power and exploded. The destructive energy it dumped into space as its fusion generators went critical and failed put to shame the death throes of the destroyers we’d witnessed earlier in the Battle for Aqua Prime.
“They must have set their cores to self-destruct as soon as they lost contact with main control, sir,” the Damage Control watch stander said sounding subdued.
“Brave blighters,” Laurent said with reluctant admiration in his voice.
I looked at him with a faint, quizzical quirk of my eyebrow.
“They gave up the chance of taking an escape pod and getting down to the surface in favor of taking a few more of their enemies with them,” he said.
I nodded, knowing that whatever else I wanted to say about Aqua Nova, their SDF knew how to die and die well—but they were still idiots.
“They should have waited until both forts were down,” I disagreed, trying for a diplomatic approach. “As it is they annihilated a few of their turrets and damaged the shields of their sister fortress. They should have set up some way so that only after the second one went down would they self-destruct.”
“That’s cold, Sir,” Laurent said.
“Cold, but practical,” I observed giving him a piercing look, “bravery by itself isn’t enough. If you’re going to spend your life, I for one would want to make blasted sure that I did the maximum damage to the enemy.”
“I’m not saying you’re wrong,” Laurent agreed, “but you have to respect a man who’s willing to do whatever it takes for his home world.”
“Of course,” I lied. I had no respect for throwing away your life—especially if you did it stupidly, “They’re heroes of Aqua Nova and, if we prevail, they should be hailed as such.”
Laurent nodded.
“We’re rounding the planet; the droids will be losing contact with us anytime now,” reported Tactical.
“No sign of enemy watch ships stationed around the planet to relay where we are and which way we’re going?” asked Laurent.
“None that we can see, Sir,” cut in the Sensor Warrant.
“Morons,” I sighed, not daring to believe that the droids were actually that stupid.
“The metal heads haven’t exactly been the sharpest, have they, sir?” Laurent asked rhetorically.
“New vector, Helm,” I said, untrusting of the idea that the droids were actually as stupid as they appeared. I didn’t want to find out I was wrong in underestimating their intelligence by sliding into a minefield or ambush. Even a couple of those droid mother-ships could ruin our day if they could sacrifice themselves by taking out our engines. Even a few degrees of course change should take us away from anything lying dark.
“Aye, sir,” DuPont said carrying out my new instruction. We were still heading toward the moon, for a new slingshot maneuver around it at a slower speed, but at a safer distance which allowed us to remain protected.
“Still no sign of droid forces positioned behind the planet to observe us?” demanded Captain Laurent.
“No, sir, just a few damaged gunboat limpers,” replied the Warrant Officer.
Laurent looked at him coldly. “A damaged boat with an active comm. and sensor array is just as effective in relaying our position to the main Droid Fleet as an undamaged mother-ship,” he rebuked the Sensor Warrant. “Next time, call out any damaged ‘limpers’ the moment they’re spotted!”
“Aye, sir. Sorry, sir,” replied the Warrant.
We were moving away from the planet and well on our way to the moon by the time the droid fleet was coming around Aqua Prime and back into sensor range.
“Any sign of surface strikes?” I asked, afraid to hear the answer. The machine plague wasn’t exactly reputed to be merciful when dealing with large concentrations of biomass—like cities.
“Nothing on sensors, Admiral,” the Warrant Officer relayed, “and what little scans we’ve been able to take of the planet’s surface which the droids have passed over isn’t showing anything. No high energy impacts—no lasers, missiles or kinetic strikes—as far as we can see.”
“Pardon me, Admiral,” Steiner said turning white as a ghost as I looked at her, “but planetary comm. channels have gone crazy; the news networks are reporting a series of chemical gas attacks on key industrial and population centers. It appears the droids are launching bombs with chemical warheads; they’re trying to limit the damage to critical infrastructure while eliminating the highest concentration of humans on the planet’s surface." By the time she was done speaking, there was a tremor in her voice.
I shook my head savagely wondering if there was anything I could have done to save the people in the cities of Aqua Prime and silently vowing undying vengeance upon these droids. I would hunt these creatures to the ends of the galaxy if that’s what it took.
“Those blasted droids,” Laurent said, his voice thick with emotion.
“We’ll pay them back tenfold,” I hissed. This self-proclaimed ‘Tribe’ was going to pay.
“Our ancestors had it right: Man not Machine, Admiral,” Laurent said, his voice hardening. “They shouldn’t have stopped until every single one of the Sentient Machines was dead and disassembled—and for that, I will never forgive them.”
“The local worlds individually, and the Confederated Empire as a whole, rested on their laurels. Now we’re the ones paying the price for their desire for social spending instead of keeping the fleets out of mothballs,” I said savagely. “’An SDF costs too much to maintain, but don’t worry because Rim Fleet will always be there to protect us. And even if there is an attack, you can at least rest assured that you’ll die healthy’!” I parroted between gritted teeth. “A pox on all of the Provincial Governments and the Confederate Empire!”
There was a growing pool of silence on the bridge.
“I’m not sure that social spending is the root of the problem,” Laurent said after a moment. Clearly lost in his, ‘let’s blame the machines for being the cold, calculating, uncaring blighters they are’ train of thought.
He hadn’t quite gotten to the same point I had reached in my own ruminations, which led to anger with the Provincial and Confederated Imperial Governments which left us all but naked when they came and did what the machines had always done from time immemorial.
“Peanuts and popcorn, bread and circuses,” I said bitterly, still angry with the politicians everywhere. “Pensions, health plans, and environmental conservations initiatives were more important than warships to defend our way of life—and now it’s up to us to pick up the pieces.”
Laurent looked like wanted to say something but activity in the Sensors Section distracted him. “I’m getting some unusual readings from the surface of the planet,” one of the Sensor Operators said, sounding stumped.
“What is it, Sensors?” Laurent pressed, locking onto the man like a hunting dog that had caught a scent. Whether it was a bear in bushes, or a
partridge in a pear tree, remained to be seen.
“Check for planetary bombardment silos,” Gants said, sounding almost as bitter as I felt right at that moment, but for a different reason and not incidentally causing me to stiffen with surprise. I hadn’t noticed when his arrival on the bridge—and I knew for a fact he hadn’t been up with us earlier.
“Sir?” the Warrant said looking at Laurent for confirmation.
“Do it,” he ordered before turning back to Gants, his expression demanding an answer.
“When we…attacked Capria,” Gants hesitated and then his face hardened. “When we attacked the home world, while we were dealing with a pair of medium cruisers, they maneuvered us toward the moon—almost within range of a hidden Planetary Bombardment Center,” he looked at me and Laurent bleakly. “Apparently Parliament…or maybe the Royalists, I suppose…anyway, someone built a planetary suppression system on the moon and Parliament kept it manned and operational. So when we got too close to the planet they fired on us with the bombs. They were too slow to be anything but bombs—no missile is that slow—but if they’d hit,” he shook his head and looked close to tears. “They were ready to suppress the population and turned it on us. I just thought maybe these Aqua Nova people were the same way.”
I placed a hand on my forehead. I remembered reading about it in the after action reports, but hearing the tale first hand really brought home the perfidy of the elected process. Not, I thought reluctantly, in the interests of honesty, that the Royalists had been perfect either but even still…
“Well it looks like this government’s distrust of its own population could be the saving of us all,” Laurent said, ever the practical one.
“If we can maneuver those mother-ships within range of the bomb silos, it very well might.” I agreed.
Spineward Sectors 6: Admiral's Spine Page 35
