War Master Candidate Omnibus

by Will Crudge

  Darius just stands there in silence. His eyes are transfixed on the ruined blast door where the squids came from. I can feel his Rage is still there, but miraculously enough, he might be handling it better than I am.

  At that moment I politely offer the Primal Rage my wholehearted gratitude, and it graciously retreats back into the dimension from whence it came. I flutter my eyes and execute a tremendous yawn.

  “They’re escaping back to their ship!” Silvia shouts as she grabs her soiled rifle from the deck and steps towards the ruined blast door. Darius reaches out and grabs her shoulder. She stops in place and turns to look at him.

  “They can’t escape,” Darius says calmly. I think Silvia is seeing his glowing eyes for the first time, judging by her body language. I only wish I could see her expression through her visor.

  “Are you sure, sir?” Silvia asks nervously.

  “I took out the thrusters to their boarding vessel.” He said, as his eyes ceased to glow, and the brown color returned. “Midas has restored power to the mag trains and has sealed off their approach to anywhere else on this ship. I’m guessing they only have a limited supply of door-melting power left.”

  “Orders, sir?” Silvia asks Darius. But he just points to me.

  “I gave her FLEETCON, and I haven’t rescinded it yet. Ask her.” He says.

  “Technically, I handed it over to Midas before we came to kill squids,” I say with a shoulder shrug.

  “I like her!” A chick’s voice comes out of nowhere.

  “Um, thanks… I guess?” I say as I look around for a face.

  “Oh, sorry!” She says again. “I’m Samantha. Call me Sam! I’m The Command Chief Warrant Officer of the UAHC Fleet forces.”

  She’s an AI. I’ve heard about her. I guess I should have figured she was embedded in her best friend’s armor. “Pleasure to meet you, Sam!” I say.

  “Katherine, you’re needed in the CIC.” Midas chimes in.

  “Is everything alright, Midas?” I ask.

  “It will be when you get back here and execute the next phase of your ridiculous plan,” Midas says calmly.

  “I’ll be right there, thanks,” I reply.

  “’Ridiculous plan,’ huh?” Darius chuckles and pats me on the back. “I think I like her too, Sam!”

  LEAVE IT TO A CANADIAN

  The CIC is still barren. Apparently, the mag-train issues have only been resolved further aft, but the command staff train is still offline. There’s a sophisticated array of blast doors with manual overrides to allow for such an event, but we are so short staffed that we lack the personnel to go and unlock them.

  Every Officer and NCO in here is having to cover three to four positions at once. Even the GBE personnel are having to fulfill some UAHC roles, and the Crimson Alliance presence isn’t even supposed to have an active combat role… But they do now.

  “I guess I’m more than just a liaison today, sir!” Major Anders tells Darius as we all study the battlespace in front of us. Darius turns to him.

  “What is your background, major?” He asks Anders.

  “Fighter pilot, sir.”

  “Me too,” Darius replies but then shrugs. “Well, at one time. We Soldiers perform a variety of roles, after all.”

  “Yes, sir. I’m aware.” Anders politely responds. I’d like to note that Anders the only Crimson fuck-head I’ve met that I didn’t want to pound into dust.

  “Are you performing the role of CAG for the visiting Crimson fighters?”

  “I started to, sir. But Kat placed all fighter assets under the command of your battle carrier.” Anders says. I can’t help but cringe. I wonder what Darius thinks of my call. To be honest, I didn’t think it through. I just made a call, and it felt right at the time. Sometimes the only bad decision is not making one at all, or so I’ve always been told.

  “Consolidating the fighter OPCON to one single entity that, happens to be, best equipped to manage the task was a solid call, Kat!” Darius tells me with a curt nod. Whew! “I may not have thought of that until some of them were already committed to an engagement, and then it would have caused too much confusion to change mid-course. You did it before any lives were put at any undue risk. I’m impressed.”

  “What shall we do know, sir?” I ask.

  “Whatever you decide, War Master,” Darius said with a smile.

  “But I’m not a…” I couldn’t finish my words. Darius put his hand up as a polite way of saying ‘shut the fuck up, stupid.’

  “You are in command. Don’t get hung up on titles. I have the authority to put a vacuum cleaner in charge, but I wouldn’t do it unless I knew for certain it was a vacuum cleaner with the correct skillset.” Darius explains with a wink.

  “But I…” I get interrupted again.

  “I have already seen this play out from beyond the confines of the cosmos. You are what will bring us victory, today.” He says sternly.

  “Then I guess I’d better initiate phase two then, huh?” I say as a matter of fact. “Midas? ETA on this Broadsword thingy?”

  Darius tells me privately.

 

 

  “Broadsword should be transitioning into normal space in ninety-two seconds.” Midas answers.

  “Send Brigadier General Cooper the jump countdown, and have him recall all deployed fighters for the jump, please,” I say… Although I’m not exactly sure what the fuck I meant by any of it.

  I ask Darius. He just takes a step back and shoots me an inquisitive glance.

  Darius replied.

  “Star Fury CIC acknowledges receipt. Jump countdown initiated.” Midas replies.

  “Starboard shielding to one hundred and five percent charge!” I shout abruptly. The GBE Sergeant Major at the defensive system's console gives me a curious glance.

  “She gave an order, sergeant major!” Commander Silvia called out. I’m glad she has my back, but she seriously needs to clean off the black Mwargoth blood from her armor. It’s starting to congeal, and it’s giving off a foul odor, as a result.

  The shielding icon reflected the strange command I just gave. Let’s see if the universe is speaking through me, or if someone slipped me some LSD as a prank.

  The entire ship shutters. Lights flicker, and the inertial dampeners take a momentary dump. I would have hit the deck if my hip hadn’t collided with a bolted down swivel chair nearby.

  “Starboard impact detected… Shields holding at three percent and climbing!” The cheeky GBE Sergeant-Major reported. The CIC erupted in cheers, and I feel the wind get knocked out of me.

  Once I recovered from swallowing my chewing gum, I realized that Darius had smacked me on the back. I need to make sure I don’t do anything more heroic than that, lest I get donkey punched into the QET pedestal!

  “What hit us, sergeant major?” I ask as I struggle to regain full control over my lungs.

  “Running diagnostics now, Ma’am!” He replies.

  “It was mine,” Midas replied. “Nuclear.”

  You can hear a pin drop after Midas dropped the truth bomb across the CIC. I may not be a space combat expert, by even human mines are nasty. They’re placed in a single point in space with no propulsion, and they’re heavily shielded from giving off any energy readings. The fact that the Mwargoth stealth capability is superior to ours doesn’t help.

&n
bsp; But then a sick feeling enters my gut… More mines are out there. I don’t have to understand an alien mindset to know that dropping off a single mine has little to no tactical value.

  “Midas, can you dissect the signature of that mine, and replicate it for the scanners to detect?” I ask.

  “For once, a human asks me to do something that even I can’t anticipate!” Midas jibes. “But yes, I believe I can.”

  I look at the countdown beacon for the Broadsword’s flanking maneuver, and I realize that I have to act. I only have a twenty-second window for all big ships to deliver a KEPL salvo at the enemy manowars before they decide to get into a proper defensive posture.

  “All KEPLS engage!” I shout. Seconds later I see acknowledgment icons appear from all of the blue blips that represent our outnumbered, and out-gunned fleet.

  KEPL salvos begin to register on the scan. I notice the Star Fury has jumped as planned… Whatever the fuck my plan is, anyway….

  “Mine detection algorithm complete. Transmitting to all ship AI’s now.” Midas reports.

  “Shit! That was fast!” I blurt.

  “I’m Midas, dear.” He says with the only tinge of cockiness I’ve heard from of him thus far.

  “New contact!” An anonymous NCO from some fucking allied entity I know nothing about sounds off… He’s cute though. “IDENT confirmed… UAHC Sloop, Foehammer!”

  I nod in response as if I know what that’s supposed to mean. But when I check the location of its icon, I’m shocked to find it making a close-in pass in front of the Mwargoth formation… if you call a bunch of retards trying hump a doorknob, a ‘formation.’

  The transmission was cut off. Darius lurches to the base of the QET pedestal, and for the first time, I see the fear in his eyes.

  The KEPL Salvo! Shit! They jumped in to lay mines, but they were in slip-space when I ordered the salvo. They’ve gotten caught in the crossfire!

  The scanner takes several agonizing seconds to update, but when it does… The blue blip of the tiny sloop has disappeared.

  Darius collapses to one knee. I can feel his pain surge through me. His anguish… His broken heart.

  The sensation may be somewhat familiar to me, but it’s killing him. And that’s when I knew the truth. That’s why the universe wanted him to place me in command…. It was because he was destined to be overwhelmed with grief!

  I have to double my resolve. This all lands on me to see it through.

  I ask the NAV via analog brainwaves.

  He asks. I was startled at how he somehow knew I would reach out to him.

  I say. I’m not sure what ‘time’ means, but I have no ‘time’ to doubt myself.

  I refocus my attention towards the screen, and I see a horrifying sight. The red blips have gotten their shit together…. Literally. They’ve formed a strange, but highly precise defensive formation. I take note that the numbers of ships have dipped from forty-seven to thirty-nine enemy vessels. But I have no time to revel in the successful salvo.

  “Looks like the enemy has lulled us in by making us believe that they were disoriented.” Anders chimes in as he walks up to the edge of the display. I just shake my head.

  “I’m not convinced that they were trying to fool anyone. From what I’ve been told, these fuckers haven’t lost a war since before the dawn of man. Perhaps they’re not used to things that don’t go their way.” I say. Something in my assessment seems to ring true. But I have to be cautiously optimistic that my wishful thinking isn’t getting the better of my judgment.

  I notice a few faint blue blips emerge from the juggernaut’s icon. I know one of them is Throat-Slasher, but I have no idea what the others are. I try pinging their IDENT codes, but they’re moving too fast for the transponder to track their movements for a direct beam transmission. Damn, they’re moving fast!

  The blips disappear amidst the cluttered iconography that fills the display. So I decided to refocus on other pressing matters.

  “How’s your algorithm panning out, Midas?” I ask.

  “Perfectly.” He replies instantly. “Fourteen reported detections, and no losses.”

  “Excellent! Keep me posted.”

  “Will do.”

  I look down to where Darius had collapsed earlier, but he was gone. I look around, and I can’t find him anywhere. Just as well. It’s not healthy for crew morale if the commander falls into emotional conflict during an engagement.

  Shadow says privately to me.

  I realize I am tapping into Shadows mind as I make my assessment. The Foehammer is Kara’s ship. She’s his lover. He’s gone to find her.

  Shadow asserts.

  He’s right. His love for her is his only weakness. I saw him fight, and I saw him embrace Primal Rage as if he were an elder War Master. He truly is humanity’s greatest warrior since War Master Kaylen! But no matter how powerful one becomes, we are all mortal at the end of the day... And all mortals have a weakness.

  “All cruisers to full burn! Frontal assault, now!” I pass the order. It shocks me as much as it seems to shock the rest of the meager command crew.

  And now I send our inferior ships to face a superior enemy… head on… and I haven’t even gotten laid yet!

  The transmission comes through, and it’s clearly a person with distinct a Canadian accent.

  I couldn’t help to laugh out loud. It just dawned on me that BG Michael Cooper must be Canadian… and ‘Cooper’ is a 22nd-century Gregorian slang term for ‘Canadian with enormous genitals’!

  Ah, hell! Leave it to the Canadians to brighten my day!

  KAT AND FRIENDS

  The visual feed has every set of eyes in the CIC glued to it. The massive Star Fury is larger than any Mwargoth ship, so when it jumped out into normal space in the middle of their formation, it was an optical illusion of hope. Hundreds of Mark series fighters swarmed out of the battle carrier, and the alien ships began to be peppered in tiny dots of light.

  There is no fairy tale scenario here, however. The fighters are doing little more than dumping their ordnance onto heavily shielded ships. Even the Star Fury’s heavy weaponry can only do so much. The bulbous human ship burns its thrusters while bisecting the enemy formation.

  The core of the cruisers and destroyers have just arrived within short-range missile fire of the enemy formation. My order for ‘weapons free’ didn’t go unnoticed, and a massive barrage of weapons fire lances out towards the flanks of the enemy formation. I insisted on limiting the sector of fire from the center while the Star Fury and its fighter squadrons occupy the center.

  Streaks of red energy counter-fire stream out from the enemy lines, and we lose two cruisers outright. None of our fire puts a dent in the Mwargoth shields. The enemy tech allows for their shielding to concentrate more efficiently than ours can, but they have to compromise their level of protection just like we do. But this is a direct engagement. Our concentrated shields versus theirs. Theirs are better. We have no choice but to take losses.

  I hear the gasps of the officers and NCO’s around me as the casualty estimates begin to populate in the display data fields. Thousands dead. Two medium cruisers lost, five heavy cruisers damaged, and an unknown number of smaller support craft have yet to report into their motherships… I can only assume the death toll will be painfully high.

  But the human fleet holds their position. Their fruitless assault continues to barrage the enemy ships. As planned, the Star Fury diverts its fighter squadrons to break out into open s
pace, and begin a wide arc to the enemy’s rear. The mighty battle carrier has enjoyed the relative safety of being within the enemy formation. The close proximity to their elaborate formations meant that the enemy would be risking collateral damage in order to engage the lone human ship. But now the valiant Air Force vessel breaks off to provide heavy weapons cover for the squadrons as they bug out.

  Now our forces have a full sector of fire to work with, and I task Midas to relay an evenly distributed set of salvo assignments. I’m not sure why, but I want each Mwargoth ship to be engaged with even amounts of ‘pew-pew.’

  This evenly distributed concentration of fire is truly counter-intuitive… Normally, one would focus on any weak points in an enemy formation to force the enemy to divert their resources away from your main effort… That’s fleet versus fleet ‘Pew Pew 101’… But the Mwargoths have infiltrated us for decades. They know our basic combat fundamentals. They’ll expect us to fight in a certain way, and they have likely arranged their formation to counter our doctrine. I’m counting on it too… At least that’s what I think I’m counting on. We’ll see if I die a hero or just an infamous idiot.

  The fighters seem to be unmolested. I can only guess they haven’t been considered a threat by the squids, and have been left to waste their ammunition at their leisure. Good.

  I don’t know anything about the sensor capabilities of the enemy, and neither does any other human. Which is why I can’t explain why I know my plan will work. It’s as if the universe is using my strategic potential to funnel cosmic knowledge into my big-dumb-brain, and I’m just acting it out like a puppet.

  But this puppet watches the countdown tick down, and I can’t help but grin as the clock hits zero…

  Space and time explode behind the Mwargoth formation, and the IDENT codes from dozens of different hull types begin to populate into blue blips.