Admiral's War Part One

by Wachter, Luke Sky

  “Just so long as we’re clear,” said Wainwright, a hard glint entering his eyes.

  “I think what we should be clear on is that I’ve been much more merciful than a Marine like yourself, compelled by military law, would have been allowed to be,” I then leaned back in my chair. “And wherever possible I intend to continue to show the restraint and forgiveness which I, if not my family, have rightfully become famous for,” I said airily.

  Wainwright’s jaw tightened as he looked at me.

  “Follow the law, General; that’s all I’m looking for. That and some inspired leadership at the top of our combined Lancer/Marine force,” I added, leaning forward and slapping the table for emphasis. “The rest of it can and will be viewed as a simple, clerically-inspired personnel transfer. But let’s be clear: I have a family now, and the easy catch phrase ‘it’s all fun and games so long as no one but a Montagne loses an eye’ is over and done with. You’re the man I’d like to spearhead this Fleet’s effort to weld our disparate power-armored forces into a real professional military force. But I’ll make no bones about it: if it’s not you, I will find someone else. I’ve had enough with half-baked solutions. Do what it takes to get the job done.”

  “If I do this I’m going to need real support, not political games that cuts this effort off at the knees,” said Wainwright.

  “Look. Go over the transfer list I’ve come up with. Pick whichever regiment of your forces you think will best support you here. Start here, you’ll have the run of the flagship, excepting only the ship’s Armory Team and my personal protective detail. You can coordinate things on that front through the armsman in charge of my detail, Sean D’Argent. After you have things here locked down, start making changes throughout the rest of the Fleet,” I advised.

  “You mean while we’re heading into what could turn out to be the middle of a warzone?” Wainwright asked with some dark humor.

  “I’ve found that nothing focuses the mind like the threat of imminent annihilation. I’m sure you’ll cope,” I said with an empty smile.

  General Wainwright sat there thinking for almost a minute before nodding. “Alright, then I’ll start the process of transferring over to the flagship,” he said.

  “Excellent. If there are any details you’d like to go over, now’s the time, General,” I said.

  “Concerning the organization and training schedule…” Wainwright started, and I leaned forward listening intently.

  I was taking a risk by placing one man in charge of my ground forces, but it was a calculated one. Colonel Wainwright, now General Wainwright, had been out here with us for a while. He’d been through some of the hairiest parts with the MSP and he was still alive and kicking. More important, he’d shown no signs of being anything other than a high-ranking Marine officer.

  On the other hand, my supposedly loyal Tracto-ans had tried to kill me on several different occasions. It was past time for a changing of the guard.

  I wanted actual control of this fleet, and I had a hunch that the General was going to help make that happen for me. Even if he had any reservations, he wasn’t likely to turn on me while Capria’s home Sector was facing an invasion by outside forces.

  Chapter Thirty-two: The Pre-Meeting Report

  Sitting in the conference room on Wolf-9, I had my so-called heads together with LeGodat and my Battleship Captains. I was there because it was bigger than the available rooms on the Rage, making it more comfortable to deal with the expanded and expanded again force I now found myself running.

  We still had a few minutes before the first of the shuttles carrying the SDF Admirals, their staffs, and their ship commanders and I fully intended to use every moment before the meeting productively. Saint Murphy knew we’d be doing very little of that sort of work after they got here.

  “Give me the short and dirty,” I said to the Captains of the ships I was most worried about, and the man in charge of the facilities that were currently repairing them: Commodore LeGodat. “I read the daily reports but with more ships trickling in all the time I don’t have the time I’d like. It’s been two weeks, so hit me with it. How much longer?”

  Eastwood and Druid exchanged glances.

  “Well, don’t leave me in suspense boys,” I urged, steepling my fingers and then pointing my index fingers at them.

  They seemed to come to some silent agreement and Commodore Druid nodded his head, indicating he was going to be the one to bite the bullet and attempt to pacify my curiosity.

  “While the Armor Prince could use another week or two to trace down all the little nits and glitches that are the bane of every warship that ever set sail in the void between stars, our armor is patched. Our weapons have been repaired, replaced or upgraded—courtesy of the Starbase repair staff,” he said with a nod to LeGodat, “essentially, we’re ready to cast off any time you need us.”

  “Excellent news,” I said, and I meant it. Having all three of my Battleships laid up in the yard at the same time, while the local SDF’s orbited the Starbase complex, sniffing around like hungry wolves, wasn’t the most pleasant experience. Sure they said they were on our side, for now, but who knew any of their ultimate intentions. “It’ll be great to have the Prince back out there where she needs to be any time she’s needed.”

  “Thank you, Sir,” said Druid who then looked over at Eastwood.

  The Lieutenant Commander cleared his throat. “Messene’s Shield is nowhere near as close to coming out of space dock as the Armor Prince,” my flagship’s former First Officer, back when the Furious Phoenix had been my flagship, shook his head with genuine disappointment as he relayed the news. “I know the initial estimate was three weeks but the structural damage was worse than originally estimated; a number of secondary structural beams need to be pulled out and replaced. We’re going to need another three weeks, not one, before we’ll be back to 99% of full capacity. The yard here has been working wonders but, frankly, the Pastor class is just not as heavily-built as the Dreadnaught class. She’s meant to rely on stronger shields, but once those go down…” he shrugged. “We’ll do what we can, as fast as we can, that’s all I can promise.”

  “In case of emergency, how fast could you close everything up and put her back into duty?” I asked, not liking the idea of three more weeks. I didn’t think we had that long.

  “We could ride out today if that’s what you need,” Eastwood shrugged, “but the areas with the compromised structural supports are still open to space; we haven’t even started with rebuilding the armor over those areas yet.”

  “How long to fix what you can in the next day or two, and then armor her back up? And, be honest, how safe would it be?” I asked the most pressing question.

  Eastwood looked pensive as he thought and then started to chew on his lower lip. “I’m as eager for combat as the next officer,” he said, which as far as I was concerned was the understatement of the century. “We could transfer the personnel who’d normally be there, seal off the affected areas, then replace the missing and damaged armor. But doing it in anything less than a week…” he shook his head.

  I looked over to Commodore LeGodat for confirmation.

  “What do you think, Colin?” I asked the reservist’s opinion.

  “A week, if we were just going to do what’s ready now and close her up, would probably do it. Wouldn’t want to do it any faster than that—except in an emergency of course,” he said.

  I pursed my lips. This wasn’t what I wanted to hear, but it was what I’d expected. Things almost never went faster than expected…except for when Spalding was around. More and more I was regretting that I left the old reprobate back at Gambit. We sure could have used his skills.

  “Close her up; I’ve got a feeling we’re going to need the Shield sooner rather than later. If she’s too late, that ‘later’ scenario may never come,” I said, looking at Eastwood when I issued the order.

  “Will do, Admiral,” replied the Captain of Messene’s Shield and then paused, “can I
ask how well the Royal Rage is coming along, Sir?”

  “The Rage is doing fine, gentlemen,” I assured them, “we had some serious damage to our shield generators, as well as some punch-through on the outer hull—despite the stronger armor—but thanks to the repair slip here at Easy Haven we’ve replaced the broken generator, repaired the other, and filled in the missing portions of the outer hull. There’s always more to do, of course, and Longbottom will have to put in some extra work balancing the new shield generator with the old one but we should be ready to push out in a day or two. A full refit can wait until after we’re back home.”

  After bestowing the good news, I figured all we had left to do was wait for the arrivals in the conference room—for what I was sure was going to be another contentious meeting—but Druid broke the silence.

  “Any word on the status of the Metal Titan, Sir?” asked the MSP Commodore.

  I scowled. “No. Nothing,” I said, turning slightly to glower at the wall. “I’ve dispatched a courier but we haven’t received as single thing from the Titan, Gambit, or Messene in almost three weeks. I’m afraid the ComStat network has either been coopted or destroyed at this point, men.”

  Eastwood sucked in his breath. “Well there goes our home field advantage,” he muttered.

  Commodore LeGodat nodded in agreement. “We’ll be fighting blind from now on,” he agreed, “we can only hope that the enemy is just as cut off from FTL communication as we are.”

  “We can hope, but I’m not counting on it,” I demurred with disgust. Why was it that the enemy always seemed to have the advantage, and I was left scrambling to make up the difference? If this was a game, I’d have called intolerable and quit playing—right after I threw my controller against the wall. Unfortunately this wasn’t a game; this was as real as it got and I was left playing catch up, yet again.

  Now if only I had some idea of what I needed to do that, I’d have been in a much better mood than I currently was.

  Right exactly at that moment, as if the perfect counterpoint to my growing foul mood, the door to the conference room swooshed open and a gaggle of SDF officers came in.

  “Vice Admiral Montagne,” nodded the head of the Aegis contingent.

  “Silverback,” I inclined my head fractionally, “a pleasure, as always.”

  The Aegis Admiral smirked for just the barest moment in shared understanding of the irony in that statement. He then motioned for his people toward a section of the main table, with his most important officers beside him and the rest taking up position on the wall behind him.

  Slowly, over the next ten minutes, officers, Admirals, and Commodores came dragging into the room.

  Taking a survey of the room, I stood up from my position at the head of the table and raised my hands to get their attention.

  “If we could bring the room to order and begin the meeting,” I said, ruthlessly focusing on the task ahead instead of the hundred and ten other things I’d rather be doing right now. “Then let us begin,” I said after getting their attention.

  It was looking like yet another long day.

  Chapter Thirty-three: Damage Control and Repair

  “We’ve got a large number of ships arriving in system, Commander!” reported Bostwell, the young man running comm. interference with the rest of the fleet for the old engineer.

  “I’m busy,” Spalding grunted, focusing on calibrating an anti-matter generator’s unreasonably delicate controls which would run these new, high-powered grav-suppressors, “so unless it’s an enemy war fleet, color me unavailable.”

  Containment was a real chore when it came to substances that were antithetical to the very essence the rest of the entire galaxy and universe was made out of. Moreover, the tolerances on this sort of job were so fine that they sometimes required going to the thousandth decimal place, and the last thing he wanted to do was cause a matter/antimatter annihilation event due to carelessness—especially if his tired old body was going to be a part of the potentially annihilated substances!

  He’d even gone so far as to have new tools built just to measure how far off true he was, just so he didn’t accidentally blow himself and the rest of the rebuilding ship to the Pit.

  “No, it’s not an enemy fleet. But, Sir, I’m afraid that—” Bostwell started.

  “That’s just it, boy: Engineers know no fear and aren’t afraid of nothing…‘cept failure to do a job right and proper, or factory-defective service parts—those things can kill,” Spalding cut in grumpily. “And anyway, things like that won’t happen as long as we stay focused on the job at hand, run the proper checks, and don’t let ourselves be stretched in more directions than a man can reasonably handle. We can’t allow ourselves to be distracted to the point we’re all killed in an antimatter annihilation breach due to faulty wiring! By old Murphy himself, just what are you trying to do to me, boy?” At this point, the old engineer had completely stopped working, turned around, and gone into full finger-wagging mode.

  Bostwell looked at Spalding with exasperation. “I’m not trying to kill you, Sir,” he said with an aura of long-suffering patience, “just to tell you that a part of the Coalition Fleet has showed up with prize ships in tow and everything—including our own ships—have been knocked around pretty bad. For most it’s at the point they’re going to need of some serious TLC just to get into the yard, let alone back out into the black again, Commander!”

  Spalding chewed on his lip and silently stewed as he thought.

  “Preliminary reports are that eight of our ships, along with an additional sixteen prize ships, have arrived here in Gambit system. And there are more than double that still waiting to be retrieved, Commander! All we have to do is go back and get them—the fleet has won a glorious victory!” Bostwell said with rampant satisfaction in his voice.

  “’Glory,’ you say? ‘More work,’ says I. One thing you need to learn, youngster, is that the more ‘glory’ this fleet encounters, the more battle damage this department has to deal with,” Spalding said sourly as all of his carefully planned work schedules went up in smoke.

  “Better that we won than we lost, Sir,” Bostwell disagreed resolutely.

  “Well, o’ course, boy,” Spalding said scornfully and then reached up to grab his still growing hair and give it a hard tug. “I wouldn’t want it any other way, but bale fire and tarnation if this doesn’t put a crimp in my work schedule. Besides which, there might be twice as many ships waiting to be hauled back to the yard here. But I’d bet a double handful of credits that if the others didn’t come back with this bunch it’s because they’re tore up worse than the bunch that just came in—which means, as I said previously: more work for the rest of us!”

  “Did I mention they brought a pair of Battleships back with them?” Bostwell asked with a sly upward curve of the left side of his mouth. “The scuttlebutt is that the only reason they didn’t bring back more was because they could only pair-jump one with the Metal Titan.”

  “Eh?” the Old Engineer couldn’t help but start to look interested and pull out his data slate to review the information before his better judgment prevailed and a scowl reappeared on his briefly lightened countenance. “I won’t be tricked!” he declared.

  “What?” Bostwell looked surprised.

  “You think to tempt me with news of new Battleships to play with when everyone knows that we’ve got to stay focused on what we’ve got going right in front of us here,” he said, slapping a firm, resounding hand against the bulkhead of the ship around them.

  “If by ‘everyone’ you mean just you…” Bostwell muttered quietly before trailing off.

  “I won’t be diverted!” Spalding continued firmly. “We’ll only divert whatever minimal crew efforts we must toward the new arrivals and then we’ll do the same for whatever damage the Admiral’s done to the rest of the fleet.”

  “Early reports are the Metal Titan has serious frame and internal support issues,” Bostwell chimed in.

  “Hmm,” Spalding said
grudgingly, his curiosity getting the better of his apparently brittle resolve as he pulled out his data slate and tapped away on it before snorting, “a collision event, it says? You know what that means, young Bostwell? It means too many overeager young Captains with the urge to ram everything in sight are runnin’ ‘round now-a-days,” the old engineer grumbled with a sigh and then wagged a finger at him. “You’ve got to watch them like a hawk is what you have to do. Why, I practically had to scrape an entire Engineering crew off the hull of the Clover back in the day after some happy-handed young master-and-commander decided it’d be a sweet deal to ram a group of pirate Cutters.” His scowl returned with a vengeance as he recalled that particular event.

  “I remember. I was there for that one, sir,” said Bostwell old memories flashing through his eyes, “I also recall hearing you went up to, eh…talk to the Admiral about that one.”

  The old engineer looked momentarily surprised. “Well…and so you were,” Spalding said heavily and then started shaking his head—mainly at himself. “Still, as it regards my reputed exploits on the bridge, it’s best not to get into the habit of tellin’ tales out of school—if you know what I mean,” he said, laying a finger aside his nose.

  “So that means it—or something much like it—actually did happen?” Bostwell grinned, causing Spalding to wince at realizing the lad had been on a sly fishing expedition and had managed to wrangle a confirmation from his work-weary boss. “Don’t worry, Commander. It’s pretty much an open secret when the Chief Engineer slugs the Admiral in the gut in front of a whole bridge full of witnesses.”

  Commander Spalding winced again as he recalled that particular bit of the story. “A body gets what he has coming to it,” he said hastily. “Anyway, like I was sayin’: glory’s only good to him that’s there to win it and survives to enjoy the fruits. For the rest of us, all it means is a big steaming pile of work orders. Not that getting your elbows dirty repairing things isn’t the job of every engineer, but the problem in this case is that these new ships risk taking the focus away from where it needs to be! You want Battleships, Bostwell?” he asked rhetorically. “Well how about one big, ginormous, Super Battleship, I ask you?”