Looking over to Jansen he gave his next order.
“Open the ship wide public announcement system and all general comm. links.”
“Ready sir,” the big Nord replied a moment later.
“To the remaining crew of the Randori. We have put up one hell of a fight but it is not over. We have to seize chaos one more time and buy time for our fellow crewmen to get that captured freighter underway and escape. I know we got the short end of the stick but our friends are depending on us. So once more we must again go into destruction's path and spit in the devil’s eye at least one last time.”
“The Shaker has landed in the freighter’s shuttle bay and the Mover has pulled away from us,” Ensign Steven reported.
“Gunny is reporting no enemy opposition so far,” Jansen added.
“Enemy carrier is twenty minutes away,” Lt. Thornton.
Lt. Collins leaned back in the pilot’s chair and let out a sigh. He could have scrambled around for nineteen minutes trying to repair just about everything but that wasn’t going to happen.
“Well gentlemen, it has been an honor to serve with you,” Mike said resigned to his fate.
“The honor has been ours, Sir,” Lt. Thornton replied as the other two men quickly agreed.
At that moment Lt. Stanton came into the auxiliary bridge.
“Sir, we still have eight fully operational tanks,” he said sounding excited.
Mike took a deep breath and nodded.
“Move them to the forward bow of the ship and have them align forward,” he said planning to go down fighting with whatever he had left.
“Aye sir,” Stanton answered and opened a comm. link to his men operating the tanks via remote unit.
Thinking about this it gave him an idea.
“Could we remote the Randori?” he asked out loud remembering how they did just that when they stole the Star Wolf and remote controlled the mine layer Rebecca to distract the enemy.
The bridge crew quickly grew excited and got busy checking their individual systems.
“I don’t think so sir,” Ensign Steven’s announced “there is just too much damage to her command programming and to the core computer systems. The most we could do is set her on a straight course but no maneuvering.”
Jansen sighed, “It was worth a shot.”
“All right then, manual drive it is,” Mike said with a lot of false bravadoes.
“Ten minutes,” Lt. Thornton reported.
“Sir, Gunny Masters is reporting that the freighter’s bridge, engineering sections and her shuttle bays are all secured,” Jansen said.
“Have Lt. Grinder start landing his fighters and have them help with the repair of the freighter.”
“Aye sir,” came the reply.
“Enemy missile launch detected,” the maser station announced.
They were still out of range of her energy weapons but her missiles could now reach them.
“Lt. Stanton are your tanks in place?” Collins inquired.
“Yes sir, we are ready!” he said sounding full of marine pride.
“No one fights harder than the Iron Brigade,” Mike commented with a smile remembering the motto he had quoted from when they had rescued the young marine officer and his tankers.
Lt. Stanton looked at him for moment and slowly smiled.
“Except maybe the crew of the Randori,” he stated again with equal pride.
The ship rocked from a missile strike at that moment.
“Only one got through sir,” Ensign Steven reported “the tanks knocked the rest down.”
Mike wanted to ask about the damage but they were way past that.
“Sir, the Karduan Ship Mistress of the carrier is demanding we surrender,” Jansen reported.
“Mister Jansen, open a channel - no visual.” he said not wanting them to see the extent of the damage to his ship or that they were operating out of an auxiliary bridge.
“Channel open,” the comm. station officer said.
“This is Lt. Michael Collins, commanding the Imperial Q-Ship Randori. I will gladly accept your surrender,” he said in English and then switched to Karduan, “And I might point out that we have already defeated six of your ships.”
“They've cut off their link,” Midshipmen Jansen reported.
“Ok, full speed ahead! Ready on all remaining weapons,” he said partly to himself as he piloted the crippled Q-ship directly towards the approaching escort carrier.
“Sir, our captured Karduan freighter is underway at one quarter impulse speed,” Thornton announced to everyone’s relief.
“Tell them to bend out as soon as possible,” Collins commanded wanting them clear of the escort carrier’s reach.
“Captain, they want to stay and fight,” Jansen repeated.
Mike shook his head, the captured freighter had maybe one small frigate sized fusion turret and a few anti-missile defense turrets, clearly not enough to fight it out with the carrier. It also didn’t have any armor other than her standard hull plating.
“Repeat my orders,” he said firmly as the Randori shook from an energy weapon’s impact. “All weapons open fire!’”
The Q-ship shook as its super structure groaned from the energy weapons impacts. Her return fire was mostly ineffective as they were still out of range for the smaller tank sized fusion cannons. Mike had to close the distance and get even closer if he wanted to cause any damage to the Green Machine.
He still one last card up his sleeve but dare he use it? He had kept from using his sole nuclear Rudolph torpedo in battle until it was too late. His torpedo tubes were crushed but if he could get close enough he wondered if he could manually detonate its nuclear warhead? He was still thinking this when the sensors officer interrupted his thoughts.
“Sir, I’m reading a stealth ship appearing directly behind the escort carrier.”
“Thank God! The Star Wolf found us!” Jansen said realizing that they were now saved in the nick of time.
“Negative! It is not the Star Wolf! I’m reading a smaller ship – probably light cruiser class,” Ensign Steven reported.
“Confirmed,” Thornton said from the maser screen.
“Audio and visual coming through sir,” Jansen said and put it on the main viewer in a spilt screen.
The image coming from the light cruiser was that of a calm undamaged bridge manned with Confederation uniformed crewmen.
“This is Commander Jake Bannon, Captain of the Confederation Shadow Cruiser ISS Raven. We have our spinal mounted particle accelerator cannon target-locked onto your engine section. All other weapons systems have been targeted to your bridge. You have ten seconds to surrender or be destroyed,” the captain of the shadow cruiser demanded.
Exactly nine seconds later the ship mistress of the former American escort carrier Nathaniel Green surrendered her ship in defeat.
Mike wanted to speak to the Raven’s captain but he knew that he was busy. Instead he needed to help his own people.
“Let’s get our fighters as well as the Mover and Shaker out to help retrieve our broken fighters and pilots. Also send the Shaker to the Cody to find out how bad of shape she is in,” Mike ordered knowing that no one had heard from the sloop since she had been put out of action.
“Aye sir,” Jansen acknowledged and started sending out his orders
“Do we have anything on this shadow cruiser?” Mike asked looking back to the computer station and to Barry Stevens.
“Sending it to your palm pad now, sir,” the ensign replied having already anticipated his needs.
Mike looked down at his pad and quickly looked over this class of starship. He had thought it was a new class but it was actually slightly older than the larger stealth equipped attack cruisers.
The shadow cruisers were designated as Raven class and had been a light cruiser size prototype of the larger attack cruiser which were developed after them. They were equipped with an A.I. computer that controlled most of her systems reducing their personnel needs t
o a crew of just twenty. Normally, a ship this size would have sixty to a hundred crewmen.
It has stealth armor and ECW/ECM shielding to mask its signature making it either invisible or would appear like a floating rock to sensors. They had a B type spinal mount particle cannon which was the same size as the spinal mount that the Randori had been armed with.
Looking over it stats Mike noted its strengths and weaknesses. One problem he saw was that unlike an attack cruiser, it had only one engine section for its bender and fusion in-system drives rather than two. After its class was dropped in favor of the larger and more durable attack cruiser class it was transferred to Navy Intelligence and was used as a spy ship for deep infiltration missions and reclassified as a Shadow Cruiser. The Raven’s sister ships included the ISS Shadow Crow, Shadow Cat, and Shadow Wolf - all of which were listed as transferred to NIA service.
Its weaknesses were very clear - only one engine and if it was damaged on a deep space missions then you’d be stuck. It had a small crew with not enough men to man all of its turrets or stations which was very bad if its fire control system went out. It was not as big as an attack cruiser and nor did the class have the same punch or armor plating. It had a smaller spinal mounted particle accelerator cannon then the Star Wolf along with a light cruiser’s normal armaments. No fighters or ground forces were allotted.
Yet it did have a spinal mount, a fast fusion in-system drive and a long-range bender drive. Combined with its superior stealth plating, A.I. computer and ECM it made these light cruisers very capable nonetheless even if it wasn’t as able as the larger Star Wolf and her sister ships.
Mike was still mulling this over as he was broken from his thoughts.
“Sir, we are receiving a transmission from the Raven,” Comm. reported.
“On main viewer,” Mike said while moving back to his captain’s chair in the cramped auxiliary bridge. Lt. Thornton quickly moved to take over the helm station.
Again the view screen showed a calm and orderly bridge free of battle damage, smoke and exploding panels.
“Lt. Collins, I presume,” the navy commander said with a broad grin. He was in his late thirties or early forties looking very fit and with dirty blond hair that hinted at being brown.
“Yes sir,” Mike replied and added, “thanks for the help.”
“Heck, I think you were about to ram your express freighter right down that carrier’s throat,” he commented with a laugh.
Mike had lost a lot of people and he wasn’t in the mood to laugh even with the officer that saved them.
“If I had to,” he said sounding rather serious.
“That was a hell of battle, one for the text books,” Commander Bannon said still smiling and shaking his head in wonder. “Who would have thought a Q-ship could do so much damage against such overwhelming odds?”
“How long have you been in-system sir?” Mike asked wondering how much of the battle he had witnessed.
“Sorry, we couldn’t get here sooner than we did. We were on the other side of the system waiting for this squadron to leave when your ships arrived. We didn’t know that you were Confederation. At first we thought you were pirates or from a rival Karduan house. When I saw you use that spinal mount and listened in on your comm. traffic I knew you had to be a Confederation Q-ship or at least a human vessel. It then took us close to two hours to get here and slip behind that carrier,” he explained.
Collins was a little mad and could feel his Irish blood rising up in anger but tried not to show it. If he had known there was a Confederation light cruiser in the system, he would have made a run to get to it instead of slugging it out with seven enemy ships and a couple dozen fighters.
“What are you doing way out here sir?” Mike asked though he had guessed that the ship was still in Naval Intelligence Agency service and that the commander and his crew were all NIA.
“A better question Lieutenant is what is a Q-ship and a captured enemy Vanguard sloop doing this far behind the lines?” he countered ignoring his question.
“We are part of task force led by the attack cruiser ISS Star Wolf,” Mike revealed.
“Did you say Star Wolf? Not the Star Tiger?” Bannon questioned leaning forward in his seat as his face became seemingly serious for the moment.
“The ISS Star Wolf, Captain Sir Randolph Hope commanding,” he stated.
Cmdr. Bannon leaned back in his chair contemplating this news.
“I didn’t know that the Star Wolf had been recovered or that Hope was commanding her,” he said sounding surprised.
“Yes sir, and she has been a nightmare on the Karduans in this sector ever since we liberated her,” he said with pride.
“We had thought that the reports we’ve been intercepting were for the Star Tiger. We didn’t realize that there were two attack cruisers operating out here.”
Mike shrugged, “We heard from the Templars at Blue Rock that the Star Tiger was in this sector a few weeks ago but they haven’t seen her since.”
“That’s where we were headed when this enemy squadron bended in,” Bannon mumbled still thinking about this confusion of ships and running the enemy intelligence through his head again.
“Sir, we’re going to need some help with recovery and repairs,” Mike prompted.
“Yes of course Lt. Collins,” he said and looked at him hard from across the link. Mike was sure that he was a mess but didn’t give a fuck after what he and his crew had gone through. “Tell me are you related to Confederation Senator Baron Eugene Collins?”
“No sir, I’m a navy brat,” he replied “Now about that help?”
“Where is the Star Wolf now?” the stealth captain pressed.
“She was bending in behind us but never made it,” Mike said starting to get frustrated with this senior officer’s questioning.
“She probably ran into the front half of this squadron,” Jake Bannon revealed thinking that the attack cruiser was either destroyed or hiding out until the coast was clear.
“Commander, our Vanguard sloop the Cody, isn’t answering our hails. I’ve sent a shuttle out to help her but perhaps you could tow her back to the freighter?”
“All right Lieutenant, we are on it. I’d suggest you abandon that Q-ship of yours and transfer your people and any remaining ordinance and supplies over to that Karduan freighter you captured,” he said making it sound like friendly advice and not an order.
Mike hated to admit it but the Randori was in no shape to do anything else. Unfortunately, none of the Karduan warships were in any better shape that is except for the Nathaniel Green. The escort carrier had only minor damage to her torpedo tubes, moderate damage to one of her fusion drives and to a bender drive.
“Sir, with your permission I’d like to lead a force over to the Nathaniel Green and take control of her.”
Cmdr. Bannon nodded knowing that he had ordered the escort carrier to surrender but didn’t have the crew to man her.
“That is a good idea Mister Collins. Make it so and send me a list of your needs. We will also help with the escape pod recovery.”
“Yes sir I’m on it, out here,” he said cutting off the communication’s link.
“I get the feeling that our commander friend isn’t in the war business as much as the spy business,” Thornton remarked.
“He does seem to have different priorities than we do or at least he seemed preoccupied,” Ensign Steven added.
Mike didn’t care he just wanted to get his people, get a warship and get the hell out of here.
Turning away from the viewer he looked at the four men that were left of his bridge crew. They had a lot of work ahead of them and even though they were wounded and exhausted all that work had to start right now.
“All right, listen up as this is what I want us to do,” he said his expression showing his men his determination.
All four men just smiled at him as he gave them their orders.
Mike thought for a second that he must be doing something right sinc
e they were all smiling or they were just as exhausted and as crazy as their young captain.
Part Two
Ruse De Guerre
Part Two Prologue -
The Karduan War was the third time in the last half decade that the people of Earth had been through a savage and life shattering conflict.
The first had been called the Apocalypses War in which all Earth had faced yet another World War. It had started in the Far East and had embroiled that region so badly that the United States had to intervene. Europe and the Middle East ignited into social, religious and racial unrest, and were soon facing civil and open warfare. In the end America led a coalition to victory, but at a cost. Nuclear, biological and early orbital energy weapons had been utilized and over a third of Earth’s population lay dead.
Not since the Black Death had humanity seen such whole scale death and destruction. To make matters worse the American infrastructure had been damaged by disease and death, which later led to the Second American Civil War. The American army, worn and exhausted from fighting in Eastern Europe and Asia had returned home to find the radioactive remains of Washington D.C. and the that the central federal government shattered.
New state governments and powerful warlords had risen from the ashes of the fire. Many had their own political, racial or religious agendas and were unwilling to return to the pre-war system of government. It took a strong if reluctant general to reforge a new America based on the same principals of life, liberty and freedom.
Later, he would be compared to George Washington, guiding and uniting the American people back to the democracy they loved and cherished. Though he, unlike General Washington, would reluctantly accept the title of King of America, temporally ruling by force of arms and iron will.
He was also like Washington and the Roman general that he was always compared to Cincinnatus, who would step down from power returning the government to the people. After years of warfare, along with political and literal in fighting he had reestablished American democracy and the U.S. Constitution.
Wolf's Run: The Chase of War (Star Wolf Sqaudron Book 2) Page 33
