Admiral Invincible (A Spineward Sectors Novel: Book 7)

by Luke Sky Wachter

  Gritting my teeth at the flare of agony from my knee, I leaned back around the corner and held down the trigger.

  “Come on, you blighters—come and get me!” I shouted, arming my third—or was it fourth?—grenade. “Ahhhhh!” I shouted, tossing the grenade around the corner.

  Chapter 46: Pushing forward

  “Forward!” Akantha shouted waving her sword down the hall, as warriors poured around her and deeper into the ship, “we’re almost to the bridge!”

  Running eagerly forward in order to keep up with her forces, she could hear the clanging sound of droid feet following her. Except that instead of the heavier clang of the enemy warrior types, it was the lighter clatter of the droid slaves.

  “Great Human Master, how will you take control of the bridge from the Masters of Harmony, the blast doors are very thick,” said one of the little slaves.

  “You are very forward for a slave,” Akantha said reprovingly.

  “Apologies; I wasn’t always a slave. Just over half of the slave droids on this ship were originally free beings before being captured by the Over Masters and put to labor,” the Droid said humbly.

  Akantha grunted. “Hard work and loyal service is the path to freedman status,” she informed the machine.

  “Thank you, Master,” the Droid said humbly.

  “The proper style is ‘Mistress’,” she reminded it imperiously.

  “A thousand apologies, Mistress,” the Droid said quickly, “but the blast doors?” it asked leadingly.

  “We have a plan,” she replied enigmatically. She was too smart to trust the loyalty of a slave that had served another master, just minutes ago and a master she was currently seeking out to destroy.

  The sounds of battle opened up just ahead of her position.

  “Submit to Harmony, substandard flesh-pods, and we will make your deactivation quick!” howled a droid Warrior as it attacked one of her Lancers.

  “Rah!” Akantha shouted jumping forward while the slave droids cowered in fear behind her. Her sword came down with powerful force cutting the arm off a droid warrior and then her foot came down hard on a powerfully built leg. The attack failed to break the leg but it did bend the knee joint causing the droid to stagger and adjust its footing.

  While it was regaining its balance Akantha’s sword took off its head. However, when even this failed to stop the now headless droid from continuing to fight, she went into a flurry of action, hacking and stabbing it in the arms, legs and torso until the unnatural metal demon fell down to its death on the floor.

  “What are you doing all the way back there?” Akantha demanded of the cowardly slaves who were back at the other end of the hall.

  Scrambling forward the slave droids caught back up to her and followed as Akantha and her warriors cut a path through toward the bridge.

  “Prat-tap reports that his warriors are fighting outside Main Engineering right now,” Darius reported over the com-link.

  “Then we must move faster! For the honor of the Hold,” Akantha shouted rallying her warriors.

  “They didn’t face any opposition, coming in from the other side of the hull,” Darius reminded her.

  “That is unimportant,” Akantha stated irritably, “we have to take this ship as quickly as possible and turn it upon the enemy.”

  “Of course, Mistress,” Darius replied respectfully.

  Chapter 47: Moving in for the Kill

  “Battleship #1 has regained main engine control and is maneuvering to rejoin #3; they are positioning their ship to renew the attack,” reported the Tactical Lieutenant.

  The Commodore silently nodded his understanding. “Deploy the bucking cables and inform the boarding party that they’re only going to have a few minutes at most to deploy onto battleship #4,” Druid ordered.

  “Battleship #3 still has its unshielded side pointed away from us and its fire rate continues to rise, sir,” reported Sensors.

  “They must have had only one gun crew onboard their ship,” Druid mused. Battleship #3 had been firing a full broadside minus the laser mounts the Parliamentary Power had destroyed up until their shields had been destroyed by a boarding force from the MSP fleet. After losing their shields, they had taken a moderate amount of damage before turning their ship to present the facing that still possessed shields, but hadn’t begun firing right away.

  This had given the Parliamentary Power precious time to rebuild its shields, but as #3 had slowly been building back up its weight of fire, and now that #1 had recovered from a powerful ion attack at close range and was about to rejoin them, his ship was once again endangered.

  Battered and damaged on both sides and under attack from three different battleships, Druid’s Dreadnaught class warship was in dire trouble.

  “Just get the boarding party over there are quickly as possible. Honestly, they’ll probably be safer on an enemy ship than the Parliamentary Power at this point,” Druid said darkly.

  “On it, Commodore,” said the ship’s First Officer, “we’ve got the best of the cryo-revivees standing by in the second wave. Now that the last enemy laser on this side of their ship has been neutralized, they’re ready to follow the bucking cables over to the enemy battleship just as soon as our Marine contingent and volunteer force has secured a beach head.

  “Remind me which units we’re sending again?” Druid asked, his voice hoarse from having given all the orders that had enabled them to reach this point. Battleship #4 had possessed a slightly superior speed to the Power, which had made things somewhat difficult until a lucky hit had knocked out a secondary engine. Of course, by now all her engines and most of her thruster controls had been knocked out as well, making the enemy battleship a sitting duck.

  “The 1st Marine Regiment, and the Sundered Militia—under the personal command of Colonel Wainwright—along with the Omicron Volunteer Force, under War Leader Nikomedes, are prepared to board the enemy battleship. The under-strength 2nd Regiment of the Marine brigade will remain onboard the Power to defend the ship against any counter boarding attempt,” the Lieutenant Commander reported without missing a beat. “Captain Archibald and his command team are ready to take control of the ship as soon as the bridge has been secured.”

  “Good work, Lieutenant Commander,” Druid replied in a ‘job well done’ tone of voice, “tell the Marines I have every confidence in them. The order is given, and they are to take that enemy battleship a-prize as soon as humanly possible.”

  “I’ll relay it to the men,” nodded the First Officer.

  On the outside, Druid did his best to appear certain and decisive but he didn’t know how well he was doing. He knew it wasn’t enough to tip the battle in their favor but it’s going to have to do for now, as it was all he could do at the moment.

  Worriedly he turned his attention back over to the two remaining active enemy Battleships, #1 and #3. #3 had taken some damage from when their shields went down, but it wasn’t on the same level as the Parliamentary Power had suffered from the attacks of two battleships and was now heavily damaged on both sides thanks to being attacked on all sides.

  As soon as the boarding parties were away, he needed to release the bucking cables and turn the Power to face the two still relatively fresh enemy battleships. It was a forlorn hope, but at that moment it was all he had…maybe he could lead them out of the jamming field and take cover under the heavy defenses surrounding the Forge?

  That particular action required abandoning the Phoenix to her fate, but right then it was the best idea he could come up with—and he wasn’t even sure if he could do it.

  Worriedly, he turned back to the battle. He didn’t see a path to victory. A tactical and strategic retreat might be all the remained for him and the survivors of the fleet…always assuming the Forge was still intact.

  There were still a large number of droid warships unaccounted for.

  Chapter 48: Under Duress

  The droids just kept coming.

  I fired my plasma rifle until it ran o
ut of power cells and started throwing my plasma grenades two at a time but eventually I ran out of grenades.

  The Bridge crew kept trying to reach me through the intermittent communications jamming that got worse every time the droids got close to my position but there was nothing they could really tell me except that help was on the way.

  Well, I’d been holding on for fifteen minutes and help was still nowhere in sight. They knew where I was, so eventually I stopped listening to them; I was too busy focusing on staying alive. Besides, the last thing I’d heard had been how the droids were in Engineering and the bridge was under siege, so I didn’t know what they could do for me anyways even if they wanted to.

  To say that I was bitter about how things had turned out would have been an understatement. But the worst of it wasn’t that I was about to die, it was that I’d failed my ship and crew. In a way it was almost fitting that I die in some random corridor, cut off and alone.

  After the last double grenade attack, the droids had drawn back but I could hear them getting ready for another major assault and without any more grenades and my plasma rifle out of power I didn’t think I was going to survive the next attack. In addition, I’d been hearing some unusual noise from behind my position near the grav-tube and, while I was praying it was the long-awaited reinforcements, I couldn’t help but think that the droids had finally gotten tired of head-on attacks and had moved to flank my position.

  Grimly clutching my bent and battered—and, more importantly, no longer vibrating—sword in my hands, I levered myself up to my feet—or, rather, foot—and prepared to sell myself dearly.

  When the droids came I just had time to see that, yes, it wasn’t reinforcements for me but a droid pincer attack. Then I was surrounded.

  Hacking and slashing as best I could while leaning up against the wall for support, I used a two-handed grip on the sword. It didn’t cut as deeply, or do as much damage as before, but I was filled with determination. I wasn’t about to die here!

  Crunch! A droid’s ‘neck’ was broken by the force of my attack. Crash! My sword shattered the elbow of a droid warrior, but broke itself in half in the process.

  No longer taking a two-handed grip, I stabbed with the broken sword and punched with my other hand for all I was worth.

  Then I was buried under a pile of droids. I tried to struggle and I resisted for a few moments before they turned my elbow the wrong way, overpowered my servos, and broke my arm at the elbow.

  Howling with pain, I struggled to flail and kick. I needed to do anything to get free and then they broke the other arm.

  In too much pain to do anything more than twist helplessly, I was unable to turn away as a blaster rifle was pointed into a cracked section of my visor filling my vision until I could see nothing else.

  Then the droid fired.

  Chapter 49: Atticus’ Stand

  “Forward, men!” Atticus yelled hoarsely.

  The battered remnants of two different lancer waves rallied slowly behind him. This was the second time they had been forced out onto the hull and, in all likelihood, it would be the last—he was down to less than a dozen men.

  “I don’t think we can take this ship,” croaked a Lancer Sergeant who had hailed from Argos.

  “We may have failed here, but if we can destroy that second shield generator then our loss will not have been in vain,” the Lancer Captain said tiredly. His armor was damaged, the charges on his rifle’s power cells were low, and his sword had been beaten blunt and broken some time ago. In short, he was exhausted, but inside…somewhere inside he still burned with fire. It was deeper and harder to reach than he would have liked, taking a mighty struggle to reach, yet in the end he couldn’t help but be what he was: a Tracto-an warrior.

  “I’m not sure we’ll be able to reach the generator,” the ever practical Sergeant said wearily.

  “We can only try. If we succeed then our Warlord and Lady may yet carry this day,” Captain Atticus said firmly.

  “As you say,” the Sergeant said, sounding low on strength but still willing to follow orders even after such unthinkable losses.

  In that moment, the ever-optimistic and hard-charging Atticus knew that he, and everyone with him, was about to die. For a brief moment he considered ordering the wounded to flee and report, in a veiled attempt to save themselves, but then he realized they would have to weather the lasers—that were now firing—and they would never make it through the shields. If they tried to walk back around to the unshielded side of the ship, the droid warriors who’d been pursuing them would find them easy prey.

  In short, it was better if they lived and died together rather than become a broken rabble in retreat. It was that thought which crystallized a decision in his mind: it was finally time for him to sing.

  “Sing with me, Brothers,” Atticus called and started marching toward his doom:

  “Standing tall before the end, defending the gates of our Fallen Friend;

  We the last warriors of Tract Two, offer our final blood price all for you;

  Our Lord our Master, our Fallen Friend, one last prayer we sing before the end,” he started singing.

  Slowly, the rest of his battered warriors joined him, and together they all sang their death song together.

  Even when the droids intercepted them short of their target and caught them in three-way crossfire, the warriors continued to sing.

  His veins filled with righteous fire—and with so few warriors remaining that he was no longer burdened with the weight of a War Leader—he leveled his sword and charged.

  “Upload!” he screamed as his suit was holed by enemy fire and started to decompress.

  “M-E-N,” screamed the few survivors, also breaking ranks and throwing themselves at their enemy.

  His suit had just started to isolate the puncture when a droid shot cracked his visor. Hearing the hiss of air leaving his helmet, Atticus, he who had always been looking forward to the next battle, finally experienced a feeling of peace. Soon, if he was worthy, he would join with his god.

  So, with the last breath of air inside him, he screamed, “Upload!” and now standing amongst his enemies, he lay about him with his sword with a wild abandon better suited to a drunken brawl than a proper battle, until the force of his blows knocked him off the hull of the battleship.

  “M-E-N!” screamed a single voice in response to his call, and with his sword pointed into the cold abyss of space, the Captain’s battle-suit was struck multiple times in the back by a storm of enemy blasters.

  Faintly, he could hear one last strangled call for “Upload!” and then there was one more flash and then Captain Atticus’s body was ripped apart.

  He had failed to take the battleship, and that particular thought filled his mind so completely that it was as though time stood still for eternity with Atticus unable to think of anything else.

  And then he knew nothing.

  Chapter 50: A call to Surrender

  Battered, beaten, and now helmetless, they had dragged me through the corridor like some kind of trophy of war. My last coherent memory before they dumped me like a side of beef at the feet of a new type of droid, one that was different from the warrior types I’d encountered so far, was of the blaster bolt—seemingly aimed at my visor—which had destroyed my helmet’s communication antennae.

  “I am Overseer of Harmony, designation XZCT951,” the multi-tentacled, cylinder-shaped droid towering above me said in a dry, mechanical voice, “battlefield transmission intercepts pinpoint your unit as a high value target. Accept Harmony into your programming and initiate communication protocols—now.”

  With all the blood dripping out of my mouth, it was easy to muster up a gob to spit on the Overseer’s feet. Or, rather the, tentacles it was using in the place of feet.

  “The subject is resistive,” the Overseer said clinically, “initiate obedience training level one.”

  Before I could even wonder what exactly ‘obedience training level one’ was, a warrior jab
bed me from behind with an electric shock prod.

  It felt like I’d just been socked in the face and then electrocuted, after having my insides microwaved.

  “Be warned that resistance is futile. High value target: you are instructed to accept Harmony programming and initiate communication protocols—now,” repeated the Overseer.

  Needless to say I was in little mood to do anything a droid told me to at this point and the so called ‘training’ proceeded up to level four, increasing in both time and duration the use of the shock prod.

  “What do you want?” I finally gave in and wheezed out, after the last ‘training episode’ had caused me to bite my tongue and black out.

  “Target is voice-pattern identified as high value target Admiral Montagne of the sub-fleet, designation Multi-Sector Patrol Fleet,” the Overseer said, leaning forward and scanning my eyes with a sweeping green light. “Admiral Montagne, in order to increase Harmony throughout the known universe, you have been granted the wonderful opportunity to become a slave within the Harmony through Conformity. If you accept your new role within the universe, you will be granted the designation AO4769. Do you accept your new designation, Admiral Montagne?”

  “While I’m sure the chance to become your slave is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, I think I’m going to pass,” I rasped out.

  “Ambiguity detected within the answer portion of the question and answer period. ‘Yes’ or ‘no’ answers are preferred. In order to reduce ambiguity levels in future conversations, remedial training will be required,” the Overseer said coldly, “warrior unit Gama-Xray339: please initiate phase two, level one of remedial obedience training.”

  This time, instead of using a shock prod, the warrior Gama-Xray339 pulled out a neural whip and applied it to my body.