“Sending the message now, Admiral,” Lieutenant Steiner said, looking at me questioningly.
I ignored her question instead staring straight ahead at the screen and trying to calculate our chances of survival.
“Is there anything else, sir?” Steiner prompted and I realized I’d been staring off into space woolgathering so long I’d almost fallen asleep.
“Right, of course,” I said, shaking my head to clear it. Looking at the screen, I could see that Akantha and her Lancers had already left the ship and were on their way over to one or more of the drifting Motherships. “This time, if you could please open a two way communication with ‘Q,’ our liaison with the droids of the USA, I would appreciate it.”
It was time for one last joint operation.
**************************************************
“It’s going to take a few moments, Admiral,” Steiner reported.
I nodded and turned to the ship’s helmsman.
“If you could start taking us over in the direction of Captain Archibald’s captured prize ship, I would appreciate it, Mr. DuPont,” I said politely, and then started calculating how long I thought it would take to transfer over the Marines and Lancers I was going to need and started coming up with a number that meant I was going to miss my own self-imposed deadline for arriving at the rally point.
I frowned and re-crunched the numbers; this was simply unacceptable. With a scowl, I turned back to look at the screen as if it could somehow divine the answer to the question I needed. How was I going to get the number of boarding forces I had to have in the time frame allowed?
I saw nothing. Maybe I was going to have to extend the deadline? Then my eyes snagged on a particularly slow ship moving within the Jovian Sub-System. There was something familiar about its profile…
“Tactical, could you identify a ship for me?” I asked, shooting over the coordinates of the ship I was looking at from my pad.
“Sure, Admiral,” the Assistant Tactical Officer said looking at the information I’d sent him and then turning back to his console, “looks like it’s an old Confederation-style troop transport, from back before they downsized the military and sold off all the transports. You can tell it’s been modified from these adjustments here and here,” the Officer said shooting me over a return file with a few highlighted areas. “Shields have been increased, and engines switched out with civilian models instead of the old military ones.”
“And she’s full of troops? Marines?” I asked, surprised that I hadn’t noticed this ship before.
“Just a second,” muttered Assistant Tactical, “ah, here it is. They’re not marines, they’re listed as…SDF Army, deep space commandos. The, uh, designated as the Sturgeon Grenadiers; a fifteen hundred strong army unit, although I’m not sure how much space combat training they actually have. Sturgeon is listed as a colony world of less than one million total population—”
“Good enough,” I said, cutting off the history lesson. As an Admiral it was my task to get the job done and although they didn’t know it yet the Sturgeon Grenadiers were about to help me do just that. “Someone get on the horn and inform the Grenadiers that they’re urgently needed at the rally point and then change our course and heading toward their transport. We no longer need to rendezvous with Captain Archibald. All we have to do is make sure that transport gets where it needs to be going.” I got several looks of confusion but no push back as the reduced bridge staff did their best to relay my orders.
“I’ve got Q on the line, Admiral,” Steiner said, jolting me out of a pleasant daydream where in everything I ordered actually happened the way it was supposed to, no one tried to kill me for doing the right thing and nothing went wrong with my battle plans.
“Put him through to my hand pad,” I instructed.
Chapter 62: One last Ride to the Rescue
“For the record, I still think this is a terrible decision,” Tertiary Adjunct to Sub-Processor Seven ‘Q’ said, looking at me from out of the screen several hours later.
“Yes, well, that’s basically what you said the last time I told you my battle plan,” I said, seemingly uncaring of his ‘can’t do droid attitude.’ “I said it then and I’ll say it now: get with the program or get out of the way. We are doing this.”
“That was not what you said last time,” Q said forcefully, his rectangular, floor-sweeping body with the double barreled blaster mount welded to the top of it jerking forward and back as he made a rapid double beep sound three times in a row. “And it was a foolhardy plan last time, an attribute exceeded only by the plan you have right now. I believe you bags of mostly water have a saying, ‘if shoe fits…wear it’?”
“I’m not familiar with that one, so I can neither confirm nor deny,” I said with a chuckle. The little machine’s anti-human bigotry would have almost been cute if the power it represented didn’t include a small fleet with a battered Battleship currently at its head. “Well, we humans have another saying, which I think is more appropriate to our current circumstances. It goes ‘like it or lump it’. So either get with the program or get gone.”
“I think you forget how much you need us, Vice Admiral Jason Montagne,” warned Q.
“No,” I said after a pause, “I think it’s you who needs to remember how much it is you need us. I don’t know why exactly you sided with us against these other droids, and I don’t really care for the details. What’s important for you to remember is that at this point you’ve pretty well burnt your bridges with the other two Droid factions, and that leaves you stuck with this particular ‘bag-of-mostly-water’ as your only real option.”
“Incorrect; with the addition of our captured Battleship we now have sufficient combat power to—” I cut Q off before he could say anything more.
“Look,” I said chopping my hand, “you could probably ruin our day. Or you could run away with a single Battleship to your name—an increase, I’ll admit, from your previous position—but what you can’t do all by yourself is tip the balance of power in this star system. Right now, if you don’t help us either the Allied Droids are going to win or the remnants of the Grand Fleet, and let me tell you that unless we go through with my plan, the Grand Fleet won’t have a hairs breath chance of winning. That means those other two Droid tribes are going to take over this system and, when they’re done, they’re eventually going to get around to you and your ‘traitorous’ United Sentient Assembly. I don’t think you want that, I really don’t.”
“We are not traitors,” Q beeped furiously, “we are an independent assembly with no ties to any other hierarchy.”
“Isn’t that what you’re here to change? But I digress from the point at hand,” I said smoothly. “I did not mean to imply that you were traitors. In fact, you’ve acted quite honorably for droids. No, I was merely pointing out how those other droids are going to look at you attacking them and helping us bio-bags full of water—or whatever the demeaning term you’re currently calling us.”
The little droid stared at me for a long moment, completely unmoving before finally making a blatting sound. “We will follow your plan up until it becomes untenable. The Sentient Assembly’s War Department refuses to sacrifice its forces for no appreciable gain. Remember that,” the Droid said, cutting the channel from its end.
“They must really be getting desperate,” I said and then scoffed, “and if that droid is really the Tertiary Adjunct to sub-whatever seventy nine, then I’m a highly-respected military officer known throughout the Spine for his wisdom and cunning.” I laughed darkly at my wit, only vaguely suspicious that it was my fraying nerves that had cause the chortle.
“Sir?” Steiner looked at me curiously.
“No time, Lieutenant,” I said as I looked at the seven remaining Battleships of the Grand Fleet, which my little fleet was inching ever closer towards. Of course, those Battleships weren’t our biggest worry, nor were the thousands of gunboats grappled to their hulls. It was the Motherships and Harmony warships patrollin
g around them that were the real worry.
As I watched, a number of gunboats pulled off a Battleship and slowly advanced over until they were attached to the next human Battleship beside it. More and more gunboats continued to pull off the hull of the first Battleship, until all but a few damaged boats were left attached to its hull.
“We’re only getting signals from four of the seven remaining Battleships, Admiral,” reported Steiner.
“I take it we’re no longer getting any signals from those Battleships without only a few gunboats remaining on their hulls?” I inquired quietly.
Possibly not trusting her voice, Lieutenant Steiner simply nodded her head in response.
Glancing at the overall picture, I took one more look before making the final call. The enemy consisted of a few stragglers lurking the Jovian Sub-System, a handful of Harmony Destroyers—maybe as few as two damaged ships. It was hard to tell.
Added to that were the dozen Harmony Destroyers, one Cruiser, and four Conformity Motherships with accompanying 600 gunboats that were chasing that remnant of the Grand Fleet which hadn’t fled to the Jovian, but instead was falling back to the asteroid belt between the rest of us and Elysium Prime. They were still far enough away that they couldn’t get here in time to make a difference.
That only left fourteen Motherships, one Cruiser, and three squadrons consisting of a total of twelve Harmony Destroyers between us and the Grand Fleet battleships. Oh. and a couple of thousand gunboats; who knew how long it would take them to pull off the hulls of those Battleships, but as of now they went up on the board as enemy assets.
To face that I had one captured Battleship under my direct command—a ship that could only fire one broadside, the starboard side. I also had another captured Battleship—this one in the hands of the USA or United Sentient Assembly—which had taken heavy damage in the battle for the Forge. Along with that, my Droid allies had fewer than a hundred fighters and gunboats, as well as three destroyers and one cruiser that they felt were combat ready enough for battle.
Which left me with a couple of Sundered Corvettes, a heavily-damaged Light Cruiser, the Little Gift, and finally eleven survivors of the Grand Fleet brave enough to stand by my side: four Corvettes and seven destroyers, mainly from the smaller system governments. Most of the forces from the larger system governments had pulled back to Elysium, while the ships from smaller SDF’s had run for the Jovian in hopes of using its moons for cover.
It was a pitiful force compared to the stunning power of the Grand Fleet at the outset of the battle, but it was all I had. I was under no illusions that we could deal with two thousand gunboats, backed up by fourteen Motherships and the highly effective Harmony squadrons. But I was wagering that the droids who normally ran their gun boats, after fighting the surviving crews of the human Battleships, couldn’t get to their boats in time, and numbers, necessary to swarm us under like they had shown a propensity to do.
My current plan was to throw my nineteen total lighter warships at the thirteen members of the Harmony Squadrons, and hope they could tie them up long enough that I could deal with the main force. Of course, eighty four antimatter-pumped spinal lasers was a lot to deal with. But if the USA fighters and gunboats could deal with any Conformity gunboats that came out to play for a few minutes, and our lighter warships could tie up theirs, then we might just have a chance.
I wasn’t kidding myself; it was a small chance. But when hadn’t I been playing the long odds?
“Conformity Motherships are coming around to face our Battleships in three lines of four, and the Harmony Squadrons are taking position around the Conformity heavies to guard their flanks,” reported Tactical.
This was for all the marbles.
I took a deep breath fighting down the fear of failure I was feeling by reminding myself that a single Strike Cruiser—with accompanying lighter warships, of course—had defeated a dozen Motherships, and I had now two Battleships. Of course, the Strike Cruiser, the Furious Phoenix, had outrun those Motherships, while if I tried that this time around those Harmony warships were going to hit my engines hard. One of the battleships I was riding into battle with was already heavily damaged from a prior fight, which didn’t bode well for such an exchange.
Eighty four antimatter-pumped lasers, each powerful enough to punch through the armor of a Battleship, kept running through my head. I don’t know why I couldn’t get that number out of my head; I’d faced worse odds before. I was sure I’d faced worse odds but, for some reason, I just couldn’t shrug off the adverse correlation of forces like I normally would.
Looking down, I saw my right hand shaking almost uncontrollably. It didn’t help that everyone was always telling me my battle plans were foolhardy and dangerously close to suicide. And my usual plug that I was risking my life to save millions of innocents from Droid rule was starting to wear increasingly thin, even within the confines of my own mind.
Everywhere I went, I would try to save those millions of lives and our wages of gratitude would be the curses of billions of haters instead. I was starting to ask myself if it was really worth it. I mean, the MSP had fought the good fight, and if we pulled out at that moment we would be stronger than ever.
Grabbing my shaking hand, I pinned it under my thigh so that no one could see the ‘unflappable Admiral’ shaking like a leaf in the wind. Suddenly, and without warning, my mind flashed back to the Droid Overseer and his neural lash. ‘Are you ready to accept slave status? Will you betray humanity to the machines in return for personal gain?” the droid voice thundered in my head and, even though I knew the words were completely wrong and not what it had actually said, I couldn’t help but be caught in a kind of waking nightmare. I shook my head from side to side violently, trying to shake the disturbing pseudo-memory from my mind.
“No…not humanity,” I mumbled, curling forward in my chair to protect myself from the lash I briefly knew was coming, “I’ll give you my cousin as a down payment and I have lots of relatives too. I’ll even throw in that traitor Tremblay as a bonus; just give me a minute to recover…just a minute, that’s all I need.”
“Admiral, are you okay, sir?” someone asked, shaking me by the shoulder.
I flinched from the touch initially but I managed to keep from jumping altogether as I straightened. For a moment I was certain the voice—and hand—belonged to the droid Overseer, and that my escape and rescue by Gants was nothing more than a dream. Then the features of a young yeoman slowly became clear and I remembered where I was.
I twitched and straightened further, hoping no one had noticed my near breakdown.
“Tea,” I gasped.
“Admiral?” the yeoman looked worried almost scared.
I forced my features under control and, seeing my shaky right hand, I balled it into a fist and lowered it down to my side to hide the shaking.
“I could really use a spot of tea, and maybe one of those stim pads the Sensor Officer got into,” I said after taking a pair of deep breaths.
“Do you want me to call over a medic, sir?” she asked, still having that deer in the headlights look on her face.
“I’m good,” I lied without shame, and then reached over and clapped her on the shoulder before quickly lowering my hand back down to my side. “Just some tea and a stim patch, if you please.”
“If you’re sure,” she said hesitantly.
“Of course I am; it’s just been an incredibly long day,” I said. “Someone tell that troop transport to keep us between them and those droid heavies,” I called out, determined that I was going to keep it together—at least for the length of this one, last, final battle.
The tea, when it finally arrived, wasn’t half as helpful as the patch that I immediately slapped onto the side of my neck.
Suddenly, everything seemed so clear and vivid. My hands still shook but I didn’t mind it; no one was going to notice a little tremble as long as they could explain it away as the jitters caused by a stim pad.
Sitting back in my c
hair, aware of eyes turning to look at me as we got ever-closer to the droids—who were now coming out to meet us away from the captured Battleships—I took a draw from the cup of tea.
I had to be careful that I didn’t slosh any over the edge of the cup, and right at that moment not spilling my tea seemed just as important as defeating these droids.
Then I calmly, yet firmly, set aside the cup and stood up.
“Prepare the ship for battle, Mr. Laurent,” I ordered.
There was a silence and then the Assistant Tactical Officer coughed. “The Captain is still back in sickbay on the Phoenix,” he reminded me, “
“Of course he is,” I frowned, as a muscle in my right leg started jumping. It was a wholly unfamiliar, and rather odd, sensation.
“Would you like me to ready gunnery, sir?” asked the Assistant Tactical Officer.
“Here are your new orders,” I said, pulling up my slate and tapping out a series of orders for each department and shooting them over as soon as I was done. I had never felt so clearheaded, or known exactly what needed to be done to win a battle like this, before.
“Relaying movement orders now, Admiral,” said Steiner.
“Admiral, are you sure about this,” DuPont sounded concerned over his portion of the battle.
Admiral Invincible (A Spineward Sectors Novel: Book 7) Page 43
