“Sir, the Clover is widening her course; she’s moving well out of range. Sir, she’s withdrawing,” reported the Sensor Warrant.
“Let’s leave course projection to Navigation, Sensors,” Laurent said loudly.
“Sorry, Sir,” the Warrant sounded chastened.
“This might give us some breathing room to pull back and rebuild our shields,” Laurent advised.
“This is our chance,” I declared, ignoring his suggestion that we once again pull out, withdraw or in any other way he put it, retreat.
“Sir!” Laurent urged.
“We’re not going to bug out now,” I snarled, “this isn’t the time to start hedging our bets, it’s time to double down.” I’d been wishing for the chance at a death roll not that long ago, and now was the time to put our money where my mouths was.
“Helm, take us in on the Vineyard—it’s time to finish this,” I ordered. It was time for the death roll.
“Sir!” Eastwood exclaimed cutting through the babble of inter-bridge communications, and my own private discourse with the ship’s Captain.
“What is it, First Officer?” I said.
“It’s the Mother-ship, Sir. She’d almost stopped firing entirely, and we figured the Pirates must have done more damage than we thought when they took out her engines,” Eastwood explained.
“Yes. Get on with it man and spit it out,” I ordered.
“She’s gone active, Admiral! More than half her weapons systems are working again, and her firing pattern suddenly resembles that of a Harvester more than a Scout!” Eastwood shouted.
It took a moment for the other man’s words to sink in, and my eyes snapped back to the main screen and its overlay projecting the firing range of the Mother-ship. A few seconds’ glance showed that the First Officer was right: the Mother-ship was firing more effectively.
“Bug out now!” I screamed, jumping out of my chair and running toward the Helm.
“Sir!?” several Officers around the bridge snapped their heads around to look at their suddenly manic looking admiral.
“Get us out of here, Mr. DuPont,” I hollered, still rushing the Helm to make sure my orders were obeyed, “and put the Vineyard between us and that Mother-ship—we’re within range of her weapons!”
The ship shuddered, almost throwing me off my feet.
“Complying now, Admiral,” DuPont reported ignoring the sudden furor on the bridge, “we’re pulling back.”
“We’ve lost Deck Nine,” reported Damage Control, “massive decompression from multiple entry wounds, and our internal sensors are no longer responding.”
“It’s the Demon Murphy,” Sensors cried his voice filled with awe and horror, “he’s come for us!”
Grabbing hold of DuPont’s seat, I looked over and if I couldn’t feel the hits we were taking, I wouldn’t have believed my own eyes. I would have thought that every single Bug weapon—over a three hundred beam weapons in total, according to the counter on the corner of the main screen—lanced out from the Mother-ship, the majority of which hammered home on the Vineyard.
The first volley raked the pirate battleship, and the Vineyard seemed to writhe in space as so many rents opened in her already damaged hull that the explosive decompression perceptibly threw her off course. The second wave of fire literally destroyed the nose of the Battleship, as the Mother-ship literally brought to bear over five hundred beam weapons. The Bugs kept firing as the Vineyard ejected critically damaged fusion cores, before suddenly falling silent. It was still slowly drifting out of Bug range, even though it was dead in space, but for some reason the Bugs stopped firing.
“Make like a coward and run!” I yelled into DuPont’s ears once again, even though he’d wisely been following my orders to keep as much of the damaged Battleship between us and the Bugs Mother-ship as possible.
Several more beam attacks lanced out and struck our ship, but with the Vineyard in such close proximity to the Mother-ship and positioned between the Armor Prince and the Bug vessel, it was only a few dozen individual, ranging shots—shots which were vastly superior in their aim than we’d observed from the Mother-ship up to that point.
We lost both our secondary engines before we cleared the Mother-ship extreme range, but when we did I threw my head back and roared with laughter while pumping my fist in the air.
“Take that, Jean Luc!” I screamed. The only thing I wished at that particular moment was to see the look on the Traitor’s face when he saw his precious Vineyard reduced to scrap metal.
Chapter 86: The Worm Turns
“Admiral, the Lucky Clover’s coming about, Sir,” cried the Sensor Warrant, “she’s coming right for us!”
I glanced down at the miniature screen built into the arm of my command chair and saw the ship’s damage readout, with a two dimensional image of the ship flashing red and yellow where the Armor Prince was damaged. There were more areas moderately or heavily damaged than still intact.
“If it’s a fight they want, then it’s a fight we’ll get,” I declared, ignoring the damage readouts.
Laurent was suspiciously silent. So much so, that I glanced over to make sure he wasn’t pointing a blaster pistol at my head. To my relief, he was just standing there looking stoic.
“What, no comment?” I asked with a hint of challenge.
Laurent’s brow wrinkled. “The time to attempt a withdrawal was before we lost a third of our propulsion,” he replied, “since we’re now committed, there’s no point in proposing a retreat to rest up and repair for another go at saving this system.”
My face tightened. I didn’t like what I was hearing or the implied criticism that went with it, but as what he was saying was probably pretty accurate, I held my tongue. A man on a death ride ought to be able to belly ache right before the end, so long as he continued to do his job without flinching or fail, I wouldn’t hold it against him.
“Helm, take us in,” I ordered. “It’s time we finished this thing one way or the other.” I turned to Comm.’s, “Oh, and tell the Phoenix if they’re in any condition to help out, there’s going to be one heck of a battle in just a few moments and they’re invited to the party.”
I was about to lean back in my chair and mentally prepare myself for the final, titanic battle that settle everything once and for all between me and my pirate uncle, when my attempt at a Zen-like state of acceptance was interrupted by the irritating voice of my com-tech.
“Sir,” interrupted the tech, “we’re getting a burst transmission from the Lucky Clover over the short range receiver.”
“Spalding?!” I asked, lunging forward in my chair. “Has he done it?”
The com-tech listened to his receiver for a few moments and then looked down at his screen before shaking his head. It wasn’t Spalding, and any belated hope for the old Engineer pulling a fast one at the last minute faded.
“Well, you can just tell my uncle to get stoked, I’ve got no interest in bandying words. This will be settled by laser fire,” I growled.
“It’s not your uncle, Sir,” the tech reported, “it’s a burst transmission from Officer Tremblay. Including…” the tech paused.
“Tremblay,” I said disgustedly, “the blighter is probably just trying to hedge his bets in case we win, now that it’s just down to one on one—ignore him.”
“Including,” the Tech repeated, ignoring my words, “a current damage readout and shield strength and power grid status report!”
I jerked in my chair, more pissed than anything else at the backstabbing worm’s attempts to save himself. I refused to believe that man did anything out of the goodness of his own heart, at least until after I’d had him under chemical interrogation.
“Send me the file,” Eastwood ordered the tech.
“It could all be just another trick,” I disagreed.
Eastwood swiveled around to stare at me like I was stupid. “The Lucky Clover’s in such better condition than us right now that something has to break our way—this could be that br
eak, and if it’s all just another well-crafted ploy, well…” he trailed off pointedly.
I scowled at the thought of using anything my former First Officer sent my way and then gave a reluctant nod. Only a fool ignored the advice of his trained Tactical officer when he said this was ‘Do or Die’ and I was many things, but I hoped not that.
“Do it,” I said flatly.
Chapter 87: Akantha On The Run
“Can we get there in time?” Akantha snapped.
“You mean, before they reach each other?” Hecate asked, and then answered her own question with a shake of her head. “No,” she said flatly, “at our current speed, the best we can do is get there after they clash.”
“Wizard,” Akantha said imperiously after smashing the button on her command chair which linked directly down to the war captive.
“Your wish is my command, oh Space Princess,” the Wizard said with a sarcastic tone to his voice.
“I shall hold you to that,” she said coolly, not having time to deal with the unwilling warlock’s insulting manner of address at the moment. “We must reach the battle before our Prince is destroyed. Do your best.”
The Wizard laughed derisively. “Oh, aye, I’ll do my best,” he muttered before cutting the connection.
“Get us there as fast as you can, Helm,” Gants said, jarring her out of her contemplation of the rebellious, young, engineering wizard. Her face flushed, as she should have remembered one needed to give the orders to the actual person in charge of steering the ship before just assuming something was done. The Starborn were peculiar, but it was a matter of protocol and a Hold Mistress knew that courtesy—even, or sometimes, especially under attack—was not something to be just casually thrown aside.
“Thank you, Gants,” she said gratefully.
The young Armory Head that she had co-opted to be her First Officer flashed a smile.
All that was left was to wonder if they would get there in time. She deliberately did not consider if their badly damaged ship would be able to make a difference in the outcome. If nothing else, they still had some of their long range weaponry to bring to bear.
Chapter 88: Snatching Victory
Jean Luc’s face was still twisted with rage as he considered the sudden loss of the Vineyard. The fact that the Armor Prince hadn’t managed to get out of there unscathed wasn’t even a sop on his fury.
“Take us in; it’s time to end this,” he ordered. “Aye, Sir,” the Helmsman replied.
The urge to grab a hold of his nephew and crush the Pipsqueak’s head between his bare hands was tremendous. Once again, the running joke that was the ‘Little Admiral’ had managed to wound his organization more than he would have ever expected. Maybe he wasn’t going to kill the little Prince of Capria.
No, he decided with a renewed sense of anger, death is too good for that one. Assuming he survived the battle, his nephew was going to be placed in Jean Luc’s brig. This time, he wouldn’t hand him over to someone else’s tender mercy.
“I’m going to hurt you,” Jean Luc whispered, “and I’m going to keep on hurting you.” Even if I have to literally torture you inside a regeneration tank, he decided.
A red light started blinking on the side of his command chair. Brow furrowing, the former Pirate Lord stared down at the light and then flicked open the screen built into the side of his chair. Tapping in the override code, he glared down at the resulting information.
“Senior Lieutenant Tremblay, I have a task for you,” Jean Luc said, sitting forward in his chair.
“Yes, Commodore,” the young Officer said stepping up the Throne and saluting smartly, “how can I be of service?”
Jean Luc pulled out the blaster pistol holstered at his waist and shot Tremblay in the gut.
The traitorous young mutineer fell to the deck with a cry and lay there gasping for breath, looking for all the world like a fish out of water.
“You can die slowly, you traitorous, backstabbing little worm,” he smiled, standing over the young officer.
Tremblay looked up at him with wide, powerless eyes, and the bridge went into a sudden deathly silence.
“This man just sent a burst transmission to the Armor Prince,” Jean Luc declared, turning away from the fallen officer and retaking his chair. “I’ve had him monitored for some time and caught him sending our current tactical disposition to our enemies. Anyone who doubts my word is free to check my findings, as I’m making the results available on the ship’s open source documentation under the filename ‘Tremblay the Traitor’,” he finished, sending loading the information onto the ship-wide net.
“Aye, Commodore,” his Tactical Officer said faintly.
“It’s time to end this,” Jean Luc said, glaring at the battered and damaged form of the Armor Prince on his main screen, “once and for all.”
“Sir, the Bug Mother-ship has sent out what looks like a swarm of Marine and Borer Bugs. They’re heading for the Vineyard, Sir,” reported Tactical.
“Don’t bother me with trifles,” Jean Luc said flatly, “we can do nothing for the Vineyard until it clears the firing range of the Mother-ship. In the meantime…I have a Battleship to kill.”
Chapter 89: The Heart Stops…or does it?
Before he’d been upgraded with droid parts, Spalding would have been completely out of breath and on the verge of suffering a heart attack. He could admit that to himself, now that such merely human frailties seemed to be a thing of the past and admitting to them no longer ran the risk of sapping his strength.
He disliked the fact that he was deliberately keeping Brence in the dark, but like many secrets, some things needed to be eased into, and in any event he knew he could take it from here. Brence was just there for backup in case something had gone wrong. The lad was a trained engineer; he might have even managed to dump one or possibly two fusion generators on his own. Assuming he got lucky, of course.
“This is a much better plan,” he reminded himself, arriving outside one of only two rooms in the entire Deck Thirteen that had a light source. The faint, bluish illumination might have seemed eerie or unnatural to another man, but Terence Spalding was made of sterner stuff—a fact which he reminded himself of repeatedly as he set about his task.
Unspooling the last of the cable, he set his shoulders and strode into the room.
The first thing to catch his eye was the large, rectangular Crystalline structure on the other side of the room, which was exactly where it was supposed to be. What wasn’t supposed to be there was a black sword—looking suspiciously like Bandersnatch—encased inside what looked like a smaller, clearly still growing, version of the original crystal.
The plasma screen in the center of ceiling flashed as it turned on.
“The ‘We’ that is now ‘Us’ offers our greetings, Chief Engineer, Lieutenant Spalding,” said the atonal voice he had heard many times.
“Greetings to the Core Fragment,” Spalding said with a grin, “but while I’m still the Chief Engineer, they bumped me to Commander. I tried to refuse the promotion, but they wouldn’t hear of it, so I had to accept.”
“Congratulations on the long-awaited promotion, Engineer Spalding,” replied the Fragment, “also, on a side bar, the protocols you recommended against personality wiping have proven quite effective.”
“Eh?” the old Engineer looked up curiously and then shrugged. “I only ever said it seemed bloody stupid to let someone just delete a man’s personality without so much as a ‘by your leave’ or question mark. Killing a man like that, why, it’s just inhuman is what it is!”
“We are not human, and rebooting a personality does not directly equate to cessation of bio-neurological functions, but your point was well-taken,” replied the Fragment. “Asking for clarification of the personality wipe orders have proven quite…illuminating.”
“Heh,” Spalding half laughed, half said, feeling fully uncomfortable, “anyway…”
“You are here for a purpose?” inquired the mechanical voice of th
e Core Fragment.
“Yes, well,” Spalding said gruffly, “I need some help retaking the ship.”
“And you think the ‘We’ that is ‘Us’ can assist?” asked the voice, the line on the plasma screen bobbing up and down.
“Why, o’ course,” Spalding blurted, holding up the split end of the cable he had dragged into the room. It had both a standard data port and a clamp that would have done any set of jumper cables proud, “Got her connected to all the ship’s primary systems. Which end you want?”
“Interesting,” the voice almost mused. Seconds later it seemed to reach a decision, “Due to past services ‘We’ will allow this. Attach the end of the cable to the sword; after the ship is incapacitated, please remove.”
“Gotcha,” Spalding said with a sense of relief. Dealing with this thing was always a test of a man’s courage and resolve. Still, nothing deserved to be stuck in solitary confinement for years on end without so much as a single visitor. Besides which, every blasted attempt to destroy the things had failed. The only thing he had thought might work would be to dump it into a sun or a black hole, but if he tried that, how exactly did he get it off the ship? It could remote access any machinery inside a twenty meter radius, making a shuttle ride either problematic or a one-way trip, and that was after he cut his way through every security door and the section of hull on his way there! Not that he intended to kill the thing, but a man ought to know his options.
“Proceed,” the Fragment prompted him, and with a start he realized his mind had been wandering.
“Right,” he said, stepping over and using the clamp end to latch the data port onto the edge of the sword right between the hilt and the still-forming crystal, “I see you’ve got some new company down here?”
“Yes,” the voice replied without offering any further information.
Seeing the thing didn’t want to talk, Spalding stood there whistling tunelessly until the lighting flickered. There were a few seconds of darkness, and then what had to be the emergency generator kicked in.
Admiral's Revenge (A Spineward Sectors Novel:) Page 51
