For a moment, he was intrigued, but then he sternly took himself to task. He had promised himself to a certain Construction Manager, and while he had failed to technically tell her about it yet, his word was good—even if he had not actually ‘said’ a word to a soul. He reminded himself that it was the principle of the thing. A serial monogamist is what he was, by Saint Murphy’s Wretched Wrench, and that was what he was going to stay!
With that thought firmly in mind, he turned his attention to what she was saying.
“If you keep coming at us as fast as you currently are, there’s no way you’ll be able to match courses with us unless we keep burning as fast as possible,” she said quite reasonably.
Spalding’s carefully thought-out diplomatic approach went out the window at the first sign of obstinacy. “You just follow your instructions, and let us worry about getting on board; we’ve come for the Admiral, and we mean to have him. I’d think after watching us come across the length and breadth of this Star System, you’d realize we’re not about to take any guff,” Spalding said severely.
The hatchet-faced female in a generic spacer’s uniform stared, as if she could see something through the blackness of her main screen, and she looked as if he had just insulted her intelligence.
“Listen, you fool, you’ve done well so far, but charging headlong across the System dodging warships is a different matter from matching course and vectors! And I’m not about to have my ship destroyed by some ham handed, wet behind the ears halfwit, who thinks he can dock with such mismatching speeds. We’ll be destroyed for sure!” she snarled.
Spalding was insulted; just who did she think she was dealing with, some wet behind his ears brand new engineering degree just out of University?
“A fool and halfwit, is it?!” Spalding barked in outrage, “Slow your ship and shut your gob, or you’ll find we came loaded for Dungeon Ship!” he snapped, activating his plasma fingers unconsciously.
“We’re complying under protest, and only after direct threat of physical force,” the Captain said officially, and obviously for the record.
“It’s good that we’re finally seeing eye-to-eye, Captain,” Spalding said after taking a few calming breaths before continuing.
“You’ll understand if I feel differently,” she said evenly.
“I know it’s hard for any Captain to be told what to do on her ship,” he said, trying for a consoling voice, “but before you know it, this’ll all be over, and we’ll be out of your hair.”
The Captain smirked, making her look just as plain and unattractive as ever. “You’re not the first man to say that, Spacer,” she said.
Spalding failed to stifle an involuntary chuckle. “You’ll find your womanly wiles don’t work on a wizened old space hand like myself,” he tried for a severe tone, but feared a pair of near chuckles mangled his attempt.
Her somewhat pleasant expression disappeared, and she leaned back in her chair, disapproval radiating from her entire body. “There’s no need to add insult to injury,” she said strictly.
“Ah, lass, if you could see what the quacks have done to this ugly old mug while I was under their knife, you’d run for the blast doors,” he said wistfully, remembering his handsome old self before Medical got their hands on his ornery old carcass.
Now she just looked angry instead of insulted, and in Spalding’s history with women, this tended to be a good sign. So seeing as her ship was decelerating as rapidly as possible, and he saw no point in sticking his foot in it any further, he turned to the Communications Operator and gestured for him to cut the transmission.
A few moments later, the Helmsman gestured urgently at his console. “We’re almost there,” he said.
“Release the Cutters; they are to join the Corvettes and maneuver independently, while we get the Admiral,” Spalding ordered.
There was a shudder as first one, and then another cutter, was released from the improvised docking clamps.
“Cutters away,” cried the Helmsman.
All around the Bridge, crewmen and women breathed a sigh of relief, as the grav-plates returned to bestowing the normal amount of gravity upon them.
Then the Helmsman looked back down at his panel and jerked.
“Brace for impact,” he squealed.
“Engaging the Maneuver,” Spalding cried, inputting the code for the Montagne Maneuver into his handheld, and then transmitting it to the DI.
“Here goes nothing,” Brence growled, gripping his seat with both hands.
“No, lad, here goes everything!” Spalding cried as the DI received the impulse.
Suddenly, the ship shook around and for a moment, it felt like they were sitting on the ceiling and one of the old chairs in the sensor pit actually broke free from its floor clamps. It floated into the air momentarily, before once again the crew were pinned to their seats with crushing force and the Sensor Chair—including its operator—landed sideways on another operator.
Then there was a sudden lurch and an abrupt crash, as the whole ship shuddered, like it had run into a brick wall. A blue glow suffused the ship before the power cut out, flooding the ship in darkness. Spalding was just starting to think they were in the clear, when it felt as if something in the rear of the ship exploded, causing the vessel to lurch unexpectedly.
“Sounds like the rear Shield Generator,” he said to Brence, but the other man was so busy holding his chair in a death grip, that even using his infra-red vision it was clear he had heard not one word
Then the screaming from the sensor pit started, and the piteous moans from around the Bridge filled in the few moments of what would have otherwise been absolute silence.
“See, I told you we’d make it,” Spalding said sternly, just to make sure all the naysayers knew they would be eating crow later on in the mess hall. Well, as long as they were still alive, that is.
Chapter 50: The Trap Snaps Shut
Commodore LeGodat watched incredulously as the Medium Cruiser continued to barrel toward the Dungeon ship at top speed, their course as straight as an arrow.
“Do you think they mean to ram her?” Stravinsky asked in disbelief.
“I thought they were possibly Confederation strays from the MPF, but now I wonder if they just wanted the pleasure of killing him themselves,” LeGodat said, shaking his head and wishing there was something—anything—else he could have done.
Behind the Hydra, the 2nd Squadron of the Sector Guard had pulled slightly ahead in the race to catch the mismatched quad of unidentified ships, while their slower SDF counterparts continued at the best speed their Light Cruisers could maintain.
“I’m getting an unusual reading,” reported one of the Sensor Operators.
“What is it,” snapped the Sensor Ensign.
“The Hydra’s speed is dropping; if I didn’t know better, I’d say it looks like a she’s…nope, she’s definitely losing her secondary engines. Look, they’re falling off the ship,” said the Operator.
Then the Sensor Ensign showed up. “Those secondary engines aren’t engines; they’re Cutters,” he cried, and on the main screen the ‘engines’ sprouted shield bubbles before maneuvering independently.
LeGodat’s eagle eyes caught something unusual around the icon of the Hydra. “Why is her shield array fluctuating,” he demanded.
“I’m reading a surge in strange particles, it looks like they’re trying to go to hyperspace,” relayed the Sensor Operator.
“Those fools,” the Commodore said clenching his hand into a fist and holding it tight.
“Point emergence,” cried another sensor operator, her carefully won discipline deserting her as the tension rose.
“Where,” demanded his XO.
“Its—it’s in the same location as the Hydra, Sir!” she sounded stunned.
“I’m reading a series of wild gravity surges—and now an explosion in their stern,” said the first sensor operator. “Looks like their rear shield array was what went.”
The white-faced Sen
sor Ensign turned to the Commodore. “I’m not sure how she did it, but the Hydra just shed all her forward acceleration; for all intents and purposes, she just came to an abrupt stop, Commodore LeGodat,” he said.
“That’s impossible,” shouted their ship’s Science Officer, “send me over the readings; I need the raw data files!”
The Confederation Commodore stared with disbelief at the suddenly still icon on his main screen, then he watched incredulously as the Squadron of Corvettes belonging to the Guard came shooting past the Medium Cruiser, which cut most of its power transmissions.
It was obvious their gunners had been unprepared for their quarry to defy the laws of physics, and the vast majority of their weapons shot off wildly into cold space. Only a few managed to acquire a lock, or else their Gunner’s dead-eyed their target in the few seconds available to them.
“The Praxis SDF are adjusting their course; they’re lining up for a firing run, and with those rear-facing shields down, the Hydra’s a sitting duck,” reported the Navigator as he crunched the numbers.
LeGodat looked at the screen and came to a snap decision. “Not only will those SDF boys not miss, but now that they’re aware of the velocity changes, their new heading takes them almost directly towards our position,” he said, standing up in his chair and turning to his Executive Officer decisively.
The Commodore smirked, knowing it was time to make their play. “Go active, and take us toward them at full accel; I want that Squadron of the Praxis Border Guard lit up like a Christmas tree, Number One,” he ordered, speaking to Stravinsky in a voice that carried across the bridge.
“Yes, Sir,” she acknowledged. All around the Bridge, officers and crew wasted no time waiting for her to relay the order; they activated their targeting sensors and spun up shield generators, or in the case of the Helmsman, took them up to max on the Engines.
“Painting the SDF Squadron now,” reported the Sensor Ensign, “the rest of our Task Force has begun to follow suit.”
“Relay my orders throughout the Easy Haven Task Force, if you haven’t done already,” LeGodat barked at the Com-Officer, ignoring the polite fiction that his orders passed through his First Officer, in this particular instance.
“It’s turning into a real fur ball between the Sector Guard and all those run down corvettes and cutters,” reported the ship’s Chief Tactical Officer.
LeGodat ignored it, as the main screen reflected the back and forth between the technologically superior Guard, and their more numerous—but also more aged, and generally smaller—opponents. The important thing here was not the Hydra’s escorts, or the 2nd Squadron of the Guard; it was the reaction of the Praxis SDF.
For a moment, several of the ships in the Praxis Border Guard wavered when their hulls were painted by his ships’ targeting arrays, but they correctly knew that he was still too far away to do anything more than avenge the Hydra, and continued on their firing run.
“Blast,” LeGodat cursed, staring at the main screen, wishing this particular SDF had been a little less steady, and its officer corps not so well-trained.
Natasha Stravinsky shook her head. “You did what you could do, Sir,” she said sympathetically.
Then something unexpected happened: the Dungeon Ship, which had almost come to a complete stop, suddenly rolled, maneuvering closer to the Hydra. Then the Dungeon Ship’s bucking cables shot out, attaching themselves to the unshielded rear of the Medium Cruiser, and started to spin it around to face the oncoming rash of SDF warships.
Chapter 51: Stuck in a Cell
I was lying on my little, foldout cot of a bed, just trying to get some sleep. I’d felt a slight quiver in the gravity system that indicated our ship had started to move, but just figured we were adjusting our orbit, or something of that nature. Maybe taking me closer to the planet, so that my shuttle wouldn’t have so far to travel?
So, it’s safe to say that I was more than a little surprised when I felt the ship go into a sudden emergency deceleration. The slight increase in gravity, along with the barest change in the direction it was pulling me toward the floor, were evident to me now after my many months on board a working warship.
I thought about getting up and pounding on my door, so I could demand to know what was going on, but as usual my guards were completely uninterested in the wants and desires of one Jason Montagne. So I didn’t even bother.
I don’t know why I even tried, sometimes. Perhaps it was the last, fading vestige of Admiral Montagne, a man I’d tried and—as far as I was concerned—spectacularly failed to become. Now, I was just plain old Jason Montagne: a young man about to be executed later today. Or, I suppose if you listened to the news networks, I was Prince Jason: the Tyrant of Cold Space. But either way you sliced the dice, I was about to die.
Honestly, I was so far sunk into a depressive funk, that even when the ship briefly started shuddering in a manner I had come to associate with combat (or near encounters with a massive gravity well), all I did was raise my head slightly. When nothing seemed to come of it, I let my head thump down into my paper thin pillow. At least it felt paper thin, although in reality it was three and a half inches thick, and twice that wide.
Rolling over, I went back to sleep, determined not to let some Helm hijinks ruin what could very well be the last good sleep of my life.
Chapter 52: Spalding being Spalding
Lights flickered and then returned to the Bridge, followed by the hum and whine of consoles which came back to life, as power somehow started flowing once again.
“Must have been a damaged power junction,” said Brence.
“They probably rerouted from the control station back down in Main Engineering; we certainly couldn’t do it from here,” Spalding agreed.
The ship quivered and then jerked.
“Something just grabbed hold of us,” Spalding concluded, as the ship gave another slight lurch underneath them.
“We’re turning to face the Praxis SDF,” cried the Helmsman.
“Good job, Helm,” Spalding said with an appreciative nod.
“It wasn’t me, Lieutenant; it was the Dungeon Ship,” yelped the Helmsman.
“Well…good for the fine Captain over there, then,” Spalding grumped in surprise.
“They’re almost on us,” shouted the single remaining sensor operator.
“Tell gunnery to fire as they bear, and have Parkiny divert as much power to the forward shield generator as humanly possible,” Spalding shouted.
Then the SDF ships formed up into a line, and one by one they rushed past the sitting duck of a Hydra Medium Cruiser, moving at impossible speeds.
The First Light Cruiser’s broadside drained their shields down briefly but a surge of power brought them back up again. The second Light Cruiser hammered their shields down to half strength, as every weapon in their broadside slammed home. The third Cruiser dropped their shields entirely, and several of its lighter weapons scored against the ancient Hydra’s hull.
Then the four corvettes came shooting past, their much less powerful weaponry slamming into the forward hull of Spalding’s Hydra. On the relatively undamaged sections, the lighter weaponry of the Corvettes failed to do more than scratch the surface and only punched holes through armor in a few places. But in the forward port quarter of the ship, where they had unintentionally come into brief and fleeting contact with the Light Destroyer, their shots slammed home with resounding force, digging through the wrecked and shattered exterior armor to detonate within the exposed vitals of the ship.
The ship rocked all around the Chief Engineer, as atmosphere vented from the ship’s latest wounds.
“There’s a core breach!” yelled the rating at damage control.
Spalding’s eyes widened, and he turned wildly towards the station.
“Engineering has ejected the core,” Damage control shouted, and then the ship was rocked by another explosion as the fusion core was shot out of the ship, where it immediately exploded. This caused further damage to the s
hip, making the starboard bow appear very similar to its port counterpart.
In response, their return fire was concentrated only on a single, fast moving corvette. Due to the difficulties with hitting such a rapidly moving target, all they managed to do was cause some spotting. Only one heavy laser managed to lance into the hull armor of the ship, but even it failed to penetrate far enough to cause any atmospheric leaks.
“I’ll be jiggered,” Spalding breathed, “we’re still here!”
Brence looked at him with a face near panic. “You didn’t expect us to survive,” he squealed.
Spalding paused, feeling himself go a little red in the face. “I figured we had a 50/50 chance,” he said gruffly.
“Fifty-fifty,” shrieked Brence, staring at him with eyes as wide as saucers.
“Buck up, son; we’re still here, and mostly in one piece,” Spalding snapped, chucking his second in command on the shoulder.
“Engines are starting to respond, although we’re down to only one fusion generator,” the Helmsman said unsteadily.
“We almost died,” Brence said shakily, his voice still too high and thready.
“But we didn’t, and now our objective’s within reach! Call out the Lancer detail; if there’s a single functioning shuttle on this bucket, I want to know about it before I take it into my chrome dome to hop a grav-cart and head on over to the Dungeon Ship before they cut loose the bucking cables,” Spalding said jubilantly.
“Our ship is wrecked!” Brence was starting to sound outraged instead of panicked.
“It was a wreck before they ever handed it to me,” Spalding sneered, as the Comm Operator finally realized he was serious, and started relaying the orders.
“Now it’s destroyed, and Murphy only know how many of the crew have been lost,” Brence snarled.
“It’s only half destroyed,” Spalding corrected him sharply, “and this is the military, not some half-witted smuggling ring. If you can’t take the heat, my advice is get out of the kitchen, bucky; and don’t renew your enlistment if you haven’t the stomach for this line of work,” he advised, more than a little sourly.
Admiral's Trial (A Spineward Sectors Novel:) Page 36
