Admiral's Gambit (A Spineward Sectors Novel:)

by Luke Sky Wachter

  The man looked at the screen and visibly puffed himself up. “The name is Horace of Bingo Prime in the Bingo system. Governor Horace Harkness, to you. Mr. I’m-too-late-to-do-any-good-with-my-Multi-Sector-mouthful. This is all in addition to the fact that all I can see is one cursed ship!” the angry governor yelled, and then cut the connection.

  We reached a few other planetary officials, but no one was too impressed with what they considered our tardy response time.

  Essentially, their entire orbital infrastructure was gone with the pirates. Even the more open-minded of them were upset that we hadn’t shown up in time to at least help save some of their wrecked equipment and stations from burning up in the atmosphere after the pirates had knocked them into a rapidly decaying orbit.

  With nothing in space for us to do, and very little we could add to the efforts already underway on the ground, the Lucky Clover pointed her nose toward the outer system and we prepared to cycle up our star-drive.

  It was a somber and slightly irritated bridge crew that left orbit and prepared to put Bingo behind us. No one likes to be told they’ve been slacking off when they’ve just come from another system where they fought a pitched battle.

  We all hoped that we wouldn’t arrive too late at the next inhabited system on our list.

  Chapter 19: Dressing-Downs

  “Attention on deck,” snapped the First Officer striding into the sickbay.

  Since this particular bay was almost entirely full of beat up gunners and a pair of rehabilitating Lancers, the participants of the bar brawl at Hatch 30 Portside who hadn’t been able to make it out of there under their own power, no one was in truly critical condition and the entire room slowly got out of bed and braced to attention.

  A series of groan and moans accompanied this turnout, but after a few moments the entire gun crew was lined up in front of the beds.

  “What’s this I hear about a fight between the Gun deck and the Lancer detail,” demanded First Officer Tremblay, marching up and down the line of bruised and battered men before stopping directly in front of the Chief Gunner Bogart. Tremblay paused and glared at the Chief, his nostrils flaring.

  “I’m waiting for an explanation,” he demanded.

  Before anyone else could think to speak and insert his oar into the situation, the Chief Gunner braced to full attention, and staring at the wall behind the First Officer, spoke up.

  “No fight, First Officer, just a few of the lads having a spot of fun and blowing off some steam,” said Chief Curtis Bogart.

  The First Officer moved closer until they were practically nose to nose.

  “Fighting is illegal on a Caprian SDF warship,” he glared, “and of all the people to be involved, the Chief of the Gun deck. For shame, Chief,” he snarled.

  “There was no fight, Mr. First Officer,” the Chief Gunner said stoutly, before pitching his voice to carry over his shoulder, “isn’t that right boys.”

  A semi-enthusiastic mumble followed, generally supportive of this claim.

  “You!” declared the First Officer, abruptly turning his head and marching over to the lone Lancer in the room. “It’s time we got to the bottom of this fiasco and cut through this web of evasions and lies.”

  The Lancer stood at attention and just looked at the First Officer.

  “Well,” demanded Lieutenant Tremblay, “on your honor! What happened below decks, Lancer?”

  The Chief couldn’t resist the tug as one corner of his mouth twisted ever so slightly. For all his other failings, the First Officer wasn’t entirely without a certain sort of base cunning. Appealing to a Tracto-an’s honor was a wiley move.

  “Have disagreement with old man,” said the Lancer pointing at Chief Bogart, “don’t remember much after that,” the Lancer shrugged and then pointed to the big bruise/goose egg on his forehead for emphasis. “On my honor,” the Lancer said with a straight face.

  Tremblay’s face turned purple.

  “Anyone want to chime in with the truth here,” demanded the First Officer.

  Bogart turned his head and gave the men to either side of him a cold gaze.

  Any potential wagging tongues were frozen to the roof of their mouths under the force of that gaze, and no one spoke up.

  Returning to the Chief Gunner, Lieutenant Tremblay scowled with fury. He took a deep breath and the color started to leech out of his face. “Well, let's hear this fantasy construct of yours.”

  “Sir,” the Chief asked innocently.

  “Spin your tale of innocence and farfetched circumstances that magically explain away how an entire turret crew ended up hospitalized in medical,” growled the First Officer. “I’m waiting, Chief,” he said before the Chief had the chance to get a word in edgewise.

  The Chief gave a fraction of a nod that only the First Officer could see. “Well, it's like this, Sir,” he said and then paused.

  “Go on, I’ll bet this is good.” Tremblay said intensely.

  “Me and the boys got into a little argument with some Lancers over portside you see,” said the Chief Gunner, keeping a straight face as the First Officer leaned forward, eyes widening slightly.

  “Yes,” the First Officer prompted, trying and failing to disguise his eagerness.

  “It got a little heated,” he couldn’t help but add, and the First Officer looked like he couldn’t believe his ears.

  “You see, he kept going on about the Parliamentary Cruisers, but me and most of the boys are Royal Hussar fans, then one thing led to another and well…” he paused stretching out the moment.

  “You mean to tell me you got into a fight over a football team,” the First Officer gave him a disbelieving look.

  “You see the argument got so heated, we weren’t watching where we were going,” the Gunner said with a straight face, “and there was this patch of oil, to our shame no one spotted it-”

  Officer Tremblay flushed. “Enough,” he said harshly.

  “And then it felt as if the grav plate started acting up,” the Gunner couldn’t help but add.

  “Not another word,” snapped Tremblay glaring around the sickbay. Leaning forward he hissed, “I won’t forget this.”

  “Course not, Sir,” the Gunner muttered back just as low and gave him a beatific smile in response.

  As soon as the First Officer finished storming out of the Sick Bay, the room broke out into cheers. Even the Lancer was on the receiving end of some of the back slapping that was going around.

  For his part, the Chief Gunner gave them a nod and watched for a while before quietly slipping out of Sick Bay.

  His work here was done.

  *****************

  When we arrived in the D-Link System, everyone was on their toes. A rapid scan of the system showed us another planet whose orbital industry had been devastated by pirate raiders.

  Once again, I spoke with an irate planetary governor who personally blamed me for a lackluster response time.

  “We sent word to the Sector Capital, by way of a passing merchant freighter, only a day or two after the attack. You’re more than a week and a half too late!” barked a Governor who looked more like someone’s grandmother than she did a ruthless planetary official.

  “I hate to be the bearer of bad news but-” I started

  She cut me off. “And another thing, the ComStat network in our area has been completely destroyed. What are you going to do about that,” she said sticking out her chin belligerently.

  I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “Madam Governor,” I began calmly, only to be cut off again.

  “What are you, some kind of old-fashioned patriarchist? A simple Governor is good enough for anyone holding planetary office, you evil little mutant," she snapped.

  “I object to your tone and language-” I started and she tried to cut me off again, but I spoke over her this time, “no Governor, you’ve had your say and more,” I glared at the woman on my screen until she sat back in her chair a bit. “In case you haven’t heard, the Empire de
stroyed the ComStat network when they finished pulling out of this sector, along with every active military base in the area. As far as we can tell, they’ve done this in every single sector in the Spine. I’m sorry you feel our patrol forces have failed you, but we’re just getting started. I assure you things will continue to improve as long as I’m out here,” I said, trying for a level, professional tone.

  She sneered at my best efforts. “It's not my feelings you have failed, little boy, it’s the millions of credits worth of orbital industry taken or destroyed that give hard numbers, not feelings, to your failures,” she said glaringly. “If you want to talk about feelings, why don’t you try finding the five hundred orbital workers captured and either killed or enslaved by the pirates, you pitiful excuse of a man. You can be dead certain my Assemblyman will be hearing from me about this!” she barked and immediately cut the line.

  Walking into my ready room to cool off, I made an executive decision. From now on, all contacts with planetary officials were to be taken in my ready room. The last thing the Bridge crew needed was to see their Admiral receive another morale-busting tongue lashing from some jumped up planetary governor threatening to call his or her assemblyman.

  Knowing when we were not welcome, I ordered my aged battleship's crew to charge its star drive.

  The next four inhabited systems were repeats of the first two planets we’d come across. Always the pirates had been there before us and were long gone by the time we arrived. In all, we spent two weeks running from one smashed orbital infrastructure to the next.

  We point transferred into the Liverwurst System, expecting yet another in the series of broken systems. It was there we finally caught a lucky break.

  “Point Emergence,” said the Navigator.

  “Baffling extended, engines are a go,” said the Helmsman.

  “Point Resistance at 63 gravities,” Science Officer Jones said before the First Officer could ask. Disapproval dripped from his voice. He didn’t like the way I’d been pushing the far edge of our jump range.

  The First Officer put a smirk on his face as he looked over at our civilian Science Officer, but when he turned away I could see he was irked the man had preempted him.

  “All Engines at 25% of maximum,” said the Helmsman. “The lock is still in place.”

  “Shields modulated for exiting the inertial sump,” said the shields operator. “No more issues with the data conduits, whatever they did seems to have fixed it, all right."

  I wasn’t very happy with the general demeanor of the crew. They all looked resigned and depressed at the thought of yet another system where we’d been too late. They were doing their jobs as well as they ever had before, so I couldn’t open my mouth and complain too loudly for fear I’d make things worse.

  For myself, I wasn’t eager to speak with another irate politician. If one more Planetary Governor threatened to report me to the principal for doing such a poor job out here on the Rim, I would be tempted to take a shuttle full of Lancers and strangle them with my bare hands.

  The Sensor Operators filled the screen with local contacts as they popped up.

  “All engines at 38% of maximum,” reported DuPont.

  “Shield strength at 93%, shield regeneration is holding steady with the sump pressure,” said the main shields operator.

  “Engines at 45%,” said the Helmsman.

  There was a faint vibration as the ship broke free.

  “And…there we go, Murphy but that was a tough one,” DuPont said, actually sounding happy as the ship slewed around on the screen despite the visual disorientation, you couldn’t feel a thing. Between the compensators and the increasing competence of DuPont, the ship didn’t so much as groan or creak through the heavy maneuver.

  Without prompting from Lieutenant Tremblay, the first shift sensor operators started calling out contacts of interest.

  I allowed myself a smile as the First Officer looked straight ahead at the main view screen and tried unsuccessfully to keep the irritation off his face.

  In addition to the long jump, I’d had our navigator calculate our point transfer as far in the system as he dared. The tally of planets and nearby asteroids popping up on the main viewer was reassuring, so far matched up with what was supposed to be there.

  Then something new appeared on the board or rather, something that was supposed to be there but had been missing in the last six systems.

  Three orbital factories popped up on our screen. At first we all stared at the factories in shock, and then the Flag Bridge broke out into cheers.

  “Way to go, Admiral,” cheered someone in tactical.

  “That long jump really paid off,” shouted the sensor operator who’d discovered the nascent little system industrial node

  “Contact,” shouted a sensor operator, promptly falling out of his chair due to his surprise. He pulled himself upright quickly enough to avoid rebuke, though.

  The cheering was interrupted completely when someone in tactical activated the red alert. "I’m reading a weapons discharge near a large object, tentatively identified as the system’s orbital trading outpost, Admiral,” said the sensor operator.

  “I want more eyes on that section of space. Let's get a clear picture of what’s happening,” Tremblay said eagerly.

  “I can see six ships I‘m tentatively identifying as pirates and two old CR70’s that are probably the local SDF,” said the sensor operator.

  “I can confirm that, Admiral,” reported a second sensor operator. “It looks like two Corvettes, a lightweight Destroyer and three, presumably captured, armed merchant conversions."

  I gave the view screen a shark-like grin. Maybe we would actually get a chance to nip this little pirate problem in the bud, I thought eagerly. “Helm, take us toward them at best speed,” I barked, unable to maintain an even and moderate tone. “Navigation, you know the drill. Calculate a least-time course,” I said.

  “Yes, Admiral,” replied the Helmsman, the Navigator a close second behind him.

  Fingers tapped away at consoles as the crew worked to do their jobs in the quickest time frame possible.

  We watched as one of the SDF Corvettes was hit multiple times and sent into a dead spin before recovering and slowly bringing the ship about to face the pirates once again.

  “Course plotted and forwarded to the Helm, Admiral,” said the Navigator, sounding as eager for combat as I did. Even though I was feeling similar emotions as the Navigator, for some reason it irked me to see the same hungry expression on the rest of the crew. It was illogical, but I guess that on some level I wanted everyone else to be all composed and professional, so I could feel free to vent my spleen at these pirates.

  We watched first with excitement as the pirates got closer, and then with mounting fury as they turned away from us and started jetting away. Before they were out of range, they fired on and destroyed a lot of local space habitats, trade stations, and a pair of orbital factories.

  We pushed our engines to the limit, but an ancient Battleship just isn’t the match of a Corvette, or even a light Destroyer when it comes to the speed department.

  Impotent and furious, all we could do was watch helplessly as the First Officer’s prediction from Nova-Practica came back to haunt us. He’d asked how our very large and very slow Battleship was going to catch up with these types of smaller and faster pirate vessels. I’d made some kind of off-hand comment about figuring it out at the time.

  Well, here we were and I wasn’t figuring out a blasted thing. Meanwhile, the pirates were getting further and further away.

  “Is there any way to track where they’re going and follow them,” I asked.

  The First Officer looked at me like I was stupid. “You mean guess?” he nearly blurted.

  “Am I missing something, Mr. Tremblay,” I demanded hotly, feeling like a non-military fool.

  The former Intelligence Officer shook his head. “The Confederation never figured out how to track someone through hyperspace, and if the Im
perials ever figured something like that out, they kept it so far under wraps that even pirates like these have no inkling about it,” he said flatly.

  “So what you’re saying is, it's impossible to figure out where they are going,” I concluded, suddenly angry with myself. I’m sure a little bit of that anger bled over into my voice.

  “What I said was we’d have to guess. Calculate the shortest jump range of such a small ship and, assuming they don’t just go for some cold space location between the stars, then we might pick the system they are going to point transfer to. Of course, they cycle their drives so much faster than ours that we’d have to figure out where they are planning to go multiple jumps down the line. One of the many disadvantages of having an old Battleship like this,” he explained bitterly.

  “Right,” I said, pulling up the local star chart on the arm of my newly repaired Admiral’s throne. Looking at the estimated jump ranges and cycle times and, comparing them to our own, I sat back in despair. There were just too many places they could go before we’d have the chance to catch up with them.

  “Let's see what we can do to help the locals,” I finally said with resignation. I hated this feeling of helpless failure. In the previous systems, I could at least blame the locals for being complete heels, since there was nothing we could do when arriving too late. This time however, I got here in time, catching them in the act and the pirates slipped right through my fingers.

  It turned out that unlike in previous systems, there were wrecked and damaged structures still in orbit around Liverwurst, and the Lucky Clover and her shuttles were able to do quite a bit of good.

  The Pirates also hadn’t been able to make off with the entire orbital work force this time. It looked like interrupting them in the middle of their pillage had done a small bit of good. At least a few hundred Liverwurst civilians would spend another day living free.