Admiral's War Part Two (A Spineward Sectors Novel: Book 10)

by Luke Sky Wachter

  “All Killjoys: launch anti-fighter missiles! All Killjoys: cut them loose,” shouted O’Toole.

  Like a tide of death, the Imperial fighters and the twelve Destroyers they were accompanying clashed with over three hundred gunboats.

  Chapter Eighty-eight: Into the Burrow

  “In! In! In!” shouted the Lancer Lieutenant, waving his arms wildly as he gestured toward the pancaked shuttle, where a half squad had just finished cutting a hole into the enemy flagship with the boarding tube.

  “That’s your cue, lad,” said the CPO, shoving Oleander toward the shuttle.

  Not bothering with meaningless words—like asking if the other man was coming along as well—Oleander took off at the closest thing to a sprint he could manage with the adhesive boots he was wearing.

  “Ahhhh!” he shouted as blaster fire erupted around him.

  “Marines on the hull—odd squads: turn around and pick your targets!” shouted the Lancer Lieutenant.

  “Blasted Imperials—who elected you to bombard our planet?” cried the Chief Petty Officer, leveling his blaster rifle and firing wildly in the direction of the oncoming Marine jacks.

  “Make a hole!” Oleander shouted over the point-to-point communications as he stormed into the downed shuttle and threw himself through the boarding tube.

  “There’s a whole company of them advancing by platoons, Lieutenant,” he heard reported over the coms.

  Not waiting around to hear—or even worse, to see—what was going on behind him, the Caprian parliamentary agent hurried into the Carrier. He passed a half dozen Lancers who were busy setting up a firing position facing the boarding tube.

  “Hey, where do you think you’re going?” asked one of the Lancers as Oleander ran past.

  “I’ve got an important mission,” Oleander lied truthfully as he continued running. He did have an important mission—it just wasn’t one given to him by Jason Montagne.

  “Get back here!” shouted a Lancer.

  “Let him go; we’re about to have company,” ordered the Sergeant.

  Down the corridor he ran, coming to the first blast door where he ran into a roadblock: the doors were locked down tight. Fortunately, he came prepared. He pulled out a compact mini-computer and hooked it into a data port in the access panel.

  Now it was just a race against time.

  Whether he could get through that door and into the rest of the ship before either the Imperials—or his own ‘side’—caught up with him was anyone’s guess at this point.

  Chapter Eighty-nine: The second shot

  Multiple battles were taking place simultaneously all over the board.

  Janeski sat in his command chair, observing it all through slitted eyes. On the screen, the fighter wings he’d sent to hit the Starbase complex had succeeded in their mission and were now on the way back home, leaving multiple repair slips and two orbital factories wrecked in their wake.

  Just outside the Starbase’s complex defenses, the provincial Battleships had taken significantly more damage than his own heavy squadrons. While the enemy gunboat reinforcements had been significantly delayed by yet another wing of fighters and his two squadrons of Destroyers, to this point they had been completely unable to help cover their lander and shuttle brethren. Even so, it looked like they were attempting to split their numbers and join battle around the flagship anyway.

  Which wouldn’t matter in the end.

  The Battleships surrounding his Command Carrier were hit by repeated fighter strikes, and Janeski’s ever-increasing Cruiser and Destroyer reinforcements kept trickling in to put pressure on them. Combined with the double Battleship-powered broadside of the Carrier, they had reduced the enemy’s shields to the point of failure and degraded their broadsides to half their original throw weight. Whatever weight the boats could bring would be easily countered by his own fighters.

  Yes, on the whole all was going well. The only two flies in the ointment was the survival of the enemy Starbase from the first attack and the fact that the locals had actually managed to land boarding parties on the flagship.

  He scowled. It didn’t matter that he had sufficient Marine Jacks to contain and destroy them, or that they’d tried in the first place. It was an insult and a failure that they’d penetrated his defenses and landed on the hull of the Command Carrier in the first place.

  “Energy bank recharged and ready to fire again on your command, Supreme Admiral,” reported the Main Cannon Operator.

  “The Carrier is still lined up on the Starbase, Admiral. We can fire when ready,” said Tactical.

  Janeski nodded. It was time to take care of one of the aforementioned flies, “Fire when ready.”

  “Yes, Sir!” said the Cannon Operator.

  Seconds later, a bright white beam lanced out of the ship as the particle cannon fired. “A hit!” cried Tactical triumphantly, as this time the cannon punched through one side of the battle station and out the other.

  Metal fragments shot out both sides of the vast structure that was the Wolf-9 Starbase as outgassing and internal explosions rocked the station.

  “Station shields have gone down and sensors are reading major power fluctuations,” reported Commander Stenson as the first wave of escape pods started ejecting from the Starbase.

  “It looks like whatever stopgap measures they rigged up to stop the particle cannon proved ineffective,” Janeski said.

  “Couldn’t handle more than one shot,” agreed Captain Goddard, “looks like she’s been neutralized but one more shot, and Wolf-9 should be gone permanently.”

  The Supreme Admiral of the Reclamation Fleet smiled. “Begin re-charging the particle cannon,” he ordered.

  Chapter Ninety: Wolf-9 Falls?

  “All hands: abandon Station. I say again: all hands abandon the Starbase and proceed to fallback positions,” Communications relayed, his deep, gravelly voice rumbling over the shrill whine of the alarm klaxons.

  “The power core is highly unstable. Engineering say’s they’ll hold it to the last minute before ejecting the core into space in order to allow as many of the crew to escape as possible before the power fails,” reported Damage Control.

  “Captain, we have to follow suit and get out of here,” urged the Station Executive Officer.

  McCruise opened her mouth to reply, only to grab for the arms of her chair instead as the station shook and rumbled before temporarily re-stabilizing.

  “Sir, we have to withdraw!” exclaimed the XO.

  Captain Synthia McCruise nodded reluctantly and looked one final time at the tactical plot. Her face hardened at what she saw.

  “Tactical, I know the plan was to wait for orders from the Little Admiral. But in the case of the Station being compromised, I have the latitude to proceed on my own initiative—I want those fighters that just destroyed almost two years of hard work burned out of my sky. Activate the entire defensive network, set it on automatic, and then get to your escape pod,” she ordered.

  “Aye aye, Sir,” said Tactical, quickly inputting the commands and then unstrapping.

  “Captain, are you sure about this?” asked the XO as defensive turrets all over the complex unveiled, went active, and started firing on the fighters. “We won’t be able to hit them by surprise again later. They’ve just seen our entire hand.”

  “Too late for regrets now, XO,” she said as the fighters started taking a hellacious amount of fire from the embedded defenses. “Besides, the Commodore is down and possibly dead. Our Battleships are embroiled and that Carrier is smashing everything we’ve worked for while we sit here impotently. A hidden card is only useful if you’re still around to use it. I made that call.”

  “Let’s hope it’s the right one,” he said.

  “You and me both. Now let’s get out of here,” she agreed grimly, slapping him on the back and heading for the blast doors.

  Chapter Ninety-one: Dark Matter vs. Entropy

  “Three enemy Battleships are moving into position to surround us, Rear A
dmiral Dark Matter!” reported Sensors as two of the three Battleships opened fire while the third was still maneuvering around front to cut them off from an easy path of retreat.

  “Tell Gunnery to fire by broadsides—we’ve got to lower their shields down enough that we can go to counter-fire and thin out their attacks. If we don’t relieve some of this pressure we’re finished,” shouted Dark Matter as the ship rocked around him.

  “Damage to port shield generator has caused an automatic shutdown,” reported the Shield Officer, “still waiting to see if backup systems can compensate after the reboot or if we’ll need a repair team to go onto the hull.

  “Sending out an engineering party in these conditions would be the next best thing to suicide, Admiral,” snapped Damage Control.

  “We have to have that shield generator, Damage Control,” Rear Admiral Dark Matter said direly, “otherwise we’re all finished. Send out the team now. Don’t wait for the reboot—but call them back if the reboot succeeds. The moment it succeeds, you hear?”

  “But Sir!” protested Damage Control.

  “Admiral Dark Matter!” shouted Tactical interrupting the conversion and speaking over the irate Damage Control officer.

  “What is it?” barked the Rear Admiral.

  “The Praxis SDF are dropping out of formation, Sir!” he reported.

  Dark Matter’s eye snapped back up to the battle plot and he saw that, just as the Tactical Officer had reported, the three Battleships of the Praxis SDF were pulling back. In doing so they were leaving an increasingly large hole in the Amalgamated Fleet’s wall of battle.

  “Get me Commodore Creed on the horn—now!” barked the Rear Admiral.

  “Sir!” interrupted Lieutenant Barkley, manning the Comm. board and speaking rapidly into his receiver, “I’m receiving a message from Commodore—“

  “Cut me into the channel,” ordered Dark Matter.

  Commodore Creed of the Praxis SDF appeared on his personal screen. “Dark Matter,” the other officer nodded, his mouth a tight line.

  “I don’t know what’s going on and I don’t care—get back in formation and all is forgiven, Commodore,” he ordered harshly.

  “I’m afraid I can’t do that Rear Admiral. Praxis warships can no longer afford to absorb these kinds of losses, we are therefore officially pulling back to the safety of the Starbase fortifications, after which we will have no choice but to reassess our options, Admiral Dark Matter,” the Commodore said coolly.

  “I want you to listen to me and hear what I’m telling you: I am giving you a direct order, Commodore Creed,” growled Rear Admiral Dark Matter, “get back in formation and hold the line. Otherwise I will have no choice but to declare cowardice in front of the enemy and prefer mutiny charges after this battle.”

  “I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, Admiral, but you won’t be alive after this battle to prefer anything. Under Montagne’s leadership this fleet has lost every battle since he took control of the Sector Fleet. He told us that he was taking direct control of the Battleship forces…well where the blazes is he? He sure as all get out isn’t here! Instead he left us to die while he positions himself to run away! He told us he had a plan but in this battle alone we’ve lost every direct clash with the enemy, starting with our light warships and moving all the way up our Battleships. Any fool with eyes can see we are anything but winning! We are outnumbered, outgunned, and out-maneuvered, Sir. As such, I’m afraid I cannot comply with your order,” said Commodore Creed.

  “Blast it, man, whether Montagne lied or not is entirely beside the point—if you leave the formation it will collapse! Other Battleships and their crews will die because of you. You, not Montagne, will get a lot of good men killed. That’s why I’m not just ordering you, I’m begging you: do your duty. Stand and fight!” urged Dark Matter. “Sweet Crying Murphy, even a fighting withdrawal done as part of a unit would be better than this—”

  “It’s Montagne that’s done this to you, not me,” Creed yelled angrily, “even if everything you say is true, the orders from my government stand. They allow me no latitude in this, Rear Admiral. If the battle appears hopeless, as it does, and I see no path forward to victory then I am ordered to do everything in my power to preserve the Praxis Battleships and retreat! I’m sorry, Admiral, but I have no choice in this—” said Creed only to be cut off.

  “I can understand the tight spot your home office has put you in, along with your reluctance to trust Admiral Montagne, but he isn’t in command of the Battleship force right now—I am. I’m telling you not to allow your personal feelings over the death of—” said Dark Matter, referring to the now deceased Admiral shot by Rear Admiral Nuttal for mutiny.

  “You think this is about my personal feelings of loyalty to Admiral Vextriam?” Creed said with disbelief and his face darkened. “Frankly I couldn’t stand the man! This has nothing to do with him, Dark Matter.”

  “Then what the blazes are you doing this for! Contingency orders that are light years out of date?” Dark Matter snapped, finally losing what little was left of his cool. “Who blasted cares if Montagne lied or not; this Battleship force is counting on you and you’ve just sold us down the river if you leave.”

  “Two thousand confirmed casualties in our Battleships alone! Montagne lied and people died!” roared Commodore Creed. “He said we could fight it out and win if we fought smart and fell back on the fortifications. But instead of leading us like he vowed, he’s positioned his personal forces so that they can run away! He’s using some harebrained pretext that no one in their right mind would believe to hide the real truth from us.”

  “This is insanity,” yelled Dark Matter, “he’s fighting and dying for us right now!”

  “No, we’re the ones that are fighting while he’s moved out there in what can only be called a fighting retreat! He’s going to leave us holding the bag and dying on the vine while he escapes—just like he has so many times before! Do you honestly think he’s gone out there to go up against the most technologically advanced warship in the galaxy? Poppycock!” Creed threw his hands up in the air. “He left us to fend for ourselves. Meanwhile, I’ve got over two thousand casualties—and that’s just the number of confirmed on the capital ships after tallying our lighter forces that number is bound to rise. It could even double. My people will not sit still for those kinds of losses, Dark Matter!”

  “Two Thousand?” the Rear Admiral gaped at him. “That’s not even the full complement of one heavy Cruiser! Even if you double it…” he pulled himself up short, “look, I realize that Praxis is adverse to losses among their people—Blackwood is too—but—” “He lied, people died!” shouted Creed. “This is a dumb war led by an idiot who doesn’t even have the courage to stand with the rest of us while we slug it out. You call me the coward but he’s the one that’s too scared to stand in the wall with the rest of us. Well smoke him, and smoke you, and smoke all the other apologists who believe in his lies. Two thousand casualties, Rear Admiral! Two thousand! And for all I know, the entire Praxis light screening forces have been lost with all hands aboard,” he repeated, his voice rising wildly out of control.

  “Snap out of it and grow a pair,” bellowed Dark Matter. “A ‘dumb war’? We’re fighting not for Montagne—we’re fighting to save our homes? Don’t you get that? Do you really want both our home worlds of Blackwood and Praxis trodden under the boot heel of the Empire?”

  “Well at least they’re human,” screamed Creed.

  “What?” Dark Matter exclaimed.

  “Wake up and smell the coffee!” sneered Creed. “I’ve stomached it as long as I could, but we have a Murphy-cursed, demon-loving Machinist in command! By all that’s holy, we’re fighting side by side with droids! Am I the only one who can see this? The Imperials want to destroy our homes? The Droids want to annihilate the human race!”

  Dark Matter stopped cold and then rallied uncomfortably before an enormous scowl replaced any hint of unease. “Yes, there are droids in this Fleet,
but we’re only using them to help us fight there’s nothing more than that to it and they’re in such relatively small numbers to that they couldn’t annihilate humanity if they wanted too.”

  “They should have been disassembled as soon as they arrived in the star system so they could be turned back into robots if that’s what you believe! Blast it, man, I refuse to be on the wrong side of history,” Commodore Creed said with disbelief. “The worst the Imperials will do is force a change of government and issue us a governor. The machine plague nearly wiped us all out!”

  “Our ancestors used robots and droids,” Dark Matter said finally.

  “Have you ever heard the saying ‘man not machine’? This is wisdom passed down from our ancestors because they knew! They used droids and AI’s and look where that got them. It’s the hand that’s burned that teaches best and humanity has burned itself so badly we almost didn’t make it out the other side. We’re fighting to save our homes from the Empire? We’re fighting with droids against the Empire of Man? Man not Machine, Admiral—ring a bell? Come join me, Admiral. If you order it, the other warships will throw off the machine yoke and we can overthrow Montagne and retreat to the Starbase until we can formulate another plan—one that keeps us alive!”

  “Join you in what? Disassembling the droids? Overthrowing a Confederation Admiral—who is our superior officer by order of the Sector Governor? Surely all of that has to wait until at least after the battle,” Rear Admiral Dark Matter tried to bargain, willing to do anything to get through to the other man. “Hades, man, if that’s what it takes to make you stay then I swear on my immortal soul that I’ll help you disassemble or outright destroy every single droid in this star system just as soon as this battle’s been won.”

  “I will not fight against other humans like some kind of droid puppet! We’ve got to bug out. It’s time to withdraw, Rear Admiral! We can’t stay here. All we can do is cut and run and then cut whatever kind of deal with the Empire to save our worlds while we still can. Better a bad deal now that leaves us all alive than following a diabolical Machinist like Montagne and waiting while he slowly corrupts us into lowering our guard against the very machines that are even now scheming to put us right back where the ancients almost sent us: straight into the genocidal waste-bin of history,” said Creed, a fanatical gleam now in his eye. “I, for one, won’t stand for it. This is a coalition of the willing, Admiral, and we of Praxis are no longer willing to be droid dupes! We formally withdraw from the 25th Amalgamated Droid Fleet. May Saint Murphy have mercy on your immortal souls, because by throwing in with droids…” he trailed off shaking his head sadly.