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

by Luke Sky Wachter

  He chortled with satisfaction as the Carrier quite graciously turned to present her broadside toward his Super Battleship.

  “Couldn’t have asked for better,” he said, patting his belly. Watching the Fleet being stomped by the Imperials had been heartburn-inducing, but now the Clover was about to have the chance to strut her stuff all that frustration and anger melted away.

  “The Carrier has launched fighters,” reported a technician at Tactical.

  “Five minutes until extreme range,” said Spalding with a frown. Dealing with the fighters could be tricky, he silently mused as he walked over to the engineering station on the bridge. “Time to reverse polarity!” he instructed and started walking the Ensign at the console through the process.

  “What’s the plan, Commander?” asked Parkiney, looking and sounding worried.

  “There’s nothing in this galaxy that can’t be fixed through the sound application of basic engineering principles, Parkiney,” he confidently assured the other man.

  On the screen, the Carrier continued to point its broadside at them while the fighter swarm cleared the battle swarming around the carrier and shot toward the Clover.

  “Time to end this,” Spalding said with finality.

  The fools should have known better than to go up against the finest ship that ever roamed the space ways—even if she was still only half built. But in a way it was good that they didn’t. These Imperials would be the first stepping stone on the Lucky Clover’s path as she returned to her former glory and power.

  “You don’t want to slow down before we approach to extend the duration?” asked Brence.

  “Slowing down won’t be a problem,” Spalding dismissed.

  Four minutes until they were within firing range.

  He couldn’t wait to see what the HPC did when up against a hull made entire of mono-locsium.

  “Sir, we’re receiving another comm. request from the flagship. Admiral Montagne is demanding we open a channel and declare ourselves so that he can know our intentions,” said the Tech manning the com panel.

  Spalding shook his head.

  “Sir? It’s a direct order,” repeated the Tech.

  He turned and glared at the tech, causing him to shrink back. As he did so, his neck shortened much as like a turtle’s would do while the critter retreated into its shell.

  “How can a man keep up his reputation as a miracle worker if he lets the cat out of the bag early? The most important thing a man has in this life is a set of quality tools and his reputation. Besides, look at those ships,” Spalding scowled, his heart twinging with pain as he looked at the battered MSP Battleships, “pass the order to the other ships: we maintain communications black out. It’s up to us to rescue the Little Admiral and save the fleet!”

  Chapter One hundred four: Rivals Rage

  “Hold on,” I muttered as Messene’s Shield was hit in the engines and started to list badly to one side. A few seconds later, her weapons stopped firing. Fire and flames soon spewed the new rents in her armor. “Come on,” I said with concern as the Battleship was hit by another full broadside from the Command Carrier.

  Seeming to recover, the Shield began to correct itself and half a dozen heavy lasers shot back at the Command Carrier. On the face of it, a pitiful response, but it indicated they still had their eye on target.

  Then three squadrons of fighters attacked, lashing the hull and the few surviving weapons placements. The strafing run knocked out five of those six heavy lasers. Two of the squadrons pulled up with only three of the fighters taken down by the Shield’s sporadic point defense fire.

  “They wouldn’t dare come in so close to a Battleship with only three squadrons, even with the shields down, if Messene’s Shield wasn’t so heavily damaged,” growled Captain Hammer.

  On the screen, the final six fighters dropped missiles and banked off, taking another pair of losses from lasers before they cleared the mighty warship’s firing arc.

  Explosions rocked the hull of Captain Eastwood’s command as, one after another, the missiles slammed into the hull of the Battleship. Then the second-to-last missile struck right into a gap in the armor from previous battle damage.

  A massive explosion rocked the side of the Battleship, creating a hole the size of a Corvette in the flank of Messene’s Shield. Within seconds, four fusion cores ejected from the shield-heavy Battleship and its last functional engine exploded. Plasma lines quickly overloaded and erupted out into space, destroying the engine and endangering any nearby craft.

  I roared wordlessly, freezing in my seat before running a wild hand through my hair. My heart clenched as I watched the Battleship seem to shake from one end to the other before settling down, completely dead in space. She was powerless and totally at the mercy of everyone around it and, at last, the ship died.

  “W-we’re just now seeing a number of escape pods, Admiral Montagne,” said Sensors.

  “Damage Control: coordinate with the pods and save whoever we can,” I said thickly.

  “Sir, we must withdraw,” advised Leonora Hammer.

  It took me a moment to realize what she was saying. “We’ve been over this before, Captain,” I glared.

  “I understand. However that was before we lost one of our Battleships,” she replied.

  “If you have no more stomach for fighting, you are—” I started.

  “I’ve been through two losing battles with you and, won one before that. I don’t think this is a matter of stomach—this is about the lives of our people. Look at the screen, Admiral Montagne,” she pointed toward the battle plot, “we are beaten on every front.”

  I looked over to the Starbase, which was now destroyed, while the greater Wolf-9 complex was being ravaged by fighters. Our Battleship divisions were almost as badly battered as we were, and the Battleship squadron around the Command Carrier—including the Royal Rage I was stationed on—was clearly on its last legs.

  I shook my head. “I’ve been through too many battles to give up now,” I said, thinking back to all of the fights and battles I’d been in while onboard a warship. I hadn’t made my career by turning heel and running when the chips were down. Quite the opposite. Oh, sure, I’d engaged in a ‘tactical retreat’ or two. But when it came time to slug it out…“You may have been beaten, but as far as I am concerned things are still in doubt. We stay.”

  “Still in doubt? If we have any undamaged spacecraft in this star system it’s no larger than a shuttle—unless you’re counting those three new arrivals that refuse to speak with us! But they won’t prove enough to overcome this Carrier, and the three of them are trailing a fleet of fifty two enemy warships behind them. Even one of our three—if they’re ours—is more struts and girders than a real starship to begin with,” she said dismissively.

  “Given the size, I think I have a pretty good notion just which ship it is. And as for the other two, they’re both confirmed MSP captures,” I said flatly.

  “They were captured but right now they’re running silent. And for what good reason?” she demanded. “None of which makes up for the more than fifty enemy warships they are dragging into our zone!”

  “Enough,” I said. Leonora Hammer opened her mouth. “I said enough, Captain,” I said with finality. “The loss of the Shield has shaken us all, but we are not yet done fighting.”

  The Captain’s lips made a thin line as she nodded.

  Looking back at the screen, the new arrivals were getting closer and closer by the minute. I sure hoped Spalding, Captain Laurent, or whoever was in charge over there had an ace up their sleeve because I’d already played all my trump cards. If the Lancers couldn’t manage to pull out a win, I would be left holding a seven-two split down to my last stroke.

  “I’m receiving a transmission from the Command Carrier,” reported Steiner.

  “Does the General need something?” I asked sharply.

  “I’m afraid it’s not the General. It’s the Imperials, Admiral,” she replied, “do you want me to pu
t them on?”

  For the briefest moment, I hesitated. My job was to deal with the enemy by any means possible. Maybe, hopefully, the Imperials were contacting me because they were under threat thanks to our boarding efforts…well a man could hope anyway.

  Still, there was little to lose and much to gain from a face-to-face confrontation. At least I’d get the chance to vent my anger at the man who set me up to die when he left me ‘in command’ of the Lucky Clover.

  “Put him through,” I commanded.

  A low-ranking Imperial officer appeared on my screen.

  “Hold for the Admiral,” he said coldly.

  I frowned. I was the Admiral—at least in my fleet. It looked like I’d been fobbed off on an Imperial flunky. I guess that showed me how I rated in their eyes.

  The screen shifted and the image of a man who had haunted far too many of my midnight dreams of late appeared on my screen.

  “Arnold Janeski,” I said flatly as the previous commander of Rim Fleet and, not incidentally, Lucky Clover back when both of them existed of course, appeared on my screen.

  That same eagle-nosed, white-skinned Imperial face I remembered looked at me and his nostrils flared.

  “Governor,” Janeski said neutrally.

  “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m an Admiral now,” I said archly, “and have been for…well, ever since you abandoned your sworn duty, handed over the keys to the Lucky Clover and lit out like a house on fire.”

  “I hardly need a pampered civilian like you to lecture me on where my duty lies,” he said coldly.

  “I think you’re operating under a false impression,” I said flatly, “I am no longer the eager-to-please royal mascot you could trot out in front of the masses for PR value and then lock away and ignore the rest of the voyage. I haven’t been that person—that civilian—for quite some time.”

  “Not the tone I would expect from a man in your position,” he warned.

  “My position?” I asked with disbelief. “My position is that you’re a traitor who abandoned the Spine in its darkest hour!”

  “My duty is to my god, my Empire, my fleet, and humanity in that order. Clearly you need an education about just what exactly comprises treason because not only am I a loyalist to my Empire—and this is not my Empire—but, as difficult as it might be for a person like you to believe, everything I’ve done out here has been for the good of humanity and the Empire of Man,” he said, baring his teeth. “But I don’t care to bandy words with an arrogant little boy who thinks that playing around with warships for a year or two makes him qualified to judge me, my actions or my Empire. Come back and talk after you’ve had to make some of the hard choices.”

  “I’ve had a crash course in ship and fleet command these past few years. I won’t allow you to denigrate the good men and women who decided to follow me and paid the ultimate price defending this Sector,” I retorted fearlessly. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned since you left me in charge of defending the Spine with one ship, half a crew, and a security department all set to arrest me and pin the blame for your actions on me, it’s that—”

  “Life’s been hard and you’d like to blame me for everything that’s gone wrong. Is that it? I’m not your father, boy. It’s not my job to fix everything for you and listen to you whine. It’s easy to rail at me for everything that’s gone wrong in your little corner of the galaxy because you’ve never had to make the hard choices—the gut-churning ones that leave you up at night. Until now you’ve been free to run around fighting pirates and Bugs and sub-sentient machines, messing around and generally playing the hero in daddy’s Battleship while everything goes in the pot. Playtime’s over, son. The Spine has fallen apart, the Confederation has abandoned you, and you’ve proven yourselves unable or unwilling to govern yourselves. It’s time a strong and steady hand took over—my hand, and that of the Empire.”

  “My father? You’ve obviously never bothered to learn the first thing about me,” I said angrily, “running around and playing? Where were you when the Droids invaded two Sectors? Were you secretly undermining our ‘failed’ local governments with a hidden ComStat network so you could take over, perhaps? Where were you when pirates were ravaging Sector 25? At least I stood up and fought for what’s right instead of stabbing people in the back. That’s all you and your so called ‘Empire’ are: backstabbers! Vultures and carrion crawlers feasting upon the corpse of—”

  “Enough,” roared Admiral Janeski, “I will not be lectured to by the likes of you about where my duty lies. I am here to save your people, but even though you have been offered a toast you refuse the wine!”

  “Hit a nerve, did I?” the corner of my mouth lifted mockingly.

  The Imperial Admiral leaned forward, his gaze glittering with the fiery fury of a super nova. “I will not stand by while you insult the good men and women who have sacrificed their lives to save this ungrateful region of provincials from the horrors that exist beyond our borders, and who had toiled to reclaim the Spineward Sectors for humanity. Hit a nerve? You’re nothing but a pumpernickel prince, Governor!” he sneered.

  “Humanity’s been doing just fine dealing with the horrors beyond the Spine,” I said flatly, “so you can take your two bit justification for conquering our worlds and leave—or you can get stoked, Rear Admiral.”

  “If you think that think pirates, bugs and a few droids are the worst thing beyond our borders, you really are the fool I took you for. Civilians,” Janeski snorted coldly, “while you’ve been picking the low-hanging fruit, even now the Imperial Navy has been protecting you and the Spineward Sectors from oh so much worse.”

  “Ha! You have the gall to claim that after two Sectors were almost destroyed because of the Imperial Withdrawal, and the destruction of decades worth of infrastructure destroyed on your way out, that we should be grateful to you for protecting us from some unknown, unhinted at until now, boogeyman?” I sneered.

  “I do not know what goes on in what passes for a brain in your head, and I couldn’t care less what you believe, Governor,” Admiral Janeski said scornfully. “What I do know is that my patience is running perilously thin. That’s why I am issuing you this one chance to surrender and save the worlds you care about from utter annihilation.”

  “Strong words from a man who orbitally bombarded my home world to force a regime change!” I declared with righteous anger—after all, his actions had literally ruined my life. “What would you say if I told you that there are rumors that all of the troubles we’ve been facing, starting with the pirates and Bugs and ending with a full-fledged invasion by droids, were carried out on Imperial orders!”

  “I’d be careful of throwing out wild accusations, Governor Montagne,” Janeski said dangerously. “While I will allow a certain amount of leeway from a boy who doesn’t understand the universe—and thinks everything that can be changed should be changed by a wave of a magic wand when he accuses me—I will not abide while you attempt to besmirch the honor of the Senate and Empire of Man!”

  “What if I said I had proof, Admiral?” I said twisting the last work to make a mockery of his rank. “What do you say to that?! We know that either the Empire—or you personally—hired the Pirates and placed the Bugs just outside of Tracto. Moreover, we have hard suspicions and are following up leads that, if successful, will link the recent Droid Invasion right back to you, Admiral!” I declared, my face the very epitome of a truth and honesty. In truth, the only ‘proof’ I actually had was a few suspicious ComStat transmission between my ‘Uncle’ Jean Luc and parties undeclared in Sector 27—specifically, an argument about how much tribute he’d have to pay. As for the rest, it was either logical suspicions in the case of the Bugs, or made out of whole cloth concerning the Droids.

  “Canards, no doubt. Lies and damn lies to cover up the danger you are truly in—to cover up your personal failings as a leader of men and an Admiral,” Janeski said furiously. “If you’re looking for evidence about just who exactly has been paying pirates t
o operation in his own Sector of space, you need look no further than your home world.”

  “Former home world—and your defense is to admit that Parliament, the very regime you yourself put into power alongside Senator Cornwallis, has been up to its eyebrows in criminal piracy!” I exclaimed, leveling a finger at him. “If this is your idea of diverting blame from yourself and your political backers in the Senate, you’ll have to do much better, Janeski!”

  “Give up now, tender me your unconditional surrender, and I won’t hold the lost lives of the thousands of Imperial officers and crewmen you have killed against the worlds who sent your ships out here,” roared Janeski. “Fail and I’ll decimate your planets with orbital bombardment. I have no more time for the blather and ravings of a failure and madman desperately clinging to the only power he’s ever known!”

  “You bastard—you genocidal bastard! This fleet will never surrender. I’ll destroy you and I’ll personally destroy everything you’ve ever built,” I shouted at the screen. “Mothers across the Empire will weep every time they hear the name ‘Janeski’ or when they think on the terrible times its most infamous owner brought upon their worlds!”

  “Enough nonsense. The threats of an impotent little pipsqueak mean less than the breeze from my air processing plant. The only threat to this Sector is you, Jason Montagne. The Servants of Man will be triumphant,” Janeski barked, “you know why you’ll never win? Because you’re nothing. You have all the heart and courage of a court dandy while I have the steel spine of an Imperial lion. You brought this on yourself. Relish it.”

  For a long moment, steely gazes locked and then the screen went blank. I glared at the screen and then slumped back in my chair. “Blast,” I muttered. I’d tried to shake him like I’d shaken previous opponents in the past, but dealing with out of control bureaucrats was obviously different than trained Imperial Admirals like Janeski.

  It had felt good to lambast the man, but unfortunately I didn’t appear to have done anything other than make my chances at surrendering—if I survived that long—much less likely. Not that I was particularly interested in falling into the hands of my enemies a second time, mind you. Once, with Jean Luc and Ambassador—now Governor—Isaak had been more than enough.