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

  “Come to papa,” he muttered as the bulky, oversized, but—most importantly—slow and lumbering freighter made a turn. Due to being so close to the station, yard and manufacturing factory and refinery, it came to nearly a stop before reorienting itself and plotting a new course for the edge of the system and the hyper limit.

  Thumbing his thrusters to active, he shot toward the freighter.

  One eye on his nearly spent power cells and the other on the rapidly approaching freighter, his screen flashed. Just as suddenly as his grav-board had activated, it went dead again.

  While onboard the freighter, the ship’s officers and captain were surprised by the small blip that had appeared on the nav-screen. It disappeared almost as quickly as it had arrived.

  Following protocol, they ran a full sweep before logging it as a false return and starting their engines. They had manufactured goods to deliver to Tracto and needed to keep to their delivery schedule.

  The man in the suit flashed a grim smile as the freighter slowly began to accelerate. It was coming to him exactly as planned. This time, with only a nudge of the board’s controls he was able to match course and speed and land on the oversized freight hauler.

  Step one of his plan had succeeded. Now all he had to do was find an access port and get inside the ship before it reached the hyper limit and jumped—well, somewhat before that as his oxygen bottles were almost bingo air inside them. But he was certain he could do it. After all, he’d had a vision that told him exactly what he needed to do in order to escape this star system.

  For half a moment, he had the urge to commandeer the freighter as soon as he got inside. He could ram a few of the shuttles in the vitally important industry of this star system out of revenge, or he could simply wait until it reached the hyper limit and then jump to a set of coordinates of his choosing.

  At that thought, a splitting headache nearly crippled him with its all-encompassing agony. He shook his head from side to side like a punch-drunk fighter before deciding that it was probably best to just follow the vision and do what he had to first.

  After all, his visions were never wrong…unfortunately.

  He clenched his fists, knowing that the time for revenge would come later.

  “Lo there did I see my father. Lo there did I see my mother. Lo there did I see my sisters and my brothers. Lo there did I see the line of my people, back to the beginning, in the halls of…” muttering to himself all the while he reached an airlock and using his slate easily hacked the pitiful security on this freighter and entered the ship. He needed to find a secure place to ride out the trip to Tracto.

  Only if he was discovered could he do what he really wanted and take over the ship.

  “It’s a pirate’s life for me,” he muttered as he found the small crawlspace predicted in his dreams and pulled himself inside.

  Now all that was left to do was wait—well, wait and hope he was actually discovered so that he could kill everyone on board and prove these infernal visions less than infallible.

  Still humming to himself, he closed his eyes and stretched out his body as the weight of normal gravity pulled on his bones. It had been a long time since he’d felt normal gees. Actually, if one was being perfectly precise, he had never felt them.

  Chuckling to himself, he fell asleep and immediately started dreaming about the next phase of his plan. His final goal was still a bit of a mystery but, honestly, he liked it that way. Although he vaguely got the sense that the ‘him’ of the past would have been too much of a control freak to enjoy it. In a way he was glad for the change…in a way.

  Chapter Three: Running Home to Wolf-9

  They emerged from hyperspace with a lurch that was somehow worse that the last.

  “Point Emergence,” reported one of the bridge crew. “Looks like we’ve transferred to the system we were aiming for without breaking anything this time. We’re in Easy Haven. Thank the gods.”

  “Belay that nonsense,” snapped Captain Hammer over her shoulder before returning to face the helm. “Keep to your duty, Helmsman.”

  “Main engine is lit and our baffling is now extended beyond transfer area,” reported Helmsman DuPont.

  “Point Resistance?” demanded the ship’s First Officer.

  “Engines at 25% of maximum,” said the Helmsman. “The ship is still locked.”

  “Shields at a steady 65% and re-modulated for a sump break,” reported a tactical trainee sitting with Lieutenant Longbottom for cross-training.

  “I’m amazed we survived the transfer,” declared Navigator Brightenbauc as he stood from his chair. “The inertia on this sump alone is going to be the worst this ship’s ever seen. I warned you this was a very bad idea trying to tow another warship through hyperspace in our condition. Although, as any fool knows, it’s impossible to actually tow anything through hyperspace. Despite the slipshod nomenclature we’re required to use on this ship, the only way to ‘bring’ anything else with you is to extend the shield relays around another ship and even then it’s near criminal the amount of times—”

  “When I or the Admiral want your opinions, we’ll ask for them, Navigator,” Leonora Hammer said shortly. “In the meantime, confine yourself to your duty and stay on task—or, now that we are at Easy Haven and your services are no longer required in the short term, security will escort you down to the brig!” she waved toward the blast doors where a pair of Marines and another pair of Armsmen were stationed to either side of it instead of the previous Lancer quad.

  Yes, there had been a few changes on this ship since the ‘latest’ Tracto-an mutiny. Hopefully both my wife and my Lancers had gotten the message.

  “You can’t do that!” exclaimed Lieutenant Brightenbauc. “You’re this close to finding yourself under a mandatory 72 hour psych hold now that this fleet has reached friendly port, Mr. Brightenbauc,” Captain Hammer said, showing her thumb and forefinger which had approximately one inch between them for emphasis. “This close!”

  Yes, it was a new day. But in this case I could only hope that those changes were about to include a change in navigation. No longer holding both the mantles of Captain and Admiral of this ship, I couldn’t just fire Brightenbauc without stepping all over my Flag Captain’s toes.

  Not that this would have stopped me if I had a replacement that I trusted waiting in the bullpen for his chance at glory, but the sad fact was that I didn’t. That said, if he stepped on a grenade of his own making I felt entirely justified in taking great pleasure while I sat back and gloated while he self-destructed. What can I say? The man just rubbed me the wrong way. Letting him mouth off while he dug his own grave was the extent of what I was willing to do.

  “On what grounds?” Brightenbauc flared angrily, entirely unaware and uncaring of what his Admiral thought of his actions, “that you’ve gone native started turning on your own in favor of a bunch of rustic rub—”

  “You do not want to complete that sentence Mister! One more word—just one more and that’s it,” snapped the Captain and then in the face of Brightenbauc’s silent intransigence finally blew her gasket, “you know what? I’m done. Security, escort the Ship’s Navigator down to Medical for mandatory counseling.”

  “Fine!” Brightenbauc said, shooting the receiver piped into my chair a disgusted look before marching over to his security detail and presenting his wrists as if in preparation for handcuffs. “You can take me away. I know you’re just doing your duty in the face of—”

  Whatever words he had been about to say were interrupted by the blast doors sliding shut.

  “Now that we’re finally done with the melodrama, if someone could get me those sump resistance numbers?!” she said, biting out the last three words.

  The backup assistant navigator floundered, looking discombobulated at his superior being frog-marched off the bridge. She was starting to panic now that she was the woman on the spot.

  “Main Engine at 40%. Both secondaries lit,” interrupted the Helmsman.

  “Shield st
rength now at 49%. We’re starting to feel the drain,” reported Longbottom, obviously deciding to take back over reporting from the Tactical trainee in the suddenly tense bridge.

  “Consult with Engineering and proceed at your own discretion, Helm,” Captain Hammer said, looking aggravated enough to kill something. “You’ve got the most experience with the Dreadnaught class and, with Navigation down for the moment, you’ve got the best feel for this ship.”

  “Will do. Engineering, send me over the hull and cable figures,” said DuPont with an acknowledging nod as his hands danced over the helm controls, “increasing all engines to 75% of maximum.”

  “Wait. No! The sump resistance combined with our battle damage and the ship strapped to our hull—” exclaimed the assistant Navigator. But DuPont had already keyed in the increase.

  There was a loud bang which reverberated throughout the ship, followed by a terrible scraping noise.

  I winced as the ship broke free of the inertial sump.

  “We just lost the tow,” Adrienne Blythe reported with censure.

  “Both ships are free of the sump, Captain,” reported DuPont.

  “I thought I told you to be careful, Mister!” Leonora Hammer sounded like a woman at the end of her tether.

  I closed my eyes and shook my head. The scene brought back memories of the early days when we’d been riding along the ragged edge of not just our equipment, but our competence.

  “Both ships are free, Captain,” DuPont repeated still moving the ship from his console, “moving now to reacquire bucking cable lock.”

  “Shields have stabilized now that we’re out of the sump,” cut in Longbottom.

  “Bridge, carry on with recovery operations,” Captain Hammer said after a moment. “Helmsman, I’ll see you in my office after the situation has stabilized and we are on course for the Wolf-9 Starbase.”

  “Of course, Sir,” replied DuPont. Maybe he could have sounded a little bit more subservient than he did, but on the whole if I had to take a side I’d have to go with him—we were finally back in Easy Haven. Both ships were safe and, yes, maybe we could have had a gentler exit if it wasn’t for the histrionics of her Confederation former sleeper officer, Navigator Brightenbauc, but it hadn’t and so here we were.

  Of course, as I had to remind myself several times every day, I wasn’t the ship’s captain. I was merely the person that told the ship’s captain where to go and who to fight.

  “This whole ‘trying to be a professional’ business is for the dogs,” I muttered.

  “Sir?” Hammer asked’ her head turning toward my pick-up.

  I frowned. I’d turned the gain on the master control volume down far enough that she shouldn’t have heard me when I was speaking at that low a decibel. Now I had to wonder if she’d had one of her techs hack the controls.

  “Nothing, Captain. Carry on,” I said, working to keep my frown from turning into a scowl. I rechecked the pickup sensitivity levels but they still showed at where I’d set them previously. I didn’t like the fact that something was off with the controls, and I doubly didn’t like the fact that because I’d been overheard I now appeared to have reinforced the Captain’s position vis-à-vis DuPont by essentially taking a neutral position in support of the captain.

  Was someone playing games and trying to force my hand, or was I becoming overly paranoid post-defeat at the hands of the criminal rear admiral Arnold Janeski?

  For now, I was going to go with paranoid. But at the same time I was going to have Lisa Steiner’s contact in the computer department take a look under the hood of my command console. The last thing I needed was a problem cropping up at the worst possible moment—say, during the heat of battle.

  “Will do, Admiral,” acknowledged Captain Hammer.

  “Sirs, I’m reading multiple hyper footprints all around us…as well as a large number of new contacts in close proximity to the star base,” Sensors said with a smile.

  “Thanks, Tech,” I said forcing a smile.

  That the fleet was behind us was good news. That there were significant reinforcements here to greet our battered survivors…technically that was a good thing as well. But, having just come back from a crushing defeat, now that we were back at a safe location we could expect the finger pointing to resume in force.

  It looked like I was going to have my hands full for the next several days at minimum.

  Ironically, this was my best case scenario of all the potential outcomes that myself and the command staff had gamed out.

  Now it was just time to grit my teeth and bear it.

  Janeski was behind us and had an overwhelming force. There was little time for internal divisions.

  Not that that little factoid was going to stop anyone with his, her, or its axe to grind.

  Time to gird the proverbial loins.

  Chapter Four: Let the Finger Pointing Ensue!

  “Captain Hammer,” I stepped into the lift, seeing my Flag Captain inside it along with an aide wearing the uniform of a confederation petty officer. From her age she was probably still in her early twenties. It was probably safe enough to talk in front of her so long as the captain and I didn’t stray into any top level issues.

  “Vice Admiral,” Leonora Hammer shot a sideways glance at the aide and then inclined her head, “fancy meeting you here.”

  “As we’re both scheduled for the same conference inside the star base, the chances of our meeting up before the meeting are not as low as they might appear,” I said smoothly.

  “So you didn’t just happen to arrive on the same lift as I did?” she asked.

  “It was totally unplanned, I assure you,” I replied promptly. “However, now that we’re both here…”

  “If there’s anything I’d like to tell you before the meeting, now’s the time, huh?” she said with a sigh.

  “Just in case there is anything that was, oh let’s say, ‘left out of the reports or recently occurred’,” I said with a winning smile to try and take the sting out of it. Yes, I was checking up on her homework but, despite the discomfort doing so caused, that was my job. Moreover, I didn’t need to be blindsided in this upcoming meeting.

  I was already tense enough to burn an ulcer all the way through my abdominal wall. This meeting could literally make or break the fleet and, thus, the entire defense of this Sector. I still didn’t know exactly what I was going to say, except that we should stay the course, but the last thing I needed was a self-inflicted wound.

  “Honestly, everything is in the report including our best time repair schedule,” she said with a grimace.

  I couldn’t help but freeze temporarily. I didn’t like how long the repairs were going to take but there was literally nothing I could do about that—I knew because I’d already tried.

  “Except…well, there is one thing that we haven’t gone over yet,” she said with no small measure of reluctance.

  “Yes?” I asked sharply, feeling like a hunter scenting new game.

  “Oh it’s nothing mission critical, but…” she trailed off.

  “Humor me. What is it?” I demanded, unwilling to let her off that easy.

  “It’s Lieutenant Brightenbauc,” she sighed.

  “Ah,” I said, my ardor for fresh news instantly cooling.

  “Word from the doctor is that he’s been diagnosed with a case of cold sleep psychosis that was exacerbated by combat fatigue. According to the good doctor, the stress of prolonged combat exacerbated his condition and took it from manageable to…well, his current condition as of the last time you saw him on the bridge,” Captain Hammer said, treading where other’s might not have dared considering how little I cared for the man. “The doctor has prescribed medication and says that with medication to control the symptoms, and mandatory counseling to deal with and assess the root causes, he should be able to return to duty within a week. He also says that after repeated brain scans the neural regeneration treatment to deal with prolonged cryo-freeze is unlikely to be necessary. Unless we see m
ore signs of difficulty, it’s probably not a problem with structural damage of the synapses inside his head causing a personality shift.”

  “So in other words he’s not like this because of brain damage. He was just born this way,” I grunted, not adding exactly how he was born, although several words quickly and easily came to mind—none of them flattering.

  “He’s been pushed over the edge due to time-shock exacerbated by combat stress. I assure you that according to his fitness reports the man is usually not this way,” she said.

  “And what way would you describe it—I mean him—currently?” I asked lifting a brow.

  Captain Hammer frowned at me. “Also Admiral, about the need to completely replace the port side shield generator,” she said finally, deliberately ignoring and side stepping my question.

  Not that I blamed her…much.

  “Like I said before: the yard here is working to manufacture the critical components we’re going to need. Although you’re free to follow up with them on your own time, that’s the last word I had. We’re at the mercy of the yard dogs, I’m afraid,” I splayed my hands.

  “I’m well aware of that, however we don’t just need the components. I guess our internal engineering team is going to have to rebuild the gross physical structures and housing as well. Not to mention replacing the main power lines in and out, putting a further strain on engineering. That’s why I’d like to…”

  Getting into the nuts and bolts, we continued to discuss the flagship until the lift’s chime dinged indicating we had arrived at our destination.

  ****************************************************

  Stepping into the conference room, I could immediately feel the temperature metaphorically drop. But because of my background and training which had made me somewhat used to hostile crowds, I was well-prepared for this reaction ever since we’d fled from Admiral Janeski with our heads in our hands. I forced a pleasant expression, kept my back straight, and refused to allow a hitch to enter my step.