Chapter 33
“Report!” Garret ordered as the Adamant shook from a hit on her armor. The bridge was abuzz with activity.
“There, that’s the last of them!” Harrington reported as a light cruiser exploded on the image from the holoprojector. “We’re clear to begin our assault on the asteroid. The last of the defending ships has been destroyed.”
“Major Mjolnar, deploy your troops!” Garret ordered as his ship moved into position above the large, three kilometer long asteroid. His ship’s planetary bombardment batteries, huge two-hundred and twelve millimeter cannons opened up, firing armor piercing shells into the asteroid while Mjolnar began issuing orders over the Marine’s comm. channel. The sixteen surviving fighters his ship had launched earlier began their bombing runs on the asteroid’s defenses even as the first shells landed from the Adamant’s guns located along her underbelly. More blips appeared on the holo-image, and Garret smiled as the assault shuttles launched. This was their third assault in the last two months, and it had been rougher than the other two, mostly because this base had been warned and prepared for them.
“What’s the status on those transports we saw fleeing?” Garret demanded.
“They’re approaching jump velocity.” Darenal reported. “The pursuing destroyer is hanging back as ordered, although he got a few good shots in the trailing vessel. We damaged their computer core.”
“Ada, the virus?” Garret asked his computer aloud.
In place and it will work. She replied confidently.
“It better.” Garret muttered. So far the prisoners they had taken at the other two bolt-holes had proved completely loyal to their House over the Republic, and even the news that their Houses had been traitors did not faze them. They remained loyal no matter what methods were used on them. In the end, Garret had ordered their executions as confirmed traitors.
That left a bitter taste in his mouth, but it was legal.
“You should eat something, it’s been six hours.” Neal said from his elbow and Garret repressed a scowl at the earnest young teenager in his blue uniform. The red-headed clone held out a tray of sandwiches with a few mugs of juice. Garret took a sandwich and a mug and smiled at him.
“Thank you, Neal.” He said and the smile on the boy’s face relaxed him a bit. Neal turned to offer the tray to Harrington who took one after smiling at him, as did Darenal. Garret noticed there were other junior crew members passing out sandwiches to other bridge crew as well and he munched his down as the Adamant reverberated with the fire from her lower guns. The three bottom lasers were joining in the bombardment, and a cloud of debris was beginning to obscure the sensor view of the asteroid.
“Cease fire.” Garret ordered as the assault shuttles reached the fire zone, and the Adamant settled down with the cessation of gunfire. This was the worst part, as his shuttles and shuttles from the other ships dropped thousands of troops into the facility. He’d rather be there with them, but he was the commander.
“Captain Lars reports his ships have finished off the picket force.” Darenal reported around a mouthful of ham and cheese. Neal smiled and waved at Garret before leaving the bridge, and Garret returned the smile. “You’re doing good by him, by the way.”
“You mean Neal?” Garret asked.
“Yes, he’s going to be a good one of his model, I can tell already.” Darenal continued. “My family had one that looked after us kids growing up. Michael was wonderful, and Neal’s going to be even better than him, I think. Your kids are going to grow up very grateful to have had him around, my lord.”
“That’s Commodore, Commander.” Harrington barked, but her face had a smile on it and she looked over at where Warrant Officer Lukas sat at his tactical station, gathering reports from the weapons batteries of their status. Lukas was back in black coveralls after Harrington had insisted that he was still in Republic service and forced Garret to order him back into the black uniform instead of the blue Guard uniform. Lukas hadn’t liked the order, but Garret had reminded him that in two years, Lukas could resign from Republic service and be admitted into the Atrix Guards. With Garret’s promise still fresh in his ears, Lukas had gone to change.
“We have fought together.” Darenal said with a trace of his native accent in the lilt of his voice, and Garret looked over to see him matching gazes with Harrington. “Our people have lived and died together, side by side. Our clothing might be different, but we fight together and we will live together.”
“You would still look better in black.” Harrington said, but her eyes said she understood and agreed. Garret hoped that was true, he was tired of hearing her complaints about what uniform people wore on his ship.
“You would look extravagantly beautiful in a uniform such as this.” Darenal replied with a smile to show he was joking, or at least mostly joking. “You have a wonderful form, those coveralls cover it too much.”
“I’d rather not show all my assets for the world to see, thank you very much.” Harrington retorted in a warm voice and with a broad smile. Garret sighed with relief.
“Marines are landing, meeting heavy resistance.” Montagne reported from the plotting table behind Garret.
“We should just nuke them from orbit.” Harrington observed. “We haven’t gotten all that much intelligence from their shattered computers and burnt files the previous two times.”
“You never know what we might get, Alex.” Garret reminded her and she nodded. “Send my compliments to Captain Lars and ask him for the status of his ships.”
“Aye sir.” Harrington complied. The last two battles had seen four of his Atrix vessels destroyed outright. A cruiser, two destroyers, and a Tank Landing Ship had been destroyed in action. They’d also lost nearly three thousand marines in total, most of those when their TLS blew up. Before this raid, he’s sent another six damaged ships back to the bolt-hole and summoned up replacements for those lost. Billy had lost a light cruiser and four destroyers as well as three frigates in the battles. He’d managed to replace the light cruiser, two of the destroyers, and all three frigates from his own Lars bolt-hole, but he’d confided to Garret that they represented the last he’d be able to call up for at least a standard year.
Lars had not been nearly as productive as the Atrix bolt-hole, although Billy had found his ‘militia’ to be much the same as Garret’s, intensely loyal to House Lars. In a way, that had led Garret to not be as surprised as he might have been with the loyalty of the clone troops in the bolt-holes they’d already conquered.
Three hours later the battle on the asteroid was over and they were gathering prisoners in the main landing areas of the domed asteroid. For every ship that they’d lost in these battles, Garret comforted himself in the fact that they’d destroyed two of the enemy’s ships. For every Marine he lost in taking the bases before sending in the intelligence teams, the enemy suffered three dead soldiers or sailors. When the battle was over, and the prisoners refused to swear loyalty to the Republic, their enemy lost another few hundred loyal supporters from execution.
“The transports have jumped.” Darenal said moments later.
I have the data from their computers. Ada said. Decrypting now.
“As soon as Ada has decrypted the data, send it to the scouts and order them to conduct their recon while we mop up here.” Garret ordered and Harrington rose from her seat to have a conversation with Markal. Scouts were little bigger than courier ships, and bristled with the most sensitive electronic listening equipment in the Republic. They would catch any radio transmission from the area of the suspected bolt-hole. The first scout would follow the ships to their first jump point, and receive the transmission that Ada had put in the transport’s navigation computer while it was being shot up. Then that scout would accelerate to speed and transmit its data to the rest of the scouts, who would follow one by one until they located the bolt-hole. Then the remaining scouts would jump into that system, recording any data they intercepted and using powerful telescopes to photograph everything in the area.
It was a complicated operation performed many times during the Great War, and Garret hoped it would succeed again since he doubted they’d find the location of the final bolt-hole from the prisoners or records on the captured asteroid.
“Commodore, we’ve got a true born prisoner asking for mercy.” Mjolnar said an hour after the scout had jumped after the transports. They had to be careful, so the transports didn’t detect the scout ships, which would fly under radio silence and total electronic emissions black out. That meant they couldn’t use sensors to detect if another ship was tracking them. More than one scout had been destroyed by a warship staying behind the main group being tracked.
“Bring him up here and put him in the brig.” Garret ordered. This Adamant had a very nice brig, capable of holding up to fifty prisoners. It was almost always empty except for the occasional Marine or sailor who flubbed up enough to justify a few days confinement. So far on this trip only one member of his crew had received a sentence of confinement, and that was to a clumsy sailor who had left a laser lens casing misaligned to sneak some rack time. He’d gotten a full day to catch up on his sleep in the brig. “Have Mister Devin interrogate him, offer him his freedom if he has really good information. He gets life in prison if it’s just minor crap.”
“Roger that.” Mjolnar replied.
Twelve hours later the asteroid was a bright spot in the sky as it was destroyed in a nuclear explosion. The prisoner in Garret’s brig was a treasure trove of information and he had recalled his scout ships. The youngest son of one of the traitor Houses, the prisoner had sold out his family for his full pardon and twelve million credits that were in his House’s frozen accounts and that had not yet been spent on the war effort. In return, they had not only gotten information on the last bolt-hole’s location, but were still getting information on Leonev’s plans and the political situation on the traitor worlds. That information would be very useful in the months ahead.
Garret celebrated that night with Devin in his bed after a few hours spent with Neal, reviewing the teen’s homework from the day.
The next morning, as his fleet of ships, along with Billy’s squadron, headed out to a rendezvous with waiting supply ships, Garret reviewed the damage reports compiled by Montagne. The young officer was becoming quite proficient in administration from the tutelage of Captain Melmaker. The older Naval officer was anal retentive and a very competent administrator, although his tactical and strategic skills were lacking, which was why he wasn’t deployed with the fleet and Montagne was here.
Given enough ships, they could have taken out all three known bolt-holes in a matter of days instead of what was now months. After each battle, they had to re-supply and repair the damage they had sustained. The list Garret now stared at meant a week huddled around the supply ships, and the space-going repair ships that had been deployed from the Peladon defense fleet to assist them in their operations. It always gave their enemies time to prepare, and made the next battle a little more bloody, but there was only one bolt-hole left, and according to the prisoner who was still spilling his guts about everything he knew, this one would have less powerful defenses and fewer warships that would have to be destroyed.
Garret was in his cabin, sitting at the table below the great bay windows. Neal was off on an engineering study tour, learning about nuclear physics as an adjunct to the lessons in the science curricula he had been assigned. Devin was off conducting more interrogations of the prisoner, and the crewmember assigned to clean the cabin had already finished his tasks and left, leaving Garret alone as he read through reports and sipped from a cup of tea.
As Garret read through the last interrogation session with the prisoner, he had to admit the information was worth every last credit. The prisoner had been involved in supplying and funding the various Leonev-backed terrorist organizations that were operating throughout the Republic. He didn’t know all of them, but he knew enough that they’d be able to wipe five worlds clean of the Leonev-backed groups.
That would go a long way to calming the public down since there were bombings happening at least once a standard week on each planet. The information was important enough that Garret wouldn’t risk broadcasting it over the wave-fold network. Instead he’d put the prisoner on a courier ship once they rendezvoused with the supply ships, along with a few marine guards. The courier ship would head straight for Peladon where Admiral Lumbardon would make good use of his information. Garret wrote out orders to that effect on the pad and put it in the ‘out’ pile. Devin would probably be back later to pick them up and distribute them, or Neal would.
After two months with Neal around, Garret could not imagine life without the red-headed teenage clone. The boy’s constant need for affection was contagious, and Garret found himself looking forward to the next hug, or the next time Neal would crawl into his lap. Devin and Lukas had both remarked how Garret seemed more tender, more loving with them in bed, and Garret had to admit that the boy seemed to have turned a switch on inside of him that had long been turned off.
Oh, he had claimed to feel love for people, but he knew now that he had been fooling himself most of all. They had been transient emotions, forgotten as soon as the people were out of the room with him. An example was Aaron, who he’d barely thought about since making the trip to the Atrix bolt-hole. He’d only written one message to Aaron, and that had been a short one. Now he understood that while he felt sympathy for Aaron, and liked Aaron a lot, he was not in love with the chef. Far too often in the past, Garret had taken the emotions others felt towards him and simply mirrored it back to them, even if it wasn’t what he was really feeling. Somehow, in a way he didn’t understand, Neal had changed that to where now Garret felt more centered in his own emotions, his own feelings more than those of the people around him.
Captain Lars has arrived. Ada’s voice was silky-soft in his head. She’d gotten a lot of action recently as far as fighting was concerned, and was very, very happy. Are you going to want a total privacy filter in place when he arrives in your cabin?
Yes, and no peeping on us this time. Garret retorted with a little laugh. Thanks to the extended repair and re-supply times between combat actions, Garret had enjoyed having Billy visit him several times over the last two months. They’d even managed for Billy to stay the night, and Garret had loved waking next to the man he knew would forever hold his heart captive. That was why that ‘switch’ Neal had turned back on had been off in the first place. Garret had never really dealt with the emotional pain of Billy’s choices. Billy had chosen to marry Imaline, who had at first forbidden them to continue their relationship. Garret was sure if she had known the depth of their emotions for each other, she’d have never relented, but she had, and he had a few precious months left while Imaline was pregnant to enjoy the man he loved.
“Honey, I’m home.” Billy joked as he entered the cabin, and Garret stood from his table and crossed over to Billy with open arms. They kissed as they hugged, tongues wrestling with passion as they met. Garret felt himself growing hard as a rock, despite the fact that he and Devin had enjoyed several rounds of sex the night before.
“Welcome home, love.” Garret whispered as they broke the kiss, resting his forehead against Billy’s chin. Billy smiled at the words and moved his hands so that he was unzipping the black uniform coveralls Garret was wearing. Garret did the same with Billy’s coveralls and soon enough they were lying on the floor of the cabin, the plush carpeting cushioning Garret’s nude back as Billy lay on top of him, suckling at his neck with sharp teeth, preparing to leave another mark. “God I love it when you do that.”
“I know.” Billy broke the contact just long enough to say that before he began moving down Garret’s neck, leaving more marks as he went.
Hours later they lay in Garret’s bed, which was in total disarray. Garret was snuggled up against Billy’s chest, and Billy had his arm around Garret. Both of them were covered in sweat, and Garret was enjoying that post-orgasm sense of stillness that he loved. With the sex out of the way, his mind returned to the galaxy around them, and he decided to share his thoughts.
“What do you think about only waiting twenty-four hours after we hook up with the supply and repair ships?” Garret asked softly, running a finger around Billy’s right nipple, the one closest to him.
“Are you so anxious to get back to Misako and get me back to Imaline?” Billy asked with a hint of laughter in his voice.
“That’s an argument not to hurry.” Garret laughed. “I’m going to miss this, you and I together as often as we have been, but we both have other duties to perform and I’m worried that if we wait too long, if we wait for all the damaged ships to get fully repaired that they just might evacuate this last bolt-hole and we’ll show up to find it abandoned. We can destroy the ships there, now, and not have to face them in the future.”
“You’re better at strategic thinking than I am.” Billy said. “You’ve got a point though, and a good one at that. This last attack, they had time to call in their heaviest forces, and it made the job a lot rougher.”
“We still didn’t lose a single ship, even if a few got really beat up.” Garret pointed out.
“Our commanders are getting better.” Billy noted. “It’s amazing what a difference actual experience can make, although those militia forces of yours fight like demons. I almost wish my militia was as fanatical, but I’m also glad they aren’t. You sometimes take heavier casualties from their zealousness.”
“Yes, it’s a balancing act.” Garret admitted.
“So what exactly have you come up with?” Billy asked as he lifted his right arm and began gently massaging Garret’s scalp.
“In the past three attacks we’ve sent in scouts for a week beforehand to map out the area and monitor their forces.” Garret said. “During each battle, a few ships escaped, and the last time they spotted our scouts, allowing them to build up a defending force. We got lucky though and managed to wipe them out fairly effectively.”
“Luck had nothing to do with it, just good planning and good tactics.” Billy said proudly. “We make a good team with your strategic skills and my tactical skills working together.”
“Yes, we do.” Garret said proudly and without any self-consciousness. It was true, he and Billy made a good command team for their combined forces. “So, what I’m thinking is we take twenty-four hours to repair the least damaged ships and get everyone fully supplied. Then we head off for the last location. We’ll send in the scouts and purposely let a couple of them be detected. They’ll think they have a week at least before we attack. Twelve hours later we send in more scouts, this time with their sensors on active scan, picking up everything they can and we jump in after their scans are relayed. The first batch of scouts should be up to jump speed and can relay the data to us in near real-time. We deploy our forces appropriately, and engage them. This one’s on a small moon orbiting a gas giant, and orbital bombardment won’t do much good. The base is in a cavern system deep underground. Our lasers will have to cut open their landing bay that leads down, and we’ll send in the shuttles through there.”
“You’re going to lose a few doing that.” Billy warned him and Garret shrugged.
“Do you see another way to get troops in there?” He asked Billy.
“How about we just nuke the base?” Billy asked. “It’s not like we’ll find vital information on other bolt-holes.”
“What if they’ve established another, smaller base in our territory?” Garret asked. “What if there’s another true born officer down there who’ll give up information like the last one?”
“Okay, so we absorb the losses.” Billy said with a sigh. “I hate seeing so many of our troops die, though.”
“It’ll be a few hundred, maybe a thousand.” Garret said. “I’ll give the units that missed out last time the first shot. They’re Atrix Militia and won’t be upset they’re being thrown into a meat grinder.”
“Does it bother you at all?” Billy asked him softly. “I mean, I know you care about these guys, and you’ve told me some about their society in that bolt-hole of yours, so I know you care about them a lot.”
“It bothers me, but all I have to do is ask and they’ll jump at the chance.” Garret said with a sigh.
“Well, at least we can be sure they’ll get the job done.” Billy said as the door to Garret’s sleeping cabin opened and a blur of red hair and blue clothing rushed into the room. Before Garret could do more than sit up a bit, Neal was in the bed, squeezing out a space between Garret and Billy while shucking off his uniform shirt. Then he had his arms around Billy in a hug before he turned to give Garret a hug. When he’d hugged both men, Neal turned onto his back and wiggled in place until he was securely between them.
“Hi.” Neal giggled. “It sure stinks in here.”
“Neal, what have I said about coming I here like that?” Garret said in a warning tone.
“I checked with Ada first.” Neal whined. “She said you two were just talking, and from the smell of the room it’s obvious you guys are done with your lovemaking. Did you know you two left your clothes in the middle of the floor? I had to pick them up while Ada checked.”
“Sorry.” Garret mumbled with a blush as Neal leaned over and kissed his cheek. His light green eyes held amusement in them and Garret looked at them in soft wonder again. They were so different than the normal purple of Republic clones, and Garret vowed again to see if he could get the law changed that required Republic clones to have purple eyes. It might take a decade or two, but he’d keep on pushing the issue along with a few other issues in the Deliberatorium.
“It’s good to see you again, Billy.” Neal said and Billy chuckled, rubbing Neal’s fine red hair with a hand.
“It’s good to see you again too, Neal.” Billy replied. “How’s your day going?”
“Not too bad.” Neal said. “After my course in engineering I went to sickbay and visited with some of the wounded marines. Harold will probably pull through the doctor says, and that’s good. Everyone’s in a real good mood.”
“Why’s that?” Billy asked and Neal scrunched up his face, emphasizing his button nose before smiling.
“It’s because of why our planet exists.” Neal said after looking at Garret for permission. Billy knew about the anomaly, and the planet and some of its history, although he did not know and had not asked about the anomaly’s location. Garret hadn’t even shared that it was in a system with a white dwarf and a nearby pulsar. “Even without the Great War and the need for bolt-holes, House Atrix would have helped the planet’s people out the way they did. When we became a bolt-hole though, the base there became much more important. More technology and people were brought in, and the old colony ship turned into a space station as well as a shipyard. Our world is what it is today, a place we love, because it was built to fight for House Atrix if we were ever needed. We’re doing that now, fulfilling our reason for existence.”
“I hadn’t thought of it that way before.” Billy said with a shake of his head. Garret just laid back in bed, enjoying the warmth of Neal next to him, and the presence of Billy there with him while his thoughts ran over the best way to take the last enemy stronghold in Republic space.
Thirty-four hours later, he was standing at the situation table behind his command seat with Harrington, Darenal, Mjolnar, and Montagne all arranged around him. Several more crewmembers crewed the workstations at the table, feeding in the data that was being relayed from the second set of scouts currently conducting scans on the enemy stronghold. Pictures from the first set of scouts’ telephoto lenses were put up on various displays above the table.
“That battleship’s nearly completed.” Montagne noted as he studied the image of a battleship in one of the four space docks above the moon. “Let’s see, the images are three hours old based on the distance it would have taken light to reach the position of the first scouts.
“Look at the infrared.” Darenal noted. “Its reactors are powering up at the time the photo was taken. That’s now six hours ago.”
“Here’s why, those are the transports from the last bolt-hole, the ones we let get away.” Harrington noted from the active scans of the second set of scouts. “They know we’re here. It looks like a damn beehive. Active sensors show that big bastard is still in space dock. Do you think they can get it ready to face us? It’d be a bitch to bring down.”
“Captain Lars?” Garret asked over the fleet communications frequency.
“I see it, Commodore.” Billy’s voice was reassuring. “I’ll need to pull a few of your escorts from you to help my squad take it out. Even if we jump close in, we’ll have to fight our way through that picket line of frigates. We can overpower them, but they might delay us long enough to get that battleship into the action.”
“We’ll take heavier damage if we jump in close, but it’ll give them less time to react and us more time to do damage.” Garret noted and Billy could be heard sighing on his ship’s bridge.
“You’re right.” Billy said. “Send me three of your escort destroyers and that cruiser.”
“That’ll leave us with just a handful of destroyers.” Harrington protested.
“Better to take a bit more pounding than to have that battleship engage us while we’re trying to pound the moon’s defenses.” Garret noted. “Do you see these missile batteries near their docking entrance?”
“They’re an Imperial design.” Montagne answered.
“Yes, which means I want prisoners and I want to pilfer their data system.” Garret commented with a sour taste. “There’s only one way those came into the Republic and it’s through area patrolled by the fleet based out of Calos. I want to know how they snuck it past us, and it does confirm there’s some cooperation between Leonev and the Empire. That’ll be good for public relations building up hatred of Leonev. We can use all the evidence we’ll find.”
“I’ll try to keep your militia under control, Commodore.” Mjolnar said with a twist of his mouth and a frown.
“Tell them that Atrix needs the place to not be so smashed this time.” Darenal suggested. “They will be more careful with the heavy weaponry.”
“Start plotting bombardment of that moon.” Garret ordered and turned back to take a seat at his command chair. He worked at the computer station there for a moment, drawing up squadron assignments and assigning different ships to cover different approach vectors. “Mission briefing in fifteen minutes.”
“Aye sir.” Harrington said and prepared to make the announcement both ship and fleet-wide. When the time came, Garret would broadcast his orders to the fleet and take questions from the commanders of each ship. With the Anwhal and the Burston as well as the Adamant, they had a total of forty-two fighters to put in the space around their fleet. They were designed for ground attack, but did a decent job in the role of taking out the older-model fighters of the last three bolt-holes. He drew up plans to deploy them in such a way that they wouldn’t be in danger from defensive fire from his capital ship. Most of his plan was already built, but he took ten minutes to update it based on the information being sent in from the scout ships, and another five to review it before his broadcast to the fleet.
“Any more questions?” Garret asked after having detailed the plans to the commanders of his ships in the fleet. Billy would be leading his battle cruiser along with a heavy cruiser, two light cruisers, and eight destroyers against the six picket frigates and the battleship. If that battleship was operational and out of its dock, Billy’s forces would take heavy damage. He might even lose Billy in that battle, and he sent his brother and lover a silent wish of well-being. No one had any questions, which could be either good or bad, and so Garret ended the conference call. “Best of luck to all of us, follow orders and do your best. Today we make history, and I look forward to buying all of you a drink on Peladon.”
“See you soon, Garret.” Billy was the last to sign off.
“Begin countdown to jump.” Garret ordered. The fleet was already moving fifty-thousand kilometers per second faster than what was needed in order to jump. In the holoprojection in front of the helm and nav stations, a clock appeared counting down from ten minutes. “Battle stations.”
His ship was already on alert status, so the battle stations order was more for custom’s sake than anything else. Still, the bright lights dimmed and the bridge was filled with a blue light that bathed everything in a much softer glow. Pressure-tight hatches were closed all over the ship, and crew who had been relaxing for the last few minutes reported to their battle stations. Adamant worked like a finely tuned instrument now, with her crew performing at the peak of their abilities. In both hangar bays, fighters were prepared for launch out of their acceleration tubes along the upper sides of the hangar bays. Enlisted crew gave the fighter’s weapons loads one last check and prepared for their jump, while the last of the Marines loaded into the shuttles on the lower flight deck. The cranes that would pick up fighters after they landed and haul them to the upper catwalk where they were stored, maintained and launched were moved out of the way so the shuttle tail fins would not strike them on the way out of the launch bay.
“We’re ready.” Harrington said with a slight edge to her voice. They all grew nervous at this point, just before the battle was joined. Garret nodded at her and prayed the navigator had done a good job in plotting this jump. If he hadn’t, Ada would have said something, but it was always a little niggle of worry for Garret.
“Jump.” Garret ordered as the clock counted down to zero and the universe stretched before returning to normal. The bridge’s holo-display updated and he let out a sigh of relief. All of his ships were in perfect position. A video feed from Adamant’s exterior on a side workstation showed the hangar bay doors opening and all fighter launch tubes were now open as well. He nodded to the flight controller at that station who was looking back at him. The 07 Model was wearing a blue Guard uniform and a savage grin on his face. “Launch fighters.”
“Fighters launching, my lord.” The flight controller said as he turned back to his station and issued the orders over his microphone. Less than three seconds later the fighters began accelerating down their tubes and exited his ship before the enemy had even fully registered that they were under attack.
“Lock primary lasers on the planetary batteries.” Garret ordered. “Fire when ready. Planetary assault batteries, focus on target and open fire.”
Three of his ship’s powerful lasers oriented on the missile and laser batteries dotting the area around the moon base’s entrance.
“Point defenses to full auto!” Harrington ordered as missiles began lifting off from the planet and one of the picket frigates turned towards them. The other planetary assault ships were launching their fighters as the base’s entrance opened and forty-eight fighters launched from its entrance behind the screen of the defensive missiles.
“Now the fun begins.” Garret said, knowing his ship and the other assault ships were locked into position for most of this battle. Billy’s ships were still mobile, and would have to do most of the ship-to-ship fighting while Garret’s forces attempted to create a bubble of projectiles and laser fire that would destroy enemy missiles and fighters before they impacted a ship. It was a race against time to see who could do the most damage first, the moon’s defense batteries or Garret’s planetary assault cannons and shipboard lasers.
“That battleship’s under her own power!” Darenal warned as the battleship cleared its dock before Billy could punch through the picket line of frigates.
“Damn.” Garret muttered as the battleship began opening fire with its long-range torpedoes, forcing Billy’s ships to take evasive action. The battleship hung there, just clear of its dock, not moving past the point where it could open fire safely and began to pummel Billy’s ships. A destroyer went up when it failed to dodge or shoot down a heavy torpedo, and Garret swore again. “Helm, swing us around. Darenal, prepare to fire mass driver.”
“Oh mercy, here we go again.” Harrington groaned, but she was smiling and when he looked at her she shrugged. “They’re the ones stupid enough not to keep moving. Any officer in command of a capital ship should know to keep his vessel moving when he’s got enemies armed with a mass driver.”
Adamant shook as her repositioning created a gap in the shield of lasers and flak around them, allowing two fighters to get close enough to fire their anti-ship missiles. Both hit, but didn’t penetrate the armor, and the two fighters died when Lukas blew them away with a point-defense laser. Working together, Darenal and the helmsman, an 08 Model from Atrix Prime lined up the shot and Adamant fired three mass driver rounds at the battleship. The enemy behemoth had just shot through the armor amidships on Billy’s vessel, and Garret winced at the damage it was taking. The battleship’s commander tried to move his ship out of the way, but he had no inertia, and in the gravity well of the moon didn’t have the force to allow the ship to quickly evade the three massive rounds of high explosives. The sky lit up with the battleship’s death, and the crew cheered while Garret ordered the Adamant to return to planetary bombardment of the moon. Ship’s from Billy’s squadron had finished off the picket frigates and were now obliterating several transports, including those that had been allowed to escape from the last bolt-hole.
“We’re being hailed by the moon.” Markal reported.
“On speakers.” Garret ordered.
“This is Lefhaus Admiral Mikhail Leran, commander of this facility.” The familiar voice stated in an imperious voice. “You will cease your assault on this facility at once.”
“Mikhail Leran, you are guilty of treason.” Garret replied calmly, glad the man could not see the smile on his face. He had a bone or two to pick with Leran after what Leran had done following the Battle of Lemos. Leran had commanded the battle cruiser Terseus, and as senior officer to arrive at the scene following the battle had gotten Garret’s friend Joanna Marsters booted from her command, and had managed to get Billy sent to Fleet HQ as an administrative flunky. “As Speaker and Commodore of the Republic Navy, I order you to immediately surrender yourself and those under your command to your rightful government.”
“I’ll be damned if I surrender to a clone, put a real human on!” Leran shot back and Garret heard something in the voice that caused him to worry. It became obvious the man wasn’t intending to surrender. More than likely he was going to do something and was stalling for time, but what? His ships were destroyed, his base was already damaged and its defenses would not last much longer.
“I am in command here, Leran, and you will deal with me.” Garret said while thinking as quickly as he could. Ada, have the ships back away from the moon base, maximum thrust.
Sending the orders now. Ada replied calmly. Do I still count the mother ship l kill from Lemos? Does this mean I’ve now killed a mother ship and a battleship?
Worry about that later. Garret told her mentally and breathed with relief as the helmsman of his own ship started punching his control panel furiously. Harrington gave him an odd look before Ada put up a text message on her own control panel.
“I’d rather die before I surrender to a clone.” Leran’s voice dripped acid and Garret knew he’d been right. “Don’t think you’ll beat me so easily, Lars, I’ll see you in hell.”
“It’s Atrix now, you idiot.” Garret muttered as the holo-display in front of him turned white with a massive explosion.
“Huge nuclear detonation on the moon!” Darenal exclaimed from beside Garret. “Setting up lasers to blast any fragments that get near us!”
“How’s our distance?” Garret asked as the ship began to shake with the first shock wave to hit them.
“We might be far enough out, one of the troop transports just exploded though.” She answered grimly. Garret bit off a curse at the loss of life, but held his breath otherwise. “It looks like the rest of the ships got enough distance in time. A few took some minor damage, but the rest are alright.”
“Get damage assessments as soon as possible.” Garret ordered, wiping the sweat that had formed on his forehead and letting out his breath in a long and slow exhalation. Sure, they had lost the opportunity to gain intelligence, but the suicide of Leran was leaving a small smile on Garret’s face. “As soon as we’re all ready, we’ll head back to rendezvous with the supply ships. From there we’ll go to Peladon, and then home.”
“I’m sure you wife will be glad to see you before she gives birth.” Harrington said with a sly smile and Garret chuckled.
The mission was accomplished, and now it was time to enjoy the rewards of his work.
As with all my stories, E provides immeasurable input, grammar checking, and all those other lovely editing thingies that make the story so much better!
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