Captain's Resolve, page 19
part #1 of Luke Sky Series
This final hit was were the timing would be most important.
She had to wait until the Droids were charging over their impromptu bot corpse wall, into the teeth of the barricade, and let a decent number make it over, before she and the teams ready to go popped out and assaulted from behind. If they could move quickly, and lethally, they could catch the Droids from behind, and together with the barricade, crush them in the middle. The trick was timing; too soon and the Droids would recover, crush her much smaller force, and then crash like a wave into the barricade and bridge doors. Too late and the barricade would be overwhelmed, while her force would go get caught in the chaotic mess, and likely be wiped out in detail as well.
It’s like tightrope walking on fishing line, but it can be done.
Below, the Droids had finished massing together, and being machines, as soon as they were in position, they poured up and over the barricade in a terrifying horde of moving metal and a storm of blaster bolts. The gunners and Armory Teamsters at the barricade answered back with their own storm, even lauding a few ion grenades into their swarm, and while that brought down many Droids, more kept coming. Estrella bit her lip, desperate to leap down and help her men, but she didn’t dare since she had to wait to do it right, otherwise, a great many would die in vain.
Droids fell, soldiers fell, and she took firm hold of her pain, anger and urge to help, and like the professional officer she was, waited for the right moment to strike. The right moment to win.
There it is! At last she saw it, the moment when the Droids were almost on the barricade, but being cut down every step of the way until their numbers would breach the barricade, and then overwhelm them. She readied the ion pistols she had specially made for this fight, though she never actually expected to be out in the fight, using the defenses she herself had designed for others. Time for the final hit
Pressings a button on her data pad, the stealth covering exploded away from her, and she hopped down into the middle of the Droid back ranks, blasting away as she did!
That button had also sent out a simultaneous signal, and several doors so far closed and seemingly sealed shut, as well as other stealth openings, burst open, and power armor Armory Teamsters charged into the Droid ranks. They fired their weapons and swung their vibro swords and boarding axes almost wildly, wreaking havoc wherever they hit upon the crowed together Droids. Estrella used her training and her armor, striking hard on joints that were just as delicate to the Droids as any human, aiming for points were everything came together, while at the same time using her natural grace and small size to dance between them and dodge their return attacks.
At some point, she started laughing again as she tore into them, dancing on the razors edge of life and death since her own reinforcements had yet to reach her or back her up. Her armor took glancing hits that threw her around, and she had to scramble to move with the hits, rolling, dodging and weaving with every hit or attempted hit. Her twin pistols fired again and again, no shot wasted if she could avoid it, most being head shots or point blank range chest cavity shots.
She slid under an Overseer, blasting away upwards into its mechanical guts before coming up right into the blaster strikes of a damaged and slowed down Warrior Droid! Ouch! Her head was suddenly swimming as her chest struggled to take a breath while she lay on the floor where she’d landed after taking that barrage head on.
The fighting seemed strangely distant, with an odd clicking sound in the background, then everything suddenly came roaring back.
She had been knocked over by a damaged Droid that was out of position of the rest, and therefore able to line its shots up better. It was now working its way towards her, because after it had dropped her with its hits, she had fallen to floor with several dead and piled up Droid bodies between them. It clearly wanted to be sure of the kill, and was slowly limping over to her. If she didn’t get up and move, soon, she would die!
Struggling to breathe, she couldn’t get up very well, so she instead fumbled for her pistols, figuring she might be able to drop it before it dropped her. One pistol had been knocked away, but the other was just by her hand, almost within reach! Her armor was still functioning, but her head was spinning and her breathing still rough even as she strained for the pistol.
The odd clicking of the Droid walking got louder, and she could see it moving around the makeshift divide, looking for a good shot to line up. Her armor was impressive, but it had taken a beating over the course of her defense, and if the droid got the chance to concentrate a barrage on her, she was dead. She struggled to focus, both on breathing and reaching for her weapon, moving through the pain and trying to grasp the handle, the handle that was right near her armored fingertips.
My first hit must be debilitating Her mind raced desperately. I must be sure of my shot, it must hit, and it must keep the droid from being able to instantly recover and focus fire on me. I’m too out of sorts to properly focus, so my shot can’t be wasted on a risky target like the head.
Struggling to plan ahead, trying to make a decision for her first, and possibly only shot, she snatched up her pistol just as the Droid rounded the pile and aimed its guns down towards her. With no more time for plans, she fired first!
The Droid toppled over, firing and missing her by a hairs length, and landed face first into the ground.
Oh thank the Saint that actually worked! She had aimed for the Droids leg, right at the knee joint, and had blasted it. Normally it could’ve compensated long enough to shoot her, but it already had a damaged leg, and with two legs now down, it fell. She quickly shifted her aim as the Droid tried to get back up, and shot it point blank in its sensor filled face.
Sparks shot out, and a static filled wail filled the air, then it cut off and the Droid went back down, still and silent. Gasping, finally able to take a breath, she forced herself back up, and took a moment, after finding some cover, to take stock. Her armor was still usable, but damaged and beat up, her forces were hammering the Droids, and it seemed the battle had moved past her. Looking around, she finally found her other pistol, and after she picked it up, quickly moved to rejoin the fight.
She blasted at a few lingering Droids as she moved towards the battle, only to be slowed by her own forces that were blocking her path.
“Ma’am, you’ve taken hits,” a Teamster stated, trying to block her.
“I’m still fit for combat, now move aside, you’re wasting time!” Much as she appreciated them worrying over her, she was more concerned about finishing off the Droids and saving as many of her people as possible.
“It’s over ma’am,” Another Teamster blocked her, turning and pointing past them to the melted wall of dead Droids. Looking at it she saw that the barricade fire was slacking off very quickly, and that the droids on this side were all down and not moving. The fire on the other side suddenly stopped, and a deep silence filled the corridor as everyone fought to catch their breath.
“We won!”
She suddenly felt a little punch drunk, having fought for her life just moments ago, and now learning that the fight was suddenly over. A ragged cheer went up by the barricade, followed by the men all around her, who either pumped fists and clasped each other in joy, or sat down on the ground and started laughing hysterically. Estrella quickly checked her serveilance cameras, and found that apart from some various stragglers, there were no Droids left coming into the ship.
“Let’s get to the bridge!” She shouted, and started working her way through her men and over the piles of melted robots. “All wounded to medical, everyone else to the bridge!” She called out as she crested the pile and made her way past the barricade and towards the bridge doors. “Well done all!”
They cheered again even as several slumped over from exhaustion or injury, and several others rushed to help them. Entering the bridge while the gunners and Teamsters reestablished order, she walked over to the communications while the bridge crew applauded her, which turned into a standing salute. She returned it with a somber weight, and then made it to the communications section.
“Is that jamming field still up?” She asked without preamble, struggling to reign in her emotions. Scrambling for her life and then suddenly no longer being in danger was a hard thing to keep balanced, but she was experienced at it, and a few deep breaths were all she needed to focus. She hoped.
“It just went down ma’am,” the Commuincations head replied, smiling at her. “Captain Archibald sends his compliments and congratulations. Our ship is defended, and their ship is ours!”
“Wonderful news.” She was suddenly able to relax, the weight of worry about the outcome of all the fights no longer hanging around her neck.
“I’ve already informed the Captain that you’re alive and well,” Lieutenant Vane replied, smiling at her. “Can’t have Sprout worried about his XO while he’s busy cleaning up the mess.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant.” She smiled at at the older woman, feeling giddy, and knowing she needed time to lie down.
“It was no trouble ma’am,” Vane replied, frowning at her slightly, looking worried. “He reported that he found the source of the Droid jamming, and together with Colonel Jones and team of Lancers, shut it down. He also ordered that once both ships had been cleared of any further hostile droids, that all hands were to stand down for immediate rest and medical treatment.”
“Understood.” She almost swayed on her feet. Almost. “There are no lingering Droids that I know of on the bridge deck, but ask the Armory Teamsters to do a sweep regardless. Once that’s done, everyone is to get some rest, we’ve all earned it.”
The bridge cheered again, and with a nod to Lieutenant Vane, she headed to Captain’s ready room. To get out of her armor, and then pass out on the couch in there.
We’ve got ourselves a Battleship now, but I’ll be happier about it after our dead are seen too and our ship patched up. She sighed as she entered and saw the couch, beckoning to her as she set about getting out of the armor.
But first things first. She thought, and after she pulled herself out of the armor and crawled onto the couch, where she proceeded to immediately pass out, all with a dopey smile on her face.
Chapter 13: The Trials of Victory
Archibald sat in his chair and sighed, quietly of course. It had been several days since their capture of the Battleship, and it had taken this long to get everything ready, repaired and set up just to leave the system. And now, here he was, sitting and waiting, all over again, while they got ready to point transfer.
Still, they now had a Battleship! That fact hadn’t gotten old for him yet, and probably wouldn’t for several months. He couldn’t wait to inform the Admiral, but first he had to link up with the bulk freighter Choice Selection at Capital for now, as he very desperately needed resupply of men and materials.
Besides, the Battleship in question had a lot of problems with it.
Apart from the damage their boarding action had done to it, which was impressive but largely cosmetic and fixable, the ship had been shut down and parted out hard before the Droids ever got it. The original Planetary Government that owned it had sold it to a consortium dealing in ship parts for various planets that had ships but not the industry to produce certain parts, and it had slowly dismantled the Battleship from the inside out before the Droids had shown up and captured it.
The Droids had actually repaired and replaced quite a bit, but certain systems still needed more repair or outright replacement, like the fact that it was designed for five fusion power plants and currently only had two.
However, it was still a worthwhile prize every way he looked at it!
Of course, it hadn’t come cheap. Over fifty of my crew killed in action; Lancers, Armory, Gunners, officers and enlisted, we lost a lot. Another third of the crew in medical, several of them still critical days later. All to capture a ship that will need weeks in dry dock before it can fight, but also to make sure the Droids couldn’t use it to kickstart their campaign of conquest all over again. Archibald thought about when he had gone to down to visit the small cargo bay set aside for their dead.
He’d gone there privately, and had walked among the dead, all with Confederation flags draped over their coffins, and had wept.
The good and the bad, the prize and the blood, all of it had come on his orders.
Still, he’d done his duty, and still had a job to do, so he’d forced himself to get back and get back to work.
Shaking his head, he turned his thoughts from the dead to living matters, and turned his head to the sensor image of their new Battleship.
Said Battleship, originally called the Doom Hammer, and why someone would give such a dumb name to a ship he would never know, had been renamed on his order to better reflect and commemorate those who took it. It was named after a warrior people his brother had told him about when they were kids, and he had always liked their name, and that name had gone over well with the rest of the crew.
Their Battleship was now the MSP Cimmerian.
Still, first he had to fix it, and then crew it, and those endeavors would be long and hard, and expensive. I’m going to need to get ahold of funds, a lot of funds, way more than the Admiral gave us, or that I have access to from Lynch’s networks. Something to work on with everything else. He mused as they waited to jump. Of course, another problem had presented itself with their success; crew.
Between the losses in battle, the wounded, and the prize crew needed for the Cimmerian, they were getting light on their feet, but then he’d had to crew up the half dozen freighters the Droids had captured along with the Battleship, and now, his own little fleet was waiting to jump, all with skeleton crews on them. He was really looking forward to getting to Capital and getting more crew, but they had a rough journey ahead.
Their little sojourn into this empty system to battle the Droids had taken them deep into what had once been Droid controlled territory, and while the Droids were gone now, there was also nothing else out here. They were far from anywhere, surrounded by ruins and dead world’s, and they had a long trip to get back to still functioning civilization out in the Spine.
There was also a creepier problem that had presented itself after the battle. He frowned as he recalled that particular report during one of the debriefs they’d held after the battle. The possible implications of that disturbing report were, frightening, on multiple levels.
* * *
“Is this report accurate?” Archibald asked Commander Estrella and Colonel Jones in his office, several days after the battle. “The Harmony Tribe was selling off the crews of the ships they captured to another party of Droids?”
“That’s the way it looks sir,” Colonel Jones replied, grim faced. “We can’t actually confirm if these mysterious people were Droids or not. We only know that they had robots acting as their guards, which is an odd choice to have for protection when you’re meeting with hostile sentient machines.”
“Regardless if this group were Droids or not, they were still negotiating and buying human crews from a known hostile Droid Tribe.” Commander Estrella pointed out, going over the report they’d gotten from the Droid slaves they’d freed from Harmony. “If it were a group associated with the United Sentients Assembly, I could understand, since they kept human prisoners alive in cryo to trade back to us for Droid prisoners, once a human officer of sufficient rank was willing to speak with them. But it doesn’t feel like that’s the case this time.”
“No it doesn’t,” Archibald muttered, going over the statements from the freed Droids they’d gotten once they’d learned that the captured human crews weren’t killed outright, but instead sold off. “This group that showed up and dealt with Harmony seems a little too uniform in design for the USA forces, which, as far as we know, largely goes against the grain of those Droids. The USA Droids have a vague look of uniformity, at best, but it’s only vague. Their whole culture is all about individuality, or personal liberty anyway, so even their similar models all look obviously different from one another. According to this information, these unknown bots were all uniform in their design and esthetics.”
