Captain's Resolve, page 8
part #1 of Luke Sky Series
“I got what I wanted out of it,” Archibald replied, giving her a look while he glanced around his bridge. The crew was working efficiently, and it wouldn’t be long before their point transfer; the point of no return on their strange particle emissions had been reached, and in the next half hour, they would jump. “It would even be fair to say, I got what I needed out of it as well.”
“Good to hear sir, I was getting tired of everyone taking bets on where you were going next.” Estrella told him, smiling mischievously.
“Oh, what was the pool up too?” Archibald asked, chuckling. “And which department did the smart money favor?”
“Now sir, I can’t go giving that away,” Estrella chuckled. “Who will cover the spread at the next point transfer? Or the one after that?” She laughed. “So many point transfers yet to come, so many hours for you to avoid sitting in your chair, bored out of your skull.”
“How were your interviews with the droids?” Archibald asked, wanting to be annoyed but too amused to really put much effort into it. “I heard you already talked to Chief Cordova about ‘em.”
“They were fine,” Estrella shrugged, coming up to his shoulder as he settled in and waited for the point transfer. “Eager, nervous, hopeful, like any group of applicants or transfers, which would be fine if they weren’t a bunch of droids. That made it both amusing, and creepy.”
Archibald nodded in agreement at that.
“Still, I think it might work, if we can keep the crew in line.” Estrella continued, shrugging. “Especially with that little spider surveillance bot, the one you named Luffy?”
“He was certainly eager,” Archibald smiled a little at the memory of that bouncy droid.
“That’s one word for it,” Estrella agreed. “I think he might be a good addition to the Lancers, as a forward scout, infiltration drone, so on. I went ahead and added, him, to the Lancer Corps.”
“You talked to Colonel Jones about it first, right?” Archibald asked, glancing at her expectantly. Estrella continued to stare out across the bridge, conviently not looking at him. Oh no, not again! Archibald groaned inwardly. “Commander?”
“I have the authority to authorize crew transfers, even ones on parole, to any department,” Estrella replied with a shrug, a stubborn cast coming to her face.
“Yes,” Archibald agreed, drawing the word out as he gave her a narrowed eyed look. “But generally, you discuss such transfers with the department head of who you are transferring said crew too.”
Estrella shrugged, as if the whole thing were perfectly obvious, ordinary, and affected a unconcerned look. “It’s nothing more than a courtesy really, and if he doesn’t care to bother with simple courtesies, why should I?”
I knew it! Archibald groaned aloud. Estrella continued acting as if nothing was going on at all. This is her getting back at him for the darling remarks! The guy literally just talks that way, I know for a fact he’s called other women that, and he’s not being mean or demeaning about it. Hell, for that matter most women seemed to enjoy it! Just my luck that the only one who actually gets bent out of shape about is my First freaking Officer!
He could always put his foot down about the transfer, or get in the middle of their feud, but the more he thought about it, the less enthused he was. I’ll keep an eye on it. If it starts to affect ship or crew, I will shut it down. Otherwise, may as well watch and enjoy the show. If they want to act like children, fine.
He sighed, annoyed at the silliness of it all, but figured it could be a lot worse. He’d heard stories about the Little Admirals original First Officer, Raphael Tremblay. Archibald figured he was getting off easy by comparison. After all, Estrella wasn’t actively working with rebellious crew or transferred in traitors to overthrow him.
Twenty minutes later, the clock finally reached zero, and they point transferred out, beginning their hunt for the secret droid project, whatever it was.
Chapter 6: Of Ages Past and Present
“What is that?” Commander Estrella asked, as the grainy image on the main screen from the passive sensors slowly resolved itself. Archibald gave a start when he saw it clearly enough to understand what he was seeing.
“It’s a Battleship!” He was stunned.
He didn’t know what he was expecting, probably a droid ship or massive fortress under construction, but certainly not a human built Battleship! A big one too, according to the sensors, it was as big as a Dreadnought Class Battleship, or nearly so, it was wedge shaped, almost like an arrowhead or blade tip, with rows of powerful broadsides up and down it’s ‘edges.’ This was definitely a ship of the line, designed to deal out punishment, take it, and keep going.
Their arrival had taken over a week, with all the point transfers, another day after a void jump out into open space near the coordinates, and silent running to the location, where they could finally get a good look at what was going on. Looking around on the passive sensors, Archibald found all the missing cargo ships drifting near the Battleship, tethered together and not moving. Well, this is definitely the place. He looked around on the passive sensors as they slowly built up the picture, and saw the last piece of the puzzle.
Harmony Tribe Destroyers, two of them.
One was hard docked to the Battleship, the other was patrolling around the small fleet of ships the droids had collected. So, that’s where the other two ships were that normally would’ve been with that raiding force. Archibald narrowed his eyes, looking over the information they had, and suspected he could wipe out the Destroyer on overwatch fairly quickly, and probably could disable the hard docked Destroyer in short order. From all the data they currently had, and kept adding too, it looked like there were no Harmony starfighters, which definitely made things better for him.
The problem was the Battleship.
If the droids brought that into play, Archibald would have to retreat, there was nothing else for it, the Battleship was an order of magnitude more powerful and destructive than his Heavy Cruiser, no question. Archibald didn’t think he could destroy it, not before the droids got going and forced him back or pinned him down. However, he wondered if he could take it.
The ship was obviously undergoing repairs, given all the spare parts the droids had been stealing, so it wouldn’t be at a hundred percent. He hoped not anyway. If he could drop the Destroyers from the board quickly, he might be able to hard dock, board her and take her. If he could move fast enough, the fleet battle wouldn’t be too much in doubt, but the boarding prize battle was another story.
He had a large size Lancer division on his ship, plus the Armory crew, and he could arm up the regular ships crew, but the Battleship could hold nearly three times his crew size, or more since it was droids. They could overwhelm his forces with sheer numbers. Still, the prize was worth the attempt, especially since he couldn’t let the droids repair and make off with a Battleship of their own. So, it came down to numbers, preparation, skill, and cleverness.
Fortunately, those are all things Admiral Montagne has in spades, and things I’ve been honing ever since joning up. Archibald thought, looking at the screen and getting a gleam in his eye. And McKnight taught me a thing or two about taking on bad odds too. The first was never try to plan for it alone.
“Commander Estrella,” Archibald called out, snapping everyone out of their shock. “Establish a holding pattern around the droid fleet, silent running all the way, and detail sensors and intelligence to study the data and movements of the ships, if any. Then get the main department heads together, it’s time to start planning our next move.”
“Aye, Captain.” She replied crisply, heading over to sensors. Archibald got up and began heading to his office.
“I’ll be in my ready room, join me when you’re ready, till then you have the bridge,” he called over his shoulder, his mind running through possibilities already.
“Aye sir!” Estrella acknowledged as he headed out.
Once in his ready room, he pulled up the scan data and started compiling information as his Department heads started arriving one by one, joining him as he waved them over to the table. They all sat and began pulling up the information and going over it, once they got over their shock anyway. It almost would’ve been easier if it was a secret droid base; then they could’ve just rode in guns blazing and blew it up before the droids knew they were there, and be done with it.
But it wasn’t a base, it was a Battleship, a human built one. Which meant, among other things, that it was a potential prize. And Archibald knew he wasn’t the only one hungry for this prize.
“This is a mission we can’t walk away from,” Estrella muttered, going over the compiled data. “But we may not win it. The numbers are against us, and time is as well.”
“The numbers I get Commander, but what do you mean by time?” Arms Master Bennet Wallace asked, frowning as he went through his own data pad collection.
“The droids are obviously repairing this thing, though at first glance, it doesn’t look like there’s much, or any external damage to it, so I’m guessing the damage is internal. But the longer we wait, the more of it will be repaired, until eventually it’s all repaired, and then underway.” Estrella sighed, rubbing her temples. “They’re droids; so long as they get recharged, they don’t get tired, or work at anything less than peak efficiency. Which means the longer we wait, the stronger that ship will be.”
“Oh,” the head of the Armory department grunted, looking back over the data pads again.
“They could also have more ships on the way, from other raids with equipment,” Chief Gunner O’Bannon pointed out, grim faced at the reports he was looking at. “The longer we wait, the worse it’s gonna be, no matter what.” He was another transfer from Druids old Corvette squad, and had practically jumped at the chance of being chief gunner on a Heavy Cruiser. Late middle aged, salt and pepper hair, had the look of an old scrapper about him with weathered skin, hard eyes and faint scars across his face and hands.
A solid addition to the crew, but a man of surprisingly few words in most instances.
“Do we have schematics for this class of Battleship?” Colonel Jones asked, frowning. “I don’t think I’ve seen that style of Battleship before, and we saw a lot of different styles during the recent Droid War.”
“It’s a Leviathan class Battleship,” First Lieutenant Vane answered. As the head of Tactical, Archibald wasn’t surprised she’d looked it up, but he hadn’t yet, too busy trying to get everything together, so he was curious about this class of Battleship. He gestured at her to keep going, and she nodded before launching into her explanation.
“The Leviathan class Battleship, built by the Anasazi System Alliance, up- Sectors in what is now Sector 22. They were designed and built around the same time as Capria’s famous Dreadnought class Battleships, and for a long time, were one of the main rivals to that ship.” She pulled up the ships picture, and put it up on a hologram in the middle of the table. Even in a shrunken, holographic form, it looked intimidating.
“They became one of the main, go-to ships during the wars that followed the fall of the AI’s, back before the rise of the Confederacy, before even the chunks of space out here were carved up into Sectors. This was back when humans achieved their freedom from the true Machine Plague, but then had to set about living, working, and fighting over resources, wealth, territory, or power.”
An age undreamed of at the time, one that quickly became both brutal and cruel, set in the ruins of the old civilization and before the birth of the new one. An age of High Adventure, I think my brother would’ve called it. Archibald had to keep from smiling at the nostalgic memories invoked by Vane’s description of that part of history in the Spine.
“What made them so special back then?” Estrella asked, looking intrigued.
“The design of the ship had more automation than the Dreadnoughts, which were AI paranoid to the extreme, but rather than downsize the crew, the Anasazi decided to instead increase the number of Marines or ground combat troops on them,” Vane shrugged. “Originally, between the time of the fall of the AI’s and before the rise of the Confederacy, there were planets, systems, and system alliances standing against each other, competing for all the age old reasons that nations full of humans compete. And in that age, space battles rarely stayed out in space. Ships and fleets fought to land troops and capture cities, installations, whole worlds.”
“And this is where the Leviathan class came into play?” Chief Cordova guessed, looking equally intrigued in the history lesson. Archibald had to admit he was too. He knew of the fall of the AI’s due to the Elder Protocols infecting human tech and killing the so called Data Gods digitally, and of the rise of the mega system governments like the Confederacy or the Empire of Man.
However, the time between the two was glossed over a lot, now that he stopped and thought about it.
“It is,” Vane nodded, pulling up a simulated battle line of ships protecting a planet, and several Leviathan Battleships charging through it. “They could punch through fleet lines, unload thousands of troops in high or even medium orbit, and provide overwatch long enough for those troops to get to their objectives. Usually, those objectives were cities or critical installations that the defending fleet wouldn’t want to fire on indiscriminately. Then, the Leviathans could punch their way back out again to rejoin their own attacking fleets, and continue to hammer the defenders, forcing the defenders to ignore the ground forces behind their lines, on their worlds.”
“That’s right impressive there.” Jones muttered, watching the simulated battle play out. “What happened to ‘em?”
“The dynamics of space battles changed,” Vane shrugged, then pulled up new battle layouts. “More and more planets built better, more versatile and impressive planetary defenses and star bases. Cities and most critical installations had shield generators and defense turrets that could keep fleets of troop shuttles at bay, or even stand up to Battleship bombardment for hours or days. The rise of more and more system alliances, eventually leading to the rise of the Confederation, led to more and more battles being fought out in space only, where boarding parties tended to be a rarity in general unless the ships were already defeated.”
“That don’t explain why this design was practically phased out,” Jones argued, looking at the pictures of the simulated fights. “It looks tough as any Battleship out there, even today. Tougher in some cases.”
“Those were the practical, battlefield reasons, Colonel,” Vane explained patiently, pulling up new pictures; news articles and historical book quotes. “But political and economic reasons also played a role; the Caprian’s underbid the Anasazi on multiple, Sector wide contracts and orders for Battleships. And with few planets being outright invaded now, the Dreadnought class, with it’s large crew capacity and tough, rugged design that was more suited solely to space combat, became more appealing.”
Vane sighed almost sadly. “You might say that another part of it was simply that the Leviathans stirred up a lot of bad memories and old fears from those who had been subject to their wrath, and they didn’t want them around anymore. Or at least, not in their neck of the Spine.”
“So, how old is that battleship out there?” Archibald asked, wondering if it was so outdated as to no longer be a threat.
“Decades only, not centuries,” his Aunt-in-law replied, dispelling that thought. “The Anasazi still exist, and they still make their famous Battleships, just like Capria makes theirs, they just make and sell far fewer of them. We managed to get enough passive sensor data that we can put the age of that ship to about forty years or so.”
“Easily upgraded by the droids to modern day standards then.” Estrella concluded, looking back at the holographic image of the droid repair fleet.
“Very easily, Commander.” Vane agreed, looking at the picture of the Battleship uneasily. “I don’t know how that ship got here, but if it’s allowed to be fully repaired and upgraded, not to mention crewed by the Harmony Tribe,” she shuddered. “Well, let’s just say that current day times have largely come full circle; they could literally invade planets with that ship, backed up by whatever’s left of their fleet, and have a real shot at winning.”
