Lieutenant Commander Spacemage (Imperium Spacemage Book 4) Read online

  “Ready,” said Jill, from the other side of the console, rapidly followed by the rest of my squadron.

  “Go,” I said, and all thirteen ships first jumped into a line astern formation in front of the rift, we powered through, and once Jill on the end was through, we began jumping again.

  In under a minute, we appeared near to a jump point, but well above it, where below us a fleet of Rawtenuga battleships had staked it out, still in their normal wall formation.

  “How the hell did they get there?” asked Gitte.

  “They must have discovered a short cut,” suggested Mel.

  “Very likely,” said Tamsin.

  “Orders?” asked Woof, cutting off that discussion.

  I’d been looking down on the formation, and at the other side, where there was indeed a half dozen ships and two hundred fighters approaching the jump point. We didn’t have long to do something.

  The fastest thing to do was close the jump point, so it was done as soon as I thought of it. At the least, it would stop either side running into the others. I added extra intent to the other side so ships would come back out in a way they wouldn’t collide with any still going in. All the same though.

  “Tamsin, send the traders on the other side of the jump point a message to not approach the jump point until told it’s clear to use. Inform them a Rawtenuga fleet is staking out the other side, and even when dealt with, the jump point will be too dangerous to use until any mess is cleaned up.”

  “Sent.”

  Below us were sixteen battleships, all identical looking, and three times as big as Judge in terms of length and width. The obvious way of dealing with them was a rift dragged across their nice neat wall formation, but that wasn’t going to keep the pilots happy. We had thirteen capital ships, and sixteen squadrons, for sixteen targets. It made the math easy.

  “I want wall formations by squadrons, the shape of each wall so all fighters will fire direct into the front end of a battleship, without needing to strafe. Shift formation now.”

  I didn’t bother looking to see what they did.

  “Tamsin, I want jump-to locations for each squadron, and their destroyer. The squadron hits the front end, the destroyer hits the rear end. Judge gets three rapid jumps timed to torpedo fire rates, and three of the squadrons with fours attack synced to us.”

  “Confirmed.”

  “Formations completed,” said Eagle.

  “This is a one hit jump, people. We jump in, hit them with everything, and jump out within a second. No-one takes the time for a second shot.”

  “What if a second shot is needed,” asked one of the new squadron leaders.

  “Then we take the time to reassess back here, and then someone does it as a deliberate strike. There is to be no improvisation in this attack. Clear?”

  “Clear, sir.”

  There wouldn’t need to be a second attack, I was pretty sure of that.

  “Ready,” said Serena.

  “Jump in ten, except for the two squadrons syncing with Judge,” said Tamsin.

  We jumped, Judge suddenly behind the engines of a battleship. Serena fired everything, and we jumped again, fired again, this time just torpedoes, and again jumped and fired torpedoes. The last jump put us back where we started from, and Serena accidently fired a fourth salvo of torpedoes before she could get her finger off the button.

  The ships below us were in varying states of devastation. The first one Judge had hit was gone, with the other two missing most of their rear ends, and chunks of their noses. The ones the fives had hit were nothing but debris, while the ones the fours had hit still had damaged front ends, and intact middle sections.

  Only one ship looked like it still had power. I put a rift in front of the departing torpedoes, with the other end against the middle of the only ship with still moving gun turrets. They stopped moving when most of the middle of the ship vanished.

  “Damn,” said a pilot. “No second run.”

  “Not today,” said Eagle. “All squadrons, home jump.”

  In a blink, they all vanished from the navmap and HUD.

  “Salvage droids?” asked Loren.

  “No need,” said Gitte. “Bud will send what’s left to join the other fleets we disabled the other day.”

  And so I did. The interesting thing was, where I sent them now had what looked like Rawtenuga support ships trying to salvage what they could. There was a line of damaged ships being pulled by tugs in the direction of the nearest jump point. But I noticed they were only towing ships they must have thought they could repair. The rest, some with a third of their length missing, or the middle missing, were being ignored.

  With no debris left in this system, I reopened the jump point, and nodded to Tamsin to send the traders the news. Nothing had come back from the previous message, and none came back now either. The ships also hadn’t stopped either, and were almost to the jump point.

  “Put us in front of the jump point in a line abreast formation, Judge in the middle, but back out at titan range, so even if their fighters shoot at us, we get plenty of warning.”

  Serena nodded to the mirror she had in front of her so she could see me without turning, and then Tamsin turned and nodded to me as well. We jumped again, now facing directly at the jump point.

  The wait for the small convoy was something of an anti-climax. When they finally popped in, the fighters did indeed fire at us, from outside effective range. Leanne had a channel open before I could ask, since I was putting up a shield at the same time.

  “My Imperator’s complements to the Trixone fighters. You fought a great battle, you survived, and managed to avoid the Rawtenuga fleets on your way here. Alas, they beat you here, and waited in ambush. We’ve removed them for you. Have a good journey to your destination.”

  Their cruiser fire weakly hit my shield at that point, way beyond its effective hitting range. I let it flare as if being badly hit, and then dropped it, leaving us sitting there undamaged.

  “Jump us out of their path,” I ordered, and a blink later, were well above them.

  They hadn't slowed down, which had we been ordered to take them, would have been suicidal. They hadn’t fired a second time. Finally, a bridge showed up on the main screen.

  “The warriors with us will not respond,” said a white rat, in the center chair. “But on their behalf, we thank you for the consideration. We were not aware of any force being in front of us, but we have confirmed a fleet’s worth of debris has appeared suddenly in another system behind us. That may sound contradictory, but there are holes in local communications now. In any case, we thank you for your help.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  The channel closed.

  “Jump us back to the rift we came through,” I ordered.

  Four

  I left the bridge to Serena.

  My ready room was bigger than my previous one on Long Water, with both a conference table for six, and the same number of lounge chairs. The desk was bigger, and behind it was a larger display case where my medals and actual insignia were laid out for striking effect.

  I sat with my back to the case, and the ship status displays lit up on the wall opposite me. For the first time I pulled up a record screen, and set it running.

  “Admiral. The Trixone fighters are safe, as are the traders. The fighters fired on us, but the traders seems to be appreciative of removing a threat they didn’t know about. It seems their communications network in this area is partly compromised, probably due to enemy action.”

  “I can report that attacks of less than one second duration were effective, with no return fire reported. We were just too fast, with a capital ship hitting the stern, and a squadron hitting the nose. I’m not sure how long we’ll get away with this, but for now, I suspect it’s probably safe for other ships to use in the short term. You might like to suggest to the fleet admirals that attacks lasting less than a second might work against the Trixone as well, and if they can keep them below half a second,
only automated systems can possibly respond. In theory.”

  “Shakedown cruise completed. Awaiting further orders, sir. Lieutenant Commander Bud, out.”

  I stopped recording, reviewed it, wondered if having your awards behind you while talking to your boss was a good idea or not, and sent it to Admiral Jedburgh anyway. After all, I hadn’t put them there. It was only at that point I realized I could have talked to him in real time, since we were currently a rift away from Haven. But then, I wasn’t game to just request a chat with a four star admiral. If he wanted one, he’d call me.

  “Eagle on his way up,” said the voice of Leanne.

  “Send him in. And when you get a moment, move the medal case to where it’s not visible in a vid recording, and looks like a decoration instead of an ego wank.”

  The ‘Aye’ which came back was more of a laugh.

  Eagle strode in about a minute later, and took a seat across the desk from me. I saw his eyes go behind me.

  “Nice display,” he grinned.

  “Not my choice of where to put them, I assure you.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s a little blatant, and way too much like an ego running amok.”

  He laughed.

  “Glad to hear you say so.”

  “Where would you prefer them?” asked Leanne.

  “Actually, not in here at all. In the office in my quarters. But not where any vid I record will see them, and not in my line of sight as I sit at the desk.”

  “I’ll see to it while you’re at lunch. What would you prefer behind you?”

  I thought about it for a moment.

  “Three images. An Excalibur five, Long Water, and Judge.”

  “Noted.”

  “Good choice,” said Eagle, “but are you open to suggestions?”

  “Sure.”

  “Have two images, the same size. The one on the left is previous ships. The one on the right is your current command. And I’d include a Brawler and an Excalibur four on the left.”

  “Noted,” said Leanne, before I could say anything.

  I chuckled, and he grinned again.

  “Fine. Let’s see how they look. What can I do for you, Squadron Leader?”

  “I thought we should go over some ground rules, before someone sends us somewhere else.”

  “I was expecting a very boring day today, doing nothing more than formation flying.”

  “I was too. And we need to do some after lunch if we get the chance, just to get the new squadrons up to speed.”

  “Plan on that then. How are the pilots doing?”

  “You mean, are they satisfied with the plan of attack, and how well it went?”

  “That bad?”

  He chuckled again.

  “Not really, but it was only marginally more satisfying than being a mobile weapons platform that sits in one place.”

  “Practical reality at this point in time, for where we are. The dinosaurs don’t appear to have fighters, or at least we haven’t seen any yet, and if we take more than a second to jump in and fire, we’re going to lose people, or at least lose ships. And I’d rather we didn’t until the fours are all replaced with fives.”

  “That’s what I told them. All the same, fighter pilots never really do want to be bomber pilots. Never have. Bomber pilots were a different breed according to history, and we’ve not needed them in centuries. Anyone with that mindset joined the navy.”

  He grinned at me, and I took the joke and grinned back.

  The discussion got technical for a while, and we hammered out tactics for different situations, depending on who we were likely to fight now, and what sort of formation they’d be in. It turned out we thought very alike in a tactical sense, but I could tell he was hoping we saw more action against the Trixone than the Rawtenuga.

  “Oh, by the way,” he said as he rose to leave, “I authorized trying some of the Ralnor food we’ve had in storage for lunch. Your captains are invited to dine with us, each on their own ship. I thought we needed to get navy and pilots acquainted with each other a bit better, and trying exotic food seemed like a good idea.”

  “You want to prove navy and pilots all puke the same way?”

  He laughed all the way out.

  As it turned out, Ralnor cuisine was different, but not hugely so. Like us, they were omnivores, so they had a mixture of all types of food. Some of it tasted vile, but everyone was different in which did or didn’t. The after dinner Ralnor Port was as lethal as the liquors we’d already sampled, but with the limit being a small glass, no-one was either in need of medical attention nor intoxicated as a result of trying it.

  Quite a few of the AIs had sampled a separate buffet designed for single bite taste tests, and all of them tried the port. It was gratifying to see a big eagle spitting out a mouthful of what most had thought was ‘a good drop’. I wasn’t sure port was my thing though. It was a bit heavy and sweet for me. But we had nothing like it at home, so it was something different to try.

  Everyone got a half hour for their lunch to settle before we started to do formation training.

  Five

  I might have known we wouldn’t get the chance to train.

  I was no sooner back in my chair on the bridge, having decided I didn’t need more than a freshen up break myself, when Leanne stiffened, and a section of map went up on the main screen.

  “Distress call,” announced Leanne.

  “Who?”

  “The station we saved the other day. Their defense fleet made it back in time to intercept the next Rawtenuga fleet coming at them, but they were destroyed.”

  “How much damage did they inflict?”

  “It was a thirty two ship formation, and they lost twenty taking out sixty Trixone.”

  “The advantage of being all battleships, against mainly destroyers I assume. What’s the situation now?”

  “The dinosaurs have started boarding the station. While they have warriors who managed to get barricades up in time for some defense, they’re yelling for help.”

  “Are we going to help them?” asked Tamsin.

  “Yes. Open a channel to all ships.”

  “Open.”

  “All captains to your bridge. All pilots to your armoury. Prepare for station assault using combat suits. You have two minutes.” I thought for a moment and went on. “This is not a drill.”

  Heads popped up on the console rapidly, with all of my captains looking surprised, but ready for anything. Serena ran to her seat at the same time. Eagle’s head joined them as well, even though he appeared to be running hard.

  “Prepare to jump. We’ve got a dozen Rawtenuga ships to chase away from the station we helped the other day, while the pilots go in and clear the station of dinosaurs.”

  “How many on the station,” asked Eagle.

  “Unknown. Also unknown is if stunners will work or not.”

  “Understood. We try using stunners, but if they don’t work, we change to pulse rifles. If they don’t work, we try mesons.”

  His face shadowed for a moment as he dived into the back of his combat suit.

  “If the mesons don’t work?” I asked.

  “We go hand to hand.”

  “Better take swords then, as well.”

  “Roger that.”

  “Anything which can take a meson pulse isn’t going to care much about swords,” said Woof.

  “They will with the strength of a combat suit running them through,” said Norden.

  “Let’s hope they don’t need to find out,” said Gitte.

  “What about us?” asked Metunga.

  “We’ll wait and see what the situation is, and how long it takes us to deal with the ships.”

  “Seconds?” suggested Mel.

  “Not for any ship docked at the station, which decides not to come out and play.”

  “I can deal with that,” said Gitte. “Removing docking clamps is easy.”

  “Ditto,” said Haynes. “You want to rift the pilots in?�
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  “Yes, but wait until we find out where they’re needed.”

  “Jumping in five,” said Tamsin.

  “Put us where they can see us.”

  She didn’t answer, mainly because we were there anyway before she could. The station was off in the distance, with six of the twelve remaining ships between us. They immediately altered course to come at us, and three more detached from the station and followed after them. As far as I could see, the remaining three were damaged, and might not even be combat capable.

  A channel opened, and a Trixone with a red flower looked at me.

  “You came. And in bigger ships. We were beginning to think you would not. Can you help us?”

  “Give us access to whatever you have in the way of internal surveillance.”

  The flower looked to one side, which was strange, as it had nothing which looked like eyes. Then it looked back at me.

  “Done. We can’t stop them. Can you?”

  “We’ll find out shortly. Have your civilian population hide as best they can, and make sure your warriors don’t take offensive action against our troops.”

  “Already done, and the orders have been given. But we have very few warriors left. Please hurry.”

  The channel ended abruptly.

  Tamsin had the station internal layout up on a side screen, and it was rotating and changing levels too fast for me to keep up. Finally, it vanished, and she looked at me.

  “Ready,” she said.

  “What’s ready?”

  “The troop rifts.”

  “The what?” asked Woof.

  “Understood,” said Eagle. “All pilots follow your squadron leader.”

  “What am I missing?” I asked Tamsin.

  “Each of our ships have a marked area on the cargo deck, where a rift box is enabled. As soon as the ship AI feeds the box where the rift is to go, it will send anyone standing in the marked area. Works much the same as the jump drive.”

  “Who thought up that mad idea?” asked Dorm.