Admiral Michael Ward

Location: CWS Agincourt, Yangon System, Eastern Block

“Hot damn! That’ll put some lead in your pencil!” ADM Ward grimaced as the medic popped his shoulder back in its socket.

Agincourt was coming around from her brave, courageous, or suicidal run – depending on who you asked – through the forts and launchers to deposit the boots on the ground. The massive assault carrier had made the run while the rest of the task force engaged the orbital fortresses. Despite being attacked from multiple angles, the fortresses still did their best to turn Agincourt into star dust.

They failed, but the carrier had undergone a minor ass whooping. Just looking around the flag bridge told that story. Fire suppression foam coated the CAG station. The Combat Air Group Commander was in charge of the small fleet of Spyders on board as well as the armada of drones. None of the staff from that section was injured, but the equipment was toast. The CMDR and her staff had hauled ass down to the CIC where a secondary station was set up and manned by an LT in case the bridge got hit. Since no one wanted a shavetail in charge of the carrier’s mobile firepower, the CMDR was looking to rectify that situation immediately.

Tactical was also a mess. The holo-tank at the center of that department was down. It had been knocked out by power disruption and damage support was working to get it back up. Unlike CAG, they had a man down. A CPO had taken a nasty spill during the same hit that had jerked the ADM’s shoulder out of its socket. A team of medics were looking over the CPO, but one was already pulling out a black body bag.

Disposing of bodies hadn’t changed much in half a millennia. The man would be put in the black bag. Admittedly, the bags were better. The polyplast would vacuum seal the body to preserve it until the spacer’s burial wishes could be ascertained. Then, they’d either be transported home, shot into the nearest star, or whatever else that person’s creed required. The ADM had seen, and presided over, his fair share of funerals.

As reports kept coming in, he knew he would see more in the next few weeks. Agincourt was currently swinging wide of the fortresses and launchers. She’d done her part and taken her licks to deposit the infantry troops. A pair of battlecruisers was covering her flank as the flag ship swung around and surveyed the scene.

The fortresses were on their last leg. One was already breaking apart from the relentless pounding of dozens of battleships. The second was already beginning to flounder. Just about all of the missile ports had been battered shut. Impact after impact had depleted shields, broken ES armor, and warped the duro-steel into something not even approaching something that could safely fire a missile. Trying to launch missiles from them was just going to do more damage to the fortress’ battered structure. The ADM assumed there might be crews working on ports on the dark side of the fortress, but it wouldn’t matter. Only a few energy weapons were taking pot shots at the powerful task force that was continuing to pound it into submission.

The fight hadn’t been one sided. The ADM checked his command holo-tank as status reports continued to stream in. They’d lost eight battleships in the fight. The space behind the advancing task force was littered with escape pods that made them look like a swarm of insects on STRATNET. Thousands of blinking emergency icons flashed in space, each relaying their occupant’s medical status. The ADM didn’t have more than a few seconds to spare looking at the escape pods. There was an entire team of spacers on every ship dedicated to looking over that information, contacting the occupants, gathering information, and then performing triage.

The ADM had done the job in two battles as a young officer. One as an ensign taking calls – this was back before they changed an O-1 to Lieutenant – and a second as a Lieutenant Commander coordinating the whole effort for a squadron of battlecruisers. The duty pulled at his heart strings, so although he couldn’t take much time looking at the holo-tank, he could take a moment to get briefed on it.

He opened a TACCOM channel to CIC where the officer leading the effort for Agincourt was working.

“Lieutenant Jefferson,” the voice sounded irritated, but the young officer saw the call was coming from the flag bridge.

“Lieutenant, Admiral Ward, brief me on the escape pod situation.” He waited a few moments while the LT got over the shock of talking directly with the fleet admiral.

“Yes…um…Sir…” The LT coughed and started reciting statistics.

One thousand twenty-seven escape pods

Three thousand three hundred and five confirmed spacers

Two thousand six hundred and ninety-three green status

Three hundred and eighty-seven yellow status

One hundred sixty-six red status that didn’t look like they were going to make it

And fifty-nine spacers that had gone black since entering the escape pods.

“How are they doing, Lieutenant?” The ADM could have looked the numbers up himself. He wanted to hear something from a man who’d talked to those spacers out there.

“What, Sir?”

“How are they faring? What are they thinking? What are you telling them?” The ADM didn’t have too much longer to speak, and his tone conveyed that.

“They’re scared, Sir. Most of them had their ships blasted out from under them. Some are hurt, and their buddies are trying to hold them together until we can retrieve them. They’re doing about as well as could be expected.”

“Good.” The ADM nodded to himself. “Keep working your way through those calls. Be professional, quick, but considerate. They’ll want to know everything, and you can’t give them anything. Reassure them that we’ll come for them as soon as possible.” The ADM knew he was telling the young officer how to do his job, but he had a little experience in this field, and he didn’t know how much practice the LT had.

He made sure the conversation went to the LT’s senior rater, so they could add it to the kid’s evaluation report. It wasn’t often that a LT got to talk directly with an ADM. It made for a few good bullet points on the OER.

The ADM cut the line and focused back on the holo-tank. The final fortress seemed to have lost power and was spinning at an odd angle off into space. The launchers were clear.

“Get me a SITREP from Captain Simpson. We need to know those Launchers’ statuses before we move to support the rest of the fleet.”

It would take the Infantry Brigade Commander twenty minutes to get back to the ADM, but he spent the time looking over the other task force’s progression. The second half of Third Fleet was steadily progressing toward its objective. Yangon-2’s planetary defenses were responding. The information was out of date because of the extreme distances, but the ADM could see the Blockie defensive forces moving into position to intercept the inbound task force. The planet’s fortress was moving into position over the planet’s capitol, and all civilian traffic was scattering.

The outcome of the battle wasn’t in question. The Commonwealth task force outnumbered the Blockies over two to one, and the RADM that Ward left in charge was a competent commander. He was advancing quickly to meet the enemy on favorable terms. As the attacking force, violence of action was always paramount. The more time the defenders had to prepare, the harder it would be for the RADM’s forces to put them down. Despite his main force’s rapid push toward the inhabited planets, a screen of destroyers seeded with cruisers was spreading out towards the planet’s far flung infrastructure. ADM Ward watched the antimatter blooms of proximity kills on STRATNET as those ships took out refineries, drilling rigs, and any ships stupid enough to be in the area. Destroying system infrastructure was one of Operation Winter is Coming’s secondary objectives, and he was already seeing results.

“I have Captain Simpson for you, Sir.” The LCDR manning the communication’s station had a deep cut above his eye that had recently been sprayed with Insta-Flesh.

“Give me some good news, Jack.” The ADM kept his eyes on the holo-tank as the Captain spoke.

“Launchers Alpha and Charlie are offline. Our spec ops teams were able to get in and take the command centers while the main infantry thrust engaged the garrison forces. Bravo’s team was lost in transit, but we’re making a push to that command center now, and if all else fails, we’re close to taking engineering and we’ll shut off the power.”

“Sounds like things are going as planned.”

“Roger that, Sir. Hopefully in the next few hours all three launchers will be completely under our control.” The Captain sounded pleased with himself.

The ADM didn’t bother him by asking for casualty figures. This wasn’t the time, and those numbers would only change in the coming hours. “Do you need anything from us?”

“My men could use some resupply now that those fortresses are down. We’ve got LZ’s set up on all three. It’ll be a tough run into Bravo while that command center is still up, so start with Alpha and Charlie. I’ll let the CAG know when Bravo is clear.”

The ADM wasn’t sure if Agincourt would be the one offering the resupply. Their own engineering department was still doing damage control. If the ship was deemed too dangerous to continue to assault then it would station itself at the Launchers, but that wasn’t what the ADM wanted. He wanted to get back in the fight.

“We’ll keep you apprised of things up here. Regardless, we’ll take a support force here with the capability of recovering your men if we need to move the rest of the task force toward the planets.”

“Yes, Sir.” The Captain sounded a little apprehensive, but that was the nature of the Infantry-Fleet relationship. The grunts on the ground didn’t want to get left behind on a stationary target, but the skippers made those calls. More than one bad call over the centuries had led to some bad blood in the water between the two branches.

The ADM wasn’t worried about that though. Everything he saw said he had the upper hand, and once the last Launcher was shut down, he’d have dominance over transportation in and out of the system.

“Ward, Out.” He cut the connection and leaned back in his command chair.

His shoulder was sore, but he could move it just fine. Damage control was still making its rounds and reports were still coming in. The first battle was won, but the war was still on, and the infantry on those Launchers was still knee deep in it.

***

Lieutenant Daniel Wong

Location: Launcher Alpha, Yangon System, Eastern Block of Nations

Ox Platoon was coming back in ones and twos. Daniel made sure they got immediate medical attention. Even the ones that weren’t physically hurt got sent to the medics for evaluation. Combat like they had experienced could cut deeper than flesh.

Ox Platoon’s LT had fallen in battle, and Daniel silently mourned her loss. LT Hun had been a dedicated soldier and party member. He’d shared drinks and stories with her, and knew enough about her personal life to feel the sting of her death, but he couldn’t focus on that now. He’d lost contact with the MAJ over an hour ago. He was pretty sure the Collies had cut the hardline communications imbedded into the Launcher. Several shockwaves had flung him and his men off their feet during the battle for the Launcher, and one had come right before the blackout.

Ox Platoon didn’t die without a fight. He’d reviewed the armor data showing they killed just as many imperialists as they’d lost, but a one for one exchange rate was not going to win the day. Thankfully, Daniel had a few tricks up his sleeves before he went to join his ancestors.

“Place them here and here.” He highlighted points on his HUD and transmitted the coordinates to his men.

The placement would give him overlapping fields of fire on the single approach to Engineering and the core at its center. Since engineering was one of any spaceborne structures most vulnerable points, the designers of the Launchers had taken that into consideration. One broad hallway led to the section’s only entrance. For the imperialists to reach Dragon Platoon’s entrenched position they would have to walk through a hail of gunfire.

Daniel would make sure his men died with honor, and could look back on their lives with pride when they entered the afterlife. He would fight until his dying breath because there was no greater dishonor than surrender.

“Here they come.” His outermost sensors pinged as a large force approached.