Turning Tides by John Walker

Author:John Walker [Walker, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-05-26T22:00:00+00:00

***

Bir smirked when the enemy battleship withdrew. He wondered if their defenses were strong enough to handle a full blast from his squadron. The fact they had to flee elevated his confidence. This rabble had no chance against his force. They were amateurs, children with loaded weapons they didn’t know how to use.

When they turned on his destroyer, he ordered them to drop the shields to twenty percent. The tactical advantage of losing that vessel made up for the resource depletion. Not only did it manage to cripple one of the resistance ships, but it also gave them a false sense of hope. The same hope that allowed Bir to give their largest craft a bloody nose.

Morale would suffer after the battle, but Bir was used to such things. His decisions rarely proved popular with the crew. No one ever confused him with being a soldier’s commander. No, he was an asset manager, moving people about as necessary to win battles. That meant the occasional loss.

“Sir!” Golen shouted, “the enemy destroyer that fled is on direct approach! They’re moving swiftly!”

“ETA?” Bir felt a tinge of worry, a sprinkled panic rising to his heart. He figured that vessel was well and truly crippled. How it could move again so quickly was beyond him. In fact, he’d hoped he might pick up some prisoners from it once everything was said and done. Locating the resistance base would’ve been easy.

“Thirty seconds!” Golen spun in his chair. “They’ve launched escape pods … shuttles!”

Bir slapped his com. “All ships, fire on the approaching vessel. Annihilate it! Take it down before—”

He couldn’t finish the command before the ship trundled directly into their midst and exploded in a spectacular fashion. The core went up, causing the most damage of the desperate gamble. Debris, massive chunks of the enemy hull, were cast in all directions. The Ascension tilted to the side as the artificial gravity struggled to keep up.

Lights went out, the ship shook as pieces from the destroyer slammed into their side. A computer voice overhead warned of a hull breach deep inside the ship. Bir found that coms went down as were the computer systems. The temperature in the room dropped by at least ten degrees before the power came back on, restoring life support and computers.

“Report!” Bir growled out the word. “I want to know how bad that was! What did they do?”

“Sorry, sir,” Golen replied, “the computers are just now coming back up. I’ll have a damage detail in a moment.”

“Coms?” Bir tried to bring up the other ships, cursing when it didn’t work. He tried his personal communicator but the interference from the explosion proved too great to get through. “We’re blind and mute, Golen. I’ll have you executed if you don’t fix those things immediately!”

“I’m working on it!” Golen sounded desperate, his hands flying over the controls.

Well played. Bir scowled at the blank screen. I should not have underestimated your desperation. You’ve made me pay for the mistake. We’ll see if it happens again.

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