The Admiral and the Assistant

The ISS Swordheart popped out of jumpspace into the Garvin sector. It was coming back from refitting at the Copper Grove shipyards, heading back to rejoin the Ninth Fleet.

Admiral Grimthorn Stonefist stood in the captain's dais on the bridge of the Swordheart, watching the console with satisfaction. All ship's systems were performing well. His Kobold Assistant, Kinnit-- now his wife-- stood at his elbow, her sharp eyes darting back and forth as she tapped data into her scanner from the console. No doubt she was preparing the refit report.

Grimthorn glanced at his left hand. The unfamiliar weight of the ring on his finger still caught him off guard from time to time. He looked at Kinnit with a warm smile. He was quickly getting used to it, though.

"Sir, we have ships on scan," called Lieutenant Renning.

Admiral Stonefist frowned at the console. Six ships sat in the sector they'd just arrived at, arrayed around the jumphole.

"Unusual. If they're traveling, they should be moving to their exit jumphole, not hanging around this one. Let's get the weapons warmed up, just in case."

"Yes, sir," said Lieutenant Renning.

"We're getting comms from one of the ships, sir," said the comms officer.

"Very well. I think I know where this is going. Put it on the bridge monitor, please."

An image popped up on the monitor that covered two-thirds of the bridge. A woman appeared. She looked rough, as though her face had been used to drive in nails, but not particularly well.

"Ho, I had thought I recognized the stench of the Imperium," she said, "and here are the stenchiest ship of them all."

"This is Admiral Stonefist of the Ninth Fleet. Who am I addressing?"

She grinned, but not in a way designed to be comforting.

"I are Callista Sallo of the Iron Vulture Pirates, in the ship Gravelass," she said. "I know who you are, Grimthorn Stonefist. Your name sits on the fearful side of every pirate tongue." She gave a broad gesture. "It looks as though you did forget your fleet today."

Grimthorn subtly waved Kinnit over, keeping his hand below the level of the camera. He began tapping on his console as he spoke, keeping his eyes fixed on the pirate. Kinnit watched the little screen closely.

"The Imperium has asked me to moderate my approach to pirates, therefore I am giving you the opportunity to surrender," he said.

Callista Sallo scoffed.

"Surrender? I are not Navy-educated, but I can count high enough to know your ship is outnumbered six to one."

Grimthorn kept typing on his console. Kinnit darted over to the comms station.

"Send an emergency SOS to the Ninth Fleet," she whispered.

She ran back to the captain's dais and looked at the console again. Admiral Stonefist continued typing while keeping his eyes and his voice focused on the pirate. Kinnit loped over to the gunnery station.

"Port ion cannons to 17 degrees, decline 4. Starboard to 87, circular spread." Over to another station. "Mass driver to 179, do the best you can." Over to another station. "Scramble fighters, launch but stay close." Another. "Charge all the supercapacitors on the inertial dampers, reverse the flow to give us a kick."

Kinnit continued to the various stations around the bridge, whispering instructions to the bridge officers, and running back to read more off the little screen.

Back in the captain's dais, Admiral Stonefist was keeping the pirate captain engaged.

"You'll need a lot more than six cardboard crates if you want to stand against the ISS Swordheart, flagship of the Imperium," he said.

"Bold talk for a dead man," Captain Sallo said.

Grimthorn glanced at the data on his console.

"Are you certain you wouldn't like to surrender?" he asked.

Callista spat on the floor.

"That for your surrender. I'll do the same to your corpse, if there are one after I'm done business."

"All stations report ready, sir," Kinnit said to him softly.

"Good." Admiral Stonefist's expression became grimly satisfied. He turned to the pirate on the screen. "I didn't really want you to surrender anyway. All weapons, fire!"

All four of the Swordheart's torpedo tubes emptied themselves into the cold of space. They split off, two by two and streaked toward two of the ships surrounding the Swordheart. The twelve ion cannons pulsed, launching ion shells: six to one target, six to another, sending actinic blue pinpoints of lights into the darkness. The mass driver lobbed a dense, round chunk of depleted uranium at yet another ship.

"Engines!" Admiral Stonefist called.

The four engines of the Swordheart flared at full power. They were assisted by the inertial dampers, giving the ship an extra boost of starting power. The massive flagship lurched forward, driving toward the pirate ship Gravelass. The two fixed forward cannons of the Swordheart opened up, flaring huge red bolts of blaster fire at the enemy vessel.

Callista Sallo squawked.

"Treachery!" she cried. "Turn! Turn! 14 degrees starboard! Attack! Shoot them!"

The blaster fire from the Swordheart's cannons splashed against's the pirate's shields. The heavy pirate vessel lumbered over, turning away from the approaching Imperial attacker. The pirate's surface blasters slowly began returning fire as they warmed up.

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The port ion shells reached one of the pirate ships, detonating and spreading a blue-and-white cloud of ionic matter. The vessel's power flickered as its reactor was compromised, and its engines shut down. The shells that had been fired from starboard detonated around another target, and that ship's shields faltered. The mass driver missed its target, sending the dark lump spinning off into the depths of space.

"Turn to port," Admiral Stonefist called. "Keep that ship in front of our forward cannons and keep firing. See if we can get close enough to bring our short-range blaster turrets to bear. Torpedoes, ion cannons, mass driver, everyone rotate targets. Fighters, focus on the vessel without shields."

The torpedoes, two by two and traveling more slowly than the other weapons, streaked through the blackness, turning and orienting on their targets. One of the pirate ships opened up with its surface blasters, desperately trying to shoot them down. The other targeted ship turned, trying to avoid the torpedoes.

"That won't work out for you," muttered Admiral Stonefist, watching the details unfold on the main bridge screen. "You can't outmaneuver a torpedo."

The two torpedoes sailed through the shields and struck the pirate vessel amidships, detonating in a massive spray of flame and debris. The pirate's engines began dimming and surging, flaring and dying.

"Helm, what's our range to that vessel?" Grimthorn asked. "Her reactor's going critical."

"One-zero-eight miles, sir. Safe distance."

"Very good. Stay oriented on the leader."

The stricken ship vanished in a crackling explosion, an enormous ball of flame that quickly vanished in the airless void.

The other torpedo-targeted vessel managed to shoot down one of the torpedoes. The second torp sailed by, missing the ship. It began a wide, looping turn to come back around, but the slow maneuver gave the pirate's gunners more time to fire. The second torpedo was finally struck by blaster fire. It disintegrated harmlessly. The pirates didn't have a chance to celebrate, as they had to try to evade six fresh ion shells headed their way. The shells detonated, and the ship's starboard blasters went dark.

The Swordheart's fixed blaster cannons kept up a steady drumbeat of fire, the heavy bolts impacting the Gravelass' shields, sapping its energy.

"More power to the shields!" cried Captain Sallo, who was too busy to disconnect comms. "Evade that krellspawn!"

"The problem you pirates have," Admiral Stonefist said calmly to the harried image on his bridge monitor, "is that you never learn to fight. You only ever attack unarmed ships, and think that you've become great warriors." He scoffed. "The Imperium has warriors. You only have criminals."

A torpedo streaked toward the Swordheart from one of the beleaguered pirate ships.

"All blaster turrets, target that torpedo." Grimthorn hated to take even a small amount of pressure off the lead ship, but the torpedo was too dangerous to ignore.

The Swordheart's fighters swarmed around the shieldless pirate ship. Its blaster turrets worked furiously to keep the fighters away. They picked at it, nibbling off turrets, shield casters, surface armor, anything they could get their blasters on.

"Assistant Kinnit, assessment," Admiral Stonefist said.

"One pirate ship destroyed, sir, leaving five in action. Two ships are fully mobile and armed, including the Gravelass. The ship to port has dead engines, but can probably still fire. The ship to starboard is fully mobile, but half its surface blasters are ionized. No telling how long that will last. The ship to our rear, bearing two-zero-five by one-seven-zero, is engaged with our fighters, too fixated to pay attention to us."

Admiral Stonefist nodded in acknowledgement.

Captain Sallo, her face huge on the screen, continued shrieking orders to her crew. The Gravelass, heavy and slow, rolled over to bring her ventral torpedo tubes to bear.

"Fire all torpedoes!" she screamed. With a wry smirk, Admiral Stonefist disconnected comms.

"I think we've heard enough out of her," he said. "Weapons, keep the forward cannons on that ship."

The Gravelass spat a pair of torpedoes at the Swordheart, and the Swordheart continued relentlessly pounding the Gravelass' shields.

"Recharge the intertial dampers," Grimthorn said. "Helm, when the enemy torpedoes are within two miles, unload the full damper charge, juke us hard to port. All surface gunners, target the incoming torps."

"Sir," said Lieutenant Phet from the helm, "if we continue pursuit of the Gravelass, that will take us in range of the port ship with the disabled engines. We'll be within firing range of four ships."

"Acknowledged, Lieutenant. Weapons, focus all torpedo tubes on that port ship. They can't maneuver, let's get them out of this fight."

More torpedoes streaked away from the Swordheart. The incoming torpedoes from the Gravelass drew nearer.

"Helm, juke now!" Grimthorn called.

The superstructure of the flagship of the Ninth fleet groaned as the inertial dampers threw entire ship several hundred feet to starboard. One torpedo sailed harmlessly by, but the other swam in, past the rain of blaster fire, to detonate near the rear of the Swordheart.

"Proximity detonation, Admiral!" cried Lieutenant Renning. "Engine four is down, engine three is at half-power."

Admiral Stonefist swore.

"How are pirates getting these fancy torpedoes?" he muttered. "Any other operational damage?" he called.

"None, sir. Reactor is struggling to keep up maneuvers, with the missing engine."

"Understood."

The torpedoes the Swordheart had released sailed into the disabled vessel, striking it amidships. The explosions cracked the pirate ship in half. A beautiful rainbow spray of dissipating reactor antimatter spewed into space from the wreckage.

"Another ship down, sir."

"Admiral! The Gravelass is making for the exit jumphole!"

Admiral Stonefist grinned.

"Too late," he said. "That's an Tempest-class destroyer. They've been running the engines flat-out and their shields at full. That reactor's going to run out of juice any second now."

As if it had heard the cue, the shields of the Gravelass dimmed. The pounding cannon fire from the Swordheart finally overcame them.

Two massive cannon bolts pierced the shields and struck the Gravelass in the rear. The high-energy beams impacted the ship's engines and penetrated the hull, peeling the vessel open like a banana.

"Helm, turn us away from the exit jumphole. Bring us around to face the remaining pirates."

Lieutenant Phet opened his mouth to question the order, but closed it and did as he'd been told.

As the ISS Swordheart turned away from the jumphole, fast assault ships began streaming into the sector through it. The rest of the Ninth Fleet had finally arrived.

"Good to see you all," Admiral Stonefist said over comms. "You almost missed all the fun. If you would be so kind as to finish cleaning up this sector, I'd appreciate it."

The two remaining pirate ships turned to flee, but the strike ships of the Ninth Fleet did not give them the opportunity.

Kinnit saluted Admiral Stonefist. They were still on the bridge, wrapping up after the destruction of the Iron Vulture Pirates.

"That's another pirate fleet that won't be a danger to anyone," Admiral Stonefist said.

"Sir, I've contacted Imperial Disaster Management so they can mark this sector as having combat debris," she said. "They're sending a cleanup crew, and they'll have it cleared for civilian travel in a couple days."

"Very good. Any word back from Engineering about the damage?"

"Engine four is gone. Engine three may be salvageable, but it will need a complete overhaul. The reactor was overstressed, they'd like to get it checked out in a shipyard. Oh, and we lost three of the supercapacitors for the inertial dampers. Cracked due to overload. The hull has microfractures throughout the stern that need to be looked at."

"Back to Copper Grove, then." Grimthorn sighed. "I literally just got this thing out of the shop. I wonder if the warranty covers engine damage?"

Kinnit giggled.

"We have to deal with the pirates as they come," she said. She laid a gentle hand on his arm and looked up into his eyes. "Thank you, Grimthorn. For saving us again."

Grimthorn reddened slightly and cleared his throat, glancing around the bridge. Everybody suddenly found their consoles fascinating to look at.

"It takes an entire crew to run the Swordheart," he said. "This victory belongs to all of us." He paused and smiled a little. "I will say, though, that I do like this new tactic of giving pirates the opportunity to surrender. Gives us more time to set up an attack plan."

Kinnit sighed affectionately and rolled her eyes at him.