Snippet 8 - Admiral Who

Chapter: 5


    The next morning it was a young admiral, red eyed from lack of sleep, who clomped his way to the armory. 

    I’d only managed to catch a few winks while sitting on that throne they called an Admiral’s chair.  I’d stayed up all night, certain that something bad was bound to happen and determined to be prepared to face the revolution when it stormed its way onto the bridge.

    Instead last night I was greeted by a sight that would scar me for life.  I was sure anyone who had seen the new Chief Engineer in all his sagging glory, decked out in nothing more than his underwear and a plasma torch, would agree.

    Fortunately the problem was with the ship’s old distributed intelligence system, not with the air supply.  It looked like time and a general lack of use had left a few bugs in the system, because there was nothing at all wrong with the sensor units themselves.  It seemed the problem originated in one of the ship’s sub-processing cores.

    The maintenance teams and the members of deck 3, roused from their sleep by the alarm klaxons, had gone back to bed and a system’s technician was called in to deal with the faulty sub-processor.

    The sheer amount of panic on the bridge and the half hour it had taken for first responders to arrive from other decks had showcased how badly the Lucky Clover needed to run some basic emergency drills.  A half hour to respond in a real emergency would have seen everyone on that deck dead of asphyxiation.  I shuddered to think how we would have done with an actual threat or, stars forbid, if somebody was actually shooting at us.

    One thing was certain (other than this ship’s crew needing more drills), and that was this battle suit was killing me.  The padding was very much not working in some places, which was why I found myself on the way down to the armory.  I was very much hoping to turn in the power armor for some further work, read padding improvements, and check out something a little less obtrusive in the way of protective gear.

    Over at the armory, Crewman Gants was a sight for sore eyes.  His two friends standing guard outside the blast door, armed with pipe wrenches, not so much.

    “Don’t worry, Admiral Sir,” he hastened to assure me when I glanced sideways at the pair of them.  “I don’t let them have anything more powerful than those wrenches while they’re on guard outside the armory.  Just in case someone gets any ideas,” he said laying a finger alongside his nose before leading me inside the armory proper.

    If the two pipe wrench wielding guards had given me pause, his half dozen friends inside the armory itself nearly gave me a heart attack.  Decked out in everything from strings of sonic hand grenades to flash-shotguns and outright plasma rifles, with one person carrying so many blaster pistols they were literally falling out of not only his pockets, but also his oversized utility belt.  The group looked like they were ready to start a war.  I wasn’t sure how much damage they could do to anyone other than themselves, but they’d enthusiastically loaded themselves down with as many weapons of war as they could  individually carry.

    I imagine that my voice, when it finally emerged, resembled a choking sound more than anything else, “Not quite what I had in mind when I asked you to guard the armory.”  I took a moment to gather myself together.

    “I know,” Gants said with a grin.  “This is much better isn’t it?”

    “It sure is something,” I said with a false tone of appreciation.  “They look like they’re wearing half the armory.”  I looked around at the ‘friends’ helping Gants guard the armory and shook my head in dismay when the crewman with all the pistols brushed against the wall and several blast pistols fell crashing to the ground.

    “Oh not even close,” Gants hastened to assure the little Admiral.  “These are just from one of the light arms lockers, we didn’t even put a dent in it when we took these ones out for cleaning,” he said proudly.

    “You were working on these,” I asked, waving my arm to encompass the whole motely-crew and their assorted weaponry.  “Fixing them?”

    “Yep.  A few were down checked for basic repairs, so we just pulled them out and started working on them.  Since we were stuck down here anyway,” He said proudly.  “Might as well make ourselves useful.”

    “I hope no one got hurt,” I said genuinely, trying not to imagine all the trouble they could have gotten into.  An image of an exploding power cell from one of the blast pistols flitted through my head, right past the one of poor Jean-Luc's final moments.

    “Oleander set off one of the sonic grenades,” Gants admitted then hastily added, “It was an accident.  Don’t worry, he’s on duty outside with a pipe wrench, guarding the door.”  Gants leaned closer and muttered, “It seemed safer to keep him away from the heavier ordinance, at least until after someone with more skill had a chance to look them over first.”

    By someone with more skill he clearly meant himself or one of the other happy hoodlums inside here with him.  I felt my blood pressure rising.

    I couldn’t risk leaving them in here all by themselves, who knew what kind of trouble they’d get into.  On the other hand, could I risk replacing them with a random selection of strangers from the crew?  At least from the looks on the faces of these grinning fools, they were happy enough to be down here playing around with the guns and pretending to guard the door.

    Although on second thought and after another glance at all the weaponry, I wasn’t sure just how much pretend was going into the guarding part.   Pretending could turn deadly serious with this many over-armed and overeager volunteers.

    I decided on a half measure until I had time to make a better decision.

    “How many of these men are checked out on the weapons they’re carrying?” I asked.

    “Checked out, Sir?” Gants asked cautiously, he looked concerned.  “Uh,” he glanced around the room, “well, I’m not entirely sure, Admiral,” he said, like a kid with his hand caught in the cookie jar and refused to meet my eyes.

    I frowned for effect, “Then for the meantime its sonic weapons only, Mister Gants.  See to it that everything else is returned to the small arms locker and sonic weapons are issued to the men down here in the armory.  Until your people have been trained in their use, properly trained, Mister Gants,” I said sternly.  “There’s no point in carrying around weaponry they don’t know how to use.”

    Gants opened his mouth and his fellow temporary armory guards looked dismayed but I overrode them all.

    “Help me get out of this suit of battle armor,” I said imperiously.  “I need something more comfortable to wear while I’m on the flag bridge, power armor is simply too big and clunky to be effective bridge wear.”  Pretending that this had only occurred to me after I’d spent the last day and night wearing the suit.







The Deposed King