Snippet 22: The Engineer

Snippet 22: The Engineer


He was the very model of a modern outdated space engineer.


 A figured loomed over the old engineer with something bright and metallic in its hand.  Barely able to concentrate over the line of fire running down the middle of his chest, he still managed to get his right hand in between himself and the figure.

 Wandering fingers found an arm and locked on with all the intensity a dying man could muster.

 "Let me die," said the old man.  "I've had a good run."

 "Let go of me you ornery old coot," said the grey haired Doc trying to pull away.

 "Just like my good lads on the hull," the old engineer continued blinking back tears.

 "You're not going to die.  Now keep your grabby hands off of me," the Doctor said struggling to release his arm.

 "Didn't you hear me," said the old engineer pulling the Doctor closer.  "Its my time.  Don't try to keep me alive any longer.  Just let me go.  There's others that need you more than a washed up old has been like me," his hand spasmed and he released the grey haired Doctor.

 The Doctor stood up and straightened his lab coat.  "Just like a little spoiled boy whose toy got broken.  Oh woe is me, woe is me.  Life can't go on."  He mimed the rending of his garments.

 "Who you calling boy, Sonny," coughed the old engineer to the grey haired Doctor.

 "You know what, you are right," snapped the doctor.  "There're lots of others who need that bed more than you do.  Get your cantankerous old self out of my Infirmary and into your own bed for a change.  We don't need any free loaders here in medical right now."

 The Engineer half rose out of his bed before the line of fire down his chest caused him to lay back with a grimace of pain.

 "Can't you see I'm dying, you dumb quack," he gasped.

 The Doctor threw his hands up in the air.  "What a bunch of space-rot," he said, placing his hands on his hips.  "Oh, don't save me.  I'm as good as dead already.  No one should waste the effort on such a pitiful, spoiled old brat like me, blah, blah, blah,"  he said in an imitation of a little girls voice.  Then leveled a finger at the old engineer.  "Its too late to let you die, I already saved you.  You ungrateful old tyrant," he said, then muttered something under his breath.
 
 
 "What," the old engineer asked incredulously.  "But I can still feel the fire in my chest every time I move or take a breath."

 "Just like an engineer," scoffed the Doctor, "he feels a little pain and he thinks the job's not even started.  The human body's not like one of your mechanical contraptions.  When you give it a tune up, things hurt afterwards.  That's how you know you're still alive."

 Junior Lieutenant Terrance Spalding lay back in his bed with a sigh.  Then a thought occurred to him and he picked up his head.  "You didn't give me one of those shoddy mechanical hearts," he demanded.  "I've seen the specs on those things and they aren't reliable for more than forty years of heavy use."

 The Doctor shook his head.  "If you'd come to me two years ago, this wouldn't be a problem.  You're old, old man.  These things wear out, especially at your age.  If I had the time and equipment I'd have just grown you a brand new heart."  He turned away, "Forty years of hard work," he muttered in disbelief after glancing away from the aged engineer.

 "What the blazes did you do," the old engineer demanded, bordering on furious.

 "I removed a few blockages in your tubes, and worked a bit on some of the areas with dead muscle.  Like I said, a tune up.  It's amazing what modern medicine can do, even with a bunch of old, worn-out and outdated equipment like we have here on the Lucky Clover."

 "Hey, that's first rate equipment," the Chief Engineer protested, unable to stay silent when someone was knocking something on the Clover.  Even when it was the medical equipment they were talking about.  Besides, as he was the one that swiped some of that 'old, outdated' stuff from one of their sister ships before she went to the breakers, he felt a little bit of personal pride was at stake.  He'd known the Clover would need a fully equipped medical suite someday, it looked like he'd been right once again.

 "Maybe fifty years ago it was still considered top line.  Now it wouldn't be out of place on a run down civilian passenger ship," said the Doctor.  "Times change, you know."

 "Bah," said the Chief Engineer.  "Go away and leave me be.  Can't you see there's a sick man in here?"  Despite the sound of raised voices and lots of activity out in the rest of the infirmary, the ornery old officer refused to budge.  Too sick, he decided, not trusting the wild claims made by the Clover's medical staff.

 "Outdated.  I'll show him outdated.  He's the one who's outdated, not anything on the Lucky Clover," muttered the Chief Engineer under his breath.   "He's just afraid to admit it, he is.  Ha!"

 The Doctor left as instructed, but a few minutes later came back.  Pulling aside the curtain, he revealed a sick bay full of men, women and children.

 Children!  What were a bunch of kids doing on the Clover?  Pushing their way through the overloaded infirmary was a small delegation of from engineering.  The Chief Engineer turned away.  He couldn't face them.  All he could think about was the men lost during the ramming.  Men he'd failed to keep safe.

 Ignoring the hubbub outside his small bed area, he faced the Doc.  "How many boys did I lose out there, Doc," he asked, choking back the inevitable  tears.

 The Doctor hesitated.

 "Just give it to me straight," he said.

 "I think it's too soon for this kind of talk," he started, but at the engineer's raw look, he relented.  "The final tally is 6 dead on the hull and 53 knocked off the hull and eventually recovered."

 The engineer who'd closed his eyes as soon as he knew he was getting the bad news waited for more.  When he realized that was it, his eyes popped open in surprise.  Anyone dead was still one too many in his book.  But he'd expected the final tally to number in the hundreds.  They'd rammed another ship while a whole work shift was on the hull.

 "How could that be," he wondered.  "I felt the impact!"

 "Well," said the Doctor, "we found crewman Pitt electrocuted in the bottom of a laser turret, not a hint of shrapnel in him, so there's no way to tell when he perished.  The other five..." he trailed off and looked away.

 The Chief Engineer, who had been about to wave away details, looked up sharply at the Doc's hesitation to give him the straight download.

 "What happened to them, Doc," he said grimly.

 "Well, as best we can tell," the Doctor said a little shame faced to be saying this, "They were men who weren't even supposed to be on the hull.   They were assigned to main engineering at the time.  It seems... well from the equipment we found with them it looks like they were moving an illegal liquor still they'd hidden down in one of the laser pits, when the shrapnel cut them to pieces."

 "Names," asked the chief engineer his eyelids squeezed tight.

 "Castwell, Burke, Helio, Smith and Johnson," the Doctor said in a low voice.

 "Castwell," he sighed, he'd always know that man would come to a bad end.  A natural born slacker, if ever he'd seen on.  Still, for all his other failings, the man had a natural touch when it came to handling the bucking cables.

 "When you write up the report, remember, their families don't never need to know they died abandoning their posts for liquor," the Chief Engineer sighed again.

 "Well," the Doctor said briskly, "Fortunately our shields were full strength forward and we only hit two cutters.  For a ramming event the shrapnel was pretty minimal and really only hit the port side, the one you were on.  As far as the damage to the ship that was minimal also," He gave the chief engineer a level look.

 "There are a few men about to come over here and thank their Chief Engineer for saving their lives and giving the command crew a piece of his mind,"  he grabbed hold of the Chief Engineer's wrist, "I've got over eight thousand refugee settlers to take care of and another fifty thousand spread all throughout the convoy.  I'll not have this ship torn apart by sectarian violence."

 The engineer glared at the hand holding his wrist, his other hand unconsciously reaching for his missing plasma torch.

 "Praise Saint Murphy that we only lost six men and five of those in part thanks to their own greed and stupidity.  Watch and make sure it doesn't happen again, certainly.  But think!  The way this ship is staffed right now, mistakes, grave mistakes that cost lives are going to happen.  Let it go.   Whatever feud you've started with the Admiral, put an end to it.  He's offered a pardon for all those involved.  The last thing we need is engineering feuding with the bridge crew.  So just take a deep breath and go say hello to those grateful men outside and turn their energies in a positive direction."

 "The little Admiral can take his Pardon and introduce it to the reactor core," growled the Chief Engineer.

 The doctor drew himself up severely.  "The 'Admiral' just saved a quarter of a million lives from pirates who had already blown up one ship and slaughtered close to fifty thousand helpless settlers.  He did it using an old, unarmed ship that barely has enough men to operate it effectively and his actions only cost the lives of six men from engineering," the Doctor hissed, "Six.  Stop crying over spilt milk and thank Murphy twice over, the price tag was  so low."

 Spalding growled.  "I'll think about it," was all he said before deliberately turning away from the Doc.

 When the men from his engineering department arrived, pirates, empires and Admirals, along with all of their problems melted from his mind.

 Seeing the beaming faces of his engineering crew was like a shot in the arm for the old spacehand, and before he knew it he was on his feet with only the steadying hand of one of his crewmen.

 "It's great to see you, Chief," said one of the men.

 "Yeah, sir.  If it weren't for you there'd be a lot of families missing their sons and daughters when we get back home to Capria," said another with a grateful look at the Chief Engineer and a darker look in the general direction of the Bridge.

 "Belay that stuff and nonsense, Parkiny," said the Chief Engineer, refusing to let the good mood leave him now that it was here, "and tell me about my ship!"

 From a position up on his feet, things seemed much brighter than they did lying in a bed in sick bay, asking to die.  Seeing the faces of so many grateful refugees was surprising, but gratifying as well.

 After looking at a twelve year old girl with a bloody nose from compression sickness leaning against the wall because there was no place to sit down,  it just didn't seem right to stay in the infirmary.  How could he take up a bed when there were others that needed it worse?

 Before he knew it, his men were chattering away in his ear about the next big point transfer they were going to make on behalf of the refugees.  For some reason or other the Prometheans had nowhere else to go, and before he knew it he was on his way to engineering.  He even had to stop a passel of overenthusiastic engineers waiting outside in the corridor from carrying him up on their shoulders.

 "You're all nothing but a bunch of blue-faced idiots.  I'd smash my head on the ceiling for sure!   For shame, being away from your posts at a time like this," he said with more than a note of affection buried beneath his gruff facade.  He just didn't have the heart right then to reprimand them for slacking off, not like they deserved.

 He wasn't feeling very affectionate several hours later when they crashed out of hyperspace and the ship started shuddering around him.

 "What have they done to us this time," yelled Lieutenant Spalding.

 He gestured to a group of power room technicians, "You bunch monitor the power core, while I work on modulating the stabilizers," the Chief of  Engineering yelled, fingers flying over the work console he'd just been sitting at until that moment.  "The last thing we need is an emergency core shut down."

 He fine-tuned the stabilizers and realized the ship was still shaking and shuddering around them.  Clearly they weren't the issue.

 "Oh gods, we're all going to die!" A large mechanic screamed as the ship gave another big lurch and the normal space drive went to maximum burn.

 His console chimed indicating an incoming call and one of the bridge crew appeared on his screen.

 "Admiral says to catch the prize ships with bucking cables if they break fee and fall off," said a scared looking bridge stander.

 "Go away you idiot, I've got more important things on my plate than a couple of prize ships," said Spalding, fingers flying as he checked to make sure the power core was stable.

 "But Sir!  They're full of refugees.  The fall into the atmosphere will kill them, for sure," pleaded the bridge-man.

 He gave the crewman on his screen a flat look and cut the connection.  Atmosphere!  What atmosphere, what had those boys on the bridge gotten the ship into this time,  "You sleep the day away and half the night to boot and when you wake up everything's gone all topsie-turvy," he cursed, fumbling for his override crystal so he could bring up the controls for the bucking cables.

 "Is it too much to ask for one smooth point transfer out of this bridge crew, just one!" he demanded of the space gods.  As usual, the space gods chose not to answer.  "That's all I ask.  Just one."

 When the pirate cruiser, now apparently full of refugees broke free of the ship it was all he could do to catch it and then keep the bucking cables from snapping.

 "Hold together, my fine one," he encouraged the Lucky Clover as gee forces pushed him into his chair.  "You can do it.  I know you can."

 Eventually, the shaking gentled down to a harsh vibration.  Well, harsh for normally very much in fine tune normal space engines.  He could feel it anyway.  Even though the rest of engineering gave a cheer when the shaking stopped.

 He didn't see anything else fall off the hull, so whatever other ships they were worried about on the bridge must have stayed put because there was nothing on his screen.

The Deposed King 

Snippet 21

Chapter: A bad Transition


 We emerged from hyperspace with a crash.

 "Sweet Murphy, what was that," said Officer Tremblay as the ship shook.

 "Point Emergence," Screamed the Navigator.

 "I know that," snapped Tremblay, grabbing a hand hold to steady himself as the ship shook from side to side.  "What just happened?  Are we under  attack?"

 "Oh, my gods,"  Yelled one of the Sensor Operators then gave a girlish scream.  On the main screen an image suddenly appeared.  A large blue-green  planet with several large brown patches on its continents dominated the entire screen.

 "That's Tracto VI," cried another sensor operator.

 "I've never seen anything like it.  The Inertial Sump broke, it just broke.  It's gone and I didn't even light the main engine," said a horrified  Helmsman DuPont.

 "This is theoretically impossible," exclaimed the Science officer, sounding both intrigued and alarmed.  "There's supposed to be no way you can point transfer this deep inside a gravity well and survive."

 "Spin us around and get us out of here," roared the First Officer, but the helmsman remained paralyzed at his console, "That means light the engines and get us out of here, you fool," snarled Tremblay, lunging out of the signal section and struggling for the Helm.

 With a sudden, spastic jerk, DuPont snapped back to reality and leaned forward over his console, fingers flying at the controls and the ship gave another sudden lurch.

 The bridge crew was watching the catastrophe playing out on their consoles or, if they didn't have anything important right at the moment, on the main screen.  People who could do something were doing it.  For everyone else, it was like watching a train wreck.

 Everyone who knew anything important was busy trying to save the ship.   Everyone except yours truly.  Because, truth be told, I didn't know anything important, I was in absolute mortal terror, and there was nothing really for me to do.  I tried to remind myself that even in a real fleet the Admiral didn't deal directly with flying the ship, he dealt instead with directing the ship and any other vessels in their formation in the right direction.  Still, I felt  utterly useless.  I was useless.  

 Wait a minute.  What about the other ships.  There were some strapped to the outside of our hull!

 I jumped out of the Throne and almost fell down.  "Modulate our shields so we don't burn up, and someone man the bucking cables," I ordered, grabbing the arm of the Admiral's Throne and pulling myself back inside.  "We still have a pirate cruiser and several cutters full of refugees welded to the hull.  If they fall off and we don't catch them, they're as good as dead!" 

 "We can't pull directly away from the planet," cried the Helmsman, "We're going to have to slingshot around.  We're in too close."

 "Do it, man," growled the First Officer.  "Just get us out of here."

 "I think I have a partial answer," said the Science Officer.  "This system has large deposits of Triullium, the substance used to make the star drive work."

 "Initiating full burn now," said the Helmsman, "we're going in!"

 Engines that normally vibrated when used in deep space, growled as gee forces pressed myself and everyone else on the flag-bridge back in their chairs.

 I growled wordlessly as I strained against the increasing pressure brought about by our acceleration.




The Deposed King

Snippet 20 - The Admiral

Chapter:


    I was back on the Admiral’s Throne when Lieutenant Tremblay turned to me.

    “I think that’s everything we can squeeze in, Admiral,” he said with a frown.  “The final tally from the all the ships including ours is…” he glanced  at his handheld, “54,341 survivors loaded in various stages of discomfort.  Every cargo hold and spare crawl space has been packed to the rafters with settlement gear from the Promethean ship,” he finished, sounding relieved.

    “Final sensor sweeps have turned up no life signs and a visual check has been performed by our shuttles?” I asked, still reeling from the disastrous incident involving engineers and an ill-conceived ramming maneuver.

    “Sensor sweeps are negative and visuals turned up no movement.  I think it's safe to say we found everyone who was still alive and transferred them to a functioning ship.  By this point, space suits would have run out of power and since we’ve already done a visual sweep of the Promethean Settler, we can be confident there’s no one left aboard that hulk,” said Tremblay.

    “Alright," I said with more than a hint of relief in my own voice, "then make sure the two Settlers have finished their calculations and locked in the coordinates for our new destination.  I want to make sure there are no problems like we had with our two missing medium cruisers.  Then put me on with the captains in command of the Corvettes,” I said with a wave directed to the communications section.

    “Yes, Admiral,” said Officer Tremblay turning to the console in the signals section he was sitting at.  After a couple minutes he turned back.

    “The Setter ships confirm the calculations have been made and course locked into their navigation computer."  He sighed heavily before continuing, “they also wish to, once again, raise the point that the system we are jumping into is listed as a Protectorate World and on the Imperial Proscribed List banning all merchant marine and provincial government travel of any kind to this world and system.  The Confederated-Imperial Navy and the Confed-Imperial governmental ships are the only ones allowed entry into the system, even in the case of an emergency.”

    I waved a hand dismissively.  “I don’t give two figs for the Empire’s Proscribed List,” Tremblay opened his mouth to continue but I cut him off again, “as for the more realistic, although remote concern of possible automated defenses for this Protectorate World.  That’s why we’re going to point transfer in well away from the world we’re targeting, to give us enough time to scope out the situation,” I finished smoothly.

    “Admiral, I know you disagree.  But in light of the possibility of automated defenses, I have to once again and for the record strongly urge that we choose another system to jump to, while there’s still time to change course,” said the First Officer.

    “Noted,” I said, trying to keep the annoyance from finding its way into my voice.  “Noted and noted again.  I know you think any risk is too great and maybe you’re right, but we won’t know until we get there.  At least we do know this world can support the Prometheans.  Remarkably, we have more information in that regard than they do in their more up-to-date database.  All they have is a great big Restricted sign over any useful information.  We at least have basic geographical and biological compatibility studies in our files.  The same can’t be said for sure about any of our other destinations.  We might think they can make it on some sub-prime, marginal world, but who knows.”

    “I realize that, Sir.  But…” the first officer trailed off in defeat.

    “The final determination is mine to make, and I’ve made it,” I said as kindly as I could to the man who constantly disagreed with me.

    “It's just that every jump, every single point transfer we’ve made since the Imperials have left has taken us,  deeper into the Rim and further away from home,” Tremblay said, his shoulders slumping.

    I pursed my lips and nodded.  I could understand the desire to get home.  It wasn’t as acute for me since I fully expected parliamentary trouble upon my return.  I could sympathize with missing your homeworld and family, though.  It would be nice to see my mother, even if just to touch bases and make sure she was alright.

    “I make the best decisions I can in the time I have to make them.  I know you don’t always agree with me,” I said, trying to build some positive rapport.

    The First Officer snorted.

    “Alright, you almost never agree with me,” I said with a cool smile.  “Still, I like to think we’ve done some good out here.”

    Lieutenant Tremblay gave a reluctant smile.  Then grinned, “Admiral, if you keep going on like this, I think we’ll soon fall off the map,” he exclaimed.

    I gave him a sharp look, unsure if I had just missed a barb of some kind.  I decided to take it at face value as an attempt at humor, and even though it was a poor one, I did my best to smile back.

    “I’ll get you home, Tremblay,” I promised, then hastened to add, “Although there might be a few side trips along the way.”

    “That’s what I’m afraid of, Sir,” said the First Officer.  “The side trips.”

    An uncomfortable silence followed.  It was a relief when routine ship matters (if anything could be called routine in a ship half filled with crew and the other half filled to the brim with refugee colonists) called the First Officer away.

    Now that every dissenting opinion had once again been heard, and its bearer sent away to deal with other matters, I had nothing to do for several hours but sit back and worry that maybe the naysayers were right.

    As events with the engineers on the hull had proved, I wasn’t infallible.  Unlike in school, when a mistake would only cost me a sharp rebuke from a professor, when I make mistakes as an Admiral, people died.

    "Admiral, the Caprian ship is hailing us," the chief communications officer stated matter-of-factly.  I gestured toward the main screen and the image of the hatchet faced woman Captain appeared.

    “Are you sure I can’t talk you out of this,” asked the Confederate Captain.

    In the last hours I had familiarized myself with her name and rank.  She was Lieutenant Commander Synthia McCruise, and with the death of her fellow ship captain during the pirate boarding action, she was in undisputed command of the two corvette escort.

    I groaned quietly, trying to maintain composure.  “If you disagreed with my decision, why didn’t you say something earlier, Commander McCruise?”

    “I didn’t say anything before because I’m not sure I disagree with you, and besides it's not like I could stop you even if I did,” she said with a shrug.

    I paused and considered her carefully.  “Still, if you thought I could be making a mistake, you should have said something,” I said guardedly.  "You owe that much to your passengers and crew."

    She looked at me seriously.  “Every decision we make as commanding officers could be a mistake.  We have to go forward with the best information we have at the time and make a decision.  Besides,” she gave a smile, that on any other woman I would have called impish, “if I really disagreed with you, all I’d have to do is say that I didn’t and then make sure when you jumped that the two Settler ships and I high tailed it to an alternate location.  There’s no point in picking a fight with a heavy cruiser,” she said pragmatically.

    My mouth hung open, stunned at Commander McCruise's frankness.

    She smiled again, “Its not like you even bothered to slave their Nav systems to your own.”

    I covered my mouth with my hand.  Then coughed.  I hadn’t even known I could do that.

    “That and the genuine rescue effort you guys have been running, clued us in that you weren’t just another cagey pirate with a good line to sell,” she said seriously.

    “You still think we might be pirates,” I said aghast.

    “Nah,” she said leaning back in her chair.  “Real pirates would have posted guards inside the bridges of both settlerships.  If you were a pirate you’ve done a pretty incompetent job of it.”

    Incompetent!  Is that how she thought about me and my ship.  “Well, we did take on around sixteen thousand refugees,” I said, playing devil's advocate in a desperate attempt to regain my footing.  “I suppose if we were real pirates, we’d have sixteen thousand slaves anda hold full of settlement gear right about now,” I said with an arched eyebrow.

    She threw back her head and laughed.  “Real smart there, Mr. Pirate Genius.  You just outnumbered yourself two to one,” for a moment she looked  reflective, “Your prize ship is empty except for a few engineers.  So you just lost that ship right off the bat, as soon as you tell you new slaves what you have planned for them.  There’s no way a bunch of settler types are going to take a little thing like slavery sitting down,” she paused.  “I suppose at two to one odds on your own ship, if you armed your crew before hand you’d have a pretty good chance of putting down the uprising.  However, a lot of your systems are going to be destroyed.  If nothing else, they'll get shot up by your own men.”

    I smiled thinly, but felt absolutely glum.  “Yeah, not the smartest move ever made by a pirate kingpin,” I said playfully.

    “Really, you should think about slaving the navigation of any ships you are jumping with in the future,” she said.  “Just don’t try it with my Settlers.  I’ll be following behind in my Corvette just as soon as we’re able and will deal with any monkey business upon arrival, so be warned,” she said sternly.

    In the end, I didn’t change my mind and when every ship that could make the jump was ready, we simultaneously point transferred into hyperspace.


The Deposed King

Snippet 19 -The Admiral

Chapter: The Relief Effort



    What a relief it was to stop worrying about battles and boarding actions that killed people and focus on just saving lives.

    As expected, it was confusion on the bridge and all throughout the ship as the entire crew prepared to receive survivors and then actually started picking them up.

    While we were still busy with the first phase of the rescue effort, the second corvette was retaken along with the pirate cutter still mysteriously attached to her.  It seemed the corvette’s crew had barricaded themselves in engineering and the armory room and weathered the pirate storm until her still active sister ship could arrive to save the day.  As best the corvette's officers could tell, during battle the cutter captain and all of her officers had been killed and so no one alive had the necessary codes to undock the cutter and make a run for it.  Most of the pirates inside had been unaware of this, still under the impression the pirates were winning the battle for cold space, all the way until the jacks arrived.

    But even if both corvettes and the cutter had been completely empty, there was no way the three relatively small vessels could take an appreciable fraction of the survivors from the broken settlement ship.

    Fully loaded, as that settlement ship had been, she carried just under a hundred thousand settlers and all the equipment and supplies they thought they were going to need when they reached their new home.

    Even with our best rescue efforts, if we saved even half of those settlers, I would have no choice but to count it as a win.  Rescue operations, like medical triage, must be viewed with a 'glass half full' mentality at all times in order to maintain focus and efficiency.  The pirates had done incredible damage to that ship and then sent in cutters, one by one, to load their holds with prime terraforming and manufacturing equipment while the rest of the pirates held off the defenders and continued to pick away at the escort ships.

    So for the first time since losing nearly half of our crew to the Empire (some nearly eight thousand men in total) we finally saw a measurable benefit from losing all those men.  The Lucky Clover once more lived up to her name sake by showing us the lucky side of the situation.  The loss of so many men may have hurt our ship’s morale and its effectiveness on every level you could imagine, but it had also made room for more than eight thousand half  frozen survivors who would have otherwise frozen to death or suffocated drifting in cold space.

    The pirate cruiser Admiral Janeski had so thoughtfully left for us was little better than a floating death trap and still filled with loads of pirate garbage, but to the floating settlers, a death trap was head and shoulders better than waiting until your spacesuit’s life support functions ran down in the  cold vacuum of the void.  At least they now had a chance.

    We managed to cram another almost eight thousand floaters into the captured cruiser, after we stripped enough trustworthy air recycling systems from the broken settlement ship to make sure of their air supply.

    The air recycling systems were rigged and prone to failure at the first whiff of trouble, but we were running out of space to put people.  Even recovering the pirate cutter the corvette had knocked out after we rammed our way through the Piranhas Formation wasn’t worth more than a drop in the bucket compared to the needs of some fifty thousands survivors.

    Still, our over worked engineers patched a few holes and made the two captured cutters livable before welding them to the outside of our hull.  No one wanted to trust pirate systems on a damaged ship.  Who knew what kind of suicide protocols and spoiler programming had been installed into its system to activate if its captain died?

    At the moment I was speaking with the captains of the two surviving settlement ships.  One was a Caprian with a hold full of my countrymen on their way out to colonize some new planet, and the other was a Belter.  A man from a culture that lived in orbital industrial stations, mining asteroids and small moons.  Commonly called rock rats, it seemed the system these people had been in previously was nearly played out and they had been granted an Imperial  charter for the start a new Belter colony further out on the rim of known space.  However, the long promised Imperial escort never arrived and they had been forced to set out unprotected or lose their homesteading rights.

    The broken ship, on the other hand, had been full of families from Prometheus.  Prometheans were a strange lot, but Capria and Prometheus were far enough away from each other that Caprians and Prometheans generally got along when we came together.  I pushed aside dark thoughts regarding the two medium cruisers that should have been in system with us but weren’t.

    “I’m not sure how many more survivors we can safely take onboard our ship, Admiral,” the Captain of the Belter-ship said respectfully, the scene on his bridge only marginally less chaotic than the one on mine.

    My brows lowered and the Captain of the Caprian Settler frowned at his Belter compatriot.

    The Belter continued quickly, “Its not that we don’t want to take more survivors. Its just that the pirates attacked us too, you see.  Not only is a settlement ship by definition filled to the brim already, but we sprung a number of air leaks during the attack.  It will take time to find, fix and repair all of the leaks and in the mean time our recyclers are working overtime just to keep the people we already have alive.  If we lose too much air it doesn’t  matter if all the leaks are eventually patched, we’ll have too many people and too little oxygen to make it to the next port.”

    At this the Caprian Captain reluctantly nodded.  “My ship also experienced damage in the attack.  I don’t think it's as bad for us as it is for the Belters, but he has a point.”

    I stared at the desk for a moment.  I was using the Admiral’s ready room for the first time since becoming Admiral in more than just name.  Actually, it the first time I had ever used it.  This room had always been the territory of Admiral Janeski, and being summoned here had always felt like turning in your homework to a disapproving teacher.  Despite the bad memories, it had lots of room and better systems than anything else I could find on or near the bridge, and from here I could monitor multiple operations at the same time.

    Right now though, all those operations were saying the same thing. There just wasn’t enough room to safely carry all the survivors.  Frankly, I was getting fed up with the constant stream of protests.  Who cares about safety when the alternative to a dangerous action is certain death, anyways?

    “In short, what you’re saying is that even with every ship in the system we can only take on something like half the survivors,” I said flatly.

    “I’m sorry, Admiral," began the Belter captain.  "But if we take on any more people no one will survive the trip home.  Its not food or space, although space is extremely tight.  It’s the air.  Without air to breath, we’ll all die.”

    The Caprian nodded his agreement and looked guardedly at me.  “I hate to say it but I don’t see any way either, Admiral.  Maybe we can temporarily patch up some of the decks on the hulk and they can ride things out here until a ship can come back out and ferry them home.”

    I shook my head in negation.  “No,” I said forcefully.  “Leaving them behind is a death sentence.  The pirates already know there’s a wreck out here to be salvaged, like flies on road kill they’ll be back as soon as we leave.  Then it's death or worse for anyone left behind on that derelict.”

    “A corvette could stay behind to guard them,” suggested the Belter.  “At least until a rescue effort could be mustered."

    “Both Escort ships have been damaged and one was recently disabled.  Besides, you’ve already been attacked once.  Won’t you need both corvettes to fight off another pirate attack, if they find you again while you’re traveling to your new settlements,” I asked, trying to draw some further dialogue.  I didn’t intent to make this easy for the captains of the settlement ships.

    The Belter blinked.  “But we thought,” he glanced at his Caprian counterpart, who kept his face blank and unhelpful, “That is to say, I had thought that since you and your Heavy Cruiser.  The uh… the Lucky Clover is already here, and it seemed logical that you’d escort us the rest of the way to our new homes,” said the Belter, looking and sounding flustered.

    I decided to blow some smoke in their faces to confuse them and then thread in just enough truth so that they couldn’t later complain that they had been deceived.

    “This is the Flagship of a Multi-Sector Patrol Fleet and we have a duty to more than just one convoy of settlers, Captain.  Maybe if the pair you didn’t already have a escort,” I trailed off regretfully.  Two parts fiction and one part unpalatable fact.

    The Belter looked as if he’d just bitten a lemon, while the Caprian Captain muttered something that sounded suspiciously like, “Montagne’s.”

    Offended and not willing to reign myself in after I had just risked everything to save the ungrateful man’s life, I fixed him with a cold glare.  The  Belter glanced back and forth between his fellow captain and the myself, aware that something had passed between us.  He didn’t know what it was, lacking the shared historical context, but it was obvious he could tell it wasn’t going to help.

    “As it is,” I said stiffly, playing the part of the offended Admiral, which I certainly was, but not to the degree I let on, “you already have protection, so I feel it my duty to see to the needs of thousands of helpless citizens of Prometheus.”

    The Caprain Captain glared at his desk but didn’t say anything further.  Clearly he’d already given up on further help from a Montagne Admiral.

    I felt a flare of righteous anger but throttled it silent before I said something I would later regret.  Or rather, something the thousands onboard the settlement ships would later regret.

    “I’m sure some workable compromise can be reached,” the Belter captain said desperately.  Ignoring his Caprian counterpart and focusing solely on me.  “The Corvettes have done more for us than we could have rightfully hoped, but in the last battle one was disabled and almost captured, while the other was severely damaged.  If you hadn’t arrived, I shudder to think what might have happened.  Please, if my colleague has somehow offend you, think about the families we are carrying instead.  On behalf of the thousands of Belters crammed aboard my ship, I beg you.  We desperately need your help reaching a safe port.”

    The Caprian Captain was still glaring at his desk but he gave a jerky nod and looked up giving up the glare.  “On behalf of thousands of your fellow Caprians, I also ask for your help, Admiral Montagne,” he said, sounding like he’d swallowed a fish bone.  The Caprian Captain took a deep breath.  “The fact is we need your ship, Admiral.  Or something like her if we’re going to reach a world to safely put down on.  As long as everyone knows the Imperial Navy has pulled out of the region, it’s open season on ships like ours,” he said, his eyes raw with emotion.

    I could imagine how the man felt.  Defeated royalists or triumphant parliamentarians, it didn’t matter which faction you belonged to.  Back on my home world everyone blamed the Montanges.  The parliamentarians for the purging of their government and the later orbital bombardment by the Imperial Navy.   The royalists also blamed us for the orbital bombardment and the counter purge by the parliamentarians that followed after they returned to power with the support of the Imperials.

    It had to be a bitter pill to swallow, begging the son and grandson of butchers to help save your life.  For the second time in such a short period of time, no less.

    “Alright,” I said, nodding slowly.  “I can’t promise the Clover will escort you to your new home worlds.  Or,” I paused and nodded acknowledgment to the Belter, “new home systems.”  I drew in a deep breath. “But,” I said, holding up a finger, “you can accompany us on our patrol until we reach a world you consider safe enough to part from our company.”

    The two captains nodded their thanks and started to smile, much of the tension disappearing instantly.

    “However,” I said, lowering my finger pointedly to the desktop, “I’m still not willing to just abandon the Promethean settlers in this system.”

    The still forming smiles wilted and the settlement captains looked uneasy.  The conversation had come full circle without any resolution.

    I started ticking points off on my fingers.  “We can’t carry all the Prometheans with us for any kind of extended journey.  Don’t I have that right,”  I asked, alternating my gaze between the two Captains.

    “Yes,” grated the Caprain Captain, no doubt once again smelling the foul odor of a Montagne in the room.

    The Belter just nodded.  Then decided to add, “Even more than one point transfer might be too long.  It takes us a day just to cycle our engines.  As it is, to take on another twenty five thousand or so refugee... I don’t know, even split between our ships, people will be packed into corridors with no room to sit or lay down.  We were hot bunking in shifts before taking on the Prometheans.  If they’re onboard for longer than a day, well a person can only stand for so long and when there’s children involved, logic can take a back seat to emotion.  Too long and a riot is possible.  Which completely ignores a  breakdown in environmental and the air supply going bad, killing us all.”

    “We could always dump some of your settlement equipment and make room for more people in the cargo holds,” I suggested, finally bringing the idea to the table.

    “No,” exclaimed the Belter.

    “Still wouldn’t solve the air problem,” the Caprain Captain said glumly, shaking his head.

    “Especially not knowing that pirates could come back at anytime and steal any equipment we left here," said the Belter Captain.  “Equipment we need just to live our lives, in cold space, as anything other than refugees.  Admiral, my people would rather die than be reduced to such circumstances.”

    “Our situation is different from the Belters.  If our equipment was stolen, we would likely become another failed colony, but we’d at least still have a chance and could always come home if we failed,” said the Caprain Captain.  “The Belters have no where to go back to if they fail…” he trailed off.

    “That’s not strictly true,” said the Belter Captain looking deeply unhappy.  “We could always return to our station of origin, as beggars instead of productive members of the interstellar community.”

    “I believe I understand,” I said, cutting into the conversation.  “If we can’t take them with us on a long journey and we can’t leave them,” I ignored their desperate looks, “Then that means we have to find some place,” I nodded at the Belter Captain, “within one jump range of our ships.  That place must be able to support the Prometheans until such a time as someone can come back to retrieve them.”

    The Caprain Captain stroked his chin and looked away from the screen while the Belter Captain frowned.

    “According to the Dictates of Man," the Caprian Captain said, “landing settlers on any unclaimed world or lightly settled world, without permission of the  Colonization Bureau, is claim jumping and punishable by orbital bombardment.  The statute is quite specific that there are no possible extenuating circumstances.”

    “The Dictates of Man,” I said, thoughtfully tapping my chin.  “Those wouldn’t happen to be the 'Imperial Dictates of Man' by any chance,” I asked.

    “Yes,” said the Belter doubtfully.  No doubt he could sense the question was a set up and he wasn’t going to like the conclusion.  “The Dictates were laid down by the Imperial Senate working in conjunction with the Triumverate."

    The Caprian Captain just nodded and once again muttered something under his breath.

    I suspected he’d just said “Montagne’s” again, the same as last time, but more quietly than before, but I couldn’t be sure.  However, this time I didn’t blame the Captain for the sentiment.

    “Well that’s a relief,” I said, wiping imaginary sweat from my brow.  “Confederation Citizens are required to obey all Imperial edicts and treaties the same as if we were Imperial Citizens as set down under the Union Treaty.”  The two captain’s winced in unison as if they could tell what I was about to say. “After all, under the Union Treaty we are one nation, one people.  No longer Empire and Confederation, we are now dual citizens as it were under one unifying government, The Confederated Empire, with one unified military which protects each and every one of us equally,” I said raising my face to the ceiling in mock rapture, “under the law.”

    Then I lowered my face to look at the two civilian captains.  “The Empire of Man just took the treaty, tore it into little pieces and shredded the Confederation when they did so.  In effect, they wiped their asses with the remains of the Union Treaty when they abandoned us, or rather, when they abandoned you and your ships to pirates.  In effect, they said that this document and their obligations under it are as nothing to them and worth no more than the paper it was written on.”

    The two captains looked on white faced as I spoke.

    “The Confederated Empire’s become a joke.  That is, assuming it was ever a serious concern in the first place,” I continued, carried away by the sudden rush of anger.  “They pulled out and left you with me.”  I looked over at Caprain Captain, “Me.  A Montagne.  And I’m supposed to mind the store, with nothing but an ancient battleship and barely enough men for a skeleton crew.  I shook my head emphatically.  “They pulled out of the Spineward Sectors  because of intense fighting against the Gorgon Alliance, right?  Gentlemen, the Confederation is comprised of 27 sectors.  Their withdrawal broke the treaty with the whole Confederation, but they only bothered to pull Imperial assets out of eight sectors.  The least developed eight sectors in the Confederated Empire,  I might point out.” I slammed my fist into the table, the rising anger threatening to overwhelm me.  “And what about the Ninth Provisional Sector of The Spine,” I demanded, looking at the Settlement Captains, “The 28th Provisional Sector of the Confederation was settled by Imperials from the Core Provinces and funded by a group of influential senators.  How much do you want to bet that when the Empire abandoned the Spine because of ‘pressure from the Alliance’ that they failed to also pull out of the 28th Provisional.”  I paused again, this time simply to catch my breath.  One of the first rules of public performance, whether it be singing, athletics or public speaking, is to never allow emotion to overcome your self-control.  I wasn't doing a very good job, to be honest.

    “At this point there is only the Imperial Navy of The Empire of Man, and a somewhat less-than-robust Confederation presence in the Spine,” I said, suddenly wondering why I was yelling at a pair of civilian captains about this.  They weren’t responsible for the current state of interstellar politics, and there was nothing they could do about it.  But I shamefully admit that I still felt better for getting it off my chest.

    “The Imperial Navy may abandon its people to pirates at the whim of some Triumvere sitting safely in the Imperial Capitol, but the Confederation’s Multi-Sector Patrol Fleet will never do so, at least not as long as I’m here,”  I said with a measure of genuine resolve I would previously not have believed I possessed.

    “So fill your ship with every Promethean you can squeeze in and spin up your star drives.  We’re not leaving anyone behind to take their chances with the tender mercy of pirates.  I’ll transmit new jump coordinates from the Lucky Clover as soon as they’ve been generated, so you can start with your own calculations,” I said and promptly cut the connection.

    A search of the Lucky Clover’s DI database turned up little in the way of good prospects for the unfortunate Prometheans.  They were already out on the rim of known space.  So there were no ports of call or developed worlds in the area to take them.  Perhaps there were a few black colonies scattered around out here, like in the holo-drama’s, but if so I didn't have the least idea of how to find them.

    I called the Navigator, Helmsman, Science Officer, and First Officer Tremblay into my office for a round table discussion regarding our options.   After dealing with the same list of arguments I had just gone through with the Settler Captains, the group settled down to discuss the list assembled by the  DI.

    "It's bad, Admiral," began Science Officer Jones.  "Not only are we trying to retrieve information from a computer system whose database is based on fractured backup copies, but in some cases the information hasn't been updated in over a decade.  Even when the records are 'complete' the information we're looking for is extremely limited.  A local system defense library is obviously somewhat limited in its comprehensiveness."

    I groaned silently.  Yet another example of our having grown to rely too heavily on the Imperial data network which, like every other instance of former over-reliance on Imperial assets, had come back to haunt us. 

    "However," interjected Lieutenant Tremblay, "we have determined that there is a star system containing a habitable world within range of both the Clover and the remaining settlement ships.  The information on this star system hasn't been updated in over seventy years, since before the final union between the Empire and the Confederacy."  The First Officer's lip curled in annoyance.  I suppose relying on information nearly as old as our Chief Engineer was more than a former Intelligence Officer could handle. 

    "Fortunately for us, habitable worlds don't generally go bad in less than a century," the Science Officer continued, despite Tremblay's interruption.  "The inhabitants of the world are listed as primitive, hostile and limited to one continent.  However, they are human, which takes a lot of the guesswork out of whether or not the world will sustain the settlers for any period of time.  Worst case, we set the Prometheans down on a large island or an entirely unpopulated continent and return later to collect them."


    "I don't mean to sound harsh or unsympathetic, Sir, but I would prefer to put them down on some desert world where no pirates would ever think to even look for them," said Helmsman DuPont.  "At least until we can come back with a relief convoy to pick them up and transport them to their intended destination." 

    I shook my head, slightly pleased that I had considered this option already.  "We can't even squeeze a fraction the equipment from the cargo hold of the wrecked ship, so there's no way we can bring enough of it to set up portable facilities to keep them supplied with food and other essentials long enough for us to complete a roundtrip and return with more transport ships."  Tremblay grudgingly nodded his head in agreement.  I continued, trying to build on the momentum.  "And that assumes we don't get recalled home as soon as we hit a civilized port of call and the job gets handed to someone else who, under the best of circumstances will be less invested in seeing the operation completed than we are.  That's assuming their plight doesn't get lost in some pile of paperwork somewhere and is forgotten entirely."

    The discussion continued for a few more minutes, but in the end, establishing a new settlement or colony on an undeveloped world was something I had actually studied intently before landing in the Admiral’s Throne.  Since I at least thought I knew what I was talking about, I was firm in my position and in the end my decision carried the day, as usual.




The Deposed King

Snippet 18 - The Admiral

Chapter:  An Outraged Engineer


    I had expected to see Lieutenant Tremblay with a well armed detail of men, or perhaps just an armed detail of men so Tremblay could maintain the polite fiction that he wasn’t involved.  I was holding out hope that my surprise for Tremblay, should the First Officer be launching a mutiny, might arrive first.

    Instead of an arrest squad, the blast doors burst opened to reveal the Chief Engineer, bald dome at the top of his head gleaming with sweat and what hair he still had flaring wildly out to either side.  The half-crazed eyes of the old engineer scanned the room before settling on me.  His uniform was dripping with sweat and his left leg was at least twice the size of the other, due to some kind of cast, I guessed.

    The wrinkled old officer straddling the line between old and ancient, locked his eyes with mine in a furious glare.  In one hand he held an unlit plasma torch, his other hand produced a finger pointed right at me.

    “Ask for miracles without limit,” he roared, stabbing an accusing finger as he slowly rounded on me.  “Engineering can do it.” His gnarled finger thrust accusingly at me yet again.  “Ask us to keep the ship running with half the men we need and almost no trained crew,” his finger stabbed once again and he took a step  onto the bridge,  “Engineering can do it."

    "Ask for impossible warp bubbles to haul prize ships too large for any sane spacer to even think about taking with them,” his finger pointed at me like an exclamation mark, and oddly I was quite thrilled that it was the open hand he continued to gesture with, apparently having forgotten the plasma torch in his other.  He continued to roar, taking another step into the bridge, “Engineering can do it!   Ask us to re-install weapon systems that are only there because we lied, cheated, stole and schemed to keep them on this ship when the Imperials threw them away for junk!”  By now he was very close to the Admiral’s Throne,  standing almost right next to it.  “Engineering can blasted well do that, too!”

    “I understand you’re upset,” I started, trying to gain some control over the situation.  “We have shuttles out right now-”

    “Upset?  Upset,” screamed the Chief Engineer, cutting me off abruptly.

    By now several members of the Bridge Crew stood on their feet, looking uncertainly at the exchange.  I could understand the shame on their faces because I felt it just as keenly as anyone else on board.  No one had thought to warn engineering to get off the hull, and as the Admiral who had ordered the ramming, I was most responsible for the results, both good and bad.

    “You can demote us, work us till our hands bleed and we can’t remember the last time we saw a bunk.  Send us out on the hull during combat to fix things that should very blasted well have been fixed before this ship even thought about getting into combat in the first place!”

    By this time the Chief Engineer was so red in the face, that had I not feared the impending introduction of the plasma torch to the conversation (as a club, at the very least), I would have called for station medical with a sedative.

     “But as the Demon Murphy is my witness, what you cannot do is leave an entire engineering shift out on the hull to act as human bumper cushions, when you know good and well that you’re planning to ram an enemy vessel!”  A vein in the old engineer's forehead was becoming more prominent with every passing second.

    “I offered to make you Captain of the ship once before.  I repeat the offer," I said, trying to defuse the situation by maintaining a calm, even tone.  "If you think the ship would be handled bett-”

    That was as far as I got before Lieutenant Spalding’s fist connected with my jaw. 

    I fell against the Admiral’s Throne, seeing more stars than just the ones depicted on the viewscreen.  Before I could regain my footing, a boot hit me in the stomach.  The funny part is that even though I was having difficulty with most of my senses, my hearing was remarkably clear.  I know that it was uncompromised because I suddenly snapped to full attention at the sound of a plasma torch activating.

    “Back!  Back, all ye murderin' idiots,” snarled the Chief Engineer, the last word sounding more like 'idjits' than usual, likely owing to the engineer's rage and uneven breathing.  Nobody seemed to notice the blast doors opening in the middle of the scene.

    There was a gasp.  “This is Mutiny!” Declared Officer Tremblay.

    He must have just entered the flag-bridge, I thought, still gasping for air and surprised at the pain in my jaw from just one punch thrown by a man many times my age.

    “Seize the Chief Engineer and clap him in irons!” yelled Tremblay.

    There was the sound of a plasma torch being swung back and forth.  “I also hold you responsible for my men on the Hull, Mr. First Officer,” cried Spalding, the pure rage in his voice now accompanied by something less furious and more accusatory.  “You left them out there to die.”

    “Sir, think about what are you doing,” pleaded Gants to the chief engineer.  A new voice on the Flag Bridge, and not a moment too soon.  It looked like the surprise I had called up from the armory had met with Officer Tremblay on his way back to the Flag Bridge from his quarters.

    “So you’re against me too, Gants,” Spalding coughed.  “Arghh,” Then there was a gasp and the sound of the plasma torch hitting the floor followed by the thud of a body.  Metal popped and bubbled where the plasma flame touched the floor.

    “Never, Mr. Spalding, sir,” cried Gants, incredulous at the implication and sounding hurt.  I could hear him moving towards our position, but I was still having some degree of difficulty with my vision.

    There was the sound of a scuffle.  “Keep your blasted hands off him,” yelled Gants.

    “He struck a superior officer in a war-zone.  An Admiral, no less!  He even tried to kill him with a plasma torch.  He’s nothing but a miserable old Mutineer,” said Tremblay, the sneer on his face easily visible in my mind's eye.

    “He’s an old man with a bad heart and he needs a medic.  Medic.  Medic!” cried Gants.  “He’s never killed anyone with that plasma torch.  Only burned a few arses that needed it,” Gants said furiously.  It was obvious that he wasn't used to defending the old man, but the hero worship in his voice was evident and it was clear as day that the man felt absolute conviction standing alongside Engineer Spalding in this, perhaps his lowest moment.

    There was the sound of another blow.  “How dare you," Officer Tremblay said, ice in his voice.

    “You want to talk about some more mutiny, do you Mr. First Officer?  Well, let's talk and don’t think for a minute I haven’t heard all about you asking the crew their opinions about having a Montagne in command of us all,” Gants said hotly.

    It seemed even though he had been willing to bring a couple of his armory buddies to the Flag Bridge to back me up, the former engineering rating was still holding out on me.  Oh well, at least he came when asked and was about as opposed to anything the former Intelligence Officer was up to as he would ever be right at this minute, which was exactly what I needed.

    I decided something while laying on the deck, listening to the crisis unfolding around me.  The young person who had stood up to confront an irate chief of engineering may have fallen to the deck thinking he was nothing more than just another young man from Capria, someone helpless who had been thrust into something he wanted out of so badly he could almost scream, but for all of that was still just a pawn at the mercy of powerful men who were very far  away.  I decided that the man who got up off this decking was going to be something entirely different from that other young person.  Up until this moment everything had felt like a role I was playing, a game, albeit one with deadly results, but for all of that still just a game.  But now people had died and I was responsible.  Thousands had lived that wouldn’t otherwise, and I was responsible for that too.

    From now on, I wasn’t just Jason Montagne, a two-bit nothing royal with a martyr complex who was so persecuted I couldn’t even get a student loan because the world really was out to get him.  Instead, I was going to be (and refuse to think of myself as anything other than) Admiral Jason Montagne, a Prince-Cadet of the Caprian Realm.  Demon-Murphy take anyone who thought differently!

    “Enough,” I said firmly, using a hand on the throne to help myself to my feet.  My vision seemed to return with the discovery of my newfound purpose.

    “Striking a superior officer is a court-martial offence,” said Officer Tremblay.  “In a war zone, it's execution!”

    “That dirty good for nothing, skunk.  Kicking a man when he’s down having a heart attack," said Gants, emotion starting to get the better of him.   "Admiral, sir!” pleaded Gants.

    “I said enough.  That goes for the both of you,” I repeated.

    The two men were standing over the stricken form of the chief of engineering like two dogs fighting over a scrap of bone.  Behind them were a gaggle of men with sonic weapons.  I knew I should check to see if they were all from the armory, or if Mr. Tremblay had finally decided to make his move.  Instead, I made a snap decision.

    “I’m pardoning all of you.  The whole lot,” I said.  “Everything that happened up until this moment is forgiven.”

    “What,” asked Officer Tremblay his forehead wrinkling as he looked at the me for the first time since bursting onto the scene.

    “Thank you, sir,” said Gants knuckling his forehead.  “Much obliged.”  He didn’t look very obliged, he rather looked like an angry hornet.

    “Admirals can’t just pardon anyone they please, they don’t have that power.” Said Tremblay, scowling fiercely.

    “I have the right and the power and I dare anyone to test me,” I said, sticking my chin out, then wincing at the pain the gesture produced.  For an old man, the Chief Engineer sure packed a punch.  “Anyone who disagrees with my decisions and actions is free to get off at the next stop.  Until then, he’s to keep his mouth shut and obey my orders.”

    I kept speaking, pointedly talking over several different people who wanted to inject their say into the conversation.  “The first order you’re all to obey is get this man down to the infirmary,” I said, pointing to the Chief Engineer who looked like he was having a heart attack or a stroke.  “Everyone not doing that is to start preparing this ship for a disaster relief effort, immediately.  Those settlers out there don’t care about anyone’s ego, or who made what mistake, they only care how long they can keep breathing.  I aim to see to that issue, first and foremost.  Everything we’ve done here is for nothing if we stand by and let them die.”

    I turned and sat down in my chair, deliberately showing my back.  I was trying to make it obvious that I expected them to deal with it.   “Everything,” I repeated with finality.

Snipptet 17- The Admiral

Chapter: 

    I made my way back to the bridge, silently rehearsing the parts of the upcoming conversation which I believed would be the most crucial.  Time seemed to be flying by, as I found myself standing outside the bridge far too quickly for my own liking.  Gathering my composure, I activated the panel and strode onto the bridge.  Once seated  in the Admiral's Throne, I motioned to the communications technician to open the channel.

    “Hello.  Is this the crazy Captain of that big bastard of a Heavy Cruiser?  The one that just came roaring by and sideswiped several of those pirate cutters that were giving us such a problem,” asked a hatchet faced woman who looked to be somewhere into her second century.  She was dressed in an updated Confederation uniform similar to the one I was wearing, but it sporting an oddly updated appearance. “I hope that old Confederation encryption key you’re using means you’re one of the good guys and not another blasted pirate in disguise.”

    “This is Admiral Jason Montagne Vekna, Confederation Multi-Sector Patrol Fleet,” I replied, “and yes, we’re one of the good guys,” I said with a lopsided grin.

    “Admiral Who?” She gave him a strange look, her eyes lingering on my ill fitting and nearly a century out of date old Confederation Admiral’s uniform.  She gave herself a half a shake.  “That’s not what’s important right now.  On behalf of myself and the Settlement Convoy under my protection I’d like to officially thank you for the timely assistance with those pirate scum.” She paused for a moment before continuing, obviously weighing her words carefully.

    “Although something my command crew and I don’t understand is why you chose to ram instead of fire your heavy weaponry when you passed through the center of their main formation.  A heavy cruiser is tough, as you just clearly illustrated, but also very well armed.  Frankly we’re baffled,” said the Corvette Captain.  I couldn't tell for certain if she was admonishing me, genuinely curious, or some strange mixture of the two.

    I could feel myself starting to turn red, and took a deep breath to steady myself.  Dealing with a trained military officer, whose opinion was important (unlike pirates, who I could bluff and talk to without fear of anything worse happening later on) was nerve wracking.  What’s the worst the pirates could do?  Try to destroy the ship and kill or capture all those helpless settlers?  They were already doing that.  The Captain of the Corvette, on  the other hand, could cause me a big headache in the here and now, plus a great deal of trouble back home if we got off on the wrong foot.

    “It’s a bit of a long story,” I said with a wave to downplay the whole situation.  I was just about to change the subject when the Corvette Captain beat me to the punch.

    “We have a little bit of time before my Corvette matches airlocks with our sister ship and we move to recover her.  Incidentally, killing any pirates we encounter, Admiral,” the Captain said, sitting back in her chair.  “My crew is dying to know how Confederation forces came to the rescue.  We’d given up hope for a rescue.”

    I smiled to hide my suddenly gritted teeth.  “I admit that from a given perspective, ramming them might look like something out of a holo-drama,” I said, careful not to mention that I actually got the idea from a low budget Caprian holo-series I had been avidly following prior to being drafted into the patrol fleet, “but it really starts makes sense when you realize we entered this system essentially unarmed.”

    The hatchet faced Captain blinked.  “Interesting,” she said, “go on.  This has to be good.  Also, I assume the other cruiser in system, the one that hasn’t moved, is with you?”

    “Yes, a captured pirate ship,” I replied shortly, thankful for the momentary change of topic.  I relaxed a little and was able to compose myself before continuing further.  “Regarding our lack of weaponry, the answer is really quite simple,” I paused and leaned back in my chair,  “I take it you’ve heard about the Empire’s withdrawal from the Spine?”  The corvette captain sucked in a breath but after half a second gave an almost jerky nod. “Well so long  as you know about that, then everything that follows becomes more understandable,” I said with a nod of my own.  “I still can’t believe the Empire would abrogate the union treaty like this,” I shook my head slowly, trying to convey a profound sense of disappointment.  “But I’m wandering off topic.”

    I turned to the side and motioned to one of the communication technicians, “Please send our credentials over to the Corvette at the end of our conversation,” I said pointedly before turning back to face the captain on the screen.  “As I was saying, when the Lucky Clover was designated to become the Flagship of our newly formed Patrol Fleet, the Imperials decided to upgrade her.  This occurred prior to the start of our mission, of course, and Imperial Command also place a number of officers onboard to assist us in our new duties.  When the Imperial officers received recall orders from the Triumverate, those same officers signaled for a command ship and proceeded to strip out all of the Imperial equipment they’d just installed, including our new weapons systems,” I paused and gave a cold half smile.  “Thanks to our Chief Engineer we still have most of the old weapon systems with us.  We just hadn’t had time to reinstall them before we received your distress call.  Time being of the essence, I decided not to wait until we were effectively rearmed, but instead to  come immediately to the assistance of a distressed settlement convoy.”

    The Corvette Captain’s eyes widened.  “I don’t know of many captains, or admirals for that matter,” she said with a brief gesture in his direction, “who would have made the decision to take an unarmed ship, even a heavy cruiser, to answer a distress call.  Although let me be the first to assure you that my crew and the settlers we’ve been escorting aren’t going to complain.  Not one bit,” she said giving him a nod full of thanks,  “Once again and on behalf  of my ship and everyone in our convoy, I’d like to thank you for your efforts on our behalf.”

    I nodded in a fashion I hoped was not too curt and signed off as soon as possible.  We monitored the escort corvette as mated its airlock to the airlock of the pirate cutter.  On the main view screen it looked like the cutter was now squeezed in between the two corvettes, each almost twice the size of the little pirate vessel.

    Also around the same time, the two undamaged pirate cutters formed warp fields within seconds of each other and point transferred out of the system.

    Their less powerful star drives and smaller warp fields ensured they wouldn’t go far.  However, rapid recycle times meant that they could jump much more often than an older, heavier ship like the Clover.  So even if a large ship like the Clover was ready to jump and knew exactly where to go, the larger vessel with its slower but longer ranged engines would lose them after the 2nd transfer point.  If the larger ship couldn’t destroy the smaller ship first, of course.

    “Let's change the status from red alert to yellow and let the rest of the ship know that except for a few loose ends the pirate threat in this system has been taken care of,” I said, turning to speak with the communication tech responsible for the internal com system.  “The hard work isn’t over.  We still  have some crewmen and a lot of settlers to rescue, but as far as the battle is concerned we can chalk this one up in the win column.”  I was suddenly taken aback at the implications of what I had just said.  I (or rather, the ship I was commanding) had won a battle with real life pirates!

    The blast doors behind me cycled open.

    I stood up from the throne and prepared myself for what was to come.  It was time to face the music.  Hopefully no one (especially myself) would get  hurt.




The Deposed King

Snippet 16 - The Admiral

Chapter:


    One moment we were racing towards the pirate ships, and the next I was on the floor sliding across the deck towards the bulkhead.  I blinked away the pain in my head and the stars in my eyes, and reached for a handhold along the wall to pull myself back to my feet.

    I looked to the main screen and I couldn’t see the pirate squadron in front of the ship anymore.

    “What’s going on,” I said rather thickly.  My first attempt to wildly scan the bridge to make sure everyone was alright left me dizzy.

    Focusing forward, at least until I was somewhat recovered and the dizziness abated, I’m certain I would have staggered to the command chair if the power suit had allowed for that kind of movement.  Instead, I stiffly walked over and sat down without appearing like a drunken sailor back from a binge.

    “We made it,” someone said.  The bridge broke out in cheers.

    One of the sensor operators yelled, “You did it, Sir!  We smashed two of them flat and another one is reeling away.  It shields are gone and one of its engines has been disabled, Admiral.”

    Another sensor operator chimed in, “I think the damaged one was caught in our engine wash when the Helmsman slewed the ship around.  We didn’t hit it head on, that’s the only reason it survived,” he said, sounding proud of our big ship.

    “Where are the rest of the pirates,” I asked, unable to find them represented on the main screen.

    “We overshot them, Admiral,” DuPont said, his voice shaking, “coming about now.”  The Helmsman's hands shook visibly, but he input the new ship course.

    The main screen shifted from its previous setting, which had shown a cone shaped patch of space directly in front of the ship.  It now presented a downward looking, rather two dimensional, three hundred sixty degree view with the Lucky Clover in the middle of the plot.  From this vantage point the pirate ships were shown to be falling behind them farther and farther by the second.

    “Turn around," I said, surprised at how quickly the pirate vessels appeared to be retreating, “we need to finish them off!”

    Tremblay spoke up and I looked at him, noting the pistol had disappeared, “You wanted to get there as fast as possible, so they wouldn’t have time to get away,” he said evenly.  “They didn’t.  But a battleship the size of this heavy cruiser doesn’t just stop on a dime, it takes a while to reverse our forward momentum.  We have to turn around and slow down before we can try to catch them again.  A more tactically sound approach would be to take up station  around the Settlers to help fight off the remaining pirate cutters, now that they know we’re not on their side.”

    I blinked.  It made perfect sense after the First Officer pointed it out.  I supposed if I had stopped to think and consider the ship’s forward  momentum, I might have remembered (from my now aborted studies) that ships took time to speed up and slow down.

    “Okay,” I said, nodding seriously, “put us between the settlers and those cutters, Mr. DuPont,” I ordered in a crisp voice.

    “Sir, we’re getting a transmission from the Pirates. They’re mighty upset, Admiral,” said the external communications technician with a wide grin.

    “Put him on the main screen,” I said with a smile of my own.

    A picture of the same pirate captain as last time materialized on the main screen.  This time though he had a large bruise on his face and smoke  filled the back of his miniature bridge.

    “Double Crossed!  Betrayed!  After an honest offer was extended,” roared the Captain.  “When the League hears about this, you’ll be banned from every dark port and black net station this side of Omicron 5,” he bellowed, slamming his fist repeatedly against the arm of his command chair.

    I made a big show of yawning and then properly covering my yawn with my hand before gesturing to the Communications Tech.  “Please transmit on both the pirate band and the open frequency,” I said, purposefully unconcerned that the pirate captain could hear my orders.  As soon as the tech indicated we were live on both channels, I turned deliberately to face the screen.  “This is Admiral Montagne of the Confederation Flag-Ship Lucky Clover.  We are prepared to accept your surrender,” I said conversationally.

    The Pirate Captain look startled and blinked rapidly, a hint of real fear creeping through his angry pirate façade for the first time.  “Admiral Who?   What the blazes…” he said, clearly startled.  Then his face hardened.  “So, I’m dealing with a bunch of Impie’s and your fancy Imperial tricks,” he said, spitting on the floor.   “You might have broken our code and fooled us once, Admiral Schoolboy.  But now that we know it’s Fleet regulars we’re up against,  there’s not a man jack among us who’ll surrender now!”  His face turned red as he worked himself into a fury.  “We’ll spread the word and your stolen codes won’t be worth spit the next time you face Pirranha Squadron or any other pirate in the whole spineward sectors of cold space."

    I have to admit that I was surprised the pirate thought I had somehow broken or stolen their code.  I was even more surprised they appeared willing to fight to the death.  Still, I had to make one more try for the sake of those unarmed settlers.  I didn’t know for sure, but the Clover seemed far enough away that the pirates might come back for another strafing run or two against the convoy before jumping through hyperspace ahead of us.

    “Haven’t you heard, Captain Spider,” I asked, once again twitting the pirate about his name.  “The Imperial Navy pulled out of this sector and left me in command of the fleet,” I said, flashing a vicious smile.  “Now that the Empire’s out and the Confederation’s back in, I can cut any sort of deal I want.  I can order your lives spared and transfer you to a nice cushy agrarian prison world, equipped with the latest power tools to make your lives easier.   On the other hand, I could order every Confederation unit in this sector of space to hunt you and your little squadron of biting fish until we track you back  to whatever spider-hole you’re hiding in and blow the lot of you to space-dust.”

    The pirate laughed long and loud.  "The Empire’s out and you’re in.  Har har har!”  He chuckled.  “You’ll have to come up with something better than that to make your lies stick, Schoolboy.”  He stopped laughing and looked at something outside of my view.  “Every ship in the squadron, switch your encryption keys, then form up on me and prepare to jump, this Impy Fleet hasn’t heard the last of the Pirranha’s.  We’ll be back.”  The pirate captain said  and cut the connection.

    “I had to try,” I said out loud and sighed.

    Tremblay shook his head, “They were never going to believe you,” he said.  “Imperial Fleet policy is to space captured pirates, to deter others from thinking they can join the pirate life and live to enjoy it.  A few notorious exceptions have been hanged instead of spaced, but I think you get the point the Empire made: become a pirate and die.”

    “Uh, sir,” said one of the Sensor Technicians looking doubtfully at his controls.

    “What is it, crewman,” I asked, looking over to the sensor pit.

    “I’m picking up miniature transponders behind us,” he said staring at his screen.  His look turned to horror.  “Those are emergency distress beacons,  Admiral.”

    “What are you on about, man,” I asked, standing up from the Throne.  “We can worry about pirate survivors after everyone else is taken care of first.   They don’t seem to give much consideration for settlers blown out into space.”

    The Sensor technician looked like he as going to be sick.  “I have over fifty transponders now.  All scattered and passing us as we slow down.  It looks like,” he paused to finish running a search through the DI before forcing the words out, “the numerical codes sent by the distress beacon match those of the hard suits issued to engineering.”

    For a moment I didn’t understand.  Then I did.  As the horror of what I had just done began to register, I felt sick to my stomach.

    “Murphy take us,” breathed Officer Tremblay.  “The engineering crews were still out on the hull when we rammed those cutters,” the first officer turned green and placed his hand on one of the consoles for support.

    I was sure the first officer was thinking the same thing I was.  We had forgotten to warn the men outside the ship to stop reinstalling the weapon systems and get back inside the hull, prior to executing the ramming maneuver.

    “I know we had shuttles before the Imperials left,” I said, working hard to keep my voice steady.  “Someone find out if we still have them, and if so tell someone to take as many as they need to get out there as fast as possible to pick up our fellow crewmen.”

    A subdued and no longer cheerful bridge crew acknowledged his orders and the necessary instructions were issued.

    As the Lucky Clover’s normal space engines struggled to reverse the heavy cruiser’s course, all I could do was watch the screen and hope the pirates wouldn’t head back to attack the settlers before we could get there.  There was nothing more I could do for the dead and dying men who had been out on the hull of the ship and irresponsibly left there to die.

    Despite themselves, an anxious bridge crew watched the two undamaged pirate cutters turn away from the convoy and blast off together, while the damaged cutter tried to follow but couldn’t keep up, and soon fell behind its faster, undamaged cousins.

    “If we destroyed two cutters and there are three running away, what happened to the other two?  Where are they hiding?” I asked, trying to focus my attention and that of the bridge crew on the action taking place near the convoy, instead of the horrific scene falling away from the heavy cruiser while we braked to get back in the fight.

    Tremblay silently pointed to the Corvette the pirates had knocked out of the battle before the Clover ever arrived in system.

    I kicked himself for not paying more attention to the tactical plot.  The question was a stupid one.  Everything I needed to know was right in front of me, if only I took the time to look, assuming I could interpret the images.

    There was a stir among the sensor operators and the main screen updated.  “The Corvette guarding the Settlerships is swinging away from the convoy.   She’s on a course to intercept the two cutters boarding her sister ship,” said a sensor operator, tension rising in her voice.

    “We’re receiving an encrypted transmission from the Corvette,” said a crewman from the communications section.  There was a pause.  “No key in our  database matches the encryption, and our DI can’t seem to make heads or tails of it.  All we’re getting on our screens is garbage, sir.  We can’t unscramble the transmission,” he said sounding flustered.

    I winced.  It would have been nice to be able to communicate with the Escort ship without the pirates understanding everything we said.  Worse, this might make it harder to convince a suspicious skipper that the Lucky Clover was actually a Confederate patrol ship sent out here to help them.

    Seeing my expression, the former Intelligence Officer grunted and stepped down into the communications pit. “Scan the database for any old Confederation Fleet encryption algorithms.”  With something to focus on, the First Officer no longer looked like he was about to keel over.  I hoped this was a good development.

    “Sir?” asked the crewman manning the Signal’s station, where decryption was handled.

    “Just scan the database, crewman,” said Officer Tremblay, clapping a hand on the crewman’s shoulder.  While the First Officer was working with Signals, the Corvette was getting closer and closer to her dead sister.

    “I have separation,” announced one of the Sensor Operators.  “The Cutter on the port side is breaking free and coming about to face the Corvette.”

    I snapped my attention back to the main screen.

    “Weapons fire,” said the same Senor Operator.  “She’s hit.  The pirate ship is hit and losing power to her main engines.”

    I watched helplessly as the actions were reported by the Sensor operator and mirrored on the main screen.  “Can we zoom in closer,” I finally asked,  pointing to the main screen where the Corvette was taking on the cutter.

    The magnification on the main screen increased.  I couldn’t see the three pirates trying to make good their escape, but the action near the stricken Corvette was quite clear.

    There were some raised voices in the Signals section but I was too focused on the scene playing out on the main screen to it give it my time and attention.

    I watched the icon representing the Lucky Clover start to inch back in the right direction.  The battleship had stopped her forward motion and reversed direction, but we were still a very long ways away from the scene of the action.

    The Corvette launched a hail of fire at the now damaged Cutter.  The Cutter returned fire and shields flared to life.  Neither side asked for, nor gave any quarter.  With the cutter’s main advantage, its maneuverability, already nullified by an early blow when it was still turning from the stricken ship to face its still very active sister Corvette, the battle could only have one outcome.

    Shields on the Cutter soon failed as blow after blow slowly knocked the cutter out of the fight.  After a few minutes of sustained fire, it was just another disabled ship slowly drifting in cold space.

    Curiously, the other cutter failed to respond to the arrival of the still functional Corvette, or to the disabling of its piratical cousin and kept pressing the attack on the disabled corvette.

    Seeing what he must have taken for a small pause in the action, Officer Tremblay approached the command chair.  “Admiral, we found a old confederation code.  Its over seventy years old, but the Corvette’s DI system recognized it and exchanged automatic handshake protocols.”

    “Handshake automatic protocol,” I said, looking at Officer Tremblay in not realizing until after the words were out of my mouth that I‘d jumbled them up.  “What is your conclusion?”  I honestly had no idea what he was talking about, but I thought I should play along.

    Tremblay took a deep breath and then sighed letting the breath out.  “It means we can talk to them over what ‘might’ be a secure communications channel.  It's an ancient code as far as modern encryptions go, but for that very reason it's unlikely these pirates would have it on file and be able to  read it.  At least not right away,” he said, gesturing toward the main screen.  “Nothing transmitted over an open frequency is really secure, no matter how  good the encryption.  Be it hours, days, or even months, someone will crack the code.  Eventually someone, somewhere will find a way, even if it takes them years.  But in the meantime, and in situations where every second counts, it allows for unmonitored real time communication.”

    I nodded as I absorbed this bit of information.  “Very well.  Let's open a channel and prepare a data dump with the details of our ship’s provenance as a Confederation Flag-Ship, despite being on loan from the Caprian SDF, as well as our mission orders and any other documents detailing our authority as a the head of a multi-sector patrol fleet.”

    Officer Tremblay hesitated.  “The data you’re requesting was wiped from the DI when the Imperials took down the new systems and upgrades.  In many cases we had to fall back on the original caprian system back ups.  I did keep, that is I mean to say Caprian members of the Intelligence Section, of which I was a part, kept copies of some of the pertinent documents on hard copy.  This is technically a violation of regulations, but under the circumstances….” he  said, glancing around the Flag Bridge.

    I snorted.  I wasn’t one to talk about not following proper military protocol.  Half the time I didn’t have a clue what proper protocol for the military was, and the other half I figured I was almost certainly not following it.  If Tremblay had vital documents backed up on a few discs in his quarters  and it helped smooth the way with the settler escort, then who was a Prince-Cadet cum Admiral of the Patrol Fleet to complain?

    So I said the only thing I could, given the situation.  “Get them.”

    Tremblay paused before going.

    I had been around too many politicians not to catch the sudden gleam of calculation in the eyes of my First Officer.  It instantly put me on guard.   Parliamentary representatives, and even members of my own extended royal family had looked at me exactly the same way before I was volunteered to ‘command the fleet’.

    “Does the Admiral intend to continue to maintain that, despite the intended ceremonial nature of his command and his lack of official military training, he now has the full authority of an Admiral of the Confederation Fleet,” Tremblay inquired cautiously.  His eyes strayed briefly from mine to the power armor encasing my body.

    My face went blank, “I’m the only Admiral left on this ship and Janeski officially placed me in command before leaving,” I forced myself to keep the growl out of my voice, and to keep my features even.  “I even have a nice big scroll in my quarters with ribbons, seals and everything, declaring how I’m now an admiral in the Confederation Fleet, and thus must be physically present for the duration of this patrol.”

    “Technically, your commission is as an honorary Admiralty in Capria’s System Defense Force.  Not in the Confederation Fleet,” Tremblay pointed out.

    “Yes, but that nice big scroll in my room mentions nothing about my Confederation rank being honorary.  Only that the ‘Honorary Vice-Admiral Jason Montagne Vekna of the Caprian SDF, with the written consent of Capria’s Parliament, is now formally seconded to the Confederation Navy to act as the Official Commanding Officer of the newly formed Multi-Sector Patrol Fleet,’” I said, reciting it back verbatim to the First Officer.

    “To ‘act’ as the Official Commanding Officer,” Tremblay parroted back at him.  “You, an Honorary Admiral, have been forwarded to act as the Official  Commanding Officer, of our so called mini-fleet,” he paused.  “As best I can see it, you have not been officially commissioned as a Confederation Fleet Flag Officer, and thus have no official standing outside this ship and perhaps the members of this patrol fleet, ships voluntarily forwarded by the planetary forces that contributed to its founding.  Another concern being, now that the Imperial Navy’s gone, those ships could be withdrawn from this ‘patrol fleet’  anytime their planetary governments wanted them home.”

    I had looked as much of this up as I could using the defective distributed intelligence network, when I had time from my other duties onboard the ship.  Those duties primarily consisting of watching everyone on the bridge like a hawk.

    “Its my understanding that when a member of a System Defense Force, officer or enlisted, joins the Imperial Fleet they take an automatic two step downgrade in rank,” I countered, deciding to ignore the fact that every ship in the patrol fleet (including the one we were on) could technically be recalled home, leaving the multi-sector patrol fleet a fleet without any ships.

    “That’s true, but we’re not in the Imperial Fleet, if we ever were.  Now we’re technically in the Confederation Fleet… according to you,” Tremblay riposted.  He had obviously been working on this for quite some time, and I was going to have to be on my toes as I navigated this political minefield.

    “Looking through historical records, when members of the Confederation Fleet merged with the Imperial Navy, the Confederation officers all took an automatic one step down in rank,” I said.  “Down two for SDF to Imperial Navy, down one from Confed to Imperial.  According to that, I should be one step down to Rear Admiral.  And all of this ignores the fact that a granted flag title carries just as much weight and authority as an earned one, in the absence  of a duly appointed and recognized officer of comparable rank.”

    Tremblay opened his mouth to retort, but I interrupted him.

    “What’s your point, First Officer,” I asked abruptly, tiring of whatever game he was playing at.  For now, I was the Admiral of this ship and that was how it was going to stay until and unless we got home or something else changed.  Like a successful mutiny.

    Tremblay frowned and looked hard at the floor, “I’m not sure that an officer of the Rim Fleet, if any stayed behind, or any Retired Confederals brought back into service will recognize your authority to command our multi-sector patrol fleet.  Which, I will add, is down to all of one undermanned,   under-equipped starship.  I am sure that as soon as they review your commission they will not recognize you as having any authority over them or their commands, whatsoever.”

    “Find your point quickly, Officer Tremblay.  I’m fast losing my patience,” I said as evenly as I could.  Hypotheticals and more hypotheticals when there was an Escort Corvette to speak with and two rescue operations to plan for.  One for the Settler ship that broken in two and countless settlers were drifting in space as the two of them spoke.  The second rescue obviously involved our missing engineers floating in space.

    “My point is that those two Corvettes are old Confederation models.  They stood and fought even when the situation looked hopeless and they could have bugged out at anytime up until the one was disabled.  Most SDF forces would have retreated if it wasn’t their planetary citizens or home-world on the line.   So it might be wisest to have you put back on that outdated Admiral’s uniform you managed to scrounge up.  Murphy knows where you got it, and when you have us send over copies of our provenance and orders, we send everything but a copy of your actual commission in the Confederation Fleet,” said Tremblay.  “Such as it is.”

    I was surprised.  Tremblay had been dragging his heels over supporting me every step of the way.  Now he was actually advocating that I do everything I could to mask the fact that technically I might not be considered an actual Confederation Admiral by the regular forces, despite officially being in command of one of their fleets.

    Of course, the whole plan might be to get me out of the power armor so Tremblay could launch a coup-de-etada and set the ship on a course that could take this Dreadnaught Class Heavy Cruiser straight back home to Capria.

    On the other hand, his points were reasonable and when it was all said and done, I was a Montagne.  I had made a few contingency plans along the way for just for such a problem.  Now was maybe the time to see if any of the plans I had formulated were any good.

    “Alright, I’ll go change and meet you back here.  Have the channel to the Corvette standing by for my return to the Flag Bridge.  I want to speak with the captain of that corvette personally,” I said, rising from the chair.  I registered the surprise on Tremblay’s face, quickly masked by the former Intelligence Officer, but I chose to ignore it.

    As soon as I was back in my quarters, I placed a com call before stripping out of the battle suit.  Unless I was completely paranoid, events were about to be set in motion that would determine whether or not I would remain Admiral in command of the ship, or spend the rest of the trip as a prisoner in the brig.

    Manhandling Helmsman DuPont had been a desperation move, and while it had paid off for the Settlers, it had killed engineers and might come back to bite me in the hind quarters.  The Pirranha Squadron was scattered and broken because of it and the settlers were safe sooner rather than later.  But engineers were dead or dying, floating away in cold space and on top of that, playing into the bloodthirsty, crazed Montagne stereotype might backfire with a vengeance.  I still remembered the look in Tremblay’s eye when the officer had produced his well-concealed blaster pistol.

    Before I knew it, I was dressed and had no more time for pondering.  It was time to talk with the Corvette’s Captain.