“Alright,” Akantha said after a moment, “I can see how striking back at the Empire to destroy their image could be beneficial to us. But not if it provokes a reaction we cannot survive.”
“I agree they’re too large to face head-on and we can’t attack their worlds or provinces directly. But this is different. As strong as we are, we can’t replace combat losses like they can, but going in there fighting to help the aliens and push back the Empire?” I nodded with certainty, “all we have to do is get the word out to the galactic media and we’ll be fine.
“Besides,” I added, “we might find some unique alien tech like the jump spindles or some other new technology that gives us a big edge in this fight.”
“Yes, new technology… I can see how the knowledge and secrets could be useful,” Akantha mused in a quiet voice, “okay. You have my support. I may have been wrong to prejudge your decisions. Messene will pay for this initiative to Capria and support whatever you need for the Bug Campaign. If the information from these new Sundered check out, and we can get away with it, then… it looks like we’ll be going to the Gorgon Front.”
I looked back at her gravely. Now was not the time to mention my grave concerns with certain of her policies, namely the resurrection and restoration of a long dead data-god, but at some point, I was going to have to address the elephant in the room.
“Thank you,” I said instead of the half a dozen other things I could have. Like for starters, the fact that I didn’t think I was going to need her to pay for much of anything in the first place. But as this was clearly an olive branch and since it would let me put one situation to bed by taking Capria off the bargaining table early, there was no need to throw it back in her face.
“There’s just one thing,” she said, her voice taking on the hint of growl.
I looked at her, my brows lowering.
“No complaining if I get involved in another boarding action,” she said.
I rolled my eyes.
“No promises,” I said.
Together, we’d started to map out a future path for our small but growing Empire. It was hard to imagine this had all started on a single disarmed battleship.
I gave myself a shake. First we’d deal with Capria, and then the bugs, and finally—depending on how things went—we’d throw a spoke in the intra-galactic wheels of the Empire of Man.
‘M-A-N,’ I thought coldly.
Chapter 13
The Fleet Musters
Ships had started to arrive at Tracto from all over the Rim of Sector 25 as the former worlds of the Border, now realizing the potential threat posed by the bugs, were eager to shore up relations and mend fences. Already, a dozen ambassadors had arrived with more on the way by the time I returned to orbit, not that I cared.
The Royal Rage was crewed up and waiting to whisk me back to Gambit.
Despite Lenora Hammer’s accusation that I was some kind of terrorist for trying to rope her back into the MSP, I’d been quite serious. Right now, I had less than fifty ships fit for action, mostly due to crew concerns. Every ship’s Lancer Department was fully staffed but regular spacer crews were below establishment.
If I could have recruited her and possibly anyone else formerly a part of the MSP back into service, I could have sent several more warships out to face the bugs.
Idly I pulled up a simplified fleet roster that included all of our current warships, not just the ones we’d repaired even simply had sufficient spacers to crew at the moment.
Multi-Sector Patrol Fleet:
1 Super Battleship
42 Battleships
4 Gunboat Carriers
- 1217 Gunboats
126 Cruisers (various classes)
210 Destroyers (various classes)
38 Corvettes
47 Cutters
392 Total Warships
For a moment, I imagined myself at the head of an almighty battle fleet, all of those warships fully repaired, recovered and crewed up. We had another sixty to eighty partially-disassembled warships that both engineering and the shipyard had down checked as unrecoverable. Designated for disassembly, anything usable was stripped off before they threw the rest into the orbital smelters at the new Gambit Star System.
Coming in at just under 400 warships, minus a few left for Tracto and Gambit self-defense, if they’d all been repaired and crewed up, I would have been more than ready to face the bug scourge head on. As it was….
I sighed.
Unfortunately, such a dream was still years off at our current pace. Despite my best efforts, we’d hemorrhaged almost as many people from the shipyard and factory complexes as we had from the general spacer pool.
The war was now over and with the MSP no longer a part of either Confederation, many previously loyal spacers had been interested in finishing out the remainder of their contract and then going home.
Right now, Terrance Spalding and Glenda Baldwin were doing their dead-level best to train the new recruits we were scrounging up but between security concerns and the fact many of our recruits were from Tracto and thus lacking even a basic education, slotting replacements into the open slots in our organization had slowed to a crawl.
In the meantime, even the use of construction robots hadn’t been able to fill the gaps caused by the continued lack of trained man and woman power.
“Are you ready, Admiral?” Lisa Steiner asked, breaking me out of my reverie.
“Is the Fleet assembled?” I asked.
“Aye-aye, Sir,” she replied with a smile.
Steiner was one of the loyal few that had stayed the course. When the likes of Captain and now Commodore Hammer had gotten a severe case of the bug-out boogies, leaving us in the lurch, Lisa Steiner had been as steady as a rock.
“Make for the hyperlimit and prepare the fleet to point transfer, Commander,” I ordered.
“Yes, Admiral,” Lisa said with a serious expression.
We were taking thirty warships with us to Tracto and a dozen freighters, many of them loaded to the rafters with extra Lancers and green recruits fresh from their training course.
I had a particular use for those lancers.
Oh, I had a use for the regular spacer recruits too, but the Lancers were key if my new plan was going to work out like I hoped.
Back in the audience room, it was easy for Hammer to say things like ‘with a wave of my hands, I could release the krakens of war’ but actually doing it and making it happen was a horse of a different color.
Not many outside of Gambit—or Tracto for that matter—were aware I was warship-rich but crew poor. After it was all said and done, I had enough crew for fifty ships. Beyond that, I had enough command teams for my officers to run up to a hundred ships, but even with Science Officer Jones slave-rigging everything up the ying-yang, finding the actual crews to run them would leave everything running short-handed.
That was why the current plan was to take an initial group of one hundred warships to Capria, and go from there. If things back on my homeworld were as I suspected, I was going to fall back on a tried and true move harking all the way back to the beginning of the multi-sector patrol fleet. I would wed Caprian crews with Tractoan lancers and as many of my own command teams as I could manage, and then see what happened.
If everything went well, the Fleet would run from Gambit to Capria with skeleton crews. After that… I smiled grimly.
“Sir?” Commander Steiner asked, looking at me with concern.
“Since the Commodore wouldn’t put her career where her sharp mouth was, we’ll have to fall back on option B, Commander,” I said, looking over at her and then taking a very deliberate sip from my teacup. “It’s time for the Kingdom of Capria to put up or shut up.”
Lisa Steiner nodded seriously.
“It would be nice to go home. If only for a visit, Admiral Montagne,” she said.
“I understand the feeling,” I commiserated, omitting that leaving Capria and its intolerable b
igotry aimed at anyone with my family name had been a great relief. I left it out in part because, to my own surprise, I was actually looking forward to going home too.
“I haven’t had a chance to see my mother in seven years,” she said wistfully, and I had to suppress a wince.
At least mother and Duncan, the only ones I really cared about. had been around ever since Akantha’s deathride into Capria. I couldn’t help but feel guilty for all those like Lisa Steiner who couldn’t go home to see their families. This hadn’t just hit people directly on my staff, but included many of my top ship officers as well as every Captain of Caprian heritage.
They hadn’t been able go back to Capria for fear of being arrested, even if they left my service. Well, that’s something that’s about to change, I thought, my expression hardening.
“I’m going to make sure that family reunion happens for you, Lisa. For all of you,” I said, referring to everyone in my fleet. The quitters had already gone home but the rest of my loyal crew, the ones who never gave up and never surrendered, deserved that and so much more.
“Thank you, Sir,” she said gratefully.
I nodded.
With Lancers contingents set aside for every ship in the fleet not just my larger vessels, I was confident my fleet could hold onto them in the face of whatever trickery my former countrymen would be tempted to pull.
That confidence sprang in no small part from the new Nemesis Power Armor that Lieutenant-Commander Gants and Chief Engineer Spalding had come up with. Besides being genetically engineered super freaks, being equipped with battlesuits that could run rings around anything the Caprian SDF was able to issue, would give my people the decisive edge.
The rest would be up to me and I’d never been so ready in my entire life.
Chapter 14
Jumping to Capria
“Point transfer!” reported Sensors.
Helmsman DuPont opened his mouth and then sat back, looking unsettled.
“Well, that was anti-climactic,” he muttered as the rest of the bridge continued its litany of arrival reorientation in a new Star System. In this case, the Caprian Star System.
“I never get used to these Spindle Jumps myself either,” I said, stepping up beside him and clapping him on the shoulder.
The Helmsman craned his neck, looking up with surprise, and then shot me a smile.
I gave his shoulder another slap and returned to my Admiral’s Throne. Although now that I thought about it, it wouldn’t be ‘just’ a mere ‘Admiral’s’ Throne for much longer, if things went as they were supposed to.
The unreality of the situation swept over me and for the longest moment, I was left wondering if I’d made the right call. Was I doing the right thing because it was the best of a bad bunch of options or had I allowed anger at my wife and the hypocritical demands to action from the two faced Commodore Hammer sway me into taking rash action? Or even self-aggrandizing action?
In short, did I secretly desire, somewhere deep down in the hidden cockles of my heart, to be crowned King? Was I ready to seize power for its own sake or even just to repair the many wrongs of my ancestors and right the Montagne record?
Oh, I was more than ready to use whatever power they handed me in order to save billions of lives and stop dozens of life-bearing planets from being eaten down to the bedrock, but was there more to it?
Honestly, I didn’t think I was in it for the raw power of it all. They had come to Tracto to get me, not the other way around, but even still…
Pushing aside such considerations as counterproductive at best and needless self-flagellation at worst, I turned back to the screen.
Taking pride of place at the center of the holo-screen, Capria was now displayed in all its glory; from the cloud-studded blue-green beauty of the planet itself to the mighty orbital works circling her like a glinting metal ornament, she was a beauty to behold.
For just the briefest moment, she took my breath away.
“Now, there’s a sight for sore eyes, Sir,” Spalding said gruffly.
I suppressed a startled gasp, because as a high and mighty Warlord, Protector, Admiral and soon-to-be King, such things were for common men and not for mighty individuals like myself. I turned to the Chief Engineer.
Studiously ignoring the entirely unrelated and startled looks of the closest members of the bridge crew, I took in the surprisingly watery gleam in the old Engineer’s eyes and nodded.
“That she is, Chief Engineer,” I repeated with suppressed emotion. I hadn’t known until that moment just how much I’d missed the slowly-rotating ball of mud and water that now dominated the main view screen.
Spalding cleared his throat and eyed the screen strangely.
“Spend enough years serving a fine lady like that and even after she up and throws you over, I suppose a man can’t be blamed for cherishing a few fond feelings for her deep down in his heart,” Spalding said finally.
I looked over at the Commander in surprise. Spalding was a man that constantly belly-ached but rarely complained about our effective exile from Capria, an exile that was about to come to an end.
“This will just be the first among many visits, Commander. We’ve come home,” I vowed.
“Sure, but for how long? That’s my point,” he snorted, shaking his head.
I couldn’t honestly tell him he was completely wrong. Oh, I had plans for sure, but as the Chief Engineer had just pointed out, Capria and her people could be as fickle as the day was long. But once they took my money to save their crashing economy, I wasn’t just going to fade away gently into that good night.
“I think we can do better,” I said firmly.
Spalding eyed me skeptically.
“Come. Go. Stay. Leave. It’s not a big matter but I’m an old man, so it doesn’t matter so much to me. I’ve already spent more of my years in orbit or onboard a ship than I have on the ground. But for a lot of these young sprouts, they have families and people they know on the homeworld. Just be careful you don’t tell them one thing and then leave them high and dry later on. I’m not sure if they’ll all be able to take it,” warned Spalding.
I looked back at the Planet of Capria and my gaze turned cold.
“Make no mistake, I intend to take a somewhat hands-off policy where it comes to domestic affairs. The Royal House has far too often and for far too long, meddled where it shouldn’t and brought no end of well-earned grief down on itself because of it. But once you take the King’s shilling, you owe your service to the King,” I said.
“I don’t know if the people are going to look at it that way,” Spalding warned. “Way I hear it, anti-royalist sentiment is running high. And then putting a Montagne on the throne to boot? Sounds to me like they’re setting you up to fail, Sir. If you don’t mind my saying so.”
“No offense taken, Commander. I’m glad that at least one of my advisors understands what we’re up against and isn’t afraid to give me the straight down low,” I said evenly, “the sad fact is that for many years under King James, the people didn’t get the fair shake they were expecting.”
Spalding looked down at me with alarm.
“Now hold on a second! I know men and I know machines, but I don’t claim to know the first thing about politics other than it’s a mud pit and once you get down into it, you’re going to get dirty. So don’t you go holding me up as some kind of paragon of politics cause it just isn’t so,” he warned.
I quirked a smile but didn’t say anything.
Spalding eyed me uneasily before turning back to the main screen.
Soon, the largest contingent of Multi-Sector Patrol Fleet ships ever assembled was going to arrive in orbit around Capria, and in short order, it was going to be put up or shut up time. The fact most of my ships were running with skeleton crews was beside the point.
I was ready to go all-in with the MSP and a treasure fleet, its holds full of trillium, high-end electronics and processed goods along with billions
of credits.
Now I had to wait for a call from the Palace and see how things played out.
Chapter 15
The Palace Council
“So, he’s finally here,” a woman said sourly.
“He really came,” agreed another council member, a grimace on his face, before he turned to address the council at large.
The mixed group of men and women gathered together in council chambers underneath the Palace, one of the most heavily fortified places on the planet, shared a series of enigmatic or disgruntled looks.
“I can’t believe it’s come to this. Asking a Montagne to come back home and fix things,” said General Mordan Tilday
“Beg, you mean. We’re forced to literally beg a Montagne to come back and fix the mess a Vekna King has left us with,” acting Parliamentary Member Sandra Vance said spitefully.
“An economic depression is nothing to play with,” warned the acting Treasury Minister, “our accounts are overdrawn and the Palace vaults empty. If not this, then what?”
For a moment, there was a glum silence.
“Well General Tilday, are you sure you can keep control of our wayward Montagne?” asked the sour-faced woman.
“They say he who can control the orbitals controls the planet. I can keep control of the surface, so long as our new King doesn’t resort to dropping big blasted rocks on top of my Divisions… but if there’s an orbital bombardment, all bets are off,” said General Tilday.
“Anything to add, Commandant?” PM Sandra Vance shot the top marine officer in the star system a sharp look.
“If we’re going to do this, we need to do it right. Otherwise, the best time is when his guard is down,” said the Marine Commandant.
“And here, I thought the job of the Marine Corps was to not take sides,” General Tilday sneered.
The Commandant gave him a flinty look.
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