Admiral's Challenge (A Spineward Sectors Novel: Book 8)

by Luke Sky Wachter

  “My sister was in on it?” I asked, focusing in on one bit of trivia I hadn’t been able to extrapolate beforehand.

  “Like I said: they would only talk when the anti-mutiny systems couldn’t hear them,” the old Engineer said dismissively. “But they was almost thick as thieves, they was, I’m sure of it!”

  I narrowed my eyes in contemplation. Maybe it was time to do something proactive about that notorious sister of mine. I had hoped she’d slowly come around from whatever grudge she was holding against me, but if she’d been having private conversations with a group who’d been trying to launch a mutiny during the most critical battle of the Droid Campaign…then she’d gone a step too far.

  “Perhaps you’re right,” I mused, on the outside speaking almost as if the news didn’t hit me in the stomach, while on the inside my mind was racing. Conviction hardened into certainty. “I think it’s time my sister and your son disembarked from our fleet.”

  Mom was so family-oriented I doubted she’d understand if I had Crystal executed—even for almost certainly being involved in a mutiny against me. Even if I had the audio tapes, which I didn’t, I’m not sure I’d want to risk it. Nothing short of a bloody knife—preferably still lodged into some non-critical part of my body—would work as damning evidence against my sister.

  I shuddered. Even with such a knife wound, I still wouldn’t want to risk it. I barely knew my sister, but she and my mother seemed fairly close.

  With Tiberius, I was in nearly the same metaphorical boat. Realistically, given Spalding’s reaction, I could probably get away with spacing him. But doing so might break the old man, making him for all intents and purposes utterly useless to me and the fleet in the short- and long-term. I suspected that if I did as the other man deserved, I’d be damaging myself and my fleet much worse than any enemy attack. So that was out as well…but, clearly, something had to be done.

  I’d let a potential mutiny fester once before, and look where it had gotten me. At the thought of my previous trials and tribulations, I unconsciously started rubbing my neck. When I realized I was doing so, I quickly put my hand down.

  “Perhaps it’s time they all returned to Capria,” I muttered.

  “You can’t just let them go, Sir!” Spalding said sounding half relieved and half furiously outraged.

  “I didn’t much care for my time in the dungeon ship,” I said bluntly, “given the choice between a life sentence or death, I’d much rather prefer the latter. So I can’t really conscience a life sentence on a Tracto-an penal colony. That being the case, it’s probably better to just let them go. It’s not like they even joined up willingly; Akantha pressed them into service just like she did with the droids on our battle ships.”

  “Even still!” Spalding said, outrage winning out in the war of emotions evident on his wizened features. “It’s mutiny!!!”

  “They didn’t even get off the ground in that particular department, and Capria has a long tradition of coup and counter-coup, with the losers drummed out of the service,” I said dismissively, deliberately not pointing out that this ‘tradition’ wasn’t always followed—and that even when it was, it mostly only applied to unranked crew. But since I couldn’t do anything about the leader of the would be mutineers, Tiberius, without risking the health, well-being, and life-saving ingenuity of his father, Commander Spalding, the best thing to do was probably just send them home and wash my hands of the whole business.

  If, after sending them back, the man was still a problem…I’d deal with that eventuality when it came about and not before. Although, building up something of a black-ops, first strike capability organization to deal with problems of this nature might be something I needed to look into.

  “It’s not right, Admiral, if you don’t mind my saying,” Spalding declared.

  “I haven’t made my final decision yet,” I said firmly, “they may still end up fighting the native flora and fauna of Tracto for the rest of their lives…but I’ll wait until I’ve had more time to mull the matter.”

  Chapter Fourteen: Nikomedes in Thebes

  The shuttle landed in the cleared, packed dirt area that was being used as the temporary landing pad and the ramp at the stern slowly lowered.

  Stepping out and taking a deep breath of fresh, Tracto-an air, Nikomedes felt a sense of homecoming that wasn’t even ruined by the fact he was setting foot on Thebes land and not that of his home polis of Argos.

  Behind him came out a squad-level strength escort comprised mainly of Tracto-ans. There was one Starborn, and even a single hunt-pack warrior for some variety, brought as a means to remind those who’d never left Tracto—and who might be stuck in the old ways that there were new enemies, new threats, and new challenges, some even beyond their current comprehension, out amongst the River of Stars.

  He took a second, deep breath of pure, un-recycled air, basking in the simple pleasure of coming back down to a place where there was honest soil under his feet instead of solid metal decking. The Starborn loved to fight, which was in their favor, but the conditions between battles were trying at times.

  While he was standing there with his men still disembarking with their gear, to the side a large number of men dressed in traditional Tracto-an armor approached.

  One corner of his mouth turning up, Nikomedes swiveled to face the warrior party. “Greetings to the Hold,” he said, lifting a hand in the traditional greeting.

  “Do I know you, Argos?” thundered the biggest, hairiest man—and apparent leader of the bunch.

  “I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure,” Nikomedes replied with a wan smile.

  “If you’re wise, you’ll get back on your Thunderbird and return from whence you came,” warned the leader in a deep, gravelly voice.

  “I think I like it right here,” Nikomedes replied, placing a hand on his hip near the hilt of his vibro-sword. “Not to live though, of course,” he added after a moment of contemplation, “too much sun. But for a short visit I can’t think of a place I’d rather be.”

  “Don’t say I didn’t warn you, Argos; we in Thebes never much liked you Argosians, but we like being involved in another man’s war even less,” denounced the warrior.

  “I’m sure it was nothing the mighty polis of Thebes couldn’t handle,” Nikomedes replied.

  The other warrior turned purple. “You got a lot of stones, showing to Nastor of Thebes, after what you done!” howled the warrior, who was apparently Nastor of Thebes. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  “Are you sure we can’t talk this out?” Nikomedes asked dryly, his hands flashing like lightning toward the hilt of his sword. There was quite literally nothing he wanted more than a fight with solid earth under his feet—a familiar setting to an equally familiar ritual, which would refresh his mind and spirit.

  “That Jean Luc leveled half the city with his Sky and Thunder Weapons,” snarled Nastor.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Nikomedes lied. He was far from upset that a traditional Argosian rival had suffered during the time Jean Luc controlled the star system which held their home world.

  “Sorry? Sorry?! You just dug your own grave, Argos. The great acropolis of Thebes doesn’t need your sorry and we reject your pity,” Nastor raged, and by now the warrior was almost frothing at the mouth. “What we want is a proper blood price for our lost kin!”

  By this time, a second band of Theban warriors had arrived and stood beside their brothers. So long as it was single combat, Nikomedes feared no man, but even the strongest war band could be worn down by superior numbers.

  “That’s why I’m here: to ensure that something like this never happens again,” Nikomedes said calmly, to sooth the proverbial waters.

  “Lies!” raged Nastor hand on his blade.

  “How can you ensure that our city is never destroyed again,” asked the leader of the second band of warriors from Thebes his face as hard as stone.

  “Help me kill him, Heptomiter, and we’ll split the weapons, armor and equipm
ent,” Nastor snapped to the new warlord.

  “Hold…let him speak, Nastor,” Heptomiter said, his eyes never leaving Nikomedes.

  “I can do it without you,” Nastor said, taking deep heaving breaths his face turning red.

  “You can try—just like you did at Haptia’s Ford,” retorted Heptomiter.

  “Traitor to your own city!” cried Nastor, turning from Nikomedes and drawing his sword on Heptomiter.

  Heptomiter smiled, and the expression never quite reached his eyes, “All I said was to let the man say what he’s come to say. Like you, I am interested in safe-guarding our polis from outside invasion. Besides, we can always kill him together later,” Heptomiter said.

  Nikomedes tight smile turned cold. “You can try,” he said calmly, knowing swords against blasters was a losing proposition—a point driven home with resounding force in the reaches of cold space. It was also something that the warriors of Thebes obviously hadn’t learned, despite having their city nearly destroyed by such weapons.

  “Speak, then, before I cut out your lying tongue, Argos!” barked Nastor. “You didn’t come all this way just to take in the sights.”

  “My name is Nikomedes of Argos. Warlord of the Three Colors war-band, and veteran of the River of Stars,” Nikomedes said flatly.

  “If you have something to say, Nikomedes, then say it,” said Heptomiter in an amusingly commanding tone, “and be quick in doing so; I hear your words only on behalf of my city-state and not for any love I bear you, your people, or your sworn Warlord, the Protector Jason Montagne, who has brought only suffering and misery to those polis’ outside of Messene and her mother-polis of Argos.”

  “Protector Montagne is out of touch with our culture and customs, not having been born amongst us,” Nikomedes allowed, “but it would be a lie to say he has brought nothing but suffering and misery. It is no more right to blame him for all our ills than it would be to blame the guiding star in the sky for signaling the seasonal changes.”

  “You’ll get little sway with us, trumpeting the glories of Jason Montagne,” snapped Nastor, to which Heptomiter nodded shortly.

  “I will be frank: the men of Thebes, and her neighboring Holds, are more likely to cut him down than look at him if the Protector of Messene were to show his face here,” said Heptomiter. “A man who runs in the face of his enemy is not one I would admire.”

  “Which begs the question,” Nastor said, turning to Nikomedes with relish, “why do you follow such a man, Nikomedes of Argos—finder and loser of the Minos Blade?” The man’s eyes gleamed with relish as he continued, “Oh, yes, we’ve heard your tale even here. Tell me, Nikomedes: what does a loser have to teach us in Thebes?”

  “I see my fame has preceded me,” Nikomedes said measuredly, having expected something of this sort. He had little doubt that the men before him were equally impressed by the tales of his exploits as they were disdainful for his apparent allegiance.

  “Not fame; infamy is more like it,” noted Heptomiter.

  Nikomedes shrugged. “It would be a lie to say the Protector of Messene has won every battle he ever fought, or to say that he has never run from battle,” Nikomedes allowed. “He is a man that has caused even his own family to turn against him.”

  “Ha!” snapped Nastor.

  “Such a man,” sneered Heptomiter, “and yet you still follow him?”

  “Unlike Thebes—which seems content to allow others to dictate policy among the Stars—we of Argos have no intention of sitting silently by, unaware and uninterested in the possible threats to our city state that lay outside of our planet,” Nikomedes said, an overt thread of mockery in his voice.

  “You go too far, Argos!” roared Nastor.

  “Right now the Multi-Sector Patrol Fleet is the only way for those from Tracto to defend her from outside threats,” Nikomedes yelled back. “I will not stick my head in the sand and allow what happened here in Thebes to take place in Argos. And so long as the man is strong enough to keep what he has, I will support Warlord and Protector Jason Montagne!” He walked a thin line, treading between insulting their pride and pointing out the flaws in their isolationist reasoning. That kind of thinking might have worked back when Tracto was still isolated from the rest of the galaxy, but Thebes’ circumstances of late had shown that ignoring the Starborn did not mean the Starborn were going to ignore them.

  “I will never bend neck or knee to the kinsman of a man who tried to destroy Thebes,” Nastor declared. “Heptomiter, haven’t you heard enough of the incessant praises of a man whose family brought down our walls?”

  “I did not know that the Warriors of Thebes looked to outsiders to guard their walls for them,” Nikomedes said before the other man could reply.

  “What do you mean by that?” asked Nastor, his face turning an ugly shade of red.

  “’Jason Montagne failed at this, Jason Montagne failed at that. His family attacked us and he should have stopped it’,” Nikomedes mocked. “So what if each and everything you say is true? I’m not even denying that it is. Even so, I must ask you: is Montagne a man of Thebes?” Nikomedes demanded.

  “Never!” cried Nastor with utter rejection.

  “Then why do you call out against him like an angry child? Where were the men of Thebes when its walls fell?” Nikomedes demanded.

  “Good men stood—and died—on the walls when the lightning and thunder beams struck,” Heptomiter said, his voice low and threatening. “Be careful you do not insult their memories.” “Point taken,” Nikomedes allowed, “still, while all the men of Thebes were on its walls, half the men of Argos were aboard the citadels that travel the River of Stars. And it was we—not even so much as a single man of Thebes—who destroyed the power of Jean Luc. Think on that.”

  “You would have us swear to the Protector of another Polis, then; is that what this is all about?” Heptomiter asked, shaking his head piteously.

  “I would have you join your forces with the only Warlord on Tracto who can freely access the River of Stars,” Nikomedes said evenly. “Defend Tracto with your swords and with your deeds, instead of with angry words spoken against the only Tracto-an Warlord in cold space.”

  Nastor was shaking his head, but Heptomiter narrowed his eyes. “Go on,” the second man said after a lengthy silence.

  “I can’t believe you’re actually considering this,” Nastor snapped.

  “As many Warlords have fallen from conflict within as have fallen at the hands of other Warlords,” said Heptomiter, callously discussing regime change in front of Montagne’s sworn men.

  Nikomedes kept his face blank as the two took up the debate—a debate he had correctly anticipated prior to landing on the soil of his home world.

  “Men who were old and weak,” Nastor protested. “Men who have lost the admiration of the men under them as they grew old and fat; Montagne is still in his prime!”

  “That assumes that a man who runs and hides from a challenge until he is ready to face his…say, his Uncle, from a position of strength ever really had the loyalty of his warriors,” Heptomiter said, eyeing Nikomedes thoughtfully.

  “The Protector wins more than he loses. Many value that,” Nikomedes said neutrally. “I would advise caution until the time is right—if it ever becomes right.”

  “You can’t honestly be considering this,” Nastor grunted.

  “Whatever you think about the Protector, Tracto needs her warriors positioned to defend her—and her city-states—from outside threats,” Nikomedes said persuasively, “even if those warriors are not you personally. Thebes should send warriors to the River of Stars—men who will fight for her interests to their last breath. Who knows…perhaps if Thebes and all the other polis’ had sent men to rally to Montagne’s Banner instead of holding them back, things might have gone very differently for your citadel.”

  The two Theban Warlords looked at each other for a long time, their eyes locked. Finally, Nastor turned to Nikomedes with a great thunderous frown, and Nikomedes sensed th
e opening he had been waiting for.

  “The River is a different place. Learn the skills, weapons and equipment they have to offer. You not only will you better yourselves, but also the position of your home polis, even if you later come to admire, Montagne,” Nikomedes pressed, sensing that the time was right to push them over the edge. After all, the MSP fleet directives had been clear: more warriors were desperately needed. Was it his fault if the men he recruited—and received a nice sign-on bonus for—had only the best interests of Thebes at heart?

  Nastor snorted, but Nikomedes just looked at him levelly.

  “Tell me more,” the reluctant warlord said finally.

  Nikomedes’ lips parted in a wolfish grin, and then he did precisely that.

  Chapter Fifteen: The Prodigal Survivors return

  I stirred as an urgent buzz awoke me from my slumber, only to find a powerful arm gripping me around the middle—which, of course, brought me to full wakefulness.

  Fortunately, I was in much better shape than in months prior and my breath didn’t whoosh out of me. Instead, I clenched my abdominal muscles and carefully pried the clutching fingers, hand, and arm off my person.

  Beside me, my wife made a sharp-edged noise of protest.

  “Go back to sleep; I’ve got to take this,” I whispered but after another protest she settled back down and rolled over.

  Reaching over to turn down the volume, I activated my communicator.

  “Admiral, we’ve just had a pair of contacts arrive on the edge of the system squawking MSP IFF code. It looks like it’s the survivors from the Pride of Prometheus, Admiral,” reported the night shift communications officer, “sorry for bothering you while you’re sleeping, Sir. But standing orders are to wake you for any strange hyper-footprints.”