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

by Luke Sky Wachter

  I scratched my head, wondering about something I’d read. “Not that I doubt you, but didn’t I hear somewhere that you couldn’t build ships over a certain size due to power generation concerns? Something about how you couldn’t squeeze enough power plants onboard something bigger than a battleship without diminishing returns. I know the Imperials have better systems and managed 1200 meters, but even they don’t build them bigger than that—”

  “I have the solution,” Spalding said dismissively, causing me to heave a sigh. I mean, if he could figure out the mythical Duralloy II then why not a better fusion generator design? “You see, unlike the Imperials—and new Confederated Empire—the Old Confederation never signed the Revised Ban on Weapons of Mass Destruction,” he finished triumphantly.

  I spluttered, literally choking on my own tongue for an anxiety-laden moment. He was planning on using weapons of mass destruction—weapons which were banned by both of the major powers. How could this possibly be a good thing?!

  “It’s all in the antimatter, you see,” he explained. “I looked into it and, while the radiation will be extra-harsh on the crew, so long as we take precautions and don’t use it directly against the enemy then technically it’s not a war crimes violation,” he continued blithely, while I wheezed at the metaphorical blows which just kept coming. “The upshot is that the plant’ll power both the ship and the new main cannon: the Hyper Plasma Rail Gun that we’re going to install as a spinal mount.”

  Eventually I closed my mouth, but it took several seconds—time during which Spalding disappeared from the vid pickup and loudly fiddled with something off-camera.

  “I think I’m going to need to see the exact plans before I can sign off on this,” I said, utterly dumbfounded.

  “Not a problem, Sir,” old Spalding said with a wink as he came back into view of the camera, “they’re all saved into my personal files, including the new design and the particulars of the last Weapons Ban signed by the old Confederation. I had Mr. Harpsinger look into it for me, and it seems that back then they still hadn’t phased out the antimatter generators on some of the larger old Star Bases, like Wolf-9—only, of course, Wolf-9 doesn’t have theirs anymore, not since the Confederated Empire signed the new bans. Still, so long as the crew signs the proper waivers for working in a hazardous radiation environment, it looks like we’re in the clear. You know, it’s actually a good thing we ran into those Conformity Droids; I was wondering about practical antimatter storage systems on ships versus a fixed unmoving station. But now that we have our hands on actual, working models aboard those Motherships, it’s just a matter of duplicating and up-scaling.”

  “We’ll have to continue this conversation at a later date,” I said. placing my head in my hands and wondering why this was happening to me. First my wife was trying to turn prisoners of war into a long-term slave force. As soon as we squeak out of that particular predicament, my Chief Engineer turns around and starts talking about using a universally banned weapon system to build a power-plant that would irradiate our own crew.

  Give it to me straight, I thought with an upward turn of my eyes, why, Saint Murphy, does this sort of thing always happen to me. Why!?

  “Sure thing, Sir,” Spalding said happily, “you just let me know and I’ll have the full presentation ready for you. I hadn’t gotten ‘round showing it to you yet because I still needed to iron out a few kinks, but now that we’re back at the Yard and we have those Motherships and antimatter weapons systems, it’s all going to be downhill from here!”

  There were ‘kinks’ that he couldn’t solve, but still went ahead and started building the internal structure of his new ‘super battleship’ anyway because, no matter how much he tried to call it a rebuild, that’s what it was—he was building a completely new ship.

  Why was I not surprised?

  “I’ll let you know when the new appointment is set for,” I said weakly, and then collapsed back into my chair as soon as he left the room.

  Well, that was pretty far from the way I’d thought this particular conversation would go. I hadn’t exactly expected it to be ‘happy surprise, Admiral; you’ve got a new ship!!! I’ve got an illegal power sources and hazardous levels of radiation to build a ship so large that no major planet in the Sector had even thought about attempting it.’

  If it was anyone but Spalding, I would have thrown them in the brig and locked away the key.

  Chapter Twenty-one: A Midnight Surprise

  I was still tossing and turning that night, unable to sleep. Like a fool I’d looked up antimatter generators and what I’d found almost turned my hair white. Apparently it was—or had been—only usable on large, unmoving space stations because every attempt to use it on starships had resulted in the warship exploding violently when the antimatter containment was breached. Needless to say, no humans—or droids!—would survive said warship’s destruction.

  It seemed that even a minor fluctuation in the containment field would allow matter to interact with the antimatter setting off a chain reaction. This probably wouldn’t be a huge deal for a bulk freighter—like the one McKnight rode into town with—since they aren’t known for their high-speed maneuvers or sudden decelerations (read: weapon strikes to the shields or hull). But warships were all-too-familiar with these types of sudden changes in momentum, and while the grav-plating could compensate sufficiently to protect its human crewmembers—most of the time, anyway—keeping antimatter contained was several orders of magnitude more difficult.

  So aside from a few large stations, antimatter-powered generators had turned out to be both hazardous and completely impractical, resulting in the use and research into the field—as far as it pertains to starship power sources—being completely discontinued.

  Putting my hands behind my head, I stared at the ceiling. It’s not that I didn’t trust the Commander. If anyone could do it, it had to be him. However, every, single test ship had exploded. So the more appropriate question was: could it be done?

  Of course, if I was going to ask an expert for his opinion on the subject, the expert I would naturally turn to would be our crazy Chief Engineer. Since the proposer and the expert were the same person, I was left with a different question: did I need a second opinion? Or, in other words, did I or did I not trust Spalding when it came to engineering and integrating new technologies—or, rather, when it came to resurrecting old, outdated technologies in new and innovative ways?

  When you put it like that, the answer was clear: I had no choice but to trust him. With that slightly bitter-tasting realization out of the way, I was at last free to turn my attention toward a few of my other problems.

  Up until now, I’d been filibustering on the final decision of just what exactly to do with Lieutenant Commander McKnight, the surviving crew of the Pride of Prometheus, and her proposal to form an elite task force or squadron. Telling her to submit a plan just pushed the decision back, allowing me to still turn around and reject everything.

  However…she was right, blast it! I did need an early warning system on the border of Sectors 24 and 25, and taking a few small steps to forming a combined early-warning-slash-quick-reaction force really was the natural extension.

  If only it hadn’t been for Captain Middleton’s involvement, I thought sourly, I would have signed off on the deal as soon as it hit my desk!

  I heaved a small sigh. If he’d still been alive, it would have most certainly been different. I couldn’t allow someone to disobey a direct order—a disobedience which resulted in him heading off in the opposite direction of a major battle—be rewarded for their actions. However...he was dead and, thanks to the efforts of both him and his crew, I was now the proud owner of a giant hyper drive system of some sort—not to mention his spreading of chaos, confusion, and more than a mild case of death and destruction among our enemies.

  If I recalled correctly, Middleton had only been a Lieutenant Commander with an Acting Commander’s rank. Also, as an Admiral, I could nominate anyone for anything I l
iked; I only had the power to bestow medals and commendations, up to the prestigious Confederation Bronze Comet.

  With a sour taste in my mouth, I firmly decided that in order to motivate his crew—or, rather, to keep them from resigning in outrage—I was going to have to promote him posthumously and hand out some chest candy. For the promotion, I’d just regularize his acting rank and make it permanent; Commander was the highest rank I could bestow upon someone as a regular rank. I could, of course, give someone a brevet rank up to my own—but, again, just like the medals for permanent rank anything higher, I had to send it to the Confederation Assembly for review, which was naturally impossible due to said Assembly’s less-than-actual existence at that particular moment. I think there was a loophole, wherein a Sector Assembly or Sector Commandant could move to transfer over provincial officers—like had originally been done with the formation of the Multi-Sector Patrol Fleet—at a two step down rank reduction, but again that was impractical at the moment.

  So it looked like I could truthfully say that I gave Middleton the highest rank and medal award within my power and, if anyone complained, I could throw in the sop that, upon regaining contact with higher command, I would attempt to nominate him for a higher medal.

  A genuine promotion and a Bronze Comet as reward for doing whatever the blazes you wanted, I thought with a snort. I only wish I could be so lucky. Instead, for me, after harrowing battles I got shot, thrown in prison or roundly persecuted by the local authorities everywhere I went—with an extra topping of bad PR scatter-shot throughout the Intra-Galactic News Networks earning the catchy label of The Tyrant of Cold Space. Of course, I was still alive….

  As I was sucking on my sour grapes like a wine connoisseur determined to catch every minute flavor and texture, the almost imperceptible sound of the hatch leading into the Admiral’s Suite sliding open reached my ears.

  Normally I wouldn’t have thought anything of it; perhaps the guards were doing a routine spot check into our rooms. But in addition to the sound, there was no light—which, since I was in a darkened room and the hatch opened into a fully lit corridor, was somewhat surprising.

  Unconsciously, my hand reached for the holdout blaster tucked under my pillow—a motion I only realized making after the comforting weight of its grip slotted into the palm of my hand.

  Adjusting my breathing to better pretend I was asleep, I continued to lie there. If the lights were off that meant the guards outside our room were already neutralized in some fashion, since they’d never allow a darkened corridor outside our room; they wanted clear lines of fire with good visibility. Which begged the question: was this another mutiny lead by disaffected officers? If that was the case, then in all likelihood Tiberius and his men had escaped the brig. Or possibly this was another coup attempt. Maybe we’d picked up the equivalent of a disease by stopping at Tracto, where we picked up all the volunteers of a dozen SDF services, as well as a boatload of new Tracto-ans. Blast it! I knew I shouldn’t have allowed the Fleet to stop at Tracto.

  I should have gone straight to Gambit and screened everyone with a fine-toothed comb afterward rejecting anyone who didn’t pass the smell test. Or, possibly, it was the droids that had come for me in the dead of night. Either the United Sentient version, or a pod of stealthed assassins who’d waited quietly and invisibly on the hull—despite our best scan techs going over every inch before we came here—and were now in position to strike.

  As the minutes slowly ticked past and I started to feel foolish, wondering if my mind was playing tricks and I hadn’t actually heard the door slide open, I decided that really I had far too many potential enemies.

  Relaxing the grip on my blaster, I sighed and relaxed into the bed. I really was a bit paranoid I scolded myself. Ever since I was a child I’d been constantly worried about Parliament and the rest of my extended Royal Family, but compared to my current life style the threats had been few and far between. Only lately, since I’d become an Admiral, had things stepped up to where I actually had to worry about assassins sneaking into my room. Before, worrying about things I couldn’t even put a name to—like secret parliamentary hit teams—had been simple paranoia.

  In a way, I suppose it was a blessing that there were so many forces out there actively trying to get me. It let me actually give myself permission to relax from a false alarm like this without worrying if I was crazy to be concerned.

  After all, the old maxim, ‘just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you,’ held very true in my case. They were out to get me, but fortunately not tonight. Scolding myself for staying up into the late hours of the night worrying over problems and decisions I could just as easily be dealing with during normal business hours, I reflexively turned my head to look over at the slate next to my bed and make sure that the alarm feature was activated.

  The moment I turned my head there was a sense of motion and blackness rushing towards me.

  “Son of Murphy!” I blurted, my hand clamping back down on the holdout blaster pistol secreted under my bed and instinctively pulling the trigger.

  My shot went wild, hitting the wall at least four feet wide of the suspected movement. But the brief muzzle flash did show that a figure—covered in black from head to toe—was, in fact, rushing the bed with a blade in one hand and a hairpin of some kind leveled at me.

  At the same time as Akantha jerked upright in bed—her hand instinctively going for the family heirloom sword propped up beside the bed—I panicked.

  Something was wrong with that hairpin, and all I could think was that someone was here to kill the babies as visions of someone like my cousin Bethany stabbing Akantha in the stomach flashed through my mind.

  It was a stupid thought, which I realized almost the moment I thought it. But I was by far the most likely target for any attack onboard this ship. However my panicking is the only reason I can explain for why I threw the pillow behind my head at the intruder and, as soon as the pillow left my hand, I followed up with the sheets and bedding in one continuous movement, throwing them in the air at my opponent instead of following the lead of my wife as I grabbed the sword propped up next to my bed. As I lunged for it, I followed up with a second and third blaster bolt.

  Waving the flying bedding away with a curse, a thin beam of light shot out from the temporarily-obscured assassin—a shot which narrowly missed my head.

  Behind me, Akantha grunted and recoiled. Whether she was rolling away or falling off the bed, I wasn’t entirely sure, and I didn’t have the time just then to check.

  Opening fire with the blaster, I lunged forward. I only got off a pair of strikes before colliding with the assassin. I knew it was foolish and I should have grabbed the sword and maintained some distance, but with my previous fears now reinforced by the fact that an actual, trained assassin had just hit my wife with her modified hairpin laser, I felt I had to act before she could get another hit in.

  The one blast I got off didn’t seem to have any effect, and then I took a blow to my gun arm while my other arm grappled with the intruder for the deadly hairpin. In the resulting scuffle, the holdout weapon dropped from my weakened fingers.

  Looking down, I saw the slender, black-clad ninja jerk her blade out of my arm only to adjust its trajectory, this time stabbing directly for my neck.

  “Murphy’s imps!” I cried, falling over backwards and raising my bad arm only to have a pain I’d only rarely felt—and had hoped never to feel again—cause my voice to raise several octaves as the assassin’s knee slammed in between my thighs. “Agh!” I screamed, crumpling to the floor.

  “Die, die, die,” shouted a feminine voice as she repeatedly stabbed me in the hand, the arm, and the upper chest as I tried to ward her off, but my condition was much weakened by the blow below the belt.

  Grappling with the hand of my good arm, I forced the hairpin laser away and to the side. The beam of light, and scorched carpet next to the right side of my head, indicated that either I’d moved just in time or I
’d forced an early shot in all the confusion.

  Then Akantha came around the bed like an avenging, pregnant Valkyrie causing the black-clad woman to jump back in an incredible display of agility as she just barely avoided being gutted on my wife’s sword.

  Rolling over, I crawled toward my fallen blaster pistol with the wounds in my arm, hand and chest starting to burn.

  “I’ll gut you,” Akantha snarled, leveling her sword as her voice was filled with icy purpose.

  “It’s too late, Sister. My purpose has been fulfilled,” exalted the Ninja with a voice I recognized.

  “He won’t be dying from those wounds anytime soon,” Akantha said, sidling forward dismissively.

  “I’m not speaking about the cuts you foolish, unnatural, love-struck woman—you, in your arrogance, forget that not even the combined might of your entire Tract can be allowed to stand against the rightful path of the resurrection as declared by the Paragon. Your lover will be dead within seconds, and a new Chosen One will arise to take his place advancing the return immeasurably more than this heretic you have chosen. The poison I used has no cure—resign yourself to that,” the woman scoffed, dodging out of range of Akantha’s next attack.

  I tried to ignore any extraneous matters—like the fact that my wife and my soon-to-be-murderer seemed to have some secret, hidden connection; or the fact that I knew my assassin I continued toward my weapon. If I was doomed to die, as the pain burning a path along a pathway toward my heart seemed to indicate, then I wasn’t going down into the deep dark all alone. I was determined on that point alone, if nothing else.

  “You really believe me a fool?” Akantha said accusingly, and then in as close to a lightning fast movement as possible, she lunged forward. The ninja barely dodged in time, only taking a savage cut along the arm holding the hairpin rather than a bisecting death blow.

  The assassin cursed as the lethal hair accessory dropped to the floor. “If the shoe fits,” swore the assassin, rolling under Akantha’s follow-up swing and slashing the outside of her leg over her knee, “then wear it!”