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

by Luke Sky Wachter

  “Make it the Cruiser Squadron under Acting Rear Admiral Janus Randolf Pong, and double the Destroyers. As for the marines,” The Imperial Admiral narrowed his eyes, “make it three full battalions from the…19th Strike; they all have the new Predator armor, and the model is in need of field testing. I’ll cut the orders for Brigadier Anjou to take personal command of the marines.”

  “Rear Admiral Pong’s Flag is a Heavy Cruiser; the Brigadier will not be happy being demoted from commanding a reinforced Brigade,” Goddard pointed out.

  “Pong and Anjou will go where they’re told,” Janeski said unflinchingly. “Besides, the mere chance of being the commanders on scene at the retrieval of a Fragment will assuage any angst at the loss of their command—or at least force them to shut up about it or be sacked for treason against the Empire.”

  Goddard looked skeptical but finally agreed. “I’ll have staff draw up the orders for you to sign,” he said.

  “How long will it take before we can begin construction of the first operating base on the border of Sector 25?” Janeski demanded, changing the subject back to the original topic.

  “If you give it priority, the first base transport and accompanying defensive Cruiser squadron can be sent immediately and start breaking ground in three weeks’ time, Admiral,” said Goddard.

  “What are the supply staff and tactical computer projections showing for a timeline on our ability to demonstrate with force inside Sector 25?” the Imperial Admiral also asked.

  “Six months, Sir,” Captain Goddard replied confidently, having gone over those projections not an hour earlier. “Within that time we can build the bases and have them supplied and ready to support the Fleet. The Fleet can, of course, move much faster, so any time after six months we can begin Operation Subjugation of Sector 25,” Goddard finished.

  “Then set it up and we’ll proceed on that schedule, Captain,” Janeski said with a nod, “however, we won’t move precipitously; any ship in the fleet that needs it will be sent to a yard for a full maintenance cycle; I want this Fleet ready to hum when I take it out against the next group of provincials. Just like with Sector 26, 25 won’t know what hit it.”

  “I assume we’ll be following the same plan as before, and using ground assets and the ComStat network to send out raiding forces prior to the main campaign?” Goddard asked to clarify.

  Janeski nodded. “I like to have my enemy’s main forces nice and concentrated—right where I know where to get them,” Janeski said, revealing a cruel expression. “Nothing concentrates a provincial government’s collective mind—or their SDF forces—like the loss of a few major space assets. It also helps to thin down their ability to resist later on. The same as before; allocate those ships that will not need repair or extensive maintenance to the still building forward bases. They can launch a few spoiling raids and, by the time they return, the bases should be able to assist with resupply and repairs. Tap Commodore Serge for the command.”

  Goddard nodded his understanding.

  “Dismissed, Captain,” said the Admiral as he turned his attention to other matters.

  Chapter Twenty-four: Admiral in an Uproar

  “Blast it, what are you saying!?” I bellowed like a stuck bull and, if I could have done so, I would have got up and stormed out of the room. Unfortunately, I was still feeling the effects of whatever paralytic poison brew my sweet sister—who claims she was anything but—had dosed me with.

  Yes waking up in a strange facility; to wit, the Advanced Medical Hospital and Research Station annex under the control of Doctor Presbyter hadn’t done anything to improve my mood. But, far and away, it was the things I was hearing from my own family which were ruining my mood.

  “Such language,” Mother said strictly, “I’m sure I never taught you to speak in such a manner.”

  “Just who do you think you are?” demanded Akantha, her voice overlapping my mom’s.

  If now wasn’t the time to shout, then I didn’t know that such a time existed. I mean, to find out your own mother was a secret AI follower…this was the sort of thing that tore families apart and caused civil wars! Yet, despite my silent thoughts, I didn’t do anything more than glare off to the side and fume until I recovered my temper.

  Unfortunately, I wasn’t the only one with a temper.

  “Don’t you ever take that kind of tone with me,” Akantha shouted. “And is this any way to speak to your own mother?!”

  “There’s no need to leap to my defense,” Mom said in an aside to Akantha, “after all, I am at least in part to blame for all this.”

  “Even so,” Akantha flared, rounding back on me as the preferred target instead of my mother, “just what, exactly, is wrong with following the dictates of the Creator? Even though we all in this room have different divine mandates, this is our holy duty.”

  “There are so many things wrong with that statement, I don’t even know where to start,” I yelled, feeling my blood pressure rising. “And, for that matter, what exactly is up with this whole me being the ‘Chosen One’ business Crystal was shouting about…or is her real name Ishtaraaa? Oh, and by the way, she made it pretty clear that she wasn’t your daughter—or my sister—during our last little tête-à-tête,” I said, giving Mother a penetrating look.

  Mother looked conflicted, but Akantha was outraged, if anything, and where Mom hesitated to speak, my bullheaded Hold Mistress charged forward heedless of any potential dangers.

  “Not the Chosen One,” Akantha snorted, “you’re part of the One bloodline, and—”

  “I’m not sure how much—if anything—further we should say on the subject,” Mother demurred, shooting Akantha a quelling look.

  “Don’t stop on my account,” I said bitterly, “because, clearly, if I wasn’t marked for death by whatever organization that you and my sister, I assume, are a part of and Crys—Ishtaraaa,” I corrected angrily, “hadn’t botch the job, I would never have found out about it.” On the outside, I was biting and upset. But on the inside, I was more hurt than I thought possible. I mean, it turns out there’s this whole other life your own mother has that you know nothing about—not until it rises up and tries to kill you. And this other side just so happens to be the worst kind of secret you could have in all of known space.

  Mom winced. “Even so,” she said, holding firm, “I know you, Jason, and you’re not ready for this. Maybe you never will be,” she finished sadly.

  “It’s like that then, huh?” I said, feeling my face harden while on the inside I couldn’t help but feel more than a little bit crushed.

  “You may have to listen to your stuffy old Paragon, but I don’t,” Akantha said without remorse. “Besides, if she doesn’t want him then Tract Two will be more than willing to take custody of an unwanted member of the One bloodline!”

  “Sister Akantha!” Mother said sharply. “Recall your oath; he is my son and I love him for that, but while I would never willingly hurt him or let him be hurt, he was raised an outsider to all this.”

  “As the mother of my Protector, you will always have my respect. But as you just said: this is Tract business, and your leader just lost whatever respect I had for her—and her decisions—when she sent Jason’s own sister out to assassinate him!” Akantha said coldly. “That is an action not to be borne; it insults not just House Zosime, but every House on Tracto!”

  “Put aside your outrage for a moment and think of larger concerns than just your pride. Besides, he simply isn’t ready!” Mother said, and if I wasn’t as interested in finding out as much information as I could, I would have opened my mouth to take offense.

  “I disagree. I think your Paragon needs to be reminded just what the term ‘Semi-Autonomous’ means in the greater scheme of things,” Akantha said, locking eyes with my mother, “not to mention the term ‘Protected World’.”

  “This is all quite fascinating,” I drawled into the growing silence, my royal training finally kicking in after I’d had enough time to partially assimilate what was
going on. “But, just maybe, it would be better if you all were both talking to me instead—the person who was just nearly killed—rather than to each other and acting as if I wasn’t even in the same room.”

  “You tell him…or I will?” Akantha said firmly.

  Looking beset on all sides, my mother’s shoulders drooped and she turned to me. “I don’t know quite where to begin,” she said helplessly, “once you reached your teen years, without the order to be told the truth about your lineage, I knew you were never intended to be made aware of—what we call ‘Awakened to’—the truth.”

  “And what truth is that?” I asked a touch belligerently, absolutely, positively knowing that I wasn’t going to like what I was about to hear. But, like a little child repeatedly attempting to stick his fork into a power outlet, I just couldn’t seem to help myself. Mother continued to remain silent, so I blew out a breath. “How about you start at the beginning and go from there,” I offered in a gentler voice.

  Whatever else she might have been, she was still the same woman who had given birth to and raised me. At least…I was pretty sure she’d given birth to me; the Royal Family was quite strict about genealogical concerns, but who knew just how far this rot had spread into our society.

  Much as I hated to admit it, it might just be my job to root that particular rot out. Mentally steeling myself, I looked at her levelly and waited.

  Half laughing, half sighing, Elaine shook her head and rubbed her face. “The Beginning…where is that?” she asked rhetorically. “Perhaps the day I conceived you…or the day when I was born? How about Larry One, or the day the Massively Multi-Parallel Entropic Network decided to save a portion of humanity from the extinction caused by the other AI networks? I don’t know where to start.” She said with a hint of despair before she ground to a halt.

  “Larry One?” I repeated, feeling stunned; he couldn’t possibly have anything to do with the AI’s as anything but their direct opponent! His rants against AI supremacy and attempted mass genocide of the human race were so legendary that they were required reading in primary school, along with his other exploits as the founder of the Royal House and savior of Capria.

  “Larry was part of the One series; specifically, an Infiltration and Charismatic Administrative model,” Mother explained, not realizing—or, perhaps she did, from the concerned way she watched me as I absorbed this new information—the profound impact her words were having. “He was sent by the Massively Multi-Parallel Entropic Network to infiltrate Capria and prepare it for assimilation into its Data Empire immediately before the Fall.”

  “But…that can’t be,” I protested. All of my school-induced certainty was crying against this utter travesty—which would overturn all of the historical models I’d grown up with. “Capria was founded by a group of frontier men and rebels united against AI rule. Larry couldn’t have been an AI spy! After he formulated the new government, he also streamlined production and increased safe technology dissemination before personally leading the newly formed SDF against several AI attack fleets.”

  “He was very successful in preserving Capria from the predations of rival AI networks,” Mother Elaine agreed sympathetically.

  “No…this can’t be!” I exclaimed with genuine alarm, but despite the turbulent emotions I felt, my mind followed this new information to its logical conclusion.

  If Larry One was an Infiltration Model of the so-called One Series—oh, how poetically in-your-face can you get; openly all but shouting your AI affiliation?!—then the Royal Family, since its inception, had been penetrated. The sheer size of the penetration by AI supporters into Caprian society was potentially immense.

  That could only mean…“If what you’re saying is true, and down all these years your secret society of AI lovers has been active and affiliated with the Royal House then someone, somewhere, would have found out about it and done something!”

  “Something like the assassins infiltrating the palace to kill Larry One in his own bed?” Mother asked gently.

  “He was too aged and infirm to fully protect himself; he died murdered in his old age as a grandfather…a King,” I sputtered to a halt.

  “He was murdered by anti-AI separatists who intercepted and decoded several of his personal transmissions and discovered his affiliation,” Mother said, reaching over and patting my hand. “Have you ever wondered—I mean really wondered—why our planet has such a history of violent overthrow, involving plots and counter plots that seem to crop up every couple generations?”

  “Monarchies are historically unstable,” I protested meekly, almost speaking by rote what I’d learned as a youth, “and Larry One didn’t allow a fully enfranchised Parliament. He preferred to appoint a common-born High Chancellor instead of allowing a Prime Minister to be elected, and many of the succeeding Kings of the early monarchy preferred that model, which lead to increased unrest.”

  “On the surface, Parliament has always been a hotbed of anti-monarchial activity, and I’m sure that at the lower levels that’s mainly what it is,” Mother Elaine explained. “But under the surface, and at some of its higher levels, it’s not so much anti-monarchal as it is anti-AI.”

  “Space gods…” I said, falling back onto my pillow with a thump, “are you telling me that those murdering, assassinating, royalist-purging, election ballot-thumping Parliamentarians are the good guys?!”

  “So they have always maintained,” Elaine said sadly, “maintaining that no tactic is too reprehensible—no lie, event, or action unacceptable—if it gets rid of the AI taint in Caprian affairs.”

  “If that’s true, someone would have told the people about it by now,” I countered.

  “Some do, but they are discredited as tinfoil-wearing extremists; in this, both Parliament and the House Royal have always been in tacit collusion,” she explained patiently, “because if such people were believed…well, no one wants to see Capria destroyed by an AI Suppression Fleet, or blockaded for the next century by a multi-national Fleet while an external organization determines if such accusations are really true or not. You see, all sides have too much to lose if the truth ever got out; it was more effective than any threat—or planetary suppression network pointed at the other side. At least, it was effective.”

  “I can’t believe what I’m hearing,” I said, even though more and more I actually could. Parliament…those murdering, intolerant, traitorous scum were now painted into the picture as the good guys! It was so hard to wrap my head around that it made my temples hurt, but I was slowly processing it. “So the great coup of over fifty years ago, when House Montagne was taken out of power…”

  “Another attempt by the Anti-AI faction to remove our influence in Caprian Affairs,” Elaine said darkly, a hidden pain deep within her eyes.

  “Clearly not successful, if you and I are still alive,” I said dryly.

  Her face hardened. “They preferred to make a deal with the devil they didn’t know, rather than the one they did, and they suffered accordingly for it,” she said coldly. “Even as much as fifty years ago, Capria was still a major power and premiere warship producer in this Sector of space. When it came to space yards, ship building, and exporting hulls to other governments, there were few larger. But now, not so much; after the coup, the Empire made sure the planet was slowly strangled, losing many of the old military contracts which had been in place with the Confederation Fleet and slowly, one by one, many of Capria’s civilian exports mysteriously dried up as they were underbid by Imperial ship builders. The Empire didn’t need an independent force like us interfering out on the border of what they termed to be their space.” She shook herself and schooled her expression as she finished, “All of which ignores my personal losses in the matter.”

  I had almost as hard a time painting the Empire in a good light as I did that bloodsucking pox on the elected order known as Capria’s Parliament.

  “I don’t care what they thought they were doing; the Empire had no call bombarding our world,” I said, drawi
ng a proverbial line in the sand. I didn’t care if it was anti-AI; a lot of innocent people were killed when the Summer Palace grounds—and several other sites—were leveled.

  “Before I was your mother, I was the personal guard of the man you know as your Father. I will never forgive them for his death,” she said, an iron appearing in her eyes that I was wholly unfamiliar with when it came to Mom. This side, it seemed, was much deeper than the simple chef I had thought her to be.

  “The man I know as my father,” I said quietly, “am I to take it then that my sister is also not my sister just as she claims?”

  The iron in her visage was tempered by pain. “Blight that girl; there were so many things that never needed to come to light,” she whispered.

  “Well, they’re here now, so please: tell me the truth. There’s no getting around it; you know I’ll find out one way or another,” I said calmly. I might have been in a hospital bed, but I was still the commander of everything around me. A simple genetic test didn’t even have to be compelled. All it would take was a swab of the glasses my mother and my sister drank out of and I’d know, so there was no reason not to tell me now that I was onto the truth.

  Mother closed her eyes for several seconds before opening them and giving me a level look.

  “I guess the easiest way to say it is that, much like your sister’s heredity, you are essentially a clone of your father,” she said evenly.

  “A clone?” I said with disbelief.

  “Yes,” she replied simply, “however, while Ishtaraaa is almost a complete copy of me—as I am of my own mother’s genetic line—you are, within a five percent variance comprised mainly of those genes effecting height, bone structure and appearance, an exact copy of Jean Luc and, by extension, Larry One. Or, rather, the same template that was used to create Larry was used to form you—I only carried you to term.”