Admiral's Fall

by Luke Sky Wachter

  “How would you rate him on a tactical scale, Commodore?” asked Charles Thomas with interest.

  “Put him in a straight-up slug fest with equal numbers and weight of metal? He’s average at best,” said McCruise and then frowned, “although that may just be my own prejudice against the young man speaking.”

  She paused in thought, during which lull the belligerent Assemblyperson mockingly interjected, “Then from your own mouth there’s no way Senator Cornwallis could have possibly been defeated by this rube. And yet, out the other side of your mouth, you’re now trying to tell us you’re not surprised the Senator lost? Pick a side and stick to it, Officer McCruise.”

  Synthia McCruise’s hatchet-like face tightened. “I may not like what he stands for, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know what I’m talking about, Assemblywoman. If you would just let me explain uninterrupted for once,” McCruise said with no little temper.

  “That's 'Grand Assemblyherm' to the likes of you, Lieutenant Commander!” barked Irene Gravity, slapping the table with anger.

  Synthia McCruise blinked. “As I recall, isn’t that the third gendered state the Assemblyperson’ has experienced so far today?” Charles Thomas asked with pointed politeness.

  “I’m not sure. I distinctly remember two,” the orange-haired speaker said reluctantly.

  “Assemblywoman, Assemblyperson, Assemblyherm,” Charles Thomas, said ticking them off on his fingers.

  “What’s your point?” Irene Gravity demanded.

  “I’m just worried for you, that’s all,” Charles Thomas said compassionately, “every time you’re in a stressful situation on the floor you seem to transition and then immediately accuse the person you’re arguing with of misgendering you, and now here today you’ve exceeded the legally allowable daily transition limit. I’m just worried for you because this appears to fit classic polymorphic behavioral symptoms. Are you sure you’re not feeling any strain or mental confusion?”

  “What, you’re going to accuse me of gender dysphoria now?” Irene Gravity demanded. “Ce careful, Minority Leader, or I’ll have you up on bigotry charges so fast your head will spin.”

  “I never said the words you are accusing me of. Everyone knows that as of five years ago no one is legally allowed to be diagnosed with that medical condition. I only asked if you were feeling confused, nothing more,” said Charles Thomas.

  “'Mentally confused' is code for Dysphoria! Everyone knows that. For the last and final time: I am not a polymorph! I just transition a lot. It’s part of my identity,” Gravity said defensively.

  “Maybe you should just admit you’re a Gender Blender and we can finally stick to one set of pronouns and one form of address. It will let you experience whatever internal state you’re feeling without restriction, as everything inside a Blender is on a spectrum and the rest of us can stop catering to your constant transitions in the middle of heated debates,” advised Charles Thomas.

  “Deny it all you want, but I know that secretly in your heart you’re a bigot who only believes in the base twelve genders! You’re the last person I would listen to for advice,” she declared standing up and thrusting a finger at him, “admit it. You’ve been deliberately evading the anti-bigot algorithms for years!”

  “As a member of the Grand Assembly, I’m not subject to routine monitoring. So how would you know anything about those algorithms?” Charles Thomas asked suspiciously. “Unless you’ve been illegally worm-riding my feed?”

  “Anyone suspicious, even an Assemblyperson, can have their immunity waived for a six month block. Surprise, surprise: no one trusts you! Now that’s a real shocker,” Irene Gravity shot back.

  “You said 'for years,' though,” Charles Thomas said, his ire openly rising.

  “There’s no limit on how many extensions can be requested,” Gravity openly gloated.

  “Every Assemblyman is supposed to have immunity so they can do their job without their correspondence being monitored by their political rivals. This is fascism, straight up,” the Minority Leader was quietly furious.

  “Absolute Choicers have labeled ourselves anti-fascist and as everyone knows labels disable, which is why it’s impossible for us to be fascist oppressors,” Irene Gravity said triumphantly, “the fact is you just can’t handle that everything we do is for the good of the people, and for the record no one here is admitting to have read your feed. Those are the paranoid ravings of your own delusional mind,” Irene Gravity vindictively rolled her eyes.

  “I’m going to file a complaint with the Ethics Committee!” growled the former fleet Admiral.

  “And you call me mentally confused for one small slip up? A Gender Blender indeed! Who do you think authorized the worms!” she said indignantly.

  The Minority Leader stared at her and then fell back in his chair.

  The Ethics Committee was made up of highly respected members of every faction in the Grand Assembly, and a few permanent members above reproach to give it continuity. Even McCruise knew that if his feed had been effectively permanently hacked that meant that every member of the Ethics Committee, including members of rival factions like Absolute Choice, had been reading his every click and correspondence for years…

  She silently marveled at just how much insanity had taken root in the highest offices of the Confederation, to allow such displays to persist in the middle of important inquiries like this one.

  “I am going to file a complaint and demand an investigation,” he growled. “I want a special counsel appointed. For all I know everyone in the majority leadership is part of this plot.”

  “We’ll just shut it down. Do we look insane? You’ll never get your special counsel,” the Assemblyperson sneered.

  “Irene,” the Speaker said warningly.

  “He started it,” she argued.

  “Irene!” snapped the orange-haired Speaker. “There is no need to air the Assembly’s dirty laundry in front of civilians.”

  “Hmph,” she turned away.

  “If there has been any abuse of your rights by anyone, I promise to personally have my people help you in sorting it out. I am and have always been for open and transparent government,” the Speaker said righteously.

  Charles Thomas eyed him warily and then grimly turned away.

  “I am innocent of any charges,” insisted the Speaker.

  “Tell that to the voters,” Charles Thomas said grimly and then turned back to the panel. “You were saying, Commodore McCruise?” asked the Border Integrity Leader deliberately turning away.

  “As I was saying, with Montagne you have to learn to expect the unexpected. The Little Admiral will come at you sideways when you least expect it, and he’s not bounded by any notion of traditional allies. He’d make a deal with a Droid if he thought it would put him ahead,” she hesitated, “as he’s done several times in the past.”

  There were audible gasps around the blue ribbon panel as previously silent members sat up and took notice.

  “He’s cozied up with the machines?” exclaimed one Assemblywoman, all talk of investigations and special counsels falling by the wayside.

  “This is outrageous,” snapped another.

  “Man not Machine!” cried a furious male assemblyman who was a part of the Health Care Dogs.

  “What exactly has this Rebel Admiral done, Commodore?” asked Charles Thomas grimly.

  Synthia McCruise’s mouth made a thin red line. “When the local SDF fleets were outnumbered and out gunned, and a Droid invasion that looked unstoppable and ready to sweep the Sector 23 and 24, Montagne wasn’t above cutting a deal that turned one of the three factions of Droids against the others,” she said.

  There were severe frowns all around the table.

  “While morally questionable and certainly deserving of a good hard look to make sure what exactly went down, sometimes you have to make the hard calls. Turning your enemies against each other in a wartime situation is not a crime,” Charles Thomas said sharply, “but I’m sensing there’s
more to the tale.”

  “The problem isn’t whatever lies he felt necessary to tell the Droids to get them to turn on one another. Even a straight up transaction that paid them to leave human space could have been understood, if not condoned. But the problem wasn’t that he lied to the machines, rather that it seems he didn’t lie and even now Droid warships go into battle alongside his fleet as if they were proper allies,” McCruise said dourly.

  “Outrageous,” shouted an Assemblyherm, “we might as well return to the days of the cost-benefit ratio.

  “There is only one way to settle this. This Admiral must be prosecuted for his crimes,” exclaimed a One Way Assemblywoman.

  “The day humanity allies with the Droids is the day we invite the machine menace back into our homes,” snapped a Heath Care Dog.

  “This sort of thing never ends well,” the Speaker said with certainty.

  One of the Assemblymen in the room wrinkled his brow.

  “You have something to say,” the Speaker jutted his jaw belligerently.

  “I’m the Grand Assembly Historian, and I have information that’s not generally available to the public at large,” said the Historian.

  “Spit it out or let us get on with the meeting,” said the Speaker, “we all know the horrors of the Droid menace from primer school.”

  “Yes, a rather… simplistic and sometimes completely wrong account. For several hundred years the Droids proved to be quite productive, law-abiding citizens of the Confederation. It’s not impossible that their energies could have been harnessed for productive ends,” said the Historian.

  “Only potential traitors to humanity talk that way. I fear your historical studies have led you dangerously close to heresy and treason,” warned the Health Care Dog on the panel.

  “We are not mired in the superstitious past,” scoffed the Historian, “this isn’t treason, it's science, and the records are clear: the Droids were very productive members of society at one time in the past. It’s not impossible to conceive they could return to that state. It’s a simple matter of programming, after all. I admit it’s unlikely, but it could happen.”

  “Man not machine,” the Healthcare Dog spat back, “all records the Droids touched—including, I would presume, your precious historical files—are tainted.”

  “Are you an idiot?” asked the Historian.

  Immediately almost every set of eyes in the room glared at him.

  “Tread carefully or impeachment will be the least of your worries,” warned the Health Care Dog.

  “You really don’t know? Unbelievable,” cried the Historian.

  “Explain yourself,” instructed the Speaker.

  “The Grand Assembly used to have Droid assemblymen walking our halls and inside our committees. As for legislation, the human bill of rights was co-drafted by a Droid politician. If everything they’ve touched is tainted, does that mean we need to scrap the bill of rights and turn our assembly into an Imperial style Senate? Are you completely insane or just too stupid to be allowed to speak?!” the Historian demanded right back at the Health Care Dog.

  “Lies!” cried the other Assemblyman. “No Droid was ever in this Assembly, let alone a co-founder of the Bill of Rights! You’re trying to confuse us with fake news. The fact is slavery was a blight on the honor of this great star nation. Mechanocide is the only answer!”

  “It’s hard-coded in the assembly servers. I’m not talking about software, but the actual solid state crystal historical records everything is based off of. It’s the software files that have been turned into restricted viewing. Just use your personal access codes and you’ll find out the truth the same as we at the Historical Department have. If the solid state records are lies then considering they are what we were actually founded on I don’t know what to say,” protested the Historian, “the records are clear. We had Droid politicians. They were a minority but they were involved in our government right up until the slavery initiative passed and they were escorted out of our halls and over to the machine factories by their fellow assemblymen and women. Why do you think so many people of the time helped smuggle them out? Surely you didn’t think they were all evil people just itching for a chance to become traitors to humanity?” the Historian chuckled until he realized no one else in the room was laughing, but were instead staring at him in appalled silence.

  “What? It’s the truth. Just look at the primary sources,” he said defensively.

  “True or not, this is clearly restricted information that shouldn’t be exposed during a session like this,” the Speaker said, this time in a foul mood.

  “You could even be prosecuted for releasing classified information,” Irene Gravity said.

  “Pennant-ranked officers and above are cleared for this kind of information,” the Historian said, sounding bewildered.

  “Regardless, try to keep your murmurings confined to the Elected Assembly in the future,” warned the Speaker.

  He turned back to the rest of the panel.

  “I think I’ve heard enough. I’d like to thank the Acting Commodore for her attendance in this quite… instructive meeting. As far as I’m concerned you are cleared of all charges. You and your people acted in the highest standards of this Confederation. Please ensure your records and a list of your officers and crew, both past and present, are included in your files and send a copy to one of my aides,” instructed the orange-haired speaker.

  “I will, Sir,” said McCruise.

  “Needless to say, everything pertaining to this meeting, including the questionable actions of one Jason Montagne as well as everything else,” he waited a beat for emphasis, “are to be considered 'need to know.' You are not to spread the information available to you around.”

  “I know how to keep my mouth shut, Sir,” McCruise said.

  “Good. Show me the same dedication to duty that you showcased so well at Easy Haven and I don’t think regularizing your rank and those of your officers and merging them back into the newly expanded Confederation Fleet will be a problem,” the Speaker nodded.

  “Of course, Sir,” said McCruise, looking surprised.

  “Excellent. In the meantime,” he turned and looked at the rest of the Blue Ribbon Panel grimly, “I think that after dismissing the Commodore we need to enter a closed session. It was one thing to let the Imperials clean up our mess. But now that it looks like they’ve failed, I don’t think we can let a potential PR disaster like this Rebel Admiral keep running around stirring up trouble and making whatever deals with ‘whatever’ he feels like,” said the Speaker.

  “Yes, Sir,” murmured a number of the panel members.

  Irene Gravity looked surprised. “But we ran on an anti-war, non-interventionist platform. You ran on it, Sir,” she reminded the Speaker.

  “We’re not going to war. This is just another police action,” the Speaker said confidently, “and besides,” he added with sudden calculation, “I sense an opportunity here.” He turned to Charles Thomas. “You’re a former Fleet Admiral right? Come see me as soon as the closed session is over.”

  “Why would I possibly help you of all people?” the Minority Leader looked at his biggest rival and shook his head in rejection.

  “The Empire stumbled and I made my career on getting the best deal possible. I sense an opportunity here that transcends tri-partisan squabbling,” said the Speaker.

  “I still haven’t heard any reason I should believe a thing you’ve said,” replied Charles Thomas the Minority Leader.

  “Agree to help me clean up this mess and I’ll give you your special counsel,” said the Speaker.

  “Done,” the Minority Leader promptly thrust out his hand.

  “Ronald, no! That’s insane,” shrieked Irene Gravity.

  “I’m innocent,” the orange-haired speaker said uncaringly as he reached over and shook the hand of his biggest political rival outside of his own coalition government. “And this is for the good our party and the Confederation.”

  The two men smil
ed grimly as they shook hands while beside them Irene Gravity stared at the leader of the One Way Party looking betrayed.

  Chapter 19: Bluetooth on a Roll

  “Yee-haw! We got ’em on the run, Kermit,” Bluetooth howled with glee as a series of Reclamation Fleet Destroyers took to their heels and ran for the hyper limit.

  “They’re going to get away again, Sir,” pointed out the Captain, “our force can’t plot an intercept course.”

  Bluetooth’s good humor immediately soured. “Prometheans!” Bluetooth swore. “Blasted Manning thought it was a sweet idea to send me some of the slowest ships in the galaxy.”

  “They’re not just Prometheans, Sir,” Kermit pointed out.

  “Their commander’s a tool,” Bluetooth scowled, “they send him out here for us to keep an eye on you know? Costel Iorgu last served under Tyrant Montagne.”

  “I thought the entire MSP and most of the Border Alliance worlds went back to Tracto with the Grand Admiral,” said Kermit.

  “The Grand Dunce you mean!” Bluetooth snickered, “finally hoisted on his own tyrannical petard. Ha!”

  Kermit frowned.

  “Oh, Prometheus was never really a Tyrant supporter. They were just desperate, or so they claimed, to liberate their world and as soon as it was they left Admiral Montagne’s command,” said Bluetooth.

  “So what are they doing here?” asked the Captain.

  “They need inter-provincial foreign aid and an economic rebuilding package. My guess is the Grand Assembly had deeper pockets than the Tyrant does,” snorted Bluetooth.

  “Then should I make sure the other captain’s welcome them into the fold?” Captain Kermit asked with a slightly distasteful expression.