Spineward Sectors 03 Admiral's Tribulation

by Luke Sky Wachter

  Seeing the corvettes swooping in a wide arc to the side and away from the Lucky Clover without firing a shot in reply to our full on broadside salutes, the breath whooshed out of me in an explosive release.

  Only after my mind registered the fact that the corvettes were turning to join the respective halves of their squadron mates did I let go of the Throne.

  “Well, that was a nerve wracking experience,” I bared my teeth, absolutely refusing to allow the shakiness I was feeling to enter my voice.

  Looking up I saw Officer Laurent give himself a shake and then look over to meet my eyes. One corner of his mouth turned up in response.

  “None of our gunners got trigger happy and hit the good Commodore’s ships, while two-thirds of his ships failed to cross the T,” he reported with an ever deepening satisfaction as he talked.

  I blinked.

  “So what you are saying is that we looked better than they did?” I asked, wondering why I felt surprised.

  “Better?” Laurent lifted his eyebrows, “I wouldn’t want to be in the shoes of the officers on those corvettes that ran away when their Commander gets his hands on them. Because when we never actually attacked them, they made their Commodore and his Squadron look like a gaggle of flighty dilettantes with twitchy hands on the Helm.”

  This didn’t quite compute to me.

  “And if we’d actually been shooting to kill,” I replied looking at him strangely, “what would he have thought of them then?”

  Laurent shook his head wryly.

  “Why, then they’d have been hailed as the sort of heroes every SDF or Fleet need, Captains and Helmsmen who have the sort of instinct and feel for combat that every Officer should strive for,” he said with a straight face.

  “That hardly seems to be fair or make sense,” I commented as I considered the unfairness of such situation. On the one hand you were either a gross incompetent. On the other, you were a hero with the instincts of a burgeoning military genius and the twitch muscles of shark or velociraptor all rolled into one. It didn’t seem right.

  “The military is rarely fair and doesn’t always have to make sense,” Laurent observed with a shrug.

  “Victory or Death,” I muttered under my breath. It seemed these kinds of situations applied to Sector Guard Captains just as they did to former College Students pretending to be Admirals. Although in my case, dead meant actually dead and for them, it might mean anything from career death to actually shrugging off this mortal coil.

  “Sir,” Tremblay asked looking at me speculatively. Perhaps he’d been eavesdropping when he had better things to do than listen to his Admiral’s private utterances.

  I gave him a cold look. “Notify me at once if there are any sudden changes from the Guard, or if they fixate on another attempt to ‘honor’ us with a close firing pass,” I instructed hotly, turning to bestow my attention on the Sensor Pit.

  “Yes, Sir! Admiral, Sir!” replied the lead Sensor Operator with such an excess of words and enthusiasm that for a brief moment, I wondered what it was like to work on a bridge made up of nothing but fully trained, complete professionals.

  Then I shrugged it off; I had work to do.

  “Just monitor the Guard,” I ground out and then turned my full attention back to the main screen.

  Other than one attempt by Yagar to rattle us by bringing both of his reformed squadrons up just outside the edge of our firing range and then backing off abruptly, the next couple hours passed in intense nail-biting (but ultimately uneventful) edge of our seat monitoring.

  Frazzled and red-eyed from the strain of watching every little tick of the screen but triumphant, I knew I wasn’t the only one who was intensely grateful the moment our ship crossed the hyper limit and the dozen ships comprising Rear Admiral Yagar and his Rump Assembly’s 25th Sector Guard turned around to head back in system, no doubt to continue harassing Commodore LeGodat.

  I felt bad that the former Confederation Commander and now Commodore of the entire Easy Haven System would soon be bearing the brunt of the Rear Admiral’s attention, but not that bad.

  Chapter 1: New Beginnings are Old Beginnings, done all over again

  “Coordinates are locked, Admiral,” Navigator Shepherd shook his head with disapproval, making sure to catch my eye so there was no chance I misunderstood him.

  I quirked a smile to hide the sudden grinding of my teeth and ignored the man by looking past him at the main screen instead.

  “If I may remind the Admiral,” he said pointedly, “we are only one hour away from Point of No Return, and the personnel transfer is still in process,” he said pointedly.

  “Thank you, Navigator, your input is greatly appreciated,” I said, causing the Navigator to smile. When my appreciation failed to produce any tangible results (like new orders to abort the spin-up of our hyper drive) his newfound smile turned into a frown.

  “Please make sure the two armed merchant conversions that will be accompanying us are aware of the rendezvous coordinates,” I reminded him.

  “Yes Admiral, that’s already been done. Double-checked and triple-checked, then checked all over again,” he all but muttered, a dark expression creeping over his face.

  It was obvious he was unhappy. Well get in line, because I was unhappy too. Fortunately for me, a mere Admiral outranked a high and mighty navigator such as himself and he was just going to have to live with his unhappiness like the rest of us.

  “Sir, we’re being hailed by one of the merchant ships,” reported a communications technician.

  When a look in her direction failed to produce the desired result (i.e. elaboration) I suppressed a scowl of my own. Was it just me, or was the bridge dragging their heels every step of the way here?

  Sweet crying Murphy, did none of these motherless sons and daughters realize how much was riding on getting out of this system in time? I didn’t need everyone and their cousin working against me! Speaking of Cousins, thankfully mine was no longer on the Flag Bridge. One could only hope she had taken this opportunity to transfer to the next ship bound for Capria; the very same ship carrying those of my crew who’d refused the call to continued confederation service.

  “Put whoever it is through to the command chair,” I grunted.

  The next sight to greet my eyes failed to fill me with joy.

  One of the new replacements from Capria appeared on my screen; he looked like an officer.

  “Vice Admiral Montagne,” the other man nodded a greeting, “My name is Jim Heppner, Captain Jim Heppner of the Caprian SDF, and I understand you’ve been running without a full command staff.”

  I stiffened.

  “We’ve managed,” I said refusing to confirm or deny anything at this point. This was all I needed; a Captain, a real Captain onboard this ship.

  Heppner narrowed his eyes ever so slightly and one side of his mouth lifted. “My orders are to transfer to the Lucky Clover along with my command team and assume command of the Battleship, so that you can continue to direct the fleet, without the burdensome distraction of ship command at the same time.”

  “I’m far from distracted,” I said coolly. This was a power play plain and simple, and I wasn’t about to let them pull a fast one.

  “Nevertheless, I and my men have our orders, Sir,” he said evenly.

  “We’ve got a well-oiled machine over here and there simply isn’t room for a second command team on the Flag Bridge, Captain,” I said with a wry smile, to take the sting out of it, “I’m afraid the dictates of our current mission…” I trailed off shaking my head sadly.

  The middle aged Caprian Captain looked at me quizzically.

  “There’s no need to displace your men, sir,” he said slowly.

  “Oh,” I quirked a smile of my own, feeling smug.

  “Indeed, I wouldn’t expect you or any of the men on your staff to change the way you are doing things over there,” he said with a shrug.

  “Then it’s settled,” I said happy for once to be able to head off a mane
uver at the pass, so to speak.

  “Of course, Sir. My men and I will be more than comfortable on the ship’s Command Bridge, there’s no need for my team to take up space in the fleet command center,” he said evenly.

  My smile froze. We had a Command Bridge? I didn’t know we even had a second bridge, let alone one entirely separate from the Flag Bridge. That there were two such places on the ship was news to me.

  Space rot! I clenched my fists outside the range of the cameras. Suppressing a flash of pure rage (mainly directed at myself) I forced a patented Montagne smile, one that felt more than a little stiff around the edges. Once again my military incompetence had risen up to bite me on the hind end. This was a complete and total disaster, and I’d been foolish enough to put my foot right in it.

  “Sounds like you have it all figured out in advance then,” I said lightly trying desperately to recover my balance but knowing it was too little, too late. I’d been blindsided and the damage was already done. Now… if I threw Captain Heppner and his ‘command team’ directly into the brig without passing go, they wouldn’t be manning any Command Bridges anytime soon.

  Ultimately though, I just had to force a smile and nod. “Of course, my Flag Bridge crew will continue to direct ship operations until such a time as you and your team have had a chance orient yourselves to the way we do things around here,” I said deliberately, forcing the grimness I felt out of my voice. “We can discuss the handing over of specific duties after you and your men get up to speed.” I needed to come across as a reasonable Admiral making the best of a bad situation, not some power-mad empire builder angry someone else was moving in on his turf.

  The Lancers would just have to be the iron fist inside my velvet glove for the right now, at least until I could get a better feel for the way these new winds of change were blowing. Thank goodness for Akantha and her native recruiting drive; without my Lancers I would have already been finished several times over.

  Captain Heppner frowned, “Understood, Sir,” he said unhappily.

  And that as they say was that. We both left there feeling unhappy, but I had to figure in the long term he’d come out ahead. What was more, I was certain he knew it.

  Chapter 2: Point Transfer out of Easy Haven

  “Threshold exceeded 52 minutes ago. The countdown is now five minutes until point transfer,” said the First Officer sounding more irritated than usual.

  “We were unable to slave the computers of the Merchant Conversion to our own,” the Navigator said disapprovingly. “Since they don’t share our jump range, they’ll just have to play catch up with us as we cycle our Star Drive,”

  “Good work Mr. Shepherd,” I said putting a smile on my face and an upbeat note in my voice. That he and my First Officer weren’t very impressed with my decision-making process, had already been made more than abundantly clear by this point, but for some reason they were unable to get over it. It was beginning to get more than a little tiresome, which only made me want to appear all the more cheerful and unruffled, if only to irritate the space rot out of them and any secret sympathizers hidden among the rest of the bridge crew.

  “We limited our range and jumped in convoy back when we were operating alongside the Medium Cruiser,” grumped Lieutenant Tremblay.

  “The situation with the Hydra was completely different,” I said breezily.

  “I still think-” started Tremblay as the timer hit zero, cutting him short as the ship transited into hyperspace.

  Thank the Maker, I don’t know how much more of their caterwauling I could have taken. At least now it was too late, spilt milk and all that.

  “Point Emergence,” reported the Navigator, sounding like he was officially back on task once again.

  “Extending baffling and lighting up the main engine,” said the Helmsman.

  “Step lively, bridge crew,” snapped the First Officer, “if we don’t have them right now, then by next transfer at the very latest we’re going to have a team of highly trained parliamentary officers watching our each and every move. Let’s do ourselves proud.”

  Heads nodded and shoulders stiffened as the men and women on the Flag Bridge manned their consoles with a renewed attention to their jobs. I was surprised, my First Officer actually managed to strengthen their resolve and inspire a renewed attention to duty. Admittedly, with a pro-parliamentary dig thrown in at the same time, but that was only to be expected of the former intelligence officer.

  The main screen started to populate but thankfully the System appeared to be just as advertised: completely uninhabited by man or marauding space beast.

  “Point Resistance?” asked Lieutenant Tremblay, narrowing his eyes at the science officer.

  “I read an estimated 48 gravities of resistance, First Officer,” grunted the Science Officer staring at his console with a forlorn expression, “if anyone was foolish enough to be standing outside the hull and our shields failed, they’d be crushed.”

  Tremblay frowned at him, “Only a suicide…or a civilian could possibly be foolish enough to pull a stunt like that,” he snorted dismissively at our distinguished Science Officer who’d been forwarded to us directly from the University of Capria. He was originally here exclusively to work on his thesis paper as it regarded the cost benefits of slave rigging our old battleship with a series of automation deigned to reduce the manpower needed for our crew-intensive manpower hog.

  “Where are my engine numbers,” Tremblay demanded, turning on the helmsman.

  “Main Engine at 15% of maximum,” said DuPont, fingers flying over his console, “lighting up secondaries… now.”

  “Shields modulated for the gravity sump,” reported the man at shields, “our new shield generator continues to perform as expected. We are ready for a slide, First Officer.”

  “Let’s get moving, Helmsman,” said Lieutenant Tremblay.

  “Engine increased to 25% of maximum, Sir,” reported DuPont, “both secondaries coming to 25% in three seconds…Three!... Two!... One!”

  “Shield strength at 95%, and holding,” said the main Shield Operator.

  The ship gave the barest shudder.

  “Exiting the sump now, Admiral,” reported the Navigator, and just like that we were free.

  “Good job, team,” I projected my voice so it could be easily heard all the way around the bridge. It was more important than ever to foster the sort of team spirit that would help me survive the unholy mess I’d landed in. Thanks ‘Uncle James,’ I thought facetiously, using a familiar form of address in the privacy of my own mind that was just as misleading as it was accurate. ‘Uncle James’ was our brand spanking new ‘King James,’ and a lot closer to my age than you might imagine. On top of that he’d tried to pull a fast one and get rid of all my loyal crew by bringing them back to Capria for some well-deserved shore leave, saddling me with a bunch of parliamentary holdouts and ‘royalist marine’ minders in the process.

  He had failed inasmuch as most of my original crew hadn’t gone back to Capria, and his four thousand plus Marines were still on board the two armed freighters he’d sent to ‘reinforce’ my fleet. Unfortunately in just about every other particular, he had succeeded.

  The sad fact was that my ship was fully crewed for the first time since the Imperials Withdrew from the Spine, which would seem to be a good thing. The problem was they were the untrustworthy parliamentary type, instead of the scarcer loyalist royal version.

  His Majesty, likely trying to rid himself of them himself, had ever so benevolently sent these people over to his cousin Prince-Cadet Jason Montagne and the Confederation Multi-Sector Patrol Fleet; a fleet that I was holding together with little more than my two bare hands and half a roll of space tape.

  Regardless of the official line, I had my suspicions as to who was pulling King James’ strings. I dreaded to find out what the real story behind these crew replacements/reinforcements was, which was why I now had my Lancer force stationed at key points throughout the ship.

  “Admiral, I
’m receiving a request for a private conference,” said one of the Communication Technicians.

  I frowned at him; he wasn’t the one who normally handled External Communications. Then I remembered we were in an uninhabited system.

  “Who is it?” I inquired, smoothing my face into a pleasant royal mask.

  “It’s Captain Heppner, Sir, and he begs a few moments of your time,” said the Communications Operator.

  Think of the devil and his plots against your interests and he immediately tries to rope you into a conference call, I thought with ill humor.

  On the outside though, I quirked a superior grin.

  “By all means,” I told the Communications Technician, “Please inform the Captain I’ll be taking his call in my ready room, if he’s interested in holding on for a minute.”

  “Yes, Admiral,” the Communications Operators said sounding relieved.

  I stood from the Admiral’s Throne and made my way to the ready room, and sat behind the Admiral’s desk before activating the screen.

  “Captain Heppner, to what do I owe this unexpected pleasure,” I asked as soon as I reached for a cup of tea.

  “Vice Admiral, thank you for taking the time so soon after a point transfer,” replied Captain Heppner with a nod.

  I returned the nod but didn’t respond verbally.

  “I was hoping to firm up the schedule for the transfer of duties from the flag staff to the ship’s command team,” continued the Captain after an awkward pause.

  I took a small sip of tea before setting the cup aside, and looking at the Captain I steepled my fingers.

  “My men and I have things well in hand, Captain,” I said as mildly as possible.

  “It’s my understanding that you’ve been operating this ship with critical shortages in both trained officers and crew,” he said, his dark brown eyes piercing.