Spineward Sectors 03 Admiral's Tribulation

by Luke Sky Wachter

  “As I said before, we’ve managed more than adequately out here, as even the Imperial Navy can attest,” I said shrugging off his concerns with a wave and a few empty words, “the First Officer and I have things well in hand.”

  “You just hit on one of the issues, Admiral,” Heppner nodded sympathetically. “Not only has Capria assigned me as your new Flag Captain, but they’ve also assigned an entire command team including a new Executive Officer, one Commander David Murdock, a man I’ve served with for over five years and who I trust implicitly.”

  “Lieutenant Tremblay’s done a fine job on the Flag Bridge,” I said obtusely, “he has earned my absolute confidence.” It was far from the truth, but I had to circle the wagons, and quick.

  “I’m sure he has,” Captain Heppner said, sounding even sharper as he drove his point home, “however, despite his great service to the crown in this tumultuous time, a junior Lieutenant from Intelligence simply can’t fulfill the duties of a position as important as that of Executive Officer. Especially when every other officer in the chain of command is a trained line officer, and he’s a staff officer.”

  “Are you implying that Tremblay has been less than effective in his current position,” I arched an eyebrow and allowed my voice to harden slightly.

  Heppner pursed his lips, “Unfortunately, Capria requires more from an officer than willingness; he must also be properly trained if he’s to fill a position one heartbeat away from command,” the Captain held up a hand, “I’m not saying he hasn’t done a stellar job for you so far, but he simply doesn’t have the training he needs to continue doing such a job indefinitely.”

  I nodded slowly, seething inside at the roundabout dig at my own lack of training. “Well,” I continued with a shrug, “while I’m not sure I entirely agree with your assessment of the situation, I don’t see the need to argue: you can have your First Officer, and I’ll have mine.”

  The Captain blinked, then hesitated. “I’m sorry Sir, but did I understand that you want this ship to have two XO’s,” he asked, sounding unexpectedly dumbfounded.

  I knew I’d stepped in it somehow, but I wasn’t entirely certain of the misstep. “There are two Bridges on this ship, along with both a Captain and an Admiral, so why not two first officers,” I explained with a winning smile.

  “Only Captains have First Officers, Sir,” he said almost, but not quite shortly, “Admirals, on the other hand, have a Chief of Staff. A ‘First Officer,’” he said the title derisively, “takes command of the ship if and when the ship commander — usually a Captain, although sometimes a Commodore or mere Commander — perishes.”

  “Certainly,” I agreed after this latest in a series of military blunders, “in the end, there can be only one… I mean one First Officer, of course. Just so there’s no confusion, I’ll inform Tremblay of his new title as soon as I see him.”

  “Thank you, Vice Admiral,” Captain Heppner replied formally, “now, about the transfer of duties.”

  “Let’s not be hasty, Captain,” I subtlely scolded, “there’s no need to rush into things precipitously. You and your men will have plenty of time to settle in, settle down and learn the ropes. I can assure you that when everything’s ready to go, you’ll get what you’ve been asking for.”

  The Captain looked grim and unhappy, but once again nodded his acceptance.

  Sometimes it was actually nice being an Admiral.

  After the Captain signed off I opened a channel to the Communications section.

  “Hello, Admiral, how can I help you,” asked one of the operators.

  “Please call down to the Brig and let them know I desire to have one of their prisoners brought up to the Flag Bridge immediately and then contact the Lancer Colonel and inform him I want said prisoner escorted up here and monitored every inch of the way from here to the brig. It’s long past time I had a heart to heart with a certain uplift.”

  It was time I spoke with Primarch Glue.

  Chapter 3: A Cunning Plan vs. The Slippery Slope

  The proposed meeting in my ready room grew from just myself, Glue, and the Tactical Officer, into a conference of the entire Command staff. Naturally, Akantha was present as well.

  Well, the entire ‘original’ Command staff. I’d be keelhauled and dumped in cold space before I invited a gaggle of parliamentary loyalists masquerading as our ship’s new reinforcements into my confidence just because they informed me that ‘King James’ told me to.

  Apparently, word had got around that I was holding a big meeting of some sort, causing everyone and their sister to start showing up on the Bridge. It got to the point that I signaled my eventual defeat and decided to officially send out the summons to the rest of the ones who hadn’t yet made it up.

  I purposefully hadn’t included Captain Heppner and his ‘Command team’ for this quasi-interrogation, and didn’t much care if he and his men went so far as to park themselves right outside the door to my ready room and stood there until their legs cramped up. There was no way those men were getting into my private meeting but then he and his people were still getting settled, which was why they never even bothered to show up… that and they probably figured what their reception would have been and knew better than to try.

  Besides, I was sure one way or another, our ‘new’ Command team would learn everything about this meeting of the ‘old’ Command team at a later date.

  I deliberately didn’t look at Officer Tremblay as I thought this. Despite my public words of support for the former Intelligence Officer, I still didn’t trust the man.

  “What’s this meeting about, Sir,” asked the Lancer Colonel once we were all gathered in the ready room, looking professional and unhurried. But while he was certainly the very model of the first, I very much doubted he was the second.

  Before I had the chance to answer, Science Officer Jones broke in. “I’ll tell you what this is about,” he said, looking red in the face. “It’s all about political upheaval back on the home world and high-handed royal maneuvers now that they are back in power,” he all but snarled, his face slowly turning purple.

  I stared at the man nonplussed. This was outside the M.O. of our normally peevish civilian officer.

  “I didn’t want to be believe it was true—” The ship’s Science Officer continued, only to be cut off.

  “Royal politics are going to be the least of our worries,” the Chief Gunner growled, giving him a look that froze the purple faced Jones in midsentence.

  The Gunner then turned his gaze on Tremblay and held it there, his eyes like the targeting array of one of his tubolasers.

  For his part the First Officer all but smirked. No, I take that back, he was definitely smirking. The amused look he sent back the Chief Gunner’s way was more than I would have expected. It seemed Officer Tremblay was starting to find his spine. I wouldn’t have wanted to be on the receiving end of that Chief’s burning gaze.

  “I don’t see what all the fuss is about,” Helmsman DuPont said hesitantly. Shepherd the ship’s navigator nodded in silent agreement beside him.

  “It’s true that we’ve been out here a long time,” said DuPont, looking over at the ship’s Science Officer, then he shrugged and turned his hands palm up, “but I mean, if you’re so upset with the personnel transfer, why didn’t you just go home?”

  Jones pounded the table in response to DuPont’s eminently reasonable question, “Some of us weren’t given the option of going home. Some of us were told our efforts on board the Lucky Clover were vital to the welfare of the Commonwealth at large and were put right back on the very same shuttle we tried to transfer out on!” cried Officer Jones.

  Eyebrows went up around the table and more than one set of eyes turned toward Tremblay, including those of one very irate Science Officer.

  “Don’t look at me,” Tremblay said raising his hands up in the air as if in surrender. “If anyone had asked my opinion I’d have told them to put you on the first hyper-capable ship headed home and not let you o
ut again until the ship arrived back at port.”

  Jones flushed, and the naïve pair that directed the ship in normal and hyperspace, the Helmsman and Navigator, actually looked surprised.

  It was time to reclaim control of this meeting.

  “If anyone had bothered to ask my opinion on the subject,” I said pointedly, looked over at Jones and then sweeping the table with my gaze, “I’d have made sure the transfer went through. However, as I wasn’t consulted until after we’d already point transferred away from Easy Haven…” I let the silence linger. I couldn’t admit I was powerless to send him home, and neither could I appear as less than large and in charge of this ship, which most definitely included controlling who came and went aboard her. Blaming Jones for jumping ship without permission, when all he had to do was ask, now that was a horse of a different color.

  “Nor was I,” agreed Tremblay.

  I narrowed my eyes but restrained from frowning at this little sidebar.

  “Now, about the reason I’ve called this meeting—” I trailed off at the sight of individual little conversations springing up all around the table despite the fact that their Admiral was about to enlighten them all as to why they’d been summoned to this meeting of mine in the first place. A meeting they’d essentially barged their way in on.

  “I Doubt that, Mr. First Officer,” Bogart said with a sneer, his voice rising loud enough to catch my attention and interrupt my speech.

  “If you’ve got any accusations to make, now would be the time, Mr. Bogart,” Tremblay exclaimed, clearly attempting to goad the Chief Gunner into something.

  The Chief Gunner leaned back and the expression on his face could have been a pleasant one, if his eyes hadn’t been so very hard. “We have our own way of handling problems down on the Gundeck, Sir,” he said a hint of a growl creeping into his voice, “we rarely find a need to get all official with such matters.”

  “Yes, as we all saw down in sick bay,” confirmed Tremblay. “So if you have nothing further to say, perhaps—”

  I hated to break up this little set to between the parliamentarian Tremblay and my old royalist Gunner Curtis Bogart, especially when it was starting to get to the interesting part. Unfortunately, it seemed everyone here needed another good lesson in why the words of Vice Admiral Jason Montagne were to be hung upon as if their very lives and futures depended on it.

  So I took my holdout blaster pistol and pounded the desk with the hilt. Whether it was the sound of said pounding or the sight of a loaded weapon in my hand, the side conversations cut off with drastic and satisfying quickness.

  I was about to continue my display, but fearing it was more the blaster than a true desire to listen to my words, I turned to the Lancer Colonel instead.

  “I think it would ease the minds of many in this room, and help focus our attention on the main topic at hand, if we addressed a few side issues first,” I said, sounding grim even to my own ears. “A brief overview of your efforts over the past few hours Colonel Suffic, if you please,” I instructed him, my eyes making it clear that this was not a request but instead a politely worded order.

  “Of course, Admiral,” he nodded as he turned to the rest of the table. “Over the past several hours, the men and women of the Lancer Contingent have taken up key positions throughout the ship. We now control the flow of crew from deck to deck and department to department,” he reported sounding professional, official and entirely in control of both himself and his heavily armed men.

  “You have equipped yourselves with power armor?” I inquired, even though I already knew the answer. This little bit of theater was for the benefit of the rest of the people in this room, not for my own education.

  “Of course, Sir,” he said.

  “Excellent work, Colonel,” I congratulated him. “Make sure to pass along my compliments for a job well done as well as my personal thanks for your Contingent’s unwavering attention to duty,” I said, grateful that most of the Lancers in the ship’s Lancer contingent were Tracto-ans. They considered themselves personally sworn me as their Warlord first and foremost, and not some Officer appointed over them by an unfortunate bureaucratic mistake.

  “I will, Sir,” he said with a nod in my direction. “The men will be thrilled to know the Little Admiral takes such interest in their work,”

  For my part I covered the clenching of my jaw by giving a big smile quickly followed by a nod of my own. Oh, how I hated that nickname. I could just spit, the ‘Little Admiral’ indeed!

  This latest report had caused a number of smiles to break out around the table. I glanced at Officer Tremblay, of all the people at this command meeting, he was one of the few who now wore a frown.

  “Is there some reason to believe we need the entire contingent of lancers posted around the ship,” he asked pointedly, glancing around the table to make sure his point wasn’t lost on anyone with two brain cells to rub together, “A threat or other specific worry we should be aware of, Admiral.” This time he was looking straight at me.

  “No. Nothing of the sort,” I replied smoothly, shrugging off the implications he was so brazenly trying to insert into the minds of the command team.

  “This is merely a training exercise,” I laughed to put the lie in Tremblay’s very accurate assertions.

  “A training exercise,” he said disbelief dripping from his mouth.

  “Of course, whatever else could it possibly be,” I asked rhetorically, puzzlement etched across my forehead for all to see.

  “Dazzle us with your brilliance, Admiral,” Tremblay said sardonically, “convince us how this should all be considered a mere training exercise and not a blatant attempt to hold onto the ship through force-majeure.”

  “Be careful, Junior Lieutenant,” I warned, surprised to discover exactly how angry I was feeling, “you tread on dangerous ground.”

  “Forgive me, Admiral,” he bit off each word, “but let’s call this hastily slapped together, bloated abortion of a hover bus, a Murphy-be cursed Hover Bus and not some fancy new fangled, yet surprisingly over large, racing model,” he finished breathing hard.

  There was sudden silence in the ready room as everyone focused on our conversation, some with phlegmatic calculation, others (like DuPont and Shepherd) with widened eyes.

  “Let me be clear,” I raised my voice to carry, even as I met Tremblay stare for stare, “no one is getting thrown under the bus, not on my watch, and not as long as we’re all riding,” I paused for dramatic effect, “my fancy new Speed Racer,” I said with ringing finality. Then I abruptly cracked a smile, one that failed to reach my eyes, but no one except Tremblay was able to see that part.

  Around me a couple guffaws broke out. As hoped, I’d managed to break the tension my First Officer had managed to create all on his lonesome. Something had to be done…then I smiled. Revenge: it is sweet.

  “Unfortunately, while no one is getting thrown under the bus, there will be certain changes,” I continued after they’d all had their laugh.

  At this, faces closed and the brief laughter faded away like a summer wind.

  “Sir,” asked the Chief Gunner, his eyes searching.

  “While Captain Heppner and his team won’t be moving up onto the Flag Bridge, instead choosing to set up shop on the ship’s Command Bridge,” I paused as I noticed the nods going around the table; it was clear they had expected something like this. Was I the only idiot on the ship unaware we had two bridges?

  “They will eventually,” I said stressing the last word, “assume some of the less critical duties which we’ve been handling from up here.”

  “What does that even mean… Sir,” Tremblay inquired, the barest hint of an expression on his face, equal parts mixed smirk and disbelief.

  Even as I could feel my eyes hardening, I had to suppress a cold, shark-like smile.

  “Despite your own exemplary performance and in recognition of your steadfast service in this seemingly never-ending series of crises, Captain Heppner has informed me that y
ou will no longer be required to fulfill your recent duties,” I said keeping the satisfaction I felt at being the one to give him this news off my face.

  “What?” asked Tremblay sounding surprised and trying to hide it.

  “After consulting with the new Captain, it was decided that the ship really couldn’t have two First Officers running around gumming up the chain of command,” I embellished, “instead you will be getting a brand new title,” I said, deliberately drawing out the suspense. From the set of his shoulders, I could tell Tremblay was starting to squirm on the inside, which was no less than he deserved after his recent behavior.

  “You will no longer be the ship’s First Officer; instead you will officially be my new Chief of Staff,” I said with ringing finality. Tremblay briefly grimaced and then nodded his acceptance, sitting back in his chair at the news.

  “A staff officer again,” he muttered under his breath.

  For myself, I rather liked this new turn of events. It was better for all involved if Tremblay’s status on this ship lay entirely with the Admiral he served, as it removed another motivation for the man to assist in the removal of said Admiral. Namely me. After all, how could he be a chief of the Admiral’s staff if there was no admiral still in command of the ship? Now if only he’d see things in the same light I did, because if there was one thing I’d learned about Tremblay, it was that he didn’t always see things the same way I did.

  Sliding a glance over at Akantha, who’d been surprisingly silent during the whole affair so far, I saw a look of icy contentment on her face. I hoped she continued to let me run things without putting her oar in, as I was feeling more than a little pleased at the result of my little verbal back hand to my former first officer. Nothing less than he deserved, of course, after that little attempt to throw this meeting under his Saint Murphy averted ‘hover bus.’

  “Now, if there are no more strident calls for alarm, or hover buses, and our need to deal with them,” I said abruptly, turning to my assembled officers, “I would like to continue with the real agenda for this meeting,” I finished glaring at my assembled officers.