Space gods, but I had even thrown my wife into the meat grinder that was a boarding action! I knew what that could be like from my own experience storming the Imperial Medium Cruiser. Admittedly, she had leapt at the opportunity, but still. I refused to risk anything further, at least not until I saw some tangible results!
“The Colonel is protesting this startling lack of trust and disrespect for the actions of not only himself but those of his men who helped to capture the Pirate King,” reported the Comm. operator.
My eyes narrowed. “Tell this Colonel Riggs that if he will forward the names and unit designations of the men that captured the piratical scum he currently has in his custody, I’ll make sure that they are rewarded as the deserve. He has my personal pledge on the matter, but neither he nor his men are setting one power-armored foot on this Flag Bridge,” I said with ringing finality.
“He says he accepts, under protest,” relayed the Comm-tech.
“He can protest all he likes,” I said, dismissing the matter and standing up from my chair, “have the Lancers escort this Blood Reaver Pirate, formerly a Prince of the Caprian Realm and known to us as Jean Luc Montagne, into my ready room.”
“Are you sure you want to speak with him in there, Admiral,” inquired Warrant Officer Laurent.
From the way several of the yeomen shied away from me, the pleasant expression I tried to put on my face must have been a dismal failure.
“There are a few questions I’d like to ask my treasonous Uncle, Montagne to Montagne,” I said dourly.
“As the Admiral wishes, of course,” Laurent said with an accepting nod before bracing to attention and saluting me.
Several other members of the bridge crew also stood and saluted.
I gave a wave in reply, then stormed into my ready room to pace back and forth, in an attempt to burn off a bit of nervous energy. It was easy to tell the moment Jean Luc stepped onto the Flag Bridge.
The bridge staff let loose a victorious cheer, along with a few mocking wolf howls as the former Piratical Master and Commander of all he surveyed was frog marched into my ready room.
As soon as the doors cycled open, I leaned back in my chair as if I hadn’t a worry in the world. When they closed, I cut loose with my first verbal barrage.
“Welcome to my ship, Jean Luc,” I said letting the faintest hint of a sneer cross my face as I took in the dark leather uniform, one almost thick enough to qualify as armor with its wing tipped shoulder guards, metal-studded exterior and general attempt at piratical intimidation.
“Love what you’ve done with the place,” the one eyed Jean Luc said mildly, stepping away from his lancer guards and taking a seat in one of the two chairs in front of my desk. I ignored the mockery in his tone in favor of bestowing upon him a superior expression. After all, he was the prisoner here, not me.
“You want us to stay, Admiral,” asked the Caprian half of the Lancer pair who had escorted the pirate King in here.
“You checked him for weapons I hope,” I said archly.
“Yes sir, he registered clean on our scanners,” the more tech-savvy of the pair responded with a decisive nod.
“I like to think that I can handle one unarmed, defeated old man,” I said dismissively with a wave of my power-armored hand to emphasize the point. The lancers looked uneasy but stepped back outside the room. Who knew what plots and schemes my uncle had been involved in? The last thing I needed was for my lancers, or the crew at large, to hear any of his attempts to implicate me in some kind of deep Montagne plot.
“If you need us, we’ll be right outside, Sir,” said the same one who had asked if they should stay.
The doors slid closed as they exited the room.
I turned and looked at the scar-faced Caprian man sitting in the chair before me. There was something about looking a man in the eye that was different from seeing him only through the main screen, and I wanted this traitorous old style Montagne to feel the full weight of my withering disregard.
For his part, Jean Luc gave me back a look that was equal parts mocking, derisive and, oddly enough, as if he were somehow humoring me with his presence.
“So, a pirate is it,” I asked mildly, deciding to open the conversation with a simple statement of fact.
Jean Luc shrugged dismissively, and fired back, “Admiral Montagne I hear,” he arched a brow. “I’m surprised they started you off at that rank, when they were unwilling to go so far as to promote me from Captain to Commodore, not even if their lives depended on it,” he deadpanned, “as it very nearly did on more than one occasion.”
I shook my head. I couldn’t give too figs for the trials and tribulations of a man passed over for promotion, one who then faked his own death, stole several Caprian Battleships and proceeded to use his supposedly hard luck story as some kind of justification for his descent into piracy.
“I’m surprise you think I’d have any sympathy for a man who had very nearly everything handed to him on a sliver-platter. Respect, power, a position as Captain on a Caprian Battleship,” I said ticking off some of the many advantages he’d had over myself on the fingers of one hand. “Then you threw it all away in favor of raiding the space-ways to relieve your silver spoon-fed angst at the world,” I said derisively, “it’s Montagne’s like you who give the rest of us a bad name.”
“If you want to dispense with the usual pleasantries, I’m game,” Jean Luc said with a grin, “but don’t think for an instant I’m justifying myself to you of all people, you little squeak ant. I justify myself to nothing and no one,” he continued, his voice turning deathly serious, “everything I do is with a specific purpose, and there is very little I’ve regretted along the way,” he paused and very deliberately continued, “I assure you that turning pirate was not one of those few trifling regrets.”
“You not only betrayed the uniform you once wore, but also this ship and everyone back home on Capria who once looked up to your example,” I fired back, my lips pressed into an even line, “to say nothing of such minor matters as oaths of fealty and the loyalty you owed to your own House.”
Jean Luc raised his eyebrows, “Son,” he said rolling his eyes, “I haven’t betrayed Capria… the Royal Family, perhaps. I stood aside and allowed Admiral Cornwallis, and then Flag Captain Janeski, to turn the Summer Palace into a smoking crater, but Capria itself? Betrayed? Hardly,’ he scoffed. “We’re all better off without King Harry, the perpetually corrupt and ineffectual buffoon that he was.”
My eyes burned with silent fury at these words, as I tried and failed to suppress the surprised reaction I had to these words.
“So you were in league with the Imperials, is that it? Or perhaps it was nothing more than rank cowardice that stayed your hand,” I ground out, “that and simple fear for your own skin that allowed you to let your crew think they were doing a good thing by faking your death and saving your miserable spoon-fed life. But the whole time you planned to spit on their loyalty and hopes for your future by betraying everything they ever believed in, including you!”
“I’d be very careful with your words, boy,” Jean Luc said, the smile disappearing from his face, “else you might find them shoved right back down your throat!”
“I think you forget who is the Prisoner here, the one who’s lost everything he ever held dear, and who is the Admiral in command this ship who can determine your fate with a simple snap of his fingers,” I riposted. Who did this guy think he was, that he could threaten me with impunity on my own ship?
“You’re nothing but a pale imitation of a real Montagne, Prince-Cadet Jason Montagne Vekna,” he sneered as he repeated my last name, the Vekna name, “Admiral of a Confederation Imitation; a formation that doesn’t even qualify for the word ‘Fleet,’ so I won’t bother to deign it with the title. What you have isn’t even good enough to qualify as a rank pretender to such stature.”
“Oh,” I said leaning back in my chair, my features hardening into a killing mask, “if you think the opinion of a cowardly,
piratical dog, one who’s no longer worthy enough to shine my shoes, would instruct me on subjects far more material to the matters at hand, then you’re sorely mistaken, Uncle!”
“One of us will walk out of this room, Master and Commander of all he surveys,” Jean Luc replied with deadly seriousness. “I wouldn’t be so confident that it was going to be me, were I you,” he finished, leaning back in turn and rolling his wrist, causing it to crack as he loosened it up.
For a moment I was almost sucked into believing that this man had the kind of sheer unmitigated moxy at his beck and call that he could bend the universe to his will just by simply wanting something badly enough. Then I threw back my head and roared with laughter.
“What a good joke, Uncle. For a man about to spend the rest of his terminally short existence in the Brig, you’ve certainly got a positive outlook on life,” I laughed with a tight smile, “I’ve never met a more skilled bluffer in my entire life. You really should give out lessons.”
“Is there some reason you summoned me into this…room,” he paused and then said cuttingly, “other than a chance to see me and perhaps gloat for a bit?” If anything, Jean Luc seemed to be losing interest in me, which for a man completely within my power seemed a very arrogant thing to do.
“In point of fact, there is,” I replied, pulling something straight out of my proverbial hindquarters as I mentally shifted gears, “I would like the location of every hidden port and secret pirate base along the entire edge of the Spine, as well as any information you have about pirate ships, numbers and their usual ports of call.”
“Is that all,” he asked mockingly.
“No,” I said flatly, “I also want the command key to your battleship, the…” I twisted my lips mockingly, “Vineyard. As well as any other command codes and captain’s keys you have to Omicron Station and the rest of your Pirate Fleet.”
“And I would be interested in giving you any of this…why?” demanded Jean Luc with a hint of amusement in his voice.
For a prisoner, he seemed overly demanding and dismissive, which was really starting to irk me something fierce.
“We can start off with the fact that I can determine the level of comfort you will have as you spend the remainder of your life in the brig prior to standing trial for your many crimes,” I explained hotly. Outside this room, both on this ship and off it, people were dying left and right by my orders; it was time to cut through the small talk and start producing results that would help save lives.
“My crimes, boy?” Jean Luc asked with a wry shake of his head. “Upon my return to Capria I will be hailed as a hero of the realm and welcomed back into the fold with open arms, while you will be promptly clapped in irons and greeted as nothing more than the mutinous, self-righteous traitor that you are.”
“I didn’t realize you were delusional as well as a complete sociopath,” I drawled with a wave of my hand.
Jean Luc made a chopping gesture, “Even on a ship this old, you would have done well to use your access to the computer banks, as Admiral of this ship, to look me up. If you’d bothered to take this most elementary of steps, you’d have found me listed quite prominently under a Top Secret Parliamentary file, codenamed Operation Budget Balancer.” He shook his head piteously at me, “But it seems you’re such a complete and utter fool that you couldn’t even do that much prior to gunning for me like a hormonal teenager late for the prom.”
I jerked in my seat, and stared at him with open eyes, “Operation Budget Balancer?”
“This grows tedious,” Jean Luc remarked with a sigh. “You didn’t actually think that an elected government could balance its own budget, year after year, decade after decade without fail or fiat…and not resort to either foreign loans or assistance? Or more precisely, domestic assistance from some remove, as the case may be,” he finished with a shark like grin.
“You mean—” I stopped stunned by the implications that Jean Luc had been working hand in hand with parliament all this time. Raiding the space ways for over fifty years, at the behest of Capria’s very own elected government.
“Which entirely ignores my involvement in Operation Rounding Error, which helped remove a number of the more prominent and, more importantly vociferous opposition to our gloriously elected domestic rule…whenever such opponents were foolish enough to travel off planet, that is,” Jean Luc continued with a hollow smile in my direction.
“Sweet Murphy,” I said stunned at the implication.
“Murphy can’t help you now, son; the Demon’s got his hooks into you good and hard, and I’m his most faithful of servants,” my Uncle said.
“You’ll rot in Hades before I’m done with you,” I snarled, “both for what you’ve done to Capria and the Confederation-at-large, if I have take matters into my own two hands to see that justice is finally done,” I yelled, standing up behind my desk. “Why, all those innocent colonists and freighters…” I floundered.
“Sit back down you precocious fool, before I end you,” Jean Luc ordered coldly, leaning back in his chair and snapping his fingers for emphasis.
“Next you’ll be telling me the space gods are real, the AI’s only had our best interests at heart, and you’ve been secretly involved with Admiral Janeski and whatever Imperial plans he’s had for the Spine,” I sneered, determined to bust this unsubstantiated lunatic bubble my Uncle had been living in. “You can take your threats, warnings and lies and shove them right back up where they came from!”
There was a thump outside. This caused me to stop in the middle of my tirade and look to the door leading outside.
For his part, Jean Luc leaned back in his chair and pointed his index finger at me, then mimed pulling back the trigger of a non-existent gun.
“As for your first two suggestions regarding space gods and AI’s,” he shrugged, “I really couldn’t say. But for the last,” this time he grinned, “well, let’s just say there may be more Montagne in you than I previously thought.”
I stared incredulously at Jean Luc. I was suddenly filled with the intense desire to shove my power-armored fist through the back of his head.
Then Jean Luc brought his thumb down as if firing a pistol, and the end of his pointer finger exploded.
I barely had time to realize what was happening when searing agony shot through the side of my neck and face.
I could feel blood pumping out of me and scrambled with my power assisted servos to right myself.
“Plucky little sod, aren’t you,” Jean Luc began with a grunt, and through the doors of the ready room I could hear the sound of blaster fire break out on the Flag Bridge.
“Diluted as it is, I wasn’t foolish enough to underestimate the blood that flows through your veins, Vice Admiral Jason Montagne Vekna,” he continued, turning my military rank into an insult. There was a grunt as he knocked over his chair, and a clang as he pulled something free, “More than enough people seem to have done that along the way, and while they may say many denigrating things about Jean Luc,” continued the Pirate King, “underestimating the competition has never been one of them.”
Staggering to my feet, I wobbled and tried to talk, but all that came out was a wet burbling noise. I could feel something popping out the side of my throat every time I tried to say something. Strangely, the pain was somewhat less than I had expected.
“Stay down, you fool; you’re already dead,” barked Jean Luc, lunging forward and driving something directly into my armored midsection.
I tried to knock his hand aside, but I was off balance and uncoordinated.
There was an explosion that sent electricity writhing throughout my body, and in an instant my suit locked up, causing me to topple face-forward onto the desk. I was still aware enough after the convulsions ended to realize I had just been hit with an ion spike, but at that moment all I could think was that I had been a fool not to wear my helmet.
As I lay there twitching, unable to move so much as a single solitary muscle under my active control, all I could do wa
s watch as a pool of blood slowly spread out onto the wooden desktop in front of my field of vision.
“I wonder if they’ll even give me a medal,” my murderous Uncle paused, “you understand, don’t you, Jason?” Jean Luc stepped back and picked my head up by the hair, “For putting down the ‘real’ Montagne villain, who stole this top of the line, Caprian Battleship and paraded around the Sector, picking fights with Imperial Captains, while completely ignoring both his Provincial and Confederation Superiors.” He let my head drop back down to the desk with a thump.
By this point, everything was going dark, and I couldn’t see a thing. Vaguely, I tried to reach down into my belt, where I’d stashed a vial of combat heal, but my muscles wouldn’t obey me and even if they would, I was currently stuck in a prison of ion-shorted duralloy.
“You never should have let a parliamentarian crew, staffed with a number of my very own former officers — Parliamentary Loyalists, who I personally saved from a royalist purge — under the skin of your ship. That wasn’t your first mistake, but quite probably it will be your last.”
I tried to yell my defiance, but nothing more than a few bubbles came gurgling out.
“The fact that you thought you could get in close enough to the Omicron without being blown to cinders is laughable in its own right,” he said seriously, as he rooted around in my desk until he came up with my spare blaster pistol.
“You never would have gotten here fast enough to avoid serious damage if I hadn’t told Captain Heppner how to initiate the Montagne Maneuver. That old full-stop trick made me famous, back in the day,” he continued, jerking my utility belt off my power-armored body and rifling around inside it, before throwing it to the floor in disgust.
“Those screamers and advanced wave of Marines though, that was actually something of a surprise… well played there, but you never would have gotten close enough to exploit them if I hadn’t opened the door and kept it open for you,” he reached around my neck until he found my neck pouch. With a triumphant jerk, he tore it loose before dumping its reduced contents on the desk. Discarded as abruptly as it was claimed, I could hear the pouch as it landed behind the back of my head. I was unable to see it, but I knew what was in there.
Spineward Sectors 03 Admiral's Tribulation Page 16