She looked at him with such a sudden look of terror that he paused, feeling like a heel.
The small woman reluctantly threw her arm over his shoulder. She was really too short for this but being just thin as she was short, it wasn’t that much of a burden to lift or carry her.
“Come on, Operative, it’s time to come out of the cold,” he muttered, staring at the door leading out of the room dourly.
She glared at him before dropping her face to the floor once again, “Get blasted, Tremblay,” she mumbled under her breath.
For some reason Tremblay found himself smiling. Realizing the expression on his face, he quickly wiped it clean.
“Come on,” he said jerking her toward the door, “I’m no mountain made of muscles like those savage Tracto-an scabs.”
From the stiffness in her upper body, he was sure the little Communication Tech had a lot she wanted to say. Fortunately they were in the middle of the Brig and she couldn’t unleash any of it.
With a sinking sensation, he realized that he might have made a very big mistake claiming she was one of his operatives. Hopefully she didn’t realize that until after she was in so deep she didn’t have a choice anymore.
I am Parliaments loyal tool, he reminded himself. Sadly, that reassurance no longer felt as ironclad as it once had. With his increasingly threadbare belief in something greater than himself like Parliament to help prop him up, he stumbled out into the hall with his brown little burden. Hopefully the information she was able to lead him to was worth all the trouble she’d already caused him.
Chapter 56: In the Sick Bay
“We should kill him,” Tuttle said wincing with pain as he worked to unsheathe his sword without further damaging himself.
“A Royal Montagne Armsman advocating the murder of a Montagne Royal,” Doctor Torgeson tisked, “what is the galaxy coming to?”
“Not only is he not my Montagne Royal, he’s a direct threat to my Charge,” Tuttle replied in that cold gravelly voice of his.
Torgeson hesitated and then glanced at him enigmatically, “There’s information you are not privy to,” the doctor said, stroking his cheeks and chin.
“When it comes to his Family my Prince keeps no secrets from me,” Tuttle said stiffly, swinging his legs over the side of the stretcher now that his sword was free. “Other matters perhaps, but not when it comes to the Royal House.”
“If that’s the truth then perhaps something has been kept from your Prince,” Torgeson mused.
“Jason Montagne has to die,” Connor Tuttle said flatly.
“I can’t let you go around killing my patients,” Torgeson said strictly.
Tuttle’s eyes hardened as he stiffly raised his sword.
“How’s about we let your Master be the judge of who has to die this day,” the doctor suggested, stepping between the Tank and the Armsman, “I’ll agree to abide by his decision.”
“Delaying the inevitable just to cause me physical pain won’t avail you anything Doctor,” Tuttle growled, sweat breaking out on his forehead from the effort of standing upright. “My Lord will just order his death and all you’ll have done, is anger me.”
“A risk I’m willing to take,” Torgeson shrugged. “This really is a decision that should belong to Jean Luc Montagne, not his Armsman.”
“Make your call,” Tuttle grunted, “then prepare to stand out of my way or be run through with my blade.”’
“Of course,” Torgeson replied with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
Activating the wall communicator, he called the bridge.
Working his way through an ever increasingly senior set of officers, he eventually reached the ship’s new senior officer.
“Doctor…Torgeson, I see,” Jean Luc greeted, sweeping the doctor with a brief yet comprehensive gaze, “for your sake, I would pray there’s a very good reason I have cause to speak with you, let alone know your name.” His eye was like the open pit of a volcano, and the doctor could well imagine falling into them and being consumed utterly.
Whereas the Armsman had failed to faze the doctor, his Master caused him to shiver.
Popping his neck from side to side to relieve the tension, Torgeson pressed a series of keys on the wall panel.
“I have just uploaded a file, including a set of genetic blueprints for you perusal,” he explained, allowing the faintest hint of a smile to flit around the corners of his mouth.
Jean Luc attempted dismiss the Doctor out of hand, “I haven’t time—”
“Make time, Lord Commodore,” Torgeson interrupted, “I guarantee you’ll find the information as illuminating as I did, if you weren’t fully aware of its contents already,” he promised.
Jean Luc stared at him with a gaze that made the Doctor certain that he wanted to be anywhere but on this man’s bad side.
“Slow and painful, do you understand the meaning of those words, Doctor,” Jean Luc said, sending a chill down Torgeson’s spine, before lowering his single eye to look at the reader.
The Commodore’s head jerked back up after a moment, and he fixed the doctor with a cold glare. “The contents of this file?” he demanded.
“You have the only copy, my Lord Prince,” Torgeson assured with a bow, “the contents are useless to me.”
Jean Luc relaxed slightly as he replied, “As they are to me,” Jean Luc shrugged dismissively. “It is a fortunate turn for you, since had they been what you thought, your sending me this information would have signed your own death warrant.”
“I guarantee the results are completely accurate,” the doctor said with a frown.
Jean Luc shrugged dismissively.
“I have Jason Montagne down here in one of my healing tanks and your Armsman wants to murder him,” Torgeson said with a matching shrug, “what do you want me to do?”
Jean Luc sighed and then rubbed his forehead, pausing mid-rub to look back at the screen, “Send my nephew to the Brig, post haste. He can rot in there until I can turn him over to the Sector Authority for trail and execution.”
“Your… nephew, My Lord,” Torgeson said quizzically, wrinkling his brow.
“Yes, throw him in the Brig,” Jean Luc repeated irritably, and Torgeson got the sense that the last thing he wanted to do was get this man irritated with him, “in light of the information you just handed me, it seems like the easiest way to repay an old debt.”
“I’m confused, Sir,” Torgeson said, “you want me to send your… nephew, Jason Montagne…to…the Brig, so he can be executed at some later date.” The Doctor shook his head, Royalty was a different breed entirely, with their own strange unfathomable motives and he would do well to remember that.
“I owe it to his mother,” Jean Luc said, “the son of Precious Montagne and Elaina Three will not die by my hands…not if I’m given the choice in the matter,” he paused then grinned. “Besides, I can get a certain amount of traction with those bureaucrats back at Central by handing him over to their Justice system. They are quite upset with him, and while I’d thought to spare him the experience, in light of this new information,” he shrugged.
“Whatever you say, Commodore,” Torgeson said with a short bow.
“Exactly Doctor,” Jean Luc said his eyes drilling into his own, “‘whatever I say.’” He paused before continuing to let his words sink in fully, “And you’d do well to remember exactly that in the coming days ahead.”
“Oh and doctor,” Jean Luc leaned into the camera, “transfer him to the Brig immediately; my Armsman has need of that tank.”
“The Admiral could die if we move him now,” Torgeson said.
The connection went dark.
Torgeson stared at it for a moment.
“Well, you heard the man,” he turned to Tuttle, “I was right, at least, that he wouldn’t want him chopped up by your sword,” the doctor said with a shrug.
“My Prince almost never changes his mind once he’s set his course on something,” Tuttle boggled.
“I’ll not stan
d in his way,” Torgeson assured him with a shrug, “besides, with this transfer to the Brig the Little Admiral might die anyway.”
“Better for your sake he does not, Doctor,” Connor Tuttle said with a shiver.
Torgeson’s blood ran cold.
“Perhaps I should personally escort him over…with my full medical kit,” he said.
“Perhaps,” agreed Tuttle leaning back in his stretcher.
Chapter 57: Stretcher Rolling into the Brig
Before Tremblay could exit the Brig, the lift system signaled an incoming cube and he was forced to the side of the passage.
When the door opened with a ding, a stretcher was escorted into the entryway with full medical support in attendance.
Who, or what was so important that they sent him or her to the Brig, but didn’t wait in sickbay until the medical situation was stabilized? Tremblay wondered.
Recognizing Doctor Torgeson (a man with a sealed file which Tremblay didn’t have access to) made Tremblay scowl. The man had been less than approachable prior to return of Parliamentary Control.
Then the little Technician he was half supporting, half carrying to the lift gasped and covered her mouth.
When the patient’s head lolled to the side facing him, Tremblay stiffened. Was his each and every questionable decision destined to intersect down here in the Brig!
“The Admiral,” gasped the Comm-tech. As well she might, since the poor fool looked even worse than the last time he’d seen him. When Tremblay had dropped him in Medical, Jason Montagne had been all covered in blood. If he had known exactly how bad the wound was, he would have forgone the combat healing injection and let nature take its course.
With a transparent membrane covering the side of the Admiral’s neck and the blood cleared away, the Intelligence Officer could see down to the bone and deep tissues. It was really quite sickening.
Especially disgusting was the way a white, macerated tissue was slowly creeping over the neck wound from the outside in, under the Doctor’s direction. The new tissue moved almost as if it were alive, not at all like the insta-skin grafts Tremblay was more familiar with. It moved like a worm or a blind snake, on a quest for something it smelled.
“Gross,” he muttered, feeling free to give vent to his emotional reaction to the ugly sight, “better to just let him die.”
“You brute,” the Technician hissed, slugging him in the arm.
“Ow,” Tremblay objected a little too loudly.
The Doctor’s head snapped around, “Stand aside, Officer Tremblay. You had your chance to kill him earlier and you flubbed the deal. This man is now under the protection of Commodore Jean Luc Montagne himself.”
Tremblay raised his free hand as if in surrender, “He’s all yours, Doc,” he assured him, feeling sweat break out on his forehead. The Commodore was already aware that far from finishing the job the Montagne had started, Tremblay had dropped the ‘Little Admiral’ off to be patched up in medical. Creative interpretation of the order to ‘clean up the mess’ might not be enough to save him.
He had been certain that no one, not even a legend in his own mind like Jason Montagne could survive that kind of sucking neck wound. He hadn’t thought his little indiscretion mattered, especially after he dropped him off in the middle of the blasted corridor! Blast that medical orderly! And double blast, because this was all really Tremblay’s own fault! That orderly must have been a member of the original crew still all enamored with his ‘iconic leader’. Well, there wasn’t very much ‘iconic’ about Jason Montagne right now was there.
Tremblay tried his best to get a good gloat going on, but between the sight of that ugly neck wound and the accusing glare of the petite communications operator at his side, he was unable to do so. Worse, he was actually feeling guilty. Him, an officer in the Intelligence Directorate, whose stomach was inexplicably upset over his part in the plot to bring down Jason Montagne! It was a sign of weakness, pure and simple.
Even a Montagne like Jason didn’t deserve this, Tremblay finally decided with disgust. This was all the fault of that Blood Lord Pirate, one Commodore Jean Luc Montagne. Jason deserved…he deserved, well whatever it was, this was not it!
“Come on,” he said gruffly, and dragged the tech out of the way. As soon as the grav-stretcher had passed them he pushed his way into the lift moments before it cycled closed.
“Look what you’ve done,” the Tech accused the instant the door had cycled closed, “this is your handiwork, high and mighty Lieutenant Tremblay,” she sneered at him through a pair of swollen eyes and a bruise so puffy it was starting to impact her ability to talk. “All hail Parliament, the murderers and mutilators of one Jason Montagne,” she seethed, and Tremblay felt his gut churn at her words as she continued, “a man foolish enough to save a quarter million colonists from pirates, stop a Bug Invasion cold in its tracks, and the only man who gave two figs about the Border Worlds!”
“Shut up,” he said fiercely.
“He held this ship together when everyone else abandoned us!” she screamed at him, “What are you going to do, beat me like the Morale Officer,” she demanded. Then she cleared her throat and fired a wet, sticky gob composed of equal parts mucous and blood onto his uniform. “Bring on the neural whip,” she yelled, “that seems to be Parliament’s first, best and only answer to dissent nowadays, unless they’re feeling all nostalgic and start warming you up with their fists!”
“Be quiet, you deluded little fool,” he hissed, still worried about hidden cameras in the lift cube.
But she was too far gone to listen.
“His only crime was being born a Montagne,” she slumped against his side and Tremblay glared at her with fury. “I don’t know how involved you were with this mutiny but I’ll find out,” she promised as blood suddenly poured from her nose, “everyone knew you were working against him from the beginning, but we thought you’d changed. Now that your Parliament has succeeded and you’ve gotten your dearest wish, how does it feel, Chief of the Admiral’s Loyal Staff?” she spat. “To finally have an old style Montagne in Command, one that you can really get your hate on, Mr. Tremblay,” she stumbled as her words suddenly slurring, “or are you so blind that Parliament points outside, says it’s warm out there in cold space and you would jump out with just a head back believing that also, Junio—”
She passed out before he had the chance to work up a good reply. He knew there was one… there had to be. Everything he believed in told him so.
“He’s not some old-time hero. He’s… bad,” he finished lamely but he was talking to an unconscious person. “For the People,” he muttered under his breath. While right beside him one of those very people slept the unconscious sleep of hatred against what he’d done. Was I wrong, he wondered.
Chapter 58: Flashes in The Brig
Flash: I was in a warm gooey chamber surrounded by flashing lights.
Flash: people were yelling and it was cold outside so very cold.
Flash: I was on a grav-stretcher, IV bags hanging from every corner.
Flash: I think I was in the Brig, and there was Raphael Tremblay, holding Lisa Steiner at his side. I felt betrayed. She was leaning against his side like they had known each other for a long time, but then I noticed the bruises on her face. The way he was propping her up, I wondered if they were also being taken into the brig. I hoped they weren’t, before hoping they were.
Flash: A big Marine in power armor was looming over me, he looked just like the one of the ones back at the Palace I’d been afraid of for so many years, but I wasn’t afraid any longer. I didn’t have to be afraid anymore if I was already dead.
Flash: Doctor Torgeson arguing with a Marine Jack about securing the stretcher to the wall instead of transferring me onto the uncomfortable bed in the holding cell. I knew it was uncomfortable because the last time I was in the Brig, I’d snuck into a room to see what it was like. I knew someday I’d find myself in one just like it, and I really wanted to send someone for my pillows.
Flash: There was Torgeson again and he was injecting something into my arm. Blast that man, I warned him the next time he treated me was going to be his last. With heroic effort I lifted my upper body a few inches off the stretcher and then grabbed him by the throat. I tried to yell at him and remind him of my promise to kill him, but my voice wasn’t working right and all that came out was a gurgle and a few bubbles out the side of my neck. Since I couldn’t tell him why he was going to die, I just squeezed.
Flash: A fist crashed into my face and a white light exploded behind my eyes blinding me. “Stop, you fool!” someone screamed, and that someone sounded like Dr. Torgeson. Was he stuck in the same afterlife with me? “Or you can be the one explaining to Commodore Jean Luc exactly why his prisoner was killed against his specific order!” There was a lot of shouting and hubbub after that but one thought stayed with me: Jean Luc Montagne, the man who had killed me, the man I was going to kill….
I’ll wait for you my love, I thought, realizing as if for the first time that I really did love my wife. Does she love me back? I wondered.
And then I didn’t wonder anymore as blackness overcame me.
Chapter 59: This Will Never Work;
We Need Gulliver!
He was the very model of a recently upgraded Space Engineer.
Spalding stared down at the screen in front of him and tossed it to the side in outrage.
“They’ve made a right hash of the entire mess!” he declared to the empty room.
Picking up both of the slates, he quickly scanned back to the most terrible parts and when he re-read those sections, he threw the slates against the wall.
He almost threw the comm. as well, but then he simply tossed it onto his bed in disgust.
Feet came running up to the outside of his doorway and an orderly peeked his head in.
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