Admiral Invincible (A Spineward Sectors Novel: Book 7)

by Luke Sky Wachter

  “I cannot control the actions of non-signatory members-” Kong began, and for a brief moment I imagined I could see the fork in his tongue, prompting me to cut him off.

  “You can blasted-well do your job,” I said slamming my hand on the arm rest of my chair, “you claim to be the Representative—so represent something!”

  The Sector Judge ran a hand through his hair. “I’m used to being a Judge, not an Ambassador…but I will do my best,” he said, drawing himself up with quiet dignity.

  I moved a hand in the air, waving him off. He and his dignity hadn’t done much for me so far, and maybe that was unfair, but blast it — I meant what I said. I was tired and done with being the universe’s whipping boy and he was the one who practically begged me to come out here. The least he could do was help keep me from floundering around like a fish out of water.

  A half hour later and I was pretending to be unaware of the fact that Laurent had sent our ship ‘towards the hyper limit’ by way of the direction the Droids had headed off to, and somewhat offset to the side of the Commodore and his merry squadron of ungrateful weekend warriors, when we received a hail from the Mu-Heracles home world.

  “I have a Prime Minister Hale, eager to speak with you, Admiral,” the little com-tech said respectfully.

  I frowned for effect, for I’d been well aware that in addition to Laurent’s actions with the ship, Kong Pao had been speaking urgently over the diplomatic channels while I sat there and brooded. Eventually I then gestured for her to put it through.

  “This is Admiral Jason Montagne of the Confederation’s Multi-Sector Patrol Fleet,” I said flatly.

  “Admiral Montagne,” a man’s upper half appeared on the main screen, “I am Prime Minister Hale of the Mu-Heracles United Government of Paid Voters.”

  “What can I do for you, Mr. Prime Minister?” I asked politely.

  “What’s this I hear about your Fleet coming in and making a few passes against the droids and then running off?” he asked pointedly.

  I realized that my blood pressure probably should have gone up at that, but I was beyond being surprised at Politicians and their antics.

  “I was assured by your Commodore Potempkin that our services were no longer needed and, since we are urgently needed elsewhere, that’s where we’re going,” I said easily.

  “That’s unacceptable, Admiral,” the Prime Minister said glowering down at me, “I don’t know what other systems are prepared to let you get away with, but—”

  “Let me get away with?” I cut in tightly.

  “Yes.” he said flatly. “We’re taxpaying members of the Confederation, and as such you work for us! We demand that you place yourself under the authority of our local System Defense Commanders and finish rooting out these Droid Invaders before flitting off to whatever tea party you’re late for. Blast it, man, people are dying here and all you’re interested in is playing games!”

  “Oh, you did not just say that,” I said, getting out of my chair and leveling a finger at him. “Listen up, buddy: I don’t work for you, so you can cut the attitude right there. And as for the subject of the taxes you supposedly pay to support our Fleet, let’s talk about that. When was the last time you paid your Confederation taxes, hmmm? In fact, you know what…forget how late you are or aren’t on those payments,” I said with blatantly false magnanimity. “Since I’m in the area anyway, why don’t you just get your tribute ships ready and, along with the back taxes for the past two years, you can pay the current year as well. When those are ready, you can get back to me about failing to fulfill obligations.”

  “Why, you two-faced pirate! Is that why you’re really here for, to try and extort money from our beleaguered star system and rob us blind in the process for your so-called protection?” raged the Prime Minister, looking ready to burst a blood vessel.

  “I, sir, am no pirate,” I said, drawing myself up.

  “You know what? I was going to ask you to stay and help, hoping we could come to some kind of agreement, but we don’t need—or want—your kind around Mu-Heracles. Our paid voters would rather die than give into extortion,” shouted the Prime Minister. “Good day, Mr. Montagne!”

  There was a moment of silence.

  “They’ve cut the channel, sir,” Steiner said in a small voice.

  “I can see that, Comm.,” I said evenly.

  There was another pause, after which I turned to Laurent.

  “Continue your pursuit of the Droids, so long as we’re still headed for the edge of the system. If you feel you need to divert in order to pursue them, come speak with me,” I told him neutrally. “I’ll be monitoring things from my ready room.”

  I was done with the Mu-Heracles star system, and if it weren’t for the innocent people living there I would seriously consider sticking around for some attitude adjustment.

  Behind me, Akantha followed into the ready room. Expecting another browbeating, I kept my face carefully blank as I turned to her.

  “So?” I asked emotionlessly.

  Cheeks red with anger, my leading lady clenched her fist and paced back and then forth in front of me.

  I hadn’t seen her that angry in a while, and I’m not afraid to say I suddenly feared for my life.

  “This is unacceptable,” she said furiously.

  “I’m truly sorry, Akantha, but I failed. There just wasn’t much I could do other than roll over and I’m too tired to play that game anymore,” I said heavily. “But in the end all I did was bluster and end up looking like a fool.”

  “That’s twice now they’ve dared accuse us of banditry,” she declared hotly, seemingly ignoring my words. “I could understand the Warleader; we were new and unproven. But after we defeated several of the enemy warships, we proved ourselves allies and yet still they test us!” her face hardened. “We should come back after we have defeated the Droids and their armies, Jason. We should return and make our displeasure at such rude treatment known. You know that were it not for our sworn word to come help defend the Polises of these Sectors, I would urge you to leave and return home right this very day. No one would dare insult us so back on Tracto.”

  She looked angry enough to spit fire, and I slowly smiled. Finding support in one of the most unexpected of quarters was surprising, to say the least, but quite gratifying. It was like a breath of fresh air in a room that had grown stuffy. Normally I was the one in her targeting sights, but this time I wasn’t the target of her ire—for once we seemed to be fully on the same side. I sighed, thinking that sometimes it really was nice to be married, despite the ups and downs.

  “I’ll keep it on my ‘to do’ list,” I said, smiling crookedly. Amazingly, hearing Akantha’s heated defense and growing ire with the leaders of this System actually helped me to put the events here in perspective. We showed up, saved the day—or at least tipped the scales far enough that the SDF could finish saving the day—and, as usual, we were run out of the system.

  I didn’t have time for small fry, middle tier worlds like Mu-Heracles. Nor, despite enjoying her words in my defense, was I about to plan a return for retribution visit after our work with the droids was done.

  “Perhaps we should head back out onto the bridge,” I said, glancing over at the screen in the ready room I’d set to reflect the data on the main screen of the bridge. It still showed the Droids running before our combined forces, even if they weren’t actually combined, “If Mu-Heracles ever decides to join the wider galactic society we can deal with them then. In the meantime, there’s still a chance at another droid destroyer.”

  Akantha pursed her lips but said nothing, and followed me out onto the bridge.

  Chapter 13: Druid Beats Feet

  “Stop at the Belter station and we’ll prepare to take on supplies,” Commodore Druid ordered his bridge crew, eager to get back out there and on the Admiral’s trail.

  That had been several hours earlier, and since then things had been going downhill and enthusiasm had most definitely waned.

 
; “Hard dock with Belter Station Alpha-Tracto achieved, sir,” reported the Helmsman.

  “Excellent,” Druid said with a nod, “all departments are to move as planned to take on supplies and equipment. I want this stop to be as quick and painless as possible.”

  “On it, Commodore,” chimed in the various department heads on the bridge and linked through his chair-com.

  He clapped his hands together. “Then let’s be about it, people!” he exclaimed.

  He gazed on with watchful eyes at the controlled frenzy of activity taking place on the bridge. They weren’t a smoothly functioning crew yet but they were on the way. Hopefully by the time they linked back up with the Admiral they’d be close to a smoothly running operation.

  “Sir, a communication from Station Central,” reported the Lieutenant at Comm., breaking into his train of thought.

  “Well, what is it?” Druid asked into the growing pause.

  “Sorry, sir,” said the Lieutenant looking concerned, “it seems there’s a delegation of some sort waiting on the docks to speak with you.”

  “They want me to come down to the docks?” Druid frowned.

  The Lieutenant flushed, “No. Actually, they want permission to come on board and speak with the Commanding Officer of the Battleship. I think they really wanted the Admiral, but you would do as a stand in.”

  Druid’s frowned turned into a scowl; this was the part of the job he didn’t care for.

  “Sir?” the Com-Officer asked leadingly.

  The Commodore took a deep breath. This was why they paid him the big bucks. “Have security scan them for weapons and once they’re verified clean have them escorted to the main conference room. I’ll be down to meet them shortly, after I’ve change into a fresh uniform and had time to verify there are no hold ups with any of the various ship’s departments,” he grumbled.

  “Of course, sir,” the Com-Officer said with a nod.

  **************************************************

  Druid strode into a room filled with over a dozen…no, make that, two dozen individuals in various types and manner of dress and headwear.

  He stopped and double blinked.

  “I say, are you the man in charge here?” demanded a man in a large, tubular headdress with a golden jackal running from a circlet around his head up toward the top of his headgear, where the jackal’s head came to its full size with a pair of ruby eyes.

  “The person in charge could just as easily be a woman, as this man,” cut in a woman, who at first glance appeared to have some odd ideas about personal clothing.

  Until, that was, one realized that most of the ‘clothing’ she was wearing was actually, tattoos and she didn’t seem to possess a single scrap of traditional clothing. Even her hair, done up so that it stuck at least a foot up above her scalp, only had a few silver hairbands and precious jewels woven in.

  The Commodore coughed. “Actually, I am in charge…of this battleship, I mean,” he added cautiously, once he realized that taking responsibility for more than that might be counterproductive.

  “Excellent,” the first person cut back in, “then you are the man with whom we should address our grievances.”

  “Why you insist on a masculine identifier, when literally over half of the human species is female, escapes me,” the naked, tattooed woman growled at Mr. Headgear.

  “You would have me refer to him with a female identifier?” Mr. Tubular Head Gear sounded bewildered.

  “I merely object to the default gender stereotyping is all,” the woman protested. “As the gendered majority, I feel that—”

  At this point, a third—and overly obese—individual sidled up to the brewing argument. “My dear,” he cut in, in the most condescending tone the Commodore had heard that day—and perhaps ever, “surely you realize that it is the role of the Majority to be infringed upon and discriminated against in order to equalize the natural advantages inherent to their group through simple numbers and the subsequent preponderance of cultural impact their majority provides. As such, it seems entirely in-keeping to my mind that we would use a male gender assumption over that of a female. The only wonder—again, to my mind—is that we do not use an even more minority position such as ‘it’ or ‘hir,’ instead of the largest minority gender of the human population!”

  “Good gods, do the three of you have no belief in religious, or plain old moral values? If not, what about simple, social responsibility to the weight of traditional values that have since time immemorial,” scoffed yet a fourth individual, this one laden down with the overly elaborate robes of some kind of clergy.

  The other three bristled and open their mouths to retort.

  Feeling a headache coming on, Druid interposed himself between the various individuals before things escalated. “Gentle…beings,” he changed his greeting at the sight of the female’s face clouding, “before we get bogged down in semantics, can you tell me why you’re here?” He silently didn’t add the most important part, at least to him: whether or not he was actually needed.

  “Why, we’re here!” exclaimed the four individuals, looking at him as if he’d lost his mind.

  “Why, yes,” he said frowning at their response.

  “It’s all over the newsfeeds,” declared the fat man.

  “In every system,” growled the man with the tubular hat.

  “No such momentous occasion can rightfully take place without the blessing of the Unified Polytheism,” the robed man said with censure in his voice.

  “And worst of all, we weren’t even invited!” raged the naked, tattooed woman.

  At this, all of the four nodded in agreement, and what’s more the Commodore could see mouths tighten and heads—for which the attached mouths had as yet been silent—start nodding in agreement all over the room as they looked his way with disapproval.

  “Plus, I’ve been waiting here for the better part of two months, and nothing has come of it!” complained someone in the back of the group.

  At this, several hostile, jealous looks shot toward the man in the back who unlike the characters nearest Druid was only wearing a traditional formal wear business suit.

  “Yes, we will not be ignored!” snapped the tattooed woman.

  “It is our right, just as much as any, more preferred worlds,” agreed the fat man. “Targeted discrimination against the minority shall never be allowed to pass quietly! Only against the majority can one safely let loose one’s inherent biases with the certain knowledge that—”

  “What are you raving about?!” Druid yelled, his growing headache threatening to turn into a head splitting migraine at all the outraged talk that still didn’t even come close to illuminating just what they were protesting against.

  For a moment, the delegation of protestors around him stared at him in disbelief, even going so far as to glance at one another as if looking for support and some hidden meaning in his, Commodore Druid’s words.

  Then at the same time the naked tattooed woman and the robed man with the tubular headdress both tried to step up to him at the same time, causing them to bump into each other and stagger.

  After shooting venomous looks at one another, the Man stepped back and said, “Ladies first.”

  “Typical, patriarchal cultural holdovers,” muttered the woman, “I ought to refuse just to spite your social prejudices.”

  Druid noticed, however, that immediately after saying this, the woman put her hands up as if to adjust her perfectly coifed hair and then immediately stepped forward to dominate the conversation. Apparently, her disgust with other prejudices didn’t extend to not advantaging herself of others—even while complaining about them.

  “I’ll get right to the point,” she said shortly.

  “I surely hope you would,” Druid said stiffly.

  “We’re here to join the Alliance of Border Worlds,” she said in a no nonsense tone that seemingly dared him to try excluding her.

  “What?” Druid gaped. “Don’t try to hide the truth or e
xclude us,” interjected the Fat Man, surging forward and not incidentally pushing the woman out of the way due to his immense bulk.

  “Hey!” protested the tattooed woman.

  “You’re in the Majority; deal with it,” snapped the Fat Man, turning back to the Commodore, “it’s all over the airwaves and my planet refuses to be excluded from the Alliance!” “What are you talking about?” Druid asked feeling confused, “the Border Alliance? There is no such organization; it was just a PR stunt.”

  “We have over twenty worlds represented in this room, and we’re prepared to boycott the Alliance en masse if we aren’t allowed to join immediately,” declared the man with the Tubular Headdress, ignoring Druid’s last words.

  “Yes, we demand to speak with the Admiral! He should hear our complaints,” shouted someone from the back of the room, “we don’t need to speak with military stooges who try to insult our intelligence. The Border Alliance is all over the Cosmic News Network; it’s all that Central can talk about. We have a right to be included!”

  “That’s right,” muttered the relatively silent occupants of the room, nodding their heads in agreement and then looking at him as if for answers.

  Druid stared back at them until finally one of the Delegates seemingly broke down.

  “My world is willing to meet—or beat—any other world’s contributions by a factor of two to one, as long as it ensures our inclusion as an equal voting member of the Alliance,” yelled a Delegate,

  “Supplies only,” sneered another, “my star system is willing to pledge a pair of Destroyers—so long as we get equal protection.”

  “Destroyers that don’t work; you couldn’t give them away! I know this for a fact, because you’ve tried,” shouted another representative, “while I have over two thousand trained SDF volunteers to offer, men and women just waiting for a ship!”

  “Only because you laid off half your workforce when you purchased more advanced ships with smaller crew capacities,” shouted the representative who’d just been offering the Destroyers.