Admiral's Trial (A Spineward Sectors Novel:)

by Wachter, Luke Sky

  “I will not stand idly by and do nothing while my enemies walk around triumphantly, and I did not stoop to sneaking around this ship just to give up because our path is blocked,” Heirophant said in a low voice.

  “We haven’t done 'nothing'. We got the first message out and erased any trace of who it was to, before they even figured out we had control of the system; that’s not nothing,” she said in a calmer tone, reaching up and placing a hand on his arm.

  “We must complete our mission, or die trying,” said the former Lancer.

  Lisa’s face softened. “I can’t even imagine how hard it is to lose everyone you know, while Murphy stretched forth his hand and chose for you to live,” she said sympathetically, reaching to give him a hug. It looked like an impulsive act to Tremblay, but one could never be sure, when it came to the fickleness of the female heart. Perhaps Mike needs to watch out, he thought sourly.

  The Tracto-an stood stiff as a board, planted in the middle of the walkway.

  She gave him one final squeeze and then danced away. “But we can’t just throw our lives away. Right now, we’re the only ones in a position to help the Admiral, and keep an eye on where they’re taking this ship,” she said fiercely.

  “It does no good to know where the Clover and Admiral are going if we cannot tell anyone,” rumbled the Tracto-an.

  “We just have to keep looking, trying, and most of all we must have faith that a way will be provided when we need it most. Throwing our lives away for nothing,” she shook her head sternly, “is just not an option.”

  The Tracto-an bowed his head, and then touched his forehead with two fingers.

  “I will respect your wisdom in this matter,” he said finally.

  “Good, ‘cause we’ve got to get out of here,” she said, hustling down the corridor, now that the decision had been made.

  “You know, worst case…if we can’t get back to the Long Range Array, we can always wait until we arrive wherever we going, then try to upload our message into a freighter by hacking their systems,” said Mike.

  Tremblay scoffed, causing Mike to continue indignantly, “Hey! Even if there’s no Com-Stat relay within range of Sector Central, there’s no reason the Freighter might not run into one somewhere along its route. At least the message would get there eventually,” Mike said huffing and puffing to keep up.

  Tremblay looked at him and shook his head piteously.

  “It’d work,” then the System Analyst shot him an angry look, “and I’m not fat; I’m just out of shape! You try sitting behind a desk all day, and see how long you can run.”

  “Really,” scoffed Tremblay.

  “Well, we might have to be physically connected to the freighter’s internal data lines, but I don’t see why not,” the other man said, clearly backpedaling.

  “Great plan…sneak off the ship and onto another one, when we can’t even figure out how to get onto this the hull again,” Tremblay sneered, even though now that he thought about it, getting permission to use a shuttle might actually be easier than penetrating the now extremely well-guarded FTL communication network’s physical array. Not that he was about to admit such…at least, not where that loser could hear him do so.

  If they could arrange it, having the codes to one of the shuttles and standing authorization for its use, was a reasonable idea now that he thought about it. Forget this fool’s ‘freighter hacking’ plan. At least, if Tremblay were found out—either by Command, or that blasted Montagne—it would be nice to have a handy little escape vehicle waiting in the wings. The more he examined the angles, the more he liked the idea. It had a number of advantages on many different levels.

  Chapter 21: Walking from one Plank to another

  “Last chance, Nephew,” said Jean Luc from just outside my cell.

  For a moment, I almost caved. I almost cracked, and gave in to the only offer on the table that promised to save my life, along with those of my men. All the things I could still do, including trying to lie to Jean Luc before running away to retire in some other Sector of space, flitted through my mind like a whirlwind.

  Then I lifted my chin and stiffened my spine.

  I was Jason Montagne, False Admiral of the now defunct Confederation Multi-Sector Patrol Fleet in the Spine, and impotent Prince of the Caprian Realm. If an offer sounded too good to be true, that’s because it probably was, and either which way…I’d be blasted before I helped the man in front of me destroy any more lives.

  “It’s been a good run,” I said with a shrug, when all I really wanted to say was, ‘by all means! Please, set me free!’

  If you wouldn’t draw the line somewhere—and Piracy, Slavery and the Murder of Innocents seemed like a really great place to start—then really, where would you draw it?

  “Keep your phenomenal cosmic power and your itty bitty living space; I’d really rather the hangman,” I said, misquoting an ancient holo-vid I had once seen. I will admit that I was secretly praying I could cut some kind of deal with the Rump Assembly. Say…life imprisonment, perhaps?

  The answer I received wasn’t very encouraging. I mean, really, what did I know, anyway? I thrust my hands forward to be manacled.

  “Your loss, boy,” Jean Luc said with an evil smile as he stepped out of the way.

  Oh, how I hated the look on his face at that moment. If I had one wish in the world, I’d…I drew myself up real quick. If I only had one wish I, wouldn’t waste it on wiping smirks or evil grins off of other people’s faces. I’d bolt out of this place like a jack rabbit sprinting for the safety of a burrow, and promptly hide myself away for the rest of this lifetime someplace my enemies would never find me.

  Events had already proven I just made a mess of things when I tried to do what was right. Who was I, anyway, to try saving the Border Worlds? Or to stop piracy along the edge of known space? I wasn’t anyone, or anything special, and it was high time for someone else to step up and carry the torch!

  All my mental posturing turned into simple fear as the Marine Jacks marched up to me in their battle-suits and proceeded to restrain me, like I was the most vicious criminal known to man.

  By the time they were done with me, I couldn’t even walk for all the shackles. Murphy’s sake, even my shackles had shackles!

  “What’s with this bunk,” I demanded, rattling my solid metal cuffs as best I could.

  Jean Luc raised a single eyebrow. “Haven’t you heard? We’ve captured the great and powerful Admiral Montagne, Scourge of the Space Ways, and tyrannical leader of the sadly defunct Confederation Fleet,” he said with a straight face.

  “Still doesn’t explain this,” I insisted bullishly.

  “Admiral Montagne is larger than life,” Jean Luc shrugged. “I believe several of the Representatives were concerned that you might find a way to break free from your shackles, and set about on some kind of rampage.” He sighed before turning to walk away, “Sadly, as a member state of the new Sector Authority, Capria’s loyal sons and daughters sometimes find it necessary to indulge the hysterical fantasies of the bureaucratic mind.”

  “That’s it?” I said in surprise. I wasn’t quite ready to give up on the verbal jousting and march stoically to my fate.

  Jean Luc just shook his head as he rounded the corner, leaving my sight for perhaps the final time.

  “This sucks,” I said to no one in particular, as the Jacks leaned down and picked me up by my manacles. “I am the great and powerful Admiral Montagne, didn’t you hear the Commodore,” I barked at them, “and you’d do well to show me some more respect.”

  The Jacks exchanged a glance over my head and then broke out into laughter. “Come on, you,” said one of them, giving me a tooth-rattling shake. I wisely chose to keep my mouth shut after that.

  Arriving on a Dungeon ship after so recently departing the ship’s Brig was just about the last thing I’d expected.

  Finding her inhabited with men and women who refused to meet my eyes, along with the last of the Imperial prisoners from my c
apture of the Invictus Rising, just put the cap on my day.

  “These are the ones the Empire doesn’t want back, because we took their ship,” whispered a crewman as he stumbled past me down the corridor.

  “Shut up, you! No talking with the prisoner,” said the Jack on my left, the same one that had given me the tooth-rattling shaking.

  For my part, I stared with shocked surprise at the corridor in front of me. How stupid was this Assembly, to put me in a Dungeon ship, crewed by my former men? The very ones I had left with Synthia McCruise after the first battle of Easy Haven!

  They probably already knew who these prisoners were, but on the off chance that they did not, I wasn’t going to be the one to tell them.

  For a brief moment in time, I was once again filled with the irrational hope that my former men would bust me out of here, and we’d ride off into the sunset.

  Alas, such was not to be, and several hours passed before I was summoned before the Assembly.

  Chapter 22: Hey! What are you trying to pull?!

  This was not the Assembly building. This was the old United Planetary Nations structure, and the UPN was famous—or perhaps infamous—as nothing more than a formalized, informal, glorified gab session. A place for Sector interests to meet together, before petitioning the Sector Governor to cater to their urgent, special, and always high priority planetary interest.

  “Hey, what are you trying to pull?” I demanded as I was 'literally' dragged along the floor to where they finally set me down in one of the two witness chairs facing the raised dais the UPN Committee sat behind. “Even your podium still has the UPN symbol on it,” I protested.

  “The Sub-Council for Security is now in session, the right Honorable Guffy Balroon, presiding,” the words blared from the speakers around me.

  “What does the Prisoner have to say for himself,” said a fat, toad-like man with green skin and a nasty smile.

  If he thought he was scary, he really needed to work on his outfit; that baggy robe hung on him like a drape. Well, here I am, I thought, they’ve actually dragged me before their Murphy Mouse tribunal. It was time to give them what they wanted, because if I didn’t…they might get mad.

  “I demand representation,” I said, jerking my whole body so the manacles attached to my knees occasionally pounded on the desk in front of me. “Before we go any further, I demand that my rights be respected; I’m a Caprian and Confederation citizen.” I stopped my herky-jerky motion, as all it seemed to do was make the twelve figures of the committee smile at my antics. The dais, where they sat, was originally designed for thirty members so they were spread unevenly behind the bench.

  “So, the prisoner is already attempting to ‘lawyer up,’ a clear sign of a guilt if ever I’ve seen one,” the odious little fat man said with satisfaction.

  I blinked at his smugness. Since when was exercising my basic rights a sign of guilt?!

  “This is an informal inquest, operating under the highest level of security afforded by the Sector Security and Secrecy Act,” he said with pity.

  “How can this inquest be both informal, and yet operate under top level secrecy,” I asked, shaking my head as if confused. I was playing to the crowd; if they wanted to see me befuddled, I’d give it to them.

  “A legal representative will be selected, if the accused cannot afford one,” intoned the green little fat man, as if quoting some kind of rule or regulation.

  “Afford one? I can not only afford one, but I demand one,” I said effortlessly switching tracts. If they wanted to treat me like some poor little idiot who couldn’t even afford his own lawyer (not that I actually could), well…I would show them. Let’s see how they liked it when every other word out of my mouth was set to stupidly infuriate them. “I demand that my ship’s lawyer, Mr. Harpsinger, be brought here immediately,” I said as pompously as I was able.

  “Your ship’s lawyer—according to the records provided by the Lucky Larry’s current Captain—defected to the Imperial Navy, along with the entire legal department,” said the toad.

  “The Lucky Larry?” I said, taken aback. Then I felt myself going red in the face, “the Lucky Clover,” I said placing great emphasis on the name, “retained one member of its legal department.”

  “Ah, yes,” he said looking down at his data slate and making a few entries, “I see here that one of the ship’s paralegals is still listed on the rolls.”

  While the Chairman sneered down at me, the rest of the committee broke out into chuckles.

  “Mr. Harpsinger is not only a paralegal in my ship’s legal department; he is also a board-certified divorce lawyer from Capria, which is why I retained his council prior to the blessed event. He can sort out the particulars of my controversial marriage.”

  The chuckles died a stillborn death, and the committee returned to staring at me impassively.

  “Point of order,” said one of the committee members, standing up from his chair.

  “The chair will yield the floor to the honorable representative from Prometheus,” the toad man said.

  “The Member thanks the Chairman from Aegis,” acknowledged the Prometheus Representative, looking down at me.

  “The Lucky Clover was the Flag Ship of the illegal fleet formation known as the Confederation Fleet—or, more properly, the Multi-Sector Patrol Fleet, also MSP-1—while the Lucky Larry is a Battleship in the service of the Caprian Self Defense Force,” he said.

  “The chair thanks the member, for that clarification,” the odious Chairman said in a nasal voice.

  “What is this,” I asked, actually floored for a moment. My mouth began to sag open before I snapped it closed and straightened my back. My royal training always seemed to come to the fore when I needed it most. “Point of order,” I cried. “They’re both names for the same ship, and my Fleet was perfectly legal and endorsed by the Old Confederation back in the Core Worlds, including representatives from this very Sector!”

  “Witnesses are not allowed to make points of order; those privileges belong solely to the members of this Committee,” the Green Toad stared down at me with a vicious smile, glee written all over his face.

  The bailiff, a man in sparkling silver power armor, took a step forward. “The witness shall remain silent, except when answering inquiries, or during his opening statements,” he instructed, looming over me.

  “Send in the paralegal,” the Chairman said, raising his hand and twirling a finger in the air.

  I breathed a small sigh of relief, and not only from escaping some form of corporal punishment. If they hadn’t known about Mr. Harpsinger before I brought him up, not only were they more likely to be surprised, but more importantly, it would drag things out. The time it would take to bring him here, alone—

  The doors of the committee chambers swung open, and an unshackled Mr. Harpsinger was brought in to stand beside me.

  I blinked, when all I wanted to do was start yelling. Sandbagged; I had just been sandbagged! They had known about my ship’s lawyer all along. Jean Luc and Captain Heppner had ample time to go through all our files and find Mr. Harpsinger. I was fairly jealous of the pair—Jean Luc the Pirate and Heppner the Mutineer—and reluctantly had to admire the smooth, bureaucratic maneuver displayed by the committee.

  Then the fact that my Lawyer wasn’t in chains penetrated, and I started to get worried. My forehead started prickling like I was about to break out in sweat, so I took a few extra deep breaths to calm myself.

  When it no longer felt like I was about to lose my composure, I turned to the former paralegal and bestowed a confident look on him.

  “Mr. Harpsinger,” I said, giving him a nod. The other man, who looked pale and near shaking, gave me a sickly smile and quickly took the seat next to me, though it seemed he was careful not to sit too close, which did nothing to increase my confidence in him.

  Oh well, they had probably just threatened his family or something along those lines. It’s not like his False Little Admiral could do anything to protect t
hem—or him—and if I had to go this alone, that wasn’t anything I had been unprepared for from the jump. I was actually surprised he’d even been brought in, unless it was to stab me in the back…something that was looking more and more likely, as the Chairman glowered down at my lawyer. Harpsinger turned green and began sweating, giving me little panicky glances out of the corner of his eye.

  “It’s okay, you do whatever you have to do; I know you have family back home,” I leaned over and muttered to him.

  He looked over at me like a deer caught in the headlights.

  “I won’t hold it against you,” I assured him in a low voice, acting as if I was conferring with my lawyer.

  “But, Sir, they’re going to kill you!” he all but yelped, and then his mouth worked silently.

  “Just don’t say anything that might get back to Akantha’s family, or make them want to kill you, and there’s nothing to worry about. It’ll all go fine,” I said, giving him a shoulder bump. He started to give me a sickly smile and then froze.

  I gave him a quizzical look.

  “You think—” he stopped and stared at me with his mouth working for a few moments and then shot to his feet. “I move that this entire hearing be suspended, on the basis of Confederation Supremacy Clause,” he squeaked and then reached into his pocket and produced a handkerchief, which he used to blot his forehead.

  I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, as this had to be just about the last thing I had expected.

  The Chairman jumped out of the chair he had just sat back in, and thumped his podium with a gavel.

  “The old Confederation Supremacy Clause was suspended, in favor of the Confederated-Imperial Superiority Law,” he said officiously, still pounding his gavel on podium. “Therefore, not only is this an informal hearing—and thus doesn’t fall under the Supremacy Clause, even if it were even still in effect—but this body no longer recognizes the right of the prisoner to invoke such a clause!”

  “My client has the right to request an official hearing, by either the Confederation Assembly, or the Imperial Senate,” retorted Harpsinger weakly. “Such a right is afforded in any case where a member of the Confederated Fleet has been subpoenaed to stand before any Sector Authority. Check your case law,” he said swiping his handkerchief over his forehead and then blotting his neck.