“I want us to follow that ship with every fiber of my being! My very soul cries out for relief, that can only be found walking the decks of my—” he hesitated, “of our, beloved ship,” he continued, “but simple physics says we’ll never catch her before she makes the jump to hyperspace, and with the legs on our fine girl, we’ll never catch her short of Capria herself!”
“You want us to follow them back to Capria…but what about the Hold Mistress? She said we are to—” Brence ground to a halt, looking concerned.
“I gave the Lady my word I’d bust her man out of the Durance Vile, that lying, backstabbing, traitorous Pirate of everything that’s good and holy in this universe—meaning the Clover, herself—“ he added, to ensure that the younger man took his full meaning, “put our fumbling, ham-handed, ship-losing excuse for a Little Admiral into,” he sputtered, iron creeping into his voice, “why, there’s one thing a Spalding and an Engineer is good at, and that’s fixing ships and keeping his word!”
All around him, the timid little door mice that were his current bridge crew sat hunched over their consoles, clearly afraid to attract any adverse attention.
“What a miserable, second rate excuse for a Bridge Command team!” he bellowed. “Why, you’re so fearful, you’re probably scared of your own shadows.” He glared around at the men and women on the bridge, “I never thought I’d see the day I declared any team of men worse off than those incompetents on the Phoenix,” he said, deliberately dropping the wretched first name Lady Akantha had given the ship, “but don’t you worry; Papa Spalding’ll make men out of you yet.” Then his voice grew to a dull roar, “Or someone’ll die from his tryin’!”
Brence was backing slowly away, without looking like he was backing away, putting his slacking self between his Chief Engineer and the rest of the Command Team.
Spalding nodded with deep satisfaction; standing up for your team—especially in the face of an angry supervisor—was likely the most important lesson any team leader needed to learn, in Spalding’s book. Well, that and strictly policing his crew for any contraband deadly to the work habits of his crew—such as rotgut whisky, stellar porn on their tech manual readers, and those never-to-be-blasted enough, infernal, accursed multi-tools!
“Take this ship to silent running,” he ordered, scarcely able to believe he was doing so. “And hail those comparative paragons of high technology, our dirty as sin and twice as hazardous as anything that ought to be allowed in Confederation service, Corvettes,” he said damningly, his eyebrows beetling as he stared at the main screen with intense concentration.
Consciously, he knew it was the right thing to do, but knowing a thing is not the same as feeling a thing. Against his natural inclination, he was going with his head over his gut, in this particular—certain to be isolated—incident.
“We’re going to locate our butterfingered Little Admiral, and then my soon-to-be fine lads and lasses,” he continued, his eyes burning with an unholy fire, “we’re going to retrieve our fine Clover from that backstabbing word twister, who swooped down like a Vulture the moment my back was turned and murdered my fine work crews as he stole the ship out from under us!”
Brence came over, and treading where even fools were leery, threw his two cents into the breach. “The Lucky Clover’s a fine ship; as fine as they come. But we’ve got a pair of Dreadnaught’s back in the Yard, and I’m sure there’s time to free the Admiral, link back up with the Lady, and come up with a smart plan that wins. We don’t have to rush this; let’s do it right,” he said urgently.
Spalding stared at him in growing disbelief. “Only a fine ship is she?!” he harrumphed loudly, in favor of pummeling the poor befuddled lad to the floor. Murphy knows, when the Demon has already mucked around with your brains, a little leeway was in order…but this was beyond the pale!
“I didn’t mean-” Brence started, but Spalding cut him off.
“As fine as she comes, but we’ve got two other ships just as good,” cried Spalding, leveling a lit plasma torch at him, “for shame, lad!”
“You’re taking this the wrong way, Chief!” cried Brence.
“What other way is there to take it, lad?” he snorted, and then against his better judgment, leaned down conspiratorially. Brence started to sway away, before stiffening his spine, pasting on a green-faced smile, and leaning forward.
“The Clover, she’s a ship of mystery and secrets,” Spalding said, like a priest bestowing a great revelation.
“Secrets…I see,” said Brence cautiously.
“You can’t see it, lad; you couldn’t possibly,” he assured the man sympathetically, his eyes alight from within by Saint Murphy’s holy plasma fire, “but if you’re very unfortunate you will…oh, lad, someday you will,” he declared.
Brence looked sick.
“Her secrets wait on no man, and the sweet mystery lying hidden within what we call the Heart of the Ship has a mind of its own. Oh yes, despite your disbelief, you must know that under the guidance of a rapacious Pirate, anything is possible. The Galaxy itself will shake and shudder in its very tracks if we don’t get back to her!” Spalding finished, raising his arms high and frowning down on this flock of petulant unbelievers. Who, clear as day, thought he was just another crazy old man, too long exposed to the fires of hyperspace.
“He’s gone mad,” whispered one of the sensor techs.
“The mechanicals have disordered his brain,” said someone else on the other side of the Bridge in a low voice.
“I’m sure we’ll put it right, Chief Spalding,” the ship’s Executive Officer tried with a weak smile.
“You all think Old Spalding’s gone senile, and I can’t say as I blame you. Were I in your shoes, I might be tempted to think the same,” he scowled, sweeping the Bridge with a look that caused the naysayers to cower. “But when the Demon grabs this sector by its tail and starts shaking it back and forth, think on this day and hold to your posts. For Crazy Old Spalding gave you first and fair warning, along with this last promise: man your posts, and it’ll all turn out as it’s meant to be; but flash a yellow belly and run…well then, my lads and lasses, all the angry Imps of Murphy’s realm won’t save you from the fires of his revenge,” he promised, waving his still-burning fingers in the air for emphasis.
The Bridge was deathly silent after that last verbal explosion.
Stumping over to the sensor console, he scowled at what he saw.
“You call this silent running? Why, I’ve seen Hydra Cruisers back in my day, that were all but black holes in the middle of cold space,” he muttered, stabbing a finger on the readings in question, “I never should have let this death trap out of my Yard.”
“Chief Engineer Spalding, you fixed this ship up better than it was before the Lady took it off the Pirates at Omicron,” Brence disagreed.
“Twice as good as the worst job you’ve ever seen, is still pretty blasted terrible,” Spalding said unhappily.
“There’s no way we can snooker a Squadron of the Wall and all those supporting elements with a single Hydra Class Medium Cruiser, a trio of pirate leavings, and a short squadron of Cutters. Especially not when our emissions are as bad as this,” he grumped at the screen in front of him. The tech in the chair leaned as far to the side as she could manage while keeping to her seat.
Spalding stood there stroking his chin rhythmically, and all around him the Bridge crew gave him concerned looks.
“Well, there’s nothing to be done for it. We can’t possibly do it straight up, and sneakery’s right out, what with our transmissions this bad,” the old engineer said, shaking his head sadly.
“We can work on improving our shielding and quieting the ship before heading in,” said Brence, stepping up to him. His gait was a little stiff, as was his new norm.
“What?” Spalding looked at him in surprise, “Oh, good thinking lad, but we simply don’t have the time; the Clover, she can’t wait,” he said heavily.
“A few days, Sir…” Brence started, befor
e trailing off at Spalding’s head shake.
“A few weeks is more likely, as it is…” he pondered, staring down at the screen.
“We can’t just give up without even trying,” said Brence urgently, his gaze darting around the bridge.
“Give up! What kind of defeatist talk is this?” Spalding turned on the former slacker like an angry slash beast, grabbing him by the neck and shoving him against the wall.
“But you said,” Brence gasped.
“Oh, never you mind what I just said; put that out of your mind. Where there’s an Engineer, there’s a way,” Spalding declared, turning to the damage control watch stander.
“It’s going to be double and triple shifts to get this decrepit old pile ship shape in time. Lads and lasses,” he said staring around the Bridge with deeply satisfied eyes, “time’s a wastin’.”
“What’s the plan, Chief Engineering Spalding?” the Damage Control Watch Stander asked staring at him with worship in his eyes.
Spalding blinked down at him for a moment, befuddled. He had been expecting nothing but an uphill pull the whole way, and then a gleam entered.
“It’s an old engineering secret I’ve been guarding for the better part of fifty years,” he said conspiratorially.
Around him, the formerly (or, in some cases still very much) skeptical crew leaned closer.
“If the old Captain can twist his words saying he’s going to retire on a Vineyard—implying grapes, when he really means a Battleship—well, I ask you,” he said, giving his foot an outraged stomp. The deck literally vibrated as solid duralloy met equally solid duralloy, and even if the vibration that resulted caused his teeth to vibrate due to inferior shock absorbers, the wily old Engineer was unfazed. “How can an old Space Hand do any less? I’ve sworn not to say word one to anyone who doesn’t already know the secret,” he said, laying a finger alongside his nose.
The easily spooked slackers began to draw back, as though expecting the wrath of the Demon himself.
“But that doesn’t mean I can’t show you,” he assured them with a smile, and it was a deadly smile, full of the kind of promise that bespoke an unexpected meeting in a dark alley with an auto-wrench. “I can give you a hint though, and it includes a number of non-standard cross linkages,” he grinned, “have any of you heard of the supposedly mythical, ‘Montagne Maneuver?’”
“The Maneuver’s a myth,” scoffed one of the pair that called him space-crazed. Skepticism was rampant on the faces of the rest of the bridge, and Spalding blinked at the disbelief he was seeing all around him.
“Just like Duralloy II wasn’t secretly suppressed by the Empire, I ask you?” he let them know his disdain with every fiber of his being.
Eyes blinked all around him, and a light started to dawn in the assortment of dim bulbs.
“This isn’t like the Duralloy Equation,” the other one who called him crazy opined, “even if it’s real, and just not the idle fantasy of old spacers with nothing better to do than jaw at the bar about phantom ships and the good old days. No one I’ve ever met had the first idea how to pull it off; are you now claiming someone trusted you enough to share the secret with ‘you,’ of all people?” she finished, rolling her eyes.
Spalding blinked, as the manner of the question’s presentation was unexpected. “I suppose, after a particularly convoluted manner of speaking,” he admitted, then he gave himself a good shake as a wicked smile crept across his face. “I mean, honestly, lass; who do you think invented the bloody thing?!”
Chapter 32: A Shuttle Decision
“That traitor played me for a fool,” Heirophant hissed, wadding up a piece of dirty laundry and throwing it against the far wall, “he betrayed us all!”
“We don’t know that for sure,” Mike muttered hesitantly.
Lisa glared at each man in turn, “We don’t know that at all,” she insisted loud enough to talk over the two of them.
“No one makes a fool out of Heirophant Bogart,” the Tracto-an gunner said grimly.
“I for one don’t think putting you into the laundry bin in order to smuggle you onto this shuttle makes you a fool,” Lisa Steiner hissed, when she saw that some of the shuttle crew were looking their way, “but if that’s what you believe, then it’s already too late to talk of fools and foolishness, because it’s all in the past!”
“I meant no one does this and lives to tell the tale,” the former Tracto-an Lancer snarled.
“Speaking out of school has to be the last thing on that man’s mind right now,” Mike muttered, looking to be disgusted that he was actually defending the former First Officer.
“Not if it was all just a plot to betray us!” Heirophant barked.
“Keep your voices down,” Lisa exclaimed slapping the over-sized Tracto-an on the chest before moderating her own voice as soon as she had their undivided attention, “look, he had no reason to betray us like you think.”
Heirophant snorted derisively.
“He could have betrayed us at any time,” Steiner flared in a low voice, “it makes no sense to get us off the ship first.”
The gunnery rating snorted again, but this time it sounded more in disgust than in disbelief.
“So what do we do now, Lisa?” Mike asked, glancing out of the corner of his eye at the shuttle crew who were looking at them curiously.
“There’s nothing we can do, Starborn,” Heirophant grunted, cutting the petite little com-tech off before she could say anything, “we can’t go back, so the only way on is forward. There we must face our doom like Men.”
Lisa looked at the big man uneasily and then nodded to Mike in acknowledgement of his question, “I hate to say it, but Heirophant is right,” she said looking slightly pained, “if not for the reasons he seems to think,” she quickly added.
Shaking his head, the big Tracto-an turned half away, although the other two could tell he was still listening to what the little tech had to say from the way he cocked his head.
“Look, there’s nowhere we can go in this system, and even if there was we can’t just abandon the Little Admiral,” she said ferociously, her eyes flaring with barely suppressed emotion.
Mike looked unhappy but he signaled his reluctant agreement with a hand gesture while Heirophant nodded his full-hearted agreement.
“Better to die like warriors fulfilling our oaths to the Warlord, than to sneak away like cowards when we don’t even know where to go to find reinforcements,” the Tracto-an said with complete and utter certainty in his voice.
“Right,” Lisa said in a perfunctory voice, “forgetting all the rest of it, we have to at least try, if we’re going to be able to live with ourselves later. I mean, I have my doubts like the rest of you, but Tremblay could still be on the up and up. It’s even possible that he could have been innocent this entire time!”
Mike uttered something that could very well have been, “Yeah right,” but if he did, no one cared to call him on it, if for two entirely different reasons altogether.
“Anyway, he’s helped us out this far and put us within striking distance of the Admiral. We’re closer than we’ve been in well over a month, so let’s not squander this opportunity out of fear, or infighting amongst ourselves,” she said with passion as she spoke from the heart in an attempt to keep their little band—minus one Intelligence Officer—together.
With begrudging nods from both the remaining menfolk of the group, the little Com-Tech wondered once again how it had fallen on her to lead. It was something she had never been trained for.
Chapter 33: A Good Show on the Dark Side of the System
“And today we are joined by the lovely Lady, Miss Bethany Tilday Vekna; a Princess-Cadet who hails from her home world of Capria. Princess Vekna has agreed to give our audience an exclusive interview,” said the middle aged reporter for CSPAN with a serious look on his face.
Bethany laughed and politely covered her mouth with a white gloved hand. “Bethany please, or at most Miss. Tilday, if you must be all stuffy a
nd formal, Mr. Howard,” she said with a winning smile. “Like my poor Montagne cousin, I too am from a Cadet branch of the Royal family—the Vekna branch, to be precise.”
Looking like he was refusing to be drawn in by the smile, the Reporter’s face tensed with anticipation as he prepared his first question.
“Let’s pursue that further your highn—I mean, Miss Tilday,” the reporter said, looking like a hound who had scented blood.
“Why, whatever do you mean,” Bethany asked, her mouth making a small moue of confusion. The calculating look in her eye would have been missed by anyone unaccustomed to dealing with lifelong politicians.
“Your cousin, for want of a better term,” the reporter said with a sneer, “from your own description, it almost sounds as if you sympathize with him?”
“Why, of course I do,” Bethany said indignantly, managing to look both shocked and dismayed at the insinuation, “we grew up together, you know. We Veknas do our best to build bridges with the various, sometimes contentious, branches of our planet’s political groups—even the Montagnes. We believe in unity above all else, and we have ever gone to great pains to build trust and cooperation.”
The reporter turned a smug look on the camera, as if he had won some vital concession and then turned back to the Princess-Cadet with a return to his hard-nosed demeanor. “So I take it that anything we hear from you about the so-called Tyrant of Cold Space should be taken with a grain of salt, due to your own inherent biases?” the man said coldly.
“I suppose,” Bethany said looking ever so slightly distressed, “it’s not that I fail to love my Cousin—” she held up a hand to forestall an interjection from the reporter who then reluctantly sat back in his seat.
“Go on,” Mr. Howard grudged sourly.
Bethany paused as if to compose herself, and then placed a single white gloved hand up to the corner of her eye and wiped her hand on her blouse, as if to remove any evidence of tears.
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