Chapter 43: A Meeting of Department Heads
“Of all the foolish nonsense, pulling a man away from his work without so much as a by your leave!” Spalding exclaimed storming into environmental, “if this is nothing more than a lark you’ll regret it. Why you need kidnap the fleet’s Chief Engineer when you’ve got a perfectly good one aboard this ship I haven’t the foggiest.”
“Hmph!” snorted the Environmental Officer looking up from his desk, “an attitude like that might cause any number of wells to dry up on this ship. Kidnapping indeed! You were called here because we have a serious situation but if all you’re interested in is throwing around threats then don’t think we’re not aware of where your engineering wrenches like to stash their nectar of the gods, Spalding.”
“That’s Commander Spalding to the likes of you Senior Lieutenant and if you air plumbers think I give a two blasted figs for what a bunch of drunken degenerates think you’ve got another thing coming your way! Oh yes indeed,” Spalding said swelling up like a balloon, “so if that’s all you got I’m out of here,” he finished turning toward the door.
“Good then you can explain to them that this ship’s suddenly run out of whiskey because the fleet’s top engineer couldn’t bother bestir himself from his palace over in the yard long enough to get his hands dirty on a real working ship!” snapped the Senior Lieutenant.
“Now that’s going too blast far you up-jumped air-plumber!” Spalding rounded on the environmental officer loud and angrily, “in the name of Saint Murphy I’ve never been afraid to work a day in my life but insults to me is one thing! Cast any more aspersions on the Clover and you can just wait and see what I do!”
“Besides what do I care about whiskey? Gorgon Iced Ale now that’s the ticket. Anything else is second best anyway and you’re better off with mead. In fact now that I think about it maybe I’ll ship some of the good stuff over to the Rage after I get back, teach the crew what they’ve been missing,” Spalding gloated.
“By the Lady your an intolerant old tyrant, Engineer,” the Senior Lieutenant glared, “blast it all this isn’t the time for interdepartmental feuds. We’ve got a serious situation on our hands, Commander. A very serious situation.”
“I don’t have time for serious environmental problems unless the air is about to be turned off or there’s a threat to the food supply,” Spalding said waving hand irritably.
“How about a pack of mutineers stored inside a bacterial cleansing tank that claim they’re part of a fleet wide conspiracy getting ready to go against the Admiral?” the Senior Lieutenant asked nonchalantly picking up a stylus and examining it closely.
Spalding turned around and sat down in the chair in front of the desk. Ignoring the tortured groan of the flimsy looking chair under the weight of his duralloy legs he asked. “Alright you’ve got my attention. Just what have we got going on here, Environmental?”
“Looks like your standard anti-machinist rhetoric, Commander. Down with the droids, AI’s were bad and all but they’re gone and the droids are here to stay. The Admiral needs to clean things up and wipe out the droids or we’ll do it for him and maybe do in any of the droid collaborators that get in the way,” said the Senior Lieutenant who Spalding saw from his name tag was named Sergio.
“How widespread’s the support?” Spalding asked shoulders tensing, “and how do we know they’re telling the truth.”
Senior Lieutenant Sergio smiled darkly.
“They were reticent, at least until we explained the vat we dipped them in was chock full of flesh eating bacteria. After that everyone but the leader practically fell all over themselves to tell us whatever we wanted to know. Not that is to say,” he said holding up a hand, “that they knew much of anything at all, like the identity of their leader or council or whatever for instance. But there you go.”
“I think I’d like to have a word with these men,” Spalding said slowly and then nodded standing up slowly, “let’s go,” he ordered.
“My pleasure, Commander,” said the Senior Lieutenant.
“And Environmental,” Spalding said sharply, “not a word of this goes in the system until I say so.”
“I won’t be saying anything unless the First Officer or Captain asks me point blank, Engineer,” the Department leader said with a sneer.
“Keep it that way,” Spalding growled.
Chapter 44: Putting the Pieces Together
Spalding snorted as he stomped onto the command deck. The little band of mutineers hadn’t known much of anything, including even the fact that they were mutineers but what little they did know had been squeezed out of them, that was certain.
“Let the Admiral know I’m on the way to the briefing,” he said over his hand held communications device speaking to the admiral’s armsmen.
He didn’t entirely approve of the armsmen, well actually he would have advised the boy to get them if he’d been involved in the decision making process, which he most certainly was not. However and that said even though they were highly competent and had managed to successfully keep generations of Caprian royalty alive and kicking despite everything parliamentary tyranny and Capria's foreign enemies had tried to do, they still brought with them certain complications.
He scowled as he thought of those complications.
****************************************************
“Report,” I instructed, turning my eyes on my latest fleet Intelligence Officer, a woman recruited by Lisa Steiner to join my staff. She was both young and junior, this new officer, but she certainly looked the part with the demeanor of an ambush predator and a scar on her left cheek right under her eye that seemed to immediately give her an aura of competence I wasn’t entirely sure she deserved.
Lieutenant Brigit Kelly nodded and stepped up to the table. Tapping the holo-interface she activated the projector.
“Here we have Morgan Belfort the man who we believe to be the conspiracy’s main source in the MSP’s fleet personnel department-” the intelligence officer recapped.
The door of the briefing room slid open and Chief Engineer Spalding walked into the room.
“We need to talk,” he said immediately.
“We’re in the middle of a presentation from the intelligence department,” I observed and looked over at him curiously.
“This briefing can wait until after the Commander is done, Sir,” said the intel officer giving me a nod and the aging cyborg an enigmatic look.
“The Commander is cleared for this information, Lieutenant,” I told her lightly, “please continue.”
“Very well, Commander,” she said nodding to Spalding who paused before reaching the briefing table and began chewing on his lower lip, “as I was about to say interference in the prison system has been linked back to staffing assignment changes in the prison warden roster. This man,” an image appeared on the holo-screen, “Morgan Belfort has been linked to this case. It appears he hacked his superior officer, one Lieutenant Chang’s, access codes and in exchange for an offer of a reduction of sentence from death to a minimum of 10 years in a penal colony with the possibility of parole, has admitted that he perpetrated these crimes in a pay to play scheme.”
“Accounts linked to the former Senior Chief in the Personnel Department, and well outside a Senior Chief’s wage scale, have been uncovered and we are currently tracing them back to their source or sources,” continued the Intel Officer her brows tightening, “as for the hacking of the captured Caprian Parliamentary Agent, former Spacer Shrub’s, and the high level data barrier placed on any information regarding Shrub we are currently without leads. Chief Belfort denies having placed the data-lock out and while he has evidenced some ability to penetrate fleet computer security, he has no reason to lie at this time. At least not that we are aware of. Also his ability with computer systems, at least as shown so far, was probably insufficient to this task.”
“So you’re saying we have another mole inside this fleet,” I asked, steepling my fingers.
“It appears at this time that we have been penetrated,” Lieutenant Brigit Kelly warned, “whether that means a man or woman based inside our organization or an externally based threat such Tracto System based as computer hackers,” she tossed her head and her hair flicked over one shoulder, “we cannot say definitively.”
“While we can take steps to defend against both I think it’s safer to assume we have a rotten apple in the barrel,” I said.
“I agree. Which is why we need to take immediate steps to further tighten up security and start identifying any other members of this conspiracy,” she said nodding sharply.
“I think I can help with that,” Spalding said looking like a top that had been about to burst and suddenly saw its chance, “because I’ve found a conspiracy. One that needs to be dealt with immediately!”
My head, and that of the Intelligence Officer, shot around to track the ornery Chief Engineer.
“That seems rather convenient don’t you think, Commander?” asked the Intel Officer the scar under her eye seeming to climb slightly closer to her eyelid.
“Commander Spalding is above reproach, Lieutenant,” I said sharply, “we’d all have lost our lives many times over if not for this man,” then I quirked my lips, “well those of us who have been here since the beginning at any rate.”
“I only meant that the timing is suspicious. Not that the Commander himself cannot be trusted. There is the chance that we are being deliberately fed false information,” she said not sounding nearly as convincing as she should have. Clearly despite her words she was suspicious of the old engineer. It only remained to be seen if she was the suspicious sort in general or had some kind of axe to grind with the chief engineer in particular. Well… that or like the courtiers of the palace she was looking to increase her own influence at the expense of anyone around her.
I needed to keep an eye on all these new individuals who had been thrust into my confidence. I trusted Lisa Steiner to do her best but there would be growing pains as my staff expanded.
I then turned back to the engineer.
“What have you got, Spalding?” I demanded.
“I’ve just been down on the lower decks of this flagship,” the old engineer said his brows beetling like an angry porcupine, “and I come back with bad news. Its mutiny and conspiracy to commit mutiny, Admiral! We’ve got to make a clean sweep.”
I sat bolt upright in my chair.
“Guards!” I yelled standing up.
Immediately my team of armsmen came storming into the room.
“Are they on the way here? Now, Spalding?” I asked urgently.
“What? No!” Spalding said his brows lifting and then falling low, “whatever gave you that blasted idea?”
“What is it my lord?” questioned Sean D’Argeant as his men took up defensive positions around me and the room.
“Mutiny, Sean,” I said grimly and then turned back to Spalding with a prompting look. While the chief royal armsman spoke urgently into his communicator, “where are they?” I asked the old engineer.
“Now? Well right now they’re tied up in an air processing tank down in environmental but that’s not important right now,” Spalding said looking momentarily befuddled before rallying quickly.
“A mutiny isn’t important?” I asked with a growl. “I think unless they’re about to come storming into the room you’d better take this and explain it from the beginning.”
“The exact particulars about how I got involved aren’t important,” Spalding said waving that part of the story away like a bad bit of air before slamming a fist into the other hand.
Brigit Kelly looked rebellious, as if she were about to object but ultimately held her piece while the old engineer kept talking.
“What’s important is…it’s a Murphy-be-blasted anti-machine conspiracy, Admiral!” he said with outrage. “A mutiny meant to topple you from Command if you don’t renounce the droids and blow them all to Hades!”
“What?!” I asked as some of my worst fears came to me literally out of left field.
“They caught a pack of conspirators in the lower decks and came to me as the only man they could trust to bring it to you directly but the blighters are not just based in one Department and we don’t know who their leader is yet. The blighters we caught were too low level,” Spalding slapped a hand on the table for emphasis, “all they knew for sure was that they and their mutinous cohorts have been converging on the flagship, transferred somehow in ones, twos and small lots! We’ve got to get you off this ship right now and transfer you over to the Clover where you’ll be safe ASAP, Admiral,” Spalding declared, “I’ve screened the crew over there and they’re all hard workers, every one of them. Not slack, lay-a-bouts given to wild flights of mutinous fancy as have infected the Royal Rage!”
“Infected the Rage?” Lieutenant Brigit Kelly asked with disbelief, “there’s no reason these conspirators if they exist, could not be just as hard working as any other woman on this ship.”
“You got it all wrong, lass,” Spalding said drawing himself up with dignity, “conspiracies and even many mutinies draw their numbers from the disaffected. And men who are not well accustomed to hard work are the easiest to become disaffected. I’ve seen it many times, the trouble makers, roustabouts, layabouts and slackers they flock to anything that tells them they don’t have to work hard. They say that in days past men turned to banditry in droves when times got tough because it was easier to shoot a man and take what he had than to put in an honest day's work! Stand and deliver they said and—”
“A preposterous oversimplification if ever I heard one,” scoffed the Intelligence Officer, “not every mutineer is lazy and loyalist hardworking.”
“A bit defensive are we?” Spalding bridled.
Lieutenant Kelly took a breath and turned to me.
“I agree with the Commander that in a situation like this it might make sense to transfer your flag, Sir,” she said turning to me, “however I’m not sure if the Lucky Clover 2.0 is the proper choice.”
Spalding visibly swelled up.
“And just what’s wrong with her? She’s the largest, luckiest, most powerful ship in the fleet!” he bellowed.
“I think we’re getting ahead of ourselves,” I said sharply cutting through the confusion, “until I say otherwise I am not going anywhere, Lucky Clover or otherwise.”
Spalding blinked and Lieutenant Kelly frowned in surprise.
“Tell me more about these conspirators,” I ordered and Spalding quickly relayed everything he knew. Which as it turned out wasn’t much.
“So in short what we have is ostensibly an Anti-Machinist Conspiracy. One that blames me for making a deal with the droids in order to save two sectors or more of the Spine from being overrun by first the machines and then later the Reclamation Fleet and then blames me again for not destroying the droids the moment we didn’t appear to need them anymore. Do I have that right?” I asked rhetorically.
“That about sums it up. They’re planning something and I don’t think we’re going to like it when whoever’s leading that lash-up gets around to doing business,” Spalding said an unholy gleam in his eye as he finished.
“I agree that they have to go. But I have to ask the question, do they have a point?” asked the ship’s intelligence officer and I had to immediately suppress a frown.
“I beg your pardon?” I asked quietly.
“Have the machines served their purpose. Is there any reason to keep them here and would this fleet be in a better position if they were deactivated or removed by any means necessary?” she asked simply and then her eyes turned calculative. “Just as or more important than those answers; what will the rest of the fleet and the sector population think when word of this gets out?”
I rubbed my chin and nodded.
“You’re operating from the assumption that it will get out,” I pointed out.
Lieutenant Kelly looked momentarily taken aback then she lifted a single finger. “That might
work,” she said pursing her lips, “however that still leaves the droid issue on the table to be exploited at a later date. Man not Machine isn’t just a slogan it’s a way of life on many hard scrabble worlds that can’t afford even the most basic of robots and conversely take no small measure of pride in that state of affairs.”
I drummed my fingers on the table as I thought rapidly.
“I’m actually more worried about the core-worlds. They’re well off and they actually use robotics in their daily lives. Gaia guilt might take them down roads more hardscrabble worlds simply wouldn’t consider,” I said.
“Gaia guilt?” asked Chief of Staff Steiner.
“If you look at history,” Lieutenant Kelly said sardonically, “the founding ancestors of many of our current core-worlds, especially out in the confederation heartland, although even out here in the Spineward Sectors to a lesser extent, came to certain accommodations with the AI’s in order to survive. Ironically this tends to make the descendants of such worlds much more hard line when it comes to the anti-AI protocols than those worlds and populations that actually resisted the machine plague.”
Spalding’s mouth twisted with distaste and he spat on the floor, “And though the history books were cleaned up to hide it. Many of those world populations active supporters of the AI’s right up until the machines stopped running and they were left in possession of worlds they’d never fought for,” he stepped on his spittle and ground it into the floor, “they didn’t shed any blood, much less one single drop of sweat to free themselves! It gets in their brains and turns them to mush. Bunch of mush heads! People too deaf, blind and stupid to see what’s really going one because of Gaia Guilt! That they have the best worlds and industry because their ancestors were quislings.”
I coughed into my hands.
“In my observation when it comes to ideology the further you are from the problem, the less it directly impacts you and the more time you have on your hands, the more increasingly hysterical responses you're likely to get,” I said with a shrug.
Admiral's Nemesis (A Spineward Sectors Novel: Book 11) Page 35