Was there anything more I could do? I’d already contacted the General. Intelligence was making a series of arrests, and was it any coincidence that as soon as we started rounding up the conspirators there was a march on the gun deck? I didn’t think so.
“Bring back up the feed of the gun deck,” I instructed
****************************************************
“What the Demon Murphy is going on in here?” roared Gun Chief Lesner, still pulling on his work jacket as he stormed into the port-side gun deck. He was proceeded by the assistant gunner who’d rousted him from his quarters with word of a disturbance.
An assistant gunner, mind, not the deck chief he’d placed in charge of Gunnery while he was off shift getting some much needed shut eye.
For a moment the group of gunners, grease monkeys, and assistant gunners—clustered into a group and blocking access to the ship’s guns, which could be deadly in case of an attack—quelled, almost falling silent before one of them shouted and they all started waving their signs again.
“No Genes! No Genocide! Destroy the Machines!” they once again started chanting.
“Get off my deck before I curb stomp the lot of you!” bellowed Chief Lesner, charging toward the men making the disturbance.
He was almost there when a hard-faced man stepped forward, pry bar held across his chest.
“Go back to sleep, Chief,” the other man, the very Deck Chief who Lesner had put in charge of the port deck while he was off shift, said flatly.
“What are you doing, Remandic?” Lesner demanded, coming to a halt and giving the Deck Chief a hard look.
“Enough’s enough, Lesner,” Deck Chief Remandic said flatly, “we held our noses long enough and we’re tired of the excuses. The Imperials are gone. The Sector’s finally at peace and the Machines have to go. It was one thing while we were fighting a war. I don’t agree with it, but I can understand a man doing whatever he had to keep even more droids out of two Sectors and those rot-gutted, blasted Imperials out of the Spine and all our Sectors even if I didn’t agree with it. But it’s done. The Admiral has to see reason and destroy the droids—like he should have done from the beginning. No more excuses. We’re having a work slowdown until our demands are met.”
“That’s 'Chief Gunner' to likes of you, Remandic, and this is the Multi-Sector Patrol Fleet not some unionized civilian workshop,” Lesner snapped. “Frankly I don’t care what you think or you believe. Forcing the Admiral’s hand like this is mutiny, and doing it on my deck? That’s even worse—that’s a personal betrayal.”
“Man, not Machine, Chief,” Remandic said, a hard gleam in his eye, “you can either live with that like the rest of us and join the cause, or you can go back to your room because we won’t be stopped.”
“Like Hades, you won’t! I’m not some child to be sent to his room; I’m the blasted Chief Gunner of the blasted bloody flagship,” Lesner growled, clenching his hands into fists and then turned his head and roared. “I’m calling on every loyal son of the MSP to clap these men in irons and—”
He saw movement out of the corner of his eye and started to duck, but was too slow and still taken by surprise when Remandic swung.
Despite Lesner’s best efforts, the metal crowbar met his head and he crashed to the deck senselessly.
“No Genes! No Genocide! Man not Machine!” screamed Remandic. “I’m calling on every truly loyal son and daughter of the Spineward Sectors to stand tall and tell our commanding officer what we think of his 'droids first' policy!” he finished, standing over the twitching body of the Chief Gunner bloody crowbar in hand.
For a long moment, gun crews all through the port deck gaped and craned their heads to see what had just happened. Then a lone, deep bass voice cut through the subdued gun deck like the rumble of thunder in the sky after a lighting strike.
“Sic Gorgiamus Allos Subjectatos Nunc,” boomed a Tracto-an voice as a tall, genetically-engineered man in a gunner’s uniform jumped down from a gun mount he’d been using to see down into the mess around the protesters with a thump that echoed across the suddenly silent deck.
“Go back to whatever hole you crawled out of, you genetically-engineered superfreak,” the Deck Chief shouted, leveling his crow-bar at the Gunner. “And do it before I have to teach you a lesson that’s been a long time coming, Heirophant—a very long blasted time, machine-lover!”
“I’m going to personally upload you to the space gods, Remandic,” Heirophant rumbled, hefting an Imperial-style boarding axe and pointing it at the Deck Chief. Then he looked around and his face turned into a contemptuous sneer as he looked down at his fellow gunners. “What are you waiting for, a written invitation? Those men just boarded our deck and tried to kill our Chief Gunner. Finish him!” he roared, waving his boarding axe forward and charging.
“Tracto-an blighters should stay off the Gun Deck! You think I fear you?” Remandic screamed, rushing out from the safety of the group of protesters “I took this deck and now I’ll hold it from all comers. Man not Machine!!!”
Boarding axe met prybar, and sparks flew as the bar was half cut through and knocked low and wide.
Heirophant snapped a crisp elbow into the Deck Chief's cheek and followed up with a knee that the other man barely blocked.
“This is your deck? Then maybe it’s time for a new Deck Chief,” Heirophant roared, blocking the bar with his axe and eating a punch to the ribs so he could get in close. Bringing an arm up, fist pointed to the ceiling, he brought his elbow right down on the Deck Chief’s head with brutal force.
Remandic staggered, falling back onto the deck. He shook his head from side to side, barely focusing on the Tracto-an gunner before Heirophant landed on him.
“Genetic dog!” Remandic cried, trying to headbutt upward with little effect.
Anything else he tried to do was arrested as the twin hammers of Heirophant’s fists began to land, one after another, as the Tracto-an assumed a mounted position.
“Messene for the MSP!” he shouted as he turned Remandic’s nose into a bloody mess and broke the Deck Chief’s jaw.
“No Genes! No Genocide! Destroy—” started an irate assistant gunner as he charged out of the ball of angry protesting spacers and threw himself at Heirophant, knocking the Tracto-an gunner to the deck with himself on top.
Heirophant grabbed the assistant gunner by the throat, silencing his words. “Down with the anti-machinist!” he roared, drawing back his free hand and punching the other man in the brow. He then tossed the other, stunned man to the side and bellowed, “Up the MSP!”
“You’re the mutineer against all of humanity!” screamed a female grease monkey, swinging an auto-wrench at his head.
Heirophant swayed his head to the side and the wrench bounced off his neck, striking his shoulder with bone cracking force.
“ROS!” Heirophant roared like an angry bull as he felt a crack and his right arm stopped worked, forcing himself to his feet he turned on the grease monkey who followed up her attack with a right fist straight to the windpipe.
“Just die! Go and die already!” she hollered as he lowered his chin and took the fist to his lower jaw, which currently shielded his windpipe, “you piece of droid loving—”
Her words were cut off by a left hook that took her in the cheek and sent her staggering back.
Blood in his eye, Heirophant gave chase with his left arm swinging back and forth, striking again and again until she went down. He promptly jumped on her and kept swinging until her extremities curled, spasmed, and finally went limp as a bag of sand.
“The gun deck!” he howled, pushing himself up in one sudden motion with one hand on the floor.
“Like to hit women, don’t you?” snarled a trio of angry protesters as they moved to surround him.
“There’s a price to being the superior sex; it’s the rulers price,” Heirophant said uncaringly.
“You ugly blighter,” snapped one of the men, activating his plasma torch. “I’m going
to make you as ugly on the outside as you are on the inside!”
“You’ll try, but it doesn’t matter. In the end your rebellion will be crushed and you’ll be left polishing droids and driving grav-carts for penance—assuming you survive. That’s looking more and more in doubt,” Heirophant grinned.
“Take him!” cried the leader, and the other two closed in from behind, one on either flank.
Heirophant met them with spinning back-kick, and the battle was joined.
****************************************************
I watched as the minor mutiny—or, rather, pointlessly small protest movement doomed to failure before it ever began—petered out by way of a horde of angry gunners falling upon their rebellious deck-mates leaving, a pile of battered and bloody survivors behind them.
“Well it looks like that takes care of that,” I said with satisfaction.
“Not hardly!” Leonora Hammer looked angry enough to chew nails—and not the ones on her fingers. “A protest and a riot on the Admiral’s Flagship?! My ship!” she exclaimed, and I could tell which one was the most important part to the confederation officer. Not that the Royal Rage belonged to the admiral but that the Royal Rage belonged to her.
Which I supposed was understandable. That said I could honestly care less who the captain of my ship was when members of its crew were attempting to kidnap my children.
Speaking of which, I opened a channel to Brigit Kelly.
“Give me some good news, Junior Lieutenant,” I said putting on a strict demeanor. While I normally tried to control the emotions I presented, it wouldn’t do to seem unaffected by the attack on what the rebels had every reason to believe were two of my actual children instead of decoys. That was why I allowed no small part of my real feelings to bleed through.
“We’ve made definite progress, although I’m not sure just how good you’re going to view the news I have to give,” she said with a long face.
I felt a chill run down my spine. “Give me the straight download: how widespread is the rot?” I asked, unable to hide my suddenly urgent worry at yet another massive, fleet-wide mutiny. What did I have to do to inspire loyalty in my subordinates? Was the fault with me? What was I lacking...was I too calculating, not calculating enough? Maybe the fact that I put the helpless people of the Spine before the potential risk to the MSP spacers when it came time to defend the Spineward Sectors meant I was too much of a bleeding heart—which never plays well to the military crowd?
I just didn’t know what I was doing wrong, and that was perhaps the most damning indictment of my command style to date.
The she blew my every preconceived notion out of the water.
“While I’ll not deny that there is genuine anti-machine sentiment throughout the fleet, so far what we’re seeing Admiral looks a lot like a few genuine hardcore believers from the older crew members and a lot of astro-turf, to borrow the political phrases I’m told you’re quite familiar with,” she said, looking oddly relieved at the answer.
“What? Astroturf...” I said, waiting for the other shoe to drop and feeling no little disbelief, “what exactly do you mean?”
“Most of the cells we’ve been rolling up have consisted of men and women who recently joined the fleet to fill out our significant manpower requirements. More of those members among the new spacers with the strongest beliefs seem to have been actively recruited. Cherry picked or, in other words, identified using our own records for potential recruitment. I’m not sure if this anti-machinist mutiny was ever seriously considered to have a real chance of taking over the fleet,” she shrugged, “at best the organizers may have hoped to influence you to get rid of the droids.”
“Or perhaps they hoped to get me on record protecting our droid allies from anti-machine human forces so as to inspire more mutinous sentiment among the rest of the fleet,” I said sharply.
“That could be it. But at this point we don’t have any of the senior leadership in hand so it’s all just rampant speculation,” she said.
“You’re sure they’re not a real threat?” I said easing back down.
“I’m sure they’re not an immediate threat to your control of the fleet. But if they’re allowed to fester I’m just as sure that I have no idea what will happen long term,” she corrected me with a warning.
“Alright, I’ll want that information verified. But regardless of that, you said I might not consider what you had as good news and I have to say that so far the news has been about as good as I could have reasonably hoped for,” I said, one eye on my data-screen as Lancers appeared on the gun deck and started placing restraints on the now unconscious protesters and hauling them off to the brig. I nodded with satisfaction.
Her somewhat improved mood immediately fell..
“Sir, I hate to be the one to report this but it looks like the kidnappers weren’t after a simple snatch and grab of the children,” she said stiffly. “We’ve found evidence of a weaponized biological agent which has been taken down to Medical for testing. They tell me that it’s been placed in a maximum isolation setting while they attempt to determine its exact properties.”
“A weaponized biological agent,” I said dumbly before it hit me: WMD's! “You mean they brought onto one of our warships a weapon of mass destruction?” I asked with disbelief.
“No, Sir. According to Medical while that is one possibility, what this looks like is not a weapon of mass destruction but a tailor-made tool of assassination.”
“Assassination? Against who…?” I trailed off as it became glaringly obvious that there were a limited number of potential targets on this ship worthy of anything more than personal revenge. And that small list shrunk again when you factored in using the children as a route to reach that target.
“It looks like a single agent tailor-made to attack an individual or specific bloodline,” she reported, “as such, the targets are limited to the children or—”
“Me,” I said, realizing that this was yet another attempt to get me but this time using little children—literal babes in arms, in fact. I fell back against my throne. Did the evil of an elected official know no bounds such that they would stoop at nothing to end me?
“Or your wife, Sir. It’s a definite possibility since she is also directly related to the children, and has a high level of planetary authority—assuming they were going to use the babes as potential vectors to administer the agent and not the actual targets themselves,” she said.
I stood up abruptly, suddenly filled with a sense of urgency.
“You’re sure of it. She’s at just as much risk of being the target as I am? And this mutiny was nothing but a diversion for the assassination plot?” I asked urgently.
“Well…that’s a distinct possibility, yes,” Lieutenant Kelly said and then frowned, “that said, I don’t think that you should—”
“Thanks, Lieutenant. I’ll get back to you later,” I said, cutting the channel and heading for the blast doors. “I’ll be consulting with Lady Akantha if I’m needed. In the meantime, Captain Hammer has my authority to give orders if we have another emergency or anything comes up regarding the mutineers-slash-protesters that needs dealing with while I’m away.”
“Aye aye, Sir,” I could hear Captain Hammer say, her voice coming from a hologram of her. I didn’t wait for a proper response and kept walking.
“My lord Prince, I do not believe that it is wise for you to leave the bridge at this time,” said Sean D’Argeant.
“I don’t intend to wander the ship, Armsman,” I rebuked, “I am heading directly to the children’s quarters to ensure their safety. I’ll have no problem locking them, myself, and their mother in whatever accommodations you best recommend as soon as I arrive.”
“I recommend you take a moment to think things through. It’s safer if you stay here and send word for them to come to you, your highness,” Argeant said a respectful edge to his voice.
“I have thought things through and I wouldn’t be much of a man if I hid
in my ready room while there’s a potential threat to my wife and children! You heard the woman: there’s a large chance that everything up this point was simply a diversion,” I said in a rising voice.
“I’m well aware of the possibilities. That’s why I am saying in the strongest terms: let us handle your safety and that of your family. If you are that concerned then I will go personally and retrieve them,” D’Argeant said. “Meanwhile, let me order a security sweep and—”
“Order the sweep, but we’re going,” I said.
My armsman looked mutinous and, for a moment, I thought I was literally going to be dragged into my ready room where they would sit on me until this potential emergency was over. However, both he and I knew that if he did so and this threat didn’t pan out then….
D’Argeant’s nostrils flared. “Fine,” he said tensely, “but you’ll have to wear this,” he pulled out a mask and handed it to me.
“A head bag?” I said with disbelief.
“You’ll wear it—and you'll like it,” he told me flatly as he then began to attach an emergency air tank, with accompanying plastic tubing, to my belt. “This is good for five minutes and will protect you against respiration based attacks. It still does nothing for viral agents that can affect you through skin contact however.”
Deciding that a minor concession was the better part of valor, I nodded seriously and placed my head bag on the top of my bowler style officer’s helmet. The old-style Confederation helmets designed for the Admiral and his or her Flag Staff definitely left something to be desired, aesthetically speaking. But at least they had been designed with head bag’s in mind, as there was a convenient place to hang it at the forehead, ready to be dropped down to cover my face at a moment’s notice.
With a tense smile, I started forward only to be interrupted by a hand on either shoulder impeding my action. “I thought we’d come to an agreement,” I said, my brow lowering.
“We did: you’d wear the self-sealing face mask and we’d escort you,” Sean D’Argeant said without an inch of give in his voice.
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