Admiral's Gambit (A Spineward Sectors Novel:)

by Luke Sky Wachter

  “Prince Jason,” the man said stubbornly, his pockmarked face taking a darker hue, “please arrange a time after we transfer onboard your ship so that I may take your oath to the King in secundus for his Royal Majesty.”

  And sometimes that invincible aura one projected was only useful when turned on yourself. Oh well, it's not like anyone I was dealing with today seemed to have my best interests foremost in their minds. Forget courtesy, I wondered how he’d like dose of his own medicine. Perhaps it was time someone gave it to him.

  “Mr. Wainwright,” I said, the barest hint of an edge entering my tone, “I-.”

  He cut me off before I could continue. “Colonel, Sir, or just plain Marine are good enough for a decorated old battle horse who's earned his position, Your Highness,” he said darkly, a grim frown crossing his face.

  I threw back my head and laughed. I almost liked this man, in spite of myself. It was clear he detested me, or at least the person he thought I was but for all of that, I wished I had a hundred enemies just like him. He came at me fairly straight unlike most of my foes, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to string him along and then crush him like a roach the first chance I got.

  “Yes, and we sent an Imperial Cruiser straight to Hades after slaughtering much of her crew due to a lack of common courtesy and proper respect for Confederation Authority in this system, and yet still we don’t seem to get the respect we deserve,” I said flatly, matching stares with this old ‘warhorse.’ “Strange that upon our return, you don’t see us going around making demands for what is rightfully ours. Quite the opposite, I’d say.”

  Colonel Wainwright held his frown for another half a tick before it cracked. A snort started to followed but was quickly strangled. “You’re not quite the fancy party boy described in my brief, Admiral,” he said, using my rank for the first time.

  “Whoever wrote that brief sold you a bill of goods, Marine,” I tried to reply in the same vein, “I was never much for parties even back when I was at the Capitol. I was more of a struggling student type. Colonial Administration, the truth be told.”

  This time he did snort. “It’s nice to meet someone who comes at you straight in my line of work, Admiral, even if they do come dressed in an ancient Confederation-pattern uniform. None of this pussy-footing around,” he growled.

  “Likewise, Colonel,” I replied levelly.

  “Then give it to me without the song and dance: when am I going to fulfill my orders and be done with all this formal rigmarole,” demanded the Colonel.

  I hesitated, prepared to give some brush off answer.

  “Don’t start playing games now, just give it to me straight,” barked Wainwright.

  I shrugged. If he wanted it straight then I was prepared to give him the unvarnished truth. “Oh, I’ll most definitely be giving you the song and dance routine, then hand you a number to wait in line. But the truth is the spacers there with you, the ones sent to replace my current crew, are a bit more likely to wind up aboard this ship than your Marines. Neither you nor your men will be getting under our skin any sooner than Hades freezes over, and maybe not even then,” I said just as bluntly. “Your oaths and such will just have to wait until such a time as you find yourself onboard.”

  Colonel Wainwright cursed. “Which you’ve just told me is never going to happen.”

  “I never said that,” I deliberately projected an aura of shiftiness, hamming it up to the point of the ridiculous with exaggerated facial features and such.

  He cursed again. “Those Parliamentary boys have been cooped up something fierce in these fat merchies we’ve been stuck on for the past month, to say nothing of my boys. I don’t see how you intend to ride herd on the better part of 16 thousand disaffected crewmen with no Marines to back you up. You may be a Royal Admiral, but that’ll mean less than squat to these boys, especially after everything that’s happened recently.”

  I leaned back in surprise at this new information. Parliamentary boys? Fortunately, my mouth kept working while my brain stutter-stepped, trying to assimilate this new piece of the puzzle.

  “Fortunately for the safety and security of this ship, I happen to have a full contingent of Lancers under Colonel Suffic, himself a former member of the Caprian Royal Lancers. I’m certain the current on-board force can handle any…infractions that occur,” I said, fudging the number of Lancers on board slightly and trying to look utterly confident in their ability to handle any situation that might come up.

  “I’m not sure if I can release these men into your crew on my own recognizance if my men own aren’t allowed onboard at the same time to keep an eye on them,” Colonel Wainwright said wryly.

  “A crying shame, but I’m sure Admiral Yagar would be willing to provide you with an escort home,” I said, as this would be an ideal end to this whole situation. Of course, I didn’t believe for a moment that this was going to be enough to stop the whole process, but I could dream, couldn’t I?

  The Colonel Scowled, “You’re placing me in something of a position here, refusing to let my men and I on board, at the same time refusing your oath,” he said sharply.

  “I’m refusing nothing, everything is simply delayed until such a time as schedules can be aligned,” I said smoothly with a winning smile.

  “And there's the double-speak where you’re talking out both sides of your mouth. I thought we were past all that foolishness,” glared Wainwright, and I began to see why he’d been sent as far from Capria as the SDF could send him.

  I decided once again to be equally blunt. “Like it or lump it,” I said with a shrug. “I’ll bring your men onboard and swear the oath when I get around to it.” It's not that I personally held the oath of allegiance to a King who was probably a regicide as particularly binding, but I feared what Akantha and the Tracto-an’s take on the whole situation might be. The last thing I needed was to make waves with what passed for my personal security force, especially if I had to let a bunch of disaffected Parliamentary boys under the skin of our beloved Clover.

  Still, if this Wainwright and his Marines had been sent out here as a Royal watchdog force to keep an eye on both myself and these Parliamentary crewmen (men no longer wanted on the home world because of their loyalty to the old regime), there might be an angle I could play in this whole mess. I doubted the home world had put much stock in either my abilities as a ship/fleet commander, or in my ability to recruit more men for the ship.

  So even if word got to them of my Tracto Lancer force, which I highly doubted (at least before this force reported back), they were more likely to discount them as an untrained barbarian rabble than a real military force, an assertion which might have struck a little too close to home a month or two ago before our extended border patrol, but by this point was becoming less accurate as Colonel Suffic and his Royalist cadre slowly whipped them into shape. These Tracto-ans had definite ideas about the chain of command and what service was due their Warlord, who would be me.

  “It’s on your head then if this stunt of yours blows up in your face,” Colonel Wainwright growled, before muttering something that sounded suspiciously like ‘Montagne’s’ and cutting the connection.

  Just like that, my dreams of keeping my current crew and avoiding any replacement Parliamentarians were dashed into pieces.

  I glumly gave the orders to the Communications section to instruct the Caprian SDF armed merchant conversion to rendezvous with us in a location well within the defensive bubble of Commodore LeGodat’s orbital turret’s and defensive batteries.

  I was once again stuck with an unpalatable fate. Murphy take me, I was facing Jean Luc’s most probable fate: atomized in the waste compactor if I refused these men and my own crew rose up against me.

  What a life.

  Chapter 52: United We Stand...

  The first 'honor guard' squadron of the Sector Guard was soon joined by the second and final squadron. No one said anything, but I could tell from the signs of strain on the face of our Tactical Officer that no on
e liked this latest development. Two squadrons consisting of 11 total warships perfectly positioned for an attack run against our engines. Even Tremblay began to show signs of concern, his eyes darting constantly to the main screen where he could check on their progress behind us, and he almost blew up when the Communications section picked up some coded chatter between the Guard units but couldn’t make heads or tails of it.

  Rear Admiral Yagar was apparently leaving as little to chance as possible.

  As we got closer to the defensive line of LeGodat’s orbital forts, the Sector Guard squadrons crept up until they were barely outside of our extreme weapons range.

  I wasn’t the only one who breathed a sigh of relief when we crossed the line and entered the Commodore’s defensive envelope. The entire bridge crew had picked up on the mood of its top officers and wanted to cheer, Tremblay even went so far as to clench his fist and start to pump his arm before remembering himself. Apparently being under the guns of Yagar’s force wasn’t any more pleasant for him than it was for the rest of us. More than any of us, I’m sure he had to be wondering which side of this confusion of sector and planetary interests he was supposed to be aligned with.

  The Caprian side was the obvious answer of course, except now the Royalists were back in power...but then there were all these supposed fellow Parliamentarian crew stuck in the converted merchies, which meant if the Caprian’s were aligned with Yagar and his Sector Guard…

  What a mess. Even I couldn’t keep track of it all, and I represented one (or if LeGodat could be believed, two) of the two major sides in this rat's nest of competing interests.

  Rear Admiral Yagar and his two squadrons hesitated, going so far as to slightly enter the range of the defensive turrets before scattering formation and turning tail to avoid going any deeper into LeGodat’s range than they had to.

  Just like that, we were in the clear. Discipline held, but shoulders that had been tense all around the bridge suddenly loosened. I figured that even if I couldn’t read the reaction of the general crew, I was starting to know the mood my bridge standers at a glance.

  I was also busy silently patting myself on the back when it occurred to me that I’d been so certain of this man I’d made a Commodore, but if LeGodat had been in cahoots with Yagar, right when we entered his defensive envelope would have been the perfect time to hammer us. Taking fire from the front and rear, even a rough and tumble old Dreadnaught class Battleship like our Lucky Clover would have been in serious trouble.

  My skin went clammy and I was suddenly intensely grateful that Yagar was such an overbearing individual. If LeGodat hadn’t been a stand-up guy in this instance, the adventures of one Admiral Jason Montagne might have come to a sudden end. At least it would have been one for the history books, I consoled myself, filled with lots of flash and action, with the main villain (me) cast as some kind of out of control loose cannon whose reign of incompetence and terror was brought to a quick end.

  Closer in to the loose sprawl of scattered orbital stations, factories and refit yards surrounding the much larger bulk of the semi-gigantic Wolf-9 Star Base, we were finally in past the worst of the ancient Confederation jammers that LeGodat had going in the system.

  I could see that one of the native-built Spineward Sector Constructor ships was still here and hard at work upgrading what, according to our records from the last visit, was an old mothballed orbital factory complex.

  From the number of newly active jammers and defensive works, such as station-mounted turrets, batteries and even a pair of small orbital defense fortresses, it was clear LeGodat had been busy. I wondered how he was manning all these platforms if he was limited to the remaining crews of his original four Corvettes and their supporting personnel.

  The Lucky Clover proceeded to the Wolf-9 Star Base, even our large bulk dwarfed by this massive work of engineering, dark and silent most of it may be.

  Finally realizing on a personal level the sheer size of the Star Base LeGodat was trying to hold onto for the good of all 8 sectors and the Spine and in the name of the Confederation, it was forcibly driven home just how big of a job he was attempting. It must have been tempting for him to just hand over the keys to the place to the first serious force that showed up and wash his hands of the whole business. I mean technically he’d only been a Lieutenant Commander in command of a Light Squadron of four Corvettes. Now he was a Commodore and System Commander for the entire, and until very recently, entirely mothballed Wolf-9 Star Base and its surrounding jurisdiction the Easy Haven System.

  I couldn’t imagine it was anything I’d said or done that had put such iron into the spine of this Fleet professional to the point that he was willing stand tall in the face of such an incredible task and daunting odds, even going so far as to back my play when I was far from the most powerful force in this system.

  It was humbling to realize the kind of dedication it must have taken to his sense of duty, and the sheer gall the man must possess. Clearly both the Confederation Fleet and Confederated-Imperial Navy had made a mistake when they left this man out here as a reserve officer on a make work assignment.

  I hoped I never made a similar mistake.

  Not surprisingly, no sooner had we docked with the Wolf-9 station than the armed merchants sent to us by our beloved home world were chomping at the bit.

  “Sir, the Captains of the armed merchants say they can’t understand why we don't begin transferring personnel now. If they can’t dock directly with Wolf-9 until they get permission from Commodore LeGodat, then they are requesting permission to use their shuttles and begin the process,” said the communications tech. “They are also requesting a direct channel with yourself, Admiral.”

  “Tell them they’ll just have to wait,” I said irritably. For a moment I was tempted to fob the job of keeping them off my ship off on Tremblay, but then I remembered his little stunt with the internal Comm. system. If I left him in charge of delaying the operation, I might come out of my meeting to discover the ship overrun with strange crewmen.

  I searched my mind for someone I could assign the task to, who had the rank and authority to keep my ship free from this Parliamentary infestation for at least a short while longer.

  Then I struck upon a novel idea. There was one person who could get the job done and wouldn’t care what toes she stepped on doing so. “Find my wife and open a communications channel,” I said brusquely. Even Tremblay wouldn’t dare start transferring crewmen without my permission while I was gone if he knew Akantha, working in conjunction with our Lancer force was tasked to delay them. For all anyone knew, including both Tremblay and myself, she might order our Lancers to open fire and slaughter any new transferee by the shuttle full until the other side learned to respect her desire for a delay. And while my former Promethean and Caprian

  Royalists would probably balk at such an order, the Tracto-ans among them were probably just crazy enough to obey her.

  Akantha appeared on the miniature screen built into the arm of my Throne. She opened her mouth but I cut her off quickly. “My Lady, please be a dear and speak with the Captains of the Caprian Ships. I don’t want the replacement crews sent over here just yet, and I really don’t have time to hold their hands,” I said with a smile. She started to nod and say something. “Thanks!” I said quickly, and just as quickly cut the connection.

  Everyone and their brother thought they could jerk around Admiral Montagne with their ‘critically important’ tasks and assignments. Let's see how critical they still felt it was after speaking with my savage wife! Finally, a task for which she was ideally suited. No one who talked with her more than once ever doubted again that this was a woman who held a grudge, and was crazy enough to back up her threats.

  If Gants were here, I would have taken a team from the Armory with me when I went off the ship to meet with the Commodore. It was tempting even without the overly enthusiastic crewman present, but the thought of Oleander the jinx who had almost gotten me killed on more than one occasion being
accidentally assigned to my team made me abruptly change my mind.

  Instead, I called up the Lancer Colonel, informed him of Akantha’s new assignment and requested a force of men in battle suits to accompany me off the ship.

  Trust, but verify. I trusted LeGodat, but I would trust him a whole lot more after I’d verified he was free and fully supportive.

  I instructed that the same team that had gone down to the surface with me to Akantha’s home city state be assigned as part of the force.

  *************

  When I first marched through one of the main airlocks connecting Lucky Clover to Wolf-9, I felt a moment of dread, as if this were the first time I’d set foot off the Battleship in the last year. Which was just plain nonsense, since I’d been off the ship and down to Tracto twice already.

  Of course, every time I set foot off the ship someone tried to cut my head off, so there was that. And this place, for all its dark and run-down appearance was still part of a high-tech society, unlike down on Tracto VI.

  So with something like forty Lancers at my back, a pair of ‘volunteer’ medics because the ship’s medical department had this strange tradition that someone always volunteered for away missions (even if that person had to draw straws or be volunteered) and the Minos Sword strapped to my back because I didn’t have time to change into my battle suit, I stepped off the Lucky Clover for the third and perhaps final time.

  Everything hung on LeGodat and his intentions, and at this point the die was cast. It wasn’t a very good feeling, to tell the truth.

  The first thing I noticed upon stepping into the Wolf-9 corridor was the duralloy of the walls. It looked like some of the more out of the way and run-down sections of the Clover, slightly grungy with residue built up from the process of having an active, operational environmental system.