Admiral's Gambit (A Spineward Sectors Novel:)

by Luke Sky Wachter

  On the bed a jaw tightened and stiff fingers opened and closed impotently.

  “Well let's finish dropping off these two ‘heroes’ to their just desserts and see about getting us some whiskey!” said Philip.

  “A capital idea, my good man,”’ agreed Steg, putting on airs and generally playing the dancing monkey for the payout of a few laughs.

  On the stretcher, muscles twitched and both his arms started jerking back and forth. Everything felt off but there was nothing he could about that right now. The pair of slacking fools was too busy speculating about their card game to notice one of their two dead men was still very much alive.

  Eventually they passed through a pair of blast doors and entered a large room.

  “For your service to the Confederated…” started Steg only to grind to a halt. “I don’t know why they make us actually say last rites, it seems like nothing but a big waste of time to me. I mean dead is dead, you feel me?”

  “I’m not sure I agree with you there, Steg,” said Philip sounding uneasy. “A man ought to at least have a decent burial.”

  “Oh whatever,” snorted Steg, there was the sound of a touch screen being used, and a prerecorded tape of a minister of some sort performing a burial service came over the speakers.

  “That seems a bit disrespectful of the dead,” muttered Philips. “Hey what are you doing, you’re supposed to space him!”

  “What, and let him go to waste,” exclaimed Steg incredulously. “There’s enough biomass here after I run him through the waste recycler to grow a good eighty pounds of smoke. Weed farms don’t just grow themselves, you know.”

  “You’re going to recycle him? I mean, actually recycle him and turn him into…” Philip sounded sick, “Space Gods, are you telling me every time I’ve been smoking a stoogie I’ve been sucking down the remains of an actual human being!?”

  “Don’t be so dramatic,” Steg said condescendingly, “on a planet everything gets recycled. If humans have been living there long enough, I guarantee you’ve eaten a few molecules of great grandpa whoever.”

  “That’s different!” yelled Philip.

  “How,” demanded Steg. “I break him down into component parts and use them to fertilize my crop. How is that different from what happens naturally when you bury a guy in six feet of dirt down on a planet instead?”

  “It just is!” said Philip. “Wait stop, you can’t do that. Oh, Murphy,” said Philip.

  The sound of a body being pushed into a waste recycler reached the ears of the man on the stretcher. It was a sound he would never forget.

  Philip, the only one of the two with anything resembling a conscience, started making sounds like he was throwing up.

  “Come on, let's-" started the one called Steg, appearing at the side of the stretcher he was laying on. The errant illegal weed farmer didn’t get any farther than that before he was interrupted by a hand that rose up to grab hold of his jumpsuit.

  “What the Hades,” said Steg his voice raising an entire octave until it was as shrill a shriek as any a teenage girl might call her own.

  The man on the stretcher pulled this 'Steg' in his grip close enough he could get a look at the crewman’s face. Steg looked so pale it was amazing.

  “You look like you’ve seen a ghost, sonny,” said the man on the stretcher. The words were supposed to come out as a growing roar but all that emerged was a raspy wheeze, “But I ain’t dead yet, and there’s no way you’re throwin' me in that waste recycler,” he rasped, then with a surge of strength he threw the rating into the wall behind him. It was a good six feet away.

  For a moment the elderly man was confused, then he shook it off. “First thing that dumb quack’s done right since he first put me under the knife,” he wheezed, “gave me my strength back,” he muttered with satisfaction.

  Then he caught a hint of motion out of the corner of his eye.

  With a gasp, he rolled his head over. Steg scooted back until he hit the wall and then scrambled to his feet. Philip merely looked on in horror.

  “Well come on, you pair of blue-faced blighters! Come try and finish what you started” barked the old engineer. “I’ll take you both together. I’ll tear you all apart,” he raged, and with a herculean effort powered by nothing but pure will, the engineer threw his legs over the side of the bed.

  His center of gravity was off somehow and instead of putting his feet underneath him, he lost his balance and fell to the door with a clang. 'That didn’t sound right,' he thought with surprise. Had they strapped a pair of metal boots on him?

  Then the pair of would-be illicit gamblers charged in his direction.

  “Argh!” he yelled flailing with his left hand. There was a clicking sound and for an instant his fingers suddenly felt…well, they felt funny. Then one by one they ignited, a two inch beam of nothing but pure plasma shooting out the ends.

  “I’ll be jiggered,” said the old engineer, suddenly transfixed by his hand. “They put mini-plasma torches in my fingers!”

  “Hey you,” he roared, taking a belated swipe at the two crewmen as they ran around him and slapped open the blast doors prior to fleeing the room.

  “Cowards,” he screamed after them, “you’ll throw a man in the recycler if he’s stiff as a board, but he shows a bit of pluck and you’re off like a light!”

  The two spacehands ran down the corridor until even the sounds of their footsteps couldn’t be heard.

  Still laying on the floor, he stared at his fingers. Wiggling them back and forth, he watched as the plasma weaved its hypnotic dance. Just to make sure, he tried to curl one of his fingers but as soon as he did, the flame on that finger cut out.

  More than a little horrified, he watched as the finger tip popped back over the top of the plasma exhaust port, just like the cap of a smoker’s lighter being closed over the flame. Pointing a still burning fingertip at the floor, he watched with satisfaction as the flame slowly ate away at the duralloy metal it was constructed out of.

  “At least they didn’t install substandard hardware,” he harrumphed before realizing what he’d just said. “I’ll be blowed,” he exclaimed, cutting off the flames by curling each finger, and bringing the hand close up to his face. Synthi-flesh that looked almost good enough to fool the human eye (almost, but not good enough for this wizened spacehand) met his disbelieving gaze.

  “That quack cut off my entire paw!” he yelled in outrage, using his good hand to pull back the sleeve of the hospital gown he was dressed in. He couldn’t tell how far up the artificial arm stopped and his real one began.

  The sound of running feet returning in his direction snapped him out of his contemplative mood.

  Turning a fierce glare at the door way, he tried to get to his feet but his legs were slow to respond at first. When they did, servos whined. In disbelief he looked down at solid metal where his legs used to be.

  “Those look like...droid legs,” he gasped in outrage.

  The blast doors cycled open a third time and the first familiar face he’d seen since waking up entered the room.

  “Chief, you’re awake!” Gants cried happily. “Why are you on the floor?” The former engineering rating started to hurry over.

  “Now slow down and wait just a bloomin' second,” snapped the old engineer, leveling the pointer finger of his good hand at Gants.

  Then to his horror, that finger split in half and fell forward, a miniature multi-tool emerging in the space between his thumb and middle finger. It looked like it was designed to be grasped by the thumb and rest of his hand.

  “Droid legs and a-a-a multi-tool,” he cried, befuddled at this third mind-shattering change in as many minutes.

  “Isn’t it great, Chief! I knew you’d like it. We altered the specs off one of the Constructor Robots, top of the line Imperial technology all the way” said Gants, then seeing the expression on his face, he added, “since you needed a prosthesis, anyway,” he finished, sounding much more cautious.

  “A mulit-tool,�
�� said the old engineer his voice rising. “First fingers that aren’t fingers, then droid legs I can’t even use. And-and-and a multi-tool!”

  “I know it might seem like a bit much to take in right now,” Gants said, sounding consoling.

  He wasn’t having any of it. Consolation was for children and errant space hands who’d done no wrong but for some reason ended up off the deep end trying to swim.

  “You let that-that QUACK cut off both me paws Gants, and replace them with a multi-tool!?” demanded the old man.

  “We had to do it to save your life, Sir!” said Gants, for the first time sounding like a man and not a mouse, but it was too little, too late.

  “A MULTI-TOOL!” raged the man on the floor. “Droid legs and a MULTI-TOOL,” he roared furiously, his voice returning to something close to its usual strength.

  “I see someone’s starting to regain his strength,” said Doctor Presbyter, whose presence had gone unnoticed for a few seconds.

  “Argh!” shrieked the old engineer, deliberately activating the mini-plasma torch installed into each of his fingers. With a roll and a wild swipe of his hands, he tried to go on the attack. “This is Hades, and Saint Murphy strike me blind if you’re not his favored Servant,” he cried at the old quack.

  Unfortunately, Presbyter hopped back and out of the way. All his fingers did was swipe at the air between them ineffectively.

  “Call me when the histrionics are over and he’s settled down enough to be reasoned with,” the grey haired doctor said coldly and left the room, shaking his head in disbelief.

  “Chief, we woke you up early because we need you,” cried Gants, obviously trying to fill his head with lies.

  “A multi-tool,” fumed the elderly man on the floor, holding up his right hand and waving it in Gants face before clenching that hand into a fist to hide the most wretched, untrustworthy tool ever designed by man or AI. With a wild look he moved back his left hand. “Come closer Gants, I’ve something I want to show you.”

  Looking uneasy, the former engineering rating and head of the Lucky Clover's Armory took a step back. No fool, his time in engineering had obviously taught him well.

  “Chief, please, we really do need you. We’re having a heck of a time with the refit, everyone’s arguing about the right way to fix up the ship but no one has the authority to make a decision and make it stick,” said Gants slamming a fist into his thigh in obvious frustration.

  “Oh I believe you of course, son,” said the old man, “just come over here, a little closer and we can hash it all out,” he said, sickeningly sweet reason dripping from his voice.

  With a sigh, Gants went over to the control panel embedded in the way and pressed a series of buttons. The metal wall slid apart with a hiss, revealing a giant porthole. While mildly interesting, the porthole itself wasn’t what caught the attention of the man on the floor.

  “That’s a blooming space dock,” cried the old engineer, “and-,” his eyes flitted up to check the structural supports in this room, just like the last pair he looked at these were also oversized, “we’re on a blasted Space Station, Gants,” he cried, his desire to use his built-in plasma torches on the other man fading.

  Desperately his eyes searched outside the porthole. Almost instantly he registered two different objects, but neither was what he was looking for. One was too big, and obviously a Constructor. The other was too small, and it matched the profile of that Impie warship captained by that Cornwallis whelp. “Where is she?” he asked, his eye rolling around as he tried to catch a view of the only thing that mattered.

  “Where is what, Sir,” said Gants looking as guilty as sin.

  “The Clover, you blooming idjit, whatever else would I be talking about?! What have you done with the blasted ship!” barked the older man, his voice a mixture of frenzy and panic.

  “I don’t know where she is, Chief,” Gants said, tugging on his collar and starting to sweat.

  “You don’t know where she is,” he echoed in a much-too-reasonable voice. “You don’t know where she is,” he repeated, his voice turning threateningly cold. “How the blazes do you manage to misplace an entire Battleship, Gants,” roared Chief Engineer Terrence Spalding.

  Gants shrugged helplessly.

  Spalding goggled at him. “If you don’t know where the ship is, do you at least know where we are,” he demanded, scorn dripping from his voice.

  Gants slowly nodded and gestured outside.

  “Welcome to the Admiral’s Gambit, Chief,” he said. Then he pointed to the floor.

  “Welcome to Gambit Station.”