Admiral's Fall

by Luke Sky Wachter

  “Hear-bloody-hear!” Spalding sheered.

  “Hear-hear,” echoed around the room.

  “But mark my words,” I said, sweeping the room with a steely eyed gaze, “somehow, someday, the people of the Spine will need my help. They'll need the help of the man they threw over the side and when that happens...well, I will have certain minimum requirements for my help at that time and, as always, they will be free to take them or leave them. Because no one treats us all like this and then gets to say as how we’re obligated to help them,” I said flatly.

  The previously boisterous group of officers fell into an uneasy silence.

  “That will be all, gentlemen,” Akantha said clapping her hands as she stood up.

  Within hours of our meeting, eight Light and Medium Cruisers were winging their way into Sector 25 spreading their message for the people of the Spine.

  Seventeen hours later, we jumped to Tracto.

  Chapter 56: The Public Celebrates

  Tracto being free, unconquered, and relatively free of current threats, the ships of the Multi-Sector Patrol Fleet began a furious round of repair, refit and resupply.

  Not knowing when that would change, I debated risking the Spindles on a recon mission before allowing a newly returned Captain Archibald to talk me into inserting his squadron into an uninhabited star system. It sounded like his antics rivaled those of the late Lieutenant Commander Middleton, and I looked forward to perusing the details of his mission at some later date when there wasn't a gun to my head.

  Archibald's mission was to insert into the heart of the Sector, begin uploading the prepared content to civilian, local and galactic news organizations, and report back via the ComStat network.

  The insertion went off without a hitch, and within twenty four hours the Spindles were shifted back to Gambit Star System where they began moving all infrastructure not essential to the repairs out of the star system.

  Within a week, while we were still repairing our ships, we started to get our first messages back via the ComStat network.

  “What have we got?” I asked, stepping down into the communications pit.

  Lieutenant Commander Steiner stiffened and then turned to me with a forced smile. “It will just take a moment to gather the reports for your consumption,” she replied.

  “That doesn’t sound good, Lisa. It’s okay. I’m a big boy. Hit me with it,” I said.

  With a look like she would have preferred not to be the bearer of bad news, the former com-tech proceeded with a stiff upper lip. “Well, Sir, everything so far is preliminary but as far as we can tell,” she took a deep breath, “initial reports are of mass celebration across the Spine. The people rejoice at the restoration of peace promised by the joint Imperial/Confederation task force, and many are happy that the Tyrant of Cold Space is to be exiled...or worse. It’s considered a small price to pay considering his checkered past, tyrannical ways, and open support of piracy.”

  “Open support?” I asked in a calm voice.

  “They point to the ships taken from 4th Easy Haven, as well as several of our more violent encounters with the 25th Sector Guard. Specifically, graphic images of the Admiral Yagar incident which have recently gone viral,” she winced.

  “Okay,” I released a puff of air, “that’s the bad news. How has our documentary been received?”

  “We have received a lot of support among certain demographics, but the majority seem inclined to dismiss it as fake news,” she said.

  “Which demographics?”

  “Conspiracy theorists and foreign affairs hawks,” she said weakly, “it sounds like the public is rejoicing at the promise of a return to peace and order under the Old Confederation. And while they are happy to hear 26 has been liberated, the peace and safety of other worlds that aren’t even in their Sector are a distant second to their own needs. Considering the number of Core Worlds that have been leveled, their orbital industries destroyed in the various campaigns back and forth throughout this Sector, they don’t want this screwed up,” she looked at me helplessly. “Even among those few who care deeply about the matter, our actions are viewed with suspicion. This is particularly the case since the details of your various pardon requests and immunity deals appear to have been deliberately leaked to the media. Releasing our records has helped...some. But a lot of people, even among those that care to investigate, seem to think that liberating Sector 26 was the least we could do, all things considered, and taking our ‘checkered past’ into account.” she sighed.

  “The least we could do?” I said feeling a surge of utter disappointment. I knew I should have been angry, furious even, but in truth all I felt was let down.

  I’d taken my case directly to the people and they were more interested in Imperial threats and promises than they were an inconvenient truth. Maybe someday they would care, but by then I feared it would be too little too late.

  Looking over at the family picture sitting on my desk, I stared at the eight little tykes in between Akantha and me. I had to live, I had to survive…for them.

  But how?

  There was no way. I was out of moves. Absolutely no way. If I had a year, six months even, we could fight our way out.

  With Manning in the wind and our fleet exhausted after our recent battle against the Reclamation Fleet, we were in no condition to take on an Imperial battle fleet backed by a fresh Old Confederation fleet.

  We needed time, but how was I supposed to get it? I refused to accept we’d won every battle only to lose the war. Or maybe it was more a matter of we’d lost the peace?

  I was going to have to think on this.

  Chapter 57: The Failed Tyrant

  “This is Mathilda May, once again bringing you all the news you need to know,” she paused to primp her already perfectly made up hair before turning a thousand megawatt smile on the camera, “and I have a special message for all our longtime viewers out there. Please remember there’s lots of fake news roaming around out there lately, which is why it’s more important than ever to tune into the most trusted name in news: the Cosmic News Network,” she said, still beaming her gigawatt smile.

  Then her expression turned solemn.

  “There are a lot of wild rumors floating around out there lately, but I want to remind you to keep in mind that while we might miss a few strictly local events, on the wider galactic scene, if it wasn’t reported by CNN then it wasn’t relevant,” she said, making a distasteful moue.

  The CNN headline music started playing, and Mathilda May turned to the side. The camera tracked, following her so that she was still looking straight on to the holo-pickup.

  “This just in! Worlds across the Spine rejoice at the news that our time of darkness and chaos is nearly over. The Empire, under Admiral Magnus Davenport, and the Confederation as represented by Admiral and Grand Assemblyman Charles Thomas, have just signed a deal,” she paused lips pursed, “and now we go to Loup O’Leary for the latest.”

  “Loup?” she asked.

  “Thank you Mathilda. It's complete chaos over here as the people of Central have taken to the streets in celebration! What are they celebrating? The declaration of the new plebiscite where the people of the Spine will finally have the chance to exercise their right to self-determination and a return to the larger galactic community,” Loup said with a smile. “But this time with home rule and local regional autonomy! The only fly in the ointment? A certain Admiral who shall—” he said, building up an impassioned head of steam.

  “Thanks, Loup!” Mathilda cut him off as the camera focused on her face and smoothly muted the reporter on the ground. “It’s wonderful to see the people feeling safe and happy again for the first time in half a decade. But as my colleague on the ground alluded to before we lost the connection, there is still one fly in the ointment,” her bright smiled dimmed.

  The camera zoomed out for an overhead shot, showing Mathilda and an image of Sector 25 with several flashing beacons on the map.

  “While this network and
the people rejoice, there is still one threat to the smooth reintegration of the Spine with the galactic community,” now her face turned grim, “the convicted war criminal, Grand Admiral Jason Montagne, the very same Tyrant of Cold Space we have all come to know and fear, was tried in absentia at a closed hearing. Present were some of the best legal minds in the galaxy, including our very own Sector Judge Hammond and Sector 23’s Judge Pao.”

  She grimaced distastefully.

  “Yet despite the will of the people made manifest, the Tyrant Montagne even now attempts to dispute the results, letting loose a slew of completely scandalous and slanderous propaganda! Sweet Athena, patron saint of wisdom and reporters give me strength, because not only is there not a shred of truth to these so-called documentaries but the Tyrant himself claims they are the product of his illegal release of highly classified documents,” she finished, pounding the table with outrage.

  Mathilda May took a deep breath.

  “The worst of it is that part of the deal Admiral Davenport cut with Grand Assemblyman Thomas, granting us peace in our time, was the sole condition that the criminal Jason Montagne be turned over to Imperial authority,” she added in a strict voice, “proving yet again how badly our faith and trust was misplaced when we gave it to the former Sector Commandant, Grand Admiral of the New Regime.”

  She shook her head dourly.

  “The people of the Spine are tolerant beyond measure. But the one thing we will not tolerate is intolerance!” she all but shrieked. “It would be one thing if the Tyrant was simply a sore loser who wasn’t willing to face his detractors head on, choosing instead to run and hide the moment the odds look against him. But he doesn’t even appear willing to make a smallest of personal sacrifices for the betterment of his own people.”

  She shook her head and tut-tutted.

  “Don’t let the Multi-Sector Patrol Fleet’s propaganda deceive you. The Tyrant may have fought for us, but he crossed the line when he utilized WMD!” she looked flatly into the camera. “The sad truth is that he has imperiled us all. That is why I am calling upon all right thinking individuals to write Grand Admiral Montagne and plead with him to do the right thing and turn himself in. All of our futures depend on it. This is Mathilda May of the Cosmic News Network; fair, balanced and unafraid, signing off,” she said, and the segment ended with a large CNN logo taking up the screen.

  Chapter 58: Coming to a Decision

  We had just finished looking at the latest news reports, including the piece of biased garbage masquerading as investigative journalism that spewed from Mathilda May of CNN.

  “At least now we know,” Akantha stated in the privacy of our own quarters.

  “I’ll admit to feeling betrayed. I just expected more,” I said as some small naïve portion of my psyche, a part I wasn’t even fully aware existed before now, just died a little.

  “Are you speaking of Judge Kong?” she asked.

  “He needs help and aren’t I great, but when I need a hand where’d he go? I’ll settle with him later. But no, actually I was speaking of the general public,” I scowled, staring down at my hands. “I mean I always blamed the Montagne’s back home for the people turning against them...but maybe there was a reason my first real assignment was a public relations job back on the original Lucky Clover.”

  “You can’t let what the plebes say upset you. It can inform your thinking and even give you a window into the mindset of your people, but there’s a reason there is a difference between a citizen and a civilian on my world,” Akantha advised me. “You just can’t always trust the unwashed masses to use their better judgment when it comes to affairs of state. Who was it that said the average intelligence of any group of angry plebes is their average IQ divided by the number of people?”

  “I think they were talking about mob mentality not the citizens of the Spine, Akantha,” I said wearily.

  She waved me off. “My point still stands. How many times have you sacrificed yourself and our people to keep these ingrates safe, Jason?”

  “It was a worthy cause! And no one else was going to do it,” I said angrily.

  “I’m not fighting with you. I agree. It was a worthy cause,” she soothed.

  “Then what exactly are you saying?” I said, forcing down a flash of anger that just didn’t want to die, by sheer force of will. On one level, I knew it wasn’t Akantha I was truly angry with. Yet on another, I was hurt and spoiling for a fight.

  “You’ve done your duty by these people. But unless I’m reading these papers wrong, you’ve been stripped of your citizenship and exiled. It’s time to let them go and focus on us, the children, and our people, the ones who’ve stood by your decisions all along many of them from the beginning…unless you think I’ve somehow misread this proclamation, of course. Confederation standard is my second language after all,” she said, holding up the flimsy showing I’d been tried in absentia without the ability to be present or the right to face my accusers.

  “Except for the part where I’m also instructed to hand myself over to my accusers for the good of the Spine, you haven’t read the results of their Kangaroo Court wrong,” I fumed.

  “I didn’t mention that because it’s sheer foolishness. As if anyone would actually believe you’d turn yourself over to them,” Akantha said icily.

  My nostrils flared. “If I run and hide now I’ll always be running and hiding,” I said.

  Akantha drew back concern on her face. “You can’t intend to turn yourself over. Jason, you’ve done some stupid things in your time as a Warlord but delivering yourself into the hands of our enemies?!” she said, half rising from her chair.

  “Oh, don’t get me wrong; I have no intention of handing myself over for Imperial ‘justice,’ or going quietly or however you term it,” I said crisply.

  She regained to her seat. “Then…what?” she asked still alarmed.

  “I just want the right to face my accusers,” I said with a shark-like smile.

  Her alarm morphed into a different kind. “We can call up roughly sixty warships in our hour of need, many of them still in the repair yard. I doubt the Border Alliance will answer our call. That leaves the Sundered and the Droids to rely upon, bringing another twenty? Against what? Four hundred warships if you count the Imperial and Old Confederation Fleets. More if Elysium’s Admiral Manning joins them?” she asked harshly.

  “They have a little more than four hundred, but basically you’re right,” I admitted.

  “You already used the Bugs. Chief Engineer Spalding tells me that even with his best wizardry there’s no way to turn our anti-matter into weapons easily, and that even if he could he wouldn’t because it would turn all of human space and a thousand worlds against us. There’s no way we can win,” she paused and gave me a penetrating look, “unless you think you can turn Manning to your side?” she cocked her head.

  “The Bugs are gone and Manning of Elysium owes me nothing. I doubt he’d go out of his way to help me unless the New Confederation or his masters back at Elysium ordered it, or if he thought it was the only way to save his home world,” I said.

  “Then in the name of MEN, why?” Akantha cried.

  I looked at her patiently. I knew she was just worked up because she cared. “If I don’t do this, they’ll take the trillium fields, Tracto will fall, and then they won’t stop coming for us until we’re dead and everything we’ve built is ruined,” I said heavily. “Listen to me: the fact is—“

  “No, you listen to me,” she cut me off, “we can’t win!” she barked. “Not now. Maybe in a few years. Not now.” She started pacing. “We go into hiding,” she said, her voice calculating.

  “I’ve already run the numbers. It won’t work; we don’t have the crew or the resource base. Even if we could scrape one together, without a base to operate from I’d be no better than a pirate or some rogue warlord on the Rim,” I said with finality, “and that is something I refuse to become.”

  “That’s not how it has to be,” she pleaded
, “if you go, you die. Instead we gather our strength. There are hundreds of derelict warships at hand. Rebuild, repair and return when their guard is down and we can take back what is ours when we’re strong enough!”

  “We’ll never be strong enough. They’re just too big, Akantha. We defeat a fleet and they’ll just send another. We stop that and they send two more. We can’t fight a galactic power, a mega government with seven provinces and two thousand worlds when we can’t even hold onto our own,” I said wearily.

  “Jason...we can’t win this,” she said with icy passion,

  “I know. But they don’t know that,” I said flashing a blinding smile, “I still have a few moves left, my Lady.”

  “So you mean to bluff,” she said severely.

  “I’m open to a suicide run,” I joked, because I had no intention of dying quietly in some prison.

  Akantha glared at me.

  “But no. I don’t intend to die,” I said hastily, “instead I’m going to make a few threats and try to negotiate. Make them think I’m stronger than I am, or that I have another Bug surprise up my sleeve and who knows? Anything is possible,” I put as much steel in there as I could muster. “Worse comes to worst, I run and we’re no worse off than if we hadn’t tried,” I ended with a shrug.

  “Unless they catch you and you’re dead. No. If you’re going then I’m going with you and that’s final. I won’t become my mother, stuck at home and fretting over the fate of some man—not even for my Protector,” she grimaced.

  “I want you and the babies safely away from here. I need you guys to survive this,” I said.

  “My three main heirs are already out of the line of fire. If I die, my mother is still young enough to see they’re brought up properly. If your fleet is gone she’ll be able to do better for them in the face of greedy, power hungry men than I ever could,” Akantha declared as if the decision was not only made but final, “I’ll only take our spare heirs with me. The very ones that need to learn this new world among the stars the most and make connection if they are to thrive. They’ll have no future except as small hold farmers if we’re dead and gone,” she said.