Spineward Sectors 6: Admiral's Spine

by Luke Sky Wachter

  “I have made no such decisions—in fact, you know what, since you seem to have a strong opinion on the subject then just give the word and I’ll say ‘Let ’em burn!' I mean, where were they when we needed help? But the second—I mean the very instant—we’re back on top, they come whining for me to fix all their problems with our blood, sweat and tears,” I protested with a sinking sensation. I turned to Laurent, still trying to take in all the implications of this new revelation, “Droids are overrunning worlds in two Sectors?” I asked plaintively. This could not be happening; I had just fought and won a war against Pirates. I had just fought and was about to win a war against the Bugs, all in the same knock-down, drag-out, to the mats battle. I did not need—I did not want—in fact, let’s repeat that times a thousand, did not need another battle to the death! Idly I wondered if the droids would be satisfied keeping those two Sectors or if, no matter what I did, I was going to have to deal with this new threat sooner or later—emphasis on ‘later,’ if it would put me back on track for the romantic interlude I figured we ‘both’ deserved after all the Hades we’d been through lately.

  “Yes, Sir,” Laurent reported in a very professional and military sounding voice and not incidentally breaking up my lustful train of thoughts, “as I understand it the Representative originally wanted help from the Rim Fleet when reports of droid ships were spotted in the border worlds, but the Fleet couldn’t spare the resources for a wild goose chase." Laurent paused, “Then they found Middleton patrolling the edge of their Sector and, after a few minor difficulties, they sent the Representative back here to formally request the aid, protection, and relief of Rim Fleet’s successor: the Multi-Sector Patrol Fleet.”

  I could tell from the flinty gleam in my Sword-Bearer’s eye that she was finding this complete and utter truth completely unpalatable. She’s probably still blaming me for my Uncle’s invasion of her home world and the loss of our flagship, the Lucky Clover, I thought morosely.

  “They did…and more importantly, they said all this despite my very specific orders not to mention their troubles until after all our enemies in here were defeated,” I raged, pounding my fist on the side-rails of my hover-bed. My self-pity turned to sudden anger as this new target presented itself. When I got my hands on Middleton and this loose-lipped Kong, I was going to…

  My hands clenched and unclenched on top of my sickbay bed’s blankets as I plotted my revenge. ‘Loose lips sink battleships’ was the saying, but in this case it was going to sink entire Sectors when I was done with them!

  “Yes, Sir,” Laurent replied.

  “Oh, grow up, Protector,” Akantha snapped, “you are about to get us into another war and the only thing you can do is whine about procedure?”

  “I just heard about this!” I exclaimed. “I haven’t decided anything…except that-that, uh…that violating my very clear and specific orders has made the chances of me helping them decrease significantly! Besides, I just told you to give the word and I’d let the billions of innocents in those Sectors die at cold, mechanical…droid…hands…” I ground to a stop as what I saying started to sink in.

  My outrage turned to sullenness as both Akantha and Laurent looked down at me with disapproval.

  “Hey,” I protested weakly, “don’t pick on a guy in his sick bed." Even I—who did not want to—could see that something had to be done.

  “Whatever,” Akantha glowered and stalked over to the far side of the room and half turned away from me. She was clearly planning to pretend to ignore me until she heard something that outraged her more. Then she would no doubt dive right back in with both feet.

  “Why would we help them?” I said to Laurent and then before his look had turned more than slightly disapproving, I hung my head. Apparently the image they had of Jason the Invincible Dunderhead, who heroically threw himself on grenades for people he’d never met before—all so his wife could beat him over the head for being an idiot—wasn’t living up to his reputation. So I reluctantly added, “What I meant is how can we help them? Our fleet just got trashed!”

  Laurent’s expression cleared at my clarification and, accepting the win, I lay back down in my bed and accepted this change of expression without saying anything. I mean everything I had just said was true. I really wanted to help people—I really did—it was my first, kneejerk, go-to response when I saw an injustice or innocents under threat. It’s just that I’d been burned too many times lately, and on top of that…well, blast it, our fleet did just get thrashed! Tracto had only now, this very day, been freed from invasion—and, for all I knew, an occupation—and now there was this new mess to deal with.

  It wasn’t fair.

  “It would be difficult, Admiral,” Laurent said, sounding concerned.

  “Blasted right it would,” I snapped, thinking of all the reasons why I didn’t need to go haring off into two entire other sectors, when I had snakes right here at home that I still needed to crush, I thought, deliberately ignoring all those execution happy, kangaroo court-loving, politicians back at Central. Sir Isaak, for one, immediately came to mind. That double dealing, two-faced, snake in ambassadorial clothing! He would be the first to die.

  “I don’t believe a word of this,” Akantha declared and then strode for the exit, “when you are finally ready to stop lying to yourself about your intentions, we will talk. I know you too well to be taken in by any of this; men are all stupid that way. Even if you promise otherwise, you’ll find some way to get involved in this mess. It’s in your nature. ‘By hook or by crook’,” she said, clearly making sure she got the line right, “and blaming everything on the opposition, you’ll do what you want whether I like it or not. So just be thankful I am not accepting your word because, when you broke it, I would be forced to do something we would both regret." She shook her head almost imperceptibly, “And I cannot bear that, not after being shriven from you for so long.”

  With that she stormed out of the room.

  “Stupid women,” I glared at the door with hot and angry eyes. On one level it was almost touching; she actually seemed to have missed me. But on the other, she had gone too far! First she wakes me up and then she accuses me of starting a war I had no idea about, and then when I tell her I’ll do whatever she wants she accuses me of lying and storms off in an angry huff. All because ‘she knew’ what I was going to do before I even knew what was going on. To my mind, she had just wanted to make sure to get her verbal licks in first, “Can’t live with ’em, can’t….” I trailed off, too risk-averse to hazard the words I would have liked to say getting back to her, if spoken in an open forum.

  “I honestly don’t know if we can. And if we could, then when we could help,” Laurent said finally before adding, “and by ‘we’ I mean ‘the MSP’.”

  “Exactly,” I exclaimed forcefully, “we might be physically incapable of helping! But never let the truth of an actual inability to do something—or your promise to follow her wishes on a subject—get in the way of a woman with her mad on!”

  “Although…” Laurent said reluctantly, and it was the sort of reluctance that I instinctively disliked tremendously; it implied he was going to say something I didn’t like, “this is exactly the sort of situation the MSP was created for.”

  Blast! He was right. I also noted the way he completely ignored my marital grousing as it regards women in general and started mentally cursing under my breath. I needed to deal with Sector 25—our sector—and Sir Isaak, first and foremost.

  Not to mention the Border Worlds needed protection and patrolling if I was going to build a powerbase to counter balance Central and their infernal plotting. Along that line of thinking, and just plain because it needed doing or innocents were going to die, I needed to establish anti-piracy patrols and a unified effort to make sure they didn’t come back. Not to mention making sure the Bug threat was finally over once and for all. Nor was I too pleased with some of the ‘mercenary’ forces out there taking money to protect border worlds while running at the first sig
n of trouble—or worse, actively selling out to the pirates. The list went on and on.

  “Did they mention any other reasons why I should help them?” I asked, dreading the answer.

  I already had my hands full with all the shenanigans going on over here in 25 and just when it looked like I was finally in a position to start doing something about it, disaster strikes.

  I needed good reason to go out and help other Sectors facing invasion Fleets like I needed a hole in the head. Sweet Murphy, I would have slept so much easier not knowing there were people out there needing my help. This would have all been so much easier if I’d had time to clean things up here at home first. As it was this was threatening to throw a real monkey in the wrench.

  Was this Murphy’s way of taking his revenge for relying too much on luck?

  “Well,” Laurent hesitated, pulling me back into the present. “the Representative is also a Sector Judge.”

  “And that pertains how?” I asked, feeling perplexed and also a little hopeful. As far as I knew, Sector Judges weren’t something we actively needed right then. Maybe I could live with myself if there was no actual advantage to walking away other than ‘doing the right thing’. I mean, my uncle made his career out of looking out for number one and look how successful he’d been?

  Laurent coughed into his hand and started to look squirrelly to my eyes.

  “Go on; spit it out,” I sighed.

  “There is a rumor of some sort of signed confession and an injunction from the Sector Judge. The 25th Sector Judge,” he quickly clarified, “not this new Representative slash Judge.”

  My face tightened.I should have known the moment I thought about being like Jean Luc, Murphy and the Space Gods would smack me upside the head. This was all Akatha’s fault!

  “Not that anyone in this Fleet believes it,” Laurent said quickly, “and even if it had been written and signed, it was certainly under duress.”

  “Enough,” I said flatly, I didn’t need to hear anymore. The Space Gods had tested me to see if I was turning into a Montagne like my Uncle and thanks to my wife’s accusations I’d cravenly tried to take the low road and leave the innocents to rot before even checking if I could do anything about their plight. Now I was being punished.

  “It’s just that,” he continued, “looking at things from a perspective outside this fleet. An injunction removing you from command by a Sector Judge and orders from a supposed High Commander to stand down,” I noted how he very carefully didn’t mention the name of the now-deceased—but probably quickly replaced, and supposedly our Sector’s appointed High Commander—Rear Admiral Yagar, “might make your position as Admiral of the MSP appear…less than fully legitimate, at least to those worlds and provincial militaries that are still on the fence.”

  “At this point I think people are either for us, or against the ‘Tyrant of Cold Space’,” I said coldly. Yep, I concluded, this is my divine punishment for trying to take the easy way out.

  “You lead and I’ll follow, of course, Sir,” Laurent declared.

  I looked at him steadily.

  “But…” I said leadingly.

  Laurent looked like he’d finally said his piece but I knew better.

  “But,” I prompted again, this time more forcefully.

  “Man not Machine…it could be a problem, Admiral” Laurence finally sighed.

  I stared at him. “Go on,” I said finally, “and I’ll assume this isn’t some kind of knee jerk, anti-AI bit of propaganda or bigotry speaking.”

  “Well, Sir,” Laurent said carefully, “I actually do believe in the ‘rage against the machine’ movement that founded our current governmental structures, but that’s not really what I’m talking about." He took a breath and then continued, “You see, it occurred to me that even if we didn’t send the whole fleet—just a few reinforcements and a relief column—that trying to sack or depose a Confederation Admiral that was fighting against a Droid Invasion force…Well, it would be a lot more politically risky for politicians and the armchair Admirals back in the Core than going up against the carbon cut-out media villain they’ve tried to create. On top of that, legally, what one Sector Judge orders another can overturn. I hate to say it, but that might help as much inside the fleet as it will outside what with all the new recruits we’ve got in the pipeline—recruits whose presence we have Druid and Warrant Officer Steiner to thank for.”

  “Man not Machine,” I muttered, feeling a sour taste in my mouth.

  “Man not Machine, Admiral. It’s a philosophy to live by—on more than one level,” Laurent agreed.

  “I’m not sold,” I said with a sinking sensation in my stomach. Was I now to embrace unthinking, knee-jerk bigotry as my shield against corrupt politicians? This couldn’t be what Murphy and the Space Gods wanted me to do!

  “Of course not, Admiral Montagne,” Laurent said diffidently but behind it all I could see a level look in his eyes that belied his words.

  I winced and felt myself waver. “A token force you say…I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to simply sit down with the Judge and ask questions,” I sighed not liking this primrose path any more than the others I’d heard about. “And finding out what’s really going on over there, as well as how big the threat actually is, could be important. I mean…it might not even be as bad as we’re all thinking,” I finished lamely.

  “As you say,” Laurent nodded stoically.

  I felt sick. I didn’t mind lying to my enemies; in fact I wouldn’t give it a second thought except to make sure my stories stayed consistent. Lying to protect my life from an undeserved death sentence was another no-brainer. Telling a tall tale to my friends and supporters, or future would-be supporters, I had more difficulty with—especially if I was promising to help save them, and even then only offering token assistance more for my own benefit than theirs. I mean…isn’t that what politicians do?

  “Set it up,” I told him the words like ashes in my mouth. Was I to be saved from the well thought out and preplanned bigotry slash media blitz attack of the political class by the un-thought-out knee jerk bigotry of the masses against all thinking machines? It sounded like I could certainly use the cover of supporting a war against the machines but even if I wanted to I was far less certain that I could successfully sell a bill of goods to the representative.

  Plus, could I really live with myself if I let dozens or scores of planets in each of those Sectors be conquered, and millions of people killed while I stood by and did nothing to try and stop it except score political points? On the other hand, if I did go in, could I spurn the political cover Laurent suggested I needed?

  Man against the Machine, indeed.

  What a wonderful way to wake up on your sickbed. Truly the only thing worse than a battle lost was a battle won.

  I was so screwed.

  Chapter 1: Meeting in Earnest

  “Admiral Montagne, it’s so good of you to meet us,” the red-skinned Representative and Sector Judge from 23 said with real feeling in his voice that seemed at odds with his smooth politician’s smile.

  I wanted to say something like ‘The pleasure is all yours, Ambassador,’ but I bit my tongue and refrained.

  “Of course, Ambassador,” I said as smoothly as I was able, “I always have time for our brothers and sisters in the other Sectors of the Confederated Spine." I quirked a smile that didn’t reach my eyes, “Now that the war against the Bugs and Pirates seems to be dying down and the Battle for Tracto has been won, that is.”

  “The Confederated Spine,” the Representative said his mouth working, “an…interesting choice of words.”

  “It seems apt, Ambassador,” I said and then allowed a frown to sully my, up till now, pleasantly non-committal features. “Although,” I let the word draw out, “if you’re not here to speak with the Admiral tasked by the Confederation to defend the Spine…” I deliberately trailed off. I knew that the Multi-Sector Patrol Fleet had originally been tasked with the defense of Sectors 24, 25 and 26, with operations ou
tside of those Sectors to be initiated only at the request of those other Sectors or at the initiative of the Admiral. The former Imperial Admiral, that is, as I doubt they’d thought their original figurehead to actually be giving any orders. It would be interesting what he made of my little verbal power grab.

  The red-skinned Sector Judge Kong Pao frowned. “’Representative,’ please, Admiral Montagne,” he said instead of commenting on my status as a Confederation Admiral, “I have not presented the credentials of an Ambassador, nor would it be appropriate for an Ambassador to present himself as an Ambassador to the Confederation Military. I am merely the representative of a pair of beleaguered Sectors which desperately need all the help we can get.”

  “I see,” I said sourly, disliking this man’s verbal jiu-jitsu skills just as much as I had expected I would.

  “Admiral,” Representative Kong Pao said urgently, “I beseech you. My home world in 23 holds out for now, but worlds all along Sectors 23 and 24 are under fierce assault by the machine menace that calls themselves the Droid Tribes.”

  Clearly the man was more focused on saving his people, planet, and Sectors than he was on petty power games and semantics. This left another sour taste in my mouth, one not caused by the Representative as I asked myself a question: had I really fallen so low?

  Shame filled me and I bowed my head. The old me wouldn’t have hesitated for an instant, except to ask if there was anything we could really hope to do and then charge forward even if it was only a long shot. Who had I become that I could sit here and be irritated by a man who just wanted my help? My shoulders hunched inward.

  “Tell me,” I said quietly, feeling repulsed by myself.

  “Admiral Montagne,” Representative Kong asked with concern, “is something wrong?”

  “Ambassador—” I corrected myself, “Representative Kong, if this is some kind of trick…Or, failing that, if after I help you and/or whoever sent you—whatever cabal, alliance of interests, or group of Sector or Planetary Leaders, or even simply whatever mass of concerned citizens you represent—turn around and betray me…" I locked gazes with him and said the next words as congenially as I could manage, “Say whatever you need to get my help and then, when I’m done, stick a knife in my back—either literal or figurative, just like the politicians here in 25 have already done to us—but rest assured that my vengeance, while it may not be swift and it may not be sure, will be so terrible you will all weep at the thunder of my passage. I will hunt you down to the end of the galaxy and you will all reap what you have sown,” I could feel my vision going red as I spoke and deliberately calmed myself with several deep, cleansing breaths. “However, assuming your plight is real and your cause is just—which it sounds like it is—then I will listen to your troubles with the droids and yes,” I felt like hurling up the contents of my stomach, “help your planetary populations if I can.”