“Capria’s the low hanging fruit I can always reach for,” I lied like I never had before, “I mean, my claim to the throne isn’t going anywhere as long as another Montagne isn’t sitting on the throne. But if I misstep I could lose my position as Admiral—a position which is far more important right now.”
“Focusing our efforts on Tracto right at the moment is something I can fully support,” Akantha said begrudgingly, and I could see that she still wasn’t entirely convinced I was making the right move but the benefit to her own world was too great to risk just then.
I just hoped the day never came when the stars aligned and she once again started agitating for me to become the planetary ruler of my old home world. I didn’t relish the thought of invading Capria. It would turn every hand against me and I would not only have to overthrow Parliament, but the Royalist faction as well. It would literally be both ends against the middle and I wasn’t sure if Akantha fully grasped the reality of that situation yet.
“I’m glad you feel that way,” I replied, and almost despite myself I found myself glancing at the bed and then back at my wife with a speculative eye. “Now…where were we?” I asked hopefully.
Akantha narrowed her eyes.
Chapter 9: Fond Farewell & Man Talk
I stood in the shuttle bay and gratefully stopped waving and lowered my arm as the shuttle ignited its engines and blasted out of the bay.
“Thank the Maker,” I groaned,
Laurent looked at me with concern. “Are you sure it’s safe down on the planet for your family, sir?” he asked with a frown. “I’ve received reports from the colony that the pirates made their presence felt while we were gone.”
“Duncan is with them,” I said firmly, “I have every confidence." It was important to project certainty when the women in your life do something you have no control over even—or perhaps especially—if you weren’t exactly feeling that particular emotion.
There was an awkward pause. “Even one man, however skilled he may have once been…” Laurent began.
“He’s a Tuttle, and you know what they say: once a Royal Armsman, always a Royal Armsman. They’re like the Marine Corps only much more intense,” I said wondering if I was trying to convince him or myself, “besides, what was I going to do? Lock them away in the brig until they came to their senses?”
“There are multiple alternate destinations,” Laurent pointed out, “and even now that shuttle could be diverted to any number of them.”
“And make myself the target of all three of their wraths?” I asked with disbelief. “Once the Lady Akantha put her oar in, my mother and sister latched onto it and there was nothing I could do to stop it. Believe me; I’ve tried!”
“A drive or thruster malfunction could be manufactured,” my Flag Captain pointed out edgily, “they would never have to know.”
I paused in consideration, my mind rapidly calculating the odds of shifting the blame and after a moment I shook my head sadly.
“My mother might believe it was a genuine accident…but my sister would blame me if the moon eclipsed or the mess hall ran out of bread, and with her right there singing my scorn Akantha would become suspicious. It’s not far from there to everything blowing up in my face and then I’m the bad guy,” I finally said. “It’s better if my finger prints aren’t anywhere near this if things go bad,” then I had a thought and looked at him with concern, “you were able to get the two companies of Lancers down there like I asked?”
“Yes; each of them has a 50% non-Tracto-an makeup and has received your personal instructions,” my Flag Captain nodded.
“That’s a relief,” I said with a sigh. As much as I trusted my Lancers to do what they thought was in my best interest, letting my family be attacked over some point of honor was right out as far as I was concerned. That’s why I’d made sure a number of steady men and officers were assigned to their protection unit—and by ‘steady’ I mean ‘non-genetically engineered super freaks.’ The Tracto-ans might stand by but, with my personal orders to follow, a large number of Promethean and Caprian Lancers would not. At least, that was the hope.
Fortunately I’d been able to find a number of such men with an easy excuse for their assignment to the protective detail. A ‘reward for their behavior above and beyond the call to sanity,’ I’d called it when Akantha sent them to Capria as an advanced recon team. I may, however, have not used those exact words.
These were also the very same men who had got to my family and whisked them back up to the Imperial Cruiser on a shuttle, making it doubly hard for my girl or my mother to find a reason not to take them. My sister was a different case but then again, seeing as she objected to almost anything I said, it was fairly easy to ignore her.
“You’re the Admiral, sir, but if it were me…I’d want to know all my options,” Laurent said with an unhappy expression, breaking into my train of thought and causing me to startle. I had all but forgotten he was still there I’d been so lost in my own thoughts.
It took me a moment to gather myself and when I did I shot the man a penetrating look.
“Is there a specific concern you have failed to mention; why all this sudden concern?” I asked in a lowered voice, my eyes searching for the truth, as if it would mysteriously appear on his face just because I wanted it to.
Captain Laurent looked startled at the insinuation. “Nothing like that at all, Admiral,” he said hastily.
“Then what is it?” I demanded sharply.
“It’s just that there have been reports of pirate forces cut off and left on the planet during the attack,” he reminded me.
“Yes, I’ve seen those reports; our forces took out the main concentrations,” I said.
“I’m just concerned, sir,” he said pursing his lips, “one lone crazy with a blaster rifle could do a lot of damage to an unarmored woman.”
I winced at the reminder that my mother—who had been agreeable in most all things, up to and including a full two companies of Lancers for a protective detail—had put her foot down to tramping around the planet in a battlesuit.
“We can’t control everything,” I muttered under my breath and then looked over at him and growled, “besides, a group might be a threat but a few lone pirates aren’t likely to last long on the surface of that planet. Tracto is inhospitable to standard humans in more ways than one could count, and I’d say that goes double for pirate scum like my Uncle’s former men.”
“Not all of his men were pirates,” Laurent observed, reminding me of the mutineers who had helped steal our ship at the Omicron and their Marine allies, “and there is another possibility.”
I looked at him strangely.
“This is a planet of warring city-states, and both Argos and Messene have enemies. Assassins indigenous to this planet don’t need to have ties to Jean Luc in order to want high value targets—like your family—dead. But,” he paused and my heart started to drop, “that doesn’t rule out both groups hating you more and uniting in common cause. Locals equipped with high tech weaponry, or pirates hidden in an outwardly peaceful delegation, or—”
I cut him off, all of this speculation making me feel ill. “I know there are risks,” I said, grinding my teeth at the impotence of it all. I was the so-called Tyrant of Cold Space and even I couldn’t just wave my hand and order things how I wanted them. Some terror of the space ways I turned out to be. “But what I need are solutions, not more problems.”
“Perhaps if the Admiral decided to head down himself,” he took a short breath, “you do have a great deal of influence among the people of Tracto…perhaps more than you know,” Laurent said carefully.
“After raising a number of these very same concerns himself, the Admiral was very firmly disinvited,” I scowled at all this talking about myself in the third person. “So making myself a target in order to focus the attentions of any assassins went right out the airlock a few hours ago.”
“Then I suppose we’ll just have to hope that two companies of Lance
rs are enough,” Laurent sighed, splaying his hands.
I gave myself a shake both literally and figuratively. Determined to put the situation with my mother, my sister and my wife all heading down to a planet of genetically engineered warrior people I turned to head out of the shuttle bay. For half a second I almost turned around; I was the Admiral after all! I didn’t need anyone’s permission to head down to Tracto at the same time but then I shook my head.
“This window without feminine interference could be a blessing in disguise,” I mulled the words out loud even as I said them.
“How so, Admiral?” Laurent looked at me sharply.
“We have much work to do, Captain,” I said, being deliberately mysterious as we passed through the hatch doors leading out of the shuttle bay. My eyes narrowed as I considered what needed to be done and a long pause ensued, “Whether or not we’re going to ride to the rescue of Sectors 23 and 24, we can do nothing until we have set our house in order here first.”
“There is a lot to do,” Laurent agreed after a moment of consideration, “and frankly I’m not sure if we can both take care of everything here and launch a major campaign into another Sector—let alone two Sectors.”
“We may have to,” I said grimly imagining the fate of millions or even billions of humans as they were ground under the relentless metal heels of the droid invasion fleets, “and that being the case, we must move with all haste. Which is why this foray to the world of Tracto may in fact be a blessing in disguise; there will be no distractions to keep us from doing what we must. We’ll start by getting our fleet of captured and damaged ships on the move into repair slips, and most importantly out of this Star System until they have crews on board that can turn those ships from easy prey into fighting warships of the MSP!”
“We captured over twenty vessels in varying condition,” my Flag Captain reminded me, “and that’s in addition to our own losses, which were not inconsiderable. The repair slips on the Belter’s space stations can handle some of the lesser work, but even with the expansion effort Jean Luc put into them it won’t be nearly enough.”
“No,” I clarified, “I don’t mean fix them up here; I mean get them the heck out of this system. We’ll leave the Corvettes and Cutters that were originally assigned to Tracto in whatever condition they are in now. Let the repair slips fix them up here, but the rest of our Prizes and damaged hulls need to get gone. We can’t risk some SDF or Sector Assembly Fleet swooping in and trying to pick the low hanging fruit while we’re distracted—or even gone from Tracto. Let’s get them out of here, Captain.”
Laurent hesitated. “That’s a task that may prove impossible, sir,” the Captain informed me levelly, “at least, impossible in the sort of time frame we’d need to turn around and launch a relief fleet for 24.”
“Why the blazes not?” I snapped, coming to halt in the middle of the hall and rounding on him. I was Admiral Montagne, the commander of the MSP and the man who personally took down Jean Luc. Why did everything have to be so blasted difficult? All I seemed to face was obstacles and obstinacy all the way through!
Under the weight of my angry eyes, Laurent’s hesitation hardened into a steely eyed counter gaze, “Frankly, sir, we don’t have the navigators—not even just for those ones with intact power plants and jump engines.”
I rocked back on my heels in the face of this latest news. “Navigators?” I asked as the news hit me like a forty pound sack of potatoes right upside the head. All my plans were about to be thwarted from a lack of trained navigators to move my ships?
“Yes, sir,” Laurent nodded, “even if we were willing to take into our confidence every assistant navigator in the squadron sent by Commodore LeGodat, we’d still come up too short.”
My hands clenched and my eyes hardened. “Where there’s a will, there’s a way, Captain,” I said grimly and started walking again. “Identifying problems is part of your job but what I need now are constructive solutions.”
Laurent was silent until we hit the turbo-lift.
“We could check and see which of the damaged battleships are still capable of independent maneuvers, and try to have them tow some of the ships without functional hyper-drives along with them back to the yard in Gambit for repair,” he said finally.
“Does Gambit have the slips to handle all the ships?” I posed the question, even though I was all but certain that it didn’t.
Laurent shook his head, confirming my worries.
“So our problem is twofold,” I narrowed my eyes, “we don’t enough navigators to move the ships all at once and between Tracto and Gambit we don’t have enough repair slips.”
“Well put, Admiral,” Laurent said and my eyes cut over to him sharply.
“No need to stroke my ego, Captain,” I said biting out his rank for emphasis.
“Do you have a solution?” the Captain asked bluntly, forgoing my rank or courtesy. “Because even if we could move them all in one haul, I don’t see how anything’s going to be ready for an extended campaign even if we do somehow manage it and get repair crews started working on them immediately.”
The shark-like smile I turned on him was an answer all on its own but for the sake of clarity I would elaborate. “We don’t have enough repair slips but the MSP isn’t just Tracto and Gambit—it’s bigger than that,” I grinned.
“Much as I understand the philosophical argument you’re making—” Laurent started a little pedantically—if I was any judge—but I interrupted.
“Whether or not they’re considered an integral part of the Multi-Sector Patrol fleet is, I suppose, debatable,” I interrupted sternly. “However you can’t deny that elements of the Confederation Fleet currently control any number of empty repair slips.”
“Whereabouts? I don’t follow, Admiral?” Laurent frowned. “Where are these Fleet elements and the repair yard we need?”
“Why, back at Easy Haven of course, Captain Laurent,” I said with satisfaction.
The Captain started. “But…” he paused to collect himself before throwing himself back into the breach, “it’s an intriguing idea, sir, however not only is Easy Haven almost completely undermanned—and that’s when it’s not literally unmanned,” he scowled at me, clearly not as intrigued by my ideas as he claimed, “meaning they don’t have the personnel to undertake a repair effort of this magnitude, sir, and that doesn’t even touch on the fact that most of those slips and the factories to build replacement parts have sat unused for going on fifty years or more!”
“Much of the machinery there has recently been upgraded by the Constructors we left at Wolf-9, including the military factories,” I said, waving my hand in the air as if to shoo away a bad wind. “So the equipment angle isn’t as big a concern as it might otherwise be.”
Laurent made a strangled sound, “If all you want is to get ships in slips, we’re getting closer. Repairing them, on the other hand…” he shook his head as if I were a normally high functioning student who had just spectacularly failed an oral presentation in front of the entire class.
“Everything in its own time,” I said sharply.
“But even using Captain McCruise’s navigators…we still come up short, Admiral,” Laurent said patiently.
“You’re still stuck thinking inside the box, Captain. The reason I’m the Admiral is because I’m not limited to a box,” I didn’t add that I wasn’t limited to thinking inside the box because half the time I hadn’t a clue what was in the box—and I had decided a long time before that was probably for the best—so deliberately working for my most pompous affect, I cocked an expression that could under certain circumstances pass for a smile, “That’s why we’re going to conscript as many of the captured pirate navigators as it takes to point transfer the rest of those ships back to Gambit, and use our larger ships to haul anything with drives to tow anything without a working hyper drive.”
“P-p-p-pirates!” Laurent looked like he was about to have a stroke, “we can’t give Easy Haven navigators the locatio
n, but we’ll hand the nav-coordinates over to a double handful of pirate scum the first chance we get?!”
“They’ll just have to be indefinitely detained,” I said with a steely gaze, “I promised they wouldn’t be killed, but I said nothing about where they wouldn’t be killed at for the rest of their miserable, murderous lives.”
“Ye-Space Gods,” Laurent said, reaching up and running a hand through his hair.
“Easy Haven has the slips we need, and the pirate navigators not only know their own ships, they can get them where they need to go. Problem solved,” I said, pinning my Flag Captain with my eyes.
Laurent looked as if he were suffering a bad case of ingestion.
“Besides, after what they’ve done for us, I suppose it would be uncharitable to try and keep our hands on every single pirate hull we’ve captured,” I added, working to hide my sourness at this prospect.
“I can almost wrap my head around that part,” Laurent said after a pause, “McCruise and her squadron have come through better than we could have hoped, I’d say.”
“LeGodat sent us his best,” I observed neutrally. Because despite my reservations—deep reservations—about the motives of the Easy Haven contingent and their willingness to leave me to hang, the Commodore had come through with flying colors when I’d asked. Destroyers and a functional Heavy Cruiser, basically all the mobile firepower the Commodore could spare—and probably more than what they could safely spare if I was being honest—had been given to me. Not only that, but we couldn’t have done this without them. That had to count for something didn’t it?
Well, I was the Admiral and I said it did. So that was all there was to it.
“Even so, trusting pirates and handing over a large number of warship hulls to Easy Haven aside, that won’t change the fact that the manpower we’ll need to first fix all those ships, and then get them crewed, simply isn’t available,” Laurent sighed.
I gave him a perfectly poised lifted eyebrow. “That’s why we have a recruiting drive,” I said, ignoring the fact that for all I knew the recruiting drive under Commodore Druid and the former com-tech Lisa Steiner had been lost with all hands in space, for all I’d heard from them, “besides, I didn’t say that everything needed to be fixed simultaneously.”
Spineward Sectors 6: Admiral's Spine Page 11
