“You took an Oath,” I said with cold precision.
“As did you to the Queen Regent,” Jean Luc countered, “and yet, the moment you heard she’d been killed, did you rush home to make sure the object of your sworn vow was, in fact, dead and not desperately in need of the assistance you had sworn to give her?” he asked mildly.
I had to blink to gather my composure, because in truth, the thought hadn’t even occurred to me. Even if it had, I wouldn’t have abandoned countless worlds to the pirates, just to check on a woman who had been at the top of an establishment designed to make my life miserable.
“I had a duty, as a Confederation Admiral, to defend the border worlds,” I defended, leaning forward in my chair.
“As I had a duty…to preserve the lives of my men, in the face of a hopeless battle from the Royal Purges initiated by our Sovereign Lord,” said Jean Luc agreeably, as he, too, leaned forward, “although what did you have, an honorary commission in an organization that turned into a one ship phantom, the moment Janeski pulled out? No, your duty was clear—to return home. Just as mine was clear—to get everyone killed protecting a tyrant who was wholly undeserving of protection.”
“It wasn’t like that,” I protested, even though I knew it was, in fact, almost exactly like that. I had been the only one to believe in my Confederation pipe dream…at least, at first. And, because it directly benefited me, I convinced the others to—I stopped, as I felt my heart clenching. My crew; my loyal, hardworking and tireless crew had been slaughtered by this man and his parliamentary minions.
I glared pure hatred at this man, this…Montagne, who had cost me so much.
“You had a duty to the family, if nothing else,” I said angrily.
“I don’t see you rushing home to defend this wonderful family of ours, while revolution and counter-revolution wrack the home world,” Jean Luc said scornfully, looking down at me as if I was a particularly dense person. “I fail to understand why you would expect more from me than you, yourself, have given.”
“My returning would be more likely to get my mother and family killed, or thrown in the royal retreat, than anything else I can imagine! Unless, of course, I returned home at the head of a fleet, broadsides blazing; an action I simply will not take,” I said, stiffening my spine. No matter how this failed scion of House Montagne tried to twist things to make us appear to be in the same situation, I knew the truth.
“I could give you twelve and a half reasons why you’re wrong,” Jean Luc said looking at me intently, “at its core, every fragment of this ship cries out to be turned upon the foes of our House.”
What hyperbole! I shook my head, as if saddened; nothing I could think of would more infuriate a man like this, and for a moment, he looked even more irritated with me than I had hoped.
I folded my arms and stared at him impassively. “Sorry to burst your bubble, but the ship doesn’t have a heart, or desires of any kind. And I don’t need a dozen reasons to pick the wrong side,” I said flatly.
Jean Luc shook his head as if with pity. “Join with me, and together we will become more powerful than you could possibly imagine. By myself, I can reduce Easy Haven to a cloud of dust. I could stretch forth my hands and claim Tracto—along with every other thing you have struggled so hard to create—and make it mine,” he growled, reaching out into the thin air and clenching his hand into a fist to emphasize his point. “But why should I waste time and energy, or the lives of my men, crushing that which does not need to be crushed?”
He hesitated before continuing confidently, “When, with but a word, you could become my right hand. You and your men, merged together with mine, beneath one banner,” his eye burned with an inner light. “Together, we can stand against the Imperials and carve a bastion for all of humanity, against the terrible designs of the Empire of M.E.N.”
I wasn’t the one who had spent the last fifty years plundering the space-ways, nor had I joined with mutineers and parliamentarians to murder ‘my’ crew. If he thought I was just going to turn around and join forces with such an obvious madman, he had another think coming. I had fought against pirates like him, with everything I had, and—and…I gulped, and then hardened my resolve; I might not be much of an Admiral, but this last thing I could do.
“Never!” I cried, sheer terror at what I was about to say next giving my voice a volume I didn’t know it could possess, “I would rather die than join forces with you!”
“You ignorant little fool,” Jean Luc shouted, knocking his chair into the wall as he stood, “your mother raised a moron! Deliberately, or not, I cannot tell at this juncture.”
I stared at him and my eyes fell down to consider his nose. I was ready to hate him, with every passionate fiber of my being, so I might as well take a look at how much better endowed he was there too.
To my surprise, his nose was just as flat as mine; that’s when I knew that whatever else this pirate kin of mine might claim, he had nothing on me.
“Leave my mother out of this,” I said with a cold, deadly fury.
“Elena Three-Feathers has much to answer for, not the least of which being your critical lack of education,” Jean Luc said derisively.
“You are unworthy to speak her name; do it again, and it will be the last time,” I said with icy precision. Behind the Commodore, I could see Armsman Tuttle tense with anticipation, but I was past caring; there were worse ways to go out than defending your mother’s name from a bloodsucking pirate.
“Are you such an upright mushroom, that you would rather die than protect that which is yours to protect?” The mushroom comment stung worse than anything he had said so far, and I glared at him mutely.
“Are you suggesting that a pirate would know best how to protect people?” I sneered.
“You are a Prince of the House Montagne, not some common churl. Act like it! Your sworn men are in my custody, and your ship is mine. The die is cast and you have lost, but with only a word, you could change their fate and yours. There is no need for you and your men to stand trial before those pustulant bureaucrats at Sector Central; say the word, and all of you will live to fight another day. You can protect the border and anything else you like under my Banner! Together—”
“Get specked,” I jumped out of my chair, “your rule would be one of murder and larceny, just as bad, if not worse, than the King you so despised and failed to protect! If I, and my men, will die it’s because joining you would cause more damage to the Spineward sectors than the return of the AI menace! At least the cost benefit ratio was cold and heartless; you are far worse. You feel like a human, and you use that edge to destroy your fellow man!”
“I am worse than an AI plague,” Jean Luc blurted incredulously, and then he laughed. “Son, you have no idea what an AI plague would even look like, let alone how much more beneficent the rule of the cruelest pirate would be, compared to that.”
“You should go now. You bore me,” I spat, throwing his own words from the Flag Bridge back in his face. Then I cocked a finger at him and impotently pulled back my thumb. I had no blaster pistol hidden in my finger, but I didn’t care. The slightest flicker of fear would be more than enough for me to bear the humiliating laughter that would ensue.
“If an AI plague descended on the Galaxy,” Jean Luc said, completely ignoring the finger and looking more like an Evangelical minister, caught in the rapturous rage of a holy moment, than the scion of a royal house, “of course, we would wish to destroy it for the sake of all humanity, but what if?! What if the battle was hopeless, Nephew mine, and you did not just think—you knew—that by fighting, all you would accomplish was getting your people killed, to precisely no gain? Yet, by joining forces with me, together we might be able to stop it. Are you telling me that even then, given that scenario, you would rather see all of humanity fall, than merge your cause together with mine?”
“I reject your premise, just as I reject you,” I said with a yawn, using a free hand as if to cover it.
Jean Luc g
rabbed the table and threw it to the side of the room with a crash, then leveled a finger at me. “Play the fool, or the dancing monkey, if it strokes your childish little ego! Throw away the opportunity to discover the galaxy’s secrets, and go stand before the Sector Assembly, for all I care,” Jean Luc spat.
I clenched my fists at my side. “You slaughtered my crew, shot me in the neck with intent to kill, and abandoned my wife to the mercy of pirates because you were finally tired of playing Blood Reaver on the edge of known space, and you dare to call me childish? And a mushroom?!” I screamed, and behind Jean Luc, his Armsman produced a blaster pistol which he aimed at my face.
“If you grow up, and survive to realize the true shape of the galaxy you inhabit, instead of this childish romance your mind is stuck in, find me and maybe we’ll talk. When you come and see me, maybe I’ll still be willing to help you,” Jean Luc was quivering with rage, then he tossed a hand in the air. “But for now, I am done with you.”
“Thousands dead, including my wife! What about my wife, Jean Luc?” I roared, taking a step after him as he turned his back and stepped out of the cell, “What about my wife, murderer?! You blasted murderer!” I rushed the doorway, but it slid closed before I could reach it. All I could do was scream and pound my fists against the door, so that’s exactly what I did, for as long as I had the energy. Long after my raspy voice had failed, I still pounded on that door, until my strength finally gave out and I slid to the floor.
“What about Akantha and my lancers,” I sobbed, and in that moment I finally gave up hope that they still lived. I knew within my heart that they were dead, and with them, any hope I had of getting out of here.
I was no Admiral. I was a no Prince. I was nothing but a failure, and I wept because it was nothing less than I deserved. I had also just thrown away my life, along with the lives of all the other prisoners on this ship, which brought its own set of tears.
I was no longer lying to myself about the possibility of getting out of here. That moment had passed, along with Jean Luc, out the door of my cell. With it, went all real hope of escape.
But I had to believe that the galaxy would be a better place, without me actively helping my Uncle as a willing accomplice. Otherwise, I was afraid I wouldn’t have the strength of will to resist his next offer.
Then…who knew what I would become? I couldn’t become a Montagne like him. I refused with every fiber of my being.
Chapter 19: The Chickens have come home to roost!
“Lieutenant Spalding, the Command Carrier, she’s…she’s…” the woman at sensors shrieked, as she jumped out of her chair.
“All right, let’s have it straight, girl; without the cheerleader impersonation,” Spalding ordered, feeling greatly irritated at this schoolgirl approach to relaying sensor data. Such activities would never be tolerated down on his finely-oiled Engineering deck.
“She’s breaking apart,” the Operator squealed, and threw the image up on the main screen.
Spalding groaned, as it was painfully obvious to all that the ‘Command Carrier’ had split into two, roughly similar, halves. "Finally a spot of luck," he acknowledged, and then did a double take.
“The larger of the two halves is deploying bucking cables to draw out the smaller section out of the inertial sump,” said another operator, this one sounding much more professional, as he put the image up on the screen
“That’s no Command Carrier,” Spalding bellowed, clutching his head, “show me a detailed scan of the larger of the two ships!”
“Two ships, Sir?” squealed the female operator in a tone that grated on his very soul.
“Aye lass,” he admonished irritably, “that’s not a Command Carrier; that’s one ship giving another a tow through hyperspace! Now settle down, and observe a proper tone of voice when relaying sensor information.”
It took a few moments to get the detailed scan, and when it populated the screen, it was still a bit fuzzy in places.
“That’s Dreadnaught Class, it has to be the Clover,” yelped the female operator.
“Three cheers-” started the Bridge crew.
“Belay that stuff and nonsense! The Clover’s taken, or are you daft,” snarled Spalding, “charge our port and starboard broadsides-” and then his eyes caught on the screen.
“No,” he said in a rising voice, “no-no-no, it can’t be!”
He took several steps toward the main screen for a closer look, before he felt a hand on his arm.
“What is it, Mr. Spalding; what do you see,” Glenda said urgently.
“If that’s the finest ship to ever come out of the Caprian Yards, then I’m a Parliamentary lapdog!” he cried, jumping up and down on the floor as his legs overreacted to his anxiety. “
She may be Dreadnaught Class, but she’s no Lucky Clover. That’s a Ghost Ship, is what she is, come back to haunt us. The Old Armor Prince was sent to the breakers not less than fifty years ago,” he bellowed, pointing an arm towards the main screen.
All around the bridge jaws dropped in outright shock, and in a few cases fear skittered across their features along with a few muttered, “Saint Murphy avert!”
Something slapped the back of his head, and he whirled around.
“I’ll do it again if you keep raving about Ghost Ships in front of the crew. Just see if I don’t,” Glenda threatened.
“I’ve spit in the Eye of the Demon himself,” Spalding growled, “if you think a trivial matter like a Ghost Ship’s going to scare me off, then you don’t know a thing about Terrence Spa—ouch!” he glared, after another smack to the back of his head.
“Your skull’s so dense you walked into a Fusion Reactor without adequate protection,” she snarled, “I couldn’t care less about you; it’s the morale of this ship I’m worried about!”
“You don’t know nothing about running a fighting crew,” he sneered out one corner of his mouth. Ignoring the furious look she was giving him, he smiled out of the other corner of his mouth, where she could not see.
“Don’t worry, lads. There’s nothing to fear from that Phantom,” Spalding said, pasting a false smile on his face. The Bridge looked at him uneasily and Baldwin covered her face with both hands.
“But Sir, a Ghost ship…how can we fight dead?” asked the man at the tactical console, looking petrified.
“I told ye to not worry,” the half-borged Engineer barked at the man at Tactical, and then shook his head at the lack of faith running rampant throughout the young nowadays. Why, back in my day…best not to go there right now, he decided.
“Don’t worry,” he reiterated, pushing his hands down in a calming gesture. The gesture itself was a wee bit compromised, when the action caused an involuntary activation of all five plasma torches in his fingers, as well as revealing that Demon Curse in his hand called a blasted multi-tool. Quickly, he extinguished the torches, and used that hand to cover the multi-tool so no one could see. The last thing he needed was the crew thinking that just because one had been installed in him, he was endorsing the use of the blasted things!
“We could all die; we can’t fight two Dreadnaught Class Battleships, and a squadron of light supporters!” the woman at sensors said, her voice rising to an ear-piercing shriek.
“Calm down! Everybody!” the old engineer ordered, stomping his foot with such fury that the deck clanged, and everyone took a shocked breath. “There’s no need for you lot to fear; Papa Spalding’s got the Hack Codes for every Dreadnaught Class ever built for the Fleet!” Spalding barked.
“The Hack Codes!” proclaimed Gants, his face brightening momentarily, before once again becoming crestfallen, “but you have to be physically present, and insert those codes from a command terminal in Main Engineering.”
“That’s why Gants here will be in command of this ship, while I go to exorcise this Ghost Ship,” Spalding explained, throwing his arms wide. “I may not know everything, but I do know that shutting down every Fusion Generator on the ship in an Emergency Lockdown can stop any
thing, even a figment of our deepest, darkest imaginations, come back to life!”
The cheers of support he was expecting failed to come.
“It’s a good thing you’re doing here, Sir; sacrificing yourself for the rest of us, by dealing with that Ghost,” one of the nearby damage control ratings from engineering said solemnly, stepping over and patting him on the shoulder.
Spalding stared around the Bridge at all the glum faces with disbelief. “I’m not dead yet, men! If the Demon himself couldn’t stop me, a little thing like a Ghost—” he began, only to be cut off by a hand on his shoulder.
“Yes, Glenda,” he asked, looking down at her fingers, upon which was just the right amount of grease.
“You’ll never make it to that ship in a Shuttle,” she scolded. “How do you expect to board her, fight your way down to engineering all by yourself, and then shut her down? Even if, by some miracle, you pull it off, there’s a second one right there beside it,” she was looking at him like he was the biggest idiot she had ever seen.
He purpled in outrage. “Some luck and a little pluck goes a long way,” he chided, looking down his nose at her.
“This is insane, and so are you,” she barked, then turned and stormed off the Bridge.
“Now that’s a fine way to go about rewarding a hero before he sets out on a quest,” he grumbled. “A man might get the wrong idea.”
“Mr. Spalding, we’re being hailed,” said the new man at the Comm.
“What do the Imperials, or Phantoms, of whatever the blazes they call themselves, have to say for themselves,” Spalding snapped.
“It’s not the Imperials, Chief Engineer,” reported the man at Comm, who jumped out of his chair and did a little dance.
“Is this the high school cheer squad,” Spalding moaned with growing disbelief, “should we all just start doing a jig right here and now on the bloody bridge whenever we blasted well feel like it? What’s next, jackboots and line dancing?!”
Admiral's Trial (A Spineward Sectors Novel:) Page 16
