I looked at him evenly, and crossed my arms. This wasn’t entirely surprising, coming from a man who admitted half the reason he was in this room had been the urge to beat me up, for bumping one of his men out of a Healing Tank.
“I don’t know your full name, so I can’t return the favor but I hope you didn’t stumble on your way out just because you felt the need to unlimber a good insult; I’d be more than happy to help shove you out the door, if it suddenly seems too narrow,” I tisked at him as I bared my teeth. “And we were getting along so well.” Without thinking about it, the last of my congenial Royal Princely Face fell away, and was replaced with the battle-hardened Admiral I’d discovered in the mirror over the course of almost a year of constant warfare—both physical, and mental.
“Now, there is the Admiral I expected to see from the very first moment I stepped into this room,” he pointed a finger at me, almost unconsciously, “not a man screaming from nightmares as he awoke, or the cool and collected rear area Defense Force politician disguised in a military uniform. I came to meet the battle-hardened Fleet Commander, who shook the space ways with the barest rumor of his impending arrival,” said Druid, looking and sounding like a man who had finally gotten what he desired. “It’s good to finally meet you, and see your true face, Vice Admiral Montagne,” he said crisply, turning on his heel and giving me a practiced bow.
“You’ve seen the real me the whole time; every face you’ve seen is my own, and they all belong to me. Now get out of here, before this goes somewhere you most definitely wouldn’t like,” I said, standing and pointing to the door, all pretense at civility washed away. I wasn’t here for this man to play games with. While I might have been raised going to the palace every morning, every evening I came home to our house in a solid blue-working collar community. At first, I’d thought mother couldn’t afford anything better. But as I got older, I realized we could have stayed in the palace for free. No, we’d lived there to learn a lesson, and I had definitely learned it. When some little son of a working class stiff threw down the gauntlet, it was time to raise your fists and pick it up.
Druid gave me a nod and locked stares with me, “You’re slipperier than a sideways snake, Montagne. Maybe my real reason for coming here was to take your measure, and ensure you saw a face representative of the Sector Guard that’s not Rear Admiral Yagar. Some of us—most, even—are a little less…” he paused to consider his word, “high-strung, let us say. Remember that, if things go very much how I do not hope them to.”
While his words were interesting—quite interesting, really—, we were currently locked in a stare down, so I just rigidly held my pose, finger pointed at the door, until he bowed again to break the battle of wills and turned on his heel to stride out of the room.
For a moment, I was lost in deep calculation, wondering if there was any way to turn this last little revelation to my advantage. From grand gestures and sly maneuvers, to outright blackmail, my mind skittered from one farfetched idea to an ever further-fetched one.
Then I sternly brought myself to task. I might forget it now and then, but it was time to put back on my clay boots for a moment and admit it: I wasn’t a real Admiral. I never had been, and before too much longer, everything else was going to be irrelevant.
With a sigh, I sank back into my bed, forcing plots and schemes from my head. I needed to get some rest.
Unfortunately, I was just out of the tank, and had already slept; the last thing my body wanted right at that moment was sleep. Naturally, this made it harder than usual to remember my proper place in the Galaxy, but somehow I managed.
Now, if everyone else would remember it as well, everything would turn out the way it was meant to.
Chapter 25: Go Team, Go!
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Tremblay said from behind the controls of the shuttle. It turned out he was the only one with even the faintest clue how to fly one of these things, due to his Officer’s training back on Capria, before he transferred to the Intelligence track. It’s not like they could launch a secret mission against Parliament and the ship’s command team, using one of the regular shuttle pilots.
“That must be the ninety-ninth or hundredth time you’ve said that since we first discussed this idea,” the little Com-Tech Lisa Steiner flared.
“It’s the thirty-third,” rumbled the native lancer, maintaining his position in one of the skiff’s few jump chairs; his belt was connected and arms crossed over his body. Tremblay knew, because it was the first thing he checked as soon as the lancer spoke up. The last thing he needed was to crash into the oncoming civilian ship, because the Lancer decided it was time to get physical.
“I can’t believe you’re keeping track,” Steiner said, throwing her hands in the air and glaring first at the Tracto-an, then at Tremblay. Once her glare fell on the Intelligence Officer, it remained fixated.
The Lancer shrugged, but stayed in his jump seat. Only Tremblay noticed, because he was watching the lot of them using the cockpit surveillance camera connected to a screen he kept active on his touch-controlled console.
That the former Lancer turned gunner, was keeping that close a track of what Tremblay said, meant the Intelligence Officer was under close surveillance. He would have to be even more careful not to let anything slip, than ever before. He gave the image of the Lancer on the screen down near his knees a narrow-eyed look—thankfully, where no one else would notice.
“What makes this ‘bad feeling’ any worse than the last half dozen times, Senior Lieutenant,” asked Mike the System Analyst, who was supposed to take control of their target’s long ranged array as soon as it was out-system.
“Look,” he said reasonably, “we’re using a shuttle with a low priority clearance, attempting to take over part of a DI network using old codes from an even older database. If our target wasn’t a Caprian freighter, I wouldn’t even think of trying it,” he finished firmly.
“Fortunately, we have our very own member of the illustrious Black Gloves, to explain away our shuttle’s lack of official clearance,” Steiner said with false brightness. “And, we’ll know before we ever set foot on their boarding tube, if the ship will accept the old codes you found hidden within the intelligence database,” she finished, a tad more reasonably.
“’Hidden’ is a strong word, for something so old that it was mislabeled—and then buried—under the wrong header in a low level classification,” he protested, not mentioning that he had been unwilling to risk anything other than a basic, low security search of the database, so as to not risk setting off red flags.
“It was providence,” Steiner declared.
“Can you even hear yourself? Divine providence, indeed; I don’t know about you and your prayers, but Murphy doesn’t come down from on high to directly answer any of mine. Nor have any of the angry gods of cold space been whispering my ear, telling me everything will be all right,” he cried, frustrated beyond belief with the whole lot of them and their silly insistence that truth and right would win out over superior strength and connivance. It was all he could do to keep these true believers from making the sort of mistake that would expose them, and get them all (but most importantly, him) killed!
She looked at him with pity. “We’re a handful of people, now that the rest of the crew has been transferred to that Dungeon ship. We can’t recruit anyone else at this point—not even if we wanted to—since we’re operating on a shoestring budget, and forced to steal ship’s equipment right out from under the nose of the new officers. And all of it relies on the codes given to us by a Parliamentary Black Glove to work; if that scenario doesn’t call for a little faith, then I don’t know what does!” She finished with a certainty in her voice that he simply did not share, but for the moment, he was tempted to take whatever reassurance he could.
“If, and if, and if, and if!” he finally threw his hands in the air, “just listen to yourself. We’ve got a plan that started with: ‘If’ we can steal this shuttle and make it off our ship
, and ‘if’ we can then use some ancient codes I found on a random search to hack into a civilian DI, and ‘if’ they haven’t upgraded their system since then to the point those codes no longer work, that might mean that we have chance. ‘If’ this ship leaves the system any time soon, and ‘if’ the codes we’ve copied from the Larry’s communication system lets them connect to a Com-Stat network—which may, or may not, still exist somewhere along its route,” he said in a rising voice that became a full-on shout, “then maybe, just maybe ‘if’ the Invictus Rising is able to pick up the transmission and it’s not already all the way to Capria, it will be possible for them to come all the way back out here to help us. IF THEY EVEN CARE TO COME!” he finished with a roar.
“I think you just made my case for me,” she said coldly.
He took several deep breaths. “The Universe is a cold, uncaring place, that doesn’t leave a lot of room in it for faith,” he retorted flatly.
“I’ve heard you call on Murphy before,” she said severely, “don’t you believe in something greater than yourself? Or is every man an island?”
“Parliament and the Crown,” he answered properly, “are both much greater than I’ll ever be.”
Her anger melted, and she looked at him sadly. “How much you miss, in that cold world of yours, if that’s all you see,” she sighed.
“My eyes are wide open,” Tremblay said angrily, “the galaxy is not all gum drops and lollipops; it’s a cold, bitter place for those who don’t understand, that for all its uncaring immensity, it has a certain balance to it. Sometimes, all anyone can do, is load their side of the scales as heavily as possible, and pray.”
“A calculating answer, from a calculating man; the world should be a better place because you are in it, not a worse one,” she said firmly.
“It is better: for me,” he replied.
She stared at him for a moment as her mouth drew into a tight line. “It’s going to be a better place for all of us, after we’re done here. That’s why we’re doing this,” she said, true belief once again shining in her eyes. Belief in the Little Admiral, in the Invictus Rising, and in Murphy, along with whatever else was going to help her achieve this little fantasy of hers.
In Tremblay’s experience, people would never help you, just because you believed they would. Maybe they would come to help the Admiral, and maybe they would not; it was a crap-shoot.
“This is a high risk play—with the potential to expose us all—and only a low chance of success. I’m afraid the rest of the galaxy isn’t like you, or even Admiral Montagne. As far as I can see, you’re the only compulsive do-gooder who would give the shirt off her back to prove a point; or, in his case, shoot a hypothetical bad guy and give you whatever was his. Your kind has been firmly taken out of the driver’s seat, and now it’s my kind of people behind the wheel. We’re cold, we’re calculating, and, yes—at times—uncaring. That’s what keeps us alive,” he said, turning back to his control system. He recognized an unwinnable fight when he saw one.
“I guess we’ll see about that, when the Invictus gets here and Mr. Gants, Chief Engineer Spalding, and all the rest of the crew ‘lost’ in that ‘bad hyper-jump’ come riding back on the wings of vengeance,” she huffed. “Maybe I’m just a Com-Tech in over her head, but I don’t think you’re giving the Little Admiral enough credit. We’re going to rock this galaxy yet!”
“Spalding’s dead,” he said flatly, as he pointed at the screen, “and so is anything else, except possibly an escape attempt…assuming anyone comes out here at all.”
“Do you see what I’m seeing? Our enemies have massive orbital fortifications, a pair of rapidly repairing battleships, half a dozen Sector Guard corvettes filling out an entire squadron, as well as the entire Self Defense Force of this world!” He projected the screen onto the wall in front of him, where everyone could see, “One ship—even a top-of-the-line Imperial Ship—couldn’t hack its way through all this, not unless it was a Command Carrier, and even then…” he shook his head doubtfully.
“The Admiral has a plan; he always has a plan,” she said confidently.
“The Admiral’s in jail, precisely because he doesn’t have a plan. He never did! Aside from maybe joyriding around the galaxy, smiting bad guys like some holo-vid inspired superhero. We were all taken in—even myself, for a time—but just look at him now! He’s no larger than life hero, that was proven the moment he almost died and lost the ship. All he ever had was the ship; one big, old, tough as nails battleship, but that’s it! He doesn’t have a plan, he doesn’t have a ship, and he certainly doesn’t have the fleet he’d need to break out of here.” Tremblay folded his arms across his chest as he continued to shake his head. “No, after a few months, all he’ll be remembered as is the would-be two-bit failed Tyrant of Cold Space.”
The others stared at him in growing silence, and then Heirophant unlatched his restraints. “It sounds like you’re no longer with the Admiral…if you ever were,” he said grimly.
Tremblay realized that in his passion for the truth, he had revealed too much. “I’m with you guys one hundred percent; you, and the Admiral, so I don’t want to hear any different,” he said hastily, “besides, it’s too late to back out now, and just because it’s the stupidest thing we could do, that doesn’t mean it’s not also the right thing,” he lied. “Just don’t expect me to be all happy about throwing our lives away, especially when we could still be sitting back in our quarters, finding a smart way to make this thing work.”
“We spent more than enough time sitting on our duffs back on the ship. All that was accomplishing, was us waiting to get caught,” rebuked Lisa Steiner. “At least this way, we have a fighting chance to make a difference, and that’s all anyone who signs up for military service can ask!”
“They can ask for victory, and a real chance to be on the winning side,” he mumbled under his breath, careful to make it low enough the others couldn’t hear him, “not this Montagne pie in the sky bullroar they keep trying to force-feed us.”
Like any man caught between the clutches of two Montagne Masters, the former First Officer was feeling the squeeze. He knew which side he wanted to be on: the hard hitting, elected by the people, Parliamentarian side. If only everyone would let him be on that side, everything would be fine. As it was, everything had become a spalled-out mess, and the only thing worse than a return of the Little Admiral with vengeance in his eyes, would be staying under Jean Luc’s thumb.
No one born with the name Tremblay was destined to be anyone’s murderous manservant. Then he started to wonder just how much parliament back home would really care if he shot Jean Luc dead in his own ready room.
“I’ve got a signal!” said Mike from the jump seat where his data slate was hard docked into the shuttles computer system.
“Let me see,” said Steiner.
Mike held his slate out of reach, still busy tapping away on the screen.
“Yes,” he said, holding it up in the air with triumph, deftly avoiding the Com-Tech’s greedy fingers in the process.
“It works?” demanded Heirophant.
“Life a hot knife through butter,” exclaimed the System Analyst, “I don’t think we’ll even need to be hard docked; I can do it all from here!”
No one in the little shuttle cabin noticed Tremblay freeze, as his right hand locked up in a painful cramp at the ‘hot knife through butter’ comment. As his stomach turned painfully, the former First Officer realized that he might not be the best candidate for slaughtering the Commodore in his office.
Tremblay’s eyes shot sideways to the Lancer, in sudden contemplation. The man was as suspicious as a barely trained attack dog…maybe he should take a page from the Montagne playbook, and put his two problems in the same room. Then, either way it went, he would only have one problem.
No one cut off his hand and got away with it. All he would have to do was offer the possibility of a one-way suicide mission against the man who shot the Tracto-an’s Warlord, and Heiropha
nt would be frothing at the mouth. The problem at that point would only be holding the man back if Tremblay changed his mind.
They seemed to have forgotten him in the flurry of the moment.
“I’ll contact the ship’s Captain and tell him we’re going to be doing a flyby, so we can circle the ship. It’ll be rather suspicious if we stop outside their hull and don’t try to come inside to say hello,” he said.
“It’s almost uploaded now,” Mike said, waving him off irritably for breaking his concentration.
Tremblay had heard that more times that he could count, so the universe would have to forgive him if he failed to hold his breath in anticipation.
Activating the communication equipment, he hailed the freighter.
“This is the Captain,” an older man with salt and pepper hair growled from this screen.
“Good to meet you, Captain,” Tremblay glanced down at his console and tapped the screen, as if just pulling up the man’s name, “Pepe Marcillus,” he raised his left hand, turning the palm slightly up as if what he was about to say was of little moment, coincidentally prominently displaying his black gloves, “I’m a Senior Lieutenant with the Intelligence Directorate, here on a routine flyby. Please allow for a brief visual inspection of your exterior, and we’ll be out of your hair momentarily,” he said, displaying his teeth in a smile.
The Captain paled and then his eyes bulged. Tremblay kept the smirk from his lips, as he knew that the best kinds of truths were sometimes the ones no one actually believed.
“I assure you, Lieutenant—” he cut himself short, “I mean, Senior Lieutenant, of course. Let me assure you that anything we can do in the service of the Intelligence Directorate, will be done,” he said, although what he did not say out loud, was that anything he could do to hurry along their egress would be his greatest pleasure.
Admiral's Trial (A Spineward Sectors Novel:) Page 22
