Then a smile tugged at the corners of my mouth, as I realized there was no way Praxis could know that. At most, they’d recognize that these were older warships, and that was all.
“Channel is now open,” the Comm Operator repeated, and I realized I’d been so lost in calculations that I had missed the first call.
“Make certain we are broadcasting using Confederation cipher, as we did the last time we came to Easy Haven,” I added.
“Yes, Sir,” the Comm Operator said, looking at me strangely, “I think I can find it in here somewhere.”
As I was already leaning back in my chair, I cleared my throat and crossed my legs, trying for a pose that said I was both relaxed and in complete control of myself and this entire situation. As soon as I figured I had it down pat, I smiled and then gestured to the operator that I was ready.
He gave me the thumbs up to indicate we were now broadcasting, using the appropriate cipher.
“Allied Squadron, you are instructed to take a course on the following heading and vector,” I tapped out the string of numbers into a data pad, which I handed to a nearby Bridge Stander, “drive those Praxis boys right into the grinder, to the confusion and confounding of our enemies. Admiral Montagne out,” I said crisply, and the Comm Operator cut the channel.
“Tell the Herrings and Afterburners,” I said after a moment, because I was still in awe of the absurdly juvenile squadron names, “they are to shadow the Guard Squadron and maintain a distance of at least two minutes away from them, if possible. But I want them to try to cut off any route that leads back deeper into the system.”
“Sure thing, Admiral,” acknowledged the Operator relaying my orders.
I watched for a few tense moments as the Guard continued to lick their wounds, and increased the distance between themselves and my support vessels. Thanks to my instructions, they weren’t being allowed to escape back into the system—at least, not without a fight they didn’t yet seem ready to prosecute.
The Easy Haven force must have received my message, because they quickly went to full military power on their engines, and changed course to match my instructions perfectly.
Hopefully, the SDF would be curious and concerned at the way I was having those Easy Haven boys swing a little wide and to the side.
“Open a broad band hail to these two areas, but make sure to use same cipher we did back in the AZT system—the one where we drove off those pirates and saved the settlers,” I informed the Operator, getting out of my chair and stepping over to his console. I quickly had him mirror the main screen on his console, and indicated two unoccupied portions of cold space he was to turn the Comm arrays towards.
The Operator looked at me in surprise, but complied. “You’re live, Admiral Montagne,” he said, and I could hear a stir behind me and the sound of hushed voices whispering to one another. No doubt, they were wondering what their Little Admiral was up to now.
I quickly jumped back into my threadbare Captain’s Chair. “Tracto Light Defense Squadron, you are hereby ordered to maintain your current position, and activate any mines you may have managed to lay during silent running,” I turned to the Operator, and handed him another data pad, “now please direct our transmission toward the other set of general coordinates I indicated, and transmit these coordinates along with my audio,” I said hurriedly.
It had suddenly gone deafeningly silent around the Bridge, as people stared at me with open mouths.
“Hurry it up, man; we don’t have all day,” I said mildly, when the Operator sat frozen in his seat.
The other man jumped as if bitten, and quickly pressed another series of buttons. “You’re live, Admiral,” he said, his eyes shining a new light—one I didn’t like to think about too deeply right at this moment, as it was the light of hope.
“Warships of the Border Worlds Alliance, you are hereby requested to wait and hold your positions until after the Praxis SDF Squadron has moved to any point past or between the two sets of coordinates we are transmitting,” I paused, and then glared at the screen. I let all the frustration and fury I felt at the smugness and pigheadedness I’d encountered from the Governors and Magistrates of the Border during our patrol, bleed through into my voice and bearing. “Also, be advised that I am less than pleased at the failure of the Bingo and D-Link Systems, to bring their fair share of ships to the party. Now that I’m out of prison and off the Dungeon Ship, I am feeling less—how shall we say—tolerant, of such hijinks as I might have been before.”
Then I leaned back and instructed my Comm Operator to cut the channel. “We’re no longer transmitting, Admiral,” the Operator said with wide eyes.
“Please put up a countdown clock on how long it will take the Guard and Praxis Squadrons to receive our transmissions,” I said, as if it were an afterthought, when in fact it was anything but.
“The Little Admiral’s done it again,” said one of the damage control operators to a System Analyst, in what he probably thought was a low voice. I carefully ignored it.
“What I’d like to know is how he managed to coordinate everything from his cell in the Dungeon ship?” the other hissed back.
I could almost feel the optimism and hope rolling off this miniature bridge crew, and really, why not? I mean after all, Admiral Montagne (to my crew) or the ‘Fearsome Tyrant of Cold Space (to my enemies) somehow broke out of prison with one group of exceptionally small, fast ships. Why should it be impossible for such a terrifying person to then hold back an even more powerful squadron until the time was ripe? In fact, why couldn’t he have two—or even three—additional squadrons lying in silent wait, just like I had suggested in my supposedly heavily-encrypted orders?
Too bad it was all a bluff. I could really use some overwhelming force on my side at some point.
The Praxis SDF Cruisers and Corvettes continued to barrel towards us, until the clock went down to zero. It continued counting down for another minute afterwards, before the ships abruptly changed course to turn away from the coordinates I’d drawn in the sand for my fictitious Border World forces. I hoped those System Governors choked on the Assembly’s response to their supposed treachery.
“They’re turning away, Admiral! The Praxis forces are running scared,” cried our head of Tactical.
“I hope they run into a few mines along the way,” cursed one of the two sensor techs.
I closed my eyes and shook my head minutely, but when I looked back up, it was with a blazing smile.
The sight of the SDF Squadron choosing to avoid conflict with what appeared to be a superior force composed of Easy Haven’s Heavy Cruiser, its accompanying support vessels, and the ‘hidden’ forces which they should have known nothing about, only caused my smile to widen.
“Oh, and Comm?” I said mildly.
“Yes, Sir?” said the Operator.
“I think we’d better not use any of our old encryption keys in the future. From the reaction of that Squadron, one might think they’ve been compromised,” I instructed with a smirk before turning away. I couldn’t help it; this little maneuver deserved a good smirk. My smile curdled as I considered the most likely cause of our broken encryption.
Jean Luc Montagne had the database of the Lucky Clover, and I had no doubt that along with all our personal and internal files—up to, and including, my marriage certificate—Sector Central also received copies of all our encryption codes. Fortunately, it was something I suspected before I began to deploy my little ruse.
The Comm Operator blinked and did a double take, his mouth falling open before he snapped it back shut and nodded twice very fast.
“Oh, and Operator, if you would be good enough to put me through to the Command ship of that 25th Sector Guard Squadron,” I said with a shark-like grin, “I suspect it’s an officer of my recent acquaintance, and if so, he was kind enough to come visit me while I was in prison. I’d like to take this opportunity to return his display of courtesy,” I said, wishing I was wearing more than a simple crew jacket over my oran
ge prison garb.
For a nostalgic moment, I actually longed for my power armor; now, that would have made an appropriate statement! Alas, at this point, I would have even taken the dreaded old monkey suit I’d kept for court occasions—despite all the pinching and chafing I would have suffered. Anything was preferable to presenting myself to my enemies in orange prison garb!
Over the past two months, I had grown to hate the color orange with a passion unmatched by any other set of clothes I could recall.
Then I choked back a laugh and broke into a coughing fit as I recalled the time my older female cousins tried to stuff me—kicking and screaming—into a pink dress back when I was six years old, and at long last, I was ready to admit there might actually be one set of clothes I had detested more than this jumpsuit. The realization did wonders for my immediate morale.
Of course, right at that particular moment, the commander of the Sector Guard Squadron trapped in the middle of a triangle of forces between LeGodat, our allied Corvettes and Cutters, and my battered Medium Cruiser, Dungeon Ship and phantom forces, popped onto my screen.
I brought my coughing under control, and straightened up in my seat, pretending I was on the Admiral’s Throne back on my old Battleship, and not the shattered near wreck I actually was.
The Sector Guard Officer scowled at me. “Admiral Montagne, why am I not surprised?” he said with a stiff nod, and then paused to wait for my reply. I suppressed the urge to scowl, as I knew exactly why he was not surprised; he and the local SDF had been eavesdropping on my encrypted transmissions.
“Commodore Druid, we meet again, if under slightly different circumstances,” I greeted, doing my best impression of a real Confederation Admiral.
“To what do I owe this dubious pleasure?” Druid asked stiffly.
“It seems you are surrounded, Commodore, but perhaps we can do something about that,” I said obliquely. The more I could keep him off balance and guessing, the better for everyone concerned.
He gave his head a clear definitive shake. “No, Admiral. What you’ve got is one task force powerful enough to defeat us, but too slow to catch up; another task force that’s fast enough for the job, but too weak to seal the deal. What else?” he asked rhetorically, pointing in my direction, “All I see is one crippled, sorely outdated Medium Cruiser, and a big lumbering dungeon ship, neither of which I’d call a credible threat.”
I made sure to smile, as if I knew something he did not, but on the inside I winced. Was he guessing, or just trying to feel out how far I was willing to go? Well, either way: nothing ventured, nothing gained.
“You were unexpectedly courteous during our last conversation,” I said, implying we had more conversations than just one. It was always good to muddy the waters when you suspected eavesdropping. “I was simply hoping to return the favor, but if you insist that you’re neither surrounded, nor in need of my assistance…”
He shot me a knowing glance and smiled. I shrugged, as if the matter was of little moment to me, and made a scrubbing motion with my hands. I could tell he got the meaning of my little display; if he refused to listen to me then I was more than willing to wash my hands of the whole affair, and just let him waltz into my ‘overwhelming’ forces.
Druid now looked a lot less sure of himself. “Do you know something I don’t?” he asked cautiously.
The man was so obviously fishing that I quirked a lip. I had him, if I played this right. Now all I had to do was reel him in slowly.
“I’m certain I know lots of things you’re completely unaware of, but if you’re asking about something in particular,” I said, glancing down at the reader in my lap, and then back up as if I’d been momentarily distracted. “I’m afraid I can’t help you, unless you’re more specific, Commodore.”
Druid leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “You forget that I’ve seen you in action, Admiral. I know how you operate,” he said confidently.
“Oh, and how is that?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. This wasn’t quite what I had been expecting, and if things hadn’t been teetering on the precipice, I might have actually been interested in what he had to say. After all, it could be useful to know how others perceived you.
“You like to keep your opponents off balance through talk and misdirection, just like you’re trying to do with me,” he replied, his features taking on a slightly grimmer cast.
When your opponent has found you out, sometimes all you can do is laugh it off and try something else. So that’s exactly what I did.
I threw my head back and laughed, and I’m not talking a little chuckle or some out of control wild laughter; I mean the kind of rich laugh that betokens genuine mirth and enjoyment.
“You’ve found me out, so why don’t you let me in on how well it’s working,” I urged with a light chuckle.
He gave me a reluctant quirk of his lips. “I’m afraid it doesn’t work as well when your opponent is ready for it,” he said flatly.
“Oops,” I said, rolling my eyes and shaking my head emphatically.
“I’ve also seen how you like to get your opponents worked up, to the point they’re too angry to see what’s really going on,” Druid continued.
This was most definitely not going the way I had expected. I thought I would be on the receiving end of some hot back and forth verbal action, not be getting psychoanalyzed by the opposition.
“I think you give me too much credit,” I lied, thinking he was much too close to the mark for comfort, “I put my pants on one leg at a time each morning; I’m really not some sort of grand manipulator, like they’ve tried to portray me in the media,” I added more truthfully.
“I won’t fall for your usual deceptions. I won’t be bluffed, Admiral,” Druid growled, and on the screen his squadron started moving toward my Medium Cruiser at full burn.
“So you won’t be deceived like the Rear Admiral,” I said smoothly, as if I couldn’t see him coming straight for me.
He hesitated, and then his face hardened and he gave a slow, deliberate nod. “If he had concentrated his forces and come at you straight on, nothing you could have said or done would have stopped him,” he said harshly.
I nodded agreeably, as his forces continued bearing down on a ship—my ship—that couldn’t survive another firing pass, and was too slow to escape.
“Or the way I bluffed Captain Cornwallis,” I continued, cocking my head in my most regal manner.
He frowned and then glared at me, his look saying as clear as anything that he was suspicious of anything I had to say at this point. “Exactly,” he growled, “you bluffed him from top to bottom, when what you were really after were those two Constructors so you could build up an independent industry and fleet support base out in Tracto!”
I raised a finger, as if instructing a particularly slow and troublesome pupil. “No,” I corrected severely, “I told him he could make like a coward and flee Easy Haven, or I’d destroy him lock, stock, and two smoking barrels—which, might I add, I did.” My eyes bore into those of the Sector Guard Commodore.
“All so you could create your own power base; you never had any intention of letting any of those Constructors be destroyed,” he said, matching me stare for flinty stare.
“I did bluff the Captain into moving away from those Constructors, after he threatened their destruction first,” I admitted, refusing to look away. I had been in staring contests with masters of the art, and the Commodore was made of stern stuff, but nothing I couldn’t handle.
“Exactly,” he said with satisfaction, “I’m glad you’re man and officer enough to admit it, at least.”
“But while I would never have fired on those Constructors myself—and I still do view that entire exchange to be a deception aimed at keeping those helpless ‘civilian’ ships as intact as possible—you’re dead wrong if you think I would have backed off, had he made good on his own threat,” I said flatly, letting him see the raw truth of that statement. “Grabbing a pair of Constructors for my own purposes
was something that happened after Cornwallis was out of the picture.”
“Ha,” he scoffed, clearly trying to look as unconvinced as he possibly could. The only question was just how unconvinced he really was. I stole a glance at the main screen, and saw that his squadron was still coming right for me.
“However, you’re also wrong about my conversation with the Rear Admiral,” I cocked a bleak smile.
“I sincerely doubt that,” he said drawing himself up rigidly.
“Yagar and I both knew your two squadrons could take my old battleship, anytime they concentrated and decided to come for me,” I continued.
Druid turned his head to one side and looked at me through his eyebrows, his look one of extreme skepticism.
“Just as we knew that the losses he would sustain—most likely including his Flagship—would cripple your 25th Sector Guard, to the point where it was unlikely he would be able to convince the Provincial Governments to raise for him additional warships to replace the losses. It would have killed his nascent little organization before it could really get off the ground—stillborn, as it were,” I said evenly.
Druid jerked and then moved to cover it by turning his face into an expressionless mask. “I don’t believe you,” he ground out. But now it was I, who no longer believed him. I had just managed get the lure in his mouth, and now all I had to do was sink the hook.
“Really?” I lifted an eyebrow. “Remember, this was before the Assembly managed to perform their hatchet job on my reputation, back then I was still just a well-meaning, but somewhat ineffective Confederation Admiral. Yagar’s striking first, and appearing to be the aggressor whose actions destroyed an allied Battleship, and lost the better part of half his own organization…” I trailed off pointedly. “You do the math, Commodore; does the Sector Assembly gathered here seem to be the sort to take risky gambles, or throw good money after bad?”
“Blast,” he cursed, as light dawned in his eyes, with a look of intense calculation on his face.
“That’s why he tried to brow beat me into joining his organization, and I was more than willing to tell him to pound sand, no matter if he had local superiority of forces. We both knew that if neither of us would join forces with the other, that the real strike wouldn’t come from you guys coming at me head to head. If a conflict was coming—as it very much was—it would be in the form of my very own countrymen, our…Caprian reinforcements,” I said, allowing the rage I was feeling at the memory to take over my features, and I clenched my fists.
Admiral's Trial (A Spineward Sectors Novel:) Page 39
