Admiral's Nemesis Part II

by Luke Sky Wachter

  “I know what you’re asking. I’ve known since well before you ever set one holo-foot inside this room and I’ll tell you the same thing I’ve been saying since the Glorious Fleet of Liberation...” his lips twisted in a sneer every time he had to use that name and this time was no difference, “joined the Empire’s Flotilla: leave the business of war to the professionals and I’ll make sure your bottom line is covered. If the only thing you learn on this entire expedition is that alone, I guarantee you’ll become a widely successful war profiteer. You have my oath as the Leader of House Cornwallis.”

  “Professional as in 'professional politician' you mean?” the business man said snidely, and then seemed to realize he may have gone too far as the Senator suddenly looked at him with killing intent. Roberto San-Pablo held up a hand, “Look, I didn’t mean to smear the honor of your House but try to look at things from our perspective.”

  “Politics is just a continuation of war carried out by other means but, in fact, no,” said the Senator calming down slightly, although a gleam in his eye promised eventual retribution for the slight, “unlike in the Confederation where any fool with enough votes can be elected—and quite often is—the path to glory in the Empire, often, maybe even almost always, requires military service. I retired to the Senate an Admiral in the Imperial Navy—one that was, in fact, previously posted to the Spineward area. I know what I’m doing and you lot need to get your knickers untwisted and either follow or get out of the way.”

  “We’re businessmen; we’re not all that interested in glory. What we are interested in is our bottom line. In all seriousness, we don’t doubt your desire or even your ability since the Empire is known to produce many of the finest military leaders,” said the PGE higher up. “But we need more than verbal IOU’s and the cold shoulder when we’re forking out billions to support this fleet. If you can’t give us that then we’re going to have to cut our losses, stop any further outlays, and begin withdrawing any support we’ve already given you,” said Roberto San-Pablo.

  “Unless the Empire gives in to your demands, is that it?” Cornwallis asked coldly.

  “Not the Empire, Praetor, just you. And frankly? The words 'Empire' and 'demand' when put together sound so, dirty, not to mention hazardous to one’s health. So no. To be honest I’d hoped for something more along the lines of collaboration, or at least cooperation, but sad to say if demands are what it takes for you to sit down and listen to what we have to say then I’m afraid that’s what we’ll have to make,” he said with a shrug.

  “I think you’re mistaking a member of the Imperial Senate for a Confederation Assemblyman. I assure you the two are nothing alike,” the Senator said coldly.

  “Call yourself an Assemblyman or a Senator, it makes no difference to us—a politician is a politician. The similarities between our two systems vastly outweigh our differences. Frankly, barring a few cultural hangups our peoples are exactly the same,” Roberto rejected, “that said, however, we understand that you also happen to be a military man. We can understand and respect that,” he added, moderating his tone.

  “I think you are confusing a Senator whose appointment is for life, with a person who stands for periodic elections and caters to the whims of the people…or rich and powerful business interests such as yourselves,” Charles Cornwallis said flatly.

  “Elections shmelections, the only thing that’s important right now is that we have something you want, in this case the resources to conquer the Spineward Sectors, a new province for the Empire. We have the ability to help you—or, in this particular case, keep helping you achieve your dreams of a new province for an expanded Empire or pull our support. Such a withdrawal would ensure, if not certain defeat, then at least a miserable campaign done on a shoestring budget with shortfalls in everything from supplies to communications and finally,” he paused for emphasis,

  “warships.”

  After San-Pablo spoke his final threat, he leaned back in his chair, every inch the confident businessman certain not only in himself but in the fact that he had his opponent on the other side of the business table in a bind and on the ropes.

  The Senator looked down at the PGE Representative, saying nothing.

  “Come now,” Roberto San-Pablo said boldly, “it’s not like we’re asking for your first born or even trying to tell you how to fight this war. All we’re asking for are a few…considerations. Gestures, if you will, to keep this relationship going—or at last to stop it from falling apart right when we all need it most.”

  The Senator looked back at the other man as he silently ran the calculations. He could murder them all in this room and dispose of the bodies ,but there would be a trail leading straight back to him. Alternately, he could wait until they went back to their ships and then slowly, over the course of several days or weeks, have them murdered in their beds. This had the advantage of both dealing with them and delaying the time until the businesses, corporations or groups behind them pulled out or replaced them. That sounded like the most satisfying conclusion to today’s affairs to him.

  On the other hand, he hadn’t got to his current position as the fourth rail of Imperial politics—and a man with only the Spineward Sectors standing between him and a Triumviri’s chair—by indulging his baser impulses, not when it went against his better interests. The only question…did leaving them alive go against his better interests or not?

  “Let’s assume I buy into this fantasy of yours. What exactly were you thinking?” he temporized running a cost benefit analysis in his head. He already had a group of ‘removal specialists’ onboard the Mighty Punisher as well as two cutters and a number of shuttles, three of them stealthed.

  “Fantasy?” Roberto San-Pablo and several of the other business leaders gave the Senator hard looks.

  “I don’t think you realize the gravity of the situation,” growled the Mining CEO, her eyes steely.

  “Now, now, now. Let’s not descend into anything as plebeian as threats. This is hardly the time or place, Tracey,” the PGE Rep soothed.

  “Especially considering you’re aboard a fully functional Command Carrier in the heart of an Imperial navy flotilla,” Cornwallis agreed, looking over at her flintily. “I could have a company of marines in here with a snap of my fingers and an entire brigade fifteen minutes after that.”

  Tracey, the Mining Company CEO, flinched and then rallied by glaring back at him, clearly furious at being even temporarily intimidated.

  “Like I said, there’s no need for threats of physical violence. Let’s all remember that we’re here to pacify the Spineward Region of space in the name of the Empire, not conquer each other. This is a simple re-pacification campaign a… police action if you will, if even that,” Roberto San-Pablo said smoothly.

  “This is hardly a police action,” Cornwallis said coldly.

  “Oh I know how badly you Imperials hate the term,” said the PGE representative, raising his hands in mock surrender, “and I’m well aware that you’ve got a big row to hoe. The rest of us are just here for support, after all. There will be the inevitable fleet battles and ground campaigns to put the rebels in their places but at the end of it all we’re all going to end up with a very lucrative venture. The Empire will own the place, along with the majority of the economy, meanwhile the rest of us do what we already do so very well: mining, medical, entertainment and so on.”

  “You make the inevitable deaths of thousands in space and potentially millions on the ground sound so inconsequential,” Cornwallis pointed out, not so much because he particularly cared about those losses, so long as the Empire and of course he won in the end but rather because he didn’t particularly care for working with others who had a similar mindset. Not in anything approaching an equal arrangement at any rate. He had many such people working underneath him of course.

  'Each tool to it’s appropriate task' as they say. With outsiders such tools were easier to deal with on the front end, no need to stroke egos or deal with squeamish partners but i
n the long run it tended to cause problems.

  “I’m not making light of their plight, after all at least when it comes to the space born combat I could die from a freak accident, drive failure, or missile strike—in short I share the risks. Perhaps less than some but certainly more than others,” said San-Pablo, “as for the losses on the ground, you’re right. I prefer to ignore those things that I can do nothing about. Unlike others I had no hand in carving off the area for the Empire, the desire to make them Imperial provinces, nor am I in the military business. I’m in the entertainment industry by choice! If I wanted to make money off of war I’d be selling armaments from munitions factories. That said, business is business and at the end of the day all I can do for these people is ensure that, even under Imperial rule, they’ll still have access to all the same entertainment and holo-channels as the rest of their former compatriots in the Confederation heartlands.”

  “Your care and consideration for your fellow man is enough to make me weep,” Cornwallis said dryly.

  “No need for dramatics,” San-Pablo snorted, “but getting back to your original question. What can you do for us? How about instead of making us wait until after this is all done, you turn over development and exploitation rights to the Aegis star system? I know you’ve been reluctant to do so previously but this would make a nice gesture.”

  “There’s a reason I’ve been unwilling to do so in the past, and despite your hints it’s not because I have no intention of fulfilling my side of the bargain,” said the Senator.

  “Then what, pray tell, is the hold up?” San-Pablo said crossly.

  “You’re a simple businessman so I can understand you wouldn’t realize what you’re asking for. However Aegis will become the provincial capitol of the new Spineward Reach of the Empire. As such I cannot simply sell off significant fractions of the star system to Confederation business interests without undermining everything I am trying to accomplish here,” he said flatly.

  “What, you don’t trust us to run business operations in your Empire?” the Mining Executive asked belligerently.

  “Theresa, please,” the PGE Rep asked, an edge in his voice.

  “The show is yours—but my patience is not endless, Roberto,” she said while Cornwallis looked at her coolly.

  “How about this then? My understanding is this new province will take some time to finish pacifying, and even longer after that before it will transition from a provisional province to an actual administrative district. Why not offer us a time limited, ten year contract, with the clear stipulation that upon regularizing Aegis as the capitol of a full-fledged province we are required to turn over our operations to your Imperial governor…at market rates and with an early buy-out penalty of course,” Roberto San-Pablo said with a grin.

  “Even if I were to agree to this, ten years is entirely out of line,” Cornwallis said.

  “Understandable. Then let’s cut it in half: make it five years and in return you can cut us in for small but fixed percentage of Tracto’s trillium deposits. Say, five percent each, for everyone at this table—including yourself, Senator,” smirked San-Pablo.

  “The five of you are twenty five percent, that’s one fourth of Tracto’s reserve. You’re asking for a big chunk of this region’s mineral wealth right there,” growled the Senator.

  “You didn’t expect us to help you conquer a part of the Confederation and hand it over to the Empire for free, did you? I’ve been dropping billion credit ComStat buoys like they were peanuts and even after that you’ll still have a controlling share in Tracto. Unless you’re now going to tell us you’d planned to make the Tracto star system another provincial capitol as well?” Roberto San-Pablo asked wryly. “Besides, I know for a fact there are other trillium deposits in other Sectors of the Spine. So it’s not like we’re grabbing everything for ourselves. Let’s put this deal in writing, sign the papers, and we can be mining in Aegis and broadcasting the top rated holo-dramas and most up to date news programs from the core of human space out to the poor, benighted citizens of Aegis Prime. Do we have a deal, Senator?” asked the Pan-Galactic Entertainment Corporate Representative.

  Against his better judgment, the leader of House Cornwallis accepted the deal. After all, he could just kill them all later if things got out of hand.

  He even just so happened to know a former pirate-turned-Imperial-privateer who had a knack for that sort of thing on the payroll.

  Chapter 39: Telling the Captains the Plan

  “I would like to remind everyone who has been invited to the Admiral’s Dinner that every ship in the fleet is represented in this room and attendance was mandatory. So either the Captain or, if it’s been pre-approved, the First Officer of every warship in this fleet is currently present. Try to remember that while you are here,” warned Lieutenant Commander Lisa Steiner, my Chief of Staff, at the beginning of the Admiral’s Dinner.

  After the most junior officer present had given the obligatory toast and we had finished consuming one of the finest meals my flagship's top-rated chef and kitchen staff had ever produced, I set down my fork and leaned back. Taking that as a signal, the ever-present kitchen staff and waiters for this event began policing up plates and utensils all around the room.

  The last of the stragglers, seeing the way the wind was blowing, quickly finished their last few bites and then surrendered their plates to the inevitable as waiters and staff descended on the finest dining tables set up in the flagship’s mess hall. They departed just as quickly as they came and soon the room was empty of everyone excepted cleared personnel and the dining room was once again sealed.

  Once we were alone, all two hundred fifty and more of us, I stood up and, activating the small microphone built into the collar of my, uniform cleared my throat.

  “Hello, as all of you are aware, or should be, I am Jason Montagne, Grand Admiral and commander of this fleet. I am also the man in charge of taking the battle to the enemy and clearing our star systems and Sectors of the Empire and their old Confederation lackeys and sycophants,” I said, sweeping the room with my gaze.

  I was grimly determined to confront that enemy and to do that I first needed to rally my people or, in this case, my ship commanders.

  “Which is why I’m here today. I’m aware that there has been a lot of talk out there in the fleet. Scuttlebutt as it were,” I said with a smirk and the resulting quickly muted scattered laughter around the room, “and I’m here to put the rumors to rest.”

  At this the faces of my crowd turned solemn. No matter what I said at this point it was going to be news people didn’t want to hear. Even if they wanted to confront the enemy, no one likes to belabor the fact they were about to fly into combat with an enemy that outnumbered us four to one or better.

  “No. We are not going to run away, or as it was more tactfully put by others, we do not plan to fight a slow running retreat,” I said firmly, “instead we are going to take the fight to the enemy.”

  I stopped to take a breath.

  “As some of you may or may not be aware, for the past week we have been actively seeking to engage the enemy but so far they show no interest in meeting us on ground of our choosing. Before that we were fighting a delaying action in hopes of gaining more reinforcements,” I said. Well it’s time to admit that we’ve got all the reinforcements we’re going to get. Which means since the Imperials refuse to meet us in a star system of our choosing, say Hart’s World, the recently recaptured Central or now fallen Aegis—anywhere with halfway decent fixed defenses send the Imperial Fleet running the opposite direction—we're going to have to change the plan,” I finished wryly.

  There was a dark and muted chuckle that ran through the gathered officers. I was glad to hear it because this next part wasn’t going to go over very well.

  I took a deep breath, “I’ve decided we have no choice but to meet the Imperials on ground of their choosing and force a battle,” I continued, steeling myself for the coming storm.

  From the unhappy to
enraged expressions on the faces of the my officers, especially those captains who had joined us from fellow SDF’s and the Sector Guardsmen, it was clear that no one was excited by the prospect.

  “Excuse me, Admiral,” said a senior Commodore from the Sector Guard, who looked anything but pleased to be here, hear this plan, or just plain be under my command, “if I may have a moment of your time?”

  “When you put it so politely how, could I refuse? Just please make it brief,” I commented.

  “I will do my best to accommodate your request, Sir,” said the Senior Commodore.

  It wasn’t a request, but I figured turning adversarial the moment a Guardsman looked at me sideways wasn’t going to help cement my fleet into one big unified force. So I let it pass.

  The Senior Commodore looked around the room, probably to gauge his level of support before focusing back on me.

  Ignoring the rest of the room he nodded politely, “Thank you, Sir. However I have to ask: is fighting a superior enemy on the ground of their choosing really the wisest course?” he asked before plowing onward. “I realize I’m not a Grand Admiral with an unparalleled head for strategy, but while I’m no genius it doesn’t take a genius to recognize the vast force disparity we’re looking at here” he said, showing no signs of slowing down.

  I silently tapped my foot as he continued.

  “Facing a superior enemy at the time and place of their choosing is rarely, if ever, the smart play. Wouldn’t we all be better served luring them to—” The Senior Commodore continued to drone on.

  “Thank you, Commodore, that will be all,” I cut him off, “now in response—”