“That’s one way to put it,” the Chief Gunner grunted, “hopefully there’s a point to all this in there somewhere? Some of us have actual jobs to do, you know. We can’t all shuffle paperwork all day long.”
Jones ignored the interruption “As I was saying,” he pulled up a list on the screen.
****************Screen Shot*******************
Lucky Clover (Combat Destroyed/Recovered)
1st Pirate Campaign (Omicron):
Armor Prince (Active/Repair Slip)
Royal Rage (Active/Repair Needed)
2nd Pirate Campaign (Tracto):
Queen Anabella (Captured: Combat Destroyed/Recovered)
Star Kingdom of Caprian Rescue Campaign:
Parliamentary Power (Combat Destroyed/Lost)
Elysium Campaign:
Metal Titan (Combat Destroyed/ Recovered)
Messene’s Shield (Combat Destroyed/Recovered)
1st Battle - Reclamation Fleet Campaign (unnamed star system):
The North Hampton (Active)
Victorious Alignment (Combat Destroyed/Recovered)
Pyramid (Captured/Needs Repair)
Norfolk (Captured/Repair Slip)
Liberation of Persecution (Captured/Needs Repair)
-50 various other warships or pieces of warships recovered
3rd Battle - Reclamation Fleet Campaign (4th Easy Haven?):
Battleship (Combat Destroyed/Recovered)
Battleship (Combat Destroyed/Recovered)
Battleship (Captured/Needs Repair)
Battleship (Captured/Needs Repair)
Battleship (Captured/Surrender)
Battleship (Captured/Surrender)
Battleship (Captured/Surrender)
Battleship (Captured/Surrender/In-Transit)
Battleship (Captured/Surrender)
Battleship (Captured/Surrender)
-153 various other warships captured or destroyed
*************End Screen Shot**************
There were satisfied nods around the room at the number captured battleships displayed on the screen. It was information we were already all well aware of, but it never hurt to play up our wins—especially after the devastating losses we’d suffered in the last series of battles with the Reclamation Fleet.
If this was what facing a covert Imperial fleet was like, I shuddered to think what an overt fleet would have been like. As it was we only won because they withdrew. I shook off such thoughts and turned back to the presentation.
As Military Commandant for Sector 25, I’d gone above and beyond the call to duty, once again presenting my back for the Governor’s dagger in the name of protecting the citizenry against the darkness—the same citizenry, if the Cosmic New Network’s holo-feed was to be believed, that actually hated and feared me more than ever.
Sheep-people who eagerly swallow every lie they see on the holo, I thought with disgust.
Well someday they’d go too far and they’d pay for it. Oh, how they’d pay...long and hard. Personally, I was thinking some kind of tribute arrangement, say a 5% gross domestic product surcharge. I mean, you can only keep hating me and electing leaders to stab me in the back for so long before I would no longer save you for free.
Oh, I would still save them, whether they asked for it or not, but they’d pay for the privilege. A lot of people said that life has a value that cannot be measured, but I for one had no problem measuring it and my calculations came down to saving you was a free service as long as I had the people and equipment. But hating or resenting me afterwards was going to cost you…and 5% of the taxes you paid for a couple years sounded like a burden I could gladly live with you shouldering.
I chuckled darkly.
“Is there something you wanted to add, Admiral? A problem with the index figures perhaps?” Rick Jones asked.
Rats, it seemed I was chuckling inappropriately; next thing you knew I’d wake up to find I’d been in cryogenic stasis for the past seven hundred years.
“No! Nothing,” I said hastily and then cleared my throat, “I was, uh, only thinking about the battleship repair schedule and what we could do with them after they’re crewed up and put into service,” I lied as convincingly as possible, seeing as I hadn’t been thinking anything of the sort. Although hopefully no one would notice as this was exactly the sort of thing I’d been thinking about off and on ever since we hit Gambit.
“Well I have a question,” Captain Laurent grunted, “we all know the battleships have names; why aren’t they listed for the captures from the 4th Battle for Easy Haven?”
“It was decided that because the majority of the captures happen to come from various worlds of the Spineward Sectors, it would be prudent to ‘rename’ them prior to putting them back in service,” my Flag Lieutenant said promptly.
“Well that doesn’t make any sense,” Chief Lesner pointed out, “as the four battleships we captured during our very first battle, back before we were just the Allied Fleet before that 25th Amalgamated nonsense, are quite clearly named.”
“Ah, I believe the decision was made after the 3rd Battle of the Reclamation Campaign and warships captured from the previous battles were grandfathered in so to speak,” Jones stumbled.
“That’s even more moronic. Who came up with that fool idea?” Commander Spalding demanded throwing himself into the conversation with both feet. “We’ve got something like a hundred warships of all sizes and classifications that are going to need new names now. Are we really going to pull people away from their jobs to form some kind of Naming Committee when there’s plenty of good honest work to go around? I mean just who came up with this nonsense anyway?” he demanded, looking around the table with a squinty eye.
I cleared my throat. “That would be me,” I said, not feeling embarrassment, No, not even the smallest tiny bit of it; I was completely guilt free, yes I was. “And it seemed like a good idea at the time but as always I am open to new information and new ideas on how to proceed,” I finished without so much as a twinge on my face.
“Look, Admiral, I’m as interested as any man in renaming one of these ships if there’s a name that’s just boiling to be used but do we really have time to fiddle around with renaming more than fifty warships?” the old Engineer snorted. “That’s the job for a bunch of REMF’s not honest spacers like the rest of us. Frankly it’s a slacker's dream come true: nothing but time to waste while they stroke each other’s back trying to get their pet names put up on hard working warships. Why I remember the time that-”
“Yes, thank you, Spalding,” I said clearing my throat, “a fascinating story for another time, but at the moment I believe the Ensign was in the middle of his presentation.”
“Yes, well...fine. Fine,” Spalding groused, reaching forward to pick up a spacer’s vacuum-sealed drink pouch, popping open the straw and taking a drink. “If that’s how you want to be about things….” He trailed off muttering to himself in a voice too low to be heard by most human ears—most, but not all.
“As I was saying,” Jones cleared his throat, “all of our Sector 26 and Elysium captures that could be repaired have either done so or been traded off.”
“To the droids, among others,” muttered Spalding.
“Yes, them,” nodded Jones, “as for anything else from our Sector 26 campaign, they’ve either been fed into the factories, stripped off of broken ships for tech samples, or used to repair others or are sitting in the boneyard waiting to be used.”
“For our captures from Task Force Three, we retrieved five battleships, one of which was in pieces, the other four repairable. One, the North Hampton has been placed into service. Another, Norfolk, is waiting on crew, a space trial and any further repairs, while the other two Pyramid and Liberation of Persecution are still waiting for a repair slip due to extensive damage, both external and internal from battle and boarding actions.”
“From what we’ve seen already, going through the battleships retrieved from Easy Haven it looks like both ships are
going to be pushed to the back of the queue,” remarked Baldwin.
“Quite,” Jones agreed, “in any case, regarding our most recent battle.” Here everyone in the room subconsciously leaned forward. “Two battleships were captured after sustaining serious engine damage, crippling both engines. The crew aboard one revolted, declaring they were done with the Empire and only wanted to go home. On the other the Imperials fought to the bitter end, forcing our Lancer and Marine force to sustain heavy casualties taking the ship—and doing nothing for the interior of the vessel, much of which will need to be replaced. The damage is thanks to our Lancers' efforts combined with deliberate sabotage from retreating Imperial officers and their ardent janissary crew forces.”
Take what you can and destroy the rest, I thought silently. Not a terrible strategy, to be honest.
“After that, we brought back the broken remains of two more battleship which are considered structurally unsound and designated to be reprocessed by our factories in Gambit,” Jones said, looking down at his slate as he read off the information while behind him on the screen were images of heavily damage battleships, one of which was missing the front fifty meters of the ship, “next we have another six battleships with minor to moderate internal and external hull damage, the former sustained again after the crew rose up, overthrew their imperial Reclamation masters and then surrendered their ships.”
“Similar to the situation with the six battleships that mutinied on their Imperial overlords, there is still the Praxis Battleships situation,” the intrepid Flag Lieutenant said, followed by a pregnant pause. “I didn’t add them to my list because their status was still unclear. I’ve asked before, but I was hoping you could clarify their status in this meeting, Admiral.”
My lips thinned and looks were exchanged around the room. It appeared no one wanted to be the first one to speak.
“'Situation' is a strong word,” Laurent said eventually, throwing out a softball to kickstart the conversation.
“I’d have called it a weak word, myself,” Captain Hammer riposted, lightly placing my two most frequent Flag Captains in friendly opposition to one another.
“Have we actually decided what we’re going to do with the Reclamation mutineers?” asked Spalding, changing the subject and no one seemed to object, except possibly Ensign Jones from the thin line his lips made at the old engineer’s words.
“I’m not sure 'mutineers' is the right word, Commander,” the Chief Gunner disagreed, “patriots or loyalists to planet and Sector, maybe.”
“No, they’re definitely mutineers,” Spalding grunted, “textbook definition. Disobeyed orders, shot or threw their officers in the brig, and it’s not like they were hiding out in the Jeffries tubes biding their time to take back their ships in some kind of classed-up counter-boarding, take-back-the-ship-from-the-invaders operation. They made their mark and signed on the dotted line as some kind of glorified Janissary crew and then shot their captains the first chance they saw. If that’s not a mutiny I don’t know what is,” he finished with a growl.
“And I’m saying that without them we might all be dead or worse, with the whole Spine soon to follow. So maybe out of a little respect there’s things that ought to be said and somethings that oughtn’t to be said!” Lesner glared at the crusty old cyborg. “Especially by those of us who have been involved in one too many mutinies and boarding operations ourselves!”
“I don’t know about others, but I stand by everything I’ve done,” Spalding shot back, “far as I’m concerned, I’m in the light. If I don’t like the man in charge of an enemy warship, I shoot her down and board her. If someone tries to take my ship out from under me in the name of his or anybody else’s Empire, I fight back and if they throw me in the brig for my efforts I bust out and come at them twice as hard, straight from the front and with overwhelming firepower. I’m not some parliamentary hack job ready to stab a man in the back, even as I speak out both sides of my mouth about how things both are and are not exactly how they be! So if those blokes are mutineers then by Murphy’s almighty space wrench they’re still a bunch of blasted mutineers!”
“Maybe that line of reasoning is why so many of my friends and fellow crew members were purged from the SDF: because a bunch of old guard spacers like you would rather standby and do nothing than cross some kind of arbitrary moral line,” Lesner snapped right back. “Maybe it’s a good thing my generation is in the driver’s seat.”
“'Maybe?'” Spalding said incredulously. “Are you stoked? Tricks are tricks, and deceptions are all fine and dandy in a battle or a war but right is right and wrong is still all-the-way-blasted wrong. Without a moral center you’re nothing more than parliamentary light! Maybe doing the wrong thing can be forgiven in the heat of the moment, when everything’s on a hair trigger, and then again maybe it can’t. But let me tell you a few things, Chief Gunner,” he glowered, “men like me and Chief Bogart may not have seen eye to eye on every matter 'twixt the stars, but when it comes to losing friends and colleagues we lost a whole of a blasted lot more than you young sprouts will ever know! You lost friends? We lost entire crews and graduating classes. We had anti-mutiny devices, missiles, turbo- and heavy lasers on our ships that might not have been able to win us back the fleet, but sure as all get out could have been dropped on cities and civilian targets if we had no ‘arbitrary moral center’. But right is right and wrong is still blasted wrong; even if they’re throwing your Captain in a waste recycler because he’s got the wrong parents, transferring your officers back down to the planet for Murphy knows what, and busting your petty officers back to able spacers!” Spalding had a fire and a fury on his face and a suspicious wetness to his eye I’d rarely seen. “We didn’t have the power to fix things, all we had was the power to destroy. Destroy our ships, destroy ourselves, maybe even wreck and destroy Capria herself but we didn’t. By Murphy’s sweet name, we refrained because unlike those elected butchers we had ‘arbitrary moral lines’ we would not cross. And thanks to that, you and I might no longer be welcome there but everyone back home still has a planet to fight and quarrel over. Your generation is in the driver’s seat? Well, Saint Murphy help us, my generation died so that yours could live long enough to try and set things right. Which is why I’ll keep calling things like they are until someone new decides to throws me in the brig for speaking out of turn.”
Lesner, his face still hard and closed, looked off to the side refusing to meet the old engineer’s eyes. But I could see that the old former Chief Engineer’s impassioned speech had made a deep impact.
“Let’s table the discussion over the actions of those ships' crews,” I said, deciding to speak up and break the impasse before it had time to set into stone. “We can circle back around later. The reconstruction was a tough time for those of us from Capria. All of us,” I added, placing myself on the same boat as everyone else and then sat back.
There was a pregnant silence. “Why don’t you continue your report, Ensign?” instructed Captain Leonora Hammer.
“Yes, of course, Captain.” He paused and then shook his head and then squared his shoulders and turned to me. “Just what is the status on those Praxis battleships, Sir? Two of them are listed as having an indeterminate status.”
As an ice breaker, it fell so flat I felt like smacking him upside the head but I manfully resisted the temptation. Being asked the hard questions and then being expected to come up with reasonable answers came with the job description. So I decided to recap recent history before going further into detail.
“Well, as we all know, obviously we sent one of them home loaded to the gills with their wounded and as many of the rest of their hale and whole officers and crew as we could fit on her. The same goes for the majority of their still functional lighter warships,” I said, thinking as I spoke. “And considering that they were all technically mutineers and traitors to the Sector, if not outright cowards for making a deal with the Reclamation fleet and then trying to cut and run in the middle of battle, I think we
were being pretty generous with them.”
Leonora Hammer snorted derisively.
“Generous?” repeated Lieutenant Hart, interjecting himself into the conversation. “That’s like saying 'what’s the big deal with the Praxis Battleships, we sent back one of the three last week?!'” he shook his head dismissively. “It doesn’t matter how many lighter warships were sent back, it all comes down to the wall of battle and how many of their capital ships they have in their hands at the end of the day.”
“Honestly, you’d probably have had a better reception if you’d executed all their officers for mutiny and then just shipped Praxis back their battleships rather than handing out blanket amnesty like you did while only giving them back one of the ships,” Captain Laurent observed.
“Amnesty?” I cocked a brow. “I offered no such thing; I sent them back to be tried by their own people, Captain.”
“Semantics, Admiral,” Leonora supported her counterpart, “you may not have called it that but effectively that’s what you’ve given them by sending them back home.”
“Agreed,” Laurent said.
“Besides, who said I only plan to send back one of their battleships?” I asked with a smile.
“You’re actually going to send them back?” Spalding asked brow furrowing.
“I didn’t say that either,” I smirked.
Both Captains at the conference table frowned at me, as did several others including Senior Lieutenant Steiner.
“Oh, all right,” I said unhappily, “I haven’t made an official decision yet because something might have come up. But Praxis betrayed the Fleet when they attempted to run away, and betrayed the entire Sector again when they tried to surrender to Reclamation Fleet in the middle of battle. Home rule back at Praxis in exchange for military support in the midst of battle, I believe it was? Sweet Murphy, why would I hand that kind of firepower back to them?” I asked rhetorically.
Admiral's Nemesis (A Spineward Sectors Novel: Book 11) Page 14
