He never thought he’d see the day that leaders in the Assembly started carving off portions of the Confederation for their own personal power and political agendas.
Even when Granthor Danth accused the Speaker of betraying his sworn duty and called for a no confidence vote after the passage of the bill, he couldn’t bring himself to care.
Seven Sectors lost with just a vote and a stroke of the pen… It was a day that would live on with infamy in the course of Confederation history
Or it would if former Admiral Charles Thomas had anything to say about it.
Chapter 34: Finding a Cartoonist
“Now that things have settled down and we finally have some breathing room, it's time that we began to deal with one of the most deadly and pernicious problems facing myself and this fleet,” I said, stepping into the room filled with my newly minted Admiral’s staff and catching my Chief of Staff by her eyes.
Lisa Steiner drummed her fingers along the desk as the half dozen highly trusted, but mainly new and junior, officers in the room stilled.
“Things have been rather peaceful of late, Sir. What exactly are you thinking of here, Admiral?” she asked.
“That’s exactly it,” I said, thrusting a finger at her, “things have been peaceful but we’re still under attack!”
“There have been no attacks on our shipping, the fleet, or any of our bases that I’m aware of, Admiral,” my new Tactical Officer, Ensign Jean Pierre, said with his brow wrinkling, “unless there has been a classified incident that I’m not aware of?”
“No-no-no, it’s not our shipping or warships that are under attack, not even our planets,” I declared, slapping the table with an open hand. “It’s our morale and recruiting efforts that are being impeded.”
“How so?” asked Jean Pierre.
“Are you referring to agents on the ground in the worlds we visit or the Cosmic News Network hit pieces on the galactic news channels?” asked Steiner.
“The CNN hit pieces. They all but pander to the Sector Government and I’m afraid that if they’re allowed to continue, the moniker 'Tyrant of Cold Space' will stick in the public’s mind and poison them against us. To say nothing of damaging fleet morale, causing otherwise stout new recruits to waver in their dedication,” I said flatly.
“Well I’m afraid we’re too late; when it comes to the mind of the public, it's already sunk in, Sir,” Steiner replied.
“Blast it, Steiner, that’s not what I wanted to hear!” I exclaimed.
“The general public of the Sector may be lost to us, however your point is well taken when it comes to the other Sectors. We are only just starting to get news into Sector 25 from 23 and 24, and the reverse is true as well. A good PR campaign, now that we’ve just started real trade, could work wonders not just outside this Sector but now that you mention it within it: from Tracto to the Border Alliance and even inside our own fleet,” she paused to think. “Now that you mention it, this is a great idea, Sir!”
“It is?” I asked involuntarily, and then mentally switched gears. This was the advantage of having a competent staff: they not only told you what you didn’t want to hear, but then started to come up with solutions! Now it only remained to see if what they came up with was any good… “I mean, of course it is. I came up with it originally. So pitch me: what have you got?”
“Well, first we need to start with our own fleet and then expand outward,” she said, as if that were the most obvious thing in the world.
“Right,” I agreed instantly, “we need to ensure the loyalty of our own people first and foremost, then—”
She put a hand in front of her mouth and coughed. Loudly.
I stopped mid-sentence and pursed my lips at her.
“Well actually, Sir,” she said with only a brief touch of hesitation, “I was thinking more along the lines that it would be best to create an office and staff it initially with people from the fleet. When you mentioned the recruiting drive, it really drove the notion home to me and gave me an idea. I have one person in mind right now from when I was doing recruitment, who might actually be able to help us get started.”
“Okay…” I frowned and then brightened when I decided that her idea for new staff already was forward progress, “who have you got that could help with this?” I asked, imagining maybe she’d met a former politician, news reporter, political analyst, or maybe even a planetary intelligence agent during her journey to fill my fleet with warm bodies. Possibly even someone who’d give up their former career service in the fleet, I wondered mentally rubbing my hands in anticipation.
In all likelihood, there were untapped resources within my reach that I’d just been too busy, too preoccupied and frankly just too stupid to tap until now.
“Along one of our routes I met a young cartoonist who I think can help us,” she said with relish.
My warm and fuzzy image of a highly trained counter-propaganda professional eventually joining the team came to a sudden and screeching halt. “A cartoonist?” I asked with disbelief. And if I were to be brutally honest, I was feeling more than a little betrayed at the moment. I mean, here I was trying to rally a serious counterattack against the Cosmic News Network and the Governor and Assembly of Sector 25, and the best my team could come up with was a cartoonist?
“Yes, exactly,” she said eagerly, pulling out a data-pad and pulling up a holographic image file on the office projector. The image of a gangly, acne-covered face began to rotate in the middle of the table. I drew back, instinctively distancing myself from this unreliable appearance.
“This is the individual you are recommending to counter CNN and the Sector government’s multi-faceted smear campaign?” I asked, gesturing to the teenaged acne-ridden face of the supposed cartoonist with a growing frown. In the depths of my own mind, I immediately began to try compiling a list of potential firms I could call upon back in Capria to try and scrounge up some talent. I didn’t directly know of anyone, but surely one of the high profile talent agencies could be used to discretely approach someone with the right skills to build a team for enough credits…
“I was thinking we might need a script writer and a production team consisting of several crewmembers designated for tech support, but the general direction would have to come from the command staff,” Steiner explained, quickly tapping out a table of organization for the new team, “our main focus is, or rather has to begin, winning the hearts and minds of the new crew of this fleet. So we’ll have to start there.”
I shook my head in dismay and cast my gaze around the conference room looking for support against this crazy idea. My gaze swept around my new admiral’s staff and finally landed on one of the few members of my old command team.
The old engineer was sitting with his head bobbing forward slightly in a way that indicated he was close to falling asleep. “Spalding,” I said sharply, “what do you think about Ms. Steiner’s proposal?”
Spalding immediately sat up with a snort. “W-what?!” he demanded, sounding bewildered.
“I said what did you think—” I patiently repeated.
“I heard you the first time, lad!” Spalding barked, and then turned to the petite lieutenant. “Just what was it you wanted to do, Lieutenant?” he asked as if he'd just arrived and hadn’t been sleeping through the entire presentation.
After Lisa Steiner had repeated her plan, Spalding glowered thunderously and threw his hands in the air.
“That’ll never work,” he declared.
Steiner’s face instantly turned glum and I nodded with satisfaction. Maybe now we could finally start getting serious about things?
“Are you sure?” Lieutenant Steiner asked crestfallen.
“Absolutely. You might as well forget the whole thing,” Commander Spalding said with the weight of absolute seniority.
Steiner wilted.
“There’s simply no way a bunch of ham-handed junior officers, pardon the expression,” he looked momentarily contrite before continuing with satisfaction,
“could possibly give the sort of direction needed to get the proper storyline off the ground! No,” he shook his head sadly, “there’s no way you lot will be able to manage it on your own. This is the sort of project that’s going to need senior supervision. A seasoned hand, as it were; a man with experience in just the sort of webinars and short holo-videos like you’re intending to produce,” he declared, visibly swelling up.
While I slapped my forehead with a hand, Lieutenant Steiner cheered clapping her hands excitedly. I had to wonder why I’d expected anything like reason to come spouting out of the old engineer’s mouth.
Now that the old engineer was preparing to throw himself into the mix, it looked like I’d probably have to go along with this farce while running a side effort to get a real team of experts to help fix my negative PR image.
“What do you suggest?” the petite Caprian Lieutenant asked eagerly, prompting me to hastily move to interrupt.
“Are you sure that your time wouldn’t be better spent on more serious projects?” I quickly interjected. I knew it was weak sauce but…
The chief engineer’s face scrunched up until it resembled nothing more than as sour lemon. “The Clover’s laid up in dry dock and I’ve finally got the interfering hands out of the way so she can be fixed up proper. But a man has to pick his battles,” he said reluctantly, “and those yard workers are just so ham-handed sometimes a man can’t help but give them a few pointers now and then,” his eye picked up a gleam, “that’s why this project will be just perfect. It’ll give everyone time to settle down, especially a certain someone, and then as soon as they’ve gone lax and set in their ways–BAMP—” he slammed his hands together, “they’ll never know what hit them! They want documentation, do they? Well, we’ll document everything and then we’ll see who likes to play the documentation game, yes sir, we will,” Spalding finished with relish.
There was obviously a bigger story hidden in there somewhere, but I wasn’t at all interested in Spalding’s paperwork/women troubles—especially when I had more than enough such troubles of my own.
“I don’t want any slacking, Spalding,” I said severely, “hiding out from a woman is no excuse for putting aside work that needs to be done—especially when it’s in favor of making a cartoon!”
“Why, I never!” Spalding bawled with outrage, puffing up like an angry puffer fish just landed on the deck of a boat. “Me a slacker? Why, I put in twice the work of a man half my age and ten times as much as any man with my number of years would even consider!”
I eyed him skeptically.
“Why, this won’t just be any cartoon; this will be the best series of web-video you’ve ever seen. And this coming from a man with direct and personal experience with this sort of matters,” Spalding swore, crossing his heart as he vowed.
“Direct personal experience?” I scoffed.
“I may be old and over the hill nowadays, but I was a legend in my own time—and don’t you forget it, boy,” Spalding sneered in response.
A legend in his own mind, anyway, I silently amended.
“I had more clicks, hits and downloads than any man had a reasonable right to,” Spalding said waxing nostalgic, “not that I didn’t pocket the money, mind ye. You should have seen the ad revenue! It didn’t make me rich, far from it, but it was a darned sight better than mud in the eye that’s for blasted sure. Why, there was one time...”
“Yes, yes, and finally yes again,” I said, waving the proverbial surrender flag, “I’m sure you’ll be a great asset. Welcome to the team.”
“Thank you,” Spalding said with satisfaction before seeming to remember I’d called his work ethic into question and giving me a glare.
I rubbed my forehead as I sat there, listening to my Chief of Staff start bouncing ideas off my Chief Engineer and, almost despite myself, the more I listened to them, I started to catch part of their enthusiasm.
I mean I still didn’t think it would work, but I had to admit this sounded a lot more fun than ordering men, women and warships to their deaths and destruction.
Of course, only time would tell.
Chapter 35: The Cartoonist Arrives
“Alright what do we have on the agenda today?” I asked with a grin and striding into the conference room like I owned it… which technically speaking I pretty much did.
“The Lucky Clover 2.0 continues in the space dock; it’s still missing half of its antimatter generators. Which it doesn’t look like we will be able to build for several months and Commander Spalding refuses to have it move out of the dock for builders trials,” Lieutenant Steiner said pointedly.
“Now wait just a creeper-scrapin' second,” Spalding surged out of his chair and onto his feet where he proceeded to stride back and forth along the side of the table, “the Clover’s not finished, not by half! Half the antimatter containment fields aren’t even finished and that doesn’t say anything about the antimatter itself.”
“Which I already pointed out,” Steiner cut in.
“Plus there’s only so many of those spinal projectile pellets,” Spalding shot back, eyeing her sideways while staying focused on me, “which means we need to source more antimatter, and let me tell you that tryin' to build a generator is not only risky—”
“It’s also technically illegal,” Steiner shot back.
“Yes, it’s blasted well illegal!” Spalding finally gave up and rounded on her. “It’s also bloody dangerous! An explosion could destroy the entire factory before it’s even built and even with the new containment fields I wouldn’t trust working in such a factory myself. Too much radiation. It’s one thing to ride a warship into battle, at least you can turn the blasted things off in between need and let the ship idle on the fusion generators—they call it 'hazard pay' for a reason—and it’s another thing entirely to work in a facility that’s going full steam day in and day out.”
I opened my mouth.
“And that’s not being a coward that’s called seeing reason!” Spalding growled.
I closed my mouth, even though that hadn’t at all been what I’d been meaning to imply.
“I see,” I pursed my lips, “but we need more antimatter, yes?”
“Yes, we need more,” Spalding said.
“So where can we get it?” I asked.
There was a pregnant pause as the old engineer looked as if he’d bitten into something sour.
Finally the petite little former com-tech tapped the table. “That’s where the droids come in,” Steiner said.
Spalding growled, looking one part embarrassed and two parts discontent.
“What’s all this?” I asked, looking back and forth between the two of them with a frown.
“The Chief Engineer thinks that because it’s illegal,” she started.
“And blasted hazardous!” the Chief Engineer chimed in and then shook his head furiously. “Plus I’m not the one saying this here, you are!!”
“It was your idea,” she pointed out.
“Anything a machine can do, a man can do just as well or better if he has the proper amount of time to mull things over,” Spalding shot back. “Which is why I rejected and decided not to bring up the whole matter.”
“Well, you’ve had time to ‘mull’ things over. So what’s the new plan?” she asked.
Spalding fell sullenly silent.
I held up both hands and made a T with them. “Okay, hold on here. I feel like I’m being left out of the conversation as well as brought into it halfway through. Just what is the sourcing problem and your,” I paused and then quickly switched terminology, “I mean ‘the’ proposal?”
The Lieutenant looked at Commander Spalding with a cocked eyebrow. It was a ‘do you want to tell him or should I?’ sort of look and it was honestly starting to irritate me. I started rubbing my thumb and middle finger together in a suggestive movement.
“The problem,” Spalding said heavily, breaking down with a sigh, “is that the nearest source of antimatter is in the Confederation. Well, the
nearest legal source anyway. Technically it’d be illegal to make it anywhere in the Spine, except maybe Tracto because they haven’t signed any of the peace and war conventions. Beyond that, buying it would be expensive and shipping it here would be both slow and expensive. I don’t say 'ruinous' because of the trillium mine, but if there’s anything more expensive to buy than trillium it has to be antimatter,” the old engineer explained.
“Expensive, far away, hard to find and slow to transport. Does that about cover it?” I said with an intent look. “Unless of course we make it ourselves.”
“Commander Spalding’s been looking into building an antimatter plant but…” said Steiner.
“What's this 'looking into building' business?” Spalding scoffed, “I made a test bed and fired it up.”
“And what happened?” I asked leadingly.
“Well, it works and produces antimatter but the radiation levels are no joke. We can expand it from test amounts to serious production but working there long-term...” Spalding frowned.
“Which is where the idea of turning the facilities over to the droids comes in,” prompted Steiner.
“Why droids?” I asked, imagining the PR nightmare if this leaked out. I could see the headlines now:
Tyrant sells means to make antimatter to droids.
Followed by:
Tyrant purchasing antimatter from machines to terrorize his enemies. Is the Spine really safe?
“There’s nothing illegal about purchasing it, Sir,” Lieutenant Harpsinger interjected.
I turned toward him with a mildly surprised expression.
“The main restrictions are on usage but even more than that on manufacturing,” the Fleet Lawyer continued.
“That’s where the loophole comes in,” Steiner added helpfully.
I frowned. “But droids...” I repeated slowly. Now, I’m not a bigot here for not wanting to sell the means of producing what was potentially humanity's ultimate weapon of mass destruction to the United Sentients Assembly. Really, I wasn’t. It was all those other bigots, about 95%+ of humanity, that were bigoted and would have a cow if they found out what I had to worry about.
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