Court-Martial (Horatio Logan Chronicles Book 2)

by Chris Hechtl

  @^@

  Commander Lopez groaned as he saw the live media report. Letting them on the scene had been a hazard in his opinion, but one he'd been overruled on. The brass had wanted eyes on the scene to show the panic and possibly show the melting walls and drive the point home about the threat. Now it was seriously backfiring. He shook his head as the chimera commander tore the plan apart.

  “Cancel the nuke. It's time to disappear before someone makes us disappear permanently,” he grumbled.

  @^@

  The media checked on the report during the commander's first impromptu press briefing. An intern found the recordings and confirmed the old reports and navy press briefings that the replicators were indeed in a different facility. “Commander, just a moment,” the Veraxin anchor said, interrupting Weaver.

  The chimera paused and cocked his head. “Yes?”

  “We've confirmed coverage of the replicators. According to our previous coverage and the navy's press briefings, they were indeed put in secure storage, those that weren't installed in Ilmarinen that is. This is definitely looking suspicious,” the Veraxin anchor said carefully as the chimera's ears and tail flicked in relief. “We are waiting on confirmation from the navy however …

  @^@

  Admiral Draken went into Omar's office and watched his reaction. He was clearly furious, gripping the putter he'd been toying with like it was a club he was ready to use on someone. “I should have never left that bastard in uniform. I should have bounced his ass—him and all of the others—tidied up those loose ends. Obviously, that was an oversight that needs correcting,” Omar growled as he continued to watch the media talk about terrorism and who was the culprit.

  Sherman turned his head to silently watch the screen as well.

  “So, we've confirmed from our own sources that the replicators were not present at that facility. What could have done this, Commander?”

  “Plasma. A lot of it. We're taking samples now. Forensics teams are coming on scene once damage control techs clear the scene of hazards. But as an engineer, I'd put my money solidly on plasma.”

  Admiral Childress ground his teeth as he watched the tiny Commander Thistle on screen explaining that the nanites have a shutdown if they were ever outside their container. “They shutdown and self-destruct. Period. This was a bomb.”

  “He's right about that,” Admiral Draken murmured, nodding as Omar turned to him. “I read it in the write-up about the replicators when I was concerned about their safety.”

  Admiral Childress grunted in irritation and then turned back to the screen. Apparently, he and his people had missed that, he thought in a brief spat of self-recrimination.

  Commander Thistle cocked his head as he remembered the report of the ONI commander and the package. “There was a commander, ONI I believe, who insisted the package get through security when it set off the alarms,” he said out loud as he scanned his implant memory for the relevant files.

  Admiral Childress groaned out loud. Admiral Draken turned to him in alarm.

  “Mother fracker …,” the human admiral said, just loud enough to be heard before his voice went silent. His lips continued to move with curses, however, as the interview continued. He turned to his desk and stabbed the intercom button with his thumb hard. “Someone please get this little shit off the air!” he demanded. “NOW!”

  “Yes, I've got the records here—a Commander Felix Lopez. I've got the video too,” the commander replied.

  “Can we see that video?” the anchor asked eagerly as the commander frowned pensively.

  “I don't know the status of the investigation. I'll have to wait for permission to do that,” the chimera replied carefully. “Obviously, he'll be wanted for questioning. I don't want to prejudice the investigation.”

  “Well, thank the gods for small favors,” Omar said sarcastically, shaking his head as the anchor went to a commercial. He set the putter down on the desk and used a remote to turn the audio off for the moment.

  Admiral Draken shook his head as the implications began to sink in. “Did you do this? Omar, please tell me you weren't this stupid.”

  Admiral Childress glowered at him. “It should have worked.”

  Admiral Draken closed his eyes in pain. The petulant statement was all he needed to hear. In fact, he didn't want to hear any more. “You did.”

  “Yes, I wanted to unite everyone! We all fear nanotech; we know why. They need the reminder!”

  “And now it's blown up in our face. Do you realize this is making things worse?” He shook his head. Omar was a creature of the patron game. He could play that game to perfection, twisting people to his purpose. But schemes like this … he just didn't have it in him to do it right. He obviously had no contingency planning. He'd been lax in that regard in a lot of his planning as of late, choosing to try to bull through situations without planning ahead or for the worse that could happen.

  In short, it wasn't something a proper admiral should do. But getting him to see that … was unlikely he admitted to himself.

  “How so?” the human admiral scoffed. “We control the investigators remember? We'll spin this and stall until something else happens and then let it quietly die. Nothing will become of it.”

  “Omar, damn it, you are insane.”

  “It could have worked. Look at what I was doing! I'm on the side of right here! Our backers want this! We need to reunite and get back to work!”

  “Yes, I am seeing it!” Admiral Draken snarled, waving to the vid screen. “The whole damn star system is! People are now asking how that bomb got through our security! Who is this commander? It's not going to go away, Omar!”

  “It will. This is just a blip. A setback I admit, but it's a blip. We'll spin this.”

  Admiral Draken stared at him in shock. “You …”

  The human thought long and hard. “We can spin this as a terrorist attack. Obviously, the nanotech angle won't work anymore. But we can say someone is out to disrupt the navy. We've had problems with terrorism in the past, nut jobs who get paranoid. I'm sure there are a few out there Ss'k'ttthhh can dig up.”

  Sherman shook his head. “Did you have this in mind for a fallback or are you making it up now?” he asked, staring at the other flag officer.

  “Well, obviously, I've got to improvise.” Omar replied, clearly nettled about having to do so. “We've got to improvise to salvage what we can of the situation,” he said. “Damage control,” he said, practically spitting the words in his ire at how it had gone wrong.

  “Great, so this part is improvisation. You know how often such things go wrong? You had no contingency plans at all?” Admiral Draken demanded, clearly aghast at the concept and trying to drive the point home to the human.

  “It was working fine until that damn little shit of a commander came on the scene! He ruined it! Who invited him anyway?”

  “This is a nightmare,” Admiral Draken muttered as Admiral Childress started to pull up information on his tablet.

  Omar stared at it for a moment, and then turned to him. “Well? Are you going to help or what?”

  “I shouldn't. I should leave you in the mess you created, damn it,” the chimera growled. Omar paused to stare at him. “But I'm in too deep to quit I guess. Fine,” he sighed. “How do you want to spin it?”

  “Terrorism obviously. We'll keep it short and simple,” Omar said brutally, abandoning his plan.

  “We leave the parties unknown. Don't point any fingers,” Sherman replied. Omar opened his mouth but a look from the chimera made him close it again. He grunted and then nodded.

  “Fine, fine,” he muttered.

  “I'm sure we can find someone to have done the deed, but I don't want any inconvenient problems with the truth to come out. We've got enough of that with the trial we're currently mired in,” the red admiral grumbled. “So, keep it simple, keep it vague, and the continuing byline is that we're investigating.”

  “They'll want answers,” Omar said, switchin
g to devil's advocate.

  “We let our people say it went cold. Fingers off, push but don't push too hard,” Sherman replied.

  “Okay so …”

  “Hang on, loose ends,” Sherman replied. “You'll need to find a way to deal with them. Ship them off somewhere. Don't get cute and try to silence them, that will scare one or more into coming out to the media which is the last thing we want.”

  “Agreed,” Omar said reluctantly.

  “And hands-off that, Commander,” Sherman warned. Omar scowled blackly. “I mean it,” he warned, holding up a long finger and claw. “Don't so much as slap his hand. Hands-off. We'll warn him about talking to the media without permission at a later date. Any sort of slap down will make us look bad. We can't afford that.”

  “I suppose I can wait to sort the little shit out once and for all,” Omar growled.

  Sherman shook his head. He started to protest and then gave it up as a waste of effort. Instead, he focused on damage control.

  Chapter 32

  “Obviously, we're working with NCIS and ONI closely to find the perpetrators of this heinous act of terrorism,” a familiar female voice said. “Their current suspects are the mutinous faction who I'm afraid are not afraid to use violence against those who wear the same uniform as they do,” Captain Prescott said on the vid screen.

  “Whatever they are paying her, it's not enough,” Commodore Diao Yashido said in admiration.

  “She's probably been promised a promotion to flag rank. Why they are making her sit there though without giving it to her after all the other damage control she's had to shoulder …” Commodore Ross shook his head.

  “They could promise the moon and she'd still have a hard time selling it at this point. But this, there are enough cynics out there to make it fly, at least short term,” Commodore Yashido stated. “I've seen the polling numbers; odds are even now. This could tip things in their favor.”

  “Do we know who really did it?” the Veraxin chief of staff asked carefully.

  Commodore Ross shook his head. “Do you have to guess? We're obviously not being kept in the loop; they aren't coordinating with security at all. But I'd say Childress did it in order to unite everyone against nanotech and Irons. All you need for proof is that scream about nanites that came out initially. If that commander hadn't been around to stop it, we would have had a system-wide panic.”

  He looked over to Commodore Yashido. The chimera was the twin brother of Commodore Yukio Yashido who was over in Bek B. Most likely she had also gone over to the loyalist side. He wasn't certain how Diao had found out about him and his people. Diao just smirked when he asked.

  “And Childress would have used a nuke to destroy the site to protect everyone, come out like the good guy, and destroy all evidence in the process. Nice,” the Veraxin president said. Getting the officers into the same place with him had taken a lot of nerve and work. He was glad to see at least some personnel were loyal to Admiral Irons, but they were so few in the upper ranks. Childress had done too good a job getting flag officers in place who were strictly loyal to him.

  “True. What gets me is they are making up a lot. I don't know if that is good or bad,” Diao said. He glanced at the president. He'd taken a big chance going on leave while his ship was laid up for resupply. He'd been impressed that the government had managed to find each of the officers a body double to replace them while they had a chat.

  It was clear from some of their comments that the president and civilian government were watching the trial closely. It was pretty clear that the talking heads in the media were also getting involved. Admiral Childress was clearly unhappy so much was getting out despite the gag orders. Everyone who was in the know knew that he was also not happy about the perception that it was a rigged trial. Many made jokes about small fiddles when they could.

  “So, what do we do?” the president's chief of staff asked. “Obviously, no one will relieve him. But we're getting a lot of pressure to do something soon. And believe it or not, some of the industrial concerns are getting involved since the fleet has virtually shut down all construction.”

  “I'd imagine their bottom lines are getting hit.”

  “With all the layoffs, I think it's safe to say that,” the chief of staff replied signaling first-degree wry agreement. “We aren't very popular either. Part of it is because we are seen as impotent, we can't rein Childress in. But we are also getting hammered for the state the economy is in. And for the life of me, my staff hasn't found a way to turn it around.”

  “Not good.”

  “What can you do?”

  “Right now? We're hunkering down and building contacts. It is dangerous; we don't know who to trust,” Commodore Ross said carefully. “Unfortunately, none of us can get close to him.” Just getting time off himself hadn't been easy. A medical emergency had been contrived to get him some time off groundside, but it wouldn't last. “My brother would love to charge all of them but he can't. His hands are tied by Admiral Shren. There are people in uniform, good people who want this to end, but they can't get past Childress's people to do it.”

  “Not without starting a bloodbath we all don't want.”

  “It might have to come to that in the end if it means saving lives,” the Veraxin president said glumly.

  The silence after that statement made more than one person in the room uncomfortable, but none denied the statement.

  “My suggestion is to hit him where it hurts,” Commodore Yashido suggested.

  “Oh? Do tell,” the Veraxin president asked, signaling first-degree curiosity.

  “Hit him where it hurts the most other than his pride. It is in the pocket book. You've been playing games with the taxes I understand. It might be time to do it again.”

  The Veraxin chief of staff looked at his boss with all four eyestalks. “We have budget talks in progress. If we get some of our party to withhold the money for the military, it should make life interesting.”

  “Get them to want a clarification from Admiral Irons on some point? Force him to communicate with the Federation?” The Veraxin president asked. “That will play for time.”

  “Agreed.”

  “And it will mean the military personnel will be owed back pay. That won't sit well for some. The same for contractors; they have bills and people to pay,” Commodore Ross stated.

  “Okay, we've got something there. What else?”

  “Well, sheltering personnel is good. Offering government jobs is as well. I suggest starting government start-up loans and programs to veterans. Small business loans or some such, something to get them off their butts and into the economy. Many veterans have side professions they can rely on.”

  “An interesting idea. We can explore that. It will give us some cover that we're trying to do something economically.”

  “I suggest investments. The diverted money for instance can be sequestered. The interest from it could be used to, oh, fund a ship or something.”

  “A ship?”

  “Just a suggestion, a sublight ship obviously. You could sell some to military veterans too. And you can invest in government communications satellites too, for instance, between here and Bek B.”

  “Which will allow us to keep in contact with Bek B,” the Veraxin replied. “Without going through Childress.”

  “Exactly.”

  “We'll explore those options. Other ideas?”

  “Well …”

  @^@

  “That line about attacking brother and sisters in uniform, that was a nice one,” Captain N'll'm'll said in admiration. He was more than a little nervous about the commodore being away. The resupply was taking up a lot of his time, but he had still found some time to talk to some of the other officers in the flotilla.

  To keep up with how things were going of course.

  “Nice for her, yes. It makes some of our people think twice,” Captain Joan Coglin grumbled. Her ship was also laid up for resupply. Logistics was one of the few departments that wa
s running smoothly. She wasn't certain if that was a good or bad thing.

  The hell of it was, if she thought it was a bad thing for a department to be running smoothly, something was really wrong she thought.

  “Which is why I said it is nice. I didn't say for our side,” Captain N'lll'm'll replied dryly.

  “Did we do this?” Captain Coglin asked carefully.

  “Oh, hell no!” Lieutenant Fillmore said, shaking his massive head. He was glad the commodore had left him behind. There was no way he could have gotten in with them groundside, and besides, he wasn't big on skulking around. “We had no part in this. This is all Childress. This was planned, and now he's gotten his ass in a crack and is shifting the blame to us. Since we're the 'mutinous faction,' we are the violent extremists.”

  “Even though he's the real one in mutiny. We need to get someone to make that point clear,” Captain Coglin stated.

  “Someone other than us,” Captain N'll'm'll stated. “If we came out, we'd all be dead.”

  “Agreed. We need to get our own people in Bek B on camera. And we need to get people like that Commander Thistle or whatever his name is. He's going to get crushed by Childress for what he did. Childress is stupid and vindictive enough to do it too; mark my words.”

  “I know. And I know leaving him there, exposed so people see Childress do it, will set an example that can be seen both ways. I'm of two minds about him. He obviously didn't resign and come over to us though.”

  “No, no he didn't, which tells me he's an honorable person. He obviously has no loyalty to Childress. He has loyalty to the system. And by the way, it is Thistle. He's from the Federation too,” Lieutenant Fillmore stated. “He is the real reason Logistics is running as smoothly as it is.”

  Captain Coglin grimaced. She didn't like the idea of losing the chimera's services.

  “True. So, what do we do?”

  “We work on the public affairs part and keep reaching out to our people we know. Build contacts. We'll act soon enough but on our timetable,” Captain N'll'm'll stated.