“Oh, my mistake. I didn’t mean you could give them permission to land. I meant your wife!” He said this last sentence as though it should have been obvious from the outset.
I groaned. “Mr. Harpsinger, as I’ve tried to tell you several times, I am not, nor have I ever been married. And even if I was, I don’t see how a wife could give me permission to land settlers on Tracto VI,” I shook my head in disgust. The man was clearly reverting to subject matter which was more comfortable for him, that having to do with nuptials and their eventual cancellation. “I think it's best you leave my office and go back to your duties,” I said, "thank you very much for your time."
“Uhhh,” the future divorce lawyer looked nonplused, then he grinned, “Right, that’s the way to play it Admiral,” he said with a wink. “If you didn’t even know you’d entered into a marriage, you couldn’t be charged with exploiting a primitive native with intent to defraud her planet, land settlers and steal the Trillium resources of a restricted system,” he said with admiration, I menacingly stood up behind my desk. “You’re sharper than you look, Admiral. I don’t know why you called me over in the first place, but I assure you that even though I’m technically not a lawyer, I’ll still consider this a privileged conversation.”
He didn’t get any further because by this time, I was already around the desk and had grabbed a hold of the man’s shirt.
I pushed, although it might be better called a shove, Mr. Harpsinger toward the door while maintaining a grip on his collar.
As the man staggered, I pulled out my hold out blaster pistol. “I have no idea where you get this intolerable idea that I’m somehow married and that this miraculously fixes all of our problems, but the suggestion that I’d exploit a traumatized native woman for my own personal gain is reprehensible. You have two seconds to clear my office before I put a bolt through your leg and make you crawl out.”
Mr. Harpsinger’s eyes were like saucers. “You mean you don’t know? You really have no idea,” he stuttered.
“One,” I said, my voice low and steady, activating the weapon and pointing it at the crewman. The whining sound of the blast pistol rapidly charging up filling the deathly silence.
The paralegal/hopeful lawyer threw himself on the floor, “Forgive me, Admiral. I thought you knew,” he wailed, groveling on the floor.
“Knew what,” I screamed. I wasn’t sure if I could shoot this man just for insulting me, but I knew I most certainly couldn’t do so while the man was on the floor.
“It's all over the ship by now. Everyone knows,” said the man, his faced pressed into the floor.
Furious, I fired a blaster bolt into the deck beside the man’s head.
“Ahh!” screamed the crewman. “The Lady Adonia Akantha Zosime, one of the Natives you rescued from the Bug ship. She’s going all through the Lucky Clover with a handful of natives and an Armory detail in battle suits. She has a translator and says that security stole her sword, and that if the crew doesn’t help her find it, her husband will execute them all as traitors. The sword, the legendary vibro-blade Bandersnatch,” the Crewman wailed.
“What? Who?!” I yelped in surprise. This was a complete disaster, the crew knew about the sword. That blonde witch… “No,” I said, as a horrible thought occurred to me. It couldn’t be.
“She said you personally gave her the sword when you were rescuing her from the Bugs on the Scout Marauder. Which, in her culture, is the equivalent of a binding offer of marriage. She talks like she’s someone important down on the surface, and since she says she’s married to you, I just assumed you knew,” the crewman said. “Forgive me Admiral, I didn’t mean to insult you. That’s why I offered my congratulations."
I, Admiral Jason Montagne, Prince Cadet of the Caprian Realm, Governor of Planetary-Body Harpoon, and (until now) the unknowing husband of a blond ice viper, sat back in my chair stunned.
When Officer Tremblay broke into the room with a blaster pistol in hand, I didn’t react except to look at him. I let the holdout pistol fall from my hand dramatically.
The pistol in the First Officer’s hand wavered for a split second before settling on the crewman on the floor. Taking note of the scarred surface of the deck beside the man, he glanced at me.
“Are you alright, Admiral,” asked the First Officer, sounding concerned, but I'm sure it was less-than-genuine.
He ought to be concerned, though, considering the right mess whoever commanded this ship was in. It all suddenly made sense. Why the First Officer wanted me back in command for this momentous decision. Because either way you sliced the dice, from the First Officer’s perspective, whoever was in command of the ship had to make a decision that would either oversee the death of countless settlers at bug hands, or else see them tried and executed as a band of marauding planetary pirates when they got back to port. All for daring to save some colonists.
I reached into the desk drawer and found a half full bottle of Gorgon Iced-Ale the Imperial Rear Admiral had left behind. I had never in my life experienced a Gorgon Ice-ale before. They said it tasted like peaches that exploded in your mouth and went down like liquid ice.
There had to be a first time for everything, I thought. I tipped the bottle back and took a slug. Yee! Space gods, it was better than they said. Or at least, it was more explosive.
“Sir? Admiral, are you alright,” demanded the First Officer.
“Fine. Just fine, Officer Tremblay,” I said, and everything felt distant like I was looking at it through a glass. I gave a negligent wave to shoo him out. “Carry on, Lieutenant. The crewman and I were just having a conversation and he unknowingly gave me some very bad news,” I said, unconsciously falling into a royal drawl, like my uncles back at the palace liked to use.
“On the other hand, I think we’ve stumbled upon a solution to our little settler problem. One that has the potential to leave everyone happy,” I said, staring at the Gorgon Ice-Ale. “Well, nearly everyone. Nearly,” I said, tipping the ice-ale toward the first officer before taking another slug. I had always known I would die, I just hadn’t known at whose hand. For the last week, I had been sure it was at the hands of a hit-team sent by Parliament, or perhaps my disaffected crew, almost certainly led by the former Intelligence Officer masquerading as my second in command.
But I’d been wrong. Dead wrong, as it turned out. I laughed half heartedly at my own non-joke. Whatever they’d given me down in medical must have cleared my system by now, which was a pity. I could use a sense of humor right at the moment. I’d been wrong because they would never get the chance. It seemed a certain blonde lady, currently turning the ship inside-out in search of a legendary Caprian sword, would get first dibs on that dubious honor. She’d be the death of me, not some faceless minion of elected officials back on the home world.
No, it was going to be some woman I had saved from being eaten alive. Who says no good deed goes unpunished? Well, it was safe to say that whatever was going around had just come back around with a vengeance.
Perhaps it was time to see how drunk I could get on half a bottle of Gorgon Ice-Ale?
Unfortunately, the answer was not as drunk as I might have liked. This discovery was soon followed by the realization that I was one of that unlucky fifty percent who were allergic to Gorgon Iced-Ales. Very allergic, as it turned out.
Medical had to rush up to the Flag Bridge to pump me full of some sort of anti-allergenic.
Having skin so delicate you couldn’t even itch it for fear of drawing blood was one of the worst experiences I have ever had. A constricted airway could only kill a man. An unrelieved itch was nothing but pure murder.
Chapter 28: A Sword, Some Food and a Family Visit!
Adonia Akantha Zosime. Not many men get to know the name of their murderer. Of course, not many learn the name of their future wife after they get married, either. So I suppose it all came out in the wash.
Was that Lady Adonia or Lady Zosime, I wondered. I was later to learn that she didn’t like either addre
ss. Zosime went with her title, but Akantha was what she preferred to go by.
I mostly failed to add the Vekna at the end of my name too, so I wasn’t one to cast stones, but in this case I suspected that whatever I said would have been wrong. I tend to think that whatever I said, she would have changed what she preferred to be called just to spite me and say I was wrong. But, I get ahead of myself.
I had already talked with the Belters and growled at them enough that they thought the idea of staying was entirely their idea. One they forced on me, and I still wasn’t entirely reconciled with it. That way, they couldn’t easily back out later once the going got tough, which if recent history was any indication...
If I was going to have to protect Tracto VI against a Bug invasion, I was going to need more than just one ship. I needed a fleet. Not a fake one like the current Multi-Sector Patrol Fleet. A real fleet.
I figured I had to consider most, if not all of the current units in my fleet as lost. Their planetary governments were all going to recall them sooner or later. I was laying money on sooner, personally.
I didn’t know where I was going to get a fleet yet (which ignores the fact that the ship I already had was still far from combat-ready), but as soon as I had one I was going to need a base, and who better to help with that piece of logistics than a bunch of orbit-dwelling Belters making a killing on Trillium mining? They needed me to protect them, and I was going to need free fuel and at least basic repair facilities for my ships. I say free fuel, because I suspected that my fleet was about to be listed as a paper tiger as far as anyone picking up the pieces of our government in the Confederated region that was the spineward sectors was concerned.
I certainly couldn’t expect any of the planetary governments who’d contributed ships to the MSP to foot any of the bills. If I asked them for that, they’d just take their ships back all the sooner. The Confed Government on the other hand, if it managed to rise like a phoenix from the ashes left behind by the Imperials, wasn’t going to want to fund a force headed by a mistake like me. So I was extremely doubtful they’d agree to pay for anything more than crew wages, if that.
We were on our own and I needed crew, ships and support. I didn’t know how I was going to get all those things yet, but I had to start somewhere. So I started with the Belters.
Next on my list should have been to tell the Caprians that I was giving them the Belter hyper dish. I still might, but for now they could wait. It was far more important that I actually secure permission for my rag tag fleet of refugees to stay on the planet without fear of a lynching. I could worry how I was going to protect them, probably without the Lucky Clover whose crew wanted to return home badly (although I hadn’t given up on her yet), later.
In the mean time, I had to convince a woman who thought we were married (and who, for the sake of political expedience I at least had to continue to let believe that) to help me convince one or more planetary nation states to let me protect them from the Bugs, and allow me to land my settlers.
Knowing what I did of that icy snake, offering to saving her life and that of everyone she knew in exchange for landing my settlers and mining a bunch of Trillium she had no use for wasn’t going to be enough. She’d shown she would rather let others die than do something she didn’t want to.
I knew at some point I was going to have to replay every conversation we’d had in light of the whole marriage angle, but right now I was still too raw. I felt like I was being forced into some kind of old style dynastic marriage where the illusion of free will was still there, but in reality all options save one ended in hundreds of thousands dead. But in return for being a good boy and saying 'yes' at the altar, I’d get a bunch of new responsibilities and some strategic assets to play around with.
On top of that, I had to simultaneously take any and all of the blame she decided to throw at me for initiating the marriage in the first place. I felt like the dirtiest sort of prostitute. I hadn’t known that throwing her a sword was the same as tossing a ring at a woman you didn’t know and offering marriage. All I had known was I was giving her a weapon with which they could save their own lives. What I hadn’t known was that with everyone watching, the only way she could pick up Bandersnatch and save them was if she agreed to marry me.
I felt dirty and used. I mean, at least she had someone to blame. What about me?
I had no one to blame but myself. I, who could have at least tried to walk away after it was all explained to me, fully intended to accept my scapegoat status as long as I could leverage things so that a quarter million refugee settlers didn’t die in cold space at the hands of foul, power tool-wielding Bugs.
That didn’t mean I was going to just stand there and take it. If I was going to sacrifice myself on the altar of saving their lives, then the least these verbally ungrateful settlers could do was help me out a little along the way. Which was why I was slowly maneuvering the Belters right to where I wanted them. All the while getting ready so that if they ever tried to back out, I could back them into a corner when the time was right.
I still hadn’t decided with the Caprian Settlers. If they wanted to stay, I supposed they could be useful. On the other hand, I had enough Caprians who hated me in my life already. If the Caprian Settlers wanted to leave, then I wanted them gone. The Prometheans, on the other hand, owed me their lives. To their credit, the ones on my ship seemed pretty grateful about it. So maybe I could work something out with any of them that wanted to stay long term.
I was committed. The Belters, in their unbridled greed, had also committed themselves, as far as I was concerned. There was no way I was letting those greedy ingrates fly off at the first sign of trouble. If the Prometheans and the Caprians wanted to take their chances all by themselves out on the dangerous space lanes, they could be my guests and I'd gladly let them finish off the ship's stores of Gorgon Ice-Ale at the farewell party.
I had a system to protect from Bugs and a world that would take them anytime they wanted. Or so I hoped.
I was still thinking about all of this when the corridors between us had all run out, and far too quickly for my tastes, there she was.
Adonia Akantha Zosime, a blond ice maiden native to Tracto VI, with white Nordic skin and a stare that looked right through you and found you pitifully wanting. My pit viper in human form. My (I nearly choked on the thought) wife.
Sweet Murphy give me strength.
I tried to muster a smile, but suspected I only managed an ugly rictus as I approached.
She looked at me hopefully, but when her eyes didn’t find the sword in my possession, she scowled. “Done seeing to the thousands on your war-boat, I see,” she scoffed. “Destroy any mountains lately, or did everyone just run screaming at the sight of your ugly face?”
“Lady Adonia, or is it Zosime?” I asked, “We need to talk.”
“No! We need to find my Bandersnatch,” she snapped. “I can never return home until it is found,” she finished dramatically, as if that explained everything. Then she turned to continue tossing the room she was in.
Around us were the Armory detail and the crew that had been with the Chief Engineer. When you threw in a bunch of her native companions, people were strung out all up and down the corridor and not incidentally listening in on our every word.
Great, I couldn’t even be as frank as I might have wanted to be under other circumstances, not with all these big ears stationed around us. I sighed.
Inside the room was the Chief Engineer, helping toss the quarters. He had a woeful expression when he turned to the pit viper. “I’m sorry, my Lady Akantha, it's not here either,” he said with too much of a twinkle in his eye for my liking, as he led her out of the room and down the hall.
“We’ll need to check another one then,” she said commandingly.
“How’s about we try this one next,” said Spalding.
Ignored, I had no choice but to follow in their wake.
She nodded regally as if this was entirely acceptable with her, and
upon entering the room proceeded to tear sheets from beds and cut open any cushion that might be about the right size to hide a sword. The engineers, armory men and natives that were with her joined in with a vengeance. I noted that there was close to an even number of each in the room with her, even though there were varying numbers of armory, engineering and native people spread out in the hallway.
Clearly, everyone involved wanted a part in the tossing of quarters alongside their Admiral's new wife. From their reactions to her, and the faces of the people in the corridor, the ice snake had slithered her way into their affections like the cold-blooded reptile she was, and if I didn’t put a stop to this soon, she’d have everyone eating out of the palm of her cold, scaly hands.
I even noticed a swarthy Promethean woman following around behind the ‘Lady Akantha’ picking up after her, despite the destruction everyone else in the room was making, and looking at her with worshipful eyes.
The Promethean woman came close enough to me to whisper, “Isn’t she so nice! You picked a good one, my War-Prince.”
Admiral Who? (A Spineward Sectors Novel:) Page 29
