Admiral's Nemesis (A Spineward Sectors Novel: Book 11) Read online

  In short: we’re screwed,” his former colleague said.

  “Bottom line,” agreed the former news anchor flicking her hair over one shoulder.

  “But we just won a major battle!” protested the Military Adviser. “Play that up and milk it for all it's worth.”

  Even Isaak had to shake his head at the naivety of that statement to say nothing of the other two in the room.

  “You mean the Tyrant of Cold Space won a battle, after the Governor ‘caved’ to his rapacious piratical demands and made him the virtual military dictator of the entire Sector,” PR rebuked. “We, on the other hand, took massive casualties because we were foolish enough to entrust the Tyrant with the defense of the Sector.”

  “But that’s complete poppycock,” spluttered Military.

  “Yet that’s exactly what’s already hitting the airwaves as news travels throughout the Sector,” Policy said viciously. “The public is used to successful police actions with dozens or possibly hundreds of casualties. They become absolutely incensed over extended actions involving several thousands of casualties in multi-year conflicts—and that’s when we ‘win.’ There’s no way we can weather this storm using conventional wisdom or conventional solutions,” he ended with finality.

  As one, everyone turned to look at the leader in this room.

  “Then it's time we stand convention on its head,” Isaak said resolutely. “Who was it that said 'one is a tragedy but a million is just a statistic?' I believe it's time to distract them from the whole ‘Tyrant’ issue, assuage their juvenile rantings' and give them that statistic.”

  “You’re actively courting a high body count as a way out of this mess? Interesting,” said Policy looking intrigued.

  “I’ve consulted with any number of people regarding this dilemma we find ourselves in, including my temporary Flag Captain,” said the Governor. “Bluetooth might not be right about any number of things, but he’s absolutely right that we cannot afford the appearance of caving to the MSP taking center stage. Not when we’re so close to consolidating our control over the Sector Assembly.”

  “Aren’t they the very body that’s threatening to unseat you?” Military said, brows climbing for the rafters.

  “The last painful bite of a dying animal, so long as we don’t bungle our follow up,” Isaak dismissed.

  “If you say so,” said Military.

  “A lot of talk but I’m still waiting to hear this great plan,” Policy said skeptically.

  Isaak shot him a quelling look. “I’m getting there,” he said shortly, “now, sadly, destroying the last of the Confederation forces, Easy Haven was out of the question for various reasons. Which leaves us looking around for another diversion to chum the waters with if we are to distract the public from our grievous loses. And, much as I hate to the very depths of my bones to admit it, Montagne is right about one thing: a war on the border would certainly help refocus attention nicely.”

  “But the risk...” the former news anchor looked horrified, “we don’t 'start wars,' we 'complete police actions'!”

  “Same difference,” Military shrugged before adding, “not that I’m for sending men and women out to die for poll ratings,” he said flatly, “because I’m not.”

  “It’s risky as hell, but no…I see it,” said Policy after a long moment.

  “The heroic Governor going boldly where the lackluster—or, dare I say, risk-averse or even cowardly MSP—feared to tread,” Isaak said, projecting a jaunty air into his voice completely at odds with the almost murderous look in his eye, “I think it has potential. And by pointing the public’s ire right back on the boogeyman we just defeated instead of the Government that oversaw those crippling losses…” He paused meaningfully.

  “It would be less risky than anything else I can think of involving the military, after all we did just defeat them,” said PR.

  “They’re a defeated force on the run and it would both help shore up his position nicely as well as kill any momentum the Tyrant might try to build in the heart of the Sector,” Policy said rubbing his chin.

  “Defeated force? Are you insane,” exclaimed the Military Adviser, “they left an intact force and it’s quite possible that, if they had stayed, we would have lost!”

  “A telling point but…the public doesn’t know that,” Policy pointed out.

  “And I don’t aim to tell them,” Isaak agreed, sharing a smile with his former ally.

  “I think we have the beginnings of a plan.”

  “You’re all stark raving insane,” said the Military Adviser.

  “Sometimes you have to take risks in order to get what you want in the games of power,” Policy chided.

  “Exactly,” Isaak leaned back in his chair, once again grateful that he had enough blackmail material to bury each and every person in this room if they dared to betray him. Because not just his political career but the fate of an entire Sector depended on what had been said inside this room. It couldn’t be allowed to leak…at least not before it was too late and could be vociferously denied.

  He smiled grimly. “Now that that’s settled, let’s see what we’ll need to do to get things set into motion. They say two years is too soon to start thinking that, but in my experience it’s never too soon to lock up a nomination and purchase a super majority of votes. After all, I have an impeachment to stave off, a reelection campaign to plan, and now a war to coordinate. Busy times.”

  Chapter 22: Grumbles

  “I’m telling you: it just isn’t right that we have droids running around willy nilly inside of Tracto. Droids! And there’s not a thing we can do about them,” growled the deck hand irritably.

  “They say the Little Admiral knows what he’s doing,” another said uncertainly.

  “It just isn’t right!” grumbled the original deck hand. “My great-great died back when to kick the machines out of human space. Tried to get them all until the day he died but,” here the hand spat onto the decking, “you can see from our current situation how well he did at that job. HA!”

  “Are you sure that we should be talking about this,” the second deck hand said looking around with worry, “if the officer’s hear—”

  The first deck hand frowned.

  “The day a man has to look over his shoulder about what he has to say about a machine is the day the machine overlords have returned and not so much as a second before,” another man said striding over a serious expression on his face.

  “They’re supposed to be our allies. I mean they did fight,” said the second hand, “at least that’s what the officers say. Right, PO?” he finished weakly, looked at the newcomer as if to make sure what he said was true.

  “Oh that’s true enough as far as it goes. Vice Admiral Montagne thinks he can play with fire and not get burned like our ancestors all did,” the new Petty Officer said with a shrug, “I wish him luck with that. I just don’t want to be around when the rubber hits the road and the droids show their true nature,” seeing the first hand pick up and the second hand looking concerned all over again he stuck out his hand, “The name’s Malcolm. Malcolm Sagittarius what’s yours?” asked the new man.

  “Ernie Seasons,” said the younger more squirrelly looking of the two hands.

  “Bert Bricks but everyone calls me Bee Bee and it’s a relief to finally hear someone around this place talking sense,” said the unhappier of the two, “you can’t trust a droid and that’s a fact!”

  “I just call ’em like I see ’em,” the Petty Officer shrugged, “and Vice Admiral Montagne seems to think he’s smarter the best thinkers of a thousand years and heck for all I know he may just be right but I won’t be holding my breath on that, that’s for darned tooting sure. One hand for the fleet and the other hand on the ladder for yourself and you’ll never fall down I always say.”

  “I just wish our supervisor felt the same way. Why the man practically worships the ground his Little Admiral walks on and must think the guy farts gold dusk the way he carries on someti
mes,” Bee Bee said with disgust, “and you’re right about that one thing. The day we have to shut up because we’re telling it like it is when it comes to those buckets of bolts is the day we see the beginning of the return of the machine tyranny!”

  “Man not Machine,” Malcolm Sagittarius said flatly.

  “Man not Machine,” the other two echoed dutifully.

  “Well hopefully the Admiral comes to his senses in time. Although like I said before I have my doubts on that front. As for your current supervisor he’s probably been with the fleet since the beginning. There’s no talking with that sort, they won’t see the light until the machines rub it in their faces,” said the Petty Officer with a sigh, “speaking of which. Do you two want to get an ale after work? I’ve got an opening on my work crew for a couple of men who know how to work and don’t want to ever see humanity back under the metal boot-heel.”

  “We will if you’re buying!” said Bee Bee

  “My pleasure,” the PO said looking over at Ernie speculatively.

  “I have to warn you I’m a teetotaler but I wouldn’t mind a change of scenery,” Ernie said quickly, “and the machines make me nervous too. I’m just not as eager as Bee Bee to have a notation put in my file. I don’t want to be an enlisted for the rest of my life.”

  “Oh-ho a man chomping at the bit to make officer I see!” Malcolm chuckled, “well we’ll either have to break you of that or help you start studying for the test.”

  “There’s a test?” asked Ernie with a sinking expression on his face.

  “Buckle boy, in this man’s star fleet there’s always a test,” the PO chortled, “better be ready for it or get such thoughts out of your head. Personally I never wanted to turn into an ossified piece of space rock constantly filling out paperwork but that’s just me. I know that some people seem to love pushing electronic files around at the end of a long work day.”

  “Well alright then,” Ernie said.

  “We have an accord. First the beer and then work party and after that I’ll get you set up with some of the basic material you’re going to need if you want to turn yourself into a space rock.”

  Chapter 23: Listing the Battleships

  “Okay Jones, give me the run down on our current build estimates,” I told the Ensign sitting back in my chair and giving him a skeptical measuring look. I was trying out Akantha’s idea of loading down the Ensign until something broke…or, rather, I just decided to expand upon her idea of offloading some of my nonessential duties upon my staff. The overloading of the uppity little snark basket had been an all original Montagne expansion of my own creation, on that I wasn’t feeling the least bit bad about.

  Nope, not a bit, I thought rebelliously as I stared at the Ensign. Normally I’d have at least felt bad that I didn’t feel worse about such rank exploitation of labor with the intent to find fault and fire my Flag Lieutenant, but Ensign Jones had managed to finagle himself a Jason-Montagne-can-get-out-of-psychological-pain-free card.

  They say 'judge the group, not the individual'…at least until after you actually knew the person. But when you knew an individual the way I did, the obstinate Jones judgment almost became a mandatory exercise. Still, let it not be said that I was one of those shoot from the hip, no redemption is possible Montagnes. Which is why I’d weighed him down so heavily that and I was still interviewing for my Chief of Staff position just so it fell to either him or me to pick up the load. And when the choice was 'go easy on Jones or spend more time with Akantha and the babies,' it was a tough call but Jones just seemed to lose out every time for some reason. Go figure.

  “Right,” Jones said seriously and then turned to begin his presentation, although worn down with dark semicircles under his eyes and with a slightly rumpled-around-the-shoulders uniform, he still seemed entirely on task and ready to go. Which was a shame really. Maybe I’d been going too easy on him?

  “As you can see here,” he continued, pulling up a graphic representing various ship types in flashing green, yellow and red bars, “I’ve broken out each group into broad categories. To wit: Battleships, Cruisers, Destroyers, etc..”

  I nodded, feeling sorry for the green line—the miniscule green bar looking small and sad in comparison to the near giants that were the other two colors—which of course meant I felt sorry for myself and the MSP. Oh, so many warships and so very few of them usable. It really was a sad state of affairs.

  “Green are our currently operational warships while yellow lists out those ships in various states of damage that Engineering and the shipyard consider repairable, while those ships in red have been down-checked for the breakers,” Jones reported, using his stylus to point at each bar. As that stylus touched each line it expanded, taking up more than half the screen and enlarging the statistics and ship images beside it before he moved to the next one, “That said, I have been reminded by members of the command staff that all designations are temporary, and that just because an inspector from one organization has down-checked a warship I am not to consider that status permanent until the other department has had a chance to look it over,” he said with a nod to one of the members in the meeting.

  “Darn right!” Spalding declared, leaning back in his chair with satisfaction.

  I sighed; my question dying in my throat before it had even drawn its breath. I mean, why was I even surprised? But surprised or not I wasn’t the only member of the team with a reaction to this new information.

  “And just what’s wrong with a yard inspection that it needs to be gone over twice to determine a ship’s status?” Yard Manager Baldwin asked Jones before turning to glare at Spalding.

  “Engineering has requested—” Jones started.

  Spalding leaned forward to hit the table with a hammer fist. “There's nothing wrong with the yard inspections,” he cut in, “the yard inspectors do a good job of telling us what the yard is capable of, but as far as I see it they doesn’t accurately reflect what Fleet Engineering is capable of.”

  “Oh, it doesn’t? And by that I suppose you mean that ‘Fleet Engineering’ thinks it’s more capable than a fully-fledged repair yard?!” Yard Manager Baldwin said, her voice rising.

  “Well I wouldn’t have put it that way, but if the shoe fits,” Spalding demurred.

  “Of all the off-base, pigheaded, stubborn nonsense,” Baldwin glowered, “that has to be one of the worst-”

  “As has been proven time and again, the Yard does its estimates and then Engineering gets the job done,” Spalding pooh-poohed, giving her an eye-roll, “like with the Jumbles, the yard down-checked them, saying they’d never fly again, but Fleet Engineering still found a way to get those ships back in the fight.”

  “And they didn’t fly again, not as the Battleships they were designated as, and we were asked to inspect for a return to service as ‘battleships’. Frankly, if you ask my opinion, those things are more properly designated as flying death traps! Entire sections listed as no-go zones, areas more likely to kill our own people if they go into them than the enemy are capable of threatening,” Baldwin protested looking my direction for support before rounding back on Spalding without waiting for my input on the situation, “and if it weren’t for the emergency situation and the fact that we thought it almost impossible to actually get them working, the Yard would have never signed off on their temporary designations as gunboat carriers.”

  “You’re just sore that the Glenda’s Disbelief lived up to her name sake,” Spalding said dismissively, “it’s time to admit you lost and moved on.”

  “You insufferable man, you can’t see past the end of your nose!” Glenda exclaimed. “The Yard could have done the same job you did in half the time and with twice the quality, with at least a 20% increase in boat capacity. But our focus was on following orders and getting battleships repaired and into service as fast as possible. Like we did with the North Hampton, a ‘battleship’ I’ll point out, unlike those junk carriers, and a job which we did at an amazing speed and which I still stand by! No
t like that junk Jumble job. A more misnamed set of ships, whose only reason for existing is an old man’s overweening pride, I doubt we’ll ever see again.”

  “Junk? Overweening pride??? The Disbelief was named for a reason—one that still seems very much valid to this old engineer,” Spalding stood up and shouted.

  “All right, I think that’s enough,” I said sharply, taking back control of the conversation.

  “But Sir,” the Yard Manager protested.

  “Admiral!” glowered Spalding.

  “I don’t care who did what. The yard has a proven record of identifying which ships they can repair and whereas engineering...er, Fleet Engineering, as it were...clearly has a talent for turning around ships otherwise thought irreparable in innovative ways, even if they don’t exactly return to us with the same designations they had upon reaching our engineer’s fine hands,” I said, trying to make peace. “All of which is neither here nor there, as this is Ensign Jones’s presentation not Fleet Engineering's or the Yard's. If either of you want to set up such a presentation for next week, please speak with Jones after this meeting when he has time to look at my calendar and see when I’m free again.”

  “Yes, sir,” said the Yard Manager.

  “Aye, Sir,” Spalding said, sitting back grumpily.

  I waited a moment to make my point. “You may proceed, Ensign,” I gestured to the other man.

  “Thank you, Sir,” Jones said a hint of irritation in his voice, not I think pointed at me so much as our two rambunctious colleagues. “Now, as I was saying before the interruption, in addition to the nearly destroyed Command Carrier—which both departments interested in the matter have declared irreparable with our current technology, yard and labor force—we have a number of other ships,” he clicked his slate to bring up a new image.

  “That’s right...sadly,” Spalding agreed unhappily.

  “Now, as I was saying, regarding Battleships—the pride of any fleet,” Jones continued an edge in his voice as he spoke, “I'll provide a brief recap for everyone present. Over the course of MSP history, not counting that portion of time under command of our late adversary Admiral Arnold Janeski, the Patrol Fleet has both gained and lost a number of warships.”