Admiral's Nemesis Part II Page 19

  “No! You don’t understand; we firmly believe as a people that a majority must be oppressed. It’s when you’re no longer a majority that—” the first ambassador continued stridently.

  “Shut-up shut-up, SHUT-UP!” cried an assemblywoman here as part of the Border Alliance voting bloc in the Grand Assembly. “Who cares about the messed up legal system you have on your home world? I certainly don’t! Stop whining and stay on task. My bill is coming up for a vote and you owe me a favor. Remember that each and every one of you owes me a favor and this vote is how you’re paying me back.”

  “But it’s not going to pass, Satira. You realize that, yes?” demanded the fat capitalist assemblyman, popping another grape into his mouth. “No one is going to vote to legally mandate a Confederation-wide 10-to-1 female-to-male birth rate. It's simply not going to happen.”

  “Of course I know it’s not going to pass! Do you think I’m insane? You lot are too stupid to recognize a superior social system even if it came and smacked you in the face. But so long as I can show the voters back home that I brought it up during my appointment, my seat on the Grand Assembly is covered, at least until the next election cycle back home,” she snapped.

  “Fine, I’ll vote for it,” sighed the obese ambassador standing up. “Aye!” he called out waving a hand at the temporary speaker sitting at the speaker’s podium.

  “Are we done here yet?” I asked Akantha. “I mean I’m sure this is all fascinating to some people but…” I shook my head.

  “Almost,” she said, her head swiveling around.

  “Looking for someone?” I asked.

  “There she is,” said Akantha, her eyes tracking on her target with laser focus.

  I looked at where her eyes were pointed. At first I didn’t see who she was talking about and then I spotted her. “Let’s go this way,” I said, pulling on her arm and turning to the left, “there’s a fine looking tray of finger food on that table over there.”

  It was like trying to drag a donkey or trying to drag a bolder with a rope. It wasn’t happening.

  “Dear,” I said quietly.

  “I’ll be right back,” she replied, patting my hand before seeming to almost disappear after she let go of my arm and moved away.

  I made a fruitless grab but unless I was ready to give up all dignity and go running after her…and for a long moment I considered doing just that, but even if I caught her, what then?

  Instead I decided to take that moment to appreciate the sway of her hips before giving myself a small shake and focusing back on the scene. All I could do was stand there and watch a good show.

  As Akantha approached the small group off Grand Assembly members crowded around a punch bowel set up on a small circular table, several of them looked up at the oversized woman stepping up to them with determination and an icy expression.

  “Do I know you?” one of the Grand Assemblymen asked, moving forward with a smile.

  Akantha brushed him aside. “Sub-Faction Leader Kern of the Anti-Droid Alliance,” Akantha called out to a golden dressed woman, with her hair piled up on top of her head and coifed together with a green dragon hair band made up of emeralds and green jade.

  “You,” Kern said, face immediately twisting with distaste.

  “Kern D’draco, I find your presence in these chambers a stain upon the honor of this institution. What do you have to say?” Akantha demanded.

  One Grand Assembly member gasped and several others were taken aback, instinctively stepping away from the growing confrontation.

  “If it isn’t the Tyrant's oversized little housewife,” the Grand Assemblywoman sneered. “Honor? The Dragons of High Planet don’t answer to likes of you, Gigantor. So feel free to crawl back behind your Grand Admiral where you can keep hiding behind his Battleships, like you have for most of your career in civilized space.”

  “You go too far, Kern!” Akantha said in a clipped voice, her eyes icy pools of blue fury.

  “You’re the one who thinks too highly of herself! Who are you to talk down to a Grand Assemblywoman in the Grand Assembly Hall of Spineward Confederation, in this of of all places? You’re nothing but an oversized barbaric hussy,” snapped Kern D’draco answering her own question, she then picked up her cup of punch and took sip, “yes, feel free to go back to your primitive hellhole. This hall is for ‘real’ members of the Assembly.”

  “If it weren’t for my Protector, you’d be dead, your cities rubble, and your polis occupied by Imperial soldiers. All I have to do is withdraw my hand and everything you own would be overrun by the Empire. You’re either brave or very stupid to slander me like this in public,” Akantha said, placing a hand on the hilt of her sword.

  Kern D’draco appeared delighted and a vicious smile crossed her face. “You overestimate yourself up and down the board, Akantha Zosime, Hold Mistress of po-dunk wherever you’re from. You’re not even a full member of this Assembly; you are just an ambassador and, unlike most of the people here, I’ve actually looked at the post-battle the intelligence briefings from my system’s SDF,” sniffed Grand Assemblywoman Kern. “That report makes it clear that any half competent Admiral, with the forces our Sector had assembled to fight the Reclamation Fleet, could have won the 4th Battle for Easy Haven. Instead we ended up with your half-incompetent droid-loving Husband who nearly destroyed us with his pyrrhic victory. Not that he would listen to any supposed orders you issued; you don’t have the clout to do anything here.

  “So feel free to go back to wherever you came from with your tail tucked firmly between your legs, because I assure you the Confederation Assembly has no interest in associating with droid-loving criminals or the spouses of droid-loving criminals who suck up to genetic uplifts and welcome the machine menace directly into their orbital home space to set up shop!” shouted Kern.

  “Speaking down to me is one thing, D’draco, but now you are insulting warriors sworn into my service. Prepare to defend your honor!” Akantha said in an elevated voice, looking down at the Grand Assemblywoman like she was looking at a snake.

  “You can’t touch me, you savage,” Kern snarled, stepping up to Akantha and glaring at her, “I’m a Grand Assemblywoman,” so saying, she tossed her cup of punch into Akatha’s face. “There. Now what are you going to do about it?” sneered Kern.

  Face twisting with fury, Akantha picked up the punch bowl and tipped the entire contents over Kern’s head. With a loud splash, the Grand Assemblywoman was soaked.

  “How dare you?!” cried Kern.

  “You want another one?” asked Akantha, reaching down to pick up someone’s half finished drink that was still sitting on the table.

  “You planet-bound little space wench!” Kern snarled, stepping up and slapping Akantha right across the face, “that’s how we deal with Tyrants in my—”

  Her words were interrupted by an open-handed blow—one that literally knocked Kern D’draco off her feet into a backward roll, sending her feet over her head. At the end of it Kern was left sprawling limply on the floor with the hem of her dress now up around her head.

  Someone screamed and the entire Assembly Floor turned almost totally silent—a first since I’d started coming to the Grand Assembly halls. The only sound to be heard was the clatter of her broken, dragon-shaped hair guard as it shattered and sent emeralds and green jade scattering across the floor.

  “If you won’t defend your honor then I’d advise you to protect your person. No one speaks to a Hold Mistress of Tracto like that and lives,” Akantha said with withering scorn.

  Most of the Assemblymen and women in the area backed away in fear, looking at Akantha like they’d just identified a crazy woman in their midst.

  “Guards!” shouted a Grand Assemblyman who’d been part of the initial group with Kern. Unlike the rest of his colleagues, who were fleeing for the exits, he was made of sterner stuff stepping between my wife and Kern D’draco and staring at her steadily.

  For a moment I felt a small portion of respect for the man.
From his stance he’d had some kind of training but from his overweight frame it had been quite some time ago. And yet there he was willing to put himself in harm's way—Akantha was a trained killer from a line of genetically engineered super warriors, and a simple glance at her would suggest as much.

  Then I was moving to the side, to cover my wife’s left flank, and I forgot any regard I had for him.

  “Back off, Jack,” I warned, standing on the balls of my feet and ready to intervene if necessary.

  “Security!” shouted the temporary Speaker as the doors leading into the Grand Hall were thrust open and more than six quads of mixed power-armored and plain-clothed security guards came running into the room in our direction.

  “The slap heard round the Sector?” Akantha asked, looking down on Kern D’draco who was just now moaning and coming around. Fear immediately covered the other woman’s face and she promptly half-crawled, half-rolled over to hide behind the Assemblyman between her and Akantha, “If you can’t even slap better than that you need to hire yourself a defender. My slap will have been heard across the galaxy,” Akantha shook her head at the other woman.

  “You crazy space witch!” she screamed, coming to her senses and seeing Akantha looming over her Kern immediately cowered behind one of the assemblymen near her.

  “Touch my Protector again and I’ll kill you. In my world when a powerful woman lays hands on another woman’s Protector it is a declaration of clan war,” Akantha said as security arrived around us with stunners pointed at our heads.

  “Hands on your heads!” shouted a security officer.

  “I want this crazy woman in chains. I’m pressing charges,” Kern screamed, regaining her aggressive personality as soon as Assembly Security had us surrounded, “you’ll never see the light of day, Akantha Zosime.”

  “Diplomatic Immunity, Kern; I’ll never even see the inside of a prison cell,” Akantha scoffed, turning away from the anti-droid Assembly woman to the men who were threatening to stun her if she didn’t immediately comply with their orders, “you need to learn that threats are a weapon for the weak. The truly strong would have no need to talk; they would simply crush their opponents as I have done to you.”

  “You!” shrieked Kern D’draco.

  “On your head!” screamed a guard, shoving his stun-gun into Akantha’s back.

  “Touch me again and Tracto is withdrawing from this Assembly,” Akantha informed the security guard.

  “You should probably cooperate, Dear,” I said, putting my own hands on the top of my head even as I silently cheered her on. Sure, this wasn’t going to help our public image, but it was a lot of fun nonetheless.

  However, almost as soon as I laced my fingers together one of the guards swept my legs out from under me and I was hit in the back of the head by something on my way down. Before I knew it, I was swarmed by more security guards then I could count.

  “Don’t move,” screamed a security guard, landing on my back with both knees and when involuntarily twitched from the force of the blow someone immediately punched me in the ribs twice.

  “Hey!” I shouted.

  “Shut up!” screamed a guard, jerking one of my arms behind my back and forcibly attaching a magnetic cuff while another seemed like he was trying to tear my other arm off.

  While I was busy being assaulted on the ground and restrained with magnetic cuffs, I could hear Akantha arguing with whoever was still trying to arrest her.

  Until, finally, the master-at-arms arrived personally and ordered his men to escort the ‘Tracto-an Ambassador’ off the floor and directly back to her shuttle with no stops, and certainly brooking no if’s and’s or but’s.

  He eventually realized I was present under the pile of a half dozen security officers holding me down when they started tazering me.

  “Get the Admiral on his feet and escort him to the same shuttle as his wife,” bellowed the Master-at-arms, “we’ll let the Assembly Ethics Committee decide if and when they return. For the meantime, outside of a direct summons you’re banned from these Halls, Grand Admiral.”

  “Me? I didn’t do anything! I surrendered peacefully,” I choked out in protest, my body still twitching from the multiple electrical shocks.

  “This’s for my cousin who died under your command in Easy Haven,” hissed a Guard, jamming me in the armpit with needle.

  Two seconds passed and then I could feel the familiar tingle right, before a full load of combat heal hit my system and I started to convulse as it began working on healing my body in the most brutal way possible.

  “My people were just doing their jobs,” replied the master-at-arms with a shrug while I was still convulsing from the combat-heal, “there’s no reason to complain. I doubt you’ll have so much as a bruise on you. Unlike Assemblywoman Kern, only your dignity was assaulted,” he finished dismissively as his guards hauled me away.

  I all but choked on anger as I was literally dragged out of the room by a pair of guards meanwhile Akantha was escorted out of the room as if she were in the middle of an honor guard.

  We were what felt like halfway to the tarmac when I finally recovered enough to shrug off the security guards dragging me by the shoulders and get to my own feet.

  I glared at the stone-faced guards who, if anything, looked pleased with how things had worked out.

  “Take these manacles off,” I said, holding out my hands to the guard on my left.

  “Dream on. A Grand Assemblywoman was attacked,” scoffed the Guard, “you’ll be uncuffed when you get to the shuttle.”

  “This is outrageous,” I said, motioning toward my wife who was walking alongside and slightly ahead of me now without having so much as a hand on her, let alone magnetic cuffs!

  “Learn to live with it,” advised a sergeant behind me.

  “Just take them off,’ I protested, “I mean she’s not even restrained and she’s the one that attacked someone!”

  “She’s not the Tyrant of Cold Space,” said the Sergeant turning her face away, “you’ll be out of them shortly.”

  One of the guards who’d been dragging me leaned over toward my ear.

  “I’d start learning the feel of cuffs. Kern’s not the only one unafraid to speak truth to tyranny,” he hissed in my ears, “no one here in the Central Star System cares for an intergalactic criminal that’s strong-armed the Assembly into being put in charge of our Sector’s Defense Fleet. Especially after the way you proved you really were a pirate, after all, by stealing all of those warships. My sister fought and died against the Imperials so that you could what? Just steal all of those ships she died capturing? I don’t think so…Tyrant!”

  His words were followed by a shove against my back so hard I was almost sent sprawling to the ground, only managing to keep my feet by stumbling repeatedly.

  I caught my balance just in time to see several smiles—which quickly disappeared as soon as they saw me looking among the guards and my heart instantly hardened. I used to have the foolish and misguided belief that the Assembly guards were professionals who would abide by their oaths of office but no longer.

  “Where’s our Lancer detail?” I asked, looking around for the first time and realizing they were missing with a silent pang of alarm.

  “They’re shadowing us one hallway over,” Akantha informed me.

  I shook my head and fumed as I walked in my rumpled uniform with my hands locked together while she strolled down the hall like she was a queen.

  “We’re going to have a serious talk once we get home,” I warned, already imagining what damage the smuggled holo-vids of me being beaten and then dragged out of the Grand Assembly Hall was going to do to my public image.

  I could tell I was going to take a definite dive.

  “Yes we are,” she said sternly and I could see the hint of a smile appear on the faces of our guards at this hint of marital strife. I wondered how long it would be before one of them sold a recording of our perp-walk and conversations to me media, before Akantha continu
ed, “honestly, the way you keep allowing underlings, people like these guards, to treat you is disgraceful. It’s a disgrace borne not only by yourself but by your Fleet, Messene, and the House of Zosime—notably in the person of myself!”

  “I allow them?!” I exclaimed instantly enraged and lengthened my stride to catch up with her.

  “The prisoner will refrain from making any sudden moves until you reach the shuttle,” warned the Guards behind me, reaching for my shoulders and hauling me back.

  Akantha shook her head at me and I was forced to wait until we reached the shuttle and our own security force of Lancers once again surrounded us before I was free to speak my mind without being interrupted of physically assaulted.

  “Blast it, Akantha, what was that?” I snapped as soon as we were inside our shuttle.

  “That was showing Kern and, by extension, the rest of the Assembly that you are my territory and that any mistreatment of you will be met with a swift response. Even if it wasn’t as decisive as I wanted,” she said.

  “No, I get that,” I said and then frowned, “that was not decisive enough for you? Sweet Murphy, Akantha! But that’s not what I want to talk with you about.”

  “No, it wasn’t,” Akantha cut in while I was mid-breath and struggling to make sure I didn’t say something we’d both regret in a moment of anger. “She’s still alive isn’t she?” my Sword Bearer asked darkly. “And stop whining about the guards.”

  “Whining?” I glared.

  “I wasn’t lying when I said that if it had been one of my people, another Hold Mistress or powerful Lady-Holder in Hold, there would have been a body count. No outsider woman lays hands on my Protector in a social scene without hearing from me about it,” she growled, “as it is, I’m considering a side trip to High Planet. Do you remember when I went to Capria on my own? There’s no need to concern yourself. I can handle this with just a few of the smaller ships.”