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  If he, Isaak, dared not move against him then no lesser personage could be goaded into taking action against the Grand Admiral either.

  In short, the Governor of Sector 25 and Speaker for the Grand Assembly of the Spineward Sectors was fit to be tied.

  That’s when there was a chime at the door.

  “I’m busy,” he barked.

  The door chimed again.

  “Not interested—whatever it is!” he shouted mashing down the intercom button and holding it.

  “It’s me,” said his Policy Adviser, “you’re going to want to hear this.”

  For a several seconds, Speaker Isaak considered strangling the top political wheeler and dealer among his direct subordinates before re-mastering his temper.

  “Come in,” he said sullenly.

  His balding and grey-haired counterpart, an associate from their time together in the early days of the Provisional Sector Assembly—or 'rump government,' as it had been known to some—walked unhurriedly into the room.

  “This had better be good, because right now I’m considering assigning you to monitor sewage processing numbers for the next quarter.”

  “My, how we have grown testy as our political star has waxed high,” smirked Policy.

  “I have the form right here,” Isaak said, activating his computer, “and what good is all that power if I am completely constrained from doing one of the very few things I need in order to survive this office?”

  “Send me to process reports at a sewage processor and you’ll never hear the most interesting news I have to tell you. I promise it will lift your spirits,” said Policy.

  “I highly doubt that, but please do tell,” Isaak said, rolling his eyes.

  Policy promptly pulled out a portable jammer and placed it on his desk after activating it.

  “It’s like this. I was standing near Norman Watts,” started his grey-haired adviser.

  “Who?” Isaak asked sharply.

  “The daily speaker from Sector 22 who the computer selected to go out and roll over for the ‘Grand’ Admiral during his last visit. He’s an ineffective idiot, no one of any import,” said his adviser with a sharp smile.

  “Go on. If he’s not important then why—?” Isaak prompted.

  “It’s not him but his fellow assemblyman from sector 22 I overheard speaking to that you’re going to want to meet,” advised Policy with an intent expression, “they were talking about warships. Whole fleets of them…back home.”

  Isaak sucked in a breath.

  Twenty minutes later, an Assemblyman from Sector 22 the Speaker had never seen nor heard of before stepped into the room.

  “Your man of affairs indicated the Esteemed Speaker of the Assembly wished to engage in discourse with me?” asked a man in robes and a head wrap that must have been traditional garb back on his home world.

  “Discourse…yes, I suppose I do,” Isaak said, smoothly moving past the odd word choice without missing a beat. He assessed the man in front of him through narrowed eyes before finally feeling like he’d got a bead on him.

  A professional diplomat or low level politician of some kind thrust into power as so many of his ilk generally were, the assemblyman appeared reserved yet interested and slightly impressed at being granted an audience with the top politician in the Spineward Region.

  “Speaker?” the average-sized, brown-skinned Assemblyman from Sector 22 asked. Deciding the man was just a little too average to be the bland politician he portrayed himself to be, the Speaker silently pegged him as a mid-to-high level fixer back on his home planet.

  Feeling like he had a basic measure of the man, Isaak nodded decisively.

  “Let me be blunt. Right now I’m interested in a mutually beneficial arrangement between my Sector and your world, Grand Assemblyman,” said Isaak.

  The other man looked at him with consternation. “I’m afraid I’m already a member of my Sector’s main faction and I cannot pledge to join or support your bloc if that’s what this is about, Speaker,” the Grand Assemblyman said with regret.

  “While I’m always stumping for votes, that’s not the issue today,” Isaak smiled, still wanting a better feel for the man before proceeding.

  “I have a number of legislative initiatives that my government would be more than willing to work with you on—” the other man started.

  “Do you know what the biggest threat to the Spineward Sectors is, Grand Assemblyman?” asked Isaak. The other man’s eyes narrowed. “The Empire and Grand Admiral Montagne,” Isaak said cuttingly.

  The other man opened his mouth and then closed it, looking down. When he looked back up at the Speaker, it was almost as if Isaak was looking at a completely different man.

  “What do you need, Mr. Speaker?” the other Politician asked, looking at him directly with the barest hint of a smile.

  “The Empire I can deal with one way or the other, but Montagne is insane. He’s a rabid idealist who would rather go down fighting than reach a reasonable accommodation. If things continue like they have he’ll die and we’ll all be strung up by the neck,” said Isaak.

  “All of us or just you, Mister Speaker?” asked the other man.

  “Considering he’s taken to using biological weapons of mass destruction, Bugs, I think it’s safe to say I won’t go alone” Isaak said, pulling out a new flimsy and tossing it onto the table, “go head. Take a look. The latest reports from the Black Purgatory.” The man began to peruse the document in silence. “We could all be implicated,” Isaak added as the other man continued to read.

  The Sector 22 Representative’s lips made a thin line after he finished reading and looked up. “Why not simply dismiss the man, assign him to another part of the Sector, or promote someone over him? Grand Admiral Manning appears to have the loyalty of a sizable contingent inside our Grand Fleet,” observed the Grand Assemblyman, “it sounds as if the battle was won. Would it not be possible to simply arrest Grand Admiral Montagne?”

  “Forgetting the fact we sent him out to win against impossible odds and he actually pulled it off? The Grand Assembly of the Spine would never go for it,” snorted Isaak, “there’s also the little fact he’s constantly surrounded by loyalists, and his own Patrol Fleet would rebel if other units in the Grand Fleet tried to move against him. Then, of course, there is my own history with the man. He trusts me…not at all,” said Isaak.

  “It seems you have yourself a problem,” advised the Assemblyman.

  “We have a problem,” Isaak insisted, “right now the Empire’s on the run in the Spine, but fortunes change as quickly as this,” he snapped his fingers, “and they will make no distinctions if they put us in front of a tribunal and we failed to immediately disavow the man.”

  “I’m not hearing any good solutions here,” the 22nd Sector Assemblyman said after a moment, “since technically he’s an allied officer and not in any way a part of this government, we could always argue we had no power over him.”

  “Do you honestly expect the Empire to accept that?” asked Isaak.

  “No. But how sure are we that our defeat is inevitable?” said the Assemblyman.

  Isaak bestowed a withering look.

  “If the Empire wasn’t engaged in another war on the other side of the galaxy, we’d already be singing the Imperial anthem. But wars end and, with the Old Confederation looking the other way, all they have to do is send fleet after fleet. Even if we had five years to prepare and a fully functional government coordinating the effort, we couldn’t stop them,” said Isaak.

  “So a peaceful settlement of some sort is a must,” said the other man.

  “Which brings us back to Montagne,” said Isaak.

  “Send him home with an official protest and disavow him as quickly and as thoroughly as possible,” said the Grand Assemblyman.

  “In the middle of a campaign? You read the same report I did,” Isaak said, closing shut the trap he’d been laying.

  “We may have won the battle but sizable chunks of the Old
Confederation fleet escaped,” agreed the Assemblyman, who took a deep breath. “Dismiss him from the Fleet and order him back to Tracto immediately.”

  “The Grand Assembly would never go for it unless…” Isaak trailed off suggestively.

  “Would the calculation change if you knew my people had been gathering a sizable relief fleet?” asked the Grand Assemblyman.

  Isaak silently scoffed. His sources indicated his world had assembled a sizable fleet for the defense of their Sector and they originally intended to only send a small portion of it to reinforce the Grand Fleet of the Spine.

  “You have enough ships to replace the Tyrant and the Multi-Sector Patrol Fleet?” Isaak asked eagerly.

  “Why you insist upon using that derogatory name, both here and in the media, to denigrate the Grand Admiral is one of the things I find hardest to understand about you people,” the Grand Assemblyman said crossly.

  Isaak immediately backed off. “I may not be the most impartial when it comes to the Montagnes, but look it up. His people have a history of leaving nothing but carnage and destruction in their wake,” he said.

  There was a pregnant silence.

  “So,” Isaak put out there, “just how many warships are you able to commit to replacing Jason Montagne and saving all of our necks?”

  The Grand Assemblyman rubbed his chin.

  “My home world is a leading member of a bloc of...concerned star systems. and half of that fleet was intended for our Sector Guard,” said the other man.

  “This is no time get stingy,” advised Isaak.

  The Grand Assemblyman nodded sharply.

  “Alright, I’ll advise my world to send that fleet on my authority. The first contingent of our ships should arrive at Black Purgatory within two weeks,” he said.

  “That fast!” Isaak’s eyes widened with surprise and growing alarm. Then he leaned forward, “How many?”

  The Assemblyman smiled.

  “If we can commit to one hundred warships, with fifteen of this initial number Battleships, that is more than enough to replace the battle damaged survivors of the MSP with fresh warships from Sector 22. A month after that, if they agree with my recommendation, we could see as many as another fifty warships joining the Grand Fleet in this Sector,” said the Assemblyman.

  Isaak’s brows went up. That would be a godsend on so many levels. It was good. Really good. But was it too good to be true?

  “But you have to understand something,” warned the Assemblyman, “these ships would be from a divided command. My world is merely the first among equals. The others listen to us, generally speaking, but each contingent would have its own chain of command and home world to answer to and I don’t have the authority for a long term commitment. That would have to be ratified back home.”

  Isaak relaxed. “It’s agreed then. You’ll send your ships and I’ll replace the Tyrant as soon as they arrive,” he said.

  “Replace him immediately,” the Assemblyman said sharply, “if what you said is true there’s no room for hesitation here. The Empire gets so much as a whiff that we tolerated the use of Bugs in space warfare you and I are dead. Admiral Manning will just have to muddle through until Sector 22 reinforcements arrive. After all, your reports did say they broke the back of the Confederation Fleet and sent them running like dogs,” he continued.

  Isaak looked at the other man uneasily but he couldn’t very well back out and say things really weren’t as dire as he’d originally proposed. This was a risk.

  “Alright,” he said with a hard look, “but I’m counting on you. Don’t mess this up.”

  The Grand Assemblyman shook his head.

  “What? You disagree,” Isaak demanded.

  “Not so fast. If my people are going to stick our necks out for the New Government, we want a seat at the table. For starters there are certain legislative initiatives that have been held up in committee by members of your caucus,” the other man said with a smile.

  “We can start with that legislation,” Isaak said, easing back in his chair, “you’ll get your seat as soon as your ships arrive.”

  “This is a significant commitment of time, resources and warships. I want an immediate seat on the War and Steering Committees,” said the other man.

  Isaak stiffened. “Armed Forces is fine, but the Steering Committee is out of the question,” he said.

  “How about a non-voting seat for now, to be upgraded to a full member once our fleet is integrated into the Grand Fleet?” said the Assemblyman.

  “Under Grand Admiral Manning’s command,” Isaak said pointedly.

  The two men shook hands.

  “I never did catch your name,” said Isaak.

  “My people call me Raipur Rajputan. Monsignor Raipur Rajputan,” the Grand Assemblyman said with a smile.

  This was a risk—and a big one at that—but it might also be the one last chance he had to eliminate Jason Montagne. Confederation politics was already swinging the other way and the MDL and Border Alliance Factions were growing entirely too chummy of late. This victory at Black Purgatory was only going to embolden them.

  He had to move before he lost his own head, politically and possibly even literally. If Montagne managed to leverage this stunning victory into public and political capital, Isaak could kiss his speakership goodbye.

  No, this was it. The only solution. Jason Montagne had to go, now, and Sector 22 would fill the gap. Better a cross-Sector alliance with 22 than a position as minority leader and eventual prosecution when they found out just how badly he’d abused his office.

  Isaak was committed—there was no other path but forward.

  Chapter 6: Balancing the Scales

  Once again I was sitting around a table discussing the disposition of forces both active and captured within the star system. Only this time a few ‘concerned’ officers had shown up after they saw how I was segregating the captured ships into separate groups of ships with our shuttles and tugs.

  Which was why the meeting was switched from my new ready room on the Lucky Clover 2.0 to the much larger conference room; which unsurprisingly, given who built her, looked exactly like the old conference room of the original Lucky Clover.

  “Admirals Van Obenheim and Dark Matter, what a pleasant surprise. It’s so nice of you to join us for the morning report,” I said as the two officers were escorted into the conference room. I waited until they were seated before speaking. “So what can I do for Freya’s and Hart’s Worlds?” I asked with a bright smile.

  “You can’t be that dense; you know why we’re here,” scoffed Gretta Van Obenheim.

  Dark Matter just looked on as his fellow Admiral spoke.

  “I’m afraid you have me completely stumped,” I said with a winning smile.

  “You can stop with the charm offensive. I’m not some young girl to be charmed by a pretty face and a few smoothly spoken words,” scoffed Admiral Van Obenheim.

  “You wouldn’t last long if you were,” Akantha said challengingly.

  Gretta Van Obenheim looked at my wife.

  “You don’t need to worry. I’m an old maid and he’s too young for me. Besides, I prefer my men with a fairer complexion; brown has never really done it for my people,” she said.

  “He has an unconventional beauty,” my wife said contemplatively, as if just thinking about it for the first time, “but there’s just something about him that’s compelling,” then she laughed, “but then, ours was a marriage of state. I actually admire your people for being so rich and peaceful as to be able to be so strict and selective in your mates.”

  Gretta Van Obenheim’s brows shot up. “I’ve never heard Freya’s World described in quite that way before,” she said diplomatically.

  “I also hear yours is a planet of female warriors. I myself have always wanted to be a warrior,” Akantha sighed so wistfully I was unable to suppress a full blown outright scoff.

  She’d always wanted to be a warrior? Then what did she call charging out on the hull to go hand
to hand with boarding Bugs, if not abandoning her children and family to go outside the hull and be a warrior? I had no sympathy for such ‘wistful’ expressions. No one was holding her back from anything.

  Much as the rest of us might try.

  “What?” Akantha asked, her voice cooling as she looked at me, no doubt spotting something of what I was feeling.

  Inwardly I rolled my eyes. “Let’s get back to the business at hand please,” I said, gesturing toward the screen where, with a quick swipe of my slate, the daily report appeared.

  “Now, as I was saying, we’ve distributed the surviving Old Confederation doctors throughout the fleet to help deal with the sick and wounded, and thankfully we seem to be getting a handle on that particular situation. Next up is—” I said.

  Rear Admiral Gretta Van Obenheim looked about ready to burst when Dark Matter tapped the table.

  She leaned back looking at him.

  I focused on the black as night Admiral as well and lifted a brow.

  “Let’s not play any more games,” said Dark Matter.

  “Then by all means, let’s proceed with brutal honesty—and, above all, fairness,” I said crossing my arms.

  The corner of the Admiral’s mouth curved up faintly. “What are your intentions regarding the captured hulls, Grand Admiral?” he finally asked.

  “I intend to transfer them to a properly designated fleet facility. Why do you ask?” I replied levelly.

  “There are over three hundred and fifty damaged, destroyed and captured hulls out there. People are concerned,” said Dark Matter.

  “Hart’s World will receive its fair share of the spoils, never fear,” I demurred.

  Admiral Dark Matter sighed while Gretta Van Obenheim’s features darkened.

  “You can play word games all you like. The fact of the matter is that your forces are outnumbered. No one trusts the Multi-Sector Patrol Fleet to keep its hands off the lion’s share of the prizes. If it comes to a head…” she trailed off.

  My face turned hard. “If it comes to blows, I think this ship alone is more than capable of standing off the rest of the fleet all by itself—and I thought we’d agreed to dispense with the games in exchange for fairness?” I shot back. “Can there be anything more fair than following the terms of the agreement which brought the MSP into First Fleet and the New Confederation fold? Don’t worry, Freya’s World won’t be left out in the cold when it comes time to divvy up the spoils.”