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

  Isaak’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “You can’t spin your way out of this, Vice Admiral Montagne, I have witnesses—my entire staff, in fact!” the Governor threatened. But I noted that we were back to using my rank instead of actively maligning my former title to score points.

  “And I have holo-recordings showing we warned you of a potential threat to your life and then placed you—and that staff of yours, I’ll point out—in the most secure location on this ship. I’m sorry if relaying to you reports of direct threats to your life, without the usual filtering by your staff, made you feel threatened and psychologically harmed, Governor,” I said solicitously, “but the Confederation Fleet has a certain protocol it has to follow and I’m afraid it doesn’t take the potentially fragile mental state of its recipients into consideration when there is a threat to their life and limb.”

  “You don’t get to be a Sector Governor by having a ‘fragile mental state,’ and I resent the blatant insult,” snapped Isaak. “Please be aware that this entire conversation is being recorded for personal review by Judge Himmel as we determine whether to take this issue to trial! As it is, you can consider yourself officially stripped of your position as Sector Commandant and you are hereby formally requested to hand yourself over to the Provost Marshals. Barring that, this Sector demands you leave this Sector and move back to Tracto where you at least ostensibly belong!”

  “While I’ll have to refuse Sector Judge Himmel on the grounds of his compromised status, having renounced the Confederation and sworn personal loyalty to the Sector Regime, I would consent to appear inside the court of any other Spineward based Sector Judge to face my accusers. Sadly I’ll have to decline the Provost Marshals at this time, as that would be the sort of unqualified attempted Sector overreach—said overreach being the blatant infringing upon Confederation prerogatives and primacy—that I am sworn to protect against. However,” I raised a hand, “that said, I am more than willing to step down from my position as Commandant, take my warships with me, and go home. My doing so would leave the previous Wolf-9 chain of command in charge of Easy Haven,of course.”

  “Oh no, you won’t. I tried to do this the nice way and split the winnings with you but you cast this Sector's gratitude back in my face. So no, Montagne. You’ll not be leaving with a single one of those warships until after a prize court, empowered by the Sector Assembly, has had a chance to rule on every single one of those ships,” glowered Isaak. “In point of fact, you won’t be stepping down from anything as you’ve just been terminated as Sector Commandant for cause!”

  “I understand all your various points, Governor, which is why, having reached what appears to be an impasse, I’m afraid we’ll have to agree to disagree,” I said righteously. “Furthermore, I can assure the Governor that no matter how many injunctions he feels the need to file in Confederation court that I feel no personal animosity towards either him or his Sector for their actions.”

  Sir Isaak lowered his brow and glanced away from the screen.

  Laurent leaned in and whispered, “He’s probably checking to see if his shuttle is outside of weapons range, which it is.”

  I grunted in response.

  The Sector Governor turned back to me with a vicious smile. “I didn’t want it to come to this but it seems you have given me no choice but to inform you that I have a full squadron of battleships and, as of your ouster as Commandant—which became official this very moment—the pledged loyalty of those parts of the 25th Amalgamated Fleet still inside this star system that belonging to this Sector’s various SDF’s,” Isaak said bluntly. “I, not you, hold the balance of power inside this star system, Admiral Jason. And you would be wise to remember that before testing me further.”

  There was a stir on the bridge of the Phoenix as the Sector Governor all but threatened to destroy us.

  “Is that a threat, Governor?” I asked calmly.

  “Make of it what you will. But you will be leaving those battleships you’ve corralled out here in the outer system behind,” he stated coldly. “There will be no legal arguments, plucky maneuvers, or bluffs that will stop this from happening. Until the day you learn how to play ball—assuming you survive that long, which current evidence suggests is highly in doubt—you have proven you cannot be trusted with that amount of firepower and weight of metal. Jason Montagne,” Isaak said drawing himself up formally.

  “Yes, Isaak?” I replied.

  The governor’s nostrils flared. “All prizes taken inside this star system were done so under the aegis of the Sector Fleet, of which you yourself were the undisputed commander. The Confederated Sectors have abandoned us to chaos and despair, and on top of that this Sector currently possesses firepower to secure its interests in this Star System. These facts are not in dispute,” said the Governor, pausing fractionally, “the only question is: will you accept this reality or not?”

  “I’m afraid I do not recognize your authority to give me orders, and am going to have to decline your offer,” I demurred.

  “Then, by both legal right and the ability of force majeure, I am informing you that we have come to claim what is rightfully ours. Heave to and prepare to be boarded or place yourself in a rogue status,” Sir Isaak informed me.

  “Do what you have to do,” I said with a seemingly unconcerned shrug.

  Ensign Jones made a strangled sound and Laurent shot me a penetrating look, but I wasn’t worried. Jones didn’t have the kind of clout that could cause me problems in the fleet, and while Laurent might not like where I was taking us he’d follow me through the other side. What he’d do after that was anyone’s guess.

  I mean, look, obviously I thought I had all the angles covered here, but the guy on the other side of the board was the Governor of an entire Sector. It was always possible that my little tricks might not be as much of a surprise as I was hoping and that all my maneuvers had been seen through—or somehow leaked.

  Not that I was concerned—at least that's what I told myself. My face hardened as I continued to ignore my team and stare at the Sector Governor on my Screen.

  “Very well,” Isaak said, lifting an eyebrow at me and then looked down at another smaller screen in front of him.

  I leaned back. This should be interesting.

  “Prepare to fire on any rogue elements inside this star system, Captain,” Isaak said to that smaller screen before looking back up to find and hold my gaze.

  The ball was now firmly back in my court—and I wasn’t about to be shaken this easily. I was in this one for all the marbles...or at least all the important ones.

  “Technically this is rebellion, Governor,” I informed the other man speaking clinically. I’d gambled everything on winning the war (and lost much in the process); I would be good and blasted before I would lose the peace afterwards.

  “I think we’re past all of that by now, Admiral. Don’t you?” said Isaak, flicking a hand as if sweeping away a bit of dust.

  “I guess we are,” I said after a pause. It would have been nice if the Governor had been able to face reality without further prompting. The reality was that I wasn’t here to do his heavy lifting while he got to come along behind and sweep away the panther’s share of the winnings, but as far as I was concerned all’s well that ends well. I guess it was still just up to me to make sure everything ended correctly, “I had really hoped that you would see things differently, Governor,” I informed him sadly.

  I was sad not for him, but the innocent men and women he was leading into peril. Some of which had probably been on the same side of the War against Janeski and his imperial ambitions.

  “As long as you continue to act like a Warlord, instead of a loyal servant of the elected government like you should be, then that’s exactly how I’ll have to treat you,” Sir Isaak informed me gruffly, “blast it, boy, I know we got off to a rocky start but I had hoped you would be more cognizant of your position than this! Turning against an entire Sector when you’re at your lowest point? I don’t know if it's hubris or ju
st plain pigheaded stubbornness that was grafted into your line, but for all the much-vaunted Montagne cunning and intelligence not a single one of you seems capable of seeing reason without being hit upside the head with a board first. Well, Admiral, you’ve had a nice run but that run ends here as unfortunately for you I am that board,” he finished looking irked.

  “A loyal servant of which government, Sector Governor?” I asked rhetorically. “The Confederation, King James on Capria, my Wife’s back on Tracto or…the one belonging to you and your cronies that helped you rig the Sector Elections?”

  “You pompous imbecile!” roared Isaak, “I offered you a toast but you refused to drink it. Good—very good, in fact; now it’s time for you to suffer your inevitable loss! Captain,” he barked at the officer beside him, “order our lead units to increase their speed. I don’t want to give the Tyrant any more room to maneuver than absolutely necessary!”

  “Am I to take it from your latest words that there is no longer any room for negotiation? You are bound and determined to kick off this rebellion against the Confederation?” I asked, feeling very much like a race horse at the gate straining against the metal blocking my exit. I had been forced to deal with the Sector 25 government, and Sir Isaak in particular, with kid gloves as I smiled at the garbage they tried to force feed me for years.

  It felt good to finally feel the kid gloves start coming off.

  “The Confederation is dead and buried. Whatever moral authority it had is gone. It was mortally wounded when they let the Empire pull its ships out of the Spine, blowing up its infrastructure along behind it, and died when it failed to so much as send a fleet of relief goods—let alone actual warships out here to protect us from the Droids, Reavers, Pirates and Warlords that have turned the Spine upside down, at least until we could organize a defense of our own. So yes,” he glared, “you can safely assume that I am done negotiating.”

  “Hey,” I snapped, “the MSP has been bleeding and dying for Sector 25 and the Spine. Three entire Sectors we’ve been protecting while you sat safely in your new home at Central and built up your power base.”

  “Then maybe you should have done the same,” yelled Isaak, “instead of playing at Admiral with a pretend fleet that no one, not even the old Confederation that abandoned us, asked you to build while you ran around like some kind of white knight out of the story books. Life is not a fairy tale. There are no do-over’s. And its time you learned that history is written by the victors. You are not a white knight, but rather the Tyrant of Cold Space—a dangerously confused young Warlord every bit as dangerous to the free people of the spine as Rear Admiral Janeski ever was. Not because you have more warships, which you don’t, but because at least he never claimed to be doing anything but what he was: an Imperial officer unifying the Spine for his accursed Empire of Man. Heave to, recognize the only legitimate government left in the area or be destroyed,” he said, “no more talk, no more discussion!”

  “Very well,” I said with a nod.

  “Finally!” exclaimed Isaak victoriously.

  “You have left me no choice but to request you have a member of your staff check bulkhead 3 inside your personal governor's shuttle,” I said with a sigh.

  “What?” snapped the Governor.

  “I said: please send someone with a hand scanner over to bulkhead 3, Governor,” I released a weary smile, “I had hoped it wouldn’t come to this.”

  There was a stir in the shuttle behind the Governor.

  “Just what are you playing at now, Montagne?” Isaak glowered, but almost despite himself it seemed, turned and gave a hurried set of instructions in a low voice to one of his minions.

  “I’m sure you’ll find out soon enough,” I said, leaning back contentedly like a man with everything in the world under control.

  “If this is a bluff, I’ll-” started Isaak.

  “Oh please,” I scoffed, “it’s not like you can kill me any deader than you were planning to before this.”

  A functionary came running back into the cramped shuttle cockpit. “It’s a bomb, your Excellency!” cried the other man.

  I suppressed a snicker at the shock and horror in his voice. “Next time you might want to wait to threaten someone until after you’re back in your flagship. Just a friendly piece of advice from a person who’s been, you know, actually running a fleet of ships for the past several years,” I said pointedly.

  Isaak gave me an assessing look. “You placed a bomb on my ship?” he asked, clearly unsure if he should believe it or not, “that doesn’t seem your style.”

  “I assure you that our people swept your shuttle for bombs before you disembarked and that there were no bombs aboard your shuttle when it left our ship, Governor,” I said, piously placing a hand on my chest.

  “Damn you!” roared Isaak slamming a hand down on the arm of the shuttle’s navigator’s chair.

  “You’ve got me all wrong,” I chortled with mirth as I continued to play him, “just because I was all but certain you would turn traitor to the Confederation sooner rather than later, I can assure you that all I did was instruct my staff to place a few bottles of caviar and wine in the crawlspace next to the bulkhead. That said, I do have to advise you to have your lead battleships slow down and divert course… strictly for their own protection of course.”

  The connection cut abruptly. I waited a minute and the governor’s entire flotilla slowed and diverted 25 degrees off target.

  “Well that was a surprise,” I said with a happy blink.

  “Are you mad?! Placing an explosive device in the shuttle of a Sector Level Official!” Jones gaped.

  “Of course not,” I snapped.

  Jones' eyes popped. “Then there was no bomb?” he asked with surprise.

  “What do you take me for, a madman?” I asked, giving him a scorn filled look. “Of course there was no bomb! All I ever did was send over a crate of wine and caviar…as well as encourage our engineering department to put in with it a device that would look like an explosive device if it was ever scanned but was actually harmless.” I finished, waving a breezy hand.

  “Unbelievable,” Jones said.

  “I know. It’s pretty neat isn’t it?” I said with a satisfied grin.

  “It’s something,” Laurent deadpanned refusing to buy into my enthusiasm.

  “You just violated half a dozen domestic protection laws,” cried Jones.

  I openly scoffed at this bit of chicken-little ‘the sky is falling’ routine.

  “Forget tampering with an ambassadorial vessel; you could be prosecuted for terrorism charges!” he said with outrage.

  “For delivering caviar and assuring the Governor that their shuttle checked out clean?” I said at the same time as Captain Laurent said.

  “For using a harmless little ruse to deceive a group of self-declared rebels?” Laurent rolled his eyes and then continued as I stopped talking and glanced over at him. “I don’t think there’ s a military court in the galaxy that would prosecute him for that. Not unless it was a rebel tribunal. Or maybe if they wanted to go after him for supplying the caviar as aid and comfort to the enemy,” Laurent paused, “you know, now that I think about it, there may have actually been a case I heard about like that over in the Purple Cluster Free Territories on the other side of the Empire…”

  I suppressed a sudden snort by turning it into a cough. Which somehow or other sent something down the wrong pipe after which I ended up pounding my chest after actually almost choking.

  “This is not a game,” Jones protested our antics in a low forceful voice, just as Sensors reported an escape pod along with a small cloud of several suited figures leaving the shuttle by way of the rear boarding ramp.

  Laurent looked away towards one of the bridge section, clearly taking a pass when it came to the junior officer’s assertion. Most likely it was a sore spot for the Captain.

  Not so much for myself.

  “Unfortunately, Ensign, that is exactly what this is: a game,” I deign
ed to answer to young officer where Laurent either feared or disliked the answer, “that said it is no mere game, it is the most important game of them all: the game of power. The game of lives. It can be bloodthirsty and there are always lives left in the balance. Sadly it is a game that has been played by every single ruler and politician down through the ages, whether they wanted to or not, and all we can do is hope, pray and strive so that as many innocents as possible are left out of it.”

  “That’s either the most cynical outlook I’ve ever heard of or outright bonkers, Sir,” Jones told me.

  “I am receiving a link request from the pod. It’s for you, Admiral,” reported Coms heedless of the little drama taking place around the captain’s chair.

  “Why can’t it be both?” I asked Jones before turning to the Com-Section.

  “Put him through,” I instructed the corner of my mouth turning up at the thought of finally putting one solidly over the good Governor. I couldn’t help it, I knew it was wrong but despite everything that said I shouldn’t, I felt satisfaction at the thought of Sir Isaak dancing to someone else’s tune for a change. My tune, for instance.

  The Governor appeared from inside the escape pod and he was seething.

  “Montagne!” he shouted.

  “I take it from your look of dissatisfaction that either the wine or the caviar failed to meet your expectations?” I asked with a butter-couldn’t-melt-in-my-mouth expression. “Was the year no good or had the caviar started to turn?”

  “You can take your caviar and shove it where the sun doesn’t shine, your Highness!” Sir Isaak declared coldly.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” I said with twisted relish.

  “You may have delayed the inevitable by half an hour but the moment I am out of blast range of that shuttle and securely aboard my flag ship you and your entire fleet are finished, Montagne! Do you hear me? Finished!”