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  I turned around with surprise.

  “Nice of you to join us. I thought you were busy down in Engineering,” I said.

  “A little birdie told me there might be something interesting happening on the bridge,” the old Engineer slyly smiled.

  I glowered at him.

  “Now don’t go giving old Spalding the stink eye,” said the aged engineer, “a man gets to be my age and he’s just not as interested in waitin' around to hear about what happened later.”

  “You’re more than welcome up here with us anytime, Spalding,” Akantha said happily.

  I closed my mouth on a pointed remark and instead wisely nodded in agreement.

  Unable to help herself, my Chief of Staff went over to the Communications department to help the com-tech manning the station to receive and decode the message or messages.

  “I hope they included an e-mail run for the fleet along with whatever else is in there,” I heard a sensor operator comment to another technician.

  Several minutes passed while the files were still in transit to the point I deliberately took out my data slate and started working on paperwork to distract myself.

  Spalding cleared his throat and I looked over at him curiously.

  “I’d still like to know how they reached us out here. As far as I know we’re off the main transit paths and well out of range of any ComStat buoys, at least any that I know about,” the old engineer said eyeing me questioningly.

  “I don’t know any more than you,” I replied.

  “You didn’t set up some kind of courier link to the nearest FTL communication satellite?” he asked.

  “I didn’t,” I said, slowly wondering if someone else, like the somewhat concerned Grand Admiral Manning who had just come over recently for a little heart to heart. “No,” I repeated, “I didn’t set up a courier relay and if anyone else did they didn’t inform me.”

  “A mystery then,” Spalding said, nodding seriously.

  Yes, I silently agreed and one I wasn’t particularly happy to be hearing about this late in the game.

  “Admiral?” my Chief of Staff asked, breaking into the conversation.

  My head shot around. “What have you got, Lisa?” I asked, unable to entirely contain my interest. This was the moment of truth. Had the Assembly sent out a routine message or a concern about something other than the battle for Black Purgatory, or had they set up some kind of super fast communications route I was still in the dark about?

  “It looks like a series of computer updates, a general email bag and orders,” she said.

  I was nodding along until they reached that last bit and I froze. “What have we got?” I asked, working to keep my voice mild.

  “There’s a lot of them so it’s hard to sift through. It looks like every Captain, First Officer, Admiral and Commodore in the fleet has received a message that can only be opened with their own personal encryption,” reported Lieutenant Commander Steiner.

  “That doesn’t sound good,” observed Spalding.

  “It’s too soon to tell,” I said.

  The old engineer sighed and settled back into barely audible mutterings.

  I turned back to Lisa.

  “I assume if there’s one for every officer in the fleet I have one as well?” I said.

  “It’s almost done decrypting,” she said. I sat there waiting tapping my fingers to pass the time. “Just enter your biometrics and password,” she said sending me a link.

  I placed my hand on the screen of my slate.

  “My voice is my password, verify me,” I stated, holding my hand firmly on top of the slate.

  The stern image of Speaker Isaak—the current Speaker for the Grand Assembly of the Spine—appeared on the screen flanked by the armed services committee chairman and several other figures. I presumed they were faction leaders, committee heads, and other important ranking members of the Grand Assembly.

  “Jason Montagne Vekna, because of the use of biological weapons in combat and for losing the majority of your fleet in battle, the armed services committee hereby suspends your Confederation commission placing you on reserve status, at half pay, pending a full review and the filing of formal charges,” said the former Governor with a frown. “I assure you it gives me no pleasure to do this while the broken remains of an Imperial fleet roam the Sector, but an emergency session of the Grand Assembly has made the feelings of the people clear. This Assembly has never endorsed the use of bio-tech weapons. Please turn over command of First Fleet to your second in command and withdraw to your base in Gambit until such a time as your testimony is needed. This is Isaak Newton, Speaker for the People. Long live the Confederation,” said the former Governor.

  After the Speaker’s image winked out, a wall of text appeared including a written transcript of the video file I’d just watched.

  As a post script buried at the end of the file was a request for a forwarding address for all follow-up official mail.

  Apparently someone had just realized they didn’t know the location of Gambit Star system, and thus wouldn’t be able to ensure receipt of any future orders to appear before a military tribunal.

  Like that was going to happen. Manning and his people could enjoy themselves with the wrecked remains of the various SDF’s that had made up First Fleet. If this was their reward for a job well done, I was gone and the MSP—with a large number of the damaged hulls—was going with me.

  “I have a printed transcript of our orders, Sir. It auto loaded into our hard copy printer,” my Chief of Staff said timidly before reluctantly handing me the document after seeing the look on my face.

  “Thank you, Lisa,” I said taking the orders from her.

  My screen flashed red several times as I crumpled the paper in my hand and tossed it into a waste receptacle. I opened a flashing fleet profile on my slate to find that all of my Confederation accesses and permissions had just been restricted.

  It appeared that after everything I’d done for them, the Assembly had just literally cut off its nose to spite its face. I’d sacrificed everything for them and this was the reward I got.

  Akantha reached down to pick up the printout but I was past worrying about those orders. I had no idea how she would take it—which, knowing her, wasn’t going to be very well at all.

  Well fine. If they want to restrict me then let them feel the pain. I was done with damage control or carrying water for the Assembly.

  Akantha smoothed out the paper and bent her head to read it while I sat in a silence.

  An icy anger permeated me.

  When Akantha looked up at me I could see a matching expression to my own on her face.

  “I wonder what the Assembly will think when they hear Jason Montagne cut off the sale of any further trillium to the Confederation of the Spine,” I said after a round of serious contemplation.

  “I concur, Jason. For too long the leaders among the stars have discounted you and, by natural extension, my people of Messene and Tracto. Through you, our warriors and from our carefully developed and husbanded alliances, we provided half the military power this new government can call upon and still they treat us as second class citizens. We have a voice in council but no vote,” she said flatly.

  “My mother is not seated in the Assembly because we will not just let them take our trillium. They act as if what is ours was theirs by natural right!” she growled clearly angered and offended. “To you they give great offices and even greater promises, yet do they ever follow through with them? Even before the war is fully won they cast you aside like a worn out boot, casting all kinds of slurs and aspersions on your character because you had the sheer will and gall to win a battle by means at your disposal. Using sky demons may anger some…” her eyes sharpened, “but this was a battlefield, and what is more honorable than a stratagem that pits two enemies against each other to the defeat of both?”

  Her agreeing with me was all I needed.

  “Then let’s see how they do when the hyperspace fuel bu
nkers are closed,” I said finally, and then bared my teeth in a fighting smile.

  “I think it is time we remind them that we are not the toothless workers they would treat us as,” said Akantha.

  “Agreed,” I turned to Lisa Steiner who had been looking on with increasing concern as my wife and I spoke.

  “Inform the Patrol Fleet and our Allies the Sundered, Droids and…Border Alliance warships that we have been ordered back to base. We’ll be taking our warships with us,” I told my Chief of Staff.

  “Aye aye, Sir,” said Lisa Steiner.

  “Are you sure I can’t talk you into staying, or at least detaching some of your forces to stay behind?” asked Grand Admiral Manning. “I could use a few more of those Border Alliance ships at least.”

  “What the individual warships of the Border Alliance decide is up to them. The only thing I could be convinced of right now is that we should have a battle because you’re not prepared to let us leave,” I said with stony eyes.

  “Blast it, Montagne! The Assembly’s out of its mind if they’re sending you away at a time like this. If they think I can defeat the four hundred survivors, even with the Glorious Fleet scattered to the four winds—which I can assure you they most certainly are not—then they are out of their ever loving minds!” Manning said, his implacable expression cracking.

  “The Speaker of the Grand Assembly, speaking on behalf of the New Confederation, has asked me to leave and at this point in time I’m more than ready to go,” I said calmly. Once I point transferred out, the Glorious Fleet of Liberation and its surviving members were no longer my concern.

  “The Speaker and his cronies in the Assembly are fools! There’s no way we can win without you. I personally implore you to stay,” urged Manning.

  “And defy the legitimate, if still entirely un-elected, government?” I asked lifting a brow. “Somehow I don’t imagine that will end well for me. I’m sure my enemies in the Assembly would be more than happy to add yet another charge to my list of supposed violations, only in this case it wouldn’t be a supposed violation would it?”

  “As the commander on scene, and acting head of Admiralty, I technically have the power to overrule the Grand Assembly, temporarily reactivate your commission, and retain both you and your command for the duration of combat operations. Which, with the Glorious Fleet in the area, could be extended indefinitely,” urged Grand Admiral Manning.

  “Look, I see what you’re trying to do and I sympathize, I really do. But ultimately you’re just as powerless as I was. If they’re willing to fire one Grand Admiral for some arbitrary reason, they’ll be more than willing to fire another. There’s no need to risk your commission in the new fleet by going against the first order given to you by the Grand Assembly,” I replied.

  Admiral Manning looked back at me impassively.

  “Do you honestly think I care more about my position in the fleet than I do the worlds and citizens of this and every other Sector in the Spine? I thought you were better than this, Montagne,” said the Grand Admiral from Elysium.

  “At this point I’m only an impediment to the security of the Spine. My fleet is damaged, I am a political liability, and there’s nothing more I can do than I’ve already done,” I said flatly.

  “Yes there blasted well is more that you can do. You can accept a temporary reactivation of your orders. Jump to Gambit if it makes you feel better, but then accept my reactivation order and immediately jump right back. If you do I promise to do everything in my power to shield you from the assembly. The Mutual Defense League is not an impotent faction in the Assembly, even now,” Manning bulled forward.

  “Get the Assembly to order me back and I’ll consider it,” I scoffed.

  “You know I can’t do that. I don’t have the power,” he snapped.

  “Then we’re done here.”

  “You’re really ready to let those people die? You know just as well as I do that with the forces remaining to me I can’t defeat anything close to four hundred warships. Blast it, Montagne, I can’t even take on half that,” he fumed. “Is your ego so great that you can’t stomach the idea of working for a man who an hour before was your subordinate? You would really condemn your own people?”

  “I didn’t condemn anyone! Don’t you dare try to lay the actions of the Grand Assembly on me,” I snarled. “Where was your support when it mattered? For that matter, how did the Grand Assembly even find out the battle was taking place, let alone receive a recording of the action, have an emergency meeting, and have a quick enough turnaround that they could fire me within four days of defeating the enemy—I can assure you that I didn’t send them the file!”

  “That’s entirely beside the point,” Manning vigorously refuted.

  “No, that’s exactly the point, and I don’t hear a denial in there anywhere,” I mocked. “You ask me to trust you? Then you should have trusted me instead of siding with politicians and even mutineers against your own, now former commanding officer, at every turn! So by all means,” I continued furiously, “send me the position of a Glorious Fleet unit and rendezvous coordinates and I’m more than willing to consider joint operations with you. But ask me to trust my people to the very man who helped engineer my own ouster and forced retirement? You have got to be out of your ever loving mind!”

  “That’s not how things went down, Montagne,” Manning said red-faced.

  “That’s not exactly a denial is it? Goodbye, Grand Admiral,” I sniffed.

  “Everything I’ve done has been for the people of my Sector, for the people of the Spine. Don’t get up on your high horse with me, Montagne!” growled Admiral Manning. “Unlike you, with your high-handed tactics and outright violations of galactic law concerning, Droids, anti-matter and Bugs, just to name a few, everything I’ve done has been entirely ethical—and, more importantly, legal!”

  “Maybe so or maybe not, but even if you think your actions are legal then you'd have to agree they certainly haven’t been above board. Judge me all you like but it’s your own underhandedness in our dealings that make it so I can’t just trust you with the lives of my people,” I replied with an edge in my voice. “You may hate me for getting the job done, or maybe it’s because you think I got my hands dirty doing it. You have that right and either way, I don’t care,” I riposted sharply, “but it's when I trust you and you betray that trust, or at least violated it in service of your own personal, professional and political advancement that I’m no longer able to ignore it. This is not the middle of a battle where you can leverage me for the betterment of your supporters. There is no clear and present danger I can run at with guns blazing which requires me to acquiesce to getting screwed over again in the name of the people.”

  “You’ve completely mischaracterized my position here,” Manning shouted, pounding the table on the other end of my holo-screen.

  “Then it’s a good thing I’m not in your chain of command any longer. I’ve been suspended!” I shot back. “If you want to lay my unwillingness to stay and get screwed over at anyone’s feet, you should look at yourself first before casting any more aspersions upon my sense of patriotism and duty to the people of the Spine! Montagne out,” I snapped.

  Reaching over and picking up a paperweight on my desk I threw it against the wall of the ready room.

  “Sweet Crying Murphy, blast it all to spare parts,” I shouted, jumping out of my chair whereupon I then proceeded to pace furiously in front of my table, still filled with too much emotional energy to sit down.

  No one wished more than I that I could trust Grand Admiral Manning. The truth was the Spineward Sectors would be best served by the continued joint actions of the MSP and all the other elements of First Fleet acting in tandem.

  But the sad, sorry fact was that I couldn’t trust him. How did I know he wouldn’t wilt under the first stiff political wind and cave to pressure? Pressure that would put my crews right on the line of fire.

  For all I knew one whisper in his ear, or orders from Elysium Hi
gh Command, instructing him in the regrettable necessity to sacrifice the MSP for the good of his sector and my people would be sent to the forefront of any battle and hung out to dry. All because I was considered too personally powerful and since someone had to die fighting the enemy it might as well be my people who made that sacrifice, in service of weakening my power base and securing the ‘still’ un-elected government.

  “No, I can’t risk my people under his command. He hasn’t earned that level of trust. It would be one thing if I knew beyond a doubt that our sacrifice was necessary and that someone, anyone of principle would pick up the torch after our passing,” I said, speaking to myself and the wall of the ready room, “but right now who can I trust to put aside their partisan differences and put the people of the Spine first and foremost in their minds?”

  For a long time I paced back and forth, trying to think of who I could trust to safeguard the people better than I could. Everyone I could think of was either dead, like LeGodat, relatively untested, like the un-elected Assembly, or operating with variously failing grades like Isaak, Admiral Manning and even Kong Pao.

  “No, I can’t risk the people of the Spine by putting my fleet at the mercy of a bunch of back stabbers like Isaak, Manning and the Grand Assembly,” I decided with resolution.

  It was a sad and sorry fact, but there it was.

  Flawed as I was, even as much as five years after taking actual command of the original Lucky Clover, there was still no one I could trust to completely turn my power and the power of the Multi-Sector Patrol Fleet over to.

  It was time the MSP once again stood alone.

  Fortunately for him, Grand Admiral Manning didn’t try to stop us from taking the bulk of the captured warships with us when we jumped out of the star system.

  We needed to head home for some much needed time in the Gambit Yards.

  Chapter 8: The Stalwart Solution