Admiral's Challenge (A Spineward Sectors Novel: Book 8) Read online

  Hammer blinked and then seemed to realize her error.

  “I believe the unauthorized personnel are Border Worlds Alliance delegates who have transferred over from the Parliamentary Power without permission, Admiral,” she explained, carefully blanking her face.

  For a moment I gave her a look that could have stripped duralloy. She’d just about given me a heart attack over nothing more than a few overweight, would-be politicians—I had expected stealthed droid boarding forces like the Pride of Prometheus had lugged home with them from the original foray into Sectors 23 and 24 under that loose cannon, Acting Captain Tyrone Middleton.

  Speaking of whom, my first duly-appointed ship commander had finally gotten around to informing us—via time-delayed ComStat message, of course—that he was following up on a major lead of some kind, and thus had more important things to be doing than riding into the pivotal battle of two Sectors of human space, thank you very much. The particulars of his truncated, cryptic message were something to the effect of:

  Fleet Command is advised the Pride of Prometheus will be unable to rejoin the rest of the fleet as directed due to emergent situation; this message is likely to be intercepted by hostiles, and transmitting via ComStat allows those hostiles to pinpoint our location. Pride of Prometheus Actual takes full responsibility for failing to follow prior orders; the ship and crew will return with detailed reports following completion of current mission. Pride of Prometheus Actual signing off.

  As I thought of that mutinous former Tactical Officer-turned-warship captain, I realized that my hands were unconsciously squeezing the air out of an imaginary neck gripped tightly between them. I was unable to fathom what could possibly be more important than the Battle for Elysium, unless this was nothing more than mutiny plain and simple, in which case I swore I’d find that man and make him pay for his treachery.

  “This was a security risk, so I considered sending in ship’s security to contain them while the flight crew attempts to get them to return to the Power,” Hammer added into the growing silence caused by my brooding.

  “No, I don’t think that will be necessary, Captain,” I said, pushing thoughts of Middleton from my mind and rising to my feet with my face, carefully and deliberately, blank. Turning away, I headed for the Captain’s ready room.

  Upon entering I activated the inter-fleet com-channel.

  “This is Commodore Druid,” said the other Officer after the link was established.

  “Montagne here,” I said shortly.

  “What can I do for you, Admiral?” the Commodore asked smoothly, the barest hint around the mouth and eyes indicating he knew very well why I was calling.

  Which was why, instead of saying ‘what are you playing at’ or some other trite phrase and giving vent my spleen, I took a big mental step back.

  “I see you finally got tired of playing around with the esteemed delegates from the Border Worlds,” I finally said.

  “Did they finally sneak off my ship?” Druid bared his teeth and shook his head as if vexed, but it was a pretty poor performance and we both knew it—which, of course, had to be the point.

  “Must have bribed a shuttle pilot or falsified their data records,” I suggested, rolling with the punches and deciding to play along.

  “Must have,” Druid agreed without any great emotion.

  “Still, to have such poor security measures onboard a Confederation warship…tsk-tsk,” I said, shaking my head.

  “We are very short-handed over here after sending most of our crewmembers off to help man the prize ships. Even so, I’ll have to see about strengthening our protocols over here we can’t have civilians wandering wherever they want—even ones as loud and obnoxious as the delegates,” said Druid.

  “I take it they got on your nerves then?” I replied.

  “You could say that—and doing so would be an understatement,” Druid said, his eyes growing cold as if he were reviewing a poor memory.

  “Well then, run your drills and be sure that I’ll be reviewing them personally. However,” I took a deep breath, “since the delegates are already here—a fait accompli, as it where—I suppose it hurts nothing if I go and see if I can’t resolve their issues for them.”

  “Someone needs to ‘resolve their issues’ before one or more of them gets hurt. I can’t help but say we’ll be glad to see the last of them over here,” replied Druid, “they’re loud, obnoxious and…civilian.”

  “The last of them? That sounds a little too optimistic. Let us instead say you’ll be getting something of an extended break,” I said, my eyes hardening as I politely laid down the law.

  I’d been ducking the delegates and the responsibility they were attempting to impose on me to make my much touted lie about a border alliance acting against the Central Worlds of Sector 25 on my and the confederations behalf into something real. So I really couldn’t get too upset when my overworked underlings finally rebelled and loosened their security or at least pretended to loosen their security as they sent over the delegates I should have been dealing with weeks ago.

  That said I couldn’t let those very same subordinates think they could get away with too much or else I’d have more problems to deal with than a few agitated civilians.

  All of which was a roundabout way of saying I needed to bite the bullet, go press the flesh and get this over with.

  I really wasn’t looking forward to this.

  Chapter Ten: Border Meeting

  “This is outrageous; whatever joint forces agreement we come to, whatever its name, we must have specific provisions allowing for the protection of the religious majority! Too long has the majority been oppressed by the special interests and the tyranny of the atheistic masses; Shrine V will not agree to any document which does not enshrine these vital protections into settled law,” shouted a tall, thin man with a turban neatly placed atop his head.

  Across from him sat an obese fat man so large it was almost criminal. “New Dalphi refuses to support any such infringement on the rights of the taxpayers to regulate homicidal extremist cults—cults with a history of group brainwashing, group suicides, and the tendency to finance suicide crusaders who love to blow themselves and innocent shop owners and their clientele up at the drop of a hat!” raged the fat man, pounding the table so vigorously that the extreme rolls of fat, not entirely hidden by his personally tailored clothing, began jumping up and down hitting the table as he moved.

  “The believers of Shrine V are a peaceful people, and I defy anyone—especially a bloodsucking merchant of death—to produce any evidence whatsoever to even suggest—” yelled back the Turbaned Delegate.

  The fat man pulled a thick tome out of his pocket, a large book of actual paper and slammed it down on the table. “Your own holy tracts have entire chapters, and even whole books, dedicated to little more than chronicling the various wars of your early religion…defy that,” bellowed the Delegate from New Dalphi and then sneered, “if you can!”

  A regal looking woman with some kind of metal torc around her neck and an elaborate hair dress that added at least a foot to her height reentered the fray. “As a Delegate and representative of the majority gender of the human race, I would like to say a few things. But before that, let me point out your joint inability to have a rational discussion on these subjects only highlights the failings of both your planet’s social systems,” she said, shaking her head with mock pity.

  “You mean like the fact that we don’t practice infanticide—and enforce a strict ten-to-one gender ratio of women to men—while requiring birthing permits to have children?” the Delegate from New Dalphi mocked.

  “Infanticide—how dare you?! No pregnancies are terminated after the first term of pregnancy, regardless of whether a permit was acquired or not—and that is only in the case of male births! As for children in general, every woman of my home world has the right to as many children as she desires and, if the necessary gametes cannot be procured, gametes will be provided via state-funded clinics. The only
restriction is that the head of household must have a proven ability to support the desired number of children,” she flared back.

  “Abortion is murder!” shouted the Shrine V delegate.

  “Not if it uses natural herbal substances, given within the usual timeframe of naturally occurring miscarriages! And besides, it’s our bodies and we’ll do with them whatever the blazes we want with them,” the woman shot back, her foot-tall hair swaying back and forth with the passion of her response.

  “Shrine V does not recognize slavery, or the right of one individual to own the body of another. Settled galactic law is clear when it states that a child’s body belongs only—and entirely—to themselves. As such, it is not a part of your body that you are killing when you happily proceed about your merry way ,slaughtering helpless babes in the womb as you so quaintly put it!” the religious Delegate snarled.

  “How dare you, Sir?!” raged the female delegate.

  “What about the rights of the children? This wouldn’t even be a discussion if Spire 9 would simply reject slavery in all its forms and acknowledge that any individual, in whatever their stage of development, that can survive outside the female body and within a regeneration tank is a legal person who cannot be owned,” snapped the Shrine V Delegate. “We’ll even provide the requisite tanks and foster families, so long as you allow our doctors to make the transfers and are willing to subsidize the system-to-system transport!”

  “You know,” the jowl-wagging delegate stroked several of his chins contemplatively, “the religious nutter does have a point, albeit probably not the one he intended to make: property rights are the holy grail of our legal system and, even allowing for a person’s inalienable right to own their own body…” mused the fat man trailing off before regaining his train of thought. “I mean, even evicting a squatter from a building wholly owned by another person still requires a formal eviction process—meaning a notice and a one-to-three month period of time to vacate the premises. If we acknowledge the right of the child to the ownership of its own body as inalienable—while equating a woman’s inalienable right to her own body and equate said body with her own home—then, legally speaking, a case could be made that any and all ejections from the woman’s body within the 1st trimester might be unquestionably illegal due to an improperly executed eviction process. On the face of it—” continued the New Dalphi delegate, gathering steam as he laid out the bizarre argument.

  “I will not argue the rights of undifferentiated cellular masses—which don’t even possess brains—with you, and I will not be lectured to by a pair of misogynistic, power-hungry delegates. Your worlds have militaries that have killed far more people than my planet ever has, and you care nothing for the people of Spire 9 but only pay lip service to their outdated cultural baggage. I warn you: any continued attempts to interfere with the internal affairs of Spire 9 will be interpreted as an attempted violation of the Provincial Right to Self-Regulate—” she said hotly.

  “Okay, I think that’s enough,” I said, picking my head up out of my hands and glaring at the various delegates situated around the conference table.

  “But they—” spluttered the Spire 9 Delegate.

  “I refuse to calmly sit and drink tea with murderous—” fumed the Shrine V Delegate.

  “Sit down and shut up!” I thundered, knocking over my chair with the unexpectedly forceful lunge out of my seat.

  The more than twenty delegates scattered around the room drew back with surprise.

  “How do religious rights, the ability to regulate violent cults, or a woman’s right to evict unwanted residents from her body—with or without proper legal notification to said resident—have any bearing on establishing a defensive military alliance to protect your home worlds?” I snapped tossing my data slate onto the table in disgust. “Are you all insane?!”

  An embarrassed silence began to permeate the room, and I allowed the moment to stretch out uncomfortably.

  “Look, the Border Alliance at its heart is mainly a defensive measure. If you all want to debate or negotiate the internal policies of your various worlds after signing off on the form and function of whatever Alliance Defense organization we come up with, then you are free to do so at your leisure. However, I will say that as of right now, neither they nor I—in the form of the Confederation Fleet and Tracto Star System—have any interests outside of repelling external threats and saving helpless worlds from assaults such as were perpetrated by Jean Luc, or the Droids of Sectors 23 and 24!” So saying, I sat right back down in my chair after deftly using my foot to right its position without even looking.

  “We all want to protect our worlds or else we wouldn’t be here,” the Turban-wearing man finally said reluctantly.

  “Good,” I said shortly, and then pulled up a file on my slate.

  “As long as our internal policies are not going to be dictated to by outside forces, then Spire 9 wants to be a part of this Alliance,” the torc-sporting woman grudged.

  “The only concern on New Dalphi is the matter of cost; we’re willing to pay a fair price in monies and materials, so long as the Confederation—or this new Alliance—doesn’t nationalize our resources,” allowed the oversized delegate.

  “So long as that’s the case, then we can proceed to the next step,” I shook my head and hit the ‘bulk send’ button on the file I’d just pulled up. “Here’s a draft version of the proposed alliance document. Read it over, make any changes you as a group feel necessary, and then sign it. So long as I find the changes acceptable, I’ll get it signed over on my side and this thing will be done and behind us,” I explained.

  There was a pregnant silence as I gathered up my things and prepared to depart. “What if you don’t find the changes acceptable?” asked the New Dalphi Delegate.

  I bared my teeth. “Well, then I won’t sign it—and you can either send me a new draft or proceed with this Border Alliance all on your own,” I said evenly.

  The delegates rustled.

  “In the meantime, Mr. Harpsinger will be here to make sure that any proposed revisions to this treaty don’t violate Confederation law,” I said, clapping that worthy member of my crew on the back. The ship’s legal officer gave me a desperate look, which I studiously ignored. “I’ll leave him here to coordinate,” I said clapping the lawyer on the back a second time and then left the room.

  Behind me, the room erupted into chaos.

  I knew it wasn’t the most politic way of dealing with things, but after the better part of a half hour listening to diatribes and proposed social engineering of ideologically opposed planets, I’d had my fill.

  They could work out their differences and actually do what they came here to do, or they could get off the boat when we docked at Tracto Station. I didn’t have the time or desire to deal with their internal social problems.

  Chapter Eleven: Pit Stop

  “Point Emergence!” declared the 2nd shift Navigator—a Confederation regular Officer named Mike Parker.

  The continued absence of Officer Shepherd felt like a missing tooth—a big, gaping, empty spot that needed to be filled. So since my first and ever-reliable navigator had been placed in cryo-stasis, here I was with the…ahem, replacement.

  Upon our return to Gambit, and its access to the first rate medical complex built to order by Doctor Presbyter, I was hoping to fill that hole once again. But for right now, due to injuries sustained when enemy droids stormed the bridge of the Phoenix, Navigator Shepherd wasn’t available and Parker was.

  “Extending engine baffling,” reported DuPont, as all around me the actions of a bridge crew just emerged into a new Star System took place. But after the initial sensor scans came back clean—meaning we had no hostiles within weapons range—I sank back into the solitude of my private thoughts.

  I’d lost too many companions. My path through the ‘River of Stars,’ as the Tracto-ans so quaintly put it, was littered with the bodies of people who’d trusted and followed me. Sometimes that realization, and th
e crushing weight of responsibility to try and somehow be worthy of their sacrifices, was too much to bear.

  “You all right, Sir?” asked Leonora Hammer, my Flag Captain.

  “Just glad to be back, Captain,” I roused enough to say smoothly, and I was glad to be back in Tracto—even though it was, by necessity, nothing more than a short pit stop on this Fleets’ way to Gambit Station. Still, the fact that it would give Akantha and many members of my crew—both Tracto-an and Starborn, the latter comprised mainly of our Caprian and Promethean’s with families on the planet—a chance to be with their families and decompress could only be appreciated. That was not to say that I wasn’t looking forward to a little freedom from responsibility myself, but…well, I was an Admiral, and this was Tracto after all—where my ‘peaceful’ quotient never even approached maximum. So my hopes for the best had to be strictly limited, or the body count was likely to rise beyond acceptable levels.

  “If you say so, Admiral,” Hammer nodded. “It’ll be nice to be able to let the crews stand down from all of the double and triple shifts and catch up on some of the deferred maintenance before making the final leg.”

  “Amen to that, Lieutenant Commander,” I agreed with some feeling.

  “I’m interested to see this planet everyone’s been talking about,” she said, her face dimpling with mirth. “For a non-tech world it sounds surprisingly interesting.”

  “Well, don’t believe everything you hear,” I smirked, “but even so, it can be quite…colorful. Just don’t even think about working on your tan line while you’re down planet side; I hear the oceanic fauna is to die for,” I explained before pointedly making eye contact and adding, “Literally.”

  Leonora Hammer frowned at me and then relented. “So I’ve heard,” she said before finally finishing, “Admiral.” She then returned to her duties.

  After a trying, prolonged campaign we could all use a little bit of rest and relaxation. That went for the ‘seasoned’ MSP hands, the green recruits, and the Confederation survivors—some of whom had been on ice and out of circulation for up to 200 years. In addition to the battles—which had been fierce—the lack of appreciation for our efforts, our successes and the outright hatred which our methods had engendered had been simply staggering. Yes, we all very much needed a break, I concluded.