Admiral Invincible (A Spineward Sectors Novel: Book 7) Read online

  “Your heirs…and a half dozen of them…this is, this is…intolerable!” I exclaimed. “You’re talking about a six or more children! Forget about the risks; how are we going to take care of that many kids. You really should have consulted me first.”

  “I did consult you,” Akantha snapped, “and as for what is intolerable, why did you not include me in your preplanning sessions for the conference meetings?”

  “This isn’t about me,” I snapped right back, “and as for the meetings, I call the meetings to help make my plans. The important thing here is you planning to become a mother a half-dozen times over.”

  “Do not be a fool Jason; no one makes plans during the meetings. Meetings are for hearing reports, finding out anything you may have missed, and sharing your vision for the future with your underlings.”

  “Blast it, Akantha, I’m not ready to be a father yet,” I said hotly. “I have an entire fleet looking to me for leadership, and an invasion of mechanicals trying to take over two entire Sectors of space. What kind of world would I be bringing them into? It wouldn’t be right.”

  “Wars happen all the time, Protector,” Akantha said, making my native title into a near insult, “and children come regardless of if it is raining blood or shining peace throughout the land. As for being ready to be a father, you had best get ready because it is coming whether you like it or not, and the world my children are born into will be what we make of it. So if you dislike the world as it is, I suggest you do something about it and stop your complaining.”

  “If we weren’t married, I’d call this sequence of events actionable,” I growled, “and in case you haven’t noticed, I’m doing my darnedest to ‘do something’ about this section of the galaxy already!.”

  “Good,” she said shortly. “Oh,” she narrowed her eyes at me, “if I were you, I would rededicate myself to the practice of swordplay.”

  “Who wants to kill me now?” I inquired sharply.

  “I have no specific names, but once the warriors hear that I am in the mood for heirs you should expect a challenge to your position. Every would-be warlord who has been biding his time will have his eyes set on your position, and they will use this opportunity to make whatever moves they can.”

  My eyes heated up as my stare turned into a glare.

  “So, in addition to ignoring my wishes about having children…or ‘putting eggs in your basket’ while we’re in a warzone,” I clarified, using her own idiom, “your decision—your unilateral decision—to get heirs right now, this very day, has oh-so-coincidentally endangered my life, and potentially also endangered our authority over our Lancers,” I said, fighting to hold onto my temper.

  Akantha’s eyes turned flinty. “This is my due as your Hold Mistress,” she said flatly, “and it is also the least part of what is mine, both by right and by action.”

  “It’s your right to make such intensely personal decisions without my consent?” I asked, my face hardening.

  “When your own people and your family turned on you, I stayed true. When you lost the Lucky Clover in the middle of battle and were cut down, your fate unknown, I held the survivors together and fought my way victory against terrible odds, while sustaining grievous losses. When you were taken prisoner by your own uncle and no one knew if you lived or had died, did I abandon you to your fate? No. I cleaved to your side, bearing your sword through tribulation and trials, even when all hope seemed lost I never despaired of you. I even sent a rescue force under Spalding, and then struck back at our mutual betrayers, bloodying them with my own hands and bringing back a battleship—the Parliamentary Power—to add to your Fleet.” She leaned forward to stare at me icily, “I have repeatedly followed you into the river of stars when my people—our people—need me back in Messene to be their Leader. And yet, when the only thing I ask of you in return are children and heirs to secure my lineage and position as the Mistress of that which I hold, all you do is squawk about how I moved too fast in making this decision.”

  All while she was talking I grew angrier and angrier. Hadn’t I rescued her first, asked myself. Hadn’t I saved her, her hold and her entire world not once but multiple times already? Fighting off first Bugs, and then Pirates, and then Bugs yet again; Hades, I’d even destroyed an entire Bug Invasion Force—complete with its Mothership! Without me, her entire world would have been eaten bare of any life above that of small burrowing insects and fishes in the deep sea. Which didn’t even mention the repeated threats to my life every single time I headed down to her planet, I’d endured the challenges, the attacks, the…

  I even opened my mouth to tell her so in no uncertain terms, but then my shoulders slumped. It was true that I’d failed my people and, when I’d done so, she had thrown herself into the breach. And while I might not have liked it, or even wanted her to do it, she hadn’t hesitated to go on the attack against the people who had tried to kill us.

  A piece of her mind on the matter had been the very least King James had received for his treachery. If all she really wanted in return were children, what could I say; that I thought she was lying, and if I gave her an inch she’d take a mile? I couldn’t say that—even if it were true.

  “Very well,” I said unhappily reconciling myself to the fact I was about to become a father, “we’ll talk more later.”

  Not wanting to deal with her demands any longer, I turned and walked away. At that point the only other thing I could have said was to suggest removing the fertilized eggs and putting them in cryo-storage. But clearly if I did so it would put such a strain on our relationship that we might split, doing who knew what to my control of our Lancer contingent. The cold, hard logic of it said I couldn’t afford a split right then…besides which, I would have a hard time even saying that she was unequivocally wrong.

  Marriage at its most fundamental level did include children; I just hadn’t expected it to happen so soon…or at all, really.

  With these unhappy thoughts swirling between my ears, I headed down to the gym. I was under attack from all sides and now, thanks to my beloved Hold Witch, I had some training to do—before someone one of my own people took my head off in an effort to climb the social pyramid.

  Thinking cold thoughts, I entered the lift.

  Chapter 5: Negotiations went awry

  “Greetings Ambassadors,” Bottletop IIV bustled into the room his spindly limbs rattling and clacking happily, “I have wonderful data to upload for you! The ‘direct newsfeed,’ as you biologicals would call it.”

  Bethany refrained from saying that it was very doubtful any biological, human or otherwise, would put it in exactly that fashion. But, being a Representative or Ambassador—at least in the optical inputs of the machines—it would be impolitic and very undiplomatic to say so.

  “Hello, Chairman,” she said instead and forced a smile worthy of a princess from Tilday, “what do you have to share with us today?”

  The way his smashball-shaped head tracked unerringly on her position gave her the creeps but, being a trained diplomat, none of her unease was manifested on her face.

  “We have finally received the anticipated data dump, along with an approach protocol!” the Chairman bubbled, bouncing and spinning around the conference room, slowly straightening everything back into its original position—sometimes only even a fraction of an inch—with mechanical precision, “in fact, we are nearly there!”

  The Princess-Cadet’s blood ran cold.

  “What, specifically, are we talking about, Chairman?” she asked quickly.

  The Chairman’s big, red eye flashed rapidly before settling down to a single, unblinking light.

  “The Assembly has decided to test your proposal. We will proceed with the prisoner exchange,” Bottletop informed her.

  “While I too am excited by this opportunity,” Bethany said carefully, suppressing a surge of unrealistic hope that she might actually survive this assignment and be out of this mechanical wasteland soon, “I would just like to clarify that it was your side t
hat proposed a Prisoner exchange.”

  Bottletop began to speak but she continued quickly not wanting to end on that particular note.

  “Speaking of which, I have yet to see any of the prisoners you hope to exchange. Perhaps I should send Tremblay to perform a basic safety and wellness check so before we go any further?” she hazarded, hoping to reduce expectations in the very likely event that things did not go as smoothly as expected. Well, in the event that things did not go as smoothly as expected from the droids’ perspective. For her part, she fully expected anything that could go wrong most definitely would. Flat Nose was definitely getting his revenge right now.

  “Details,” Bottletop IIV declared dismissively yet with great enthusiasm, “all of which will be relayed in good time. But in the meantime, let me update your slates with the files,” he then proceeded to do so, and Bethany’s droid-provided slate beeped to indicate it had a new file ready for her to look at.

  “Thank you, Chairman,” she said evenly.

  She would have said more, but the whine-thump-clank of Bubblegum’s distinctive walking pattern put a damper on what she had been about to say.

  Both Bethany and the Chairman turned to greet the new arrival but, instead of the assault droid, the first creature to enter through the door way was the Dark Seer.

  “Another meeting to which my invitation was lost, I see,” the Seer’s ethereal voice had an edge to it that didn’t bode well for the direction of this new conversation.

  “With regrets, you were not invited to this meeting,” the Chairman said with some unaccustomed steel entering his voice as Bubblegum stomped into the room behind the Dark Seer. The whine of his leg servos had a loud, guttural, almost growling sound, “I’m afraid the firewalls surrounding diplomatic meetings must be considered inviolate. I must ask you to leave, unless this is an emergency situation in which case I will ask the party here to wait while I leave and come back.”

  The slender, ethereal figure floating off the ground cocked her head and peered off into space for a long moment, then looked over at Bottletop with a piercing gaze.

  “Soooo,” the word was given a lyrical, almost musical hiss as it came out of the Seer’s mouth, “I see you are rejecting our offer over a passel of sub-sentient load lifters? My principals will not be amused.”

  Bethany’s eyes widened. “What is this?” she asked with surprise.

  “We do not discriminate based on form or function in the United Sentients Assembly,” Bottletop said sternly, speaking to the Dark Seer and ignoring the Princess except for one sideways look, “all lives are equally important to us, but our primary duty is to our constituents.”

  “You are making a grave mistake, Droid Chairman,” the Dark Seer warned, ignoring Bethany as a wave of palpable menace rolled off the slight and slender creature

  Bottletop IIV drew himself up into a regal pose and for the first time in the Princess-Cadet’s memory looked like something other than some kind of nearly humorous figure. He looked like a person of power and, odd as the expression seemed, he was clearly a droid to be reckoned with.

  Of course, the fact that Victory Through Bubblegum was standing with its weapons cycling continuously, and the most chilling rendition of an enraged battle cat growling through its speakers—its weapons targeting the Seer—obviously helped.

  “We are not prepared to weld ourselves solely to your cause,” Bottletop said sternly. “I would think the data-downloads we have provided already would be—”

  “There must be unity of purpose,” cut in the Seer, “unite with us and all the Droid Elements in these Sectors, or the United Sentients Assembly stands alone and acquires for itself a powerful enemy! The data provided is insufficient to ensure linear continuity of your purpose if these requirements are not met. Abandon these pretenders to virtue; they are not even trusted by their own disparate factions. Strip them of all knowledge and cast them out into the darkness of cold space, or hardening will be the least of your fears,” declared the Dark Seer.

  “Strip us of all knowledge?” Bethany was outraged. “And speak about us—about me—as if I wasn’t even here!?” She rounded on the Droid Chairman, “I demand you eject this insufferable creature from these premises at once, or I cannot be held responsible for its safety.”

  The Dark Seer turned its head and looked at her, really looked at her for the first time, and the Princess-Cadet felt as if the dark, limpid pools that were its eyes peered deep inside her soul and started to pull her innermost self out with cruel, cutting hands.

  “Let me handle this, Ambassador Tilday,” Chairman Bottletop IIV said, breaking the spell and causing the dark-robed creature to turn its attention back to him.

  The Sector Representative clutched her chest drawing in a deep breath as her heart palpitated, clenching and tumbling in her chest for several seconds before settling down.

  “The Sentients Assembly is willing to help all sides in the droid and human conflict, unless that side turns against us first,” the Droid stated in no uncertain terms. “It is our duty as intelligent beings to diminish conflict where possible.”

  “By making an enemy this day, you tread a dangerous path—one that will surely lead to your destruction,” warned the Seer ominously, and then swept out of the room.

  There was a long silence, broken only by the movement of Bottletop as he tracked the Dark Seer out of the room.

  She fought against the unnatural fear that seemed to want to take root in her heart and pushing aside anything but that which was most important. To wit: ensuring her own survival. The Princess-Cadet placed both hands on the table for support and looked up at the droid Chairman.

  “Well, now that that offer has walked out the door,” she said as briskly as she was able, “let’s see if we can’t get down to the nitty, gritty details of this alliance of ours.”

  Bottletop IIV looked at her and seemed surprised by her words. But if there was one thing the young, Royal, female had learned during her time on the grand stage of galactic politics, it was the importance of striking while the iron was hot.

  She lifted a shaky eyebrow and steeled herself to meet his disconcerting single red eye without blinking.

  “What do you propose?” the Chairman asked finally, and with obvious reluctance.

  “Well, I was thinking of something like this…” Bethany started, determined to walk out of there with something tangible; she wasn’t ready to be satisfied with simple survival. At this point, she wanted more—a lot more—and if she could throw a spike into the wheels of one certain Montagne, then so much the better.

  Chapter 6: Armed with new Arms

  He was the very model of a heavily distracted space engineer

  “Maybe the problem really is with the grav-plates,” the old Engineer muttered to himself before shaking his head violently. No! It couldn’t possibly be the grav-plates; he’d already tweaked them to within an inch of their tolerance loads.

  With a sigh he stood up, tossing a clean grease rag—well, ‘clean’ for him, since there were many, subtle, levels of cleanliness and this particular rag had a large stain running up and down the middle—onto the work bench and stood up to relieve a crick in his back.

  “What she needs is a bigger power plant! I’ve got to have more energy to make this work,” he declared, and then after a moment he threw his hands up in disgust because there really wasn’t room for a larger power plant.

  Stomping around the room, he ran through every tired idea he’d already come up with from power conservation, to oversized batteries and a new style of grav-plate, or power generators strapped to the outside of the hull, before tossing it all out in disgust.

  “It’s been tried, it’s impractical, or I just can’t get it to work—and the holdup is this old engineer,” he scowled down at the various pads and drawings and plain outright doodles scattered between parts and half-disassembled parts littering the table.

  There was a buzz at the door leading into his workshop deep within the Phoenix�
�s Locker.

  Shaking his head, the old Engineer deliberately turned away from the door and back to his workshop.

  The hatch buzzed again.

  And again.

  Repeatedly, to the point where he gave up trying to keep track of how many times the blasted thing had chimed.

  “Oh, of all the Murphy-sodded nonsense,” he cursed marching over to the entrance.

  He pressed the override button he’d built into the reinforced blast doors leading into the Locker.

  “Can’t be too careful,” he muttered, nodding to himself in agreement. Unlike the Locker on the Clover, that only existed in rumor to the minds of the crew onboard her, everyone and their sister knew of the Phoenix’s old Intelligence half-deck.

  He punched in an override code and then waited as the blast doors slowly slid open.

  “What do you want?” he barked at the person standing outside the door.

  The Tracto-an on the other side narrowed his eyes in response. “I came to show my new arm,” the Tracto-an said in heavily accented Standard, “healer-doctors say it is fully integrated.” The other man turned to show his newly built cybernetic arm, the hand of his other arm stuck through his belt.

  “Came for your fight, did you?” the old Engineer demanded glaring the Tracto-an in the eye.

  The Tracto-an’s eyes flashed. “If you desire,” he said finally.

  “Bah,” scoffed the old Engineer glaring at the powerfully-built Lancer with eyes burning from anger at being interrupted like this, “those quacks wouldn’t know fully integrated cybernetic replacement arm if it self-activated and walloped ’em in the head. Why don’t you bring that oversized thing on over to the work-bench and I’ll take a look—I wouldn’t want you to claim later that you weren’t at your best.”

  “You are very confident,” the Lancer said gravely.

  “What I am is strapped for time!” Spalding shot back. “I’ve got an assault penetrator to fix and as near as I can tell after working on this blasted thing for the better part of two months the only thing I’ve done is lose my time, my patience and likely my marbles as well.”