Admiral's Revenge (A Spineward Sectors Novel:) Page 9

  “I see someone spiked the punch with rocket fuel,” Colin LeGodat said, covering his mouth to hide a smile.

  I shook my head and had to turn slightly away as a commotion started up near the singing platform. An outraged Glenda Baldwin was shouting and shaking a space wrench at the old engineer, who then blew her a kiss before pulling the mike too close to his mouth and belting out the chorus one—more—time!

  “Oh, please, not again,” I muttered under my breath. This time, at least, he used the correct ‘Kathleen’ lyrics, although I couldn’t help but wince when he started singing off-key ‘about the place they went before’ and tried to bribe her to forgive him with an offer of ice cream.

  “Quite the colorful personality,” the Commodore grinned.

  “You don’t know the half of it,” I said fervently. He didn’t want to know the half of it. I wondered what would have happened if it had been the Commodore, instead of myself, who had come across the old engineer sprawled out naked in the middle of a main corridor during an enviro-failure drill?

  At the sight of a plasma torch activate in the middle of the crowd, my eyes popped open in alarm. Fortunately, before either I or the Commodore had to get involved, the old Engineer was being dragged off stage and hustled toward an exit by an overly-protective engineering crew—as well as another group of men who were holding Mrs. Baldwin back from him. Cries of ‘Come back here, you old space goat!’ still echoed across the mess hall as he egressed the room decidedly not under his own power.

  “Well, all’s well that ends well, I guess,” I said a little uneasily, but fortunately things settled down quickly after that. Then, in a deliberate ploy to change the subject back to what I was mainly interested in—more ships—I casually mentioned, “Integration of the old crew and the new crew of the Gift have been going smoother than I expected.”

  “That’s not surprising, Sir,” the Commodore remarked without batting an eyelash, “as most of the men assigned to the ship are your own former crewmates. I know they were eager to serve under you again.”

  I turned sideways and produced a faint smile. Glancing at him out of the corner of my eye, I wondered if that was it. When I had asked for the Heavy Cruiser, he’d had no real way to refuse, what with all my former men onboard. But with the two Destroyers he thought he had more of a bargaining position?

  “What are they drinking down there?” I asked a little incredulously, as the party started to get into full swing. “Normally my Chief Engineer is death on the hard stuff; I would have guessed he’d be the last one to allow it at his going away party.”

  The Commodore leaned forward with a crook to his finger, and a man with a pair of glasses on a platter hurried up the stairs and presented the drinks to us.

  “I’m told that our beverage selection matches your Chief Engineer’s exacting requirements in this particular instance,” LeGodat remarked, picking up his glass and taking a sip. He sighed with real pleasure, “have a taste,” he offered.

  Not really wanting to drink, but seeing no way out of it, I eyed the glass suspiciously but then decided that if I couldn’t trust my allies not to poison me, I was probably sunk anyways.

  Drinking just enough to wet my lips and give my tongue a taste, I was more than a little surprised at the explosion of cherries and lime that went off in my mouth.

  “Wow,” I said with real appreciation, “this drink is pretty amazing. What is this stuff?”

  “Your Chief Engineer was pretty adamant about only allowing two kinds of liquors at his shindig,” LeGodat said with a smirk, “the simple meads were easy enough, but the ale was a bit harder to come by.”

  I nodded absently, since meads and ales didn’t sound too hard to come up with. But if this was mead, I wondered why I’d never tasted any of it before. I didn’t think it could be ale, since I thought that was supposed to be a lot more like beer.

  “It was a bit of a pinch to come up with his other allowed beverage of choice,” he continued, and I nodded with understanding. Our Chief Engineer was more than a little eccentric at times, so I saw no reason why his alcoholic choices wouldn’t be just as difficult to understand.

  “That’s why,” LeGodat said, as I took a larger mouthful and swirled it around in my mouth, the explosions on my tongue feeling simply incredible, “I was so pleased when our own Chief Engineering Officer, a Captain Swarvick, managed to scrounge up three full cases of first quality Gorgon Iced Ale.”

  I choked with horror, and Gorgon Iced Ale went down the wrong tube, my lungs spasming and alcohol came out my nose. Gasping and spitting for all I was worth, I staggered away from the Commodore as I tried to catch my breath.

  The Commodore looked shocked and hurried over to pound me on the back.

  “Are you okay, Admiral,” he asked sounding worried.

  I waved him off and grabbed the railing to hold myself upright while I regained control over my body.

  “Fine,” I wheezed making a fist and pounding my chest to help get rid of the Gorgon Iced Ale that had gone down the wrong pipe.

  “Is something wrong, or was it something I said?” the Commodore asked.

  “I’m allergic to Gorgon Iced Ales,” I finally managed to get out.

  LeGodat’s eyes widened. “Maybe I’d better contact station medical,” he said reaching for his communicator.

  “I can manage,” I said waving him away, “it was just one mouthful.”

  “Even still,” he replied firmly, then contacted his Chief Medical Doctor and muttered a quick communication before looking back up to me. “I’m terribly sorry, Admiral,” the Commodore said looking more than a little red faced and drawing himself up to attention, “I wasn’t aware.”

  “Oh in the fie, Commodore, let it go,” I said, waving a hand around in the air as if to wave away something odiferous, “it’s not your fault. The medical records must have been lost when we transferred to the dungeon ship.”

  We stood there waiting until the Medical staff arrived to take a blood sample and inject me with a giant syringe attached a microscopically small needle. Its bark was definitely worse than its bite—a relief for once, since my most recent interactions with needles had been, shall we say, less than agreeable.

  “Now that all that’s taken care of,” the Commodore said, clearing his throat.

  “Yes?” I drawled cocking an eyebrow at him. Here it was. Whatever it was that he was really after, then seeing the man hesitate I said, “I hope it’s not another specialty drink.”

  “No.” Said LeGodat shaking his head, “although, speaking of specialty items…”

  Here it came.

  “I’ve been hearing updates through the grapevine that,” he paused and I realized I was scowling. At the first mention of ‘vines,’ my mind had instantly gone to Jean Luc and his non-existent Vineyard—which had actually been the name he had given to his pirate flagship, The Vineyard.

  “Sorry,” I muttered, “bad memories. Please continue.” I paused and when he didn’t continue added, “you said you’d heard something?”

  “Yes,” LeGodat allowed gravely, “tech manuals.”

  I blinked. “What?” I asked feeling confused.

  “The Constructor is leaving Easy Haven soon, and word is their home system has come to some kind of cease fire and is set to resume normal interstellar trade,” LeGodat explained.

  “Okay…” I said, feeling like I was missing something.

  “We’ve managed to hire away a small portion of their crews for our burgeoning shipyard and factories,” he continued, “but it’s not nearly enough to run everything we’ve already pulled out of mothballs, let alone allow room for expansion.”

  “How many shipyard personnel are we talking about here…that you’ve hired away from them, I mean?” I asked curiously.

  “Only about twenty five hundred,” he said, and I almost choked.

  “That’s a lot of men,” I finally said.

  “A drop in the bucket,” LeGodat said dismissively, “that number coul
d run half a factory and one of the shipyards, or just the repair functions and the newest factory, as it’s less labor intensive, but not both with that few trained engineers and technicians.”

  “I’m not sure how I can help more than I am,” I said slowly, “I’ve already sent out a recruiting drive for personnel.”

  “That’s where those new tech manuals and specifications come in,” the Commodore said, and if I didn’t know better I’d say he sounded like a hunter about to corner his prey. As I wasn’t really aware of any new technology or tech manuals or what have you, so I was at something of a loss, but from the careful way the Commodore was broaching the subject he at least seemed to think we had them. Of course, if any man had access to new technology and hadn’t made his relatively clueless Admiral aware of this, it had to be our Chief Engineer. Who knew what all he had been up to over Gambit Station?

  “How exactly will a bunch of tech manuals help you with your manpower shortage?” I asked, genuinely curious as to the answer.

  “As the Admiral will recall, he took both of the advanced, near-Imperial tech, Constructors,” the Commodore said pointedly.

  “Yes, but you’ve got a brand new Factory Complex just about completed and two recently refurbished ones out of mothballs,” I retorted, deliberately avoiding his point. I was however starting to get an inkling of what the Acting System Commander was angling in on.

  “Yes, we’ve upgraded our hundred year old, mothballed Confederation military technology with the current sector-wide ‘civilian’ tech available to the three Constructors, you initially left behind—of which only one now remains,” the older Officer said pointedly. “And while this is a big step, what it really means is that we’re still behind the curve of most of the big, local SDF’s.”

  “And you want my technology,” I said the light bulb going off and burning a hole in my head as I started calculating the angles. Maybe I could finally break free that second Destroyer?

  “I just want access to the same upgrades and tech readouts that are available to the rest of the ‘Confederation forces’ in this sector,” Colin LeGodat said, stressing the point that we were all one big, happy fleet.

  “I’ll talk to Commander Spalding before he departs and see if he has time to squeeze it in before he leaves,” I drawled and then let my eyes flash, as if something had just occurred to me, “Speaking of leaving, when do you think your officers and crew will be ready to complete the handover of that Light Destroyer to the MSP so that we can hurry our Omicron engineering away team along their way?”

  “A full handover could take quite a while,” LeGodat said with a wrinkle in his brow, “however, if it will help then I’m more than willing to leave that ship under Easy Haven control and offer your team a ride over to the Omicron. Patrol duties, as you might remember, are part of our mandate over here.”

  I looked at him silently, and after half a minute the Commodore took a deep breath. “I can give you back the Heavy Cruiser and loan you McCruise and that Heavy Destroyer for this mission, but this Star Base needs the upgrades and cutting our mobile forces down to only two destroyers is bad enough. There’s no way I can justify one Destroyer and only three Corvettes,” he finally said, speaking with an honesty I found surprising. I’d expected more in the way of subtle intrigue and maneuvering, and his putting his thoughts out on the table like this was as unexpected as it was refreshing—not that I was going to let him know that.

  “I need that second Destroyer,” I said flatly.

  “A Cruiser and one Destroyer, or a Cruiser and two Destroyers,” LeGodat said with an exasperated shrug, “either way, that’s not enough ships to take on even a single Battleship, let along two at the same time. We need those ships here, so I have to refuse.”

  “I’m leaving you the Medium Cruiser and a top of the line Corvette,” I riposted irritably.

  “That Hydra’s scrap; her forward internal structure is fractured,” LeGodat said in a hard voice, “the way I see it, I’m getting one Corvette and a piece of junk that I can ‘maybe’ reprocess to make a new ship six months from now, while you’re getting a refurbished Heavy Cruiser, a Heavy Destroyer and a Dungeon ship.”

  “That Dungeon ship’s out there getting more officers and crew for your Star Base,” I countered coolly.

  “Forget the Transport then,” LeGodat said evenly, “my point remains. You’re still coming out a great deal ahead on the ship transfers. Listen, Admiral, I respect what you’ve done for us but there’s only so far I can bend on this as long as we have such a limited number of working hulls and a Sector Authority with knives pointed at our backs, just waiting for an opening. As it is, I’m giving you far more than I’m comfortable with.”

  My mouth making a flat line, I considered whether it was time to dissolve out current relationship but I reluctantly set the idea aside. It hadn’t passed my notice that the Commodore had ‘given’ me a Heavy Cruiser he probably could never have held if I went around him and his officers and started issuing orders to my old crew currently manning her. By making it clear the Heavy Destroyer was a loan, and securing his hold over the ship by placing McCruise as its captain and leavening the Destroyer with the same crew she’d been working with for over a year (the men and women transferring over from the Dungeon ship), the Commodore was showing that he had a firm grip on that ship. It was more than likely that if I pushed too hard, all I’d do was alienate the man and his entire Easy Haven organization.

  So I smiled and played along. It was never wise to make too many demands from a position of relative weakness.

  “I understand,” I said as agreeably as I could, “and in case I haven’t said it before, I can’t thank you and your people enough for what they did in Praxis, riding to the rescue and helping to secure our line of escape like that. Your actions won’t be forgotten.”

  “Thank you, Sir,” LeGodat said after a pregnant pause.

  “It’s the least I can do,” I said with a nod. The Commodore was making it clear that while we were both on the same side, that didn’t mean we didn’t have separate and slightly divergent points of interests, which I had to admit was understandable. The essence of politics and diplomacy was the art of the compromise…at least until you could crush your enemies and then deal with your friends from a position of strength. This dealing from weakness business left a sour taste in my mouth and reminded me too much of how I’d felt before taking command of the Lucky Clover.

  “Anyway,” I said forcing a smile, “like I said, I’ll check with the Commander and instruct him to turn over whatever he has that will help promote the common good.”

  “My Engineering team estimates that between the factory upgrades and the design for those Constructor-based robots that we could cut our personnel requirements by somewhere between half and three quarters,” LeGodat said, his eyes narrowing eagerly. “That would free us up enough to run the shipyard and one of the factories full-out.”

  “I see,” I said, not entirely unwilling to see Wolf-9’s manpower requirements greatly reduced. Even as a somewhat reluctant ally, the benefits to me personally could be immense.

  “And if we could get both working at the same time, instead of switching personnel back and forth like I’d been planning for when our Constructor leaves,” LeGodat drawled, “we could probably move beyond simply repairing your ships to laying down a new hull or three for the MSP.”

  Ah, the sweet smell of a bribe, I thought with more than a flash of satisfaction as my eyes lit up. Sure, I already had Gambit, but that was far away and still not fully operational (and a place I’d never actually seen yet, mind you) while Easy Haven and the Wolf-9 Star Base were right here.

  “We’ve no time to let policy disagreements devolve into turf wars that do nothing but slow us down,” I said agreeably, “instruct your command team onboard the Light Destroyer to ready the ship. I’ll agree to let the warship stay under Wolf-9 auspices as a part of your Light Squadron, and instruct my Chief Engineer to give your people the straight down
load on anything he’s got on him with an eye to bringing whatever else is missing back when he visits Gambit Station again….” I couldn’t help but add a slight requirement, “Assuming of course that your Light Destroyer can be ready to fire up its drive and escort the Commander’s courier vessel when it leaves.”

  “I’ll issue the orders now, but that shouldn’t be a problem, Admiral,” LeGodat agreed, pulling out a com-link and turning to the side to issue the appropriate orders.

  I grimaced, since it was one thing to know that the personnel transfer that was supposed to put my people in control of that ship had been deliberately delayed. It was another thing entirely to have my nose rubbed in that fact. Deliberately straightening my back to an appropriate, royal posture, I smoothed my face by the time the Commodore turned back.

  “It’ll be a tighter timetable than I’d like and we’ll need to make a few last minute shuttle runs to put everything in order, but Captain Slader should be ready in time to escort the Commander’s vessel when he leaves,” LeGodat reported, not batting an eye as he relayed this.

  “Sounds excellent, Colin,” I said politely, sliding my eyes away from the Commodore before they drilled a hole through his forehead. I was getting most of what I was asking for, I told myself, and as such I ought to be unreasonably happy. The old Jason Montagne before prison certainly would have been. Why, I figured he’d probably have been absolutely ecstatic, literally hop-skipping down the corridor in glee.

  The New Me, on the other hand, had to forcibly throttle back the urge to do something permanent about the less than tractable response I’d been getting lately. Saint Murphy as my witness, I had never wanted to be an Admiral. But if I had to be then by all the evil space gods, I was going to start being treated like one!

  Leaving the Commodore to his Ice Ale, I went down to mingle with the masses down in the main mess hall of the station. It was important to see and to be seen while I pressed the flesh and made myself accessible, since at that moment my only strength lay in the shaken loyalty of my people. If the officers and crew who’d been with me through thick and thin and survived everything right alongside of me lost their faith in my leadership…let’s just say it might as well be back to prison time, since I would be well and truly finished.