Admiral's Trial (A Spineward Sectors Novel:) Read online

  Admiral’s Trial - A Spineward Sectors Novel: Book Four

  by

  Luke Sky Wachter

  v1.02

  6-7-2013 – Fixed thirty or so typos, as well as a couple of formatting issues.

  Copyright © 2013 by Joshua Wachter

  All rights reserved.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. All resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental. Respect my electronic rights because the money you save today will be the book I can't afford to write for you tomorrow.

  For my son Luke, who always believes…and has even taken to telling me bedtime stories!

  Usual thanks go out to my brother for going through these books to make them ready for mass consumption. Special thanks go to Superpsycho of ourforumon.com, who has done an absolutely amazing job helping me learn how to…umm, write? Honorable mentions go to beta reader ‘Swift’—who I’ve come to think of as ‘The Comma Man,’ and Emil ‘#1 Euro Fan’ Berggren, whose enthusiasm is so contagious that I can’t help but try to work even harder to get the next book written.

  Thanks to all the other beta readers—you know who you are—for all your contributions. This book wouldn’t be what it is without you, and I really do mean that.

  And again, I really want to thank all of my fans for supporting me in this endeavor. I cannot express in written words just how much your encouragement means to me…unless you count the ~135k of them you’re about to tear into ;)

  Enjoy!

  P.S.—Be sure to stop by the blog at www.blog.admiralwho.com for updates, and the opportunity to enroll as a beta reader in future releases! I might even have a few more goodies in store for frequent bloggers…

  Books by Luke Sky Wachter:

  As of 06-24-2013

  SPINEWARD SECTORS NOVEL SERIES

  Admiral Who?

  Admiral's Gambit

  Admiral's Tribulation

  Admiral's Trial

  SPINEWARD SECTORS NOVELLAS

  Admiral's Lady: Eyes of Ice, Heart of Fire

  Visit AdmiralWho.com for more information.

  Be sure to stop by the blog at blog.admiralwho.com for updates.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue: One bad trip

  Chapter 1: In the Brig

  Chapter 2: A Rude Awakening

  Chapter 3: The Captain’s…make that, Commodore’s Mast

  Chapter 4: Let the Suffering begin

  Chapter 5: The Schemer is afoot!

  Chapter 6: A Communicator for Revenge

  Chapter 7: A Family Visit

  Chapter 8: Tremblay has a proposition

  Chapter 9: If you’d like to make a call…

  Chapter 10: A door opened, you came out…Hades of a day, isn’t it?

  Chapter 11: A Blaze of Glory?

  Chapter 12: Finding the Perfect Patsy

  Chapter 13: An Ambush

  Chapter 14: Jean Luc Admonishes Tremblay

  Chapter 15: Deck 12.5

  Chapter 16: Let’s kill them all!

  Chapter 17: An Engineer Enraged

  Chapter 18: Jason on the Rocks, otherwise known as a Rejection of the Minds

  Chapter 19: The Chickens have come home to roost!

  Chapter 20: A Message in a Bottle that was never sent

  Chapter 21: Walking from one Plank to another

  Chapter 22: Hey! What are you trying to pull?!

  Chapter 23: Deep in the Clutches of the Security Council

  Chapter 24: A Rude Awakening

  Chapter 25: Go Team, Go!

  Chapter 26: A Briefing? What a Novel Concept

  Chapter 27: A Gag Order

  Chapter 28: A Distinguished Visitor

  Chapter 29: Spalding to The Rescue!

  Chapter 30: Tremblay-ing Behind

  Chapter 31: Spalding in a Time Crunch

  Chapter 32: A Shuttle Decision

  Chapter 33: A Good Show on the Dark Side of the System

  Chapter 34: Arriving on the Dungeon Ship

  Chapter 35: Knee Deep In It

  Chapter 36: The Last Meal

  Chapter 37: Here goes nothing…or everything

  Chapter 38: Strange Readings

  Chapter 39: The Dark Side

  Chapter 40: A Royal Ruckus

  Chapter 41: Making a Move

  Chapter 42: Yagar’s ‘Great Maneuver’

  Chapter 43: Standing Tall

  Chapter 44: The Silent Observers

  Chapter 45: Spalding deals with Battle Damage

  Chapter 46: An Engineering Overload

  Chapter 47: Maneuvering into Position

  Chapter 48: Big Rocks

  Chapter 49: Rendezvous x2

  Chapter 50: The Trap Snaps Shut

  Chapter 51: Stuck in a Cell

  Chapter 52: Spalding being Spalding

  Chapter 53: It’s The Revolution, Baby!

  Chapter 54: He’s baaack!

  Chapter 55: On the Bridge

  Sneak Peak—Admiral’s Revenge

  Chapter 1: Tallying Resources, and Counting Costs

  Chapter 2: It’s time to Move On

  Chapter 3: Converting a Druid

  Prologue: One bad trip

  “Hyper Spatial coordinates confirmed; the Vineyard’s Nav. Computer is now slaved to ours, Commodore. We are a go for the point transfer,” the Navigator reported.

  Jean Luc shook his head with a small weary motion, making sure to catch the eye of his second in command as he did so. “I’m sure the Command Bridge has things well in hand under the expert supervision of this ship’s First Officer,” he said with a smile he hoped would reduce the sting from his statement to let the ship’s nominal Captain, one Jim Heppner, know he was not making an issue of it…at least not yet. However, the way the other man smiled to hide the sudden grinding of his teeth caused Jean Luc’s own smile to expand to a grin of nearly maniacal levels.

  “I’m certain that Commodore Montagne can give any orders he wishes from the Flag Bridge and the ship will faithfully respond to his orders,” Captain Heppner said stiffly.

  “Oh in the fie, Jim! You need to calm down,” the one-eyed Commodore said to smooth things over now that he’d had his little spot of fun goading the man.

  Heppner took a deep breath and looked at the main screen, “What about your surprise; four hours, wasn't it?” The view of Omicron Station and the Dreadnaught class Battleship 'Armor Prince' prominent on the screen, instead of their own ship's destination coordinates beyond the hyper limit they needed to reach to exit the system.

  Jean Luc glanced at a countdown timer he had programmed into Throne's arm display. “Less than a minute away,” he said with a cruel smile.

  “I pray they don't discover your surprise in time to disarm it,” Heppner said seriously.

  Jean Luc gave an airy wave, “That’s the beauty of it; it can’t be disarmed,” Jean Luc bared his teeth and leaned back in the Throne, languidly propping one leg over the ornate chair’s arm.

  “Anything can be disarmed,” Heppner said flatly.

  “Even an old Caprian Anti-Mutiny Device, and on top of that the ship’s scuttling charges set at Senior Captain level authority, whose authority would be mine?” Jean Luc asked rhetorically.

  “Those old beasts?” Captain Heppner’s eyebrows rose in appreciative surprise. “They haven’t dared make any more of those death traps or put them on our ships since their loyal Parliamentary Officers and Crews walked off half the ships in the fleet and threatened to march on the Legislative Bunker in protest,” he said with some satisfaction in his voice, indicating he’d been among those who’d threatened to march on Parliament.

  “Seems
they forgot to take them off the ships they’d given to me,” Jean Luc said sardonically.

  “Probably just an administrative oversight of some kind,” Captain Heppner mused, then gave his Commodore a look that said he knew it was anything but.

  He must be playing for the cameras, the one-eyed Montagne realized. He had almost forgotten what it was like to serve in the SDF, with every word and gesture observed and recorded. Thankfully, the only person likely to see any recordings in time to do any good would be the ship’s Morale Officer. Jean Luc’s face turned hard with the thought of the man. He was the one Officer Jean Luc would have to bring to heel quickly or remove him from his position somehow.

  Treading where lesser men did not dare, Jim Heppner bravely stepped into the foreboding silence. “…And there’s absolutely no way they could have disabled the scuttling charges using the command crystal off the Prince’s former commanding officer?” pressed the Captain.

  “He only has the First Officer’s key,” Jean Luc explained, “I kept the Captain’s key for each ship in my personal possession, and still have them with me.”

  Heppner finally smiled in understanding. “Parliament would never risk handing a Montagne an Admiral’s Key and I can't see an Imperial like Janeski handing one over to our false Little Admiral either, even if Parliament allowed Janeski to have one,” the Parliamentary Captain said with satisfaction.

  “I took the Command Crystal from my nephew while he was still twitching.” Jean Luc explained with a touch of malevolence in his voice. “Janeski must have handed over the Captain’s Key before he left, or my Nephew has unplumbed depths and somehow managed to forge one. Either way, none of the keys on board that ship can stop it now; only an Admiral’s key could override a command from the person the ship's computer has logged as Captain, which is me.”

  Heppner's forehead wrinkled, “Then why did you think the ship could join us if your crew regained control of her?”

  “They still can,” Jean Luc affirmed. When Heppner's look remained one of confusion, the one-eyed Montagne shook his head with annoyance. “I set the mutiny device to go off first and then placed a contingency within the scuttling program,” Jean Luc explained. “If the ship’s internal sensors find the battleship completely free of all life signs prior to the self-destruct activating, the program is to erase itself,” he leaned back in his chair, as if the master of all he surveyed.

  “…Thus leaving the ship intact,” there was admiration in his Flag Captain’s voice. “So the self-destruct only goes off if the mutiny device fails to clear the ship; very clever, Commodore.”

  “In theory, I suppose they could figure out how to hack one or the other of them. But both?” The Commodore threw up his hands in mock incredulity before shaking his head. “No, I think not. Consider what it would take. First, they'd have to think to look for the mutiny device and upon finding it, they'd have to recognize what it was. That in itself is unlikely since very few people today have even heard of one, much less seen one and the only person they had who was capable of recognizing it, is dead. If they try to move or if there's any tampering, it will go off," He gloated with a smile. "Even if there were some malfunction of the device, the self-destruct is there as a backup and as I've already explained there is just no way for them to stop that. Such a series of events is not only highly improbable, but laughable,” chuckled the newly minted Commodore, delighted at his own brilliance.

  “Yes…" Heppner agreed, looking at him with admiration, "and between the pirates and your crew trying to retake the ship, they're too busy to even think about anything else. It does seem to be a fool-proof plan.”

  “Oh, no plan is fool-proof and there's certainly enough things that could go wrong,” Jean Luc admonished, but his face lightened as he continued. “However, even if several things go wrong, the result is still their deaths, either by the device or in the destruction of the Armor Prince.”

  The men shared a look of knowing confidence before Jean Luc leaned back in the Throne to bask in his coming triumph. As he tried to get comfortable, he wondered why someone had not installed some proper padding in the metal edifice by now. No matter, he could have the ship’s supply department get together with the tailor and come up with something appropriate.

  Noticing the countdown display flashing red at zero, he realized he had missed the big moment. Oh well, he could always review the raw sensor logs if he wanted to see it and no one would ever know.

  “I’m reading some unusual activity from the Omicron,” reported a Sensor Operator, a man Jean Luc did not recognize.

  Jean Luc gave the man his attention responding casually, “Did you detect the energy signature I sent you emanating from the Prince?”

  “No Sir,” the Operator replied, without looking up from his displays.

  Jean Luc clenched a fist, then forced his hand to relax when he realized his reaction to not hearing what he had been anticipating.

  “Too bad, we could use that ship. The fact it's Dreadnaught class makes the loss significant; they're a superior model,” Heppner lamented with a shrug.

  Jean Luc opened his mouth to reply when the Sensor Operator interrupted.

  “No Commodore, not the Prince,” the operator again reported as he sent the image of one of his displays to the main screen. The image of the Omicron, with a large area of its aft section highlighted in an expanding wave of green, became the focus of attention on the bridge.

  Uncertainty gripped Jean Luc. He was unsure what he was watching but he suspected it was not good. “What is that?” he asked tightly, as muscles tensed in anticipation of more bad news.

  “The location of the energy signature you instructed us to look for, Sir. But the Armor Prince appears unaffected by it,” the Operator reported.

  Those near him could hear the sound of breath catch in Heppner's throat.

  The Commodore forced himself to appear unconcerned and confident, “Well, well, it appears I may have underestimated the team my Nephew managed to assemble in the short time available to him.” He leaned forward to rest his elbows on the arms of the throne to steeple his fingers in front of chin and narrowed his eyes as if to contemplate recent events.

  “Impossible,” Heppner said in disbelief.

  “No…Ingenious―and extremely skilled for them to have pulled off such a stunt,” Jean Luc corrected as Heppner muttered under his breath, glaring at the screen. “Not to worry, that's only one of three arrows in our quiver, Number One,” Jean Luc said confidently, although his own concern grew enough that his stomach began to churn with acid.

  When the countdown for the self-destruct to activate came, and went, Jean Luc sat woodenly upon the Throne. He should have witnessed the ship's back break as explosions ripped through its hull.

  Heppner, nearly apoplectic, virtually screamed, “What space rot is this?”

  Jean Luc stared at the screen in tight-lipped silence, as if by the intensity of his focus alone, he could force the destruction of the other ship, along with the tenacious little impediments that clung to her like ticks on a boar. “The fallout will be severe,” the Commodore commented absently. He could just imagine the damage a brigade of power-armored professional morons could do to the station.

  “They are still outnumbered fifty to one, Sir,” Heppner insisted.

  “It’s really too bad,” Jean Luc mused, “retribution from the Omicron is almost a certainty now. Contingency plans will need to be developed and put in place.”

  “I doubt the false Confederals could cause us any real trouble, even if any of them survive,” assured Captain Heppner. “If they somehow manage to retreat back to the ship, it's so heavily damaged and their numbers so few they couldn't do much…” then, rethinking his argument, he added, “Wolf-9 back in Easy Haven will be a tougher nut to deal with than anything these scattered survivors could possibly dream up.”

  “It's my former peers that concern me. They'll be hot for blood after this level of damage,” Jean Luc mused, ignoring the entire i
ssue of Easy Haven for the moment. He could always have Rear Admiral Yagar and his Sector Guard break their teeth on it first. There were any number of targets as juicy, and much less heavily defended, out there just begging to be swept up first. His fingers laced themselves behind his head as he knew that he was just the person to do the sweeping.

  “Thanks to the loss of our third fusion generator, there’s still time to abort the jump before the point of no return and reclaim the battleship,” Captain Heppner said pointedly, not really sounding very enthusiastic about the idea.

  Jean Luc knew the best chance of salvaging the Armor Prince had already passed, so he shook his head absently. “We have everything we need right here, Number One,” Commodore Montagne injected into a mounting silence while activating the Throne’s controls to swivel around and survey the Flag Bridge. “Everything we need is right here inside this ship,” he repeated with deep satisfaction.

  Heppner lifted a questioning eyebrow, “Sir?”

  “With the heart of the Lucky Larry on our side, anything is possible,” Jean Luc replied.

  “If you say so, Sir,” Captain Heppner acknowledged, unsure what else to say. He was clearly too exhausted and frustrated to press the issue further.

  For his part, Jean Luc hoped Heppner was wondering if his superior officer had spent too much time beyond the edge of known space. If so, it would fit his plans perfectly. Let the people in this system squabble over a few Aces and let the Imperials arrogantly believe they had the only Joker in the deck. Jean Luc would show them the error of their ways…he would show them all.

  Of that, he was certain.

  Chapter 1: In the Brig

  I awoke with a gasp, a loud snap echoing in my ears, the light searing my eyes like hot daggers as I tried to see where I was. Still reeling from the shock, a sharp bitter smell struck my nose. Unable to exhale, it hit my throat like acid, and rapidly sliced into my chest like a ravenous knife. My lungs seized on the atrocious stinging vapors and with my mind in a growing fog, I drifted back to similar reactions as a child when my mother sprayed me with expensive cologne in preparation for some mandatory royal function.