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  And she would not have had it any other way.

  Chapter IX: A Wizard in Chains

  “If you would just allow me to explain what I need, I promise I’ll be out of your hair in a few minutes, Major,” McKnight protested as she hurried along beside the overly gruff veteran as he led two quads of Lancers toward the nearest docking area.

  “No, you cannot, Lieutenant Commander,” Major Lafiet said, cutting her off just as she had managed to catch up to him. His office had sent her on the proverbial wild goose chase, but quick thinking—and the placement of a few dozen former crew of the Slice of Life throughout the station—had permitted her to track him down while he was in a public area.

  “But, sir!” she said pleadingly. The Little Admiral had accepted her proposal—with a few addendums, of course—and she had spent the last two months working to build a crew roster alongside her new partner in the endeavor, Captain Archibald. The majority of her former crew, chief among them her Lancers, led by the stalwart Bernice would accompany her on her new command. But she had been forced to compromise on several key roster decisions due to Captain Archibald’s attachment to the operation.

  “Let me guess: you, like every other ship in this star system, wants crew,” the Major said, and before McKnight could start the conversation on her terms he cut her off with a knife-hand through the air. “No, let me rephrase that: desperately needs crew—trained crew, to be specific, not the uneducated grounders my office referred to you previously. I know this because, while we have several hundred new recruits, there is a decided dearth of trained spacers going around at the moment.”

  “All I need are fifty trained personnel: techs, engineers, and watch standers,” she said quickly, hoping to regain the initiative from the station’s head of human resources. “I’m more than willing to round out the rest of the crew with unskilled personnel.”

  “Sorry, McKnight, but I really must be going,” the Major said sharply, and she saw his eyes fix on something—or someone—down the corridor. “I’m in the middle of serving an arrest warrant. So if you don’t mind,” he quite rudely gestured for her to get out of his way, which she reluctantly did, before the Major moved down toward whoever had caught his eye.

  “Ship’s Company, attention,” she heard a man say snappily, and she turned to see the speaker drop his duffel and assume that very pose himself.

  “How about the brig?” McKnight pressed, knowing that it would be several days at least before she could track the Major down if she let him out of her sight. “If they’re trained I’ll take him, her, or it. Even just twenty experienced hands and I can cadre the last ship in the squadron.”

  “For the last time: no! Not only would you need special permissions—” began the Major, turning to face her with a thunderous expression.

  “I have the blanket authority to take any and all volunteers. That includes, but isn’t limited to, those serving time in the brig, a ground-based prison, or even a penal colony. This is a special task force,” she said urgently, knowing that the only thing her new task force needed was these specialists and they could make their way back to Sector 24 so they could get on with the blasted mission she’d essentially ordered herself. “We made it here but only on back-to-back shifts; we don’t have enough hands to run a ship on patrol long-term.”

  “Senior Lieutenant Terrance Tiberius Spalding,” the Major said, studiously ignoring her while drawing himself up and prompting the Lancers behind him to do likewise attention.

  “That’s me,” the duffel-dropper acknowledged, holding himself at attention.

  “I am Major Geoffry Lafiet. You and your men are hereby placed under arrest for the crime of mutiny in cold space,” the Major said perfunctorily.

  ““I don’t ask leniency for myself, but I would request that it be taken into account that my crew was only following my orders,” Tiberius said stiffly.

  “I’ve reviewed your file and I have to say that, if it were up to me, the whole lot of you would be spaced out an airlock in the time it took me to march you from here to the nearest one,” Major Lafiet said dispassionately. “But unfortunately I’m just a Major, and I don’t get to make these calls.”

  “I understand,” Tiberius said levelly. To McKnight, he seemed far from shaken by the Major’s arrest or by his overtly hostile nature. This was clearly a man who had been through a lot, and as she listened to the conversation she tried to remember where she had seen the name ‘Tiberius’ before. She was certain she had seen it on a recent report of some kind…

  “Rest assured that you’ll get your day in court and, so I’m told, you won’t even be spaced if convicted,” the Major said, leaning in closer to the man before muttering something under his breath that McKnight couldn’t hear.

  “I-I don’t—” Tiberius stammered.

  Then she remembered why she recognized the name: Commander Terrence Spalding had a son named Tiberius! “A penal colony, you say?” she said loudly, pushing her way through the quad of Lancers. “Are these people trained spacers?”

  “This is not your concern, McKnight!” the Major shouted, and from his tone it was clear she had gotten under his skin—which was just what she had been going for.

  “I asked if they were trained spacers, and I’ll do so again; I’m authorized to take former pirates and sweep the penal colonies for trained hands to further my mission,” she retorted unflinchingly. The only way she was going to come away from this ‘meeting’ with any gains was by proving to be a bigger inconvenience than anything else on the Major’s plate at the moment

  “They haven’t even been tried yet; they’re not eligible,” Major Lafiet barked, gesturing for his people to restrain Spalding and his people. The Lancers did so at once, but McKnight wasn’t about to give up.

  “That still doesn’t answer my question,” she growled, glaring at the Major before looking at Tiberius and cocking her eyebrow questioningly.

  “Yes,” Tiberius said neutrally, but his previously unflappable veneer seemed to have cracked somewhat as a hint of desperation entered his voice. “Most of us are trained engineers, to be exact, but there are a few former shore patrol mixed in.”

  “I’ll take them,” McKnight declared as soon as he had finished his reply.

  “As I said before: they haven’t received their fair trial yet,” the Major growled. “Until that time, they belong to me—and as long as I have them they’ll do nothing but rot in prison.”

  At the Major’s order, the Lancers started to move Tiberius and his men along.

  “What if they stipulate to the charges and file a ‘no contest’ motion?” she pressed, her mind firing on all cylinders as she considered the possible legal—or extra-legal, if needed—measures which might grant her access to these valuable, if flawed crew. In truth, their pending legal status meant they would fit right in with the remnants of the Pride’s crew. “Then I could take them and you could get back to your business,” she explained as she affirmed the validity of her request in terms of protocol.

  “Why in the blazes would you want a bunch of…” he looked down at the data slate, “seventy eight mutineers, to be precise?” Lafiet stopped and turned to stare at the other officer incredulously. “I mean, honestly, McKnight; what’s your angle here?”

  “You let me worry about that. We’ve taken in malcontents, political dissidents, and former pirates along with regular crewmembers. Like I said,” she said pointedly, mimicking the Major’s haughty tone as she slapped a computer chip into his hand, “this is a critical mission and my squadron is part of a special recon group. That’s my authorization chip from the Little Admiral himself; you can verify its contents if you’d like.”

  “Oh, be sure I will,” he shook his head angrily before stomping away, followed shortly by his Lancers and the prisoners in their midst.

  “Thank you, Commander,” Tiberius said without feeling before he, too, joined the procession.

  McKnight knew that the son of the great Terrence Spalding wouldn’t
be up for court martial unless he had royally screwed up. It took a special kind of trouble to overpower Spalding’s long shadow in the Fleet, and McKnight knew she needed to start any relationship with such a troublemaker on the right foot.

  But it didn’t take any great piece of acting for her to channel the emotions she felt as she considered the possibility of Tiberius and his people betraying her crew, and she let those feelings fuel her voice and expression as she said, “You had better be worth it—you don’t want to make me regret this.”

  Judging by his pallor—and the fact that he gulped quietly after taking a few steps away from her—McKnight was confident he had gotten the message.

  Chapter X: Clarity

  “Lieutenant Commander McKnight,” Captain Archibald greeted after she had set foot inside his private office adjoining the bridge of his Heavy Cruiser, which had recently been re-christened the Gamer Gate. “Please, have a seat,” he gestured to a pair of chairs positioned alongside the far wall.

  McKnight moved to the indicated chair and seated herself, briefly eyeing the appointments of the office and finding she approved of his taste. There were the standard bits of military iconography—old national emblems and flags which represented some of the best cultures ever to rise in the Old Confederation—scattered throughout the room. There were also several ornaments of a decidedly more personal nature which reflected his personality, most of which McKnight found tasteful and some of which she thought were decidedly beneath the commanding officer of a warship—especially one with a crew of nearly two thousand souls!

  Still, everything she saw around her was an indicator of who the man she now dealt with really was. And given her pedigree as both an Intelligence cadet and Tactical Officer, she would never look past the opportunity to learn more about someone she would be dealing with in the future—or, in this case, in the present.

  “I assume you received your orders as well?” Captain Archibald asked perfunctorily as he seated himself opposite her. The fact that they were located far from the imposing desk was a meaningful gesture on his part, but it was not one which would go far with McKnight.

  “I believe I received them before you did, Captain,” she said measuredly, “one could reasonably argue that I authored them.”

  “Now, hold on right there, Commander,” Archibald sighed. “I wanted to get this thing off on the right foot, but if we’re going to be at each other’s throats then I can play that game too.”

  McKnight felt her respect for the man rise a notch at that, but she wasn’t willing to concede the initiative, “Then since this is essentially an intelligence operation, and you claim to be interested in ‘getting off on the right foot,’ why don’t we put all of our cards on the table?”

  Archibald stroked his short, neatly-trimmed goatee—which seemed to be a recent development, if his personnel file’s image history was any indicator—and nodded slowly, “As a gesture of good faith, how about you go first?”

  Having expected as much, McKnight proceeded, “Any hull-scraper could see that the Little Admiral—“

  “Admiral Montagne,” Archibald corrected pointedly, breaking her flow and causing their eyes to briefly meet as she saw a flash of grim resolve in his visage. “As I said, I think it’s important we get this thing off on the right foot.”

  “As you say,” McKnight allowed, fighting the urge to clamp her teeth together and storm out of the room, “any hull-scraper could see that Admiral Montagne doesn’t trust me, and I can’t say I blame him too much for at least some of his reservations. I requested material and sentient resources for the operation to which you have been assigned, and I was granted considerably more than I asked for.” Archibald looked like he wanted to interrupt, but she held up a forestalling hand and raised her voice slightly as she continued, “To my mind, the only thing of any relevance that this signifies is how seriously Fleet Command takes the issue of improving the fleet’s intelligence-gathering capability. Would you agree?”

  Captain Archibald was silent for several seconds before nodding, “I would, and I do.”

  “Then it follows,” she continued, having pre-rehearsed this meeting several times in much the same way she had done with Admiral Montagne, “that anyone assigned to this operation should place the mission above any personal agendas he or she might have. Agreed?”

  “Agreed,” Archibald said as he slowly narrowed his eyes. She could already see that he was far from a dullard, which actually allowed her to relax fractionally as she drew a breath to continue.

  “Then let’s dispense with the nuance, innuendo, and political games,” McKnight said bluntly. “As far as I’m concerned, I’m in charge of this operation and you’re here in a supporting role. I know the Admiral chose you for this mission because of your loyalty—and don’t think that your suicidal maneuver back at Aqua Nova didn’t earn you plenty of points among my crew, myself included,” she added with genuine respect when he looked ready to interrupt. “Whatever Fleet Command might think of us, my people and I are in this for the Sector and the MSP—in that order—and we aren’t going anywhere.”

  “That’s refreshingly forward, Commander,” Archibald said, clearly torn between options as to how he should proceed. He looked like he was chewing on the words he wanted to speak as a bovine might chew its stomach contents before giving digestion another try, so McKnight leaned forward and made full eye contact with him.

  “This is just the beginning of the meeting, Captain,” she said heavily, “I’m putting my cards on the table, and I think you owe me the courtesy of doing likewise. Otherwise we might as well adjourn and try again later—or save ourselves the trouble and admit that we’ll never come totally clean with each other, so we might as well drop the facade.”

  “Fine,” Archibald said, relief mixed with irritation as he matched her posture, “allow me to be equally frank: the resources your people were granted belong to the MSP, not the Sector, and you need to think a little harder about your priorities, McKnight.”

  “The MSP is a glorified militia,” McKnight riposted, “technically it can’t own anything; the entirety of its panoply, prior to the Imperial Withdrawal, consisted of materials and sentients which were seconded in accordance with provisions in the Union Treaty—“

  “That’s a lie,” Archibald interrupted, “the framework for the MSP, including its founding charter documents, was established before the Union Treaty was drafted. It’s an Old Confederation entity, which makes it the most legitimate military organization in the Spine.”

  “If Admiral Montagne actually believed that, he wouldn’t have started claiming resources for the Tracto SDF during the salvage operations and the Battle of Elysium,” McKnight countered. “Look, Captain,” she said when it was clear that she had cut to the heart of the matter as efficiently as she had hoped she might, “I’m not arguing that what we’re doing out here isn’t good, or that we shouldn’t follow the Litt—make that, Admiral Montagne,” she scowled as she corrected herself mid-word. “I’m saying that the ground we stand on is nowhere near as firm as we would like it to be. Please don’t tell me you disagree with that; I took you for an intelligent man before this meeting started and the last thing I want is for that opinion to be reversed by the introduction of contradictory evidence.”

  “You’ve got a tongue on you, McKnight,” Archibald growled. “My mother would have suggested a good, thorough cleaning with a bar of soap.”

  “She’s welcome to try if we ever meet,” McKnight said flatly. “But I’ll take your lack of a direct reply as tacit agreement with me when I suggest that we’re on thin ice out here. What we need to do is think about this whole situation in less rigid terms,” she explained, having discovered precisely that during her months-long voyage back to Fleet HQ aboard the Slice of Life. “Understand, Captain,” she continued tightly, “the last thing I ever wanted after becoming an officer was to step back into the world of Intelligence. I despised everyone I ran into who worked Intel, which was why I transferred
to Tactical. We all prefer things to be straightforward,” she said emphatically, “but where we’re going that’s not how things work.”

  “What are you suggesting?” he asked archly. “That we abandon Admiral Montagne if things get hairy.”

  “I wouldn’t rule it out, if that’s what the mission calls for,” McKnight fired back, knowing this was the potential breaking point of the conversation. She let the silence linger as his expression morphed from surprise, to consternation, to fury, and finally—thank Murphy—to comprehension. “Good,” she nodded, feeling no small measure of relief as she leaned back in her chair, “we understand each other, I take it?”

  Archibald made a sour face and grumbled, “This isn’t going how I expected it would.”

  McKnight allowed a grin to quirk her lips, and for the first moment she actually saw the man behind the façade which Archibald had carefully constructed for the meeting. If she was being truthful, she very much liked what she saw behind his goatee. So she lightened the mood with a short laugh, “That comes with the territory.”

  “Ok,” Archibald sighed, leaning back in his chair, “then let’s go over these crew rosters and discuss the transfers.”

  McKnight blinked in surprise, “Transfers?”

  “Let’s face it,” Archibald said, “you’ve got two fully-trained gun decks’ worth of gunners, and I’ve got barely one—but I’ve also go six gun decks worth of guns.”

  “That’s not a great analogy,” she said bitterly, seeing where the meeting was about to go. The Gamer Gate had several times the firepower of even the old Pride of Prometheus, but its weaponry was only divided into three gun decks: ventral, port, and starboard.

  It was an outdated configuration—which was true of most of the MSP’s warships—but, unlike the Pride, the Gamer Gate was purpose-built to stand in the center of an active fire zone and deal damage in all directions. The dorsal section was devoid of weaponry save for a few PD systems—an issue she hoped they might agree to remedy with a few creative additions, if Archibald proved amenable—but it was so much more heavily armored than the rest of the ship that this particular shortcoming was less detrimental than it might have otherwise been. This apportionment of ordnance gave the Gamer Gate the classical option of executing a death roll when focusing fire on a single target, as well as the ability to angle its dorsal hull toward those vessels which weren’t presently in its sights.