Homebound Sector, Haven System, Flagship Olympia
“What do you mean you lost her?” Admiral Reeter was outraged, standing in his quarters on a communications link with the Marines he had stationed in Lion’s Den. “How hard can a widowed mother be to keep track of?”
The boorish Marine on the left dipped his head. “Our apologies, sir. She lost us in the traffic downtown late last night.”
“And you waited until now to tell me?” He lowered his tone, the falsetto of calm a poor cover for his murderous frustration.
The larger Marine on the right hesitated. “We didn’t want to wake you, sir.”
Reeter let his displeasure be known with a primitive growl that made his subordinates wince. “She cannot have gone far.” She was on that pathetic little planet somewhere. “Find her.” While she was not entirely necessary for his plans, she would make for a lovely reward.
“Yes, Admiral.” The subordinates answered, in sync.
Reeter disconnected the video call with a swipe his hands, his blood boiling. It seemed that old proverb was true. He had best do it himself if he wanted it done right. But he lacked the time to stalk the footsteps of a pretty widow. He had more important things to do – things concerning the fate of worlds.
“You would do well to calm yourself, Charleston,” came the comment, “That blood pressure of yours will someday prove dangerous.” It did not suit her to have him so worked up over every little issue.
Reeter shut down the holo-projector on his desk with the press of the button, glaring at her pretty face. “And would you rather I stay calm and over think every little detail?” He was not a robot, “I thought the reactions of us humans were of some interest to you.”
“They are,” she agreed, “but when it comes to partners, I do prefer a rational mind.” This little obsession with the widow was going too far. He was beginning to jeopardize their objectives.
“Because rational people are easily swayed by logic.” He was not oblivious to the fact this white-haired woman had her own objectives. “But you will not be manipulating me.” He was in control here. It was he, not she, who had laid the groundwork for this coup. She was merely assisting his endeavors because it suited her, and that was fine by him.
That easy little smile of hers was quite annoying. Still, he forced himself to play along. “It has been quite some time since I saw you.” She had been busy. “Was your infiltration of the Singularity successful?”
“Of course.” It had been easy. “I left no traces of my presence, except those I intended to.”
Reeter set to serving himself one of the hors d’oeuvres that the Olympia’s chef had prepared to his liking. “There and gone like a ghost, hm?” He recalled hearing rumors of the old ship’s haunting years ago. No doubt, that incompetent crew believed every word of that impossible little rumor.
“Yet, I came away empty handed,” she sharpened her steely gaze, “because someone fired a nuke at the ship before I had finished.”
It was Reeter’s turn to smile as he swallowed down his fresh caviar, leaving not a speck on the impeccable glass surface of his desk. “You did not get what you wanted?”
“No,” she answered, never more disappointed in this man and his antics. “And that means what I promised you is now missing as well.”
“Pity,” he said uncaringly.
She curled her lip in the human notion of disgust. “I have told you this before, Charleston. Your ambition will be your end. You ought to learn patience. If you had given me another day, I would have been able to turn the location of the international flagship’s War Key over to you.” That was something he should have sought. “You have just thrown away an incredible amount of power.” It would have helped cement his control over the worlds.
“Between the Olympia’s flagship weapon and our project on Sagittarion, I would say we have all the super-weapons we could need.” No one would be able to rival him. Not now, and not ever. “It was safer to destroy that power than risk it falling into the wrong hands.”
Foolish, she thought. I should have picked someone with more experience. “You are being naïve.” Reeter was not prepared for the task at hand. “You underestimated the threat that the Singularity presented to you, and you continue to do so.”
All she did was lecture and nag, then nag and lecture. He seemed to do nothing that pleased her. “You came to me, remember? You wanted to off the Fleet Admiral. You could have chosen to side with the crazy old man instead.” Then she would have had whatever she had wanted from the Singularity easily. “But you didn’t. You chose me.”
“You are so presumptuous.” Oh, she had tried. She would have chosen Admiral Gives over Reeter in a figurative heartbeat, since she didn’t have a literal one. But the Fleet Admiral’s reclusive habits had rendered him impossible to get near. His chosen command was not a compatible host for anything more than fragmented visits, and she had done her research on her possible candidates. The analytical model she had drawn up on him did not suggest the fact he would have agreed to work with her. He would have seen right through her, too smart to be used in this capacity.
That left her with this incompetent fool. “You have not even confirmed that the Singularity sank.” He’d been off chasing that irrelevant woman. “If you leave any survivors, they are a risk to you.” Witnesses were problematic.
“Please,” Reeter rolled his eyes, helping himself to another spoonful of caviar, “If the explosion didn’t get them, the radiation will have killed them by now.” In six days, when the Singularity was late to return and Clarke sent someone to look for his precious Fleet Admiral, they would find nothing but wreckage and corpses. This argument was repetitive and stupid. “We saw the atomic spectra of the detonation from here.”
“I will remind you once more not to underestimate them. I have seen too many callous young idiots and old overconfident morons fall by their hand.”
“Maybe once that was true. Maybe once there was reason to fear the Prince and his battleship, but that was years ago.” Reeter himself would have been just a kid, attending school on some irrelevant planet. “The once-great Steel Prince hasn’t seen real combat in fifteen yeard. Not since the disaster that was New Terra.” A scuffle here and there perhaps, but anyone with a battleship, even a deteriorating dreadnaught, could have put down those incidents blindfolded and handcuffed. “He’s been running stupid patrols for the last decade of his career.” It was a disgrace. “He hasn’t made planetfall in over a year and hasn’t taken shore leave in far longer than that. Any psychiatrist could make a case that he’s certifiably unstable, if not insane. And on top of all of that, he’s dead. You were supposed to make sure of that.”
Reeter set his elbows upon the desk, leaning forward, “So where does that leave us?” he asked her. “Oh yes, the Prince’s aging battleship. A ship that may have been legend half a century ago, but is now little more than scrap. It is run 800 crew short of its full complement, operates no computer network, utilizes an engine design known to burn itself out, and has had the ever-loving shit beat out of it more times than any other ship in the fleet. Does that about cover it?”
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Of course not.
“No. Because above all of that, the damned machine had a War Key that was lost thirty some-odd years ago. And without that key, the ship cannot use her most powerful weapon.” He groaned, “Allegedly.”
He had never been able to confirm what this strange officer had told him about the War Key. The key’s existence was probable, but its uses were unknown, if there were any. All evidence indicated that, as the first flagship, the Singularity did not possess a flagship-grade specialty weapon, while the three ships that succeeded her had: the Capitol, the Ariea and lastly, the current flagship, the Olympia.
“You’ll have to forgive me if I don’t feel particularly threated by that antiquity.” There wasn’t any way the old ship had survived that explosion. A tactical nuke could have sunk even the Olympia. They were anti-planetary weapons, messy overkill in space. “Yes, forgive me if I’m not interested in hearing that same damn argument again.” He was sick of it.
A frown appeared on her pale lips. This man was so very annoying.
“Is that a frown I see, princess?” Reeter crooned, never above trying to antagonize this creature. “How very human of you.”
She wiped the expression from her face at once, “The logical course of action would be to send a ship to the Kalahari Sector. Ensure that your target was sunk and deal with the survivors, if any remain.” This should have been basic tactics.
“Fine,” he sighed, checking his reflection in the glass top of his desk. He took his time to straighten the glittering rank pins on his collar, “I will dispatch the Battleship Macaw.” That ship was undeniably loyal to his cause.
Reeter’s disinterest in this affair would be his downfall. “Tactically speaking, that is not a sound course of action,” she told him. “If by some chance the Singularity managed to survive, her size and armaments give her an advantage over the Macaw. You ought to either send the rest of the Macaw’s unit with her, or take the Olympia yourself.”
It was a waste of energy and fuel to send three battleships to look for scrap. “I will send the Macaw,” he repeated. “No more and no less.”
“Very well.” She knew better than to challenge him again.
Reeter smiled, pleased by the silence. “There’s the monster I like to see. One that knows her place.”
Monster. Admiral Reeter had never seen a real monster. It was not a term to be given to any entity lightly. “Our objectives continue to overlap, Charleston.” She would appease his annoying vanity until then. She would cooperate with the frailties of this human until the moment he was no longer relevant. “That is all.” She would hesitate to call them allies. They were both merely focused on upending the standing order of the worlds. She thought nothing else of this particular man. If anything, he was a shallow-minded disappointment.
Reeter checked his meticulously parted hair, wanting to cast nothing but the air of confidence and perfection. He would not accept one single hair out of place. It simply would not do for the savior of the human race to be less than perfect. That was why he nagged himself and everyone else about every single little detail. Humanity deserved only the best. He would not allow himself to be anything less.
He stood, his full stature towering over his white-haired visitor. “If it means anything to you, creature, I will have the Singularity’s wreckage towed back to a fleet facility. You will be able to dissect it and its crew’s corpses to your electrical mind’s content.” He truthfully couldn’t care any less about it. “After that, I’ll be melting the ship down for scrap.” In the form of its raw materials, it could be of some use.
“I appreciate that,” she replied politely.
“Just remember the deal we made, princess.” Reeter told her, meeting those sharp little beady eyes of hers. “I help you, and you help me. You know I am a man of my word.”
No, you most certainly are not. She had done her research. Reeter was exceptionally creative, determined, but he was also willing to go to any length necessary, including lying, cheating and killing. He was a vile, simple-minded human who possessed a great deal of raw determination and all the self-devised righteousness in the worlds, no matter how crude he could otherwise be. That made him a perfect candidate for her use, even if she often resented him. Truthfully, though he annoyed her and she sometimes regretted it, he was the better candidate.
Reeter wanted to make the worlds a better place. He simply did not realize that his methods were not merciful and pure. His bastardly heart was in the right place. She could not have said the same for the Steel Prince, since the man had no longer possessed a heart of which to speak.
At least Reeter wanted to change the worlds. He wanted to be involved in the creation of humanity’s future. Again, the same could not have been said for the Prince. Even with a year or two of conditioning, she doubted he would have proved willing or ready to engage the worlds of humanity again. Brilliant as he was, Admiral Gives had turned his back on the worlds. So, in the end, she supposed this vain self-delusional hero was the right choice. He was vile, but he suited her needs.
“Let the New Era begin,” she told him. The future was coming, and no one could stop it.
“My utopia of peace, advanced intelligence and complete equality is on its way,” Reeter agreed, “but we must first determine who is worthy of living there.” It might be ugly, but it had to be done. Broken souls and heartless minds had no place in his heaven. If many had to die for the perfect few to gain paradise, then die they would. “I will save humanity from itself.”
“Yes, you will.” With her help, no one could stand in his way. She was one of the most powerful entities in the worlds. Nothing could resist her control.
He just smiled, that same charming smile that disarmed and wooed women as well as the leaders of worlds. Then, left his office to stalk down the halls of his ship, heading toward the command center.
The Olympia was an elegant, cathedral-like ship. She was fully combat-capable, but considerations had been given to the honor of her post as flagship and thus, to her general aesthetics. The hallways glittered, perfectly maintained and untouched by grime. Where the structural supports were visible, they had been smoothed into the rest of the wall, giving the interior of the ship a sleek, flawless appearance. There was not a scuff, nor a picture decorating the corridors, only smooth computer terminals built in at regular intervals.
A business-like mood was retained throughout the ship. Greetings were not called as crew passed in the corridors. They had a purpose, a job to do and they were focused solely on that, free of other distractions. Admiral Reeter preferred it that way. His officers and crew did not need to be friends. That would be a distraction from their duties. He had hand-picked his crew to function diligently in such an environment. They were the best of the best. The strongest Marines, the most skilled pilots, the most efficient engineers, and they all understood that while they slept here, this ship was their workplace, not their home.
Reeter was proud of the Olympia. She was a glory to behold, one that suited him for the time being. The bridge was as beautiful as the rest of the ship, with dazzling displays of information and ship status. The walls were built out of large screens that looked like windows. So, while the command center was built in the core of the ship, safe during combat, he could look out at the surrounding stars. The screens were so clear and realistic, it suited him, as well as most, to just consider them windows.
Colonel VanHubert, his rat-faced second in command, promptly called out, “Admiral on the bridge!”
The entire room snapped to attention. The movement was crisp and purposeful. His crew was well-drilled. “As you were,” Reeter said pleasantly. It was a benefit to ensure his crew liked him. He wanted no one questioning his orders. He wanted them to consider him a benevolent god aboard these decks, one to be adored and worshipped.
A pretty young yeoman stepped forward, a silver platter in her hands. “Fresh coffee, sir?”
“Smells wonderful,” he said with a nod.
She poured some from the pot into a beautiful, crystalline mug and handed it over, a bashful smile on her lips.
He took it without comment, aware that his dashing looks always gleaned the attention of most women. He elected not to encourage this one’s fantasies and turned to his XO. “Colonel VanHubert, I have a job for you.”
A sly grin crept VanHubert’s crooked face, “Anything for you, sir.”
“I want you to go assist Johns and Quire on the surface. It seems they are incapable of keeping track of Miss Kleinfelter-Gives.” The woman could say some particularly nasty things about him, if not contained. She needed to be contained. That, and Reeter enjoyed toying with her. She was so easily scared.
“Before you go,” Reeter told him, “figure out where she went. Use the satellite recordings of the area and put a trace on her car. Do whatever you feel is required.”
“Aye, aye, Admiral,” the Colonel said cheekily. It was not often he was let off his leash. The prospect of independent operation always excited him. He could rest assured that Reeter would sweep any mess he made in the process of completing the mission under the rug.