I’ve had barely a moment to myself in the weeks since my exile. The days have been long since this bitter journey began. My new ship, The S.C.S. Venture is an ancient and groaning beast filled with rusted bulkheads and leaky pipes. The corridors are dimly lit with sparse LEDs and the compartments are paradoxically too bright and each one more cramped than the last.

Even my worst navy assignment would put this ship to shame and even the most undisciplined naval crew would shine in comparison to the men now under my command. More a gang of murderous cutthroats and war criminals than a proper crew, I can only think of a single man I'd trust in the entire lot.

On top of all of this we’ve set our sights on the sparsely explored frontiers of space and not looked back. Our supplies come from nightmarish trading posts more fit for pirates and smugglers than for any man in uniform. I learned the hard way not to expect any kind of respect or fair treatment there or aboard my own ship.

***

It was our third day out from Terra and we’d been scheduled for a routine supply pickup before setting out on our five year survey mission. I’d made it my goal to whip this ship into something resembling military discipline and the crew was fighting me every step of the way.

When I entered the stateroom I had to catch myself before I saluted my first officer. I’d almost done it several times, going so far as to stand at attention on one occasion. It was hard for me to process that the man in front of me, a man who had once held the rank of Vice Admiral, was now my subordinate.

I’d seen that face a million times during the war. Julian Darius, the leader of the Advanced Researched Corps on Althaius IV, a man nearly as famous as myself. The difference being that his fame transformed to an infamy which became a legend unto itself.

Sitting in my chair, at my desk, blowing on coffee that was a bit too hot, he looked far from the genocidal madman I knew him to be. But there was sometimes a look in his eyes that gave it away. I was resolved to keep him under control.

“You need to stop making yourself at home here,” I said as I poured myself a steaming cup. “Don’t you have a stateroom of your own?”

“It’s basically a closet,” he replied. “I’m used to a bit more.”

“I’ll bet you are,” I said. “But you’re not an admiral anymore. It’s hard to imagine your previous captain put up with this.”

Darious shrugged as he vacated my seat.

“Captain Zander only cared about where his next drink was going to come from.” He said. “But believe it or not I do have a reason for being here.”

He pushed a folder at me across the desk.

“Getting supplies from these places isn’t as straightforward as you seem to think.” He said. “We need a bigger budget to account for bribes and general graft and we need to bring some muscle, I suggest Armstrong.”

“Who’s Armstrong?” I asked, not remembering my first years in the navy.

“The robot, it’s an acronym for Armored, Robotic, Military, Strategic, Tactical, Ranging, Operations, Nuclear, Grenadier. ”

“Jesus Christ, the grannies are still in service?”

I knew we had a military robot aboard but would have never imagined that it was one of those nightmares. The Armstrong units, or “grannies” as we called them back in the day were infamous for their bugged out personalities and a nasty streak of independent thought that had a tendency to make them go crazy. An easy enough fix with a hard reboot but since the bastards are always armd out the wazoo it could cost a lot of lives if they chose to resist.

“Belive me, i’m not thrilled about serving with that thing either,” Darious said. “But that’s the way it is, Survey Corps gets the equipment the navy doesn’t want anymore.”

“I still say those things should have all been scrapped.” I replied. “You seriously want to bring it along?”

“I’ll be honest, I might have signed the order that sent them to Survey Corps rather than the junk heap,” he shrugged. “I could never abide a waste of resources, that said i’ve personally checked the robot several times, he hasn’t gone nutso yet.”

Setting the conversation about the robot aside I looked at his requests again.

“This is a naval base, we’re getting our supplies from!” I said, astonished. “Who the hell is in charge of these people?”

That any part of the navy would allow this sort of shady business was offensive to me.

“Either what you’ve written here is an exaggeration or I desperately need to have a talk with the station commander.”

“I wouldn’t recommend it.” Darious said but decidedly without force or conviction. He left with a small smirk on his lips, no doubt anticipating exactly what I was in for and relishing it.

***

I decided against bringing the robot. Showing up in force to a naval supply depot still felt wrong in my bones. So, instead I brought my quartermaster, a junior tactical officer with the skills to keep a handle on things, Wang Thorogood. With him came Ensign Meechum, a scarred man of about thirty whose previous job description was hired killer.

They seemed like the right team for just a quick trip to a dusty planetoid holding our supplies.

We landed the shuttle in the designated area and squinted in the glare of the unfamiliar star. It was brighter than hell out there and as hot as the devil’s anus. All around us were men lazing out of uniform, I wanted to judge them but in such heat I lacked the spirit.

The station's quartermaster was a squat, fat and balding ball of butter who could have been nineteen or fifty. I handed him the official order form, filled out to perfection. Then I waited to hear his response. I hoped in my heart that he would follow regs.

He stared at me expectantly for almost a full minute and then his look became cold.

“I don’t think I can help you,” he said. “Your supplies are caught in the backlog, try back in a few weeks.”

I nearly shot him on the spot, catching myself only as I realized summary executions of derelict officers was no longer my right. But I knew whose right it was and I intended to see that person immediately.

“Thorogood, wait here until I get back.” I said. “Meechum, you’re with me.”

I marched briskly with Meechum at my back. The hot wind stinging my face and the glare from the chrome buildings irritating my eyes. Honestly, who designs chrome sided buildings on a dessert planet?

The command center was practically a ghost town. The skeleton crew chatted idly as they ignored their duty stations.The sensors bliped and the computers whirred, constantly spitting out data to be ignored by the girl who’d converted her station into a makeup desk.

The base commander’s office was on the floor above, accessible only by lift. Meechum and I were startled to be manhandled as soon as we stepped off, our sidearms taken.

“I don’t like this,” he said.

As we were marched at gunpoint to the commander’s office I began to get the picture. The place was a garish and opulent mess filled with exotic alien bobles and state of the art entertainment that no backwater commander should be able to afford.

“Welcome, captain, I've been such a fan of yours.” A fat, odious man in a tightfitting commander’s uniform extended his hand. I bristled internally at not being saluted. I may have been in a different service but I still outranked him and the common courtesy was to salute.

I took his hand and squeezed until he winced. He yanked his hand free, shaking it from the pain.

“Quite a grip you have.” He said taking his seat in an ornate chair behind a massive mahogany desk. “But you’ll find I can’t be intimidated. Things work differently out here, my friend and you aren’t in the navy anymore. You’re in no position to judge me.”

“That may be true,” I said. “But the regs are the regs and I expect them to be followed. If your intention is to shake me down, you’re in for a world of hurt.”

Red anger flashed across his face before being hidden behind a sickly smile.

“My friend, I’m sure we can work out a deal.” He said.

“The deal is this,” I replied. “You’re going to give me my supplies and put an end to this graft you’ve been running or I’ll call up my friends in the admiralty and recommend that they haul your ass before a firing squad.”

All it took was a nod and goons were on me. I struggled and so did Meechum, we both got in our licks but these were some burly bastards and in the end they got us pinned on the ground.

The commander pulled a nonregulation sidearm from his desk drawer, one of those nasty alien disruptor pistols the rebels were so fond of. The kind of weapon that cooks a man from the inside out.

“It’s a shame you have to die, Captain Grisham. I really am a fan, what you did to those rebels on Qualon is a thing for the history books and now i'm afraid, so are you.”

I heard the sound of that awful alien hum as he put the gun right against my temple.

I couldn’t believe that the end of my story would be as a stain on this bastard’s imported rug.

But before he could pull the trigger there was a quake that sent everyone to their knees as the door to the chamber flew off its hinges.

The commander leveled his gun at the newcomer and fired. There was a flash of light and a smell of ozone as the disruptor unloaded on whatever poor devil had come to my rescue.

Then he turned on his heel, prepared to shoot me next but he didn’t move fast enough. Before he could pull the trigger an old fashioned fifty caliber bullet took his head clean off.

The weight of the man on me was suddenly lifted and I looked up to see a ten foot metallic man with gleaming armor plating and a single red eye at the center of his featureless head. He held each man by the neck in either hand and their faces turned purple as they struggled for air in his iron grip.

“Thank God for you, Armstrong!” Meechum said, standing. He was all bruised up but I doubted that I looked any better.

“What do you want done with them, Captain?” Armstrong asked, his voice as dead as the man on the floor.

“Which of you is the higher rank?” I asked.

The man on the left, a big balding fellow who looked too young to be losing his hair pointed to the ginger with the beard, his opposite number.

“Shoot the man on the left.” I said and in an instant the man was tossed into the air and before he hit the ground Armstrong had put six shots in him. I’m sure the robot could have just snapped his neck but I felt I had to treat this as an unofficial summary execution and tradition calls for the condemned soldier to be shot.

“Release him,” I said and Armstrong let the other man go. “Someone has to be made responsible for this mess and i’ve elected you.”

“What do you mean?” The man demanded. “I thought you were letting me go.”

I sat in the dead commander’s chair and lit one of his expensive cigars before picking up his video phone.

“I’m putting in a call to my friend, Admiral Vance and explaining that the commander here just tried to kill me. I’m naming you as accomplice, placing you under arrest and reporting this entire base as having lost all discipline and being in a state of rebellion.”

***

The admiral was not pleased at all to hear my story. In fact I got the distinct impression he was upset with me. He agreed to send out a new commander and get the station whipped into shape but fired a warning shot before ending the conversation.

“The frontier plays by its own rules and you need to learn them.” He said. “We can’t clean up every outpost and kill every commander who goes a little rogue. As far as i’m concerned they can become pirates as long as they keep the flag planted.”

With that he killed the line and any hopes I had of future aid.

One bridge firmly burned.

“I burned most of my bridges in the first month.” Darius later told me at dinner. “But at least you brought down the supply budget, that’s money that may come in handy.”

“You knew exactly what would happen.” I flatly accused him. He smiled, nodding.

“That’s why I sent Armstrong in after you,” he said. “We can’t always clean these places up but when we do it sends a message. It will take time for the other outposts to get so brazen in their schemes again.”

I didn’t like being toyed with.

“From now on, if you have a plan i’d like to be informed of it.” I said. “I don’t know how things worked with the last guy but I’m no drunk and I'm not going to be your puppet. I am in command here.”

I saw that deadly look in his eyes. The one that let me know that he was every bit the twisted fuck that the news depicted. He didn’t look at me that way long but it was long enough for me to know I'd made an enemy.

My first officer would not be the trusted ally I needed.

In fact I only had one friend I knew I could trust, a former officer of mine from the navy named Williams. He had gotten into some trouble after transferring from my ship and I managed to keep him from taking a bullet in the head by getting him twelve years in the Survey Corps. That night I voiced my concerns as we shared a drink in his quarters.

“You really need to get off the sauce,” I said before pouring him another glass.

“It’s not the problem that it was,” he replied sadly. “If only I'd learned moderation sooner, eh?”

“But back to the subject of Darius.” I said. “What’s he been like as a commander, can he be trusted?”

He downed his glass and took a long time before he answered.

“As a commander he’s smart, capable, brave, all of the things you’d want.” He said. “But I wouldn’t trust that bastard for a minute.”

Williams was an excellent judge of character and not the sort to care about a man’s reputation or land on an opinion lightly. If he said Darius was bad news then it meant I had a problem.

***

It’s a problem that I have no solution for. I have no justification to demote or remove Darius from his position and noplace to transfer him to. He feels like a timebomb that I can’t diffuse.

As we head to survey our first world, a missing colony that was lost on route to Beta Gallipoli, I find myself filled with doubts. Lost colonists can be dangerous and I need a man at my side who can be relied on. Darius saved my life but he was playing at his own game. What will he do when we’re in the shit?

Will he be the man I need or will he sink the whole mission?

It's a question without an answer and in the end i’ll have to gamble.