“Admirals seldom travel with their fleet,” Wingell added pointedly. “To be honest with you, Admiral Valentine, we’ve been trying to come up with a way to get you to come in off the front for some time now.”
So, had I, but I wasn’t going to say anything.
Her expression darkened. “You want me to run this planet?” She demanded. “I’m not even from this planet.”
“You’re an officer with a proven track record, you’re the liberator of the people after the Pope was brought down, you have a flawless record.” I said. “Even dating back to Vandor and in the war, you never did anything that could be considered unlawful.”
We’d brought all of our records, luckily, on one of the city carriers when they’d arrived at Earth. Unfortunately, that had soured some people’s view of me pretty intensely, because it proved the sheer brutality of my actions.
Mallory hesitated.
“You will have the full backing of an entire cabinet of advisors, minor elected officials, military assistants…” Wingell said. “There will be no debating, there is just simply a vote.”
“When?” I asked.
“Two days,” He said, glancing at me. “And remember, there is a term limit of four years…”
“Four years?” Mallory exploded. “I’ll be…”
“It isn’t like we age like normal humans.” I said dryly.
She paused. “Yeah but I will be so disconnected from the fleet…”
“Doesn’t matter.” I said shaking my head. “Don’t think for a second that we will allow you to not be in command of the Fleet. I wouldn’t trust anyone else to do the job correctly, even if you are not there in the front with me, my love.”
She looked like she wanted to say no, but also wanted to say yes. She didn’t know what to do.
“What about housing?” I asked. “And security?”
“I will leave that in your capable hands, Colonel.” Wingell said. “Regardless of who is elected.”
Ivata and I exchanged a look. “I have a detail of Vandorians that I would appoint.” He said.
“And I have a Lieutenant that I would trust to be in command of them.” I replied.
“It appears to be settled, then, Admiral. The choice is only yours.” Wingell said. “If you agree, please let me know by this evening so I may formally submit your name into the candidacy.”
“I will.” She said. “I need some time to think about it.”
“Of course.” Wingell nodded. “I have ordered the dome suite set aside for you both, since you have spent so much time in space, I thought the view of the stars may bring you restful sleep.”
A bed that didn’t eject me would bring me restful sleep. Or a stone floor. Or strapped to a dropship wing in a vac suit. It really didn’t matter to me, but my wife needed some comfort for her aching joints and back.
We retired to the suite, bidding Ivata good night and promising to swap more war stories the next morning.
Wingell was a politician and kind of a dick, but the man had good taste, I will admit. We retired to the opulent suite and Mallory immediately noticed the large soaking tub in the center of the room, under a glass dome. The room was at the top of a turret in the old parliament building, and it had been converted in a wonderful way.
I drew my wife a hot bath, located some kind of relaxation additive, which I believe was called “bubble bath”. I helped her into the large tub and settled myself into a chair as she lounged with her hair flowing over the outside edge of the tub. We both glanced up at the starfield overhead, showing the thick dusky band of the galactic plane.
“He does know how to pick a room.” She said, then moaned softly as my fingers found their way under her hair and picked a particular cluster of muscles in her upper neck. I let my hands work in silence, thinking back to the last time we had shared any sort of time together and how this could very well be the last time I ever would spend time with my wife, alone.
“I feel like I should let you know,” I said softly. “That the doctor insisted on…storing some genetic material.”
She raised her brow but did not open her eyes as I worked on the muscles in her neck. “You mean some semen?”
I coughed. “Uh…yeah. He said that I spent so much time trying to get myself killed that if we wanted to have another child and anything happened to me…”
I trailed off and she was silent for so long that I started to wonder if I’d put her to sleep.
“You don’t do it on purpose, do you?” She asked softly.
“Do what?”
“End up in those situations?”
“No.” I replied honestly, moving down to her shoulders and digging my thumbs into the strong muscles there. “Maybe. I don’t know.” I said finally, with a sigh. “It’s more like, I just think about how I can win, even if I’ve screwed up. I screwed up, I thought I could sneak past all those Gilbaglians on that flagship, and that was arrogant of me.” I admitted. “But it wasn’t because I was trying to die, I just wanted to get the information.”
She shifted slightly to allow me access to the rest of her shoulder. “I can’t order you not to do that again, as an Admiral, or even as a…what, president?”
“Prime minister, probably.” I said.
“Right, whatever. I can’t order you to be careful. But can I ask you as your wife?”
“I can’t promise that I won’t.” I said. “Because when I see an opportunity, I have to take it. I have to try to beat those fucking birds.” My fingers must have tensed because she moved slightly away. I forced myself to relax and apologized.
“What about the Meyges?” She asked. “What do we do if…when they invade?”
I sighed. “You think the same thing, don’t you?” I asked. “I’d hoped that I was the only one knowing it was inevitable.”
She sighed. “Stop talking, Valentine.”
I obliged and just worked in silence on her shoulders, then her back. I took the time to bathe my wife gently, taking the time to kiss her belly gently like I always did.
I helped her into a soft robe and then to bed. We lay next to each other until she shifted herself next to me, with a giggle. “Destota,” She whispered. “Be still.”
I froze, my eyes scanning for a situation, ears straining. My heart rate was starting to increase, and I could feel the slightly giddy feeling of adrenaline running through my veins.
She put a hand on my chest. “Stop.” She said, then I realized I missed the whole damn point, as I often did with normal human things.
Alyssa, my unborn daughter was kicking me.
If I had to guess, it felt like she was using her mother’s insides like a speed bag.
I smiled. “Such fury.” I whispered.
“She is your daughter.” Mallory deadpanned at me.
“Point taken.” I said, then moved to kiss her belly. I felt a little fist strike my lips and I chuckled.
Mallory fell asleep shortly afterwards. I lay there in the bed staring up at the skies as the aurora borealis swam through the night skies overhead and pondered the future.
It just seemed like nothing, but war was my future. I didn’t know how to reconcile that with the love I felt for my wife and child. I supposed that a million generations of human soldiers had felt the same thing. I knew that this was just a pause as everyone around took a deep breath. We’d beaten the Gilbaglians back badly, but they would be back. Armed with the sensor data from the battle with the Vandorian ships, they would be able to adapt some of their defenses to counter us, which means that the technicians on the orbital stations would need to be on top of their game to keep one step ahead of the enemy in developing new weapons.
It was an intergalactic arms race. We had a slight advantage over the Gilbaglian people, due to the fact that humans were both insanely violent and exceedingly clever. We’d spent a lot of time fighting on Earth before the Phelb movement rose up, and we’d been fighting for years, for millennia.
I sighed and shifted myself. I wasn’t c
omfortable in such a bed anymore. I was too used to my cabin aboard Eternity and the damned northern lights were keeping me awake. I wondered what ship I would be deployed aboard and how, now that things were going to change. It did occur to me that I would need to divide my Night Stalkers into smaller groups and spread them out over more of the ships in the fleet. Having ten or even twenty thousand soldiers in one place was a juicy opportunity for the enemy. A team of say, twelve, was a waste of time.
“You think too loud.” Mallory said from beside me and I nearly jumped out of the bed.
“Stars above, woman.” I sighed. “You nearly gave me a heart attack.”
“Stop thinking so damned loud then, Destota.” She said, her voice not sleepy at all. “What are you worried about now?”
“Just trying to figure out our next deployment order.” I said. “What ship I’ll be deployed on, how many of my soldiers to take with me, and who, and how to divide up the Night Stalkers so we’re not such rich targets.”
“You don’t want to group them any longer?”
“No. Operators need to operate,” I said. “I think I demonstrated that effectively on this last operation. If I’d had a thousand men, I’d have failed my mission. Small teams are going to be more effective against the Gilbaglians.”
“Who are you going to take with you this next time?” Her eyes were still closed.
“Probably Venlent, and a handful of greenhorns.”
“Why greenhorns?” She asked.
“If anyone needs their commander, it’s the greenhorns.” I said softly. “And hopefully they don’t try to follow me into death.”
“Why Venlent?” She asked, her voice dubious.
I rolled my eyes. “Don’t start.”
“You don’t even know where you are going.” Mallory said, pushing herself up on one elbow. “Or how long you’re going to be gone.”
“I know where I’m going.” I said softly. She narrowed her eyes and looked at me, searchingly. Then her eyes widened in shock.
“No.” She said firmly. “Absolutely not. I will order you, Valentine.”
“I’m sure you will.” I smirked. “But I can disobey you.”
“You won’t.” She said, glaring in genuine anger now. “Destota, damnit all, you cannot go looking for trouble all the fucking time!”
I grinned slightly at her anger. She often tried to protect me, and I loved her for it, but she also needed to realize that regardless of her feelings, I was still the leader of a special operations unit.
And now, I needed to go operate.
“I love you.” I said softly. “Both of you. But this is my job, this isn’t me running off looking for adventure. I have to go, and I have to stop the threats to this galaxy.”
She sighed hard then rolled over and faced away from me. “You should at least stay until this election. Because if you’re going back out there, I’m going with you.”
I shrugged, then lay down behind her and wrapped my arm around her. “I understand how you feel. But I have to go stop them.”
“How?” She demanded.
“Same way I stopped the Phelbs, the same way I stopped the advance of the Gilbaglians.”
“The Meyges aren’t the damned birds.” She said. “They aren’t going to be afraid of you hurting them like the avians are. You probably can’t even hurt them.”
I scoffed at that. “Even if I can’t harm them, I have plenty of fun toys that can.”
There was a long pause. “Ivata is going with you.”
“No, he isn’t.” I said with a chuckle. “He’s staying here to train…”
“The team we extracted was your new fireteam.” She said softly.
“How do you figure…”
“I’m still an Admiral.” Looking back over her shoulder at me, she smirked. “And I still have nominal control over who I order aboard my ships.”
“Okay…” I said slowly. “Why Ivata?”
“You, Ivata, and twenty-nine soldiers will be the new and official Night Stalkers.” She said. “The others are going to be a part of a new integrated unit. This comes from the Council, not me.”
“Yeah, no.” I said firmly. “They’re not taking my people away from me.”
“Destota.” She sighed and twined her fingers in mine. “You are the leader of the human infantry, overall. You’re not in command of one unit anymore, you need to remember that. You need to seriously consider taking the promotion.”
“No.” I said firmly. “Then I could not fight. I don’t want to do paperwork.”
“Then let Venlent liaise with the Navy and the Council. Make her stay a member of the Phelb contingent, then she is not in command of you, but relays decisions to me and the Council.”
I paused. “You hate Venlent. You punched her out, last I heard.”
“I think she’s an arrogant dumb bitch, yeah, but that isn’t the issue here. She is a damn good officer, and she already handles the administration of the Phelb forces under your command. Handing her a little extra and then making her do shit won’t be as hard as you think.”
“All right, I see your point, but the Night Stalkers…”
“Are extremely well trained, high-tempo operations soldiers, who shouldn’t be stuffed into ships and forced to ride around endlessly the way they have been.” She said. “They’d be much better suited to guardianship of human worlds, don’t you think? They could be used as reserve when you run into problems. But think about it, do we really need to throw a hundred eighty thousand special operations soldiers at every mission? Doesn’t that make them…you know, less special?”
“Are you sure they didn’t hand you the leadership of the Empire without a vote?”
She smiled. “I am the fleet Admiral.”
I often did forget that. Not to take away from the intelligence of my wife, which was considerable, but I didn’t often deal with her in the day-to-day operation of the Fleet, which she usually handled on a separate duty shift from me, and I frequently forgot just how high ranking and powerful she was.
I was a million times the soldier that she could ever hope to be, but as a leader, I was woefully lower than her in every way.
“All right.” I said. “What ship do we deploy aboard, Admiral?”
“You’re leaving on Shadow of Eternity as soon as this stupid vote is over.” She said. “That was the plan regardless of what these idiots had planned for me here, I was going to take the Eternity back out there and do your stupid mission.”
“Fire support?” I asked, my mind already calculating the combat load I would need to bring off Earth.
“Shockwave and Makalos.” She said with a grin. “Six destroyers, and twelve frigates.”
I raised my brows and she rolled back over. “I can’t give you a hundred ships. We need them to relocate people, and we need them to defend the colonies from Gilbaglians.”
“I was actually thinking that between Makalos and Eternity, we have more than enough firepower.” I frowned. “Wait a minute, if you thought this was stupid…”
“I know what needs to be done.” She said firmly. “Now go to sleep. We have another week of leave, and I intend to spend at least half of that in this bed without clothing.”
Chapter Eighteen
---
Earth
Helsinki Finland
New Parliament
I wasn’t expecting the voting to be so lopsided, but apparently both Wrathe and Wingell had, because they’d already had some massive celebration planned for Mallory to ascend to the lofty rank of Prime Minister of the allied human Empire.
Which I thought was strange because I thought Empires had Emperors…but whatever.
I asked Wrathe midway through the celebration why the vote had been so massively lopsided. When I say lopsided, I mean literally lopsided, Mallory had generated over ninety percent of the vote of the entire twenty billion humans that took part in the election. He told me with a smile, “In the last six thousand years, there has never been a female
leader.”
Since the authoritarian rule of the Phelb Empire had taken over the world in 2067, just a few years after the first Vandorians left the planet, women’s role in life had been strictly ordered to be the rearing of offspring and the service of the men. I found that idea odd, women on Vandor were equal in all ways, and considered superior in some ways.
So now, for the first time in more than six thousand years, a woman was in total command of the human future.
I was absolutely shocked that Venlent readily agreed to become my liaison and work under me in her capacity as General. My Night Stalkers eagerly accepted their new assignment as security across human space.
Seemed the galaxy was changing, and I was the only one still spinning my wheels.
The Undulon and Blutencer caught wind of my mission back to Atom to wait for the Meyges to come through, and immediately offered their services. The Blutencer were to remain on Earth to assist with building new defensive technology, while the Undulon were going to embark a large group aboard the fleet to upgrade communications, and provide real time communications to Earth, using some kind of neural physics or some shit that I really, really don’t understand beyond knowing that I don’t understand it.
Doctor Boyd, the genius that had assisted me in finding the system now known as New Vandor, even told me that this was light-years beyond anything that we’d come up with so far. She was also going to be a scientific advisor to my wife, who also had several genius-level people on her side as advisors.
I was going to miss my daughter’s birth, and that really sucked for me. But I spent every moment that I had with my wife before I departed for Atom, living up every moment and reveling in the creation of new life.
The day came too soon for me, as we lounged on the beach at Bora Bora, watching the gentle blue waves lap lightly at the shore. My communicator beeped with intensity and I answered.
“Valentine here.”
“Time to stop lounging on the beach, Colonel.” Ivata said firmly. “It’s time to go.”
Mallory and I caught a shuttle back to Helsinki, where it was still very much winter, after our week-long tropical vacation. When I arrived at the space port, Lieutenant Antillon was waiting to escort the Prime Minister back to the Parliament building, for her to do whatever Prime Minsters did.
Requiem of a Nightmare Page 20
