AL:ICE-9

by Charles Lamb

  The interesting thing about ALICE-3 was, there wasn’t a primary listed for her.

  “ALICE, why isn’t ALICE-3’s primary function listed?” Sara asked while paging through the information on her display.

  “That information is restricted,” ALICE replied, “Only Jake is permitted to request that information.”

  “You’re kidding right?” Sara said, “ALICE, I’m second in command.”

  “Only as far as staff management, with regards to facility command, only Jake and his offspring maintain the appropriate legacy association.”

  Sara wasn’t sure why, but ALICEs statement really pissed her off. After everything they had been through, she was still considered second string by the ALICEs.

  “Well, I suppose I can just go there then and see for myself,” Sara stated.

  “I am sorry Sara, but you will not be granted access. ALICE-3 will require Jake’s physical presence to gain initial access. Due to the nature of the work there, ALICE-3 has escalated security protocols. He and only he may gain entrance, after which he can establish delegates for continued occupation.”

  Sara’s curiosity was running wild at this point. What they hell were they doing in George that was more secret than aliens and spaceships? She knew she could just call Jake and the two of them could run down together. However, she was also getting just a little bit tired of having to call on Jake to fix her problems as well.

  Maybe it was the beating she had endured in LA, or maybe it was the outing of Bonnie and Robert, but Sara was finding herself less patient with the sharing “arrangement” than before. At first, she had attributed it to wanting to be a mom, like Bonnie and the others. Now she was not so sure.

  She found she resented the fact that Jake hadn’t been there for her right after LA, as he had the first few times she had almost died. Granted she was in medical, but he could have stayed there. She remembered the experience boarding the first alien cruiser, when she almost took a blaster to the faceplate, and then later when her fighter had been cut in half and she was cast adrift. He had always been there right after comforting her.

  With Linda, Kathy, and Sandy, he had barely enough time to eat with her, much less do anything more intimate. Thankfully with her leave status, she had been free to follow along during the day to spend what time she could with him.

  Now he had run off to Alaska to attend the birth of his child from a late recruit. Someone she felt had muscled her way into Jake’s bed, so to speak. Yes, at first, she had thought it was cute, the way he struggled with his guilt over Jessie, but now she wasn’t so amused.

  Shaking it all off, she went back to focusing on the task at hand, and decided a trip to Maine might not be so bad. Besides, she had heard it was quite beautiful in the springtime there.

  ----*----

  Jake had made the run to Alaska in plenty of time to see his son born. Being an old pro at this point, he catered to Jessie’s every need in the delivery room. He provided what comforts he could, both before and after the birth. He also spent the first night with Jessie, caring for his son while she slept. As with every new mom, she woke with every fuss, but soon returned to sleep with assurances from Jake that all was well.

  The next day they discussed names, deciding on Ryan, after Jessie’s dad, a proud Irishman.

  Once Jake was sure both mother and child were comfortable, he took the opportunity to tour the fighter build and storage areas. With the newly tested nested ship design a success, they needed fighters for every capital ship on order. They had cleared out several of the hangars Jake had seen in his first visits, most containing various government research projects that would never be of use now or at least not any time soon.

  Thanks to Robert’s constant supply of materials, Seven had completed Jake’s initial order of fighters and was into round two of shipbuilding. Jake stuck his head into one open hangar to see several rows of completed fighters, all waiting on final assignments. Between the ships on order from the Wawobash and the last two ALICE facilities, all of these plus more were spoken for. They needed to get building.

  On that note, Jake had another decision to make. Was he going to continue the practice of creating squadrons and then assigning them to ships on some form of rotation? Alternatively, should fighters with assignment to the capitol ships be Ships Company on permanent duty?

  While he was considering his options, he wandered down to the next hangar only to confront the giant nose of Defiance. Since the battleship had been sent to the Wawobash shipyards for refit and repairs, Defiance and Independence had been freed up to complete their own upgrades. The ship’s cargo bay door was down, creating a ramp, and there was an army of bots coming and going.

  With only one hangar in Alaska large enough to accommodate them, the cruisers were reduced to one at a time for landings inside the facility. Jake had been in conversations with Jacob in Hawaii, about handling the influx of ships. They all required additional work after release from the Wawobash. Once the nine new ships he had under construction were complete, his hangars could handle one cruiser each.

  Jake was not about to provide any of the aliens with the information necessary to create the stasis shields all their ships would require. Any such installation work was to be performed on earth, and nowhere else.

  He stood in the opening watching all the activity, as one of the bots rolled up to Jake and a familiar voice spoke up.

  “Jake do you need anything?” Seven asked.

  “No I was just wandering, how soon will Defiance be ready for people?”

  “Actually it is now, we are just completing our cleanup work. It will be ready for its first crew tomorrow,” Seven replied.

  “And Independence?” Jake asked.

  “Independence is also complete, it only needs a 24 hour cleanup as well, and it’s ready for duty. We were intending on assigning four each of the unassigned fighters. If that’s not your desire please let me know, or were you planning on assigning existing squadrons?”

  Jake paused for a moment and then replied, “No go ahead and load the unassigned fighters, we can sort that out later if we find a better way to handle things.”

  “As you wish,” Seven replied, and then the bot turned and sped off.

  With that, Jake turned and headed to his last stop of the morning. He wanted to see how the pilot training was going in the holographic simulators. He had spent many hours there himself, so he was well acquainted with the location.

  Apparently, he had arrived during a duty cycle change, as the waiting room contained the pilot trainees from the last and next rotation of simulator training. As he entered the room, he heard “Attention on deck!” and all 20 trainees and support staff snapped to their feet.

  “At ease,” He announced, and watched as the group relaxed, but only a little.

  “Can I help you, Colonel?” one of the senior staff asked.

  Forgetting his latest promotion for a second, Jake realized he was speaking to him and then replied, “Oh no, I was just in town and thought I’d see how training was going.”

  Scanning the room, Jake took note of all the faces looking in his direction, most no more than 20 years old and over half female. He suddenly felt very old and had a desperate urge to say something inspirational.

  “Anyone barf yet?” was all that came to mind.

  Slowly seven or eight hands came up.

  Laughing, Jake lied and announced, “I did too, in my first three sessions!”

  He could see several smiles amongst the ones with their hands up. With that, Jake turned and headed to the command center, his good deed done for the day.

  Chapter 17

  Brian could see the lovely blue ball they called home in the forward display. With orders to return home after the engagement with the NeHaw at the Wawobash shipyard, he had personally plotted the course. Inspired to read more military history and literature with his promotion to ship’s captain, he could now appreciate the references to sailor’s feelings for homeports.
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br />   Once back in their home space, they had passed the battleship on its way out of the solar system. He had received communications it was unmanned and pre-programed, by ALICE, to deliver itself to the Wawobash for repairs. It still gave him the creeps to see it go past, even though he knew it was unmanned.

  As a whole, the crew was in an excellent mood, the exception being the Jolly Rogers. There was a rumor, as there always was on a ship, that they were to rotate from the ships company and be replaced with a permanent squadron. The prevailing opinion was they had earned the right to stay, and besides, what better squadron for a pirate ship.

  Brian had drafted a request to gain them permanent assignment as well as restoring the tradition of awarding Revenge a Battle Star. An ancient US naval tradition, discontinued after something called the Korean Conflict, the award was for meritorious participation in battle. Also awarded for having suffered damage during battle conditions, his request covered either way. His only concern was the Battle Star replacement was something called the Battle Effectiveness Award, a less impressive title in Brian’s opinion.

  ----*----

  Sara had assembled a combat team, personnel borrowed from her sister Bonnie, and together they outlined their plans for opening the ALICE-5 location. In addition, she had requested transport and other personnel for after the facility opening. With Jake’s blessing of Bonnie and Robert’s relationship, Bonnie would have given her a kidney if she asked. Sara was very happy for the two of them.

  She was finding she was also very envious of the exclusive nature of that relationship. Trying not to dwell on the feelings, she refocused on defining her mission parameters.

  As with all the first time visits, they were to verify the facility was in fact safe. Once ensured of a secure status, ALICE-5 had a list of low priority repairs that had built up over the decades. While several of these repairs were within the skills of the combat team members, others required two additional members to join the opening party. The last requirement was a medically trained staff member to ensure everyone’s medical needs were well cared for.

  With her team assembled, and the transportation lined up, she was ready to go. At over 2,000 miles travel distance, they planned to use the same transport aircraft Jake and Sara used for the trip for Nevada to Texas. This trip however would still take almost 4 hours.

  With daylight burning and an aircraft full of unfamiliar faces, they lifted off and headed northeast. As they flew, Sara again reviewed her assignment and considered how they were ever going to find enough people to crew that battleship.

  ----*----

  Jake had dinner that evening with Jessie and Ryan, in her room, and then excused himself to continue his duties in his own room. As he went over his status logs, he discovered Sara had organized a mission to ALICE-5. He assumed that it was regarding her recruiting assignment, as all the existing locations had been well surveyed by now, and all the easy pickings identified. Staffing was a top priority for everyone.

  He noted that the battleship was in the faster than light leg of its trip to the shipyards, and Revenge was back in orbit. Both those thoughts bridged into a single issue, they were going to need to come up with a bunch of new names. He was playing with the idea of just going with D-1 through D-10 for the destroyers. Even the cruisers could be designated C-1 through C-8 giving Revenge C-1 and so on.

  He also received Brian’s request for both the permanent assignment of the Jolly Rogers to Revenge as well as awarding the Battle Star for the engagement at Wawobash. In reading the request, he noted several other private communications in support of his opinion that the pilots wanted to remain on-board.

  As for the Battle Star, he actually not only approved of the idea, he felt a second star was deserved with the engagement of the NeHaw cruisers in earth’s orbit. Although ALICE had been in control, the ship was still an important part of the victory.

  This decision also settled the fighter assignments question. Each ship would get a permanent assignment of fighters, pilots assigned as Ships Company rather than by squadron. With only the Rogers currently attached to Revenge, he would let that stand as the single exception.

  All future fighter groups assigned to ships were to take the host vessels designation. He made a note to Seven to have four each of the unassigned fighters set aside for both Defiance and Independence with the cleanup work they were performing. All should be loaded prior to return to orbit.

  As for facility fighter squadrons, he still wanted to keep with assigning squadron designations. They tended to be migrated around.

  Jake took the opportunity to check in on Chris and the LA situation. After the stadium demonstration, the gang activity had gone way down, or more likely just went underground. Chris reported no significant activity in his general area, beyond the typical small incident here or there.

  They had taken in a substantial number of refugees to date, most requesting safe harbor, or temporary sanctuary. It was becoming well known that the compound was a possible gateway to the safely settled areas outside of LA. Jake had asked Chris to allow structured interviews with the remote communicators, for possible recruits, or at minimum, resettlements. So far, 23 people had resettled to outlying communities and 12 were absorbed into the ALICE recruitment machine. A few even stayed with Chris, reinforcing his security staff.

  Chris also found that he had a completely new avenue for trade. With regular flights in and out of the compound, he was getting specific orders for goods scrounged in the LA area and receiving substantial food stocks in return. With that, he could better staff his compound security than ever before. They were considering expanding the perimeter wall to allow for new construction.

  The thing Jake found most frustrating though, was with all the new recruits and existing staff, only about one-third expressed interest in going to space aboard the capital ships. In addition, not all of those were qualified to do so.

  All the fighter pilots were one hundred percent onboard, but a good portion of the non-combat rated occupations was not as eager. Some might be adventurous, just not warriors.

  ----*----

  Sara and her team arrived in Maine just before nightfall and ALICE-5 had been prepared to accept them. The hangar doors worked as designed but the years of accumulated forest debris left quite a mess for the bots to clear on the hangar floor once they opened.

  The aircraft had to sideslip a short distance to clear the pile of fallen material before settling on the hangar floor. As this was the craft fitted with repulser drives, it thankfully didn’t have prop wash to spread the material all over the hangar.

  With the four person combat team in the lead, everyone deplaned and followed the well-defined process for all new ALICE initial visits. The hangar had all the usual equipment, helicopters, and vehicles, so they performed the floor sweep first.

  With the all clear for the hanger, they headed into the main facility. Entering the main doors, they made their way directly to the command center. Once inside, Sara authenticated at the ALICE main console.

  However, no sooner had they checked in than ALICE-5 announced, “Sara, there is a small group of outsiders, currently pounding on the hangar doors. I am afraid they may have seen you land and are attempting to gain access.”

  “Can you bring up the display,” Sara asked.

  In the center of the room, a holograph appeared, and in the middle of the display were seven armed men with a number of women and children. Sara thought she counted 23 in all. They had gathered to one side of the open area in the woods where the main hangar doors were located. One of the men was on his knees, using the butt of his rifle to pound the ground.

  Three of the men were with the kneeling man while the other three were around the women and children, all seven surrounding them as if protecting them from the outside.

  They all watched the display, Sara clearly not sure what to do next. While everyone on her team was in combat suits, only the four on the combat team carried rifles.

  “ALICE, d
o you have another path to the surface. One that exits somewhere near these people, but can’t been seen by them?” Sara asked.

  “Yes, the heavy vehicle lift opens in a smaller clearing near the main hangar. I can lift you there, on the other side of the tree line to the south, without being seen,” ALICE responded.

  “You four come with me, the rest of you stay here and report if anything changes,” Sara said while pointing at the four with rifles.

  She led the combat team out of the room and back into the hangar, only stopping by the armory long enough to grab a rifle of her own. ALICE had a bot there waiting there to lead them to the lift. Once everyone was in position, Sara gave ALICE the all clear and the lift began to rise. At the same time, a small rain of debris came down from above as the doors opened to allow the platform to fill the open space. Sara positioned the team to cover all four points of the compass as they rose.

  As they cleared the opening in the ceiling, Sara had the team do a quick 360-degree visual sweep in infrared looking for heat blooms that might indicate warm bodies in the woods. As it was just starting to get dark, they switched to night vision before moving north, toward where the clearing for the main hangar was located.

  Moving through the woods in a wedge formation, which was really more of a diamond with her in the middle, Sara had everyone on alert. While she had no reason to expect a trap, her latest experience in LA had her a little paranoid. Then again, Jake had told her more than once, just because you’re paranoid, it does not mean they aren’t out to get you!

  As they reached the edge of the clearing, the point held up and took a knee, while sweeping the area on infrared again. Weapon at the ready, she waited as everyone closed in. Everyone did the same, as the rear security did a 180-degree spin and looked for any flanking activity.