Taking a deep breath. “Well Pan is still threatening to wring your neck. Even with all the food we captured they are mashing everything up with energy pills added for short rations. At least what little each rations there are tastes good but even that won’t last long with a half a million crewmen to feed. You need to wake up love. The fleet needs you. Hell, I need you.”
The Lieutenant started rubbing Jack’s head and playing with his hair as she kissed his cheek again but the body felt so far away, so remote. As if he was outside of his body. Then a minute later with her sweat breath flowing across his cheek and into him with each breath as she laid with her head on his chest. “Admiral Halsey does not want to make any definite plans for going to Q-19 Victory Basestation until he can talk to you which is not making Admiral Spencer happy but can you blame him, Task Force 58 has been starving for a lot longer than we have. Halsey says Spencer’s plan is to damn much like a raid into enemy territory and not a resupply mission. We need too much material even after all we took from the Staging Station and from what he has seen of all the equipment you have had constructed and added to the transports while organizing to pick up the supplies, he is not about to even try guessing at what your plans are except that it is not a raid. Though how you plan on getting everything out under the noses of the fleet stationed there without a major battle, is a mystery to everyone.”
Taking a deep breath, her voice seemed to chuckle as she went on. “Captain Clancy took one look at the list of equipment and said that you were planning on taking the whole damn station with its entire million crewmen and dependents. That got a laugh from everyone at the meeting except for Admiral Halsey on the screen. He said he wouldn’t be surprised if you pulled it off if that was your plan, as long as you have had to think about it and make the arrangements.” She ran her hand through his hair again. “You know love. You can be downright scary sometimes.”
Jack felt a spark shock his lips as she pressed hers against his and for the first time actually felt up close and part of himself to his surprise. Then the touch was gone with the sound of a flight helmet hitting the head board of the bed shaking it a little. “I need to go on patrol for few hours and then I will be back Love. Don’t go away or start flirting with the nurse or I will bean you when I get back. C3PO What the Frick… Oh I mean Chump, is here if you need anything. Just ask.” Jack felt a hug and another wet kiss on his lips that sent another spark washing through is body and he was suddenly there feeling his whole body and everything around him and she walked out of the cabin. Jack thought he could see her leave, no longer far away but incredibly real.
Even the damn bot looked suddenly huge as it walked from the corner to stand next to him on the other side of the bed and laid a warm but hard hand on his arm.
Jack tried to tell the Lieutenant not to go and reach for her but his body would not respond no matter how hard he tried. Chump started talking to him while he checked the bed and the equipment around Jack as the Lieutenant walked away. Turning to face the receding back of the Lieutenant as the door closed. “Admiral Turner’s vital signs have suddenly spiked for the better Lieutenant.” Though Jack could not remember later what he had said and then exhaustion overwhelmed him with the lieutenant leaving and his world faded away.
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“Ok now, I brought a book along this time. The Lieutenant should be back in a couple of hours. Her mission got extended so I thought that I might as well as bore you until then.” The voice was much closer but it was not the Lieutenant but Winslow’s. “Thought you might like an old book from a long, long time ago. I find it really hilarious. Called Star Wars. You just lay back and relax and try not to bust a gut laughing. I dare you. Though the movie is a lot funnier with all the corny special effects.” He heard her sit next to him as she patted his arm.
She felt and sounded like she was right there. He was no longer far, far away and as her words droned on making comments about things in the book to both Jack and Chump… who kept asking for clarifications. Jack eventually faded away again.
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Jack felt a kiss on his lips sending a spark through his body and then. “Hi love. Sorry I took so long but I had to check out a few anomalies during the patrol and got a bit farther away than I had planned. When you are going through uncharted space far from any passageways in this damn cloud, all kinds of things pop up. I found or should I say Winslow’s sensors found and I checked out another Rocky Comet world sitting all by itself out in the middle of nowhere. Well, it is only the size of a moon but in this thick soup, I had to get so close it looks huge. Even better it seems to register some rather rare elements buried in it not found in the cloud before this or The Rock. As close as it is to New Home it may turn out to be important from what I am told.”
Jack smiled as he took in a deep breath and let it out. Feeling his lungs for the first time in a long time. His mouth felt like a cross between a desert and a garbage dump. The light seemed so bright even with his eyes closed.
“Anyway the flight of God fighter’s caught up with us while I was out and I played with them for a while on the way back. It will be nice to get back into a decent fighter again. Not that the Republic fighters are all that bad, it’s just that they don’t have all the upgrades the others do. At least now with another fighter squadron here we can take the Republic fighters out of service and upgrade them so we don’t have to use these damn helmets and the anemic weapons on them is just disgusting after flying the God fighters in combat. Oh and yes a squadron of Transport Bombers showed up with the parts to upgrade the Republic fighters including weapons. You better wake up soon or the doctor will have one of the Transport Bomber’s take you back to New Home today ahead of the ship to see if they can do anything for you. Don’t worry I will fly it but you are needed here. So wake up lazy.” She hugged him again then squeezed his arm as she sat back in the chair next to the bed and got comfortable.
“Well if you insist.” Jack whispered as he opened his eyes trying to squint at her through the bright light and immediately had to yawn while shutting his eyes to keep the bright light out. He stretched his arms out shaking them for a few seconds as he tensed the muscles hard with his eyes closed then let his breath slowly out with a deep growl forcing his chest to work as the Lieutenant through herself into his outstretched arms laying a big kiss on his lips not waiting for him to close his mouth as she filled it while bear hugging him.
The Lieutenant finally, reluctantly sat back in the chair trying to regain her dignity as the Steward Terrell walked in.
“Well it is about time.” Terrell pointed at the screen on the bulkhead beside Jack’s bed with a bunch of wavy squiggly lines running across it. “We knew you were in there someplace by the bottom lines showing us you still had some thoughts buried deep down where the normal instruments can’t reach. From what the top lines that were flat up until the Lieutenant’s last visit were saying, we would have pulled your plug days ago and sent you to the morgue but I had confidence in you.” Smiling from ear to ear. “Something must have gotten through on the Lieutenants last visit because that is when your mind started fighting its way up through the bands. I bet that the Lieutenant would wake you when she got here. Thanks for making me a lot of money Lieutenant.” She smiled. “You are now my Doctoral Thesis Admiral, showing your mind activity increasing as the Lieutenant talked about specific details mostly dealing about you not being a total failure and your ships and crews were still alive. God, I can only imagine how it felt to watch a whole fleet you just liberated and crewed with friends die before your eyes. I watched the video and I still can’t believe so many survived.”
Smiling. “Anyway, get some breakfast and a little exercise and you are good to go. Now I have my medical license back, I am headed back for Sickbay to help someone that is really sick. Chump will be your steward until I am replaced.” Smiling at Jack as she listened to his heart and checked him over before slapping his leg. “You will have a head Shrinker visit
you later after you have had time to collect your thoughts and figure out what they are. Just make sure you talk to him before you sleep again or you are likely to suffer PTSD for years. The first good sleep after a traumatic event is very important. And being in a coma does not count. If you don’t get a good perspective on the event before your mind implants them permanently during the first Deep sleep after the event, it could take years of psychotherapy and you still won’t totally get rid of the monsters.”
“It may be hard or impossible to rotate ground units out after a battle is over to have a talk with a shrink before their first good sleep but the Navy has no such excuse. You have a bracelet around your wrist that will keep you from sleeping again until you talk to the shrink and he takes it off. We can’t afford to lose a good Commander simply because he thinks he has ghosts chasing him or decides he can no longer order men into Combat.” She smiled at Jack. “It does not work 100% of the time but we know it works most of the time. The Shrink will start following you around in about 4 hours and won’t leave until you do spend an hour or two with him talking, so don’t put it off to long or he will have a couple of big ugly marines sit on you. Not a pretty sight Admiral. And yes we have the authority.” She smiled and left as the medical screen on the bulkhead beside his bed turned back to the port it was.
The Ports now showing a dozen ships around them and God fighters on patrol. The screens on the other sides of the room changing to show the view from the ship like he would have seen from his quarters on the Flying Bridge. The pockmarked and gouged hull and missing fins with the remnants of others still attached. A dozen destroyed turrets were in plain sight with the cargo rails that were packed with DD’s when he had looked out the port before the battle, were half destroyed with a DD latched onto one of the halfway intact cargo rails at the stern pushing the Red Pepper through the cloud with its scoop deployed up the side past the ship with a stream of compressed matter being sucked into the DD. Most of the cloud material streaming back through the scoop’s cone past the DD and out to plug the hole the scoop had made in the cloud. The tip of a fin peeked out back around the ships bare finless hull on the other side of his bedroom showing that another DD was attached there balancing out the thrust from the DD across from it.
“My God, look what I have done to this beautiful ship.” Looking forward to where the God Guns had been for months as proof to what he could do and now the empty space with the ragged bases sticking out from the hull. “I fucked up so bad. They should just have wheeled me to the morgue. How many crewmen did I kill on the Red Pepper Lieutenant?” His face turning sour again. “How many thousands of good crewmen died across that bay in all the life boats because of me?”
“Not one damn it. They all would have died anyway if you had just ran in and blew their fucking ships to hell. But you tried to save them and the fact that they died is not your fault but the Congressional Democratic Communists that think of themselves as elite Kings and interested more in demanding obedience than freedom or the lives of the people they are supposed to serve. No, that is not your fault Jack. It is theirs. There was no way you could have prevented their deaths and the fact is you did save almost a hundred thousand of their lives as well as a quarter million lives in Task Force 58 including the Black Dwarf and Admiral Spencer, by forcing the Congressional fleet to return back to the Maze and defend The Rocks Staging Station. We are now free to head for Q-19 and Victory Station without them on our asses. Something that would not have happened if you had simply went in and destroyed the Battleships and The Rock’s Staging Station like you could have done in minutes then left with the DD’s leaving no one the wiser even when the second fleet from The Rock got there. They would probably have been ordered to remain there while the other fleet continued on to find and destroy the Black Dwarf and maybe even have eventually found New Home. You certainly would not have had time to go to Q-19 the way we are now planning while you hunted down that damn fleet and tried to save the Black Dwarf its crew and Admiral Spencer. Fact is everyone is calling it a great victory which it is.” The lieutenant smiled. “Even the damn Congressional Admirals. Though they are trying to claim responsibility.”
Stepping to his locker the Lieutenant frowned. “The Congressional Admirals are saying that a Spider fleet managed to sneak into the Maze using captured Republic ships from the Second Fringe battle but that they have defeated the enemy and are now scouring the maze for enemy stragglers. So far they have managed to destroy several more of their own ships and kill thousands in the Maze before we could get to them. You will not believe this but with the help of our new sensors, we have gotten at least another 30 battleships the last time I heard, that were lost in the maze to surrender with most of their crews volunteering to join us.” Admiral Halsey figures it will take 6 months before they try venturing out again when another couple hundred Battleships are ready at The Rock. That is if the Colonies allow it. The Congressional Democrat Fleet Admirals are starting to trench in, isolating themselves from the rest of The Rock until Earth can send reinforcements. But Halsey says he is going to make it hard for them to ever leave Earth let alone reach The Rock since he controls all military shipping around Republic now. The Congressional Earth Admirals are not quite as powerfull as they were.”
Taking a deep breath as she kind of smiled. “Halsey is hoping that by then the Colony systems of the Republic will be able to send Officers and crews. They are already demanding that the Bootships be deployed again. Though Earth’s Congressionals are fighting it with procedural blocks but after losing another fleet to the spiders attack on The Cloud and all the video of them shooting lifeboats and what you recorded about the Democrats plans racing over the internet. The Colonies are not in the mood to listen anymore. Especially after the recordings of Earths Congressional Democrat Admirals talking about bombing the Colony planets to force them to accept Earth’s Democratic Communism, making the rounds on the Colonies Web, Earth can’t control. The locations of Reeducation Camps that were already being built complete with crematoriums for burning corpses on all the closer Colonies have been found and are in the process of being turned into recruit training Camps until the Boot Ships get redeployed.”
“The supposed Spider attack on The Cloud has driven home to the Colonies how desperate the War actually is. Using the Reeducation Camps to train recruits now should speed things up when the Boot ships finely get back out. Turning the Boot ships into Class A and B schools which actually works better in my mind. Some of the Colonies are even talking about starting their own Boot ships made from old tankers and bulk carriers as well as old mining sights on moons in the many systems so they don’t have to wait for the Congress to authorize redeploying the Boot Ships. Though there is no way to make up for all the time that has been lost training Republic crews. It will take a year before the new colony recruits are adequately trained to crew ships.” Taking a deep breath. “At least we have plenty of crewmen to man all the ships we now have.”
Jack shook his head as he looked at her. “Sorry Hun. But most of our ships before the battle barely had enough for a full crew. With all the new captured ships we will be lucky to put a skeleton crew on most with some simply left at the docks if we need enough crewmen to send ships into combat.”
Giving Jack a strange look. “Come on. We have just picked up a half million new crewmen.”
“No we haven’t. Task Force 58 crews will take 6 months of closely watched recovery time with a constant good diet to regain enough strength just to do their jobs as long as they don’t need to get very physical. Most of the crewmen from the Captured ships still need at least 6 months of boot training with some taking as long as a year. The only thing most of them are good for is construction or yard work though we have plenty of that. Even crewmen trained by The Game need at least three months of Boot training before they can be relied upon to act properly in an emergency or combat.”
“But they can be trained and TF-58’s crews will get stronger.” The Lieutenant fluffed Jacks hair
again kissing his cheek. “Thank Godstar things are not as bad as Earth and the Colonies think they are. We are actually doing pretty well thanks to you. The Admiral says that you are getting another medal whether you want it or not.” She tossed a washcloth and towel at Jack then stuffed his underwear under her arm and stepped to his closet.” Now get in the shower so we can get some lunch. The Admiral wants to see you about getting us some damn food and supplies before we starve to death or the DD’s break down from lack of repair parts that were not in the tanks we salvaged at the DD station.”
Taking a deep breath as she dragged out his uniform. “Oh by the way. The Rock has now officially spotted a total of 100 Spider Battleships circling around The Cloud toward the Earth side and Q-19. Though Winslow and Truitt say they are off by a good number. Their count is closer to 200.” Slapping his bare butt to head toward the shower. “Oh and by the way. Winslow has spotted a God or Spider ship scout joining the God Fleet that she thinks had to have come from the Earth side of The Cloud. She thinks that not only are there other scouts around that end of The Cloud but that the God Fleet will head straight for the stream of supply ships entering and leaving the Cloud at Q-19. It will take another week to confirm it but I think she is right.”
Shaking his head realizing that the nightmare was not over after all, Jack thought about going back to bed with the hope the news would be better once he woke up again as he looked out the port in the direction of the menacing God Fleet just as a bunch of fighters started rolling and looping with half of the ships in sight joining in bigger versions around the Red Pepper with their running and search lights flashing. Then the fighters and ships across the squadron started sending streaks from their guns out into the Cloud. He did not realize that the beams were the light green of low training power at first. “What the hell is going on out there?” Jack said baffled as he started to worry. “The fleet under attack again?”
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