Jake cleared his throat and nodded. “Anderson did the right thing, I’m glad I left him in charge,” he said quietly.
“She looks amazing,” Oz said. “Sounded very happy.”
“I noticed that there’s a message from Ayan here, too,” Jake said.
“I could leave you alone for that one, come back in a minute,” Oz offered.
“No, I don’t have to watch it now, we have other things to go over.”
“You could, if you wanted.”
Jake cocked his head and regarded his old friend. “You want to listen in, but you’re afraid to ask.”
“Caught me, I’ve missed my old friends,” he said.
Jake called up the message, and Ayan’s image appeared. She smiled at him wearily. “I already sent my report in along with all the updates I wrote for the Revenge while I was in transit. We’re using a new transmitter type we just finished fabricating on the Solar Forge to send you this message. The details are in the report I sent back, but in short, it uses a microscopic trans-dimensional wormhole to send a burst of data to your location. If you’re where I expect you to be, with Freeground Alpha, then you should receive this within an hour of sending.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry, Jake, this was supposed to be a message for you, not a bulletin on new technology. I just wanted to make sure that you knew I understood why I was sent back home. More than that, actually. I wanted you to know that we’re okay, the two of us. When you told me I had to go, I made the decision to agree using my military reasoning. What I didn’t tell you was that I was hurt and wanted to stay more than I could let myself express. We didn’t have much spare time on the Revenge, but after leaving I realized that you really did spend all of it with me when you could have been doing any number of things, and since I had so much time to think about that on the way home, and how you were always making sure I was all right, I think I’ve gotten over that hurt I couldn’t help but feel. Now what’s left is worry. The condition I left the Revenge in frightens me more than I could say, and I need you to return home. I don’t care what you have to do, Jake, just make it back so we can continue what we started. I love you.”
The holographic image began to fade, then sprung back to life. In the new version of her hologram her curly red hair was loose, she looked refreshed from a night’s sleep and she was in a loose fitting dress. “I just met with my father and found out that Alice chose me as her biological mother,” she said, astonished. “I really don’t know what to do here, if I’m being honest.”
“Go meet her, bring a white rose!” Carl Anderson said, a hologram of him briefly appearing.
“That’s one option,” Ayan laughed nervously. “But she’s in training, I don’t want to distract her.”
“She’ll know you’re back sooner or later, what will she think if you don’t go see her first?”
“Okay, going to see her as soon as I can,” Ayan said. “Wish me luck, Jake, and good hunting. Come back to us safely, I guarantee you’ll have a memorable homecoming.” The hologram faded away.
“I need to see a recording of those two meeting,” Jake said with a chuckle.
“It’s going to be memorable,” Oz said. “Turns out you’ve got a nice family there, congratulations.”
“Thank you, it’s as much a surprise to me as it is to you.”
“Speaking of you getting home safe, how is the Revenge?”
“We’re down to half our weaponry, but with the modifications that Ayan walked the crew through, we have the best shielding in the fleet. Why aren’t you using the D-Drive for shielding on the Triton?”
“We’re adding the interface and programs into our systems so the Triton will be capable, but we’re not going to use that functionality until we have to. There’s a real possibility of burning the drive out if you’re using it to shield a ship and it gets hit too hard, even with the energy absorption capabilities. I see that the Revenge has no choice but to use it.”
Jake nodded. “I’ve put together a number of new tactics we can use, too, some things that the Order won’t see coming. I just need a few things from the Triton’s missile inventory.”
“I don’t want to put the Revenge in harms’ way, not in the condition it’s in right now,” Oz said.
“She’s a fighting ship, her crew have been working their asses off to make sure we can be a part of this. We don’t want to lay the whole fight on the Nafalli. They talk like they could defeat whatever we find in front of us, but every ship in their fleet has taken serious damage, some are worse off than the Revenge.”
“The Triton is in perfect shape, we only ran into one Order patrol while we were out there,” Oz said. “We can lead our forces against whatever we find, Freeground Fleet agrees. Listen, Jake; the Revenge earned all her battle scars by finding where the leading edge of the Order Fleet is and provoking a few reactions that tell us what their tactical approach is like. If you ask me, that ship and your crew have already done the heavy lifting on this mission by scouting ahead and telling Freeground Alpha where they couldn’t jump.”
“We were only able to signal twice,” Jake replied.
“It was enough. We kept that station jumping safely longer than anyone expected, now we’re almost home.”
“Keep the Revenge in the fight,” Jake said. “While we’re using the D-Drive for shielding, we can do things that no ship we’ve ever seen can. Look over the new tactics I’ve outlined, you’ll see.”
Oz hesitated. “They’re that ground breaking?”
“You haven’t seen them yet, not anywhere,” Jake replied.
“Okay; if we meet up with resistance, and if we need the edge I’ll call on the Revenge if I like what I see in your tactical proposal. I don’t think our scouts will find anything at that jump gate.”
“I can almost guarantee it,” Jake said. “I hate to tell you, but we’re not up against the thugs we’ve been fighting in the Order. There are tacticians in this new fleet, and I’m sure they’ve found out about the jump gate.”
“I wish my gut didn’t agree with you,” Oz said.
“It’s good to fly in the Triton’s shadow again,” Jake said. “Good to visit.”
“I’m glad to see you aboard again, Jake. I’ll be honest though, I keep thinking that you’ll come aboard someday and kick me out of the command seat, rank be damned.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll stay where I am,” Jake said, realizing that he’d come to prefer the Revenge despite its problems and battle scars. It was a leaner ship with a more focused purpose, and he’d rebuilt it with the right people at his side.
“You really are happy there, aren’t you?” Oz said.
“I’d admit it, but I’m afraid to jinx myself,” Jake said with a crooked smirk. “I should get back.”
“I’m sending an army of repair crew people with you along with as much repair material as they can use in the time we have,” Oz said. “We’ll patch everything we can.”
“Thank you, Oz. We need all the help we can get.”
Chapter 39
The Second Half Of Suit Week
One of the days Alice dreaded was finally over. Her third Stellar Cartography exam, final Close Quarters Combat Theory exam, final Micro-Mechanics exam and her last Law exam were over, and she passed them all but one with a grade higher than ninety-four. She didn’t care exactly what the number was unless it was below ninety-four. A score of ninety-four or higher demonstrated a superior understanding of the material, anything under and she’d start losing points and getting marks for future assistance in her file. She’d scored seventy eight on her law exam, high enough so she wouldn’t lose points if she didn’t take it again in two days, but low enough so it would be marked in her file.
Micro-Mechanics was easy, putting things together, finding flaws in a design, and repairing microscopic machines made sense to her. There was a logic to everything, and she had an excellent grasp of the math behind it all. Stellar Cartography was on the opposite side of the scale, so she ended up with e
xtra time at the end of the tracking and mapping puzzles. Instead of giving in to over-confidence, she used the time to check all her results, and was able to correct one major error. That brought her within point two percent of a score of one hundred. She fell short of one hundred percent because her notes weren’t as descriptive as the instructor would have liked, but she couldn’t let her irritation muddy her thoughts.
The Close Quarters Combat Theory Exam was surprisingly hard. The four exams leading to the final were easy, she could direct armed soldiers through the scenarios quickly and efficiently, losing only as many of their number as was necessary. She’d learned so much in the course that she scored one hundred percent on exams two, three and four. The Final turned the tables and flipped things upside down. The puzzle was simple on the surface: remotely guide four unarmed civilians out of a refugee camp, through security and find a way to get them into space. She had five minutes to learn everything about the virtual family of four through questioning, then the exam started. Time passed too quickly, there were guards everywhere, and the baby of the family always cried at the worst time. What was worse, the only one who could fight in the group was the eight-year-old boy who had taken martial arts before they were imprisoned. Somehow she only had to use that skill set once, his father’s maintenance experience was far more useful and it turned out that the mother was an excellent communicator who could stay calm under pressure. In the end, the family had to use a jury rigged escape pod to blast off the surface of the planet towards an emergency Navnet zone where a rescue ship might catch them before they failed to escape the atmosphere. With nine seconds to spare, the family’s escape pod was pulled into orbit by a rescue vessel. She wasn’t even sure if she passed in the end, but took a ninety-eight point three percent with a grin.
The Law Exam was worse. It was the study of law from a practical point of view. How it could apply to people under her command in different circumstances, and how to quickly determine what kind of laws a new society had. She loved that Haven Fleet wanted their officers to get ready to meet new cultures and train them to understand them quickly, but the final Law test caught her by surprise.
She was given seven cases to review and report on in one hour. Worse than that, she had to match laws from three different societies to the files using the information available, and none of the cultures were human. Issyrian law was strict but often driven by emotion. Nafalli law was logical and the punishments were focused on rehabilitation. Visi law was unbendable, based purely on logic and they were highly punitive with all but their own kind.
Her reports had to predict what would happen to each offender depending on the law in the region they were charged in and what actions she’d recommend her senior officers should take if the offender was a member of their ship’s crew. She finished all the cases, but just barely and she knew she missed a lot in the time allotted. Unlike the other topics, it wasn’t as interactive but reactive. There was a lot of general information to memorize and every case had so much detail that there were as many unimportant facts on record as there were critical details. When she got her results, seventy eight percent, she wasn’t surprised.
Sitting in the Officer’s lounge, Alice took a moment to watch Planet Nor-Lux’s rocky surface turn and the asteroids drift around it. For the first time since the beginning of the program, Alice caught herself saying; “The pressure here is insane,” to Iruuk, who put his hand across her shoulders and nodded. They studied everything that they were tested on that day together. He passed three of them with scores over ninety-four, and one with a perfect one hundred mark. Her moments of envy for his scores, which were often a touch higher than hers, had come to an end many days before. She knew how hard she worked at learning everything the Academy put in front of her, how many exercises she had to do so it all sunk in and stuck. It would have been easier if they could simply memorize the stuff, but she had to understand it because all the exams came in puzzle form.
Her and Iruuk were ahead of the class with three other Officer Trainees, the rest were a week or more away from taking any of those exams. Titus and Nivee were in the darkly decorated lounge as well, though you couldn’t tell who they were at a glance thanks to the vacsuits everyone was still sealed in. “I want to spend more time with the cadets,” Alice complained quietly. “That whole thing with Gambin showed me how far my head is up my own ass, I didn’t notice him staring across at me during dinner, at lectures, or that he was following me on Crewcast.”
“Head up your?” Iruuk asked, amused.
“Human expression for being so self-absorbed that you don’t see what’s right in front of you,” she explained.
“I love human colloquialisms. Do you have one for when you want to scratch your own nose, but there’s an environment suit in the way?”
“I’m afraid not, but you could make one up,” Alice said.
“I just want real food,” Titus said as he sat in an arm chair next to the sofa Alice and Iruuk shared. “Sure, we get to stick provisions in our suit pocket and that’s where our food is coming from, so we’re not stuck with our recyclers taking care of us outside of providing water, but the best food in the galaxy doesn’t come in bar form. Have you ever tried stuffed chicken? It’s this great big lump of chicken breast with cheese and vegetables – usually something with flavour like broccoli – stuffed inside. I used to order it from this restaurant down the street from my apartment, it came with small onions and carrots that were carved into little flowers then steamed. I even learned how to make it, but the restaurant made it better.”
“Where is this restaurant?” Iruuk asked, licking his chops.
“I’m sure it’s still there, but the robot servers, well, the owners, the cooks are gone,” Titus said quietly. “I’m going to find some good chicken and make that though, even if it costs me all my luxury pay.”
“I hear they’re starting work on a live protein plant next week,” Alice said. “It might not cost you much.”
Iruuk buried his nose in his hands and grumbled; “This suit scratches every itch I have, but it’s just not the same. I had a dream the other night that I was being chased by flies because my fur was unclean. I feel like I’m living in a plastic bag, and now you’re talking about real food. Chicken, noodles, red sauce, and cheeeeeeeeese! I will raid the kitchen if I don’t have good food the moment they tell us we can get out of our suits. Then I’m going to groom myself for two days.”
“I’m sorry, Iruuk, I didn’t mean to set you off,” Titus said. “Suit week is rough, just try not to think about it.”
Alice saw the auto feeder in Iruuk’s suit gently press a pellet against the side of the Nafalli’s mouth and he surged to his feet, shaking his head. “How does this thing know when I’m hungry? Even a little peckish? I don’t understand the science behind it! The suit knows too much!”
Alice was on her feet and at Iruuk’s side in a heartbeat. They were through most of suit week, she wasn’t going to watch him lose his first points by tearing his vacsuit off. “It’s all simple bio-sensing technology. Just relax, we’re almost finished suit week then you can shower and groom all you like, and I promise there will be pasta.”
“With the red sauce?” he asked, lowering himself to the deck.
“With tomato sauce using fresh produce from the Haven Shore production towers,” Alice couldn’t help but be amused as the Nafalli wriggled and strained against the floor, scratching his back and legs. “I promise.”
“Buckets of pasta in red sauce,” he groaned.
“He’s going to be okay, right?” Titus whispered to Alice over a private channel.
Alice watched Iruuk sigh and chew the pellet his suit offered him and nodded. “He just had a moment, most of us do.”
“Not you though,” Iruuk said. “The suit doesn’t seem to bother you.”
“I guess I just don’t think about it enough,” Alice said. “Feeling pretty gross though, even though the cleaning system says it’s working.”
Yawen rushed into the room, nearly toppling a stool at the unused bar at the back of the room. “The word is out,” she announced. “It was Admiral Charon. She leaked it to the British Alliance fleet and then broadcast it to the whole Rega Gain system right before they caught her. They found out that she’d made a deal with Regent Galactic. At the end of her service with the British Alliance she was supposed to live like a queen in their territory.”
“What? How didn’t they find her before they made her an Admiral?” Alice asked. “They have screening.”
Spinward Fringe Broadcast 10 Page 34
