* * * * *
Ellie leaned into Mike as Otis wearily led the way back to the bridge. She felt distracted and knew that part of the reason was that she had failed Mike. She had collapsed at the first sign of the Chessori mind weapon, collapsed at a time when he needed her. But that wasn’t the only cause of her distraction. His arm was around her of his own volition, and to her surprise she wanted it there. He was holding her, helping her in spite of the fact that she had let him down.
She was confused. The man holding her was not the ignorant Earthman she had originally thought him to be. He was a natural leader, but more important, she was beginning to look upon him as something else: a friend.
One of the earliest lessons she had been taught was that the Chosen did not have true friends. She had been taught that everyone around her would be friendly, but only because of the her position within the Empire hierarchy. This man, so far as she could tell, cared nothing about her position. He was helping her, not one of the Chosen.
She stumbled as her mind focused on this, and his arm tightened around her waist. Impulsively, without really thinking about it, she turned and wrapped her arms around his waist, pressing her body to his. She longed to be held, and he responded by pressing her head to his chest.
After a time, as if from far away, she heard, “Uh, I think we should be getting back to work, Ellie.”
She lingered, not willing to give up the moment, savoring the feelings she felt. Just another moment, she thought. Then she sighed. “Yes, we should.” She looked up into his eyes, searching for something, she wasn’t sure what, but the look he returned warmed her. She rested her head against his chest again, briefly, then stood back from him, her arms still around his waist. “Thank you, Michael Carver. I needed that.” She then turned toward the bridge, pulling his arm tighter around herself and holding to it.
When they stepped out of the central shaft, he took her head in his hands and peered into her eyes. She closed her eyes briefly, trying to hide her exhaustion from the attack and the confusion in her mind. When she opened them, she felt tears threatening and was furious with herself. She could not allow him to sense her weakness.
Mike saw the tears, and he wiped them away with his thumbs. “I’m so sorry for you,” he said. “Jake could not hide his agony from me. Until now, I never knew what you were up against, yet you haven’t given up. You’re a strong woman, My Lady. I’m honored that you called me to your side.”
She closed her eyes, hating the tears that flowed. She responded the only way she could. She turned to the console and picked up her helmet. Mike placed his hand on her arm, forcing the helmet back to the console.
“You’re done in. So is Otis. One hour break, you two,” he announced.
Ellie and Otis both looked at him in surprise. Otis started to object, but Mike cut him off. “You’re both hurting, and I need you at peak efficiency when we leave. Otis, have you ever had a gun taken away from you before?”
“No. But it was the right thing to do. You chose well, Captain.”
“And I’m choosing well now. Take a break. Sleep if you can. I have other things to do, including bringing Reba more fully into the net. That’s an order.”
Otis rested where he was. Ellie, too, declined to leave the bridge. She sat in a crew seat, leaning forward on the console with her head resting on her arms, feeling lonely and isolated again. She missed the feeling of Mike’s arms around her. What was happening to her, she wondered? Survival was the issue here, not feelings. She had to put those feelings away. She did, and she was asleep in minutes.
Mike went into the net and raced through ship’s systems with George to check for damage. All was well, all four weapons were functional again, and the shields were fully charged. Resolve was ready for battle, though Jake had not yet returned. Reba did not even know about him, Mike realized. He squirmed a little when he thought about telling her that he had an alien living inside himself, but then he thought about how much he missed Jake and shrugged it off.
He spent time with her and George. There wasn’t time to bring her fully into the net, but George was able to expand her horizons a little. She could at least see the full tactical situation. Earlier, she could only see what her gun position could see.
Ellie plugged in, though her usual sense of wonder at the net was missing. She seemed more distracted than tired. Mike was surprised. He was totally focused, knowing he would soon be in the fight of his life. Was Ellie’s problem centered on the fact that she knew her efforts were in vain, that she would likely end up as she had before, useless during the fighting? He made a mental note to keep an eye on her and her performance.
Her distraction disappeared immediately upon meeting Reba in the net. Reba’s personality fired up the net, her energy suffusing everyone, and it had the same effect on Ellie that it had on Mike. Nothing seemed to phase her. She took everything in stride, and she motivated others without even being aware she was doing so. She still bubbled with excitement from the battle and couldn’t wait to dig in and get better.
When Ellie met her on the net, Mike immediately recognized a need that had been missing in Ellie’s life. She had been surrounded by males for months on end. Adult female companionship had been almost completely absent in her life. She and Reba immediately took to each other, and it was good, good for both of them. Ellie fed on that bubbling enthusiasm and perked up noticeably.
Break time was over. Mike got everyone down to business. Otis was back in the lower turret, Reba manned the other lower gun from her position on the bridge through the net, and Ellie took both upper guns until Jake returned. Mike commanded and flew the ship. It was no longer necessary for George to act as teacher. He was back to managing the ship, leaving the rest of them to fight. He still controlled the training scenarios, but that was child’s play to him.
Jake joined them midway through the session, jumping into the net with both feet. “I’m back, Mike. Where do you want me?”
“Take one of Ellie’s guns.”
“Welcome back, Jake,” Ellie said warmly.
Reba lost her composure for a heartbeat or two. “Jake, where did you come from? And who else is hiding under the bed?” she added as an afterthought.
“I’ll explain later,” Mike answered curtly. “Come on guys, we’re under attack. We’re down to hours, not days. Stay focused.”
Reba’s Navy training soon made itself known. Mike had been proud of the teamwork and skills his crew had developed over the past weeks, but Reba quickly sensed gaping deficiencies, deficiencies that no one else had been aware of because they had never had the benefit of a human trainer. And she was not gentle or hesitant in making her demands known. The first time Mike flipped Resolve over, following it with a right angle turn to break away from the grip of an enemy gun, she yelled at him.
“Mike, the next time you do that without telling me, I’m going to turn this gun on you. I completely lost my lead. Next time, talk to me. A quick ‘breaking right,’ or ‘down and left’ is sufficient. Got it?”
“Uh . . . okay. I’ll work on it.” Remembering back to his army days, he asked, “Do I owe you fifty pushups now?”
“I think we’ll all owe each other pushups before we’re done. Just talk to us, Captain.”
He did talk to them. He had worked the guns himself, and he understood their needs. He had George add the gunner’s firing quadrants to his own display, and George did it in such a way that no matter what he was looking at, the display was always faintly there for him to look through. It didn’t take long before he could do better than a simple ‘breaking right.’ He could tag many of his maneuvers with the designations of quadrants that everyone was familiar with.
And Reba got the gunners to communicate with each other. “Where did that one come from, Ellie?” she demanded as an enemy ship streaked from above to race across her field of fire before she could get a bead on it.
“I tracked it as long as I could,” Ellie responded as she sighted on a new target.
“Well, next time, warn me that it’s coming my way,” Reba demanded.
“Okay. Here comes another one, if I don’t get it first. It’ll be in quadrant 2C.”
Ellie missed, but Reba was ready, and she didn’t. The net was soon filled with chatter, all of it focused. It wasn’t long before the gunners were making requests of Mike, suggesting maneuvers that would help them stay locked onto a target.
The ship’s performance grew logarithmically. Mike couldn’t have asked for a better addition to the crew than Reba. There was no doubt in his mind that she would assume command of the ship as soon as George could get her fully trained, and that was a good thing. It wasn’t that he wanted to quit, that wasn’t it at all. His performance was okay, but his background did not include years and years of plotting strategies and tactics. Reba’s did, and it showed clearly. Mike would have no problem turning command over to her when she was ready.
But that was in the future. For the present, he had a crew, a good crew. As they practiced, Mike began pulling one or two at a time from the net, simulating the need for repairs or the loss of Ellie and Jake to a Chessori psi attack. Each one of them had a unique personality and unique abilities, and each was missed in different ways, but they learned to fill in the holes.
Most sorely missed was George. Without him, the net lost its personality, everything slowed down astronomically, and their performance deteriorated badly. Jake filled in for George, spending all his time keeping Resolve operating. He became the net, running messages back and forth, retrieving data demanded by others, delivering that data, and monitoring systems. He was agonizingly slower than George. Surprisingly, Reba was the next most missed. Mike didn’t know why. Her enthusiasm just seemed to infect the rest of them.
Luckily, George, Reba, and Mike would be the least likely players to be out of the net. They were impervious to the Chessori’s psi attacks. More likely to be lost would be Jake and Ellie, and some reduction in Otis’ abilities could be expected. They practiced exactly that, taking Ellie and Jake from their guns, sending Otis on a repair mission, and forcing Mike to jump in as time permitted to take one or two guns. In the worst case scenario, Reba could defend the ship while Mike did his best to disengage. Without Reba, it would have been Mike alone to fly and fight the ship, always a losing proposition.
They were a bit smug, confident of their improved performance, when Reba surprised them all with a quick command to George. Suddenly, Mike was out of the team, Jake as well. They could only observe. Mike was astonished at the result. Everyone’s activity trickled to a stop in the midst of a battle. The shock to the net was so acute, the loss of leadership that George required was so fundamental that George lost his footing. He slipped, and there was no one to pick him up. The ship stopped maneuvering and became a sitting duck. No one gave commands to dodge or to chase, and no one planned a retreat. They coasted on overloading shields.
Reba tried to step in but had to withdraw immediately. The full net overwhelmed her instantly, and she knew it. Though she knew what was needed, she couldn’t do it.
Ellie stepped in a heartbeat later, but it was a struggle. With a mindset suited well to responsibility and decision-making, her personality preferred to focus on one thing at a time, grasping all available facts surrounding a particular issue in an orderly process leading to decision. Strategies in constant flux amidst a never ending background of demands from George and the crew, the multitude of things that needed to be juggled simultaneously, that required quick decisions before all the facts were in, things that Mike simply took care of, these things did not play to her strengths. She brought Resolve back on line, but their performance was dismal.
Mike called for a break. “Sorry,” Ellie said with downcast eyes when they’d all come out of the net.
“We’ll work on it, but not today. I don’t plan on skipping out today. Don’t worry about it.”
“I’m not,” she said as she attached a long over-due translating device to Reba’s ear. “I know myself quite well, thank you. I’m not a ship’s captain, nor do I wish to be. My strengths lie elsewhere. Commanding the ship is your problem.” Then she softened and added, “I had known intellectually the importance of the position you hold, but until now I had not experienced it, felt it. I will never be a replacement for captain. And Reba must become integrated as soon as she can. Until then, I will do what I can, which will be to support you. I think you may have missed your calling on Earth. Perhaps you were destined to be a pilot instead of an engineer.”
“If we had ships like this . . . no, if we had George, maybe I would have.”
Reba cleared her throat. “Uh, so where’s Jake? When do I meet him?”
Mike sucked in a breath. He’d forgotten she didn’t know. Apprehension kept him from meeting her demanding gaze. “It’s a long story, Reba.” He took a deep breath and looked into her eyes. “The short answer is tough, but we’re short on time. After kidnapping me, Ellie . . .”
“Kidnapping!” Reba interrupted, looking from Mike to Ellie and back again.
“Well . . . in the beginning, yes,” Mike said wincing. A bad choice of words he thought, silently kicking himself. “But not anymore. I’m here because I want to be here. Getting rid of me will be a lot harder than kidnapping me ever was.”
A smile lit Ellie’s face. She seemed to stand taller, as if a heavy load had been lifted from her shoulders. She came to him and wrapped her arms around his waist in a hug, then leaned back, saying, “Thank you, Michael. I needed to hear that.”
Reba cleared her throat again. Ellie released Mike who went absentmindedly to his command seat and sat reflecting on Ellie’s embrace. She had felt good in his arms, but she was an alien. He could never forget that.
>Uh, Earth to Mike,< Jake said softly.
When he looked up, all eyes were on him, waiting. He felt his face turning red, but when his gaze settled on Reba, thoughts of Ellie’s embrace evaporated.
“Jake is inside me,” he told her. “He’s a living, breathing, alien mass of protoplasm that has linked his life to mine, forever. He has infused my whole body. The longer answer, and there’s lots more to it, will have to wait until later, okay? Pretty weird, huh?”
Reba paused for thought as she digested his words. Then she smiled brightly. “I like Jake. Is being with him like being in the net all the time?”
“Not at all, though it might be some day. It’s pretty new to both of us. At this point, we’re still communicating mostly with words unless we’re in the net. And Jake, although he has a male name, is an it. And he’s telling me to tell you that he’s proud of it, too.”
“Who’s in control?”
“You’ve met Jake on the net. What do you think?”
“I don’t know!” she said in surprise. “I didn’t sense any control issues.”
“There aren’t any, at least not yet. He’s called a Rider, Reba. I’m told that he’s basically along for the ride, and controlling is not his thing. He’s just there to help. And he has vast knowledge that will help both of us, I think, in the long run. From what he tells me, he can control my body to some extent, but I haven’t noticed any of that yet. Without much effort on his part, he’s keeping me healthy and in top condition. He tells me that I won’t get sick ever again, and my sleep has been better than I would have expected under the circumstances. He’s been a huge help to all of us.”
>Thanks, Mike!<
>Sure thing, Jake.<
“Does he read your mind?”
“Yes. I’m still trying to come to terms with that.”
“Are you still human?” Reba blurted out.
“I don’t know. There are a lot of things I don’t know. So far, having Jake along for the ride is like having a personal assistant at my fingertips. That’s not to say he waits for me to ask questions. He’s definitely an individual, and he does not hesitate to offer advice or to make demands, but the net effect is synergy. As a team, we’re much more effective than if we were individuals
operating alone. I hesitate to say this, but I think we’re becoming friends.”
>Hey, you think?<
“So in the end, you’re healthier, as a team you’re smarter, you have no secrets from each other, and you have a friend who will never leave you?”
“Uh . . . it’s not that simple. I don’t have any secrets from him, but I haven’t had a lot of success reading his mind. He tells me that will change in time.”
Reba considered his words, then she lifted her head to look directly into Mike’s eyes. “Jake, can I have one of you, too?”
Mike spoke for Jake. “That depends. If Earth women are as stubborn as this Earthman, I’m not sure it would be fair to my offspring. I’ll let you know.”
Chapter Nine: Horn of Plenty
They were as ready as they were going to get, but Admiral Trexler’s plan was not yet ready. Ellie went to her suite to spend time with Alexis while Reba idly walked around the bridge, looking at various screens but mostly just relaxing before things got busy again. Otis napped at his gun, still recovering from his monumental effort to function during the Chessori attack.
Mike and Jake stayed in the net, keeping an eye on the Chessori but relaxing as much as they could. When the catapults were ready, loaded with planes and venting steam, Mike lifted Resolve and returned to a position abeam the bridge tower where he would not interfere with aircraft landing and taking off. He was shocked to see both landings and takeoffs occurring simultaneously on the carrier, but Reba just shrugged. To her, it was just the way things were. She let him know that Resolve would not hinder the carrier’s air operations from that position, though it was breaking a lot of Navy rules.
Aircraft began launching, one after another without cease, to orbit Resolve and the carrier at all altitudes while the patrol aircraft returned to refuel. Hours earlier, all but two escort ships had headed directly east toward San Diego, some 300 miles from the fleet. The ships formed into a spearhead, fanning out farther and farther from each other as their distance increased from the carrier. Reba sucked in her breath when Mike displayed the plan on a monitor, informing him that the deployment was terrible battle tactics for one trained in surface warfare. Admiral Trexler was really putting his two stars on the line for Mike. Mike didn’t care. The deployment was effectively forcing the Chessori ships farther from Resolve. Ten Chessori remained, all hovering near the surface to avoid long-range detection from the fleet, but they were clearly visible to George’s sensors.
Last of the Chosen (Spirit of Empire, Book One) Page 12
