Darkest Hour: Liberation War Book 1
Page 23
“Furthermore, we can improve your artificial gravity and, more importantly, get proper shields working for your vessels. I assume there are more ships like the Probity and Seeker?”
“Six,” Jacks said, “in total.”
“Then we’ll need to upgrade them and prepare them for the fight to come.” Avania clenched her first. “Reach out to other planets, other people and bring them together. With allies, we can win the fight to come. Without them, we may be able to fend off another collector ship, perhaps a small party … but if the full might of my people arrive, we will lose.”
“Grim.” Jacks sighed. “What do you think, Warren? What’s your opinion about all this?”
“We’ve got a lot of volunteers,” Warren said. “And I think we need to take one step at a time. Salvage, learn, push as hard as we can to get things moving in our favor. Once we’ve got that going, we can think about finding help. The only trouble is, we don’t know how much time we’ve got before someone comes back.”
“I’m sure we’ll find their schedule,” Avania replied. “And when we know where all they were going, we’ll have some idea when to worry about someone looking for them.”
Victoria cleared her throat, “we have an intact shuttle. That should tell us quite a bit as we reverse engineer it. I’d pull in more technicians, more scientists, even Delgado and get them to work. We’ll need to be doing this around the clock if we hope to succeed. I hope you’re all ready for some long nights.”
“We are,” Jacks said. “Okay, I’ll set up a schedule and get people in action. I’ll let you guys determine who’s coming here and who’s staying with the ship. Hop a shuttle and come on down. We’ll need some brainstorming in person. And let’s not forget that the world fell to shit during this event. We’ve got a lot of clean-up to do.”
“Did you ever find your leak?” Victoria asked. She explained to Warren, “someone was leaking information to the press.”
“Yes, I think we did,” Jacks said. “One of my personal aides. Madison. We’re still investigating and we’ll know soon. That doesn’t matter as much right now. The council’s talking about being transparent with our course of action, rally the people. You know the drill. We have some hearts and minds to win over, especially considering the riots and other violence the general population got up to.”
Warren rubbed his eyes. “Thanks, Colonel. We’ll talk soon.” He killed the connection and looked at the others. “Sounds like we’ve got at least a semblance of a plan. You think we’ve got this?”
Avania shrugged. “It will all come down to how much time we have but I believe we need to try regardless.”
Warren smirked. “The one thing you’re going to find about humans is that we don’t give up. We’re a tenacious lot. It’s pretty much in our DNA.”
“Believe me, I know,” Avania replied. “It’s why your essence is so valuable … why they wanted you so badly. They will learn exactly what that means. My people should have left you alone and now, due to their disregard for your fortitude, they’re going to pay dearly. I will certainly see to that.”
Victoria’s brows lifted as she looked at Warren. “I’m glad she’s on our side.”
“Yeah.” Warren nodded, squinting at the alien woman. “Me too. Get on up to the bridge and let Nicolas know to bring us about. Course set for Earth orbit. We’ve got a lot to do. I think it’s time we got about it.”
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