The Odyssey and the Iliad (Kinsella Universe Book 7)

by Gina Marie Wylie

  “This concludes the preliminary brief. The operations staff is working on it, even as we speak,” Yolanda concluded.

  “Young woman, that was a most excellent brief,” President Drummlin told her. “I’m surprised you are still an ensign.”

  Admiral Fletcher laughed. “She keeps skipping her classes, sir. Ensign Ruiz is the person who can read alien messages in real time. The only one.”

  He turned to face Admiral Gull. “Execute your plan, Admiral. In regards to Merriweather, all precautions are to be taken to apprehend him, but take no risks.”

  Admiral Gull nodded. “It appears that he has capitulated. Our contacts with his forces appear to be peaceful, and they are coordinating with our people satisfactorily -- at least as yet. The Regency Council, including Merriweather, have broadcast their resignations on all public channels.

  “We are not going to risk many personnel until after the battle, and then ramp up slowly.”

  “And you are confident of the plan succeeding?” the president asked.

  “This will be the first time we have used the new weapons against multiple targets -- up to now we only used it on single ships that were given no opportunity to report. We have never noted a reaction to one of our millisecond jumper missiles, so we think that they can’t see them either.”

  Chapter 18 -- A Whale of a Turkey Shoot

  “Lieutenant Yardley, reporting sir.”

  Admiral Gull smiled at the young man and shook his head. “As to your request, no, Lieutenant. Not only ‘no,’ but hell no!”

  “I didn’t even make a proposal!”

  “You want to go down to Campbell’s ahead of the attack and root out Richard Merriweather. Young man, your original plan was too elegant. You should have sent down many teams. You should never have taken Ensign Timmu.”

  “Sir?”

  “Unless you are crazy stupid, you will realize that you might have gotten in and out clean -- but Merriweather most assuredly knows he was undone by a telepath. It’s absolutely certain that he looked at his files and found your party. After the damage was done, to be sure.

  “Still, there is a long, long list of people he has had killed. It is certain that there is a price on your head, as well as the others from your team.

  “You may go on this mission after the attack, in an assault shuttle with a crew of competent Fleet Marines, part of routine patrols. You may transit only between California and the shuttle sweeps. Under no circumstance may you land on Campbell’s. If I were to lose one of his fair-haired cadets, Thor Swenson would take his depleted uranium pugil stick to my cranium. Trudy would feed me into a paper shredder, one bit at a time. They would be small bits.” He theatrically shuddered. “No thanks!”

  “What should I do, sir, if not that?”

  “It is my understanding that you are transition immune? And Ensign Ruiz is as well?”

  “That is correct, sir.”

  “You are to take a Marine assault shuttle and accompany Ensign Ruiz to the vicinity of the dash-five gas giant, well outside the fan well. Ensign Ruiz is to monitor for any alien transmissions. Your shuttle pilots will avoid any missile strikes by the application of Blues. If too many missiles come, you’ll move to a safe distance, and retry.

  “If you detect a base, you’ll fire a nuke close to it -- a Fleet standard weapon. This is in the hope we flush an alien ship. Your pilot will be authorized to close within a quarter kilometer of that ship, just before it exits the fan well. You will see if telepathy works on the aliens; the moment you know, aye or nay, you will jump for Snow Dance and report there.”

  “I thought shuttles couldn’t stay that long on High Fan, sir.”

  Admiral Gull chuckled. “Like Marines themselves, assault shuttles are strange birds and can do some remarkable things.

  “You are not authorized to approach closer than a quarter kilometer to an alien ship, nor will you remain there longer than sixty seconds. Any move of the aliens to approach, you are to escape and evade. In any case, you will recover to Snow Dance and not California.”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” Steve replied.

  “Son, I know these orders aren’t what you wanted to hear. That said, everyone back on Earth is having heart palpitations at the thought of exposing either Ensign Ruiz or you to this sort of risk. No matter what the outcome of the battle that will be fought here, no matter what transpires -- go to Snow Dance.

  “The shuttle commander, a major, has been apprised of these orders. It will be a training moment for you, Lieutenant Yardley. You command the intelligence aspects of this mission, the major commands the shuttle. The two of you need to work together -- working at cross-purposes will be a terrible mistake.”

  “I understand, Admiral.”

  “You’ve done very well until now. Keep up the good work, Lieutenant!”

  *** ** ***

  Major Duckworth looked like a caricature of a Marine. He was as bald as billiard ball, and perpetually had a cigar in his mouth that he would move around in circles as he thought. He stood six foot six and weighed nearly three hundreds pounds. He shook hands with Steve, not bothering with a salute.

  “Five years ago, I was a retired Marine gunnery sergeant and I had the perfect berth -- my wife is half my age, a former cheerleader and her old man owns a bar and grill. Along came the war and I came back to Fleet Marines, and to my surprise I was told, ‘Gunny, you are officer material!’ I pointed out that I was used to working for a living, but they didn’t seem to care. Worst thing was, they made me a lieutenant. Some crosses are more than a mortal can bear, but eventually I made captain and now look at me! Jeez! I have to know which forks and spoons to use!

  “I asked Admiral Gull what I could do where there were only one set of utensils, and he gave me this.”

  “Yes, Major!” Steve told him.

  “Call me ‘Gunny,’ lieutenant, so I can pretend that I’m still a working man.”

  “Sure, Gunny, sir.”

  Major Duckworth laughed. “Ya got guts, Lieutenant. Is it true what I hear? You’re responsible for scuppering Merriweather?”

  “That’s classified.”

  “Well, thank you.

  “Now, let’s get this show on the road.”

  The major explained there were thirty Marines aboard, not counting himself or the bridge crew. “These men are here to keep you safe, Lieutenant. They are tasked to do whatever it takes to see Ensign Ruiz safe.

  “Our flight profile is that we will drop at twice the diameter of the fan well from dash-five, and make a course tangent to the top of the fan well, but well away from it. We’ll slow at the tangent point, stop and reverse course, and repeat until something happens. We’ll start traveling opposite to the planet’s rotation, starting two days from the estimated ETA of the attack.”

  Steve nodded. “I saw that the shuttle’s name is Iliad. That is either an odd coincidence or someone’s idea of a joke.”

  “It was this name before the war; I’m not sure but what I’m offended by the idea that it’s a joke,” the major replied.

  “You ever hear of the Odyssey?”

  “She was a sister ship to this one, before they had an unexpected hard dock with the Earth. A lot of guys have had bad backs ever since.”

  “The Odyssey I’m referring to was a habitat with legs. Kind of reverse karma, I guess. The reason you and I are both here is the odyssey of the Odyssey. That was the ship that found the Union,” Steve said.

  The major shrugged and turned to the pilot to discuss details of their flight plan. Steve just sat back at his bridge position with a smile on his face.

  Two days later they dropped from High Fan and started to accelerate along the line they were going to take. Steve was talking to one of the pilots about the life of a Marine shuttle pilot when it happened.

  Steve stopped in mid-word. “Emergency jump! Get us out of here!”

  They were Marines; direct orders short-circuited judgment centers. “Jumping!”

  The sensor tech sa
id, “God! Six missiles coming up!”

  The universe twisted and there was nothingness outside. Major Duckworth came hurtling forward. “That is one way to wake me up from a nap!”

  Steve turned to Yolanda, ignoring him. “Did you get anything?”

  “They sent a very short transmission, I think that was their idea of zipped. They are transmitting the word ‘Flee’ on all frequencies.” I didn’t get anything else before we went to High Fan.”

  Steve turned to a comm tech. “Get Admiral Gull and Admiral Timmu on the comm.”

  While they were waiting, the pilot asked the major, “How long do we stay on High Fan?”

  “When we find out if those are High Fan homing missiles. They will take a while to get of the gas giant’s fan well.”

  The pilot grimaced. “I hear homers are bad news.”

  ”I’ve read up on them. That’s a roger!” the major said.

  “What, Steve?” asked the major.

  He gestured at the communication position. Admiral Gull was just sitting down.

  “System passive sensors are going crazy, Lieutenant,” Admiral Gull said. “Two hundred missiles are flying and more coming up all the time. “Congo was on station and she is knocking them back. What did you set off?”

  “I was just talking to one of the pilots at our closest approach. I got a twitch, and then I was wondering what the hostile track in orbit around the planet was up to. All of a sudden, it knew I was there and screens slammed down. We saw a half dozen missiles come up, but then we went to High Fan.”

  “Christ! They sensed you?”

  “It sensed me, Admiral. It was a computer. I detected more than one presence ‘inside’ the computer.”

  Admiral Gull thought for a moment. “We found something similar on the one ship we captured; we thought that was just a tactical computer. Oh well, back to the drawing board!”

  “Admiral, they transmitted a tight beam message that consisted of one word: ‘Flee!’ Obviously they know a fleet of theirs is coming and they are trying to warn it.”

  “As long as they still have a two-minute delay before they can return to fans, they’ll be duck soup. Too bad you didn’t get a line on the base.”

  “Sir, it was contemplating a firing solution on us because we were acting suspiciously. I know exactly where they are.”

  “Would there be any value to returning when they run out of missiles to get more information?” the admiral asked.

  “No sir. It was trying to adjust to my mind so it could ‘direct’ me. Admiral Gull, I’ve talked to one of our AI computers, but it was on my wavelength, so to speak. These aliens, I think, didn’t have as good of an outcome when their computers tried to take over.”

  “Did you detect any efforts to turn others of the crew?”

  “No, sir. To the alien computer, it was like they weren’t there.

  “What do you want us to do?” Steve concluded.

  “As ordered. As soon as you are sure that you don’t have homers targeted on you, reorient and go to Snow Dance. As soon as you give me the coordinates for that base. It is surplus to needs.”

  Steve told Admiral Gull the coordinates, a second later the admiral laughed. “Latch-frame is so cool! It will be the main reason we win this war! Congo hit the area with a thousand Blues! There is all sorts of metallic debris coming up that shouldn’t be there!”

  The pilot turned to Major Duckworth. “Congo reports the sky is clear.”

  “Let us run for another half hour; keep checking our six. We were nearly at our maximum intrinsic, I want to be able to slow down gradually.”

  The major turned to Steve. “In a minute, you’ll think, ‘Gosh, I blurted out all these Federation secrets in front of all these people.’ Lieutenant, we are special ops and are cleared for everything we need to be cleared for.”

  Steve chuckled. “In the same spirit, Major, in a minute you’ll realize I’m a telepath and knew that already.”

  The major’s cigar had a fit of wiggling. “Thanks for the head’s up; I have my head up my ass...”

  “Major, once I knew what I wanted to know about your trustworthiness, I stopped looking. Nobody likes working with someone who routinely goes through their drawers.”

  “I would have liked to be there for the big show...” the major told Steve. “Marines have been short-changed in this war. We’re pretty much useless.”

  “I don’t have any shyness about reading the minds of enemies of the Federation. Richard Merriweather was to be alerted at once if a large body of Marines arrived in-system. He was going to bug out if they even appeared to be hunting him.”

  “Major,” the comm tech interrupted, “Congo just stopped transmitting in the middle of a word.”

  Sensors chimed in, “Congo’s fans are no longer are registering.”

  “California just asked if we saw that?” the comm tech asked.

  “Congo?” the major asked and the tech shook his head.

  The tech added, “Admiral Gull, Major.”

  They were too far away for a video link. “There’s not much time, Major. You will spend an hour on High Fan, reorient, best course, to Snow Dance. Navigation tells me that at 3.2 gravities you can reorient in twelve minutes. Recover to Snow Dance.”

  “Congo?” Steve asked.

  “Jake Hollister lost his family at Beowulf. In spite of his orders not to, he was damn near in the weeds; they slipped a missile up in the debris. You are losing sync -- do as you have been told!”

  Steve swayed, devastated.

  “Son, let me explain,” Major Duckworth told Steve, “You’re young; I understand you were upset that one of your people on an op was injured. Now you know the opposite end of the spectrum, a man injured and nearly twenty thousand dead supporting your efforts to learn about the aliens.

  “You need to feel sorrow, vow to do better next time and move on. Lieutenant, Jacob Hollister was a rear admiral. Not even a full admiral could get him to obey orders. Listen to a lieutenant? Ha! Like that was going to happen!”

  The major turned to the pilot. “Give me a five minute acceleration warning; we’ll go to action stations at that time.” He was out the hatch as fast as he’d arrived.

  “Lieutenant,” the pilot said softly, “I don’t know how you are feeling right now, but sir, we’ve been attached to Congo for two years. Maybe a third of us had spouses aboard her.”

  “Oh, God!” Steve exclaimed.

  “Lieutenant, this is war. Some of us have been in the Fleet longer than the war, but all of us, each and every one of us, know what the stakes are. It’s us or them. Mistakes happen; on our part, and with luck in a few hours, on their part. And yeah, sometimes we score and sometimes they score.

  “Tonight in the mess the whole crew will be there and we’ll hoist a glass to ‘absent companions’ -- and then we’ll get back to business. Because if we don’t get back to that, a great many more people will lose their own lives and that of their loved ones.”

  “It grates, knowing there is going to be a battle, and heading away,” Steve said.

  “I’d shake you, then knock you silly, Lieutenant, if I wouldn’t get in trouble! You communicated with the aliens! Ensign Ruiz read their message! Yeah, I can see why they risked you at first, but good God, Lieutenant! The two of you are treasures to be kept safe at all costs! You two detected and destroyed one of their bases, something we were sure they had but couldn’t find up until now. It was as expensive a victory as it gets; but that doesn’t take away from the basic fact: we blew it out!”

  “I’m sorry, Lieutenant.”

  “Shut up for a few, Yardley, I want to grieve for my wife in quiet.”

  Steve felt like a fool, and simply sat down at his bridge position and shut up.

  He played back in his mind what he’d sensed. He wished he had Yolie’s ability to never forget. He started to key his recollections in the shuttle’s computer, trying to get it all down; he had nearly four thousand words written before the pilot called Major
Duckworth and then they went to action stations.

  Of course, they had been running at action stations from before they had dropped near the dash-five planet, so the only change was that everyone was strapped in and ready for three gravities of acceleration.

  They were now about five percent of a light year distant from Campbell’s, about eighteen light days. The pressure was unpleasant, but not unbearable. Yolie was almost unaffected, however.

  After a minute, the sensor tech reported, “We have a trailer. It went to low fan, a hundred and twelve gravities for a few seconds, and then went to High Fan. And now, sir, there are two trailers. Major, they oriented to Snow Dance.” A few seconds later came the announcement, “They are about two percent faster than we are. They won’t catch up by Snow Dance, but they will have made up a lot of the distance.”

  “And the longest observed run time of the homers?” the major asked. Their own acceleration eased up and they once again transitioned to High Fan.

  “No joy there, sir. Forty-some light years. We have more fuel than that -- but it will leave us in the middle of nowhere with only seven percent of our fuel,” the pilot reported.

  “We’ll pass through Snow Dance. When we get in comm range, we’ll call them, tell them our new course and reorient. We would not make any friends if we bring two homing missiles through the system,” the major told them.

  “Major, I understand our original orders and the reasons for them,” Yolanda said. “We have a low intrinsic; we need to reorient before we reach Snow Dance. Those homing missiles must not go through the system. We know the aliens are there, now. Two missiles that go through the system would be like waving a red flag -- ‘something has happened at Campbell’s.’ I think it is a sure bet they will be expecting the attack.

  “Earth is roughly that far away. We reorient for a near-Earth approach. They’ll know what’s going on, and if we get stuck, we’ll be in detection range.”