Solomon Family Warriors II

by Robert H. Cherny

  “What does that have to do with me and Wendy?” Rachel asked.

  “You are protective of her.”

  “She can certainly handle herself in a fight.”

  “So could Tanya, but not alone, and neither can you. Wendy needs to stand beside you as an equal. She is not as impulsive as you, but she sees deeper than you do. She needs to be a moderating influence on your life, and you need to accept that sometimes what she says is right.”

  “But, Grandma, I do accept what she says,” Rachel protested.

  “Not often enough. You need to be a team. You need to work together and not in competition with each other.”

  “I’ll try.”

  “And in trying you will succeed because that’s who you are.”

  “I love you, Grandma.”

  “And I love you too. Now we need to get home or they will think a bear ate us.”

  “There are no bears on Homestead.”

  “It’s a figure of speech.”

  “Ah.”

  HOMESTEAD - CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  ADMIRAL DAVIDSON RAN NEW ST. LOUIS like a tight ship. An astute student of history, he understood the importance of maintaining order on the frontier. The Veteran’s Administration was so impressed they built a small hospital to service the growing number of military retirees settling there. Surface vehicles traveled between the hospital and the depot on roads carved out of the lunar landscape. An official Space Force retirement community followed soon afterward. Word got out that both of Admiral Davidson’s ex-wives had moved in with him. When he was asked how that could possibly work, he would smile and say, “You don’t want to know.” Captain Dankese requested transfer to the permanent force guarding the station.

  Many of the pirates retired. The majority found real jobs, and a few joined the Swordsman military. Several did quite well as merchants at the depot. Whatever their past might have been, they were accepted into the community based only on their net present commercial value. The community had a definite “what’s gone is gone, what’s now is real” attitude and a clear head for business. For a period of a few years it seemed that the Space Force’s Pirate Interdiction teams would be reassigned to chasing drug runners, but with the increase of Swordsman activity, they were instead diverted to a variety of intelligence gathering and espionage activities.

  With the girls in tow, Greg and Avi found it difficult to partake of any of New St. Louis’ growing number of adult establishments they would have frequented as cadets in the academy. This was probably a good thing given their tendency to get in trouble in such places.

  Greg’s combat simulator games sold better than his wildest hopes. Carefully crafted to appeal to specific markets, the publishers anxiously awaited the newest releases. As soon as the girls were able to play the games, they helped test the newer versions which added levels designed for younger players.

  Many of Homestead’s newer settlers became involved in the community’s expanding video industry, and were creating feature length projects with traditional themes intended for larger markets than their previous projects. A major production studio developed on the coast south of the satellite settlement. Musical groups developed, and music publishing provided substantial income for the community. The frozen meals for space travelers sold well. Rather than risk piquing the curiosity of those whose interest was better off devoted elsewhere, the decision was made to only sell the meals through carefully selected agents at New St. Louis. Ellie Mae and Elvira were instrumental in setting up the sales channel. Even with the restricted distribution, demand exceeded production capacity.

  Gwen Wilson-Fender and Mary Burke-Marlin, two of the original settlers, founded a bank to handle currency transactions. The community used Federation credits for its currency. Financial transactions quickly replaced the barter system and communal arrangements that had been common when the community was started. “Homestead Corporation” dutifully filed its carefully worded annual reports and paid its taxes to the Federation without revealing its location. Federation tax auditors were hosted in carefully choreographed sessions to ensure that the secrecy of their location remained intact.

  Social structure and classes developed and with the exception of the unusually high percentage of combat ready personnel, the society’s structure was almost a microcosm of Earth’s population. Life stabilized as much as it could given that people could join the community, but could not leave. Through all this growth, Homestead’s location stayed secret in part because it was so difficult to leave. Only the flight crews got to leave the planet and then only on specific missions. Greg and Myra were happy with the way things had turned out. Dr. Miller had given up his medical practice to devote full-time to governmental affairs. Other doctors had arrived to replace him, and the settlers respected him as a cautious and dedicated leader. Rose became a surrogate grandmother to most of the children on the planet and provided wise counsel as young parents, many of them single women, tried to bring up their offspring without the benefit of an extended family.

  Life on the frontier trading post New St. Louis settled into routine as well. The post was busy and profitable which made everyone happy. Cargo haulers traveling outbound to new settlements carrying passengers and inbound with agricultural products used the station as their transport hub keeping it active all the time. Admiral Davidson found new jobs for his ex-wives in the traffic department verifying manifests and inspecting cargoes for contraband. While most cargoes were permitted to pass through even if they might be banned on any one planet, only those cargoes banned by the Federation itself were impounded. For the most part that meant the only cargoes stopped were stolen goods, furs from endangered animals, fissionable material being transported by unlicensed carriers, drugs and slaves. Ellie Mae and Elvira became adept at spotting suspicious cargoes and intercepting them. They quickly developed a reputation for their skills. Their jobs gave them ample opportunity to pass through cargoes of refugees from the Central System and see that they were properly escorted to safe destinations. Due to the two highly placed women’s involvement, New St. Louis became a prime way station in the underground railway for women fleeing the Swordsmen.

  Ellie Mae and Elvira were pleasantly surprised to find that the insurance companies paid large rewards for the return of stolen merchandise and larger rewards if the thieves were apprehended. Before they knew it, they found themselves in the awkward position of making more money than their ex-husband the Admiral. Rather than spend this money on themselves, they routinely bought passage for refugees headed out to the frontier settlements.

  Admiral Davidson, being the traditionalist he was, in spite of his nontraditional surroundings, continued the custom of inviting his junior officers to dinner with him several times each week. His ex-wives attended these dinners when they were not working. He anticipated one such dinner more than normal. The Admiral warmly and personally greeted each of his guests as they arrived. He was especially pleased to see Captain Dankese as he had a surprise for her. She had one of her junior lieutenants with her as was their custom. Each senior officer was requested to bring one junior officer for introduction to the Admiral. The young man with Captain Dankese was personable and friendly with bright eyes that quickly scanned his surroundings. In the reception that preceded dinner, he made a point of talking to everyone in the room and learning their names. The dinner conversation was light and animated. Sports and music dominated the conversations with enthusiastic participants all around.

  After dinner, the Admiral rapped on his glass with a spoon to get everyone’s attention. He was careful not to rap the glass too hard because in the moon’s low gravity, while liquids stayed in place, they took a while to settle once disturbed.

  “Ladies and Gentlemen, I have an announcement. Captain Dankese, would you please stand.” He walked around behind her and gently removed her Captain’s insignia from the epaulets on her jacket. “You won’t need these any more.”

  She looked at him confused and concerned. He gently
placed the insignia in his pocket. Out of his other pocket he retrieved an envelope. He handed her the envelope and said, “Don’t open it yet.” He reached inside his jacket and pulled out a small box. “Ladies and Gentlemen, Captain Dankese will be leaving us in the morning.” He opened the box and displayed it for all to see. “She has been promoted to Commodore.”

  Captain Dankese almost swooned.

  “And she has been reassigned. She is to return to the shipyard at Saturn Industries where she will pick up a new battleship which is approaching completion. This battleship will be her flagship in the task force she will assemble from existing Space Force units. That task force will be based here to take over the defense of the shipping routes in this area. Per order of the Chief of Staff, a P I ship is waiting to transport you first thing in the morning.”

  The group around the table jumped to their feet in raucous applause.

  Once the noise had settled down and everyone had been seated again, Captain, now Commodore, Dankese said, “Sir, before I leave, we have a piece of business we need to attend to.”

  The Admiral raised his eyebrow, “Oh?”

  “Yes, sir,” she turned to the Lieutenant who had accompanied her to the dinner. “You’re on.”

  “Ma’am, are you sure?” He looked nervous.

  “This is your show. You did the work. Tell us what you found.”

  “Yes, Ma’am. Admiral Davidson, esteemed guests,” shuffling in his seat, he finally decided to stand. “As I am sure all of you are aware, our unit has used a series of war simulation games as training exercises. We have come to some surprising conclusions. Or at least they were surprising to us. I returned to the Space Force Academy under Captain Dankese’s orders to research what we believed and have verified our suspicions.” He paused. “We have concluded that Captain Greg Solomon wrote all or part of the three most popular combat simulations currently on the market.”

  There was a murmur of surprise from around the table. Admiral Davidson smiled. He was not surprised. “And how do you know this?”

  “When I returned to the Academy, I pulled Captain Solomon’s class records and examined his course work. My specialty is cryptography and we devote considerable time to researching patterns of communication. Solomon’s writing style is unique. I won’t bore you with the details except to say that three part sentences and three part verb structures are more prevalent in his writing than typical.”

  “And you have based your conclusion on sentence structure?” Admiral Davidson asked.

  “That was the final piece to drop into place. The primary evidence comes from the scenarios themselves. Four of the scenarios in the Pirate series have been found in no other place than in Greg’s class work. Two of the scenarios in the new Planetoids game appear in no other place than in his class work. The Valiant Soldiers game includes scenarios that Captain Solomon reviewed and found enough weaknesses to prevent their use by the Space Force.”

  “Go on.” Admiral Davidson was listening intently.

  “The Valiant Soldiers game is most interesting, sir. Some of the scenarios Captain Solomon rejected at the Academy appear in this game as recommended options.”

  A thought which he did not share passed Admiral Davidson’s mind. He grinned. “Have you played it? I have not.”

  “My brother sent me a copy. He is a maintenance crew chief at the Swordsman base on Leda. He also sent me the serial numbers on every ship in their fleet as a ploy to get me to join them.”

  “I take it you are staying,” the admiral said.

  “No question, sir, this is where I belong. Well, actually sir, I would like to be transferred to Commodore Dankese’s task force if that is acceptable to you.”

  “You need to ask her that question. I can’t see why not. What did you do with the information from your brother?”

  “I wanted to give it to you personally sir.” He handed a data module down the table to the Admiral.

  “Very good, thank you, please continue.”

  “Well, sir, I believe that Captain Solomon wrote the entire first version of both Pirates and Valiant Soldiers. He wrote much of Planetoids, but he had help. Based on their writing styles and tactics I believe he had input on Planetoids from Captain Avelina Bardwell and Lt. Myra Myrakova as well as several other people I can’t identify.”

  “You can tell this from their writing styles?”

  “Yes, sir, with other clues, sir.”

  “Amazing.”

  “Thank you sir. While all that is intriguing, what is most interesting is what happens when the three games are viewed together keeping in mind their respective markets and Captain Solomon’s known propensity for not showing all his cards.”

  “How so?”

  “Based on personnel policies intrinsic in the games it is fairly well accepted that Pirates is targeted at current and future Space Force personnel, Soldiers is targeted at the Swordsmen, and Planetoids is targeted at civilians and military charged with fixed base defensive duties. For example, nowhere, in any of the games, does he mention the ability to retreat using hyper drive pressure waves as a weapon in close quarters, and we all know that he and Lt. Myrakova both have repeatedly used the tactic. There is also no mention of one of Captain Solomon’s favorite tactics, the short hyper jump. Even more interesting is that in Soldiers there is no mention of using decoys, and we know that Captain Solomon is extremely fond of decoys. Planetoids, however, uses decoys extensively. Moreover, Soldiers includes tactical errors. The point being, if someone has learned their tactics from Soldiers without reference to Planetoids, they would be resoundingly defeated if they attacked a planet whose defenses were based on Planetoids.”

  “Can you give an example?”

  “In Soldiers, the player is always the aggressor. The goal is to conquer the rogue planet. In Soldiers, defenders routinely hide battleships in asteroid fields where they try to escape detection by invaders until the invader passes them inbound to the populated planet. This theoretically allows the defending craft to pounce on the invader from their weaker rear side. However, in Soldiers the invaders are shown how to detect such a hidden battleship. What is interesting is that the characteristics used to find the battleship most easily replicated in a decoy. Once having found what they think is a hidden battleship, the invader is then expected to deploy their scouts around and through the asteroid field to hit the hidden ship from the sides and behind while the two battleships battle it out face to face, mano a mano as it were. By focusing what they think is a defender’s attention forward, the invading scouts can sneak in undetected and attack the defending battleship’s propulsion systems. That tactic could be quite effective if the hidden ship were a real battleship. If it was a decoy the balance shifts the other way.

  “By contrast, in Defenders, in the exact same scenario, the battleship is always a decoy. They do not leave a real battleship vulnerable to attack without possibility of escape. The defenders keep the battleship for close support of the spaceports and infrastructure targets. If the decoy, say a painted asteroid, gave off the easily mimicked appropriate radiation and electronic readings to fool the invaders’ sensors and if defending scouts were placed where they could ambush and pick off the invaders as they approached what they believed to be the backside of a capital ship, the attacking scouts thus deployed could easily be intercepted and destroyed. I particularly like the fact that the attacking battleship will expend much of its store of munitions beating up on an inert asteroid. While all this is going on, defenders can sneak up behind the attacking battleship and destroy it while its attention is diverted attacking a big chunk of rock.” A ripple of laughter rolled around the table.

  Admiral Davidson spoke softly, “Do I understand you to be saying that Soldiers is a deliberate attempt to misinform a potential enemy as to battle tactics and therefore make it vulnerable to defeat by a smaller force?”

  “Yes, sir, that is my opinion exactly.”

  Admiral Davidson shook his head slowly. His grin was decid
edly evil. “We have three of the most brilliant and dangerous renegades ever to graduate from the Academy working together on a planet previously labeled uninhabitable preparing to defend themselves against a force potentially many times their size. I am certainly glad it is not us they are preparing to fight. You know, the strangest part is, my money is on them.”

  A murmur of agreement followed his comment. “Commodore Dankese, I am about to violate one of my own policies. Long ago I promised to not interfere in my subordinates’ personnel practices except where I sought the removal of an individual in their command from the service. I will see that this young man gets on the next scheduled ship out headed toward the Saturn shipyard and meets you there. I expect to see you both back here as quickly as possible.”

  “Thank you sir,” they both said at the same time.

  The admiral turned to his aide and said, “I would have said you lose this one, but she’ll be back within a year and now she outranks you.”

  The aide blushed and said, “Yes sir, thank you sir.” Everyone laughed because his relationship with the recently promoted Commodore was often the subject of station gossip.

  Admiral Davidson was glad that the Joint Chiefs had chosen Commodore Dankese for the group. He only worried that she and her new battle group would not return in time to counter the threats he saw looming in the near future.

  HOMESTEAD - CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  A FEW MONTHS AFTER SEEING Commodore Dankese off, Admiral Davidson received a request for an audience from a surprising source. The Admiral rose to greet his visitors as they entered his office. “Captain Bardwell,” he exclaimed, “to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?” Before she could reply he said, “This gorgeous young lady must be your daughter. Certainly takes after her mother!”