Emerson pointed at Rachel’s image and said, “That’s her. She’s the one that killed my father.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, sir, I am.”
“Formidable adversary,” the Reverend replied, “even if she is repugnant. Women have no business in the military, let alone in command. You will need to be careful with that one. Do not let her use her feminine wiles on you.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You must never forget they are the enemy no matter how seductive their way of life may be.”
“Yes, sir.”
“They are an abomination and it is our mission to bring them to the light or eliminate them.”
“Yes, sir.” Emerson paused and listened to the news reporter repeat the same story for the tenth time. “Who do you think is behind the attack?”
“The press is blaming it on organized crime. It’s not us, but I don’t think it’s the criminals. There’s someone else making trouble and they could be a threat to everything we have worked for.”
“How so?”
“If the Federation thinks we launched the attack, it will give them the excuse to retaliate. We could not survive a full strength Federation offensive at this time.”
“But some day we will.”
“Yes.”
“Sir, is it not possible that we share a common enemy?”
“It is possible. Organized crime is everyone’s enemy and we share our hatred for them.”
“If we share a common enemy, is it not possible that we could fight alongside the Federation against this enemy?”
“Combining our forces with theirs would be a repudiation of everything we believe.”
“I did not mean to merge, but to work with them to our advantage for the attainment of a mutual goal. We would keep our forces separate and let theirs take the brunt of the battles. After weakening them in conquest of the common enemy, we can overcome them with our smaller force.”
“There is wisdom in what you say. I will discuss your idea with the church elders.”
Emerson had spent the years living with the Reverend deep in study. He studied what the Reverend wanted him to study, but he also studied military strategy and tactics. Given Emerson’s goals, the Reverend encouraged his military research. The Reverend recognized that sometimes even pagans or heathens could be successful strategists and that modern military leaders had much to learn from the ways of past warriors. Emerson was reading a book on Attila the Hun when he realized that some of the basic precepts of the Swordsman religion did not work when a commander needed to rely on subordinates who thought and acted independently. The distances between command and the front lines could be immense in the battles Emerson would likely fight once he gained a command position in the Swordsman Space Force. The “top down” strictly regulated structure of the church might have been appropriate for foot soldiers marching across grassy meadows with fixed bayonets, but it would not allow the kind of flexibility a force engaging the Swordsmen’ future enemies would need to survive.
Once the seed of doubt was planted in Emerson’s mind, he went back and reviewed his previous readings. Mark Stonebridge’s books came under new scrutiny. In particular, Mark’s claims that forced conversions were not part of the original teachings made him doubt current policies. The war games Emerson had spent so much time working with when he first arrived at the Reverend’s looked different when viewed with a questioning mindset. Even though Emerson questioned the doctrines of the Swordsman Church, the one concept that remained unwavering was his determination to seek revenge for his father’s death. The more Emerson delved into the conflicts in his mind the more excited he became about his discoveries each day. He knew enough to keep his new discoveries secret from the Reverend.
The other secret he was keeping from the Reverend was his growing fondness for Harumi, the Reverend’s second daughter. Gentle and kind, he hoped that someday he would be worthy of her. He fantasized about the day after he graduated from the Academy when he would return to this house and ask for her hand in marriage. His only concern was that the Reverend might arrange for her to marry someone else in the interim. The thought that he might lose Harumi due to inaction plagued Emerson. He debated whether he should broach the subject, but feared that if he did, he would be rebuffed.
Every evening, Emerson and the Reverend spent a half hour together discussing Emerson’s studies. Lately Emerson had restricted the discussions to tales of battles won and lost, troop movements and the impact of new technologies and strategies on the outcome of the battles in question. One evening, after discussing the Battle at Little Big Horn, Emerson found the courage to ask the Reverend the question he had been meaning to ask for a long time.
“Sir, I have a personal question I would like to ask of you.”
“Yes?”
“Sir, I am an orphan and I have no right to ask you what I would like to ask. Someday I will be an officer in the Space Force. I am asking you this question not as the orphan you see before you, but as that future officer who will stand before you six years from now.”
The Reverend raised his eyebrow in curiosity. “Yes?”
“Sir, I would respectfully request that you not arrange a marriage for your daughter Harumi until I return and seek her hand for myself.”
The Reverend contemplated the question for a few minutes. “Emerson, you have six years. I will not enter into negotiations for her marriage until six years from today. If you return as an officer, I will negotiate with you. If not, I will find someone else. Understood?”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
Emerson returned to his studies as happy as a high school junior about to start taking the college placement exams could be. He was anxious for the start of the new school year so he could meet with his guidance counselor and attack the Academy admission process.
ACADEMY - CHAPTER THIRTEEN
RACHEL FOUND THE DEBRIEFING process arduous and painful. By the end of the week of examining every detail of every decision she had made, she had begun to debate whether she really wanted to continue as a Space Force officer. The Eretz defense forces were much less adversarial. They were no less thorough, but they seemed more interested in learning from the successes and failures of the past than they were in crucifying any officer who had the audacity to make an error of judgment.
Greg and Avi had been given command of larger squadrons than the one Rachel had led, but where Rachel’s had been composed of a single type of craft, their squadrons had been composed of a variety of ships. Many of their ships had been rescued from scrap yards and few operated at their designed specifications. They had lost ships and crews to mechanical failures as well as to enemy action. When they compared notes on the numbers and types of ships they had fought, Rachel and her team clearly fended off the largest force. The enemy’s plan obviously had been to rely on the hole in the defenses left by the destruction of the student squadron and the pickets behind it to allow the attackers into the system. When the hole failed to develop as planned, some of the attackers were diverted to other areas, but Rachel’s squadron was the only one that had a “Trojan Horse”.
In spite of her parents’ assurances to the contrary, Rachel became convinced that the debriefing team had determined everything she thought she had done correctly was wrong and everything she felt she had done wrong was right. By the end of the week she was dispirited and depressed.
Rachel became concerned that the interrogation would last so long that she would not be able to get back to the Academy to start the term. There had been discussion that she would take her squadron and make the jump to meet the pieces of the shipyard as they arrived. She wondered if the Academy would give her the year off it would take to make the trip, accomplish the mission and return.
At dinner on Thursday, less than a week before the start of classes, the entire crew gathered all in one place for the first time. Greg, Avi, the six Marines and the six cadets took up an entire corner of the mess hall. Some of Gre
g and Avi’s friends from previous missions joined them as dinner progressed and the party turned loud and raucous as the “adults” tried to outdo each other with war stories and “fish tales” each one more outrageous than the last. They moved the assemblage to the lobby bar and continued well into the night.
As the party wound down, Avi pulled the girls aside. “Are you packed?”
“No, why?” Wendy asked.
“You have a party in Boston on Sunday and you need to be out of here tomorrow.”
“The officers of the inquisition aren’t finished with us,” Rachel said.
“They will be,” Avi answered.
“Aren’t we supposed to meet the shipyard?” Wendy protested. School seemed much less fun than going on another mission.
“No, you kids are going back to school.”
“School!” Greg affirmed. “We have an overriding mission. We must never lose sight of it.”
“Grandma got to you too,” Wendy scoffed.
“Yes,” Greg smiled. “I believe in her vision. There will always be those who seek to prey on the weak, and there must always be people to defend them, but there is no need for the strong to be killing each other in delusions of glory.”
“Hi Ho! Hi Ho! It’s off to school we go!” Wendy sang, making everyone laugh at the reference.
The following day, at about the time the debriefing session normally broke for lunch, the lead officer looked at the others on the panel and said, “Captain, J. G. Rachel Solomon, please rise. That concludes the proceedings. We will publish our findings in about six months. Your rank as Captain J. G. is a temporary rank. You will retain that rank until you return to the Academy grounds at which time you will revert to your normal rank and pay grade. Captain, thank you for your contribution to the campaign. Let me say for myself and the rest of this panel, well done Captain. Job well done.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Oh, Captain, I understand that there is a certain young man waiting for you in Boston. There is a shuttle leaving in a half hour. You need to be on it.”
Rachel blushed bright red. “Yes, sir. Thank you sir. Until we meet again, sir.” Rachel turned to the group standing at the back of the room with their luggage. Her luggage sat in a pile by the door.
“Come on, girl! Time’s a wastin’!” Suwanee shouted across the room.
“Who told them?” Rachel demanded.
Faye Anne hid behind Luther.
“I’ll kill you later!” Rachel said.
“If we miss our ship, I’m going to kill you,” Suwanee countered. “Let’s go.”
The shopping trip at the same mall as they had visited the previous year was only slightly less chaotic than it had been the year before. Outfitted in their new formal clothes, they arrived at the party not long after it started. As they pulled up to the former country club, they were surprised to see a bewildering array of news gathering vehicles parked around the property. They drove to the entrance and the valet greeted them.
“Why are they here?” Rachel asked the valet pointing to the news vehicles.
“To see you,” he replied with a broad toothy grin. “Get ready. There’s no getting around them.”
Faye Anne’s intelligence officer friend came around to the passenger side of the van. “Rachel, please take my arm. Wendy, please take my other arm and let me escort you to the steps. The reporters will want a statement from you. This is a wonderful opportunity to recruit for the Space Force. They aren’t out for blood, but you are heroines. Ready?”
Wendy and Rachel nodded. They walked together to the top of the steps where the reporters had set up microphones. The Marines formed a flying “V” and kept the reporters at bay until they could take their places at the top of the steps. The twelve stood together in the camera shot. Wendy went to the microphone first. “I am not sure we deserve all this attention, but thank you for coming.”
“What is flying in space like?”
“Someone once described air traffic control as being hours of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror. It’s a lot like that.”
“Do you enjoy it?”
“Yes. I love flying.”
“What does it feel like to be a hero?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know any.”
“You all are heroes.”
“No, we’re Cadets at the Federation Space Force Academy. We’re just doing a job. It’s like many jobs only more fun than most. We get to play with the coolest toys.”
“Just a job? How can battling squadrons of robot space ships be a job?”
“The police officer on the street has a job that’s as dangerous as what we do. I think we fail to recognize how important the everyday work they do is when we spend too much time on people like us. The Federation would be better served if you gave the cop on the beat the credit they deserve and spent less time on us.”
“Rachel, you have been referred to as a warrior princess. How do you feel about that?”
“We hate it,” Rachel answered. “As Wendy said, this is our job. We enjoy our job and we know that there are thousands of young women and men who would be as good at what we do as we are. I challenge the best and the brightest of our students to reach for the stars. Come fly with us. Maybe someday, the press will call you a warrior princess!”
“What do you think about the potential for war with the Swordsmen?”
“We fought the Swordsmen twice. I would rather not fight them again. I think it is better for us to devote our energies to enforcing the peace than it is to be creating wars. If it comes to war with them or anyone else, we will be ready and we will win. Even when we win, wars cost both sides the lives of good people. I have lost too many friends in battle. I do not wish to lose any more.”
“Who do think is behind the attack you just fended off?”
“I don’t think it’s the Swordsmen. Many people think it’s organized crime.”
“Do you think it’s organized crime?”
“It would be an easy answer, but organized crime isn’t as organized as we like to think. I don’t believe that any one crime family has the resources to pull off a project this large. The organized crime groups have a reputation for turf battles and conspiracies amongst themselves. I suspect they don’t trust each other enough to consolidate their forces to the degree necessary to pull something like this off.”
“Then who is it?”
“I don’t know. It could be someone else who has huge resources and the ability to move large amounts of cargo freely without detection. I fear we will fight them again before we fight the Swordsmen. For my part, if we never fight the Swordsmen again it will be too soon.”
“Were there any survivors to interrogate?”
Rachel scratched the back of her head while she thought about the question. “Have you ever seen what happens to a ship in space when its hull is breached?”
She looked around. Clearly none of them had.
“There are almost never survivors unless one gets out in an escape pod before the ship disintegrates. In some of our warships, it is possible for the fire control officer or flight engineer to survive a hull breach due to the structure of the ship, but I am only aware of a few such survivors and only because they were wearing their E V A suits at the time of the breach. All of the ships my squadron fought against disintegrated. There were no survivors.”
“We heard there were saboteurs on the station. Were any of them captured?” Suwanee had been briefed on how to answer this question, and she moved forward to respond. “There were some people who attempted to interfere with our moving the station, and there were some accidents in the process. Have you ever seen what happens to the human body when their space suit develops a tear in space? I have. It’s not a pretty sight. Whether the damage was intentional or accidental, the result is the same. It’s short. It’s extremely painful, and it’s always fatal.”
“Were there any people inside the space station who might have been captured who could provide inform
ation?”
Suwanee replied, “The six of us were outside in space suits with the engineers. We were not briefed on any of the activities inside. We would have no way to know that answer.”
“If you were called upon to do this again, would you?”
“Yes. We are Federation Marines. This is what we do. This is our job. We are the best that’s ever been, and we’re damn proud of it. If there’s any tough guy or girl listening who thinks they can take us on, I will see you at Parris Island. If you think you’re tough, we’ll make you tougher.”
Rachel stepped forward and said, “Ladies and Gentlemen, we came here for a party. It’s time we went inside.” Rachel turned and headed inside. The others followed.
Joshua was immediately inside the door. “Rachel, please, Isaac is outside on the terrace. Could you talk to him? Please?”
“So he can attack me again?”
“No, he won’t attack you, but you’ll know what to say. He won’t listen to me. Please,” he pleaded, his eyes showing his distress.
Rachel looked out on the terrace to see Isaac sitting on the rail she had thrown him over the last time they were together. His head was down and his shoulders rounded. “Wendy’s the sensitive one.”
“Which is why I need to talk to her myself. Please do this.” Rachel went out on the terrace and gently sat on the rail beside Isaac. His face was streaked with tear tracks.
“Big boys don’t cry,” she said softly.
“Yes, they do,” he answered, his voice choking on the words.
Wendy watched Rachel sit next to Isaac. She turned to Joshua and asked, “What’s going on?”
“Our grandparents caught some bug on some planet in their travels. They got sick about six months ago. They died last week. The funeral was Monday. Isaac tried to save them, but he couldn’t. He’s taking it pretty hard. He feels like a failure. It was pretty gruesome. They were bleeding internally and in a lot of pain. We couldn’t even hold their hands to comfort them because of the quarantine.”
Solomon Family Warriors II Page 61
