Avi descended on the “Mix-Master” and explained in no uncertain terms that he would turn the volume down or he would not be paid. He huffed once and then recognized her from the videos he had seen and backed down. He chopped back the amplifiers and the conversations were audible again.
The mix-master played a folk dance and most of the Cadets’ parents moved to the dance floor. Those of the Cadets who had partners joined them. Rachel and Wendy hung back. Isaac approached Rachel. He gently took one hand in his. He bowed deeply and theatrically before her. “Would M’Lady care to dance?”
“But of course!” she answered.
Joshua quickly followed suit and the floor quickly filled with dancers.
Rashi and Esther returned to the room together, but neither of them looked especially happy. Mimi joined Suwanee and Sarah in their conversation and the three could occasionally be heard giggling as they got to know each other better.
Reuben looked at the three women chatting and asked, “Dad, what are they talking about for so long?”
Abraham looked at his son, so grown and so naïve at the same time. “There is no telling. Frankly, I think I am better off not knowing.”
“I guess.”
An hour after the party started, the Rabbi called everyone together. “Let’s take a moment and go into the sanctuary.”
ACADEMY - CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
AS EVERYONE FILED INTO the sanctuary, the Rabbi directed the recent graduates to the platform and everyone else to the seats. Still in their formal dress uniforms, they humbly stood before the arc that held the sacred scrolls.
The Rabbi went to the podium. “In the seven years that I have been a chaplain at the Academy, this is the largest group of Jewish cadets I have seen graduate. This class has more Jewish students with honors than any in Federation history. You have done very well. I would like to have each of you declare for the rest of us what your orders and assignments are as you leave here and head off to serve the Federation and all humanity. The majority of you will never see each other again. The Galaxy is a big place and the human race is spreading further and further into its vastness. One more time, let us all see one another and speak hopefully of the future. Please start on my left and come to the podium. State your name and where you will be headed from here.”
The graduates were deployed across the entire range of the known Galaxy. The majority were to become officers in combat units on the frontiers. Faye Anne was headed to Federation Intelligence Headquarters at Langley for further training before receiving her posting. David was headed to San Antonio pending his acceptance into law school. Reuben was going to the space ship evaluation center adjacent to Nuclear Power School in Mars orbit to assist in the field tests of the newly redesigned picket ship. Suwanee expressed confidence that she could be assigned there as well. SAD claimed in its recruitment publicity how hard it worked to keep married couples together. Wendy was assigned command of a flight of light attack destroyers which were part of the Central System Defense Force. Rashi was stationed at the munitions depot on Earth’s moon to assist in the development of a new data tracking system to measure the combat effectiveness of the Federation’s munitions.
Rachel hung back, almost hoping to be forgotten. She painfully remembered that this was the job no one wanted. Finally, last of all, she stepped to the podium.
“The battleship FSFBS 210 is being pulled from retirement and being commissioned as the FSFHS 28. Its mission will be to provide humanitarian aid in places too dangerous for other ships to go. It will be an armed hospital ship. In its previous duty, the ship was named the Augustus Caesar. In its new configuration it will be known as the Albert Schweitzer. My mission will be to return the ship to operation and then to command it.”
That was as far as she got.
Isaac jumped to his feet, cheered and shouted, “That’s my ship!” He proceeded to do a “happy dance” in the aisle. “It worked! It worked!” He cheered again.
Joshua stood. “Actually folks, it’s our ship. Isaac and I have been training to provide advanced medical care in a mobile hospital. We learned yesterday that we have been accepted as part of the medical team that will turn this derelict of a space ship into a functioning mobile health center. The FSFBS 210, soon to be FSFHS 28, is an experiment. One of our instructors was a driving force in getting the concept approved. The original concept came from Rachel’s research report on battleships. In a sense, this was her idea. Isaac brought Rachel’s idea for reusing obsolete warships to the faculty and they bought it. Isaac has been adamant that Rachel was the one person who should command this ship. He has made his case to everyone he could find that might have influence. Rachel, welcome aboard!”
He looked at his brother still jumping around in the aisle and said, “You’d think he just won the Nobel Peace Prize!”
The Rabbi returned to the podium and said, “Let me remind you that the waiting period for a wedding in this area is forty-eight hours. Graduations are the happiest of my duties. Weddings are a close second.”
Rachel descended from the podium. She took Isaac’s hand and they sat next to her parents.
The Rabbi continued. “For centuries, Jews avoided military service. Most of the countries in which they lived excluded them from service, but even in those where Jews were allowed to serve, they tended to refrain from doing so. We can no longer afford the luxury of watching from the side lines while others fight our battles. We have before us prime examples of what Jews can accomplish with the tools a modern military organization gives them. Greg and Avi Solomon have demonstrated the power that a Jew can wield in the military. This is not a power to be forsaken or treated lightly. Each of you has the power to enforce peace or wage war. It is my hope that you will choose to enforce the peace.
“Too many of the people around us are too willing to wage war for their own gain. As Jews we have seen the devastation and destruction that follows such actions. As Jews, we have an obligation to stop it. It is our obligation, our commandment, to stop the bloodshed. Since force is the only deterrent some people understand, we must be prepared to use it even as we abhor its use. Jews, unique among cultures, understand the paradox and can work within its boundaries.
“Two of the most subversive concepts in modern civilization come from Jewish texts. These are so much a part of your life you probably do not think about them. They are the four questions at Passover and the passage recited after the Sh’ma. In the first, even the youngest child is taught to question. Questioning is encouraged and not discouraged. In the Sh’ma which we recite multiple times very day, we are told to teach our children the novel concept that our God is one. This is subversive for two reasons. The first is that we are ordered to teach our children. The second is that our God is different from all the other Gods. We accept this conflict as a given. There are other Gods. There are other valid gods. Ours is different.
“The single most effective defense any population has against totalitarianism is education. Illiterate people are easy to subjugate. Educated people are not. This is why the Jews are the single most dangerous culture in the history of humankind. Today as we look to the challenges around us it is vital that we have Jews in key places to moderate the imperial designs of others. We can no longer watch the war from the sidelines. We must be involved. You, sitting here before me, are the vanguard. You are our best hope to find and hold the peace. May God be with you in everything that you do.”
The Rabbi instructed them to open the prayer books they found in the pew in front of them and they recited prayers of thanksgiving and sang songs of celebration. After the service, they returned to the social hall where the party went well into the night.
ACADEMY - CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
RACHEL AND WENDY RETURNED to the dorms the next day to pack for the trips to their duty stations. They had made arrangements to ship most of their belongings and were looking forward to spending a few days with the rest of the family and their friends at a mountain resort in the back woods near P
ark City. Weddings were being planned and while Rachel and Isaac would be stationed together, Wendy and Joshua would not. Still, four weddings were being planned. Rachel and Isaac, Wendy and Joshua, Reuben and Suwanee were the first three. Esther and Rashi decided that the changes in their personalities were a good thing, and they elected to join the festivities.
Rachel had placed the last shipping label on the last box when Reuben appeared at her door.
“He’s here,” Reuben said without warning.
“Who’s where?”
“Emerson Winthrop the third. The son of the guy whose wallet you’ve been carrying around for years. He’s in my dorm. Pre-Freshman Summer Program.”
Rachel turned pale. “Are you sure?”
“Absolutely.”
Rachel removed an envelope from her suitcase. “Can you bring him to the first floor lounge in your dorm?”
“Yes.”
“I will meet you there.”
Emerson took one look at Rachel and knew why he had been invited by an upperclassman to the lounge. The upperclassman had opened the door and ushered him inside, but had not followed him. This was the woman who killed his father. Anger welled up inside him. He would not give her time to use her feminine wiles on him. He would seek his revenge now while he had the chance. He lunged at her, anger in his eyes, intent on killing her with his bare hands. “You killed my father!” he screamed.
Emerson’s high school martial arts coaches had taught him well, but not well enough to challenge someone who had been working marshal arts their entire life and who had trained with Special Forces Marines. Rachel grabbed his hand and spun him around. She grabbed the other hand and pinned both behind his back. She then pushed him forward and slammed him into the wall.
The block wall against his face was cold and the blood running from his nose was warm. The Reverend said she would use feminine wiles. This was hardly feminine. This hurt. What else had he said that was wrong? Tears of pain and frustration welled in his eyes.
“I did not kill your father. I shot down his helicopter. He survived that. My grandmother killed him. A feeble old woman killed your father. She shot him in the balls. He died crying like a baby. Your father was a cold blooded, heartless murderer. He was a criminal.”
Rachel dropped the envelope at Emerson’s feet. “Your father’s wallet is in the envelope along with a data module. On the data module are copies of the warrants from three different planets for his arrest for murder. The official reports on your father’s military conduct and his entire military history are on the module. There are the reports of his action in combat including the fact that he shot and killed his wounded co-pilot instead of helping him escape.”
Emerson squirmed and Rachel slammed him against the wall again.
“I am giving you a choice. We can work together for the benefit of the Federation or you can be my enemy. If you choose to be my enemy, the next time I see you, I will do my best to kill you. Your choice.”
Rachel slammed him against the wall one more time before releasing him to fall to the floor. She turned and stormed out the door. She had a ship to resurrect.
DEPLOYMENT - CHAPTER ONE
THE PIRATE, SABRINA MAHONEY, eased her interceptor ship toward the derelict freighter. Its distress beacon registered on her sensors, but no human responded to her hails. The freighter silently orbited hidden in the asteroid belt of a system listed as off limits due to a virulent micro biotic contagion on the system’s one otherwise habitable planet. The freighter’s markings indicated that it had once belonged to one of the better-known interstellar freight companies, but had long ago fallen into the hands of pirates. Sabrina found some comfort in that, being a pirate herself.
Strange that it would be here. The freighter’s running lights glowed with the dim light that indicated failing batteries. No doubt the crew was already dead. Still, she thought she knew all the large freighters that had been taken by pirates in the previous twenty years and she didn’t remember this one. Depending on what had failed on this ship, perhaps she could link her ship to it and take control using her ship’s computers to drive the cargo ship and operate the bigger ship’s engines. That was, after all, her normal method of operation. None of this old fashioned, messy boarding and hand-to-hand fighting nonsense for her. Sea going pirates of old did such things. Her brother had been known for such shenanigans, but the thought of face to face mortal combat turned her cold. For her it was much cleaner. She did not even have to get dressed. Her brother was one of the few pirates that wore combat armor, fat lot of good that had done him in the end. In fact, most of the time she wore what had once been an exercise outfit and was now pretty disreputable. Few freighters were armed and what defenses they had were easily disabled. Pirates counted on the “it couldn’t happen to me” mentality providing the prey they needed. She generally took control electronically and delivered the ship and its crew intact. Pirates at the base where she delivered her prize did the dirty work and she got paid. Eventually the crew and the ship would be ransomed back to the shipping company less the cargo. For her the process had become almost civilized.
Sabrina advanced slowly, warily, toward the drifting freighter. It could have passive defenses that still functioned. She launched the probe that would seek out the freighter’s maintenance override access panel. Once located, the probe would press the spring-loaded release and the hatch would pop open. The probe would connect the fiber optic that ran back to her ship from the maintenance port and she would take control of the ship, rendering the ship her captive. The probe found the hatch exactly where the operations manuals indicated it should be.
The hatch was welded shut.
“Who would weld the maintenance access hatch shut?” Sabrina wondered aloud. “Unless it’s a DECOY!”
Multiple proximity alarms sounded simultaneously. Sabrina had wandered into a trap. Visceral tension tightened her body in terrified controlled panic. Her displays showed four ships. Where did they come from? Why hadn’t she seen them sooner? Three were P I ships! Sabrina began to shake. Three P I ships! One was bad enough. A solitary Pirate Interdiction warship could take out an entire fleet of the ships pirates like her flew. Three of them in the same place! She didn’t have a chance. Each of the P I ships had four internal missile tubes plus who knew how many externally mounted missiles. She had two internal tubes and no externally mounted missiles. Even if she were in proper firing position, which she wasn’t, it would take two volleys to even direct missiles at all the ships. In that time, the three P I’s could have put more missiles into her ship in the first volley than she had in her entire arsenal. The lasers at the ends of her weapons pods would not penetrate the thick armor of the P I ship’s heat shield. There was no sense in even switching them on. Sabrina made the sign of the cross over her body and recited the prayers of the Rosary. She regretted that there was no priest available to hear her last confession. She might have been a pirate, but she was still a religious Catholic.
“Sabrina Mahoney!” The speaker in her console startled her. “This is Captain Alina Darwin, Federation Space Force Pirate Interdiction Specialist. Retract your weapons pods. Stand down and prepare to be boarded.”
The call came on a frequency that had been reserved for ship-to-ship hails since the time before humans left the confines of earth orbit.
They were asking her to surrender. They weren’t shooting at her. Sabrina recognized the name. By everything she knew about Captain Alina Darwin, she should already be dead. The fact that she was alive baffled her.
Much derided by people outside the pirate community, pirate legends were often surprisingly accurate when they weren’t completely dead wrong. The legends about Captain Darwin would take several days to tell in their entirety. Sabrina had heard many of them. The legend that came to mind had to do with an incident that appeared to have changed how Captain Darwin dealt with pirates.
There was a time when then Lieutenant Alina Darwin was just another bright, aggressive, moderately an
ti-social Pirate Interdiction pilot flying solo patrol like the others. She had a knack for knowing where to find pirates and what to do when she did. Her skills, sharpened with years of practice, had enabled her to find and trap Sabrina. Sabrina came from a long line of successful pirates. She was the last of the line, being her parents’ only surviving child and her father having taken the Federation’s offer of a peaceful, if “protected” retirement. Sabrina had a significant reputation herself. She had not earned her reputation for a host of successful conquests by backing down from challenges, but there was something to be said for recognizing when one faced a massively superior force.
According to pirate legend, the pivotal event that had pushed Lt. Darwin over the line had come at the end of a long watch. She had been on solitary patrol for a month. Her relief was overdue and three ships appeared at the very limits of her sensor range. She was tired. She had fended off a dozen pirate attacks on the scheduled freighters that passed by her station. She hadn’t killed any of them, but she had damaged most and had taken her share of damage as well. Her ship’s sensors were unreliable and her synapses were burned. The unarmed freighter was on the regularly scheduled run between two mining outposts. The freighter’s trajectory would take it across her current course with plenty of room to spare. The other two ships were worrisome. One appeared to be a pirate and the other was squealing a distress message in the freighter’s direction requesting assistance from the freighter. Apparently neither had noticed her which was not surprising given the P I ship’s stealthy design. Lt. Darwin had one missile left. One ship was a pirate. The other might be a pirate decoy or it might be what it said it was and she had one missile with which to sort it out.
Solomon Family Warriors II Page 65
