When it was time to leave, Rachel tapped the helmsmen on the shoulder and said, “Please allow me.” He relinquished his seat. She quickly punched in a series of numbers and keyed the execute command. The big ship and its escort left orbit.
Rachel observed two courier missiles leave from the ends of what had appeared to be cargo containers as the ship prepared to jump. Elizabeth tracked who initiated those messages. Seconds before the Schweitzer jumped, Mimi and J T disconnected Buddy from the fiber link and jumped in a different direction from the one that the Schweitzer was going.
Rashi, Esther and Daisy stalked the cargo ship that and come with Commodore McGuire for several hours before revealing their presence. They relayed a new set of coordinates for the cargo ship to jump to. They held position until it left and then jumped themselves. Mimi, J T and Buddy met the cargo ship at this second location, stalked it for a few hours and presented another set of coordinates.
The Schweitzer, Peter and the remaining tethered support ships jumped together twice to carefully selected interim rallying points before meeting the cargo ship that McGuire had brought with him. Elizabeth had sealed all the courier message tubes when the two ships made contact. Reuben and his crew had disabled the tubes hidden in the cargo containers. The new company of Marines and their cargo were transferred to the Schweitzer. After disgorging its cargo, the transport ship that had been treated to a wild goose chase by Buddy and Daisy was sent away with instructions to report to New St. Louis. The transport ship was gone for two hours before the Schweitzer fired its engines for the long jump to the new mission.
Three weeks later, a large fleet of P A F ships attacked Eretz and was crushingly defeated by a defense system well prepared for their arrival. Many of the P A F ships were captured intact and large numbers of prisoners were taken for questioning. Admiral Sherman forgave Rachel her previous transgressions against him when he realized the incredible amount of intelligence information about a powerful enemy she had tidily delivered into his hands. Having learned from previous mistakes, the Swordsmen elected to not act on the intelligence they had received from their spies on the Schweitzer. They had faced the Jews before and knew better than to try again.
DEPLOYMENT - CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
THE TRIP TO DESTINY’S RIDGE took four weeks. The engineers continued to make what repairs they could. The medical staff prepared to deal with bacterial agents used as weapons of war. The Marines drilled and sharpened their combat skills. The flight crews became better acquainted with the personalities of their ships. David was the only one conversant enough with his own religion to actively participate in the religious discussions with the nuns, but the conversations were educational for all who listened. The four weeks passed quickly.
The Schweitzer’s convoy dropped out of hyperspace in tight formation and, as Lt. Sabrina Mahoney predicted, they found the system swarming with small pirate ships waiting for the opportunity when the fighting on the surface would annihilate both groups so they could swoop in and steal whatever would be worth stealing. Merely the broadcast announcement of the Schweitzer’s arrival and the Federation’s intent to secure the system over the open communications channels was enough to send half of the pirate ships scurrying out of the system. A direct approach by a pair of P I ships, even marginally functional P I ships, intimidated the majority of the rest enough for them to flee. A few surrendered and only two had to be shot down.
The planet was mostly sand and desert with the only habitable regions being near the poles. The two war lords had established their camps near the opposite arctic circles. As the Schweitzer approached, the two armies were engaged in a battle near the equator. Under cover of night, the Marines and their mechanized artillery parachuted to the surface from the med ships and surrounded the combatants. When dawn broke and the fighting resumed, the Marines ordered both sides to surrender. When they refused, the Marines, supported by remote controlled mobile artillery, efficiently destroyed both armies with no losses of their own and only minor damage to the machines.
Ambassador Kirkland and his staff, backed by large contingents of Marines fresh from the battlefield, brokered a treaty between the warlords and an uneasy peace was forced on the rivals.
The medical teams arrived and began repairing the damage the bacteria had done to the populations.
When it became apparent that the worst was over, Peter was sent back to Eretz with a shopping list. He carried the four most severely damaged P I ships for repair. Abraham and Sarah Abrams elected to return with Peter. Lt. Hammersmith and Lt. Martini, their covers destroyed, found that leaving with Peter was their most acceptable alternative. A few of the military personnel whose enlistment contracts had expired also left with Peter.
After the treaty was signed, Ambassador Kirkland, Greg, Avi and the ambassador’s staff departed for Earth. With the turmoil expected in the wake of the allegations being made by the Swordsmen’s clandestine media campaign against the Conservatives, they needed to return without further delay.
Two weeks after the Schweitzer arrived at Destiny’s Ridge, they were alone again. They had secured the planet and forced peace on the warring parties. The Schweitzer, eight P I ships, one destroyer, two shuttles and two med ships made up the fleet. A few hundred military and civilian personnel worked to keep the planet and its population safe from threats both internal and external.
Six weeks after the Schweitzer arrived, the first convoy of miners arrived with their equipment. Once they were established on the planet’s surface, the Schweitzer prepared to leave.
Eight weeks after the Schweitzer arrived, Peter returned with supplies, replacement personnel and one destroyer. Included in the materials delivered to the Schweitzer was a message package from Commodore McGuire Three days later Peter left again with a new shopping list. Mimi Abrams and J T left with Peter to be his new crew.
Nine weeks and one day after arriving at Destiny’s Ridge, the Schweitzer’s sensors detected a large convoy of Federation military vessels entering the system. Exactly ten minutes later, the Schweitzer lit its engines and headed out of system. Its work here was done. The nuns and some of the civilians had elected to stay behind to greet the Federation personnel when they arrived.
For the next four years, the pattern was similar to the one established at Destiny’s Ridge. The Schweitzer would arrive at some planet in crisis and clear out the pirates. The Marines would land and establish control. David would land and, with his brand new law degree from Harvard, negotiate whatever needed negotiating. The medics would follow and make the people healthy again. If the emergency was a natural disaster like an earthquake or a storm, all the available personnel including the engineers and flight crews would descend to the surface and help rebuild. One of the relief agencies would show up six to eight weeks later. Peter would bring new personnel and supplies. Peter would take the people who wished to return to regular lives and the Schweitzer would leave again.
Rachel never told anyone where they were going until they got there. She got into the habit of plotting their course at her station and taking the helm herself for the jump out of the system. For four years they dodged the Third Force, the Conservatives, the Swordsmen and the weakened P A F. They considered themselves especially fortunate to not have run into the Third Force, but the Third Force seemed to be less active lately, a phenomenon none could explain.
For four years the Schweitzer did not suffer a single combat casualty. Some of the crew were injured on the ground in accidents of one sort of another. Removing survivors from crumbling buildings turned out to be one particularly dangerous task accounting for many of the injuries. The MMARV’s with their sensitive sensors and hardened front ends were pressed into service for a wide variety of rescue tasks thereby reducing the casualties significantly.
Mimi and J T married during one of their stops at Eretz. Dr. Constance Terrell A K A “Tyrannosaurus Doc” delivered their twin boys a few years later. Peter was an excellent babysitter having performed the same duti
es a generation earlier for Rachel and Wendy.
For four years, life was relatively predictable. They would spend six to eight weeks on a planet. They would spend two to four weeks in transit and land on a new planet and deal with its emergency before moving on again. Supply ships came and went. Personnel came and went, but the mission continued.
DEPLOYMENT - CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
EMERSON WINTHROP III GRADUATED the Space Force Academy in the top quarter of his class. Immediately following graduation, he went home on leave.
Standing tall in his full dress officer’s uniform, Emerson addressed the man who had been his benefactor. “Reverend, I have come to seek the hand of your second daughter, Harumi, in marriage. May I have your blessing, sir?”
“Emerson, I have kept my promise. I have not entered into negotiations with anyone else for her hand in marriage. Your success in this quest is entirely up to you. You have my blessing. May the light of the Sword of the Shogun guide your way.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Emerson found Harumi pulling weeds tending the garden behind the house. He had been delayed several days after graduation due to his impending transfer to the Swordsmen and no doubt she had worried that he was not coming for her. He silently walked up behind her and gently touched her shoulder. She looked around. She had been crying. Tracks of tears showed in the dust on her face.
“Sonny!” She gasped. “Sonny! You came for me!” She jumped up and hugged him kissing him passionately.
After he caught his breath, Emerson gently picked up his future wife in his arms. “We must tell your father. We need to ship out the day after tomorrow.”
The wedding was hastily arranged. Emerson had booked passage on a commercial passenger ship and with all the emotional displays that accompany a long anticipated marriage, they headed out for their life’s adventures together.
Emerson was assigned command of the defense installation on a small farming community at the very frontier of the Swordsman expansion. The planet was so remote that the Federation survey teams had not found it. Only the Swordsmen survey teams knew of its existence. The system was listed on the Federation admiralty charts as “uncharted” and only on the Swordsmen’s charts was there any mention of this very Earth-like planet far away from the rest of civilization. The planet was so remote that cargo ships only came to the planet twice a year. Emerson had eight interceptor ships in his command and an assortment of ground based defenses. His crews were minimally trained. The previous commander had not really understood his job and so what training they had done was woefully inadequate. Confident that the relative secrecy of their location would protect them from harm, the previous commander had not kept his personnel’s combat conditioning up to standard.
Harumi had become pregnant during the trip and they joyously anticipated the birth of their first child. Emerson was devoted husband and absolutely doted on Harumi. All the love he had sought as a child, he devoted to her and she responded in kind. They could often be seen walking together hand in hand as they admired the beauty of the planet they now called home.
Emerson established a rigorous training schedule. He had learned well from Greg’s games. “Planetoid Defender” provided the scenarios for many of the simulations he used to train his staff. Based on some snatches of information he had stumbled into, he strongly believed he had a spy reporting to a group of pirates, and he suspected who the spy might be. He fully expected that when the supply convoy came in the fall to pick up the harvest, pirates would arrive as well.
Harumi and Emerson had a son they named Taylor. In a sharp break with Swordsman tradition, Emerson shared the duties of caring for the child to the extent his work schedule and physiology would allow. Emerson loved Harumi and Taylor with all his soul.
When the crops started to come in from the fields, rather than marshal them on the planet’s surface and wait for the convoy as had been the practice in the past, Emerson set up a marshaling area on the planet’s single moon. He parked four of his picket ships on the moon and covered them with camouflage material. The convoy arrived exactly on schedule. The convoy’s commander expressed his surprise and pleasure at finding his cargo so much more accessible than he had expected.
Emerson suggested rather strongly to this man who out-ranked him by half a dozen pay grades that he should not lounge around, but rather get loaded as quickly as possible since he expected unwelcome visitors. The convoy’s commander surveyed the earnest young man standing before him and canceled all shore leaves. With his crews working as quickly as possible, they unloaded the containers the cargo ships had brought with them to the marshaling area and at the same time picked up the containers for shipment back to the more populated planets.
Emerson had been unimpressed with the convoy’s escort. He was going to be just as happy when both the convoy and the escort were on their way again.
The pirates arrived later than Emerson expected. The convoy was almost completely loaded when the first pirate ships appeared at the periphery of the system. In a page taken from Greg’s battle plan at Homestead, what appeared to be discarded shipping containers orbiting at the extreme edge of the system sounded the alarm. In another page from Greg’s book, the shipping containers drew first blood. Greg had used discarded shipping containers as a defensive weapon in close orbits around Homestead. Emerson used them as offensive weapons at the edge of the system.
Once the shooting started, the convoy’s crews needed no additional motivation to finish their load and depart. Taking their escort with them, they fled as soon as possible.
Emerson still had vulnerable exposed cargo on the surface of the moon. His crews immediately began dropping the containers through the atmosphere to the planet’s surface. Recognizing that their bounty was rapidly slipping through their fingers, the pirates attacked not as a coordinated body, but as a loose band.
Calling his maneuvers like a coach at a sporting event, Emerson coordinated the defense from a ship in orbit around the planet. When the fighting ended, all the pirates had either been destroyed or retreated. He had lost two ships and some personnel at the tracking station on the moon. Emerson knew who his spy was and knew that the pirates would not be back until harvest time next year.
The convoy commander reported favorably about Emerson to his superiors.
The pirate rumor mill reported a maniacal military commander at the planet at the edge of the system, and for the first time, the Federation learned of the planet’s existence.
Emerson and Harumi greeted each new day as the newly-weds they were.
DEPLOYMENT - CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
RACHEL KNEW IT WAS OVER the moment she saw Peter. The cargo containers she expected to see had been replaced by enough personnel carriers to house her entire crew. Two pickets were attached where the P I ships normally rode back and forth for service.
Rachel did not need to read the document Commodore Quisling gave her to know its meaning.
“I trust you will inform your crew,” the man said in a tone that spoke of superiority.
“No, Commodore, I won’t. You do it.”
She handed him her white cap that showed she was the commander of the ship.
“You keep that,” he said. “I brought my own.”
Rachel called her entire crew to meet in the galley. Commodore Quisling held his proclamation high in front of his face and read it aloud like an ancient town crier. To their credit, none of the crew made rude noises or interrupted his declamations.
Captain Alina Darwin was the first to speak. “I don’t know about you, but I’m flying my own ship to Eretz. Flight crews form up in two hours. We’re out of here!”
The transfer of personnel and personal effects to Peter from the Schweitzer took four hours.
Rachel and Isaac were the last to leave. “I guess this means goodbye,” Elizabeth said.
“Yes, it does.” Rachel choked on the words. “We had a good run. I hope your new captain is good to you.”
“Good bye,
Rachel. I will miss you.”
“Good bye, Elizabeth. I will miss you, too.”
DEPLOYMENT - CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
THE TRIP BACK TO ERETZ took six months. They made several interim stops along their seemingly erratic route to take crew members where they had wanted to go. Peter, of course, was perfectly amenable to taking them wherever they felt like they might wish to go whenever they might wish to go there. As a cargo ship, that was what he did. Buddy and Daisy had headed directly home so Peter traveled without escort. In the course of their travels they had picked up some cargo along the way and made more than one detour from their planned itinerary to deliver it to its destination. Peter and his friends from Eretz traveled the “long way home” route and the long time traveling was good for all those who had spent the past several years on an odyssey roaming from one disaster to another.
The last stop before returning home was New St. Louis. The only humans who remained on board when they left New St. Louis for Eretz were the original six who had traveled with Peter to join the Space Force Academy and the spouses of those that had them. Alina, Sabrina had flown with Buddy and Daisy and the rest of the P I ships directly back to Eretz.
At New St. Louis, they picked up cargo intended for delivery to Eretz. Along with the normal types of cargo in the hold and in the traditional shipping containers, they picked up four prototype spacecraft the designers at Saturn Industries new prototyping facility were sending to the engineers at Eretz for further development and testing.
The prototypes were two samples of two different types of smaller vessels. The new ships had not yet been fueled and their batteries had not yet been charged so there was no way for the curious minds on Peter’s flight deck to learn much about the ships. Without the computers functioning, they could not be queried, but then, neither could they be tampered with. In a hurry to finish the last leg of the journey, they made the jump from New St Louis and traveled the whole way at two G which enabled them to arrive before they were expected.
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