Avi smiled. “We’re glad you called.”
“I’m sorry, I couldn’t get him out of this. The Dean of Students was adamant that Saul appear before his peers,” McGuire apologized.
Avi wrapped her arm around McGuire’s in that affectionate, controlling way she was known for. “If Rachel and her gang could survive the battleship project, Saul and his gang will survive this. Let’s find seats.”
Greg took Avi’s other arm and they entered the theater. They found seats on the aisle near the back of the theater.
The previous evening, the Academy’s Dean of Students had sent a message to Saul, Rebecca, Fiona and Sylvia ordering them to report to her office wearing dress blues at 0800 hours. A summons to the Dean’s office was enough to make them nervous, but they knew from other students who had been summoned that the instruction to wear dress blues meant that the summons was not about something they had done, but something, generally unpleasant, the Dean wanted them to do. Still a summons from the Dean of Students was not to be ignored. At 0755, they assembled in the corridor outside the office. At 0759, they entered the outer office. The Dean exited the inner office as they arrived.
“You are all here. Follow me please.”
The Dean quickly walked across the courtyard to the rear entrance of the theater Saul and Rebecca’s grandparents had entered from the other side. Once inside the theater, the Dean led them to the Green Room where several of their instructors had gathered. She greeted each of the instructors in turn and turned back to the foursome who had followed her from her office. “Cadets, you have been tasked to participate in a training exercise. As you are probably aware, the Constant News Channel has broadcast a documentary about your participation at the battle of Stonebridge. Has any of you seen it?”
None of them had.
“Have you discussed this action with anyone other than yourselves?”
None of them had.
“In a few minutes you will follow me to the stage. You will be seated behind a table. On the large screens left and right and on the monitors in front of you we will show the documentary. There are two cameras in the audience and there will be one on the stage. This session will be simulcast throughout the Academy and then later rebroadcast in edited form on the Constant News Channel.”
“Commodore,” Saul asked his voice trembling, “can we not do this?”
“Cadet, what are you afraid of?”
“I didn’t want anyone to know how many mistakes I made. I could have gotten us killed more times than I want to think about,” Saul said. “I don’t want people thinking what we did was right.”
“Which is exactly what this is about. We want our cadets to understand what you were thinking and your analysis of what could have gone wrong so your example might be able to save the lives of others of our officers. If your instructors are happy with your work today, you will be exempt from final exams and can start your summer vacation early.”
Saul turned to Fiona, “Do you want to do this?”
“No, but we should get it over with as quickly as possible,” Fiona replied.
He turned to Rebecca.
“They should hear what we thought and why we did what we did,” Rebecca said thoughtfully.
“Sylvia?”
“I have opinions I wish to offer. We need to do this. People should know the truth.”
“Commodore, I have been outvoted. We will follow you.”
The Dean smiled and motioned for them to follow her. They stood for the Federation anthem and the pledge to the Federation flag. The Dean of Students went to the podium. “Honored Guests, Academy Faculty, Cadets, Ladies and Gentlemen, the cadets you see before you have participated in a military action that many of us here at the Academy believe should have failed. It defied many of the rules we teach here at the Academy and yet it succeeded with no losses. Today, we will discuss this action and see what we can learn from it. In order that as many people as possible have at least the basic understanding of the action, we will show the Constant News Channel’s breathlessly fawning documentary on the subject.”
Saul rose at his place behind the table. “Commodore, may I say something before we start?”
“Certainly.”
“We have not seen this documentary. I do not know how it makes us look. I want you to know I have never been so scared for so long. I lost track of the number of times we could have died. There was only one thought that drove me on. They were torturing my mother. I hope none of you ever have to face the knowledge that if you fail, the people you love the most will die horrific deaths. I can’t claim that anything I did was rational. I had no plan. All I knew was I had to find them and get them out. I will be forever grateful that these three wonderful people risked their lives to come with me.”
When Saul had seated again, the Dean looked to the others, “Ladies, would you like a word before we start?”
Fiona stood, “At the time we left the battleship, we believed our mothers would have died without our help. I did not feel I had a choice. From the moment we learned of their capture, it was up to us to rescue them. We did the best we could with what we had. We could have died, but we didn’t, and for a long time Swordsmen will wish that we had.”
Rebecca raised her fist in a “Power Salute” as Fiona sat. The three others raised their hands in salute as well.
The hand held camera zoomed in on the four of them in their salute as the documentary rolled.
The Constant News Channel had figured out that “Solomon Battle Group” was headed for Stonebridge, but had not figured out when or how they would arrive. They had inserted camera crews six months earlier in anticipation of the attack. The fact that Stonebridge would be attacked was widely acknowledged. The timing of the attack and the manner of attack were open guesses. The length of time that elapsed between the “Solomon Battle Group” leaving Eretz and their eventual appearance at Stonebridge had some believing that rather than attacking Stonebridge, the Solomon family had gone into hiding. Greg and Avi’s public appearances were seen as a diversion to obscure the rest of the family’s flight. The connection to Stellar Interstellar did not become apparent until after the battle at Stonebridge was over.
Even though the camera crews were hidden close to the Swordsman base, the first they knew anything was happening was when the power went out. They found themselves on the awkward position of having to reconstruct a battle that had already started while it was going on. Using images collected after the conclusion of the battle and in security camera recordings, they pieced together what they could determine about how the battle had started. They showed an image of Buddy sitting alone on the road obviously taken after everyone else had left to show where Buddy and Daisy had parked during the evacuation of the school building.
The Dean asked that the presentation be paused.
“Cadet Cohen, what can you tell me about that image?”
“It was taken at the end of the engagement, not at the beginning,” Saul said evasively.
“The ship has external missile racks.”
Greg, having heard rumors of the object of this line of questioning, pulled Avi to her feet and walked down the theater’s aisle toward the stage.
“Yes, it does,” Saul replied nervously.
“Some of those racks are full and some are empty. Why is that?” the dean asked.
“Some of the missiles were fired in combat,” Saul answered.
“Who fired them?”
“We did,” Saul said gesturing to Fiona.
The Dean pointed to the display. “It is my understanding that a P I ship cannot enter an atmosphere with external racks. Yet this one is clearly sitting on a road on the planet’s surface with missiles in its external racks. How do you explain that?”
“We backed it down slowly,” Saul replied.
“You backed two P I ships down slowly?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“At the same time?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
�
�Our resident flight engineers say that is impossible,” the Dean challenged.
Saul sighed. “My mother went to this Academy. She got in a lot of trouble for disagreeing with resident experts. So, if you don’t mind, can we move on to a different line of discussion?”
“I take it you disagree.”
Saul sighed again, “You know, I would disagree, but you see, it’s like this. When my mother disagreed and got in all that trouble, it was because she had done what she said she had done, and no one believed her. Now you are asking me to walk into the same kind of trap she did. I respectfully request that we change the subject.”
“Cadet! Answer the question!”
“Is that an order?”
“Yes! Cadet! Answer the question. That is an order!”
“Backing a P I ship into an atmosphere can be done. I know this because we did it with two ships, twice.” Saul cringed waiting for the blast he was sure was to follow.
The audience sat silent.
“Cadet Cohen, are you aware of the computations necessary to bring a P I ship in tail first?”
“No, the ship took care of all the math. My math skills leave something to be desired.”
“The ship took care of all the math. Is that what you said?”
“Yes.”
“How could that be?”
“The ship’s computers are programmed for that sort of thing. I’m not like my grandfather. I don’t understand all that programming stuff. I ask the ships to do something and, if they can, they do.”
“You ask the ship to do something.”
“Yes.”
“And it answers.”
“Yes.”
“Is the ship sentient?”
Saul slumped in his chair. The color drained from his face. He looked down at his hands.
“Cadet Cohen, answer the question. Is the ship sentient?”
Greg and Avi ascended the side stairs leading to the stage temporarily diverting the attention to them. The audience sat in silence as Greg moved to stand behind his grandson. “Yes, the ship is sentient,” Greg said calmly. He turned to Saul. “The secret has been out for a while.”
The Dean turned to Greg, “Commodore Solomon, this exercise does not involve you. Please leave the stage.”
“It does involve me because you have asked my grandson a question he could not answer without breaking a pledge to me. I have answered that question for him and released him from his pledge so he can truthfully tell you what he could not before. Might I also remind you that he is not a citizen of the Federation, but of Eretz and therefore not subject to some of your regulations.”
The Dean glared at Greg. “Cadet Cohen, is the ship shown in this image sentient?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Was the ship’s sentience a factor in its ability to back down into the planet’s atmosphere backwards?”
“Yes.”
“Was the ship’s sentience a factor in the outcome of the engagement?”
“Yes.”
“Do you believe that had your ships not been sentient that you could have survived this engagement?”
“No.”
“Are you aware of the prohibitions against creating sentient machines?”
“Yes.”
“Then how do you explain this one?”
“He was sentient before I was born.”
Those few in the audience who knew Saul well noticed a sudden shift in his voice. Instead of facing down at the table as he had been up to that point he turned to the Dean and said, “We have four sentient ships.”
He stood and and moved away from the table. His voice, which had been meek and restrained, grew stronger as he spoke until when he finished it carried the full power of his anger.
“One is a cargo ship, two are P I’s and one is a battleship. They all predate your stupid rules and without them, we would have lost the battle at Stonebridge. I owe my life and the lives of my parents and grandparents to those ships. You have pushed this far enough. If you wish to discuss the ethics of creating and using sentient ships, you should discuss that with the master who is standing behind me. If you wish to discuss how having them turned the tide of this one battle, then the four of us will be happy to walk you through the day minute by minute. If you wish to turn this into a mud slinging contest against my parents and grandparents, you need to look elsewhere.”
Fiona stood, and twined her arm with Saul’s. “That’s the man I love. Where’ve you been the last year?”
“Hiding.”
Rebecca slid over, “It’s about damn time cuz. Welcome back.”
Sylvia joined the others and said, “I was afraid they intimidated you so bad you’d never be yourself again.”
Saul stood taller and said, “Battle group prepare to engage.”
He spotted the wireless microphone on its shelf under the podium, and reaching in front of the Dean picked it up. “Let’s start over.”
They rolled the documentary back to the beginning. Assisted by Greg and Avi who filled in details not revealed even in the documentary’s reassembled security recordings, they pointed out errors and omissions in every minute of the documentary up to the point where the first of the torture victims was brought from the building to be transported to the waiting med ship. This was the point where the camera crews had caught up with the battle in progress and had captured images in real time. Avi was the first victim pulled from the building, Greg followed staggering behind. They were brought up in pairs with Rachel and Isaac being the last. The extent of the injuries and the brutality of the torture brought gasps of horror from the audience.
“This is our enemy,” Saul reminded them. “Expect no quarter. Give none.”
The camera crews’ treatment of the attempt to return the children taken from the school was some of their best work. They captured Saul’s reaction when he realized that women were fleeing in droves. They captured Fiona’s concern for the two forlorn little girls left alone at the edge of the pavement. They showed the hope in the eyes of the women and children as they boarded the ramp to a ship that would take them to an unknown destination knowing only that wherever they were going had to be better than where they were.
The final image was Buddy with his cartoon cowboy showing streaks of battle damage rolling down the road and lifting off into the sky with no people aboard.
Saul opened the floor for questions. A Space Force Commodore stood and addressed his question to Sylvia. “You repeatedly fault inadequate intelligence gathering for some of the challenges you faced. Do you understand the difficulty in gathering accurate information under those circumstances?”
“Yes, I do, but the problem is not the gathering of the information. The problem is its analysis and dissemination. The information we needed had been collected. It was hoarded in small pockets scattered across a dozen agencies none of whom trust each other. For example, the Federation Bureau of Drug Enforcement knew Lt. Col. Ramon Gutierrez was bogus. He was a small time drug runner and enforcer. Had that information been available to the Eretz Intelligence Service, we would never have fallen into his trap. Keep this in mind. Every secret you fail to share with your comrades in battle could send one of them to their deaths.”
“I know this,” Sylvia continued. “There are sources we are not using that we should be using. The broadcast media has sources we cannot match and I intend to be good friends with them. As the Intelligence Officer of this battle group, I intend to never again be caught by surprise the way we were at Stonebridge.”
Saul grinned. He had wondered where Sylvia saw herself fitting into the group and she had finally declared herself. He could not have been happier.
The questioning returned to Saul’s decision to take the captives and his admission that when he did it he had no idea why he thought it made sense. They talked for a long time about the difficulty of remotely controlling the AARV’s from the P I’s and the challenges involved with controlling the MMARV’s by remote control from the med ships. Saul c
redited the success of the MMARV operations to J. T.’s skills. Saul freely admitted that the MMARV vehicles provided the fire power and brute force he needed to break through the opposing forces.
A first year cadet in several of Saul’s classes seated in the front row stood and asked, “Do you still carry the 38 you used to kill Winthrop?”
“No, I gave it back to its rightful owner.”
Greg stepped forward. “Saul, you deserve this as much as I do.”
The pistol magically appeared in his hand. He held it flat in his open palm. “Take it. I have another. You earned this one. It has a long history. This is the gun that killed Pierre LaMarche.”
He looked into Saul’s eyes and smiled. “You will need to have your own holster made. I’m not giving that up.”
Saul took the weapon reverently with both hands and put it inside the breast pocket of his jacket. “Thank you.”
Still standing, the cadet asked, “What did it feel like to kill the man who tortured your mother?”
“Cold. Killing him did not take away her pain or the memories of what had happened. I killed him because he would have killed me. He was the last of a lot of people I killed that day. I try not to think about it. People die in wars. Some deserve to die. Some don’t. He did.”
Saul also spent a long time discussing the fact that the base’s defenses were focused on an attack from space. Having no ground based enemies, they assumed that no enemy could get through their defense network to attack them from the surface. Saul credited his ability to spot the weakness in the system’s defenses to his grandfather’s intense grilling of the intelligence officers who had briefed them. He took the opportunity to remind the people in the audience of a scenario from ‘Planetoid Defenders’ that bore striking similarities to what he had done and what the defenders should have done to thwart his attack.
Saul rolled back on his heels and laughed. “That’s where I got it!” He pointed at Greg. “It’s all his fault!”
Greg and Avi laughed with Saul until Saul said, “Let’s look at the same scenario in ‘Soldiers’. The ground forces mass at the transfer site and they lure the enemy out of the sky to a crushing defeat. Only we weren’t there! Not only that, we knew they would try to trick us and we trapped them just like in Planetoid!”
Solomon Family Warriors II Page 122
