"Here is supposed to delegate."
"Not in my military. We lead from the front, not the back."
He laughed.
"Have it your way Jon. But we can't afford to lose you."
"Sure you can. Everything is pretty much in place now. You just follow the plans."
"We'd rather follow you."
"Lemmings," I muttered.
"What was that?"
"Nothing. Just going senile."
He went serious suddenly.
"Welcome to the club Jon. We all feel much older than we are. You'll get used to it."
"Hell, I hope not."
"Where's the Sphere?"
"On its way to the LA jump point. I'll have a tug going after it as soon as it's safe for it. Where do you want it taken?"
"Denver. The shipyard there is building extensions for it."
"Do you want us to fight our way back there?"
"The jury is still out. What do you think?"
"We can bleed them at every jump point, and slow them down. But is it worth the risk for five or so extra hours? Maybe less if they keep throwing bigger and bigger masses at us? On the other hand, if we don’t fight them for the next few jump points, they won't be able to predict where we'll hit them again. On the gripping hand, it may not matter at all."
"How so?"
"They figured out how to move their ships past the jump point limit, because we forced them to. Have you looked at the Navmap down spine?"
"No, can't say I have."
The ship shook to a major hit, and I looked at the HUD display I had up. Another huge mass of ships had come through. We'd blown a hole in the center of the new mass, but the outsides were flying off in all directions.
While we'd been talking, Susan had moved the three Titans into point blank range, so they could take the heat for the rest of the withdrawing fleet. Our shields were holding. But I didn’t expect that to last for long. Grace had the center seat now, George lounging in my chair. I smiled, and turned back to Jedburgh, in time to see him lurch as Hammer took a major hit. Both of us ignored it.
"There used to be blockage points at key places down the spine, where they simply couldn’t get enough ships through, forcing them to mass to wait their turn. Now? They are massing everywhere, and jumping huge numbers through at a time. We may have delayed them over four days here, but the price was speeding up the rate of advance of their reinforcements."
"You did warn us of that. We had to try though."
"Yes. Back to the question though. Do we bleed them? Or fall back to Denver and prepare to meat grind them there instead of just whisk them?"
"It's your decision Jon."
"You're my advisor. Advise me."
"Jon," interrupted Jane. "Stop playing with the man. You know you already decided."
I sighed.
"Sorry Darius. We fall back like we did before. We gained some time, and we're ahead of the curve. It's not worth risking ships and crews."
"I'll tell Susan then. See you in Denver."
"Thanks. See you there."
He nodded, and the hollo vanished.
"The German Admiral wants a word," said Jane.
"Hold him off until we're well on our way to the planet. Tell George I'll be wanting my chair back."
"Confirmed."
I gave them both time to move, and carrying Angel, reclaimed my seat. I immersed myself in the tactical situation, particularly watching our shields.
"Now," I muttered to myself.
As if she'd heard me, Susan gave the order.
"Titans withdraw!"
The three ships shot off in different directions, curving around towards our waypoints, rapidly getting up to fleet speed. I paid particular attention to what Sceptre's turrets were doing, noting they were tracking around and altering heights as we turned, without apparently missing a shot as we left. Only when we left Titan guns range, did all the guns stop firing.
"Jane, now might be a good time to address that alignment issue on all three Titans."
"What alignment issue?" asked George.
Jane told him.
"Ouch!" said Grace.
I sent George off to eat and have a break, asking for a few of them to eat with him. They all left. Grace was chuckling quietly to herself at the Helm. I assumed she'd been caught up.
"How'd I do," Susan asked from her hollo.
"You're ready for my job," I told her.
"Hell no. I don’t want my job, let alone yours. Seriously though, how'd I do?"
"For what I saw, pretty well spot on."
"I understand now why you looked so exhausted after every battle. Figuring out the timing and giving the orders is more stressful than I thought."
"Fleet One is in good hands though."
"It can be in other hands for a while now. I'm going to eat, and then sack out for a while."
"Enjoy."
The hollo vanished.
"Jeeves, finger food please. Grace?"
"I ate."
"On its way my Lord."
I stayed in the CCC well into the evening, long after Angel had shot out looking for her own dinner, and giving George as long a break as possible, letting Grace be in charge, although Jane was doing the actual flying. It wasn’t until Carter came aboard, when I called George back, and went to see how Aline was.
Carter was checking the information displays on Aline's care unit.
"She looks normal, and should come out of it shortly. Which is more than I can say about you."
"Sorry what?"
"You look like death warmed up Jon."
"Did they tell you I nearly died this afternoon?"
"No. They told me you did die this afternoon."
"They exaggerated a bit."
"Any period of unconsciousness?"
"A short one. Five minutes I think Jane said."
"Hmmm."
Aline stirred. I leaned over so she could see me. Her eyes had trouble focusing at first, but they settled on my face. She sat up abruptly, and smashed her right fist into my left eye, knocking me clean off my feet. My head hit the floor, and there was only black.
Thirty Two
"Welcome back sunshine," said Carter.
"How long was I out?"
"All night. I let the care unit balance you again."
"How's Aline?"
She laughed.
"Next time I want to put you out and don’t want to use meds, I know who to call."
"That wasn’t what I asked."
"She's fine physically. But you returning from the dead, again, is going to mess with anyone's head when they're your girlfriend."
"I guess so. Had to be done, and I wasn’t going to risk anyone else."
"You keep telling yourself that."
"Which part?"
"Both."
I sighed, and took myself back to my suite for a shower. The shower waited upon the pleasure of Angel. I gave in on the urge to check the closet space. Aline's civvies were still there. I mulled it over under the hot water, and stood in front of the mirror for a bit.
When I walked into the CCC, I checked the navmap first. We were on our way to San Diego, which added up to we'd spent barely 6 hours over Los Angeles. George was in the center seat, yawning. He looked at me, and suddenly grinned.
"Have you been here all night?"
"No. Grace was here until two, while I had a sleep. I've been here since then. The schedule is a little messed up."
"Did you eat yet?"
"No. Carter said you’d be here soon, so I've been waiting for you."
"How did Los Angeles go?"
"Milk run. Galactica and Enterprise were already there. All the people who wanted to leave had already been found, and it was mainly a salvage exercise. Do you know just how much Cargo space there is on this ship?"
"None?"
"Right. No. You could fit a Cruiser in the amount of empty space there is, but none of it is actually wasted space. Jane's been making cargo containers,
and the cargo droids are now filling them from what was just dumped aboard. We ransacked a whole planet, and by the time it's racked and stacked, you won't even notice the space is missing."
"Go get some food George. When we get to San Diego, spend some time on Fearless."
"About that boss?"
"What?"
"I think you should find another captain for Fearless. I need to be here."
"Why?"
"What I said about the team applies to me as well. The only thing wrong with being over there, is the team is over here."
"I'll think about it."
"Thanks boss."
"Send Alison to see me when she has a moment, will you?"
"Sure thing. You want some advice boss?"
"Hit me."
"Give Aline some space. She almost melted down when they found out where you went, and she simply collapsed when we thought you were dead. Again."
The last word seemed to echo.
"I doubt anything I do or say at the moment will be right."
"We're men. We're never right."
He laughed, and I chuckled with him. He took himself off. For a guy, he was amazingly insightful about women, for someone who didn’t have one special one. I started looking at the navmap again.
"You wanted me Jon?" said Alison, and I jerked, not having heard her come in.
"You didn't have to come immediately."
"I didn’t. George passed the message on an hour ago."
Time passes when you're tracking aliens. I waved her to a seat, then climbed down and took the one next to her. She smiled for a moment, and was serious.
"Why did you become the team admin?"
"What a strange question. Why would you want to know that?"
"I'm going somewhere with it. Please just answer."
"As a Lieutenant in the Australian Militia, all of us officers did a stretch in various admin sections, in between combat rotations. I was the only one who actually liked it. Naturally, in the team it fell to me by default. Why?"
"How do you rate Aline as an all-round officer?"
"I don’t. She's missing a lot of what junior officers have to go through in order to get proper grounding. Not unusual for Warrant Officers, but any of them who want to progress, usually go to Officer training schools to get what they missed out on. Why?"
"Could you teach her to be an aide?"
"Sure, but why would you want me to?"
"An aide would go everywhere I do."
She looked at me.
"Jon, that’s sweet, but hardly practical. I've known Aline a long time, but truth to tell, I've got no idea what she thinks of admin work, since I've never seen her do any. It's all fallen on me."
"You could teach her?"
"Sure. But is it a good idea?"
I sighed. I didn't know if it was or not. Alison looked at me with a serious face. Something else popped in.
"As team admin, and Annabelle's aide, would it be your job to do any junior officer training which came up as a matter of routine?"
"Yes. Hasn’t happened since I went merc though."
"I was thinking about Grace as well. She hasn't had anything except pilot training, and now she's acting as Second Officer, in a fleet position. Shouldn’t she be getting fleet officer training now?"
"Ideally, she should have had it before you gave her the chair."
"Nothing about this situation is ideal. I didn’t really give her the chair. She just happened to be a third pilot in the CCC when I needed one. But for the sake of argument, you're the training officer, and there are two officers who've missed some important training. What do you do?"
"I bring it to the attention of my CO."
"You have my attention."
"Sir, there are two officers in your command who have taken on responsibilities without the requisite training. Permission to map out a training course for them, and counsel them on where an Officer in this command might aspire to in the future, followed by training to that end. Sir."
"Permission granted. Carry on Colonel."
"Aye sir."
She grinned at me, and left.
We arrived at San Diego, and the troops went in as usual with the evacuation ships. I went down to observe. The cities were empty, but we quickly found a town which had been overlooked because of a com failure in the region.
I was standing in the center of town, watching people move in the direction of Gatherer, when Amanda and Aleesha came up to me with an officer I didn’t know. Even without insignia, I would have pegged her as a highly trained ground pounder. She had much the same look BA did, only in a much smaller package. Not that BA was all that big herself.
"Jon," said Amanda, forgetting protocol, "this is Colonel Jody Mills, American Peacekeepers."
"Colonel. Welcome aboard."
"Admiral. Thank you."
She stared at my face for a moment.
"Something on my face?"
The twins sniggered.
"Admiral? Sorry sir. I was wondering how with your level of tech, you could possibly get such a magnificent shiner?"
I sighed.
"Girlfriends are not considered a threat by the suit software."
The twins couldn’t keep it in, snorted, and started laughing. Mills had the decency to look alarmed as the twins laughed, but when I lost it myself, she joined in. It took a few minutes, but after we'd attracted some strange looks from people going past, we regained some measure of control.
"I have to admit I'd never heard of the Peacekeepers Colonel, until I was told you were replacing my SAS troops."
"We were formed after the Midgard war. The first battalion went into Midgard to straighten the place out. The second battalion went into Pompeii, as soon as they rejoined the American sector and requested aid. When this bun-fight kicked off, we were hastily retrained for civilian crowd control in emergency situations, police actions on stations or ships, and evacuation protocols. I hadn't expected to end up with you though."
"SAS troops wanted to see home one more time before we pulled out."
"Understandable. We all said goodbye to our homes when we deployed to Hawaii."
"Where is home Colonel? Texas?"
"Hell no. I don’t have that bad an accent do I? No place actually. Born on a station to serving officers, and joined the Corp without even considering how stupid I was being."
"Stupid?" asked Amanda, sounding confused.
"Parents were fleet officers. I joined the Corp to get away from them. Promised myself I'd stay in good old dirt instead of breathing recycled air all the time. Look at me now!"
"I can't see how they'd be anything more than proud of you Colonel."
"Maybe would, if pirates hadn't destroyed their ship while I was in boot. I feel I owe you sir."
"Owe me?"
"You took out all them sons a bitches. Something I was never able to do from dirtside. So you need something done sir? You know who to call."
"Carry on Colonel."
She saluted me, waited for my response, and marched off.
Amanda looked at my eye, and began smiling again.
"Don’t you two have something better to do than harass your commanding officer?"
Thirty Three
"The German Admiral is in your Ready Room," said Jane, as I walked back into the CCC.
I changed direction. Inside, I found the three star who headed up the German forces. He stiffened to attention as I entered. I moved to my desk, and sat.
"Admiral Werner Klemperer, reporting for disciplinary action, Admiral."
He spoke English with a heavy German accent.
"At ease, Admiral."
He remained standing there rigidly.
"Sit. That’s an order."
He reluctantly sat. But he couldn’t look me in the eye.
"What's your problem?"
"I broke ranks without orders, and then disobeyed a lawful order of the officer currently in charge of the fleet. Sir."
"Explain."
/>
"Sir, we've never trusted the Fourth Reich since they were given their own system. I guess you could call us paranoid about them. From the day we joined your fleet, I'd been waiting for them to reveal their true intensions. The moment we heard you'd died, I just knew it was the time, and sure enough they started pulling out. My flag captain started firing on them immediately, and the rest of our ships followed. Even if I’d wanted to, I couldn’t have stopped us chasing them. Admiral Bentley ordered us to cease fire and return to our positions, but I ignored her."
He shifted uncomfortably.
"Admiral, I'm an old fool. It never occurred to me you'd be ten steps ahead, fake your own death to trigger them into action, and have your AI all ready to take them down. I regret I didn’t inform you of my suspicions and seek your orders in advance. I submit myself for discipline."
Fake my own death? I put it aside.
"Who's the highest ranking officer in the German forces Admiral?"
"I am."
"And who was responsible for building that defense platform?"
"I was. It’s a pity it wasn’t practical, considering all the work put into it."
"Oh it was practical. No doubts there. But you saw the result of using something so effective, in Hawaii. It was too early to use something like that, and it wasn’t going to last long enough either."
"So you think it was worth doing?"
"I think it's worth improving."
"How?"
I told him.
"With all due respects sir, how can something like that be any use to us?"
I told him.
"But that’s…Sorry sir. I defer to your judgment."
"Where are the team who designed and built the platform?"
"Scattered across our ships sir."
I thought for a moment.
"Jane?"
"Sir?"
"You know the officers responsible for the German fleet breaking ranks?"
"I do."
"How many?"
"Two or three on each ship. Mainly Captains and XO's. But in a few cases, junior officers lied to their superiors."
"Those responsible are relieved of all duties immediately. Do we have a fast freighter with life support available?"
"Zippy was equipped for people moving. She's currently unloading planet resources here."
"The officers now without responsibilities will be going to Denver for special duties."
Hero to the End (The Hunter Legacy Book 13) Page 16
