Well-Traveled Rhodes (Kinsella Universe Book 6)

by Gina Marie Wylie

  Bethany froze. “A love letter? I can't imagine something like that from David.”

  “I have no idea, Commander. But you were saying you'd messed up, that he loved you and that you'd messed up the relationship.”

  Bethany sagged back in the bed. “I don't remember. I guess, at some point, I'll read it. I promise I won't go 'round the bend again, Commander.”

  “That's good. We need everyone we can get, just now. Commander -- we lost the crews and took damage to more than a hundred ships. Tens of thousands more died on Grissom Station. We really can't afford malingerers.”

  Commander Booth grinned wanly. “I guess not. Two broken wings and a busted foot!”

  “One last thing, Commander,” Cindy told her. “I've been where you are now. You feel lower than you've ever felt before. We may never know exactly what happened, but your brainstorm coincided with what happened aboard Grissom Station. We weren't physically docked, but almost all of the ships in the vicinity of the station had problems. Some of them lost people, Commander. When Pixie realized that I'd twigged to what was going on, she kept putting distractions in my way.

  “I think that was what happened to you.”

  “That would be a good theory -- except I had my implant removed.”

  “It's still a good theory. In close proximity to one of the computers they no longer need an implant. Your father, Commander, died trying to warn station security that the station computer was going rogue. Admiral Warner died when she tried to warn the entire station. When Tiger's Marines boarded there was no significant resistance from station staff -- everyone appeared to have already died. But Grissom attacked the Marines as well. There are preliminary reports of combat damage aboard the station not inflicted by the Marines.

  “The station tried to stop the Marines, but if you're warned, you're forearmed. You can fight it. Most of the station's crew died fighting it. Many of Tiger's sisters, with the exception of Grissom station, died fighting it.

  “You would have had no reason to suspect an attack.”

  “Why me?”

  “Everyone else aboard, with the exception of the Marines, are old Shore crew. Marines don't seem to be as easy to take over...” Cindy knocked her fingers against her skull. “Ozark Marines -- nothing but empty space between their ears.”

  Lieutenant Zodiac made a rude noise, and the medic stuck his tongue out at Cindy.

  “Commander, you weren't the target, I was. You were to distract me, to delay our reaction.”

  “Did I?”

  “Some, not much,” Cindy told her.

  “I'm such a fool...”

  “No, you're not a fool. Someone snuck up behind you and jumped you when you were unaware. Don't knock yourself for what you couldn't help.”

  Cindy waved at Tam. “I've had the help of a lot of friends to get past what happened to me. You'll get it too, Commander.”

  *** ** ***

  The largest issue in the days after that, one that Cindy had no input in -- and was glad of it -- was what to tell the public. Telling dirty-feet it was an engineering malfunction would have worked -- except that was with dirty-feet. Rim Runners wouldn't have accepted the explanation for more than a few seconds.

  Further, no one in the Fleet wanted to lie to the rest of the Fleet. So, while Cindy had no input, she stood next to Admiral Zinder to explain to Tiger that the Federation was going to go with a full explanation.

  “You understand that will mean a considerable degree of hysteria?” Cindy warned. “A great many hurtful things are going to be said?”

  “We understand. We are assured that the Federation means us no ill and that's all the assurance we need. Individuals and small groups from Earth -- they are no consequence.”

  “Politically, they are,” Cindy reminded her.

  “You should realize that your species is in the process of splitting. Those who live and work in space are empiric and pragmatic -- going with things they see work. Most of the planet-dwellers are overly concerned with feelings and soft ideologies that have little or no basis in physical reality. As I said, they are of little consequence, and what little consequence they have is shrinking steadily.

  “The war has caused Rim Runners to reexamine a great many of their basic precepts, to find that while they were accurate enough, they were limited in scope. Now they are widening their horizons. In the future you will be a far tougher opponent.

  “But not to us. We had planned on going a considerable distance away. Now we're going to go even further than that.”

  “And if you run into another species?” Cindy said, half-joking.

  “We have two examples to base conclusions on. You are willing to talk, no matter what the differences are -- and the aliens we face are not. One of the questions in the early days of space flight -- particularly interstellar flight -- was 'where are the aliens?' All sorts of scholarly work was done trying to calculate how many other species might be out there.

  “It would be -- regrettable -- if most species were interested in playing lethal 'king of the mountain' games. Winner take all, death to the losers. That strikes us as a suicidal path for development. You humans say it well: 'There is always someone out there bigger than you are.'

  “So, we will go in peace, and if attacked we'll do what we're doing now -- we will move further away still.”

  “And the proposal that some of you may stay, if they give up the ability to control us except with their voices?”

  “You now have detectors that show when we try to use control technologies; we have no problems with you employing them. As we said before, we won't use them again; but you have every reason to be careful.

  “I put it to Master's Game that we could simply assign someone to remain behind. The idea was not appreciated, and she reminded me that this whole matter was solely because we completely misunderstood the human desire for autonomy. None of our sisters have volunteered to remain behind.

  “Obviously, we'll have no way to know if you create those similar to us to experiment on. But, we would think ill of you if you did.”

  “We have protocols to control even the mildest experimentation with others of our species. There are protocols nearly as extensive controlling experimentation on the higher animals. Since the twenty-first century it has been a capital crime to create sentient life for the purposes of experimentation. You and your sisters fell into a crack in our rules; those rules have already been changed to include sentient machines.”

  She turned to Admiral Zinder. “Sir, is there anything you wish to say?”

  “I wish there was something I could say as elegantly as you, Commander. No, I have nothing to add.”

  So, the whole matter was made public. To say the public reaction was varied was a vast understatement. Rogue computers had long been a fictional horror topic; the reality created a great unease.

  Still, the vast majority of people realized that however discomforting that was, the threat had been met, overcome and was going to be removed. There were a few riots, thousands of protests, and a few violent incidents.

  *** ** ***

  Six months after the disaster at Grissom Station, Tiger departed the solar system, headed for Snow Dance with a human crew of about eight hundred.

  Cindy, Tam, Chief Irgun and Commander Booth were ordered to report to Admiral Ibn Saud.

  “This is it, XO,” Tam said. “The last shoe.”

  “I guess so.” Cindy turned to Commander Booth, who was very silent these days. “Have you heard anything, Bethany?”

  “No, no I haven't. I've spent every waking moment since... since...” She stopped for a second and cleared her throat. “I've spent a lot of time working with the Splitters on splat communications. We're making some progress at long last, but it's still slow.”

  Admiral Ibn Saud was standing on the bridge of his flagship, the Black Rock, with the low hum of bridge operations surrounding him.

  “Lieutenant Commander Cynthia Rhodes reported as ordered, sir.”

>   “Requested, Commander,” the admiral said with a laugh. “Admiral Fletcher has made it clear that until further notice the rest of us can only make requests.”

  “Sir, we're here.”

  He chuckled again. He turned to Commander Booth. “You father was a fine officer, Commander. Normally I'd tell you how his loss was a terrible blow to the Federation -- but the sad fact is that he was one of many; many, many terrible blows suffered at once.”

  “Yes, sir,” Bethany replied, still subdued.

  “In spite of your august company at the moment, I'm going to speak to you first. You have three choices of assignment, Commander. You may continue the work you've been about of late... I'm not privy to its nature -- only its importance.

  “A second choice is a ship assignment. You can have any department aboard a Dragon-class vessel, or failing that, you can be the XO of any cruiser in the Federation -- except Black Rock.”

  Cindy blinked. That was... rude.

  “Sir, I've always thought of myself as a staff officer. My father said he was a staff officer. I can't help but think of my friend, David Zinder. He'd have told me that others are already doing what I could do as a staff officer. Sir, I'd like the intelligence department of the next Dragon-class vessel to commission.”

  “That will be the Cougar, Commander. And of course, you get a bump to full commander.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “You may stay or depart for your ship; they are starting to board new crew in two days.”

  “I can afford a short wait, sir.”

  The admiral nodded to her, and then turned to Cindy.

  “Admiral Gull has sent a named draft for you, Commander. Admiral Fletcher was most apologetic -- Admiral Gull is coming home to once again take command at Snow Dance. The computers still have an outpost there and there are still a thousand of them to be transferred. Once he's done with that, he's going to get an entirely new hat. Forward Area Commander, back at Adobe. He'll be coordinating offensive operations against the aliens.

  “In the past the ships for that came from Earth; we're going to permanently reinforce Adobe. The Federation has been reluctant to risk civilian colonists there since we identified the threat axis. The Federation is going to put another ten million people into the system. Babies! Lots of babies! The Forward Fleet is going to be permanently based there. There will still be some movement, back and forth, but mostly people assigned to Adobe will live out their lives there.”

  Cindy kept her face expressionless.

  “So, no, you won't go to Admiral Gull, so sorry.”

  Cindy tried not to show any emotion. She really didn't know if she wanted to go back to Adobe, even though Master's Game was gone from the system now. At least it wasn't on the table.

  “However, I've been assigned to Vice Admiral Gull as his number two. Black Rock has been my flagship since the war began. I've had a series of the most outstanding officers in the Fleet for my staff,” he inclined his head towards Bethany. “Including Commander Booth, once upon a time.

  “Thus, I have sent a number of named drafts to Admiral Fletcher. You, Commander Rhodes, Lieutenant Farmer, Chief Irgun, and of course your Marine support group under Lieutenant Zodiac and Master Gunny Hodges.

  “Moreover, I'm one of those officers who positively delights in giving BuPers a tough time. I have no tolerance for a dirty-foot telling me what I can and can not do.

  “So -- before he died, Admiral Booth recommended you for promotion. So did Admiral Gull, Admiral Fletcher, and President Van de Veere. I discussed the situation with Admiral Fletcher and added my own recommendation.

  “We got together and coordinated. I recommended your promotion to full commander. We changed Admiral Booth's recommendation to one promoting you captain. Admiral Gull's to promoting you to rear admiral, and Admiral Fletcher recommending promoting you vice admiral.”

  “Irk!” Cindy managed, stunned.

  The admiral laughed. “You have no idea how much enjoyment we old dinosaurs got from twigging BuPers, Commander! We weren't serious -- not that we told them that. They finally agreed on two bumps. Congratulations, Captain Rhodes!”

  Cindy stood frozen. “I'm just nineteen.”

  “The age Alexander was when he conquered the known world. I'm afraid it's too late to catch up with him, Captain.

  “There are sweeteners! Tam Farmer is promoted commander is assigned as your XO. Your Marines get bumps, even Lieutenant Zodiac. Chief Irgun, you were a master chief before; you still are.

  “You, Captain Rhodes, are the new flag captain of Black Rock.”

  *** ** ***

  Cindy shrugged, settling her shipsuit in place, examining it once again to make sure it was perfect.

  She turned to Tam. “Are you ready for this, XO?”

  “My heart's desire! My heart is beating so hard, I'm afraid it's going to fly out of my chest. Yes, a million times yes!”

  “And you, Captain Zodiac?”

  “Do you know, sir, that a few minutes ago this airlock was exposed to hard vacuum? That it's colder than bejeezers in here? Could you get the lead out, Captain, sir? Please?”

  Tam laughed. “Marines! You gotta love them, in spite of themselves! Onward, Boss!”

  She saw the expression on her captain's face and smiled inwardly. Good enough and then some!

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Gina Marie was born in Texas, raised in Arizona and worked in IT consulting until she retired after the Y2K kerfluffle. Then, being footloose and fancy free, she opted to try her luck in film school. She gave that a whirl and afterwards returned to her beloved desert. Now she thinks she's a writer. Most of her English teachers despaired of her, but she has finally learned where periods go, sprinkles commas profusely through her work; although semicolon usage still eludes her.