by Daniel Gibbs
“We were considering making your brevet rank permanent, if you desire. It’d come with a different posting, though, most likely to the war planning committee,” MacIntosh explained.
David shook his head. “If I have any input on the matter, sir, I’d prefer to remain with the Lion. I believe my contribution to the war is best made from the front. Rank doesn’t matter to me.”
“I was hoping you’d say that, General,” MacIntosh commented dryly. “You still need some seasoning at O-6 before we move you up.”
“Of course, sir,” David replied with a twinge of color creeping into his cheeks.
“That settles it, then. As of 1100 hours today, your brevet will expire,” Spencer interjected. “Now, tell us what happened out there.”
“Overconfidence perhaps? I think we were all pretty certain we were going to fly in there and put the hurt on the League. The appearance of the mines was a massive shock, but in the end, and at great cost, we won the day. I put that on the dedication, training, and motivation of our troops.”
“Did the Saurians show any signs of giving up?” Spencer questioned.
“Not at all, sir. If anything, after the death of Admiral Kartal, they were even more energetic. I saw absolutely no evidence of the Royal Saurian Navy doing anything but prosecuting the war to the fullest possible extent.”
“We were concerned that with the loss of the admiral, on top of so many ships at once, they might be reevaluating the alliance. There’s been some calls in their version of the press for backing out, along with protests against ‘helping the chimps’,” MacIntosh said.
“They do realize we’re not chimpanzees, right?” David asked with a chuckle.
“It’s been their go-to slur for us for a couple of hundred years. There’ll always be some segment, no matter how small, of their population that looks at us as the ones who wrecked the perfect Saurian empire,” Spencer said. “There’s another matter we need to discuss, David. I understand there was an incident involving Colonel Demood?”
David glanced uncomfortably at MacIntosh, then back to Spencer. He assumed the report he’d sent to General MacIntosh had been shared with the president. “Um, well, sir. I received a message from one of the Marines under his command, and I discussed the matter with Colonel Demood. He’ll be receiving treatment for acute PTSD.”
“I realize your desire to protect Colonel Demood, David. However, I need to know right now what he did, and how bad it was.”
David cleared his throat. Dang it, I can’t lie to the President of the Terran Coalition, and I can’t toss Calvin under the bus either. “Sir, I believe Colonel Demood lost control of himself and acted outside of CDF regulations in obtaining the access codes for Unity Station.”
“You mean he threatened to kill twenty thousand people, including civilians?” MacIntosh asked directly.
“Yes, sir. But if I may…” David began before MacIntosh cut him off in mid-word.
“You may not. I realize you respect Demood, and I realize both of you have saved each other’s lives more than a few times. That is no excuse for what I read in your report. Not to mention, I don’t believe it’s entirely the full picture.”
“It’s all there, sir. I questioned multiple officers regarding the events in the control room. Colonel Demood shot a League officer in the kneecaps, in addition to the station inhabitants he threatened to kill.”
“No one tried to stop him?” Spencer asked in dismay.
“They did, sir. Lieutenant Taylor begged him to stop and attempted to relieve him of command. His senior enlisted Marine tried to intervene as well.”
MacIntosh’s face clouded over. “I am profoundly disappointed to hear this.”
“Sir… I’ve wrestled with it. I know what he did was wrong. I also know without the weapons of that station, we wouldn’t have won. At least, it would have cost far more and broken our fleet. I don’t have an answer for you. I know what my conscience says, and I believe I’d never stoop to those lows. Something’s very wrong with Demood, though. He needs help, not the inside of a prison cell. He knows what he did was wrong… let’s not forget he put a gun to his head and had to be talked down.”
“There’s a reason why we say that war is hell,” Spencer said as he glanced between the two of them. “It warps and twists us, no matter how good or moral we try to be. God help us all, but this can’t see the light of day.”
“Mr. President—” MacIntosh began.
“Andrew, I already know what you’re going to say. And you’re right. We should prosecute Demood to the fullest extent of the law. What if we did? I suspect we’d lose most of our support in the neutral planets. The Saurians might walk, not because they disapprove, but because they’d find us weak. No, this is a secret we have to keep.”
“What if the people in that control room talk?” MacIntosh asked. “Play it out to the bitter end. It’d be worse than coming clean now.”
“A chance we’ll have to take.”
David looked at the floor. “I’m sorry, sirs. I should’ve realized something was wrong. I mean, I knew he was troubled. I thought it was just depression from losing all those Marines.”
“That’s what you get for assuming, General,” MacIntosh said tightly. “Let this be a lesson to you. Demood is on light duty for six months. No combat, no interaction with enemy personnel. Do not cross me on this.”
“Yes, sir.”
“We’ll evaluate him during that period,” Spencer interjected. “He’ll never return to duty unless a panel of shrinks clear him for combat. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I don’t like it, Mr. President,” MacIntosh stated in his gravelly tone. “We have to hold ourselves to the highest level of account. If we’re going to lay claim to the idea that we’re a nation of laws, driven by right and wrong, and define that with the moral codes of our religions, then we’d damn well better live up to it.”
“Noted, Andrew. We’ll see how Demood does in treatment. David, if he’s cleared and ever so much as steps out of line, you will pay the price.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now that that’s settled,” Spencer said, changing the subject, “we have a new ship class coming down the pipeline. General MacIntosh and his team have been taking the real-life information you’ve collected from the anti-matter reactor on the Lion, and they’ve created a smaller anti-matter reactor that is just as capable.”
David glanced toward MacIntosh as the older general waited patiently for the president to explain. That was almost too easy. I fear MacIntosh has lost respect for me. I wonder if I’m losing respect for myself… going over the line, making excuses for others.
“We’re going to put them in our new heavy cruisers,” MacIntosh explained. “They’ll be faster off the assembly lines, and we can get more of them in the field. We hope to have twelve of them commissioned and performing shakedown cruises within the next six months. That’s important to you because we’re going to create a battlegroup that’s made up of exclusively anti-matter powered starships. You will be the sharp tip of the spear invading the League’s core systems.”
A much-needed offensive and defensive firepower augmentation. At the same time, no rest for the Lion’s crew. We’ll see the worst of it, all the way to Earth. “It’s exciting news, sir. I know I speak for the entire crew of the Lion of Judah when I say we’d be honored to lead the way.”
“The next six months will give us time to make good on our recent losses, as well as deploy our latest generation of upgrades to the Ajax class destroyers. We’re up to block five now, and according to the test results I’ve seen, each one is twice as capable as a block one or two boat. We’ve also been allowing the Saurians to make some of our ships on contract… that’ll be a nasty surprise to our friends in the League.”
“The technology race is as important as ever. It very well may be the margin for success, or failure. But that’s up to Andrew and his program executive office,” Spencer said while flashing a smi
le at MacIntosh. “Your mission for the next few months, once you’ve completed your refit, that is, will be to fly the flag among our recently liberated systems and the neutral worlds. Our hope is that the purging of the League for our arm of the galaxy will allow us to cajole many of those planets into joining us, or at the very least, joining the Canaan Alliance.”
Oh great, we get to babysit diplomats now. Our best place is on the front, not in the rear. “Of course, sir, wherever we can best serve.”
“Don’t worry, David,” Spencer commented, apparently sensing his unease. “We’re not going to stick you on PR duty. We just have to see to our frontier, and the best ship for the task is our symbol of victory; the Lion of Judah. It’ll give you an opportunity to do something besides combat for a while and allow your crew some time to recuperate.”
“Sir, are there any projections yet for how long the invasion of the League will take, causalities, etc.?” David asked.
“Depends on who you ask. Some planners believe the outlying League planets will welcome us as liberators. Others believe we’ll face a scorched earth fight the entire way, having to clear out every last League soldier on each planet we invade. In the end, it doesn’t matter. Defeating the League once and for all is the only option we have, short of a peace treaty that imposes harsh restrictions on their ability to project power.”
David nodded as Spencer spoke. “It could take years, perhaps decades.”
“It’s a sobering thought. I believe the League’s planets will start melting away once we’re knocking on the door,” MacIntosh said.
“I hope you’re right, Andrew. But in the eighteen months I have left in office, I’m going to do everything I can to leave this fight set up properly for the next president,” Spencer commented as he turned back toward David. “Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us, General Cohen. Your insight is greatly valued, and in the coming months, you’ll be called on to help us craft a strategy to defeat the League, even as you remain as the Lion’s commanding officer.”
“I’ll do everything I can to help defeat the League sir,” David said with finality.
“Enjoy your last few hours of being a general,” MacIntosh commented wryly. “We’ll see about giving it back one of these days.”
David smiled politely; he wished his father could’ve seen him wearing the star. “Yes, sir!”
“Very well, Mister Cohen, you are dismissed,” MacIntosh replied.
David stood and braced to attention before turning on his heel and walking out of the office. Yeah, Dad would have loved to see this day. Maybe he can see it from wherever he’s at now. I can live in hope of that. He walked out down the maze of passageways toward the shuttle berths. The coming months would present a new challenge, but one he was ready to face.
40
After departing the station, David had a 1000 CMT meeting with Hanson already scheduled in his day cabin, which he ended up having to jog through the ship to make. Getting to his desk with only a couple of minutes to spare, he sat with a sigh. Realizing he was very thirsty, he popped open the mini-frig he kept underneath one side of the desk, pulled out a bottle of chilled water, and downed it in one gulp.
A couple of minutes later, Hanson walked through the open hatch. “Good morning, sir.”
“Good morning, Major. Have a seat,” David replied, watching Hanson as he first closed the hatch to the office, then dropped into the seat nearest his desk. “Thank you for joining me. I wanted to discuss your after-action report, and some items related to our refit.”
“Of course, sir. What would you like to start with?”
“After-action report. I read in your notes that we had repeated problems with coolant failures and overloads of the capacitors for primary weapons and shields.”
“Yes, sir. In our first engagement, after shields were lost, one of the mine explosions caused catastrophic damage to our primary cooling and anti-matter containment system. If it wasn’t for the heroic actions of several crewmembers, the ship could have been lost, or left combat ineffective at best,” Hanson stated.
“You singled out Private Doris Hunter for heroism.”
“Yes… she stayed at her post and manually shunted coolant into the reaction chamber. Even after everyone else cleared out with the alarms showing an explosion warning… it cost her both legs and her right hand.”
“I gave her a Purple Heart a before the second battle at Unity,” David replied, thinking back to the young private who had encouraged him to keep going and not feel sorry for her.
“I’d like to submit her for the Medal of Honor.”
“Of course. It’ll take some time to process.”
“Roughly two years. In the meanwhile, could you give her something else?”
“You name it.”
“Silver Star now?”
“I think I can make that happen before I’m magically no longer a general in an hour,” David replied with a smile.
“Field promotion to corporal?”
“Done.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Now, about our refit,” David began. “What’s the overall status of the ship?”
“Pretty severe damage to our fore superstructure, to the point we can’t recover fighters from the A ramp. B ramp sustained minor damage, but it’ll take a couple of weeks to clear out the mess and repair everything. Armor plating took a real beating too.”
“The League threw everything it had at us, and then some,” David observed. “Six weeks is realistic, in your opinion?”
“Yes, sir,” Hanson replied, loosening up just a smidgen. “I always pad it, just a bit.”
David couldn’t help but smirk in return. “Yeah, I figured engineers always padded the damage estimates a bit to look good. How’d the reactor upgrade we got work during this engagement?”
“Well, we’re still in one piece,” Hanson deadpanned. “All in all, the ship’s systems are working well. I do have concerns around the safety systems of the anti-matter reactor, though.”
“Oh?”
“Based on the behavior experienced, I believe we need to install a fourth-tier redundant safety control system around the cooling and matter/anti-matter mixer.”
“Did you talk to Doctor Hayworth about it?”
“Yes, sir… he’s not in agreement.”
“If you think it’s the right call, do it anyway,” David responded. “I trust your judgment, Major.”
“Thank you, sir,” Hanson said. “Our next package of upgrades is ambitious. Mine dispensers in the aft of the ship, upgraded VRLS with a faster reloading mechanism and…” He paused for effect. “…Saurian tech for our magnetic cannons.”
David’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh?”
“Their double-loading system. We’ll be able to fire EMP rounds in combination with either high-explosive or armor-piercing shells.”
“They gave us that?” David asked, incredulous.
“I understand we’ve given them some of our advanced reactor technology in return.”
“I’m sure they want our anti-matter reactor,” David mused. “Can’t see us parting with it any time soon.”
“Maybe not, but our latest generation fusion reactors are far better than theirs. Even that technology would be a significant upgrade for them.”
David nodded his understanding. “Always a technology race.”
Hanson bit his lip. “There is something of a perverse downside with this ship’s technology.”
“How so?” David asked, curious as to the answer.
“Well… the Lion has been in constant combat for the last three months. We’ve lost less than five percent of our crew KIA, less than ten percent WIA. While that’s still many, many people, it's nowhere as near the loss of late on other capital ships.”
“Completely accurate statement, Major. One I tend to be relieved by.”
“I’ve noticed lately that each loss seems much worse because I’ve become used to seeing the same faces on this ship.”
&n
bsp; That’s an interesting take on it, David thought. “Because there’s fewer losses?”
“Yes… the ones we have are more impactful. They’re not lost in the crowd, so to speak.”
“I’d be more worried if we were numb to seeing our friends and shipmates die,” David replied.
“I found it easier not to make attachments.”
“Wrong way of thinking about it, Hanson. If you go through life without friends, you lose out on great relationships. Despite the pain of losing them, it’s better to care. Trust me on this.”
“I’m sure you’re right, sir. I just don’t like it.”
“I don’t either. War is hell. I’m reminded of it daily, yet when we achieve a victory and destroy the enemy, I get this weird mix of overwhelming joy, mixed with pride, coupled with sadness and knowing that I shouldn’t be cheering the deaths of thousands of other people. Yet I do it anyway. I am certain that God, looking down on us, frowns when we take delight in the death of our enemy because as screwed up as the League is, they’re still his creations.”
“Maybe it’ll be over soon?” Hanson asked.
“Maybe. Do me a favor… have Private Hunter at the morning flag ceremony, day after next.”
“Yes, sir,” Hanson replied, looking somewhat bewildered. “May I ask why, sir?”
“You’ll see. Try to make it yourself too.”
“Of course, sir.”
“Anything else, Major?”
“No, sir. I’ll leave you to it,” Hanson replied as he stood up from the chair.
“Major,” David said, causing Hanson to stop his pivot away from the desk. “You did a fine job in this last series of engagements. Without your efforts, and those of your engineering team, we wouldn’t be here.”
“Thank you, sir. Got a great team,” Hanson said with a smile.
“So do I. That’s my secret.”
Hanson laughed. “Safe with me, sir.”
“Very well. Dismissed, Major.”
Kenneth had kept himself as busy as possible since the fleet had arrived back at Canaan, and aside from having to fill out an after-action report, he’d as much as possible tried not to think about the events of Unity Station. Unsure what his behavior meant, and still stung by Calvin’s words, he’d decided to just put it behind him and move on. He was finishing up a typical day, with a flurry of email and final reports, when the door chime sounded on his little office deep within the bowels of the Lion.
