by T J Mott
“It’s a trap,” Thad dismissed. “Those numbers are ridiculous. They must be plainly sending troops out the front door while quietly shuffling more in the back. They’re only pretending it’s underdefended, and I bet they’re setting up an ambush now.”
“No,” countered Abram. “Like you said, Avennia has finite resources. They withdrew from here because nobody would expect them to leave it underdefended. But they don’t realize how extensive Culper’s observation network is, or that we’d notice. If we strike there, we’ll nearly cripple the regime.”
Thad hardened his voice. “Abram, it’s a trap. We can’t attack there.”
The radio link fell silent for a few moments. “Chad, I know you must be very tired. Your platoon sergeant already told us about your mission last night. Why don’t you go get some rest, and the Council will deliberate on this further?”
“I agree,” Rhena said, having remained silent until now. “Great work, Mr. Messier. But your men are worried about you. Go get some rest, and we’ll meet with you later about this fusion reactor business. Until then, let’s adjourn this Council meeting and await further intel.”
The radio channel shut down and Thad rubbed his eyes. “Most obvious trap in the world. And of course Abram would fall for it.”
“Chad, don’t worry about Abram. You’ve already won that political battle, and the rest of the Council’s on your side.”
“I sure hope so,” he said, leaving the kitchen. He was dead tired, worn out and beat, and yet he didn’t feel sleepy at all. He ended up spending the next two hours checking and organizing gear in the living room on his side of the duplex before deciding to check on Ria again. He found her where she was before, lying on a bedroll, up against the wall of a hallway, totally unconscious to the world as a strong mix of antibiotics and a bit of sedative hung from the wall in an intravenous bag above her. She looked so peaceful as she slept. And beautiful, too.
Rin stood at attention near her feet and watched Thad intently. Thad paid no mind to the boy and sat on the floor next to Ria’s head, leaning against the wall with a sigh. He reached over and gently stroked her hair and forehead as she slept beside him.
“What’s your rank?” Rin suddenly asked. “I’m Private First Class.”
Thad raised an eyebrow and looked at the boy. “I guess I don’t have a rank here,” he answered. The Ailonian Rebels aren’t quite that organized, nor do they need to be.
“But that’s not right. We’re an army. Everyone needs a rank.”
He chuckled. “Well, as a platoon leader I’d probably be considered a lieutenant. But as a military advisor to the Rebel Council, I’d have a somewhat higher rank.”
“Like what?”
“Well, it would depend on experience.”
“What’s higher than lieutenant then? We’ll find a rank for you.”
He shook his head and smiled. “The standard Imperial officer ranks for ground troops start at second lieutenant—”
“Second lieutenant,” Rin echoed.
“Then first lieutenant—”
“First lieutenant.”
“Next is captain.”
“Captain. Daddy was a captain. But he died in the war.”
Thad pursed his lips, wondering what role Rin’s father had had in the war, and whether he was a ground forces captain or a starship captain. Despite the common name, the two ranks were not even close to equivalent. “He must have been a really good man. I wish I’d had the chance to meet him.”
The hallway was silent for several long moments. Thad had just started to shut his eyes when Rin spoke again. “What’s higher than captain?”
“After captain, you have major, then lieutenant colonel, then colonel, then there are several grades of general—”
“General? Sergeant Chet says Abram is a general. So you can’t be a general, too.”
He raised an eyebrow at the boy’s logic.
“How about captain? You can be Captain Chad. Daddy was a captain and Mommy says he was a hero. She says you’re going to be a hero, too, so you should also be captain.”
Chet’s booming voice suddenly interrupted. “Private First Class Parri!” he said, standing to Thad’s left, just outside his field of vision where he hadn’t even seen the man approach. Thad nearly jumped, he was definitely tired and lacking in alertness.
Rin snapped to attention. “Yes, sir!”
“Captain Chad is relieving you of your guard post. He has the next watch protecting your mother. I have another mission for you, if you think you can handle it!”
“Yes, Sergeant Chet!”
“Corporal Harve is on the other side, inventorying our food supplies. Can you help him?”
“Yes sir, Sergeant Chet!”
“Excellent. Report to Corporal Harve immediately. Dismissed!” Rin saluted as smartly as a six-year-old boy could and marched down the hallway, exiting through the makeshift doorway torn in the wall that separated the two duplex units. “Funny kid,” Chet said, speaking in his normal voice again. “I jokingly gave him a rank. I had no idea what that would lead to.”
“At least morale seems to be up around here.”
“Morale is way up since we set that fuel depot on fire. Except for two certain people, only one of whom is sleeping like they need to be.” Chet crouched in front of Thad, and he saw that his platoon sergeant was wielding a syringe. “Chad, you are absolutely worn out, but you’re at that level where you can’t sleep, either. I’m going to sedate you and you’re going to rest until tomorrow. And if you resist, I’ll assign Private First Class Parri to you, and you’ll be begging for sedation.”
Thad sighed again, and held out his right arm straight ahead in resignation. He closed his eyes, then felt a pinch as the ex-surgeon stuck him in a vein inside his elbow. “How’s Ria doing?” he asked.
Chet withdrew his syringe and stood. “You got her back just in time. She’s got some infection in her leg, but we’re hitting her pretty hard with antibiotics and I think she’ll be fine.”
The world suddenly blurred around him. “Good,” he said slowly. Then he leaned back against the wall and blinked a few times in surprise. On the last blink, he decided to just keep his eyes closed.
***
Thaddeus slowly drifted back towards consciousness. He felt quite comfortable and warm, too, lying on his left side, with his back resting against a wall. It felt like he was now on a bedroll. And was that a pillow under his head? Something quite soft and warm was in front of him. He opened his eyes a bit, and realized Ria was cuddled up to him and they had their arms around each other.
It was nighttime. Her eyes, barely visible in the dark, were open, as if she’d been watching him sleep. “I’m impressed that someone moved me around this much without waking me,” he whispered sleepily, finally noting that his head rested on a pair of crumpled-up jackets.
“It’s called sedatives,” she replied softly. “In the medical profession, sometimes we use them to handle unruly patients. You’d be surprised how little you’d remember.”
“I told you I’d get you out of that dumpster and you’d be fine.” Thad smiled and closed his eyes for a long moment, unsure whether that moment was only seconds or several minutes long. “Well, I guess I should get up and see how the platoon’s doing.”
Ria tightened her arms around him. “You aren’t going anywhere. You’re still a bit sedated, and I’m too comfortable here for you to leave.”
“There’s still a war going on,” he reminded her. “And I have work to do.”
“It can wait.” She put a hand lightly on his face and stroked at his cheek with her thumb. “Look. Chet has me on sedatives and painkillers, and I feel so warm and safe here next to you. It’s blissful. We don’t get enough blissful moments around here. Forget about everything else and let’s just hang onto this for awhile longer.”
“You’re right,” he said, holding on to her just a bit tighter and closing his eyes. She could have died yesterday. Could have died today from
infection. And I was about to get up, leave her here alone, and look at the latest war reports and intel instead. I’m always considering what’s next, and completely forgetting about now. He forced the war out of his thoughts, focusing on the here and now instead, and as she continued to softly caress his cheek, he realized just how pleasantly sleepy he felt and how peaceful the moment was when he wasn’t distracted. He smiled and slowly drifted back into a comfortable, sedative-induced sleep.
When he woke up later, it was just before sunrise and she was gone. And he felt very well-rested for the first time in weeks. His chaotic escape from the battle at the fuel depot—and Jason’s death—seemed like distant memories now.
He sat up on his bedroll, and heard a young boy’s voice as he rubbed at his eyes. “Captain Chad, you’re awake. Sergeant Chet wants to see you.”
He got up and followed Rin to the kitchen command center. Chet and Harve were already there. After a few pleasantries, Chet told him what they’d been working on and showed him some maps and sketches on the tablet. “Just in time. We have a mission idea here. Culper’s guys have spotted a small enemy supply convoy passing through this section of Orent, and based on previous observations we think it’s going to pass through here about three blocks away in a half hour or so. Two box trucks, small cabs, two seaters, unescorted, and moving fairly quickly. I think we should hit them and see what they’re carrying.”
Thad was instantly suspicious. Two unescorted trucks without enough cab space to carry troops? “It could be another trap. Maybe the cargo space is full of soldiers.”
“Enemy vehicle traffic is down, all over Orent,” Chet replied. “Most of the convoys our guys spotted are small, and moving quickly. If it was a trap, I’d think they’d slow way down to be an inviting target. No, I think this is the first sign that our fuel depot hit is affecting them.”
“The trucks might be loaded very heavily, too,” Harve added. “If they can’t keep all their vehicles on the road now, the ones that are still running will have to carry more supplies to take up the slack.”
“But it’s daylight,” Thad pointed out. “It’s harder to move our men around unspotted.”
“Pretty much all of our strikes so far have been during the night,” said Chet. “That could be another reason they’re unescorted. We’ve shown a pattern of leaving them alone during the day.”
He stared at the map for a long moment. If they were right, this would be a short, easy mission, and it could help maintain Rebel momentum in their part of the city. “Okay. One squad only, though. I don’t want to risk moving the entire platoon during the day, and if it’s as undefended as it seems, we won’t need many fighters anyway. But we bail at the first sign of trouble.” He turned towards Harve. “Harve, we’ll use your squad. Go ahead and get them prepped. Chet, I want you to stay here with the rest of the platoon. I’ll lead this one.”
Thaddeus waited for an objection from Chet. Chet was the most medically-experienced person in the platoon and Thad didn’t want to risk him being away from Ria before she had recovered more.
But to his surprise, Chet didn’t object at all. He merely nodded, while Thad and Harve left the kitchen to prepare.
Chapter 28
The unfinished assembly hall held nearly three hundred individuals. The room looked much like a university lecture hall, with stepped rows of elevated seating ramping down to the front of the room, although the seats themselves hadn’t been installed yet and so almost everyone sat on the steps. Most of the people present were directly assigned to Ghost Squadron, although this briefing was public—well, as public as anything at Headquarters could be—and a number of outsiders stood near the back, including Commodore Reynolds, a variety of Headquarters officers, and a few wearing the Gray Fleet uniform.
Poulsen hadn’t expected outsiders, and she fought to keep her nervousness in check—or at least well-hidden—as she stood at the front of the room. She’d expected to brief the squadron’s flight crews and a few of her support personnel, but apparently there was enough curiousity about her new group for other units to send observers, no doubt in response to the variety of ridiculous Hyberian gossip which had flooded the asteroid’s social circles. She’d been very clear about her minor role in the former mercenary group, and yet with each iteration the stories became more and more overblown. It had frustrated her to no end, and she’d considered sending out angry corrections to keep the stories straight until Vacek had told her it would be a waste of her valuable time and would only provoke further gossip.
The pressure was more than she expected. She was nothing more than a new, inexperienced commander in charge of a new, inexperienced group, and yet the populations of Headquarters and Blue Fleet had unfairly placed the Hyberian Raiders’ reputation squarely upon her shoulders. Ghost Squadron was not an elite unit. It was not even really a functional unit yet, only now moving on from simulators and classtime to training aboard real starships. What would the local gossip be when they made mistakes? When they failed simulated engagements? When they didn’t live up to the hype? She knew it would happen. They’d be no different than any other brand-new unit, and it would take time for them to learn to work together effectively.
She just wished all the attention would go elsewhere. But Ghost Squadron was the new big thing at Headquarters, and she knew that wouldn’t go away. Probably the only thing that could be bigger, she suspected, was if Admiral Marcell somehow returned with indisputable proof of Earth’s location.
Privately, she wondered if she should intentionally throw their first skirmish. It could lower everyone’s expectations of her group and might help in the long run. It could clear away some of the organization’s attention, allowing her squadron to grow without hundreds of people watching her every move.
But if anyone knew it was intentional, it could also undermine her reputation and her subordinates’ trust.
Dammit. I just want to fly a gunship and shoot down our enemies, not navigate the Organization’s politics.
She cleared her throat. The sound traveled well, and the soft murmurs of conversation in the back quickly died out as everyone turned their attention to her. Clearly the room was designed to amplify any presenters at the front of the room, shaped to utilize the laws of acoustics instead of relying on a more technical solution with microphones and amplifiers.
“Welcome to the new Ghost Squadron assembly hall,” she started. “I meant for this to be a Ghost Squadron briefing, but I see some Gray Fleet spies in the back.” One polite laugh sounded from somewhere in the crowd.
“First off, I want to thank you all for your recent work. I know nobody signed up to do construction, but your efforts mean our facilities will be finished weeks ahead of schedule so we can get to the interesting stuff sooner. Which is what this is about.”
She nodded to Lieutenant Nolon, her assistant, who manned a nearby computer and was managing the slide deck for the briefing. The wall behind her changed from the squadron’s temporary unit logo to a table of the next phase of their training schedule. “Until now, we’ve intermixed simulator time with the construction schedule to get you familiar with your ships’ operations, but it’s finally time to get some hands-on training with the real thing. For the next two weeks, we’ll be doing touch-and-goes with our gunships, and after that, we’ll launch on our first non-simulator training mission. As our first real flight, we have a number of objectives here: shakedown cruise, learning to operate as a unit, navigational coordination. Finally, before returning to Headquarters we’ll participate in a combat skirmish against friendly starships.”
The slide changed again, showing a list of starships along with a flight plan schedule and objectives. “We’ll start with some basic maneuvers. You’ve all had simulator practice, but this time it’s for real. We’ll exit Hangar 12, meet up above the asteroid, and coordinate a series of hyperspace jumps to practice navigating as a squadron while we travel through some waypoints, as well as practicing the navigational protocols that keep Headqu
arters’ location a secret. This will also be a cross-training exercise and all crewmates will rotate through positions after each hyperspace jump.
“If all goes according to schedule, we’ll meet up at a rally point and prepare for a combat sim. Here’s the scenario. Ghost Squadron has been contracted by a local star system government to eradicate the flagship of a pirate gang that has been harassing their airspace. Our opposing force will be provided from within Blue Fleet, led by the frigate Lynx. Supporting the Lynx will be the corvettes Shrike and Cheetah. Our goals are simple: Destroy the Lynx and then return to Headquarters. The corvettes are not considered an objective; whether they survive or not has no bearing on the mission’s success.”
One of the gunship crewmen a few rows back raised a hand, and she gestured for him to speak. The man stood. “Lieutenant Boone, Ghost 4 wizzo,” he announced for the benefit of the outsiders. “Commander Poulsen, it seems to me that the Opposing Force is undersized. Will this sortie be an effective exercise for a squadron of ten gunships? I understand this is only our first exercise, but it looks too easy.”
She withheld a smile. It was obvious, but she hadn’t known her crew well enough yet to anticipate if anyone would pick up on it. “You are correct. Which is why we will not be taking all ten ships at once. Units 1 and 6 will not be participating at all, and the remainder will split up into two flights of four gunships. Flight One will run the entire mission and return to Headquarters. Then Flight Two will run the mission. Once we’re all back some of the OPFOR officers will join us for a squadron-level debrief. Any more questions?”
Another hand shot up. “Lieutenant Rush, captain of Ghost 8. Commander, what will our chain of command be if Units 1 and 6 do not participate?”
“Good question.” Ghost 1 was her ship and Ghost 6 was Vacek’s. Normally they were considered the command ships for their respective flights, but both ships were unavailable. They were being retrofitted with X-11 hyperdrives, and although work was going quickly, they wouldn’t be finished in time for the training mission. “I will lead Flight One from Unit 2, and Vacek will lead from Unit 7. The chain of command will otherwise be normal, and the remaining flight crews from Units 1 and 6 will observe from the Lynx. Anyone else?”
