The camera panned out to show the co-anchor, a male Meligornian with a wide smile, his vibrant silver hair cut short and slicked back. “That is great news, Amelia. On the political front, we’ve also heard rumors of secret talks between the three worlds.”
“That’s exciting, Jalel. Tell me, does anyone know what those might be about?”
“Well, Amelia, some experts are saying the three are discussing where to go next now that the pirates are on the defensive, but there are those on the fringe who hint at the possibility that there is another alien species headed our way.”
“Another alien species? Wow. I’m not sure how I feel about that,” the woman replied and didn’t quite hide the fakeness in her reply. “In other news, one of the universities has been given a substantial endowment to start working with more of those making up the top two percent of students who can’t afford training after high school in NorAm.”
“Is that really true, Amelia?”
“Jalel, it is absolutely true. There has been some serious speculation on the virtual capitol hill with almost everyone taking credit for the increase from the politicians who say government oversight is responsible to several business groups who claim they thought it was time they stepped in.”
She smirked slightly. “And then there are those universities who say how much they accomplish on their own. Whichever way you look at it, there are many folks who say how much they support those who can’t afford a higher education.”
“That sure would be nice, wouldn’t it?” he agreed and once again displayed his perfect smile. “And speaking of those who can’t afford a higher education, did you know our witch has a new boyfriend?”
Amelia’s lips formed a perfect ‘O’ of shocked surprise. “Jalel! Say it isn’t so! Because that’ll break quite a few hearts if it is. Do we know who it is?”
He smirked as though he had a secret to share. “Well, Amelia, there was Piotr Brandt, lead singer of Eis Bjorne.”
She put her hand on her hip. “Jalel! It’s not nice to tease. You know that was his publicist.”
Jalel gave a hearty laugh. “This is true, and I am sad to say we’ve heard a lot of potential names but no one has stepped forward to confirm them. It seems that agents are up to their usual tricks and claim a relationship simply to push their brand name stars ahead.”
Amelia gasped. “How underhanded.”
“I know, but never fear. The Federation News folk are working hard to crack the reality of that tough little nut before anyone else does. When that happens, you’ll hear it first, here.”
She gave him a happy smile. “Well, there’s nothing to say the new boyfriend isn’t in fact a new girlfriend, Jalel.”
The anchor raised his eyebrows and his purple-hued eyes sparkled. “Amelia, are you sure?”
“Of course not, but so far, there have been three women to make that claim and, you know...where there’s smoke...”
“We could always ask her,” he suggested. “After all, she’s just returned to Earth, and it’s possible we’ll get to speak to her ourselves. We could ask her then.”
Amelia clapped and bounced like an excited child. “Finger’s crossed, Jalel. We would love to hear what she has to say.”
“That’s right, we would.” He chuckled. “We will cut to break but stay tuned. When we get back, we’ll talk about the budget committee’s blatant attack on the Gov-Sub standard of living investments, get the weather for the next five days, make a beautiful Meligornian quiche-styled dish with famous Mage Hannah, royal chef and now Earth television star. We’ll be back right after this.”
Far from the nosey news cameras, the recruiters gathered at their normal conference room table. This time, none of them seemed too excited about the Federation report. Instead, they waited for the command captain to enter and take his place.
He moved immediately to the business at hand. “Okay, let’s go over a couple of things really fast. I know that the fourth species of being has been twisted into a rumor, but I can assure you that it exists. The new species is known to work with traitors from all three worlds in an attempt to subvert the defense of the planets. The danger is real, people.”
One of the petty officers raised his hand. “We also need to start preparing more potential recruits. So, we will work with BURT and begin implementing more tests and games for those who like to rent immersion pods. It will be an option to begin their training in the Navy.”
“We can gamify it,” one of the recruiters said with a smile. “We could make it an honor to pass all the tests necessary to go through full training.”
“Wait,” another said and shook his head. “So, they will pay to go through our boot camp?”
The whole table went silent and then broke into a lively discussion of how to implement the suggestion. It was definitely something they wanted to happen. Another petty officer rubbed her face and tried not to yawn. “Maybe we could send them a shirt as a prize if they can manage it?”
“I second that one,” one of them said.
“Me too,” the captain replied. “Good work.”
She beamed with pride and the commanding officer took a deep breath and flipped his notes open. “So, that was a lot simpler to resolve than I expected. Let’s move on to the second item of the evening. University recruitment. How do we go about it?”
“We’ll make it a competition like we’re doing with the immersion pods,” one of the team said.
“But won’t that be obvious?”
“Not if we attach a little funding to it as part of a grand prize,” another officer replied, and they groaned. He raised his hands. “Wait, hear me out.”
“Go ahead.” The captain’s tone said it had better be good.
“The universities all compete,” he continued. “They have huge competitions for music, for dance, for writing, for the sciences, and for programming. Basically, for everything. We make ours a leadership focus and attach a fast-tracking through officer’s training to it as an option for successful candidates.”
The others stared at him as if he’d grown an extra head.
“Think about it. We need candidates for the hack teams, analysts, and administrative officers, but the best students are snatched away by big business, so we attach a touch of personal prestige to it, then institutional prestige and a cash incentive...and then there’s the entry fee...”
That got their interest and they hashed it out so that the only expenditure for the prize money would be the loss of two entry fees, while they would gain the ability to identify and incentivize potential recruits in the officer ranks.
“That’s a good start. I’ll take that with the immersion pod scheme and see what the brass says. Which brings us to our final discussion. The recruitment or draft status of Stephanie Morgana.”
The petty officer sighed. “Well, it has become very hard to coordinate. She is now a full citizen on Earth, Meligorn, and Dreth, which complicates things.”
The captain scowled. “Right, but we have all three planets in the Navy. What’s the big deal?”
She shrugged. “It seems that neither the Meligornians nor the Dreth want her in the Navy, so it would be an intergalactic disaster if we succeeded in drafting her and then pissed off both our allies in one move. So, drafting Morgana is DOA.”
He was still hopeful. “Maybe there is some way we can negotiate with her and her group. Don’t write it off yet.”
The whole team choked down the urge to laugh. Finally, one of the POs spoke very tentatively. “Sir, do you know how much the last negotiation cost us?”
Chapter Sixty-Five
A young man with tousled brown hair stood in the white room and his eyes danced wildly around as he stared at the outfit he wanted to select. It floated higher, then lower again but when he tried to grab it with his hands, it slipped through his fingers.
Finally, he found the instruction plaque that told him to simply touch the garment and it would dress him. It was his first time in a pod, and he felt lik
e an idiot. Maybe there was a reason people like him didn’t get the chance.
BURT came over the speakers. “Welcome Marshall James Agrippa to your test for the Government Required Opportunity. To be tested for a placement and possible financial assistance in a prep school, you must be tested physically and mentally.”
James, like clockwork, asked the same question Stephanie had asked during her first session. “How do you physically test me if I am lying down?”
He chuckled. “The system capabilities are beyond in the moment testing. Through your blood, circulation, heart rhythm, and approximately six hundred and eighty-nine other factors, the system can see what your physical health score will be.”
“Oh,” he said and scuffed his virtual shoe on the ground. “Cool.”
BURT made the human sound of clearing his throat. “Now, where was I… Oh, yes. For this government-required opportunity to be tested for a placement and possible financial assistance in a prep school, you must be checked both physically as well as mentally.”
The young man didn’t respond but the AI knew he was nervous. He could read it in his body language and through his rapid heart rate. “It is noted that you attended the New York Federation Board of Schools, public sector. You excelled, came in first in your class for logical and legal debate, and four out of the six other major Primary areas of study, including three of the six Prime Learning Objectives as spelled out in Federation Educational Decree 18.32. This makes you a prime candidate for excelling during this testing today. And luckily for you, I will be your testing agent.”
The world around him faded to black and BURT continued as he processed the program. “While you will be tested per the requirements of the Federation Educational Board, there are two new tests which are included and do not affect your main score in any way. You may, in fact, choose to bypass these tests and leave early.”
“No,” James answered quickly and narrowed his eyes at the pinprick of light in front of him. “I’m curious. I’ll take them.”
Todd sat up in his hospital bed. He swiped his hand across the virtual magazine tablet he’d nicked from the waiting room.
He was reading a three-year-old issue of Federation Weekly that talked about the major bombing that had leveled the rest of the Arch in St. Louis.
“You would think, after switching from paper, they’d be able to keep up with the issues.” He sighed and set the tablet down.
The messaging system beeped, and a virtual screen flickered from the end of his bed. “You have a new message.”
“Show message.” Todd sighed again.
It was a letter from the Navy and his command. He was finally being discharged from the hospital. The letter stated that he had been “acceptably healed,” whatever the hell that meant.
He waved his hand in front of the screen and acknowledged receipt with his palm print before sending it. Less than two minutes, later his door opened, and his nurse entered.
She brought his belongings and held a tablet out so he could sign several documents for release.
Todd turned and swung his legs over the side of the bed. As she flipped through, he put his palm print on the panel or thumb-printed each page. “I thought I’d be here forever.”
She chuckled. “I don’t know about forever, but none of us expected you to leave so soon. Even the doctor was surprised by how fast you healed. But one shouldn’t look gifts in the eye, right?”
He smiled, nodded, and thanked her for everything as she left him to dress. Even though there was barely any sign of injury on the outside, he still experienced pain.
That aside, he looked forward to leaving the monotony of what felt like his medical incarceration. He took his time getting dressed, then sat on the chair to lace his boots. That done, he used his tablet to check his Federation Navy documents to see where and to whom he should report next.
As he read them through, he realized that he was being given two weeks’ leave so he could visit his family. Given that he was on the third-line space station somewhere near Mercury, he assumed he was too far out to be able to do that.
Not to mention the fact that he really didn’t have anything to go back for. While his parents would be glad to see him, his friends would be busy working or elsewhere, and that included the person he wanted to see most.
Apart from that, there was the expense. With his recruit-level income, it would be a stretch to book anything.
He decided to look anyway and searched the web for prices and schedules, but nothing fit. Thoughtfully, he bit his lip and cleared the page.
Of course, he might be able to call his parents instead. He looked at his call list. It didn’t take him long to realize that even though the calls he’d made were expensive, he’d been given some call time by the Navy.
Sitting in the hospital wouldn’t get him out of the hospital and regardless of whether he went anywhere or not, he couldn’t stay in the ward. Todd grabbed his bag and wandered out and over to the Navy side of the station.
On leave and with nowhere to go meant he had to check into Naval Lodging. The girl at the front was young and sweet and smiled at him almost immediately.
“I need to check into lodging,” he told her and handed her his military ID.
She nodded and scanned the ID into the system. As she did so, she looked at him in surprise. “You do know you have a two-week leave, right? Why aren’t you going home? Nowhere to go?”
He shrugged. “It’s more about the budget than anything else, to be honest. We’re far out here, and everything is three times as expensive. I’ve only just gotten out of the hospital today, so I haven’t been able to really put any thought into it.”
She looked at his name and then his service team and looked at him with wide eyes. “You were in the first attack at that colony, right?”
He nodded and didn’t say anything about it. She covered her mouth and squealed. “Oh, my gosh, I can’t believe you’re in here right now. You know you’re kind of famous, right? Your face was on one of the Federation Historical photos of the event and the press ran with it. The Navy pulled you out of the public system and the hospital kept all visitors away, saying you needed full and focused healing.”
Todd was taken back. “That’s pretty cool.”
The girl pulled out a separate computer, a thin laptop, and typed into it quickly. “Give me two seconds and I’ll see if I can’t help you out.”
She scanned the info in front of her and nodded with a smile. “Few people actually have enough credits to go anywhere when they’re here, but you have to know how to work the system. You choose the ships going to where you want to go. Hey, here is one and it leaves in… Wow. It leaves in an hour and a half. It’ll be preparing to seal up anytime now.”
Her wink as she picked up the phone was encouraging. “Yes, Hi. I wondered if you needed any shipboard help for someone on limited duty?”
The guy on the other end scanned his notes. “Yeah, actually, I might be short a beginning engineer in the engines area. Do you have anyone?”
Todd had heard the conversation and gave her two thumbs-up. The guy must have looked at a clock. “Oh, and they need to be ready to leave, now.”
She put her hand over the receiver and whispered, “Go, now. The ship is the Norma Gene 56974, bay ninety-eight, fourth floor.”
He bowed to her, mouthed a quick “thank you,” and heaved his duffel over his shoulder as he hurried out. She lifted the phone back to her ear and smiled. “He’s on his way to you right now.”
There was a slight pause on the other end. “Has he gone?”
She smirked. “Yeah.”
“How are you, sis?” the guy asked. “It must be someone special if you’re pulling the family card on me to get them heading to Earth.”
She gave a breathy sigh. “He was one of the guys from Sanmar’s and just got out of the hospital.”
“Damn, that means he’s one of the three,” her brother replied in awe.
“Three what?” she ask
ed.
Her brother thought for a moment before he responded. “There are three guys who were in the hospital from that Operation. One of them was visited by Morgana before she went back to the base and destroyed it. Rumor is, she knew one of the three personally and didn’t appreciate him getting hurt like that.”
“Wow, that’s intense,” she replied. “I guess when you’re friends with Morgana, she doesn’t forget you.”
“I guess not.” He laughed.
“Well, he was kind of cute, but I’m not sure about cute enough. Perhaps it was one of the others. Who knows?”
He cleared his throat. “Look, I’m really sorry, but I’ve got to go. We’re sealing up as soon as he gets here. I hope he ran.”
She laughed. “Well, he did move kinda fast. I’ll let you go. Stay safe out there.”
“Always, sis. Always,” he promised and ended the call.
Vishlog growled at his tablet, his fingers too big for the buttons. It beeped at him to signal a new message and drove him nuts. He finally managed to shut the notification up and was able to bring it up to discover it was a personal message from Jaleck. He stood and looked around the ONE R&D building, unsure of where he could and couldn’t go.
Elizabeth walked through the main area and noticed him standing there, looking like a lost tourist. “Are you all right?”
“Oh good, it’s you,” he replied.
She chuckled. “That’s a better reaction than most people give me.”
The Dreth stepped a little closer to her. “Do you have a private place where I can receive a chewing out?”
The woman flinched and nodded. She pointed across the hallway to a conference room. “And good luck, buddy.”
She pressed her lips together and shook her head in sympathy as he walked dejectedly into the room and closed the door behind him.
Witch Of The Federation (Federal Histories Book 2) Page 71
