by Daniel Gibbs
Ruth rolled her eyes. “No, sir. But, great use of a human punch line.”
Everyone broke out laughing, and David felt some of the tension in his body release. “Take your stations, everyone. It’s high time we get back to Canaan.”
“And get back to the war!” Ruth exclaimed.
I wish I shared her enthusiasm. Or do I?
“I’ll be in engineering, sir.”
David flashed a grin at Hanson. “Dismissed, Major. And good job.”
“Thank you, sir!”
As Hanson walked off the bridge and through the hatch leading to the command corridor on deck one, David glanced up at his viewer, which showed the status of the ship. Everything read normal, just as he’d been told. He closed his eyes for a moment, forcing himself to keep going. My people don’t need to see my frustrations and concerns. I’ve got to stay strong, for them. When he opened his eyes, he noticed Aibek had slid into the XO’s chair beside him.
“Navigation, break orbit and head toward the Lawrence limit.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
The deck plates vibrated ever so slightly as the massive warship eased its way out of the gravitational tug of the planet below. Gilead’s blue skies faded away, and they moved toward open space.
“Navigation, plot jumps back to Canaan, engage the first jump into the system.”
“Aye aye, sir,” Hammond replied, her voice bright and cheery. “One moment, sir.”
Aibek leaned over. “We left it better than we found it.”
“I hope so. I remember a sign in a shop my mother and I used to go to when I was little. It said ‘nice to look at, nice to hold, but if you drop it, we say sold.’”
“I do not understand,” Aibek said, the scales over his eyes raised quizzically.
“It was a nice way of saying if you dropped something and broke it in the store, you had to pay for it. Basic human expression, you break it, you own it.”
“Ah, I see. You think since we broke Gilead’s power structure, we should own it?”
“I think the Terran Coalition needs to step up, especially when this war is over, and take care of its backyard.”
“Interesting.”
David glanced at Aibek. “Why?”
“What if a planet you wanted to take care of didn’t want help?”
“I guess we’d cross that bridge when we got to it.”
The conversation was interrupted by the arrival of another person on the bridge. The noise level going up caused David to turn in his seat, to see Taylor slowly making his way toward his station.
“Sir, permission to man my post?” Taylor asked.
David broke into a wide grin. “Permission granted, Lieutenant. Welcome back.” He put his hands together and started clapping, which spread instantly throughout the bridge. In short order, Taylor received a standing ovation, which in turn caused him to blush mightily.
“Thanks, everyone.”
As Taylor took his seat, David turned back to the front of the ship, gazing out the transparent alloy windows into the deep black of space for a moment before closing his eyes. Perhaps we left Gilead better than we found it.
“Conn, Navigation. Lawrence drive plotted, and course to Canaan computed, sir.”
David opened his eyes and glanced toward Hammond. “Very well. Navigation, engage Lawrence drive.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
The lights on the bridge dimmed as they always did, and the ship began to generate the wormhole that would carry it through the stars, back to their home.
After the engineering space cleared out following the second watch, Hanson found himself double-checking the status of every system and its backup with religious-like fervor. While he trusted his engineering team to a fault, after being gone from his domain for several days, there was a part of him that wanted to ensure it was still perfect. Just like I left it.
“Major?” the soft voice of Elizabeth Merriweather called out from behind him.
Hanson whirled around to see her standing a few paces away. “Uh, hi, Major. Didn’t see you there.”
“Oh, I was doing my nightly rounds. Doctor Hayworth likes me to collect readings on the anti-matter reactors pressure levels daily.”
“Ah, I see. I’ve been away for a bit. I had to make sure everything is still just so.”
Merriweather flashed a small smile at him. “I’m sure the team you’ve trained did just fine.”
“They did,” Hanson allowed with a grin of his own.
“How’d you like the big chair?”
The grin disappeared from Hanson’s face and he pursed his lips together. “Honestly? A bit scary. The decisions you make it in… are for keeps. I’m not sure how the colonel does what he does daily. Holding the life of all those people in your hands. You must get the choice right every time. The bad guys only have to get it right once.”
“I heard you did well.”
“Oh?”
Merriweather grinned again. “Women talk.”
Always a bit aloof, Hanson turned bright red at the mention of women talking about him—in any capacity—behind his back. “Uh, well,” he stammered. “Good to hear. How are your readings going?” Smooth move there, Arthur.
“All normal, like they are every other night. The doctor is quite particular about it, so I don’t farm them out.”
“I hope you’re not upset with me for confining you to quarters.”
She peered at him for a moment. “Why would I be? The colonel gave strict orders about behaving on shore leave. You followed them. Chain of command.”
“Ah.” Hanson glanced across the engineering space and the massive reactor in the center of it. “What’s next for you, after the Lion?”
“Looking to get rid of me?” Merriweather asked with a giggle.
“No, I just… I mean, we’re all coming up on our tour dates. Unless the colonel can pull some massive rabbit out of his hat, most of us will go to another duty station soon.”
Merriweather’s face assumed a pensive look. “I don’t know. I like it here, you know? I’ve made a lot of friends. For once, I feel like I belong. I assume Doctor Hayworth will want me to come with him to his next project.”
Hanson turned up his nose. “As much as I respect his intelligence, I can’t see working for him year after year.”
“Haven’t you noticed yet, he doesn’t act like he does with the rest of you toward me?”
“We all realized that years ago. No one’s been able to figure out why.”
“I’m the daughter he never had,” Merriweather replied. “My father died early in the war. I never knew him. So Hayworth’s filled that gap for me too.”
Hanson made eye contact with her. “I’m sorry, Major.”
“After all this time, call me Elizabeth, for crying out loud,” she replied in a playful tone.
“Ah, yeah… Elizabeth.”
“Thank you.” Merriweather arched her neck back and stretched. “I, for one, hope we continue to serve together on the Lion of Judah. I love this ship.”
“Why?”
“It’s a marvel of science, and being a part of a group of people who make an impact is, well, it’s amazing.”
“True, that. What’s doc want to do next?”
Merriweather rolled her eyes. “Why does everyone insist on calling him doc? He’s made it crystal clear he detests the nickname.”
“Probably because he’s made it so clear. You remember the first rule of boot camp? Don’t ever let it show when they get to you. That maxim applies across the board in the CDF.”
“He’s a civilian,” she said as she crossed her arms across her chest.
“I don’t make the rules, I just live under them.”
“Come on, you guys get amusement out of poking fun at him.”
“Yeah, sure. He lords over us how smart is he. It gets old.”
“I guess,” Merriweather replied and pushed a strand of hair out of her face. “Still, even if he’s acerbic, all of you could do better
.”
Hanson forced a smile. “Okay, I’ll try to do better, as you put it.”
“Thank you.”
There was silence between the two of them as engineers and enlisted personnel scurried about the space, attending to their duties. Three levels up from the main reactor assembly, those below looked quite small. “Have you been following the election?” Merriweather asked.
“Some. I voted last week. Haven’t paid much attention to it since. You know, with everything going on.”
“I put in for Fuentes.”
Hanson’s eyebrows shot up, and he turned to stare at her. “Fuentes?” he asked, his tone one of disbelief.
“You don’t approve?”
“I can’t stand him. Someone who’s never served, wanting to throw away all we’ve fought for? Forget him.”
Merriweather’s face clouded over, and she pursed her lips together. “A just peace isn’t ‘throwing it all away.’ I’m sick of the daily loss of life. We beat the League back and degraded them… what’s the point now, except revenge?”
“How about the hundred billion human beings enslaved under the League’s totalitarian model?”
“You think we should spend Terran Coalition blood to free them?”
“It’s the right thing to do,” Hanson replied, his voice rising.
“We’re wasting another generation in a war without end! It’s destroying our infrastructure and setting us back decades.” Merriweather too became more intense in tone and volume.
“Only cowards run from the League. The CDF never will!”
“Are you calling me a coward, Major?” Merriweather shouted, causing everyone within earshot to stare in their direction.
What the hell are we doing here? “I’m sorry,” Hanson mumbled. “I… it just came out.” He glanced at her, a sheepish look on his face. “Perhaps this is why Colonel Cohen doesn’t allow political discussion in the wardroom?”
“That’s well and good, but do you seriously think I’m a coward for wanting peace?”
“No, but I do think peace with the League is misguided. I apologize for expressing it poorly.”
“Yeah. Sure. Apology accepted. See you later, Major,” she said, her voice cold and distant.
Hanson was left speechless as she walked away. What the heck is wrong with us lately? Simple discussions dissolve into profanity-laced shouting matches. He shook his head. That one was all me. The crewmen had quit staring, but he still felt shame for the outburst. As he forced himself back to the task of reviewing the Lion’s engineering status, his face stayed red for some time.
32
David strode into the wardroom, which after dinner was more of a hangout for the senior officers. He found Aibek and Ruth staring at holoprojector filled with the sights and sounds of Canaan News Network’s talking head lineup. Ugh, I hate the news lately. Ensuring a smile stayed on his face, he spoke to the room at large. “What’s going on tonight?”
“Uh, only election night?” Ruth said with a quirked expression.
“Ah, yes. I’ve been trying to avoid it.”
“I thought humans believed democracy was the greatest thing ever invented,” Aibek interjected with a chortle.
David pulled out a chair and sat down. “Some humans. This human is happy when the spectacle is over and we get back to work.”
Music and a loud announcer from the holoprojector cut off any attempt at a response from the rest of them. “We now go to Fuentes’ campaign headquarters for the president-elect’s victory speech.”
Victory speech? It took David a few seconds to compute what that meant. The Peace Union won? Impossible. His jaw dropped and his eyes went wide. The election had been touch and go based on opinion polls for months, but he never thought an avowed socialist would win. He blinked and half expected to see a different result when they opened. I guess not. What the heck is the Terran Coalition coming to?
“Thank you!” Fuentes, a short man with a receding hairline, said as he gestured for the crowd to quiet down. “Thank you again. This isn’t my victory; this is your victory. The peace-loving people of the Terran Coalition!” The crowd again went wild, cheering and screaming at the top of their lungs. “We started this campaign to bring an end to a dark and necessary chapter in our republic. The League of Sol has been defeated, but our government hasn’t figured it out. We continue to spend trillions of credits on endless war, and I’m delighted sanity has finally returned to our nation. But, today isn’t a day to dance on the graves, as it were, of our opponents. We need to build a consensus around what a just peace looks like. I believe in the next six months, we can do just that. I call on the League of Sol to attend a joint peace conference the week after I’m inaugurated, and together, Chairman Palis, working with our advisors, can finally achieve a treaty to end this war.”
Ruth brought her hand down on the tablet that controlled the projector and cut off the feed before tossing the unlucky piece of technology across the room. The crash it made as it slammed into the wall startled them all.
David’s eyes quickly darted over, resting on her. “Lieutenant?”
“Sorry, sir. Couldn’t take any more of that… crap,” she said, her face contorting.
“We have the League beaten down, like a wounded animal. Surely this man you elected can see now is the time to press on,” Aibek stated, a slight hiss to his words.
“I don’t think so, XO. He wants a treaty, not a victory.”
“We should come out publicly against him,” Ruth blurted out. “The weight of our voices, as the officers of the Lion of Judah, would have validity.”
David closed his eyes, suddenly quite despondent with the recent actions the Lion had been involved in, the discovery of traitors in their midst, and other dark events weighing him down.
“Sir?” Ruth’s insistent voice pressed.
“That’s not in the cards, and you know it. As officers of the Coalition Defense Force, we’re not permitted to engage in political activity,” David replied as he opened his eyes and stared at her. “The Terran Coalition is bigger than one man. We’ll survive Fuentes and his bad ideas.”
“If his ideas are so wrong, why did he win?” Aibek asked.
David forced himself to smile. “Because a majority of people thought they were right and voted for him.”
Aibek raised a scale over one of his eyes. “Humans are so different. What about challenging this man to blood combat?”
“We can’t do that either, XO.”
Ruth snorted and stood from her chair. She paced up and down. “We have to do something.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know what. Anything. Come on, Colonel. You don’t see all the pain, suffering, and loss we’ve been through will be for nothing? That man will give it all up to the League! That’s all the Peace Union is about!” Ruth’s voice rose to a shout. “It can’t be for nothing.”
David stood and walked over to her, cutting off the increasingly outraged venting with an embrace. “It’s okay, Ruth.” Taking a step back, he continued, “Look, a lot of people in the CDF, and I’m sure, all over the Terran Coalition are having the same reaction you are. He’s not my choice, and I voted Liberal as I always do. But, as I said, we’re bigger than any one man. I also believe, and perhaps this is quaint, but it’s what I feel… God raises up our leaders. How Fuentes is part of His plan, I don’t know. What I do know, is I will faithfully execute my duties as an officer in the Coalition Defense Force, so help me God.”
After a few moments, Ruth glanced up and nodded. “Yes, sir. Me too.”
“Good.”
“It says here that your senate remains in the hands of this Liberal party you mentioned,” Aibek interjected, the words coming out of his mouth in a way that made them seem distasteful.
“There you go. Fuentes has to get any treaty through the Coalition Senate. It serves as a check and balance on his power.”
Ruth remained silent, staring past him with no real focus to her eyes.
“Nearly raw steak sounds good,” Aibek hissed, a toothy grin spreading across his face.
Ruth finally seemed to snap out of it. “I’m in. Anything but listening to the stupid holonews channels.”
“Good, let’s go,” David said and didn’t wait for an answer. As he tromped out of the room, he couldn’t get rid of the nagging thought in his mind that life was about to get incredibly more complicated. At least President Spencer has another three months in office. Enough time to keep putting the hurt on the League.
Failure. Such was an emotion the Justin Spencer rarely felt. Yet I have failed. Fuentes’ victory is a repudiation of the last eight years of my life and of everything I believe in. He gripped a snifter filled with a brownish-burgundy liquid—brandy—and lifted it to his lips. A sip later, another voice interrupted.
“You can’t blame yourself, sir,” MacIntosh said. The old general had come down in person after the election result was clear. “There’s precedent for these sorts of things. Churchill, for instance.”
Spencer laughed. “Stop comparing me to old Winston. He was more of a leader than I’ll ever be.”
“We’ll have to agree to disagree on that, sir,” Dunleavy, the secretary of defense, interjected. “I’ve been fighting the League for thirty years in some capacity, give or take. You’ve made it possible for us to win.”
“I don’t deserve that kind of praise,” Spencer said quietly. “I’ve done the best I could with the tools God gave me.” He took another sip of the brandy and sighed softly. “Time to make a holocall.”
MacIntosh snorted. “Make him call you.”
“No. I won’t act like a petulant child. As much as it might make us all feel better.”
Spencer took out a small computing device and punched in a number.
A few moments later, an image of Eduardo Fuentes appeared on it. “Mister President, I wasn’t expecting your call so soon. Vice President Muraro got in touch with my team a few minutes ago but hasn’t conceded quite yet.”