I hardly noticed my right fist form, and begin shaking. My focus was on the uniform of the enemy soldiers, and with a single yank, I pulled every single one of them into space. I released them at the top of the atmosphere, and let them fall back into it. They were dead anyway I assumed, since they wouldn't let me take them alive. Ship scuttling obviously wasn't the only imperative these people had towards capture. So capture was pointless. I began to see why no-one tried.
I started moving wounded civilians from the ground up to the station, and at the same time, made sure I hadn't missed any enemy troops. I hadn't.
With the last transfer, I moved myself to medical, and began copying supplies they were running short of. I was somewhat surprised to find I could even copy blood packs.
I was even more surprised to see some of our marines back over on the station and helping out. Casting around with my sight, I found Sasha down in the detention cells area, supervising body identification and storage. A fourth one of our shuttles was in the main shuttle dock, explaining how they got here.
As the day wound down, I jumped back to the bridge.
Jen was still in her seat. Lea rose from hers, and handed me a glass. It looked suspiciously like alcohol, tasted like it, and burned its way down like it. I handed her the glass back. She replaced it with a water bottle. I downed it in one long gulp. Watered down hard alcohol was still going to be hard alcohol though.
I looked at Jen.
"You're it. Clean up this bloody mess. I'll be back when it's safe for you all."
She nodded. Tasha began to say something.
"No," I said to her. "Not this time."
And I jumped back to my beach.
About thirty seconds later, half the bedrooms at the back of the beach were debris, as I shouted my anger at the sky.
I jumped again.
I stood on another beach, and force punched the mountain behind it. The top half vanished into the sea beyond, and the volcano I didn’t know was underneath, erupted. Lava, gas, and ash, all rained down on me, and only a very fast shield stopped me from being seriously burned. Okay, gas doesn’t rain as such, but it may as well have.
My anger left me.
I stood there on a patch of sand, watching everything around me turn to ruin.
I stood there for a long time. Lava flowed around me. The beach vanished under molten rock.
Finally, I jumped back to my own beach. The volcano was visible in the distance.
I watched it until darkness fell.
The glow in the distance now matched my anger.
Thirty Six
"Was it you who wanted the autopsy of the orange skinned man?"
"Yes. I don’t remember getting a report at all."
"You didn’t. I did one, but I thought someone was winding me up, and simply filed it. Well I know better now."
"How so?"
"I've seen the bodies down in the cells, and I've autopsied several of them. So I know they are the aliens."
"You sound skeptical all the same."
"I am."
"Why?"
"Because they're not aliens."
I had wondered.
"They look different."
"Skin, yes. We have a lot of skin colour variation, but no-one has ever seen this orange colour before. But that’s the only difference."
"Explain."
"Anatomically, they are identical to us. They display the same variation of the state of various organs, but all the organs we have, they have. There are no new ones, and they don’t lack any we have. They are all in the same place. Their skin is also identical to ours, with the exception of the colour."
"How do you account for the colour?"
"The same as any colour variation. It depends on sun exposure over a long period of time. In their case, I'd assume their sun has a very different spectral frequency to any of ours."
"So they could be long lost cousins?"
"Yes."
"Who want to kill us."
"Apparently."
"Are you sending in official reports?"
"Now we have verified alien bodies, yes I will. I hope I'm out of range of coms when they demand proof they are indeed alien though."
"Put a number of them in long term storage, just in case we need them later. I'll bury the rest. If you get any grief over this, let me know who it comes from."
"I will."
"Don’t worry. If it becomes necessary to defend your report, I'll take you there myself, and make them accept it."
"Do we have to travel that way?"
"Most likely. Takes too long any other way. Why?"
"I'll take a vomit bag with me next time."
I chuckled, and she joined in.
Once he'd selected bodies for storage, I chose a lonely spot on the planet below, and buried the alien dead. Sasha did several runs down to the planet in a shuttle, returning those who'd died, and those wounded allowed to go home.
By the time I returned to the bridge, it was more than two days after I’d left, having taken that long for me to calm down enough to be safe around other people again. I’d gone to the station first, to find out how things were there, and down on the planet.
There was a flag lounge not far from the bridge, so I appeared there, and found a bottle of water, emptied it, and took another. I walked onto the bridge, and took my seat as quietly as I could.
"Welcome back," said Jen, smiling.
The smile faded as she took in my appearance.
"Is that sunburn?" asked Lea, before Jen could.
"What did you do!" exclaimed Tasha.
I looked around the three of them, which actually had me taking in everyone on the bridge.
"Not sunburn, no. Good guess though."
"What did you do?" asked Tasha, insistently.
"What makes you think I did anything?"
"Have you looked at yourself?"
As it happened, I hadn't. Seeing my own face in the mirror, was something I hadn't been game to do. Replacing the mirror would have been easy, but why go there in the first place, when you didn’t have to. I shook my head.
"Is there any of your island left?" asked Tasha, quieter this time.
"About half the bedrooms are toast."
Most of them winced.
"And that was in the first thirty seconds, so I moved."
"Where?" asked Jen, who was now smiling.
"Anyone notice a small mountain island in the distance off the beach?"
"Yes, of course," said Lea.
"So what did you do to it?" asked Jen, obviously thinking she knew the answer.
"Well it's not a mountain anymore. Most of the top half is now in the ocean beyond it."
Jen's face quickly changed to sum up the general surprise.
"And the bottom half?" asked Lea, her eye wide open.
"Is now a volcano."
"You blew up an island?" asked Tasha, almost reverently.
"Yeah, I guess so."
There was a long pause, where no-one even moved, let alone spoke.
"Everyone make a note," said Jen. "Don’t piss off Thorn!"
Thirty Seven
"Ah, sir?"
It was the crewman on coms. Probably the only person on the bridge actually doing his job.
"What?" asked Jen, snapping her attention around to him.
He pointed at the HUD.
"Oh," I sighed. "Them. I guess it has been enough time for them to get here."
"Sound battle…"
"Don’t bother," I interrupted her.
I threw the alien fleet back to where four of their ships still waited, obviously not repaired enough yet to bother moving. Or maybe they couldn’t move at all, and were waiting for tugs.
"They must be getting very sick of that happening," said Tasha.
"Not getting the message though," added Jen.
"No," I confirmed. "How long before we can get moving again?"
"Waiting for Sasha. Another hour or so, I guess."
> Lea began walking towards the captain's office, so I followed her in. Once seated, she looked at me intently."
"What?"
"Do you have your temper in check?"
"I think so. Why?"
"Because I don’t think you’re going to like what I found."
"What did you find?"
"Evidence the high command is talking to the aliens."
It stumped me for a moment, but I realized it actually made sense. Of course they were. It was the only way they could expect the aliens to break through the blockade. They had to know the strength of the alien fleet, and how little our remaining fleet would slow them down. But why?
"Why?"
"You're not angry?"
"Not yet. It makes sense of what I already knew."
"Well it gets worse."
She stopped, waiting for me to say something, but I just nodded her on.
"As far as I can tell from the alien database, up until several hundred years ago, they were ruled by an absolute monarchy. The last king decided to make peace with us, and was assassinated in a military coup. The military have ruled as a dictatorship ever since. We on the other hand, have always been a democracy."
She stopped, presumably checking me for my emotional state. This was going to get old, really quickly, if it continued. I nodded to her again.
"There's only pointers, no hard evidence, but I think our military want a serious defeat, so they can blame it on the politicians, and take over themselves."
I sighed.
"It makes sense, but only if they have the means to push the aliens back again."
"Or they plan to make us all one military ruled people."
"They can't be that stupid, can they?"
"Why stupid?"
"If they let part of our territory be conquered, there is no reason for the aliens to not want to complete the job. Why do they need more military rulers, when they probably have too many already? And if they are a military dictatorship, whoever the dictator is, isn’t going to want to share power."
"So I need to find if they have another fleet waiting somewhere?"
"That’s my guess."
"I'll see if Bill can set up a search for me."
"Do that."
She smiled at me, rose, and left me alone.
"Motherfuckers!"
Thirty Eight
When I returned from the next island along from the volcano, which now looked from above as if someone had branded it with a huge cross, the last of our marines were back on the ship. The rest of our fleet troops were remaining to act as a police force, until relieved by a proper police force. But this would be several days away, at least. Sasha hadn't lost anyone, but several of them were sporting bandages.
She settled into her chair, and studiously avoided looking at me. Jen was looking at her.
"Say it."
Sasha sighed, and turned to look me in the eyes.
"Sorry, you were right."
I nodded to her, and she concentrated on her console. Jen grinned at me, and focused back on hers. Enough said. The old ways were gone. I hoped. I sent my sight on a quick exploration of the whole system. Other than ours, there were no ships of any kind I could find.
"Are we ready to move on?"
"Yes," said Jen, followed by Sasha, and Tasha.
In a blink, we were at the next jump point. I checked the other side, but there was nothing there.
"I'll be back with the rest of the fleet."
"Have fun," suggested Tasha, and I jumped back to the flagship's bridge.
"Ah, there you are Thorn," said Bentley. "Admiral's still waiting for your report, and we don’t have any of our medical staff back yet."
"Sorry about that. Where do I find the Admiral?"
"In my office."
"Any reason for us to stay here?"
"Orders?"
"Any good reason?"
He laughed.
"No, but you better convince the Admiral."
"Lead on."
I followed him to the office door, where he knocked.
"Enter."
He pushed the door open, and I followed him in.
The man behind the desk rose, came around it, and offered his hand. We shook.
"Admiral Stewart, Thorn."
The one stripe admiral cast a quick glance at Bentley, and returned to his desk chair, waving us into chairs as well.
"I see you’re still wearing the uniform colonel. I'm also aware you're not a real colonel. But since I don’t happen to want to go for a five day walk in a desert with no water, let's just ignore that, shall we?"
He grinned at me, and I smiled back. Bentley relaxed.
"So what went wrong?"
I explained what had happened at both the station, and the colony. I didn’t say where I’d been for two days, just saying it'd taken that long to stabilize the situation.
"So the marines did what marines do, and the enemy did what they do. Could it have been handled better?"
"Yes. But only I could have done it."
"And your marines hadn't shot anyone in so long, they didn’t give you a look in?"
"More or less, yes."
"No surprises there. I've spent the last two years routinely stopping mine from doing boarding operations on known traders, sent to resupply us. We never get ships jump in from outside our space, something to do with destroying everyone trying about one hundred and fifty years ago, so they have nothing to do. Which is just as well, since if they did board traders jumping in, we'd have a three front war going in a few days."
Bentley was quietly chuckling.
"So, when do we get our medicos back?"
"You can have some of them now, but most of them will be needed for at least another week."
"Fine. And I presume you have orders for me?"
"Only if you want to consider them orders."
"How should I consider them?"
"As a minor position adjustment."
"How minor?"
"Right here, but in the next system."
Bentley was laughing now. Stewart gave him a look, and he made an effort, but didn’t manage to stop grinning.
"And what do I tell the high command?"
"Why tell them anything? You'll still be at the blockade point."
He smiled at that.
"Why indeed. Just a minor matter of making sure our supply ships come a little further to find us."
"As you say, a minor matter. I see your courier is still here. Can it handle your medical people, if I leave it at the station?"
"Might take two trips, but yes."
"I'll do that then."
"When…"
"What the fuck?" wafted in the closed door, from out on the bridge.
"I assume we're there already?" asked the Admiral.
"Yes. The courier is a short hop away from the station, and the rest of the fleet is in the same arc it was in, just above the down jump lane. My fleet is between us and the jump point, so when we jump through, you could probably close up the formation a bit closer in."
"I'll think about it."
"From what I've seen of the enemy's tactics, hitting them seconds after they jump in, is your best defense."
"I agree Admiral," said Bentley. "I studied their ships and guns. While our marines have the edge on theirs, their ships and ship guns are slightly better than ours. Not to mention, most of our ships are smaller."
"They have a battleship in the fleet they're trying to get here."
"Trying?"
"Yes. It's an attack fleet, but I won't let it get near enough for a fight."
"What about after you go through into their space?"
"We'll see. When they see us heading for their systems, they may follow us."
"And if not?"
"I'll throw them ahead of us. I can't guarantee you won't see a fleet come through here, especially after we move into systems with more than two jump points. But it won't be that fleet. If necessary, I'll bounce them all
the way to their homeworld."
"You’re going all the way there?"
"Someone has to. This war needs to end."
"Good luck with that."
We said goodbyes, and I jumped back to my ship.
Five minutes later, we jumped into the next system.
Thirty Nine
I could have jumped us straight to their homeworld.
We knew where it was, courtesy of their own database. I even considered doing it. But there were some good reasons for not doing it.
In the first place, I wanted to be careful about not leaving warships behind us. In the second, I wanted to check each planet as we moved, to see if orange was their only colour, or not. And I was curious about how we'd be received as we moved deeper into their space.
So things quickly took on a rinse and repeat cycle. Don’t laugh, I read books. Lots of them.
Jump into a new system. Sight around the system looking for threats, and find the main colony. Jump to the colony, do an orbit well away from stations and ship clusters, and check the planet for anything interesting. Jump to the next jump point, pull the alien fleet into the next system, but in the same ninety degree around a day away position, and go through into the next system yourself.
As rinse and repeat cycles tend to do, it became boring very quickly. Every planet had orange people on it. They all fired missiles at us. The civilians ran in terror. The few military and police ships fired at us. Capital ships were sent to join the main fleet, while anything small was shifted to the ground.
Yes, I said boring. Nothing could get through my force wall, so we were perfectly safe, and had no need to fire at anyone. So while it might sound like it was anything but, being safe is boring.
Five systems in, and getting to the end of main shift day, I found a small fleet coming towards us. Six ships, of the same class as was guarding us. They were not far from the occupied planet in this system, and I was about to jump there when I saw them come out from behind a moon. I jumped us anyway, putting us in their path, pointing at them, while in actual fact heading into orbit of the planet.
Civilian ships ran in all directions as soon as we appeared, clearing the line of fire. All but one ship, which headed up from the main plane of the system, and stopped where it would have a good view of the battle to come below.
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