The men acknowledged him and scrambled to execute his orders.
Only then did he turn his head. “I received reports from the Army Commander, the Commander of the Wolfcraft squadron. Of course, Deepa kept me informed. I did get yours, and I would like to say I am very proud of your conduct.”
His praise touched me deeply, and I wanted to say something, but he held up his hand and stopped me. “Eric, I know how you feel. You lost men flying with you, you let the transports pass and land, and you feel responsible for all this, but at no point did you fail or do anything wrong. Despite all the things I know about you and what you have achieved, you are still just a midshipman. You have performed and served like a real officer, and there was nothing you could have done to prevent this. Don’t count the dead, Eric; count the living that you saved with your actions. Without you, no one would have made it.”
He actually patted my shoulder. “If it means anything to you, Midshipman Olafson, you earned my respect.”
The numb feeling I’d had since I held the dead Holdian commander, the blame and guilt I felt for not doing the right things left me, and I felt much better. The Eternal Soldier, the one man I looked up to more than anyone else, respected me. The pride I felt was deep but still tempered by the recent event. “Thank you, sir.”
He got up. “Let’s go back to the Devi; there are certain people who can’t wait to see you, and I do have a surprise for you as well.”
“Sir, what about the Red Dragon? What about Checkpoint 96?”
He turned and said, “We will hunt him, son. We will find everyone who was responsible for this and make them pay.” He then gestured across the station. “It will be rebuilt and reinforced. It is terrible what happened here, and every life lost will be missed by someone, but in the great scheme of things, it was just a needle prick. We will survive and come out stronger.”
“Before we go, sir, I want to make sure that the former commandant of this base is honored and that her name and conduct is not forgotten. She might just have been a little Holdian in stature, but her spirit and person were as big and tall as the very best of us, sir.”
He made a solemn face. “I know. She was one of those I had picked just as I picked you. I’ll make sure she will receive the highest honors and goes home as a hero should.”
A shuttle was talking us up to the Devastator, as the ship was too big for the spaceport facilities. I could hardly wait to see my friends again.
Everything on the Devastator was gigantic, and so was this shuttle flight deck. In the distance, I could see Captain Harris and a crowd of people, but chief among them, nine I would have recognized anywhere. The admiral was right, the ninth person standing next to Har-Hi, was a surprise. There was a man completely shrouded in a black flowing hooded garment; it was Narth!
I knew it was him, not another member of his species.
I approached the captain and saluted. “Midshipman Olafson reporting back as ordered, sir; permission to come aboard.”
Captain Harris saluted back, and the Master Chief of the Devi blew the boatswain whistle and gave the traditional boarding signal usually reserved for high-ranking officers and dignitaries.
Then the entire crowd behind him saluted at the sound of the whistle, all the Devastator’s midshipmen, Commander Harris, and the 12th Squadron were there as well.
The captain then said, “Permission granted, welcome back, Midshipman Olafson; glad to see you among the living!”
The admiral behind me said, “I am the first to point out that military form and traditions are the backbones of our Navy, but today I say to hell with regulations. Mr. Olafson, your friends are waiting.”
He’d barely finished as my friends rushed me. Krabbel beat them all and embraced me in his long hairy arms. It wasn’t really that long ago when I had seen the big arachnid first in a lobby on Arsenal IV and found his form frightening, but now I threw my arms around his body, knowing what a good and gentle heart beat inside.
“Krabbel,” was all I could say, my throat constricted.
Krabbel said, “We all missed you so much!”
Har-Hi complained, “Krabbel let us get to him as well.”
The big spider partially released me, and Har-Hi gave me a tight brotherly hug, and we patted each other’s backs. He said, “It’s good to have you back!”
Shaka was next, doing the same thing. “We thought we had lost you!”
Mao actually kissed me on both cheeks and then bear hugged me.
Cirruit embraced me and said, “It doesn’t show, Eric, but I am almost exploding with joy to see you.”
I hugged him. “I missed you just as much, my chrome-faced friend, and I can tell how you feel!”
Hans scooped me up like a little child and pressed the little air I had left out of my lungs. “Mein lieber guter Fre…” He had said something in his native language and then added, “My dear, dear friend, I have missed you very much.”
Elfi gave me a long kiss, and it wasn’t on the cheeks, and then said, “Never do that again. We all almost died thinking you were gone!”
Wetmouth slung her arms around me, kissed me gently on the lips and then she started sobbing and cried, “I missed you so much.”
Her body felt soft and tender, and she was sighing deeply. I had to blink and fight my own tears as well and said in her ear, “Everything will be all right.”
Finally, there was Narth. He took my hand and something passed between us that could not be described in words and no emotion, no human experience, could be used to compare. Then he said with his deep non-human and yet so familiar voice, “May I execute the physical exercise of enfolding you with my upper extremities to complete the traditional greeting as I have observed your other friends do?”
I simply pulled him in and embraced him. “Will that suffice as an answer? I am so glad to see you here as well!”
“I have orders of a permanent transfer to the Olafson Gang, I am deeply pleased to say.”
Harris finally stopped the greeting orgy and said, “If we let them, we going to be here until next week, so please everyone, attention!”
It took us a little longer than usual, but we managed to get in attention. Once more, shoulder to shoulder with my friends. I knew then I was the richest man in the universe.
The captain said, “There is unfinished business, and first and foremost, I hereby close the chapter on the Reagan Trophy.”
A lieutenant next to him held up the large metal cup.
Harris pointed at it. “The Olafson Gang has won the competition officially for the Devastator. They were instrumental in uncovering a great conspiracy. Even after they witnessed the apparent demise of their leader and friend, the team performed far and beyond any expectations and brought great honor upon the ship and themselves and made me proud to have such individuals serving with me in this Fleet of ours.”
I whispered to Har-Hi next to me, “You won the Challenge?”
He nodded and said from the side of his mouth, “I thought you would have wanted it!”
I doubt I could have felt more blessed and proud of my friends then at that moment. “Yes, Har-Hi, I would have wanted it.”
The captain added the Reagan Trophy ribbon to our displays and stepped back.
Now the admiral said, “There are still eight weeks till you graduate, but the testing and the school education ends today. There is plenty of education and learning ahead of you, of course, but school is out! You are hereby dismissed from Midshipman Country and allowed to move to the Officers’ Deck and you are as of today acting ensigns until your ranks are confirmed at Graduation Day!”
That caused the cheer that went through the crowd, and I felt a big worry dissolve. I had made it; I wasn’t a midshipman anymore. I had a real rank and was an officer.
The admiral motioned everyone to settle down. “There is more official business before I will dismiss you on three days of R&R.”
He nodded to the captain, who called us into attention again and said wi
th a solemn tone, “Some of you might find it strange or undue what I am about to do. Some of you might think I do this so often it loses meaning, but I am here as directly requested by the President of the United Stars of the Galaxies and the assembly, who were direct witnesses of the events in Hermann’s System after the de-facto declaration of war of a group of pirates. The Assembly saw the actions of Ensign Eric, and I was asked to decorate this young man on their behalf, for showing great courage beyond the call of duty, to represent and stand true to the values of Union and Fleet, even in the face of great adversity. To preserve and protect many lives through his direct action and indirect through his commands, he is hereby presented with the Great Medal of Merit of the Union Assembly.”
He pinned a physical medal to my uniform and then motioned me to say something, and I said, “I am deeply honored by this, but it should go to all the defenders of Checkpoint 98. To the fallen Wolfcraft pilots, to the dead and wounded civilians and to the Holdian Commander, whose name I actually never knew.”
Stahl’s face did not change as he said, “I give you my word, not one will be forgotten.”
The move from Midshipman Country to the Officers’ Deck was both a milestone in all our careers and a bittersweet moment. We no longer would stay in a shared dorm but had our own rooms. In most ships, the junior officers would still share accommodations with one or two others, but the Devi had plenty of room and everyone got their own.
We all went to the Village, as the central recreation area of the Devastator was called. There we crowded one of the street cafes and I had to tell my friends everything that happened to me and I did, except for the part I could not.
In turn, they told me about everything that happened to them. They told me about the events on Newport, and that Wintsun was a traitor, and now a wanted criminal, who somehow managed to escape Newport and that it was him who shot Narth in the Crawler Cat while I was unconscious.
Narth told me that he teleported an Antimatter bomb past the outer orbit of Newport and that this had serious consequences to his Psionic powers and health. He was still recuperating and that it would take a long time before he would return to his old levels. He could have been restored right away, but that would have meant integrating his essence into the body of Narth and he would have lost his individuality, and that was a price he was not willing to pay.
Of course, the recent events at Checkpoint 96 were the main topic everyone around us was talking about. Someone in the café turned on a field screen, and the most popular news show on GalNet came on Union Clarion. Images and footage of the attack were shown once again. I could not help but turn and watch.
The newscaster’s voice was heard over a visual of the Assembly in session, and it said, “In a follow-up session to Assembly resolution 59 of the fifth October 5016 regarding the events in Union System Herman’s Star and the Battle of Outpost 96. A proposal to disregard the Free Space treaty and risk war with the signees of said treaty was narrowly defeated in a Union Citizen vote this morning. A surprising forty-eight percent of the citizens voted for decisive military action, while fifty-two percent voted for a tempered approach. This high percentage should send a clear message to the assembly and our representatives that the citizens of the Union are fed up with the ongoing pirate problems.”
The image changed, and a reporter stood before SII Needle One at Omni Planet, which was the Corporate Center of SII and interviewed a high-level executive of the Giga Corporation. All this information came across the screen in a ticker band.
The executive said, “On behalf of SII GalNet, and as the provider of the Military GalCom network, we would like to send this message to the individual Red Dragon and the Sinister Alliance. We have sent destruct codes to your terminal. Furthermore, since you have chosen to use GalNet services without paying for the call, SII Communications will take steps to collect the forty-five credits owed.”
An environmental specialist at the next table commented on that, saying, “Now his goose is cooked. The Red Dragon pissed off the wrong folks.”
Somehow, I didn’t like that. I wanted the Union Fleet to catch the criminal, and I wanted him to be brought to justice. Dragged in chains before a Union court and hanged and not killed by freelancing corporate assassins.
Captain Harris and the admiral came and pulled chairs up; both were out of uniform, and I had to repeat the story of my involuntary journey again. It wasn’t easy for me to lie to my friends and Captain Harris, but I could not tell them about the involvement of the Sojonites, of course, and made up a story how I escaped. Of course, Stahl knew the entire story, and I was certain I noticed a blinked approval from his eyes.
Much later that day, we found ourselves at the same spot underneath a big tree close to the lake that was in the center of the village.
Once again, we wore bathing suits, except of course for Narth, Krabbel, and Har-Hi. We had talked a lot and now we simply enjoyed being reunited and pushed the events of the past behind us.
I looked to Narth and said, “Why is it I can’t really hear you talk inside my head as we used to? I can still feel your presence and know how you feel no matter where I am, but I can’t actually hear your words inside anymore.”
He had folded his legs, just like Wetmouth often did, and floated a few inches of the surface of the grass. His hooded head turned, and his glowing eyes had lost much of their intensity. “You are blocked in the most efficient way from all external thoughts, even from me, your Hugavh sharer.”
“I don’t want to be blocked from you!”
“Then we must start your psionic training. Only you can allow access through that shield and to allow only one and not all access is quite difficult to learn, but I am confident you will learn this in five to six of your decades. You are, after all, quite intelligent for a human.”
I boxed him in the side. “Only you can insult me and make me feel I just got a compliment. There is no faster way? I mean, in fifty years, I might be retired from the Fleet.”
Narth boxed me back and said, “No, Eric, my friend. If I wanted to insult you, I would say thickheaded Neo-Viking. This would be a proper insult if I understood the instructions of the Narth who spends much time with Neo-Vikings now, correctly. I personally do not understand, as I have not observed that you have a thicker head than other comparable humans.”
Har-Hi chuckled. “Human metaphors can be a tricky thing to understand indeed.”
The three days of rest and recreation were over. While I would not have complained about more, I was ready to go back on regular duty on the Devi without any particular huge responsibilities or associated problems.
However, we were called to the captain’s ready room, instead of receiving new duty assignments and shifts.
He was waiting for us, the Reagan Trophy prominently displayed on his desk. He asked us to forgo any formal behavior and to sit down. Ten Vari-From chairs had already been placed in a semi-circle.
He began right after we all found a seat. “Three days may not be enough but this is the Navy, and the Devi isn’t a cruise ship. There are still close to eight weeks before your final year is over and you officially graduate and get your commissions and a well-deserved leave of absence before you are dispersed to you new assignments and duty posts. As you know, we are at the fringes of Union space and recent events have made it clear that we must pay more attention to this area.”
A three-dimensional projection of a tactical sector map appeared between him and us. Checkpoint 96 was flashing, and a tiny symbol depicted the Devastator. He then reached inside the projection and pointed at a distant, separate star system, and the projection focused on it. “This is Richter System; it has a relative new Class B Fleet base on planet Richter 4. There is an automated long-range sensor station on Richter 8 and the latest survey reports that there are possible ruins of a tech level one civilization on Richter 5. As you can see, Richter Base lies at the outer fringes of the Sagittarius arm and the 2500 light year void to the Orion arm. Technically,
the extension of the Sagittarius Arm in that area is Free Space as well, but due to the sparse star population in this area, there is virtually no space traffic and the three closest star systems on Free Space side, as you can see here, are almost eighty light years away and contain no habitable planets.”
He pointed out the stars he was talking about.
“The reason Free Space extends into this area in the first place is this planetary system, inhabited by a Tec level three civilization, the Bitllors. They are signers of the treaty and simply declared all this empty space and those three systems their empire, and no one objected. As you can see, their main world is 120 light years from Richter.”
Har-Hi said, “Aren’t they still using laser push sails and Ion motors? It takes them almost a month to accelerate to Threshold speed.”
Harris nodded. “Yes, and it takes them the same time to decelerate at the destination.” He looked up at Har-Hi. “I know what you want to ask. Why put a Class B Starbase there if an outpost would have been more than enough to keep an eye on things there?”
Now it was Har-Hi who nodded. “That was what I was wondering about, sir. A Class B is usually home to an entire battlegroup or even a fleet.”
The captain acknowledged Har-Hi with a smile. “Back when the decision was made to build a base there, it was to have been a supply station at the edge of the big gap. Also, to provide us with a back door into the Nosirrah Conglomerate, as a war with them was at that time very likely. If fleets could be moved across the gap at this point, we would have been able to attack from two sides and through the proverbial back door, reaching Nosirrah main worlds without having to fight through a large number of well-defended systems at the other end, where their territory reached Union Space.”
Eric Olafson: Space Pirate Page 21