Aaron sank into the chair directly across from Rys. “So you two have been watching the negotiations, right?”
“Yes,” Steve confirmed with a sour expression on his face. “That Nova Ambassador is making up whole new delaying techniques.”
“But why?” Rys groaned, lifting both hands to rub at his temples. “That’s what I want to know.”
“Bro, that’s what we all want to know,” Aaron pointed out. “Even our superior officers have no clue. Hence why we got this assignment.”
“We got the assignment because we’re good at infiltration and intelligence gathering,” Rys corrected dryly.
“I thought we got the assignment because we’re trying to prove we can play nice planetside so that Bijordan will offer us full citizenship,” Steve drawled.
“Yeah, that too.” Aaron shook his head, eyes tight and a forced smile on his face. “It’s not like we can go home, right? That last battle basically blew the place to smithereens.”
Rys flinched at the reminder. The last battle had started just as they’d been evacuating Fourth Colony’s citizens to Bijordan. It had taken every trick the 01 could pull to prevent Nova from simply blasting the place silly while they still had shuttles on the ground. Even with all they could do, they’d lost four shuttles.
Their officers had sensibly chosen to protect the people and not the colony, and so all of the fleet had followed the civilian shuttles in retreat. From the holovid screen on board Admiral Bloch’s flagship, Rys had watched as his home had been blown into little bits of shrapnel.
Rumor had it that they were going to rebuild the colony, but with Nova acting the way they were now…Rys simply couldn’t see it happening.
Miles and Duane managed to tear themselves away from true love somehow and chose to join their fellow captains at that point. Rys took one look at the glum expression on Duane’s face and the smug one on Miles’s and didn’t bother to ask who’d managed to get the girl’s number.
“Alright, now that we’re all here, how should we tackle this?”
Someone mentally tapped into the computer and brought up the scaled version of Bijordan’s map. Duane and Miles took a seat, swiveling around to face the projection screen. Aaron pointed a finger at it. “Right now, we simply don’t know enough to even make educated guesses. Nova came at us with brute force and only the barest attempt to gather intel first. This time, they’re clearly being sneakier about it.”
“Even an old spacehand will learn new tricks,” Steve sighed. “But you’re right. I’ve been seeing a lot of Novan merchantmen, tourists, and diplomats ever since I came planetside. They could be covers for intel ops, but then again…they could be just normal citizens. I don’t know what sort of traffic is normal and what isn’t.”
“Bijordan and Nova have always done trade and such, at least before the war,” Duane pointed out. “But even that’s not a good baseline. With the war over, the amount of traffic we’re seeing could just be a reaction to a ten year trade moratorium.”
“So, in other words, we’re going to have to spend a few weeks, possibly even months, gathering intel before we can properly analyze it,” Rys concluded. Bloch’s insistence that they become foster children as part of their cover suddenly made much more sense. Not that Rys doubted for a moment that the Admiral had ulterior motives for their cover story.
Miles gave him a glum nod. “That’s about the size of it. We’re going to have to be smart about dividing this up. Otherwise it will be too much information for any one team to process. So what should we focus on? Any government facilities?”
“That,” Aaron agreed with a judicious look at the map, “and trading centers.”
“Hospitals,” Steve added.
Rys winced at the idea. Actually, taking the hospitals out of commission and sending the population into mass panic sounded exactly like something Nova would do. “Ship ports.”
“Those too,” Aaron agreed. “Alright, for now, let’s focus on those. If we see something else that strikes us as a good target, we’ll add it onto the watch list. Let’s see…we’ve got seven major cities…”
“But two of those cities are within a short distance from each other,” Miles observed. “You could actually base one team at a midpoint and have them cover both cities.”
“I volunteer Rys’s team to be one of those~!” Miles gave him a feral smile of evil pleasure.
“Why me?!” Rys objected.
“Because you have Gremlin.”
Rys opened his mouth to protest and found that he couldn’t think of a good excuse. Gremlin was a monster when it came to processing information and hacking computers. He probably could handle the data stream of two cities. Rys gave a forlorn sigh. There are obviously some major cons to having a computer genius on my team… “Alright, we’ll take it. But that still leaves the other two.”
“Miles gets it,” Duane assured him easily.
Miles let out an indignant squawk and snapped around to give Duane an evil glare.
“He who volunteers others is volunteered,” Duane countered, shaking his finger playfully. “Weren’t you paying attention when Sarge taught you that?”
“Obviously not,” Aaron observed, already marking the map with the team’s designated territories. “Alright, moving on…Anyone care about which cities they get? No? Good, I’ll arbitrarily decide.”
While Aaron marked the map, Rys thought of a good way to coordinate all the information gathering they would be doing. “I vote that once a month we all get together and share what intel we’re gathering. A larger, more overall pattern might develop that way.”
“Good plan,” Miles approved. “Say, the first weekend of every month?”
Everyone either nodded or shrugged in assent. Rys pulled up a mental calendar and set an alarm for that.
With the assignments doled out and the schedule set, Rys should have been out of his chair and moving, but he found himself oddly reluctant to do so. It took a moment for him to realize why: mission parameters he understood. But this cover of being a ‘normal high school student’ could not have been more foreign to him if his superior had ordered him to blend in with dancing bears. Finding good foster homes for himself and his team didn’t seem like that easy of a task either.
Rys had this depressing notion that figuring out what Nova had planned was going to be the easy part of this mission.
Chapter Two
Rys stood by the car for a moment and took a long, appraising look at the two story house belonging to Admiral Bloch. He did a mental slap on the back of his head. Jeremy, blast it, he had to start thinking more like a civilian now! The home was located in a quiet, upper-middle class neighborhood, with white siding and used brick. The yard was well landscaped, although a little cluttered at present with all sorts of toys, ranging from bikes to toy guns. It was a clear pronouncement that this was a home with children, lots of children. Rys had expected that. Jeremy and his wife Sara were the parents of five children, ranging in ages from eight to sixteen. In that age category, toys and bicycles were simply a fact of life.
Or so other soldiers, who were also parents, had informed him.
It had taken three days of tedious work and enough reading to put some serious strain on his eyes, but Rys had finally managed to match up his men with good families and homes. It shouldn’t have been so difficult to find the right homes for his three lieutenants, but he wanted the absolute best for them. The best took considerable more digging and effort to find, but after all they had been through together, they were well worth it.
At the end of those three days, he had been caught off-guard and a little humbled when Admiral Bloch—Jeremy—had personally suggested that Rys come live with him. The man had been so persuasive in his genuine desire to host Rys that Rys had agreed without really thinking about it.
He still wasn’t certain this was a good idea.
For Guardian’s sake, there were multiple children in there! He had no clue how to interact with children. Drawing
on his own childhood for examples as a guideline would be of absolutely no use to him. He’d been raised in a military academy since he was eight years old. The Academy had accepted him when his parents died in an accident, leaving him orphaned. He was an only child, so the thought of siblings, outside of the military team, was a foreign concept and frankly a little unsettling.
He turned to look at the Admiral, trying to think of a way to voice his concerns in a tactful way. The Admiral was a military man through and through, with a tall and imposing figure. He looked every bit the middle-aged officer with his dark hair touched with grey at the temples and the laugh lines around his eyes, but Rys had sparred with the man personally and knew that the years hadn’t softened him up any. Strangely, even though the man was still in the dark green and gold uniform of Bijordan, he didn’t look out of place in this blatantly civilian environment. Perhaps because he was comfortable here?
Rys wished he could feel the same.
“Sir,” Rys began as a last-ditch effort to relieve the Admiral of his spontaneous and ill thought-out offer, “Are you sure about this? While this is a very large structure, with sufficient room for additional personnel, you still have seven very diverse people living inside of it. I might prove to be an imposition and an impediment to your normal routine.”
“Don’t worry about it,” The Adm — Jeremy negated with a cheery, dismissive wave of his hand. “Sara has a bedroom ready and waiting for you. She is used to spur of the moment changes in plans, being a military wife. We have enough room, and a force ten storm wouldn’t be able to disrupt the normal ‘routine’ of our mob.”
When caught on an exposed, hemmed-in ground, just give up and retreat gracefully. Rys gave up and reached back into the car to retrieve his gear. He slung one duffle bag over his shoulder and carried the other in his left hand. Admiral — Jeremy led the way through the back door, calling as he entered, “We’re home!”
Did he normally announce his presence in that manner, or had he done it for Rys’s benefit?
“Welcome home!” A pleasingly plump woman with curly blond hair and amazing blue eyes appeared from a side door— perhaps the kitchen?—with her arms outstretched. She rose up on her tip toes and greeted Admiral Bloch with a kiss on his cheek, and a lingering hug. “You made good time, honey. And you,” she dropped back to her heels and turned those smiling blue eyes to Rys, “must be Captain Arystair Savar.”
Adm — Jeremy, JE-RE-MY, made the formal introductions. “Arystair this is my wife, and the love of my life, Sara.”
Rys immediately extended his right hand. “It is a pleasure, ma’am. And thanks for taking me in like this.”
“Oh, no you don’t,” she scolded warmly. Ignoring his outstretched hand, she brushed it aside and grabbed him up in a firm bear hug.
Rys blinked, his body tensing with momentary shock, not expecting to have an armful of female, and just stood there for a moment. But as unexpected as this was — did all civilians hug strangers like this? — It was still decidedly pleasant. Very pleasant! He relaxed his stance and gave into the embrace, returning Sara’s hug with his free arm.
“I’m not about to just shake the hand of the young man that saved my husband’s life,” she murmured into his hair. “Especially not when that same young man is practically my son now!”
He had absolutely no idea on how to respond to that. Admiral Bloch had told her that this was simply a cover for a mission, right? Well, perhaps not. The man seemed convinced that all of SF01 needed to be given a taste of what ‘home life’ was like. As much as he enjoyed this hugging business, he was still relieved when she drew back a little, giving him room to catch his breath.
“And I don’t want to hear any ‘ma’am’s,’ do you understand?” she added firmly. “You will call me Sara.”
Rys hoped that would be easier than trying to call her husband by his first name. “As you wish, Sara.” Her name rolled easily off of his tongue, like he had been saying it all his life.
“Good. Dinner is in the oven, but it’s not quite done yet. You just drop those duffle bags here; we’ll deal with them later. Right now, you need to meet the rest of the family.”
Rys swallowed, forcing a squad of space monkeys to settle in his stomach. He dropped both duffle bags to the side by the wall, well out of the way, and trailed after her down a hallway, to a large room at the end.
The room turned out to be some sort of communal living space — it had an abundance of couches, overstuffed chairs, and even a couple of bean bags lurking in one corner. A giant vid screen covered one entire wall. In every available seat there seemed to be children of various ages. They all looked up, a little startled at his entrance, but immediately curious.
Sara beamed at them in a way that eerily reminded him of a drill sergeant with a detachment of new recruits to terrorize. “Children, this is Captain Arystair Savar. He will be Arystair to you, like another big brother. Arystair, this is our oldest son, Brandon.”
Brandon had a stocky, muscular build to him with the same height and dark features as his father. At the moment, he slouched against the end of a couch with a sullen set to his face, and he only nodded once in acknowledgement. Rys had an uneasy feeling that for some unknown reason he was already on this boy’s unwelcome list. Hoping he was wrong, he nodded back, and resolved to look into that situation soon.
“This is our daughter Cynthia, and her twin sister Cecilia.”
The two twins, thankfully, were not identical. Cynthia had light brown hair, and Cecilia was a blonde. Neither of them had any sort of size to them — Rys could pick one up in each arm without strain. With that kind of petite build to them, surely they weren’t done growing yet. They were also obviously delighted to see him, unlike their older brother. Each girl bounced off of the couch in perfect sync, and rose to bracket him in a twin pincher movement, grinning at him like an unexpected prize.
“We are so glad —” Cynthia emphatically declared.
“— to meet you!” Cecilia finished her sentence, like she was accustomed to doing it all of the time.
Rys blinked at this, unable to process the phenomenon. He’d heard of twins being able to finish each other’s sentences, but he always thought of that as a myth. Apparently, like most myths, this one had a healthy dose of truth to it. “I’m very glad to meet you, too,” he answered honestly. “I’ve never had sisters before.” He wasn’t entirely sure with what to do with them, either.
“This is Ashley, she is our resident bookworm,” Sara continued, “and sitting next to her is our youngest child, Dylan.”
Rys managed a nod to Ashley, who was currently holding a book in her hands, and appeared to be very shy. She looked remarkably like her mother with those big blue eyes only with her father’s dark hair. Dylan bounced forward, out of a bean bag chair, and wedged the twins aside to have Rys’s undivided attention.
“Why are you in uniform?" asked Dylan, with curiosity plainly displayed on his face. The question was not meant as a challenge, but an honest inquiry, from a boy who had no patience for preamble when he wanted to know something. Direct and to the point, Rys liked that. He could see that he and Dylan would get along just fine.
Rys smiled back at Dylan. He was still in the Fourth Colony black and white uniform (that being all he currently possessed in the clothing department). “Am I not supposed to be?”
“Generally,” Admiral Bloch hastily interjected, “we don’t wear our uniforms unless we’re on base or on duty. Wasn’t that true on Fourth Colony as well?”
“I wouldn’t know, sir. I was never off-duty.” Rys paused, re-thinking that statement. “Well, I suppose I was off-duty when I was in the hospital recuperating, but they only allowed you to wear those ridiculous hospital gowns.”
Even Jeremy Bloch, the lifelong military man that he was, looked dumbfounded at this revelation. “Don’t you own any civilian clothing?”
“No.” Rys spread his hands helplessly, unable to understand the question. “Sir, exactly when woul
d I have had any opportunity to use such clothing? It was pointless for me to buy any.”
“You will have the opportunity now! We’re going shopping tomorrow,” Sara said firmly. “You look very dashing in that uniform, Arystair, but you are definitely off-duty in our home. Are we clear?”
Rys gave her a rueful smile. Actually, technically, I’m still on duty…no, I don’t think the Admiral told her my true purpose here. To keep his cover intact, he responded, “No complaints from me, ma’am.”
Sara waved a scolding finger at him. “What did I say earlier?”
It took Rys a second to understand her reference. “Excuse me, Sara. I meant to say Sara. I am used to addressing superiors with deference and deportment.”
Admiral Bloch (Rys mentally gave up that battle, at least for now) chuckled at his wife. “Don’t feel bad, dear. He hasn’t been able to address me by my first name yet and he’s been trying for three full days.”
Rys tried not to glower at him. “It would help if you were out of uniform, sir.”
Bloch laughed outright at that. “Is that the problem? Fair enough. I’ll go change into my civvies to make it easier for you.”
“It would definitely give me a fighting chance,” Rys grumbled under his breath. Apparently not quietly enough, as the twins heard him and giggled in stereo.
A quiet chime sounded from the opposite side of the house. Sara immediately turned in that direction, as if she were tracking an incoming missile. “Oh, that’s dinner. Children, wash your hands and go set the table. Arystair, you just come with me.”
Watching Sara’s troops converge on the table reminded Rys of a drop and re-supply mission. The children rapidly assembled from the various corners of the house, bringing along dishes and table implements as instructed. How Sara managed to coordinate it all without losing track of something for even a moment, Rys had no idea. The woman would have made a wonderful deployment officer, and a better supply officer.
In surprisingly little time, they were all settled around the huge wooden table in the dining room, eating absolutely first rate food. The smell alone would insure he had seconds.
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