by Ben Winston
“Perhaps you would be, Ian. But there is a something special about you. You were born to Command. Yes, you are an excellent pilot, but I think you are exactly where you are meant to be. We’d all be dead by now if anyone else was in command. You’re the one that’s keeping us alive,” Talena answered. “Even in the Talosian culture I was born into, you would be at least a flight leader, by now. Maybe even a Wing Commander.”
“You’re my Wing Commander, Talena. You’re doing a good job too.”
“Yes, I am. However, I’m not actually qualified for it. This position should be held by a seasoned combat pilot, someone that knows what it’s like to command people in combat, understands the intricacies of small craft space and atmospheric battles. All I know is theory, I have no experience, and am very worried I’ll make a mistake that will get some of my people killed,” Talena admitted. “I’m only your Wing Commander because I’m the only person that has gone through the flight academy.”
“Talena, do you know why you got promoted from Lieutenant to Captain?” Ian asked.
“Because I needed the rank in order to hold the position of Wing Commander. It should actually be held by a Major or Colonel.”
“No, I was content to leave you as a Lieutenant. John Harris put you in for it,” Ian admitted.
“Really? Why?” the young woman asked.
“I can’t remember the exact wording he used, but he said that in all his years in flight operations command, he has never seen anyone with a better understanding of the position and duties required of a Wing Commander. He said that you perform the duties required of you without letting the power of the position go to your head. You maintain a position of comradery with your fellow pilots while maintaining the respect due your position. As soon as we get up to full strength as a fighter wing, you will once again be promoted to the rank of Major. The orders are already signed, and Star has recorded them,” Ian explained.
“I thought we were up to strength? I mean, we are still rotating pilots out to the moon base, but we have all the pilots we’re supposed to have, don’t we?” Talena asked.
“Yes we are, but that is a recent thing, and we’ve had no time for a promotion ceremony. So, you should probably start thinking about finding a replacement for Gold Squadron flight leader, Major. Because you’ll be commanding all the fighters.”
“Cindy would be my choice, but I think she’s getting pretty attached to her people in Silver Squadron. I’ll give it some thought, Ian,” Talena said. “...and Ian?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you for telling me,” Talena said. “I thought I was only doing this job until you found someone better.”
“Nope, there is no one better, you’re it.”
“What about Mystic? He was a flight leader in the Navy,” Talena asked.
“You don’t want to be the Wing Commander? I mean, we never really asked you, we just assumed...” Ian started.
“Yes! I want the job, I’m just thinking there are other people more qualified,” she replied.
“Lieutenant Michaels, Mystic, hasn’t even been recommended for promotion. When we were looking for new flight leaders, we looked at him. John said he already talked to the man about it. Mystic refused the offer for the time being. John told me that the Navy pilots all agreed that there was simply too much difference between space flight, and atmospheric flight for them to feel comfortable accepting a leadership position yet.” They continued to talk until it was time to land, the flight was otherwise uneventful.
Talos, New Mexico
Earth, Sol Sector
Combat location: Eden
As proof that he couldn’t surprise anyone, Ty and Luke were standing in the shielded passengers lounge with two other people dressed in the desert camo uniforms of US Marines. Ian left his helmet on since they were still in the bay.
“We’ll be ready to lift again in a couple of minutes, Sir. I’ll keep the flight on alert, so no one wanders too far away,” Talena replied.
“This is going to take an hour or two, why don’t you let them go to visit anyone they want to here, but make sure they can get back here quickly,” Ian suggested.
“Okay, what about the shuttles?” she asked.
“Traffic for the ship only, but hold them until they can return with us,” Ian said, then noticed someone get off one of the shuttles in question. He wasn’t too surprised to see Janet Laskar, wearing a ground crew headset, walking toward him, smiling.
Excusing himself from Talena, Ian met her half way, and together they walked to the passenger lounge. “Why am I not surprised to see you here?” Ian asked.
“A little birdie told me you’d need me here today, so I hitched a ride on one of the shuttles,” Janet winked at him. “Relax about the Marines, Ty made the right call. I’m here to tell you that, and to reassure you about something else that’ll be suggested.”
“What?” Ian asked.
“To allow the Colonel’s father-in-law to come here. He’s the man in charge of the US Space Command,” Janet replied.
Ina was so shocked he stopped and looked at her. “A high ranking member of the United States Military? Are you serious?”
“Yes, I am. He will be very important to us in the coming days. Eventually, he will become a ship’s Commander, but that’s not for a while yet,” Janet replied, still grinning. “Ian, have I ever told you something that wasn’t true?”
“Well, no, but this?” Ian said, seriously. “Janet, this is really hard to believe.”
“I know, but it’s also important. The man has met, and is on a first name basis with a lot of other, high-ranking, foreign military leaders. This will give us a more diverse membership, and be a very important factor when the UN becomes involved. We will still be accused of being a US force, but the UN will see, and understand, that we truly are not, because of the number of other countries citizens we’ll have in our ranks.
“We already have made good progress in recruiting foreigners, but not so much in the military, and that’s what will make the difference. We need this Admiral, Ian. Otherwise the whole house of cards will collapse,” Janet said. “This is what I’ve come to call a ‘key event’. It’s right up there with Oly finding you, recruiting Elias and his company, and Ty’s SEAL team joining us. This has to happen, Ian.”
Ian nodded, and let out a breath he hadn’t known he had been holding. He turned and the pair resumed their walk to the lounge. “Okay, I do trust you, Janet. I always have.” Ian said before opening the door for Janet.
Ty and the Marines all came to attention when Ian walked into the room. Ian said ‘as you were’ more out of a force of habit than anything else. Ian removed his helmet, and the two Marines were obviously surprised to see he was so young.
“Commander Williams, may I present to you Colonel James Petrie and Major Alfonse Taylor, of the United States Marines. Gentlemen, this is our military leader, Commander Ian Williams of the Talosian Defense Forces.”
Ian shook hands with the men, but it was Colonel Petrie that spoke first. “Colonel Anders told us you were young, but I wasn’t expecting you to be this young, Sir.”
Ian nodded his head. “I can well understand that, Colonel. I turned nineteen last week. I was given this position because of genetics originally. I listen to a lot of advice, and try to make the best decisions I can. Luckily, we have a lot of good people in positions of authority, Like Colonel Anders, and Governor Belden.”
Petrie nodded. “Ty made sure to explain how everything here works, and everything that’s happened so far. I have to say, I have a whole battalion of Marines that would sign up now if we could. Especially after what Ty and your people here have done for us. We all understand that you could have just as easily kept your secrets to yourselves and let us die in our arrogance.”
“Arrogance?” Ian asked.
“When Agent... uh, Mister Carlson first told me about what might happen, I thought he was off his nut. Even when they were about to attack, I still didn’t believe
him, and I was sure we could handle anything, after all, we ARE the United States Marines, the best and most advanced fighting force on the planet.
“If not for the rifles they supplied, and the other help, we would all be dead. Even with your help, I still lost twelve, and have twenty-one more seriously wounded. I understand even that much help went against your standing orders not to let advanced technology out, but I’m very glad they disobeyed those orders.”
Ian nodded. “I am too, but you have to admit, a lot of other commanders would have reported us immediately, and we’d have been forced to abandon this base. Thank you for keeping our secret, Colonel. That goes for all of your men too.”
“Yeah, all my instincts are telling me to report what I’ve seen, but that would be a mistake. We’d lose the entire planet while the governments bickered over who had control of what,” Major Taylor replied. “Colonel Anders said we aren’t out of the woods yet? Could we expect another attack here, Sir?”
“I can’t give you a positive answer, Major. But I would say yes, there is a strong possibility you will get attacked again here. My worry is that if they do hit you here again, it will make the last attack look like a picnic in the park.” Ian turned to Ty. “In your message, you asked for permission to provide armor, weapons and training to these Marines. Since you all understand the reasons and necessity of not letting this equipment fall into official hands, I approve your requests. I would also recommend you get busy training on as well as producing heavy armor and better artillery.
“Use the drones at night, since we all know there are eyes in the sky, to build real fighting positions and bunkers for everyone. Give the Marines full access to the compound, and make sure their wounded get treated in Main Medical down here,” Ian said.
“Actually, we’re already doing that, Sir,” Ty replied grinning.
Ian laughed. “Well, what do you need me for? You know what to do!”
“Well, we hadn’t thought of the tanks and heavy stuff yet, but we’re doing the rest. Basically, what we’re doing is extending the base out here so the Marines will be able to move quickly from place to place, and have access to Medical, the armory, and any other amenity they’ll need. In the event of a breach, the whole thing can be sealed and isolated from the main area of the base. Although, it would have to be a pretty major breach. All the tunnels have explosives and weapons mounted in them. It should be a nightmare for any enemy that tries to take the base from there.” Ty explained. Come on, let’s head to Luke’s office, and we can go over the additions and improvements.”
Ian nodded. “Okay, but remember folks, I might need to head out at any time.”
“We understand, Sir. Actually, I’m somewhat surprised you could make it down here now,” Petrie replied.
“I was questioned about it by the XO, that’s for certain, but I felt this was important. I also wanted to thank you guys in person for protecting my people down here,” Ian replied.
“That’s our duty, Sir. But on the behalf of my Marines, you’re welcome. You know, I think Ty and his people would have put up a hell of a fight if we hadn’t been here,” Petrie replied. “Hell, there was talk about replacing us with a force recon unit, but Luke insisted it be us. He said he’d stop all the aide he was providing if they tried to change the unit. He claimed the folks here wanted us and wouldn’t settle for anyone else.”
“They’re just a bunch of bullies that were trying to show us that they had the situation completely under control, all the time knowing we knew as well as they did that they had no idea what was going on. The fact is, that in order for them to keep a unit out here, they would need us to support them, or they would spend millions of dollars keeping the new troops supplied and supported. As it was, we had a hard time getting the 82nd Airborne out of here.”
Ty nodded and picked up the story. The general that arrived with the 82nd was another one of the blow-hards. We gave him a much sanitized tour of the topside facilities, and he left, satisfied that we were exactly what we said we were.”
“With no obvious reasons for the aliens to attack us, they decided that it must have been a fluke, or that the actual target was White Sands, and we just happened to be in the way,” Luke said, shrugging. “As long as they're gone, I don’t really care what they believe.”
Lara got up and gave Ian a hug when they got to the offices. “Welcome back, Ian! It’s good to see you again! How are the kids?”
“It’s good to see you too, Lara. I’m glad you’re keeping this pirate in line!” Ian gestured to Luke. “The kids are growing like weeds, and finally sleeping all night. Now we just need to get rid of the Caldarians, and we can get back to the fun stuff!”
Lara winked at him, and welcomed Janet back too. The group then proceeded into Luke’s office.
As soon as they sat down at the conference table, Ty began typing on a terminal built into it. A hologram of the Community and the base under if took form over the table, in yellow the new additions Ty had mentioned showed in almost all directions from the main underground base.
“These are the ideas we’ve come up with so far. The area in front of the compound has already been built and the connecting tunnels set up. None of this is detectable from the surface buildings, and only our people will know how to get into it.” When Ty said ‘our’ it was obvious he included the US Marines as well.
“All the fighting positions are reinforced and shielded. A few of them even have medium lasers mounted in them, although we still have to show the Marines how to use them. We’ve also used the mass driver model to create a few mini-gun style man-portable heavy guns, as well as hard mounts in shielded positions. We are planning on adding an additional shield over the area. That will provide an additional layer of protection for the community while giving the Marines more protection as well.”
“Looks good to me, are you going to add to the heavy mount weapons topside to help cover the Marines?” Ian asked.
“We had a couple ideas for that. The guns we had installed for anti-aircraft, worked very well on the assault ships, but we had to be really careful about hitting their power cores,” Ty explained.
“Not much can be done about that, unfortunately. The crews would blow the cores anyway once they knew the battle is hopeless,” Ian replied.
“Well, at least the aliens didn’t take any intel away from here. None of them survived to report back,” Taylor said.
“Actually, that’s not true, Major Taylor. All the ships the Caldarians use, with the exception of the fighters, are continuously connected to the command ship via subspace link. The entire battle is available to their commanders for review. They know everything that happened down here just as well as we do.” Ian replied.
“Can you bring the ship in closer to help cover us?” Petrie asked.
“Ty save this, please. Then bring up the tactical feed from Star Dancer.” Ian said by way of an answer. When it was done, Ian used the controls to zoom in on the Caldarian Super Nova near Venus.
“This is the enemy Command ship. It’s the source of all the fighting. As you can see, it’s currently parked near the orbit of the Planet Venus. Right now, they are trying to figure out how we’ve done everything we’ve been able to do so far. They are also looking for any Talosian presence in this system, and if they find it, they will attack, and destroy it.”
He pulled the display back then zoomed in on his ship. “This is where I have the ship parked, and hidden. In a stand up fight between the Super Nova, and the Star Dancer, Star Dancer would be overwhelmed by sheer firepower in just under four minutes.” He typed and brought up a comparison display showing a side view of the Super Nova, and the Star Dancer in from of it. The Star Dancer wasn’t even a third the length of the much bigger ship.
“Now, to give you an idea of how big we are actually talking here...” Ian said, and zoomed in, to Star Dancer, then to the back end near the landing bay entrance, then into the entrance, and still further until they could see people working on fighte
rs and shuttle sin the big landing bay.
“Ho-ly-fuck!” Petrie said. “I had no idea the ships were that damn big!” He glanced at Janet, and looked down. “Excuse me Ma’am.”
Ian nodded. “While Star Dancer could seriously mess up a planet, the Super Nova has the ability to not only destroy the planet, but they can trigger a nova condition in the Sun, destroying the entire system.” Ian let the display once again pull out to show the entire inner system theater. “I’m not hiding from them out of cowardice, but out of necessity. I believe we can defeat these assholes as long as we can stay alive long enough and do enough damage to them as possible, without them figuring out where it’s coming from. So far, we’ve been trying to keep their attention from focusing on the planet, and this community.” Ian explained. “Moving the ship would make it detectable. The Caldarians would then make it their primary target and destroy us as quickly as they could, then they would turn on the planet, and simply blow away cities from orbit until the survivors surrendered. Once that happens, they would all become slaves that serve the Caldarians as miners, forced labor, and craftsmen.”
“So it’s not expansionism that drives them, then?” Petrie asked.
“Not in the sense we think, no. They view all other races as inferior to them, and therefore subservient. Only Caldarian life matters, and it was the duty of the other races to serve them in every way, up to and including giving their lives at the whims of their masters. It’s a simple case of Dominance. Caldarians don’t think they are better than everyone else, they know they are. There is no other option for them. They view defeat by an inferior to be completely intolerable, and they will kill themselves to absolve the shame of defeat.”
“So, what have they been up to since we stomped they’re asses?” Taylor asked.
“That’s the strange part. They’ve been doing nothing. They recalled all of their patrol craft, and so far, have only been sitting there for the last couple of days,” Ian said. ”That is very unlike the Caldarians that we know of from our records. The defeat should have pissed them off to the point where they would launch an all-out attack to turn this whole section of the United States into glass. Just sitting there is really causing my intel people ulcers.”