He nodded.
She took her son in her arms and held him tight, saying. “You don’t come back here. You’re biggern’ him, biggern’ your grandfather too. You’re not like them… never were.”
…
In the last week of basic he’d been jogging back from mess, when a severe looking master chief came out from the staff building and shouted at him. “You Seaman Brooks?”
He nodded.
“Get your ass in here.” The master chief went back inside, the screen door slapping shut. Justice walked into the white room, bracing to get chewed out for God knows what. The master chief, now sitting at a stainless steel desk, held out his hand to a chair.
Justice sat.
“Master Chief Widmore.”
“Master chief.”
“What do you want to do for the Navy?”
“I’m slated for ordnance.”
The master chief’s eyes narrowed. “Did I ask you what you were slated for?”
“No, master chief.”
“Well?”
The truth made his heart race. “I want to fly Phantoms.”
“Fly Phantoms? More likely you could train unicorns for us.”
Justice’s anger flared, but he remained silent.
The master chief looked over the screen to his right. “We don’t fly Phantoms anymore.” As if ready to offer Justice everything he’d ever wanted, the master chief asked, “You want to fly a Wraith?”
Justice nodded, feeling distrustful. “Sure.”
“Let me understand you,” the master chief said, “you don’t even know what we’re flying these days, and you think you’ve got what it takes to get in them?
“My grandfather served in the Navy. Used to tell me stories about the war.”
The master chief’s eyebrow lifted. “Did he fly?”
Justice felt trapped. He let a possible lie go. “He was a cook.”
The master chief’s eyes went flat. He looked at the screen and said absently, “A cook.” He typed on his keyboard. “We can try you out for the mechanic’s route. Looks like you have some experience there. You can fix Wraiths, and you’ll get a bit of back seat time.”
Unfamiliar boldness rose up. “I want to fly.”
The master chief’s eyes shifted to him, narrowed. “And I want to have a piece of your girlfriend, but we can’t have it all can we? That’s life. Don’t bitch about it. You have to be an officer or have a college degree and be E-5 to even be considered to fly. We start with shitty jobs and hot girls, and if we work hard, we end up with decent jobs and fat wives.” He shrugged and smiled for the first time. “I do love her though.” He handed him a tablet. “Maybe you can learn to love this job.”
Justice took the tablet.
“It’s the mechanic’s exam. You pinned the basic tests, so we’ve got to do something more with you. Can’t waste talent. Go over there,” he pointed at a small corner desk, “and take it. Keep your head down and your mouth shut.”
When Justice brought the exam back, the master chief looked over the tablet, his bored expression darkening to anger. His eyes rose slowly to Justice before tracking to the desk where he’d taken the exam.
He came around the desk fast. Catching Justice’s arm and spinning him around, he shoved him up against the wall and went through his pockets. “If you’re screwing with me, I’ll have your ass in the brig for the rest of your service years. You got me?”
“What the hell’s going on?”
The master chief turned Justice to face him. “Take off your cover and your shoes.”
Justice did as he was told. The master chief looked into the shoes and ran his fingers around the inside rim of his cover. He handed the cap back and sat at his desk, with a defeated expression.
“What the hell seaman?”
“Master chief?”
“You scored 100%... Nobody scores 100%.”
Opening a drawer, the chief took out another tablet. “You think you’re slick? Here’s your one chance.” He handed the tablet to Justice. “That’s the pilot’s exam. Sit down. If you don’t nail it to the wall, you’re gonna be running a wrench for the rest of your life.”
Justice walked over to the desk dizzy, the tablet feeling like lead.
When he’d completed the exam, he approached the master chief but didn’t want to hand it over. Once it was scored he was done, locked. The chief snapped the tablet from him. After entering something on its surface, he sat back in his chair, it’s wooden frame creaking.
“I’ll be damned. Looks like you’ll get your chance to step up to the physical exam. Pass it at the top of your group, and you might get a consideration for an academy slot. That happens, and I’ll be calling you sir. You won’t fly though. I doubt you’ll be able to take the G’s.”
Justice felt a rush of possibility, and years of frustrated anger came rising with it as he said, “I’ll take down anything you throw at me.”
The master chief waved the comment away. “Get your rucksack Brooks. Basic’s over for you.”
Chapter Eighteen
Jeffrey lay on his bunk waiting. The fleet had been accelerating back toward Earth for two days. Samantha hadn’t spoken more than a dozen words to him in that time. He’d waffled back and forth from feeling justified to embarrassed. He’d only recently settled on the conclusion that he probably should have simply let her be. Not responding would have been the higher, more cordial road than calling her out.
He let his thoughts of her go, and considered the Sthenos, who now closed in from all directions, save the four nearest Earth. War was imminent, but the two silent days of waiting had gotten under everyone’s skin. The Sthenos would reach them in perhaps six hours.
The shade of his reading lamp threw a pattern of ellipses across the ceiling. He stared at them, considering the ovals of light against the chaos of the stars. What patterns existed here and now? He found himself again in a situation in which discerning patterns from chaos was the only way to scrape life away from certain death. He had to find weaknesses and exploit them in fractions of a second. His thoughts turned to his pilots, those who were to become the new Hammerheads—unmodified, unprepared. When the Sthenos attacked fifty years ago, the Hammerheads had been an experiment already in the final stages of development. He and the first wave were just coming on line when Demos had been destroyed. 50,000 dead in the first few moments of that war.
Over a quarter million men and women had fought and died to keep the Sthenos from Earth, and despite all odds, they’d succeeded. Those dead would be nothing when held in the light of this. He thought of the people going about their days in New York, Tokyo, Moscow—millions in each, some sleeping, some committing crimes, others holding high a grandchild. He paused as the memory of Leif stepping out of the airlock, soul gutted, came to mind. There had been something worse than the loss of a wife in his eyes.
“A child,” Jeffrey said quietly to himself.
Sarah had been pregnant.
He gritted his teeth against the shock of that realization, under which fury began boiling up. As he wondered if the gluttony of the Sthenos had any boundaries, he slipped into a self-preserving daydream of a final dogfight. Flying a Phantom, a ship long since retired, he imagined himself arcing above the last Sthenos destroyer as its hull cracked wide, its guts spilling into the vacuum of space. He wouldn’t have delivered the final blow, as a Phantom couldn’t possibly take down a destroyer, but would have cleared the way. In the end, a Sthenos fighter would get one last shot in. He’d see it too late.
As his windscreen spider-webbed and blew open, he’d watch one of his Hammerheads run the Sthenos fighter down. With his ship falling to pieces, a moment of searing pain would be followed by an enveloping serenity. What would he find? His wife? The other pilots, gone now fifty years? Mako with his narrow shoulders and hawklike nose? Finally smiling? Finally at peace?
That’s how he’d like it to be.
A tapping sounded on the hatch.
Jeffrey
came out of his thoughts, seeing the dark room again, the pattern of light on the ceiling.
The tapping sounded again.
Jeffrey shoved the blanket off, exposing his T-shirt and uniform slacks, now wrinkled. He went to the hatch, his support frame whirring. Opening the door, he found Vice President Delaney alone in the corridor.
“Vice President.”
She stared at him, no smile, no pretense, just a matter of fact look. “Can we talk?”
Jeffrey leaned on the hatch-frame as he crossed his arms. “Yes.”
She waited. When he said nothing more she sighed and said, “In private.”
Jeffrey backed away, sweeping his arm into the small quarters. As she entered, he flicked on the main light and closed the door.
“Please,” she said as she motioned toward the switch, “I prefer the dimmer light.”
Jeffrey turned the main light off and crossed his arms again, balancing himself on his feet, shoulders squared. “What can I help you with Ma’am?”
She put her hands on her hips. “You clearly have a problem with me.”
“Yes.”
“What the hell have I ever done to you?”
Jeffrey saw sincere and uncharacteristic frustration in her expression. “Nothing.” He said and left it at that.
“Nothing? I don’t un—”
“It’s what you did to all of us. You and those like you wanted so badly to turn your nose up at the military that you not only destroyed many veterans’ sense of self worth, you left the entire human race exposed and unprepared for what we’re facing today.”
Her hard glare faltered.
“I understand,” Jeffrey said, “you want to live in a world in which you feel safe, but saying there are no threats doesn’t make it so. Telling yourself the war was a lie or we’re somehow beyond it denies a fundamental truth. If you convince yourself there is no gravity before jumping off a building, you won’t float. Not only do you stand against me and those like me, you’re a very successful politician. That means you want and enjoy power. You might kid yourself that your desire for power is to make a positive impact, but I’ve found that those who make the real difference in the world do it quietly from the inside, not from the top.”
“There are good people in politics Jeffrey,” she said, her tone exasperated. “Thomas Jefferson said the tallest a man stands is when he stoops to help a child. You shouldn’t judge me on what you assume I am either. There’s a lot of macho bullshit in the military, but I don’t think of you as a meat-head.”
“Ma’am, I—”
She held up a hand to silence him, “I could have. Trust me, with your stony attitude, and physical stature...” She regarded him for a moment, “How tall are you anyway? Six-five?”
“Six-six.”
“I’m six feet tall, Jeffrey, and I don’t meet a lot of men whom I have to or wish to look up to, but I do look up to you, if you get my meaning. You should hear how the men and women out there talk about you. You’re their anchor.”
Jeffrey said, “I didn’t ask to be—”
“Shut up and let me have my say.”
Something in her eyes, some hurt, something fearful behind the strength caused Jeffrey to remain silent. The muscles of her jaw flexed. Her expression, coupled with the patches of lamp light across her neck, brought out the full depth of her beauty.
“You all but accused me of being a whore on the bridge.”
“I never said—”
“Shut—” she balled her fists, her eyes on the floor, “up—and let me speak, will you?”
He glared at her, her commands restoking his anger.
“You,” she said, pointing her finger at him, “may doubt me. You may think I’m no better than any of those other fuckers out there.” When she hit the word her teeth bared and Jeffrey felt himself wanting to step back. “You may think I’m just here for myself, but I’m not. You want to know how bad politicians are? You try being a single woman near the top surrounded by wolves. These bastards don’t care about anyone but themselves and which of their buddies can get elected in their wake.”
Her eyes fairly blazed now, but her voice cracked when she said, “I am here…” She drew a deep breath and her arms came stiff to her sides as she collected herself. “I am here to help. I always have been, and I’ve given up more than I’ll ever gain. And I don’t care,” she fairly growled her next words, “if you ever come to believe that. But I will not be called a whore.” She stepped close to him, her anger fully unmasked. “I do not use sex to gain power. I never have, and I never will.” She jabbed herself in the temple with her index finger. “This is what got me where I am today,” she unceremoniously gripped her breasts, “not these. Anyone who suggests otherwise can go to hell.”
Jeffrey had had enough. “What the hell then,” he leaned in on her, letting her know he wouldn’t be backed into a corner, his nose now a few inches from hers, “do you call what you’ve been doing to me? Sliding up beside me, touching my arm?”
At that her anger faltered. She turned halfway back to the hatch.
“I’m sorry,” she said in an unsure tone, “I…” Her eyes narrowed as her face flushed. For a moment, Jeffrey thought she would strike out at him, but her gaze faltered as it traced his face. Without another word, she opened the hatch and left, shutting it with a resonating thump.
Jeffrey felt bewildered.
Chapter Nineteen
Admiral Cantwell held his frustration close, offering an outward appearance of absolute calm. But still he found himself shifting too often in his command seat. Earth had been dark for two days. The message detailing their plan to land on Earth had gone unanswered.
“Communications,” Cantwell said across the broad expanse of the bridge. “Any status from Earth yet?” He’d asked the same question an hour earlier. Knowing he should trust the officer to speak up when new information was available did not keep the worry from catching up with him from time to time and slipping out.
The young man looked up from his console and said, “Sir, I’m still attempting to hack into a satellite. The systems are all non-responsive. It’s possible the Sthenos used electromagnetic pulse weaponry. I have a faint signal from a geostationary satellite in the Clarke belt. I’m attempting to bootstrap it now.”
Cantwell shifted in his seat. “Keep at it sailor.”
“Yes, sir.”
Pushing himself out of his seat under the heavy G’s, Cantwell walked over to the Nav-Con. Their transition from acceleration to deceleration, which they had to make in a few moments, would afford the Sthenos destroyers a perfect window of attack. “Bring up our trailing Sthenos ships.”
“Yes, sir.” She swept her fingers across the control podium.
The fleet whisked away, and the twenty Sthenos destroyers, came into view. As the groups from Saturn, Mars, and Europa approached, they hadn’t converged on the fleet; they had vectored together into a large group trailing it. The ships grew in size on the Nav-Con until each was perhaps seven inches long.
“Are they still matching our acceleration?”
“Yes, sir. No loss or gain of distance.”
They can easily outpace us. So… what are they waiting for?
“Nav-Con, please zoom in on the destroyer on point.” The lead ship expanded, extending nose to tail across the disk of the Nav-Con. The image was badly pixilated.
“No higher resolution is available at this time. A drone camera wouldn’t be able to follow our acceleration curve. These images are from the Lacedaemon’s telescopes. Would you like me to drop a camera for a single pass?”
Cantwell shook his head. “Not at this time. Take the view out again.”
“Yes, sir. How far?”
“Show me the Sthenos position relative to ours.”
The Sthenos ship shrank away, shifting to the left. When they grew too small to see, brilliant yellow sparks of light took their place. Soon, to the right, the blood-red markers of the fleet slid into view.
�
�Distance?”
“50,000 miles, sir.”
As Cantwell walked back toward his command seat, the communications officer he’d tasked with obtaining updates from Earth caught his eye and touched the console in front of him. His face was pale.
Understanding the young man wanted to keep what he had on his screen quiet, Cantwell walked over. A video from a low-mounted angle of a yawning blast crater played on the officer’s screen. Debris ringed the crater—flipped cars, cinder blocks, twisted I-beams—all strewn outward. Now and again, windswept smoke obscured the camera’s view. Based on the amount of debris, Cantwell guessed the crater had once been an immense building but couldn’t discern which. In the crater, a torn pipe spit the near-invisible, pale-blue flame of hydrogen gas. Beyond the crater and a green body of water, stood a white spire.
In a quiet voice, the navigation officer said, “I now have access to several camera systems through the satellite sir. This image originated from a parking security camera.”
“Where?”
“It’s the Pentagon sir… what’s left of it anyway.”
As his mind adjusted to the knowledge, the white spire across the river became familiar—the Washington Monument. To the left of the monument, a knotted pillar of smoke rose several thousand feet into the air.
Cantwell pointed to the smoke. “Is that...?”
“The White House, sir.”
Cantwell fell silent.
The officer said, “Cheyenne Mountain’s gone as well.” He swept his finger across the screen changing the image to an aerial view of a mountain range with a city at its base. At the southern end of the mountain range, one of the many peaks had been gutted, it’s massive walls strewn outward to land among the surrounding housing developments.
“Colorado Springs,” Cantwell said in a near whisper.
“Yes, sir,” the navigation officer said, his voice still quiet. He swept his finger and the image changed to a city, sprawling across a broad plane, structure after structure.
Cantwell said, “The only area still that built up is China.”
Hammerhead Resurrection Page 14