There was a long pause. A butler dropped a grav trunk behind her, and stood there waiting.
"Hey you," she said eventually.
"Hey," I said awkwardly.
"I'm sorry about that whole Valentine's day thing."
"I forgave you."
"Thanks."
"I understood it too. It was a bit surreal getting all the vids at the same time, but I understood it."
"Are we okay?"
"Why wouldn’t we be?"
"Because you're standing there, and I'm standing here, and we haven’t hugged yet."
"Got you there," said Jane, through my PC.
"Time and place Commander, time and place."
"And they are?"
"Settle in. I assume you were flying the Lightning as fast as it would go?" She nodded. "So you need some rest. Go get some. I've things to take care of on the Bridge. We'll make some private alone time later."
"You better!"
I grinned at her, and she pretended to hit me.
She took herself off, with the butler and trunk in tow, and I rubbed my left arm where it now hurt. I really didn't want her hitting me when she meant it.
I went and hid in my Ready Room.
Bonko and his crew were transferred to a standard shuttle, and dropped out the back of the Flight Deck, for Jane to fly to Washington Orbital. They were not exactly prisoners now, but something told me unless their story hung together really well, they might become so. I seemed to have scored another Cruiser, but I'd need to wait and see what the verdict was about Bonko, in case I needed to give it back to him. It wasn’t exactly a stock standard ship though, so I sat there for a while wondering how to legally claim it regardless of what happened to Bonko.
Sometime later, I heard the sound of Miriam cuddling Angel, and telling her how big and adorable she was. Footsteps came to the door.
"You do know your cat is leaving white fur all over your command chair?"
"Her command chair you mean?"
"Really?"
"She thinks so."
Miriam laughed her head off. I let her take her time. Eventually she subsided and came in.
"Thanks Jane," she said.
There was an audible click from the door.
She threw herself at me, and we hugged for a long time, followed by desperate needing of air type kisses.
We ended up doing it on my desk.
As she took herself off to catch up with other members of the crew, I wondered if the black and white cat was now in play, and how the fluffy white cat was going to react.
In London, there were two Lightnings waiting for us.
The first had Marshall Bigglesworth and his staff, and Admiral Bentley and her aide. Instead of heading off to accommodations, they waited for the second to land on the deck.
From the second stepped the Queen, followed by her husband, and high ranking members of the Court.
She was very noticeably pregnant, and I hoped like hell she didn’t go into labour on my ship. It would force me to take her back home, and I couldn’t afford the wasted time. Cancel, Clear, Delete!
Queen Liz waved off all formalities, and we moved straight to the Theatre, with her being assisted by her husband and an aide, while being fussed over by several maids.
I'd wanted to wait until General Price was on board before doing another presentation, but the arrival of Queen Liz demanded we proceed again anyway.
By the time the Queen was settled, and refreshments had been used, and consumed, the Canadian and American delegations had arrived, and Annabelle and Jack were ready to give the same presentation they had at Earth.
This one went off without a hitch, with intelligent questions asked and answered. Once the presentation was complete, discussions began about what to do. The Queen listened intently for a long while, as her people, the Canadians, and the Americans, all put in their five credits worth; and finally spoke into a sudden lull.
"I want to make something quite clear," she began.
She had everyone's attention.
"We know Duke Hunter well enough to know he believes everything which has been presented today. Some things are open to interpretation, but there is no timeframe or point of focus to any of this."
She looked directly at me, and I nodded. She was correct.
"That notwithstanding, the crown is committed to the preservation of our subjects, and we cannot and will not ignore any external threat, especially one which might be considered an extinction level event."
She looked at Bigglesworth.
"To that end Marshal, you are granted full authority to work with the sectors of this end of the spine for the mutual protection of all along the spine, in so far as the safety of the realm is assured."
I raised an eyebrow at her, and she nodded to me.
"Excuse me Ma'am, but what does that mean?"
Bigglesworth answered.
"It means as long as I can assure the safety of the British sector, I am able to deploy to help the other sectors in any way I see fit, given the resource limitations placed by protecting the realm first. As such, if the threat comes up the spine, I would be looking at deploying British forces in the Denver system, and should it come from up spine, in the Verse system. However, there is flexibility available, and we will discuss the options as we near Nexus. The British sector has the advantage over most of having two spine accesses, some way apart, giving us the ability to hold at one end while we retreat through the other."
He nodded towards the Canadian four star, acknowledging they had no such escape route.
"I have similar instructions," said Patton. "We have potentially three choke points to cover, but we have at least two ways of retreating regardless of the direction the threat comes from. This restricts our fleet deployments, but it also gives us options. And we do have some flexibility as well."
The Canadian four star indicated he wished to speak, and I nodded to him.
"Admiral Aidan Tremblay, Canadian sector," he said, introducing himself to those who hadn’t met him before. "We are not so lucky on two counts. We have one of the nominated threat systems in our territory, and it is only one jump from our only escape route. We have a fine fleet, but we do not believe we could hold back a serious threat for long enough to save all of our people. Admiral Hunter has agreed to consider if he can spare ships to help us. I ask that the other sectors represented here do the same."
The Queen put her arm on her husband's, and he helped her up.
"I will leave you all to discussing strategy and tactics." She looked at me. "Admiral, would you be so kind as to see us back to our shuttle?"
"Yes Majesty."
I turned to the rest of the theatre, as the Queen was helped out the door.
"I suggest we adjourn for now. We have some time left, so going off half-cocked isn't necessary. I'll schedule a meeting for after General Price comes aboard, and it will give everyone a chance to think about the overall situation at this end of the arm, see the presentation again for the benefit of General's Price and Harriman, John Slice, and my people in Nexus, who haven’t seen the full presentation yet. By then, we'll be almost in real time communications distance."
This caused a bit of a stir.
I waved at them and hurried to catch up with the Queen.
"Admiral," she said when we reached the Launch Deck. "I've given instructions that should this prophesy of yours turn out to be real, all British Forces will be placed under your command. The Marshal has instructions to promote you to the currently unused fifth star, as soon as such a threat is proved to be real. My only concern is you not expend too many British resources trying to save those in other sectors who perhaps cannot be saved."
"Majesty, I'm not sure it's wise to promote me any further. The Marshall has a lifetime more experience than I do."
"It was the Marshall himself who suggested this. No false modesty. I know when this thing happens you will be in the thick of it, and I can think of no-one better to be leading those d
efending our space, or responsible for guiding us away from some catastrophic event. All I ask of you is not to make it a suicide mission."
I gaped at her.
"Don’t look like that. I know you. If the situation demands it, you would sacrifice yourself to save others. But in doing so to save some, you may doom all. Just think about it."
We were back at the ramp to her Lightning.
"I will. There is a lot to think about. We are also short a lot of information I intend to seek as soon as I get home. I assure you though, I have no intention of sending anyone on suicide missions, least of all myself."
That was easy to say. Stopping others from doing it on their own initiative if the situation was dire, would be a lot harder. And I knew in my heart there were several situations where I would sacrifice myself and my ship to save others. I had no intentions, but I knew it was possible. And perhaps, inevitable.
I gave her a short bow, and she was escorted aboard. I stood there and watched the Lightning be pushed into a launch tube, the doors closed, and on a pop up screen, watched it go.
For some reason I felt quite depressed, and I went in search of Angel. There are two things guaranteed to perk one up. Chocolate, and a good cuddle with your cat. I went looking for both.
Thirty Four
When the day finally ended, I headed for my bed with some trepidation as to what, or should I say who, would be there.
I found the two women in my life sitting in my lounge chairs, barely acknowledging each other. I paused inside the door, one foot still in the air.
"Come on in Jon," said Miriam. "We were just talking about you."
I put my foot down carefully, and completed making my way through the doorway. I closed it quietly behind me, not wanting the inevitable explosion to go beyond the door.
Angel was sitting on the top of her kitty castle, with the expression of someone about to enjoy what happened next on her face.
I looked from Miriam to Aline, and back again, before sinking into an unoccupied chair.
Both girls looked at me, with the same serious face.
Aline finally burst out laughing, and Miriam joined her.
"He looks terrified," Aline said to Miriam.
"He does, doesn’t he," she laughed.
I looked at them both, not appreciating the joke.
"Lighten up Jon," said Miriam.
"He doesn’t know, and hasn’t guessed."
"Better tell him then."
Tell me what?
"Um, Jon?" started Aline.
I looked at her, wondering what was coming next.
"I have a confession to make."
Huh?
Miriam laughed so hard at the expression on my face, she fell out of her chair, and rolled around on the carpet.
I looked at her, and back to Aline. I gave her the one eyebrow raise.
"I've been messaging with Miriam from the moment she left the ship, before we returned to Nexus."
"Messaging?"
"At first I was just making sure, given how I knew she felt about you, I wasn’t going to be causing a major problem by sleeping with you."
"You HAVE been sleeping with him?" exploded Miriam from the floor, laughter gone.
I cringed.
They both exploded into laughter again.
"That was too easy," Aline said to Miriam, when they both had control again.
"Told you so."
I looked at them both, without the foggiest idea of what was going on. I was so tired, their faces began to blur.
"Isn’t he just adorable?" Miriam asked Aline.
"He is."
The two of them started giggling uncontrollably.
Women.
I made an effort and rose, leaving them both where they were, and going into my bedroom.
"Don’t you bloody well fall asleep on us, Jo…"
I crashed down on the bed, and was asleep before the sentence ended.
Thirty Five
Verse being so big, it's hard to say we blew through it. All the same, I was awake again before we jumped out. I found I'd been moved to the center of the bed, and I had Miriam on one side of me, and Angel and Aline on the other. All three were asleep, so I quietly eased myself off the end of the bed, and went down for training. Only BA and Jack were there, the former giving me a strange look, which I ignored. I threw myself into the ranges, showered down there, and was back on the Bridge while everyone else was finishing training, or eating breakfast.
We did blow through Sanctuary.
John Slice was waiting for us just inside the down jump area in Apricot, and we swallowed his Lightning the same as all the rest. He gave me a solid hug after bounding onto the bridge, demanded to know when he could take delivery of his new Cruiser, grinned at me to show he was joking, and took himself off in search of Jessie Ball.
He was more than content to wait for the next briefing session.
In Argon we picked up the local defense force Admiral, a one star. He wasn’t technically part of the SFSF, being the commander of the defense forces for the X sub-sector, and a separate military force in its own right. But given the support we'd had from them during the Midgard war, I’d sent them an invitation for someone to join us for the next briefing. As far as sub-sectors went, they had one of the bigger fleets, almost up to the German fleet in size, and Sci-Fi sector might come to rely on them. The SFSF could technically call them to service, but it had never happened before, although the X-Force tended to offer themselves before being asked.
In Avon, we picked up General Price and his aides. He asked when the briefing would be, and I let him know I had it planned for as we crossed Cobol and into Midnight. He was happy to wait.
As Annabelle showed him and his officers to their accommodations, I stood there on the Launch Deck wondering at a fundamental difference happening.
At the other end of the spine, Ambassadors had been present with their military leaders. Here, only the military had showed up.
It made me wonder if the military here, were running things independently of political oversight for now, or if the political side of the sectors simply didn’t believe enough to bother, or were content to let the military handle it, at least until decisions had to be made.
Thinking back to my recent problems with the Australian sector government though, I wasn’t too sure I really wanted the Australian government involved in any way, at least not in the planning and execution of plans. They needed to okay the expending of credits and resources by General Harriman, but having politicians involved in the planning process? I shuddered.
I could ask, but maybe it was better not to know. Each of the four stars here was political enough to negotiate their own local politics, and know how to get what they needed. I didn't need to know any of it.
As we made our way across Avon and Atlantis, there was a steady stream of people through my Ready Room, asking various questions or seeking some explanation of something.
In the background, hovered two obviously frustrated women. But they could see my time was being used for more practical concerns. But it was pretty obvious the next time they could trap me in the bedroom, it was going to be some form of threesome.
On the one level, this excited me. On the other level, I wasn’t sure what was going on, and this made me feel a little insecure. On the gripping level, things seemed a little surreal, like I was trapped in some male fantasy where threesomes was the normal. I mean, it wouldn’t be my first time, but the twins made sense at some level. I wasn’t sure Aline and Miriam sharing me made any sense at all.
Maybe I was overthinking it, in the times between the endless stream of questions. But I had been brought up to be a monogamous heterosexual, although I had the choice about the latter. I had been taught to choose one person, make a commitment, and stick to it, her.
On the gripping hand though, the whole we might be dead tomorrow thing did loom large over everyone. And as prophesy felt like it was closing in on us, didn’t simply enjoying li
fe as you could make more sense than restricting yourself with rules designed for a completely different set of circumstances?
For once in my life, I wondered what Dad might have to say about it. Once upon a time, a lifetime ago, but actually only a couple of years, we'd had the father son talk about girls. But neither of us had any idea where and what I’d be now. And as much as I wanted some basis to feeling right about the current situation, I was really in an emotional turmoil about it.
But I was the Admiral, and I told my face to not show anything of what was going on beneath. I was probably completely transparent to anyone who cared about me, but I had to maintain the illusion anyway.
And although the girls wouldn’t like it, the chances are I'd be flaking out as soon as I went to bed rather than playing with them. I had that much to do during the day, and evenings, even spending this time trying to work out my feelings was an indulgence, and was slowing down getting my work done. It couldn’t be helped, but it wasn’t helping.
Maybe once I'd been home a day or so, the pressure would come off, and we could find somewhere to spend some quality time figuring out what was, or was not, actually going on. Or maybe it would need to wait until after the Door closed again.
What I was really grateful for, was two sensible women in my life, who hadn't engaged in a cat fight as soon as they met up. At least one of my dreams had proved to be just that. It was a comfort to know not everything I saw while asleep was prophetic. But there was also that nagging doubt that my nightmare was also just a nightmare, and nothing I should be basing briefings about the end of everything on.
I sighed, as the next person wanting something came in.
Just before the jump into Cobol, Jane called me onto the Bridge.
"What's up?" I asked her, while moving Angel off my seat to her pad.
She didn’t even stir as I did so, being deep in la-la land for cats.
"There's a bounty hunter sitting in coms range of the jump point."
I gave her the eyebrow raise, as if to say, what of it?
"It's one of those you sent to Azgard, while we were withdrawing."
Hunter Legacy 9: Hero at the Gates Page 19