by Chris Hechtl
Monty nodded reluctantly. “I think this Reaper was one of the lead assassins in the system. They will most likely keep a low profile for the time being, especially with the mess going on with the government,” he said waving a hand. “Moving him will keep him productive. That's also the only way to keep collateral damage down as well. He could either be on a ship or recruiting circuit. Both are a moving target.” It was obvious he was reluctant to go into details about the attack or investigation. He'd worked with Horatio, the AI and Lieutenant Lavot to put a lock down and high classification on the case. Of course that had all come to naught when they had found out the Gunny and his AI had dumped the entire thing into the public network and media. The entire system knew about it.
But they didn't have to know about what they found afterward; he meant to keep it that way.
“I'm not certain about the recruiting; he's got classified tech,” Horatio mused.
“He could leave the suit at home,” Lavot suggested. Matilda nodded.
“Absolutely not. He's...it's classified. But he can't be far from the suit,” Horatio growled. Lavot blinked. “It's orders from the Admiral,” he expanded on grudgingly. Lavot nodded.
“So, first we'll send him to Agnosta. He'll need to go out on the next available ship. You're not worried about someone anticipating such a move?” Decius asked, turning his attention to Monty. Monty shrugged and then shook his head.
“Hell, send a ship with just him on board if we have to— Him, his AI and that suit. They are too valuable to lose,” Horatio said.
“Yes, but he has a good way of staying alive, Schultz and his AI, and Valenko. They all did a good job with him.”
“Yeah, but he was lucky. Like I said, sloppy,” Jeremy Lavot said. “Next time he may not be lucky. They could just blow up the shuttle he's on with anyone else in it right along with him. We've had enough of that sort of thing remember?” he growled.
“True,” Horatio replied with a nod.
“I know we've been stalling it to keep him and Valenko's people here to pass on what they know and clean up the mess we created in Forth's void, but enough is enough,” Decius said. “They have served their purpose admirably. I think we can part company with the Gunnery Sergeant.”
“Rude, but true. It's not that he's a target or others are endangered by his presence, it's that he deserves some semblance of a real life,” Thornby said softly.
“I think they should all be put on the next flight out. Or the one after. Like we planned,” Matilda said firmly.
“They'd like that. No Neo tax.”
“Yeah. You noticed Walker didn't give that up huh? At least until now?” Horatio asked. “They are still fighting it in the legislature,” he said.
“Yes, sir.” The officer shook his head. “Not yet at least. But that bill in the house that is being rammed through, it might do the job; it should kill it.”
“Half the aliens in the system want out or into the military. This is insane,” Decius said, rattling his legs. He wasn't complaining about the extra manpower, far from it. He knew better. But there were only so many jobs available, and most required an experienced person. The jobs that needed to be filled the most were unfortunately not well suited for some of the species forms signing on.
Also, most of the Neos had signed on for Marine service. Some had signed on as reservists, and others had signed on for short contracts. He judged most had signed just long enough to get the hell out of the system. He couldn't blame them.
What had surprised him was the training and education some had. Apparently the late Matriarch had had a hand in that. She'd done wonders with the tools she'd had available, apparently drilling in the fundamentals into the cubs at an early age. She'd even set up an adult remedial class for those who hadn't been a part of her original clan. He rather regretted her death.
Captain Logan had been working with the senior staff to use some of the ships Firefly's group had brought back in to transport the remaining aliens and Neos out of the system when they returned from their first convoy in a few months. That would have stuck it to Walker and his people and served as a warning that he might pull up stakes too. And now this happened. He wasn't certain if they would go through with it or not. Word was the tax was dead and so was Walker's career. But he'd believed that before and it hadn't happened. He couldn't help but be a little cynical and skeptical about politics.
“Intel finally got something on that. They heard that slike Madra was behind the tax. After what the good gunny recorded, I think we know why. Our people are investigating him now. He's disappeared though.”
“Good.”
“Walker was implicated directly though. That's all over the news, but you know about that,” Matilda said smugly. She was more than a little happy about the whole blow up going on in the capital colony. If she could she'd dance a jig. She knew it was unprofessional to grin like an idiot, but she was sorely tempted anyway, even at her age. She knew she wasn't the only one; they'd all hoped and prayed this day would come. “It's about time,” she said.
The Annex AI and resource manager nodded. “Hopefully, it is enough to take him down finally,” Ensign Barry said. The AI looked at Commander Montgomery but the human had his best poker face on. He was obviously not going to give anything away. The AI turned to scan the Lieutenant in charge of JAG but again, got nothing. Both of the humans weren't talking.
“He's been arrested and is now out of office. The night of long knives may be upon us from what I heard. Apparently Ralkin was set to throw him to the wolves but well...it's getting ugly,” Decius said.
“Good,” Thornby grinned. “It couldn't happen to a nicer set of slime balls.”
“Don't count him or any of them out just yet. We thought he was down for the count before and look what happened. The guy is like a vampire; he keeps coming back from the dead.”
“Throw a bucket of shit on him, and he comes out smelling like a rose,” Horatio said in disgust.
Thornby frowned but nodded. “I think he's out but we'll see. They've certainly got enough to hang on him. I hope people don't say it's a witch hunt. Or ask why this didn't come out sooner.”
“They only just found that woman's body and with the evidence from that assassin,” Horatio shook his head. “We'll see.”
“Yeah well, don't hold your breath. I wouldn't. Something tells me you can't hold it as long as the panther can,” Decius replied, clacking his mandibles.
“Yeah, that is odd how he survived,” Horatio said, looking at the good doctor with curiosity.
“Again, classified,” Doctor Thornby replied curtly. The others blinked at her in surprise. She shrugged and spread her hands apart. “That's all I can tell you.”
“All right then,” Horatio said, eying her for a long moment. Finally he turned to the others. “The Yard. You mentioned a concern Decius?”
“Yes, sir,” the Centilian said. “As you know we've launched the first wave of the new escort variant Frigates and the Apollo Corvettes. You've transferred new hulls in to replace them, and now that the Janus command fort has finished its third phase of construction, you've transferred her engineers to activate two additional destroyer building slips. I take it we are going to focus on the hulls and components we have on hand instead of starting construction of more?”
“We're still building additional hulls,” Horatio said.
“I see. But you've tapered off somewhat?”
“I've adjusted the priorities in favor of getting our hulls we have stockpiled completed yes. But I don't want to spread ourselves too thin, nor run through our hulls and have nothing else to work on. Now that the yard is well, not back up to speed, but getting there...”
“Yes, are you going to activate additional slips in the future? The new ships are playing with my manning tables.”
“Deal with it. We've had years to plan for this. You should have something on hand. Dust it off, get it sorted out, and then we'll plug any holes it has. I want every ship to have a min
imum crew by the time they launch and a full crew by the time they finish their working up.”
“Aye aye, Sir.”
“I take it we're not recalling Hephaestus from Agnosta?” Ensign Kamia asked. The Captain shook his head no. He'd sent the ship back there after Firefly had returned to work on the orbital works in the system. “Well, I'm glad you took Captain Logan's suggestion and let her work out the kinks in Prometheus's replicators before you sent her and her group to Seti Alpha,” she said.
“Yes,” Horatio replied. He was quite proud of Shelby, that little trick had helped enormously. She'd called him over and he'd logged into the ship to make as many components as he could while the Yard's replicators and industrial plant worked on a run of lesser components. Getting supplies to the ship had been a bit tricky, but they'd pulled it off all in the time it had taken the ship to finish up her final list of repairs before her launch. They'd made enough parts to outfit another two dozen hulls of each of the smaller classes with weapons, sublight drives, and reactors. With his implant keys he could make more, but not hyperdrives. Admiral Irons might do something about that in the future.
“We're not focusing on the larger hulls?” Jeremy asked. Horatio shook his head. “Why sir?” He asked, clearly confused.
“Orders. We're going to stick to the escort ships for the time being. We can build a hell of a lot of them in a short time, and platform redundancy is a big thing right now even if it plays hell with our manning tables,” he said. “The extra hulls lets us plug a few holes. Our two most vulnerable areas are the protection of the systems and shipping. Our shipping is the biggest target now. We need to cover that, with larger more powerful ships as they become available. For now, I'll stick to as many as we can”
“Quantity over quality,” Doctor Thornby said. “Crude but effective.”
“Which is why you've reassigned Damocles and Xavier to escort duty? You're replacing them with the fortresses and smaller ships?” Ensign Barry asked.
Horatio nodded. John had cautioned him about the orbital fortresses, but right now it was the only sure thing he could build. That or mobile forts. He was tempted to build those, but that would take years each, and they may not have years. “I figured by the time they are finished working up and getting any last bugs out, the convoy will have returned. By the time we've turned them around and restocked them, we'll have eighteen of the smaller ships in service. When we send the convoy back out the first two Nelsons should be out of the yard and working on their initial work ups.” He noted a few of the faces cleared at that news.
“Miyoshi should be finished first, she's a couple days ahead of Dunatis. Lieutenant Ball is installing her AI core now. Dunatis is living up to his Celtic mountain god namesake. They've already had some issues, almost pranks to deal with which has slowed her construction down.”
“That's good to know, sir,” Jeremy replied with a nod.
Horatio nodded back. “We've got two more, the Akizuki and John Hancock in the slips; they are coming up to speed now. Those two will be 40 to 45 percent complete by the time the convoy is scheduled to return. Once we hit our stride, we're going to have ships working up at all times here. At least two a month for the Corvettes and Frigates, and two tin cans every two months.”
There were some smiles of relief over that. He snorted. “It's not enough. I want a couple battle squadrons eventually, with escorts. But for now, we'll keep churning out what we've got.”
Jeremy whistled. “That's a lot of ships, sir,” he said.
“And manpower,” Decius said.
“Have you seen the mothballed sections lately? There are hundreds of hulls there waiting to be completed. We can't finish them all; the largest we don't have all the parts for.”
“Which is why we haven't finished Bismark,” Ensign Barry said. “And another reason why we need to focus on the smaller ships. Since we now have the industry to complete them. A cruiser in its slip takes three time the manpower and industry to complete over a destroyer. Platform redundancy.”
“Yes,” Horatio said with a nod. “Exactly.” He looked around the compartment. “As we get additional engineering personnel we'll activate each slip in turn. But I don't want to spread our people too thin. Besides,” he made a wry face. “I have a feeling Admiral Irons will soon be poaching our people to get the Yards in Antigua up and running.”
“If, sir. He still has to get there first,” Monty replied with a stern expression, holding a warning finger up. Horatio looked at him. “It's a long journey to there from where he started. A lot could happen along the way,” he warned.
Horatio nodded. “You're right, but you know what, I'm not going to worry about it. Admiral Irons has proven he can look after himself. Next thing on the agenda...”
---( | ) --- ( | )---
Jethro wondered about it all. If someone had guessed he had been responsible for the former speaker’s death and was trying to get revenge. No, most likely it was because he'd stuck his foot in his mouth.
The panther sighed. He felt Bast access his...their implants as she sent a signal out to the video screen and turned on the news. She flipped past the sports feeds to the daily news then growled softly when a report about Walker and Jethro came on.
Walker was scrambling to weasel his way out of the mess, but there was too much coming at him at once. He'd been arrested and removed from power, but he was already out on bail, attempting to wrestle control back.
The panther closed his eyes for a moment; then turned his head to open them. He looked over to the suit, staring at the black thing for a long time. Bast had expressed concern for him, wanting him in the suit for his recovery, but the medical officers had flatly rejected that. But the suit was with him, standing over his bed like an automaton or like the three security mechs, one outside the sliding glass door to his room and another two at each of the entrances to the ward.
He looked at his...their body. It was so hard to think of himself as being alone anymore. He had thought the encounter would have scarred him; it should have. The woman had cut him up badly; his kind scarred very easily, which damaged their cloak. But instead, his skin was pinkish and healing nicely. His fur was still missing in the areas that had been cut, but that was due to the medics trimming the hair back to keep the fur from getting into the cuts.
He examined his hand where the whip thing had wrapped around it, wondering what had happened. He frowned, flexing his hand and turning it this way and that. Finally, he felt Bast get exasperated. He looked at her briefly, then back to the hand. After a moment his vision swam. Alarm coursed through him, but then his eyes refocused and he could see clusters of ovals on his hands. He frowned, now curious to see the...insect things. His vision sharpened and then zoomed in to see clusters of tiny robotic insects. After a moment it zoomed in again until he realized he was looking at nanites.
“They...you are healing me?” he asked. Bast nodded on his HUD. “Thank you,” he murmured softly, and then let the hand drop as he rested his head. He closed his eyes again. “Thanks.”
“Heal,” a child-like voice whispered. He frowned, looking around but no one was there. He realized who it had to be, Bast! That got him to open his eyes in surprise. She looked at him mischievously for a moment, then faded until only her eyes remained on his HUD once more. One eye winked, but she didn't say anything else.
Jethro felt his inbox ping. Bast intercepted it, but then handed the e-mail to him. He was curious so he opened it and read it. After a moment he snorted softly. Apparently the personnel department was finally getting their act together. The e-mail informed him that he would be shipping out on the next available transport to Agnosta. He'd spend some time there training new recruits and then on to recruiting.”
“Yeah, that's right,” Valenko said, coming into the room. “Sorry, I was going to let you know in person, but the damn paper pushers actually had their act together for once. Who knew?”
Jethro snorted softly. “So, Agnosta?”
“Yup. I
'm stuck here,” the bear said wryly. “I get to take over where you left off and get some sense of order into this place. Then I'll be along. Unless they send me orders for some other hot spot.”
“Lucky you. Am I going on to Antigua?”
“I doubt it, but most likely in that direction,” Valenko said. “Eventually. Maybe. You never know what the future brings. Hell, you could be tapped to come back here for all I know.”
“Some help you are, sir,” Jethro teased.
The bear snorted and spread his hands apart. “But, first you get to survive having 250 green wannabe Marines on the transport out. And you'll be the ranking noncom on board, so you get to wipe their noses and bottoms the whole two months.”
“Lucky me,” he grumbled.
“Get some rest. You look about done in,” the bear said, squeezing his big toe. “We'll talk later if I'm around.”
“Thank you, sir,” Jethro said as the bear withdrew. He thought of Bast, lurking in his mind. She mewed, then settled down into a purr. He let that feeling of contentment drift him off into a doze.
Epilogue
A few days later Jethro was released from the hospital. He was placed under Marine and mech guard at all times, and restricted to military facilities. But he did manage to attend the Matriarch's wake on Anvil. She had insisted her body be recycled. “Waste not, want not,” she'd always said.
Her wake was cheap and had intended to be quiet. Every Neo and alien in the system had attended though; their attendance had sparked interest in the media. Her wake was moved at the last minute to the auditorium of the Anvil College.
Robots and students served drinks and food as they talked. It was an informal affair, exactly what she wanted—a celebration of her life and accomplishments. A large portrait of her with her grand cubs was placed near the podium with flowers donated from greenhouses all over the station.
He'd missed Hrriss's funeral by a day, trapped in the blasted bed in the hospital. He nodded in approval when someone put an image of Hrriss slightly behind and off to one side of his grandmother. Another image was added, this with the two of them together.