"Hardly," Wellard laughed. "But yes, it would probably be best for you to return to oversee repairs. Make sure everything is in decent shape before we make the return trip. The last thing I want to do is stop on the way to fix something."
"Agreed." Bremerton gave the captain a firm salute before offering his hand. Wellard smiled and took it in return. "See you back home."
"And you." Wellard watched as his young XO make his way across the bridge. He thought about stopping the kid before he left to tell him he'd done a great job, but instead let him go. Couldn't let the kid get too confident after all.
Chapter Sixty-Four
New Earth Sector
Medical Ward, New Earth Station
A loud, obnoxious beep woke Tegan up from the dead. She sat up and tried to open her eyes only for the bright light of the room forced them back shut. She held her hands over her eyes and allowed them to open slowly as they adjusted to the light. The sudden movement caused a wave of vertigo to settle over her, but she caught herself with her free hand before falling off the bed.
Bed? Since when did she sleep in a bed?
Sure, her room back on the Endeavor technically had a bed though she thought it more like a cot than anything fancy. Just a thin strip of fabric that flexed enough to contort to her body to hold her in place. This bed had a more traditional mattress with a few layers of sheets and a thin if not warm blanket on top. The fabric was white, which she would have found odd anywhere but back home since she hadn't owned anything that color since then. Along each side of the bed were stainless steel bars that were lifted to keep her from falling out.
Immediately she realized where she was, even if she wasn't sure of its exact location. Either in sickbay, or one of the thousands of hospital complexes on some NEC planet or another. Another place she tried to avoid though her gig as a fighter jock brought her here more times than she could count. Seems the NEC doesn't like to keep pilots around who can't maintain their health.
Before she could flag down one of the three nurses wandering through the ward, a set of double doors bolted open in the back of the room as three familiar faces walked inside.
"Well look who's finally awake," Switch said as he tripped over an electrical wire taped to the floor.
"Not you apparently," Lancer joked while Fireball laughed along.
The three of them looked good, as if whatever fate she'd met had avoided them entirely.
"What are you guys doing here?" she asked, her voice raspy and weak as if she'd been working out in the desert in the middle of summer.
"Checking in on you before we head out for the night. Switch scored tickets to the Hydini concert tonight." Fireball pulled out the set of tickets and flashed them inches in front of Tegan's face.
"How the hell did you pull that off? Those tickets are always sold out." She'd once tried to land a set of tickets on some backwater planet six jumps outside New Dublin only to find it had sold out before they'd even announced the tour. Apparently the venue operator had a long waiting list of people who were willing to overpay just for a chance to get inside. She knew half of them only wanted the tickets to resell to some unwitting sap days before the show, but wasn't willing to overpay for a ticket herself.
"Remember that pilot I saved during the second engagement, before you went suicidal on us?"
Tegan shrugged. She didn't remember much from that second engagement, or even much from the first. The whole day was a complete blur her mind struggled to come to grips with.
"Well, long story short she had a set of tickets to the concert tonight and asked if we'd like to go. Naturally I asked for a ticket for you, but the doc said you aren't going anywhere anytime soon, so she is my de facto date for the evening."
Lancer laughed. "I'd call it unwitting companion."
"She wanted you to have the ticket," Fireball said, sitting in an open chair next to her bed. "But since you are laid up for a while yet, she made him promise to bring her instead."
"Ergo, date," Switch said. "I'll take my wins where and when I get them."
"I take it we won then," Tegan said, changing the subject.
"Thanks to your nearly suicidal move. I don't know how you came up with the idea to launch your fighter at the anomaly, but that shit worked." Switch put the tickets back in his pocket and took a few steps away as if Tegan was physically capable of wresting them from his grasp.
"Radio chatter went through the roof after that. Seems the survivors on the Providence were trying to use every band to call for help. We had to fly the rest of the fight without ears."
"Don't make it sound worse than it was," Fireball stated. "Once Commander Bremerton had control of the Providence, the rest of the battle was in the bag. You hardly missed a thing."
"Anyways," Switch interrupted. "We were just stopping in on our way out. Concert starts in an hour. Can't be late otherwise they might sell our seats."
"Have fun, guys. Bring me back a tee shirt or something."
"Shit boss, we're going to do more than that. But you'll have to wait until tomorrow to see."
Tegan glanced at Lancer, wanting to know if Switch was just pulling her chain or something, but he gave her a casual shrug as if to say he didn't know what he was talking about. She sighed. Guess she would just have to wait until tomorrow.
The three of them worked their way through the room, nearly slamming the door when they stepped outside. Tegan leaned back in her bed and closed her eyes, desperate to get some rest.
"Your friends make quite the racket," a familiar voice said from the next bed over. "Tell me, are all fighter jocks like them?"
Tegan smiled. "Only the good ones." She rolled onto her side and saw the engineer she had met in the bar before they deployed in the bed next to hers. His face was bruised and cut, as if he'd gotten into a nasty fight, while the bandage around his shoulder suggested something worse. "What the hell happened to you?"
"Oh, this thing?" He pointed to his bandage shoulder and shrugged. "Not as bad as it looks."
"I don't know about that," she replied. "It looks pretty bad. You get shot?"
"Something like that. Ran into a few surprises on the Providence."
Her mouth dropped open in surprise. "You were with Commander Bremerton?"
"Indeed. Picked a bad time to major in computer science."
"Could've been a fighter pilot."
"Touche."
"Well anyways, guess I'll leave you to whatever you were doing. I can hardly keep my eyes open."
Brendan smiled. "Amazing how that works. Wake up for the first time in days, and you want nothing more than to go back to sleep."
Tegan chuckled. It was true, as odd as it was to hear. "Talk to you sometime later."
"Sleep well."
Chapter Sixty-Five
New Earth Sector
Conference Room, New Earth Station
Wellard and Bremerton snapped to attention when Admiral Flannigan entered the room, their freshly pressed uniforms tightening around the waist and shoulders as they tried to hold the position. It was a difficult task, considering they'd both been tossed around like a child's toy the previous day. The aches and pains would subside with time, or with medication if either man weren't too stubborn to take it. Flannigan returned the salute and sat before ordering the both of them to be seated.
"What in the hell happened out there?" she asked, sounding more angry than anything.
"We ran into an ambush just inside the Atroxxin gate. Two ships destroyed half of the fleet before we settled things down." Wellard went through the details of the fight, telling them how the York and Dachshund took out the Madrid, Iowa, and the Achilles before destroying the bridge of the Providence.
"And you let the York get away?" she said, irate. "You should have tracked them down and destroyed them."
"We were in bad shape, Admiral," Bremerton said. "And besides, we were more focused on protecting Vice President Landry at the time."
"Traitorous bastard, that one." Her voice
became more calm after hearing his name, having read through their reports twice before the meeting. "I still can't believe he hijacked the Providence. Tell me Commander, do you believe what he said about being from Earth?"
Wellard shot Bremerton a confused glance, but kept his mouth shut to allow the commander to speak.
"I'm not sure what I believe," he replied. "But I have to say the events support his story, especially after noticing the transponder signals on the three enemy ships."
"That part was disturbing, as was the actions of the York and Dachshund." She leaned back in her chair, hands clasped in front her face as if contemplating. She held the position for a moment before speaking further. "What I'm about to tell you is classified. I'm only filling you in since you have dealt with the situation firsthand."
"Admiral?"
"What you saw with the York and Dachshund was not an isolated incident. Over the last week we've heard reports of excessive debris around the outer colony warp gates, which supports your claim they have been setting ambushes. Not just that, we've heard reports of some of our own ships doing the ambushing from the odd survivors found on site. I wasn't sure what to make of the reports until I read yours. Now I'm starting to believe something is going on."
"I would agree, Admiral," Wellard said.
"Reports of the Aplin were the only reason we hadn't been sent to war already. President Alvarez has been on edge ever since the reports of EU ships being involved in the ambushes. She has been itching at the seams to make a move."
"Is President Alvarez still alive?" Bremerton questioned. "Landry said something about her having been killed in a similar skirmish."
"As far as I'm aware," Flannigan replied. "Last I heard she is back at the presidential resort on New Earth, surrounded by the best minds humanity has to offer on the situation."
That was good news, he supposed. After Landry told him she was dead, he worried about the NEC government and how it would handle the loss of its top two leaders. The government had been designed with such contingencies in mind, but never once had it been tested past the first breakpoint. Now that they were facing war, he didn't want to test it now.
"And what do those minds say," Wellard said. "If you don't mind me asking."
"They say it is nearly time to enact your plan, Captain. I'd be willing to bet they will be even more ready once they hear about potential survivors on Earth. We always assumed there might be survivors, but wrote them off as the casualties of war. But now..." she trailed off.
"I believe it would be hasty to act too quickly, Admiral. Our fleet isn't in any position to take back Earth, especially since they are bringing the battle to us. I believe it would be more prudent to root out those responsible for these acts of treachery first while we continue to build up our assets. There's no point in trying to take back Earth if we can't protect the planets we currently control. We'd end up on the wrong side of a war of attrition."
Flannigan sighed. "Well, at least the Xandar are keeping to themselves. Couldn't imagine what we'd do if they got involved."
"Maybe it's worth sending our ambassador to speak with their leadership. If the Mythrar are involved in the recent incursions into our space, then perhaps they will see the importance of being proactive this time around." At least, Bremerton hoped it would be the case. The Xandar were an interesting species, to say the least. To call them pacifistic would almost be too nice. Their species, while holding a definite technological advantage over mankind, simply refused to do anything that would harm another being regardless if that meant their safety was in jeopardy.
"I doubt it, Commander. They would be more likely to pack up and move closer to the galactic core than to join our cause."
"It's still worth a chance," Wellard said. "Even if they say no, at least we can say we explored the option. All it costs is a two week reprieve for our illustrious ambassador. Considering that's his job, I call that an easy decision."
Flannigan nodded. "I'll pass the suggestion along. In the meantime, I suggest the two of you take the next few weeks to get some quality rec time in. Go home and see your families or some shit. Not a lot you can do while the techs repair the Endeavor."
Bremerton let out a breath he hadn't known he was holding in. The thought of spending time with his fiancee was overwhelming to say the least. Especially after their last conversation. He also understood how important this time would be considering it may be months or longer before he saw her again.
"Thank you, ma'am," Bremerton said.
"Don't thank me. You deserve it." Flannigan stood up and adjusted her jacket. "Now get out of here before I change my mind, or before the techs put you to work themselves."
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Notes by Douglas Wayne
First of all, I would love to thank you for not only picking up this book, but reading it to the end. And not only that, you are reading past the final chapter of the book to this point.
It should be pretty damned obvious this was the first book in a new series. Some of you may have followed me from my other works (The Demontouched Saga, Echoes of Tomorrow, The Nephalem Files,) while some of you may have found me some other way. As you can see, I have a problem with sticking to one genre while I write. While that might not be a problem for some of you, others may not like the waits between books they do like. That is why I created a new pseudonym to write under.
Yes, this book does carry the Douglas Wayne name, it also carries the name Luke Simms. I did this to differentiate these books from the rest of my works, so those of you who just like military space opera can hang out here while those who prefer dark or urban fantasy can stick with the Douglas Wayne name. It also allows me to segment the two groups of readers on two different email lists so you don't get bombarded with shit all the time. (You can sign up to my list here. As a gift you will receive a copy of Intrepid, an exclusive novella to readers on my list once it is complete.)
Talking about Intrepid for a moment. For a while I considered waiting until the novella was done to release this book, but decided against that in the last week. The reason is because I felt I was using that novella as a stalling tactic, to keep me from possibly falling on my face again.
You see, Endeavor is the first new book I've released in almost a year. Sure, I had staggered releases when I launched the serial Echoes of Tomorrow, but the individual episodes were nearly done before I started. Part of that was because of the lack of response I had with that series. The series did decent, for what it was. I had a handful of readers grabbing the episodes every two weeks, with new readers coming into the fold every week. Then around episode 5 everything stalled. Sure, a handful continued to grab the new books (mainly through Kindle Unlimited where they could borrow the books for free,) but the rest waited until I released the full season.
When I started Echoes, I had plans for three different serial seasons. If you've checked my author page (found here) you can see none of them came to fruition. In short, Echoes made me reconsider the model and because the stories were definitely serialized, I didn't want to write them. So I spent much of 2016 sitting on my thumbs.
The time wasn't wasted... not totally anyway. I worked on some stories, and read books on craft in order to make my writing better. I just didn't release anything. Sometime during the spring I ran across a book from Nick Webb. I fell in love with Constitution immediately. Not only that, I fell in love with the genre. Since that first book I've read (or listened to) nearly thirty books in the genre. Most of the books were from indie authors like me. People like Nick Webb, Chris Fox, M.R. Forbes, Evan Currie, and Vaughn Heppner.
These books reignited a spark in me for the genre. My love for things like Star Trek and Star Wars blossomed like never before. After reading reviews that said Constitution was a lot like Battlestar Gallactica
, I actually sat down and watched season one (still haven't seen past that. I blame The Walking Dead.) As of writing, I haven't seen Rogue One, but I can't wait until I do.
It shouldn't be a surprise to learn after that, that I would want to write one. I have to admit, many of my favorite books and shows factored heavily into Endeavor (and Infamy, which is better than halfway done as of writing this.)
Oddly enough, two versions of one character come into play. That famous Character is Captain Kirk.
You see, I envisioned Captain Wellard as a blend of the William Shatner Kirk with some Commander Adama for good measure. I saw someone driven to do what was right, but from the position of a training coordinator. He is one of a select group of people who have seen Sol with his own eyes. He knows better than anyone what we face if we want to take Earth back. In that, he knows it will take more than massive numbers to get the job done. It will take humanity's best.
Commander Bremerton is more like young Kirk (Chris Pine) from the reboot. Thing is, if I told you that, you wouldn't see it. He has the same drive and beliefs, but ends up being far more reserved. Therefor he ends up with a blend of Spock (pick one, they're both close and great) and even a hint of Captain Grainger from Constitution.
The rest of the crew started out as names and little more, but quickly grew into more fleshed out people the longer the book ran. It wasn't odd for characters to be nameless, only to have an extended part in the book (like Adams and Jacobs who were called 'one of the marines' in the original draft.
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