Essia continued, "But we were all caught and rescued, you are the only one we know who managed to stay free."
"That was far from easy. I use Enryn Macintyre with pride now, and hope to keep the name," she insisted.
"You gave yourself to the man who saved you?" Essia asked.
"I gave myself to the man I love," Enryn insisted.
"You know dear," June said to Essia, "I'm starting to like this one."
Gyor walked up with the grace of a ballerina, "Is that all you could find to wear?"
"You try getting a dress in the Marine Quartermasters? And I don't yet rate a Marine evening dress uniform," Enryn replied sadly.
"Don't bother with the Dress uniform," June laughed, "they itch in all the wrong places."
Gyor laughed, "This looks like blackout material, I'm sure we can do better." She touched Enryn's dress and closed her eyes, then pulled back to sip her drink.
Enryn looked down in surprise, her dress was now of a lush black velvet and sprinkled with lights.
"Diamonds?" June guessed.
"No, stars," Gyor replied and moved on.
"Just like her daughter," June laughed, "a real show off."
"I was in the infirmary having a few old wounds patched up when I saw Ace and lady Gyor chatting there. I though they had something between them."
"They have," June laughed, "mutual respect and friendship. But nothing more. Let me guess, you were looking for Gunny and found him talking to another woman, so you ran off crying and sulked for a week?"
"How did you know?" Enryn gasped.
"I'm a woman, and I've been there myself," June chuckled. "We were having a little war in a place called Bosnia, Bob was pilot in the Navy, and I a Jarhead. He got shot down and I got shot up rescuing him. We spent three months in the same hospital, arguing all the time. No matter where one of us went the other was always waiting in a bad mood. For two months we argued and fought, over nothing and everything. Then I saw him talking to a woman. I knew she was a doctor. But he was talking to her without me. I ran off crying and hid in my room for two weeks. It was only when Bob couldn't find me that he started to miss me."
"Have I to guess what happened?"
"The usual," June sighed, "we were married on leaving the hospital, before either the Marines or Navy found out. They don't like Lieutenant Commanders marrying a Private first class. Does this sound sane?"
"I admit to being nothing like as bad, but Ace did save my life, so I suppose that might have lowered my resistance," Enryn laughed.
"Don't fret, Gyor needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle, she's totally besotted by her slave."
"Slave!" Essia laughed. "I've never seen En-eta wearing chains, only a big grin."
"Then they are together," Enryn gasped.
June sighed, "And probably will be for the next hundred thousand years. They are both immortal, and how can anyone compete with that? Come on Enryn, I want to show you something."
They moved through the crowd, collecting fresh drinks from a maid with very short red hair, and walked into a private office. June called up the computer and opened the Percival Base file, showing the current base and a projection over the next ten years. "The Base is going to grow like mad, and so are the married quarters. Enryn, by the time this cruise is over you could be entitled to quite a nice home."
The monitor lit up with a dozen kinds of houses that Enryn could hardly believe were real, most had swimming-pools.
"With Ace being docked for sponsoring me, and his Ex-wife still taking half his salary, I don't think we could afford to live there."
June laughed, "Don't tell anyone, this is strictly need to know, and the men don't need to know. From the moment Gunny signed your papers his Ex-wife was cut off completely, because you are now his only dependent. I wrote the contract myself, so I should know. Next, the sponsorship is a polite way to encourage the crew to fall in love and get those pesky slaves out of my hair. Two hundred living with the crew is better than two hundred running riot! And the docking is all being saved for when we return to Earth. I've yet to meet a Marine who can save up to get married."
"You're match making?" Enryn gasped.
"I had some thought to having a mass wedding in the base Cathedral," June sighed, pointing to it on the monitor. "It makes sense to have two hundred weddings at the same time, but I doubt I can fix that without Gyor's help."
"Also," Essia laughed, "you are being paid as a recruit, and if you pass out you'll be getting the full Marine salary."
"And if you stay on in the Marines the married quarters are very affordable, when you consider that Gyor has already put a deposit down on a house for saving her life. Whatever you and Gunny decide, you will get to pick your own home, on the Base or not."
"Why are you doing this?" Enryn gasped.
"Gunny is a very useful man, and he might be thinking of retiring, but that would be a real waste of talent. And you too young lady, are you enjoying the life?"
"Most of it, if they'd just realise that I know what I'm doing and don't need shouting at," Enryn sighed.
They moved back into the ball, mixing with the officers and family. The red headed maid was in constant attendance to June, serving them devotedly. John, Isralla and their girl Jina came to chat for a few minutes, and Enryn realised that Jina also came from Tharsius, and was devoted to the couple who saved her life.
Then the couple Darko and Karin moved in, their daughter came along with the short blond girl who served them, and was pushing a wheelchair.
Enryn looked in shock at the child in the wheelchair, never expecting to see anything like her.
June sighed, "They promised Birgit a sister and let her choose who she wanted, this was on Yag-Urth during the invasion. Birgit is a very bright girl who lived through a few really bad times before being adopted, and so she chose the saddest girl she could find."
Enryn saw a tiny blond waif who could hardly be six, she sat in the wheelchair held in by straps, the right side of her face mutilated by fire. One arm had been broken and reset twisted out of shape and both legs had been cut off below the knees.
"A beggar child," June sighed. "Bought from birth and mutilated to get the greatest pity, and money. They found her in the street dragging herself along by her good arm in terror, about to be eaten by a monster."
"Are you sure saving her was a good idea?" Enryn gasped in horror. "Will she thank them?"
"Karin is quite a good medic and trying to rebuild the child, we are hoping for a full recovery, even regrowing her legs."
Essia insisted, "And if that doesn't work we'll let Gyor loose on the child."
"There's a rift growing between them over the child. Karin wants to heal the kid through science, and Gyor wants to cheat."
"June, with that child, I'd cheat," Enryn sighed. "Yes, I'd cheat big time!"
Ace managed to break away from his superiors to teach Enryn to dance, she had practiced in their quarters but this was the first time she had done it for real. They glided around the floor, without too many mishaps, and she felt the whole crowd watching them. "Are they staring at me or you?" she whispered.
"At both of us," he laughed. "My dear girl, you fit in just fine. I'm sure they are all jealous of me."
"But they nearly all have lovely partners, who can dance far better than me," she sighed.
"But not one who is a Marine. I had a word with my Commander, about the lack of Dress uniforms for female enlisted personnel. And he agreed to waiver the custom in your favour on the Iowa, I think he likes your dress."
"You can thank lady Gyor, she tweaked it up a bit."
"So what are the lights?"
"She said they were stars. But I've no idea what she meant by that."
Ace looked closely at her neckline, to see tiny sparks of a hundred sizes and colours twinkling in the black velvet. He gasped in shock, "They are stars!"
"I think you impressed her," she said with hidden meaning.
"Enryn, with what I saw her do o
n Yag-Urth, she terrifies me. That lady is a nuke walking round in a ball gown! She took on an entire army virtually single handed, and won! But the worst thing was, she knew she was going to win. It was just a chore to her, like taking out the garbage, she never had any doubts at all!"
"Arrogance or confidence?"
"With Gyor, I don't think there's a difference!"
They left the floor heading toward the Percivals when the alarm sounded with heart stopping fear. The crowd broke up with everyone rushing to their duty stations throughout the vast ship.
"No time to change, we have to make it to Turret One," Ace gasped, pulling Enryn through the door. "The rest of the Platoon will meet us there."
"The WA as well?"
"I think they'll beat their partners to it," he laughed.
"Then let go my hand, so I can run faster."
Turret One was on the upper hull at the very front of the Iowa, the one most likely to be attacked, and so it was manned by marines. But to call it a turret was misleading, for it held more firepower than most ships. The teardrop shaped turret was huge, with a twenty meter wide plasma cannon and five coaxially mounted gauss cannons in the nose, and defence turrets of her own.
Ace and Enryn made it to their battle station, opening the thick armoured portal and rushing through meters of yet more armour deep in to the horseshoe shaped control centre; the front section held the controls for the main weapons and was surrounded by a ring of defence consoles. Ace slipped into the command seat, as Enryn looked on in awe at the controls. "You taught me to fire a carbine love, but nothing like this!" she gasped on seeing monitor views of the stupendous weapons now under her partner's control.
"Most of it is automated, it virtually runs its self, but needs someone to tell it what to do. You'll be fine Enryn."
She opened the rear hatch to see a cramped accommodation module for forty. "Are we supposed to live here, or what?" she gasped.
"Under certain circumstances, yes."
Ace opened up communications with Control, receiving data from the Iowa's extensive battle-net of sensors. "Unknown fleet on intercept course," he called out. "ETA five minutes."
"Look, tell me what to do, anything that doesn't include making coffee."
"I've got the weapons on line, and the others will man the defence turrets, when they get here. Take over one of the Gauss cannons, treat it like a carbine, select your ammo and fire it at nearly the speed of light."
"And what does that do?" she gasped. "You never got round to teaching me space combat."
"It makes a big bang!"
"That I understand."
The Platoon and WA rushed on board as the alien fleet swept in to engage. Ace sealed up the turret going over to on board life support, and swept space with his weapons. A ring of weapon stations surrounded most of the control centre, and was now manned by marines controlling the defence turrets that dotted Turret One's graceful hull, the WA stood behind their partners, watching what they did. Sal slipped into a station next to Ace as Ceri stood behind her, "Emergency drives warming up."
The first alien ship swept by the Iowa, unleashing a torrent of fire that splashed against her shields in futility.
"We have been cleared to engage," Ace called out. "All attempts at peaceful communication has been rejected. The Iowa is now at war!"
"Well about time," Enryn sighed as she swung her targeting after the hostile that had tried to kill her home. Using the computers she selected a armour piercing slug and fed it into the Gauss cannon, swinging it after the target and fired. Nothing seemed to happen, there was no explosion firing the slug, but it vanished from the Gauss cannon breach in an instant. Then she looked up to see the target ripped in two as the AP slug tore through the hull.
Ace swung the Plasma cannon to target a capital ship, and fired only to see his shot absorbed by the shields. He fired again and again, and the shields continued to hold as the ship fire broadsides at the Iowa. "Enryn, stop playing with the fighters, I need you to break through the shields. Follow my targeting and see what damage you can do."
"Aye sir," she snapped and fired a burst of AP slugs into the alien shields. The slugs hit the shields one every second at nearly the speed of light, exploding in blinding flashes of energy that almost overloaded view plates.
The alien ship tried to turn away as her shields began to fail, and Ace finished her off with a twenty meter ball of blue plasma that tore into her hull, exploding throughout the ship.
Yet more fighters swept the Iowa, as the Marines opened up with the defence turrets. A dozen exploded into balls of flame.
Sal called out, "Main fleet is beginning to engage, we're out numbered fifty to one."
"So there's enough targets for us all," Ace snapped.
The Iowa was heading out of the system, aiming for deep space, but the alien fleet kept getting in the way, forcing her to slow and bank away. They didn't want her to leave their system, they wanted to take her, dead or alive. Any ship that got in the Iowa's way was soon ripped apart by her vast hull weapons, but the hostiles knew her zone of fire and kept up the pressure without putting themselves at risk. As dozens of ships targeted the turrets.
Twenty ships soon bracketed them, firing broadsides as the Iowa swung her turrets from ship to ship, crippling them.
"Orders to disengage," Sal called out. "We have to let the Iowa get away."
"I was afraid of that," Ace snapped. "Enryn, do you see that big red button?"
"The one that says: 'Do not push, under pain of death'?"
"That's the one."
So she pushed it home. Nothing happened, for seconds nothing happened. And then there was a loud clang from below the turret, and they started floating free of the Iowa.
"For the love of all!" Enryn gasped. "What's happening?"
"Who said a turret has to be built onto a ship? Why not make them all little ships?"
Fourteen turrets peeled away from the Iowa, swinging about and targeting the aliens preventing her escape. Each was a ship in her own right with the power of a Cruiser, and independent shields powered huge fusion reactors.
The Iowa was not just one ship but a fleet of fifteen.
Sal took over the piloting, swinging them to attack the ships in the Iowa's way, and the Gauss cannons wrote bloody vengeance on their hulls. Ace fired his plasma cannon time and again, crippling ship after ship until the Iowa slipped through the encirclement, blasting from the system and into hyperspace.
With the Iowa gone the aliens swung after the turrets in anger, and even their shields could not last forever.
"So what now?" Enryn sighed. "Are we dead?"
"We have very good weapons and shields," Ace pointed out. "Also limited manoeuvring drives and a small FTL module. So if we can make it to the Iowa we'll be all right."
"If we can make it through the fleet," she pointed out.
"Yes, there is that."
The fourteen turrets swung as one after the Iowa, racing towards light speed, targeted by thirty ships. Most made it but the final three were receiving the alien's combined firepower, shields began to fail leaving their hulls exposed.
"Sal, turn around, we have to cover their escape," Ace snapped.
Turret One turned back to attack the fleet on her own as her damaged sister Turrets fled the battle, vanishing from detection range within seconds.
Sal kept her course through the fleet, as every weapon poured death into the aliens, and her shields started to glow ever brighter.
"I hate it when they go white," Ace grumbled.
"Why's that?" Enryn gasped as she tore a destroyer in two.
"Because that's when they start to fail and you've about five seconds to live."
Sal floored the Turret, slipping through the fleet like an eel, as every ship tried to fire at her, only to hit their own fleet in the crowded battle.
"I've an idea," Enryn sighed. "Do you see that capital ship ahead? The one that looks like a flagship? And the vehicle bay that's now empty?"
> "You're insane," Sal gasped in horror. "But I like it!"
"Like what?" Ace gasped, and then saw the vast ship before him. And the immense docking cradle that could have taken a battleship. "Oh god no."
Sal either didn't hear him or chose not to. She slammed Turret One to a full stop and again into reverse, backing into the docking cradle and deep inside the Flagship; tearing through decks and compartments until she ground to a halt.
But her main weapons were still pointing from the rear of the vast ship, still firing at any ship foolish enough to get within her arc of fire.
Fighters and Corvettes swung to attack the docking bay, only to be blown from reality. Then the heavier ships started to fire, ripping into the alien ship.
The battle was a stale mate until the Flagship's Admiral decided that he didn't want to become a martyr, and floored his faster than light drive.
They vanished across space, reappearing hours later in deep space far from anywhere. The battle was over.
An alien peered fearfully from ahead, looking down Turret One's six vast cannons, and held up both pairs of arms, then moved forward on six legs, trying to convey peaceful intentions.
Ace shut the main weapons down, all he had to shoot at was one living being. He could do that with a Glock.
Soon a hundred alien machines were at work dragging Turret One from the Flagship's docking bay and into space.
Sal took Turret One floating before the vast ship, and brought her nose down in a nod of thanks to the Admiral, and then banked away engaging her drives on full power; expecting to be shot in the back at any second.
But the ships parted in peace through exhaustion. No attempt at communication had been made by either side, or even a close look at each other. The aliens looked half insect and half reptile, but were far beyond anything ever dreamt off. Why they attacked, or what they wanted would never be known.
Sal engaged the Hyper Drive and they vanished into FTL.
Ace and Enryn finally had a chance to strip off their dress gear, until he was down to T-shirt and shorts, and she managed to scrounge the same from the WA. They hung their gear up carefully, both wondering if they would ever get the chance to wear them again.
Enryn Page 5