“No, I don’t call it normal,” replied Wiesenthal. “I call it pregnant.”
“PREGNANT?” cried Dorothy, clearly distressed. “I can’t be pregnant! I’ve taken my…” Dorothy ceased her impending rant when Doctor Wiesenthal raised her hand to shush her.
“I know, I know… I’ve no doubt you’ve been a good girl and taken your contraceptive pills religiously, but they are only 99.4% effective you know,” said Wiesenthal. “I’m afraid you rolled snake-eyes and fell into that 0.6th percentile last month. Congratulations, Captain… you’re going to be a mother. You and the admiral have just won the infamous Contraception Lotto and inadvertently made Electronics Technician 2nd Class Norman Purdy of the battlecruiser CSS Nasville a hell of a lot of money in the 2nd Fleet ‘Boobs’ Fletcher Baby Sweepstakes.”
“Pregnant,” Dorothy murmured to herself, stunned. “At least I won’t have to worry quite so much about what to give Ben for Christmas this year.”
“That’s the spirit, look at the bright side of it, Captain.”
“But we’re in a war-zone. I don’t want to be shipped home!” Dorothy wailed, tears forming.
“No reason that you should be,” Wiesenthal reassured her. “After what Behemoth survived, I’d say there’s nowhere within a couple of hundred light-years of here that’s any safer than right here aboard good old Leviathan. We have a state-of-the-art surgical suite, so we should be able to handle delivering a baby without any problems. For a patient with hips like yours, how hard could it be?”
“Ben is old-school,” Dorothy commiserated. “He’ll order me home, just because it’s standard Fleet protocol to evacuate pregnant women out of a war zone.”
“Standard Fleet protocol was developed for standard Fleet warships,” said Wiesenthal. “There’s nothing at all ‘standard’ about Leviathan and her two sisters. They’re totally unique animals. They transcend many of the old protocols, rendering them non-applicable in their case. Don’t worry, I’ll talk some sense into your Lord Husband.”
“But I…”
“NOW HEAR THIS! NOW HEAR THIS! ADMIRAL STILLMAN TO THE BRIDGE. ADMIRAL STILLMAN, PLEASE REPORT TO THE BRIDGE IMMEDIATELY. THAT IS ALL.”
“Well, I guess I’d better get topside in case Ben needs me for whatever it is that announcement is about,” said Dorothy morosely.
“Here, keep some of these in your pocket for the next few weeks and use them as needed,” said the doctor, as she handed her a small package.
“What’s this?” asked Dorothy. “Something to help with the nausea?”
“Sort of,” replied Wiesenthal with a smirk. “They’re barf-bags.”
* * * *
“What’s up, Scotty?” asked Admiral Ben Stillman, as he entered the hatch into Leviathan’s Combat Information Center, in response to the summons.
Captain Scott Radkey, commanding officer of CSS Leviathan turned at the sound of Stillman’s voice and said, “We’ve got what looks on the scanner to be one of those half-scale antique spaceliners the cats use, that just emerged about three and a quarter light-minutes out, Admiral. Guess we have us a few more kitties that didn’t get the word they don’t own this real estate anymore.”
“Have we got an eyeball on them yet?”
“The Ready-5 Raptor off the Independence just launched and should be within visual range in about three minutes, Admiral.”
“I’m sure glad we have that new miniaturized cat-translator that’s small enough for our fighter pilots to fit into the cockpit with them,” said Stillman. “I’d really rather talk to them than shoot at them, if they’ll let us.”
“That makes one of us, Admiral,” replied Radkey. “I lost a third-cousin aboard the light cruiser USS Cheyenne at Minnos. I’d rather shoot the cat-bastards, myself.”
“What if you’d run into the Cheyenne during the war, Scotty?” asked Stillman. “How would you have felt about having to shoot at your cousin back then?”
“He’d have been just another damned yankee back then,” replied Radkey. “And I’d have been doing my damnedest to blow his ass, way the hell over yonder and back.”
“He’d be just as dead if you had. So why the lingering bitterness towards the cats?” asked Stillman.
“Humans against humans is one thing. Cats are a whole nuther thing,” replied Radkey. “We didn’t even know those shit-birds existed until they suddenly just jumped in our shit, guns blazing — without nary so much as a howdy-do, nice-to-meet ya, kiss my ass or nothing!”
“Sounds like you’re taking the Raknii attack on mankind kind of personal,” observed Stillman.
“I never did like cats,” said Radkey. “Always been more of a dog-man myself. Maybe if they looked more like a Rottweiler or a Bloodhound, I’d be more partial to give’em a break, but a cat’s only fit for a burlap bag with a couple of bricks, and a very deep creek to toss them in.”
Stillman sighed internally. Obviously, racial bigotry wasn’t limited to just differences between people. To many humans, the Raknii didn’t yet qualify as “people.” Perhaps he should take Radkey down to the surface on his next trip to actually meet some Raknii. Maybe he’d learn something, revise his prejudices and eventually come to see them as intelligent creatures caught on the opposing side of an unfortunate war started by superiors far above either of their pay scales. Ignorance is correctible. Then again, maybe not. While ignorance might be correctible… stupid is forever.
* * * *
“Summit, this is Stormchaser-4. Do you read?”
“Stormchaser-4, this is Summit. We read you five-by-five, go ahead,” answered Lieutenant Shirley Vilsack, acting communications officer on watch. After a three-minute communications lag, they heard:
“Summit, this is Stormchaser-4. I have an eyeball on our bogy. It appears to be another one of those new, unarmed civilian spaceliners that we first encountered here, inbound toward Slithin. I’m trying to raise them on the kitty-talkie now.”
“Very well, Stormchaser-4, please advise when you have established communications with the intruder,” responded Lt. Vilsack.
Nine minutes later, the Raptor squawked again: “Summit, this is Stormchaser-4. I have established communications with the intruder via the kitty-talkie. They say they have a very high-ranking cat officer aboard, who is here to surrender all of their planets in this entire region of space to Admiral Stillman.”
* * * *
Chapter-25
I quietly excused myself and went to the bar, to commune with spirits I know how to relate to. — Mary Roach
The Planetoid Discol, City of Waston
January, 3869
“Hal, just what in the hell are these?” asked Noreen, as she stood holding a pair of Confederate admiral’s uniforms in each hand, one black and one gray.
Oh, I’m glad you found those. I was afraid Diet might have thrown them out again.
“But what are they, Hal?”
They are what they appear to be, Noreen.
“Eh, heh… and just who do they belong to?”
Where did you find them?
“I found them hanging up, behind a shit-load of crap in Diet’s second closet.”
Good place for them. They belong to Diet.
“Enlighten me, good computer. Just why does my husband have two Confederate admiral’s uniforms hidden in the back of his spare closet?”
Um, maybe because he doesn’t wear them very often and didn’t have room for them in his regular closet?
“Hal, cut the bullshit and just answer the damned question! Why does Diet own two Confederate admiral’s uniforms?”
Maybe because he’s an admiral in the Confederate Fleet?
“Ugh, huh… and next you’ll be telling me that he’s also an admiral in the Alliance Fleet too, right?”
No, Noreen… I’d never tell you anything like that, because it’s not true. Diet is most definitely NOT an admiral in the Alliance Fleet.
“Good, that’s a little progress anyway.”
He’s only a vice a
dmiral in the Alliance Fleet.
“Goddamnit, Hal! So help me… I will find a way to make you pay for playing with my head, you smart-assed bucket of bolts!”
Pack that black uniform that’s in your left hand, won’t you? Diet will be needing it in Joja next week.
* * * *
CSS Leviathan, Slithin System
January, 3869
“I must say that I am very impressed, Admiral,” said Region-Master Tzal. “It’s no wonder these monstrous ships of yours chewed up my fleet and shat out its bones.”
Escorted literally down to the planet’s surface by the Raptor off Independence, Tzal’s spaceliner landed at the planetary capital on the one side of the planet Slithin where everything still worked. For just a short while, there on the tarmac, Tzal met with Planet-Master Paeb just long enough to brief him on his orders from Supreme-Master Drix.
The horrendous losses incurred by the Rak imperial fleet during the twin battles at Slithin and Yegraia left the Raknii Empire all but defenseless, and the supreme-master needed multiple cycles to rebuild… considerably more time than the relentless humans were likely to volunteer, if left to their own devices. To buy that time the empire so desperately needed, Drix intended to shove more meat than even these insatiable humans could possibly swallow, right down their throats, in a very reasonable hope they might choke on it.
With Tzal being an outsider and an unknown entity to the citizens of Region-4, Drix surmised that a good half of the 83 worlds of this region might possibly revolt in favor of Blug’s heir Erig, whom many believed this new and unknown supreme-master had unfairly passed over. Indeed, to pass over Blug’s appointed heir in favor of a warrior rapidly gaining an unsavory reputation for losing battles to aliens, was a mortal insult of the direst order to many citizens of Region-4.
Even if all went well, it should take Tzal the better part of two cycles just to escort his new human masters around for even a short visit to all of these newly surrendered worlds one-by-one. Even if only a quarter of those worlds revolted, the ensuing civil chaos would be even more trouble the humans would be preoccupied with, buying the empire even more time.
Tzal hadn’t been on the ground very long before a Confederate Fleet shuttle landed and after inspecting Tzal’s baggage thoroughly, the humans took him and his cleared baggage aboard. The shuttle took him up and gave him a spectacular view of a small new moon occupying an amazingly close orbit of Slithin, before they actually landed on it.
Tzal hadn’t gotten nearly this close to the human’s monstrous asteroid-ships during the battle here eight sub-cycles ago, as the heavy cruiser he’d been aboard made a single firing pass and was very nearly eaten by an incredible 21-gigwatt plasma bolt for their trouble. With his fleet commander aboard, the ship-master afterwards held back to a more discreet distance, after that close encounter of the worse kind.
On their final approach, Tzal was astounded to see an unremarkable portion of the asteroid’s surface suddenly open, revealing armored doors of at least four body-lengths thickness leading into a docking bay. Once those massive doors closed behind them and the bay was repressurized, Tzal was escorted to an elevator that seemed to move horizontally, as well as vertically.
After being assigned guarded quarters and being allowed time to bathe, (after a short period of instruction) and rest, Tzal had been provided a surprisingly delicious meal of unfamiliar, but perfectly burnt meat, still bloody inside… a sweet, fizzy delight the humans called soda pop, and a frozen hot, yet cold marvel they called a hot fudge sundae. These humans must have spent time at Golgathal, as they obviously already knew something of Raknii tastes and eating habits.
After the meal, the human fleet commander and an obviously female aide paid him a short “welcoming” visit and Tzal feared his translator was starting to malfunction, when it sounded like the commander introduced his aide, as his mate. Impossible.
Over the next several sub-turns Tzal was given a complete tour of the unimaginable human warship, even to donning his space armor for a walking tour of the exterior with an escort of similarly garbed Confederate Fleet Marines. Out there, he got an incredible view of one of the gigantic hidden turrets rising miraculously from beneath the asteroid’s previously unmarked surface, which then extended triple-mounted, 21-gigawatt pulse-lasers… much like the one that had fired that bolt that had almost provided Tzal and everyone else aboard his flagship a one-way ticket to visit Dol personally, in the great beyond.
Tzal seriously doubted that his human hosts showed him nearly everything, as it wasn’t possible to see even a small world such as this, in so short a time. But they had been amazingly open about what they had showed him… everything from the great ship’s control room, to its monstrous reactors, to their even more monstrous drive engines. If it had been the human’s intent to impress him with their incredible level of war-making technology on an impossibly vast scale, they’d succeeded. Even seeing much of his huge fleet destroyed by the business end of this great beast hadn’t awed him quite as much as seeing what he’d been up against from the inside.
Dol, I was up against three of these. No wonder they ripped my tail off and flogged me with it! Perhaps Drix’ strange ideas have wisdom, far exceeding anything I had previously been able to bring myself to fully believe.
* * * *
The Alliance Planet Illini, City of Peorea
January, 3869
Admiral Grant Loggins, United Stellar Alliance Fleet (ret.) swirled the whiskey around in his glass as he sat watching a holovision recording of the incredible presidential-grade funeral given for one of his former task force commanders, for the third time. Bitterness burned within him, that not even the cheap whiskey he’d been guzzling could approach. He’d almost lost it and thrown his whiskey glass through the holovision set when the network anchors displayed an artist’s rendition of the three times life-size granite statue, which would adorn Turner’s Tomb, as they were calling it, whenever the Germans finally finished carving the damned thing.
That should have been mine… all that. I was the only Alliance officer to ever whip the damned rebs and I whipped ’em every time I faced them!
All Grant Loggins got for all his victories was a meaningless promotion and that hateful stint traipsing around the Alliance, showing off his fancy uniform and medals — on display like a three-dollar tavern whore on a Saturday night, prostituting his hard won war celebrity to sell war bonds for those ungrateful bastards in Waston. But he’d used that celebrity to vie for his party’s nomination for president in 3864.
He’d been overjoyed when the opposing party nominated that cunt McAllister. All she accomplished during the war was to push papers around behind a nice safe desk in Waston, and then got her fat ass kicked at 2nd Ginia, when she finally did get the opportunity to accomplish something worthwhile. Loggins had been confident that his war record would swamp hers in a walk, but he’d been shocked when political opponents within his own party labeled him as a butcher, because of the casualty rates he’d suffered in gaining those desperately needed victories.
Ungrateful bastards!McAllister spent most of the war on her knees, sucking dick and playing politics in Waston, while I was out in Tensee kicking Confederate ass.
Casualties? What a crock of shit! I gave my country victories when it needed them… when nobody else could. Turner took a hell of a lot more casualties than I ever did and he gets immortalized, while I got beached and vilified.
Loggins had foolishly taken his Fleet retirement in a lump sum, and then foolishly blew through much of it during his ill-advised presidential campaign. The rest he’d been swindled out of by a series of bad investments, guaranteed to produce fabulous returns… yada, yada, ad nauseam. Loggins never had been very good at handling money. One wondered how he thought he’d handle an entire country’s economy.
Tonight, that cunt Admiral Eileen McAllister (ret.) sat, locked away in the White House behind an army of Secret Service agents, enjoying the fruits of her recent presidential
reelection victory.
Veryprobably sipping cognac while getting her twat diddled by some studly blond ensign, hung like a horse!
Here in a cheap motel room on the seedy side of Peorea, Admiral Grant Loggins (ret.) sat, dead broke and alone… in his dingy, slightly ragged, hash-mark stained underwear, eating cheap pizza, drinking cheap whiskey and watching yet again, as someone else received stolen accolades that he had earned.
It’s not fucking fair!
The motel night manager found the body four days later, after a couple renting the room next door by the hour, complained of a putrid smell — even more putrid than was usually considered normal for that particular establishment.
* * * *
The Confederate Planet Joja
TBG Corporate Orbital Shipyard
January, 3869
Admiral Dietrich Guderian, fully documented Commander of Confederate Fleet Intelligence, was making his first inspection tour of the Top Secret Intelligence classified area of the TBG orbital facility. This was a new and totally unexpected experience for the poor Confederate Fleet Marines standing guard outside the entrance of the secure area, so they awkwardly delayed a previously unknown full admiral and an equally unknown civilian, while they went by the book — making all of the requisite calls required of them to verify the identities and authorizations of these new faces, before allowing them access into the classified area. Those calls were automatically routed through the local Fleet Master Computer to an appropriate Confederate Fleet Intelligence officer, having the authority to grant access into the Top Secret area of the facility.
Wrath of an Angry God: A Military Space Opera Page 29