She’d never been to Tueg, and had never really even thought of going. The amount of genetic remapping needed to breathe the Tueg atmosphere was substantial, for one thing, and the climate was less than desirable, absolutely hell on everything but the soil. Still, the impressive architecture the Tuegs created out of their version of adobe bricks gave many species, particularly equatorial dwellings humans, new ideas about ecologically sound and temperate lodging. A majority of Tueg cities resembled massive cliff dwellings, and in their close quarters they developed the ability to make lasting peace.
As a result, they’d been a reluctant partner in the war effort for the last couple of years, and as the Greys continued to advance through the galaxy, the Tuegs clamored more and more for diplomacy. When the first Tueg colony, a small watery planet named Ghratanon in the Vega sector, was attacked by Grey skirmishers, the Tuegs agreed to muster their militias in support of Legion objectives, and they’d fought honorably to this point. And now they were wanting to step away?
Tally’s brow furrowed. There was much about Andrew’s position he did not share with her, and rightly so. Those in charge of anything often carry burdens they wish no one else to bear, one of her teachers had said long ago. Still, with the first victory against the Greys secured despite heavy losses by the forces at Wolc six months ago still ringing across the galaxy, a sudden departure from the Legion seemed strange, if not suspicious. There must be a reason for this. She frowned. Andrew would have to go there, a diplomatic visit. At least three months, counting fold time. The semester would end in four weeks. Maybe she’d go along with him? Her first state visit as the Prelate Consort.
She snorted softly. For all of the happiness the thought gave her, the weight and attention of the position were maddeningly disconcerting. Long days at the cabin on Libretto, the long walks, and quiet days working, were of a peacefulness she would never know again. Now, there would be requests, interviews, duties, and responsibilities that, while challenging and engaging, were not the same as being able to simply be. But what if her being was being with Andrew? Would that truly make everything all right? And what if...what if she did have his child? Would that change anything? Or everything?
Maybe what they needed was a diplomatic vacation to Tueg? She laughed. What else would they do for a month in foldspace? At least Andrew’s ship would be guaranteed to be under gravity the entire trip, unlike that nasty freighter she’d ridden to Styrah.
The vidphone rang again. She picked it up at once and Andrew smiled at her. “Andy.”
“I have about a minute, Tally. Do you miss me?”
She grinned. “You know I do.”
“Then come out here. To the moon.” Andrew grinned again. “I’m in the Presidential Suite at Armstrong. There’s a flight from London in an hour.”
“I have classes, Andy.”
“One tomorrow, and I’ve already got it covered for you. You can message the exams to yourself and grade them here over the weekend.” His smile softened a little. “I really miss you.”
Tally smiled. Oh dammit. That was too easy. “Of course I’ll be there.”
“In about eight hours.” Andrew grinned again. “I’ll be expecting you. And I have your luggage. I love you.”
The words made her tingle. “I love you.” She blew a kiss like a little child as the connection terminated. Collecting her things took barely a minute, and she left her academic office. She’d make the afternoon maglev easily. And it would figure that he’d taken a bag for her. Was it thoughtful or devious? She smiled. Knowing Andrew, it was a bit of both.
* * * * *
Forty
Lieutenant Commander Donovan Garrett checked for lint on his Fleet blue tunic, rapped twice on the admiral’s stateroom door, and waited. After a few seconds of silence, the door opened and he heard the admiral rasp, “Get in here, Garrett.”
The stateroom lighting, dimmed to near non-existence, emphasized the heavily shielded window looking out along the Ticonderoga’s frame. Moving at seventeen c, every once in a while a star appeared to blur into the thin streak of light that Hollywood still used in its movies to show faster than light travel. The Admiral sat facing the window, sipping from his coffee mug. “Pull up a chair, Don.”
“Thank you, sir.” Garrett sat and relaxed. He ran a hand across his slightly longer than regulation black hair and pointed at the coffee tumbler. “May I?”
“Always. Get a dose of the good stuff for us both, too.” Admiral Nather handed his mug to Garrett.
Garrett found the Bushmill’s hidden under the coffee urn and poured a generous shot into both fresh mugs of coffee. They stared into the starfield for a good two minutes before the Admiral spoke again. “I could sit and watch this all day. Makes me forget the shitstorm I seem to have inherited.”
Garrett smiled and nodded. “I feel the same way some days.”
“You don’t have to deal with that idiot Coffey on a regular basis.”
Garrett understood. The fact that the Terran Defense Council forced Nather to accept the role of carrying a regiment of ground forces added fuel to the Admiral’s slow-burning temper. Coffey’s constant diversion of resources to create his own special operations forces, seemingly endless personnel issues requiring flag-rank initiated transfers, and Coffey’s attitude grated on most of the Ticonderoga’s senior staff. “What would you like me to do, sir?”
Nather looked at Garrett for a moment as if studying him for the first time. “For the moment, nothing. Nothing at all.”
Garrett blinked. “I assumed you’d want my help in looking over him. You know they’re going to promote him soon, right?”
Nather shook his head. “He’s Terran Defense Force and his chain of command doesn’t run through this stateroom. He’s a loose cannon we’re going to haul and drop into combat operations. This little experiment is not something I’m comfortable with at all. Put an eagle on his collar and it legitimizes his antics.”
“This isn’t any different than hauling Marines back in the day.”
Nather glared. “Marines listened to the Navy in transit and fell under the chain of command of the Navy. This dichotomy between ground forces and aerospace forces is the single biggest reason I think we’ll have our asses handed to us. You can bet Coffey will not stand for or allow any type of cooperation that might dim his reputation.”
Garrett sipped his spiked coffee. Truth was, the admiral was right. Despite the intention of the TDC, the commanders of the ground and space forces clearly believed their force was the choice for winning this war. Both of them had clearly told their subordinate commanders to keep their cards close to the vest and not allow the other force too much insight. The tactic wasn’t a successful way to fight a war. “We’ll be alongside the Moskva in a week. That will be a welcome respite.”
Nather nodded. “The Russians at least give us a ground force we can actually count on. The problem is whatever happens on the surface, Coffey assumes command and then takes credit or places blame. “
“What would you like me to do?”
“Your job, Don. Let your interceptors and bombers deliver the mail and keep this ship protected. Work with Coffey as you have to, and support Colonel Manakov. I expect by the time we reach Rayu-4 we’ll have a good idea of what to expect from Coffey, and a better idea of how we’ll perform in combat from Manakov.”
Garrett shook his head and chuckled. “They always told us history repeated itself. I can’t remember any clusterfuck like this situation in our history, sir. Can you? I mean bad intelligence, mule-headed commanders.” He paused. “At least we have some good allies.”
Nather smiled. “I’d take a battalion of Styrahi over Coffey’s ragtag regiment any day. There are way too many newly hatched officers and not enough non-coms to do their jobs.”
“Coffey’s problems don’t stop there.”
“I’m aware of the drinking on duty, and I’ve reported it to TDF headquarters. There’s been no response. I’m learning more and more about his a
nti-Styrahi attitudes with every personnel transfer. There are no more in his regiment now. He’s effectively signed his own death warrant.”
Garrett snorted. “That’s assuming he’ll even honor the threat, sir.”
Nather nodded, but said nothing.
Garrett turned his eyes back to the passing starfield. A bright streak of light caught his eye in the distance and, for the briefest of moments, he pictured the bridge of a ship in an old movie—or was it a holoshow—and frowned. He finished his coffee, setting the mug on the table between their chairs. “Anything else for me, sir?”
“I’m promoting you to CAG, effective immediately.”
“I beg your pardon, sir?” Commander Air Group?
Nather smiled. “I’m bringing you up to CAG for a reason, Don. I know you have something for me, and I want to hear it.”
“It’s really not a perfect plan.”
The admiral cleared his throat loudly. “You ever hear what George Patton said about perfect plans?”
“I don’t recall anything.”
“Something along the lines of a good plan executed now being better than a perfect plan executed in a week. That make sense to you?”
Garrett nodded, “My first request then is to promote Captain Tony Richards to Major. I want him in command of a squadron of exobirds.”
“He’s the guy that did close air support on Wolc, right?”
“He really pulled Captain Shields’ chestnuts out of the fire. So to speak.” Garrett licked his lips. Why did this seem so difficult to explain? “He’s an imprint, too. World War Two Spitfire pilot. Without him, that counterattack would have failed. I was glad to see him down among ‘em.”
“And you concur with that strategy?”
Garrett folded his hands. “We’re too standoff. We’re developing weapon systems that take us farther and farther away from the soldiers who are taking and holding the ground vital to war. I think we can do better.”
Nather was quiet for a long moment. “Coffey won’t work with you. He’s caught up in his own career.”
“Then we find someone who will.”
“Yeah, she led that counterattack on Wolc.” Nather shook his head. Their frustration that Shields was just a captain in an army that didn’t recognize merit at all was mutual. Not much had changed over the last two hundred years. “That man’s going to kill a lot of capable soldiers and there’s almost nothing we can do about it.”
“You said his chain of command doesn’t come through Fleet, sir. What can we possibly do to prevent him losing his regiment?”
“Nothing. Maybe something. We have to act when the time comes. And it will. Stay in constant contact with Shields and her sergeant major. You have to be ready to support them when it happens. If we miss that opportunity, we might not get another one.”
Garrett rubbed his eyes. “We’ll be ready, sir.”
“I know you will, Don. Somehow I don’t think you’ll let me down.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Nather stood abruptly and walked across the room to his desk. “There’s one little thing, though. I hope you don’t mind discussing it with an old man and another cup of Irish coffee.”
“What would that be, sir?”
“This.” Nather held up the silver eagle of a Fleet Captain. A promotion two full grades higher. “I pulled every string in the book to get you assigned as my CAG and to have the rank you’ve clearly earned. So I’m going to give you one piece of advice—you and Major Richards take that fight down to the enemy and make every life count.”
* * * * *
Forty-One
Surprisingly, there wasn’t a message from the waste management computer, as Mairin let her shower run for a good ten minutes instead of the traditional fleet shower of get wet, turn off the water, lather up, water on, rinse, and get out. With the water near scalding, she turned her back to the spray and let it cascade over her neck and shoulders in an attempt to wash the stress and tightness away. She’d grown past thinking solely about the mission at hand. Her mind drifted over her family, somewhere safe out beyond the Outer Rim on whatever colony they were on. She’d lost track of how many, and hadn’t heard a thing from them for three months after Wolc. Only then had they seemed to wonder if she was okay. Of course she’d lied to them. She wasn’t in a combat unit. That she was working in an office somewhere and not commanding a cavalry troop. Truth was stranger than fiction after all.
She lathered slowly with the last of her soap from Libretto. The sweet wildflower smell brought the visual of Tally’s cabin and the lake in the monsoonal evenings. Only her dreams brought sadness and regret. There was nothing more either of them could have done. And now. She smirked as she rinsed off. Tally was on Earth as the Prelate Consort, or something like that, looking happy and fulfilled. Clearly, Tally’s thoughts would be elsewhere now. As should hers.
Her favorite furry towel wrapped around her body like a toga, she walked through the empty showers. Nineteen hundred to twenty hundred ship time was her favorite hour of the day. All of the showers were mixed gender, but men and women had separate hours of privacy if they so chose. And with this shower so far into “green-suit land” that none of the Fleet women would venture to it, Mairin usually had it exclusively to herself.
The door to her stateroom was open with a large green flight bag resting against it. Dammit, she frowned. There goes my private space. At the door, she nearly ran into a blonde woman in a tight nomex flight suit. “Excuse me?”
The woman turned and smiled. “You must be Captain Shields.” She extended a hand. “I’m Lieutenant Conyers. Laura Conyers. Three eighteenth squadron heavy. Your new Rhino driver and roommate.”
They shook hands. Conyers was a good two inches shorter than Mairin, with bright hazel eyes and a hint of a drawl. A few wrinkles at the corners of her eyes belied age and experience. Fleet tended to promote more slowly than the TDF, so if she was older than Mairin, it made sense. “You’re from Earth.”
“How’d you guess?” Conyers smiled.
“That’s about the only place you get a good southern accent like that.”
Conyers laughed. “You’re good, but how good are you?”
“What do you mean?” Mairin squinted.
“Where d’ya think I’m from?”
Mairin bit her lower lip. How could she possibly know? “Southern Virginia?”
“Damn! I’m impressed, ma’am!” Conyers grinned.
Mairin shrugged. “Lucky guess.” Grandpa strikes again. She stepped into the room as Conyers closed the door and dragged her flight bag into the center of the small room.
“What about you, ma’am?”
“Born on Luna, raised on Eden.”
Conyers sighed. “I always wanted to get out that way, just not...you know...this way, ma’am.”
Mairin nodded and raised a finger. “I just have one rule, if you don’t mind?”
Conyers looked surprised. “Yes, ma’am?”
“In here, my name is Mairin.” She smiled. “Understood?”
“Sure!” Conyers practically squealed. “I’m so glad you said that...Mairin. I’m going to pin on soon, and being that I’ll be flying your Rhino from here on out...I mean…I’d hoped.”
I think we’re going to get along well, she thought. “And it’s nice to have another female down here in greensuit land.”
“I have to admit, I was worried somethin’ terrible.” Conyers sat on her bunk and began to unpack her things. “How long you been down here by yourself?”
“Six months or so. When I first got here, I didn’t even have a room. I slept in my vehicle bay for three nights before Sergeant Major Trevayne got me a place to sleep.” She grinned and remembered that, despite her discomfort, sleeping with her tanks was like wrapping up in a gigantic safety blanket.
Conyers unpacked methodically folded clothes and belongings in an endless stream. Where was Conyers going to put all of that stuff? “Don’t worry. Most of this stuff I’ll store in my flight
locker. It’s a quantum storage unit. One of these days I’m going to get one of them keychain rooms, too.”
“Keychain room? What is that?”
Conyers held up her fingers about three inches apart. “Looks like a tube of lipstick, but you plug it into a special slot that all of the experimental Fleet vessels are carrying and it’s like an apartment. All of your stuff is shrunk to the quantum level and repositioned based on the amount of space you have allocated to you. When you get one, you get to set it up exactly like you want. I’ve heard that just about anything is possible, like having an original Van Gogh or customized breezes and ocean views! I can’t wait to see one.” She held out her hand over her bags. “I mean; it has to beat living out of a bag.”
Mairin nodded. “Sounds like a home you’d carry with you wherever you’re posted.”
“I know!” Conyers smiled. “Who’da thunk it?”
Mairin laughed. Earthlings, she thought with a grin. No, Americans. The rumors about them being bumpkins appeared true. “How long have you been in?”
“Five years. You?”
“Less than that.” Conyers let the question die as she finished unpacking a normal store of clothes and uniforms before returning the rest of her gear to the flight bags. Mairin quickly dressed in her flight suit and boots.
“What kind of boots are those?”
“Tanker boots,” Mairin grinned. “Best idea George S. Patton ever had.” She twisted her foot so that Conyers could see the shiny black boots with leather straps that wound around her foot in lieu of laces. The concept was a little sketchy to Mairin. Were leather straps really less likely to be drawn into a twentieth century turret ring? Would they flatten or cut where a nylon lace would not? It just didn’t seem right.
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