Warren sat amazed. “You are a ball of fire.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Are you a poker player, Saul?”
“No, sir, life is a gamble and that is enough for me.”
“I will assign a ship for your personal use. It will not have missiles, although its lasers will be functional. You may fly it whenever you wish. You will use it for combat exercises. You will be involved with combat simulations not less than once a week. These exercises will be designed to push you as hard as we know how to push you. You realize that some of your opponents may not be as cavalier about losing as you are about winning.”
“I look forward to the challenge.”
Warren noticed the chronometer on the wall. “Enough of this. It’s late. Off to school with you!”
“Um, no, we’ll go to school later.” He rested one hand on the shoulder of each of the Marines. “These ladies and I are going to teach Fiona and Sabrina how to swim. I understand that Marines do a lot of swimming, sometimes with full battle gear. Is that true?”
One of the women smiled. “Yes, it is.”
“Then let’s all go play in the water!”
Saul turned and, followed by his entourage, left the room.
“Son of a bitch! I’d kill him if he were my kid!” One of the senior staff members exclaimed as soon as the door closed.
“But he’s not your kid, and he will be mine.” Warren reminded him.
“But he challenged you to your face!” Another said in amazement.
“How better to get away with it? I hope his cleverness doesn’t get in his way,” Warren replied.
“How can you let him get away with that?” Yet another chimed in.
“Get away with what? What did he want? He gave me everything I could have asked for. He wants us to monitor the quarters. He wants to work with his escorts openly. He did not ask me to remove them. He knew better. He recognizes that if he must have escorts, they needed to be close at hand. By the time his mother was his age, she had already seen more combat than most of us will see in our lifetimes. He is part of that tradition. He knows we need that in him. He has offered to help us. The offer is on his terms, but his terms are reasonable.”
“What about his academics? Sounds like he’ll play hooky all the time,” the secretary asked.
“Missing one day of school won’t hurt him. Besides, have you looked at their scores? There isn’t a kid on this station their age that can hold a candle to them. Let them get away with what they want for a while. They’ll come running when we need their help which we will soon.”
Later that evening, Saul, Fiona, Sabrina and the two Marines, Madison and Lauren, were in their quarters playing the new multi-player version of “Pirate Interdiction” when they heard a knock on the door. They had been shouting and laughing loudly, and their first thought was that they were about to be busted for a noisy party.
Madison went to the door. Warren stood outside. “Request permission to come aboard.”
He saluted. Madison popped a perfect salute in return.
“Permission granted!” Sabrina sang out.
Warren looked at the displays. “Is that Pirates?”
“Yeah,” Saul said, “the latest version. It’s not even for sale yet. This is a beta test copy.”
“That’s the game your grandfather wrote.”
“He hasn’t touched it in years. We have a team of programmers on Eretz that updates it.”
Warren smiled. “I would ask you to let me play, but I have to be going. I am leaving tomorrow. I will not be back for a month or more.”
“Where are you going?” Saul asked.
“You didn’t think I would answer that, did you?”
“Well, you know it’s about trust.”
“No, it’s about safety. I never announce where I am going. Never. Too many people would like to see the company broken up.”
“I get it.”
“So, while I am gone, you must be on your best behavior. You almost caused a riot in the staff meeting this morning. My staff is good people, but they are protective of me. You challenged me and in so doing challenged them. They do not like to be challenged. Be good. Stay out of trouble.”
“Yes, sir,” Fiona and Saul said together.
“Tomorrow you will go to school.”
“Yes, sir.”
After school the next day, they took out the ship that Warren had reserved for their use. Two of the light duty intra-system interceptors followed them as Saul and Fiona put the ship through its paces. Fiona had taken the front seat and Saul the weapons control position. Everyone else was strapped in on the flight deck behind Fiona. The ship they had been given was bigger and slower than a P I, but not as big as the convoy escort ship Sabrina flew. When Saul was confident that he understood the ship’s potential he asked Fiona, “Can you program a short hyper jump to these coordinates?”
“I’ve never done a real short jump. I’ve only done them in the simulators.”
“Which is why you need to do one now. You need to understand what it feels like so you understand the difference between real and a simulator.”
“If you say so.”
Saul verified that everyone was strapped in and called, “Make the jump!” When he heard the gasps of pain from the rest of his crew, Saul knew he had achieved the intended result. The coordinates he had given Fiona put them on the edge of the asteroid belt. He found a large asteroid and deftly carved a heart with his and Fiona’s initials into the surface of the asteroid with lasers designed to tear apart enemy warships. After admiring his handiwork for a few minutes he called for the jump back.
“Do we have to?” Fiona gasped. “That hurt!”
“Did you pack any food? I didn’t. We’ll starve out here by the time we get back if you don’t do a short jump.” Fiona took a deep breath and programmed the jump. They ended up not far from where they left the two ships that were supposed to be escorting them.
“How much trouble do you think we got ourselves into this time?” Fiona asked.
“Only a little,” Saul answered. “We’re doing what we’re supposed to be doing, just not the way we’re supposed to be doing it.”
The maintenance chief was waiting for them when they returned. “Short jumps stress the reactor and waste fuel,” he snarled at them.
“Yes, sir, they do. Here, play this with your kids for a week and then talk to me about short jumps.” He handed the man a copy of the beta version of the newest Pirates game. He looked into the man’s eyes. “If you don’t have any kids, borrow some.”
After dinner, they attacked their homework and went to bed without further incident.
Life quickly settled into a routine, school for most of the day, physical training immediately after school, allergy treatments Mondays and Wednesdays, religious classes Tuesday, Thursday evenings and Sunday mornings, combat simulations every evening on weekdays with homework after that. Saul went to services every Friday evening and Fiona went to early Mass on Sunday. Sunday afternoons were devoted to quiet time.
Saul and Fiona stayed out of trouble although the security service was not happy with how soundly the kids trounced them in routine exercises nor were their teachers happy with how often they were challenged in class. The maintenance chief quit fussing over the way they treated the ship. He made sure it was always stocked with bottled water and healthy snacks. Still, nothing they did while Warren was away would be considered out of bounds for a pair of bright aggressive teenagers who appeared to truly love each other.
THIRD GENERATION - CHAPTER FIFTEEN
GREG AND AVI HAD BARELY settled into orbit at New St. Louis when they received a hail from one of the harbor master’s security patrol ships. The pilot of this ship was a friend and had helped manage the shiploads of battered women and children refugees who had escaped from abusive Swordsman husbands through the help of the underground railroad Greg had helped found.
The request for permission to come aboard was unusual, but
not alarming. As with most requests by the harbor master’s staff, the request was immediately granted. The patrol ship was bristling with antennae and sensors in keeping with its mission of finding illicit cargoes amongst the thousands of containers that moved through the port each week. The pilot came aboard and greeted Greg and Avi like old friends.
Once the formalities were over the pilot said, “Greg, Avi, I hate to do this to you, but we did not know any other way to do this securely.”
Greg and Avi instinctively reached for their weapons. The pilot held his hands up as he stepped aside. “Please allow me to introduce Mr. Warren Elias Rothschild the fourth.”
Warren stepped across the threshold into the ship. “It is an honor to finally meet you.” He turned to the pilot. “You can leave us now. I’ll call you when we are finished.”
Greg cycled the air lock closed. The ship Warren had arrived on disengaged and stood off at a respectful distance. Greg motioned Warren to proceed to the galley which had the only table they could all sit around and talk. Greg offered Warren a squeeze container of coffee before refilling his and Avi’s containers. Warren cradled the container in his hands and sipped slowly. “Where do you get such good coffee?”
“We grow it on Eretz.”
“I will need to order some. I bet you wondered why I went to the trouble to meet you out here?”
“Yes,” Avi said coldly.
“Your ship is the only place I knew we could talk in confidence without being monitored. So here I am. First, I am sure you are concerned about your grandson.”
Avi nodded, still suspicious.
Warren smiled with reflected pride. “Your grandson is a ball of fire. He is turning the place on end. He is exceeding my wildest expectations. The best part is I think he is madly in love with Fiona.”
“But is he happy?” Avi asked.
“I think so,” Warren replied. “Definitely. He seems to enjoy embarrassing me in public. He obviously enjoys beating up on my security teams in the combat simulators. He demanded his own ship so he can train with them in real time with real ships. I have given him everything he has asked for. He is something else. You did a great job with him. You should be proud.”
“We always worried that Saul would not live up to his expectations of himself,” Greg offered.
“As much we’re challenging him, he won’t have time to worry about it.” Warren then detailed Saul and Fiona’s exploits since their arrival and emphasized how pleased he was with their performance. “When I started this project, my goal was to enlist you to help me establish peace in the short term. I had no idea that I was getting the key to peace in the long term. My only concern is that he not get overconfident and start to make mistakes.”
“We may have already taken care of that,” Avi chuckled.
“Moses and Rebecca should be arriving shortly with Buddy. We sent them on ahead.”
“Is Buddy one of the sentient ships?”
Greg smiled. “Yes.”
“Can Buddy make other ships sentient?”
“I don’t know,” Greg replied. “Peter can, but I don’t know if Buddy or Daisy has the data storage to do it.”
“Can they reprogram another ship?”
“Yes.”
“And Saul will shortly have access to Buddy’s programming.” Warren’s face betrayed his understanding of the power that gave Saul and his inability to control it.
“Be careful what you wish for my friend,” Greg advised.
Warren sighed.
“Now you know how I felt the first time Peter talked back to me,” Greg said.
“Kind of like Pandora,” Warren said.
“Very much like,” Greg replied.
Warren’s mood changed abruptly. “As pleasant as this is, this is not what I came to talk about. How much do you know about Swordsman Major Emerson Winthrop III?” A chill descended on the galley.
“Other than that he is trying to lure us into a trap?” Greg said.
“Into which you are preparing to fall,” Warren said harshly.
The two men glared at each other across the table.
“I assure you we would not fall into his trap. We will spring it and snatch him out like stale bait,” Greg said stiffly.
“I cannot allow you to take on this mission by yourselves. You will touch off an interstellar war. There is no way you and your puny fleet can make this work. This is the reason you are resurrecting Elizabeth isn’t it?” Warren said accusingly.
Greg and Warren faced off. Two powerful men, each used to getting their own way stood in opposition, each needing the other to accomplish their goals, each seeing the impasse. One would win, and one would lose. What happened in the next few seconds would determine the course of many people’s lives for a long time. One would stand firm, and one would back down. These thoughts passed through their minds as they sat stonily facing each other. The tie breaker sat silently between them. The tension between them was as solid as a block wall. There would be only one winner.
Avi reached out for Greg’s hand. “Let’s hear him out. We can always go our own way.”
“You’re right.”
“Greg, correct me if I’m wrong,” Warren continued, “but I think the reason you moved your family from Eretz was that if this operation went bad there would be nowhere in the known galaxy where they would be safe. Even you had doubts about this mission.”
“You are correct,” Greg said.
“You were planning your exodus long before I offered you sanctuary,” Warren said.
“Yes,” Greg admitted.
“Sanctuary comes with a price.”
“Is that all it is to you? Is it all about the money?” Avi asked abrasively.
“Absolutely. It is 100% about the money. Everything I do, and everything I say is about the money. The best way for me to keep the money flowing is to safeguard the long term health of my company. The sooner you come to grips with that fact the better we will get along.”
Avi smiled. “I get it, even if he doesn’t. He’ll come to terms with it in his own time. Please continue.”
Warren, Greg and Avi traded what they knew about Swordsman Major Emerson Winthrop III and the details of his plan to embroil the Federation and the Swordsmen in a conquest for domination of the galaxy. The details of the reactor incident were fairly well understood among the intelligence community although Greg held the missing pieces that tied it solidly to Winthrop. When they were finished, Warren summed up by saying, “Greg, you need to understand that I have the utmost respect for the intelligence operation at Eretz. They are the best in the history of intelligence gathering. They make my people look like amateurs. I have access to information that they do not. As the largest shipper of goods and personnel in the galaxy, I have access to almost every cargo manifest and passenger list that travels on civilian transport. Obviously, I look for illegal cargoes and attempt to prevent theft by my own staff, but we examine every manifest and every bit of documentation that passes through our system for irregularities. We turn up a lot of information that way. Most of it we share with the Federation and with Eretz.”
“Not with the Swordsmen?” Avi asked.
“They think we are deliberately feeding them bad information. They don’t trust us. But, they do contract with us for their civilian shipping because we are the only ones that do not blatantly cheat them. Even their own independent shippers cheat them. That gives us access to their star systems and information about their defenses which the people at Eretz can never get. So, do you understand why I say you need me to make your mission work?”
Greg reluctantly agreed. “So, where do we go from here?”
“Here is an itinerary. I have arranged meetings at each stop. Your cover is that you are getting old. You wanted to visit old friends and revisit the memories before you were too old to make the journey. Your real mission is to make sure that we get support where we need it and non-interference where we need that. We need some people to help us and others to l
ook the other way.”
Greg said, “That’s a reasonable enough cover. It allows us to be seen in public, but what do we say if someone suspects the truth?”
“Tell them the truth. You are visiting old friends and places. If this really was a cover for something illicit did they think you would be foolish enough to tell them that even if it were true?”
Avi smiled. “I like it. You have us stopping at Admiral Davidson’s grave. That’s a nice touch.”
“You should be seen in New St. Louis shopping for formal clothes. As you see by the itinerary, you will be attending expensive concerts and exclusive diplomatic events. Uniforms would not be appropriate. You should be as public and as obvious as possible. The people you need to talk to will make contact with you.”
“It’s all so cloak and dagger,” Avi commented.
“It has to be, but at each stop, you should secretly tell anyone you wish that if they want to join you for an adventure to the outer limits of the galaxy they should come here to New St. Louis and check in with my people. I will send ships for them as they arrive.”
“How do you know that we will be going on such an adventure?” Avi asked.
Warren grinned like the Cheshire Cat. “I got your curiosity up, didn’t I?” Avi nodded.
“Ah ha! Now comes the good part!” Warren pulled out a star chart he had folded in his vest pocket and spread it out on the table. There was one system littered with little red X marks. Next to each mark was a number. “Something is out there. I have lost scout ships in that system. The Federation has lost exploration ships. Including pirates, at least fifty ships that we know of have gone missing out there in the last two years. Something is keeping them from returning. I have sent drones out, and they do not return. I want to send a big ship capable of taking on all comers with a sensor suite like no other we have ever built to go and find out with this is. My guess is that we are not alone in the galaxy, and this is the point of contact. I want you and your team assisted by the greatest minds I can gather to go, find out what this is and return with the news. Now do you see why I want you to go? You are the only ones in the galaxy with the skills to do the job properly. And you will do it because I asked you to.”
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