Bailey looked comfortable. Balancing work and family must be hard on them Irons mused. He wasn't complaining though, Bailey deserved it. He was definitely going to have his hands full when that little tyke got older though.
“We're going to name him Fiben. Galiet got the idea from an old sci-fi book she read as a kid. Something about chimps and invading alien birds if you can believe it”
“Okay,” Irons nodded. “I've known you for what? A couple of months now chief? How come I didn't hear about this before?” he asked, waving to indicate the family.
“Our shifts were screwed up so we couldn't get the alone time.” Clennie said with a smirk. “We're half way through our first pass so we had a shift change to keep everyone from getting stale.”
“Hey, don't fault me if you miss the obvious,” Bailey snickered.
Clennie threw her head back for a hooting laugh. She settled in the chimp's lap, arms on his shoulders. “Wanna go for a ride sailor?”
“Maybe later. When it's a lot less public,” Bailey said eyes cutting around to the crowd.
“Spoil sport,” she teased giving him a leer. She leaned close and whispered something in his ear. Irons turned away as the chief began to blush even hotter than before. He just caught Clennie's tongue caressing the chief's earlobe and looked away, coughing softly and trying hard not to laugh. From the look of intense discomfort and embarrassment on Bailey's face he knew she was going to get it in the end later. Of course she seemed to be enjoying herself now. She stopped and looked Bailey directly in the eyes for a moment. There was an intensity in their gaze.
“Oops, look at the time, gotta go!” Bailey lunged to his feet and made for the door with Clennie in his arms. Sylvia was covering her mouth, laughing and shaking her head.
Clennie looked over her shoulder and waved, grinning. Irons laughed with the rest of the crowd, shaking his head.
Chapter 20
"Wow," April said, looking around. "Lucky I'm not agoraphobic." She clung to his side anyway, like a limpet.
"Yeah," Irons said with a smile. He had his girl tucked under one arm. He enjoyed the starlit view. Gorgeous. They were in a virtual reality holographic representation of what ships saw. He'd never bothered to book a holodeck on the trip before, but this seemed like the time.
The ship had three, all on the rec deck right across from the dojo and gym. They were all small, about the size of a closet. Most were used by a couple to um... his thoughts shied away from that avenue with difficulty. Though they did add possibilities for a later date.
“Most people would have booked something romantic for a date you know,” she teased, looking up at him. She liked it that he was taller than her.
He smiled at her puckered lips. “I'm not most people. I wanted you to see some of what I see. What I went through, and what I'm probably going to go through in the future.”
She gave him a searching look and then shrugged, turning to take in her surroundings. She didn't move away from him though, just turned her head and torso to look and drink in the sights.
"This is what you see when you're in combat? And all this time I thought you looked at flat displays that looked like something out of a bad holo drama and clenched your teeth."
"We do that too," Irons chuckled. "We call this the god view. This is the tactical view. Your upper right is a map of the surrounding area. It has your sensor feeds." He pointed.
She looked then nodded. "And this?" she asked. She pointed to the bar below them. "Oh it moved!" she said, snatching her hand back and hugging it to her breasts.
He smiled. "Your HUD stays in place and moves as you shift your point of view. This is a basic HUD. On your right is your own ship status. Bar graphs are for various things. Damage, power, shields, that sort of thing."
"Such a... detailed description from the expert," she teased. He blushed a little.
"Just trying to keep things simple," he said with another smile.
"What's this?" she asked, pointing and touching an object in the distance. A box formed around it in a blink then zoomed in. She jerked her hand back. "Oh!"
"You didn't do anything wrong," he laughed. "That is a ship. In this sim it is a destroyer. What you did is identify something and then when you pointed to it the computer zoomed in so you could see it better."
"Oh," April shook her head. "I just noticed the circle around it and the line sticking out."
"That's an indicator. The circle is a color coded bar graph showing various things about the ship."
"Like what?" she asked looking to him. The view shifted with her. she grimaced as vertigo hit her.
"Don't move so fast," he explained. "The ship can get some information from it's sensors. How much power the other ship is putting out. It's engines, speed, position, direction of travel, shield strength, that sort of thing."
"Why is the bar only partially filled?" she asked, pointing again.
"Well, since we know what class of ship that is, It's an Arboth class by the way, the ship gets an identifier from CIC, that's the combat information center, and it pulls up that class's stats."
"Oh."
"The stats tell us about the ship. The circle bar graphs are a comparison of how much it is putting out compared to what it's class can normally put out. It's color coded too. Green, blue, yellow, red."
"Oh."
He nodded, pulling her close. He pointed to one side. She looked in the indicated direction. He sent a mental command and they zoomed in to a spectacular sight.
She gasped. He smiled, happy to have surprised her. "It's a black hole. It is consuming a star," he explained as she looked up to him. She turned back to the natural splendor. The star was being torn apart, a stream of plasma was coming off it and being sucked into one point. Tendrils seemed to be going out in other directions, but they all curved back to that single point.
"You saw this?" she breathed softly.
"Yes," he answered softly. She shivered.
"What?" he asked looking down at her.
"Reminds me of a Nova bomb," she said tucking her arms to her chest.
"Not even close," he said. “A black hole takes centuries to tear space apart. A Nova bomb does it a lot faster,” he said looking away. "But it is where I got the idea from."
"You..." She looked up to him in horror. "You..." He felt a gulf open up between them. He sighed softly, closing his eyes for a moment. Then he stopped and looked at her.
"We had been tossing the idea around for some time. I mean mankind. Well, all species really. Mostly in fiction. I like to read old sci-fi operas."
"Oh," she blinked at him not knowing what to think.
"I got the idea from this. I... well, I didn't want to do it. But we needed a win. Something to get past the fleets. Break them down. Scare the hell out of them and bring an end to the war. Fast. A hard hit, something they couldn't block."
She nodded. He sighed. "April, I'm human too. God I didn't want to do it. I knew it could be used against us. I hoped it wouldn't be. That we'd crush their will to fight and they would fold. Stop destroying our planets. I was wrong," he grimaced.
"Did you... did you ever see it? Do it?" she asked. "Kill a Xeno world?"
"No. I wish," he sighed. "Oh I didn't want to kill innocents. I'm not a monster," he said as she looked at him. He shook his head. "But having watched what they did over and over... watching world after world smashed, millions, billions dying... rocks, nanites, antimatter...that changes a person. They didn't care. So why should we?"
She nodded at that.
"I finished the design and we tested it. I was on my way back from another assignment when, well... the ship I was on, the North Hampton was hit. She was a New York class light cruiser. We were ambushed by a Xeno raiding squadron as she was passing through Senka. She took out the ships attacking her but was taken down herself. I made it to a pod," he grimaced in familiar pain.
"It must have been horrible. Seeing your friends die," she said quietly. She saw his look and put it toge
ther. “And waking to most of them... most of the worlds you knew gone,” she said, giving him a tearful look. He rumbled a sigh.
"Yes," he said, not knowing what else to say. Her arms wrapped around him. He wrapped his arms around her and rested his head on the top of hers. "Yes it was," he said softly. Together they watched a star die in silence.
"So, some said that you were trying to take power, become a dictator. Comments Admiral?" April asked as he came into the galley. He paused then snorted.
"This another background interview miss O’Neill?" he asked with a teasing smile. He looked around the room. There were about twenty people there. Half were crew off shift. The rest were passengers. He straightened at some of the faces in the room.
From her look and the looks of the others in the room this was obviously a serious question. He decided to follow her lead.
"As a note on that, you should check your history. I was governor remember? I organized a constitutional convention and organized elections. When they were approved I turned over the reins of power to the duly elected authorities," he said, making sure his voice carried to everyone here.
"Only because you didn't have a choice," Miss Mayfair muttered. He gave her a sharp look. He'd heard from Sprite that Mayfair had been up to her usual tricks, spreading rumors. Unfortunately the AI had yet to catch the bitch in the act. She was careful enough to do it out of ear shot of a camera.
He straightened, coming to full attention, focused intently on her. She seemed to squirm under such a heavy gaze. "Which is it Miss Mayfair? That I am a power hungry, dictating slave driver who was going to use the military to browbeat everyone into submission or that I wasn't?" He pulled a chair out and sat. His back was rigidly straight.
"You can't have it both ways. If you're accusing me of trying to take power why didn't I just stay in power? I had it already, why did I give it away?” He spread his hands meaningfully. “I declared martial law, I could have stayed in power. I had control of the military remember? The fact is that I didn't. I wasn't interested in power. I was not then, I am not now. If I had been I would never have turned over everything to Governor Walker. But I did.”
He waited a moment for them to digest that. His gaze shifted from her to the group and room at large. “After all, I was there to begin with. If I had wanted power why the constitutional convention? Why the elections?" He shrugged and spread his hands.
"You had to. You didn't have a choice," Mayfair said. "The people would have risen in revolt against you."
"The people were a bit busy celebrating at the time if I recall. Something about pirates?" Sprite said sweetly from the overhead speakers. The entertainment center in the corner came to life and her holo projection dusted itself off and came over.
"I was there too remember? We all were for that matter," she waved to the compartment. A few people nodded. Some of the nods were reluctant, a few grudging in their support. A few were natural though. It was almost evenly divided in thirds Irons decided. A handful muttered to themselves.
Mayfair scowled, trying a slightly different attack. "He was trying to be a puppet master..."
"No, he had enough on his plate," Sprite said shaking her head. "Admiral Irons is many things, a puppet master isn't one of them. It's actually one of his failings. He hates politics with a passion. I tried to get him to run, he flat out refused. I think he's allergic or something. He'd much rather play engineer and make stuff."
April snorted at that. She smiled as her eyes met his. Obviously he was playing to her script. He was glad she was entertained.
"Easy for you to say, you're just a contrived lackey," Mayfair sneered.
"Lackey?" Sprite turned on her, eyes flashing then back to Irons. "Did she just call me a lackey? Why you little, flat chested organic bitch!" Her fingers curled as much as her upper lip.
"Down girls," Irons sighed as Mayfair's eyes flashed in return. He waved a hand. "Commander, at ease," he ordered, full command mode now, turning a look at Sprite. Sprite's lips quivered in a snarl.
Mayfair's eyes gleamed. "That's right, be a good dog and heel," Mayfair said smugly. He turned a glare on her and started to rise but April beat him too it.
"Watch your mouth," April said to her, her own eyes flashing dangerously.
"When I get back to Anvil..." Mayfair snarled, turning her ire on the reporter.
"You'll what?" O’Neill asked, eyebrow raised, one finger on her chin. Her free hand pointed to the camera remote bobbing over her shoulder. Irons had noted it was there, apparently Mayfair had overlooked it. "Free and independent press remember?” April said sweetly. “I don't work for you. Or your boss. One of the things the Admiral insisted on restoring before handing over power remember? The bill of rights, the first amendment guaranteeing people freedom of speech, religion, among other things?"
"Things can change. You'll see," Mayfair said, darting a dark look at the camera then storming out.
“I see. And this is what we traded you in for?” she asked, looking a the hatch and then turning to him. “Your supposed to be the big evil bad guy? Seems someone's got their stories mixed up.”
Irons had a hard time keeping a straight face. Damn she was good. “It's the way the universe works Miss O’Neill. Politics,” he said, shaking his head. “And now you know why I try my best to stay out of it. It's like a nest of Denubian kangaroo rats. They look all cute and cuddly...”
“Not even that,” April sputtered. Several in the people did as well. He smiled at her, eyes twinkling.
“Well, anyway, I'm glad you recorded that, the people have a right to know.”
There was a surprised murmur from the room at large at that. “Which, from what she just inferred, her people want to stop. Think about it folks,” she said, shooting a look at the audience and then to the camera. A few nodded back. After a moment she shut the camera off.
"I see why you don't like politics," April said in amusement after a moment. She took a sip from the glass in front of her.
"One reason anyway," the Admiral said shaking his head. "I'm just not cut out for sorting out shifting loyalties and backstabbing. I'll take my enemies where I can see them and shoot them."
"Meaning he's too honorable. I've tried to cure him of that over the years but it won't sink in," Sprite said taking Mayfair's vacated seat.
"Cute," Irons snorted.
"Tell her about the Mir incident," Sprite said. April turned from one to the other. "Or better yet I will. It all started about seven hundred years ago in a system called Mir. It's the Russian name for peace."
Irons sighed shaking his head. "You would bring that story up."
"Hush."
"Mir was settled by die-hard peace activists before the war. The flowers and make love not war groups. Hippies. Loonies," Sprite shook her head at such stupidity.
"Someone having a different opinion doesn't make them a loonie, just different," Irons interjected.
"Ordinarily, I'd agree. In this case..." She shook her head again, lips pursed in an amused expression. "The representatives of Mir tried to do peace talks when the Xeno war broke out. It failed. Their people were sent back as living bombs. nanite infested."
Everyone in the room shuddered at that. "Still, they kept insisting that the poor benighted Xenos were just misunderstood. We needed to spend more effort to understand them. To get to know them. And we needed to take unilateral action to get them to back off."
"Yeah. By cutting our own throats," Irons interjected darkly. April shot him a look. He was scowling.
"Who's telling this story?" Sprite said giving him a shut up look. He snorted and waved for her to continue. "Right, as the Admiral so ever so succinctly put it, they tried to cut our own throats by cutting off funding to the fleet."
Several people winced at that. "By cutting our offenses and scaling back our military it would show the Xenos that we really wanted peace."
"Of course the fact that it would show us as weak wouldn't or couldn't occur to them. To the Mir colonists
anyone in uniform was a war mongering baby killer who wanted to justify his existence by killing the innocent and misunderstood. Diplomacy after all is the true way to resolve issues. War is the root of all evil." Irons grimaced, voice dripping in irony. "Their leaders went as far as to demand we withdraw our fleet presence from their system."
"Which after careful consideration, we did." Sprite said taking up the story again with a nod.
"You did?" O’Neill asked aghast.
"Well, we tried," Sprite said with a shrug. "We were there,” she said, pointing to the Admiral. “Or at least he was. See the Xenos were using the warp point method for transit. They didn't have the intuitive grasp of hyperspace like Ssislli and others to come in on other vectors."
"But, but they attacked..." someone interrupted.
"Oh that," Sprite looked over her shoulder to the sputtering girl. "Yes they did that by coming in on a warp line, getting off before it's normal juncture point, then traveling in subspace to come in on a different vector."
"Oh."
"Anyway, they did some experiments with cloning and new hyper navigator designs, but we wont go into that now," Sprite said.
"Sprite..." O’Neill sighed.
"What?" the AI asked then grimaced. "Sorry, off topic. It happens even to the best of us now and then," she shrugged. "As I was saying, we, that is the Admiral and I were sent to oversee the withdrawal of the fleet presence about eighteen months before we ended up in stasis."
"There was a small fleet base there. A fuel depot, A couple of orbital warehouses, and a maintenance support base," the Admiral explained.
"Don't forget the recruiting station on the planet," Sprite said helpfully.
"That was a joke," the Admiral said with a snort. "They never had more than ten or twelve people a month join up. Most just wanted the free college scholarship and immediately tried to get out of serving." He shook his head.
"So no loss there," April said with a smile.
"Right. I got there on the support ship Sindri just as the locals decided to have a demonstration." He shook his head. "It was a mess."
Destiny's Choice (The Wandering Engineer) Page 36