Enemy of my Enemy (Horatio Logan Chronicles Book 1)

by Chris Hechtl

  “For the most part, sir,” she replied with a nod.

  “Most part?” he asked as he indicated she could take a seat.

  The rear admiral seated herself then crossed her short legs and sat with a picture of attentiveness. “Many tried to access the internet. It took time for ONI to set up a filtered router system for them to use. We got it set up Sunday for the guests as you call them to us. The same for the crew.”

  “So they are happy now?”

  “Except for the temporary duty postings, yes. Has Admiral Childress given any directives on what to do with them? It will cause problems soon,” the Neochimp warned.

  “Not too many problems I should hope,” the vice admiral said with a stare.

  Admiral Hill spread her hands apart. “Zek and his flag lieutenant are playing nice. The rest …,” she spread her hands apart. “We don't have files on them. We're going over the files that were downloaded to BuPers, but we aren't sure what to believe. There is a lot of information there. I've got people checking out their medical records too.”

  “Okay. Well, we do have a spot of good news, some movement.”

  “Oh?”

  “Vice Admiral N'r'm'll has signed on to our side,” the admiral said. The rear admiral nodded sagely. The Veraxin was also a political animal who was slow to react to the fluid situation. He like a lot of political officers sought out and followed their patrons. He hadn't been a protégée of Draken or Childress and had risen high enough through the ranks to not need patrons anymore.

  With him signing on, he would bring his own protégées into the fold. That was good news she thought, eyes shifting back and forth as she gamed out all the implications. “I take it he's going to take on BuPers, sir?” she asked.

  “Yes,” the admiral replied. “Admiral Far Sight has put in for retirement. That's been granted,” he said smoothly.

  Admiral Hill nodded. The T'clock Far Sight had been a doer—someone who had gotten onto the senior staff because of his abilities and had stubbornly stayed where he'd been for a long time. With him out of the way and Childress's faction now in control of BuPers, she could see a lot of people getting shifted about.

  “So, he's going to slot the passengers in, sir?”

  “Yes. We can easily find postings for the commanders and lieutenants. They won't be quite what they had in mind however,” Admiral Draken replied with a brief predatory smile. “Zek is a thornier problem; I'm going to debrief him later today.”

  The Neochimp admiral nodded slowly. “And Commodore Logan, sir? What about him?”

  “He's a thornier issue,” the Ops officer admitted. “We're still batting around ideas on what to do with him. Obviously something in the yard, but we can't allow him off the leash. Admiral Childress specified a short leash, one where we can keep an eye on the good commodore but where we can keep him out of trouble and the public eye.”

  “In the yard though … I can imagine all sorts of places where he could be of use, sir. Putting his experience in modern hardware to use …”

  “Oh, no, none of that,” the glittering red admiral said, waving a dismissive hand. The rear admiral stopped herself and then cocked her head at her superior. “We're thinking of a posting for Logan out of the way—shuffling paperwork. If we're lucky he'll get pissed and quit,” Admiral Draken stated.

  “And if he rides home to Pyrax? Whines about it?” Admiral Hill warned.

  Admiral Draken smiled his trademark evil smile that she loathed. “First, we control the road home so he's not going anywhere, not anytime soon.”

  Admiral Hill wrinkled her nose. “Caroline …”

  “Is a navy ship. If he quits he's a civilian, ergo, he can't take passage on her, especially since she responds to our orders,” Admiral Draken pointed out.

  “Oh. Gotcha, sir,” She replied with a nod.

  “Keep ONI on the passengers and crew. I want regular updates,” Admiral Draken ordered. The rear admiral nodded sagely. “I want them to keep their targets away from anyone who will want to converse with them beyond casual conversation. They are to intercept any chips or missives someone might think to hand over to them to carry back to the Federation.”

  “Sir, that's a tall order. We can't search them without tipping our hand,” Admiral Hill warned.

  “Find a way for them to let their principles know it is for their own good. The longer we can keep what is going on here down to rumor, the better off things are. That's from Admiral Childress by the way, not just me.”

  Admiral Hill hid a grimace. Instead she nodded dutifully. “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. Now, we need to get some more information on the president and what he's going to do. He hasn't come out and complained to the media yet, so that's in our favor.”

  “Trying to keep the media from panicking, sir?”

  “Yes. But on the other hand he might try to get his hands on Caroline's original orders to verify what we've done. We can't have that. So make sure ONI keeps the administration clear of Caroline's passengers and Caroline herself. We're blocking any signals to the ship or filtering them, correct?” She nodded in response to his question. “Good.” He nodded back. “Good, good, excellent. So, we just need to keep them happy and incommunicado. The whole happy, deaf, dumb, and blind comes to mind. They'll be out of our hair in ten days,” he said.

  “Ten days?”

  Admiral Draken nodded. “That's what we're shooting for at the moment. It might be eleven; I'm not sure at this point. We'll see. The sooner we can get them off, the better.”

  “Fuel isn't a problem, liberty …,” Admiral Hill frowned thoughtfully.

  “Our civilian friends are stepping up there and offering free cruises and resort stays and such. Places out of the way where they can rest in privacy outside the eyes of the media as much as possible,” the vice admiral supplied. The Neochimp admiral nodded at that idea. “They are also using their contacts to keep an eye on the administration. Supposedly they'll be able to hear about any attempts to communicate with the crew and tip us to intercept or deflect it.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I'm glad we're on the same page here. Now, we're having trouble with supplying Caroline with the parts she needs to rebuild some of her nodes. They aren't quite up to the quality they need and finding excuses for it is a problem I'm dealing with—one of many. We've been forced to give them back some of their cargo from their previous run as parts to keep them on schedule. I understand our techs and yard dogs who have had a hand in helping in the repairs have picked up a few things. We're going to need to keep a lid on them and watch them carefully. We don't want their enthusiasm for modern ships to get out of control after all,” he mused, looking up and stretching his long neck and limbs.

  “Yes, sir. We might need to break them up afterward. Send them to different postings, sir,” the rear admiral suggested.

  “But if we do that each will be able to tell others what they saw.”

  “But if we warn them not to speak about it, we'd cause interest and concern, not to mention questions as to why, sir,” she warned. “Keeping them as a group makes it easier to monitor them, but for how long? ONI watching them is also going to cause questions to be raised. It is already causing questions with the passengers and crew of that ship. We're spinning it as a security cover to keep them safe during their stay, but that cover won't hold forever, sir,” she warned.

  “True,” the admiral said. “Okay, let's table that for a moment. Movement behind the rear admiral caught his eye. He looked up. His sudden look made her turn to look over her shoulder.

  “Sir, you wanted to know when Admiral Zekowitz is in the building. He's passing through security now,” the T'clock yeoman stated.

  “Good. See that he cools his heels for a good fifteen minutes when he gets to you. Is his flag lieutenant with him?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Get them separated. Admiral, why don't you have a chat with the lieutenant while I take on the admiral,” he said, eyeing Admiral Hill.
She nodded and rose smoothly from her seat.

  “Dismissed, Admiral. We'll compare notes later,” Admiral Draken stated.

  She came to attention briefly then nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  ~<><{<^>}><>~

  Zek sat passively in the outer office and let himself entertain his mind with his implants and observations. He knew all about the passive aggressive games senior officers tended to play in order to show who the boss was. Keeping him waiting was just one of them. So he did his best to make the most of it.

  After awhile though, he checked the clock then went into scanning his reports and log. He even ran a spell check on them. The T'clock seemed oblivious to his presence.

  He pinged Lieutenant Si, but she responded with a brief text saying she was being debriefed by Admiral Hill.

  He fought to keep his face expressionless when it instinctively wanted to grimace. So, that was how they were going to play it he thought? A debrief??

  “Sir, the admiral is ready for you,” the T'clock buzzed.

  He rose from his seat and then went through the hatch as the latch disengaged. He stepped into the office and out of the way of the hatch as it closed behind him. “Sir, Rear Admiral Zekowitz reporting as ordered,” he said, coming to attention.

  “This is in the nature of a debrief, Admiral, specifically why you returned to Bek,” Admiral Draken said.

  Zek nodded curtly. “Yes, sir. I was ordered to return to Bek to modernize the yard,” he said. “I've uploaded my orders from Admiral Irons to the central network.”

  “Which BuPers is still processing,” the admiral said, crossing his long-clawed fingers in front of himself on his desk blotter. “So, let's learn about what you did. I want to know everything about Pyrax,” he stated.

  “I have my logs and files ready for download, sir,” Zek replied dutifully.

  “You do?” the Ops officer asked, golden eyes narrowing slightly. “Of course you do. You had a long flight back here,” he said.

  “Yes, sir,” the rear admiral replied.

  “Good. You can leave a copy with my yeoman. But in the meantime, why don't you summarize what you saw and experienced on your way to and in Pyrax. ONI will also want a fuller debrief,” he said.

  Zek nodded as he settled himself. If that's the way you want to play it, he thought. “Yes, sir,” he said. “Caroline's return trip was detoured briefly to Nuevo. We …”

  Chapter 22

  After a bit of a frustrating day in the temporary offices, being shuffled from one paper-pushing job to another, Horatio returned to his temporary billet. At the front desk, he managed to attain a guest access password to the civilian Bekian internet. With it he delved into the media, at first catching up on events from when Caroline's first arrival and her second, then he delved into deeper things.

  Bek's population was split between the two habitable planets, Thebes the oldest and her first-daughter colony on the terraformed M class planet Memphis orbiting the neighboring red dwarf. Memphis had been terraformed and colonized centuries ago. The star system also sported a host of colonies on some of the more habitable moons—not to mention the thousands of orbital habitats scattered around the double system.

  And that was just Bek A. Bek B was also a double star system, but the population resided on terraformed moons around the gas giants as well as asteroid and orbital habitats. Bek B had a quarter the population of Bek A and was mining oriented.

  He had yet to see more of Bek. He'd limited his exploration to virtual, to checking things out on the vid screen instead of in person. He didn't have the time to burn up in transit between points, nor the inclination. Nor did he want to run around playing rubber-neck tourist. He shook his head. Another time, another place, even if that was what the powers that be had intended for him.

  He'd thought briefly that he'd offended someone by not taking the preferred liberty. He'd learned differently after a day in his current job.

  The Bek navy wasn't in any tearing hurry to get things done, of that he was certain. They worked a normal eight-hour shift, with a liberal one-hour long lunch and the occasional break. Definitely not in any tearing hurry to get anything done he mused darkly. The pirate war was far away and didn't affect them. Nor were they interested in trying to get things moving faster.

  He'd been forced to reduce his pace to their own. He'd found shortcuts to knock out his job in a few short hours. It was tedious, but as the admiral, his job was more to supervise and sign off on the work of his staff …what little he had of it.

  In the evenings he went back to his billet after eating and then checked out the vid screen in order to explore Bek some more. It wasn't like he had a lot to do and sightseeing in Command 1 was frowned upon. He'd heard that from V'l'r and Pietro.

  There wasn't much to see in Command 1 anyway. It was a massive habitat, an inverted Christmas tree that spun slowly to simulate gravity. Sections of the station had been converted to use grav emitters, but they didn't see the need to build a new complex with modern tech.

  Command 1 was set-up in a series of circles, with the outermost having lesser offices, then as you got closer to the center you hit the higher offices. The central shaft was for passing freight, water, power, and personnel.

  There were habitation sections, some parks with domes, but he'd seen them. He hadn't been impressed. They were set-up for a casual stroll or jog or other outdoor activity. Grass and trees with meandering paths wasn't what he'd come to the place to see. But the higher ranking offices were off limits.

  He had learned that the higher ranking officers tended to occupy apartments with views overlooking the parks. But he'd also found that getting in to talk with anyone was nigh on impossible.

  Command 1 had a series of restaurants and support businesses as well. Some were nice; some catered exclusively to higher-ranked personnel. He knew as a commodore he could technically get into them and some of the officer exclusive clubs. But he didn't want to burn the time sitting at a bar sipping a drink and hoping he'd make friends with someone. With his luck it would be an admiral in charge of sanitation or something. He shook his head.

  Instead, he'd settled on the wall screen. It was the only source of information he was willing to access since he was fairly certain it wasn't filtered. He had noted the recording devices in his office and room, so he knew that someone was paranoid about him. Or were they paranoid about everyone? He frowned thoughtfully as he flicked through the channels.

  He didn't bother to use the remote, the signal receiver on the box built into the wall used infrared. It was a simple matter of signaling it with his implants once he'd cloned the keys in the remote.

  He got a kick out of the areal shows, the ones that flew over some of the countryside on each of the planets as well as a few of the space and moon habitats. He didn't experience vertigo, though some of the shaky cam was annoying. He suspected it was winds buffeting the craft.

  Each show took on a different place, usually a continent or part of one or an orbital habitat. They loved to do 360s around monuments. The one that blew him away was a massive series of head busts carved into a ring of mountain sides. There were thirteen heads—human, Veraxin, High Elf, and other species. He recognized the High Elf as Doctor Windswept.

  But it was the one in the center with the neck and shoulders that got him laughing. “John, you so have got to see that,” he murmured as he recorded it. He was pretty certain the recording wouldn't do the scene justice but seeing the admiral's face carved in stone was a treat.

  It would be even more of a treat if he saw the admiral's expression when he found out about it. And the same for the twenty-meter-tall white marble sculpture someone had commissioned of the admiral in Cloverfield City on the Memphis. Apparently, the population appreciated his brief visit during what they called their darkest hour.

  He was impressed with the Delquir canyon city on one of the moons. It was quite beautiful, especially when it was nighttime; the lights made it glitter impressively. It boasted a crystal dome ov
er the entire length, some 40 kilometers in total. That was an engineering feat in itself.

  It had plenty of greenery, including forests and fields for the bugs to grow their own food. Some of the canyon walls were covered in glittering vines. There were even a few waterfalls to mix air into the water to raise the humidity.

  From watching that episode, he learned that the Delquir had split into two species. They were a low G species, most of the unmodified members of their species remained on the moon or on low G habitats. But one group had asked for and received genetic engineering help from the Flea Leggers and Leaf Bugs to be able to live in normal G worlds comfortably. They had their internal gas vacuoles strengthened and enlarged. They could therefore hold more lifting gas within them at greater pressures for longer periods.

  They had also been engineered with better muscles and tendons, including reflexive muscles in their gossamer wings. They didn't have bones per se, more of a boron chitten fiber analog that was hollowed out. All the changes made the twenty kilo bugs a little heavier, near 25 kilos, but more comfortable in normal G since they were neutrally buoyant. The changes to their biology had made the gene-engineered versions slightly larger than their older brethren. That explained that, he thought with a nod.

  He learned to pick up a little bit more of the local history after watching those shows. Some of it was pretty basic, like sightseeing where famous people had been born or where a famous or infamous crime had taken place. He set his DVR to record all of them as well as other shows of interest.

  He didn't limit himself to those video channels however. Many of the most popular were of the golden age of the Federation, especially now that Caroline had reestablished contact with Bek. That had spurred renewed interest in the channels and thus an uptick in their ratings. They promised new content. He wasn't certain how they could do that given the old Federation died long ago. They should have beaten everything to death by now, he thought.

  Most likely they were going to rehash material that they'd already had, copy, edit, alter things a bit … talking heads … he grimaced at the thought. Or … he frowned thoughtfully. Could someone have traded for shows from Caroline's crew? That was possible, he thought with a nod. He felt the urge to check with the ship but let it drop after a moment. He shook his head. It wasn't like the switchboard would let him get through anyway, and the call was rather petty to disturb the ship's staff with.