Coalition Defense Force Boxed Set: First to Fight

by Gibbs, Daniel

  “It’s David when we’re not on duty.”

  Amir extended his hand to David. “Good to meet you, David. Likewise, I am Hassan when not on duty.”

  David shook the outstretched hand warmly. “Good to meet you, too, Hassan.”

  * * *

  David smiled as the memory faded and Amir’s fighter set down on the flight deck. The canopy popped open, and Hassan Amir slowly climbed down from the fighter. Seeing David, he promptly saluted him. David returned it crisply. Amir removed the helmet of his flight suit and hung it off his utility belt. “Permission to come aboard, Colonel Cohen?”

  David grinned at his old friend. “Granted, Colonel Amir.”

  Amir returned the smile. “I’m happy we are able to serve again. I must confess that I was thrilled to hear of your promotion. I cannot help but wonder where the will of Allah will take you.”

  Amir was a very devout Muslim, the equivalent of an Orthodox Jew. David had learned from reading books on history that Jews and Muslims hadn’t always had the best relations, but in the twenty-fifth century, that had been left in the past. David and Hassan might not agree on every piece of their religious belief, but they respected each other and were good friends.

  “I wonder, too, where God will lead. But for now, we’ve got our orders. Tell me—how much of the wing did you bring over?”

  “Three squadrons of fighters, though one is at half strength, and one squadron of bombers. That’s all the Tillman had left after our last series of engagements.”

  “Well, that’s the joy of having to patch all this together. We don’t have enough stores to support a full sixteen squadrons anyway. I’m hopeful we won’t need your services,” David said, looking around the bay.

  “So, command is sending us out for this…” Amir cleared his throat. “Peace mission?” He asked the words as if they were distasteful. “Do they expect the League to offer us an acceptable deal?”

  David shook his head. “There are no details yet as to what they’re offering. We’re heading out to bring them in as quietly as possible.”

  “I’d like to request permission to have CSP set up during the rendezvous.” Combat Space Patrols were flights of two to four fighters providing close-range support to the carrier in case of sudden attack.

  “We can put a few fighters on ready five, but I’m under strict orders not to provoke the League in any way. We are to remain passive unless attacked.” David softened his expression. “I know this is a lot to process, Amir, but we need this to work. You know it as well as I do.”

  “I’m not eager to make peace with liars, murderers, and cowards, David,” Amir said harshly.

  “Nor am I, but I’d rather make peace with them now than continue to send generations of our people off to fight and die if there’s a way to make it stop with honor.”

  “Perhaps you’re right.”

  “How is Nasir?” David inquired of Amir’s oldest son.

  Amir flashed a smile. “He is well, as is Natara,” he said of his daughter. “She has done especially well and recently transferred to a flight squadron on the carrier Illustrious.”

  “That’s great news, Amir. And Fatima?”

  Amir let out a laugh. “She’s good. Has a job teaching civilian pilots now. Makes three times what I do too.”

  “You know, you’ve done your duty, old friend. Maybe you should think about joining her instead of flying into death’s door on a daily basis.”

  “It is my calling from Allah.”

  “Well, in that case, I’m glad you’re following that calling on my ship,” David said. “Now, let’s get your pilots settled, and I’ll give you the nickel tour of this rather impressive ship.”

  * * *

  Sheila walked around the officer’s mess, searching for an empty table, or at least one with few people at it. The last forty-eight hours had been grueling for everyone on the ship, and she was simply exhausted from giving orders, examining problems, and trying to resolve them. Finally, when she found an empty two-person side table, she set down her tray of food, took a seat, and arranged her silverware.

  She lowered her head to pray. “God, thank You for the food I am about to receive, for the good health I enjoy, and for those I serve with. Please bless the peace talks before us and allow us to be Your means to bring peace to the Terran Coalition and our citizens. Amen.” When she raised her head, Sheila saw the smiling face of Major Elizabeth Merriweather staring at her.

  “Major, may I join you? There aren’t any other open seats.”

  Suppressing a desire to groan, as she’d just wanted a few minutes of peace, Sheila instead put on a smile. “Of course, Major. Please sit. I’d be happy to share some food with you.”

  After sliding into the other chair and putting her food down, Merriweather, too, bowed her head to pray silently. “Thank you, Major Thompson.”

  “Please, it’s Sheila.”

  “Elizabeth. Glad to meet you less formally.”

  “I don’t recall seeing an officer serving as program manager to a civilian before. How’d you end up working with Dr. Hayworth? I thought that kind of job was reserved for civilians and contractors.”

  Merriweather laughed. “Oh, I placed in the ninety-ninth percentile of the CVAB. After that, I was offered a full scholarship to the engineering school of my choice. I ended up in advanced composite research, which led to working with Dr. Hayworth to create a new composite substance capable of handling the stress of antimatter reaction.”

  Sheila blinked a few times. “Wow. I thought I was doing good at the seventy-fifth percentile. How long have you been working with Dr. Hayworth?”

  “Going on five years now.”

  “You’ve put up with that guy for five years? You must have the patience of a saint.”

  “Or Job, perhaps,” Merriweather joked. “He’s not bad once you get to know him.”

  Sheila openly stared, skeptical. “Seriously? That man crawls under my skin.”

  “Oh, I think he enjoys trying to get into everyone’s heads and make them mad. There’s a heart of gold in there. It’s just hidden beneath layers of armor.”

  “He doesn’t make fun of your religion?”

  “He used to, but after I set some firm boundaries, he backed off. Dr. Hayworth’s atheism is based on his intellect. He doesn’t believe there’s a scientific argument for God. I think after his wife died, he really hardened his position. I do know he adored her. I doubt he’s ever really gotten over her death, and the few times we’ve discussed it, I learned that she was religious, and all her family and friends prayed for a miracle that never came.”

  “I think that makes us all wonder sometimes. Why is one saved and not another?”

  “Sometimes you just have to accept it on faith and keep going. Still, I enjoy working with him, regardless of his temperamental personality. He’s easily the single most intelligent person I’ve ever met.”

  “You sound as if you feel bad for him.”

  Merriweather furrowed her brow. “Don’t you?”

  “I suppose, on some level, but he’s such a jerk. Kind of hard to feel sorry for that.”

  “He’s not always a jerk. Sometimes he’s one of the most considerate people I know. But even if he was… love those who hate you. Bless those who curse you and pray for those who mistreat you.”

  “Fellow Christian?” Sheila asked. Neither she nor Merriweather had a religious emblem on their respective uniforms.

  “Methodist, born and bred. With a Jewish father.”

  “That sounds complicated.”

  “Best of both worlds. Christmas and Hanukkah!”

  Sheila laughed. “I see you will get along with the rest of us just fine.”

  Merriweather smiled in return. “I look at it like this: If I show even in an imperfect way what I believe and how it changes my life to Dr. Hayworth, maybe it will cause him to question where he is, and perhaps God will be able to speak to him again. Someday, maybe he can find his way back to his faith. Gett
ing through to him any other way is impossible. All I can do is try to show him.”

  “Show, not tell…. as Colonel Cohen would say.”

  “Exactly.” Merriweather smiled again, glancing down at her food. “We’d better eat up. I’ve got at least five more hours of reactor diagnostics before we perform our final jump.”

  “Five hours? Don’t you have computers to run automatic diagnostics?”

  “Well, we do. But Dr. Hayworth doesn’t trust them because the machine learning algorithm hasn’t been fully trained yet.”

  “Trained?” Sheila asked.

  “Yeah, because of the limitations on wide-ranging artificial intelligence, we have to create narrowly tailored AIs that can only do one task and have specific inhibitors to prevent them from evolving.”

  “I never quite understood all of that.”

  Merriweather shook her head. “I kind of get it, working with some of the advanced AIs we have access to. Even the scaled-down version is scary, in a way.”

  “Why?”

  “Let’s say you have an AI that has one mission. For instance, optimize production of a type of ore. If it determined that human beings had the type of metal it was trying to get more of in our bodies… it could decide to kill us all to process our bodies for the substance.”

  “I’d never thought of it like that. That’s pretty freaky.” Sheila scrunched her nose. “You get to work on some interesting stuff.”

  “That, I do.”

  “Have you been to the chapel on board yet?”

  “Not yet. I’m going to try to this Sunday.”

  “I like the chaplain. I’ll send you an invite to the service I go to.”

  “Okay. I’d love that.”

  “Great.” Sheila bit into her cheeseburger with gusto, glad she’d taken the time to make a new friend.

  * * *

  Several hours later, David walked onto the bridge of the Lion. It was as busy as ever. The senior staff was at their stations, and Sheila was perched in the CO’s seat, as she currently held the conn.

  Master Chief Tinetariro announced David’s presence loudly. “Colonel on the bridge.”

  “As you were,” David said quickly as the few crewmen and officers not strapped into their stations came to attention. “XO, I have the conn.”

  Sheila stood and moved over to the XO’s chair. “Aye, aye, sir. Colonel Cohen has the conn.”

  David took the seat and pulled up his command-status screen. “One jump remaining, XO. Are we ready?”

  “Yes, sir. The contractors have managed to get all our weapons online along with our defensive systems. We’re not ready for deployment, but as far as the current mission, we’re good to go and at one hundred percent effectiveness.”

  David grinned. “Well, I’ll be. I think Hanson owes me lunch, because he bet me the contractors couldn’t get it done in time, and I said they could.”

  Sheila rolled her eyes. “Sir, we don’t pay for lunch on board.”

  “Point taken. Maybe I’ll tell him to get us invited to the chief’s mess.”

  The officers always wanted to be invited to the chief’s mess, as it had the best food on the ship.

  Looking at Hammond, he asked, “Navigation, what is our jump-capability status?”

  “Sir, Engineering is currently checking our Lawrence drive for any problems before we make the final jump, just in case we have to jump back out quickly.”

  “Very well. TAO, tactical-systems status?”

  “Sir, all tactical systems are running normally. Hoping we don’t need them, sir.”

  David allowed his smile to grow just a bit.

  Sheila interjected, “We have a squadron of fighters on ready-five alert status as well, sir.”

  “What about our Marines?” David asked.

  “Colonel Demood has them ready to go, sir. I don’t see the League trying to board us, though.”

  “Stranger things have happened, XO.”

  “Conn, Navigation. Lawrence drive is fully charged and ready for our final jump. Coordinates have been confirmed.”

  David looked at Sheila as if to say, No backing out. Turning forward to the tactical and navigation stations, he commanded, “Navigation, commence jump.”

  Hammond inputted the proper commands into her console. “Aye, aye, sir. Jumping now, sir.”

  It took a few moments for the massive Lawrence drive generators in the stern of the ship to open a stable wormhole. David marveled at the science and theory behind the Lawrence drive. It was astounding to him that they could go incredible distances in the blink of an eye. As the ship accelerated its sublight engines, the Lion flew into the maw of the wormhole and exited out the other side several seconds later. There was a slight delay before the sensors would snap back on, and those few moments could be perilous if a trap waited on the other side.

  God help us if Seville’s there with a fleet to destroy our newest ship. David gripped the hand rests of his chair, waiting for the LIDAR systems to come online.

  “Conn, TAO. Two contacts on scope. One Behemoth-class League dreadnought, designated Master One. One Type-D League transport, designated Master Two.”

  David’s gaze stayed forward. “TAO, scan Master One. Are its weapons and defensive systems charged?” he asked.

  Come on, Goldberg.

  “Conn, TAO. Master One’s weapons are offline, and it’s running with shields and point-defense fields deactivated. They’re scanning us as well.”

  David let out an audible sigh. “So far, so good. They wanted to talk peace, so let’s talk peace. Communications, open a channel to the Destruction.”

  After what seemed like an eternity, in which the bridge crew waited on pins and needles, Taylor spoke. “Conn, Communications, we’re receiving an audiovisual signal, sir.”

  David drew himself up as tall as he could. “Communications, put them on my personal viewer.”

  The view above David’s chair came to life with the signal from the Destruction. It centered on a man who wore the gray utilitarian uniform of the League of Sol. His rank insignia identified him as a fleet admiral, a flag officer who had four stars. His lips were curled up in a slight smirk.

  “Greetings, Coalition vessel,” he stated. “I am Admiral Pierre Seville, commanding the overall League of Sol military presence on this side of our frontier. You are our escort, I presume, on this mission of peace to your nation?”

  David put on his absolute best poker face. “This is Colonel David Cohen, commanding the CSV Lion of Judah. We have been sent to escort you to Canaan.”

  “I see. I suppose my superiors aren’t the only ones guilty of not considering the best-named ship to send on a peace negotiation. Nevertheless, we are ready to begin our journey. We have a gesture to make first, however, Colonel. Diplomatic Minister Jenner wishes for us to immediately transfer custody of one of our prisoners of war, a Captain Adriana Barrigo,” Seville replied.

  David couldn’t quite place Seville’s attitude. It seemed that Seville was darkly amused by the entire situation. Adriana Barrigo had been a POW for at least ten years. She was the daughter of a previous Terran Coalition president. At the time, it was a significant blow to morale within the Terran Coalition. There were whispers that she had been offered early release but refused, as was the code of all POWs.

  He decided to take a gamble on creating a rapport with the League admiral. “I will have a crew standing by to receive your shuttle, Admiral.” He paused. “Would you, Minister Jenner, and your officers be interested in having dinner aboard the Lion during our voyage to Canaan?” David asked.

  Sheila looked at David in shock.

  “Why, Colonel, that is a splendid idea,” Seville said with a smile. “We could meet tomorrow before our final wormhole jump to Canaan.”

  “I think that would be fine, Admiral.” Thinking over protocol, he realized that since there was a band aboard, they’d have to play both national anthems. What have I gotten us into?

  “Very well. I look forward t
o meeting you face-to-face at that time, Colonel. In the meantime, we will transfer Captain Barrigo to you by shuttle before we jump to the next set of coordinates,” Seville said, nodding at someone off screen. His image then disappeared, and the screen went black.

  “Sir?” Sheila openly stared at David. “Are we really having them over for dinner? I realize we want to help the process along, but… are you sure?”

  “It’s the right call, XO.”

  “But that’s not just any old League admiral. That’s Admiral Seville,” she continued. “He—”

  “Killed my father. I know that. As you were, Major.”

  Sheila seemed to know she had crossed a line. “Yes, sir,” she said in a more subdued tone to try to make up for it.

  Silence followed. No one acted like they’d heard, which was proper. David looked forward, putting it out of his mind and concentrating on what would need to be done to welcome the League VIPs.

  24

  As the communication screen snapped off, Admiral Pierre Seville sat back in his flag chair. Technically, Zehnya Antonov was the commanding officer of the vessel and doubled as Seville’s fleet captain, but Seville was going to be on the bridge and in command for the endeavor. Savoring the interaction with the Lion’s commander, Seville enjoyed playing the game. In fact, he lived for playing it. He had been the leader of the League’s initial attack on Canaan, and after he finished serving his time in forced early retirement, he’d been rehabilitated and given leave to ask for an assignment. Without hesitation, Seville had asked to take over the League military operations against the Terran Coalition.

  Seville reflected on the Terran Coalition’s survival for nearly thirty years in a war against the League—mainly because the League couldn’t bring its overwhelming superiority in numbers to bear, as it had to protect its internal holdings. An initial raid on Sol in the opening year of the war had convinced the civilian government to keep much of their reserves in the Orion arm of the galaxy. The Terran Coalition’s citizens would say that God was on their side, but Seville thought them a bunch of children who feared the monster under the bed. The truth was that if the League ever summoned the balance of its home defense fleet against the Coalition, their military would wilt and die.