Lennox, Nash, and I returned to Annapolis and managed to survive the remainder of our fourth year. As one might imagine, the three of us became much closer friends than we had been before our assignment to the Valley Forge.
In accord with my original plan, I applied for assignment to the Marine Corps on graduation from Annapolis. That was granted, and I was commissioned a second lieutenant.
After graduation, I chose the personal swearing-in. Joseph, my fiancé, administered the oath. A few weeks later, we were married in the chapel at the Academy, as planned.
Oh, a few final thoughts.
If you are ordered to kill, and you kill, and that’s all there is to it, then you have given up your humanity, right?
I choose not to give up the things that make me a woman—or which make a man, a man. Whatever my orders, I will do my best to carry them out, but I will carry them out my way. I won’t stop being human. At some point, this war stopped being just “a” war.
It became my own war, within a war.
My personal war.
Astrid’s war.
Semper fi!
ADDENDUM
After writing the foregoing, I came into possession of information that sheds further light on Captain Jefferson’s behavior. As I mentioned earlier, Jefferson said that the “key” element in determining our strategy was the idea that “the enemy has concluded a gravity-assist maneuver and their ships are now at zero acceleration.” At the time, that made no sense whatsoever.
But yesterday I paid a visit to the Navy’s Space War Records Center, to see what else I could find out about the Kerleegan attack on the Adirondack, during which Captain Jefferson’s son was killed. I already believed that Jefferson’s break was caused by the fact that the task force that attacked us had the same makeup as that which attacked the Adirondack.
In the files at the records center were transcripts of most of the communications that originated on the Adirondack before and during the attack. Most of that was classified Top Secret, and I didn’t have access to it. But the final communication from the bridge before general quarters was announced was as follows: “Six carriers. Four cruisers. All have concluded a gravity assist and are at zero acceleration.”
Thus the unfortunate similarity between the situation faced by the Adirondack and the Valley Forge went beyond the mere makeup of the enemy task force. That transmission I quoted was undoubtedly the reason Jefferson attached so much importance to the factors he considered “key.”
—A.A.
December 2370
The End
A note from the author . . .
I hope you had a good time experiencing the USS Valley Forge from Astrid Amundsen’s point of view. I appreciate your taking the time to give this book a try.
If you enjoyed Astrid’s War, please consider leaving a review on Amazon. It would be great if you would please take the time to do that—even a few lines. Thank you!
I truly value your opinions—positive, neutral, and negative. So, even if you were not entirely thrilled with the book, I would like to hear from you, either by email or via a review. Write to me:
[email protected]
And remember, the adventures continue in the next book in this series, now available for pre-order at a special price. (The book will go to the regular price on its release date.) See the cover image below!
—Alan Householder
Boarding Party
Book Two in the Astrid Amundsen Series
by Alan Householder
Release date: January 14, 2020
Available at a special price until then!
Acknowledgments
Cover credits: Cover design by Elizabeth C. Sawyer, incorporating modified versions of images by Jessica Truscott (faestock) [foreground] and GrandeDuc [background], via Shutterstock.
Thank you to Elizabeth C. Sawyer, who kindly read three different versions of the first part of Astrid’s War, and who gave me helpful comments. Also, thank you to Julie C. Gilbert, who read the entire manuscript and gave me the benefit of her comments. Julie’s website:
www.juliecgilbert.com
About Alan Householder
Writing has long been one of Alan Householder’s main passions. He recently published a young adult novel set in London in the late 1800s. He has written more than a dozen non-fiction works, principally on historical matters or book-related topics.
Alan is a graduate of the University of California, Los Angeles, and he is interested in the history of early UCLA football (roughly 1919-1939). He collects old books, and also illustration art from around a century ago.
Alan lives and writes in southern California.
Connect with Alan . . .
Alan Householder Facebook page
Write to Alan: [email protected]
The next book in the Astrid Amundsen series may be pre-ordered on Amazon, at a special pre-publication price. You may pre-order your copy today. In that book, Astrid is a first lieutenant in the Marine Corps, having opted to enter the Corps on graduation from the Naval Academy.
Coming January 14, 2020! Pre-order now on Amazon, at a special price! Goes to regular price after release.
Thanks again for reading!
Bonus Content
EXTRACT FROM
BOARDING PARTY:
THE BOARDING OF THE USS INVICTA
by Alan Householder
On the following pages may be found an extract from Alan Householder’s forthcoming book Boarding Party: The Boarding of the USS Invicta. It is a section from around the middle of the book. This extract is recent, but it is subject to change.
Boarding Party picks up Astrid Amundsen’s story after her graduation from Annapolis, and after some postgraduate work. She has opted to serve as a Marine, and she has been assigned to the USS Invicta.
The book is now available for pre-order on Amazon. The projected release date is January 14, 2020.
Boarding Party, Chapter 25 Superstition
The arrival of the new intelligence about the Kerleegan fighters gave everyone a newfound enthusiasm, since we had the impression that the people back in DC actually gave a rap about what we were doing. This being the case, my people were taking the Banshees out more often than required, on their own initiative.
The day after our briefing regarding the Kerleegan craft, I pulled Downs into the pilots’ ready-room for a discussion. We took our usual places at the table. Downs seemed energized and happy.
I said, “So, Downs, you seem particularly buoyant today.”
“More than usual?” he asked. “I’m always an upbeat guy.”
I said, “No, Downs, you’re not. Not always. But I wanted to point something out to you.”
“Do it.”
“We’ve been out here for seven or eight weeks. All six of us Marines are still alive. What do you have to say about that?”
“Uh, ix-nay, Astrid. You don’t talk about a no-hitter when it’s in progress. You’ll jinx it.”
I was a little irked by that. I said, “Look, Downs, why don’t you make a list of your various superstitions, and those of the rest of the squad, and let me have the list. That way, I’ll know in advance what I can say and what I can’t say. To use a sports analogy like you did, can you please quit moving the goalposts?”
“Astrid, I don’t think you understand just how sneaky and subtle and complex a superstition can be. And I use the term ‘superstition,’ because that’s the term you used. But it doesn’t really fit, since a superstition is something that is believed to be true, but which is actually false.”
I said, “You’re kidding.”
“I told you I didn’t believe it, but it looks like the others do.”
“So you’re the go-between, linking the supremely wise and rational Astrid with the weak-minded other members of the squad?”
Downs said, “That’s a harsh way of putting it.”
“I’m not putting it that way. I’m showing how absurd your point
of view is. You’re the main one who is promoting this whole superstition thing.”
Downs shrugged.
I said, “Downs, it’s been more than eight weeks since the most recent death. Period. The superstition, or curse—”
“Yes, curse,” Downs said. “That’s the term I would use.”
“Okay, the curse called for someone to die every week or two. You lost seven people over a period of eight or nine weeks. And now we’ve gone eight or nine weeks with how many deaths? The total should be all the rest of A-Squad. We all should be dead. Let me see. Oh yeah, zero have died. None.”
Downs said, “Your point?”
I shook my head in exasperation. “My point is there’s no curse!”
“Well,” Downs said, “I admit you have some evidence. But nothing conclusive.”
I said, “Okay, Downs, go do whatever you would be doing if we’d never had this meeting. I give up.”
“Okay, Astrid,” Downs said. “Good little meeting.”
Downs was being a jerk. I said, “It wasn’t a good meeting, Downs. Get out of here.”
Downs stood and moved toward the exit to the ready-room. When he reached the hatchway, he turned back toward me and said, “If we go another, oh, three weeks without losing anyone, then I might agree with you.”
I said, “Why does the next three weeks make any difference?”
Downs said, “Well, you just applied what I call a curse accelerator. A curse doesn’t want to be treated lightly. If it exists, one of us will die, and soon. If there is no curse, then we’ll all be alive three weeks from now.”
I said, “What if one of us dies, and it was just a death, not related to the curse?”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. And I wouldn’t keep using all those words relating to dying. Bad luck.”
I said, “Nice mature analysis, Downs. You can go play with your building blocks now.”
“Thanks, Mommy.”
With that, Downs left, and I was glad to see him go. He was in a good mood throughout our discussion, so much so that I was sure that he was just jerking my chain.
After Downs departed, though, I thought things over. Was there a curse in effect now? Had there been one before, one that brought about the deaths of seven squad members? Even without any deep analysis, I knew that there was no such curse. However, it did all seem weird. And people are superstitious, and sometimes their beliefs in superstitions can bring about their undoing.
Boarding Party, Chapter 26 Launch Failure
In recent days, we had come under increasing attack from isolated Kerleegan ships, generally one-man fighters. “Attack” is probably the wrong word. You could say that they invaded our space, and we considered it to be an act of aggression if one of their smaller craft came within two thousand miles of us. This “aggression radius” grew larger, depending on the number of enemy ships, their size, and their speed of approach.
But anyway, if there were only one small ship, this ordinarily didn’t mean anything. Usually it was just a taunting by the enemy. Still, we had to respond in some way, and it was as though we were following a script. But two or three times we ended up destroying the enemy craft if they became too threatening.
We were never too worried during these encounters, but it always gave you a nervous feeling in the pit of your stomach, because you didn’t know for certain whether the enemy had some super-bomb mounted to a little craft. That’s why these jaunts were a bad idea for the enemy. The more they did it, the less tolerant we were, and the more apt we were to engage and destroy them.
When we detected two (or more) craft, we always went out with the intention of destroying them. We couldn’t afford to give them the benefit of the doubt. These were true “pushbutton” confrontations. We never saw the enemy, except as pinheads on our monitors. We launched missiles when we were around fifteen hundred miles out. Usually, the enemy would flee when they detected the incoming missiles. If they allowed our missiles to come within three hundred miles (which didn’t happen much), it was usually game over, and they would simply disappear from our monitors. I know it sounds cold, but the enemy knew what they were up against.
The day after my meeting with Downs, we detected two enemy-craft several thousand miles out, so we scrambled three Banshees, and that day it was Pine, Lamar, and me. When we weren’t in a tense situation, usually one of us would launch a missile, and then we would wait around and watch our monitors. Normally the enemy would flee.
When we got eight hundred miles away from the Invicta, I said, “Pine, go ahead and launch.”
Pine said, “Aye aye, Ma’am. Launching one Piranha.”
I looked at my monitors. Pine had initiated the launch, but I saw no missile. Then this message appeared on my monitor: “Ship 2, ventral A, failure to launch.”
The “A” missiles were forward missiles, and the “B” missiles (when present) were mounted behind them. And today there was indeed a ventral B-missile on Pine’s Banshee.
Pine said, “Ma’am, launch failure.”
I said, “So I see.”
We considered such a launch failure to be one of the worst things that can happen, because it means things aren’t going according to plan on that missile, and you never know what’s going to happen next. So, I added, “Go ahead and release the missile.”
That was our normal next step—abandon the missile—if it could be made to separate, and often it couldn’t.
Pine said, “No go.”
My monitor now showed that the enemy ships were departing the area, so we didn’t really need a launch. But we still had Pine’s problem to deal with. This type of thing didn’t happen often, but when it did, the protocol was to dock on the dorsal surface of the main ship—in this case, the Invicta—and to send a weapons man up to figure out what went wrong. In other words, keep the Banshee out of the fighter bay until the problem is resolved.
I said, “Okay, break all circuits for that missile. When we reach the Invicta, Lamar and I will enter the bay. Pine, you dock, and enter the Invicta through the docking port. See you guys once we land.”
Then I contacted Drayton, who was the Invicta’s main missile-launch technician, and I alerted him to the problem.
Boarding Party, Chapter 27 Anybody’s Guess
When we arrived back at the Invicta, Drayton was in his EVA suit with magnetic boots, and he was standing near the docking port at which Pine was to dock. Next to him was a large tool-case.
Lamar entered the fighter bay.
I hovered near the docking port, just to make certain that everything went smoothly. Though we usually ran dark, having lights on wasn’t dangerous at the moment, and the entire docking-port area was illuminated by floodlights.
Pine lit her cockpit lights, and I lit mine. She waved to Drayton, then docked, and finally disappeared downward as she moved to the Banshee’s exit-port.
I also waved to Drayton, then brought my Banshee into the fighter bay, maneuvering with my RCS thrusters.
So far, so good.
Pine joined Lamar and me in the fighter bay.
When she arrived, Lamar and I were laughing about something. I forget what it was. Whatever it was, it was the wrong thing to be doing when Pine arrived, because she was in bad condition.
All the color was gone from her face. She looked almost like a corpse, and for her that represented a major change, since she was usually attractive and rosy-cheeked. She had a distant stare in her eyes, and she seemed barely able to walk.
Lamar and I each rushed to her side and took an arm. We walked her back to a chair and got her seated.
I said, “Gloria, what’s wrong?”
Pine said, “I don’t know. It hit me right after I entered the Invicta. If that missile can refuse to launch, well, it’s disobeying, you know? I know it’s just a machine, but still. And if it can do that, it can do anything. The warhead might detonate at any time.”
She was right, of course, but an unwanted detonation was highly unlikely
. I said, “Gloria, it doesn’t work that way. There are a hundred safety features that keep that from happening.” Right after saying that, I regretted it, because there aren’t a hundred safety features, and Pine knew it. In reality, the number is around seven, and most of those are released when the Banshee is in flight.
Pine said, “I don’t know,” and then she said it again.
I said, “Look, Gloria, Drayton’s checking it out. Let’s at least hear what he has to say, okay?”
Pine said, “Astrid, it’s the curse Downs talks about. I’m sure of it. It was trying to kill me. Next time it’s not going to fail.”
“There is no curse, Gloria,” I said. “I’m sure of it.”
“You are?” She spoke weakly, timidly. This was completely unlike her usual self.
“Yes,” I said, “one hundred percent positive.”
Some of the color was now returning to Pine’s face. She seemed to be growing more stable. She looked up at Lamar and said, “Lamar, what do you think?”
In soft and confident tones, Lamar said, “Gloria, I have never been more certain of anything in my life, when I say I am absolutely certain that there is no curse, and that Lieutenant Amundsen is correct in everything she said.” Then he paused, and added, “Except that there aren’t a hundred safety features—but there are plenty.”
At this, Pine smiled weakly and said, “Okay, good enough.”
About an hour later, Drayton contacted me. He said, “Lieutenant, I think I found the problem.” He explained that he had located part of a slug or some similar projectile from an earlier confrontation with the Kerleegans. It had penetrated the casing of the missile mount, and it had sliced into a connector, so that the circuit for the launch couldn’t be completed.
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