by Daniel Gibbs
“Navigation, release all moorings and umbilicals,” David stated, looking back to the front of the bridge.
“Aye, sir, releasing,” Hammond stated.
It took a few minutes for the thick tubes connecting the ship to the drydock to detach from the Lion’s hull. The airlock also detached and retracted, and dozens of small shuttles pulled back.
“Conn, Navigation. We’re now free of all moorings and umbilicals, sir,” Hammond said.
“Navigation, all ahead, dead slow until we clear the drydock.”
“Aye aye, sir, bringing main drives online.”
The Lion slowly began to move forward, and David could feel the G forces pressing him back into his seat, fighting the dampener fields that protected the crew from sudden acceleration and deceleration forces. Creeping at first, but gaining momentum, the shipyard faded from the forward view screen, leaving open space in its wake.
Taylor cleared his throat. “Conn, communications, receiving a message from CDF command. ‘Good luck, Godspeed, and be careful.’”
“Communications, acknowledge the message. Navigation, there are a set of rendezvous coordinates pre-loaded in. Please set our Lawrence drive to them.”
“Conn, navigation. Coordinates set. Lawrence drive at maximum power.”
Fighting down a wave of adrenaline, David leaned forward. “Navigation, open the hole, all ahead full.”
A massive artificial wormhole opened in front of the Lion of Judah; a construct of the Lawrence drive. The Lion’s sub-light ion engines flared at maximum thrust, and the ship flew straight into the center of the swirling mouth of the wormhole. In a moment, she disappeared and the wormhole closed behind her.
22
After the transit through the wormhole, it took several hours to fully recharge the massive Lawrence drive within safe parameters in order to avoid stressing the drive. Taking advantage of the downtime, David decided to go to the synagogue, also known as a shul to Orthodox Jews, onboard the Lion. The Lion held four different chapels: one dedicated as a synagogue, one as a Christian church used by all dominations, one as a mosque, and the last was used by other faiths, including a small group of secular humanists that met once a week to discuss the happenings of life and how they interacted with the universe. David had been remiss in visiting the synagogue since he had come onboard, and had conducted the morning, afternoon, and evening prayers in his office or quarters. But he longed to spend a few minutes around other believers, reciting the prayers of the Talmud and so he decided to simply make the time to join them. As he walked into the synagogue, he took his tallit gadol, or prayer shawl, out of the bag. A simple cloth carrying bag, it was embroidered with his name in Hebrew and was a gift from his mother dating back to his bar mitzvah.
David put the shawl over his head and took a seat in the back, not wanting to draw attention to himself as the commanding officer of the ship. Notwithstanding this, an older man immediately made his way to David and sat down next to him. “Allow me to introduce myself, Colonel. Rabbi Erez Kravitz.”
David looked over the man; he was somewhat squat and appeared to be in his late fifties or early sixties. Kravitz looked the part of a rabbi. He wore a prayer shawl as well, and under it, he had on a CDF duty uniform. David could make out from his rank insignia that he was a lieutenant colonel in the chaplain corps.
“Pleased to meet you, Rabbi. I’m David Cohen,” he said softly, not wishing to introduce his position or disrupt the other people praying.
“Ah yes, the commander of our vessel,” Kravitz said with a twinkle in his eye.
“I’m just here as a Jew, Rabbi,” David said, again trying to deflect any attention.
“Come now, Colonel. You are too modest.”
“Just trying to live what I believe, Rabbi.”
“Are you Orthodox?” Kravitz asked, a touch of surprise in his voice.
“My parents were both Orthodox, and I am as well. I’ve had to make some compromises to CDF regulations. I think you’d find I line up pretty well with the Modern Orthodox movement,” David explained.
Kravitz looked at him intently. “What compromises might those be, Colonel?”
David fought to keep a grimace from crossing his face. He did not want to get into a religious debate with the rabbi onboard his ship, and nearly any time he attempted to explain his motivations, it caused a debate. “As I am sure you know, Rabbi, while there are broad allowances for religious exemptions for conscripted soldiers, a career officer such as myself must maintain CDF personal appearance and grooming regulations. As well, I am often unable to observe Shabbat, and many other of our holidays.”
Kravitz nodded thoughtfully. “I would be curious as to your reasoning for this position, Colonel.”
David flipped a mental coin and decided to explain his reasoning to the rabbi; after all, he thought to himself that it would be nice to have a friendly relationship with the only rabbi within a few million miles. “I apply the principle of Pikuach Nefesh to my service in the CDF,” he said, referencing the principle in Jewish law that the preservation of human life overrides virtually any other religious consideration. “Given that we are at war, and my calling appears to be that of a solider, I must discharge my duties to the best of my ability.”
“I understand. I know that must be a difficult road to follow, but I commend you for your efforts to remain true to HaShem.”
Inwardly, David breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you, Rabbi.”
Kravitz patted David’s arm. “Please, come back as often as you can. I think where we are going, we’re going to need as much help from HaShem as He can possibly give us.”
David nodded. “I agree, Rabbi. Wherever our mission will take us, we cannot succeed without His help.”
Kravitz nodded and stood up, walking back to the front of the synagogue. David bowed his head for the next ten minutes and recited prayers from the Talmud before interjecting a plea to God. In Hebrew, he said, “Adonai, please bless this mission. If it is your will, please let there be peace, even with these vile and evil people. Too many have died, and I have so much blood on my hands. If it is not to be, please spare the lives of my crew and let them return safely home to their families.”
David raised his head after finishing his prayer. He never asked God, spoken as HaShem in conversation or Adonai in prayer, to allow him victory. He asked only that the lives of those under his command be saved, for he felt it was to embrace vanity to ask for victory. Standing and walking to the back of the room, he removed his prayer shawl and returned it to the bag his mother had given him. Exiting the synagogue and returning to his duties, he felt refreshed for the first time in several days.
“It’s good to see you back in this role, Antonov,” Pierre Seville, fleet admiral and overall commander of the League of Sol military expedition to claim the territories of the Terran Coalition, said as he shook the glass of brandy he held. His flagship, the League Starship Destruction, was on its way to meet up with the new CDF ship; the Lion of Judah. What an… odd name for a warship. No doubt based on a religious superstition.
Zehnya Antonov, the captain of his flagship, took a drink from his own glass, as he peered intently at Seville. “I’m glad to be here, Admiral. You plucking me from retirement was, well… it was the answer to an old man’s wish.”
“Farming carrots and goats not doing it for you?”
“No, Admiral. I felt useless. Discarded.”
“Same as I did, during my rehabilitation.”
“How’d you get out of it?”
“Much the same as you,” Seville said, his mouth curled up in a smile. “I had a benefactor that saw my potential.”
“You are too kind.”
“Nonsense. The League needs good officers.” And above all, I need loyal followers. “It’s a matter of matching the right people to the right positions.”
“I live to serve,” Antonov said as he finished his brandy.
“Your family, how are they?”
“Far
better now that my wife doesn’t have to crawl on her hands and knees for root vegetables for us to eat.”
Seville’s face turned red. “An outrage.”
“Sir?” Antonov said, the unmistakable tenor of fear entering his voice.
“What our political commissar overlords do to cover their own ineptitude.” At the look of outright terror that crossed Antonov’s face, Seville only grinned. “Captain, do you really think I don’t have my quarters swept daily for surveillance systems? There’s nothing to fear here.”
“How do you do it, sir?” he asked very quietly.
“Simple. I watched how they play each other, and then copied it. I obtained leverage over the political officer—Colonel Strappi—that was assigned to my first ship after my rehabilitation. I allow him to think he has some level of power. I remind him when he oversteps that I could ruin him in an instant and cause him and his entire family to be put to death. He is weak. I am strong. It is the way of things. I’ve even ensured that relatives of his received plum postings they couldn’t otherwise qualify for. It pains me to say it, but he’s quite a sentimentalist, for a morale officer, that is.”
“Regardless, Admiral, I am in your debt.”
“Tell me; what of the crew? What do they really think about our mission?”
“Some desire peace. Some hate the Terrans as much as they hate us. Some don’t care and simply do their jobs,” Antonov said, shrugging his shoulders.
“And you?”
“It would be nice to see an end to this war, Admiral. I’ve seen so many young ones under my command die in service of the state. It would be refreshing to see them grow old and have families of their own.”
Seville poured another glass of brandy for each of them. “You may count me among those that hate the Terran Coalition,” he said, briefly touching a hand to his right eye. “They took my eye. More accurately, a single Terran who longed to die as a martyr took it from me. His son is coming to meet us.”
“I didn’t realize, Admiral.”
“Or did he?” Seville mused. “If Colonel Lemieux had an IQ higher than fifty, we would have defeated the Terrans twenty-seven years ago. I wouldn’t have lost my eye.” Rage built within, expressing itself as his face turned blood red. “The hundreds of thousands of League sailors that died would’ve lived.”
Antonov sat mute, the look of fear back.
“It was not to be, Captain. Instead, I took the fall and spent fifteen hard years planting crops in the semi-arid dirt. It might have been enough to break most men, but not me. I was even more motivated to destroy the Terrans when I returned to the fleet.”
“Of course, sir,” Antonov finally said.
Seville let his facial expression go slack. “I also live but to serve the League. If the Social and Public Safety Committee want peace, then I will gladly carry their ambassador and do everything in my power to achieve it. In my heart, I may want to kill every last one of them, but I will do my duty. We can do nothing less as members of the League.”
“At least we’ve survived this long, Admiral.”
“Yes… yes, we have. It’s growing late. We’ve an eventful day in front of us tomorrow.”
Antonov seemingly got the hint instantly and stood. “Thank you again, Admiral.”
“Do your duty, do it well, Captain. Make me proud. Dismissed.”
23
David climbed up the last rung on the ladder to the central space traffic control area in the massive fighter bay of the Lion. He found himself next to the station where the “Air Boss” sat, along with her assistant, the “Mini-Boss.” Titles that carried over from generations of naval aircraft carriers were at home on the Lion. David watched dozens of fighters and bombers from the CSV Pat Tillman land in the bay, taxiing to assigned parking stations. An hour or so earlier, the Pat Tillman had jumped into the transfer point and started ferrying over its entire combat capable fighter wing. The Pat Tillman was an American-designed Wade McClusky class light carrier, carrying roughly eighty combat spacecraft. Like most other carriers in the CDF fleet, Wade McClusky class carriers possessed little in the way of anti-ship weaponry and formed the nexus of a Carrier Space Battle Group (CVSBG).
David had been curious to know who Pat Tillman was; the Americans named most of their ships after famous people. David was surprised to find out that Patrick Daniel Tillman was a professional football player from Earth who was killed in combat during the early 21st century. After spending a few minutes reading his biography, it was clear to David that the Americans revered Tillman because he volunteered to join the military after achieving every possible success in life. He had insulated himself and his family from any want or need, yet he’d still answered the call to serve.
He continued to reflect on that as the fighters continued to touch down; after all, in the Terran Coalition, regardless of nation-state and with only a few exceptions, every eighteen-year-old male or female was drafted into either the military of their nation-state or the CDF. Men were drafted for four years; women were drafted for three. The compromise in mandating women to serve a shorter period than men had been key to gaining passage of the Universal Draft Act in the early years following the appearance of the League of Sol. The idea of a society where only a few made the choice to serve struck David as a foreign concept.
As the final fighter came to a halt, David took his leave of the flight control crew, walking out of the control room and down a stairway to the flight deck. As he did, the memory of his first meeting with Amir leapt into his mind.
Back in the early days of his assignment to the CSV Audacious, which housed just over forty starfighters of various types, David had to clean up a number of personnel problems. The ship had morale issues that the CDF had decided to remedy by changing out most of the senior leadership. As a result, he arrived at a time of flux.
A couple of weeks after his assignment and in the middle of trying to retool the ship’s crew, he met one of the fighter squadron commanders during an informal dinner in the officer’s mess. That particular pilot was notably short even compared to the typical fighter jock. Space inside a cockpit was at a premium, which made excessive height a problem. The man sitting down across from him had no reason to worry.
“Greetings, Major Cohen.”
David glanced at the pilot’s uniform, taking in his rank and name—Captain Hassan Amir. He also had his space combat wings, had served for at least fifteen years, and came from the planet of New Arabia. There was a patch under the Terran Coalition and country flag position that bore the Crescent and Star, the symbol for Islam.
“Peace be unto you, Captain Amir,” David said, recalling a traditional Arabic greeting learned from social studies class so many years ago.
“Wa-Alaikum-Salaam,” Amir replied, the Arabic phrase for “And unto you peace,” which was the traditional answer. “I am the squadron commander for the 237th fighter squadron.”
“Ah yes, you guys style yourselves as ‘The Black Knights,’ right?” David asked with a smile.
“Yes, sir. I wanted to talk to you about some issues with the pilots, sir.”
David raised an eyebrow. “Shouldn’t you be going through the air wing commander, Captain?”
“Well, sir, he informed us today he’s been relieved of duty and will be departing the ship tomorrow morning. As of now, we do not know who the replacement is.”
“I see. In that case, what can I do for you?”
“To be blunt, sir, our squadrons don’t get enough training. The ship’s budget never seems to have room for live fire training exercises, and our pilots aren’t as good as they ought to be as a result.”
“Which leads to increased casualties.”
“Exactly, sir. I was hoping that as our new executive officer, you could help.”
One of David’s duties as the XO was to allocate the budget for the ship. Now it made sense why Amir would seek him out. “Let me dig into it, Captain. I can’t make promises, but I’ll do everything in my power to get the p
ilots the training they need.”
Amir nodded. “Thank you, sir.”
“New Arabia?” David asked, inclining his head toward Amir’s country patch.
“Yes, sir. Palestine territory.”
When the great diaspora migration had occurred, many of the different former countries and nationalist groups that made up the initial landing at Canaan set out for the local stars and founded their own planetary colonies. The Jews had done that with New Israel, and many groups of Arabs had come together under the banner of New Arabia.
“New Israel myself,” David replied, attempting to strike up a rapport with Amir.
“I have to confess, I don’t know why when my ancestors had their pick of planets, we ended up on one that is mostly desert,” Amir deadpanned.
David laughed. “We did the same thing. New Israel is a pretty tough landscape. We’ve terraformed it quite a bit, but still. It’s not Canaan, New America, or the British colonies,” he said, referencing the major nation-states of New America and New Great Britain. Between them and the planets that made up the British Commonwealth, they accounted for sixty percent of the Terran Coalition’s population and industrial output.
“I guess tradition does not die easily.”
David nodded his agreement. “No, it doesn’t. It’s kind of amazing how all the countries from Earth fanned out. Israel, America, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Great Britain, Australia, even Canada. They all have their own planets now.” David took a sip of water. “So how’d you end up in Space Combat Command?”
“I’ve always wanted to be a pilot… ever since I was a little boy,” Amir said. “When it came time to be drafted, I instead applied for and was accepted to the flight academy. Fifteen years later, here I am. My wife is a pilot and my oldest daughter wants to be one as well.” He beamed with pride.
“The family that pilots together, stays together?”