Frontiers Saga 12: Rise of the Alliance (29 page)

“Captain,” Captain Nash said, offering his hand to Nathan.

“Captain,” Nathan replied, shaking hands.

Captain Poc waited a moment as Captain Nash left the compartment as well. He turned back to Nathan, both his eyebrows raising. “My apologies, Captain. It is not easy to wake from an eight-month sleep and find your world in ruins. It is more difficult still to wonder if you could have done anything to prevent it.”

“I understand, sir,” Nathan replied. “Believe me, I understand.”

“I’m sure you do, son,” Captain Poc said as he turned to exit. “I’m sure you do.”

Nathan stood there watching as the last captain left his ready room.

A moment later, Sergeant Weatherly leaned into the hatchway. “Everything alright, Captain?” he said under his breath so that no one on the bridge behind him could hear.

“Ask me in a couple hours,” Nathan said as he moved toward the sergeant.

“Now you know why I don’t want to be promoted,” the sergeant said with a grin as he stepped aside to make room for Nathan to pass. “Where to, sir?”

“I don’t know, Sergeant,” Nathan said as he passed. “I don’t suppose there’s a still somewhere on this ship?”

* * *

“I know what you’re going to say,” Nathan warned Camer
on as she entered his ready room, “but even you have to admit that we have no other choice at this point. There is simply no way to put more shots onto that platform using our current resources.”

“I agree,” she said as she closed the hatch behind her.

“You what?”

“I agree with you, Nathan.”

“Okay. I didn’t see that coming.”

“We tried, we failed,” she said as she took a seat across the desk from him. “Twice, in fact. We don’t have an unlimited number of antimatter mines to keep knocking them out of FTL so we can take more shots at them. It could take three or four more passes to take them down, even with
all
their shields down, and they’re not going to just lie there and let us pound away at them. They’ll be pounding right back. I don’t know about you, Nathan, but I’ve got more than enough holes in
my
ship right now. Besides, we’ll be lucky to get one more shot at them, and we can’t let that platform reach Earth, it’s just too risky. The next shot
must
work, therefore we have no alternative. We
must
throw a kinetic kill vehicle at them.”

“And here I was expecting another ass-chewing.”

“Besides, the Jung have bombed Earth three times now, and they just took out Kent for no strategic reason, other than to possibly deny us use of it. I think the idea that we should not escalate to the use of such weaponry was an argument played out on only one side. It was obviously never a consideration for the Jung.”

“Well now I don’t know where to go next,” Nathan admitted. “You agreeing with me is unfamiliar terrain.”

“This isn’t the first time that I’ve agreed with you, Nathan.”

“Perhaps, but it happens so infrequently that I forget what it feels like.”

“Is that what you think of me?” she wondered. “You think I just automatically take the opposite side of every issue from you?”

“Well, you used to.”

“True, but do you know why I used to do that?”

“Because deep down inside, you enjoyed taunting me?” he jeered.

Cameron sneered at him. “Because you make decisions in such haphazard fashion, without carefully examining all the angles. Maybe not as much as you used to, I admit. But you still do, on occasion.”

“Or, maybe I do consider the angles, but I don’t bother taking the time to chew them over with everyone.”

Cameron looked at him, one eyebrow raised.

“Okay, I admit it,” Nathan said, “half the time I do go on instinct. But I have been right more often than not. That’s got to account for something.”

“Perhaps,” she admitted.

“Anyway, the KKV won’t arrive for ten days yet, and we’re still going to have to test it.”

“That will put the platform just under three light years away,” Cameron said. “Still plenty of time. Maybe you want to wait until we get our other two plasma cannons working? The extra firepower might make a difference.”

“If we hit it with a KKV, we won’t need the extra firepower.”

“Since our antimatter mines are limited, maybe we should wait until we have more than one KKV to fire at it?”

“I thought of that as well,” Nathan said, “but to be honest, waiting any longer than necessary to kill that thing makes me nervous. Besides, I’ve got Yosef analyzing the sensor data from the first antimatter event. I’m hoping that she’ll tell us that we don’t need to use so many of them, that one or two will be enough to knock them out of FTL. At least then we’ll have the option to just keep hacking away at it.”

“I still think it would be better to wait until we can put a half dozen KKVs into it,” Cameron argued.

“I’m sure the three captains would prefer that as well,” Nathan said.

“Is that what you meant by ass-chewing?”

“Roselle chewed up one side of me and down the other,” Nathan told her.

“For what?”

“Let’s see… There was failure to follow the EDF charter, chasing terrorist tail, not changing the sheets before I slept in the captain’s bed, wanting to fuck the captain’s wife… Oh, and of course treason. We can’t leave that one out, can we.”

“Who committed treason?” Jessica asked as she entered the room.

Nathan threw up his hands. “Does anyone knock around here? I am the CO of this ship, you know.”

“Apparently the three Scout ship captains just gave Nathan a classic ass-chewing.”

“Damn, I wish I’d seen that,” Jessica said, plopping down on the couch next to Nathan.

“Thanks for your support.”

“Wait a minute,” Jessica said. “Did my brother…”

“It was pretty much all Roselle,” Nathan said. He looked at Cameron. “Do they teach you how to do that in command school or something? If so, I’m pretty sure he aced that class.”

“You had to be expecting this, didn’t you?” Cameron said.

“You too?”

“Look at it from their point of view, Nathan,” Cameron insisted.

“Yeah, I know. It doesn’t make it any easier, though.”

“Stop whining,” Jessica told him. “Surely that wasn’t your first butt-chewing.”

“Oh, God no.”

“I hope you at least stood up for yourself, just a little,” Jessica said.

“About all I got out was the word ‘enough’,” he told her. “But I did yell it, though.”

“You yelled ‘enough’ at a senior officer who was chewing your ass?” Cameron said, stunned.

“Yeah, kind of surprised myself as well,” Nathan admitted. “I’m pretty sure I surprised Weatherly as well. He came charging in with his hand on his holstered weapon.”

Jessica smiled. “He wasn’t surprised. He was just doing his job, helping you out. He knew when you all went into your ready room that you were going to get your ass handed to you.”

“How do you know?” Nathan wondered.

“He told me about an hour ago,” Jessica admitted. “That’s why I came over. I figured you’d be sitting here all sad-eyed feeling sorry for yourself.”

Nathan took in a deep breath, exhaling slowly.

After a nearly minute-long silence, Cameron spoke. “So, did you?”

“Did I what?” Nathan wondered.

“Did you change the sheets before you slept in the captain’s bed?”

Nathan looked at her, squinting. “I honestly do not remember.”

* * *

“I asked Master Chief Taggart to come up with a way to dock all three of the Scout ships to the
aft cargo airlock,” Commander Willard said.

“Good idea,” Nathan agreed as they turned the corner and headed up the ramp to the command deck.

“He suggested that we join a few cargo containers together like we did for the troop staging area during the attack on Answari. He wants to connect several breach boxes to its sides. One to connect to the aft personnel boarding hatch, and the other three for the Scout ships to dock with. The containers will be like a hub where they can stage gear, tools, EVA suits, that sort of thing. The other two breach boxes will be used as an EVA airlock and an attachment point for crawlers. If it works, we won’t have to undock from all three ships whenever we need to get under way. We just have to detach from the main hub.”

“Like a little spaceport,” Nathan said. “Good idea.”

“The master chief calls it a maintenance hub.”

“That works too. Tell him to get started. I’d like all three of those ships to be stripped of their FTL field generators and their extra propellant tanks by the time their jump drives arrive. They’ll need to be inside our main hangar bay to complete the installation, and the faster we get them in and out the better.”

“Yes, sir,” Commander Willard agreed.

“Did you get all the size requirements from the Scout ships’ chengs?” Nathan asked as they reached the top of the ramp, jogged to the left, and continued forward.

“Yes, sir,” Commander Willard answered, handing him a data chip. “They’re all on here.”

“Great. I’ll give this to comms to be sent to the Karuzara so that they can customize the builds to fit. That should save us some time.” Nathan stopped at the entrance to the bridge. “Anything else, Commander?”

Commander Willard looked down at his data pad. “Uh, the Ghatazhak will be up to five hundred and thirty-two in a couple days, as well as eleven combat jumpers. Also, Boxcar Three will be ready to join the Earth-Tanna route tomorrow.”

“Great,” Nathan said. “A few more boxcars and the Celestia can stop plying that route.”

“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea,” Commander Willard warned. “Commander Kovacic and I were going over the numbers, and even with ten boxcars, we’re still not going to be able to move enough aid back to Earth to make a significant difference. In fact, it would be even better if both the Aurora and the Celestia were making regular runs.”

“I’m afraid that’s going to have to wait until the Karuzara arrives,” Nathan explained. “We have to keep at least one ship here to act not only as an orbital base of operations, but also to defend Earth. There’s still the chance that an unannounced Jung ship might suddenly appear. It has happened before.”

“Of course, sir. The commander and I came to the same conclusion.”

“Very well,” Nathan said. “I’ll give these specs to comms. Keep up the good work, Commander.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Don’t forget,” Nathan said as the commander was walking away, “I’m leaving the ship at nineteen hundred, so you’ll be in command.”

“Yes, sir.”

* * *

Nathan gazed out the window as the shuttle descended through the clouds toward Winnipeg. As the clouds broke, th
e city twinkled below him. It was not the vast landscape of lights that one might expect to see when viewing a city at night, but rather the lights were few and far between. Some of them were bonfires that were lit by residents in the middle of the streets at night to let would-be raiders know that on that particular block, people were watching. Other lights were running off batteries powered by solar panels or windmills. Only a handful of the lights below were powered by the city’s power grid, and those were only to provide some modicum of safety.

As poor as conditions were, only a month ago the situation had been far worse. In the first few weeks after the last bombardment, the planet had been in turmoil as those whose lives lay in ruin were forced to take what they needed by force. People who were otherwise honest, upstanding citizens were forced to commit heinous acts in order to protect and provide for their loved ones. So it had become on his homeworld, regardless of his best efforts to protect it and keep it from harm.

Despite all his victories, whenever he turned his attention Earthward, Nathan felt like a complete failure. Millions upon millions had died because of the choices he had made, both good and bad. He tried to dismiss his guilt by telling himself that he had done everything he could, but he knew that was untrue. As he contemplated all the decisions that had led him to this moment, he could easily see how many of them could have led to a far different outcome for his world. The sights below, however, convinced him of one thing. The Jung deserved no mercy.

The ride from the Winnipeg airport to the NAU capitol center was equally disturbing, for now he could see the gruesome realities of life on Earth, up close and personal. Winnipeg had only been hit by conventional weapons. The nearest nuclear detonation was in Philadelphia, and the winds had thus far kept the fallout away from them. Yet there was still devastation here, and plenty of it. Much of the rubble had been cleared away, but there were still plenty of buildings waiting to be demolished, buildings that were no longer safe for human occupation, despite the fact that many humans still resided within them.

A brutal assault caught his eye, causing his head to turn sharply to the left as their vehicle continued down the roadway at a rapid pace. His first instinct was to call out to the driver to stop so that he and his men could intervene, but he did not. He could not right all the wrongs that occurred day in and day out. No one could, not even the Ghatazhak, try as they might. So stretched was everyone’s resources that the lesser events h
ad to be overlooked. The plain truth was that the people had to protect themselves. They could not count on the world’s few functioning governments. They could only count on one another, and even then only to a certain extent.

Yet there were still places on the Earth where everything appeared normal. Porto Santo was a prime example. Their island was literally untouched by what had happened to the Earth. If it wasn’t for the lack of resupply to the island, and the news reports that bounced around the world via the few functioning communications satellites that remained in orbit, the people of that tiny island would be none the wiser.

“It’s not your fault, sir,” Sergeant Weatherly said from the seat next to Nathan.

“What?”

“None of this is. It all would’ve happened whether you had been in command or not. Yeah, maybe a few more people might have lived, but all of this still would’ve happened. Just a little bit differently.”

Nathan looked at the sergeant. “You really believe that, don’t you?”