Frontiers Saga 12: Rise of the Alliance (34 page)

“That’s another thing,” Josh said. “If I’m tight on my leader’s ass, how the hell am I protecting him? By putting myself between my leader and the guy sneaking up behind us? Seems like a better idea would be for me to hang back and let someone come in behind him, and then jump
that
fucker from behind.”

“It’s about everyone doing what everyone else expects them to do,” Loki reminded him.

“Including the enemy.”

“Josh, it’s about learning
how
to do these maneuvers. It’s about practicing formation flying, even in combat situations. It’s about your leader
knowing
that you know how to stay tight on his wing when he needs you to. It doesn’t mean he’s
going
to ask you to take fire to protect him.”

“He might,” Josh disagreed.

“Well, maybe, but you’re missing the point.”

“No, I’m not,” Josh disagreed. “The point is that there is no point.”

“When we flew through that waterfall on Tanna, how many meters did we lose before you recovered?” Loki asked.

“I don’t know. Forty, fifty, sixty?”

“Two hundred and eight-four,” Loki said. “I remember, because we used up exactly half of the distance between us and the ground at the time.”

“Forgive me, Loki. I didn’t have any practice at reacting to suddenly have a few million liters of water dumped on us from above.”

“And if you had, would we have lost less altitude?”

“Of course.”

“That’s my point.”

“So, you’re saying, that by practicing shit that I’m never going to do, I’ll be better prepared to never do it? Yeah, that makes sense.” Josh turned to look over his shoulder again. “Hey, I’ve got a crazy idea! What if, we first practice what we
will
be doing, and then practice the shit we will never do? Crazy, I know, but I think I’ll suggest it to Major Prechitt when we get back. Could be no one’s thought of it before.”

“It gets back to that whole everyone having the same body of knowledge and training thing,” Loki explained. “Just do us both a favor, Josh, and do the maneuvers the way they want you to do them. Once we graduate, then you can go back to doing your usual crazy pilot shit.”

“I’m going to remember you said that,” Josh declared.

“I knew that you would.”

After more than a minute in silence, Josh spoke again. “So, no change in course and speed?”

“Nope. I didn’t say anything, just to prove you wrong.”

Josh rolled his eyes. “Hey, I heard a rumor that they’re going to turn Porto Santo into a full-blown spaceport, not just a base for the Ghatazhak.”

“I heard the same rumor,” Loki said.

“I also heard that they were going to move all of us down there while the Aurora and the Celestia go into Rebel Rock for overhaul. That would be nice, huh?”

“A few green hills, ocean breeze, white sandy beaches…”

“Tan girls frolicking in the waves in those skimpy bathing suits. What did they call them?”

“Bikinis,” Loki replied.

“Yeah, bikinis. Tiny pieces of fabric that barely cover a girl’s body. One of the Earth’s finest traditions.” Josh turned to look over his shoulder again when he got no response. “Loki?”

“Something is going on,” Loki said in a serious tone of voice.

“What?”

“The platform’s light isn’t frequency shifted anymore. I mean, it is, but nowhere near as much. They must have dropped out of FTL. Accelerate to two five seven.”

“Why?” Josh asked as he turned forward and entered the new speed into the Falcon’s auto-flight system.

“I want to match their velocity and see if the frequency-shift goes away.”

“Two five seven in one minute,” Josh reported. “What do you think they’re doing?”

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe they have a problem with their FTLs?”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe we should jump back and report this, Loki,” Josh suggested.

“They’re definitely not in FTL anymore, but they are changing course. Slowly, but definitely changing course.”

“How much?”

“I don’t know yet. They’re still turning.”

“Maybe they spotted something in their way, like a rogue asteroid or something, and they’re trying to steer around it?”

“Matter goes around them when they’re in FTL, remember?”

“Oh, yeah. Maybe they changed their mind, and they’re not going to Earth after all? Or maybe they got new orders?”

“Or maybe they’re just executing a basic, random zigzag maneuver so that the captain can’t knock them out of FTL at will.” Loki’s eyes left the sensor display and looked forward at his friend. “They just went back into FTL.”

“Are they still headed toward Earth?” Josh wondered.

“Technically, no. They only changed course a few degrees, but at this distance it’s enough to completely skirt the Sol system.”

“Then that’s good news, right?”

“Maybe,” Loki agreed. “Unless they’re just zigzagging, or they want to slide by and then try to surprise Earth by coming in from another angle.”

“But they’ve got to know that we’re tracking them. I mean, with all our jump flashes, we’d be kind of hard to miss. We’re not that far behind them.”

“Possibly,” Loki replied, “but remember, when they’re in FTL, they’re traveling away from us faster than our light is traveling toward them. The only way they’d see us is if they spotted our flash while they are
out
of FTL.”

“Either way, we should report this,” Josh insisted.

“Not yet,” Loki argued.

“This is important, Loki. The captain would want to know.”

“You just want to cut our mission short,” Loki said. “Besides, our orders are to track until relieved, until we reach bingo resources, or until directly threatened. That means we continue tracking for three more hours.”

“Damn,” Josh mumbled.

“Give me a moment to calculate a new track,” Loki said as he turned his attention to the navigation computer. “Look at it this way, Josh. At least you won’t be flying a straight line anymore.”

“Oh, whee. Three degree course changes,” Josh said. “How exciting.”

* * *

“Permission to come aboard?” Jessica called from the main salon hatch.

“You forgot the sir, Lieutenant Commander,” Captain Nash answered.

“Put some golden eagles on a guy’s s
hirt and he gets all full of himself,” she replied as she entered the compartment. “Where is everyone?”

“Two of them are down on the surface, hooking up with family your captain’s sister found for them. My cheng is crawling around in the services spaces aft, making sure everything is ready for the jump drive install, and to be honest, I’m not sure where the rest of them are. I think they’re in your mess hall. Apparently the food is better there.”

“Not by much,” Jessica said as she sat down across the table from her brother. “At least they finally ran out of molo.”

“The mushroom-tofu-like crap?”

“Yup. Nasty shit.”

“Agreed.”

“What’s all this?” she asked, pointing at the various data pads lying about.

“I’ve been studying up on the jump drive. Operational parameters, tactics, limitations. The damned thing is pretty amazing. It’s also a bit frightening.”

“How so?”

“Limitations are a good thing, little one.”

“Please, don’t call me that,” she protested.

“Sorry, but you’ll always be ‘little one’ to me.”

“Fine, but if that catches on, I will kick your ass, golden eagles notwithstanding.”

“Duly noted.”

“You were saying something about limitations?”

“Limitations are often what keeps us from getting ourselves in over our heads. This jump drive—especially the minis that can jump repeatedly without recharging—it changes everything, and I mean everything.”

“Well, obviously…”

“No, I don’t think you get it,” Captain Nash said. “I’m not just talking about interstellar travel. I’m talking everything.”

“Such as?”

“Well, take this ship, for example. Built on the ground then blasted up into orbit, at great additional trouble and expense. With a jump drive, you could build it on the ground, on a track… A track that runs downhill just enough to go up a bit at the end just before you jump to orbit. No propellant, no rocket boosters. You could crank ships out on a production line at a fraction of the cost. Same thing applies to building larger ships. In fact, you could probably build an Explorer-class ship on the ground the same way… Again, a hell of a lot cheaper. Even intercontinental travel would change. Jump up, jump over, jump down, and land. Hell, you want to eat Italian for dinner, go to Italy. You’d still be able to sleep in your own bed that night.”

“The ship thing is pretty cool, I have to admit,” Jessica said.

“There’s more,” Captain Nash continued. “Resources. More wars have been fought over resources than anything else, except maybe religion. That’s all a thing of the past, now, as is the destruction of the world you’re living on due to the harvesting of resources. Too much garbage building up around you, jump it away to a system with no planets, and send that garbage toward the star to be incinerated. Everything you can think of, every industry, every facet of human existence, will be changed by this technology.”

“Come on, Bobby,” Jessica said, “don’t you think you’re stretching it a bit?”

“Pick something.”

“Okay… The movie industry.”

“The biggest expense for them is transportation. Equipment, actors, crew. The cost of moving all of that around to different locations is enormous. Reduce that cost, and movies can be made more cheaply. Cheaper production costs, more new movies, more ticket sales…”

“Okay. Sports.”

“Everyone always roots for the home team, because
that’s
the team that they can go and see live. Same thing as the Italian food analogy. Jump over and see your favorite team, anywhere in the world, and be back in your own bed that night.”

“I get your point.”

“The cost of life itself is all tied up in the cost of moving people, goods, and resources from place to place. Cost is the number one thing that stifles development. The reason we didn’t have
more
warships is because it costs so much to get the materials and people to orbit to build them. It’s all in the cost of transportation. All of it.”

“I didn’t realize you were such an expert in economics.”

“It doesn’t take one to figure this stuff out, Jess.”

“So you’re on board with Nathan’s plans?”

“I don’t know that I’d go that far.”

“You too?” Jessica asked, shaking her head. “Jesus, what is it going to take to get you three meatheads to realize what a great leader he is? You saw the logs, you read about all the things he did. Hell, Bobby, the guy saved my ass more than once. He’s saved all our asses more than once. He’s saved the Earth… Twice!”

“He’s had a lot of lucky breaks, Jess…”

“Luck is worthless unless you’re able to recognize the opportunity and be willing to take advantage of it.”

“Dad?”

“Dad.”

“The guy was holding himself up as a savior, for crying out loud. Surely that’s got to set off some warning bells in you?”

“That wasn’t his doing,” Jessica argued, “that was that bitch, Jalea.”

“That’s another thing that scares us,” Bobby said. “That your captain is more likely to think with his dick. She played him from…”

“Jesus, Bobby!” Jessica yelled. “You’re dumber than I thought. Nathan played her. He may not have known entirely what she was up to, but he knew she was trying to play him and he flipped it on her. Who the fuck do you think gave me the order to terminate her once we finished our mission on Takara?”

“Seriously?”

“Hell, yes! Nathan Scott knows how to work the angles. He may not be a spit and polish, chewing and spitting nails, sea-dog captain like you and your buddies, Poc and Roselle, but he knows people, and he knows how to read a situation and come up with a quick solution.”

“But some of his solutions are pretty far outside the norm.”

“I’d say they kind of had to be, wouldn’t you? It’s not like any of them have been
normal
situations to begin with.”

Captain Nash leaned back in his chair and sighed. “You like him, don’t you?”

“He’s my friend, so yeah, I do like him. But he’s also my commanding officer, and I respect him. Granted, I didn’t before, but I didn’t have much choice. None of us did, not even Nathan. So you see, you all might want to give him a chance, because he may surprise you.”

“Surprise is exactly what we’re afraid of,” Bobby said. “Look, Jess, none of us are out to get him, and none of us are out to take his command away. As far as I can tell, he’s earned that chair. But we have a duty, as officers, to ensure that he is able to do his best. He may be a great leader, and able to think on his feet, but he sucks at running a ship. Not because he’s an idiot, but because he lacks training,
and
he lacks exposure to proper role models. He doesn’t know how to
be
a good captain because he hasn’t watched a good captain in action.”

“Maybe that’s
why
he is able to do the things he does,” Jessica argued. “Did you ever think of that?”

“The old, ‘this isn’t the sea, this is outer space’ argument,” Bobby said. “Yeah, I’ve heard that one. Admittedly, there may be some truth to that. But, since we don’t have much else to build from, we have to start somewhere, don’t we?”

“So, you three want to ‘whip him into shape’, make him into a ‘proper CO’? Is that it?”

“Something like that, yes,” Bobby replied, leaning back in his chair again. “More than anything, we want to build his confidence. You can see it in his eyes, Jess. The man is constantly second-guessing himself, always looking to subordinates for answers.”

“I thought that was called good resource management.”

“The captain of a warship has to be almighty and all-knowing. He has to have the right answer every time, and he must show no doubt in his decisions. He must be all these things, because his crew has to believe in him, and be willing to follow him into battle without hesitation. You people have been following him all this time because you had no other choice. Now you have three other choices. Us.”