AL:ICE-9 (13 page)

Jake sat listening to all the chatter, looking very thoughtful. In reality, it was the fact that these and other issues had him creating his own short list. He still needed to find out what Sandy’s Weekly News was. What was in Georgia? He had never actually discovered its primary purpose. What was he going to do with the ships in Hawaii currently under construction?

As iron hulled vessels, they were now completely unsuitable to faster than light applications. They would work nicely as planetary transport, and certainly would work in replacing
Defiance
and
Independence
as gunships in orbit. That would free them up for interstellar operations once their own refit was complete.

Realizing the room had gone quiet and the entire table was staring at him expectantly, he paused, as he wasn’t sure where they had stopped. He decided to jump on the most obvious.

“OK ALICE, what do you recommend I promote myself to?”

“Well, as a Brigadier General, you open up the entire operational officer ranks, however I know your personal hesitations to taking a Generals star,” She offered.

Jake nodded, relaying to the assembled group that ALICE was correct. Right or wrong, as a line officer himself, Jake had always associated the rank of General to be the cut off for those that stopped doing and started exclusively delegating. He knew there were plenty of historical examples to prove him wrong, General Patton came immediately to mind.

That hesitancy and the fact that dictators always seemed to declare themselves a general right after the coup, prevented the leap.

“You could always just drop your rank and go with President?” Patti offered, recognizing the internal struggle he was displaying.

The thought of abandoning his beloved Marine Corps moniker was even more distasteful to him.

“OK, make me a full bird Colonel, Sara a Lt. Colonel, all the Facilities Commanders as Majors James included. That gives you Captain for ships and operational teams. And go ahead and make James’s position permanent,” Jake finished.

“Yes!” Patti exclaimed from the end of the table, and then, “I expect you all to pay up by the end of the week.”

Evidently, there had been a pool on this topic and Patti declared the winner. What they used to bet with, Jake hadn’t a clue, as no one needed money. That thought brought another issue to the front of Jake’s mind.

“Bonnie, how is Robert doing on the materials gathering?” he asked.

Bonnie seemed to hesitate at the question, and then offered, “Oh he’s been doing great, we have material shipments scheduled for both Alaska, and Hawaii this week and we have quite a stockpile of precious metals building in one of the store rooms.”

Jake noted several glances around the table during Bonnie’s report, but he let it slide. He needed to head to Texas anyway, so he would find out soon enough what this was all about.

Bonnie continued, “We have over two tons each of gold and platinum and 5 times that of silver. Aluminum, Titanium, Copper, and such, we are still treating as construction materials.”

“That’s fine, I just want to be prepared to do a little shopping with our trading partners when the opportunity presents itself.”

“On that subject I should add,” ALICE jumped in, “Space trials with
Revenge
are going extremely well. Phase 1 testing is complete and successful. The refit provided the exact results we had hoped for and Phase 2 is in full operation.”

Jake could see the confused looks around the table, so he offered, “ALICE will schedule a separate, complete briefing for all this soon. We didn’t want to spend a lot of time talking about something we weren’t sure would even work.”

With that, the meeting continued for two more hours, the entire team walking Jake through their complete list of open items. Through the whole thing, Jake kept thinking, “I’m an REMF!”

Chapter 13

Brian received the news about his promotion in rank, not position, during the third duty shift of Phase 2 testing. He got a little personal laugh, realizing he was now a Captain-Captain. No wonder the Navy had a different naming structure for ranks.

Currently they were sitting in space, at all stop, and running EVA drills. While they had been in space for over a week now, the novelty of the experience was still apparent on everyone’s face. Brian had made a note to ask ALICE, when they returned to earth, about psychological impact of such dramatic changes.

His crew, less than a year ago, were all simple people with limited options. They were now an interstellar combat crew, training to take on an intergalactic super power. That was an amazing change for anyone to absorb. Additionally, he was proud of them. His daily reports showed constant progress with a significant reduction in mistakes. Now if he could just get rid of that nagging feeling that he was going to need all this completed much sooner than later.

----*----

Everyone returned to a normal routine after the LA incident, so Jake was holding an informal meeting in the living room space of his quarters. With just Patti, Karen, Sandy, Sara, and Linda, he had hoped to close out another issue on his personal list of “to dos.”

With all comfortably seated, Karen had just announced that she and Jason were expecting. This was welcome news to Jake as it deflected the fact that only he had children in residence at this point. After the chatter had come to a natural pause, Jake asked, “So Sandy, tell us about Sandy’s Weekly News?”

The blush evident on her face, Sandy replied, “Oh you remembered that huh? Well Jessie had mentioned to me a while back that before the fall, people used to watch nightly programs called news shows.”

“I am familiar with them,” Jake replied slowly.

“Well,” she continued after a pause, “I just thought, as the community relationship manager, it might be helpful for people to know what we are up to. I give them information on our progress against the gangs, even progress reports on the patrol. I think it was called community service reports.”

“So who helps you pick your stories and reviews the content for security concerns?” Jake asked, suspecting he knew the answer before he asked.

The clear look of confusion on Sandy’s face confirmed his suspicions.

“Sandy, I applaud your initiative, but whenever you start publishing our internal communications, we need to agree what is public and what we need to keep to ourselves. I had a little talk with Burt in Prosperity after LA, just to bring him up to speed and let him know no harm, no foul on the supply theft. We talked about some of your reports and quite honestly, about 20% of it should never have been transmitted.”

Jake could see her deflate before his eyes, so he jumped in, “I don’t want you to stop, I just need you to set up a review board, with either myself, Patti, Sara and particularly ALICE. You need someone reviewing your planned program prior to release, OK?”

That seemed to brighten her spirits while acknowledging the chastising. Jake had a feeling he needed to insert himself more into their community relations programs.

As if on cue, ALICE interrupted, “Jake, we have an incoming call from the Wawobash. They say it’s urgent.”

“What’s a Wawobash?” Jake asked, completely confused.

“Oh I know,” Sandy offered, happy to be contributing, “It’s the six legged canine race.”

Jake thought about it for just a second, then asked the room in general, “Is it proper to take this informally or do we need to dress up?”

“No, the Wawobash are a technical people and have quite a casual tradition in inter race relations, shall I put them on Holographic communication for you?” ALICE asked.

“Just me, not the entire room, I presume I’ll get full translation?” he finished.

“Yes,” ALICE responded before the image appeared in the center of the room.

The image was that of a head and shoulders, the head, canine like, positioned on a neck more representative of a human. It made Jake think of the Egyptian God Anubis. It was wearing a vest that was open in the front and showing a full coat of hair on all exposed body parts. Jake was aware it actually had a second set of arms/legs allowing for either a full upright stance with four hands or a down position more like a centaur.

“President Thomas, thank you for taking my call. I hate to be so direct but we have an urgent matter here that we believe you may be required to address.”

“What can I do for you?” Jake replied, assuming there would be some delay while they waited for the closest relay to transfer the communications.

Instead, he got an immediate reply, “We were just alerted to two NeHaw destroyers dropping from faster than light at the edge of our solar system. They have not yet communicated their intentions, but as we have declared our intentions to ally with you, I suspect this is not a peaceful visit.”

Pausing to consider his options, Jake looked down and picked up the display tablet he had been using during the earlier meeting, typing a quick message to ALICE. With her reply, he looked up again and said, “We actually have a ship in the area, we will dispatch them to your location directly.”

“Thank you sir, we look forward to their arrival.”

With that, the connection dropped and everyone sat quietly, waiting for Jake to make the first comment. He sat there for a few seconds not looking at anyone directly, mostly at the ceiling.

He finally asked, “Can anyone explain to me why that communication was so interactive?”

“I think I can start,” ALICE began, “It is my understanding that the race described as resembling a humanoid lobster, the Crustacea, placed a NeHaw communications unit in Alaska. I am in fact amazed that it has so quickly established a link to the NeHaw network though.”

“Are you telling me these people are really named after earthly crustaceans?” Jake asked in amazement.

“No,” Sandy offered, “They had no pronounceable name, as they use clicks and visual antenna movement to communicate. They permitted us to assign a name we found suitable.”

Jake paused again, hoping the Crustacea knew of this selection, and then said, “Ok, so we have a tower, what’s it connected to?”

“Oh I think I know,” Sandy offered again, “I seem to remember them asking if it was a problem to connect to the one on Mars. I said that should be ok, we don’t use anything there anyway,” she finished with a big smile.

Sara jumped in at this point, “Sandy, they found a NeHaw communications unit on Mars and you didn’t think to tell anyone?”

“I didn’t think it mattered, we were getting one here of our own,” she said with a frown, “they said it’s logs indicated the NeHaw left it there after the very first bombing here. Apparently that’s why they came here in the first place, but since that crew died trying to put one here they used Mars instead.”

“ALICE, were you aware of this,” Jake asked, trying not to sound upset.

“I was aware of the station in Alaska but not the one on Mars. That does explain the connection speed as it had 80 years to connect with the next closest transfer point. The Alaska unit would have linked up within minutes.”

“Setting this aside for the moment, and adding the need to completely debrief Sandy to the top of our “to do” list, please try and get
Revenge
on the line. Phase 3 of the testing plan just got trumped.”

----*----

Brian had ordered the retrieval of all external test participants and a verification of course, destination and ETA. This was not a drill. Jake explained the circumstances to him quite clearly and he was depending on him to handle this. This ship and crew were on the cusp of a historic event for earth. It was up to them to determine if that was for the positive.

----*----

After talking with Brian, again in almost real time, Jake called a war council to discuss the implications. Dismissing Sandy and Karen, he had Linda pull in a couple of her analysts for assistance. The two women that arrived were completely unfamiliar to Jake, and they both had the deer in the headlights look upon entering his quarters. Apparently, neither had realized their destination and Jake had been more myth than man to them up to that point.

Attempting to put them at ease, he offered non-alcoholic drinks and a seat. Once everyone was in place, he began.

“Ok gang, we need to pull up everything we have on the NeHaw Destroyers, also try to pull visual Intel from the Wawobash if possible. In fact, see if they have any information themselves, beyond what they shared already. This is a motivating moment for them.”

Jake paused to let the two newbies catch up, as they were both taking notes furiously. He thought about making the brainstorming speech, but passed on it, saving it for later.

“Jake,” Patti jumped in, “what’s this all about, I thought we all agreed the NeHaw would be too busy elsewhere to start trouble here so soon?”

“Two destroyers sent to an unarmed planet sounds like intimidation to me, the bigger question is why this planet? If they sent them here, where we have three cruisers we would fry them, or better yet add them to our fleet. This has the smell of recon work, testing the resolve of the people.”

“What is this race to the NeHaw anyway?” Sara asked.

Jake pulled up the notes on his pad and then rolling his eyes started reading, “According to Sandy’s notes, they build stuff. She does say they are really good at building boats, but concludes we don’t need boats here.”

“Boats?” Linda asked.

“That’s what is says. They build boats. ALICE, how did all this get into the official record for the negotiations?”

It was very quiet for a good two minutes before ALICE finally replied, “Jake we don’t actually record all human interactions. In fact, we usually only monitor as requested for necessary participation. Sandy held continuous conversations with each of the species participating and we used her notes as the record for that interaction. I now see we may have made an egregious error in taking that approach with her.”

Jake gave a huge sigh and then said, “OK, Linda, we need you to get together with the other facility commanders. Get a separate analytical team together with Sandy and peel apart these notes. It’s my fault for assuming far too much, but I need you guys to save my bacon. ALICE, how much time do we have?”

“The Wawobash solar system is only four planets and their planet is the third from the sun. The NeHaw should be in orbit in about six hours.
Revenge
will arrive on site in two hours, two hours behind the NeHaw.”

----*----

Revenge
came out of faster than light, right at the edge of the Wawobash solar system, or at least that’s what his tactical display said. He had no idea what a Wawobash was, but he knew what the two flashing threat indicators were. They marked the two NeHaw destroyers headed straight for the third planet.

He didn’t call battle stations yet, although he had his best shift on duty. Everyone swapped out as
Revenge
entered Wawobash space. He claimed he wanted a fresh crew in place, but everyone knew this group outscored every shift in testing.

As no one was taking down time, let alone sleeping, he had assigned secondary tasks to the available crew in analyzing the scene before them. He wanted full analysis of both the destroyers and a complete breakdown of the Wawobash home world. In particular, he wanted to know what all the junk was in orbit around their planet.

----*----

KoHac was under very strict orders from the head of the High Council, handed to him personally. He was to take his, and a second specifically assigned Destroyer, and verify the rumors of unrest on this planet. Until this mission, he had been under the impression that he was in poor standing with council, his ship previously only receiving the most minor of assignments. He had in fact been on an assignment to collect fertilizer off planet for the council gardens when reassigned for this mission.

He was also unfamiliar with the captain of the second ship as their standing was even less notable. Apparently, they were an early release from the training academy, the word was they were at the bottom of the class. While their ship was technically fully functional, it was significantly older. KoHac noted they were also at two-thirds crew for this mission.

It was of no matter to him as he was in charge and it was his chance to gain favor with the council. The mission outline was quite simple, investigate the situation, intimidate as necessary, and keep the damage to NeHaw assets to a minimal. Should he destroy any other races property, well that was all up to them to work out later. If the Wawobash weren’t in trouble, it wouldn’t have been damaged.

There was one troubling entry in the outline though, should he encounter any rouge NeHaw craft, he was to destroy it at all costs. Rouge NeHaw? Who had ever heard of such a thing?

----*----

Brian knew he was two hours behind his targets and there was no way to make up the difference. As faster than light drives wouldn’t work in the gravity fields of planetary solar systems, they were all reduced to maximum repulser drive speeds.