Destiny's Choice (The Wandering Engineer) (52 page)

"Watch
your mouth," April said to her, her own eyes flashing dangerously.

"When
I get back to Anvil..." Mayfair snarled, turning her ire on the reporter.

"You'll
what?" O’Neill asked, eyebrow raised, one finger on her chin. Her free
hand pointed to the camera remote bobbing over her shoulder. Irons had noted it
was there, apparently Mayfair had overlooked it. "Free and independent
press remember?” April said sweetly. “I don't work for you. Or your boss. One
of the things the Admiral insisted on restoring before handing over power
remember? The bill of rights, the first amendment guaranteeing people freedom
of speech, religion, among other things?"

"Things
can change. You'll see," Mayfair said, darting a dark look at the camera
then storming out.

“I
see. And this is what we traded you in for?” she asked, looking a the hatch and
then turning to him. “Your supposed to be the big evil bad guy? Seems someone's
got their stories mixed up.”

Irons
had a hard time keeping a straight face. Damn she was good. “It's the way the
universe works Miss O’Neill. Politics,” he said, shaking his head. “And now you
know why I try my best to stay out of it. It's like a nest of Denubian kangaroo
rats. They look all cute and cuddly...”

“Not
even that,” April sputtered. Several in the people did as well. He smiled at
her, eyes twinkling.

“Well,
anyway, I'm glad you recorded that, the people have a right to know.”

There
was a surprised murmur from the room at large at that. “Which, from what she
just inferred, her people want to stop. Think about it folks,” she said,
shooting a look at the audience and then to the camera. A few nodded back.
After a moment she shut the camera off.

"I
see why you don't like politics," April said in amusement after a moment.
She took a sip from the glass in front of her.

"One
reason anyway," the Admiral said shaking his head. "I'm just not cut
out for sorting out shifting loyalties and backstabbing. I'll take my enemies
where I can see them and shoot them."

"Meaning
he's too honorable. I've tried to cure him of that over the years but it won't
sink in," Sprite said taking Mayfair's vacated seat.

"Cute,"
Irons snorted.

"Tell
her about the Mir incident," Sprite said. April turned from one to the
other. "Or better yet I will. It all started about seven hundred years ago
in a system called Mir. It's the Russian name for peace."

Irons
sighed shaking his head. "You would bring that story up."

"Hush."

"Mir
was settled by die-hard peace activists before the war. The flowers and make
love not war groups. Hippies. Loonies," Sprite shook her head at such
stupidity.

"Someone
having a different opinion doesn't make them a loonie, just different,"
Irons interjected.

"Ordinarily,
I'd agree. In this case..." She shook her head again, lips pursed in an
amused expression. "The representatives of Mir tried to do peace talks
when the Xeno war broke out. It failed. Their people were sent back as living
bombs. nanite infested."

Everyone
in the room shuddered at that. "Still, they kept insisting that the poor
benighted Xenos were just misunderstood. We needed to spend more effort to
understand them. To get to know them. And we needed to take unilateral action
to get them to back off."

"Yeah.
By cutting our own throats," Irons interjected darkly. April shot him a
look. He was scowling.

"Who's
telling this story?" Sprite said giving him a shut up look. He snorted and
waved for her to continue. "Right, as the Admiral so ever so succinctly
put it, they tried to cut our own throats by cutting off funding to the
fleet."

Several
people winced at that. "By cutting our offenses and scaling back our
military it would show the Xenos that we really wanted peace."

"Of
course the fact that it would show us as weak wouldn't or couldn't occur to
them. To the Mir colonists anyone in uniform was a war mongering baby killer
who wanted to justify his existence by killing the innocent and misunderstood.
Diplomacy after all is the true way to resolve issues. War is the root of all
evil." Irons grimaced, voice dripping in irony. "Their leaders went
as far as to demand we withdraw our fleet presence from their system."

"Which
after careful consideration, we did." Sprite said taking up the story
again with a nod.

"You
did?" O’Neill asked aghast.

"Well,
we tried," Sprite said with a shrug. "We were there,” she said,
pointing to the Admiral. “Or at least he was. See the Xenos were using the warp
point method for transit. They didn't have the intuitive grasp of hyperspace
like Ssislli and others to come in on other vectors."

"But,
but they attacked..." someone interrupted.

"Oh
that," Sprite looked over her shoulder to the sputtering girl. "Yes
they did that by coming in on a warp line, getting off before it's normal
juncture point, then traveling in subspace to come in on a different
vector."

"Oh."

"Anyway,
they did some experiments with cloning and new hyper navigator designs, but we
wont go into that now," Sprite said.

"Sprite..."
O’Neill sighed.

"What?"
the AI asked then grimaced. "Sorry, off topic. It happens even to the best
of us now and then," she shrugged. "As I was saying, we, that is the
Admiral and I were sent to oversee the withdrawal of the fleet presence about
eighteen months before we ended up in stasis."

"There
was a small fleet base there. A fuel depot, A couple of orbital warehouses, and
a maintenance support base," the Admiral explained.

"Don't
forget the recruiting station on the planet," Sprite said helpfully.

"That
was a joke," the Admiral said with a snort. "They never had more than
ten or twelve people a month join up. Most just wanted the free college
scholarship and immediately tried to get out of serving." He shook his
head.

"So
no loss there," April said with a smile.

"Right.
I got there on the support ship Sindri just as the locals decided to have a
demonstration." He shook his head. "It was a mess."

"Oh?"
she asked.

"They
usually have some sort of regatta or space race every year. This particular
year some young firebrands got them all fired up and they got it into their
heads to put flowers into our guns. Literally."

"I
believe they got the idea from Vietnam war protests from old earth,"
Sprite replied.

"Whatever,"
Irons said with a growl. "Vacuum packed flowers inside a barrel. He
snorted. "We didn't let them get close of course."

"So
the local media went on and on about how we were backing away, giving ground.
How the strength of their convictions were overcoming the warmongers' resolve.
That whipped them into a frenzy," Sprite said.

"And
about that time we'd maneuvered away from the orbitals as a distraction when a
Xeno pirate task force jumped in," Irons said. Several people sat up at
this. A few got up and came closer.

Irons
looked around. "What happened? did the civilians panic and run?" a
crewman asked.

"Some
did," Sprite said with a shrug. "The smart ones anyway. The really
dumb ones went to the Xenos sending hails welcoming them." Even April
winced at that one.

"What
happened?" a man asked.

"We,
the navy that is got it's act together right off. We called in reinforcements
and pulled our people off the orbitals. They were partially evacuated anyway.
The media was saying that if we were gone the Xenos would leave them unharmed.
That our presence was the reason they were here."

"I
got a call from the local senator who flat out ordered me to withdraw. I told
him to stuff it," Irons replied with a snort.

"I
bet that didn't go over well."

"No,"
Sprite said rolling her eyes. "He was a little angry."

"Who
the senator or the Admiral?" April asked.

"Both."

"Can
we continue?" Irons asked testily. Both females turned to him, glowering.
"The ships that got close to the Xenos were grabbed by tractors. I
realized right away that they were using them as shields."

Some
people grimaced. "About that time I started getting frantic calls from the
hostages as well as the local authorities to save them,” he shook his head.
“You should have seen this one news anchor's face. She went from ranting about
the evil demonic Navy to bitching about us not doing our jobs, to begging for
help mid-sentence. She looked like she was going to have a stroke on camera.
She started breaking down and bawling after a few seconds. It made the rounds
for a while,” he said smiling. A general chuckle went around the room.

"You'd
be surprised how the fear of death makes someone concentrate," Sprite said
with a chuckle.

"Right,"
the Admiral nodded.

"What
did you do?"

"What
could I do?" Irons asked suddenly sober. "I had a choice, fight and
kill the enemy and hostages to keep them from bombing the planet, or sit there
and watch them bomb it."

"Sacrifice
a few to save the many," Miss Willis said softly.

"Something
like that," Irons said shooting her a glance. He hadn't noticed her until
now. He wasn't sure if any in the room could really understand the difficulty
in such a simple statement. Like a lot of things it was easier said then done.

"Unfortunately
most of my forces were support units. I only had a light escort force," he
shook his head and grimaced.

"What
happened?"

"I
blocked them from going to the planet," Irons said looking down.
"Anyway I could. They used the yachts as shields. I set up a fallback
under fire when we couldn't get through."

"The
planet?" April asked softly.

"Oh
it's still there," Sprite said with a sniff. "At least it was. It's a
cinder though. I checked when we were on Io11. No, while the Admiral was
retreating a fleet task force jumped in to the edge of the system. They got the
word and had a decent Ssislli on board and did a micro jump."

"Kind
of funny that they arrived in the nick of time like that," someone said
with a grimace.

"You're
right. They were a pursuit force, tasked with running the pirates to ground.
The Admiral, Admiral Kerr guessed right and got there to save the day and
garner the glory."

"And
you got the shaft?" April asked.

"No,
but he was reprimanded for retreating under fire, being insubordinate to the
constitutional representatives on the scene, and removing the fleet base,"
Sprite said shaking her head. "At least by the media and the people of
Mir. Not one apology or thank you. They had a field day with his killing the
hostages. It was obviously heartless since they were about to be saved by
Admiral Kerr."

"Who
we didn't know was coming. Otherwise I..." Irons snarled, clenching the
arm rests of the chair.

"You
would have done the same thing and you know it," Sprite said testily.
"If you hadn't slowed them down they would have gotten in range of the
planet a half hour before the Admiral got there. He would have been listening
to the planet die, helpless to do anything at all."

"So
what happened? I thought you said it's a cinder now?" April asked.

"Oh
it is," Sprite said with a head shake. "Remember those nanites I
talked about? Well one of the hostages got away. As it turned out, they let her
go, after they infested her with nanites of course. Sort of a back up plan I
suppose. One of the Xenos' favorite tactics during the war. Seed people with
delayed activation nanites or bio-weapons then let them run. When they got to a
planet or refugee center... tick tick tick..." She tapped a finger on the
top of the table then pantomimed an explosion.

"We
can do without the effects Sprite," Irons said dryly.

April
shuddered. "Thank you."

"The
interesting thing is the senators from Mir were in the senate when Mir was
destroyed. They condemned the senseless deaths of course. Martyrs for
peace," Sprite snorted. "Senator Woodstock tried to set up a memorial
but was stripped of his seat when it was clear there were no survivors."

"Why?"
April asked.

"He
no longer had a constituency to represent. but he was also a major problem in
the senate. He kept having hearings on the war, dragging things out, and
holding up funding and laws at every opportunity. He pulled every trick in the
book to hamstring us. Us the military I mean. He loved to do some dirty crap.
Recalled senior officers for grueling bull sessions about their conduct in a
particular battle in front of the cameras was one of his favorites. Making sure
the bullies of the military were properly watched over," Sprite said
sounding disgusted.

"Laying
it on a bit thick there," April said dryly.

"No
it's true. I got to go through one once or twice," Irons replied with a
grimace. "The subpoenas were a major headache. They kept pulling people
away, making holes in our chain of command. Holes we really didn't need during
a war. The transit time back and forth was stupid." He shook his head.