Hammerhead Resurrection (23 page)

Stepping forward, Stacy said, “I’ve been considering a grounded Sthenos scenario for some time. Now we have confirmation of Sthenos destroyers planted at the center of twenty-two major cities. The good news is, we’ve been able to recover the special warfare equipment, including active-camo suits.”

Jeffrey asked, “You found enough suits?”

“Yes. The suits are such an important tactical weapon we generally carry a backup for each team member. I had fourteen, and found another ten on the Lacedaemon, which were slated for Saturn Base. If, and this is a big if, those suits are as good at avoiding Sthenos sensors as they are ours, then we should be able to move right up to those ships.”

“That’s a significant
if
,” Captain Donovan said. “The Sthenos have already proven to have different sensory capabilities. They, for one, do not appear to have heart rhythm sensors.” Something appeared to have caught his mind. He scowled. “Are you telling me your team was bringing armaments out? You’d been ordered to bring out food stores.”

Stacy’s eyes darkened. “Captain, if you want my respect you’re going to have to stop saying stupid things right out in the open, okay?”

Donovan’s face flushed red and his mouth opened, but Stacy beat him to the punch, saying, “We’re not bakers,
sir.
We’re special warfare, and we have, are, and will be at all times focused on that job. You should expect no less.”

Donovan’s eyes narrowed with anger as he said, “You little b—”

“All right you two,” Jeffrey said, his booming voice overriding all other words. Quieter, he said, “Please relax… Commander Zack is correct to stay focused on tasks related to special warfare. She should also be reminded that insubordination will not be tolerated from a Navy officer.”

Donovan crossed his arms, and Stacy’s jaw muscles tightened.

“And you Captain,” Holt said, pointing at Donovan, “Should remember that leaders lead because people follow, not because they have more stripes. Understood?”

Donovan’s expression sealed off behind a cold stare as he turned to Stacy, showing that he was ready for her to continue.

Stacy said, “To address your first statement, yes it’s a big
if,
but I think that we have some good hardware here.” She looked to Jeffrey and a slight smile drew over her face. “They’ve even solved the CO2 fault.”

Jeffrey laughed as he said, “Glad they waited until now to do that.”

“I don’t think they even realized it was a fault until you exposed it. At any rate, we have thirty singularity warheads able to be carried. I suggest we send a single operative into each location—”

“A single operative?” Donovan asked as though he considered the suggestion ridiculous. “Why only one? A pair would have better odds.”

“Agreed.” Her tone now came slow and steady, and Jeffrey knew she was doing her best to respect his wishes. “However, we have only twenty-five active-camo suits. This destroyer was not equipped for guerilla warfare, so we have only the stealth gear my team brings with them.”

Donovan stared at her, as if waiting for his next opportunity to object. Jeffrey saw Stacy’s ire rising again.

“As I was saying.” She stared at Donovan, who motioned with his hand dismissively for her to continue speaking. Drawing a slow breath, she said, “We should send one operative in with a singularity warhead in a back pack. We should position and detonate them at one time.” She looked directly at Donovan, as if already taking down another complaint, “We could do half the job with two person teams, but if one warhead is discovered, the rest might be discovered. We would then lose our advantage of surprise.”

At this Donovan pursed his lips and nodded as if her point was obvious.

Stacy continued, “We plant a singularity warhead near the base of each ship. The half-mile radius of the weapon should destroy a significant percentage of each. Each destroyer was what…” she looked to Jeffrey.

He shrugged.

Donovan said, “Each Sthenos ship is 6,543 feet in length. That means a singularity warhead at its aft will destroy over a third of the ship. More importantly, their entire drive section and landing base will be gone. One would hope the rest of the ship would be useless at that point.”

“Madam President,” Jeffrey said, “I want one agreement from you right now.”

Samantha shrugged, “I’m not in the position to offer much.”

“If we succeed, I don’t want any of these men and women,” he pointed to those standing around him, “to have to live through the fifty years of political bullshit I did.”

She flushed.

“If we succeed I want those destroyers left where they crash. I want a monument in each of those population centers, not a memorial, but a gutted out alien destroyer to remind us all they were and continue to be real.”

“Okay,” Samantha said. Her tone suggested she considered him a bit off for wanting such a thing.

“The first step is to get aircraft with better atmospheric qualities.” He looked to Stacy. “Please prepare your team.”

Stacy saluted and walked away.

“Stacy,” Jeffrey called after her, “send Marco Fields to me. I need him and your Warthog to move pilots.”

“Yes, sir.”

Jeffrey said to Holloway, “Inform your pilots to assemble tomorrow at 1600 hours for a briefing.”

“Yes, sir.”

Jeffrey looked back to the others. “The pilots who go on the run for aircraft will need to be modified. We’ll try to avoid engagement with Sthenos fighters but can’t guarantee it.”

Samantha said, “You mentioned once that the procedure is hazardous. Do we still need to take that risk?”

“Without question. We need Hammerheads to effectively face the Sthenos. They have one destroyer left in orbit, and thousands of fighters. At some point we’ll have to dance with them in zero G. We can’t do that effectively without modified pilots. The pilots who fly in atmosphere will be that much more deadly as well. We need every advantage we can get.”

As evening came on, heavy clouds rose in the west and covered over the sky, bringing early darkness. Under his tarp, which formed a comfortable space for a mattress propped up on containers and an area to sit where he’d laid out a section of fabric-like sheeting to keep the dirt down, Jeffrey sat on his mattress with his elbows on his knees, deep in thought. Rain began to fall in heavy drops on the tarp. A few moments later, it increased to a torrent. Someone ran up to his makeshift tent. The boots were smaller, a woman’s.

Samantha called from outside, “Jeffrey, can I come in? I’m getting soaked.”

“Yes, please,” Jeffrey said as he stood and lifted the tarp and makeshift mosquito netting.

“Thank goodness,” she said, ducking under the flap. Her hair and shoulders were wet, but the rain had yet to fully soak her. “I’m so glad I was near your tent.”

Jeffrey motioned for her to sit on his mattress. He sat on a container.

“I wouldn’t want to—”

“Please,” Jeffrey said, “The rain might not last long, but you might as well be comfortable while you wait.”

Smiling, she sat. Neither seemed to know what to say as the remaining light faded.

“Are you thinking about what I’m thinking about?” She asked finally.

“If you mean obsessing over what has to happen over the next few days, then yes.”

“Exactly.”

“Any good thoughts?”

“No,” she said, pushing her hair from her eyes. “To be honest, I don’t really want to think about it anymore tonight. I’m tired of it.”

“Okay.” Again, Jeffrey found himself with nothing to say.

“Tell me something.”

“Something?”

“Anything… something about you, your past.”

“I don’t tend to spend too much time talking or even thinking about my past.”

“Something about Leif then,” she said. “Something about his childhood… a good memory.”

Jeffrey let out his breath. That was something he was willing to think about. His life had been a series of tragedies, save his son.

He said, “Leif was an interesting kid. He was an only child, and we had a different relationship with him. We were parents surely, but we tried to be open and honest. Even in grade school, he’d call us
guys
as if we were roomates.” Jeffrey laughed. “
Hey guys, come here and look at this
, he’d say.” Jeffrey fell silent for a moment. “He had a really sensitive soul.” Jeffrey laughed aloud. “Any… I mean any heartfelt moment in a movie would make him cry. I’d know it was happening because he’d snuggle up next to me in the theater.”

“That’s very cute.”

“Once, in a restaurant, he started sobbing. I think he was about five. We asked him what was—” Jeffrey had to stop as the memory choked his words.

“I’m sorry Jeffrey, we don’t have to talk about it.”

“No, no, I’m sorry. It’s not a bad memory. Just one that fills my heart up a bit too much. We asked him what was wrong, and he said
the music’s just so sad
. Only then did I hear the piano music playing the background. It was Beethoven’s Sonata Pathétique, and it had brought him to tears. He was only five.”

“That’s beautiful.”

Jeffrey wiped his eyes. “He’s always had this monstrously big heart, since the day he was born. God, I struggled so much in being a good father to him. It was so easy to yell, so easy to lose my temper, and with a boy like Leif it felt like a sin every time I did. Kids can be so
frustrating
though. Every other day I felt like a failure, but he made it through, turned out okay. Not screwing him up has been the greatest triumph of my life, but he gets the lion’s share of the credit in my opinion.”

Silence fell between them. Darkness had come on so fully that Samantha was nothing more than an outline against the less-dark tarp hanging behind her. The rain’s heavy spatter continued to muffle all other sounds. Water rushed down the sides of the tarp, pouring into the trench Jeffrey had dug around its perimeter.

He asked, “What about you?”

She laughed in an uncomfortable tone. “I never had kids.”

“There must surely have been someone in your life.”

“Yes… there was…” Her words faded off, and in that silence Jeffrey sensed something she didn’t care to speak about. He had so many scars he didn’t want touched, he fully respected those of others.

“Tell me something happy then,” Jeffrey said. “What was your best memory as a child?”

“What? A child?” She laughed as though embarrassed. “That’s asking me to go a long way back.”

“Not nearly as long as I’d have to go.”

He could just make out a smile crossing her face in the darkness.

“Childhood…” she said before falling quiet. “You know the memories that are strongest for me are of the Northern California coast. I grew up in a small town, well… spent a few years there. We moved a lot when I was young. When we lived on the ocean, we’d go down to the beach every chance we could. We didn’t have a lot of money, and it was free. My favorite times came with the fog. A lighthouse near the bay had the most beautiful fog horn. It was an easy sound, as if it came from a huge conch shell. Those were peaceful times.”

“It sounds wonderful. I have some very good memories of the ocean as well.” He told her of his crash landing in the Tongan islands, being a cast away for a few weeks during the war.

When he finished, she said, “I thought the war didn’t come near Earth.”

“One engagement occurred right up on us, but didn’t make it through. The powers that be didn’t want people to panic, so they covered it up.”

She said, as though to herself, “A bit of a mistake considering what’s transpired over the last fifty years. People might have made better choices if they’d known how close they’d come last time.”

“I agreed with them then because I didn’t expect a movement would claim the war had been faked. I never could have seen that coming.”

As they talked, the rain let up somewhat, but remained steady.

Samantha yawned deeply.

“Come on then,” Jeffrey said, “lay back.”

“What?”

“It’s late. You can’t make it back to your tent without getting soaked.”

“I’m not going to take your bed. Where will you sleep?”

“I can sleep on the ground.”

“I can’t—”

“You can and you will. I can sleep
anywhere
. We all need you well rested tomorrow.” He motioned for her to stand. When she did he pulled open the blanket. “Now get comfortable.”

With an acquiescent sigh, she lay back on the bed. He flourished the blanket in the air, draping it over her. As he straightened the blanket over her legs he said, “I never in my life thought I’d be tucking the president of the United States into bed.”

“You’re not.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I’m tired right now Jeffrey… really tired. Tonight I’m just Samantha, okay?”

Only then did he understand how much she’d taken. People in power are so readily seen as super human, but if they’re good leaders, they’re just people like everyone else, with hopes and fears and limitations. Bending over, he gently kissed her forehead. “Goodnight Samantha.”

Her fingertips brushed his face. “Good night Jeffrey.”

He lay on the ground, and the patter of the rain quickly lulled him to sleep.