Second Earth (31 page)

  
“And what a
beautiful backside it is,” the sergeant replied slyly.

  
“Well, I expect a
little gratitude for…oh, I don’t know…destroying the enemy’s defensive
capabilities single-handedly.”

  
Melissa turned and
whispered playfully into Shawn’s ear. “Sounds like someone I know.”

  
Shawn couldn’t help
but pinch her someplace currently invisible to both Trent and Clarissa.

  
“Of course,” Trent
said nervously. “Yes. Right.” He moved in to kiss her, but just as his lips
were about to brush hers, she held up a hand to his chest to stay his weak
advance.

  
“Oh, no you don’t.
Not here, and certainly not now. My quarters, thirty minutes, and don’t be
late.” She then turned her head toward Shawn. “With your permission of course,
sir.”

  
Shawn held up his
hands, knowing not get in the way when a driven woman wanted something. “I
didn’t see anything, and I know nothing, Ensign. Carry on…both of you.”

  
“Thank you, sir.”
McAllister said it with a smile and a salute, then shifted her eyes toward
Trent. She lowered her voice as she gave the handsome mechanic a once-over.
“Thirty minutes, Sergeant. Starting ten minutes ago.” She then turned and left
the hangar.

  
Trent offered Shawn
a quick salute, then brought his palms together and looked to the distant
overhead, mouthing the words, “Thank you, God,” before turning and heading off
in McAllister’s direction.

  
“Should we be
worried about those two?” Melissa asked as she placed an arm around Shawn’s
waist and turned to face him once more.

  
“Everyone needs
love,” he said as he looked into her sparkling eyes.

  
“Everyone?” she
repeated, cocking an eyebrow.

  
“Everyone.” As he
leaned down to kiss her once more, his name was called over the ship’s
intercom, as well as those of Melissa and Roslyn Brunel. It was the voice of
Caitlin Hayes, and they were to report to CIC immediately.

  
Krif was still
standing on the upper deck near the large holotable when Shawn and Melissa
arrived. Melissa noted with approval that most of the chaos of the last hour
had died down. Where there had once been a bustle of activity and a cacophony
of voices, there were now only the murmured whispers between officers and
specialists that indicated business as usual for a fleet carrier.

  
In fact, only the
ship’s operations officer, Commander Caitlin Hayes, turned to regard the pair
as they entered the space. She and Shawn shared an understanding glance before
Krif’s voice boomed from the upper deck.

  
“Get up here now.
Both of you.”

  
Melissa, followed
closely by Shawn, reached for the handrails and hoisted herself up the few
steps to the upper deck. She could see that Krif was clearly scrutinizing a
large three-dimensional representation of the Kafaran carrier.

  
As Shawn approached
the side of the table, Richard turned his head and regarded the exhausted
pilot. He was still drenched in sweat, and his flight suit looked as if it had
seen better days. “You look like hell, Kestrel.”

  
“It’s nothing
compared to how I feel,” Shawn said tersely. “Would you mind if I got cleaned
up before you grilled me for questions, Captain?”

  
Krif’s eyes shifted
to Lieutenant Commander Roslyn Brunel, who was climbing another set of steps up
to the raised deck. When she cleared the few paces to the table, she and Krif
nodded silently at one another, and Shawn got the distinct impression that Krif
almost smiled. Almost. It was then that the captain turned back toward Shawn.

  
“In fact I would
mind, hotshot. Unless you’ve failed to notice, we have some unwanted guests out
there.” Krif nodded his head toward the image.

  
Shawn gave the
image a passing glance. “They seemed pretty helpful to me.”

  
Melissa, not sure
she’d just heard Shawn correctly, turned to him in surprise, but the commander
kept his eyes locked on Krif.

  
“That’s debatable,”
Krif snorted as he began to manipulate the floating image of the carrier.

  
“Meaning?” Shawn
asked.

  
“Do we know for a
fact that they were assisting us?” Krif asked as the image changed from the
carrier to the Kafaran destroyer. “For all we know, the Kafarans and the
Meltranians could be at war with one another, and we were just in the wrong
place at the wrong time.”

  
“The protection of
Second Earth falls within the jurisdiction of the Unified Collaboration of
Systems,” Melissa piped in. “If anything,
they
are the ones in the wrong place.”

  
“I’m not entirely
convinced of that,” Richard replied. Before Melissa could ask him to explain
his statement further he continued. “And, when you add the fact that William
Graves is on
that
carrier over there
and not this one, it lends itself to a very sticky situation.”

  
The mention of the
admiral got the undivided attention of everyone gathered around the table.
Admiral William Graves was alive. There was little doubt of that fact. However,
that simple revelation was wrought with new questions that needed to be quickly
answered. Graves was on a Kafaran carrier, and it looked for all intents like
he had been issuing battle orders to the Kafarans during the skirmish with the
Meltranians. How could he have been placed in such a position, and under what
circumstances?

  
Every officer
gathered around the holotable knew exactly what the next course of action
needed to be, but it was Shawn who put a voice to it. “How do we get him over
here?”

 
 
“An assault is out of the question,” Roslyn
chimed in. “I’ve been down in the hangar since we got back. It’s a real mess
down there. Three-quarters of our forces are out of commission.”

  
“If I thought it
would make a difference, Commander Brunel, I’d order everything we had into
space right now,” Krif cut in with razor sharpness. “However, our best sensor
scans are showing that the Kafaran carrier only lost about half their fighters
in the confrontation with the Meltranians, which means they currently outnumber
us almost three to one.”

  
“And the
Breckenridge
?” Shawn asked.

  
Krif nodded slowly.
“She’s still in once piece, but there were a number of casualties on board, not
the least of which was the commanding officer and the ship’s exec. Her propulsion
has been cut in half, and most of her secondary batteries are out. Considering
the Kafaran destroyer is in the same state, I don’t think we can count on
either of them coming back to fight anytime soon.”

  
“How close is our
nearest support?” Shawn asked as he pondered the sensor readouts being
displayed near the holographic image.

  
“We just received a
coded message from the
Duchess of York
battle group,” Krif said glumly. “They’ve increased to flank speed, and will be
at the nearest jump point in three hours, but that still puts them twenty hours
away. By the time they get here, we could be staring down the barrels of a lot
more Kafarans, to say nothing about any Meltranians that might pop in looking
for their lost ship.”

  
Melissa spoke up,
voicing her concern over the thought that most of them probably had at that
moment. “We can’t withdraw, not without retrieving the admiral first. If we
don’t get him aboard the
Rhea
now, we
may never get another chance to do it. If they decide to move him further into
Kafaran territory—”

  
“There’s no way the
UCS Council will authorize an incursion into Kafaran space for his retrieval,”
Shawn said as he finished her thought for her and looked to her sorrowfully.
“And I highly doubt the OSI would be able to do anything about it, either.”

  
Though Melissa had
her doubts over Shawn’s last statement, she decided to keep them to herself for
the time being.

  
Before the
assembled officers could contemplate further on their situation, a call to the
captain rang out across CIC. It was from Lieutenant Clifton at communications.

  
“Captain, we have
an incoming communication coming from the Kafaran carrier.”

  
“Maybe now we’ll
get some answers,” Krif said defiantly as he folded his thick arms across his
chest and moved toward the edge of the upper deck railing. From this position,
he could easily survey the entirety of CIC, as well as being afforded an
unobstructed view of the large screen on the forward bulkhead. “Open the
channel, Lieutenant.”

  
“Yes, sir.”

  
The screen wavered
momentarily, then was filled with the image of William Graves. The admiral’s
uniform was smudged, and he appeared to have suffered a cut to the lip during
the battle. Nonetheless, he looked utterly capable of his command position.

  
“Well done out
there, Captain Krif,” William offered.

  
Richard nodded
silently, refusing to acknowledge the Kafarans’ support in the matter.

  
William smiled
softly, and both Shawn and Melissa got the distinct impression that he could
see them standing close behind Krif. “I assume, Richard, that you’ve contacted
the
Duchess of York
for assistance,
correct? It’s my understanding that they are two days distant at maximum
speed.”

  
Krif neither
confirmed nor denied the information. “I’m afraid I can’t discuss that over an
open channel, sir. You should know that.”

  
William looked
pensive for a moment. “Of course, Captain. I keep forgetting that I’ve been
privy to a considerable amount of information that you very likely don’t
have.”
 

  
“I’m sure you have,
Admiral.” Richard tried to keep all emotion out of his tone.

  
“I think, Captain,
that it’s time for a full debriefing on the matter. I’m quite sure it’s time to
put to rest some of your misgivings. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  
Krif nodded. “We
were just talking about the same thing, Admiral.”

  
“Yes, Richard. I’m
certain you were,” Graves said as he nodded thoughtfully. He briefly turned and
nodded off to the side of the screen before looking back at Krif. “I’ve secured
a shuttle that will take us over the
Rhea
at 1800 hours. Will that be acceptable?”

  
“Us?” both Krif and
Melissa said in unison.

  
Just then, a
Kafaran stepped into the camera’s field of view and stood proudly behind
William. Even without seeing one in over half a decade, the sight instantly
brought a collective gasp from the entire compartment.

  
A row of eyes—the
larger, primary ones situated on the outside of a pair of smaller ones—stared
back, unblinking, at the
Rhea
’s
officers. The Kafaran’s flattened brow, the center of which contained two small
receptors embedded into a raised lump, seemed to furrow under the scrutiny. A
cluster of spikelike teeth in the center of the creature’s jaw grated almost
imperceptibly against one another as it surveyed the humans. A moment later,
its dense, mottled-brown exoskeletal structure swelled as it took a breath.

  
“As best a human
can pronounce,” William began, “this is Savath. He is the Thaulan of this
battle group. The closest approximation I can come up with would be the rank of
Fleet Commodore.”

  
Still in partial
shock, the crew of the
Rhea
remained
motionless. Most had only seen a Kafaran in one of the many historical
recordings from the Galactic War. Those records, most of which were
near-unwatchable, were recovered from Unified colony worlds where Kafaran shock
troopers had landed during the war and decimated the populations.

  
“Commodore Savath
and a handful of aides will be accompanying me in the shuttle,” William said authoritatively.
“He will be able to better explain to you the severity of the situation.”

  
“He’ll be able to
explain?” Krif exclaimed. “Don’t tell me that thing knows our language.”

  
Shawn watched as
the admiral’s gaze turned into a steady glare.

  
“With the help of
some of their linguistic technicians, I’ve compiled a rudimentary database of
the Kafaran language. You should be able to upload it into the
Rhea
’s computer banks, thereby making
normal conversation with the Kafaran possible.”