Two weeks of sedated FTL travel seemed like only a brief night’s sleep. Admiral Scoggins found herself right back in VR on Conqueror’s bridge, without the careful transition of the first journey. At least the trip was much faster descending the stellar gradient from Center.
“I have Admiral Absen for you, ma’am,” Johnstone said.
“Put it on the main screen.”
“Welcome back, Admiral,” Absen said when his face appeared. “We’re several light-minutes apart, so I’ll give you all this up front. Thanks to your report and Deathbringer’s further observations, we are prepared as well as we can be. You absolutely did the right thing, Melissa, no matter how this works out. You conducted the raid, you took down their mega-ship, probably killed their boss and his cronies, and you brought all ships home with minimum losses. That was the mission I assigned you, and that’s what you did. Don’t let anyone tell you different.”
“Thank you, sir. What are your orders?” Scoggins said, and then chuckled to herself. She would have to wait quite a while for a genuine reply.
Fortunately, Absen continued, apparently anticipating her question. “You will spread out to positions I’ve assigned along the Jericho Line. You should already be receiving a data package on a separate freq. We’ve had almost four months to build, and we’ve concentrated on SLAM III production. We have over a hundred of them scattered around Sol now. They’ll fire immediately on any enemy they identify. As soon as we see how they do, your ships will take independent action using TacSLAMs or capital weaponry to destroy them before they can deploy swarms or gather their forces. Good luck, Melissa, and good hunting.”
Immediately, Scoggins began issuing orders to each ship and crew to take their positions along the Jericho line according to the details in the data Michelle had received.
“Skipper, I have an urgent request,” Commander Johnstone said to Scoggins as soon as he could get a word in edgewise.
“What?” Scoggins barked, preoccupied.
“The automated SLAM IIIs need to concentrate on the fifteen surviving flagships. Hell, Deathbringer alone could probably kill every mothership core they can throw at us, and he’d hardly take a scratch. It’s the heavy grasers that are the threat.”
“So what are you saying?”
“I need the entry codes for the SLAM software patching process so I can tweak their attack criteria. From headquarters, I mean. Right away. They’re only a few hours behind us, and I may need that time to make the changes from the inside.”
“Request it under my signature, then.”
Johnstone smirked. “Already did, ma’am.”
“Better to ask forgiveness than permission, eh?” She chuckled.
“You taught me that.”
Briefly, Scoggins asked herself why James couldn’t be more like Rick Johnstone, good-natured and casual instead of uptight and combative, and then stuffed that genie back in the bottle. Falling in love was hardly a choice. Once this latest crisis was put behind her, maybe she and her husband could take a long vacation and try to reconnect over something other than shared shipboard experiences.
She’d always wanted to learn to ballroom dance. Maybe...
Shaking herself free of her wandering thoughts – was this a symptom of too much time in VR? – she went back to getting her task force set up as Absen wanted them.
Thirteen C-ships, plus the rebuilt Constitution fresh from the shipyards of Jupiter, waited interspersed with the six surviving D-ships plus Deathbringer, strung in a great ring just outside the Jericho Line.
Devastator proceeded under fusion drive toward the orbital docks of Earth for repairs; if the fight reached the planet again, he would add his weight of metal to the defense.
“Do you really think we can take them?” Ford asked two hours later, stepping up beside his wife and admiral.
“You still objecting to Bull’s arguments? Or are you just mad that I took his side?” Scoggins snapped more harshly than necessary, instantly regretting it.
What’s gotten into me? she wondered.
Hurt, Ford turned away and sat down at his console again. “It was an honest question, ma’am. That’s all.”
“I apologize, Commander. I’m wound too tight right now.”
“No problem, ma’am.” He didn’t look at her.
Sighing internally, Scoggins tried to get her mind back on work. She considered having Michelle speed time up until something, anything, happened, but for now, they simply waited, and waited some more, for the enemy to show.
Finally, she gave the order she should have two hours ago, with that much longer to wait for the Scourge’s emergence. “Pass the word. Call Captain Indira. Rotate the watch. The enemy won’t likely show for at least five more hours. Everyone take a break. Have a beer. Hell, go lie on a beach in Tahiti; we’re in VR, after all.”
Okuda opened his eyes and smiled up at her before vanishing from his cockpit. In his place, another man appeared. “Master Chief Rensselaer reports for duty,” he said, and she nodded.
One by one, her officers were replaced with others, until Captain Indira stepped through the door in a more conventional manner. She strode up to Scoggins and saluted. “Ma’am, you are relieved.”
“I am relieved,” Scoggins replied, returning the salute.
And I am relieved, in both senses, Scoggins thought. I know exactly what I need to do for the next few hours.
“Michelle, where’s James?” she asked.
“In his crash chair, Admiral,” Michelle replied with a wink.
“I know where his body is. Where’s his consciousness?”
“In your quarters.”
“Excellent.”
Moments later, she walked through the door of her suite to see James standing in front of the mirror, his tunic unbuttoned.
“Hello, Admiral,” he said, not turning.
“James...please don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“This thing you do when you’re mad.” She held up a hand to forestall his reply. “Never mind right now. Let’s go somewhere. We have four hours of realtime. We can stretch that to days in VR. How about Lake Tahoe? Do some parasailing?” She walked up behind him to hug him around the waist.
“All I want to do is kill those bastards and get it over with,” he said as if she hadn’t spoken. “I can’t relax until it’s done.”
“I know what you mean. How about if we just stay here? There are other ways to relax...” She ran her hands under his T-shirt, feeling deliciously hard muscles there.
A smile crept onto his face, visible in the mirror. “That’s cheating.”
“If you ain’t cheatin,’ you ain’t tryin’,” she said.
Her husband turned to sweep her up in his arms, carrying her toward the bed. “Then let’s try as hard as we can.
***
Four hours later on the dot, Scoggins reassumed her watch and dismissed Indira. “Nothing yet?” she asked, pointedly not looking in Ford’s direction as he took his seat.
“No, ma’am,” Fletcher replied. “We’ll get the sixteen-minute FTL wave front warning...if they’re coming.”
“Sure would be nice to have some kind of long-range detection mechanism,” she mused.
“And I’d like a ski condo on the slopes of Olympus Mons, but that’s not happening any time soon, Skipper,” Ford said with a smile.
The next four-hour watch passed slowly, filled with similar banter, some awkward, some relaxed. The officers lounged in their chairs or paced, chatting and passing routine reports. It reminded Scoggins of long periods at sea during her wet navy days so long ago. She wasn’t used to it anymore, she found.
Three full rotations came and went, twenty-four more hours, and she reluctantly decided to begin dumping the crew out of VR in phases. After nearly four months under, sedated or in the virtuality, she suspected things might get rough for a few people, and Doc Horton would be working overtime in the rehab clinic, but it had to be done.
Her worst fear was that the enemy would show an hour later, with everyone readjusting to their own bodies again. That was why she ordered a slow approach, the bridge officers the last to be decanted.
Days passed before Scoggins eventually consulted with Absen and put her ships back on their normal routine rather than watch-on, watch-off. She ordered regular drills, requiring everyone to make it into VR space within five minutes.
At least things seemed better with James.
Once days turned to weeks, though, she began to wonder.
***
When Devastator left dry dock to rejoin his brothers on the Line, major repairs finished, Absen decided enough was enough. “Armstrong, assemble my staff,” he said to the moon base’s pseudo-AI.
When his officers arrived at the irritatingly comfortable command conference room, he didn’t bother to sit. “Ladies and gentlemen, tomorrow at noon GMT we need to begin rotating out our crews on leave and resuming a normal, if vigilant, routine. It’s been five weeks since Task Force Center returned, and no enemy has shown his face. Based on Captain Fleede’s analysis and further interrogation of the prisoners, I now believe that they won’t be coming for some time. In fact, it’s likely the Scourge are in a state of civil war, and it will take probably years, perhaps decades, before they unify again under one Archon – if they ever do.”
Absen stalked around the room, pacing between the senior officers seated at the table and the more junior ones lining the walls. “We can’t live every moment at hair-trigger readiness. Frankly, our non-sentient machines can do that for us. With TacDrive, we can keep all our ships in position and simply put fresh crews on them as needed. The only ones that won’t get a break for a while are the integrated AIs of the D-ships and C-ships, but eventually we’ll have enough forces to swap whole ships out as well as personnel.”
Admiral Sawyer nodded. “I agree, sir. I’ve studied the reports and I’m convinced that we’ve turned a corner. Even if the Scourge sent everything they had at Center to attack us, we’d probably win, now that we have enough SLAM IIIs in place.”
Absen’s face formed a half-smile. “So you’re saying we can hold out indefinitely?”
“Yes, sir. That’s all we need to do.”
Absen held himself back from embarrassing Sawyer for her timidity. She was a good match to administrate the defensive works, the bases and orbitals, but would never rise to command a fleet, he supposed. Not with that mindset.
“No, Admiral, it’s not enough. It’s only half of what we need to do, or less. Shall I give you a to-do list?”
Without waiting for her response, Absen continued, raising fingers as he checked off topics. “One, we have to secure Gliese 370 and Ryssa just as well as Earth is. The entire fleet is sitting here while they’re vulnerable to any decent-sized Scourge attack.”
He held up a second finger. “Two, we need to establish solid comms with the Meme Empire and Spectre, and get their ships equipped with TacDrives and FTL, otherwise we’re just a bunch of separated islands rather than a true empire of allies.”
Absen’s thumb joined the first two fingers. “Three, we have to produce and send out recon drones, thousands of them, to each star system around us, to find out just what we’re facing.” Another finger. “Four, we need to assemble another strike fleet to decapitate the Scourge’s regional capitals just like we did Center, to keep them off balance.”
The last finger on his right hand went up. “Five, we need to begin a massive effort to establish colonies of all three races on every planet where they’ll thrive, and get the Meme to join us in those systems with their living ships. In other words, we need to get out there and form a real alliance with strategic depth, not just a fragile grouping of worlds with a strong military. Those are the things we need to do...for a start.”
By the time he’d finished, the officers around Absen were nodding and exchanging enthusiastic whispers. They broke out in spontaneous applause as he made his way toward his seat.
“That’s an ambitious agenda, sir,” Sawyers said, her mien serious. “Is the civilian government on board?”
“I’ve already run this by the Emperor – I mean, the Chairman – and he has the cabinet and the Assembly debating it right now. He’s assured me that it’s being well received.”
Sawyer snorted. “For now. They’re still scared. Just wait until the politicians feel like the threat has abated – and they see what it’s going to cost.”
“All the more reason to get the ball rolling now.” Absen swept the room with his eyes. “The official outline of what I just told you should be in all of your inboxes already. I need you to begin filling in your annexes and implementing your parts of the plan just as soon as you can. Armstrong should have all the data you need at his fingertips. Dismissed.”
As Absen walked back, he felt his stomach begin to unknot for the first time in ages. EarthFleet had genuinely turned a corner, he believed. Perhaps now he could put all these skin-of-the-teeth defensive battles behind him. Just once, he’d really like to organize, train and equip a well-planned military organization to conduct a long-term campaign.
The key was to begin to act rather than react, to get out in front of the enemy’s decision curve and stay there, striking when and where he chose, like he’d done with the Meme.
Finally, after two hundred years of war, that goal seemed within his grasp.