Audacity (Warner's World Book 5) (53 page)

In part, this medical operation was a way for him to stamp his authority. He had received a signal before his departure from his mother. She advised him not to have the surgery ‘The war hero needs a visible reminder of his exploits’ she had written.

He was fading fast now, the anaesthetic was claiming him. The image of the young doctor leaning over him dominated his last moments of consciousness. It was an easy face to like. It was not a stunning face or classic or chic but Charles found it very pleasing.

The gurney he was on was soon wheeled into the operating theatre. 1
^st
Lt Merry Li brought the gurney to a halt for the senior surgeon. He turned to her and asked “Any complications?”

She shook her head. She studied the face of the patient and noted that he actually looked content. She put that down to the drugs coursing through his system. “No we’re good to go!”

Chapter 3. Kiev to Q2 1500, 6 September

Phil Yomoto was enjoying a well-earned coffee break in his office when the priority message came in from Earth advising him of the gelk military commitment. His face lit up and his wide mouth stretched a little further as he grinned. “You beauty!” he exclaimed.

The gelk occupied a string of systems on the inner portion of the Orion Spur and shared a common frontier with the human federation. Despite some initial difficulties the humans and gelk had been coexisting and trading peacefully for many generations.

For months since the war began with the rogan empire the gelk had begged off taking sides. But less than two weeks ago the Federation foreign Minister had successfully secured their commitment to the fight. The signal provided the details Phil needed to integrate them into his strategic plan.

The 1st Gelk Expeditionary Fleet (GEF), including a carrier and 100 fighters and the entire Gondo Corps of crack troops were on their way. But they had a long way to warp in their second gen ships.

Phil pulled up his star charts on his terminal and began computing their earliest arrival time. The grin dissipated as he read the dates on his screen for each of the waypoints.
‘Polaris – 1 Oct 2513
Chelora – 2 Nov 2513
Q2 – 1 Dec 2513’

“Too late for this battle. Oh well, it will be a nice Xmas present” he said to himself out loud.

The news reminded him of a message in his queue from Dr Mani Govinda, head of new ship construction at Deathly Hollows on Polaris. He opened it and went straight to the production schedule. He scanned down the list of new craft under construction. He noted with a smile that at the end of the month another Resolute class cap and two more Phantom class frigates would be ready for trials. He knew that it would be another six weeks before he would see them in Chelora, four weeks if he really pushed it. A smile came over his face because he knew he would push it.

But the piece de resistance was the FFS Audacity a stealth carrier around which he could build an entire third gen fleet. But this depended on the Lightning stealth fighters. He opened the message he had received yesterday from the Electra Corporation and double checked the delivery dates. He already had forty five lined up along the underground apron of the Electra Corp facility at Bright Waters some 300kms west of Deathly Hollows on Polaris. The name was in stark contrast to its arid mountainous region. Phil smiled again as he remembered the quip by Sheila Shu, the program director at Electra that ‘Dark Waters would have been more apt’.

He began drafting his signal to Polaris HQ instructing them to form by whatever means necessary enough skilled personnel to crew the new ships. ‘If necessary mothball those second generation ships still under repair from the battle of Polaris and use their crew.’

Chapter 4. Cornucopia to Polaris 0400, 7 September

‘Why?’ asked Charles Chen within his subconscious. ‘Why do they keep hitting me? Why’ He tried to move his hand to his ear to stop the blows but it would not respond to his commands. He tried to shake his head but it too refused to comply with his wishes. “Stop” he screamed. “Stop it. Stop it!”

He felt the hand on his arm. It was cool. He heard the voices. He tried to open his eyes but the image swam, folded in on itself and swirled in a chaotic motion. Pounding feet…a new voice…’Aagh’…the hand on his brow was cool too. He tried harder to see. Out of the swirl appeared that face, that nice face.

Charles drifted back into sleep as the top up drugs were administered.

Merry Li turned to the nurse “He’s burning up. That extra 20 should do it. Check in on him every ten till his temp comes down. Call me if it doesn’t.”

Charles woke again just after 0700, though he had no concept of what the time was. He felt tired and weak. He opened his eyes. There was no swirling but it was dark save for a few red, blue and green dots and a faint white light over a panel on a machine. He tried to turn his head but then realised he was in a head brace. ‘Oh yes’ he said to himself as his memory flooded in.

He couldn’t move his hands. They were in a restraint too. In fact, now that he applied his wakening sensors he realised they had him in a full harness. “Terrific” he said out loud. He felt incredibly thirsty. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the tubes hanging down from the bag of liquid hanging on his left. His mind deduced that if he was on a drip he shouldn’t be thirsty. But he was nonetheless.

“Water” he called out. He called out several times before a shadow appeared through the curtain that surrounded him and said “Awake are we?”

“Thirsty” he muttered.

“How are you feeling, still got that headache?”

Charles had no idea what she was talking about. “OK I suppose. Can I get a drink.”

The nurse deemed it safe to remove the restraints on his limbs. She was not going to remove the head brace. But she did unclamp it so he could at least raise his head.

Charles appreciated the drink. With his thirst quenched he felt hungry. But the nurse shook her head when he asked about breakfast. “Not until the doctor sees you. That won’t be long.”

Twenty minutes later Charles saw that face again. Merry Li was tired but she managed a smile. She asked him some questions, checked his stats and said “You’re still running a bit of a temperature. We need to monitor that. I’m going to keep you in the ward for another day.”

Somehow that news didn’t worry Charles at all. “Will you be checking up on me?”

“Till 0800 anyway. But another doctor will be on duty then.”

Charles managed a smile. He didn’t even complain when she told him it would be best if he avoids solids for now. She reassured him that the glucose gave him all the energy he needed for now. He wasn’t really paying attention to her words but he enjoyed the sound of her voice. It carried a softness that he liked.

After she left the room he lay there thinking about the sound of her voice as he closed his eyes. ‘No edge to it’ he thought ‘not like mother’s.’

Chapter 5. Resolute over Q2 0610, 7 September

Dave Warner had woken early. John Conrad’s grinning face had haunted him.  Dave forced himself out of bed and meditated for half an hour. This brought him a measure of peace. ‘One hundred percent commitment…zero percent attachment’ Dave had muttered to himself as he came out of meditation.

Normally at this stage he would go to the gym but instead he took the elevator up to A deck and entered the command centre.

“Sir?” queried 1
^st
Lt Val Gomez, the ship’s quartermaster, who had the dog watch. She was surprised to see him at this hour.

“Morning Val” said Dave as he sat down in his commander’s chair. “Nothing’s up” he reassured her as he checked the time on his terminal. “It’s almost dawn.”

Val checked her terminal and confirmed “yes it is, why?”

“How would you like to see it?” Dave had an almost mischievous smile on his face.

“We’ll have to decloak” advised Val.

“Yeah we will.”

Val smiled back at him. “Sure why not. Allow me.” She hit the control to raise the shields over the circular windows that surrounded the circular command centre. From their current perspective they were looking eastward towards where the sun would rise but the rim of the planet was barely visible. “Lower the nose?” asked Val.

“Yes that would be nice.”

Val adjusted the controls to nudge the angle of the ship down relative to the planet. The ships thrusters compensated to keep the ship in geo stationary orbit over Rollinium. So now the first glow of the morning was appearing in the centre of the planet’s rim in front of them.

They both sat back in their chairs and gazed in awe as the sun appeared to rise over the rim, even though it was the planet that was rotating and with it their ship. But the effect was magical no matter which way you liked to view it.

Dave took a deep breath in, filling his lungs with air as the golden light seemed to fill his vista. He imagined he was back at Terra Fuago on Polaris where he had had his honeymoon with Rihan. Only there he could actually feel his body warm up under the rising sun. The memory of that warmth was good even if he was denied the actual experience of it here.

He closed his eyes and he felt like he was being bathed in energy. It nourished his spirit. ‘And I need nourishing’ he said to himself. ‘How long can I…how long can we sustain this?’ he asked himself. He longed for a break. But he knew there was little prospect at the moment.

He knew that there was a good chance the enemy would return in greater numbers. He had to stay though and defend Q2 till the Combined Fleet arrived at the end of the month. Then he hoped he and his overworked subordinates could get some rest.

The image of the sun’s glow now imprinted onto his retinas reclaimed his focus and he rested in the space. It was just like in some of his meditations when the inner eye was filled with grace’s golden light. He revelled in it for a good two minutes.

He opened his eyes and the sun was well and truly above the rim now. It was quite bright and he moved his hand to shield his eyes.

“You missed most of it” observed Val.

Dave smiled at her. “I got what I needed.”

Chapter 6. Kiev to Q2 2100, 7 September

Phil was on his third beer for the night. He felt guilty but justified it on the grounds that it had been a hard day. He was lounging in the officers mess when Greta came in. She nodded and came over to him.

“Message in from Pious” she said, referring to political officer Commodore Julian Pious.

“And?”

“He left for Cheklin in the Phantom four days ago when he got Evie’s message. Says he’s going to make the necessary arrangements…”

Phil cut in “what necessary arrangements?”

“I’m getting to that” she said a little irritated. “He says he’s going to make the necessary arrangements for the subordination of Federation assets in a combined Fleet under Resistance authority.”

“Has he indeed” said Phil and took another swallow of his beer. “There was a time I thought I was the boss around here.”

Greta was a mature woman blessed with good humour. She smiled as she gave a tilt of her head.

“Anything more?” asked Phil.

“Oh just that the Phantom has transferred all its remaining missiles to the Spectre and Raptor.”

“Oh terrific, we are sending our most powerful frigate into harm’s way without any teeth.”

“But it makes sense Sir. This is purely a non-combat mission and Q2 is the defensive priority, right?”

“Yeah, yeah” said Phil. “Thank you and good night” he said with a wave of his hand. He got a frown from Greta in response. She turned and left.

Phil took another swallow from his beer glass and leaned back into the lounge. ‘You get days like these’ he reminded himself. ‘It will pass.’

Chapter 7. Phantom over Cheklin 0400, 8 September

Commander Aubrey Bellard had made sure her ship, the FFS Phantom, would arrive on the far side of Cheklin from its sun so they could take advantage of the dark to insert Commodore Julian Pious. He was a political officer and not her operational superior, but even in his combat gear, which seemed incongruous with the man she had come to know quite well, he still cut a commanding figure.

They were here deep in enemy space, over a rogan home world no less, so the Commodore could negotiate a deal with the Cheklin Resistance. Two rogan capital and two light ships patrolled the space above the planet along with the massive Dogon space station and its missiles batteries and fighter squadrons.

This was not a good place to be for a single frigate, especially one carrying only two of its normal 100 missiles. It did have one advantage over its adversaries and it was a big advantage. The Phantom was one of the new third generation stealth ships. It had warped in cloaked and would remain cloaked till they left.

While cloaked they were invisible to enemy radar and could only be detected by enemy ladar if they were directly looking at the craft. They could launch their stealth shuttles, known affectionately as warthogs, but otherwise they could not fire missiles, beam or pulse weapons or send radio signals or emit any other emissions. Doing so would expose them to detection and most likely destruction.

Aubrey’s blond ponytail bobbed at the back of her head as she entered the hangar bay walking briskly. She looked across at Julian as he yawned. First Lieutenant (1
^st
Lt) Tola Puchanski was next to him doing a pre mission check with Sergeant (Sgt) Madge Soderberg, leader of Bravo Team – the marines that would accompany them.

“Don’t worry Sir we’ll be hanging around for the duration” said Aubrey.

“That’s reassuring Aubrey” he said.

It was at that moment that Aubrey was hailed. “Yes, what is it.”

“You and the Commodore should see this before you go” said Second Lieutenant (2
^nd
Lt) Neo Kone, the ships communications and intelligence (CI) officer. “It’s important.”

“Sir we have to go back up” conveyed Aubrey. Julian nodded without asking why. If the truth be known he was still trying to wake up. He yawned several times as they ascended the elevator to A deck.