Echo of Tomorrow: Book Two (The Drake Chronicles) (2 page)

“Welcome home ladies and gentlemen. My name is Lieutenant Colonel Pete Mitchell, some of you know me, and some of you don’t. It is my pleasure to congratulate you on your success in completing the training, and your promotions.” He looked around the assembled group, seeing the contingent from New Zealand and Japan, as well as a sizable number of new faces from Great Britain.

“I might add that damages for last night’s party will be paid by His Majesty’s Government, although I’m told that the country’s budget will now be in the red for the next ten years, so I should congratulate you on a successful party as well.” That brought groans from around the room, since few could remember anything about last night.

“That was the good news, now the bad. I have your duty assignments, and most of you are on your way into orbit to take up your new posts within the hour. Those of you who are up to it, a meal has been laid on in the mess.” He chuckled. “For the other, Doctor Chase is standing by to administer medical treatment. As your names are called, please step, or stagger forward and collect your travel documents and assignment. As soon as you have done that, you are free to go to the mess hall, or the medical center.” That brought a few soft laughs and more than a few groans.

The roll call started, and one by one they walked forward and took their package, valiantly returning the salute. The only two names not mentioned were Kat and Scott’s. They looked at each other, puzzled, but Pete didn’t even seem to notice them. In the end, they were the only two people out of the group remaining in the hangar, and Scott started getting an uneasy feeling he was in for it. Brock had vanished the moment the shuttle set down, but that was to be expected, since he had pressing duties to attend to. So it was with some surprise they saw him enter the hangar with several people in tow.

“I have the horrible feeling that I’m about to take it in the shorts again,” Scott murmured, watching the group advance their way.

“What!” Kat asked, looking around, yawning.

“Paybacks are a bitch.”

“I don’t know, he looks happy, so why do you think he’s going to get you?”

“Gunny Brock only wears that smile when he’s about to get someone. This time it’s me!”

“Sublieutenant Scott Drake, front and center!” Brock snapped, walking up to the podium. Scott straightened up, jerking his uniform tunic down, and marched as best he could to the front of the podium, stopped, came to attention, and saluted.

“Sublieutenant Scott Drake reporting, sir!” Beside Brock stood three men he didn’t recognize, all with more gold stripes around their jacket cuffs than he’d seen in many a year. One of them stepped forward.

“My name is Hardwood, Commodore Hardwood, this is Admiral Kennings, and this is the First Sea Lord Sir Anthony Graves,” Hardwood said, introducing the others. Scott shook hands with each of them, wondering if he should salute as well. Each smiled and shook hands and congratulated him, and he had the sneaking suspicion they were in on Gunny Brock’s payback.

“This is a somewhat unusual occurrence,” Commodore Hardwood continued after the round of introductions, “as in there is no precedent for it. So, let’s get on with it, shall we?” It was a question Scott didn’t know the answer to, or even if it was directed at him, so he remained silent.

“Sublieutenant Drake,” the First Sea Lord said, walking up to stand facing him. “By the power invested in me by His Majesty the King, the Government of the United Kingdom, the Emperor of Japan and the President of the World Council, I hereby appoint you to the rank of Admiral of the Fleet.” Scott blinked in surprise, but remained silent.

“By the power invested in me by his Majesty the King, the Government of the United Kingdom, the Emperor of Japan and the President of the World Council, I hereby appoint you to the rank of Admiral. You are hereby requested and required by the Articles of War to take up the said duties and responsibility of the position of Admiral of the fleet effective immediately and prosecute the war against any and all enemies that threaten the safety and well-being of the people of this planet. Congratulations Admiral.” The First Sea Lord’s grin got bigger seeing the stunned expression on Scott’s face. He held his hand out, and Scott shook it. In turn, they each shook his limp hand, including Kat, who was grinning from ear to ear. Brock was the last.

“Got you!” Brock whispered.

“Son of a …”

“Now, now, Admiral, is that any way to talk to your subordinates?” Brock said.

“We have one more duty to perform,” Brock continued. “Sublieutenant Katharina Moore, front and center!”

Kat jumped in surprise, wishing she hadn’t, and remembered to come to attention before saluting. “Sublieutenant Moore reporting as ordered, sir!” she squeaked, hearing Scott chuckle behind her.

“By the power invested in me by his Majesty the King, the Government of the United Kingdom, the Emperor of Japan and the President of the World Council, I hereby appoint you to the rank of Group Captain. You are hereby requested and required by the Articles of War to take up the said duties and responsibility of the position of Group Captain effective immediately and prosecute the war against any and all enemies that threaten the safety and well-being of the people of this planet. Congratulations Group Captain,” he said, extending his hand. Kat recovered quicker than Scott and shook hands all round, smiling and accepting gracefully, finally getting her voice back.

“We’ll talk about shorts later,” she whispered to Scott as they shook hands.

The First Sea Lord said, looking around, “Right! That’s got over with, where is the mess, I’m hungry. The in-flight service was horrible.” He laughed.

“This way,” Brock announced, and led the march across the hangar to a waiting staff car, with Kat and Scott trailing the others.

“I suppose it was inevitable really,” Kat said to Scott. “This whole deal is so screwed up, it was the only logical course of action.”

“Admiral of the Fleet?” Scott muttered. “I’d hoped they’d pick someone else and give me a chance to get my feet wet.”

“Who on earth, literally, is there except you?” she asked, cocking an eyebrow.

“Well, I don’t know, but you’d think his nibs over there would have wanted it.” Even before he finished saying it, Kat was shaking her head.

“The First Sea Lord is a saltwater sailor. He’d be the first to tell you he knows next to nothing about running a space fleet, nor has any combat experience to boot.”

“So what makes him think I do?”

“Ask him!” It was a logical suggestion. Scott waited until the meal was served, tucking away a good-sized meal before he did, which made him feel a hundred percent better. After several more cups of coffee, he broached the question.

“Why did we pick you?” the First Sea Lord replied.

“Yes, sir.”

“Drop the ‘sir,’ we don’t need all that nonsense between us. My first name is Anthony, and inevitably, it ends up as Tony. However, to answer your question, it wasn’t just me. The question came up at a meeting six months ago between Colonel Brock, myself, the PM, the representative from Japan, and believe it or not, the President of the World Council, President Westwood. It was concluded that you were the only logical choice, and the only one with the combat experience to hold the rank.”

“That doesn’t make sense, you should have taken the position,” Scott said, but Tony shook his head, looking sad.

“I have no experience of combat whatsoever, and neither do any of my colleagues. Ours is all theoretical.” That was true, Scott silently agreed. “Colonel Brock has his hands full with putting together an army. Lieutenant Colonel Pete Mitchell has the headache of organizing the logistics and running your intel division, Major Jeff Turner is working his ass off getting the ships built, so he’s out.”

“What about …” Scott stopped and looked over at Pete. They were right. Pete didn’t have the experience, and neither did any of the other recently promoted officers he could think of.

“The decision wasn’t made in haste, and the PM was concerned that you might not do well at the academy.” That brought a smile around the table. “As it turned out, you were top of your class, far exceeding any of ours, and the instructors’, expectations. You have an instinctive grasp of military strategy, both in two dimensions, and three, and that’s the key to all this.”

“I don’t know any more about running a bloody space fleet than the man in the moon, I’m a ground pounder, a tank man.”

“They don’t know any more than you,” Pete shot back. Scott had forgotten there were men on the moon now.

“You have the experience of running large combined-arms forces, and you were the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, so in many ways there is little difference. It’s all a matter of using the forces, manpower, and equipment under your command to their fullest potential.”

Put like that, there wasn’t a lot of difference, Scott realized. If you took out the space part, you were left with organizing air, ground, and naval forces to take on an enemy. Put aside the fact he’d almost be doing it from scratch, it was doable.

Tony continued. “Every day, more and more men and woman pour in, and we’re training them as fast as we can. You’ll get the best of the best under your direct command to do the everyday running of the ship. Remember, as the admiral of the fleet, you are not the ship’s captain. He runs the ship, you tell all the captains what to do, and how you want it done.”

Scott looked thoughtful, and the more he thought about it, the more sense it made. “I suppose you’re right, but what sort of fleet will I have to work with?” He looked at Brock and Pete, seeing them smiling, each thinking of the slab-sided, ugly monstrosities they’d first cobbled together.

“You’ll have one battleship, two small fighter carriers, four heavy cruisers, eight light cruisers, sixteen destroyers, and thirty-two corvettes, plus ancillary vessels, a supply train, oilers, colliers, and other specialized vessels. Is that enough?” Tony asked.

“Ye gods, you have been busy.”

“You could say that. Not all of us get to take a vacation in sunny climes,” said Gunny Brock.

“Sunny climes, have you stayed in England during the wint— What on Earth do I need oilers and a collier for?” That brought a chuckle around the table.

“Have you forgotten everything already?” Brock said. “It’s a generic term for the ship that carries fuel, water, coolant, gases, extra missiles, food stores, and torpedoes in this case.”

“Oh! I get it.” Scott felt himself color slightly at his forgetfulness of the older terms for the fleet train. “How the hell did you manage it?” he asked, wondering what sort of ships these were. He imagined another cobbled-together fleet out of whatever was handy.

“That English design engineer you brought back turned out to be a genius,” said Pete. “The moment he saw the potential of the heavy manufacturing facilities in orbit, he went crazy organizing them into a smoothly functioning whole.”

It wasn’t just that. The corporation that dominated Earth’s business world had no need for large ships. The biggest were the ore carriers that transported refined ore from the asteroid belt and the moons of Jupiter and Saturn to Earth, but they couldn’t be considered real ships. They were more like a giant wheel-like gantry with a control module at one end, and a gravity drive unit at the other. The ore bins were simply slid into the “spokes” of the gantry, one after the other, stacked end to end. That wasn’t to say that the solar furnace and gravity-forging systems weren’t capable of producing anything the size they needed; they were. Devon Hawking had just reorganized them a different way and expanded on their capacities. Now the crucible at the center of the solar mirror beam was five times the size it had been, and capable of processing enough pure nickel iron to form into huge, six-foot-thick plates up to a hundred feet long and fifty feet wide. If the scuttlebutt was halfway correct, Devon was looking to build something much bigger so he could form the complete hull of a cruiser-size ship in one forming. That would go a long way to speeding up the production of larger warships.

“So the design team managed to settle on a design and everything?” Scott said.

“They did, in conjunction with Jeff Turner and his team,” said Tony.