Echo of Tomorrow: Book Two (The Drake Chronicles) (38 page)

Taking the Humvee, Scott headed for the beach, thinking he could sneak away for a few hours. No such luck. Within seconds, he spotted his ubiquitous escort bringing up the rear. If that was all of them. He’d long suspected there were flankers on either side, and a group running point ahead of him. He couldn’t complain, not after two attempts on his life, so he ignored them as much as possible and let his mind wander. Sitting in the shade of a tree, he relaxed to the sound of the waves and wind washing over him. One by one, thoughts popped into his brain, and he noted them on his wristcomp, finding that one or two of them were definitely important. So few big ones bothered him before; he’d been able to step back and see the long view, and plan for many of the obvious possibilities. Now he couldn’t. Thinking about that brought the revelation that before, there was an entire military/industrial infrastructure for him to work within. All he had to do was bring the diverse elements together to make something happen. Here he was now, creating it from scratch, yet he shouldn’t have to. The elements were there, he could see that, but he’d failed to use them.

“Janet!” he called, knowing she had to be close by.

“Yes, sir!” she answered from not more than ten feet away.

“Need to get back to base as fast as possible,” he said, standing up. “Suddenly I found there are a few things I need to do in a hurry.”

“Aye-aye, sir,” she called, smiling slightly, and a moment later her shuttlecraft settled down. Janet detailed one of the security team to drive his Humvee back to base, then took off in an arrowhead formation, in a beeline for the base at treetop height. That was just like the old man: one moment as calm and peaceful as you like, the next a ball of energy that wanted instant action, and most of the time for a good reason.

“Can you get me the PM on this rig?” Scott asked, pointing to the communications setup.

“Yes, sir,” the comm tech answered.

“Good, get his nibs on the blower as soon as you can. After that, if we aren’t back at base, get me Colonel Brock.”

“Yes, sir,” Janet snapped.

A rather grumpy prime minister came on after a while, yet his hair was carefully combed and he looked as fresh as a daisy. “Did I wake you, Patrick?” Scott said.

“Would it matter if you did?” the Prime Minister of England growled back, sipping on a mug of something. “Besides that, I doubt you would call me if it wasn’t important.”

“Well sir, I need your army, navy, and air force.”

That made the PM sit up and take notice. “Are you under attack?”

“No, sir. Not right at this moment.”

“All right then, drop the other shoe!”

Scott did, spending over an hour before the PM hung up, and by that time they’d reached base and it was Brock’s turn.

The security detail pulled into Alpha base just as Scott finished talking, immediately heading for Brock’s office, and continuing the moment he stepped through the door.

“Well?”

“You’re right,” Brock said, a dark look on his face, “the defense positions are still the same as after the last attack. Damn! I should’ve thought of that.”

“You aren’t the only one.”

“What do you have in mind, Scott?”

“An overlapping defensive perimeter, each one able to fall back under complete cover of the next one, plus safety shelter for all critical personnel, noncombatants, and the children.”

“I’m on it.”

“Good. How many tanks do we have now?” Scott asked, seeing Brock shake his head.

“Not that many. We’ve been concentrating on equipment for the fleet.”

“That’s the conclusion I came to. We’re not thinking clearly on this, but I’m going to save the rest of my comments until our guests arrive from England.”

The suborbital shuttle would still take six hours to arrive, and Scott sent a memo to R&D to have a pair of transport rings installed in England as soon as possible. He knew this was opening a door on the security aspect, but it couldn’t be helped. They needed the ability to move about quickly, and the rings offered the best choice. Later that evening the conference room was full, with representatives from all three British services, plus the base commanders.

“Thank you all for coming at short notice, and for taking time out from your pressing duties,” Scott began, “but I think after you’ve heard what I have to say, you’ll understand why I called this meeting.” He stood up so everyone could see him.

“We have a problem, ladies and gentlemen. And that problem is, we have no unified command.” That set them to thinking, and he could see one or two nodding in agreement.

“England is the only country to have any semblance of a joint command, small as it is. They’ve kept the structure of the three elements: army, navy, and air force.” He held his hand up before someone reminded him of the Marine Corps. “As of this moment, army and Marine Corps separation will stop. They will be combined into one element, except for special operations groups, SOGs: like the SAS, Green Berets, and the Royal Marines.”

“Why so, Scott?” Brock asked immediately, more for the benefit of those around the table who might not know much about such groups, or understand Scott’s reasoning.

“Simple. From now on, all our combat is going to be one of three methods. Ground, transatmospheric, and space. So there is no need for a separate army. Everyone in the army and marines will be incorporated into the new Marine Corps with SOG to handle any special assignments outside of normal Marine operations.”

“Makes sense to me,” announced General Mackenzie, commander of the British army. “From what I can see, we have no need for conventional ground forces as such, as most actions would be from space in one form or another.”

“I agree, General Brock, but we do need a rapid reaction force so we can put boots on the ground, to take or hold strategic objectives, hostage rescue, and so forth. Which is why I suggest the US Marine Corps or Royal Marine models.”

“Good point,” Mackenzie said. “They can be inserted from space just as easy as from the ground. The trick, of course, is having air domination over the LZ. The landing zones must always be protected,” he explained to Patrick.

“Agreed, which is where our combined air wing will come in,” Scott said, nodding toward Air Vice-Marshal Beal. “I will leave you and Colonel Brock to work out the details.” Brock and Mackenzie nodded to each other in agreement. “If it’s something the air wing or military can’t handle, we can always drop rocks on them from space.”

“Nasty, but yes, but I forgot the fourth element there for a moment,” Air Marshal Beal replied.

“As we, New Zealand that is, doesn’t have a government to answer to, Air Vice-Marshall Beal, is there any problem in amalgamating your air force with ours?” Scott asked.

“No, Admiral. I’ve been given carte blanche by the King, and the PM, as to the disposition of my forces. Who would be my liaison?”

“That would be Group Captain Moore.” Scott didn’t add thank god she was out of the cockpit and on the ground now that she officially pregnant. “She will be your liaison. She isn’t here right now, but you can begin drawing up plans to unify the two forces.” It was male arrogance he knew, but having Kat in harm’s way was bad enough; having Kat and their child in harm’s way was a little too much. For him and most men, it was always women and children first.

Beal nodded in agreement. “Very good, Admiral.”

“As of this moment, you gentlemen will act as our general staff.” That made all of them sit up and take notice.

“Up until now, we, or I should say I, have been trying to run everything, and consequently forgot many of the important details.” Scott paused when Admiral Rawlings put his hand up.

“You realize that we,” Rawlings indicated the others sitting around him, “have little or no knowledge of space operations, or real combat for that matter.”

“That’s my point, none of us have. What you do have is a background in organizing your respective arms of a military organization, small as it is.” He saw them nod. “It makes no difference that we’re building starships and transatmospheric fighters and such, the principle is the same. Someone has to take charge of the building, supplying, maintaining, and providing the training for the new crews we will need, and you do have that.” They all nodded.

“Bit of a hot potato you’re dropping in our laps, lad,” Vice Air-Marshal Beal said, rubbing his chin.

“True, but you, like us, will have to do the best you can and learn as you go.”

“Bit of a tall order.”

“Not really. It’s just a question of expanding on what you already know, and using your manpower to its utmost.”

“I suppose it really doesn’t make much difference whether we’re building surface ships or space ships, the infrastructure for building them remains the same, including the training, supplying, and refitting. But what about the cost?”

“Cost?” Scott asked, looking blank.

“Yes. Who and how do we decide what to buy, how much to pay for it, and so on?”

“I’m not sure I follow.”

“Well, how do you pay for your ships now? And how did you set the pay scale for your men?” That bought a round of laughter from Scott’s people in the room.

“We haven’t been paid a penny since this all started, nor do we expect to.”

“Good heavens! But you must pay for the material you use.”

“No. We do pay the owners of the manufacturing equipment we use, or we used to. We own a lot of them ourselves now thanks to a very bright young woman on my staff. But most of the raw material comes from the asteroid belt or the moon, so it’s virtually free. And the byproducts such as gold, silver, platinum, and H
3
, that’s tritium, are used to offset the cost.”

“So everything you use is free?”

“Yes, everything, and that’s the way I want it to stay if possible. The days when the military had to worry about convincing the government to pay for something are gone. We want the best equipment that we can design and build, no matter how much it costs. In fact, the word itself will be irrelevant. We will need to heavily fund our R&D to stay ahead in weapons and ship design, not to mention all the other war-fighting equipment we will need.”

“So, how do we decide what to buy—excuse me, to procure and build, then?”

“You’ll have to rely on the designer to a large degree, and set up some sort of review board to assign resources to each project.” He gave them a lopsided grin. “To me, that’s going to be the major headache, and the one thing that’s been giving them to me. We have so many great ideas from everything under the sun, it’s hard to decide what to build first.”

“So, what are our priorities?”

“Ships, weapons, engines, and crews,” Scott replied.

“Hump! That very helpful,” Admiral Rawlings grumped with a smile.

“I know. Devon Hawking is a great designer, and with some of the new inventions we have, he’s going to come up with a fantastic warship in the very near future. The first item is to build as many of them as we can, and supply and crew them.”

“So, it seems our first order of business is to concentrate on the training,” General Mackenzie commented.

Both Brock and Scott agreed.

“You are going to need everything from admirals to cooks to bottle washers and cuckoo valve cleaners,” Admiral Rawlings added.

“True, but much of the functions have, or will be automated. Maintenance would be high in the list of training, but I want everyone, including admirals, to have a hand in that.”

“That brings up the question of man-power. We don’t have sufficient people for what you are talking about, even drawing on available resources from England and Japan.”