Retribution (25 page)

“Hi honey” announced Rihan as she entered.

Dave turned his head to the side to look at her as she came in. “Welcome home darling” he replied.

“What a day! I’m famished. Where’s dinner?”

“Exactly” replied Dave with a worn out smile. “Do you want to go out?”

“No too tired. I’m going to have a shower. Can you order a home delivery?”

“Sure, Thai?”

“Sounds good. River Kwai Duck thanks!” and that was the last Dave saw of Rihan till he drained his beer and wandered into the bathroom to find Rihan asleep in the bath. She had a face washer over her face. Dave touched it ever so lightly and confirmed it was cold. But he didn’t remove it. Instead he sat on the short stool that was kept in the corner and was content to admire her beautiful form.

He was overcome with gratitude for having found this beautiful partner. He reflected on how richer his life now was because he was sharing it with Rihan. Her recent spiritual awakening had only increased his joy. He was so glad for her. Her accounts of her meditation experiences reminded him of similar exchanges with Amy, his previous wife.

‘When you share physically and emotionally that’s wonderful’ he thought “but when you share spiritually as well it is sublime.” As he thought he smiled contentedly.

“Enjoying yourself?” asked Rihan. She had peeled away the cold face washer.

“Yes actually” and Dave cast a focussed eye from her toes, which protruded up out of the water, all the way up to her eyes.

“You are the perv!”

“How could I resist?”

“Well actually, I think you’ve resisted long enough” said Rihan with a smile. “Why don’t you hop in? We’ve got time before dinner arrives, don’t we?”

“You’re a wicked woman Rihan” said Dave as he started undressing. The doorbell rang. “Alas, it would appear we don’t have the time.”

“Blast.”

“At least it wasn’t coitus interuptus.”

“Oh I don’t know” said Rihan as she stood up and gestured for Dave to pass over her towel. “Right now, any type of coitus would be fine by me.”

“Is that so?” said Dave as he ran out to answer the bell.

A few minutes later Rihan was dried and in her gown sitting down to her River Kwai Duck. Dave had started on the Mussamun curry. He was chewing on a tender piece of lamb when Rihan said “You know I’m lactating now.” Dave nearly choked on his mouthful. Rihan had to pat him on his back to help him swallow.

“Oh poor Dave” she said half soothing, half mocking. “I just meant that if we’re serious about me getting pregnant then we need to maximise our chances and right now I’m at my peak.” She plonked a piece of red capsicum from her stir fry into her mouth.

“Is that right?”

Rihan looked at him with her big green eyes and stabbed a mini corn spear with her fork. She raised the fork to her mouth and sucked the corn spear off the fork in a provocative manner she knew Dave would find sensuous. She swallowed and licked her lips. “Yes that’s right.”

“We’re not going to finish this meal are we?”

Rihan tugged on a piece of duck, chewed it and then swallowed. “Well I intend to have my fill Dave” and once again she licked her lips. Her eyes were smiling and she raised her foot, probing towards Dave’s thigh.

“Right that’s it” said Dave. He stood up and came around to her side of the table and knelt down at the side of her chair. She turned her chair to face him and opened her legs. He dove straight in.

Chapter 6. Nova Vista 1230, 19 June

The officers were streaming out of the wargaming labs, heading for lunch. Dave had been an observer and was following the crowd out when he received a hail from Rihan, who was currently in the control room. “Are you ready?” she asked.

“For what?”

“Remember, I’m at my peak.”

“What now?”

“We need to strike while the iron is hot Dave.”

“You mean my iron don’t you?”

“Well yes if you put it that way.”

“We just did it last night.”

“I know. Wasn’t it wonderful?”

“Well yes it was but…”

“No butts mister. This is your duty. I know you’re big on duty. You never shirk it. It would not be wise to start now.”

“Oh really” said Dave chuckling.

“Really! I’ll be out in a minute” and she hung up.

“Dave you want to join me up on the knoll” asked Phil out in the corridor.

“Afraid not, Sir. Duty calls.” At which moment Rihan appeared and wrapped her arm around Dave leading him away. She waved at Phil and Phil smiled as he saw them heading out.

Chapter 7. Phantom to Polaris 1630, 19 June

Manuel slammed the door of his cabin behind him. “Bitch” he exclaimed. He couldn’t believe that Alice had turned down his invite to dinner. He went in to the bathroom and looked at himself in the mirror. He raised his hands in an exasperated manner. ‘I asked her nicely. I was as charming as ever. What is her problem?’

He slammed the ensuite door behind him and sat down on the chair and leaned forward, elbows on the desk in front and felt his stubble with his open palms.

‘How long has it been?’ he asked himself. He struggled to recall the last time he had been knocked back. ‘Oh yes, Casandra Adams. She was a bitch too.’

But then a smile, a sinister smile, appeared on Manuel’s face. ‘She got her comeuppance, didn’t she?’ He sat there on his bed brooding. ‘And so will you Alice. So will you.’

Chapter 8. Phantom to Sibu 1015, 20 June

Aubrey was pressing her crew hard now. Yesterday they had rehearsed a move to the third planet, Mentos. Today they were warping to Sibu, where they would practice a stealth approach on the Argonaut. The objective was to get within beam range without detection. The only viable means of detection would be by ladar. Ladar detection relied on a laser illuminating the target and analysing the reflected light. As such it required a direct line of sight. The Argonaut had positioned itself above Sibu, relative to the solar plane. From there it would have the maximum chance of detecting the attacker.

Aubrey had tasked Tola to come up with the plan. She had reviewed it and was very pleased with her solution. It called for a route that would see them approach Sibu from below the solar plane. They would not come into effective ladar range until they were masked by the big gas giant’s orb. From there they would orbit back around Sibu and only enter the detection arc of Argonaut when they had the Polaris sun behind them. There was still a chance of detection but it was minimised by this approach.

“Very good Tola. Well done” said Aubrey. “Commit it.”

“Yes Maam” said a pleased Tola.

Manuel had the watch and once the plan was committed he ordered the pilot to warp to the first waypoint, below Sibu. Things settled down now that the plan had been committed. Nothing would be happening for two hours. Alice stood up as to leave.

“Lieutenant Wu have you finished loading the cyber attack profile?” demanded Manuel.

“What cyber attack profile?” replied Alice.

“The one I asked you to load.”

Alice looked at him trying to scrutinise what he was on about.

“Oh for god sake Alice” said Manuel “Just do it, profile 23, and don’t let this happen again.”

Alice turned around and sat back down. She loaded the profile. Made sure its status was displayed on the main screen and got up. As she walked out of the command centre she gave Manuel a foul look that did not escape Aubrey’s notice.

She knew something was amiss but she wasn’t going to call attention to it just yet. She did not want to question her XO in front of the junior officers, nor did she want to undermine his authority by questioning Alice behind his back. Well not at this stage anyway.

A couple of hours later everyone was back in the command centre prior to reaching the waypoint. The holo display showed the big gas giant and their current waypoint lay just above the line of the south pole. They were several thousand kilometres out from the edge. The pilot executed the change in direction and the craft began its orbit that would see it crest the gas giant in about 15 minutes.

As they approached the next waypoint Manuel began his status check, ending with “Active cloaking?”

“Online” advised Alice.

The craft crested the planet and was no longer masked from Argonaut by Sibu. Manuel looked to Phil for confirmation of detection. He was clearly impatient. He paced over to Phil’s workstation. “Well?”

Phil was checking his spots but could not see one for the Argonaut where they expected to find her. There were ones for several mining vessels near the planet. Finally it popped up on his screen. “Bogey 1 bearing minus 12 up 5” he advised, indicating that the enemy craft was 12 degrees to their port and 5 degrees up from their centre line. “Range 34, 000kms. Appears to be in geo” he added indicating it was in geo stationary orbit around Sibu.

“Approach solution?” Manuel demanded.

Tola worked the solution, making adjustments to the original approach route to align it with the updated stats for the objective. She hit the commit button and called out “Approach solution updated.”

“Display cyber attack range” ordered Manuel.

Alice updated the holo to show a move coloured semi-transparent globe around the Phantom, the edge of which was getting closer to the objective.

“Display Beam range.”

Phil updated the holo to show a pink semi-transparent globe around the Phantom. It was a much smaller globe than the cyber-attack one.

“Any detections?” asked Manuel.

“Negative” answered Phil.

“As soon as we close within beam range, I will give the command to engage the weapon and initiate the cyber-attack. Is that understood? Lieutenant Wu do not engage the cyber-attack beforehand. Do you understand.” He said the last sentence with particular emphasis that Alice found grating.

“Yes Sir” she reluctantly replied.

“Good.”

Everyone was focussing hard. Manuel moved to his workstation and stood behind it so he could get a clear view of the holo without blocking the vision of anyone else. He used the controls to display a range countdown indicating the range to when they could fire the beam weapon. “Fire in 2,000…1,500…”

The holo updated to indicate cyber attack initiated. “Shit who initiated the cyber attack?” demanded Manuel.

“We’ve been detected” advised Phil. “Bogey 1 accelerating away.”

“What the hell” exclaimed Manuel. He turned to Alice and with real bitterness demanded “Why did you do that? I’ll deal with you later. Get me a solution to close with Bogey 1” he demanded.

“Don’t worry” announced Aubrey “Exercise terminated. Pilot take us back to waypoint 1. Alice hail me the Argonaut.”

Manuel looked as pissed off as one could be. He kept looking at Alice. She ignored him and in a few seconds announced “Cmdr Harris online Maam.”

Aubrey spent the next few minute with the Argonaut skipper. After she finished she turned to the others and asked “Well what happened there?”

“It’s obvious” said Manuel “Wu activated the cyber-attack profile before I commanded. We’d all be dead now if this was for real.”

Aubrey looked to Alice who was shaking her head. “I didn’t activate it. I swear.”

“Anyone else owning up?” asked Aubrey. She got no reply. “The XO is right, if this had happened for real we would most likely be dead. We’ve just four more days to get our act together. OK, we go back to waypoint 1 and keep doing this till we get it right. I want everyone to stay switched on.”

Chapter 9. Nova Vista 1315, 20 June

Dave rolled off of Rihan and onto his back. He was dog tired and his little death soon claimed him. Rihan smiled as she looked at his face. ‘I really think he’s shagged out’ she said to herself. ‘It’s all for a good cause my darling.’

She lay there savouring the moment. She thought of her ovaries and wondered if at this very moment a new life was being created. She smiled contentedly.

Dave rolled in towards her and wrapped his arm across her, cupping his hand over her breast. She placed her hand on his. “You look like the Cheshire cat” said Dave.

“I feel like the Cheshire cat.” She patted Dave’s hand gently. “You can have a rest now. My peak’s running out.”

“About time” said Dave and he looked into her eyes. “I have a good feeling about this” and he gently squeezed her breast. She brushed his hand away.

“I think you’ve had enough feel for one day.”

“It’s like that now, is it. I’ve serviced you and now I’m cast off.”

“It’s always been that way for studs you know.”

“Oh gee!” said Dave in feigned hurt.

Rihan rolled into Dave and they cuddled. She kissed him on his ear and said “I have a good feeling about this too.” Dave smiled.

Chapter 10. Phantom to Polaris 1615, 20 June

It had been an intense afternoon. There was obvious friction between Manuel and Alice and it was clearly affecting both their performances. Aubrey knew she had to fix this and fix it now.

She was about to ask Manuel to see her in her cabin. But for some reason she felt uncomfortable doing so. On the Resolute she would have an office but on a small frigate, no such luck. So instead she asked him to meet her in the briefing room.

“Please close the door Manuel” she asked as he came in. They sat around the corner of the table. Manuel was still smarting for some reason. “What’s wrong between you and Alice?”

“That’s obvious, her incompetence” stated Manuel. “We can’t afford to go into battle with her. She has to go.”

“Yet she claims she didn’t do it.”

“Well who would admit to that? It was her responsibility and she fucked up. Look Maam, I know it’s your call but, hell, we will be facing a real enemy in a few days.”

“All right point taken. Leave it with me.”

“OK Maam but it would be best to do this now so we can work up with her replacement.”

“Understood. Thanks Manuel.”

As he left the room Aubrey pondered. Finally she hailed Alice and asked her to meet her in the briefing room. A couple of minutes later she came in and shut the door at Aubrey’s request.

“So what’s going on Alice?” asked Aubrey.

“What do you mean Maam?”