The Unincorporated War (41 page)

“Let’s be bold and be done.”

“You got it, sir,” answered the officer prepping the ship for the hyperacceleration that only the shock waves of an atomic blast could create—a maneuver created by J. D. Black and now a de rigueur tactic used fleetwide. “One atomic kick-in-the-ass blast, coming up.”

Just as they were about to accelerate into battle the Alliance fleet picked up the incoming signals of twenty Federation warships. But, noted Christina, it would be nearly two hours before they could come to Trang’s rescue and by then it would all be over.

The atomic acceleration worked perfectly. Christina had clear telemetry on the location of Trang’s limping squadron behind the O’Brian Waterworks. She knew her fleet would probably take some hits from the missiles and rail guns that Trang had set up there, but they’d be through it quickly enough. She wanted to end this now. That would be the last thought she had. As the
Ajax
and the rest of the Alliance fleet rushed past the waterworks the factory and the entire asteroid it was sitting on exploded outward, creating a spectacular 360-degree arc of high-speed projectiles.

Bridge of the UHFS Pegasus

“Commodore, it worked!”

“A little more detail, Commander Jackson.”

“Sir, four ships are shattered, the other five are pushed out of formation, but they’re still coming on strong.”

“Squadron to engage at will. Concentrate on the intact ships. The more we destroy now, the less we have to fight later.”

Both squadrons faced each other and let fly with their rail guns and missiles filling the rapidly shrinking space between them. There was only one pass as the surviving Alliance ships, all four of them, continued past the UHF squadron into the safety of the asteroid belt and beyond. Once it was done Trang immediately ordered rescue operations. There were many who’d been killed quickly by the vacuum of space and the chances were good they could be revived, but if they drifted too far away the chances of finding them effectively fell to zero.

Trang was hoping to find one person in particular and was overjoyed to discover that she was still alive. Her crew had gotten into an escape pod before their ship ruptured. She was in very bad shape, but she’d do. Trang was beginning to realize that if the war was going to be won he’d be needing better help than he’d come to expect from Fleet Command.

Eros falls again! After a two-week battle Eros fell to Federation forces. This time, though, it was part of a grueling encounter. The casualties were high, with over 40,000 p.d.’s combined making this the deadliest conflict of the war to date. Eros was stripped of useful material and many Alliance citizens were evacuated into the surrounding belt, where they were warmly welcomed. Also retrieved was enough material to begin making that part of the belt an impassible field rife with ambush lanes and minefields. While this must still be considered a defeat for the Alliance, the Eros in Federation hands today is a worthless rock bereft of any benefit and will bring them little joy.

—Cerian Daily News

J. D. Black reviewed the footage, unconsciously running her fingers over the mangled skin on her face. She should’ve seen the possibility of the waterworks being mined. She would’ve done the same thing. But when Christina had asked J.D.’s advice on the attack, she’d concurred. She’d wanted Trang dead and instead had once again underestimated him and in doing so lost one of her best captains. Christina and Omad were the ones J.D. used to win battles. Forget what the
Cerian Daily News
said. This was a screwup and it was hers. She should’ve gone there herself, but she’d been overruled by Sinclair and Justin.

J.D. was overseeing the refit of the
War Prize
personally and was spending too much time at the capital as a result. The closer she was to the politicians the harder it was for her to win the war. But she shrugged it off with the realization that it could’ve been worse—she could’ve had the Federation politicians.

In addition to the reconstruction project, J.D. had to content herself with waiting for Omad’s return. It seemed he’d been working on yet another one of his hare brained schemes with Kenji and the insistent little man was almost as anxious about getting Omad back as she was. Kenji had even tried an intrasystem communication but fortunately had been found out and cut off. J.D. had had to threaten and nearly carry out a castration on the cretin in order to make him understand that he couldn’t just discuss his ideas over the Neuro or send them to Omad on his flagship, the
Dolphin.
Kenji may have been a genius, she realized, but he had no clue that an enemy in war time could take even the hint of an idea and unravel the best-laid plans. She’d even made a fledgling effort to help Kenji with his latest idea but failed miserably—she could barely talk to the man, much less work with him. The truth was Omad and the wizard of Gedretar, as Kenji had come to be known, had a unique bond. One was a hard-drinking, partying, fighting, tough-as-nails fleet captain and the other was, well, she thought bemusedly, he was a geek. J.D. smiled as she realized why she hadn’t torn into Kenji yet. The strange little man reminded her of Manny.

Against all odds, Omad and Kenji had not only grown to like each other, they’d also somehow managed to complement each other. Kenji was brilliant but lacked all concepts of practical applications. Left to his own devices he’d spend time rebuilding a water vapor recapture unit to increase efficiency 1.5 percent over a ten-year period, or conversely he could easily be prodded into figuring out how to increase the thrust capacity of a battle cruiser. And thankfully, Omad had a way of keeping Kenji focused on projects that had immediate military application.

Sadly, that meant the more time Omad spent at Gedretar the less time she had him for the fleet. And battles, she knew, were lost without inspired captains. And now she was down to only one.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a communiqué alert. She saw from the information on her DijAssist that it had arrived with secure overrides. It was the type of message that she was familiar with from her days in the corporate world. Whoever sent it didn’t trust that her military firewalls could protect the message from infiltration. So therefore it could only be read within the confines of a non military secured area. That meant she’d have to leave the
War Prize
and head to one of the secure rooms next to the shipyard.

J.D. stepped off the docking platform, or “plank” as her crew was so fond of calling it, and began slowly drifting away from the construction zone. She was heading toward the warm embrace of the Cerean compound but took a moment to turn around and view her ship. She was covered from bow to stern in scaffolding and being swarmed over by a skilled army of technicians and engineers. As a former Terran civilian, J.D. had had no idea that the Alliance had such a high proportion of competent individuals. Yes, she realized, it also had its share of useless, lazy bums, but in space such people either died very quickly or were exceedingly lucky. Given the preponderance of talent, it hadn’t been all that hard to shift the large group of commercial shipyard workers toward more military endeavors. And in short order the newly constituted Gedretar became one of the most productive shipyards in the system. The yard itself kept expanding until it merged with and then finally overtook its sister yard meant to handle all core-based shipping. As J.D. turned back around she got one last look at the tens of ships being pieced together from her most recent haul captured in Mars orbit. If all went well, they’d be equipped with the very same Omad/Kenji modifications that her ship was currently being fitted with. She’d made a silent prayer to herself that the secret wouldn’t leak out earlier than absolutely necessary. Though she knew it was a long shot, she now had faith.

She drifted down to the opposing platform where her nano-gridded body lent her enough assisted gravity to make her way into the busy interior corridor. A few moments later she found herself in a secure room, made even more so by the
security detail that had anticipated her arrival. They’d combed the room thoroughly and then promptly left it to stand guard, leaving her alone. It was then that she was finally able to activate the message. The first thing revealed was the sender: Kirk Olmstead. J.D. raised an eyebrow. Kirk had called her numerous times shipboard. That he hadn’t now was odd. She then activated the message itself. The note that popped up was simple and clear: “Come to my office.” J.D. waited another moment to see if anything else would be revealed, but nothing was. She felt the anger beginning to well inside her at what had turned out to be a colossal waste of her time. She then slowly counted to ten, and when the urge to point and fire her main guns at Kirk’s office subsided she headed, security detail in tow, deeper into the rock to confront the man who’d had the temerity to toy with her.

Kirk Olmstead had his offices situated in the executive suites—an area carved into and directly behind the Cliff House. No one there had a view unless they’d set up a projector to create one, but they weren’t there for the scenery; they were there to be near the President 24/7. It wouldn’t be long, thought Janet as she made her way through the complex, that the whole damned section of the thoroughfare would be nothing but one big government complex.

Every time she entered the governmental labyrinth she felt her skin crawl. She pushed those feelings aside and brushed past Kirk’s security detail and receptionist. He’d had the sense, she saw, not to have any of them try to make her wait. As she barged into his office she heard the doors close swiftly behind her. Kirk rose from behind his desk to greet her.

“Hello, Janet.”

“You could’ve just sent me a message telling me to come to your office.”

“But I did.”

“Touché,” she countered. “You know what I mean.”

“Nice to see you too, Janet.”

“You call me ‘Admiral’ and I’ll call you ‘Mr. Secretary.’ If you insist on using personal names, you may use ‘J.D’ and I’ll use ‘half-competent parasite.’” She then stood, arms folded across her chest, sporting an uneasy glare that accentuated the scarred half of her face.

Kirk sat down, pleasantries over, and beckoned her to do the same. J.D. remained staunchly in place. “It is so nice,” he continued, “to see that your outsides have finally been brought in line with your insides … Admiral. It’s a good look for you. But you must know that I can no longer just call you over here, as that would let someone know when and where you’re planning to be. It’s the latest directive from my office and,” he said, making sure to project an official-looking document in the holo-tank, “approved by the President.”

J.D. was getting ready to tell Kirk where to shove his time-wasting directive when Mosh made a quiet entrance into the room.

“Ahh,” said Mosh, grinning broadly, “if it ain’t just like old times. Hello, Kirk, Admiral Black.”

J.D. instantly upgraded the importance of the meeting.

“How are you doing, Secretary McKenzie?” asked Kirk, now beckoning Mosh to sit down.

“I’m a little confused,” answered Mosh, taking his seat. “Why am I here?”

J.D., realizing the meeting hadn’t been a simple power play, let her anger go and her curiosity peak. She too sat down.

“I’ll second that.”

“You control the captured UHF personnel, don’t you?” Kirk asked Mosh.

“Why are you asking questions you already know the answers to, Kirk? As you know, all suspended prisoners are kept by the Interior Department to alleviate the military of the burden of watching men who can’t escape anyway.”

“Careful, Mosh,” warned Kirk. “Remember what happened to the core on Mars. We freed over a million of their prisoners who supposedly ‘couldn’t get away.’”

“Which is why,” snapped Mosh, “they’re all being sent to Saturn, smart-ass. We have a little moon we can store them in. One of the Sheppard moons if I remember correctly. It’ll be difficult for the UHF to pull off a surprise raid that deep into Alliance space, especially with our current security arrangements. That’s one of the good things we got from the Eros debacle—we won’t underestimate them again. But once more, Kirk, I still don’t know what I’m doing here.”

Kirk didn’t answer the question but, rather, chose to continue with what J.D. felt to be his incoherent line of questioning.

“Have you shipped off the admirals yet?” he asked.

Now Janet became more attentive; she knew the Alliance had only captured two.

“You already know we haven’t, Kirk. They’re being kept close by for negotiation purposes. But you don’t have to worry; they’re secure and, per Admiral Black’s wishes, no matter where the negotiations lead, Gupta stays with us.”

Kirk’s mouth parted slightly, forming a half grin.

“That may not necessarily be the case.”

J.D. bristled as the conversation seemed to be taking a turn for the worse. Was she going to have to take him out after all? “Enough already,” she demanded.

Kirk acknowledged her impatience with a gentle nod.

“We’ve received an interesting communication this afternoon,” he said, “not only in content but source … from Acting Commodore Trang.”

“Go on,” J.D. said evenly.

“He’s offering to send us Captain Sadma in exchange for Admiral Gupta. To make matters even more complicated, he needs an answer within twelve hours. Well, actually ten … we got it a little less than two hours ago.”

“Why so quickly?”