Bright Horizons (15 page)

He
picked up his phone and punched in a number.

“This
is Ramirez,” said Alex after a single ring.

“Alex,
you certified as a navigator on the sleds, right?” Kyle asked. “How would you
like to take a trip with Williams and me?”

“What
trip?” asked Alex.

Chapter 16

27 June 2044

“It’s all
set,” Sergeant Ranke said over the com channel. “That’s as stable as I can make
them and still make sure they blow when you hit the switch.”

The
Ellison Station dry-dock was in orbit around Jupiter. It was from there that
this operation would launch. The Fitzgerald Warp-Field Tug, more commonly
referred to as a sled, would tow the Geneva into the Helku system. There the
Iltia’cor would be waiting with their gravitational weapon. Once the Iltia’cor
activated their weapon, the Geneva would break apart and it’s payload of fusion
bombs would destroy the enemy weapon. If all went as planned.

The
Helku system was 127 light-years away from Earth. Kyle still needed a
calculator to figure out how long the warp engines would take to get there, but
for the last three weeks, he had checked the figures every few hours it seemed.
It was three days, twelve hours and forty minutes, no matter how many times he
checked. That’s how long they would be in a stable warp field with enough
explosive power to destroy a small moon. That thought did not calm Kyle’s
nerves.

Alex
fidgeted beside him. “Are you sure we can’t automate this thing?”

The
Fitzgerald hung there waiting for an answer. “No,” said Kyle “We can’t afford
to lose a sled, not when we can bring it home again.”

“Just
thought I would ask in case no one considered it,” Alex sighed wistfully. “I
guess I’ve been through worse things than being stuck with the two of you for
three straight days.”

Alex
turned and walked away from the observation deck.

“What
do you think, Carl?” Kyle asked

“I
trust Ranke. If he says the charges are stable, they are stable. Everything
will go fine, sir. Like Ramirez said, the hardest part will be living with you
two,” Williams said. His voice sounded as light as his words, but his eyes
carried the heaviness of worry and concern.

Kyle
looked up at the chains holding the massive structure. From a distance, it
looked like a fragile vessel, so easily snapped or broken. But when you were
here, just a few hundred feet away from it, the size was over whelming. At over
400 meters high and close to 2200 meters long, it dwarfed any ship that Earth
had ever put on her oceans.

The
crew of the Fitzgerald was normally twenty four, so there would be plenty of
space and supplies, although Kyle assumed they would probably stay on the
bridge for most of the voyage. After they dropped the Geneva off, they would
rendezvous with another sled and be relieved of command.

“I
have never been more anxious to be done and over with a mission as I am right
now,” Alex said.

Kyle
turned and saw Alex had walked back out onto the observation deck.

“We
have twenty minutes until the Geneva gets in position. I guess we need to board
the Fitzgerald,” said Alex as he motioned back to the briefing room.

Kyle
and Williams took one last look at the Fitzgerald before turning and walking
back into the room.  A few seconds later, the alarms in the dock area started
ringing. Yellow lights started flashing, letting anyone in the area around the
ship know that they were going to decompress in ten minutes.

At
the two minute mark Kyle, Alex and Williams started walking across the sealed
causeway to the bridge of the Fitzgerald. Just seconds after they secured their
hatch, the lights in the dock area turned red and the huge vents started
slowing sucking the precious air into the compression tanks. Kyle and his team
had already started all systems and were settling into their seats on the
bridge when the large doors below them began to open and the vacuum of space
finished the decompression.

“We
are clear to drop, sir,” said Williams as he set the system to release from the
dock.

“Fitzgerald
to Ellison, permission to undock,” Kyle said.

“This
is Ellison, you have clearance. Good luck crew of the Fitzgerald,” replied the
Dockmaster.

Kyle
nodded and Williams released the clamps that secured the sled to the dock. Kyle
fired the top side thrusters at 10% until they were clear of the station’s
rotation, and then pointed the ship towards the pickup location.

“Looks
like the Chaucer is right on schedule,” Kyle said as their sensors picked up
the other Sled slowing into the drop zone.

“Fitzgerald,
she is all yours.  Let me unlock this hot potato and you can take her and shove
her down the throat of those SOBs,” Colonel “Cowboy” Jackson said.

“Thanks
Cowboy. We will take good care of her.”

“Still
wish you had let me fly the mission, sir. Feel I owe it to Nestor, Jennings and
Donovan,” Cowboy said.

Kyle
looked over at Williams. Alex had read the casualty list, but he knew that
Williams sometimes skipped it. He didn’t blame him; sometimes you don’t want to
see a friend’s name on the list.

“We
will make sure the Iltia’cor pay the full butcher’s bill, Cowboy,” Kyle
replied.

“Thank
you sir, and good luck.”

“Donovan
was at Do’yar’on?” Williams asked rhetorically. “I wasn’t aware. I knew
Jennings had command of the DeGaul and Nestor was XO of the Belisarius. But I
didn’t know about Neal.”

Kyle
watched his sensors until he saw that the Chaucer was clear of the approach
path. “Starting thrusters forward, matching vectors for the Geneva.”

A
few minutes later they watched the visuals from the structural cameras as the
Geneva locked into place on the five clamp assemblies. Just centimeters
separated the powerful explosives and the locking mechanism. One cracked part
and Jupiter would have a new orbiting debris field as the Geneva, the
Fitzgerald and even the Ellison Space Station would be destroyed from the chain
reaction of the fusion bombs held in the Geneva’s superstructure.

“All
clamps secure, sir. We are set for go,” Williams said.

Kyle
exhaled heavily and smiled at his crew. “Ellison, you can unpucker. We have the
hot potato secured and have our course laid in.”

“Good
news, Fitzgerald. We’ll see you in a week.”

Kyle
turned to Alex. “Sergeant Ramirez, you can initiate warp field along our
plotted course.”

“Yes
sir,” said Alex as he keyed in the activation code. “We are away.”

The
ship felt like it rippled and then all sound became slightly muted. Kyle had
never been on a submarine before, but he imagined that it felt a lot like
traveling on a ship in a warp field.

“Three
and a half days to live and I am stuck with you guys,” Alex said as the ship
hurtled through the cosmos at speeds that defied physics. Alex was always one
of the first to become fatalistic on a mission, but he always had an edge of
humor to keep it from turning dark.

“Deal
with it,” said Williams. “And my last meal was some leftover barbeque and baked
beans that I had brought in from Earth.”

Alex
groaned and laughed. “Sir, I’m getting the bunk as far from his as possible,”
Alex said to Kyle.

“This
isn’t your dad’s car, you can’t just call it,” responded Kyle. “I’m the only
officer here, so you two will have to pick bunks after me.”

The
banter continued for a while, but soon all three men had pulled out things to
read. Kyle and Alex were reading on their tablets while Williams had a beat up
paperback. Agatha Christie from what Kyle could make out.

“Hey,
I have a question,” said Alex. “All of these sleds are named after great
writers, right?”

“Yes,”
answered Williams, not looking up from his book. “That is the naming
convention. Cruisers after generals and cities, sleds after authors, and
scooters after rivers and waterways.”

Alex
sat perplexed for a minute. “I looked her up, and I can’t find anything she
wrote.”

Williams
let his book drop below his eyes and Kyle looked over at Alex. “Who?” said both
men at the same time.

“Ella
Fitzgerald. My dad had all of her music, and she was great, but I can’t figure
out why they named a sled after her.”

Kyle
busted up laughing and Williams dropped his head.

“F.
Scott Fitzgerald,” Williams said slowly. “The sled is named after F. Scott
Fitzgerald, not Ella Fitzgerald.”

“Oh,”
said Alex “I guess he was a pretty good writer?”

“Look
up ‘The Great Gatsby’ under literary classics,” Kyle said. He thought he could
hear Williams softly crying.

A
few minutes later, Williams put down his book and looked at Alex. It was clear
there was something he wanted to say, but he was struggling with it.

“Carl,
everything alright?” Kyle asked.

“Sir,
would it be inappropriate if I asked a personal question?” Williams asked with
obvious concern.

“To
me?” asked Alex “You can ask, but I may not answer.”

“Do
you need some privacy? If you want I can go to the galley,” Kyle offered.

Williams
ignored his suggestion. “I was just curious as to what happened. Why you got
thrown into Leavenworth. I know you put Senator Hovey in a coma, but I never
really figured out what happened.”

Kyle
sighed and went back to reading. He knew every aspect of this story and he was
just going to let Alex tell what he wanted.

Alex
sat up straight and looked at Williams, weighing the moment and taking his time
before answering.

“My
father was Victor Ramirez, you know that right?” Alex asked.

Williams
nodded and settled back in his seat.

“He
was a Marine General for seventeen years. He was submitted to the Senate at the
age of 39 and they awarded him the star two days after his 40
^th
birthday. He was the youngest Brigadier General in a generation, and deserving
of it. By the time the Indian war started he was a Lieutenant General and was
immediately sent to the front lines. He ran the most efficient and clean
operation, and for that they made him a four star and he was given Command of
the whole operation.”

Alex
paused, clearly proud of his father.

“Then
one day, as he was flying out of Mumbai, someone hit his chopper with a mobile
SAM. Huge loss for the U.S. forces. Commander of Indian Operations and three
other General staff were on that bird.  Fourteen people in all, none of them
survived the crash. I was on an operation that day and didn’t hear about it for
48 hours.”

Williams
nodded as Alex grabbed a bottle of water from his pack and took a swig.

“Three
days later I was told to get on a jet. They were taking me to Washington for a
few days. A set of my dress blues had been prepared by my sister and my mother
would be waiting for me at the airport. My father would have his funeral at the
National Cathedral and then he would be interred at Arlington. Afterwards,
there would be a joint session of Congress where they were going to honor my
father and present my mother with his Congressional Gold Medal. When that was
over, I would board another plane and be back in the action.”

“Didn’t
go as planned, huh?” Williams asked.

“No.
When we got to Congress after the burial, several congressmen and senators
spoke about the award. My father had never been an overly political man, and
frankly, I don’t even vote except in the Presidential elections. So I had no
idea who these men were, how well they knew my father, or what their politics
reflected. Most were gushing in their praise; some were so vague in their
accolades that you could tell they didn’t know him at all.”

Alex
took another long drink of water before continuing.

“But
then Senator Hovey got up. He was the next to the last speaker of the day. He
stood there face to face with my Mother and said “If you live by the sword, you
should die by the sword.” He said my father was a killer who should have been tried
and executed for killing so many people. He said a painful, fiery death was
what he deserved.”

Kyle
thought that Williams had surely seen the speech on the news when it happened;
it was played constantly as part of the story of what happened that day.

“So,
why did you do it?” Williams asked.

“I
honestly couldn’t tell you. He dishonored my father, and that really made me
mad. But I think it was the fact that he insulted my mother that pushed it over
the top. She was in tears as he finished speaking, and as she stood there with
the medal in her hands when they presented her with it, she could barely get
out the words “Thank you.” When I saw him in the rotunda afterwards, I just
snapped. I made my way over to him and instead of exchanging a few insulting, pithy
words, I tried to punch his head off. He dropped like a bag of sand, and
without thought, I was on him with my hands around his neck.”

Williams
shook his head slowly.

“His
two aides and one of his personal security guys tried to get me off. I broke one
of his aides’ arms and smashed up the face of the bodyguard. Three Capitol
policemen finally got me off the Senator and tazered me until I blacked out.”