Resilience (Warner's World Book 6) (45 page)

He let it go and began repeating his mantra again. But a smile crept onto his face as he realised that all his practices had born so much good fruit. He was pleased of the character he had now become, while hopefully not being too proud as he didn’t want to feed his ego.

Another image came into focus. It was of his parents shortly before they boarded the cruise ship that carried them to their early death. They were so happy in that picture. He remembered it well. In that moment he realised that he owed them so much. They had given him life, nurtured him, loved him and laid the foundation for the character he had become.

Tears began to flow as he recalled how he felt on hearing the news that their cruise ship had been lost. He had been woken up in the middle of the night. As he was talking on the phone, his first wife, Amy, was trying to keep their two very young kids quiet. She had a pained expression on her fair face which he knew was a mirror of his own.

It had been a traumatic period, the first real grief he had gone through. But they were gone now as was Amy and his kids. He had lost his family. But images started flooding his mind’s eye, Rihan, Brennon, Art, Sue, Aubrey, Chase, Ivan, Crystal and soon he was looking at a huge sea of faces. In that moment, with crystal clarity, he realised that these were now his family.

‘One day, soon, we’ll have kids. But right now this is my family…and I have to bring them home safe.’ Another tear trickled down as a pragmatic thought claimed his focus. ‘What are the odds of that Dave?’ he asked himself.

‘Don’t go there’ he chastised. He took a deep breath in and exhaled long. He repeated this two more times and then began repeating his mantra in time with his normal breath. He soon dropped into the stillness and was lost to it.

He came out fifteen minutes later with a clear mind and to the sound of Rihan’s rhythmic breathing right next to him. She was sitting cross legged on her arsana beside him. She had carved out a small alcove in the suite as a mediation space. Somehow she had secured a small blue light and it cast a faint blue glow over both of them. He smiled as he admired her beautiful profile. He was tempted to kiss her but refrained. Instead he rose quietly, grabbed a towel and his communicator and eased himself out of the suite.

He looked around him down both direction of the corridor but for the life of him could not remember where the gym was. He then remembered the ShipNav app and soon had directions.

He walked in and noted it was bigger than the one on the Resolute but the equipment all looked the same, just more of it.

“Morning Sir” called out Crystal on her walk machine.

“Morning Crystal. Somethings never change!” he said with a smile.

“Same model even” said Crystal between her huffing. She had the machine moving at near full speed now.

Dave started off with his stretches and then mounted a nearby cycle. It took him a couple of minutes to configure the control settings. As he began peddling Crystal mentioned “Rihan was terrific yesterday!”

“Yes?”

“She’s so well organised.”

“Yes she is at that. Better than me that’s for sure.”

“Yeah she is” said Crystal and gave Dave a cheeky smile.

“We all have our strengths.”

“And weaknesses.”

“I like to focus on the strengths and get others to offset my weaknesses” said Dave who was enjoying the banter.

“Well that explains why you hooked up with Rihan then.”

“It does indeed but that’s only part of the reason.”

“So I’m informed” said Crystal.

“I’m not going to bite at that one” said Dave. Part of him wanted to laugh but his exertions made that difficult. So it came out like a chuckle in fits and starts.

Crystal stopped her machine and faced Dave and said “Well she obviously keeps you well fed then.” She had a knowing expression on her face.

Dave just burst out laughing and gave up on the pedals. As he did so, four other officers, who he did not recognise, entered the gym to find their group commander laughing at the top of his voice.

Chapter 45. Audacity over Q2 0740, 6 October

Dave was pleased to see Cranky’s smiling face when he entered the dining area. “Feels just like home” he told Cranky, who was tickled pink to please his boss.

“It does Sir but our home, such as it is, is a lot bigger now.”

Dave looked around and saw that there must have been over fifty officers already at the tables. “It is at that.”

After sorting his breakfast from the buffet, Dave sat down at a table by himself. He was soon joined by Rihan who came in walking quickly. She gave him a smile and went straight to the buffet. She politely refused Cranky’s offer of bacon and eggs, opting like Dave for the cereal instead.

When she sat down Dave could see that her mind was already at high revs. He knew she would have a lot on today trying to interview her senior officers. “Honey” he said “how come I can’t see Gordon Gilbert here.”

“Oh he’s two decks down dear. All the ground officers are on D deck, flight on C deck and us space jockeys are up here.”

“Makes sense I suppose…” Dave noted Rihan was swiping through an agenda on her communicator. “It does make it hard for me to touch base with my senior subordinates though.”

Rihan stopped looking at her communicator, raised her head and looked Dave straight in the eye. “You are supposed to go through me. Remember?”

“Well, yes but…”

Rihan put her hand on top of his and spoke in very quiet but firm voice “No, that’s how we agreed it should work.”

Her eyes were burning into his and he felt their intensity. He was having second thoughts about the chain of command arrangements they had previously agreed on.

“OK but I want them at my planning conference this morning.”

“Can’t do that really. We have to test the ALS.”

“What pray tell is the ALS?” asked Dave. He hated not knowing jargon and acronyms. But there was always so much of it in the military that he invariable found himself wanting.

“Automated Landing System. It’s brand new. It allows us to land all craft in the shortest possible time.”

“Really? How?”

“It’s pretty neat really. All of our craft have a transponder which triggers the ALS once they get within 300 clicks. The ALS then takes control of the craft and lands it.”

“What, overriding the pilot?”

“Yeah, their craft becomes a slave to the ALS. The ALS then manoeuvres the craft. It stacks, racks and slots them all, maintaining the required separation distances and intervals.”

“What if the craft is damaged?”

“If it’s still flying it can be slaved.”

“Mmm…”

“Anyway it’s untested and so we were going to put it through its paces today. So I need my flight and ground commander.”

“Hold on. Why would you need the ground commander?”

“Well to test the shuttles properly we need to ensure that it handles a full payload and that the troops are given sufficient time to actually dismount and that includes the vehicles. We don’t want any hiccups like with the hippos and the trojan 2s.”

“Yeah, OK I agree with that but I need them and I need you to be at this planning conference. The flight and ground assets come under your command for egress and logistics but they are mine to command for operations.”

“Actually that’s not going to work for the fighters. I need to have control of the CAP and some shuttles for search and rescue if need be. I also need my own MPs (Military Police) and some marines for defence against boarding.”

“Agreed, so we need to put our heads together and work out those arrangements. When can we do that? Today would be good.”

“But I have scheduled this ALS test for this morning and I have interviews already scheduled for this afternoon.”

“I know and I have a planning conference with the Admiral this afternoon that I need to prepare for that with my own planning conference this morning and I need you and the flight and ground commanders for that.”

“Something is going to have to give.”

By this time their voices had increased in volume and they were garnering attention. Dave became aware of this and he knew it was not good for them to carry on this conversation here anymore. “Come on, let’s finish up and continue this back in our cabin.”

A few minutes later, back in their cabin, they closed the door and both began to speak at the same time.

“I can postpone the ALS test” said Rihan while Dave said “I’ll ask Yomoto to reschedule.” They both looked at each other and smiled.

“Off to a good start then” said Dave and they laughed. “I think it’s more important to sort out the basics first and slip the planning stuff. So go ahead with your test this morning but can I have my interviews with the flight and ground commanders this afternoon.

“Agreed” responded Rihan and she leaned over and pecked him on the cheek.

Chapter 46. Audacity over Q2 1100, 6 October

“Admiral on deck” called out the guard in the Audacity’s command centre.

Dave was shocked by the announcement. He had been on the giving end before but never the receiving end. He nodded his thanks to the guard as Rihan turned to see him. She looked content, which was a good sign Dave thought.

The centre was big, full and active. Most turned around to see him. He recognised his old Special Forces boss Commodore Gordon Gilbert and from her file photo Commodore Toyah Larsen. He briefly nodded to them and said “As you were.”

“Come see” beckoned Rihan, while she patted the seat next to hers. It was the one marked ‘Group Admiral’.

“Mine?” he asked.

Rihan waved him into it. He adjusted his posture, played a bit with the controls but not for too long. ‘That can wait’ he told himself. “How’s it going” he asked.

“Good so far. We started small with just a squadron. Just finished testing with a wing now. It’s looking good. We’ll do the full kit and caboodle with the port side group next. That’ll be the real test.” Dave nodded. “Do you want me to introduce you when this bit finishes?”

“Yeah that would be good. So all these icons here are our craft?” asked Dave pointing to the holo.

“Not all. The ones marked in blue are the test group’s craft. The ones in green are our ‘third parties’ for test purposes. They’re shuttles from the starboard group, just going about a series of flight plans, including take offs and landing from the starboard hull. We’re trying to see how well the ALS can mesh these with the mass of incomings onto the port hull.”

“There’s a lot isn’t there?”

“That’s why we need this to work. It’s not like the Resolute where we can land the whole squadron in three minutes. Here we have eight times that number on each hull. If we had to wait three minutes for each squadron it would take us half an hour just to land.”

Dave could see that Rihan was in her element and so he just nodded for her to continue, which she did. “It’s actually not that bad since we have two fighter, two bomber and two shuttle decks but even so the angles of approach all converge and the normal rules of separation would still make it take a long time. We don’t want that and that’s why the ALS has its own separation and interval rules. These are much less than the manual ones. But it requires that it’s all fully automated.”

“How long did it take for the wing to land?”

Rihan turned to her flight commander and asked “Toyah are they all in yet?”

“Yes, four minutes” she said with a big grin.

Rihan turned back to Dave with a smile.

“Impressive” acknowledged Dave.

Rihan rose and Dave followed and she called a temporary halt to the debrief that was underway to introduce Dave. Dave knew he would not be able to remember all the names. He was a visual person and rarely forgot a face. These he studied now.

In many walks of life people wear a mask but Dave had found that in the military, at least within the operational areas, most did not. It was the nature of their business to be direct and few could do that and not show their true colours. The colours he was seeing now pleased him and they too looked genuinely pleased to be meeting him. He had experienced that before in small doses but the numbers now were such that he had to mentally shake himself to come to term with it.

When he got to Gordon he was surprised. Instead of the stern disciplinarian with eyes that could tear you apart with just one look, he found a warmth he had not seen in the man before. They shook hands and Gordon said sincerely “I am so proud to be serving under you Sir.”

Dave instinctively placed his other hand on top of Gordons. “It’s so good to see you again Sir” said Dave. He laughed briefly in embarrassment. “This is going to take a bit of getting used to.”

Gordon smiled before adding “It will be second nature soon enough.”

“Thank you” said Dave before Rihan introduced Toyah.

The first thing Dave noticed were the smile lines on her weathered face. The crease lines on her forehead were partly masked by her blond fringe. She had penetrating blue eyes but they were smiling now. She looked a little older than him. For some inexplicable reason he found himself thinking ‘a wise head’.

“So glad to be serving with you too Sir” she said in a slightly husky voice.

Dave shook her hand and replied “Thank you. I’m looking forward to having a chat with you later.” She nodded and Dave was whisked along by Rihan to greet the next of her officers.

Chapter 47. Slidwon 1400, 6 October

Nestor Quazor, now Supreme Ruler, felt satisfied. He signed the order and sat back in his chair. This would complete the senior appointments he needed to change the guard on all key posts within his administration. He had opted wherever possible for people he could trust. That meant in the main either family or friends.

He was well aware that this would probably result in less than optimum talent being applied to these positions but the last thing he wanted was a competent opponent threatening his existence from within.

The most controversial by far was the appointment of Hazon Kublinium to lead the combined fleet. It was time for new blood and Hazon was definitely that. Prior to this order he was the youngest fleet commander on the lists. Now he would leapfrog them all.