Resilience (Warner's World Book 6) (7 page)

They sat on the front veranda with a magnificent view of the deeply cut valley below. The smell of earth mingled with the almost antiseptic scent of the surrounding silma trees. It was a rustic setting. Angina was warming to it. She looked at Marra, who was also staring out at the view. But she could see that her focus was not in front of her. It was all a bit of a shock and there was so much for Marra to catch up on, especially in terms of what actions she would have to take.

A few minutes passed before the Admiral appeared. His appearance gave the impression of a farmer but there was no mistaking the powerful intellect as his eyes scrutinised them both. “So what’s this all about then?” he asked as he sat down in one of the big sofas on the wide veranda. “You do realise that I’m supposed to be on leave?” But he continued before they could respond. “I haven’t had leave in over 13 months.” He emphasised the ‘had’.

Angina nodded. “Yes Admiral I’m very sorry to disturb you but I must do so. I have a story to tell….”

Veego took it all in. He was not surprised that the First Consul would initiate a coup, no that he would be on the hit list. He barely scanned the messages Angina offered as proof. After that he grew a little impatient and finally interrupted. “Excuse me, but this is not proof. You and I both know that these could so easily be fabricated. Why should I respond to them? What irrefutable evidence do you have?”

“Just this and my word” said Angina.

“Mmm…then I think you have wasted your time. I’m sorry but I will not act on the basis of what you have presented.”

“And what of the threat to your own life?” asked Marra.

“My dear Chief, I live constantly under threat, except when I come up here. Now can you please leave?” There was a slight pause before he added “Fear not. I will not betray your confidence but I will not be an instrument that initiates rebellion. Is that clear?”

Angina put her hand on Marra’s arm to belay her response. She stood up as the Admiral did so. “Of course Admiral. As you wish.”

Chapter 19. Resolute over Q2 0930, 10 September

Val was asked to come up to the Captain’s office. She entered to find both the XO, Cmdr Ivan Kiralenko, and Dave Warner seated.

“I have an unusual request” said the tall blond Ivan. Val tilted her head on her short but athletic body and gave him a quizzical look. “It would appear” continued Ivan “that our commander is out of uniform.”

Val cast an eye over Dave but could not see anything amiss. “In what way Sir?”

“In that his badge of rank is incorrect…”

Val cottoned on immediately but she was not going to give Ivan the pleasure of finishing his statement. She interjected with “you’ve been a naughty boy again have you Sir?”

Dave laughed heartily as Ivan shook his head. Then Ivan responded with “You couldn’t give me the pleasure could you Val?”

Val ignored him. “And so you want one with an anchor, hey? Well done Sir.”

“Thanks Val and yes, if you have them.”

“It’s amazing what we have tucked away in the right nook on this ship. Give me half an hour. I’ll be back.” She got to the door and turned around. “Is it official? Can I tell the others?”

Dave liked Val a lot. She might have been an Admin officer but she had plenty of pluck. He had encouraged that pluck too. Now she was a fully qualified watch officer and had also seen plenty of action in ship to ship boardings and even in a bit of espionage under the tutelage of Dave’s best friend LCmd Art Simons.

“Yeah you can tell the others Val.”

As Val left Ivan said “Ginty?”

“Yes, get her and Jim in. But let me do the talking.”

It was a wary 1
^st
Lt Ginty Martell that entered Dave’s office accompanied by her officer commanding (OC), LCmd Jim Bucknell. They both sat down in the chairs as indicated by Ivan with his hand. She knew she was going to get a chewing out. Yes, she regretted giving the XO some choice words but she was still smarting over the fact that he was not respecting her right to privacy on this matter.

“So Ginty” started Dave “why do you think you’re here?”

Ginty gave Ivan a quick glance. He was playing a straight bat. She would have preferred that he showed some more emotion. “Look I’m sorry for the language but I have rights you know. I don’t have to communicate with my mother and it’s none of your god dammed business as to why either.”

Jim frowned at her and was about to say something but he stopped when he saw Dave shaking his head.

Dave took a deep breath in. “Normally I would agree with you.” He paused deliberately to let that little fact sink in. “But the XO exercised his right to read the communication you keep blocking. This was done at Fleet HQs request. The XO has shown me the communication and I think you should read this now.” Dave placed the ePaper on the desk in front of Ginty.

She looked at it like it was poison. Her lips pursed tight. It was like a red rag to the bull. “You can’t make me do this. You have no idea. She might be my mother but she lost all right to communicate with me when she ran out on us to get stoned. It was my dad who raised me not her. I washed my hands of her all those years ago and I want nothing to do with her, do you here.”

“It’s about your dad, Ginty. He’s dying and she needs your approval for a power of attorney so she can care for him.”

“What?” she said and she grabbed the ePaper and began reading. As she did a floodgate of emotion coursed through her. There was anger, bitterness and oh so much sadness. She wiped away a single tear and drew on her reserves to re-establish her composure. She nodded to Dave and then asked “Are we done?”

“Yeah, we’re done Ginty.”

Ginty stood up, gave the others a nod and left.

Chapter 20. Cornucopia to Polaris 0945, 10 September

Charles had been disappointed when he turned up at 0700 to get his dressing replaced only to be told that Dr Li was too busy to see him. He had reluctantly submitted to the male nurse on duty who changed his dressing.

But he was pleased when Merry hailed him at 0930 to apologise for not being there and delighted when she said she could meet him for coffee. He was sitting at a table in the café waiting for her. His eyes lit up as she approached but he could see that she looked very tired.

“Sorry about earlier” she said as she sat down at the table. “I couldn’t get away from theatre.”

“Long night?” asked Charles.

“Yes we got an admission late in the night…complicated.” She gave him a weak smile.

“Does that happen a lot?”

“This is a hospital ship and we’ve got a lot of wounded, so yeah.”

“How long have you been serving on this ship?”

“Two years now and because of the war most of it has been spent in transit.”

“Will you get any down time when we arrive?”

“You don’t muck around, do you?”

“Sorry, didn’t mean it that way.”

She studied him closely, still a little unsure of him. She decided to let it lie and change the topic of conversation. “So are you being discharged…from the Service I mean?”

“Probably…that’s still a bit up in the air at the moment.”

“What was it like down on Qwantum? You don’t have to answer that. I shouldn’t have asked really?”

“That’s all right” said Charles and he went on to explain his part in the assault on the missile battery at Rollinium. Merry appeared to be genuinely interested, so Charles unfolded more of his experiences. Before he knew it an hour had passed. Merry said “Oh is that the time I better go I’m back on shift at 1600.”

“That’s a bit cruel on you” sympathised Charles.

“I’ve gotten used to it. Thanks for sharing that” she said as she stood up.

“Will I see you tomorrow morning?”

“Hopefully” she said and gave him a smile before leaving.

Chapter 21. Washington DC 1000, 10 September

Chief Scientist, Obeida Mbone, shifted her large frame in the chair opposite Julian Morrow’s. The Defence Minister was reading the section of the report she had highlighted. Glen McKlusky sat next to Obeida. He was tall and thin and going bald. He knew that much depended on this meeting and convincing the minister to back his plan.

Glen was gifted but not stellar. He was a solid scientist, not the leader in his field. But Glen understood that to bring any field of scientific research into a practical outcome you needed cooperation, collaboration and a willingness to compromise. It was the compromise he had proposed that Julian was now pondering.

“So you want to test this thing in the original test site?” asked Julian. Glen nodded. “Am I right in understanding that you can no longer warp in and out of that system?”

Glen took a deep breath in. He knew he had his job cut out for him now. He had to try and explain a lot of very complex scientific theory to a virtual layman. He had rehearsed this bit over with Obeida before they had come in. Even Obeida thought his effort wasn’t too bad. But neither had felt that confident about it. Right now Glen’s confidence deserted him.

“Yes and no” said Glen. “You can warp in but you may not end up where you had intended. The real problem is warping back out again.”

“The gravity” proffered Julian.

“Yes.”

“So whoever goes in, isn’t coming back?”

“More or less.” Julian frowned. “It’s a lot more complicated than that. Look Minister I could wax on about a lot of stuff you would struggle to comprehend. I don’t mean that with any disrespect. But would you grant me the favour of placing your trust in me if I said we can mount an unmanned mission to activate our device.”

“How can you? It’s how many light years away?”

“One hundred and forty three. But yes we can. We have this experimental AI system that was developed for terra forming…”

“Hold on. Those still rely on human initiation within the system.”

“The ones that have been announced, yes. But they have another that’s being developed by a team headed by Nancy Ku. She reckons it can be fully automated and activated without human input.”

“What is its operational status?”

“They have a working prototype as of two years ago but they lost funding last year and it’s in mothballs at the moment.”

“Have you reviewed this? What do you think?”

“Yes, I met with Nancy in Seattle. Her demo was impressive, but that’s all simulated.  We need first to test that this delivery means works and then modify it so that instead of initiating a terra forming device it initiates our new mass exchanger. I think it’s our best hope.”

Julian looked into Glen’s eyes. He saw no doubt within them. He liked that. “All right, tell Nancy she has her funding back on line. This takes priority over anything else she’s doing.” Julian flicked through the report to the recommendations. He’d already read them. He wasn’t perturbed at the cost, though he knew his cabinet colleagues would be. “Why do you need six devices?” he asked.

“So we can bracket. We have to work out how to calibrate this device so it will work in Qwantum. In effect we change the polarity of the device so it either converts energy to mass or mass to energy. But we need to know how much by and while we can do a lot in simulation there is really only one way to be sure.”

“And if you reverse it too far?”

“We may get a supernova.”

“Shit. Just as well it’s fully automated then.”

Obeida smiled. Glen remained serious. He felt like a salesman about to reveal a shortcoming in his product. “Just maybe, if it does happen, we may need to find another test system.”

“What, another star system?”

“Yes.”

“Oh terrific and how do you expect me to explain that to cabinet let alone the public.”

“We all have our crosses to bear” said Obeida, straight faced.

“Well that may be so. No supernovas. OK?”

“We’ll do our best” said Obeida, glad to wrap the meeting up. She pointed at the signature page.

Julian cast a quick look at Glen and then with a swipe digitally signed the approval. “OK you have your approval from me re the expenditure but cabinet will need to sign off before you can even consider using another star system.”

It wasn’t until after lunch that Julian approached Malissa Karalis, the Chief Minister, about the issue. They were in her large office. Malissa was busy. She pointed to the chair opposite, rather than to the lounge chairs. So Julian knew he had to hurry. He explained things briefly easing her into it. Finally he dropped the bombshell about the possible need for another test site.

“Oh things just keep getting better, don’t they?” asked Malissa. “Belinda!” she called out loudly.

Belinda Klondike, Malissa’s Senior Political Advisor, entered with a disapproving look on her face that Malissa chose to ignore. “Minister” she said to Julian as she took the adjacent seat. She read the brief provided and the hairs on the back of her neck stood up when she got to the part about another star system. “You are not serious are you?”

“Yes I am…for the reasons outlined.”

Belinda blew out air through her mouth and looked to gauge Malissa’s reaction. Malissa batted the ball back to her with her facial expression. “Well, this won’t win us any votes, that’s for sure. As you say, maybe it won’t be needed. But if it does we need a cover story I suppose, something plausible.”

“Got any suggestions” asked Malissa.

“Am I the only brains trust here?”

“You’re the only one being asked.”

“Let me think on it. I’m sure supernovas happen all the time, right?” But she got no reaction from either of them. She pondered and then said “We may have to come clean on this. I think the public will understand the need for it.”

“Yes they may well do” said Julian. “But what signal does that send to the rogan. That we’re developing the same tech they are? Next thing you know we’ll have our systems being clobbered.”

“I think they already tried that over Polaris, albeit with nukes” countered Belinda.

“Yeah and we were able to limit that because we could concentrate our defences on one planet in the system. It’s going to be damm hard to prevent one of these PME devices from being used when they can hit anyone of multiple planets within the system.”