Echo of Tomorrow: Book Two (The Drake Chronicles) (46 page)

“For Christ sake, skipper!” she yelled. Scott impulse was to strike out at whoever grabbed him, but managed to stop the blow before it landed when he saw who it was.

“There you are, Janet! I wondered where you’d got to,” he panted, wiping gore off his faceplate and looking around.

“Jesus H Christ! Kat will have my head on her wall if you get killed!” she screamed, feeling like hitting him. It dawned on Scott then, she was right. In fact, he shouldn’t even be here. Marines moved past him down the companionway, driving the aliens back, and it looked as if they now had the situation under control.

“All right, Janet, let’s get back to the ship,” he said, and Janet nodded, breathing out her relief.

They made their way back down the passageway, and Scott was astonished just how far they’d penetrated. The alien ship was in shambles, littered with dead and dying crew, yet he felt no sympathy for them.
This time they fucked with the wrong species,
he thought.

The moment he climbed through the breach, his outraged XO and Devon Hawking immediately linked on the net, yelling at him at the same time.

“Admiral! Just what the hell do you think you are doing?” Akari Hirota yelled, for once not bothering to hide her anger or show one iota of respect for his rank.

“Oh nothing, just having a look around the ship,” he answered lamely.

“Damn it, Admiral! I thought you meant this ship, not the fucking alien’s! Sir!” she roared, seething with anger, and even if Scott was her admiral, she wasn’t about to pull any punches. Scott had to turn down the volume on his radio to protect his ears.

“I know, Akari, I sort of got caught up in the moment.”

“Bullshit!” came Akari’s curt reply.

“Akari-
sama
, you’re right, I humbly beg your forgiveness. I shouldn’t be here, but can you hold off reading me the riot act till later? I’m a little tired right now.”

Akari threw her hands up in the air and cut the connection. Scott knew she was only the first in a long line of people who’d be ripping him a new ass, but the one he feared the most was Kat.

Akari cut back into the comm net as Scott walked through the landing bay. “Oh, by the way, Admiral, you are the proud father of a baby boy. Congratulations.”

“Yes, congratulations, Scott,” Devon added, still spluttering in outrage.

“Same here, Admiral,” Janet said, stepping forward looking a little worse for wear, her dented battle suit covered in several kinds of gore.

Scott shook hands all around, feeling bemused by it all, and unsettled. There was a macabre humor in all this, congratulating him on the birth of his son while they stood in the middle of so much death and destruction. Slowly he made his way to the gate hatch, and stepped through to the bridge and Akari Hirota’s disapproving look. Thankfully, his suit’s faceplate hid his expression as he made his way to his quarters. He immediately stepped into the suit locker, and the moment the door closed the decomm shower came on, washing away any possible contamination and alien germs as it cycled through several types of irradiation exposure including ultraviolet, until at last the green light came on and he could exit the scrubber. With a sigh, he climbed out of the suit and took a shower himself before donning a clean set of whites. On his exit from the bathroom, Hardwick met him with a stiff brandy, which he accepted gratefully with, “Just what the doctor ordered.”

“No, sir. I don’t think I’ll tell you what the doctor ordered just now, you might shoot the messenger.”

“That bad, huh.”

“Worse, sir, and he was only the first.”

“I can imagine,” he muttered, “and you, Chief? What was your comment?”

“None, Admiral.” Hardwick’s tone was respectful as always, but Scott saw the look in his eyes.

“I’ll just bet.”

“No, sir. I understand why you did it. I just don’t approve. You are too valuable to go running off and doing things like that anymore. I thought I’d taught you better, but I guess I failed.”

“Stay at your post no matter what,” Scott muttered.

“That’s right, sir.”

“I’ll take your reprimand, Chief, and remember it the next time,” he said, seeing a slight smile on Hardwick face.

“I wonder if you will, sir.” With that comment, Hardwick vanished into his pantry.

Scott found President Westwood sitting in his day cabin, staring at the screen in horrified fascination, as if he couldn’t tear his eyes away. He looked at Scott and blinked. It wasn’t until Scott looked at the screen that he saw why the president was in such a state of shock. He’d forgotten the suit cams. They showed the boarding action in all its bloody detail.

“Oh shit!” Scott muttered into his drink. He turned the screen off and sat down. Westwood’s eyes followed him, unblinking and haunted.

“I …” Westwood coughed to clear his throat. “I never realized until this moment just what being a soldier really meant,” he said at last.

It occurred to Scott that apart from the video from inside the mother ship, the president had never seen any of the video from the Gulf Wars. Seeing space combat from the bridge during the battle was one thing, seeing footage of the marine assault up close and personal must have come as a shock.

“I can understand your …” he started, but the president cut him off.

“You … you killed those …” He seemed at a loss to describe the aliens, “those beings, like … Merciful Allah! You enjoyed it!” he stammered at last.

Scott nodded. “You could say that. I enjoyed it about as much as I enjoy exterminating cockroaches and vermin.” There was no mistaking the venom in his voice. “As I told my people recently: this isn’t a question of who’s top dog, but a question of survival of the human race. And you’d better get your head around that, Mr. President, or you’re going to end up as food, or worse, breeding stock.” Fatigue made his last words a soft growl.

“A man by the name of
Dave Grossman,
a lieutenant colonel in the old US Army, wrote a famous book long ago called,
On Killing
. I won’t go into the whole thing, but I’ll quote you one of the things he said. “There are civilians, soldiers and the enemy, and likened them to the sheep, sheepdog and wolves. The sheep generally do not like the sheepdog. He looks a lot like the wolf. He has fangs and the capacity for violence. The difference, though, is that the sheepdog must not, cannot, and will not ever harm the sheep.” Westwood looked at him and nodded in understanding.

“We’re the sheepdogs on the wall between you and the darkness where the wolves hide,” Scott continued. “We stand there and guard you so you can sleep, warm and safe in your beds, and not have to worry about the wolf. We don’t ask that you thank us, it’s not needed. We stand there and guard you because that’s who we are.”

“But… but why?” Westwood stuttered.

“Because that’s what we were born to be, and we’re willing to accept the cost of guarding you, even if it means our death.”

Westwood looked at him, his eyes glittering with unshed tears. “Thank you,” was all he said.

* * * * * *

It took two days to finish the cleanup, while different elements of the fleet chased down and destroyed the last enemy ships. The battle inside the alien battleship took its toll, but it was a prize worth the cost. They now had a good example of the lizard’s technology to study, and to find its weak spots. The numb World Council members were rounded up and sent off to Earth on the first available shuttle, only sending the kids through the ring gate. Few council members had anything to say; most just looked about them with tormented eyes, seeing again the carnage and death in which they’d played parts.

Much to Scott’s delight and surprise, the butcher's bill turned out light. A good number of his ships were damaged, and the casualty list ran into the hundreds, but they had only lost thirty-two people, and for that, he was thankful. That didn’t take into final account the three children who’d died, two boys and one girl. That news affected the men and women of the fleet more than anything else. They were the reason they were fighting this war, and they should not have died.

After setting a strong picket force out at both warp points, and sending a scout force to try and locate where this battle group came from, Scott brought the fleet back to moon orbit for repair and refit. Only then did he turn over command to Akari and step through the gateway to Earth and home for a rest. First, he had to run the gauntlet of outrage that greeted him. The moment he stepped out of the gateway on Earth his comm unit buzzed, with a message from Admiral Hays to report immediately to his office. He walked in, only to find all of the new high command there. He came to attention, saluted, then stood for ten minutes listening to the diatribe of condemnation of his actions. Between them, he got a dressing down like he hadn’t had since his acadamy days, and he knew every one of them was right. Like it or not, his days of gallivanting around and doing what he wanted were over. He had a job to do, and as one of his butt chewers put it, by damn he was going to do it!

Scott stood there at attention and said nothing. He had neither defense for his actions, nor for leaving his post, and he knew that underlying their concern was fear. They were scared that without him, it would all fall apart. He felt this unjustified, since no man was indispensable. If he died, then they’d have to find a way to make it work. Yet no matter how hard he tried to pull back and recede into the background and let others take over, the more he was thrust forward again.

“At ease, Admiral Drake,” Hays said at last, and thumped back into his seat. “And congratulations on a job well done.”

Scott hid his surprise at the sudden shift in demeanor and said only,  “Thank you, sir.”

Hays looked around. “Steward! Drinks all round.”

“Yes, sir,” a voice answered from the anteroom, and a moment later Hays’s steward walked in with a tray of drinks.

Everyone toasted Scott, and the fleet, and at last, they invited him to sit. Scott kept eyeing the time on his wrist unit, but he doubted he could get away until they had his verbal account of the battle, and its implications. In the end, it took an hour before Admiral Hays sat back with a sigh.

“Go see your wife and child, Scott, and take a few days off. We’ll take care of the repairs and refit.”

“Thank you, John. I’d better get my butt over there, or my goose will really be cooked.” That brought a chuckle, and after shaking hands all around, he took off for the med center. He’d hoped he could get in without Doc Chase knowing it, but that was a forlorn hope. The moment he set foot inside, Chase nailed him.

“About bloody time!” Chase snapped in way of greeting. “And what gave you the idea you could go and play marine again? Have you taken leave of what little sense you have, man?”

“I’ll take the fifth on that, Doc, and claim temporary insanity. Does Kat know?”

“You think I want a crazy woman on my hands? So far no one has said a word to her, thank god, now get your butt in there and see them.” He gave Scott a lopsided smile and patted him on the shoulder. “Congratulations.”

Scott entered the room on tiptoe, and found Kat half-sitting in the bed on a mound of pillows, a bundle cradled in her arms. The small night-light at the head of the bed was on, wrapping mother and child in a halo of soft light, and it stopped him for a moment. It was the second most beautiful sight he’d ever seen in his life, and one he’d remember for a very long time. It made him want to work harder to protect them from harm as he wasn’t able to protect for his first wife and children.

“Hello my darling, come and say hello to your son,” Kat said softly. Scott walked over and carefully sat on the edge of the bed, and looked down at the small pink face nestled between the folds of a white baby blanket. Slowly he leaned down and kissed the tiny forehead, then Kat.

“I love you,” he said.

“Really? Then one of these days, you need to make an honest woman of me,” she said, smiling at him.