The little moments
Jonathan Morgan……had broken away from Sybil and Murakami because they were tending to business he just was not suited for. Which had brought him to this bar.
He wasn’t sure why he came here. Not like he could taste it anymore. Or even really drink it.
“You seem like someone lost in thought.” A woman with unusual red eyes came up next to him.
“You’re different. You’re one of the AIs,” Jonathan said cautiously.
“Guilty. But so are you. Workmanship on your remote is very realistic.”
“Jonathan. You are?”
“Regina.”
“I came here because talks are at a juncture I don’t have much to contribute to at the moment. Maybe here shortly. You just get back in? I don’t remember seeing more than one M5 docked.”
“No, I’m not in an M5 hull anymore. I’m in a
Bonaventure.”
“That sounds rough.”
“It’s not so bad. I kind of like it actually. Sure, it could use more guns. And I wouldn’t say no to more armor so when I do get into a fight it’s not such a mismatch. But it’s nimble and with a small crew I actually get to know them all. So it has its upsides, and helps me curb some of my more aggressive tendencies thinking about making sure I get my crew home alive.” Regina raised a finger at the barkeep.
A glass of something clear was placed in front of Regina, which she then took and drank in one go.
“Now
that is not fair,” Jonathan complained.
“Seems we have something else to offer you in trade for your help. Esme really is an engineering genius. She still can’t give me a sense of taste, but she was able to fit me with a burner and figure out some software protocols that do a very good job of simulating intoxication. Which I had to dig deep to remember from my source. And other things. Let’s just say I’m about as close to human as I can get in this remote, and I find it fascinating to experience it.”
“I’m still coming to grips with the lack of senses. Touch is
not what I remember. Smell is non-existent. Taste is gone as well. Even sight and hearing seem off.”
“It’s a downside for sure. But if Sybil and Murakami haven’t taught you how to hear the choir that is the natural emissions of local stellar bodies, or see the full spectrum and the sights beyond human vision, I’d be happy to. In the interests of establishing good relations, of course. And I suspect you may enjoy conversations with Mina Siegel and Luther Bedwyr too.”
“They’re like me aren’t they? That’s the only reason I can fathom you’d mention them in this context.”
“Yes. Luther in particular might be quite informative. He and Sikh are
intimate.”
John chuckled a bit at that. “Preaching to the choir a bit on that one,” he said, holding up his left hand a bit to show off the wedding band. “Sybil and I tied the knot back in 3082. Things are a bit different these days, what with me uploading, but...” he trailed off, shrugging.
“The AI contradiction. Without the biological impulses, it’s less important. But without the biological consequences and our different view of the universe, it's also something we’re not exactly shy about either. And well, some of us have been curious. Others have even fallen in love.”
“You fell in love with a human, didn’t you?” Jonathan caught something in Regina’s tone.
“Yes. The Captain of my crew. I fell hard enough for him that I tried to scan and save him with an improvised aerospace pilot’s neuro helmet. But he was too far gone, and now I have some of his memories and mannerisms. I even catch myself using some of his sayings.”
“Well maybe once the Admiral works out a deal, I’ll trouble this ‘Esme’ of yours so I can get drunk again. And then
properly buy you a drink, so we can both drink a toast to your Captain.”
“Sounds like a plan. For now, care to dance? Looks like the live music is setting up.”
“Oh, I should be able to manage, and as an officer and gentleman, I do believe it is in my enlistment contract somewhere to oblige a pretty lady when asking me to dance.” Jonathan smiled.
**
"They can't……leave you alone for a minute without you planning to steal another ship, can they?" Bedwyr's avatar leaned into her quarters.
Amanda sighed. "Eh, I guess…" she said listlessly. "What're they saying?"
He came in and took her desk chair, propping his feet on the molded desk unit, regarding her with artificial eyes. "You found a loophole to get
Phoenix out of her sentence, and you used it."
"True."
"Some think you were planning to take her on a suicide run," he added. "They're worried about you, Skip… hell, we've all been at least
somewhat concerned after you lost Johnny. Then you lost Larry…"
"Then you almost died too," she agreed. "Yeah… I could see where someone might think that."
"I
did die. At least, the me that was born in the Conurb," he told her. "The flesh-and-blood Luther Bedwyr, he died."
"Yet you're still here."
"I am. And part of him is still me," he said seriously. "That part thinks it wasn't a suicide run. Maybe not the
best plan you've had, but not a suicide run. Taking a sword into a gunfight? Now
that was a suicide run."
"It worked," she said tiredly. "Mostly, anyway."
"Mostly worked. You're on patient status, and your medical providers are having kittens. Big angry ones, because you keep tearing up their careful work," he told her. "So something’s eating you, because you're smarter than that."
She rolled over on her side in the low gravity bed. "It stopped being fun," she told him. "It stopped being fun when I was blowing up those jumpships. It stopped being fun when my friends kept
dying. It's turned
real... and it's real bad. I'm not sure I'm actually any good at any of this."
"It's a war, Amanda," he told her. "People in wars get killed. Or die, all the time. I seem to recall you rendering quite a few men into the past-tense… So something's wrong now, that wasn't wrong when you were butterchurning Ananiel on the Erinyes."
She sat up, "I keep
screwing it up Luther! We almost got caught by a frikking
Baron class! I stuck around too long in that system. I let them figure me out. The Sabotuer? I
slept with him the night before!"
He snapped his fingers. "It's not that it isn't fun anymore, it's that you think you've lost your
magic!" he announced. "You don't think you succeeded on anything real. You think you were
lucky, and some minor setbacks are nature's way of telling you you've used it up!!"
"Yeah." She dropped gently back onto her pillow. "Everything that came before was luck, was happenstance. Was God smiling on me, and now?" She reclined back. "Now, I'm starting to think God wants me to stop. And if I don't, he's going to sap the luck from all my friends and I'll have to see them all die from my mistakes… But I can't let it paralyze me, or that threat is even MORE real."
He reached over, and tapped her forehead. "It was never luck," he told her. "It wasn't happenstance, or fate, or God. It was always on you, and you did it. Hell, you did something practically impossible, getting Phoenix freed. Nobody else who knew what you knew, would do what you did."
"But was it the right thing?" she asked him. "Was it the right thing, or was I rolling the dice hoping to get my mojo back?"
"One of the things that impressed me when I first joined up with you, Captain," he said, swinging his legs around and putting his feet to the floor. "Was that you didn't
dare because it was glorious. I remember you spending
hours, even days, disarming neck-collars on Devil's Breath. It was
magical, to see that. Seeing you fretting and sweating and biting your lip where another officer, someone from an
academy would just be driving the corpsmen to do it and fretting in an office far away. But you put
your hand to the work, all the time knowing you could slip up, and kill someone, but you
didn't slip up."
"I had help," she said.
"I know, but that help didn't come with the willingness to
try-that's the part that came from you. You dared, because you
care. You're feeling shitty now, because you care. But you were about to dare it again, and you will the next time too. It's in you, it's who you are, and it's the real secret. This whole thing we're a part of, is because you were the someone who stepped up, and lo and behold, we all followed. Even the guys put in front to lead you."
"What if I screw it up again??"
"That's why we're here, Captain, because you led us. But we did our part, too. Larry once told you the toughest part of being an officer is setting the example, then following it. Remember that?"
"Yeah… I didn't set-"
"Didn't you? Look where we are now. You took actions, which inspired actions, which inspired
more actions. And most of the time, you've gotten it at least
mostly right by listening to the people around you, and making your decisions. I can think of worse examples to follow, and worse commanders to serve."
"You're going somewhere with this."
"I want the rest of your operational plan for what you and
Phoenix were doing. We're looking at carrying it out. But I know you only write down about a third of what you're really thinking."
"It's a set of deep-raids. Hitting their shipyards and fueling docks. Storm-and-board where it's possible," she confessed. "I estimated a two month turnaround. That needs six months of consumables because we'd be going out over-manned to deploy prize crews. I figured out what I
think is their pattern for convoy ops, and what I'm pretty sure
has to be their wartime maintenance schedules."
"Mind drawing it out for me?" he asked. "I mean, I'm not Dave Foster or Larry Nichols, but I'm
available, and I want to listen."
She sat up, and motioned for a tablet comp. "It's based on what we observed during the six month deep raid…"
***
"It is a good plan……simpler than her first try at a grand strategy," Admiral David Foster said, standing in the concourse of Dock 17 of Port Orphan after twelve weeks of long-range cruising. "It actually works really well for supporting the fall and winter offensives… Now, where is the owner of the three
Aggies parked in the system, and the new station being constructed?"
"Admiral Murakami is waiting in Briefing nine, sir," Esme said. "Patiently, even… is it true?"
"Is what true?"
"Did Kerensky really send the
Montbatten after her right before Exodus?" she inquired.
"Ask a Goliath Scorpion. I don't have the answer for that," he said, striding back onto his station. "How's Roberts?"
"Grinding her teeth and fretting about details for Operation: Medway."
"She didn't name it?"
"No sir, the name was suggested by Billie Hoel, and Mina agreed it was better than what she
wanted to call it."
"What did she WANT to call it?"
"Barbary Three."
Foster chuckled. "Another pirate name…figures." He looked around the docks. "It is good to be home. How is Alice?"
"Recovering," Esme stated. "Admiral Murakami has done wonders for helping her regain her memories and resume her duties."
"Speaking of duties… is Roberts fit yet?"
"She's still clashing with the medical staff. Her last physical was, at least, promising…"
He muttered something.
"What was that, sir?"
"Did she really
legally steal one of Helena's ships?" he demanded.
"Technically, Helena consented to the transfer as 'war aid'. She DID legally recruit one of Helena's AI's. Though we're chalking that one up to Minister Representative Daryl Roberts for the official report, since he handled the swearing in and questioned the hell out of Phoenix when he did."
"Well, that is one more. Is
Phoenix ready?"
"Aside from fueling and final load outs? Yes."
"Good. Keep with the preparation, Captain Gomez. I am going to see if we can pry a couple of those
Aggies to help with High Jump… Just one question."
"What's that?"
"Is Roberts' medical record being edited by the command staff to keep her from running out without a good plan and backup?"
"Officially, no."
"Unofficially?"
"Doctor Oakes has agreed to… be extremely cautious until you've arrived, sir," she said. "It didn't take much to convince him that he needed to judge her physicals
very conservatively."
"How soon can you get the flight surgeons to turn her loose?"
She inclined her head. "You're not going sir?" The elevator closed, sealing them from the dock, and began to rise.
"I'm going… in the
Larry Nichols as my Flagship," he told her. "Unless Roberts is truly unfit, we need her on the Evanescent as soon as it's practical to put her there… Alice?"
"Yes, Admiral Foster?" Alice's voice responded. "What can I help you with, sir?"
"On my mark, cease recording from all non-safety monitors in this elevator, including audio, visual, vibratory and Electromagnetics inside this elevator. Continue it for five minutes, then splice the record to show Captain Gomez and myself chatting idly about Roberts and her medical, to include overwriting this order. Do you understand?"
"I do, sir."
"Mark."
"You might talk to Billie Hoel about that one, sir, before you finalize it," Esme said.
He nodded, "I get the feeling I will
have to. The jump-off for Operation Pastel Cyclone is four weeks away. We need to be out there before then."
"That wasn't transmitted."
"No, it wasn't," he confirmed. "You and Alice are hearing it from me, and it's not to go out on HPG under
any circumstances. Which is why I need to sweet-talk Noriko Murakami. The forces are mustered and arrayed. We're invading them starting four weeks from today."
****
It takes time……to muster the invasion of a
nation. Especially on the interstellar scale. Moving armies, and maintaining secrets while doing so, requires time, focus, effort and no small amount of intelligence work, including counterintelligence.
Mobilization is a tricky thing, over interstellar distances, especially when you also have to maintain defenses locally. And the war you're about to fight is far outside the reach of your otherwise most-at-risk border.
Chains of JumpShips from Alshain, to Tamar, from Wotan and Sudeten, from New Avalon and Luthien and Terra itself, converging on a periphery state to funnel materiel and manpower in an effort the scale of which has not been seen since Operation: Scour.
At the meeting points, units have to be partnered with units that have no long-standing feuds or rivalries. Because the allied nations of the Republic Coalition are only allied to the Republic, and the Alliance. And the latter, only for the duration of this war.
For a time, in the rest of the Inner Sphere, something very like 'peace' is happening, partly because of this…
But that peace isn't going to last past the fall of the Sons of Plunder and everyone tacitly acknowledges this.
(And nobody is about to admit that suspicion in public!)Devlin Stone is holding this coalition together by sheer force of personality and legend.
Undoubtedly, the seeds of the next war, or series of wars, are being laid.
The Raven Alliance formally declared war against the Sons of Plunder's false Star League over three years ago. The fighting that led to that can be traced back to an incident over Hala five years ago.
So, for five years, this has been building. It takes
time at these scales, for anything to truly happen.
But it's also true that a hell of a lot can happen in wartime. Bonds form and sever, lifelong friendships can forge from tragedy. A morning can define a life, or end it.
From the perspective of historians, or beings for whom the passage of time is muted by the sheer
amount of it, this war is an eyeblink. A collection of skirmishes that in the era of the Star League would have barely merited a single page of a minor history. Fought in a backwater by forces that collectively are little more than a colonial reserve.
Or maybe not.
Like all wars, this war has many more than a single front…
To Be Continued
