Chapter 40

"Gone, but not forgotten."

~ Phillip Margolin

The WarpStar had completed the jump home, along with the majority of the remaining fleet. The Independence, along with a few battleships, had remained behind to save the crews of the derelict ships that could never return home. Mobile Shipyard ships, known as Whales, had left Sol and jumped to Wolf 359 to attempt to repair some of the lesser-damaged ships while mobile hospital starships had jumped as well to tend to the wounded. The aftermath of the most significant battle humanity had ever faced was grim. The victory came at a high cost. As the WarpStar slowly approached Luna Naval Yards, the sign was daunting. A starship occupied almost every berth in flames, or in pieces. Many ships had been able to escape upon Admiral Briggs’ orders to evacuate, but most suffered a great loss.

As damaged as she was, which was severely, the WarpStar was deemed to be non-critical compared to the rest of the fleet, and was diverted to Earth One, the primary orbital space station for the Federation. Drydock for Earth One was designed primarily for large cruise hoppers, freighters, and other passenger and cargo liners. Occasionally a starship up to the size of a Battleship could lay berth here, but it rarely did. Luna Station primarily housed military vessels.

The battle was over, but no one was in a cheerful mood. As the ship finalized its moorings inside the mighty space station, John ordered non-essential personnel immediate liberty until further notice, and gave his officers a three-week liberty pass for now. The Navy would be sending over a temporary skeleton crew to man the WarpStar as she underwent repairs in the civilian dry docks. Her crew could get much-needed R-and-R. Everyone walked off the ship as quietly as they could, mourning the loss of so many lives. A few of them were able to hide their distress with a smile here and there, but they couldn’t hide it forever. No one had witnessed the level of carnage this crew had. From the loss of Orion to watching ships die by the droves at Wolf 359, the crew of the WarpStar had been to hell and back.

“Commander.” John stopped Heidi as she was on her way out of the airlock, a blue duffel bag with the Federation’s logo holstered on her shoulder, ready for her leave. “If you would like, I’m going to recommend you take the permanent posting of executive officer.” John had stopped her at the right time. Although unintentional, it gave him a reason to ignore Lieutenant Commander Charlene Carr as she snuck out behind them. They’d both been avoiding the tension built up between them since their return, as they remembered the kiss that never should have happened. The kiss had meant good-bye, but the sign of affection could mean the end of John’s career, an immediate court-martial. John did not want to acknowledge it openly for that fear, and neither did Charlene. Once best friends and completely inseparable, they chose to remain separated to preserve their careers.

“Thank you, sir. It is an honor. I will need some time, and I hope you understand. But when duty calls, I will be there for you.” She saluted and smiled, proud of the offer, but not willing to take on the role so soon.

“Of course, commander, we all need time. After all that, I would be surprised if anyone comes back. I fear I’ll be signing discharge requests for the next month.”

Heidi let out a slight chuckle, betraying her composure. “I doubt that, sir, the crew is pretty resilient.” She smiled again. “Well, shall we?”

“I suppose we should, commander.” John pressed the hatch control panel on the airlock attached to the station ambilocal; as he did, an audible male computer voice could be heard broadcasting throughout the ship: “ATTENTION. WarpStar Departing.”

A Naval admiral grilled John for a week and a half straight. It was the longest debrief of John’s entire career, and he had begun to wish they would just throw him in the brig and get it over with.

“There is no other way of putting it. You disobeyed direct orders, and then proceeded to undermine the authority of the admiral in charge of the fleet, and issued orders above him.”

No matter what John said, or how he attempted to defend himself, none of the navy officers or lawyers would understand that he did what he felt was for the best of the fleet. No one understood that his actions were the only reason the Alliance fleet was defeated at all. But, of course, no one cared. All the bureaucrats cared about was finding a scapegoat to pin all the death and destruction on, someone to point the finger at and tell the public “it was this guy’s fault,” not their own. A way to sweeten the pot for any future possible political interests. Luckily for John, no actual politicians had involved themselves yet—or, none that John had known about.

John was about to give up and claim he wanted to flee and ordered his ship to do so just to get it over with when an alarm chimed on the Admiral’s comm unit. “We’re not done here.” The flustered admiral got up, straightened his emasculate dress uniform that he seemed to wear everywhere, and walked out the door. John never looked up, choosing to keep his eyes covered with his hands, never caring about the admiral and letting his annoyance and frustrations show.

The hatch had opened, and John continued to keep his head down, not giving a care in the world who it was, just that he wanted this to be over in one way or another. “Send me to trial for treason, then. I’ve had enough of this bullshit.”

A voice that John had heard before spoke. “You might want to watch what you say around here.” John instantly looked up to see who had entered the room. “That got your attention,” the man said as he took the chair.

“I know you.”

“Yes, we’ve met before.” The smile on the man's face grew.

John had seen him before; he just couldn’t put a face to a name. His brain was screaming at him that this was not a good man; this face was associated with trouble. Then it hit him. “You’re that asshole from the fair.”

“Yes. I’m that asshole from the fair,” he said after a short pause. “Colonel Asshole Wyatt.” He extended his arm, but John refused to shake. Obviously Asshole was not the man's real name, and it wasn’t even Wyatt. The man chose to use his alias to hide his true identity. “Well, okay then.” He pulled his hand away from John, who had looked like he was ready to take a bite of the man's arm for dinner.

“What the hell do you want?”

“Well, first of all, I figured you would be grateful. Thanking me almost.”

“You knew that attack was coming!”

“I warned you, didn’t I?”

John tightened his eyes, his frustrations and anger rising to the surface for the first time in weeks. “You could have fucking prevented it! My friend almost died.”

“You mean, your lover?”

John shot up, glaring at the man, looking for anything he could use as a weapon, seconds from losing all his composure and gearing up to kill him.

“Oh, settle down, you big baby. I don’t give a shit where you stick your pecker.”

“I didn’t…. We’ve never….” John was fighting for the proper words, not knowing how to respond. He was unable to acknowledge the kiss, but unwilling to let her honor be attacked in such a manner.

“I’m here because I need your help.”

“My help?” John was confused as ever. Sitting back down, he decided to listen to Colonel Asshole.

“I have it on good authority that the Russians are preparing for an invasion on the Sol System.” The man put his arm up, stopping what he knew was about to be an outburst from the captain. “I know we don’t have time to debate this. I need your help with the Sumerians.”

“Why me, and why them?”

“Because of you, our fleet was not totally and utterly destroyed. Hell, because of you, we managed to fend off a possible attack on Sol from The Alliance. And we made first contact with a possible ally alien race. Unfortunately, it seems you are the only one they are willing to talk to right now.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“Very good. That was quick. Because we need you to convince them to fight with us, and stop the Republic invasion.”

“They won’t listen. They are a peaceful species. They have no desire for war.”

“That may be so, but we need you to try. The entire fleet is not big enough to fend off Sol. Our ground forces can repel Russian resistance on the surface, but we will lose the solar system. Once the system falls, there will be nothing to stop them from bombarding Federation territory from orbit, and then we will lose Earth. We are sending you on a covert mission to Sumeria.”

“On whose authority? I don’t recognize you as Navy.”

“Yeah, well. This might change your views.” He pulled out a badge from his pocket. It read: Department of the Navy; Central Intelligence.

“You’re a spook,” John called the man, using the slang term for ‘spy.’

“That’s Colonel Spook to you, or Colonel Asshole, I really don’t care. I outrank you, and I have the authority from Naval command to deploy whatever assets I deem necessary on covert missions. And right now, I need the WarpStar.”

“Why us? Why not use those stealth Corvettes? I get me, but why the WarpStar?”

“We can't let the Russians know the plan. We have intel suggesting they monitor every transit in and out of the system. We have discovered spy satellites as far out as Pluto. Firstly you are to jump via hyperspace to Sirius; from there, you are to proceed via F.T.L. to Sumeria. We have their specific coordinates but not their Hyperspace network information.”

It started to make sense to John. Not only did they not want Russia to know about the F.T.L. drive, but they needed them to not know about requesting help from Sumeria. “We need time, sir, most of the crew is on desperately needed rest,” John said, finally acknowledging the man’s authority in his chain of command and accurately presenting himself.

“You have four days.”

“Sir, for most of my crew, four days won’t be enough time to find them, just to inform them, let alone give them time to pack up and return to the ship.”

“I have it on good authority that most of the major repairs will be completed in four days.”

“Sir, my crew needs more time.”

“Alright. Okay.” The man sighed as he stood up. “I'll make a press release then, explain to the children why their mommies and daddies are being killed in a mass slaughter, because we couldn’t get help in time to stop the invasion.” John attempted to interrupt, but the colonel continued. “Because one of our best captains was crying to his daddy that his crew needed more time to themselves so they could screw their girlfriends and boyfriends one last time before getting plasma rounds shoved up their asses.”

“Sir..”

“Don’t sir me!” The Colonel slammed his hands on the table. “I don’t give a flying fuck what your crew is doing. We need that fucking help, and we need it now. Do you honestly think the Russians are going to wait until your crew is done fucking their way around the world?” He paused. “Well, do you?”

“No..”

“No, that's right. The fuck they won't. Right now, they are looking at us and seeing a crippled lion. What’s the only way to get past the disabled lion to the big juicy steak behind him? Kill the fucking lion as it licks its wounds… And that is what they are going to do.”

“It will be done, sir.” John stood up and saluted.

“Four days. You have four fucking days. If that ship is not gone by then, I swear to fuck, I will let the Ruskies know where you are personally and tell Vladimir not to use lube as he sticks you up your ass.” He did not wait for a reply, instead promptly walking outside the room and into the corridor adjacent to it. John sat down, anger flushing towards the surface once more. Would his crew ever get a break from this madness? He sent out a message first to Heidi to assemble the bare-minimum crew for this trip. If he had to go, he would let as much of the crew enjoy their time at home as possible. He even decided not to request Lieutenant Commander Carr to be re-assigned to the WarpStar; he was going to let her be at home with her family. She deserved it more than anyone.