CHAPTER 50 – SOLUBLE

DATE POINT: MAY 13th, 7 A.U. (AFTER UNIFICATION)

LOCATION: SOL SYSTEM, NEAR JUPITER,

ABOARD UTRN INDOMITABLE WILL

ENSIGN PRESTON JENKINS

Jenkins pushed through the door into the hospital in a rush, nearly bowling over a surprised hospitalman in the process.

“Hey, watch it!”

“Sorry!” He replied as he bent over to help in the scramble for dropped items.

“Making trouble for the rest of us here again, are we, my dear?” A familiar voice spoke from behind him as his cheeks burned.

“Busted!” The hospitalman laughed at his misfortune before swaggering off with their newly reassembled charts in hand.

Jenkins turned around to his girlfriend wearing a mask of disapproval before she broke and rushed over to wrap him in a near-asphyxiating embrace with her arms struggling to fully encircle his broad chest. After a moment, he wrapped his arms around her in turn as the stress melted away. With misty eyes, she pulled back and studied him.

“Oh god, I was so worried! I’ve been trying to play it cool, but at least it’s over… for now. As the casualty reports started coming in and you guys were out of contact for so long... I started to fear…” She caught her voice as it broke for a moment and she took a deep breath.

“It was worse after she arrived with Paul and Hamilton, and told us what happened in there… How you stayed behind to give them a chance to retreat… I don’t know if I can… I just..”

Jenkins set his jaw as he felt her nails dig slightly into his back.

“Don’t know what?” He asked softly.

“I don’t know how I would have done if that had been you coming back on death’s door instead… I hate it, I hate that you have to put yourself in danger out there like that, this was never supposed to be the mission… We were supposed to be explorers and pioneers, not conquerors and colonizers!”

“I know… I know… I hate it too. You know that fighting has rarely been my first choice, but sometimes it’s one that is made for you. Some fights just arrive and they ain’t asking, in those moments you've gotta step up. This is one of those moments. They need me out there, if anything this last mission proved that beyond a doubt.” Jenkins replied as he gently rubbed her tense neck muscles with one hand and her lower back with his other.

At last, she pulled away and turned her back to him.

“I don’t know if I’m ever going to be able to be totally okay with this… this helpless waiting… the perpetual dread… I don’t know how people handle it.”

“Sarah…”

“Just… Be patient with me, please. Intellectually I know that this has been something women have been dealing with since the first men went off to war, to come home on their shields or wearing them. It just sucks to be confronted with the reality of the situation now that I'm living it myself. Not that I think I'm somehow better or stronger than everyone else, I just would have thought I would be stronger than this! There’s some moments I’m afraid willpower won't be enough...” She said with a somewhat bitter tone.

“You… aren’t… breaking up with me are you?”

The look of horror and betrayal reflected in her eyes answered him before her words did and hit him like a punch to the gut.

“Why are men such fools sometimes? I mean, how could you even think that?! If anything, I think it’s pretty damn clear that I’ve got more of an emotional attachment to you than I want to admit. I might even be falling for you.”

She… what?! Jenkins thought as his eyes shot wide open and he stood there in mute shock.

“Look, I know its early still, and I don’t expect you to respond or reciprocate right now. I just think you should know.”

“You’re right, I read that completely wrong, and I’m sorry. I’ve never had much success with women, so I hope you can forgive my lack of awareness. The last thing I want is to mess things up between us, either by rushing, or by inserting my foot in my open mouth by being a complete ignoramus. I care about you way too much to let something like that stand without clarification. I very much am in favor of us staying together and working through this in unison.”

He reached out and gently turned her towards him again. Her eyes studied his for a long moment before she smiled at him at last and he leaned in. She met him with a long, passionate kiss which was broken by a wolf whistle from the other side of the room. The couple broke apart and began laughing as the tension drained.

“We’ve made a bit of a scene here haven’t we?” Jenkins laughed.

“After the events of the past eight hours, I think they all needed the distraction. Don’t worry about them, they like you. Well, almost all of them, anyway.” Sarah replied. Before he could reply to that last comment, she leaned in close to his ear and began to whisper.

“B shift will be over in an hour, and I have a lot of pent up tension aching for a release. I think I’m finally ready, if you are, of course.”

She bit his earlobe and sent a shockwave down his spine. She pulled back with a mischievous smile brightening her agonizingly beautiful features. He suddenly found himself uncomfortably aware of a bulge growing between them.

“I uh.. I… I”

“If that's what I think it is, then I have the answer I needed. Now, I know you didn’t come all the way down here just to for me.” Sarah replied before she led him by hand towards one of the back rooms.

“Right…” Jenkins replied as his mood darkened.

“They’re going to be alright; you know.” Sarah began as she gave his hand a squeeze. “They’re in good hands. Dr Silvar’Esh has been here for the last few hours to assist with treating Paul’s injuries. With his help, we managed to stabilize him to the point that his internal medical suite can take care of the rest with enough food, fluids, and rest. Only time will tell now.”

“How about Hamilton?”

“See for yourself.” She said as she opened the door.

“JENKINS! You fuckin’ made it through, I knew you would, you crazy bastard! God damn, I fucking love you bro.”

The image of Hamilton wrapped in bandages and full of tubes in a bed far too small for him combined with his clearly intoxicated state brought a smile to his face in spite of everything.

“You know they couldn’t kill me that easy, bro. Fuck it, I love you too man. You look… good! How are you feeling, though?” Jenkins replied back.

“Better if ya girl over here would let me out of here. I keep telling everyone that I’m fine.” Hamilton said with fake sternness. Sarah stood there with her arms folded.

“That’s because you arrived bleeding in a dozen places and poisoned with some mystery venom with two fractured ribs and on the verge of total metabolic collapse. Dr. Silvar’Esh says you need three days bed rest minimum for the nano-machines to fully repair the damage. After a week, you should be able to resume regular physical activity again. That timetable sounds completely bonkers to me, but I have to admit your recovery rate with this xenotech has already been beyond impressive.” Sarah replied with no small amount of mirth in her tone.

“Ezzactly! You let the girls leave for bed rest in their regular quarters, why not me too?!” Hamilton griped.

“You’re in bed, resting. Now, kindly quit complaining while I check your vitals. We’ll discharge you soon enough. How’s your pain level?” She asked as she began to check the monitors.

“Still doing alright for now, that last dose you gave me had me up in the clouds for a bit. Back down here on the ground now, but the pain is… manageable.”

“Okay, just hit the call button if you need anything. I’m off shift soon, but there will be plenty of people around to help.”

“Aight… I’mma score some shuteye then… but not yet. Thanks for dropping by Jenks. It was getting boring... as hell in here...” Hamilton said between yawns.

Jenkins clasped his offered hand.

“Sorry it took so long, had to wait to catch a ride back to the ship after the doc on the Dirge cleared me. Had a fairly intense debrief session with Alvarez after that. I came as fast as I could.”

“Bruh, you don’t even… gotta ‘pologize. You saved our asses out there far as I’m concerned. If you hadn’t arrived when you did and held them off like that then I’d probably be dead right now. Real talk. Say, how’s Anderson doing anyway?”

Images of the earlier battle flashed though Jenkins’ mind as he was assaulted with memories of HT One’s final moments. The horror of watching hundreds of null matter daggers chasing them down and casting them from the sky returned to him as intense as the moment he’d lived it.

“Nobody told you... Ah… Dammit. Anubis shot us down after we killed Nau-Shesma. Both Anderson and Dawes were dead before we even hit the ground. Anubis split his null barrier into a static shield and dozens of null matter shards under his control that cut through the Rhino’s armor like paper. They never stood a chance… I only survived because I was way up top on the belt fed and the attack hit the crew compartment. I only took one to the side, nothing vital. Here I am basically healed already and they're gone forever... How is any of that fair?”

Hamilton clenched his teeth and looked away as a supportive hand found a place on his back.

“Oh, Preston… I’m so sorry. I’ll take a look over you tonight. I'll take good care of you.” Sarah said in a bid to comfort him. Jenkins could hardly even process it through the storm.

“I never got to know their pilot all too well, but he was always cool to me when we did run into each other. Neither of ‘em deserved to go out like that. Please tell me you painted the walls with that xeno fuck’s brains for them.” Hamilton growled.

Should I tell him? Fuck it, I gotta tell him.

“Captain ordered us to fall back, I was wounded, Locust was out of ammo and nearing heat sink capacity, and we were about to be hit by even more reinforcements. It was a classic untenable situation so we fell back to lead them into an ambush instead. Captain lined up three squads and three tanks at the bottom airlock and dug in with a gunship for air support.” Jenkins said after a minute.

“Did. We. Kill. Him?” Hamilton hissed as he sat alert with all pretenses of tiredness abandoned.

“No… we didn’t. Ah hell, how am I going to explain this?” Jenkins rubbed at his temple while Hamilton studied him with his jaw set in stone.

“Okay. You know the reinforcements I mentioned? It turns out that Gardner’s memories were somehow scanned and saved as she was dying into a server where she met the digital mind of Osiris. She then negotiated some kind of ceasefire and terms of a potential alliance with him before being uploaded into the last war body they had on site, at least I think it’s the last one… Hang on bro, let me finish!”

Jenkins held his hand up as Hamilton began to squirm. Jenkins especially did not like the way his eye was twitching...

“They broke through the ambush and managed to send an unencrypted wide-band message that Brandon and I picked up because she was using the last frequency she could remember. Because of that, he helped intervene to save her life before the Captain arrived to negotiate.”

“He didn’t….” Hamilton began before trailing off.

“He did.” Jenkins replied.

“I really, really want to trust the Captain and Gardner here, but… Fuck me. This seems like a really shitty fucking idea.” Hamilton said before turning back to face Jenkins and Sarah.

“Okay. Since it sounds like this is happening and we’re going to have to more than embrace the suck if this shit goes sideways, I have a whole second course to this shit sandwich I just gotta fucking stomach down. I know you want to see Paul and all, but after dropping this bombshell on my ass you owe me the whole goddamn story first. Now, you got my full attention... tell me everything.”

Jenkins looked over at Sarah, who squeezed his arm and nodded.

“Alright. Here’s what I know about the deal.”

TWO WEEKS LATER

DATE POINT: MAY 29th, 7 A.U. (AFTER UNIFICATION)

LOCATION: SOL SYSTEM, NEAR JUPITER,

ABOARD UTRN INDOMITABLE WILL

CAPTAIN HENRY O’TOOLE

Logistics. It was said it won wars, as much as men and materiel did. Thanks to the vertical hydroponics on the Cornucopia and their long term stores, they were food secure for at least another year and a half. Other things that had seemed excessively stockpiled were now being placed into rationing. Just the other day alone, Chantal had a mini panic attack after crunching the numbers on their remaining tampons and pads. In the back of his head, he dreaded the unspoken countdown for when the birth control implants across his fleet would start needing to be removed without any available replacements.

This mission was not one designed to be permanently cut from resupply. Even in the wildest contingency plans, Earth could have still sent some assistance, the consequences of that loss were both innumerable and immeasurable. Over the past weeks, he had calmed localized versions of very similar fears in the minds of his heads of department in more than a few different critical areas now. The fact was they were short on quite a few spare parts,which was one of the more aggravating consequences of the prior sabotage. Their armament stocks were far from inexhaustible either. They had to think about sourcing the materials to replace all of this now before he would be risking some very scary systems failures.

Manufacturing lead times with his crew in the Daedalus had already spiked from two to three days to now two to three weeks as they had become swamped with so many assorted requests. Too many times having to re-tool just to make too few parts on a run before breaking it down to re-tool for the next one. They desperately needed additional machine shop capacity. Thus, he watched the test on his console display in the CIC with great interest for its potential promise to the future war effort. At this rate, it would be months before he could fully repair his ship. A successful test here could cut that down tremendously.

“Is everything ready?” Henry asked over the comms to his team reassembling the drones on the flight deck.

“Of course! Now rise; rise my creations!” Chantal laughed maniacally as she tapped at her datapad and four drones powered on and began to follow her commands.

“First batch successful! They aren’t pretty, but they work as a proof of concept. Parts of one drone broken on one and whole on another, that battlefield is basically one huge pick-a-part for us. We should be able to get one batch back in the action daily and can scale that process up as soon as we can re-pressurize the Duat and patch its hull.”

“Hang on, first priority should be to fix the Indomitable Will.” Henry countered.

“This has to get done first to be able to fix your ship, sweetie. We can begin basic foundry activity in the upper half, and Gardner assures me there will be enough air in the reserve tanks to re-pressurize the lower half to maybe five hundred millibars?”

“How’s that compared to normal pressure?” Henry asked.

“It’s about half the average atmospheric pressure at sea level. We have plenty of ice nearby so we can split that into more oxygen, and we can filter the air through the top and bottom to help even things out. If you want to be able to use the really choice steel and to be able to shape it in large sections to be able to fix your ship, you’re going to have to wait until we can open the bottom half for business.” Chantal replied with a wink.

“A tale as old as time. Hurry up and wait. How long are we talking here?”

“Time enough to tow a nice juicy ferrous asteroid back here to melt down into enough iron plates to plug that hole? Doesn’t have to be pretty, it just has to hold pressure. Maybe a week for the processing and another for the patching. From there we need to see what works downstairs before we can even begin to estimate how long it will take to fix the damage to the prow. Large, precision-made complex parts are a whole new animal in terms of manufacturing difficulty.”

Every one of her words Henry knew to be a source of a much deeper headache.

“We can’t lose our momentum, but there is such a sunk cost in time to get this all up and running. Two weeks to hammer out a deal, now two more to just get the place sealed up and ready for people to move in and get right to work. That’s a whole month with our enemies on the move and within which to be discovered.” Henry said.

“The reward will be worth the risk.” Chantal replied with certitude.

“I know. I just hate being stalled like this. We’re sitting ducks out here. There has to be something we can do at least in the meantime aside from just watching our own back.”

“Well… Gardner mentioned another, smaller facility in the outer asteroid belt where Rah was betrayed and imprisoned by Set and Aten. Why don’t we sneak into it with a nuke, steal whatever we can that isn't nailed down, and then blow it the fuck up?”

“I love the way your devious little mind works. I’ll call Alvarez! We have some planning to do.” Henry replied with a grin.

“I’ll leave you to it, love.” She purred as she cut the feed. He then pulled up the comms interface and called Alvarez, who answered after a moment.

“Greetings Captain. Checking on our progress?”

“That, and another matter, but we can start there. How is Anubis integrating? His second team op was today.” Henry asked.

"As good a place to start as any, I suppose, Sir. In my assessment, we can rely on him as a bruiser and to protect Gardner at all costs, but outside of that little else. He is honor driven, but not to a code that is an immediate match to our own view of what honor means.”

“Turn up the pressure a little bit. Appeal to this honor, see if you can get creative with finding a motivation you can use.” Henry replied.

“Aye, Captain, I’ll stay the course. I don’t see signs of disloyalty per se, I just wouldn’t expect to see him diving on any grenades meant for us either.” His XO replied.

“As far as I’m concerned, he’s there to soak up bullets otherwise meant for us and to provide intel and open political doors for us. He is as useful as he is valuable to us in the moment on a continuing basis and a prime source of potential betrayal at all times. Continue to play the game indeed, but be sure not to leave our own flank open on his behalf all the same.” Henry replied.

“Understood, otherwise, nothing to report from his personal guard detail. Lance says its all just creepy silence, muttered prayers, and mediation outside meeting the banal needs of maintaining a living body.”

“So, nothing new to report then. Have you checked on Paul?” Henry replied.

“Yeah, at the beginning of A shift actually. He’s healing up remarkably well. I think it would be wise of you to pay him a visit soon. Might even be two weeks or less and he’ll be cleared to resume field work. Hamilton is taking to the new exercise regimen well; says he’s itching to get back on mission.”

“Perfect. That's actually the other thing I called about. I’ve just gotten started on the planning of another station boarding op against the station Set and Aten sealed Rah within. This time we are going in with two tanks and a Patriot backed up by Anubis and Gardner. The objective is to collect intel and steal useful tech without detection and to leave a nuke behind. We believe that doing so will cripple the enemy's ability to control Nii'Baruu, at least long enough to remove it as a threat to us for the near future.” Henry said.

“Perfect, we need to take advantage of the element of surprise while we still have it. I have two Rhinos full of our best ready to go. Hard to believe that such a battle station could be hiding inside of Sol without us even knowing where it is. If the Alderei hadn't told us about it and shown the records I would never have believed it. You're right, its better to act to neuter that threat now.” Alvarez said.

"Good, let your teams know they have three days to mission prep and then they'll launch with the Fist of the Argonauts into FTL. We don't need to fight it, we just need to lock them out. The Alderei have promised us their help in reprogramming its control systems, if we can find it.” Henry said with a chuckle.

“Yeah, if we can find it. I like that plan though. Let me discretely turn the screws on Gardner and Anubis, see what they know.”

“Perfect, when can we expect to reconvene on that?” Henry asked, keen to lock it down.

“I have to see them in about an hour, so directly after that.”

“Good, then I’ll get to work sketching out a course and a plan in the meantime.” Henry replied, his mind already eagerly beginning to dig into the myriad problems to be solved to get the op off the deck.