The Star Carrier Series Books 1-3: Earth Strike, Centre of Gravity, Singularity

“And … I’d appreciate it if you would keep me in the loop, let me know if anything else happens with our … guests, or if you learn anything new.”

“Absolutely, Admiral.”

The Senate Military Directorate, he knew, was extremely anxious to have these two aliens safely secured and under Directorate supervision. They were already assembling a high-powered xeno contact team to keep working on the language, the culture, and the psychology, in hopes of finally learning something useful about humankind’s interstellar enemies.

“Admiral?” Nahan Cleary’s familiar voice spoke in his head. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but the Political Liaison wants to talk to you. He says it’s most urgent.”

Koenig sighed. Since ordering Quintanilla off the CIC deck, he’d been trying to handle the man more tactfully. Diplomacy and tact, however, did not seem to be helping matters.

“Very well. Have him wait in my office. I’ll be back in a moment.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

He looked at the icon-images of the three psychs. “We’re twenty hours from Deimos,” he told them. “You have that long to get them ready for transport again.”

He ended the in-head conversation and pulled back out of the virtual research lab, opening his eyes to see Cleary and Quintanilla standing in front of his office desk.

“Excuse the wait, Mr. Quintanilla,” he said. “I was checking on our two special passengers.”

“They are safe?”

“Seem to be. It’s tough to tell when they’re screaming ‘kill’ at you.”

“That’s something, at any rate,” Quintanilla said, frowning. “It at least partly makes up for your mishandling of the battle at Eta Boötis.”

“Mr. Cleary … out,” Koenig said.

“Yes, sir.”

When the aide had left, Koenig stood up behind the desk. “I will thank you not to criticize me in front of my subordinates, sir.” His voice was hard, sharp-edged. “My decisions at Eta Boötis will be judged by a court of inquiry once we’re back at Mars, not by you.”

“Had you accelerated in toward the target planet sooner,” Quintanilla pointed out, “we could have retrieved Gorman’s Marines more quickly. There’s also the matter of delaying your withdrawal in order to take on board all of those refugees. That, I remind you, was not part of your original—”

“This is not a topic for discussion, Mr. Quintanilla. Now back off!”

“Your failure to cooperate with a duly appointed representative of the Senate Military Directorate is noted.”

“Note whatever the hell you want, Quintanilla. Get out of my office.”

Quintanilla scowled, but withdrew.

“God save us from political micromanagement,” Koenig said, staring at the door after it irised shut behind him. Throwing the bastard out made Koenig feel a little better; whatever he thought of political liaisons like Quintanilla, he had to agree that the battle in Haris space had not gone as well as it might have. They’d carried out their orders—gotten in and out, picking up the MEF and their prisoners along the way, but they’d lost too many ships doing it … especially the Spirit of the Confederation. Battleships were expensive, both in money and in the huge crews they carried, and there would be wolf packs both in the Senate military and budgetary directorates and within the senior military leadership who would be howling for blood. Assigning blame and finding scapegoats both were time-honored traditions for the brass and for politicians alike.

Koenig had made the decisions.

It was his head that would roll.

Flight Officers’ Head

TC/USNA CVS America

Inbound, Sol System

1027 hours, TFT

Gray stepped naked out of the shower and nearly collided with Jen Collins. “Well, well,” she said, her voice acid. “Look here, boys. Our Prim coward.”

There was no sexual segregation on board Navy ships; men and women both used the same shower heads and shared sleeping quarters, a reflection of rapidly shifting societal mores over the past several centuries within the mainstream culture.

“What’s your problem, Collins?” he said.

“You, Prim. My problem is you.”

Gray had managed to avoid the woman since his return to the America. He’d been on limited duty and non-flight status throughout most of the long trip back from Eta Boötis, and staying in one of the ship’s officers’ quarters forward; he’d come back to his old quarters in the flight officers’ hab section just this morning, after being placed back on full duty.

He still wasn’t on active flight status, of course, not with Anna George’s diagnosis of PTED in his health record. He was still undecided as to whether he wanted to seek further treatment, or to say the hell with all of it and resign his commission.

Collins had shown up, he thought, right on schedule, with three of her buddies in tow. “Look,” he said, stepping past them and into the drying stall. He raised his voice to be heard above the blasts of hot air cutting in from above and below. “I’m sorry about Spaas. I know you two were close—”

“You don’t know shit, Gray! Where the hell did you duck off to during the first battle over Haris, huh?”

“I imagine you’ve seen my report by now,” he replied. “I got separated, went down on the deck. Our orders were to provide support for the jarheads. So I did.”

“Yeah, while the rest of us were getting our asses shot off in hard vacuum! Pretty damned convenient if you ask me!”

“I seem to remember getting my own ass shot off, Collins,” he replied. Dry, he stepped out of the stall and the blast of air cut off. They followed him as he walked to his locker and began getting dressed.

“Well, just so you know, Prim, some of us put together a petition for Allyn and the CAG. You’re going before a BOI and get busted off the flight line, hell, bust you out of the Navy if we have our say! You’ll be lucky to find a job as a civilian!”

He glanced at Collins, then at the two men and one woman with her. All three of the others were support personnel with the squadron—Mackey, with Intelligence; Dole, from Personnel; and Carstin, who was with the squadron’s requisitions department. None were flight officers.

“You guys are signing this petition?” he asked. “I didn’t see any of you out there.”

“In case you hadn’t noticed, Prim,” Lieutenant Lars Mackey growled, “besides you there’re only three flight officers with the Dragonfires left! And I don’t think you count! Not if you were hiding out down on the planet, like the lieutenant here says.”

“We lost some good friends at Haris,” CWO Tammy Carstin added. “Sir.”

Gray stared at her for a moment, until she broke eye contact, looking down. Everybody in the squadron knew she’d had a thing going with Gene Sandoval. Hell, half the female members of the squadron had something going with Gene Sandoval. He started to tell her that Sandoval had been his friend as well … then decided not to bring it up. “We all lost friends,” he told her.

“And that makes it okay?” Lieutenant j.g. Kenny Dole demanded. “‘We all lost friends.’ That makes it fucking okay?”

“No, it doesn’t,” Gray snapped back, angry now. “But I didn’t kill them and I didn’t get them killed! For your information Commander Allyn ordered me to go down and help the Marines!”

“After you’d already ducked down to the deck and left the rest of us, including your wingmate, facing the entire damned Turusch fleet!” Collins was yelling now, her face unpleasantly contorted and red.

“You do manage to put the worst possible spin on events,” Gray told her. “Why don’t we just let the Board of Inquiry sort it out?”

Collins stepped closer. She was shorter than he was, and had to look up to look into his face, but her glare carried the mass of someone much bigger. “You’re a coward, Gray. And a fucking technophobic primitive. They should have left you in the Manhattan swamps where they found you, a fucking squattie fighting over scraps with the other maladjies! You don’t belong here. You’re not officer material. You’re not even Navy material. Do yourself and the rest of us a big favor and resign your commission now. Because if you don’t, you’re going to go up against that Board of Inquiry and you’re going to be disgraced and broken, and sent back to the Ruins with your tail between your legs!”