The Guardians of Sol Page 17

  “And do you have a better idea, Loj?” The Bloodwolf Captain asked, spooning more food into his mouth. “When you don’t know your enemy’s numbers or capabilities, you have to start gathering information somewhere. Otherwise you’re a sitting duck. And I would advise that you stop getting drunk when you’re on your own ship.”

  “I say we pull our forces back and fortify the inner planets. With our forces concentrated like that we can react to any incursion within minutes.”

  “Or we could be wiped out in one fell swoop. What if the two battle cruisers that attacked were just scouting forces? If these guys could have the resources we think they do, don’t you think that they could easily have a fleet at least as big as ours? I tell you that what we really need to do is get the other nations in on this. Between Japan, the AEU, and the Corporations we could more than double the ships available.” The intransigent captain started to say something, but Jacob cut him off. “That is the only way we could effectively defend against a threat like this. We simply need more ships. I know it is unlikely that we’ll get them, but that’s life. Get over it and enjoy your stroganoff.”

  The captain started to talk again, thought better of it, and started poking his meal. I laughed inwardly, but kept it off my face. I was glad that Jacob had called the loudmouth out, and who was going to argue with a Specials captain? Jacob grunted, and started questioning me about my background. The space colony I grew up in, my family, battles I had fought. With all the hubbub of the day to day routines, managing the men, and trying to catch those vexing, evasive villains… we had never actually gotten a chance to get to know each other.

  “Well, I grew up in one of the more… newish… colonies. It’d been built about twenty years before I was born. It was a fairly typical type-C wheel colony, and after both my parents disappeared because of an experimental Archimedes drive, our neighbors took us in for a little while. Although for all intents and purposes I was the one that raised my sister,” I told him. “It seemed a no-brainer to follow in my parents’ footsteps and become a Guardian. Where you from, Jake?”

  His face became wistful, and he sighed. “Ireland. About… fifty years ago, before the AEU closed its borders. My parents were part of the new IRA, trying to get independence from Britain and its farce of a union with the rest of Europe. Long story short, I rebelled, joined the AEU’s army, and fought against Guardians and Samurai and Corporation Security before they finally sent my unit back to Ireland. Where before it had all been battles, glorious or otherwise, it was different this time. Civilian or IRA they didn’t care; my unit slaughtered an entire town before they were stopped – before I helped to stop them. That wasn’t the kind of thing I had signed up for; I had an attack of conscience and put a bullet into my CO’s head right before a band of IRA soldiers sprung their ambush on us. They smuggled me to Iceland and I made my way to the Forge from there. And here I am.”

  “That’s pretty intense, man.”

  “And every word of it true,” he laughed. “But mark my words, before I buy the farm, Ireland will be free.”

  “I believe it, but all the same, I’d prefer it if the AEU dissolved on its own.”

  “It would certainly make things easier.”

  The ship’s captain stood up suddenly. “Excuse me gentlemen, I have a ship to run.” We made our farewells and quickly forgot the irritating man.

  “But I thought that Ireland willingly joined the Union after the fourth World War. Why would the Irish want out of it now?” I asked him. History had never been my strong suit, and this seemed as good a time as any to learn something potentially useful.

  “That’s true, but you forget how unstable a time it was back then. Everyone was scrambling for allies in the aftermath of Guiyang. Communist China fell; the United States of America finally fell apart. Parliament and the monarchy in Britain were overthrown by a nutjob claiming to be King Arthur returned and his ragtag. Is it any wonder that when he put forth a plan to unite and stabilize Europe that most of the leaders heard the siren call?”

  “Ok, but that still doesn’t explain why Ireland wants to secede now…”

  He frowned at me, “I was getting to that. The movement that brought back the IRA started about… five years after Arthur died. His son Uther – that’s our Uther’s granddad – was pretty tyrannical. You see, it’s called a ‘Union’ but the way the constitution was written up, the monarchy in England has the final say in everything, the ultimate power, if you will.

  “This was happening about the same time that the Japanese emperor was taking back power in Japan and extending their stable economy into Asia, but unlike the emperors, who were taught that their ancestors chose them to serve their people by providing guidance, Arthur’s brood had been raised knowing that it was their right to rule over the masses that would otherwise just kill themselves with stupidity. That’s a huge difference Rhys, and you can see how it’s played out. The Japanese empire continues to grow, while the Pendragon’s kingdom gets stalled every time it tries to expand. The Muslims turned Mecca into a radioactive hole in the ground to keep it from the Europeans, Africa united under the Zulus because of AEU incursions, even the Soviet Remnant managed to stymie the expansion until turning to the Confederacy for help.”

  “I’m still waiting for your point. If Uther was so bad, why didn’t Europe overthrow him, or vote him out?”

  “They couldn’t, or wouldn’t. Think with your brain for a minute, Rhys. The constitution that Arthur drew up made him and his family kings of Europe. Do you think he would really put in a provision that would let the rest of the union to peacefully oust him? And even violence wasn’t an option because so many nations had prospered under his rule that those who were angry were vastly outmanned and outgunned, and had no choice but to continue going along with things. But Ireland has never been one to be intimidated by overwhelming force. And that, young captain, is your history lesson for today. Tomorrow we cover ancient Greece and how that led to their alliance with the Guardians today.” He finished with a wry smile. “Don’t forget to read chapter ten in your text book.”

  “Ha ha, sure thing, Teach. Although I would like to hear your take on how that happened. Maybe you should have been a professor at a university.”

  “I was, actually. Einstein University on Armstrong Colony at LaGrange 2,” He smiled at my surprise. “I taught history and political science. Don’t be surprised, when you’ve spent your whole life fighting, you have to take a break at some point and decide what you truly want to do with your life. Keep that in mind, Rhys. A man can only stay in this kind of life for so long before he stops being a man. You’re fine for now, but in a few years, I want you to take some leave and figure everything out, your motivations, your wants, your needs… Get some experience outside of the service.”

  “I’ll try to remember that, Jacob. Hey, whose turn is it to do nighttime roll call?”

  “Let’s see… I did it last night; you did it the night before… I think its Kean’s turn. Why?”

  I grinned. “I think I overheard some of my boys planning a party. I’m just curious to see how Kean will handle their extra-curricular activities.”

  “He’s an old hand, he’ll be fine. I’m more worried about how Frank is doing with Captains Joshua and Cari’das on the Bereavement.”

  “What’s the story with you guys? Are you brothers, or what?”

  Jacob affected a look of horror and disgust at the very thought. “That Scot, my brother? That’s some twisted mind you have there, my young friend,” then, of course, he ruined the whole effect with some more laughter. “We met at the AEU army academy. Served together for a bit after we graduated. He’s saved my life almost as many times as I’ve saved his. Long story short, I trust him more than just about anyone else… even if it did take him a bit longer than me to come over to the Guardians.”

  “I… see…” I replied.

  “No you don’t,” He replied, again faking his seriousness. “But that’s just fine. Think how borin
g everything would be if everyone understood each other.” He shuddered for effect, then stretched and yawned. “Well, Rhys, I have some paperwork to do, so I’ll just say goodnight now. You should get some rest yourself, we’ll probably be heading back to Earth any day and then you’ll be off correcting whatever problems the civilian assembly caused while we were away.”

  *****

  Left alone at the captain’s table, I was starting to feel a bit awkward just sitting there. If it had been later I would have followed Jacob’s advice, but I knew I’d just drive myself crazy if I went back to my room. So I wandered the halls instead. Just as I was starting to formulate the duty roster for next week, taking into account which of my boys had found their way onto my shitlist, I was almost run over.

  Spicy, Squatter, Dumper, Gripe, Sandsmark, and Shot-put stopped short, big stupid grins plastered on their faces. As you can imagine, this immediately raised my guard. Spicy and Shot-put were notorious pranksters, and they often got their squadmates involved. I fixed them with the most serious and authoritative glare I could come up with on the spot.

  “Alright, boys, what did you do this time? Am I going to have to explain to Colonel Kean why his men have the runs again? And John, you’re an officer; you’re supposed to be the voice of reason.”

  “Well, I did tell Spicy to use talcum powder instead of the freeze-dried eggs,” Shot-put calmly replied. “That’s reasonable, right?”

  I sighed, I tried to be serious, and to be a good officer, but I was still young and curious. I had to ask them what the eggs were for. Unfortunately, before they could tell me, my com started beeping. I answered to see a bedraggled and wet Colonel Kean glaring so angrily that I wondered if I was going to spontaneously combust.

  “Colonel, you don’t look well, is your shower malfunctioning again?” I inquired as politely as I could. Some of the guys started to snicker, and I waved them to silence with my other hand.

  “You know damn well that your men played another of their pranks! Half the deck smells like rotten eggs and the showers are all spraying a thick and thoroughly disgusting liquid that smells even worse. I’m going to have their heads this time! Your men should be arrested! I’m going to-”

  “I’m sorry, Colonel. Don’t worry, I know exactly who the men responsible are and they will be punished. Expect them to help with clean up in the morning. In the meantime… call maintenance. Castle out.” I looked seriously at Shot-put.

  “Hey, I never said he didn’t use the eggs.” Was his only defense.

  “But what I want to know is what you thought the talcum powder would do.”

  “That’s what I asked him!” Spicy chipped in. I glared at him.

  Shot-put shrugged. “Didn’t they use to use talcum powder to make people itch?”

  I sighed. I did a lot of sighing when I was on duty. Spicy put his arm around John and laughed. “Shotty, they use talcum powder in BABY powder. They wouldn’t do that if it made people itch. If we’d gone with your plan the only thing that would have happened would have been stopped up showerheads.”

  “Oh…”

  “Yeah, pretty much.”

  “Hey, Captain!” Gripe cut in. “We’re going for some drinks. You want to join?”

  “Not like I have anything better to do. The lot of you are going to help clean that mess up in the morning. And you two,” I pointed to Spicy and Shot-put. “You’re on latrine duty for the next week.”

  The bar the Gungnir probably wouldn’t have been called a bar anywhere else. Since it was an active duty ship, there were no alcoholic beverages available. Not that that stopped anyone from having fun or calling the place a bar. This evening, the place was pretty sparsely populated; even the couches around the view screen that showed Venus and the stars only had one or two couples on them.

  We seated ourselves at a table. Squatter started things off by telling a story about when his old squad had scared away their opposing numbers by convincing them they were being haunted. It more than likely wasn’t true, but it was funny. About halfway through a server finally came over to take our orders.

  “I’ll just have a tall glass of cold milk,” I told the man, and then I slapped Sandsmark on the back. “And my friend will have a grape Nehi.”

  “Oh, ouch.” Dumper and Gripe chortled.

  Sandsmark, however, just shrugged. “And an order of buffalo wings. I haven’t had dinner yet.” When the server left, Sandsmark looked askance at the twins. “Why did you say that when the captain ordered for me? I mean besides that he ordered for me.”

  “Well, you see…” Gripe began. “A grape knee high is the kind of drink someone gets when they can’t hold their liquor-“

  “Or when they’re too young to drink. It was a well calculated joke, Cap.” Dumper finished.

  “Oh…”

  I grinned. “And that’s all it was, Chris, just a joke. Speaking of which, we need to figure out your new call sign. Any ideas, gentlemen?”

  The replies I got were as inspired as Sandy, Markey, and even Stinky. Needless to say, neither Sandsmark nor I were very satisfied.

  “Alright, you’re thinking too hard about this, guys. Or not hard enough. Voodoo didn’t give you guys anything to drink earlier did he? No? Ok, so how about this, Chris uses an arc spear. All in favor of calling him Stick? Good, six to one, the motion is carried. Sandsmark, you are now ‘Stick,’ get used to it.”

  He started to complain, but was drowned out by the friendly ribbing before the food and drinks arrived. The stories started back up, Spicy told us about a time when he and some misplaced explosives had washed a Samurai contingent half a mile downstream when he’d accidentally destroyed an unusually large beaver dam. I even chipped in a tale from my earlier years when some AEU soldiers had literally caught me with my pants down.

  “So where’s everybody else?” I finally asked. Normally my men were fairly reliable, but going this long without any action caused them to make more trouble than most squads. If you thought that Spicy and Shot-put’s prank was bad, you had no conception of what Voodoo got into when he was bored.

  “Boar talked Voodoo into challenging some crewmen in a new game in the gym,” Dumper said.

  “And Filch and Tinder were taking all of the Bloodmoon’s credits in a poker game when we left,” Gripe continued.

  “And Haywire had a date or something. He was trying to stay real quiet about it, but I got that much out of him.” Shot-put finished.

  “I guess they won’t get into too much trouble then… What’s that?”

  “What’s what?” Spicy asked me. “Cap?”

  “On the view screen. Is this a live feed?”

  “As far as I know. Why?”

  “I think I just saw a courier ship dock with the Redemption. Maybe we’ll get lucky and it’s bringing news on those Centurion punks we’re chasing.”

  “Or it could just be a normal courier trip. If the alarm doesn’t go up in the next few minutes then we’ll know we won’t be leaving until morning, at least,” Shot-put said. “The High Sentinel’s wife is overseeing the terraforming here you know. I doubt he’s in that much of a hurry to go.”

  “Makes sense. Hey, does the guy on that couch remind anyone else of our favorite sergeant?”

  In fact, the man bore a more than passing resemblance to Haywire… and the woman he was cuddling with… was my sister. That explained his date, and why he was trying to keep it quiet. Not that I hadn’t had my suspicions. Between the way they acted back on the Forge, and every other time they got together, I would have had to been a bigger idiot than anyone gave me credit for not to at least get ideas. I wished they’d just told me, but if they were serious, I was happy for my sister and best friend. In a way, I couldn’t think of a better match, they balanced each other’s tendencies almost perfectly. Why hadn’t I seen it before? No matter, I wasn’t going to ruin their evening.

  “Well boys, there hasn’t been an alarm, so I’m hitting the sack. I suggest you do the same soon, or that latrine duty
will get a lot worse.”

  *****

  An insistent beeping woke me before I would have wanted, not that I was disappointed when I finally got up and answered.

  “Ah, Castle, good of you to wake up. Meet me and Kean in the Captain’s ready room, the Sentinel is about to make an announcement or give orders or something.”

  “I’ll be right there; just let me put on some clothes.”

  He smirked at that, probably imagining the looks I would get if people saw me running naked around the ships.

  *****

  “Greece is under attack, and has been for four days. Now, the ships I left back at Earth have kept the AEU from giving their troops much air support, but that holds true for us as well. The Venators tell me that the Spartans have managed to hold Uther’s advance off at the three main mountain passes, but Telamon’s defense is in trouble. He’s facing an army twice as big as the other advances with a force ten times smaller. We’re going to reinforce his position first.

  “What this means is that the Specials division will be dropping in first to break the AEU offensive and buy a secondary force of Castigars the time to come down in shuttles. Be careful though, the enemy force is led by Uther’s champion, a knight named Marcus Santiago, and they’ve got a particle cannon too. If anyone has a chance to take that down then do it. If we don’t hurry then Marcus might just get impatient and level the city Telamon’s holed up in. The Redemption’s captain will be transmitting the tactical plans shortly. We move out in twenty minutes. Make your preparations quickly.

  *****

  An hour later the fleet was coming up fast on a space battle between four Aegis-class 750 meter destroyers and eight Aegis-class 500 meter frigates, and a much larger number of AEU battleships. The fleet launched combat shuttles and fighters. An Aegis blew up in a flare of nuclear fire, and two battleships started listing towards the planet, venting atmosphere.