Chapter 37: Take it easy
The three weeks that followed my dressing-down were the most boring of my entire life, I think. I had nothing of even the slightest interest to do, except pick out a ship for myself. While that may sound interesting, look at it from my perspective. I was in charge of a large, powerful warship. Thousands of lives. Enough firepower to raze a planet. Getting to pick out some kind of glorified tugboat... it's like someone kicked you out of your mansion and expected you to have a good time looking at one-room efficiencies. Just give me a swift kick in the nuts, while you're at it. Maybe I'll feel better.
I settled on some fifteen-year-old piece of crap being auctioned off on Earth Station One. It had only FVed a handful of times--guess it was owned by some old guy who finally gave up the ghost. Lightly used, but a bit on the old side. Still, could've been worse. I could've been the poor sucker who bought a ship that was impounded for having massive quantities of Salmaxian hallucinogens. The problem with ships like that is you never knew if there might be a stash under one of the consoles, or hidden inside the engine's blast shield, or some other strange place. "Oh, how'd these drugs get here?" Just a problem I didn't need to deal with.
So, I took my little ship, which was officially a "cabin cruiser." A small, one-man house of a ship, with full fold vector capabilities. I could go anywhere, but I had no weapons and minimal armor. How was I supposed to enjoy my retirement like this?
I tried to drop into Newfoundland and see what was being done with Sellis' dig, but I found the whole area was off-limits. A bunch of guys from Emiren Disaster Response claimed an explosion occurred in an old coal mine, and they were cleaning up the mess. I suppose that was as good a cover story as anyone could come up with. They had tents and large vans everywhere, so you couldn't see anything from ground level or from the sky. I'm sure they'd get it all buried again, no one would know about it.
The memorial service? Pretty standard. There wasn't time to read off the names of everyone who died--not when the total death toll was over two million. Most of those were from colonies the Koraxians attacked during their offensive. About a quarter million deaths were from various ISEA branches--Army, Navy, Marines. We lost eighty cap ships and a few hundred support craft. It would take several years to rebuild from that, and it sent a shudder up my spine to realize we lost that much in just a couple weeks. We fought the Cranions for six years and lost about the same number of people and ships. To think that we lost so much in mere weeks--I didn't want to think about what would happen if the Koraxians decided to send another fleet, figure out what happened to the first one.
I heard through the grapevine that we put automated beacons in all our border sectors, along the routes the Koraxians took to get to Earth. They transmitted only one thing: a repeating video loop of their fleet being disintegrated in orbit over Earth. I guess the hope was that any future invasion fleet would see this and turn back, realizing they'd be wiped out. It was a bluff, of course. No one besides me had any idea how to activate the Focus again. Frankly, it was the kind of weapon that no one needed to get their hands on. Unless our scientists managed to reverse-engineer it, I didn't think it would pose a threat to anyone. Since the Oolians had no idea how we made it work, and the Koraxians might not even know what we did to destroy their fleet, it made a good deterrent. They knew we had this weapon. They didn't know we couldn't use it again.
My charm dangled on a silver chain around my neck once again--the safest place for the Focus "key," as far as I was concerned. Jack knew what it was, even if I never explicitly said so. He'd call on me if it ever became necessary. I hoped.
Everyone else from the Protector was listed as KIA--even the four people aboard the Oolian Cruiser. The entire business with that was kept strictly classified. The Oolians agreed not to make it public, too. Everyone knew it would just place unnecessary strain on our relationship, and with the prospect of a resurgent Koraxian Empire, we didn't need that kind of trouble in paradise.
Never heard anything about the Cruiser, either. No one had seen it. I wondered what happened to my "parents," Jenna, Sam, Rydia, and Carina. I hoped I got to catch up with them someday, but I knew that was a longshot.
So, with no more business left on Earth, I made for Ceres. I didn't look forward to seeing Dr. Agon again. But I needed repairs, and I was obligated to check in every so often with him.
As I headed toward the asteroid base, I thought I saw the occasional blip on my tactical sensors. It faded in and out. Really strange. I chalked it up to old, faulty equipment on my crappy little ship.
Turned out, the Nova's sensors were more accurate than I thought.
Chapter 37
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