Kinsella (Kinsella Universe Book 1) (23 page)

“Then, John, I think this conversation should move on.  Ancient History is dull, boring and dry.”

He chuckled.  “And here, I came to ask you what you were planning on doing when we got home.  I want to be a part of it.”

She smiled gently at him.  “John, if your wife tells me she’s okay with you going on the next trip, no problem.”

His face fell.  “She won’t say that.”

“You could always tell her the truth,” Stephanie told him quietly.  “That I’ll bring you home each and every time but if you stick with rescues, one of these times, I’ll be bringing you home like I’m bringing home the general.”

He leaned close and kissed her on the forehead.  “Stephanie, I have to live with myself.  I can’t stay home; no matter what.”

She traced a line along his cheek with her fingers.  “I know.  We’re alike, you and I.  You won’t die in bed and probably neither will I.  How do we explain to those we love, that sitting home isn’t something we want when there are things out here to do?”

A bit later Thomas hopped down from Stephanie’s lap, ran across the compartment and batted the mouse he’d seen scuttling along the wall.  He sat for a second contemplating the lap he’d come from.  No, there were some things he wasn’t willing to share.

Chapter 10 — What Rescue Really Means

Dick Rampling was sitting on his bunk, spit-shining a pair of dress combat boots.  Outside, in the barracks proper, a stentorian voice roared, “Attention on deck!  Admiral in the barracks!”

He dropped the boot on the floor next to its mate and stood up.  An admiral?  In a Marine barracks?  Still, he faced the door, assuming the blank stare all Marines learn so well as boots.

Outside another voice, feminine, growled.  “As you were!”

He blinked in astonishment.  That admiral!  What was she doing here?

It was worse, even, than he imagined.  A second later, his mother poked her head in his door.  “Dick, got a minute for us?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

He saw his mother grimace, but tough!  If she wanted to enter a Marine barracks, she had to live with the way Marines talked.  Four letter words were, of course, the most common words used by Marines, although not usually in reference to one of their own parents.

Admiral Kinsella came around the corner as well.  “Dick!  Good to see you!  I’m sorry about the
Ad Astra
trip!  You never got a chance to save me.  I see they gave you a promotion anyway.”

“Yes, Admiral.  Every Marine who made the flight got a bump.”

“I realize you probably want to hobnob with an admiral about as much as you want to deal with an IG inspection.  Still, I have a present for you.”  She was carrying a briefcase and now she handed it to him.

When he took it, he blinked.  It was rather heavy.

“Carry on, Sergeant,” Stephanie Kinsella told him, waved something that wasn’t much of a salute and was gone.

Dick looked at his mother.  “What was that about?”

“You hold, there in your hand, your future.”

He hefted the briefcase.  “What’s in it?”

“Books, data discs.  Information, in other words.  Dick, Stephanie is a person who invariably gets what she wants.”

He smiled at that.  Stephanie had introduced herself to him, the first time they’d met, as the bridge rat who made coffee for everyone else.  The President of the United States had, a few minutes later, told him that Stephanie was the genius who designed and built
Ad Astra
, the first human-manned interstellar craft.  A while later he learned she was indeed the bridge rat in charge of making coffee.  She was, in short, very confusing.

And if that wasn’t confusing enough, the bridge rat in charge of making coffee had orders from the President of the United States himself that if the general in command of the expedition did something stupid and got himself killed, she was to take command.  He’d gone to his mother, a biologist, afterwards and asked her what was going on.

“Dick, it’s simple.  You’ve seen Star Trek episodes.  Babylon 5, Star Wars.  The captain is the one who always goes on the risky missions, right?”

“Yes.  I suppose that’s not very realistic.”

“It’s nuts.  Generals aren’t supposed to be in front of their soldiers except before they start, in order to exhort them on.  Afterwards, they keep out of the line of fire.  Stephanie was off ship just the once, until the general killed himself.  After that, she stayed aboard.  And let me tell you, it hurt her to do that.  She reviewed every picture, every report, nearly as fast as we could get them to her.  But she knew what her job was.”

Now he looked at his mother once again, confused again.  “Obviously, I’m supposed to bone up on this material.  Why?”

“Do you want to go off-planet again?”

That stopped him.  He met his mother’s eyes.  “Yes.”

She nodded.  “It’s dangerous, do you understand?”

“Do you want to go off-planet again?” he riposted.

“Damn right!  Which is why I helped Stephanie with what you’re holding in your hand.  You see, Dick, not only do I want to go — I want to come back.  And frankly, Elmer’s-Glue-for-Brains officers are likely to get me killed.  Even Marine grunts, wandering around a landing zone, armed to the teeth could, in their ignorance, get me or someone I care about thoroughly and completely killed.”

“So, I have some things to learn,” he said, nodding in understanding.

“Stephanie and I are en route to Australia, Dick.  We’ll be back in a week.  That’s a Saturday.  The following Monday, Stephanie will have a green light to start her testing program.  At least the US will start testing people for professional competence for duty beyond the atmosphere.  And those tests start the Monday after we get back.

“Initially, people will get three shots to pass the tests.  But she’s already got an agreement with Admiral Delgado of the Space Service to drop that to two chances a year less a day from Monday.  Fifty-two weeks exactly.

“That briefcase contains the basic syllabus.  Electronics, controls, communications, general concepts... it’s all there.  And anyone who doesn’t pass the basic tests isn’t going to be permitted to go.  Period.  The President himself has signed off on the idea that starting sixty days from Monday, no basic competence means you can’t go as a crew member on a mission.  They plan on extending that to civilian crew members as well.”

“How can they get military qualifications to apply to civilians?”

His mother turned bleak.  “The Space Service will log all crew information for vessels operating outside the atmosphere.  Passengers are exempt, if it’s just out and back.  Everyone else — well, the Space Service won’t initiate a rescue for a ship without the proper crew certification.”

“That’s cold.”

“Stephanie’s become a great fan of naval history.  She recently read about the British navy’s retirement plans for enlisted men during the Great Age of Sail.”

“They had 401K’s?” he said in an attempt to be witty.

“Aboard ship, and even ashore, they were given a couple of pints of rum a day.  Most of them dropped dead of liver disease if they weren’t killed in battle or in an accident.  There were almost no senior NCOs in the British navy above the age of forty.”

“Damn!”

“She says that space is hard enough.  She’s going to give the Space Service rescue crews the best chance she can.  And sending them after fools doesn’t make sense.  Not now.”

“So, I have to bone up.”

“Yep.  And if you have any friends who you think might want to go aloft in the future, you might want to share.”

He laughed.  “Admiral Kinsella is one diabolical woman, Mom!”

“Maybe.  Or maybe she just wants to keep people like you and me alive while we get our shot at exploring the cosmos.”

“So, what are you going to do in Australia?”

“Damned if I know!  A biologist at an international conference on off-planet colonies?  Who’d have thought they’d want to listen to someone like me?”

It was something Dick had heard a lot since the
Ad Astra
had returned.

“Is it true?  That Admiral Kinsella will command the second expedition?”

His mother grinned.  “Yep.  Right now she and I are the only two fully accredited members of the Space Service... of course, we wrote the book.  Three months or so from now we leave for Alpha Centauri, Sirius, then Procyon and last an M-class dwarf a light year or so from Procyon... and back home.  She has already received permission to take only those who’ve passed the qualification tests.”

“Israel didn’t go to any of those systems,” Dick said with a grin, trying to change the topic of the conversation.

“Can you imagine that!  We have high hopes for Procyon, but Stephanie warns that we are going to find a lot of surprises at first.”  Once again she waved at the briefcase.  “And if you want to come along, it’s pass or fail.”

Dick Rampling nodded seriously.  “Does she really want me to rescue her?”

“Dick, while I have no doubt that Stephanie would vehemently disagree with me on the subject, I have to say I’ve never heard her joke about anything.”

The Prime Minister of Australia shook the President of the United States’ hand.  “Howie, glad to see you again,” the PM said with all the bonhomie of a used car salesman.

“Bob, it’s been too long.”  The two men smiled and continued to shake hands while a hundred photographers took pictures of the two men.

“Bob, if you have a minute,” the President said in a whisper, “there’s someone I’d like you to meet.  Someone not on the official schedule.”

The Prime Minister arched an eyebrow.  “Someone on my staff has been disloyal!  They let you know I can’t let a mystery go by without gnawing on it!”

The President nodded to one of his aides, who led them away from the photographers.

“I cheerfully admit the exposure to a hundred light bars is an acquired taste,” the PM said after they went through a second door, securely away from the nosey press.

“I know.  Bob, I haven’t been entirely candid with you about some of the details for this meeting.  Were you to ask my staff, they would all tell you that they only amount to a few trivial oversights and not worthy of being brought up.”

“But oversights, eh?” the PM offered, wondering what the other man was getting at.

“Yes.”  They went through another door, where a young woman was standing, waiting for them.  Robert Campbell nodded to her, even if he didn’t recognize her.  His own Chief of Staff looked puzzled as well.

The woman was wearing a military uniform of sorts, although the PM had to think it was a duty uniform, not a dress uniform.  She was wearing a one-piece gleaming white jumpsuit.  On the left side was a single ribbon, a glaring counterpoint to what most military officers wore, and above that a pin like you could buy at the Olympics or other such venues.  Hers was a golden shooting star, with two wreathes of oak leaves meeting over it and a tiny silver star at the apex of the leaves.

“Robert, this is Space Service Rear Admiral Stephanie Kinsella,” the President said, introducing the woman.

The PM studied the young woman.  She was, he was sure, no more than twenty-five.  She was wearing three stripes on her cuffs, a little like an Australian Naval commander would wear.  One of the stripes was wavy, and there were two stars higher up on her sleeve.  So, the uniform of a rear admiral... which was what the President had said.  A somewhat unusual uniform for a somewhat unusual admiral.

His eyes went back to the one ribbon.  That had to be about as close to insubordination as you could get in a flag officer, he thought.

Even as he was thinking that, his aide leaned close and whispered in his ear.  “Sir, Admiral Kinsella is the woman who designed, built, and brought back
Ad Astra
.”

That got the PM’s attention!

Absolutely!  After that, what do you do for an encore?

She smiled at him.  “Right now, sir, two thoughts are warring in your head.  ‘She’s a little younger than I expected’ and ‘I thought she’d be taller.’”

Since that was pretty much the sum of his coherent thoughts, he could only nod.

“Admiral Kinsella,” the President continued, “is also a tenured professor of physics at Caltech.  For whatever reason, she prefers to be called ‘Professor.’”

“Professor,” the PM said by rote, holding out his hand, “I’m honored.”

She grinned and corrected him.  “You’re confused, but that’s my fault.  I’m sorry, sir, and I apologize.  I value the title professor because I believe I earned it.  However, I’m certain that before I board the
Ad Astra
for her next flight, I will have heard someone call me ‘Professor’ for the last time.”

“To what do I owe the honor, Professor?” the PM said, laying it on with a trowel.

The President jumped in.  “We are currently scheduled to meet each morning of the conference for a working breakfast.  Just you and I, our State Department secretaries and a couple of aides.  Eight people, max.”

“That’s right.”

“I’d like to add Professor Kinsella to the list.”

The Australian PM shrugged.  “I don’t have a problem with that.”

“I don’t know the extent of your relationships with your people; I’m sure about the other three Americans who will be there: none of them will ever mention that Professor Kinsella was present.  I’d appreciate it if her presence wasn’t leaked.  Ever.”

“Ever?” the PM asked cautiously.

“I break out in hives when my name is mentioned by the media,” Professor Kinsella told him.  “I’m taking the
Ad Astra
back out in eleven weeks.  I’d like to focus on that between now and then and nothing else.  At least after this week.”

“I’ll tell everyone in the firmest terms not to mention your presence.”

The President continued on.  “We are also scheduled for, ah, a nightcap together in the late evenings.  A half hour so that you and I can have some private face time to prepare for the next day together.  I’d like to add Professor Kinsella to that as well.”

“Even though it would just be the three of us?” the Prime Minister questioned.

“Yes.  I realize that this might seem like rather extraordinary access, but there’s a reason for that.  Another oversight.”