The Guardians of Sol (31 page)

February 27, 2290. Io advance facility, Jupiter orbit
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Rachel's head lay on my chest. Some of her hair tickled my nose as she moved in her sleep, and I could not be happier. I traced my fingers down the lines of her back, tickling her in gentle retribution. She stirred awake.

"That's nice," she whispered, and moved just enough to give me a kiss.

"Let's get married."

"I already told you yes!" She laughed at me.

"I mean now. Or, at least sooner than we were planning. Sarah is going to be on station tomorrow, and Jimmy can witness. We can have another ceremony for your folks to enjoy when we get the chance," I explained. "I just don't want to have to spend any longer not married to you than I have to."

"That's sweet, Rhys. How soon were you thinking?"

"Well," I looked at the clock. "It’s after midnight now... so how about after you get off of work? I can set everything up. Maybe you could even wear that little black dress I like so much. Ow!"

She punched me. "If it’s after midnight, then I'm going to need to sleep. You can stay on the couch."

"It’s my apartment," I laughed.

"And I'm your fiancée," she replied slyly. "So you'll be happy to suffer for my benefit."

I could barely sleep that night. I'd need to talk to a few of my friends, a few of her friends. Find a judge or other officiator... At some point I must have gotten some rest because I woke up just in time to see Rachel's cute behind leave my apartment.

Jimmy and John were free, and Jimmy agreed to pick up Sarah from the port. I sent a few messages to a few of Rach's engineering friends stationed on the Forge. She had even fewer friends than I did, but they did tend to get together more often for sometimes crazy projects. I heard a rumor once that they created an entirely new fighter in a seldom used cargo bay. Not that anyone had ever found it. I was still astounded that she found time to do everything that she did and still sleep regularly.

Not being terribly religious myself (I believe in God and gods... but never have been very convinced about any need for organized structure) I was surprised to find a wealth of religious leaders listed in the residential blocks. Rachel was a devout Christian, though she rarely went to services. I met with a few ministers and pastors before I settled on a bearded, jovial, and slightly overweight Protestant priest that I thought she would like.

I even managed to reserve a room at Rachel's favorite Italian restaurant. Only the gods know how I managed that. It only took me about two hours to set everything up. Hell, even the marriage license seemed to fall into my hands. The administrator there did seem particularly dazzled by my peculiar rank and position though.

The room was simple. I don't think it occurred to anyone to decorate it any different than normal. The tables were set against the walls and the chairs were lined up with an aisle in the middle. Jimmy and Sarah were sitting together, and John and Katie were right behind them. A few guys from my early career were on my side of the aisle as well. Within a few minutes, Rachel began her walk down the aisle with Chief Ruiz. The grizzled old mechanic actually cleaned up pretty well.

Our vows were pretty run of the mill. It wasn't like we had time to come up with anything special. We would definitely put something better together for the ceremony we had for her family's benefit though. Rachel had on a dress I hadn't seen before. Cream colored, conservative, and curve accentuating. I'm pretty sure that she could make a burlap sack look good...

*****

"Rhys! Are you in or out, man?"

"Huh? What?" That's me. Master of witticism. I pulled myself away from memory and looked at my cards. Ace-ten suited clubs. Not bad. "I'm in."

Jimmy folded pre-flop, and a guy from another squad bought in. The flop gave me another ace and the eight of clubs. Tempting. Even if I chased the flush and didn't get it I'd at least have a pair of aces. Could just as easily come back to bite me. Not like I had much to spend my pocket money on anyway.

I ended up losing the hand but won another. Poker, of any variety, never got old. I kind of sucked at reading people outside of combat though. I knew a few people who would say I that I sucked at reading people during combat as well, but my undeniable luck pulled me through anyway. There certainly was enough evidence for that.

"I think that's it for me tonight, guys. Deal me out," I told them. "John, you want in on this? Fine. Keep writing your love letters."

I got up and went to one of the view ports. A few of the other moons were in sight. The largest had research stations on them just like this on studying things that I didn't have much hope of understanding. Each of them also supported several large hangar bays that were currently filled with fighter craft and assault shuttles.

I pulled up the view from Jupiter station that overlooked the planet. The great storm was still roiling around. It wasn't very often that I took a moment to appreciate how great my life was. Even a century ago I would have been completely earthbound, and probably destined to die in a stupid war. It might have been fun to pilot one of those big old mechs that militaries used to use though. Look at me waxing sentimental. I just must be getting old.

*****

An alert rang annoyingly throughout the station. The space fleet strategy game that I had been playing against Hard Edge squad's captain switched over to a display showing the disposition of Jupiter and its defense. Enemy ships were beginning to hit real space just outside the picket line. More ships every second. The computer designated a hundred ships, two hundred... three hundred... More. I began to feel a little concern. The mission briefing estimated two hundred and fifty, max. The holographic display was showing more than a hundred more vessels than that, along with a nebulous blob more than three times the size of any other ship in the Centurion fleet.

"I suppose we had better get into costume then," I told Rick.

The pilots and other Castigars would already be moving. The rec room was just a short jaunt down the hall from the barracks where the armor was being stored. Thanks to Rachel, my armor was still tweaked well past peak specifications. She'd even promised to finish building me a completely updated set that used her nanomusculature system after our honeymoon.

I stepped into my armor. After a few seconds my HUD hummed to life.

"Hello, Rommy. How have you been keeping?"

"Well, sir. Although from what I could see from your game there is a very good reason that you're in ground forces instead of a naval group."

"You saw that?"

"I am a very resourceful AI. Sir."

"And one with an attitude. How long until I can get up and run?"

"Fifteen seconds," she replied. "In case you are feeling impatient, I would like to remind you that the forty-five second systems start up is half of what it was at my installation, and according to my records a full two point two five seconds faster than it was prior to my installation. Systems are all green. You may proceed. Thanks to my streamlining of the process you are likely to reach your assigned shuttle even before those men who were closer to their armor when the alert first began."

"Fine, I don't appreciate you enough. Since we're on the subject now. Is there anything you can do to streamline the start up procedures for the rest of my squad?"

"That seems likely. Although without my direct attention it is unlikely that the procedure will ever be as fast as yours."

"Good enough. Put it on our to-do list for after the battle."

I slowed as I actually entered the hangar bay. All of the pilots were doing their preflight checks. Even the fastest of them wouldn't be ready for another five to ten minutes. I swept my eyes over the new stealth assault shuttles. The arrowhead shaped craft were both prettier and more intimidating than their older, golden counterparts. I had trouble remembering which one my squad was assigned to. Rommy picked up on my confusion from my eye movements and a navigation marker flagged one of the shuttles for me. I muttered my thanks to her and boarded.

The section for the squads was a littler smaller on this version of shuttle, with space for one less squad of Castigars. Of course, if it were loaded with Venators you could still probably fit at least sixty of them in with room to spare. I preferred to go into battle with fewer men of larger girth so thirty six Castigars would have to do. I secured myself to my position on the wall just as my men began filtering in. The chatter on the squad channel was full of jokes and relief. A good sign.

"Rommy, display the enemy fleet's flight path for me."

A nebulous red blob appeared on my HUD and a curved path of a slightly different hue stretched out before it.

"The enemy's path will take them past both the Ganymede facility and ours. Europa and Callisto are too far away to be of immediate assistance," Rommy informed me. "The battle plan is still workable if timed correctly. New orders are coming through the command net to that effect."

The information streamed down one side of my HUD. Our new orders were to coordinate our assault on the enemy command ship, more than likely the largest one, between the Ganymede and Io forces. Rommy provided me with estimates of both facilities’ ready times as well as countdowns for launch.

"Heh, actually early for once," Haywire teased me over the com from his spot three seats down. "We're finally looking at the big one. Biggest brawl since the Chinese and Indians got into it during the third world war."

"Yeah, even the war with the AEU was more like a series of skirmishes. What took you so long, anyway?"

"I had to end my call with Sarah. It devolved into one of those 'no you hang up first' deals."

"I guess it’s nice that my sister found a guy both of us trust, but I feel like I should warn you one more time not to hurt her. If only because I would hate to have to cripple my best friend."

He laughed at me. "No need to worry about that, brother. If I can get some more quality time with her I might just take her down yours and Rachel's path."

"I hope you're not talking about having her develop equipment for you. Sarah's good with basic maintenance but anything she touches beyond that has a habit of blowing up. Probably one of the reasons she's a good pilot, now that I think of it."

I tried not to think about her and her friends flying their death traps in combat against hundreds or thousands of enemy flying death traps in the battle soon. Time is always the enemy in these situations. The count down read seven minutes and change for Ganymede, and closer to fifteen for us. Too much time to think, not enough time to change anything. It was quite frustrating.

"She'll be fine, Rhys. Her squadron has the top marks in the fleet. You know that they'll have the best equipment available. We only need to worry about us. Any word on our target yet?"

"Yeah, pull up the strategic display," I told him. I knew that he wouldn't have bothered yet despite having the authority to do so. It was something that he needed to fix if he ever intended to have a squad of his own. "No visual reports yet, but the biggest ship is probably their flag. That's our target. Cut off the head and all that."

"Just looking at the raw data, that flagship has to be close to three kilometers long. That's a lot of ground to cover even if we've got fifteen squads on hand," He said, referencing B company and forty percent of C company from the first legion that were with them on Io.

"Ganymede is close enough to help. That'll add another fifteen to twenty-five squads to our party. Two or three of those will probably be Specials as well. You're also assuming that all the shuttles are going to make it."

"They're stealth shuttles, Boss."

"Which means that they have less armor. An enemy pilot might not see a shuttle in time to stop an impact, or a stray shot from a battleship, friend or foe, could hit them. Hell, one of our fighter pilots might not see the shuttle in time."

A short chime cut off the rest of what I was going to say. Jimmy could figure out the rest of my speech himself. Ganymede's launch count had hit zero. The last few men filed in and were busy securing themselves. The shuttle's pilot hustled past in his sleeker and more utilitarian armor.

"We're launching in seven minutes," I informed my squad and the two B company squads we shared the shuttle with. I had Rommy bring up the display on their HUDs as well as some of the first few clear visual images of the enemy fleet. She magnified and isolated the assumed flagship for me. The gigantic vessel held to the same vaguely conical construction as other Centurion ships, but something about it niggled at the edges of memory. "This ship is our initial target. Once onboard we are to find and eliminate enemy leadership. We do not have any schematics for the ship, so it looks like we'll be doing a deck by deck, room by room search. Fortunately we will be joined by a force from Ganymede so the search should," I finished with a touch of sardonic cheer. "It’ll only take a few days instead of all week."

That got me a few weak laughs. With our purpose clear, or clear enough, I suppose, everyone went back to finishing their last minute preparations.

"Rommy, do an analysis on that flagship. Tell me why it looks so familiar to me."

"Accessing available ship records. Comparing profiles and schematics. Eighty percent match found." An image of a large ship similar to the enemy flagship appeared on my display. "The enemy flagship shares many design characteristics with the last colony ship sent out of system. Pay particular attention to the three central ridges. You’ll notice that they are more pronounced on this ship than they were on the
Chiron
. The flagship is about twenty-five percent shorter. If the ships share basic defensive capabilities then it is likely that the flagship can fire at least three charged particle beams several times more powerful than their standard ships before recharge."