First meetings
Note: This story takes place after "Beginnings and Endings" and before "Diplomatic relations".
"Very good." Korva said, as he checked his data pad. This ship had been a destroyer, heavily loaded with mecha and weapons before plunging into the earth. The ship was a wreck, but its heavily armored hull had protected most of the interior—at least the non-living parts. There were no surviving crew. "Load the missiles first, and start on marking what ship cannon can be dismounted. Mecha?"
"Most of the fighters are gone—probably launched against the battlefortress and Breetai's forces." The combat engineer in charge of this ship said. "But just about all the Regults and Glaugs are intact—and we also have some cavalry mecha that look salvageable." Now for the main prize. "And the protoculture energizer is still intact—we're tapping it for all remaining protoculture reserves now."
"Excellent!" Korva said, not having to feign happiness. Many of the crashed ships had suffered from protoculture ruptures releasing the priceless power source into the athmosphere. More importantly, even a depleted ship like this could keep hundreds of mecha running for years. He slapped the engineer on the back, staggering him—Korva was nearly as large as Breetai.
"I'll get in touch with command, and we can get some extra re-entry pods out here as soon as possible."
***
The command center of the Tal Vergnitz was no stranger to the controlled chaos of a military operation—it was a command ship, after all. It was, however, a stranger to the males that currently " infested" it (in the words of one junior officer) and the nature of the operation currently being conducted.
"That's the report." Korva said from the screen. All present had to strain to make out what he said—the skies had opened up, just like he predicted, and less than a week after the destruction of Dolza's fortress, the amount of electrical interference was truly impressive. Sharin could see the sky behind the soaked commander, with enough lightning bolting through it to read by.
"We have at least six ships that are partially intact, but with no crew—I've started stripping them. In addition, there are numerous crew and mecha crews that made it down alive—I'm sending them over to."
"In addition to the two crewed ships." Sharin said.
"Yes—but they'll never fly again, so we're stripping them as well."
"Excellent commander." Sharin said formally. She was better at dealing with the males, if for no other reason then she'd worked with them before—always with a viewscreen between them, however, she thought. Fortunately, in the face of the utter disaster of the moment, dealing with males wasn't as hard as she thought it would have been.
"Hmph." The snort came from her mecha commander, reminding Sharin that not everyone was eager to handle the new reality. Sharin turned.
"Yes, Tzarna?"
"We don't need those males." Tzarna said, "Especially on the ship!" Sharin sighed,
"Tzarna, we need anyone who will help us right now- if an Invid walked in the door and offered I'd take the offer." A snort answered that. "And you're just still angry about the fighter bays." Sharin said with a smile. The number of salvaged mecha and material, and the fact that they had no time to build exterior warehouses, meant that the several ships of Sharin's flotilla were stuffed to the gills with equipment and mecha—Tzarna had not been pleased.
"If we're attacked…"
"I doubt it—at least not immediately." Sharin said, "At least seventy percent of this planet's side infrastructure is gone, from what we've been able to see, Breetai's fleet is also heavily damaged, and there is still fighting in orbit," Not that it will make any difference in the end. Sharin thought—with no organized command, the few loyalist ships were attacking a fleet with a functioning command structure. Breetai wasn't having any fun, but the outcome was clear.
"And in any case, unless you have a factory satellite handy, we need everything we can get, both organic and inorganic." Sharin waited, to see if Tzarna had a real complaint or if she was just venting. The latter, she judged, as Tzarna glared down on the command center, where a male with the tabs of a field engineer was bent over the map board, discussing with Tulka Weaponsofficer on how to best bury the ships, concealing and protecting them, while keeping the weapons easily usable. From the mutters Sharin heard, they were right now commiserating on the mystery of the proper handling of waste heat from the weapons. She shrugged. They would come up with an answer and Sharin would approve it—that was what having competent subordinates meant.
"No! Are you insane?" Zara's shout echoed through the command center, and Sharin looked down. Zara was her XO, and right now was serving as her flag captain, but that didn't sound like a normal dispute. She quickly left the command bubble, Tzarna in tow and headed down to the floor.
"What is it?" She asked, as she came up to Zara and Korva's second, "Well, Zara, Shygon? I expect officers to avoid bellowed arguments in the middle of the command center."
"This…" Zara bit off the obscenity, "Has completely changed my work schedules—we won't even get started on the external fortifications for at least a week, and he wants to go playing at making canals!" Shygon growled, and Tzarna moved up to Zara to give her support. Sharin felt a pounding headache threaten to start up.
"Very well—Shygon, why are you doing this?" He started to swell and Sharin waved a hand at him, "I'm asking seriously—the number of times I've been on a planet can be counted on both hands."
"Very well, My-lady" Shygon said, "We are in a depression, as part of what was a stream before the bombardment—the water was vaporized, and several craters further up from us are serving as a combination of dam and reservoir." Sharin nodded hoping this would make sense. It did.
"But we are effectively in the bed of a stream, and those craters will fill up, those walls be crested, and which point the water will be coming here—and we need to divert it. If we don't, by the end of the week, half the ships will be underwater." He finished.
"How?" Sharin asked. Zara glared at Shygon.
"By ceasing all work on the fortifications, and making a river through our base." She subsided at a motion from Sharin.
"Shygon?" Sharin prompted.
"Yes, Zara is right—if we try to divert the river around our base it will be an unstable situation." He pointed at the holomap of the region around the grounded ships. "Equally, we need water, and by keeping the river as much to its original course as possible, we have a stable course, and sufficient water for all our needs." Sharin nodded.
"And the division of work?"
"It cannot be helped my lady—we only have so many trained engineering staff." Sharin considered.
"Zara is right, I would prefer to have the fortifications finished." She thought, "How much work requires on the spot knowledge, and how much simply requires following orders?"
"About 75/25." Shygon answered.
"We don't need ground troops right now, or all of our fighters and mecha—you have first choice on any non-working soldiers, male or female. Will that help?"
"Yes…but we won't be able to finish the fortifications by your deadline."
"Then concentrate on the main ships, and throw up some temporary warehouses for the salvage, stuff it in re-entry pods, whatever."
"Yes, my lady."
"Sharin!" Tzarna said in horror, "Those are elite squadrons…"
"Which have all had basic training." Sharin said, "If anyone protests…tell them that Korva implied that the females were unable to keep up." Even knowing it was false, Tzarna started to swell up.
"The day that a-" She bit her outraged protest off and gave an unwilling smile. "That will have…an effect, commander." Sharin nodded. Now to more serious matters.
"Zara…come with me." Sharin said. Some activities, such as a verbal discipline, were best conducted away from prying eyes.
Neither said anything until they got to the command bubble. Sharin locked the door, and coded the privacy setting. White noise generators started up, their gentle hiss making it impossible for those outside the bubble to hear anything, no matter how much shouting went on inside. Sharin sat down and looked up at Zara.
"This is difficult for all of us." Sharin said. "But you have to work at getting along with the males. Shygon's plan is both necessary and well thought out." To her credit, Zara couldn't meet Sharin's level gaze.
"But Sharin— we cannot let ourselves lose discipline!"
"And we will not." Sharin gestured to the command floor. "Does it look like it to you?"
"No…"
"But you are also my voice—to both males and females." Sharin continued. "Korva could have demanded such a place, but he has not—and that is a sign of trust that we cannot treat poorly." She sighed, "Can you do that?"
"I…I do not know, commander. Maybe I should request to be reposted."
"To where?" Sharin asked, curiosity in her voice. "I need you here—you are the XO, and flag captain now, and that isn't a job I can just hand off to someone else. If you cannot work with males, I will simply ask Korva to take over as flag captain for the male units…but I would prefer to not do that." She cocked her head. "So can you make the attempt?"
"I…yes commander, I will try. Thank you for your trust."
"Don't get formal on me, Zara." Sharin took the sting out of her words. "Besides, I remind you of your long standing wish—to be free of officious superiors who have never been off the command fortress…that has been achieved, now, We will never again have to fill out forms explaining why we dared use our reserve missiles for something as unimportant as saving a ship… just think of the freedom!" She paused, "And now you talk about getting reassigned just as this happy day occurs…I won't have it!" Zara gave a halfhearted smile, but she met Sharin's gaze head on.
"I…understand, commander. I'd better get back to work."
"Good. I'll be down in a few moments." Zara nodded and left. Sharin waited until the door was closed before she sagged, giving a tired sigh. She hadn't slept for four days—none of them had. That was probably the reason for Zara-
No.
There was a brittleness in her friends eyes that she hadn't seen before. As much as Zara had snarled about some of the more idiotic aspects of the Zentraedi existence, she had been sure of her place in it… and that place was gone. She wasn't the only one. Sharin stretched tiredly.
"I hope you can work through this." She said outloud. "I need everyone to survive this." More importantly, she needed people who could think, not who would dive into the past. That was dead—four days, and four infinities dead.
***
"Mary! Danny is barfing again!" The 17 year old stopped at the cry of one of the children. Mary Wilson had been working with the children at the elementary school, as part of her high schools work project when the evacuation alert had come. The teachers had decided not to evacuate—they'd had enough of UEG alarms, even after the destruction of a good chunk of Canada. Mary had wanted to argue…but she needed the A.
That "A" had become irrelevant, it had turned out. First the sky had darkened, like a vast cloud had come over the sun, and then they saw glints of thousands—millions of ships. She and the children had been in the lower section of the school, in a building shorter than any of the surrounding ones, and that had been responsible for their survival. Three titan bolts of energy had come out of the sky, turning the center of the city into an inferno, knocking down every building in the area, except for theirs, shielded…partially. No adults had survived, and only 40 children, out of the entire school had lived. Maybe there had been others, but the fires had threatened to combined, and there was no help, and the only people Mary had seen had been hideously burned people, dead or dying. She'd taken the children, and started walking out.
But they had been going slowly—the rain made walking difficult and the city was a maze of wrecked buildings now, with "streets" that were mountains of unstable rubble. She'd even seen the neighborhood where her parents, her sister, and her pet cat "Tibbles" had lived. It was now a vast crater, nearly a half mile wide, with molten rock in the bottom still hissing as the rain came down on it. At least it had been fast. She hoped.
But right now, she had other things to worry about. They'd eaten just a few hours ago, and she thought the food would still be good—the freezers in the wrecked store were still reasonably intact, but the 4th grader was bent over, vomiting onto the street. Mary quickly reached him and held him, wiping his face when he was finished, and giving him a drink of water from a water bottle they'd taken.
"Are you ok?"
"My stomach hurts…" he said, and Mary felt his head. It was hot.
Could it be radiation? Maybe those rayguns did something else.
"Well, we'll keep going, lets see if we can find your parents."
"We won't…they're gone." A 2nd grader said, starting to stitch.
"Well that won't help!" Mary said, authoritatively. "WE don't know that, and we won't until we find some police! I know it's been a while, but once we get out of the city, we can make a camp!" The children looked at her dubiously.
"C'mon everyone! Let's go!" She said, "We have a few hours before we have to go to bed."
Please let someone—anyone come and help. Mary thought. She couldn't do this much longer. The children's parents were dead—or as completely helpless as they were. She hadn't seen any rescue choppers or firefighters—which meant that what had happened here had probably happened everywhere. There had been one last tremendous blaze of light, that had penetrated even into the room where they had cowered. Mary wondered who that had been—but she didn't think it had been the enemy.
To be continued.
