CH42 (121)
"Hi Becks, how are you two doing?" Madison had talked to Kate everyday since Jim and Martha had passed.
"It hurts Mags. First Kali, then mom and then the Walkers. … And now dad and Martha. It's like there is no family left Mags." Kate's tears were starting again.
"You're a detective Becks. If you had a big fight coming would you do it alone or ask for help? Or are you too proud to ask for help?" Madison challenges her old friend.
"That's different Mags. A physical fight is something I'm trained for." Kate counters. This was her heart that was taking a pounding.
"And your heart has Rick, Alexis and her family, Elena and her family, Emily and Kali will someday have a family and my parents.
I'll bet even the Schurrle's are in there somewhere. Not to mention me, Shawn and the kids. Let your heart use them, use us to help you in your fight. Let us help you Becks." Madison challenges her to do something she hasn't done her whole life.
Kate was interrupted in her reply when Elena comes crashing in. "MOM!" Kate saw fear, amazement, happiness all rolled into one.
It took Kate's attention off of the monitor with Madison on it. "Honey?" Elena had Kate's attention now. Mom mode was now functioning.
Elena handed over a stick to Kate. "What do I tell Leon mom? … I mean is he going to freak? Divorce me? We've been talking about stopping at one with our work loads." Elena didn't know how to feel.
Kate held up the stick. "You're pregnant?" Madison yells out over the monitor as she can see the stick Kate is holding.
Elena clamps her hands over her mouth. "Oh I'm so sorry. I didn't know you two were talking. I'm so sorry. …. I'll go and come back later." Elena starts backing away.
Kate reaches out and takes her arm. "No honey, stay."
"You have a family Kate. And it looks like it's still growing. …. And Leon will be happy Ell. You'll see." Madison knew he wasn't going to divorce her by giving him another child.
The word MOM was yelled and Madison turned her head to look. "Looks like I have to go you two.
Let your family help you Becks and congratulations Ell. I look forward to seeing you this summer." Madison ended the call.
Two Marines, both from Earth entered a room in the hospital on Cyliene. "Good evening sir."
Phil Quast would have responded but he was tired and all any of them could hear was the ventilator working. However his eyes told his guests that he knew they were there.
"We got word this morning. Two of our destroyers have encountered the enemy that the Tellus Oracle warned us about." One of them tells him.
"Losses." Quast barely breaths out.
"One destroyer has minor to moderate damage. It is estimated it will take 6 to 9 months to repair the damage. The other destroyer is undamaged, however one of its MAC gun elevators is down. It may take days or weeks to find and fix the problem.
There was one casualty and 12 injured sir." One of the Marines informs him, sounding like all business.
"Enemy?" Quast again barely whispers out.
"There were 4 ships. Three were equal in size to our destroyers. The fourth was equal in size to our cruiser. Seems their destroyers are filled with torpedoes while the cruiser was filled with fighters." The Marine tells him.
"Scouting." Quast states, barely above a whisper still.
"That's what we and Tellus think sir. However they did get a message off to their rear." A Marine breaks it to him.
Quast thinks about it for a moment. "Bigger or more."
"Yes sir. We theorize they will either send an entire fleet to crush what their scouts found or send an even larger scouting group to ascertain what they have encountered so they can send a force large enough to take us." A Marine informs him.
"Scout." Quast has his guess.
"Some of us agree. Send a much larger scouting group spread out far and wide. Gather intel then turn and run. Scans and information that a ship can give you is better than some short radio message." Not everyone agreed, but these two did.
"The exec on one of the destroyers has a plan for a new scout ship. He is trying to get the Castle's to help gain a design team. It sounds feasible. Likely 1 year in design with another 6 or 7 years to build it.
It is definitely thinking outside of the box." He was shocked when he heard about it. "It's a variation on our Stealth program. Untried and untested and void of any weapons." That part scared him.
Quast thought about it for a minute. "Push."
"Aye sir, we will add your recommendation to the request. We've heard that the Castle's have already added their voice." Well not any of the Castle's directly anyway, since Lucy had put in their support.
Quast tried to smile. He understood that Rick, his daughter and the lady from Tellus had a lot of pull. He was betting it had to do with them spending some of their lives setting up colonies. Tellus would be doomed without these colonies. He was wondering when they would go looking for another one. More people, more resources.
"Good. …. Explorers?" Quast hoped they understood.
"Captain Montgomery has retired and is moving with his family to Ariel. Captain Zhukov has been promoted and is destined to be the next captain of the next destroyer built at Tellus. Both explorer ships are being scrapped.
A small design team is working on a new ship to replace them. Estimated 1 year for design and another 7 to build the first one. Most ship construction is on destroyers, cruisers and military supply transport." One of the Marines tells him.
"Battleship?" Quast however is getting tired and is doing his best to blink his eyes to keep them open.
"Tellus shot us down. They have decided on building a space station in upper orbit of Tellus. The thing is massive. It is still in the design phase, however construction of the outer shell has already been started. It is estimated to be a 30 year build.
They are thinking of something similar but closer to a third of the size for all the colony planets, including Cyliene." The Marine tells him.
Quast wasn't happy about losing the Battleship, however he was happy that Tellus wasn't going back on their word to help the people from Earth that lived here. They weren't being left to flap in the breeze.
"Enemy?" Quast wanted information on them.
"The enemy seems to like torpedoes and fighters judging by the scout group we encountered. I'm told we have some bodies to examine and several of their fighters are intact and being transported to Tellus for examination.
"Excellent." Quast was dying to see what these guys were like. "Torpedoes?"
"They were standard explosives sir. Our destroyers detonated those X-ray torpedoes in the middle of their fighter groups. They literally cooked their pilots in their ships." Just thinking about dying like that almost made his stomach queasy.
Even Quast started to look a little pale as he thought about being cooked alive.
"Once we get those fighters back and examined, we'll have a better understanding of their level of technology, how their ships are powered, what type of armor they are using.
We were told just one MAC round blew up one of their ships." The Marine thought those guns were gold.
Quast had been impressed by the weapons this Oracle had provided. They were something no one on Earth had even dreamed about. Energy weapons yes, but these things. Definitely not.
Quast however was losing his fight to keep his eyes open.
"We'll let you rest sir. It looks like the fight is almost here." The Marines were getting ready to leave.
"To them." Quast hoped he was getting his message across.
"Take the fight to them. Yes sir. This will not be another Vietnam sir. I guarantee it." The Earth Marines were going to make sure of it. They were not going to fight to live on their own soil. Or in this case, space.
Quast lost his fight to keep his eyes open and was sleeping, however his breathing was becoming more and more shallow. Had anyone been in his room at the time, they would have heard. "Hi baby!" Quast's voice sounded happy and he was crying in his sleep.
Then the nurses came rushing in along with the doctor that was on duty. However they were unsuccessful in reviving him. Admiral Philip Quast had fought his last fight.
Kevin was sitting at his desk going over all the forms for the next group to go thru the school. The last group was about to get their report cards.
It was up to Kevin to break the news to all of them. Javi did all the training while Kevin took care of all the course work and class interaction as well as after course evaluations.
The course was a 9 week class. MARKSMANSHIP, RANGE ESTIMATION, TARGET DETECTION, STALKS, AND WRITTEN EXAMS AS THE MAJOR BLOCKS OF INSTRUCTION. UPON SUCCESSFUL COMPLETION, A STUDENT WILL RECEIVE A DIPLOMA .
They only accepted 5 students per class. More than that number made it difficult on not just Javi and Kevin but the students as well.
Snipers have to learn two different aspects of being a sniper. In some cases you were the spotter. You were responsible for finding and selecting the target and providing the shooter with this information.
The shooter would keep his eyes on target while the spotter would keep his eyes on the surrounding area. In other cases you were alone and had to be both the spotter and the shooter.
After all this time their school was graduating approximately 92% of the students that they accepted.
Kevin was done selecting the next 5 suckers for the class that would start in two weeks. First he had to go over each of the 4 that were part of this graduating class. One had been rejected only 4 weeks into the course.
Kevin walked each of them thru what they did and what Javi and himself had seen. In every case there were cameras that recorded most of what the students did.
The final test was to start two miles out and work their way to the target. They had to prevent being spotted to get into position to take the shot, but also remain hidden after taking the shot. And then extract themselves back the way they came in without being followed.
Kevin had died sooooo many times as he chased students off the course after they took a successful shot at the target.
Javi's job was to teach them how to shoot from any position. How to maneuver without being spotted. How to take his or her weapon apart and put it back together including cleaning it while blind folded.
How to make a ghillie suit based on his or her surroundings. He also taught them how to get into and stay in shape. What and how to eat, drink, poop and pee while out on a 12 hour or longer mission.
Of course also how to shoot, where to shoot and when to shoot. The idea wasn't just shooting their target, but getting back out alive to do it all over again.
These people were assets in a fight. You don't just throw away assets to eliminate a single target. One for one was no way to fight and win.
Kevin also kept track of all the records they have for all the students. He was literally the only one who knew the combination to the vault where all of the records were kept as well as all the recordings.
MEDICAL RECORDS
BATALION OR COMPANY COMMANDERS LETTER OF RECOMMENDATION
DA FORM 3822-R (MENTAL EVALUATION WITHIN SIX MONTHS)
SF 88 OR DD 2807-1/2808 (PHYSICAL EXAM WITHIN LAST TWO YEARS)
RIFLE MARKSMANSHIP SCORE CARD (EXPERT WITHIN LAST 6 MONTHS)
DA FORM 705 COMPLETED WITHIN 30 DAYS, MUST SHOW 70% OR HIGHER IN EACH EVENT
It was a biometric safe door that also required a code to open. Kevin and Javi both took security of all their clients seriously.
Kevin had just finished with the last of this class when his phone started ringing. "Hi honey. I just finished and will be headed home after I lock up." Kevin tried beating her to the punch.
"Can you pick up some produce on your way? The girls have already gone thru everything we have." Kevin and Jenny had 2 girls. Sarah was the oldest. Both of them were addicted to finger fruits.
"Are Javi, Lanie and Sebastian coming over too?" Kevin knew their son was also addicted to finger fruits. And since they were healthy things to be eating it made their parents happy.
"They are already on their way up." Jenny tells him.
Javi and Lanie had moved just before their son was born. They were going to need more space. The first available two bedroom unit in the same city tower had been over 40 floors below Kevin and Jenny's apartment.
Kevin was closing the safes door. "I'm leaving now. I'll catch a GETS train and stop on my way up."
"Thanks Kev." Jenny ended the call just as the Esposito's showed up at their front door.
Sarah had beaten Jenny to the door and was peeking at the video panel to see who it was. "It's Sebastian, can I open the door?" Sarah wanted him in so they could play.
"Sure honey." Jenny calls from the kitchen.
"Hey short stuff, where's your father?" Javi has a new beer he wants Kevin to try with him.
"Mom says he's on his way home. Come on Sebastian." Sarah takes his hand and leads him inside so they could play.
"Hi Jenny, brought you a little something." Lanie places it on the table and rolls it out.
RYAN - Armorial Name History - Coat of Arms - Family Crestnny
"Where did you find this?" Kevin and Jenny both knew there were no Irish that had been brought to Tellus long ago. Kevin might be the only Irish guy left, period.
"I was talking with Kate one day and she mentioned that her AI unit, Lucy, had downloaded a whole lot more than what her and Alexis had asked for. Apparently when Kate hired the three of us Lucy did an extensive background check on all of us. This was part of what she found and kept all of it.
I had it sent to a printing shop to get it printed out. I thought you could hang it on your wall somewhere. Maybe after you had it framed." Lanie offers.
Jenny was grinning. She knew how much Kevin's Irish past meant to him. Jenny took it and quickly rolled it up and stashed it in the kitchen where Kevin would never look.
Seeing the blank look on Lanie's face. "I'm going to get it framed and present it to him for his birthday next month. Thank you!" Jenny hugs her.
"Birthday huh. … You know there are campsites far to the north just off of a fresh water river, so no crocs. Some locations already have these permanent tent like places. Everything is included. All we would need to take would be the food to eat and of course clothes.
We could take the kids up there and camp out for a few days. It might be fun." Lanie was offering a place to get out of the city for a little time.
"Everything?" Jenny was starting to get interested.
"That's what it says. We would need to go hunting for wood to cook with, but it says everything we would need is included. Most of them are single tent locations, however they have a few that are bunched together." Lanie supplies what she knows about it.
"Toilets?" Jenny was willing to rough it only just so far.
"Outhouses a little distance away." Lanie knew the answer to that one already. She didn't want to rough it that much either.
"Showers?" How dirty did she have to get?
"Outside cold showers only." Lanie knew the answer to that one too.
"Mom?" Sarah was standing there having heard all of it.
Jenny sighs. "If your father says yes than we can go. But only when you don't have school."
"YES!" Sarah slams into Jenny and hugs her. "Thanks mom." She figured convincing her father was already a done deal. She knew how to get her dad say yes to almost anything.
Kevin came home with the finger fruits as requested and was pounced on by Sarah about going camping. Kevin caved almost immediately. "YES!" Sarah had yelled and ran for Sebastian.
Javi had given him one of the new beers he had found. "I got a phone call at work just before leaving. … The Marine told me Quast died on Cyliene today." Kevin looked and sounded sad.
"OH NO! …. It's not fair. He saved all our lives and he didn't get to enjoy it for all that long." Jenny was affected by his death.
"I heard he was a lifer in the US Navy." Javi points out.
"I wonder if he was alone here. … We owe him our lives. We'd be dead in Hawaii if he hadn't sent out that call." Jenny wonders.
"Or dead from radiation poisoning if it had rained on us." Kevin points out.
Lanie and Jenny lift up their wine glasses and clink theirs with the guys beers. "To Admiral Quast. I hope he can see his family now."