“We can’t talk about,” Eric said. “That is an absolute. We got seriously briefed on that. There are international, heck interstellar, agreements on it. But the good news is that I survived. Or bad news. We’ve been talking to reporters all day on deep background. All of them wanted to know what the big news is. I got to where that was my mantra: The big news is that all of us survived. For the rest, you’re going to have to wait.”
“There wasn’t really much about Miss Moon in this one,” Brooke said, getting right to the important part.
“She ends up shining in the next two,” Berg said. “I will say that. Honey, it’s late. Get some sleep. I’ll be home in a few days.”
“You can just hop a Looking Glass…”
“I’m sitting in the Marine Annex Transient Officers’ Quarters by direct and personal order of the commandant,” Eric said. “Who is fully aware that we’ve been married less than two weeks and even apologized. But I’m also not allowed to leave. Sorry, honey.”
“It’s shiny,” Brooke said, sighing. “What’s that thing about I knew this would come but I didn’t expect it to be so soon?”
“Yuh warns ’em and warns ’em…” Eric said, laughing halfheartedly. “I love you, honey.”
“Love you,” Brooke said. “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow night. Sort of.”
“Night.”
“So we may not have Hexosehr on the next mission,” the CO continued. “Thoughts?”
“We need to figure out how to fix their systems without resorting to sending them to Runner’s World for repair, sir,” Bill replied, rolling his eyes. It was the middle of the night and whereas the CO was up, too, he was calling from the shield room in HQ. Bill had had to catch a cab to the Pentagon when he got the call and would have to catch another back to the BOQ.
Fortunately, the stream was audio only, but Prael caught the sarcasm.
“And I’d entertain thoughts on that,” the CO said. “Captain.”
“Sick Miriam on it when she gets back,” Bill said. “The Hexosehr have got to have something on the order of repair manuals, they just need to be translated. She’s a translator. And she has engineering background. Sounds like a perfect match and well within her standard duties.”
“I notice that you didn’t recommend her to the CAO,” the CO said. “Any reason why?”
“Well, possibly because you were sitting right next to me and I was fully aware of your opinion of her, sir,” Bill replied tightly. “Or did you think I was going to knife you in the back?”
“Point taken, XO,” the CO said, just as tightly. “Look, Bill, let’s bury the hatchet…”
In my head? Bill thought.
“…You had some points I probably should have entertained more fully. We’ll have a more detailed discussion of it when you get back. But… Uncle, XO, okay? You got me.”
“It was never about ‘getting’ you, sir,” Bill replied. “That’s not my place, sir, and it’s not my style. But, sir, every ship thinks that they’re special. At least, every good one. But the Blade really is special. Not just because it’s the only warp ship we have, sir. It’s things like… Well, take Red Morris. He lost an arm on the first mission and a leg on the second and just keeps coming back. Every single Marine survivor of the first mission volunteered to keep going out. The four that are left are still there. The Blade has a nearly one hundred percent retention rate. You get people off the Blade with a crowbar or in a body bag. Heck, most of the time the losses end up being ash. And we just keep going out, again. My point being, and it’s not just directed at you, sir, that that sort of culture is unusual even in the military. People just entering it — ”
“It’s a club,” the CO said, musingly. “I hadn’t really thought of that, I’ll admit. The new people, even me…”
“Frankly, sir, you’re all new meat,” Bill finished. “The ones that have been on these missions are the survivors, sir. I’ve been trying to stop it but I know that the old timers, all of a year, are looking at me when they should be looking at you. But when you start talking about the new Eng, Chief Gestner, people who not only haven’t been there and done that, but have ways of doing things that, frankly, are built around something that no longer really exists to the Blade people — ”
“Welcome to the new Space Navy,” the CO said. “It’s like the old wet Navy. But not.”
“The tone was set when Spectre chose to keep going after Runner’s World, sir,” Bill said. “We were barely a day away from home, but we kept going, damage and casualties and all, sir. The crew that’s done that know they can trust the people who have been there. And people like Gants and Red sure as hell don’t know it about Chief Gestner. They’ll respect the rank but they’re going to have a hard time respecting the person. Especially when he’s making decisions they have experience of being wrong choices. When we’re thirty days out, it’s just us. There aren’t any tugs, there isn’t any CVBG to call. It’s just us. And you don’t go ‘well, I can’t repair it so we’ll just have to send it dockside.’ Not when there are people who could figure it out, you just don’t want to use them because of, well, prejudice.”
“I’m getting the trend of this conversation, XO,” the CO said.
“Sorry, sir,” Bill replied.
“Like I said, we’ll talk when you get back. Any idea when that’s going to be?”
“Minimum of next Monday, sir,” Bill said. “I’m set up for Meet the Press on Sunday morning. So is Two-Gun. Frankly, with the buzz about these shows, the mission may be delayed or even scrubbed. That was a musing of the CAO, sir, but it’s in the wind.”
“Great,” Prael grumped. “And on that happy note… I’m clear, here.”
“Night, sir,” Bill said, standing up and disconnecting the secure line. “Maulk. We’ll see if I’m even the XO anymore after that little tete a tete.”
The documentaries ran for three days, from eight to nine PM, Eastern Time. Each of the major cable news networks carried them as did Fox. The regular media chose to forego the honor. Which just meant that they got hammered in the ratings. Say what you will for the entire genre, the Vorpal Blade missions upped the ante of “reality programming.”
Immediately following the third night came the first press conference. Miriam had been throwing up most of the day but was surprisingly calm as the moment approached.
“Hey, you going to be shiny?” Eric asked.
“Everybody keeps asking that,” Miriam said. “I’m fine. Seriously. It’s the waiting that’s been getting to me.”
“You and me both, sister,” Red said as the CAO walked out onto the stage. “Here we go.”
“You’ll enter as the CAO introduces you,” the lieutenant commander from Public Affairs repeated, unnecessarily. “March in in a military manner and take your positions in line.”
“I don’t march,” Miriam said tartly. She was dressed in a business suit that would have looked right in a courtroom. Over the past three nights, millions of viewers had seen her in everything from micro-minis to jeans to spacesuits to grease- and blood-covered coveralls but never a business suit. The heels, however, were consistent. Even her space suit had a three-inch heel.
“Except for you, ma’am,” the lieutenant commander added hastily.
“…the brave sailors and Marines of the Vorpal Blade. In order, I’d like you to finally meet, in person, Captain William Weaver, formerly astrogator and now executive officer of the Blade II…”
“I would rather die a thousand deaths,” Weaver said, marching out of the group.