“Six lousy Sartha a threat to an escort carrier, a destroyer, and corvette?”
“Don’t you question my judgment, mister.”
“I am questioning it,” Jason snapped angrily.
O’Brian, his features flushed, waved a finger at Jason.
“Oh, I know all about you and that Gettysburg affair. You’re a mutineer. You got away with it last time, but by God you won’t this time.”
Furious, Jason struggled for control to not say anything else.
“I’ve decided to cross this sector without detection. If we spring into Kilrah unannounced we’ll smash them, by God. Now they know we’re coming and I have a good mind to call this mission off thanks to you.”
Jason turned away for a second. He felt his hands shaking with rage and then he turned back.
“If you do that, sir, our main task force will be jumped by ten carriers. They’ll be destroyed and we will lose this war!”
He slammed the table with his fist, afraid for a second that he had actually broken his hand.
O’Brian blanched and stepped backwards.
“I’m grounding you; you are confined to quarters and we are pulling back now that the Kilrathi know of our whereabouts.”
Jason felt a rising temptation to simply kill O’Brian and be done with it.
“At least the captain of the Gettysburg was not a coward, I’ll give him credit for that.”
“You are under arrest,” O’Brian snarled.
“Listen, O’Brian. You were at the briefing. You know what’s at stake.”
“Our lives are at stake.”
“Your miserable hide is all you’re thinking of. If we don’t do this next jump in towards the heart of the Empire, they won’t divert part of their fleet. Over fifty thousand men and women are in our task force. They’re all that stands between the Kilrathi and our homes. All of them will die if the Kilrathi don’t turn back part of their fleet! You’ll go back home to nothing.”
“We’re pulling out.”
Furious, Jason turned away. God, was he going to have to initiate another mutiny? He had barely gotten through the last one. No one in the fleet would accept or believe that he was forced to do it twice in spite of Admiral Tolwyn’s promise of support and O’Brian could change his story later, something he would most certainly do if they ever got back.
There was a knock at the door.
“Go away!” O’Brian roared.
The door opened and Grierson stepped in.
“Thought I’d come over here and congratulate young Jason on a job well done,” Grierson said quietly.
O’Brian looked at Grierson in confusion.
“You lured those furballs straight in. It was masterful. I bet at this very minute the damned Kilrathi are going nuts. I had to come over and let you know how I felt.”
Grierson spoke quietly, not even looking at Jason, his attention focused on O’Brian.
“Sir, I’d suggest we push this little fleet up to flank speed and head straight into the next jump inward as quickly as possible. Captain Teng just called me from Kagimasha as I was coming over and suggested we do that as well. It’s how we’d react if this raid was supposed to be trying to sneak in and suddenly got discovered.”
He paused for a moment.
“Don’t you agree, sir?”
O’Brian’s features dropped, his face going as pale as rotten bone.
He nodded his head, unable to speak.
Grierson turned to look back out at the bridge, the door into the wardroom still open.
“Hey, you there, communications, pass the word to the other two ships, bring her up to flank speed, head straight for the jump point. Helm, get a move on there and throttle her up!”
The entire bridge crew was standing in a tight cluster, looking at Grierson in the doorway as if he were a ghost.
“Well shake a leg and get moving! We’re about to scare the living daylights out of the entire Kilrathi Empire. Hell, I’d sell my soul just to see their damned Emperor’s face when he hears that we’re coming for a visit!”
“Aye, sir,” and grinning, the crew returned to their seats.
“Well I best be getting back to my ship, that little shuttle craft of mine can barely keep up.”
He reached over to Jason, shook his hand, and then patted him on the back.
“Good work, son.”
Jason looked back at O’Brian.
“May I return to my duties, sir?” he asked quietly.
“Return to your duties, Mr. Barnosky. Dismissed.”
Jason followed Grierson off the bridge and back down the corridor to the flight deck.
“Your quarters nearby, son?”
Jason, still shaken, nodded towards the door and the two entered his room.
Without unzipping his flight survival suit Jason collapsed down on his bunk with a sigh.
“Rather fortunate you came along, sir,” Jason whispered, almost afraid to speak too loudly.
“I was tuned into your commlink and heard the exchange. O’Brian exploded when you turned your radio off.”
“Then you know what he wanted to do?”
Grierson nodded.
“I know your reputation, son; I also know the truth about the Gettysburg incident and I fully supported what you and your friends did. O’Brian was setting you up while at the same time trying to find a way to squeeze out of this little crack we got caught in.”
“Hell, if he pulled out, you and everyone else would live to see your next paycheck.”
“Don’t insult me,” Grierson said coldly. “I know what the hell the stakes are, same as you, and I’ll be damned if some coward kills a hell of a lot of my friends back at Vukar and brings down the Confederation just to save his lousy hide. So I figured I’d better get over here, cover your butt, and lean on him a bit. As long as he knows that he has two other captains watching him, he’ll be forced to play according to the plan.”
“Now I’ve got to get back to my ship. If you’ve got a problem again, here’s a secured commlink channel which routes straight in to me,” and as he spoke he jotted down the number on a slip of paper and handed it to Jason.
“Thank you, sir.”
“Stay sharp, son, and for God’s sake stay alive. You’re the one counter we’ve got against him aboard this ship.”
“Just great,” Jason sighed.
Grierson smiled.
“Find that young lady of yours and take the next watch off and try to relax a bit.”
“Just how the hell do you know about that?”
“Hey, juicy gossip is the fastest traveling news of all,” Grierson said with a laugh and with another friendly handshake he left the room.
Jason switched off the lights, lay back on his bunk and closed his eyes, not even bothering to get out of his flight suit.
He wouldn’t have even noticed someone else in the room if it hadn’t have first been for the faint scent of honeysuckle, a smell which took him back so many years to when he was in flight school.
“Svetlana.”
“Captain Grierson dropped by my landing craft on his way out and said you wanted to see me.”
Jason smiled. Grierson was all right; if only he was the one running this mission, there’d be no worries, other than what he knew they were finally going to face when part of the home fleet closed in.
“The perfume?”
“Our good friend Janice loaned it to me.”
“Perfume on a marine? Come on.”
“Just shut up and follow my orders,” she said as she started to unzip his flight suit.
CHAPTER VII
“It is too neat, far too neat.”
Prince Thrakhath clicked the holo film back to the beginning.