Mike Shepherd - Welcome Home / Go Away

“To pick up their Grand Duchess?”

“Or any other survivors that follow Kris home.”

“But we don’t know that any others have,” Trouble said.

“No, we don’t. Still, I’ve got a lot of stuff flowing toward Chance. Including a lot of high-priority questions. Ray even canceled the orders for a fast courier ship and had it redirected to Chance. I ordered a heavy cruiser squadron to cancel its training exercise and boost at two gees for the same place.”

“You think there could be a fight?” Trouble said, sipping thoughtfully at his now-cooling coffee.

“You didn’t hear this from me, okay, but we’ve got an early report that someone in the new government at Bern is trying to bring Kris up on charges for crimes against humanity.”

Trouble almost dropped his coffee. “Crimes against humanity! What does that even mean?”

“Damned if I know, old horse. There was a big tempest in a teapot in the Helvitican Confederacy when the Fleet of Discovery suddenly became a battle fleet. There were other problems with the party in power. A sex scandal, maybe other stuff. Anyway, them that was in power got voted out and them that was out are now in. Nobody is quite sure what provided the margin for the victory, but the new boys are busy shoring up anything that looks like it might get them a vote or three in the next election. Which may not be too far off.”

Mac paused to sip his own coffee before adding.

“And there are still a lot of folks that think Ray Longknife was personally responsible for the Iteeche War. A war we almost lost big-time.”

“That’s absurd,” Trouble exploded.

“To you and a lot of the rest who were out there on the line, yes, General. But my grandmom was one of those manning the barricade and demanding we get the Iteeche into negotiations.”

“The damn four-eyed monsters weren’t talking to us, Mac. You know that.”

“Yes, Trouble, I know that. I learned it in school, but my grandmom had her own ideas of what was going on back then, and I heard it from her every time the family got together for a reunion. And my old grandmom wasn’t the only woman out there carrying signs by the time the war went into its fourth, fifth year.”

Trouble made a sour face.

Mac went on. “Ever hear the proverb that the sins of the father will be visited upon the children down to the, what is it, third or fourth generation?”

“A few times,” Trouble agreed, “and whether it’s third or fourth, Kris is still too close to Ray for people like your grandma.”

“Yep,” Mac said, making a face at his coffee cup.

“Chance is in the Confederacy now, isn’t it?” Trouble asked. He was pretty sure what the answer was, but now was no time to get something as basic as that wrong.

“Yes, but the space station and Naval District 41 is our sovereign territory,” Mac pointed out. “Kris’s tour as ComNavDist 41 reminded everyone just recently that Chance doesn’t own its own space station.”

“And how much do you think they like that?”

“Your guess is as good as mine, but I’ve ordered four heavy cruisers to Chance, just in case they need a reminder. But there may not be a problem.”

“How come?” Trouble asked.

“The old admirals’ club in the Confederacy may have voted for the new government, but they didn’t much take to the noise about a fighting admiral not having the right to fight his ships the way he sees fit, him being out of touch and on the other side of the galaxy.”

“Not a point I have any trouble agreeing with,” Trouble said.

“So, I doubt the skipper of the duty cruiser that the Confederacy has hanging around Chance is going to be at all willing to butt his nose in where it’s not wanted.”

“Unless, of course,” Trouble pointed out, “the new government issues him orders to do just that.”

“And how many politicians who are just learning how the levers of power work know what they have to do to get a distant ship to do something? Even know they’ve got a distant cruiser on a foreign station?”

Trouble chuckled. “Yes. We can hope.”

Mac’s commlink came alive. “Mac, have you seen what that stupid jarhead did today?” came in Ray’s shout.

Mac just shouted back. “Said general is seated across from me enjoying a cup of joe.”

“You two shag your asses up here, pronto.”

“On our way, Your Majesty,” Mac said, putting down his cup and standing.

Trouble did the same, while pointing at Mac’s desk, and mouthing, “Is it still live?”

“No,” Mac said. “It happens often enough that I can now hear the click as he rings off.”

“You let him scream right through, no holding or anything?”

“Trouble, the poor guy is in full Iteeche War mode, as I’ve had a few old-timers warn me. Didn’t he have a live mic to your headquarters?”

“I shared the same planet with him only when I had to,” Trouble admitted. “And yes, I was warned that he had some really bad control-freak habits.”

The field marshal just shook his head. “For a crowned head who insisted he was just going to be a coordinator, a helper, an ombudsman if you will, the old guy is developing a lot of royal, pain-in-the-butt, bad habits. Either that, or he’s redeveloping them.”

“When was his last rejuv? Can his heart take this?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Mac said.

Together, they went up to the top floor. Trouble tried to look contrite about spilling the beans on Vicky, but he didn’t back down much anywhere else.

“Ray, we’ve got to get ahead of this thing. We can’t let all this jabbering go on in the news, or they’ll all be stampeding in the wrong direction before we know what the right direction is. Then how will we get everyone headed in the direction they need to be going?”

“It’s not as easy as it was in the old days,” Ray said, running a worried hand through his close-cropped gray hair. “It’s not so much a military problem as a political problem that we face. Hell, man, Earth let the Society of Humanity go down the drain because it didn’t want its tax money going to the tiny fleet we had five years ago. I start talking to them about manning their reserve fleet and laying new keels, and they’ll cut me off at the knees.”

“And if one of those huge mother ships shows up in orbit, you’re going to do what politically to resolve the social and domestic issues it creates?” Trouble said, trying not to sound too sarcastic to his old war buddy.

“Instead of having coffee with a green suiter, you ought to drop by to have a drink with our grandson Bill and see what alligators are chomping down on his ass, or see if your former son-in-law Al will say anything to you about new taxes.”

The last, Ray almost spat. Clearly, he and his son must have tried to talk to each other recently. Tried and failed, from the sound of it to Trouble.

“We’ve got to do something, Ray. Anything is better than this.”

“Are you sure? Have you seen what’s been done with your interview? Computer, show this idiot some of what you just showed me.”

Trouble would have sworn that he did a good job of taking the sharp edges off his words. That he’d said exactly what he intended to say and not one word more.

Silly old soldier, he.

He was treated to a half dozen vignettes of his talk to Winston, none of which included the other reporter, but all of which made him sound like he was beating the war drums and all for drafting every available man, woman, and child into the army, the fleet, or concentration camps and charging off to rid the galaxy of this menace.

None of them had him saying more than about ten words each.

Of course, the talking heads said a whole lot more.

“I didn’t say any of that,” Trouble growled.