One Good Soldier

gluonium, Admiral!' the STO added. They sure as hell didn't need to be around if the Seppies fired off a gluonium bomb that close.

'Shit! Kamikaze, Admiral!' the COB shouted.

'Helm, emergency jaunt away from here now!' Wallace sounded an alarm across the fleet ships and opened a channel. 'Evasive jaunts immediately! Gluonium Kamikaze!'

'Emergency jaunt, sir!' Helmsman Lieutenant Junior Grade Cindy Lewis frantically punched in the commands for an emergency jaunt. It would take the hyperspace projector a few seconds to spin up the quantum vortex required to pass out of normal space. Who knew if they had time?

Wallace sat calm for the few seconds as they passed. The enemy hauler pulled in closer to the Lincoln and opened fire on it. All of its missiles, DEGs, and railguns poured into the wounded supercarrier's sections that housed the jaunt system. The Seppy ship moved closer and closer to the Lincoln, and Wallace could see that there was nothing he could do for them.

'Goddamn those bastards!' He slammed his fist down against his chair arm. Just as the hyperspace vortex whirled around them and they blanked out of normal space, the Seppy kamikaze ship exploded. The Lincoln was vaporized instantly.

A few seconds later, as the Madira popped out of hyperspace, the admiral managed to relax long enough to breathe. His DTM dinged in the updated blue-force tracking signals showing that the Tyler and the Roosevelt had managed to jaunt away before the hauler had exploded. The three U.S. supercarriers were battered and badly outnumbered. Or at least they had been. His blue-force system showed four new U.S. supercarriers: the USS Ronald Reagan, the USS Barack Obama, the USS Zachary Taylor, and the USS Andrew Jackson. There were still eight Seppy ships, but only four of them were supercarriers, and one of those supercarriers had taken a good bit of damage. The other four Seppy ships were battle cruiser class—about two-thirds the size of a supercarrier. Seven supercarriers to eight Seppy ships; finally some decent odds.

'CO Madira, CO Obama!'

'Goddamn, I'm glad to hear from you, Johnny!' Wallace answered Captain Johnny Practice's hail. He opened a channel to all the fleet ship captains. 'I'm glad to see all four of you. Be advised. We just lost the Lincoln. She was totally destroyed. Her pilots and groundpounders are on the surface of Arcadia near the governor's mansion in the center of Capitol City. Our intel has determined that is where the QMT controls are. So do not destroy that mansion! In the meantime, we're a bit surrounded over here and could use a hand. We also need to put a couple ships on the planet to support the fight there. Carla, you and Johnny take the Obama and the Jackson down. Felix, you and Kiana form up on us here and see if we can't keep the Seppies away from our attack long enough to get that QMT system under our control.'

'Aye, Admiral!'

Now things are gonna get a little better, he thought.

Damn right, Admiral, Uncle Timmy agreed.

'Admiral, the Seppy fleet is forming up on us. Looks like they brought their fighters with them, sir,' the XO said.

'Well, that will help out downstairs. All right, let's prepare to take incoming!'

'Admiral, with that in mind, do we want to continue our plan to jaunt in two minutes back to the planet?' Commander Penny Swain, the nav officer, asked.

'Good question, Penny.' Wallace thought briefly. They were still outnumbered up here and in a ball. He still liked the idea of going to a bowl and being able to support the troops on the ground better. 'Yes. Our men and women down there need us.'

Timmy, DTM the plan to the rest of the fleet.

Aye, sir.

'Joe! The SIF generators on the aft of the ship are down. There just aren't any other cooling systems to bring them down,' Lieutenant Mira Concepcion shouted. The noise in the Engineering Room was a little too loud to talk at normal tones, and the stress from the ship being rocked back and forth didn't help.

'Well, it sure as hell didn't take long for the Seppy mothers to find out where we jaunted to,' Petty Officer Andy Sanchez added.

'If y'all wanted peace and quiet