“Okay, Maggie.” Justin flashed a smile and started climbing up the hill.
She ran, quickly outdistancing him, and he playfully made a show of running faster to keep up. Then Justin lost his footing, and down he went, rolling over and over until he came to rest at the bottom of the slope. He looked up to see Michelle standing over him.
“I leave you for fifteen minutes, and you cake your clothes in mud?” she asked. She made a show of shaking her head. “Oh, come on, you two. We’re going home to get cleaned up.”
Maggie ran into his arms, and he lifted her back onto his shoulders. “Okay. But we’re stopping for ice cream first.”
“Yay!” Maggie shouted.
Michelle just rolled her eyes and walked away.
As she did, Justin felt thankful that he was about to have his last time away from them. When Maggie was born, he’d made the choice to get out after two years of active service, as the possibility of his dying in the line of duty always crept up on him prior to deployments. Life as a midlevel product manager for a software company might be boring, but at least he would come home to his family safe and sound every night. Children. Michelle wants a small army of them. He grinned at the thought and kept walking behind her.
Tears streamed down Justin’s face at the memory of Maggie riding on his shoulders in the park. More than anything, he longed to hold her and his wife in his arms and tell them everything would be okay and that he would be home soon. But as there was no way to accomplish that goal, he instead tried to force himself to go to sleep. Hopefully, when he woke, the war would be over. Regardless, perhaps he would be rested and ready to fight again.
5
Deep Space
Terran Coalition Inner Core
28 September 2433
Justin barely slept, if the on-again, off-again thirty-minute naps between staring at the top of his bunk could be called sleep. An hour before he was supposed to report to the squadron ready room, Justin finally roused himself from the bed. He took a quick space shower comprising thirty seconds of water followed by lathering from head to toe with soap and another two minutes of water to rinse—barely enough to beat him back into the land of full alertness.
When Justin stumbled through the hatch to the Red Tails squadron ready room, he found several pilots already there. He mumbled a hello, helped himself to a large mug of black coffee, and sat in a chair. The room was arranged like a small theater, with one exception—every chair in the place was leather, and they were extra comfortable. Makes sense. We sit here for hours, waiting for something to happen.
“Hey,” Feldstein said as she glanced up from a tablet she had been studying intently. “Didn’t hear you come in. You look like crap.”
“Good morning to you, too, Dvora,” Justin replied with a crooked grin. “I couldn’t sleep.”
“It was hard to nod off. I’ll give you that.” She set the tablet down next to her. “What’d you do instead?”
“Tried to vidlink my wife. No dice, thanks to the comms blackout. I eventually got two hours, maybe.” Justin took a sip of the hot coffee and burned his throat. “Aaagh.”
The enormity of the events going on around him was overwhelming. So much for wondering what the defining moment of my life will be. A week ago, he was just another cog in the massive wheel of the Terran Coalition, with a regular civilian job and a small family. Now, I’m at the sharp tip of the spear.
Major Whatley striding through the hatch ended the conversation.
Justin sprang to his feet along with the rest of those present and came to attention.
“As you were,” Whatley said as he walked toward the podium directly in front of the large screen at the front of the room. He synched his tablet with the interface and turned toward the group of pilots. “Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to start by congratulating you on being members of a rare breed: space-combat command pilots who’ve seen actual combat. The entire squadron acquitted itself well. And for that, I commend you.” He cleared his throat. “Now, on to business. We’re two jumps out from Canaan. Communications have improved to the point that we know who we’re fighting: the League of Sol.”
“The league of what?” Mateus interjected. “That sounds like a cult or something.”
Laughter erupted from the other pilots.
Whatley held up his hand. Not a trace of mirth was on his face. “Earth.”
The laughter stopped as quickly as it had started.
“From what the Coalition Intelligence Service can tell, we’re facing humans from Earth. Details are naturally limited, but it would appear that the World Society survived after the rest of us left.”
Justin and Feldstein exchanged glances. He was stunned. Vague bits of history came back to him from high school. Our ancestors escaped Earth over three hundred fifty years ago from communist oppression. Why now? Anger overcame him. With so many habitable planets in the Orion spur, why attack us here? They don’t need the space.
“The why doesn’t concern me. The only thing that does is defeating this enemy.” Whatley touched his tablet, and the 3-D holoprojector came to life, showing a detailed view of the Canaan system with its moons, orbital space installations, and CDF assets. “The fleet has rallied. The enemy outnumbers us five to one.”
Gasps filled the room.
“Oh goody, a target-rich environment,” Mateus said to raucous laughter.
“Lieutenant, be careful what you wish for,” Whatley replied in his gravelly tone. “Though I appreciate the
