“Good morning, sir.” Tehrani kept her expression neutral.
“I received your engineering status report this morning. Do I understand correctly that your command is fully ready for combat?”
Direct and to the point. I wonder what’s wrong now. “Yes, sir. I would expect we could be underway no later than oh eight hundred tomorrow morning.”
Yukimura pursed his lips. “Good. I’m re-forming your battle group, with the CSV Marcus Luttrell as primary escort. Two of the Saurian frigates we recently purchased are in the process of final checkout cruises and will join you en route along with a stealth raider. I believe you're familiar with Colonel Fielding and the CSV Astute?”
The mention of the Templar-class vessel made Tehrani smile. She’d been continually impressed by Fielding and his crew in their last deployment. “I am, sir. Happy to rate one of our golden nebula friends.”
For the first time in the conversation, Yukimura’s face showed a trace of a grin. “Force multipliers, Colonel.” It quickly disappeared. “I’m sending you to section nine alpha of the border zone.”
Tehrani quickly recalled the particular location. It was near the Trifid nebula and was neutral space—primarily human-settled planets from colony ships launched after the initial Exodus. She nodded.
“You’re probably wondering why, since the League isn’t attacking us from that area.”
“Yes, sir. The Greengold would rather be where the action is.”
Yukimura chuckled. “Don’t worry, Tehrani. You’re getting some action, and so will your entire battlegroup. There have been an increasing number of pirate attacks down there. Neutral and allied shipping is taking a beating, and we don’t have enough border patrol vessels to monitor the sector. Most of them have been impressed into point-defense duty in our depleted carrier battlegroups.”
“Pirates?” Tehrani’s jaw dropped. “They’ve only been a problem farther down the arm toward the Jewel Box.”
“They’re parasites who feed on us while our attention is directed elsewhere thanks to the League of Sol.” Yukimura tilted his head to one side while grimacing. “I can respect an enemy combatant, but striking civilians in the dead of space… it’s dishonorable and makes me wish I were yet again a line officer so that I could dispatch them with haste.”
From a flag officer who rarely showed emotion, his words moved Tehrani with their earnestness. She set her jaw. “We’ll dispatch them, sir. Though I must ask. How do you know it's not the League? Attacking neutral shipping to deny us raw materials would make sense. They’ve already announced that any ship traversing our border is fair game.”
“Unrestricted space warfare. Yes, you are most astute, Colonel.” Yukimura shrugged. “I, too, thought what you suggest made sense, but the Coalition Intelligence Service has investigated the attacks, and there appears to be no League involvement. Sensor logs from surviving ships show an amalgamation of commonly available civilian vessels, up gunned and heavily armored. Most of the information is garbled—but what we can tell is the ships carrying out the attacks aren’t Leaguers.”
She narrowed her eyes. “I see. Do we have any intelligence on where they’re based out of?”
“Not as of yet. The pattern CIS noticed, however, is they’re picking off cargos of rare earth minerals.”
Tehrani licked her lips. “Easy to sell off to the highest bidder on the black market.” By Allah, the criminal underworld disgusts me. We’re in a fight for survival, and they’re killing innocent spacers to make a few credits.
“Exactly. Battlegroup Z will patrol the border, and I’ll make sure you have a complete list of all freighters carrying the targeted cargos. Be ready to swoop in and save the day. Have your Marines ready to board disabled craft. I want you to root out the base of operations these vermin are using, destroy it, and shut down their pirating for good.”
“Yes, sir. We’ll get the job done.” Then we can go back to fighting the war, where we belong.
“By the time you get back to resupply, we’ll have the Greengold’s Presidential Unit Citation ready. Oh, and before you leave, inform your master chief that another battle star has been authorized. Brings you up to what? Five?”
“Who’s counting, sir. I’m more interested in transmitting the broom.”
“Me, too, Colonel.” Yukimura sucked in a breath. “Good luck out there. Good hunting, and Godspeed.”
“Godspeed to you, too, sir.”
The screen blinked off, leaving Tehrani alone once more. Well, a mission is a mission. Even if it wasn’t more battling against the Leaguers, they were getting back into the fight—not a moment too soon for her tastes.
After kicking off his combat boots and getting a glass of water, Justin curled up on the couch in his stateroom. While providing a break from combat, time off the front lines greatly enhanced the amount of paperwork he had to do. His recent promotion to XO of the Greengold’s flight wing only added to the overhead. If people had any idea how much other work pilots do, they’d probably never sign up for the job. He chuckled and glanced at the clock for what seemed like the hundredth time in the last few minutes. It read 2000 CMT.
Eagerly, he reached for his tablet and quickly pulled up the vidlink application. Michelle’s profile was the first one listed, and he tapped the button to engage video communications. It flashed Connecting for a moment.
Michelle’s smiling face filled the screen. “There you are! Were you counting the seconds?”
“Guilty as charged. I live for our calls, you know.”
“I know, baby. I miss you so much.”
He touched the screen. “I miss you too. Where’s Maggie?”
“Asleep. She’s been sick for a couple of days. There’s a cold going around.”
Justin quirked his nose. “I’m sure her pediatrician could fix that with a shot.”
“It’s good for little ones to develop an immune system capable of fighting off viruses.” Michelle stuck her tongue out. “Please tell me you didn’t call across billions of kilometers to rehash that debate.”
Long ago, Justin had learned to accept his wife’s oddities when it came to distrust of technology. She wasn’t a Luddite but sometimes
