gone a day without brushing his teeth. The idea of saving lives without risking ships and personnel appealed to officers of his kind.
“Have you ever visited Gobi, Admiral?” I asked.
“Yes, and you were there at the same time,” he said. “I attended Warshaw’s summit with Admiral Huxley.” I had not known the late Admiral Huxley. He was one of the victims of the Olympus Kri Massacre.
“I hid in a tunnel under a lake on Terraneau,” I said. “As far as I know, Gobi doesn’t have tunnels or lakes.”
Jolly said, “If I am not mistaken, Gobi Station has underground levels.” Gobi Station was the base that the late Admiral Warshaw had used as his Pentagon. “What if we evacuated people to the base?” he asked.
I considered the idea and dismissed it. “We might be able to stash a few hundred people there, but I’m not sure we’d be able to get them out after the attack. Gobi Station is made out of plastic and metal. It’s going to melt when things get hot.”
“Melt?”
“The atmospheres of Terraneau and Olympus Kri hit nine thousand degrees. Everything made out of glass, steel, or plastic ended up in a puddle,” I said.
“Nine thousand degrees?” Jolly had some idea about how the aliens operated, but he did not know the specifics. “That doesn’t sound possible. Nine thousand degrees …how do you heat a planet to nine thousand degrees?”
“If we knew how the bastards did it, we’d do it to them,” I said.
Jolly massaged his brow with a pudgy thumb and sausageshaped pointer finger, sitting silently as he considered his options. “How are we supposed to evacuate an entire planet?” he asked.
“Gobi’s only the first. We’ll need to evacuate all of our planets,” I pointed out. “At least we’re starting light. The population of Gobi is less than a million.”
“Do you know how many ships we’d need to transport a million civilians?”
“Four,” I said.
“You’re planning on stealing the Unifieds’ barges,” Jolly said. He sounded impressed.
“The word ‘stealing’ has such a negative connotation,” I said. “Let’s just say I plan on commandeering the barges. We’ll give them back once the emergency passes.”
“Do you even know where the barges are moored?” Jolly asked.
“Last I heard, they were orbiting Mars.”
“It sounds like you have it all worked out, General. Is that just bluster, or do you really believe you can hijack those barges?”
I laughed. “Oh, I’ll get them. The Unifieds aren’t going to shoot at us once we board the barges. They need those scows as much as we do.”
“Then what?” asked Jolly.
That question took me by surprise. I asked, “Then what …what?”
“If I understand what you are saying, you and a small team of operatives plan to sneak behind enemy lines and board twenty-five ships that are not self-broadcasting and have no defenses. Your only protection is that the Unifieds probably won’t risk shooting at the ships, but you’re still trapped in Unified Authority space,” Jolly pointed out. “General, you haven’t thought this through.”
“The Unifieds have a temporary broadcast station orbiting Mars. They used it to broadcast the barges to Olympus Kri.”
“Are you sure it’s still there?” asked Liotta.
“Yes,” I said. In truth, I had no idea.
“And you believe it is still operational?” asked Jolly.
“Yes, sir.”
“And you can access it? Please tell me that you are not simply planning to sail into a broadcast station without knowing where it will send you.”
Actually, I was, but I had an answer. “I have engineers who can hack into the satellite’s computers.”
It was true, too. I’d asked Lieutenant Mars if he had any way of hijacking a U.A. broadcast satellite. He smiled, and said, “Sure. No problem. It’s a U.A. installation; my guys know how to get past their security codes. We can even make it play ‘Nearer My God to Thee’ on its sound system.”
I laughed, and said, “I’m not up on my hymns.”
Admiral Jolly cleared his throat, and his drooping jowls wobbled. He said, “Assuming you are able to locate the barges and assuming you are able to spirit them away to Gobi, what are you planning to do with the refugees you rescue?”
“Evacuate them,” I said.
“And where are you going to put them?” Not looking so jolly, the admiral growled as he asked this question and squinted at me. Multiple chins bounced below his jaw.
“Oh,” I said. “I hadn’t thought about that.”
That was a moment when salvation came from an unexpected source. Admiral Liotta said, “We have facilities on Providence Kri. There’s empty housing. Hell, we have entire cities that are sitting empty.”
“Yes,” I said. “We can ferry them to Providence Kri.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“There has got to be a way to run this mission without the spy cruiser,” Lieutenant Mars said. He sounded indignant as he added, “You blew the ship into Swiss cheese a couple of days ago?”
“You blew the ship to Swiss cheese. You were the one who rigged the cannons,” I pointed out.
“Fine, I blew the ship to Swiss cheese following your orders. It’s still Swiss cheese.”
“We need it, Lieutenant.”
“General, I am a believing man. I believe that Peter walked on water. I believe Moses crossed the Red Sea on dry land. I even believe Jesus fed thousands of people with a few loaves of bread and a half dozen fishes. God performed those miracles. If you want your ship resurrected in three days, maybe you should go to Him,” Mars said. He was a born-again Christian, except that he was also a clone, which meant he was never actually born the first time.
“If I ever need a sea split, I’ll ask Him for help,” I said. “In the meantime, I need you to repair the spy ship.”
“You do understand that the loaves, the fishes, the water into wine, the resurrections, Christ performed those miracles, not his disciples?”
“Give it your best shot,” I said.
“We can’t even fly her into dry dock; she’s too banged up. One of her engines came off.”
“By the end of the day” meant by 17:00 hours on the Space Travel Clock. That gave Mars less than ten hours.
“General, sir, may I remind you that you waited until the ship lowered her shields before you fired on her?”
“Sounds like you have your work cut out for you.”
“You do understand, sir, that the damage was not just to the hull? I toured that wreck, you blew the holy sh …snot out of it.” Mars must have really been frustrated. He’d started to say, “shit.” He never used profanity, it was not in his vocabulary.
He took a deep breath, then held it for a moment as he composed himself. Then he attempted to reason with me. “General, a stealth generator is a sophisticated piece of equipment. I couldn’t make one if I had the cookbook and all the ingredients. If you handed me all the parts and the instructions and gave me a year to put it together, I
