He looked up at the blazing primary sun, shading his eyes against the glare. Thirty-nine more years to a real sunset, he thought.
A lieutenant, one of Nagomo's staff, stood waiting patiently, and then approached the admiral and saluted.
"What is it, lieutenant?"
"Sir, Admiral Nagomo wanted me to inform you he'll be along in an hour or so and suggested that you go ahead."
"Fine, lieutenant."
"He also wanted me to inform you that communications with Point X-ray have been cut off."
Long hesitated for a second. Point X-ray was the listening post positioned just inside the demilitarized zone, near the jump point into McAuliffe and orbital base Alexandria. The lieutenant handed him a sealed envelope, which Long opened.
The post reported that a smuggler craft had emerged from the Kilrathi side at high speed. A Kilrathi destroyer had popped through in pursuit, then turned and went back through into its own system. Shortly after this report, the post failed to check in with its twice-daily all clear signal. Damn it all, with the translight burst system still down, the picket ship was reduced to hovering near the jump point and sending a transponder back through the jump point to indicate everything was all right.
Long stood silent for a moment. Damn equipment. Chances were the transponder had failed, but still.
"How long before we're back on the air again?"
"The techs say the storm's abating up there. Maybe six hours, sir, and we'll be back up, on-line," and the lieutenant pointed up towards the fiery red ball that filled half the sky, a streamer of glowing fire arcing from the red giant to the smaller yellow dwarf.
Long nodded. Concordia had translight burst capability, he really should run it out of the system to get a clear signal. It had been almost two weeks now since they'd heard anything from outside the system. For that matter, maybe a frigate should run out to Point X-ray to check on the listening post. Too much was going wrong with communications, maybe it would be best to hold off on leaving right now.
"Fred, you know you're late."
Sighing he saw his wife, Linda, step out of their helo lift, gesturing towards him as though he was a child who was late for school.
"Sorry, dear. Last minute paperwork."
A transport which had settled down next to the admiral's lift craft popped its access hatch, and a storm of laughing, shouting enlisted men piled out. At the sight of their commander, they nervously fell silent, snapping off salutes as they passed.
"Enjoy your leave, boys, and stay out of trouble," Long said in a fatherly way while acknowledging their salutes.
Linda came up to her husband's side and looked disdainfully at the disembarking crews, who as soon as they thought they were out of earshot started to again discuss where they were heading.
"Frederick, is that wretched place, Four Dollar Suzie's still open? I distinctly heard one of those boys say that's where he was heading. I thought I told you I wanted that filthy den shut down."
"Yes, dear," the admiral said wearily, "I'll have one of my people look into it immediately. But do remember, groundside is not under my control, dear, that's Nagomo's territory."
She shot an angry glance at Nagomo's lieutenant, as if the den of iniquity was his fault.
Long sighed and nodded to the lieutenant. "Tell the admiral the transponder most likely malfunctioned. If they don't report in on the next check, I'll run a frigate out to look around."
"Fred, our guests are waiting," Linda announced impatiently.
"That's all, lieutenant."
The lieutenant saluted and headed back towards headquarters. Long folded the envelope up and put it in his pocket as Linda took him by the arm and steered him toward the waiting helo.
"And another thing. I saw your guest list for tonight. I thought I told you that I will not tolerate Captain Hunter stepping into our house. After what he did with that other woman, it'd be an insult to Nancy if we have him in. I sent a note to her yesterday about that, and I'd die if she found out we had him over. Frederick, I want him transferred off your staff at once."
"Yes, dear," the admiral replied, looking back to see his shuttle powering up and starting to taxi back out to the runway. There was a slight gnawing sense, a gut instinct that was troubling. Communications back to CONFEDFLT had been down way too long. There were no indications of outright trouble. Hell, the offensive against the Cats was hundreds of light-years away, entirely outside his operational sector, but still, a lot could have happened. Now this glitch with the picket station. Maybe he should go back up, keep station on board tonight, at least until they found out what was going on at X-ray.
Thirty years of service, a good record, never a mistake, that was worth guarding. But then again, how many hundreds of false alarms, how many sleepless nights that turned out to be for nothing?
"Frederick, I'm waiting."
He watched as the shuttle was cleared and pulled out onto the runway.
"Frederick!"
"Yes, dear," the admiral mumbled as he ducked into his helo, which lifted off and turned northward, headed for Highcroft.
Minutes later the twice-monthly transport from Earth arrived. Over a hundred replacements stepped out and looked around forlornly at their new home, while eighty men and women, their tours completed, piled on board. A pallet of replacement parts was offloaded and quickly sorted, the equipment destined for the fleet above was set to one side and covered with a tarp. The pilot of the ship finally stepped off, carrying a silver pouch, and went up to the ground crew chief.
"When's the next ship going upstairs?"
"Too bad, sir, just missed it. Headed up not five minutes ago."
"Got priority dispatches here for Admiral Long. Lot of stuff here, you guys have been off-line for over two weeks now."
The crew chief looked at the silver pouch.
"He just took off too, sir. Headed up to the officer's retreat for the holidays."
"Damn."
"Try Admiral Nagomos office. He's heading out to join Admiral Long, maybe they can relay the stuff along."
The pilot stalked off, heading for the base HQ, falling in behind the replacements. Breathing a sigh of relief as he stepped into the blessed air-conditioning of the building, he looked around for the signs which finally led him to the office of the base commander.
"Priority dispatches here for Admiral Long," he announced to the bleary-eyed clerk behind the desk, who had obviously started his holiday celebration early.
"Can't be reached now, sir. He's headed up to the retreat. We could transmit them up."
"I can't, they're Priority Triple A from Banbridge. I'm not allowed to have them transmitted. I heard Admiral Nagomo is still here, maybe he can forward this along," the pilot replied, feeling annoyed that, with ten years in the fleet, he was still running around like an errand boy.
The clerk stood up and, coming around from behind his desk, looked at the silver envelope. Without saying a word he went back to his desk and picked up his phone. A minute later a middle-aged lieutenant came up to the pilot.
"Can I help you, sir?"
The pilot repeated yet again the need to get the dispatches to the admiral, and mentioned the requirement that he sign the pouch off before being permitted to leave.
"Admiral Nagomo, my boss, is heading up there in a couple of minutes. How about if I pass them on to him, and he can deliver them to Long?"
It wasn't quite according to regulations, the pilot thought. He was required to hand them off to Long or to one of his staff. But then again, he reasoned, one could say that Nagomo was part of the staff since he was in direct command of all ground facilities at McAuliffe, which answered to Long as commander of this fleet, which included McAuliffe and the orbital base Alexandria.