"I'm alive, Dee. And most important, so are you!" Moore smiled as he tried to open his visor. Then he, the bodyguards, Dee, and Sehera vanished from the Oval Office.
They reappeared in a hospital room in someplace unknown to Dee. Sehera tossed her helmet on the floor and helped Thomas and Koodie pull Alexander Moore out of his armor.
"Leave the seal layer on." A team of doctors rushed in around them. "Stand back, we've got this."
"He was wounded pretty badly. His right lung was collapsed and torn asunder. His intestines were cut in half. And his heart had a hole in it big enough to put your thumb through. We did everything we could, ma'am." The doctor looked at Sehera and Dee. Then he looked over their shoulders at the bodyguards and politicians.
"No, Daddy!" Tears flowed down Dee's cheeks.
"Come with me," the doctor told them.
"Dee, shhh. It is okay, baby." Sehera held her daughter's hand and led her by the hand calmly as she followed the doctor.
He led them down a long white corridor to a double door where Thomas stood in his Secret Service–agent black suit and tie and dark sensor glasses. He nodded to them but didn't say a word as they passed through the doors.
The room they entered was a large private hospital room with a single bed in it. Moore was lying in the bed with a blanket covering him. The blanket had the presidential seal on it. They could only see the foot of the bed, as the head of it was blocked by a wraparound curtain that hung from ceiling to floor.
"It will be okay, Dee," Sehera comforted her. Dee was trembling and crying, barely maintaining control.
"Of course it will. Why wouldn't things be okay?" Alexander slid the curtain back. Dee's eyes widened.
"What! Daddy?" She rushed to his side and hugged him.
"Ouch, not too tight, princess, and not too loud, either." He hugged her back.
"Why? Why would you do this to me?" Dee looked angry.
"Shhh, Dee. Listen to your father before you say anything else." Sehera sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed Alexander's leg through the blanket. He smiled back at her.
"We have some very hard decisions to make, Dee," Alexander started.
"What do you mean, decisions?" Dee interrupted. "There are no decisions. We go and find Fink and my deranged grandmother and we put about ten bullets into each of their brains. No decision. It is simple!"
"Like father, like daughter." Sehera smiled again. She rubbed Dee on the back with her other hand.
"Well, yes, Dee, we will do that, if that is the right thing to do. And believe me, I agree with you. But Elle Ahmi controls and inspires millions of people. If she suddenly vanishes, there will be chaos and Tau Ceti will tear itself apart. The power-hungry assholes like Fink, Elise Tangiers, and many others will usurp resources and create a world of factions that will continue to be a war zone for generations." Moore paused for a breath and adjusted the tube in his nose. For the first time, Dee noticed it.
"Dad, what's wrong?"
"Ha, nothing. They haven't had time to finish printing me a new lung yet, so I'm still only using one of them. The doctors spent all the time so far printing me a new heart and then a new section of intestine. I'll be fine after my surgery in a few minutes, but first we need to talk. The lung will be printed by then, and the surgery is quite routine. With immunoboost, I'll be back to normal in two hours tops."
"Okay. I love you, Dad." Dee had never seen her father hurt before. He had tackled giant mechanical monsters with his bare hands and come out without so much as a scratch, but he seemed extremely mortal to her now lying in the hospital bed. The feeling scared the hell out of her. The fact that it was her own grandmother that had shot him just made her more certain that Elle Ahmi was nothing more than raw genetic material. If Dee got the chance, she'd kill Ahmi for doing what she had done to her dad.
"So, the decision we have to make, Dee," Sehera added, "is what do we do next? Ahmi can't continue to be in charge of the United Separatist Republic, as she calls it. The U.S. can and will forcibly take the system, but there would be terrorist activity for decades and decades, until every last Separatist is found and killed, if it isn't handled delicately. And who is to say that the next president will have the fortitude your father has had in dealing with them. After all, no matter how much we love him, no president will continue to get reelected forever. Nor should they."
"What are you two saying?"
"We have a plan in mind to take out the heads of all the cells in the Separatist movement and remove their desire and ability to resist the U.S."
"How?"
"It is our family that has caused this mess for humanity for so long. We are going to take on the responsibility to clean it up," Sehera added. "The Separatists are dug in much deeper in our society than the general public knows. There are moles in Congress and the Senate. There are moles here in the White House. There are moles in every colony and territory. There are CEOs and other officers of big corporations and conglomerates involved that will have to be removed from their positions of power."
"How?"
"The three of us, Captain Jack Boland, Nancy Penzington, and Thomas Washington, are going to end this thing covertly, quietly, and quickly. We'll do it in a way that history will never know about, but mankind will be the better for. We'll start with the Separatist cell leaders today. Over the next year, we'll deal with the others." Moore clicked the remote on his bed and raised the back of it a bit to make him a little more comfortable. "We can't and we will not do this if you aren't with us, Dee. And your mother and I are serious when we say that we will not do this if you don't want to. We can go on the way things are, and you can live your life as you have been. Although we will need to put more security on you."
"I'm in, Daddy. What do I do?"
"That's my girl. Your mother will talk with you about that while I'm in surgery."
"So, there is one thing I need to understand," Dee said. "My grandma was an evil twisted psycho nut batshit crazy bitch?"
Sehera let out a rueful chuckle. "Like father, like daughter."
Chapter 34
July 1, 2394 AD
Ross 128, Arcadia
Friday, 4:45 PM, Earth Eastern Standard Time
Admiral, I think you'd better get back up here, sir. The XO sent the message to Wallace directly to his mindvoice. Our courier is back from the Sol System.
"On my way," he said audibly. "COB, we'd better get back upstairs."
"Understood, sir." Charlie shook the hand of another wounded Marine pilot, call sign Deuce, as they made their way out of the postoperative ward. The marine would probably be paralyzed for days, until her new spinal column section that had been printed and implanted could heal and her brain could figure out which reconnected nerve went to what body part. It would take her weeks of rehab to relearn how to walk, run, fight, and fly mecha again.
"Hell of a mess, Charlie."
"Yes, sir. That QMT tech saved a lot of lives. We sure could have used it at the Oort or during the Exodus," the COB said. "Or back in the old days, or—"
"Didn't save them all, COB. We still have a lot of letters to write."