"Yes, sir." They turned the corner of the corridor out to the elevator. The COB depressed the button, and they waited patiently.
"Any word on the QMT facility controls, sir?"
"Uncle Timmy says that Ramy's Robots took it. It has been swept, and the warrant officers have it working. They've already QMTed up and down between it and the orbital facility several times. We should be able to operate the QMT facility in a matter of minutes."
"Damn good news, Admiral."
"Indeed."
The elevator ride didn't take long, and after having been with the wounded for a while, neither of them was in the mood to talk a whole bunch. Seeing that many of America's finest maimed, dismembered, and disfigured was disheartening to say the least. On the up side, none of the wounded had low spirits and none of them felt bad about what they had done. That in itself was uplifting. The doors slid open, and it was time to get back to work.
"Admiral on the bridge!" The XO stood from the captain's chair and returned to his station.
"As you were." Wallace took his seat, and the COB took his. "So, what's up, Larry?"
"Sir, the courier just returned. The enemy ships left us earlier because Admiral Walker is leading the rest of the fleet against the Separatists at Tau Ceti. The president sent a message for us to get there somehow and help her out."
"Fullback is probably giving the Seppies hell."
"Yes, sir. I'm sure she is."
"I suppose we can't let her have all the fun." Wallace turned on the DTM battlescape view and ship readouts. His mind had been resting long enough. More information than could be understood visually, audibly, and through touch flooded his mind directly. The DTM mindview allowed for a completely different level of perception of massive amounts of data. "It's been a long day, hey, XO? COB, better mix up some more of your coffee."
"Aye, Admiral," Charlie replied. "It's been one of those fine Navy days, sir. Should I make it strong?"
"You mean there is a strong version of your coffee, COB?"
"Oh, yes, sir. I make the weak stuff because a lot of our junior officers can't take real coffee, sir."
"Then make it strong. And yes, Charlie, it has been a fine Navy day."
"I wouldn't know about Navy days, Admiral, but I don't think even us marines would want too many like the one we've had so far." The XO grinned.
"Do we have full use of the QMT facility yet?" Wallace asked.
"Yes, sir," the STO replied.
"How about that?" Wallace thought about it; things could have been worse. They had jumped into the Ross 128 star system not even sure they had a way home. They knew they were going to have to fight for control of the QMT facility. And fight they had. They had lost an entire supercarrier, with few survivors. "Ground Boss, how we doing down on the planet?"
"We've ground it down to a halt, sir. The fighting is done, unless we want to start taking it house-to-house to look for holdouts," the ground boss replied.
"That's not our call right now. Okay, we'll leave two ships here, and the rest of us will QMT to Tau Ceti and jump right back into the fight." Wallace paused, trying to decide which two stayed. The Roosevelt and the Tyler could hold down the fort in Ross 128 and lick their wounds. The Madira would lead the other four ships that had seen very little of the fighting on to Tau Ceti. He put out the orders to the fleet ship captains.
"Fleet ships, this is Admiral Jefferson. The rest of the fleet has engaged the Separatists at Tau Ceti and needs our help. The Roosevelt and the Tyler will remain here and maintain operations while the rest of us will rendezvous at the orbital QMT facility for the jump to Tau Ceti in thirty minutes. For the ships about to jump, send out the recall to all of your troops and start prepping for battle. I want us loaded up and ready to QMT into battle in thirty minutes. If that means we run the QMTs to get the tanks and mecha on board at the same time the hangar bays are running and the Starhawks are flying, then that is what we do. I hate to have to ask you to jump right back into the fray again, people. I know this has been a long fight already. But our fellow soldiers are in the thick and need our assistance. We will be there for them. So let us all get moving. Good luck, and God bless."
"Andy, you don't have to be here," Joe told the EM1. "You should be in your rack resting."
"Hell, sir, I'm fine. That immunoboost is good stuff," Sanchez replied. "Did it work? I mean, I'd hate to think I got sucked out of the ship and all banged up for nothing."
"Yeah, it did. I'm gonna have to put you in for some sort of commendation. Bravery or something—the kind of thing usually given to jarheads." Joe smiled. "When the air rushed through the dry hull, it was supercooled through a Venturi effect, and that cooled the overheated coolant big time. We also came up with a new way to run the SIFs that will reduce the heat exchange needs by a shitload."
"Just glad I could help, sir."
"I'm just glad we didn't lose you."
"Aw shit, I wasn't never scared of that, sir," Andy lied.
"You sure you're up for duty then?"
"Sir, EM1 Sanchez reporting for duty, sir." He saluted.
"Well, we're headed into the shit in just a few minutes, so find something that needs fixin' and fix it, EM1." Joe returned the salute.
"Aye, sir."
Chapter 35
July 1, 2394 AD
Sol System, Mississippi
Friday, 5:45 PM, Earth Eastern Standard Time
Friday, 12:45 PM, New Tharsis Standard Time
"Jack, you ready for this?" Penzington asked the mecha jock. She knew that Boland was probably revered as one of the greatest pilots in the fleet, but what they were doing was "wet work," up close and personal. She wanted to make certain that the pilot would kill up close as easily as he could through mindview targeting sights. The distance made it easier for some people, and for some it didn't matter. Nancy never trusted people who could easily kill. She just wanted them to be able to do the job when they had to.
"I'm good, Nancy." Jack slapped the ammo magazine into his HVAR and stepped on the pad with her.
"Good," Nancy said. "We'll take care of the Tangiers first. I know where Elise stays. If they are under attack, then she'll be in her safe house in the mountains. I was a member of the Tangiers inner circle for a while. I know them pretty well. I have her AIC's EM signature saved. As soon as we get near her, I'll be able to pinpoint her."
"Good. By the time you get back, I should be well enough to join you," President Moore said. He had squirreled away one of the original QMT prototype pads more than a year prior, as if he had been planning this all along. The pad was in an old abandoned airport outside Jackson, Mississippi, near where he had grown up. Nancy thought that he was a very resourceful and clever man. He would have made a good spy. He made a great marine, and not too bad a president.
"I've had my AIC train yours, Dee's, and Sehera's external AIC on the operation of the pad. All you have to do is tell them what you want, and they can get you where you need to be. We managed to put backdoors in all the QMT pads known to us. So we can operate any of them, anywhere, and bounce between the network of jump pads. From here, we can QMT through ships or Mars or out to the Oort, and from there anywhere forward and back with a snap-back algorithm. I think this must be what Ahmi was trying to figure out how to do, but she didn't have the advantage of having access to all of the QMTs everywhere. We'll see you in a bit."