Chapter 8

It was very late by Special Operations standards when I awoke the next morning, it being already 0815 hrs. Trish had rolled over while we slept, but she was still close enough for me to feel the heat pouring off of her, even though we had slept naked, and the room was air conditioned. It was easy to believe from this that she had gone a long time without sex as she had said. Briefly, I considered another round of sex before we returned to duty, but we both have responsibilities, and it was already late in the day.

I moved over behind her and kissed her neck after moving her hair aside. She immediately came awake and stretched a bit without moving around.

“I’ll give you an hour to stop that,” she said in a passionate voice, but that was quickly followed by, “What time is it? Do we have time for a bit more fun?”

“It’s just past 0815 hrs,” I told her.

“Damn, we should have been up a long time ago. Sex will have to wait, Duty calls,” she said and moved to get out of bed.

“Lord, I need another shower,” she said once on her feet and having stretched some.

“We both do,” I assured her, as I stretched also to get the kinks out from sleeping.

“There is no telling what Sara has been up to by now, and she has probably dragged Samson along with her,” Trish said before stopping to contact her Partner. After a few seconds, she smiled.

“Sara sent me images of Samson and her fishing. Samson showed me images of him plucking a fish out of the water with his claws. It turned out to be bigger than he expected, and he had trouble lifting it, but he made it to a buoy that was large enough for the two of them to land on with the fish. They ate most of it there,” she told me with a laugh. She has a fine laugh, and should do more of it, I thought.

“Bob and Susie are probably hungry again also, even with all that they ate yesterday. They did have an active day yesterday,” I admitted with a smile before checking on my Partners who were still asleep. Tigers do sleep a lot, but they would be hungry when they awoke.

“We had best get decent, there are bound to be people moving around. I’ll shower first. See if you can get to your room unobserved,” she told me, as she quickly pulled on a robe and grabbed her towel and soap.

“Right, let me know when you’re finished,” I told her, as I pulled on my shorts and picked up my own towel and soap.

Trish cracked the door open, apparently didn’t see anyone, and opening the door most of the way, stepped out into the hall.

“It’s clear,” she said before starting for the shower, and I crossed the hall to my room, which still had the door closed.

I had everything ready when she knocked on my door a bit later. On opening it, I saw the hall was still empty, and she was there waiting. After giving her a quick kiss which she eagerly returned, I was off to the shower, and she returned to her room.

Later, we both descended to the first floor to find everything under control. Luther and Miranda had been up for some time and had taken charge of the others. Luther had taken over the radio watch, and Miranda had several of the men help her with the preparation of breakfast. The armored personnel carrier had departed, but Hanson was still in the office, though he should have been off duty.

“Problem?” I asked Luther, as we entered the office to check on things.

“We’re not sure,” Luther answered. “Hanson was tuning around on the radio early this morning and picked up some encrypted messages on the band used by Unity warships. Neither he nor I could make anything of them, as the code has to be a new one. Anyway, we wanted you to know,” he finished.

“You could have woke me or Sergeant Ferguson,” I told him.

“We didn’t think it was that important, as it was on the regular ship to ship frequency, and they were expecting new arrivals,” Luther told us, and that made sense. Trish and I were ready to leave and get some breakfast when the radio came live on our frequency.

“Special Operations Representative, Addison III, this is Task Force Six Commo. Come in. Over,” came from the speaker, and Trish grabbed the mike.

“Task Force Six Commo, this is Special Operations Representative, Addison III. Over,” she sent.

“Special Operations Representative, Addison III, Task Force Six Commo. Pearl Six sends the following:

“We will be arriving at Arnold space port at 1500 hrs local time for a conference. Expect Special Operations Representative, Addison III, and Tiger Team with Partners to be there by 1445 hrs to receive us. End message. Do you copy? Over,” they finished.

“Task Force Six Commo, Special Operations Representative, Addison III. Good copy here. Will comply. Over,” Trish sent.

“Special Operations Representative, Addison III, Task Force Six Commo. Roger. Nothing follows. Out,” came back over the radio. Hanson was staring at the radio like it was a snake.

“Holy cow!” he said in amazement a few seconds later. “Do you know who that was?”

“Not really,” Trish answered. “I thought that with the quarantine, there wouldn’t be any landings,” she added.

“When you are a two star Admiral, you can make those kinds of decisions, or they could have changed orders,” Hanson told us and took a breath before continuing.

“A Task Force is a large Naval unit. It usually has a battleship as its lead element. Pearl Six would be a two star Admiral then, and that would be the Pearl Harbor that arrived last night with its Task Force. There are usually two cruisers, maybe a light cruiser or two, and six to eight destroyers as part of the Task Force as well as supply ships. Other times there could be a hospital ship or an Attack Carrier or two attached to the Task Force to cover close in defense and ground attacks by small craft,” he finished.

“So you are saying that there are now a battleship, three cruisers, and ten to twelve destroyers in orbit with possibly a light cruiser or two in addition?” I asked.

“You got it in one, Top,” he answered.

“What do they want with us then?” Trish asked.

“You’ve got me, Master Sergeant,” Hanson answered.

“All right, forget the why for now, let’s figure out who is going and who is staying here before we eat. Obviously all of Tiger Team and their Partners will need to be there, as well as myself and Sara. Hanson, you and Epps should go along so you can rejoin your unit. What about the Navy Corpsmen? Where are they assigned?” Trish asked.

“I’ll need to ask them, but they should go with us, if only to have their wounds properly treated,” I told her.

“That would leave Sergeant Tyler in charge here with the two Infantrymen and the two Army Medics,” Trish said but looked unhappy. “They aren’t Special Operations, and they don’t know how we are set up here. Miranda can you leave the wards around the warehouse up while we are gone like you did last night?” she finished, looking at Miranda who had joined us.

“Yes, I can do that,” she agreed.

“We need Tyler in here for a crash course in running things here, but after we eat, and you feed your partners, Cleve,” Trish finished.

“I’ll send Tyler down. I’m going to get some shuteye before we need to leave,” Hanson told us, as he moved out of the chair and headed for the door.

“Is there any breakfast left?” Trish asked Miranda.

“Yes, I kept some for the two of you,” she said with a smile. I went to feed my Partners, while Trish and Miranda went to check on the remaining breakfast.

I dialed up ten pounds of meat for each Partner before waking them. I was sure that they heard the machinery delivering it, as both were awake and at the gate when I returned to the front of the cage.

“Eat,” Bob sent on seeing me.

“Yes, eat now. We have to go out later to see some people. Eat again before we go,” I sent to them. It didn’t take long for them to polish off the meat, and then return to their favorite resting places for another nap.

Breakfast was fine, but we could have used more of it. We had all expended a lot of energy grabbing those two prisoners last night. Additionally, Trish and I had expended a lot more energy in her room following that. Maybe we would have a big lunch to help make up the difference, but in the meantime, there were things to be done to be ready for the conference.

Trish took Sergeant Tyler and one of the Medics who was the equivalent of a Sergeant into the office to get them read in on things after the meal. I had to check on my Team and make sure they had clean, pressed uniforms and shined boots for the conference. We would also need to check on the appearance of our Partners for the event. Trish joined me after making sure that Tyler and the Medic understood how things were setup and what to do while we were gone.

“There isn’t much we can do about the truck. We’ll just have to use it as it is. Maybe we can get the Army to fix it later,” she told me.

We all had our things ready by lunch time, and Trish supervised the two Infantrymen and the one Medic as they prepared the food. I checked on Bob and Susie while they were working on lunch. I brushed down both of them and made sure they were clean and ready. I would feed them again before we left and make sure they were still clean, although being cats they did a very good job of that themselves. Luther took care of both Eagles.

Following lunch, which there was plenty of, there was little to do, and I hate sitting around doing nothing while you wait.

“You have any paint?” I asked Trish. “We can take care of some of those scratches at least.”

“Yes, I have paint that matches the camouflage colors. You’ll need to apply one color at a time and wait for it to dry,” she told me, as she opened the supply room and handed out spray cans of paint.

“Right, Luther and I can do the painting. Even if we don’t have time to finish it, the truck will still look better than it does now,” I told her. We did get most of the paint scheme restored before we needed to stop.

Everyone was ready and we left at 1415 hrs. I rode in front with Trish, as the back was full with all of the Partners, the Marines, the Corpsmen, and the rest of Tiger Team. Although the spaceport wasn’t very far from us, we figured it was better to be early than late.

As it turned out, it was good that we had left early. As we approached the spaceport, I could see a number of Army vehicles, mostly staff cars, already there. There were Addison government vehicles in front of us and behind us on the road. The MPs and the security guards at the gate were checking everyone in each vehicle before they were allowed to enter the spaceport, even us. The MPs had been very careful around the Eagles and the Tigers during the inspection. Trish pulled up beside the other Army vehicles once we had been inspected.

There were only a few enlisted drivers with the staff cars, and we ignored them as we unloaded. Looking around once everyone was out of the truck, we saw a large platform with chairs on it, and many rows of chairs set up in front of it.

“Guess that is where we are supposed to report,” Trish said, and we marched over toward the platform, but slowly so the Navy Corpsmen could keep up. As we approached the platform, a light Colonel from Army Personnel detached himself from those with him and came toward us.

“We weren’t expecting so many of you,” he said after Trish called us to attention and they exchanged salutes.

“Are those two men injured?” he asked on spying the Corpsmen at the rear of our formation.

“Yes, they were ambushed last night,” Trish told him.

“And you brought all of these ... these?” he stammered seeing the Partners.

“Partners,” I told him, before adding, “The instructions that we received were very specific regarding them.”

“All of you are armed!” he said in a panic on noticing that all of us carried sidearms even the Marines. The Corpsmen’s weren’t visible, being in their aid bags.