Chapter 11

Beta Mensae System
GNS Challenger Seven
01/26/42 NR 0845 Hours

“Lovell has transited, Admiral.” Kayla Robbins reported from her tactical station. His flagship, the Challenger Seven, was the last frigate with a flag bridge, and she had been the most severely damaged of the survivors from the battle at 10 Ceti. Repair crews were still finishing their work even as Aaron moved himself and his staff aboard. If they were to have a chance against the next Terran incursion, he needed every available minute to train his replacement staff and crews.

“Thank you, Kayla.” Aaron turned his chair away from the main display at the center of his flag bridge and sighed softly. Luisa’s visit had been all too brief, and it had been difficult to send her away again. Their parting, again in private, was tearful and more painful than their first experience had been. He had no choice, Aaron knew. He simply could not risk exposing any information regarding the starmap’s existence by transmitting it, even using encryption.

Adam’s team was confined to the moon’s surface, and the supply shuttle crews were not allowed to leave their craft while groundside. Other than the science team, Luisa was the only other person besides himself, Rita and Defense Councilor Michael Ozawa who knew of the map’s existence, and he would keep it that way. If the Terrans found out about the map, any chance of escape would be forever lost.

Today, though, there was work to do. Aaron had drawn from the remaining navy personnel aboard the transports and the repair ships to fill out his command staff. Kayla Robbins and George MacGregor, his new tactical officer and chief of staff, respectively, had been originally assigned to System Command in Xi Pegasi, and had, under Aaron’s orders, evacuated with all the other navy personnel. Trained spacers, and even more so, trained officers were a precious commodity, and Aaron had seen to it that none of them were left behind.

Aaron sat up straighter in his chair and turned it to face the main display again. Albrecht Hannover had also survived the Dyan’s destruction, while Challenger Seven’s captain had not survived the battle, so Aaron had tapped Hannover to serve as his flag captain once more. Now, Hannover led the Geneva Space Navy’s last remaining frigate squadron away from the repair ship for a series of training exercises. Simulations were a good training tool, but there was no substitute for live training exercises.

“This is interesting.”

George MacGregor’s left eye creaked open, and he regarded Kayla Robbins’ bare back with scant favor. “I’m off duty, woman. Can’t a dying man get some sleep around here?” He closed his eyes and sighed theatrically.

“It’s the middle of the afternoon watch, and we are on duty, you snot.” Kayla picked his shirt up from the deck and pelted him with it. “Now, wake up and pay attention.”

George sighed and sat up on his bunk. Challenger Seven was still under power, so their clothing was scattered on the deck, instead of floating around his cabin and eventually ending up against the air vent. He and Kayla were off watch, and they had spent a most enjoyable afternoon together. “So, my dearest heart, love of my life, what is so all fired important that you just had to wake me up to tell me all about it?”

“Well, I’ve been going over the action reports from the time the Terrans first appeared up to the 10 Ceti battle. It started as a way to get into the Terrans’ heads and figure them out.”

“It’s pretty obvious to me,” George muttered as he stretched hugely. “We have the only other habitable planet in the explored galaxy, and they have the means to take it away from us. They’re chasing the rest of us down to prevent us from regrouping and coming after them later.” He smiled humorlessly. “It’s a time honored tradition among humankind.”

“That’s true, but it still doesn’t explain how they’re going about things.” Kayla plucked a hair band from the desk and pulled her long honey blonde hair back into a ponytail and secured it.

George admired her lithe form as she half-turned toward him. “You have the oddest timing for your ideas, you know. Anyway,” he shook himself and tried to focus on what she was saying, “what’s strange about it? They’ve been kicking us all over the place, and they are likely to continue kicking us.”

“That’s my point, though. They aren’t kicking us. It’s been what, a month and a half? We haven’t seen a single Terran ship, and they should have pressed their advantage instead of giving us this kind of time to regroup.”

“Maybe we hurt them more than we first thought.”

“That could be it, but I still don’t buy it. The same thing happened after the first battle at the Sol terminus in Xi Pegasi. They waited a while to send their cruisers after us, even though they knew that Luisa McDaniel’s ship had come through the wormhole. Why give us time to prepare a defense?”

“I don’t know.” George frowned. “Logistics, probably. They didn’t have their ships close enough to transit sooner. You said you were looking at the action reports. What did you see?”

“It wasn’t the action reports that caught my attention,” Kayla began. “Most of the ships’ communications officers were able to transmit their logs before their ships were destroyed, since the battles took place in systems where another ship, or System Command, was there to receive them. I’ve also looked at the surviving ships’ logs, and the logs of the ships that weren’t in combat.”