CHAPTER 4
Once they were back at the Sol system, it took four long days for the fleet to reach the orbit of Mars where some ships broke formation for their respective shipyards there. Indefatigable was able to keep up with the undamaged ships despite the pounding she had taken and continued to Luna for repairs. From the outside, she looked far worse than she performed. Price was exceptionally proud of his crew and how they supported those that had joined them from the Linyi.
On their way in system, they held multiple secure VR conferences with the members of the combined Earth Defense Force leadership. The EDF was hastily assembled to coordinate the multinational defense of Earth from the still-unknown threat they faced. The first VR sessions were painful. The light-speed delay in this discussion made what might have otherwise been a very intense one-hour debrief stretch out to a torture session that lasted most of the day. Since they arrived in system at approximately five AU, fortunately on the same side of the Sun as Earth, the signal transit time was just over thirty minutes—each way.
Each day the transit times decreased as the fleet’s physical distance to Earth shrank. And each day the questions from EDF grew more repetitive until Price found himself missing the respite provided by the longer light-speed delays.
Indefatigable docked at the lunar orbiting shipyard without incident and was immediately swarmed by the repair crews that awaited her. The ubiquitous self-propelled hard suits began photographing, measuring, and assessing the exterior damage from the outside while a veritable army of engineers and technicians gathered at the embarkation lounge to await their time to board the wounded ship.
The Linyi refugees were offloaded, and the Indefatigable’s crew sent to the Commonwealth’s Marius Hills base and dormitories on the lunar surface by shuttle. Located deep within a long-dormant lava tube, a veritable city had sprouted around the military bases there. The Commonwealth, USA, and India all chose the safety of being buried underground here for the nonweaponized parts of their respective bases. Though technically a member of the Commonwealth, India chose to establish a separate base, continuing the tradition of independence begun in the mid-twentieth century. Beside, over, and under the bases in the Marius Hills, the entrepreneurially spirited from Earth had built a sprawling city of nearly fifty thousand civilians. Anything a soldier wanted was available there, priced according to the demand and the degree of illegality. China, asserting its sovereignty and independence, chose to have its lunar military base at the Shackleton crater near the south lunar pole. Ferrying the crew from the Linyi to there would take some time.
Price and his senior officers had quarters both on the surface and at the orbiting shipyard. Price, eager to see Anika as soon as possible, hastily made arrangements to travel to the surface where he knew she would be waiting on him. Her leave was nearly over, and they would have, at most, two days before she had to ship out and they would again be apart.
For Price, seeing the Earth from lunar orbit was the second-best sight in the universe. The first was seeing Anika’s face resting asleep in the bed beside him. The forbidden relationship. That is what his closest friends and some fellow officers had called it. You cannot have a relationship with an officer of a foreign-flagged navy ship and retain your commission, they had said. Price smiled. Forbidden relationship? That is not what I would call it . . .
He and Anika had been together for more than a year and were, for all practical purposes, married, except, of course, for the fact that they were not. Nor would they be able to get married until one or both resigned from military service. Neither had had to lie to their clearance officers about their relationship since, in what was peacetime, the rules about interservice relationships had been somewhat relaxed and their respective militaries might have been overlooking theirs after the events on the Grandiosa. Both services had benefitted from good press when their off-duty officers made headlines for foiling a robbery/hijacking and saving the cruise ship and her crew. Now that they were at war, that might change.
Price had already given her a ring, which she accepted, but they agreed she could not wear it until they were able to be make their relationship public and get married. She often wore it when they were in private, like she was now. Her rhythmic deep breathing, some might say her snore, briefly paused as she shifted her body, and then resumed. Price never tired of seeing her look this relaxed. Thinking of her light brown skin, black hair with just a few wisps of gray, and ever so perfect chin with the little dimple in it were what helped carry him through the recent mission to Nikko and the catastrophe that it was. He was thankful she and her ship, the Mumbai, upon which she served as XO, had not been on the same deployment. He knew he, they, could handle themselves professionally on a joint deployment and not allow their personal lives to interfere with their professional duties as soldiers in different, but allied, space navies. As he lay next to her, Price was glad that he didn’t have to do that just yet.
Her eyes popped open and she smiled. She knew of his sometimes habit of watching her sleep and had come to be okay with it. At first, she said it was unnerving. Then she acquiesced. Now she seemed to actually draw comfort from his gaze. Truth be told, he just could not believe she was with him. The only area of his life in which he currently felt like an imposter was in the role of Anika’s partner. Fortunately, she was gracious enough to help him get over his imposter syndrome.
“Still thinking of the mission to Nikko?” she asked.
“No, just thinking of you and how lucky I am.”
“Hmm. Well, my leave is almost over, and I’ll soon have to get back to the business of my ship. I have a long list of ‘to do’s’ the captain asked me to accomplish today before I get back to Mumbai,” Anika said, sitting up in bed.
“Tonight will be our last night together. A lot has happened since we left Nikko. Everything has changed. From the beating we took there, I’m more than a little surprised the aliens haven’t already dropped into the solar system and attacked us here,” said Price.
“We’re ready. Well, as ready as we can be,” she said.
“Anika, you know that’s not true for the same reason we took such a beating at Nikko. Why didn’t we think there could be mines or drones waiting to attack us? How could we allow our ships to have sensor blind spots aft? The whole situation would have turned out very differently had we taken the right precautions,” Price said.
“Look at me,” she said. “It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t Admiral Wei’s fault. Unmanned armed drones are mines and are banned under UN protocols just like landmines are banned back on Earth and have been since the twenty-first century. You didn’t think of it because you were trained to fight another human enemy. You and I are trained to fight an enemy that had the same constraints and thought patterns as we. This enemy is unconstrained. They used nuclear weapons on Nikko’s helpless civilians for heaven’s sake.”
Price knew she was correct, but she was not right. He was in command of his ship and responsible for his crew. He should have thought through all these contingencies and realized that they were dealing with someone or something not constrained by the same thought patterns and moralistic concepts. That would not happen again.
“Do you know anything about your new orders? Are you staying in system?” asked Price.
“I do. They came last night. The EDF wants to send recon missions to some of the settlements we haven’t heard from lately to check on them. There are three that have strong ties to India, and I suspect Mumbai will be sent to check on them, one at a time,” Anika said.
“Can we spare the ships?”
“I don’t believe they are planning to send more than one ship at a time to any particular settlement unless there is reason to believe the aliens will be there. The general plan is to transit into the outer part of the star system, well outside the Oppenheimer Limit to avoid detection and predictability, look around, and then make way for the settlement. Once there, we will have to warn them about the war, if they don’t know already, which they probably won’t or why else would they be sending us to make contact?” Anika replied.
“And if the aliens are there?”
“We don’t engage. Under that situation, the orders say we are to transit back to Earth and report. Just like you had to do.”
“Anika, I know you. If you see helpless civilians being nuked from orbit, I just cannot imagine you ignoring the situation, dispassionately turning around, and leaving. Hell, I can’t believe I did that.”
“You had no choice. If you had, you and your crew would most likely be dead. I will do whatever Captain Padmanabhan decides—just like you.”
Price knew that Anika was as committed to her chain of command as he was to his. Only now, with the creation of the EDF, hers was now his and vice versa. He also knew that under those circumstances, she would look for any possible wriggle room in her orders that might allow her a chance to save lives. She was one of the most clever people he had ever met, and if she had been the one at Nikko, then she might have found a way stop the slaughter. It still pained him to have left Nikko defenseless against the marauders.
“Shall we plan dinner at Mario’s?” asked Price, changing the subject. Mario’s was the restaurant in the commercial side of the shipyards in which they had enjoyed many a romantic dinner. It was there that Price had proposed and given her the ring. Though only a year ago, it seemed like another age. Another life. Before the war.
“Sounds great. I’ll get my shower and catch breakfast at the corner snack bar as I head out,” she said as she got out of bed and moved toward the small apartment’s shower.
“Mind if I join you?”
“For breakfast or in the shower?” she asked, tilting her head just slightly in the way that Price had come to recognize meant she was being flirtatious.
“Both,” he said.
It turned out to be a long and satisfying shower.
Anika’s first stop wasn’t for work. She took a tram to the shopping district where she had arranged to buy a gift for Winslow. He loved to read books. Not the standard eBooks that ninety percent of the population found to be just fine for reading, but rather an old-fashioned hardcover book printed on paper, for heaven’s sake. For not an insignificant price, she had arranged to have sent from Earth a signed copy of Marcus Greer’s last book, published nearly seventy-five years before. The best she could find and afford was a third printing of the classic. She had located a few signed first editions, but they blew through her budget by a wide margin. Greer was a military historian turned space buff and his book, Strategy and Tactics of War in Space, had inspired the strategy and tactics for space war before space war had even really become possible. The book was required reading at all the space military academies, and she’d heard Winslow mention more than once how much he would enjoy reading a paper version of the book, even though he had already read the eBook at least a dozen times. Well, now he would get the opportunity to do just that. She was still looking for a paper copy of Forester’s The Happy Return but had found none she could afford.
The Marius Hills shopping district could have been mistaken for a twentieth-century shopping mall if it weren’t for the comparatively low gravity and the ever-present lunar dust. Since the Apollo days, the dust had been a problem. It clung to everything despite the best cleaning and filtering systems. From the grit on the floor to the long-ago-stained walls and ceiling, the dull gray dust was commonplace. It was also a health risk. In addition to getting on and in just about everything, it was impossible to not breathe it. Like “black lung disease” used to be common in coal miners back on Earth, Lunar Dust Disease was a growing health issue on Luna. Anika knew that to mitigate the problem, the Indian military had a three-year lifetime limit for those living or visiting the Moon. Once your time on the surface totaled three years, anywhere on the surface and anytime in your life, you had to return to Earth and would never be approved to go to the Moon ever again. Not all countries had such strict limits and the increasing demand upon the lunar medical facilities dealing with the complications of Lunar Dust Disease was a growing problem.
The importer who arranged delivery of the book was at first very professional and aboveboard. Since he required half of the book’s cost up front, she had researched him fairly well to not lose her money with a fly-by-night merchant that could easily vanish off-world at any given time. After the transaction was complete, he not-so-subtly suggested that he could arrange for other, not-so-legal, items if she desired and, of course, if she had the money. All that dropped when she let it be known that she was the second-in-command of a warship and not interested. She was not too surprised by the offer. The black market was alive and well all over the Moon.
As she departed, clutching the carefully wrapped hardcover book in her left arm, her comm pin sounded.
“This is Ahuja,” she announced as she answered the call.
“Ma’am, this is Swati Prasad in Colonel Lal’s office. The colonel wants to see you as soon as possible. How soon can you get to his office?”
Anika looked at her datapad, quickly found the closest train access tunnel, and calculated how long it would take to get back to the base before she replied. “I can be there in thirty-five minutes.”
“See you then,” Prasad said, ending the connection.
Anika did not waste any time pondering why the colonel wanted to see her. He just did and, being a good soldier, she dropped all her other afternoon plans and set out at a fast pace to get to Colonel Lal’s office sooner than she had announced. Anika liked margins, even in travel time.
She made the journey in just under thirty minutes, straightening her civilian clothes as she walked through the opening into the colonel’s outer office. She hoped the colonel didn’t mind. She was still, technically, on leave. She had been in Colonel Lal’s office before, frequently, for staff meetings, planning sessions, and the occasional one-on-one with Lal. He was a good man and a capable manager who seemed to make the lunar base run smoothly and efficiently. She liked him personally but did not really know much about his military expertise. Like just about everyone else in the Indian Space Navy, Colonel Lal had risen through the ranks in a time of peace. He was a good manager and bureaucrat . . .
Despite the best efforts of office workers everywhere on Luna, military or civilian, it was impossible to give a pressurized office on the outer periphery of the base the look and feel of an office on Earth. The base filled an ancient lunar lava tube, which meant the outer edge contours were all natural. The outer mold lines of the pressurized wall melded with the contours because they were made from a flexible graphene nanofiber that conformed to the wall shape as it was pressurized. The colonel’s office made the contours of the lava tube immediately obvious and, in its own way, visually interesting and appealing. As she entered the room, to the left were two distinct rock bulges that the colonel had used as shelving, placing various mementos and photos at odd angles to conform with the contour of the bulge. Immediately behind his desk was a two-foot-deep indentation in which he had placed the office safe. The ceiling was remarkably high, well over the standard eight feet because of a bulge in the ceiling. Up there, facing down, were two flatscreens that showed the view of the Earth as it would be seen, she supposed, if one were standing directly above on the surface.
The colonel looked up from his computer screen, acknowledged her presence and motioned for her to take a seat where she sat quietly and patiently, awaiting on him to begin the conversation. He looked back at the screen, read intently for another few seconds and then looked back at her.
“I apologize for summoning you on the last day of your leave, but it is important,” said Lal. To Anika, Lal looked like a commanding officer. He had the requisite square jaw, was the right indeterminate age of fortyish to fiftyish, had black hair cropped short with steaks of gray, and a deep, booming voice. He was also strikingly handsome, an observation not lost on Anika or most of the female officer corp.
“It is perfectly all right, sir. I am just wrapping up some last-minute errands before I have to depart,” she replied. What was she supposed to say? How dare you bother me on my last day of leave?
“I’m placing you in command of the Mumbai, effective immediately,” Lal said, his gaze squarely on Anika’s eyes, making her instantly aware that he was going to make a decision about her based on how she reacted to the astonishing news of her assignment. “You need to get on board her today and prepare to depart tomorrow as planned.”
She did not blink.
“Yes, sir,” she replied, wondering what happened to Captain Padmanabhan, with whom she had been serving for the better part of a year. He was a capable captain and one for whom she had respect. True, his temper sometimes got the better of him, but he always managed to tamp it down and not allow it to overtly influence his decisions.
“I suppose you are wondering what happened to Captain Padmanabhan?” asked Lal.
“Yes, sir. The question did cross my mind,” she replied honestly.
“Conduct unbecoming an officer. He was relieved of command this morning. Please don’t ask for any more details. There will be an official inquiry,” said Lal.
“Yes, sir. Thank you for the information,” she replied, without breaking Lal’s gaze. Though some would have been troubled by the prolonged eye contact, Anika took it for what it probably was—a measure of how she reacted to the news combined with a little bit of alpha-male assertion of dominance.
“There is another matter,” said Lal, finally backing off from the staring contest to momentarily consult his datapad. “And that matter is named Winslow Price.”
Anika had been expecting one of her superiors to bring up her relationship with Winslow long before now.
“Sir?” she replied.
“Having the captain of an Indian warship sleeping with the captain of another major power’s ship is highly unusual and improper. We have overlooked it long enough, and if word spreads too far, some might even call it treasonous,” said Lal.
“Sir, are you asking that I break off my relationship with Captain Price as a condition of my being appointed captain of the Mumbai?” she asked, this time initiating the eye contact to assess his reaction.
Lal leaned back in this chair and sighed before speaking. “Yes. Otherwise, you will likely be reassigned to Earthside by someone higher in the chain of command and I won’t have a say in the matter. You are one of my best officers and the one I believe best suited to command the Mumbai. We need you. India needs you. Hell, Earth needs you.”
“And if I refuse?” she asked, with a dew of perspiration forming on her brow and back.
“Captain Ahuja, do we really have to go there?” asked Lal, heavily emphasizing her title.
Her mind raced. She had known this day would come and had rehearsed so many times the lines she would say, Thank you sir, but I must resign. I love Captain Price and we intend to be married. Or a variation, I respectfully decline and will request reassignment to a position where I can fulfill my oath and be with my future husband.
The words that came out of her mouth were quite different.
“Yes, sir. I will inform Captain Price and report for duty on the Mumbai.”
“Very good, Captain. Dismissed.”
Anika gave the requisite salute and departed from Lal’s office. As she left, a flood of emotions and thoughts began to pour over her. She was thrilled at the fulfillment of her lifelong dream—being named captain of a ship in the Indian Space Navy. She, the daughter of an herbalist in Munsiyari, was soon going to have a ship to call her own. The dream she nurtured for years as she stared at the stars from atop the snow-capped peaks that surrounded her home in rural India was becoming real. The thrill barely had time to register before the remorse overcame her. Winslow. She loved him. How would he ever understand? Was this the right choice? Why did she have to choose between her career and the man she loves? And how could she decide so quickly?
Suddenly, the book she was carrying seemed to weigh far more than it had when she arrived at Colonel Lal’s office. How would she break the news to Winslow? Hand him the book, wish him well and say, “See you later?” She had to report to the ship today, which meant there would be no time for a protracted dialog. They had dinner plans that would have to be canceled. Her mind raced with all that she now needed to accomplish before reporting for duty on the Mumbai and she was overwhelmed. Would he ever understand that her accepting the captaincy of the Mumbai was not a rejection of him? They could cool off their relationship and begin again after this crisis was over and one or both left their respective posts. How would he react?
Before she knew it, Anika was standing outside the door to their shared apartment. She took a deep breath, placed her palm on the pad to unlock the door and entered. The lights were out, which meant Winslow was out and about. Thank God, she thought. It was then that she realized what she was going to do.
They both knew that her leave was ending and that she would be departing tomorrow. Chances were that by the next time she arrived at Luna, he would be on the Indefatigable and deployed somewhere or another. That meant there was plenty of time for her to figure out how to break the news to Winslow. And a lot could happen in that time. They were in the middle of a war, after all. She looked around the room, found a pen, and began to inscribe the book she had just purchased. She then called up her apartment avatar and began recording a message.
“Dearest Winslow. A lot happened this morning and I don’t really know where to begin. The biggest news is that I have been named captain of the Mumbai and asked to report to the ship today. I am so excited. Unfortunately, that leaves us no more time together as we had planned. By the time you see this, I will be on board buried in the details of preparing for tomorrow’s departure. It will be difficult not being the XO and instead being the one in the chair. On the nightstand is a gift that I know you will enjoy. I wish I could be here to give it to you in person, but that is not to be.” She paused and then concluded with, “I love you.”
Coward, she thought.