Chapter 2
The gentle lapping of the water was suddenly drowned out by the high pitched whine of control jets as the small starship descended toward a solitary building. Several land dwelling birds suddenly burst from the low scrub, but the sea birds simply floated on the gentle surf, not even bothering to watch as the bright red, black and gray ship landed.
Jimmy was the first to set foot on the beach, his boots sinking in the soft warm sand. He stood even six feet tall and, as usual, he had the sleeves of his gray duty shirt rolled up past his elbows. He brushed his short brown hair back off of his forehead, absently scratching at his neat mustache. He was just about to turn around when something round and twice the size of his head suddenly hit him in the back.
Murky gathered the beach ball, idlely tossing it into the air. He was a few inches taller than his friend, but he looked even taller. Instead of a Unified Federal Starforce of America duty uniform of a gray shirt with black shoulders and black trousers, he was wearing brightly colored shorts and his ubiquitous dark sunglasses. At least here the dark lenses didn’t look out of place. All four of them were wearing them.
Not far behind trudged “the wives.” Well, trudged wasn’t the exact term for Susan’s ungainly walk. She was not having too good a time walking in the soft sand with her strappy sandals. She was muttering under her breath about how swimming should properly be done in pools, with filtered and cleaned water, with a smooth tiled deck to walk on. Like her husband, she was already dressed for the occasion, though her bikini seemed more useful for showing off her body than for swimming.
Dona was having a better time of it, despite being relegated to carrying their beach chairs and the ice chest. It was not as difficult as it sounded, since all of their beach goodies were being carried on a small anti-grav platform. Like her friend Susan, she had her bathing suit on, but had it covered for the moment with an open shirt and she was wearing unlaced tennis shoes instead of sandals.
Jimmy checked his computer link. Tiny embedded sensors fed data to the small plasma screen. He was noted for wearing the link on a buckled leather band rather that using static flesh adhesive to keep the device on his left wrist. To most people, he simple said he was more confident that he wouldn’t lose it that way, which was true of many military men. In truth, he was more comfortable that way since in reality, it was like wearing a watch.
“Air temperature eight-five…Fahrenheit.” He added for the scowling Susan. She was often perplexed at their insistence on using outmoded units of measure. “Twenty nine point five.” He corrected, earning an approving nod. “Humidity fifty percent, water salinity estimated at seventy percent Earth normal. Wind speed, currently negligible.
Murky was already sitting on the sand, pulling his sneaker like shipboard shoes off. “This isn’t like any beach I’ve ever seen.”
“What do you mean, Murk? It’s perfect. Let the wind kick up a bit and we can go body surfing.”
“No, I mean, I’ve never been to a beach without hotels and condos as far as the eye can see. Boardwalks, amusement parks, hot dog stands.”
“Oh, you mean like Myrtle Beach. Nah, this is ten times better.” He started working the snaps of his own shirt. He considered changing on the ship as they prepared to land, but he felt much more comfortable piloting the ship himself than letting the computer do its job. Dona didn’t care much for that, complaining that he’d almost literally been ordered to take this vacation, but he rebutted that if he were going to be comfortable, he’d pilot his own ship.
Three days in the confines of what was supposed to be a fighting ship had not been incredibly relaxing for any of them. The main cabin of the Valkyrie was not much larger than a large recreational vehicle, and that, by itself, made it somewhat larger than most ships its size. It hadn’t been with combat in mind, but the UFSA had seen to it the small ship was outfitted with a skin of bright red pentronium armor and several heavy weapons, in addition to what had been built into it when he helped his old friend Tinker complete it.
The mini-destroyer could have made it to Pyrus from Earth in half that time, but a ship streaking along the moderately heavily traveled space lanes between the Sol system and the resort world at extremely high Hyperwarp would draw attention to itself. Still, it was better to make the trip in three days than in a week aboard a passenger liner.
“Ah, this is perfect.” Jimmy exclaimed. “Salt air, nice warm water, not too hot.” He threw his uniform in a pile. The dark colors of the clothing stood out sharply on the white powdery sand. Just as Murky had noted, there was nothing to be seen for miles except for wide white beaches and blue-gray ocean. The low scrub even hid the one story bungalow they had borrowed from view. In fact, there was nothing else, and likely, no other intelligent being for almost a thousand miles in any direction.
Pyrus was still sparsely populated. Mostly, that had to do with a general lack of many important natural resources. There was not terrible shortage, but there wasn’t enough in any one place to justify large industry to extract and refine it. Land was in short supply as well. Most of the surface was covered in ocean, with small, sparsely populated islands scattered about here and there, with only one major continent about a third the size of Australia on Earth.
It was still rather odd how few people had come to settle on the planet. It was inside what was called “The Second Ring” which referred to worlds settled in the second wave of human colonization. For some reason that even stumped sociologists, the planet had been passed up by the large migrations of colonists. In all, there were likely only half a million full time residents, and the lions share of them were concentrated around the many resorts dotted around the edges of the main continent.
Once people had settled into this region of space, there was renewed interest in the watery globe. If there was any resource that was in utter abundance, it was a pleasing climate. Lacking much of a moon to speak of (there was a big rock up there, which barely qualified) and a very perpendicular axis, the weather on the planet was surprisingly mild. The temperature never got below seventy degrees during the day, except at the poles. It would rain sometimes, and the wind would blow from time to time, but on whole, the planet was a veritable paradise.
Fortunately, for the planet itself, corporate interests had purchased most of the land surface on the planet by the time humanity turned its eyes back to the idyllic globe. Land prices skyrocketed to the point only the very richest could afford a private full time residence there, so most of the public was relegated to apartment style housing or to visit one of the affordably priced resorts. The price of land alone kept the population down and preserved the sense of isolation the residents preferred.
The tidy bungalow was the only building on the island, except for a small shed beside the concrete landing strip. It was one of the special perks that came with rank. Jimmy was a three star commander, and Murky was a two, but that in itself didn’t carry with it the use of a private cottage on government owned land. That fell to a much higher-ranking individual.
Commander Morrow had become one of their dearest friends over the last decade. He had been a colonel, just on the cusp of being promoted to commander then. Robert Morrow was somewhat older than the trio, and he had taken on a role as a sort of father figure to them, especially to Jimmy and Dona. Murky had gone another direction, being taken under the wing of another fast-rising officer with a different agenda. Still, he was Jimmy’s best friend and had been brought along on this trip as well. Now Morrow was a six star Commander, the highest rank in the UFSA. He chaired “The Board of Eight” as the Senior Commander of the Starforce. Murky’s mentor, five-star Commander Barron Tova was a member of that august body.
Commander Morrow had never been to the little beach house. It had been maintained for the Senior Commander since before the war had begun. In fact, with the exception of an inexplicable lull in the decades long war, no Senior Commander had even been there. There simply wasn’t time, and it simply would not do for there to be a strong need and the Commander wasn’t available.
In fact the cottage had been built in another time altogether. There was no large communication array to keep in touch with the outside world. In fact, there was not even a satellite antenna to tie into the global communications network. In other word, with the exception of the communications equipment on the Valkyrie, there was no phone. There wasn’t even any staff here, except for a caretaker who had visited the site a few days before to prepare for their arrival. The house did get used, fairly regularly, but never by the high officer.
Jimmy wondered how many other visitors were just like him. He had been called into Morrow’s office as he supervised the repair and refit of his flagship, the U.S.S. America. The battleship had covered itself in glory in its brief two years of life, but it had not fared well in its last encounter. Much of the superstructure had been blown away, and two of her five main turrets were twisted wreckage. Still, she’d once again proven victorious. The three Torpedo Gunships, or Torgs, she had taken on were probably still burning in orbit around Firestone. He was somewhat thankful that the bridge of the ship was not located high in the superstructure like his previous ship had. A huge energy ball, or “torpedo”, designed for planetary bombardment, had ripped into the upper T shape of the tower, obliterating most of it and taking a good portion of the battlewagon’s sensor array with it. The bridge, however, was located inside the main hull, just below the superstructure.
He was almost expecting a reaming for letting the flagship of the 3rd fleet receive so much damage. Despite the fact he had won the battle with only a handful of ships wouldn’t have mattered to his old commanding officer. Adams was now in charge of the 12th Fleet, tasked with the defense of Earth itself. He knew it bit into his old nemesis would have ripped into him with visible glee. He had no idea why the older officer had such a general dislike for him, unless it was the fact he was a three star commander at twenty-eight.
As the new commanding officer of the famous 3rd Fleet, he reported directly to the board of eight, and, by extension to Commander Morrow. His old mentor had been glowering when he entered the office. He was staring out his “window” with his hands clasped behind his back. The office itself was deep inside a protected bunker, so the window was itself just a large computer screen. “Jimmy, I’m afraid I’m going to have to take the America away from you.”
His heart sunk at those words. It would take weeks, perhaps months to repair the ship. They had to get her back into space quickly. She only had nine sisters so far, and as the newest, fastest and most powerful battleships the Starforce fielded, every moment one sat in drydock was time lost fighting in the war.
“I’m transferring your command back to the U.S.S. North Carolina temporarily.” That, at least, was a good sign. It meant only the ship was being taken away, not his fleet. It struck him, though, as rather odd that a specific ship was being taken from under him like this. It was usually up to a fleet commander what ship he would use as a flagship. Adams currently used the carrier U.S.S. Independence as his own flagship.
“I’m confused sir. She’s the pride of the 3rd Fleet. We almost can’t do without her.”
“I know, but it’s even out of my hands. The President himself ordered the transfer of that ship. It’s lucky I was able to keep you in a front line command.”
Worry and confusion rocked Jimmy. Something sounded rotten. The President usually did not make military decisions, despite the fact the constitution still named him as commander in chief. Realization suddenly dawned on him.
“They want her as parade dressing, don’t they?”
Morrow faced him and nodded. The fact he was telling his young protégé now meant that the decision had been made and it was final. If anyone else in the entire Starforce tried to tell him this, the argument would go on, perhaps to infinity. It was a measure of Jimmy Argus’ trust in the older man that he took the statement as the end of the matter. “She’s going to be assigned to the twelfth fleet…and no…” he hastened to assure him. “…Adams isn’t going to command her. DJ Dentrall is getting another star and I’m giving her to him.”
“It just doesn’t make sense to me Robert. She’s a front line ship, and she’s one of only ten in her class. I hate to say it, but without her, the fleet’s compromised. Unless by some miracle we’re planning to commission more of her.”
“I’m afraid not. We just don’t have the resources available. As it is, we’ve got about fifty new Delilah II class ships in the works, but that’s it. Congress won’t approve the money to build any more capitol class ships with the shortages we are experiencing right now.” That much was true. With the exception of the fast new destroyers, there was very little of the critical materials to build such ships. Despite only being about twice as long as the new ships, the America class ships took almost five times as much material to build. The destroyers looked a good deal like their bigger brethren, unlike the old, beloved stalwarts they were replacing. They were all planes and angles, without the graceful long lines the old Delilah class and their cousins, the Arizona class battleships. Besides having the most general outline similar, they didn’t even have the “Battleship” look of the North Carolina class. Their design was actually based very heavily on the bigger ship. The single main engine, flanked by two smaller independent drives used to combat maneuvering, powered a single large Ion Lockin Canon. The America, on the other hand, had a single, much larger engine powering one of her ILCs with four smaller engines powering the other. That design element had come directly from Jimmy, who had a large part in the design of both ships. Now, even the older ships were adding smaller auxiliary drives to carry them into combat even after a full power blast from their big canons.
Despite that, Jimmy was know for firing both of the big guns at once, relying on the momentum of the big ship to carry him along. The turrets would already be powered up and ready to fire, taking the battle straight to the enemy as quickly as possible. For a long time, the Arkonians, known to most Americans as Deltans, had relied on their quicker, more maneuverable ships to get too close to use the big guns. Realizing this, the Americans responded with ships that relied more heavily on their general purpose weapons rather than the large, clumsy big guns.
That was, until the U.S.S. America was launched. Instead of a pair of moderate size muzzles flanking the bow, she had two massive scoops separated by a long nose cone with ion wave guides. The ship looked like she was all gun! Added to that was even more armaments, such as five triple barreled main turrets, dozens of smaller turrets and embedded missile launchers all over her. Despite her angular appearance, she had a much smoother design, with the superstructure integrated better into the hull. Four of her main turrets were located fore and aft of the tower, with a fifth added between the hanger deck and the main Ion Wram.
The Delilah II looked like a shrunken version without the long pointy nose cone. They had three smaller triple turrets instead of one large one like their namesake had, and , like the America, their bridge was located inside the hull instead of the more exposed location in the main tower. It was also somewhat interesting to note that The U.S.S. Delilah II still carried her Roman numeral since the U.S.S. Delilah still had not been decommissioned.
Fifty of the ships would be good, really good. If they could replace all of the ineffective little Union class ships they relied so heavily upon, the war might turn. As it was, they had fought the Deltans to a stalemate. No territory had been retaken, but the advance had been stopped. If the greater bulk of those fifty ships could be ready before the next Deltan offensive, they might finally be able to make some inroads on the old enemy.
The shortage had come on suddenly. Two years ago, when the UFSA had launched the America under much fanfare, it was promised that within four years the Starforce would field over a hundred of the new ships, to counter the growing numbers of Deltan Andrea Markus class battleships. Nine of her sisters were cranked out almost overnight. Ten more were actually built, but one had been regrettably lost in a pitched battle right at the Martian shipyard where she was being constructed. No Deltan ships escaped Jimmy’s counterattack, but the whole shipyard had been wrecked.
The nature of the war was changing. It had always seemed to be about territory. The well-equipped Deltans would swarm into a planetary system, especially one that was not extremely well defended, attacking in such mass with such sudden ferocity that is was difficult to classify. Hundreds of tiny, one-man fighters called Piranhas would attack almost in a cloud. That tactic alone had earned the small ships their name. American fighters were faster and better armed, but the Deltan ships made up for it with sheer numbers.
It was certainly partly because of Jimmy’s efforts with the one hundred seventy five ships of the famous 3rd Fleet, but something else had changed about the Deltans. For a long time, up to about a decade before, the attacks had been diminishing. Often, fleets of Deltan destroyers would be encountered, with only sporadic sightings of their bulbous battleships. Following the Battle of Swingaround, all of that changed. They were using more and more of the bigger battlewagons, as if they had an inexhaustible supply. Their new mission seemed to be to eradicate the UFSA fleet.
The why was soon apparent. Only months before the America was completed, the Torgs returned. It was once thought the Deltans had only one of the massive, half mile long ships. They were slow and ponderous and for some reason they could not warp in very close to their target, but once they were on station, they could wreak untold havoc on a planetary surface. They inspired so much dread since the first one had attacked Earth at the beginning of the war, destroying much of North America’s East Coast. That same ship was destroyed when it suddenly reappear almost twenty years later to attack the colony world of Swingaround.
Where the Deltans had been using the newly appeared ships was a complete mystery. According to the scans they had of them, they were not new ships. Some of them seemed even older than the first one. Their sudden appearance struck fear in the public, especially after the damage that had been done to Earth.
This time, however, the military was prepared. In reality, the mighty ships were not much use in a space battle. Their large main weapon was used to fire great balls of energy at a planet’s surface, not aim at more mobile starships. They required a huge escort, made up mostly of smaller battleships and destroyers to protect them from the harassing UFSA ships.
A fight with a Torg was a race against the clock. It was almost impossible to engage the ship while its escort protected it. The prevailing tactic, it turned out, was to rip right into the escort and ignore the big ship for as long as you could, hoping to take out enough smaller ships so you could get a clean shot at the main weapons. If you could hit the blast tube, or torpedo launcher just as it fired, the whole ship would be utterly obliterated as the weapon they were firing was designed to destroy whole cities.
Most often, if the Torgs felt threatened, they would turn tail and run. Destroy enough of their escort and the beast would turn away. That led to some brave commanders trying to balance the attack hoping to get a chance to destroy the ships as they fired. It was a dangerous and delicate balancing act, trying to coax them to fire. It was also foolish. So far, nothing had been hit because of the tactic, but powerful and important ships had been badly damaged or lost as less than properly damaged escort ships rushed to protect their charge.
Jimmy took it a step further. The protective cordon be damned, he was going to attack the main ship. Given the opportunity, he would have the main fleet engage the escort in the usual way, while his ship would accelerate almost to the edge of jumping to hyperwarp. Just before reaching the cordon, they would make a short jump. Of the whole fleet, only the America class ships could do this. Soon the Delilah II class would be able, but that was only in the works. The Deltans had given up their tactic of detonating EMP bursts, since the UFSA drives had become efficient enough to make a Hyperwarp jump even without the protective magnetic bubble, but it was still dangerous to make a jump that close to other ships.
The distortion effect of such a large ship jumping to warp would wreak havoc on the enemy ships. It was almost like a gravitational effect that tried to pull the slower ships right into hyperspace. Their hulls would seem to stretch, then snap back as normal space reasserted itself.
The jump was only for an instant, but in that instant, the ship had closed on its giant adversary. The main guns would already be primed and as soon as the hyperwarp distortion effect had abated, they were fired. The Torgs looked like two massive barrels, attached by a long neck shaped like a pipe. The America would concentrate its fire right at that point. Twin beams of coherent Ion energy ripped into the connector, often ripping the entire ship in two. The first time that happened, the whole escort suddenly cut and run.
The America class ships were feared and dangerous to the enemy. That’s why the shortage of materials and the government’s sudden reluctance to build more of the advanced ships hurt so badly. If the war could be won, the shortage wouldn’t matter.
“If it’s any consolation, Jimmy, you’re going to get the next advance capitol ship that’s completed.”
Jimmy sat down on one of the many overstuffed chairs arranged in an arc before the large desk. Morrow did not insist on decorum between just the two of them. “If we could just build five to ten more of them, the Deltans might not even be able to send the Torgs any more.”
“Well, that’s part of the problem. The president, and more than a few senators want that ship available at Earth just in case they attack again. We still haven’t figures out how they got the Tymberanden so close to Swingaround without being detected.” He poured a glass of amber liquid, offering Jimmy a glass out of politeness, despite the fact he knew the younger man would refuse.
“Just some water, please Robert.” Jimmy had not given up drinking. He never actually got started in the first place following some sage advice from his ‘doctor.’ “What about my command crew?”
“I want them to stay with the America for the time being. DJ is good, but he doesn’t have any experience with a ship like that, so I want people under him who know what they’re doing. Most of the crew on the North Carolina are the same that you left there. Besides, they like you a hell of a lot better than they like John Adams.”
Jimmy snorted slightly. There was no accounting for why there was so much enmity between them. Well, that was not exactly true. Adams was a bastard, and he didn’t care who felt that way about him. He was tolerated, even praised because he was so effective. He made up for his unfavorable image by being uncompromisingly mean. His job, whether commanding starships or the special forces was to kill Deltans, and he did that with an almost religious glee.
That was a big difference between Jimmy and him. John Adams wanted to kill the enemy, Jimmy wanted to defeat them. He observed a long time ago that warriors like Adams didn’t really want the war to end, not down in their hearts. That would mean an end to their ability to kill over and over.
That didn’t mean Jimmy wouldn’t kill. He was just as much as a killer as Adams was, only he viewed it differently in his heart. Most of the time, when Jimmy killed, it was in ship to ship combat, whether from the seat of a fighter or the command deck of a battleship. It helped sometimes to only think about the enemy ships being destroyed, and not the hundreds of lives snuffed out as they burned in space.
Morrow had gone on a long time about that. He said he could see it in Jimmy’s eyes. He also saw it in Dona’s eyes. Jimmy’s wife practically lived with Morrow’s wife while he was in space. She divided her time between there and Susan’s home in Seattle. Despite the cities being more than three thousand miles apart, it was a simple matter to take a sub-orbital flight across the continent in just a couple hours.
So, an official order was issued. Jimmy’s two daughters would be taken into the care of Morrow’s wife and the proper calls would be made to prepare the official Senior Commander’s retreat on Pyrus.
Jimmy retreated into his own, little used office in the Miami Starforce center. If he had ever taken time to use it, it would probably look a lot more comfortable than it was. Despite the nice carpeting and the large simulated wood desk and paneling, the room looked empty. That was partly due to the lack of much personal decoration. The office was part of his job, but he always felt his real office was the ready room on the America. Well, that was something he’d have to get used to doing without again. Unless one had been added in his two year absence, the North Carolina didn’t have a large space for the command crew to meet right off the bridge. On the older ship, his ‘office’ was connected to his quarters. True, the quarters were comfortable in a spartan way, but he preferred being closer to the bridge and in control of the ship.
He sank down in the synthetic leather chair. None of the furniture was his. In fact, the only personal items at all in the office were a series of models sitting on the shelf. They were representative of the ships he had commanded in his relatively short career. His eyes scanned the ships almost lovingly. From the hulkish America, to the smooth hull of the North Carolina, to the long, lean hull of the Delilah, his eyes finally came to rest on a ship smaller than the rest. The models were all to scale, so the smallest could actually fit in his hand. At home, he had a much larger model of the ship, as well as one sitting on his desk on the America (he wondered if he would get to clean the ready room/office out, or whether some flunky would have to do the job.) The tiny ship was red yellow black and gray, with stainless steel engine shrouds. His eyes rested on the curved hull for a moment, considering what the long gone vessel had wrought.
He almost gave a start when he looked back from the shelf and saw a man standing in front of his desk and grinning. Murky Bedarest was tall, and since Jimmy was sitting, the man absolutely towered over him. He was also grinning from ear to ear, which, of itself was not all that unusual since the man tended to smile a lot.
“How the hell do you do that? I didn’t even hear you come in.”
“Door was open. You must already be on vacation, leaving it open like that.”
“Well, not for a few days anyway. I’ve got to…” he looked back up at his best friend. “How the hell did you know about that? I just this minute came from Commander Morrow’s office.”
“If I told you, I’d have to kill you.” Murky wagged his eyebrows, making the pair of sunglasses he had pushed up on his forehead bob up and down.
“Let me guess. You called in some super secret favor and had the encrypted orders deciphered and delivered straight to your office since you just can’t help but keep tabs on me.”
“Something like that. Actually, Barron told me.”
Jimmy sighed. Barron Tova, in his opinion, had greased his rise to the Board of Eight with a trail of slime. The fact that his friend had followed in that rise after a short stint with the advanced Special Forces division known as the Ultra-rangers tended to be a small thorn in their friendship. Tova had somehow gotten his claws into Murky early on and hadn’t let go. He often wondered if that would have been his fate if he hadn’t shown such a proficiency as a fighting commander.
Murky didn’t wear a lot of decorations on his uniform. A few campaign ribbons, no medals, though he had plenty to wear. His whole appearance, despite his gangly tallness, was calculated to be unassuming. Here in the Starforce center, he almost always wore the gray and black standard duty uniform with only his name badge and twin stars indicating his command rank. Polished black shoes, black smooth slacks, gray and black-buttoned shirt with dark yellow piping. It was an office uniform and despite the rank insignia, just like any other officer in the base.
Despite having almost the same color scheme, Jimmy looked a great deal different. Starship commanders had taken to choosing the “Uniform of the day” for his officers. In his case, he’d constructed that uniform out of standard inventory. That made life simpler for his officers since they could pick it up the uniforms at any base exchange. He wore black fatigue trousers, complete with baggy side pockets. The trousers were tucked into tall gray and brown ‘spacer’s’ boots, laced up the front. Instead of the solid gray duty shirt, he wore a pattern of muted gray blocks and rectangles known as MOUT camouflage. Over that, he had a mesh vest with a number of baggy pockets. A large pistol was strapped to one leg and a combat knife was strapped to the other. He looked more like a soldier going into combat than a ship commander. A plain black flight helmet sat on the desk. When going into combat, he’d quickly don the helmet. He preferred to be prepared for any kind of fight at all times rather than have to scramble if something went wrong.
“Somebody said the magic word; Beach!” Murky grinned at him again.
“This was supposed to be for Dona and me.” Jimmy muttered. Actually, come to think of it, he’d rather have his friend along for the trip.
“You’ll hardly know we’re there.” He said.
“We?”
“Susan and me!”
Jimmy squinted at him a moment. “She’s forgiven you again?”
“You know her. Can’t stand to live without me.”
“Yeah, right. If I didn’t trust you the way I do, I’d worry you’d talk your way into my wife’s bed.” Jimmy propped his head in his hands, leaning on the desk.
“Nope, can’t do that. It’d be a waste of valuable personell.”
“Huh?”
“Dona would outright kill me.”
“Oh. Did it ever occur to you that your own wife is just as capable of that as mine? You’d do well to remember that the next time some little piece of ass walks by.”
“Can I help it if I’m irresistible?”
“You can’t help much when it comes to resisting temptation. Let me put it this way. Susan is Dona’s best friend, so when you hurt Susan, you hurt her too.”
“Hey, I don’t want the third degree. I’ve learned my lesson and Susan has taken me back. So when are we leaving?”
“You’ve made an awful big assumption that ‘we’ means any more than Dona and me.”
“What? You trying for another kid?”
“You know we’ve been trying since Jennifer was born. Yes, of course you can come. You just seem to assume to much.”
Murky grinned again. Jimmy knew what was coming. “I never assume, because that makes an ‘ass’ out of ‘u’ and ‘me.”
“Yeah, right.”
Jimmy watched as his friend made his way out into the light surf of the seemingly endless ocean of Pyrus. The slope of the beach must have been very slight, since the water was only up to his waist at almost a hundred feet out.
Dona was sitting with a book under an orange umbrella, sitting on a suspensor chair, hovering just a few inches above the ground. “Do you think they’ll last this time?” It was the first time since they’d left Earth that they weren’t within earshot of their friends.
“She’s taken him back before. I guess she knows he honestly loves her.”
“He sure has a funny way of showing it. I don’t understand how somebody intelligent enough to be a medical doctor can’t learn that a leopard like Murky won’t change his spots.” Jimmy just grunted in response. “Don’t get me wrong, I love him like a brother, but hell…”
Jimmy leaned back, closing his eyes. Dona was judging their friend by his example. Jimmy was faithful to the core, while his friend was not. He was far more concerned with what the slightly older man actually did. The Office of Special Operations was still under Tova’s direct command, but Murky was now in charge of that. It seemed a little odd that a man who was supposedly a simple soldier had fallen into that. Again he wondered what hold the five star commander had over him.
Finally, he relaxed. Murky was his oldest friend beside his wife. There was no doubt in his mind that he could trust his or his family’s life with the man, and vice versa. Plus, right here on this beach, none of that other stuff mattered. For a short time, nothing outside of the comfortably warm air and soft, warm sand mattered. Without realizing it, he drifted off to sleep.
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