Operation Orion - Kevin Dockery [125]
The admiral chuckled heartily, then ducked through the hatch to make his way aboard the starship.
Once aboard the Pangaea, Jackson, Teal, Ruiz, and Baxter were greeted warmly by Sanders and the rest of the Team. The men went off to one of the lounges—Admiral Ballard himself authorized them to enjoy some shore leave, including alcohol privileges—while the two officers went to the bridge for a radio conference with Captain Carstairs.
“We’re going to make a jump to an intermediate star, Sirius,” the captain informed them. “There we’ll rendezvous and return Consul Char-Kane to another Shamani ship. She seems pretty interested in making sure she gets that shield driver back.”
“Damn,” Jackson said, only half joking. “I was hoping we might get to hang on to that.”
“Don’t worry,” the captain replied. “I have my whole engineering team going over it right now on a full-time basis. By the time we have to give it back, we’ll have a pretty good idea of what makes it tick.”
“Nice!” Jackson replied enthusiastically.
“I thought you’d approve,” the captain replied. “And it would be a shame to let all your hard work go to waste.”
“I couldn’t agree more, sir!”
“Anyway, Stonewall, as soon as we get back to SATSTAR1 or some watering hole down on planet Earth, I want to buy you a drink.”
“The pleasure would be mine, sir, but you have to let me repay the favor. We’d still be stranded down on that station if you hadn’t been able to work things out with the Pangaea.”
“All right, we’ll say it’s mutual. Good work, any way you shake it! Over and out.”
Finally the ship was ready to start accelerating. The shuttle with the Eluoi mijar and pilot and the still groggy savant was released and allowed to start on its return voyage to the Bazaar. As a precaution, the SEALS had disabled the little vessel’s radio so that the enemy leaders wouldn’t be able to communicate with their subordinates for a number of hours. In the meantime, the Pangaea and the Pegasus, side by side, would be traveling much, much faster in the opposite direction. By the time the savant returned to the station, the two human ships would be almost in position to make the jump to Sirius.
In the meantime, Jackson found himself at loose ends. Sanders had made the acquaintance of many junior officers on the big spaceship, and he seemed sincere when he invited Jackson to join him in the forward lounge, watching the stars as the ship accelerated toward the jumping point. But somehow the LT felt like he’d be the older sibling crashing his kid brother’s high school reunion and didn’t feel like playing that role.
Instead, he wandered down to the stern lounge, looking through the clear deck at his feet toward the star that already was starting to dwindle into the distance. It was there that Doctor Sulati found him, coming up from behind and taking his hand in hers.
“Hey, sailor,” she said, a twinkle in her eye.
It felt very good to pull her close to him.
“You know, I’ve been saving that bottle of wine,” she told him.
They left the lounge behind in favor of her small but comfortable cabin. Sulati was important enough to warrant a porthole in her quarters through which they could take in the vista of the galaxy as they clinked a toast to their reunion. The stars gleamed with exceptional brilliance, and the deepness of space yawned darker than any ocean blue.
The bottle was only half empty when the stars twinkled and, in a flash of momentary weightlessness, the Pangaea jumped out of the Darius system on the path toward home.
Also by Kevin Dockery and Douglas Niles
STARSTRIKE: TASK FORCE MARS
Starstrike: Operation Orion is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the authors