Turn 26 - She Could Spit in the Eyes of Fools
Jake looks an odd combination of sheepish and surprised as you give him the Mom Look of You Done Messed Up Boy.
“Babcia made all of us learn those phrases and responses, and drilled us on them everytime we visited.” he replies with a shrug. “She never told us why, she never told us where we’d be called upon to do so, only said that if we were ever to be in a command center of the 331st with somebody who was ‘worthy’ that we must say and do those things.”
He shrugs again.
You don’t need to ask why he never volunteered it, because you knew
that answer. You’d compartmentalized the knowledge of the facility extremely tightly, and Jake had never had ‘need to know’ until the reports came in about what was inside. Therefore nobody had ever told him you’d found this facility in the first place, and contrary to how insightful Jake was, he wasn’t psychic.
You ask him what he did know.
“Not much more than that, Babcia gave all of us grandkids pins with that insignia on it when we were little, told us they were important.” he shrugs, digs into his pocket and pulls out a cheap faded little metal pin which, sure enough, has the 331st insignia. “Also that we were to never name any of our kids Aleksander or Nicholas, or we’d be disowned. Gave us stuffed toys like the ones that were found here as well, all of us got stuffed wolverines, but we were always told that the others were stand ins for the bad guys. She had all sorts of stories about the toys, and as a kid I loved them, but I always thought they were just that, stories for little kids.”
He looks over at the holo display, which was currently showing some historical footage from the Wolverine Annihilation.
“Knowing what I know now, they were stories of where we came from, and what had happened to our ancestors. But she never told us that.” he sighs “And unfortunately Babcia died when I was 16, so I’ll never be able to ask her. As far as I know she was the last of her generation in our little community over in McEvedy Garden’s in Griffsport.”
He pauses. “And yes, Isoroku was one of my neighbors growing up, he’d have heard the same stories I did.”
And he’d been outside the security bubble as well. Damnit.
Restricting information about the cache had been the right decision, it had ensured against any leaks and had worked. It only worked a little too well.
This was something for later, because even as you pondered it Sarah interrupted you.
“Alert. Activity detected on Griffin IV. Alert. Activity Detected on Griffin IV.” sounded from the speakers, and the holodisplay switched to showing the entire
Sabre and
Leopard CV force lifting off.
You promptly order that the Aerospace Force be alerted and readied for intercept. You watched with cold eyes as the
Aqueduct joined the Kuritan force, the sensor suite here more than capable of displaying the intricate ballet of hot decking and refueling that is going on.
It becomes clear very quickly that this force is heading for L4, probably intending to destroy the factories there. You also see the Drac
Buccaneer and
Mule lifting off and heading outwards towards Griffin V.
You don’t even look towards General Potter, who’d joined you in the command center. “Analysis.” you asked.
He never got a chance to answer, as Sarah responded in her clearly artificial voice. “Attack is 99.4389% classified as a Reconnaissance In Force combined with Distraction. Targets are orbital infrastructure. Primary Purpose is 94.325% like to be to distract from transferring base to Griffin V. Analysis of available assets show no high probability strategic options to prevent transfer.”
General Potter looks bemused rather than annoyed at being preempted.
“I’ll go with what she said, Your Majesty.” he says in his deep rumbling voice.
In some ways it is far harder to watch the engagement here than while on the submarine. The sheer level of details that the displays have makes it extremely clear that while your pilots are extremely good, the Dracs are equally skilled, and in combination with the Leopards are causing far more damage than they are actually taking. That you manage to do any real damage at all is more a testament to the sheer brutal power of the AC/20’s carried by the
Roc and
Goshawk than anything else.
The massive furball seems to break apart almost by mutual consent as fuel exhaustion starts to threaten both sides. Not much more than armor damage, thankfully. No birds on either side have been lost, but you can’t see any of the enemy that isn’t sporting at least a scorch mark from a 5cm laser hit, and you can already hear the complaining and bitching from all of the crew chiefs on your side of the fence.
Several days later you get word that the petrochemical find had been verified by the Coast Guard expedition, along with charts and hazard markings that would make it feasible to start the next step. Thankfully the Five Fingers are just large enough that they can be settled and used as a base for exploitation while also being close enough to Phoenix that a port in the Five Fingers would be able to provide basic service to the coastal region of that desolate continent.
Bridget sends you a memo about it, and like much of what your Interior Minister produces, in contrast to her usual stream of consciousness babble it is a concise set of bullet points.
- Build Port Facilities on the Five Fingers
- Make use of USS Enterprise and her survey teams to fully survey Phoenix itself
- While engaged in the survey, do the following as soon as the Port is completed
- Build government services facilities in the new port
- Extend Justice services to the new continent
- Construct coastal infrastructure on Phoenix
- Build Drop Port in the Five Fingers area
Parliament requests that you approve a measure recruiting retired veterans and pilots who’d served in the earlier attacks on the planet but who aren’t essential to defense at this time to participate in a morale-raising War Bonds tour.
[] Agree - +1 tax rate this year. +1 Approval Change. +1 Politics Rating. Will cost 10,000
[] Disagree - -10 support in Commons and Lords