"My fear?" she said smiling gently. "I will still be terrified every moment you are gone that you might not come home.
I would still be afraid of a life without you to hold. But, Valerie, Jesse is right, you do belong out there with the fleet.
You are a marvelous ship designer, and you are an utterly incredible lover and life partner, but Valerie,
you were born to command a starship in battle. You are more alive, more at ease there than anywhere I have ever seen you,
excepting, of course, when I have you in bed."

 
by Lisa Caitlin Grey

 

---

 
This story is dedicated to my beloved friend and soul mate who passed away in November of 2002. Dana, I will always miss you terribly.
 
Part 13: Serendipity
 
Chapter 41
 
 
Talia had decided that the attempt to restore me would take place in the glade where Cheryl had died. In spite of the tragic event that took place there, after having heard what I had told Dan about the place, she concluded that the place had some sort of mystic healing energy that would be helpful to them. So, several days before the actual rite would take place, Dan, Talia, and Miri took little Brock and me to the location.

This time it wasn't a pleasure trip. They had brought ATV's to help carry all the necessary supplies, equipment and also to carry little Brock and me since we were not up for the grueling hike that Cheryl and I had made. Throughout the next few days, people who had been asked to be there began to show up. It wasn't a huge crowd or anything, but the numbers did surprise me.

The evening of the ritual began and everyone was there. There was the original group: Talia, Dan, Miri and Brock. In addition to these, Darius had come and Sam was a surprise. We had kind of avoided each other after the diplomatic mission. Evan Russell was there. We hadn’t really gotten to know each other that well, but saving someone's bacon by offering up your life in exchange tends to inspire loyalty and love. Alex Sorin was there, too. We had remained friends, even though we hadn't got to see each other much. We had been just too busy with our own lives, she in space as the captain of the flagship of her shipping line and me mostly pounding ground with my family. We still shared the bond forged in those tense moments, years ago. Jesse Shehane was there along with Yolanda and Erika. They were the ones that were invited. But there were some who had heard what was happening and showed up as well, like the whole management and creative team from my design company. There were about twenty people there, all told, who felt connected intimately enough and loved me enough to be there.

I would like to say something spectacular happened that night as the moon rose above the tree line, and in fact something did, but it wasn't apparent to the casual observer. Well, I should say, that it looked like a big group hug, with me at the center of it. Talia required that it be held unbroken, starting from when the moon rose above the trees until it set below the trees. These people must have really cared about me to stand there like that for hours and hours. I can't imagine how torturous that must have been for them, and even Brock managed it. They told me afterward that it hadn’t seemed like hours. It had only seemed like a few minutes to them.

Basically, while we stood there like that, everyone had been instructed to think about me and the things that made them love me. Talia would gather these loving emotions and channel them into me, much like sunlight and a magnifying glass, to burn away the death and blackness from my soul. During the ritual, nothing seemed to happen. Talia had told everyone to expect that. Once the moon set, everyone dispersed to their various sleeping arrangements. Though they said it seemed like it only took a few minutes in the group hug, they all felt really emotionally drained and most of them went right to sleep. Talia, Miri and Dan didn't sleep; they sat around me, awaiting the dawn.

It was dawn when the miracle happened. As the sun broke over the trees, an errant beam streamed down into my face where I lay sleeping. My eyes fluttered open and the first sight I saw was my angel, my Miri. Through she looked drawn, she was radiant to me. My heart felt full of love for the first time since I had shot her with the tranq dart.

"Miri?" I asked. "Where am I?"

Miri's face split into an impossibly huge relieved grin. She launched herself at me, gathering me up in her arms. "You are home, Darling," she whispered through her tears of happiness. "You are home now and everything is going to be okay. I've been such a fool. I almost lost you. I almost caused the one thing I feared the most. You're safe now princess, nobody can hurt you now."

I clung to Miri, not quite understanding what was happening. I just knew it felt like forever since I had been in her arms and drank in her scent. I closed my eyes and hugged her tightly. Indeed, I felt like I had finally returned home after a dark horrifying journey.

There was a huge celebration in the glade that day. Everyone was rejoicing that I had returned to the land of the living. Slowly, I began to remember the things that brought us here. I remembered Cheryl being killed here. I remembered Dan telling me of Brian's death. I remembered the tormenting I received at the hands of Olaf and Salazar. I remembered my cold retribution when Jesse and her team saved me. I remembered it all up to that point, before the catatonia took over.

"One thing I can't figure out," I said to Jesse.

"What's that, Sugar?" she asked.

"How did you come to be on that station?" I asked.

"Well, after hearing about all the attacks, the planetary security forces figured that you, Dan and Darius had been taken off planet. After checking the ships in orbit, the freighter they took you to was the only one that appeared suspicious. It had sat in orbit for five days without loading or unloading anything. Then abruptly it left after only some minor personnel shuttle traffic. We researched her registry and found that a front company for the Salazar family owned her. The station they took you to was long suspected of being the syndicate's base of operations. I happened to be in space doing an inspection tour when I heard about your abduction and where intelligence suspected they were taking you. I wasn't very far away, so I threw together a team and burned for the station. We knew we hit pay dirt when we got there and found a TSN commando ship docked. We took over the station, had our ships pull back out of detection range, and then we waited. Sure 'nuff, they showed up and when they docked, we hit them with sleeping gas in the airlock and took them all into custody while they slept. That's when we found you, Dan, and Darius."

"Thank you so much for being there," I said to Jesse, Yolanda and Erika. I hugged each of them in turn. "I can't tell you the unspeakable things they did to me, but you saved me from the worst thing, Olaf and that loathsome pill of his."

I turned to see that Miri had moved away while I was thanking Jesse and her people. She had slipped off down to the edge of the pool and I could tell by the slight tremor of her shoulders that she wasn't doing too well. I went to her.

She became aware of me as I approached. She straightened up and passed her hand under her eyes, as if wiping away tears. She smiled bravely to me as I walked up beside her. For a few minutes I just looked out into the pool. Then I spoke.

"Miri, what's troubling you, Dearest?" I asked.

"Nothing, Valerie," she said.

"Bullshit," I said with a kindhearted smile. "Let's not do that anymore, please?"

"Valerie, I should have been there," she said. "It should have been me saving you. But because I was too big of an idiot to know what's really important to me, I let you down. I failed you."

"Hey, we both failed each other there for a bit," I shrugged. "But that's in the past now. It's like the water over that cliff face there. It was there, but now it's gone. We survived, and we are stronger for it. I know I love you now more than I ever did, if that's possible. I forgive you, can you forgive me?"

Miri turned to me and enfolded me in her arms. "Of course, my love," she told me, her green eyes shining with an intense passion and devotion.
 
 
Chapter 42
 
 
Of course, the main problem with Miri and me wasn't forgiving each other. It was forgiving ourselves. That was going to take a bit more work, but both of us made a commitment to the other that we would work on it and communicate about it. For my part, that Drandian rite seemed to have also had the effect of making my ghosts just that, just things that once were but now lacked substance. I still, to this day, wake up screaming at times, but it isn’t the all-consuming horror it had once been. The Drandian rite had replaced years of therapy in helping me to make those things just something bad that happened to me once.

Once we had returned home, I discovered to my great surprise, that while in my catatonic state, I had nearly completed the designs for the ship that would be my crowning achievement. It was amazing. It was completely unconventional in terms of every other ship in the human space-going fleet. Instead of being long and basically cylindrical, she was round along the horizontal plane. She resembled the classic flying saucer that had been rampant at the dawn of humankind's space age.

She measured over a thousand yards across, and about a hundred yards thick at the outer edge, tapering from the 250 yards at her center. She had a revolutionary drive arrangement. Each of the main drives, 16 in all, was each contained in their own module. These modules could be moved independently from each around the outer edge of the ship. The computer simulations showed her to be impossibly maneuverable. She could outmaneuver everything from a heavy cruiser, which was slightly less than a third her displacement, on up. In addition to this innovation, unlike any other human ship built as yet, she didn't have gas-reaction based maneuvering thrusters. She used gravity fields to change pitch and yaw. This was one of the technologies we gained from the Drandians, as it required a far stronger gravity field than anything we had been able to develop until then. The system wasn't much, if any, more effective than the gas-reaction based equivalent, but the benefit was that it took up far less space and she could maneuver without a big heat plume marking her position.

Her armament was just as impressive. She carried 16 PBC turrets that mounted 4 of the Ultra PBC's each. The Ultra PBC's were also based on technology assistance we had received from the Drandians. They had a similar range as our conventional ER (extended range) PBC's, perhaps a negligible amount more, but they had a horrifying rate of fire. In ancient historical terms, they were rotary cannon compared to conventional machine guns. The turrets were situated 8 per upper and lower side. 8 turrets could target a ship anywhere in her sphere of fire at once. A conventional dreadnought normally mounted 8 turrets with two to four PBC's apiece. And in order to bring all her weapons to bear she needed to be presenting her side to the target. This meant that this new ship, which I called a super dreadnought, could not only bring to bear as much or more firepower on any one point as a conventional dreadnought could, but do it on two sides at once. There was no outmaneuvering her. Any way you approached you were facing the equivalent in numbers of a full conventional broad side, only with stronger PBC's.

One of her more impressive aggressive weapons innovations was her missile launcher. She had no need to carry spare missiles for each of the 80 tubes she mounted. The missile launchers, configured in groups of ten, four groups per side, covering each quarter of the ship's plane of fire, possessed their own nanotech factory which could produce a new missile from raw material every thirty seconds. This was a far slower rate of fire than a conventional auto loading missile system, but the benefit was that, for all intents and purposes, we had a nearly endless supply of missiles.

If she had one weakness (well actually she had a few), it was that she was so big. That made her easy to target and hit. To provide some defense against this, she sported the DES systems. To cover her completely, she mounted 8 generators. This made her immune to conventional laser fire and took some of the sting out of PBC hits. To defend against missile strikes, she had nearly a continuous band of the mini PBC point defense turrets located around her outer edge, with another band of them located about three quarters of the way toward the center.

Among her other combat features, she had a full ECM suite, including communications and missile guidance jamming. She didn't have stealth generators. Because of her size, they wouldn't have been very effective; besides, as a side effect, the DES system masked about half of our energy emissions.

All these things required a hideous amount of power. Four super-efficient reactors located in the core of the ship provided this. One was dedicated to the drive modules; two were dedicated to the weapons systems; and the last provided power to the systems that allowed the human elements to interface with and live on the ship, such as in Life support, Computers, C&C, etc.

In spite of the fact that she was the size of two conventional dreadnoughts, she could be produced in the same amount of time as one. There was a price though. In addition to requiring a little over twice the resources of a conventional dreadnought to produce her, she would also require a special orbital platform to construct her class of ship.

Time was pressing, though. It had been a year since the TSN had sent in their covert mission to capture us. I hoped that had been the only one, and that it was largely based on their desire for my head on a pike. Realistically, though, there had been others that we hadn't detected. So, as I was applying the finishing touches on the design for the super dreadnought, Norfolk shipyards designed and built a platform for her. Dan, of course, threw himself into designing the control software for her along with most of the employees at his company. He had recruited a lot of talent and since I had become the premier ship designer since coming to Diversity, and he was my main software and computer supplier, he could afford the very best people.

A little over a year after I was pulled back from the abyss, the first super dreadnought emerged from the construction platform. She was christened the Serendipity of Freedom. While Miri, Brock and I accompanied Admiral Shehane onboard the Serendipity for a shakedown tour of the Zone, my design team adapted my design to a whole new generation of ships. With any luck, when our fleet took to space, it would be with ships similar in the Serendipity's layout in every class, from super destroyers up to super heavy cruisers, joining the Serendipity class super dreadnoughts.

Meanwhile, we still produced our upgraded versions of our conventional designs for the Resistance. The resources were coming in a steady stream now, thanks to a computer genius that even Dan bowed to. He came up with a virus, based on the idea we used with the drone, that, once slipped into the operating system of one of the sensor buoys that comprised the net surrounding the Zone, spread to all the buoys and not only allowed a ship carrying the correct code to pass undetected but informed them beforehand if there were any TSN patrols in the area. This effectively negated the blockade.

The TSN was increasing the hostilities with the Resistance and were taking it on the chin. However, it was only a matter of time before they would realize that the powerful Resistance ships were being manufactured in the Zone and then they would turn their offensive to us. I only hoped we had enough time to build up our own fleet before that happened.
 
 
Chapter 43
 
 
Fortune was with us, it seemed. The Fringe Colonies were now fully committed to a shooting war with the TSN. The Terran Government forces were taking heavy casualties thanks to the technological edge the Resistance ships possessed. But then the TSN could afford to take a lot of losses. Our own Fleet construction was slowed by the need to produce two resistance ships to every one of ours to replace their losses in battle. Still, the TSN was falling back, not necessarily in disarray, but they were definitely slowly giving up space.

When our own fleet of ships reached 12 Serendipity Class Super dreadnoughts and a complete set of escorts, it was decided that it was time to go on the offensive. The plan was to slip in behind the TSN and start taking out ship production capability, as to make the attrition the TSN was experiencing more painful for them. It was a risky gambit, but given the limited number of our fleet, we felt this would be the best way to make the most impact. Another job of the fleet would be to take out as many TSN forces as it could. We all knew that eventually the TSN would have to amass enough ships to take us on with overwhelming numbers. That would take the pressure off of the Resistance and allow them to make significant gains. Though our fleet would most likely take a beating, it was hoped that we could do enough damage to make any victory the TSN won a pyrrhic one.

The Fleet was in the last stages of making ready to go to war. The last of the new ships were on their shake down cruises when Admiral Shehane came to visit me. She had been tapped to lead the attack fleet, and we had seen a lot of each other while getting to know the new ships, their capabilities and devising new tactics to utilize their incredible fields of fire and unparalleled maneuverability. She seemed a bit anxious this time though.

"Hi, Jess," I greeted her with a hug. "How's the fleet coming? Is there something wrong?"

"The fleet is great, Sugar," she replied, "but we do seem to have a bit of a glitch." I arched an eyebrow and waited for her to go on.

"As you know, we have divided the fleet into task forces," I nodded. "Well, I will be commanding Battle Group Alpha, and Darius Edmunds has graciously consented to head Battle Group Charlie, but the problem is we don't have a seasoned enough officer to command Battle Group Bravo."

"So, what will you do?" I asked, not really liking where this was going one bit.

"Well, Darius and I studied the personnel records of our senior people, but time and time again only one person came up that would fit the bill. Unfortunately, this person is now a civilian," she explained. "She is a seasoned naval officer and unlike most of the others we reviewed she has combat experience."

"Jesse, you know I love you, but NO WAY IN HELL," I said emphatically. "I have given enough to the cause. I need to be here with my family, designing ships for us to win the war with."

"That's what we thought you would say," Jesse said sadly. "Valerie, we need you. You know these revolutionary new ships and what they are capable of better than anyone; add to it that, you are a brilliant tactician and would be a tremendous asset to the fleet when it drops in the pot, and it will drop in the pot. Valerie, I need someone steady I can depend on to hold the line. You are that someone."

"No, Jesse," I declined. "I have done my part. I've had my fill of being in harm's way against overwhelming odds. I have to think about my family. I need to be here for them. I promised Miri that I wouldn't leave her again. This is someone else's fight now."

"Hi, Jesse," Miri said as she walked in the room. "What's going on?"

Jesse explained what she was asking me to do and gave all the reasons they needed me. Miri came over and sat down beside me. She took my hands and looked into my eyes. "Dearest," she asked, "what would you do if you didn't have me to worry about?"

"I'd probably go back to catatonia," I said with a smile.

"I'm serious," she said. "What would you do if I said I think they do need you and that I would be willing to let you go?"

"I would probably go," I said sobering. "But, Miri, what about my promise, what about..."

"My fear?" she said smiling gently. "I will still be terrified every moment you are gone that you might not come home. I would still be afraid of a life without you to hold. But, Valerie, Jesse is right, you do belong out there with the fleet. You are a marvelous ship designer, and you are an utterly incredible lover and life partner, but Valerie, you were born to command a starship in battle. You are more alive, more at ease there than anywhere I have ever seen you, excepting, of course, when I have you in bed." The last part was said with a lecherous grin. "Valerie, I want you to go. I can deal with my fear now. I know I can't protect you from everything, but I also know you won't take any stupid risks either. Just promise me that you will try like hell to come back to me?"

I thought about it for a while. I didn't want to be parted from Miri any more than she wanted to be parted from me, but she had purposely taken away my unselfish justification for refusing to go, and well...I never was too good at being selfish when there was something I could do to help.

"Okay, Jesse, Miri, you win," I sighed. "You got yourself a Battle Group Commander, Admiral."

"Damn right I do," Jesse said. She winked at Miri and I knew I had been set up.

-=^=-

For the next three weeks I was almost completely engaged with shaking down my new crew. We had to get to know each other and build a working relationship before we went into harm's way or we were toast. The first thing I did was to go through the crew roster. I had to admit they had given me a very competent crew. They were the cream of the Zone naval forces. Some of them I knew personally from interactions with the admiral's command staff, but for most I had only their efficiency reports to go by.

There were two very big surprises, though. As I was going through the personnel roster, I saw a pair of very familiar names on my command staff, one Lieutenant Commander Dan Chestnut, my Computer Control Officer, and one Commander Erika Voss, my new XO.

Wow, neither of them had even been officers before now, but our Fleet was growing so much that the more competent enlisted people were promoted by leaps and bounds. Indeed, personally the last official rank I had held was light commander, now I was a full-blown Vice Admiral. Darius now held the rank of Admiral and Jesse was a Grand Admiral.

Three days before departure, the expeditionary fleet was given a three-day liberty to say their good-byes and get the pent-up nervous energy out of their system. I chose to have Miri and Brock come up to my assigned flagship, the Serendipity of Freedom. Dan also chose to remain on the ship since we were the only family he really had at this point. This all worked out according to Miri's plan because while Dan was giving Brock a tour of the ship Miri used that time to make sure I didn't go to space frustrated.

On the final evening before we shipped out, Miri and I lay in my bed in the rather luxurious suite of rooms I rated as an Admiral. We lounged in each other's arms basking in the post-orgasmic glow. That's when she proved that even after all those years she could still shock me.

"Val?" she asked me.

"Yeah, Beautiful?" I replied.

"I want you to do something for me," Miri said.

"Anything, my love," I smiled.

"You know Erika has like this huge crush on you, right?" Miri said.

"I wasn't aware of that, no," I said, mildly surprised.

"Well, she does," Miri confirmed. "She knows that we are life partners, and that she doesn't have a chance to come between that, but she requested as a personal favor from Jesse that she be assigned to your ship. She said something about learning from you."

"Miri, where is this going?" I asked her.

"Valerie, I want you to play with her a little," Miri said.

"Miri? Why? That would be so wrong to toy with her like that," I said in dismay.

"I didn’t mean toy with her," Miri clarified. "I just want you to enjoy each other. You know, in case either of you doesn't make it back. She's a good woman, Valerie. She deserves someone as good as you, even if it's only for this mission."

Now I know that, in the TSN, fraternizing with other crewmembers is frowned on, and some people would be screaming stridently for even thinking of Miri's suggestion, but this wasn't a standard type of Navy. We were all Zone, and we found that if the crew established bunkmates that they were intimate with, they seemed to perform better and be less stressed when at space for long periods of time, so this wasn't an unreasonable idea as far as the Zone Navy was concerned. I, on the other hand, couldn't believe what I was hearing.

"Miri, you can't be serious," I said. "You know I am faithful to you. You know you are the only one I want."

"I know, Val, I know," Miri said, tweaking me on the tip of the nose. "This is not about you being faithful to me. This is about giving a great girl something she really wants. It's about making Erika happy since she might not be coming back."

"Miri, I thought you said you weren't sharing me with anyone?" I said, still not believing she was doing it to me again.

"Well, I am willing to share with people that I think are special and that I think you might be interested in," Miri grinned. "I am not threatened here. I know where your heart is, Babe. This is about sharing comfort and pleasure with someone special that otherwise wouldn't have a chance. I guess what I'm saying is that I don't want either of you to die alone."

"Shit, Miri, that's morbid," I said, still shocked.

"Not really," she said. "Valerie, are you not attracted to her?"

"It's not that, Miri," I said. "She is very attractive in a Viking sort of way, it's just, well, I dunno, I would feel like I was cheating on you. Okay, I will consider it, but I can't say I will."

"Great!" Miri smiled and kissed me before her head disappeared beneath the covers, proceeding to turn my world inside out again. Damn, she could push my buttons!

-=^=-
 
 

-=^=-