[FT] The Long Journey Home (AAR) Part 6/6

> CONTINUED FROM PART 5 >>>>

Now Marie knew victory was close, but she had to make this final salvo count.
She gave the order to fire every remaining missile, the fighters were told to
break off from the heavy cruiser and concentrate on the opposing carrier and
she instructed the fleet to drive full ahead and do a 30 degree turn to
starboard. The missiles went in, but she had misjudged the turn, not badly,
but enough to make sure not all her beams would have easy targets. Luckily the
missiles removed the frigate and heavy cruiser before they had an opportunity
to fire and the fighters crippled the carrier, dancing about it like insects
about a carcass. The fight was over. Expressions of relief and notes of
triumph swept across the bridge, the crescendo of exultation swelling around
Marie just as her inner tempest of emotion and visceral reactions, spawned by
the confrontation, began to ebb away. As peace slowly returned to those around
her, as they bent to the new tasks that came with a battle's end, Marie became
aware of a body by her shoulder. She looked up and around into the wide, open
face of her second in command, Antonie Bruix. "It's Zidane, he insists on
speaking with you", Bruix surrendered apologetically. "That's OK Antonie, I'll
speak to him." Marie responded, smiling lightly and reaching up to pat Bruix
on the shoulder as she slipped past him and headed for her rooms. Zidane was
waiting for her, staring out her view port at the desolation that drifted
there. Out of habit Marie glanced out the port over Zidane's shoulder, but
quickly diverted her eyes and moved past Zidane to sit with her back to the
scene. For all the cruelness of the interstellar landscape, for all the
ferocity of the acts of creation and extinction it witnessed, for all its
ineffable emptiness, only sentient life forms had ever brought such pitiful
desolation to reside there. It was a panorama Marie did not wish to partake
of. "How may I help you Intendant?" Marie inquired, adopting the same calm
tone that descended upon her during battle. "I think you know why I'm here
Admiral." Zidane responded, his tone equally calm. Marie was impressed, most
politicians she'd encountered would have been bellowing. "We should still
reach Sol within 3 days, may be as little as 7 hours behind our intended ETA."
Marie commented neutrally, her eyes never leaving Zidane's face. "Admiral..."
Zidane insisted, his tone a blend of amusement, frustration and warning. "They
were NARC, no official NAC sanction I'd say, but I doubt they discouraged it
either," Marie offered critically. "Why didn't you tell them this was a UNSC
mission?" Zidane pressed. "We did," Marie paused, "they didn't seem to care".
A shadow fell across Zidane's face, the substantial weight of the spectre
creasing his brow. He straightened and in a tone low and quiet continued his
questioning "What were you losses?" "We lost the Gravina with all hands, the
Ribas and De La Vega are hulks, the status of the crews are at present
unknown, and the Veneto has light damage, minimal loss of life." Marie
intoned, her dispassionate choice of words at odds with the sigh that
accompanied her shifting in the chair. "A high price. It won't be forgotten."
Zidane directed as he stood, preparing to leave. Marie nodded in solemn
confirmation as she rose and quietly accompanied him to the door. She watched
him move off down the corridor, sliding unruffled past busy work details,
before returning to her desk. Any guilt at not remaining with him, to ease the
burden of his thoughts, was banished by the knowledge that he was man enough
to reject such platitudes for what they were, compassionate, but pointless. At
the sacrifice of half the ships in her taskforce Marie had gotten Zidane
through the last of the potentially hostile systems. The Core was only a
stone's throw away now, in galactic terms. As the engineers spent the next few
hours cycling the engines and preparing to jump, salvage crews would collect
survivors, evaluate the hulks and activate location beacons so they could send
a tender to come back and pick up the pieces. Marie would spend those hours
finding the words to tell the siblings, the spouses, the children and parents
of yet more effectives who had given up their ebullience, and joined the ever
growing train of cadaverous hajji, so others wouldn't have to.

> END >>>>>>>>>>