Vorpal Blade

6

“First call!” Jaenisch said, sticking his head through the door of Bergstresser’s room. “Time to rise and shine!”

“Oh, grapp,” Berg moaned, rolling over and getting to his feet. “I’ll be right…” He stopped and ran to the head, a room he had occupied for, on average, ten minutes an hour all night.

“What time did you take the pink maulk?” Jaen asked, ignoring the sounds of dry retching.

“About midnight,” Berg answered, sipping some water and rinsing out his mouth.

“Shiny. You’re over the worst of it,” Jaen said. “By noon you’ll be back to your usual chipper Two-Gun self.”

“Grapp you, Jaen,” Berg said, too miserable to realize he’d just cussed an NCO.

“Uniform and accoutrements in thirty minutes in the bay,” Jaen said, ignoring the insult. “Don’t eat breakfast, but you’ll be fine by lunch.”

Load-out was a pain in the butt, especially in the morning.

“What I don’t get is why we’re even taking battle rattle if we’re going to be using Wyverns,” Hattelstad said. The best way to move the battle rattle, boron carbide body armor, combat harnesses and rucksacks loaded with minimal gear, was by carrying it in place. So they’d all loaded up, then toted it to a secure loading dock at the rear of the barracks. That involved climbing down four flights of stairs, and while that normally wouldn’t have even fazed Berg, at the moment it nearly killed him.

“Nobody knows if we’re going to have to go ground-mount,” Jaenisch replied. “For that matter, we might end up fighting in the ship. We can’t use Wyverns for that.”

“The very idea makes my balls shrink up,” Hattelstad said. “You know we’ve still got missiles, right?”

“No,” Berg said miserably. “I am as ignorant of the ship as it is possible to be while knowing that it exists.”

“And they’re loaded with that Adar ardune stuff,” Hattelstad said gleefully. “It’s more powerful than a nuke and it blows up if you look at it wrong. Wanna know about the food?”

“The word is unwelcome,” Berg said. “But if you insist on talking about greasy bacon or whatever, I’ll just have to puke all over you. Satisfied?”

“We ain’t supposed to be chatting, anyway,” Jaenisch pointed out. “So can it.”

The loading dock was crowded with other Marines, carefully tossing their rattle into the back of a five ton.

“So this is Two-Gun,” a tall, dark PFC with the nametag “Prabhu” said. “And either you’re hung over as hell, or you just went through that Shiva damned pre-mission physical.”

“Pre-mission,” Berg said, walking in the back of the truck and taking off his armor. He carefully put his harness in his mostly empty ruck and then banded the armor around it. “But I’m told that the effects pass by noon.”

Prabhu was loaded down with several people’s gear. “For some people,” he said. “Me, I was puking for a week. All I could eat was soda crackers and water. Well, and Coke. It helps you burp instead of puke.”

“Great,” Berg said. “And I think I’m coming down with something from the injections.”

“Probably Number Thirteen,” Hattelstad said, tossing his gear on top of the pile.

“Don’t tell me they really gave us an injection to prevent trisa… triska… fear of the number thirteen?”

“Nah, just sounds like it,” Hattelstad said. “So we call it injection thirteen. It’s something that’s supposed to prevent a bunch of infections from something that gets in your cells or something. Malaria is one of them. One of them ‘it’s not on the market, yet, but we’re sure it’s safe’ immunizations.”

“Oh, grapp me,” Berg muttered. “One of those.”

“Yep.”

With the battle rattle loaded, the entire group headed over to the headquarters building at a trot. They were led by Staff Sergeant Summerlin, who upped the trot to a solid run halfway to the headquarters.

Well, that was fine by Berg. He might be sick as a grapping dog, but he wasn’t fazed by a little running. If anything, it made him feel better. He probably should have done PT this morning.

At the headquarters they got started on loading the company’s equipment and supplies. That took most of the rest of the morning and they still didn’t have it all in the ship. At noon they broke for lunch and Berg had to face the thought of food.

“Eatin’ light?” a lance corporal asked, sitting down next to him.

“I had my ‘physical’ last night,” Berg said. “There ought to be a different word.”

“There is,” the lance corporal said. “Maulk. Kevin Crowley, I’m in Bravo Team.”

“Eric Bergstresser,” Berg said, shaking his hand.

“Two-Gun…” the lance corporal said, drawling the “u.” “Saw the clip. But you try that maulk in combat and they’re going to have to choose who they prefer, you or me.”

“Wouldn’t think about it,” Berg said, nibbling at the chicken strip. “Sergeant said try it, I tried it.”

“Talkin’ about Two-Gun here?” Staff Sergeant Summerlin asked, sitting down next to Crowley. “I heard about your fancy shootin’, Tex.”

“I was under orders to try it, Staff Sergeant,” Berg said.

“I also heard that,” Summerlin replied, grinning. “And I’ve seen two-gun mojo done well before. But only playing around. Don’t go training on it or anything.”

“We’re going to be using Wyverns, anyway,” Crowley said. “Not much chance for Two-Gun to shine.”

“My rig isn’t even set up for a pistol,” Berg moaned. “I’m not planning on using two. But if I do, I know who I’m going to shoot for showing that clip around.”

“Well, we can trade team nicknames if you wish,” Prabhu said, sitting down across from him.

“Hey, Gunga-Din,” Crowley said, grinning. “Din’s in First Platoon, so you won’t have to put up with his religious fervor. Much.”

“Eat maulk and die, you behanchod,” Prabhu said, picking up a chicken strip. “My real name’s Prabhu, obviously. Arun Prabhu. Ah, chicken strips. The food of the gods.”

“I’m eating a big ole cheeseburger,” Crowley said, biting into the thin and not particularly tasty mess burger. “Mmmm… taste the goodness.”

“May Kali send you more spots upon your face than you already have,” Prabhu said, grinning. “You cannot taunt me for my faith is pure.”

“Kali wasn’t the goddess of sickness,” Berg said, frowning. “Wasn’t that, uhm… Mari?”

“Hell if I know,” Prabhu said, taking another bite of chicken and ignoring Crowley. “I’m new to this whole Hindu thing. My parents were atheists from southern India. Big-time liberals who could go full high Brahmin when their ‘liberal’ positions were challenged. Such as when their son joined the Marines. I just found religion when I got asked what mine was at Basic. I didn’t want to say ‘Atheist’ so I said ‘Hindu.’ Now I’m trying to figure out what I signed up for. And there’s a definite lack of Hindu chaplains to explain the intricacies. So far I’ve found out there are a bunch of intricacies and that’s about it. So I just pray to Vishnu and Brahma and don’t eat his bulls and that’s about it.”

“Oh,” Berg said. “Just wondering, cause, like, none of the Hindus I knew worshipped Brahma, either. Just an FYI.”

“Intricacies, see?” Prabhu said. “Behanchod intricacies. And I had to give up cheeseburgers. That really hurt. Next cycle, I want to come back as a Christian so I can eat cheeseburgers again. I don’t care what the Brahmins say, Christian’s got to be higher on the ladder. They get prime rib.”

“That’s our Din,” Summerlin said. “Where’d you pick up all that stuff about Hindus, Two-Gun?”

“I knew a couple of them in school,” Berg said, shrugging. “Oh… crap,” he added, his eyes crossing.

“Gonna keep it down?” Prabhu asked. “Because, you know, this batch is really greasy…”

“Saaaah,” Berg ground out, his teeth clenched. “Yes, I’m going to keep it down.”

“Take a sip of Coke,” Staff Sergeant Sumerlin said. “It helps.”

“What we really need is a prescription of maree-jew-wanna,” Crowley pointed out. “Medicinal grade. But nooo. We just got to suffer. Welcome to the Corps.”

“It’s good training,” Berg said, letting out his air carefully, then burping.

“You are too grapping gung-ho for your own good,” Crowley said, grinning.

“Semper-grapping-Fi, behanchod,” Berg muttered.

As he was leaving the mess, Prabhu casually wandered over.

“I was wondering,” Prabhu said. “You know what behanchod means, right? It’s Hindu, not Adar.”

“I know what behanchod means,” Berg said, rubbing his stomach. “It involves doing some things with your sister that aren’t considered nice or legal. Like I said, I had some friends that are Hindu. Rana, in fact.”

“Oh,” Prabhu said, then grinned. “In that case, yeah, Crowley’s a behanchod.”

“Noticed,” Berg replied, heading back to the loading.

Berg was carrying a bag of miscellaneous supplies out to a truck in the parking lot when he passed Crowley and a corporal with the nametag “Lujan” outside the building puffing on cancer sticks.

“Nice to see some people get a smoke break,” Berg said, shuffling past.

“Did you just dis me, private?” the corporal said angrily.

“Not at all,” Berg replied. “I simply stated that it was pleasant to see you enjoying the air, Corporal.”

“Careful, Drago,” Crowley said, grinning. “This here’s Two-Gun Berg. Don’t want to get old Two-Gun angry with you, do you?”

“Two-gun mojo man,” Lujan said, grinning. “Anybody stupid enough to two-gun mojo ain’t smart enough to know if he’s dissing somebody.”

“I stand corrected, Corporal,” Berg said. “And I guess you need to get your nicotine in now, given that we’re going to be on a ship for some time.”

“The ship’s got a smoking area,” Crowley said, grinning. “Care for a puff?” he added, holding out his pack of Marlboros.

“I do not indulge,” Berg said, tossing the sack in the back of the ten ton.

“Drink?” the corporal asked.

“On occasion,” Berg said. “Lightly.”

“God, tell me that you grapp,” Crowley said. “Otherwise we’re going to have to yank that stake out of your ass, hard.”

“Oh, I grapp like there’s no tomorrow,” Berg said. “They didn’t call me Three-Ball for nothing. And my strength is as the strength of ten because my lungs are pure.”

“Drago, would you mind informing me what you think you are doing out here smoking when the rest of the company is busting its butt loading?” Top said, appearing around the corner of the building.

“Just done, Top!” Corporal Lujan said, pulling the cigarette out of his mouth and starting to drop it.

“And if you mess up my loading bay, you are going to be doing pushups until your MOTHER’S hands bleed!”

“Aye-aye, Top!” Lujan said, field stripping the burning tobacco out of the cigarette instead of crushing it out on the ground.

“Two-Gun, don’t you have somewhere else to be?” the first sergeant asked, one eyebrow raised.

“Aye-aye, Top!” Berg bellowed, trotting up the stairs to the building.

“How in the grapp does he always know what’s going on?” Crowley said as the threesome bolted through the door.

“He’s the first sergeant,” Drago said. “That’s his job.”

“Can I ask a question?” Berg said. “Why do they call you Drago?”

“Wait till you see him in the shower,” Crowley said, grinning.

“Grapp you, Crowie.”

“Two-Gun,” Gunnery Sergeant Hocieniec said as the loading was completed. “Go jump in the back of the ten ton over on bay four. You’re going to the ship to start loading.”

“Aye-aye, Gunny,” Berg said.

“You’re not going to be by yourself,” the gunny said, grinning. “Most of Third Herd is over there already and we’re going to be following in a minute. And I’m sending Staff Sergeant Summerlin over on another truck. You’re just advanced party.”

“Will do, Gunny,” Berg said.

“Holy cow,” Berg muttered as he jumped off the back of the ten ton.

He’d been told the ship was a converted sub, but for some reason nobody had mentioned that it wasn’t extremely converted. And he’d never really thought where the Navy was hiding it. In a massive sub pen was a good choice, all things considered.

The crew of the sub was busy loading stores, and a massive missile that sure looked like an ICBM was being lowered into one of the tubes as he just stood and stared.

“It’s a hell of a sight,” Summerlin said, walking up behind him. “Note the big sword thingy sticking out the front. But we’ve got gear to store. Some of the stuff we loaded was Third’s, but they’ve been down here all day getting it in the sub while we were loading the trucks. First is down in the sub packing it away.”

“And our job is… ?” Berg asked.

“To make sure our stuff gets put in the right place,” Summerlin replied, walking over to the line of Marines loading stores. “Two-Gun, Gunny Hedger, Third Platoon.”

“Hey, Summer,” the gunnery sergeant said.

“We were sent to determine how badly First was grapping up our maulk,” Summerlin said.

They crossed the gangplank, then entered a vertical hatch, sliding down the ladder between bags of gear. Thereafter followed a bewildering, to Berg, series of turns until they got to the ship’s gear room.

The gear room was a combination of battle-rattle storage and armory. Each person’s gear and personal weapon was supposed to be stowed in their personal locker. The armory, in turn, held preloaded sets of rounds. Draw and don their gear, pick up their rounds and they were in business.

The gear room, though, was a nightmare. With so little room on the ship, there wasn’t enough space for the usual locker room setup with lockers lined up on either side of benches. Instead, the battle rattle and weapons were kept in sliding locker walls, that could be moved aside, so that the platoons could access their gear one at a time. The doors of the lockers folded downwards for a seat or table.

The battle rattle and weapons had been sent down in, supposedly, the same order as the locker. But what people like Prabhu had been doing was picking up scattered equipment from their platoon and making sure it got on the trucks.

So when the two members of Second Platoon entered the gear locker, they found a pile of mismatched gear tossed in every corner, a pile of matched gear that hadn’t been loaded, yet, in the companionway and the beginnings of a raging argument.

“God damnit, Staff Sergeant Summerlin,” a gunnery sergeant swore as soon as they entered the compartment. The guy was short and looked about sixty, the type that ages from the outdoors. “Your maulk was totally grapped up. And Third’s is worse!”

“I’m sorry about that, Gunnery Sergeant Frandsen,” Summerlin replied. “May we be of any assistance?”

“You can start going through the pile that’s portside aft is what you can do!” the gunnery sergeant snapped. “That’s all your maulk. I’m going to send a runner up to Hedge to tell him his stuff is starboard side aft and that’s about all the sorting we’re doing. When we’re done loading the maulk that ain’t grapped up, y’all can fight it out to get the rest stored!”

“Very well, Gunnery Sergeant,” Summerlin said, evenly. “We’ll get to it, then.”

“Staff Sergeant,” Berg whispered as they got to the pile. “Our maulk was grapped up. I mean, most of the guys just tossed their stuff in any old way.”

“We’ve got time to sort it out,” Summerlin said, turning to check that the gunny wasn’t watching and then grinning. “And it was worth it to watch Big-Foot Frandsen nearly bust a blood vessel. Hell, Gunga-Din was intentionally mixing in First’s with ours.”

“Oh,” Berg said, trying not to grin. “So why’d we get detailed to do the dirty work?”

“You kidding?” Summer asked, picking up a set of battle armor. “I practically had to kill to get this detail. Everybody wanted to see if Big-Foot would finally have a stroke!”

“That’s some tattoo,” Berg said wonderingly.

The mystery of Drago’s nickname was revealed as he walked out of the team showers with a towel around his waist. Most of the corporal’s back was taken up by an intricate dragon tattoo.

Loading had continued until 2000, an hour behind schedule. It wasn’t the snafu with the battle rattle that held things up, but getting the rest of the company’s “common” equipment stored. When they were done, everything could be accessed, more or less, at least if you only wanted the stuff that was on the outside of the piles.

Fortunately, Top seemed to have an uncanny ability to determine what was going to be required in order of need. The term was “combat loading.” The idea was that the first things you needed would be the last things stored. And Top knew what was going to be needed and when. Or at least seemed to. The proof would be in the access as the mission progressed.

But, finally, the ship was loaded and the Marines were given forty-five minutes to “maulk, shower, shave” and prepare for an inspection. There were high-ranked visitors coming to see the still unnamed ship head out to sea, and the Marines were, by God, going to look like Marines, not ragbag sailors!

“Got it in Singapore,” Drago said, going over to the sinks and pulling out shaving gear. “I wasn’t even drunk, believe it or not. But it took, like, days to do. Blew all that month’s pay and bonuses plus I had to hit my credit card. But worth it.”

“Hell of a tattoo,” Berg admitted. His turn for the shower had come up and while he was in it he took a surreptitious glance around. Just about everyone in the unit had one tattoo or another, although Drago’s was, by far, the most spectacular. He shaved in the shower. His beard hairs were as blond as his head, but came in dark for some reason. If he was going to be standing inspection at 2200, he had to shave or get gigged.

By 2100 he was down on the quarterdeck, uniform squared away, maulk, showered and shaved.

“Open ranks,” First Sergeant Powell ordered, then walked the line.

When he got to Berg he just looked him up and down and nodded. Nothing to disapprove of. On the other hand…

“Crowley, who taught you to shave… ?”

They were bussed to the sub, which was docked about two miles away. Berg spent the trip just looking out the windows. It wasn’t that he was particularly tired, despite occasional nausea, having been up most of the night and one long damned day. It was just that… Once they entered the sub pen, that was the last time he might ever see Earth. There wasn’t much to see; they spent the whole trip on the base. But it was something. They did manage to pass the base McDonald’s, which caused a slight increase in his nausea.

The Marines were allowed a designated cubage of “personal effects” to be stored in a bag about the size of a plastic grocery bag. That included their shaving gear, any medications they cared to bring along and whatever else they desired in the way of “personal effects.” When they got to the ship, Berg followed Sergeant Jaenisch and Lance Corporal Hattelstad down into the bowels of the boat. He had the bottom bunk, naturally. Land-based groups, the seniors got the bottom bunks, but on ships, well, you wanted to be above any splatter. But the bunks were surprisingly better than he expected.

Instead of a curtain, the bunk sealed with a memory plastic door that could be set to be transparent or opaque. Hit a button it closed; hit another button it turned black. There was a private air supply that could be set to any temperature. There were several small bins, the largest being above where his feet would go. But he had a small shelf for personal items at the head of the bed as well. Best of all, the bunk could be slightly elevated and there was a keyboard and a flip-down plasma screen. He wasn’t sure what was available on the terminal, but he could hope for the best.

The bad part was that it looked like the entire “company,” at least the junior NCOs and the privates, were in the same bay. With nearly thirty people in the narrow corridor, crowded didn’t begin to describe it.

He tossed his bag up on the bunk, then climbed in to get out of the way.

“What now?”

“Ten minutes we have to be in the missile compartment for final inspection,” Jaenisch said, climbing in his own rack. “Then we hang out until it’s time to form up on deck.”

“Nice racks,” Berg said. “Better than on a transport, that’s for sure.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Hattelstad said. “You need to read the manual on them. They’re spaceworthy so if we get decompressed we can just hunker in the bunks and… well, hope somebody comes to save us I guess. The whole package can be ripped out and pulled out of the compartment, though I wouldn’t want to try in anything but zero gee. There’s a water port and a piss tube, all the bells and whistles. Oh, and computerized training systems so we don’t have to clog up another part of the ship when we’re playing Dreen War.”

“What’s on the terminal?” Berg asked, flipping down the screen. “Just Dreen War?”

“Just about anything,” Jaenisch said. “Movies, TV shows, music. Use the buds, though.”

“Got it,” Berg said. Two ear buds were racked in holders on the side of the bunk. He pulled them out and inserted them, then used a laserpad to navigate to the shows menu. “Jesus, you weren’t kidding. I think there’s just about every TV show ever made.”

“Nah, there are a few missing,” Jaenisch said. “Ever see reruns of WKRP in Cincinnati?”

“Love that show,” Berg said. “But I can never find the chip for it.”

“That’s because it’s got a bunch of legal stuff holding it up,” Jaenisch said. There was a slight tympani coming from his direction and he’d raised his voice. “Grapping RIAA. I mean, nobody buys those albums anymore. Release the maulk and let Micro-Vam or Napple put it out for sale.”

“No maulk,” Berg muttered. “Shiny! They’ve got Firefly!”

“They’ve got what?” Jaenisch said loudly.

“Never mind,” Berg said. “What in the hell are you listening to?”

“Within Temptation,” Jaenisch said. “You ought to try it!”

“I already am,” Berg replied. “Ah, Trash…”

“You listen to country?” Hattelstad said as they climbed the ladder up to the sub’s surface deck.

“And the sergeant listens to death metal; what’s your point?” Berg asked.

“Within Temptation is not death metal,” Jaenisch pointed out. “It’s Goth. Although I listen to death metal, too. But country?”

“I like ballads,” Berg said.

“So why not Heather Alexander?” Hattelstad asked.

“Who?”

“Can it,” Jaenisch said as they reached the deck.

Assembly on the top deck of an SSBN is normally an exercise in gymnastics. The majority of the deck is rounded. However, the area over the missiles, and in this case the mission specialist package, was more or less flat. Most of the eggheads were by the sail, nearest the distinguished visitor area on the dock. Then the officers and crew of the ship, then the “mission specialist” security force, who were senior NCOs from Army special forces, then the Marines, right down by the fantail.

The Marines were the first ones on deck and submitted to a third inspection, this time by the CO and Top. Given the conditions, they couldn’t open ranks or the rear rank would have been in the water. So the first sergeant and the CO had to squeeze their way down the sections.

It was the first time Berg had seen the Marine CO, Captain Michael MacDonald. The commander of the security contingent was a tall, spare man with short-cropped, dark-brown hair. Technically, he was in charge of the SF guys as well. But Berg had picked up enough scuttlebutt that it was pretty apparent they ran their own show. Since they were all experienced NCOs, that probably worked just fine.

The CO found nothing at fault and the company was brought to the “rest” position, like parade rest but you could look around.

“And now, we wait,” Hattelstad said. “You seriously have never heard of Heather Alexander?”

“Nobody in the company had heard of Heather Alexander before you showed up, Hatt,” Crowley said. The “company” was arranged in three ranks of ten men each, the platoon sergeants at the head of each rank, with the platoon leaders and the company XO to the rear. When the CO took over from the first sergeant, Top took a position at the bottom of the officer’s ranks.

Thus Crowley was right next to Sergeant Jaenisch with Hatt at the very end of the row.

“Everybody should listen to Heather Alexander,” Crowley said. “Heather is the Goddess.”

“I’ll give you points for ‘March of Cambreadth,’ ” Jaenisch said. “But I’ll top that with ‘Winterborn.’ ”

“DragonForce, man, DragonForce,” Hattelstad argued. “That’s the maulk.”

“I’m a big Toby Keith fan, personally,” Berg said. It was an apparent non sequitur since they all just looked at him. “Well, I am. I like Johnny Cash for that matter.”

“Two-Gun, we might just have to rename you,” Crowley said. “Two-Gun is much too hot a handle for somebody who listens to country. You’d better keep that maulk down in the bay. Grapp. Just when we got rid of Harson and his damned mood music…”

“I kinda liked some of that stuff,” Hattelstad said. “Wyndham Hill and all that. It was soothing. You know, masturbation music.”

“Rest does not mean laughing your ass off,” Gunny Hocieniec snapped from the end of the rank.

“Sorry, Gunny,” Jaenisch said, still snickering. “Harson was a good guy. Hell on wheels in a Wyvern. But, yeah, his taste in music sucked.”

“Like that metal crap is worth maulk?” the sergeant in front of Jaenisch said, looking around. “You keep that maulk down, damnit.”

“And don’t go pounding the whole bay with that rap maulk, Onger,” Jaenisch snapped. “In space, nobody can hear you scream.”

Berg wasn’t sure who “Onger” was, but based on the way they were lined up he was Gung-Din’s boss.

“Space,” Berg said. “I can’t wait.”

“Yeah, but we got to get there first,” Hattelstad said balefully.

“How bad is that?” Berg asked.

“See the ship’s CO?” Jaenisch replied, gesturing with his chin. “Former fighter pilot.”

“Running a sub?” Berg said.

“Politics,” Jaenisch said, shrugging. “Anyway, he drives the ship like a fighter.”

Berg looked from one end of the massive sub to the other and shook his head.

“That’s one big damned fighter.”

“Sort of my point.”

“Company!” the CO bellowed. “Atten-hut!”

“Ladies and Gentlemen, distinguished beings, thank you for being here today on this momentous occasion…”

Normally the main ceremony for a boat was at completion and launching. A crowd of well-wishers and officials gathered to send the boat off to sea. A bottle, traditionally one with waters of all the seven seas, was broken on the bow.

The problem with the 4144, besides the fact that the powers that be were still arguing over a name, was that it wasn’t being launched. It was simply a converted SSBN, the former Nebraska, and had already had such a ceremony.

But the first deep space mission of the first warp ship, even if a totally covert and still unnamed one, was a matter of some ceremony. Even if it was a very late night, very covert, ceremony. So a crowd had gathered. Admittedly, it was smaller than normal, there were no family of the crew, no press, and everyone on the dock had the highest of high security clearances, but by the same token it was extremely select. Admiral Townsend was presiding but even the President had managed to attend. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs was present as was the deputy defense secretary for interstellar warfare. Two senior members of the Senate, two equally senior members of the House, the secretary of state and a group of senior Adar. The ambassador for Britain was present as the representative of the only Earth government that had been informed the U.S. had a warp drive.

Although very few Earth governments were aware of the boat, support from the Adar government was a necessity on several levels. The boat had needed Adar technology and the Adar had, after all, been the suppliers of the drive. Just because Bill had figured out how to use it when they could not did not preclude their participation.

Besides the “distinguished visitors,” the entire crew, military and scientific, was lined up on the deck of the sub. The Navy crew, who were going to be going back to work right after the ceremony, were in dungarees for the enlisted and khakis for the officers. The security contingent, Marines and Special Forces, were in Mar-Cam and digi-cam. The senior boat officers and NCOs were gathered to the front of the crew, with one SEAL warrant officer looking decidedly out of place. The majority of the scientific team, biologists, planetologists and astronomers, were in blue coveralls. The three exceptions were right on the end. Tchar, the Adar physicist who had been one of the first Adar ever to visit Earth and with whom Weaver had developed a close working relationship, was wearing fluorescent green pants, a Hawaiian shirt and mosh boots. Mimi and the linguist Miriam Moon were in jeans and T-shirts. He knew that Mimi had been issued coveralls so he had to assume someone had persuaded her to wear something else. One guess as to who. He hoped he wouldn’t be forced to explain the presence of either one to the President or the Adar.

Weaver had recently heard a rumor that it was the Adar who had held up the naming of the boat. U.S. Naval naming nomenclature was straightforward. This boat should be named after either a state or a distinguished person. The first name proposed was the Harley Simpson, after a senior member of the House Armed Services committee who was recently deceased. That name quickly faded due to some background discussions that even Weaver had not been privy to.

The presence of K’Tar’Daoon, the Adar secretary of High Technology Defense and up until recently something on the order of prime minister of Adar, argued that the naming argument might have been settled.

“The President and the Honorable K’Tar’Daoon would like to say a few words…” Admiral Townsend said, winding down.

“I won’t take much time,” the President said. “I know that time and tide wait for no one. I’d just like to wish everyone luck and say that, after long discussions, the name of this fine ship has been finalized. I will let K’Tar’Daoon explain.”

“While this ship is not Adar in truth, we have as high hopes for it as any human here,” K’Tar’Daoon said. The Adar spoke excellent English but with a strong sibilant accent. “When the naming conventions of your ships were explained, we found them most excellent, for human beliefs and understanding. However, Adar, as is often noted, think differently from humans. And while this is not our ship, in truth, we wished to present our thoughts on how this ship should be named. In time, we were persuasive in our arguments.

“When we first encountered humans, we were confused by the name the humans had given to the boson portals. Such simple things and yet such a strange name: Looking Glasses. You did not call them mirror portals. Such a name would be logical. But humans looked upon them and gave them a name of wonder and, indeed, they are wonders. They take us all to strange lands, bring wonders to both of our worlds.

“The Harley Simpson, the Margaret Thatcher, the George Washington, the Enterprise, each was debated in turn. But at each point we Adar argued that the name should be a name of wonder and power. For this ship is the hope of both our worlds, the sword that will carry our anger and righteous fury against the enemy that still plagues us.

“This is also an excellent time to make an announcement. Yesterday, a mutual defense treaty was signed by the Adar Unitary Council, the President of the United States and the prime minister of England. Once this treaty is ratified by the United States Senate and the Parliament of England, it will initiate the first Space Alliance in our two planets’ history.

“In keeping with this, and the naming of the Glasses that you humans brought from your depths of understanding, this ship, this hope for all humans and Adar, is named:

“The Alliance Space Ship Vorpal Blade.”

“Oh, Holy Maulk,” Weaver muttered. From the science section came one loud braying laugh, quickly cut off. “Oh, grapp.”

“Like an ASS, dude,” Miller whispered. “Like an ASS.”