The Lion of God (Timelines Book 1) by Nathan C. Brindle

Author:Nathan C. Brindle [Brindle, Nathan C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-07-13T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

Of Commanders, Control Panels, And Reboots

The first loading had gone well.

LaForrest, of course, had not been pleased when informed that the plan had changed, and only one group would be loaded at a time. When it was explained to him that the uptime combatants' parole was conditional on receiving Ariela's blessing, and that there were nearly two thousand of them to "process" and only one Ariela to do that, he grumbled, but acquiesced.

"I'm sending another platoon of Space Marines down to protect her," he added.

Wolff reminded him, gently, that she already had a platoon of Space Marines protecting her.

"Doesn't matter," he replied. "That platoon was for all three of you. But that was before you put your daughter right into the line of fire. I'm not going to chance something happening and have Buford relieve me of command for not anticipating trouble. I'll have that platoon drop along with Beta. They'll stick with you when you transfer to Gamma's landing site, and so forth till you're done."

Wolff observed that he was sending an awful lot of men for a simple protection detail.

"What part of 'we can't afford to let that girl get harmed' do you not understand, Captain Wolff?"

"Sir, I understand the entire sentence, regardless of whether my commission is active or not," replied Wolff. "But I'm telling you, as soon as they see her and listen to what she says, they will cooperate like a flock of sheep. You didn't see what happened here. Even the hardcores I thought we'd have trouble with simply dropped to their knees in adoration. I mean, I think I know why, and I'm frankly surprised they aren't following her around like a pack of puppy dogs, but . . . "

"Doesn't matter," repeated LaForrest. "I'm sending them. I want to hear an 'aye, aye, sir' out of you, and then I'm getting off this comm and calling the Marine CO."

Wolff sighed. "Aye, aye, sir. Wolff out."

"LaForrest out." The comm went dead.

"The fuck was that about?" asked von Barronov, who'd heard only the local half of the conversation while watching the look on Wolff's face.

"He's stuck in the script," said Wolff. "Everybody is stuck in the fucking script. Even the people from our timeline who shouldn't be stuck in the fucking script."

"Well, if we weren't aware of the script, we'd probably be stuck in it, too," pointed out von Barronov.

"I just wish we had a copy of it," Wolff growled. "Worse, I keep thinking I see a way out of this, but I can't quite get my mind tracked onto it. There's a set of controls . . . a way to fix the problem . . . damn it! Can't focus," he cursed, and walked away toward a group of chairs, where he sat down, fuming. Von Barronov felt his comm vibrate, grabbed it, and flipped it on.

"Go for Von Barronov," he said.

"Captain, this is Colonel Harris, the Marine CO on the Constellation," he heard. "I tried Captain Wolff's comm but couldn't get an answer.

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