Cody's War: Flight Of The Covert by Todd McCaffrey

Author:Todd McCaffrey [McCaffrey, Todd]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Foxxe Frey Books
Published: 2024-02-23T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Five

“Admiral, why are we doing this again?” Scott Ellis asked as he and his fleet prepared for another maneuver in the space near Carlow.

“Just humor us,” Nora Wright told him. “How did it go?”

“Perfectly,” Scott said. “We arrived in formation, dispersed as ordered and — well, honestly, it was all rather boring. I mean, this is the third time we’ve done the exact same maneuver, did you expect us to blow it?”

“Yes,” Cody said.

“Sir?” Scott asked, surprised and hurt.

“In fact, you’ve blown it all three times,” Other Cody spoke up. “I got close enough to read your ship’s name — you need to clean up the last ‘e’ it’s been scratched.”

“Huh?” Scott said. “Admiral?”

“Ensign,” Other Cody corrected.

“Sir?”

“I got close enough to Witch to tell you that they’ve got a bad connection on pack four,” Other Nora said.

“Hey, Scottie!” Other Gail piped up. “You didn’t see us, did you?”

“Light off,” Cody ordered. He grinned as the three Eye ships flared into visibility. “Admiral Ellis, permit me to introduce our latest fleet addition — we call ‘em Eyes.”

“Jeez!” Scott Ellis said. “We never saw them!” Then, “Um, what are they?”

“Secret,” Other Nora said. “But we’ll be going with you.”

“We’ll hitch a ride with the Rings,” Other Cody said. “And we’ll drop off when you get out of warp —”

“I still say we should go independently,” Other Nora said.

“Warp Fifteen, anyone?” Other Gail challenged.

“That’s for the next time,” Nora told her. “So, Admiral, we’re sorry, but we wanted to see if your people could spot these new ships.”

“And we couldn’t,” Scott said. “So that means…?”

“Well, it gives us greater confidence that the aliens won’t either,” Cody said.

“And we’re going to ramp up production —”

“What are they, shuttles?” Scott asked.

“Just about,” Nora agreed. “But long endurance. No crew.”

“So we can just sit out in the middle of nowhere and shut down, waiting for anything to trip our sensors,” Other Cody said.

“Like those alien scouts,” Scout guessed. “Very good, sir. And I’ll be glad to bring them along.” A pause. “Now, can we go?”

“Let’s do a debrief first,” Cody said. “Pass the word along to your captains, we’ll have a virtual meeting in an hour.”

“Yes sir.”

#

Two hours later, nine ships — with three parasites riding along — vanished into warp.

“I really hate this,” Cody murmured from the seat in his office.

“Yeah, it sucks, doesn’t it?” Ellaz Whirly said over the wristcomm. “Now you need to get over to the SIM Lab.”

“Sim lab?” Cody repeated in surprise. “No, I’ve got to workout first, then the lab!”

“Not any more!” Ellaz said with a chuckle. “We’re combining the two so you’ll get two full hours with us!”

“Ellaz, I need to exercise,” Cody protested.

“And who said you won’t?”

Nora stepped into view. “Cody? Come on!”

“You too?”

“It’s one against one,” Ellaz said with a chuckle. “Come on, you’ll see!”

#

It was, in fact, more than one against one. It was Cody against Nora. It was also Team Cody against Team Nora — Ellaz had done some work to get the two different copies to work in the same simulation.

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