Chapter Thirty-Eight: Tell me, have you heard of...
New Avalon, Federated Suns December 10th, 3008
"This is the Dropship Messenger, requesting a flight path." The pilot of the Messenger commed the main space controller for the New Avalon system.
"We see you Messenger, move to the designated spaceport in the order that we send you." The traffic controller told my pilot and we waited until we received the coordinates and the order we were given.
Once we had an order to descend and move towards the planet below. We now had seven days in which to spend time doing nothing but prepping for politics. And trying to figure out how to avoid offending people by my thoughts on the Star League.
December 17th, 3008
Even though we were personally invited by the First Prince to New Avalon to celebrate the season, we still had to go through all of the standard protocols that everyone else had to go through. This included checking all of the stuff we had brought with us through customs which included the gift we had brought for the Davion brothers.
When we exited the Messenger and began to make our way to a hotel that had been recommended to us. When we left the spaceport, we began to be blinded by flash bulbs and all sorts of questions. The reporters had somehow gotten word that I would be coming to New Avalon and were waiting in ambush…
"Colonel Hull! New Avalon News here! Can you tell us what it was like to be a part of the destruction of the 2nd McCarron's Armored Cavalry?"
"Colonel Hull! New Valencia Associated Press. What was it like being rescued by the Wolf's Dragoons."
The questions kept coming so I stopped trying to fight through the reporteres, and decided to just hold a miniature press conference there.
"Stop!" I barked in my Command voice and watched as the crowd of reporters stilled. "I will answer your questions, but I will do it in order and one at a time."
I pointed at the first person who had asked a question. "You first Ma'am."
"I'm Felicia Land with the New Avalon News network." She said, "Can you tell us what it was like being a major part in the destruction of the 2nd regiment of McCarron's Armored Cavalry?"
"It's something that can't really be put into words, but I think a quote from an old Terran commodore suits it best. "We have met the enemy and they are ours.". I paused and took in the moment of silence. "Next question."
"Marian Dance, New Valencia Associated press." he said. "What was it like being rescued by the Wolf's Dragoons?"
"Rescued?!" Lieutenant Mathis, the head of my bodyguard detail, spoke up. " What fucking rescue? We didn't need rescue, we weren't trapped on Tybalt with the 2nd Mac, they were trapped there with us and we were making them bleed."
This caused an uproar, and the various news organizations talked over one another until a Davion security team escorted them away.
One of the security team members doubled back and told me that there was a discrete car waiting out front, and that the Davions had arranged for a stay in the New Avalon palace complex.
Climbing into the unmarked black sedan, my four escorts and I enjoyed the relative quiet for a time.
A couple of hours later…
Security in the palace complex was no joke, we had been going through the layers of security since we had arrived through the main gates. We had been checked over for weapons a minimum of three times. (Mathis had tried to convince them to let him keep some of his hidden weapons, but it didn't go over well.) We had gone through virtually every test that had probably ever been thought up.
When we were finally through security, (If I went through another scanner I was getting my team checked for signs of cancer when we got back to the Argo.) We were directed to a side room and instructed to wait.
There was a version of a miniature Fridge there, and they had small bottles of water laid out along with assorted alcoholic beverages. I merely grabbed a bottle of water and took some sips before taking a seat on one of the various couches. After waiting for a period of about fifteen minutes or so, the door opened to reveal a butler/aid who instructed me to follow him.
I followed the man down the winding corridors, finally reaching one final security checkpoint where they did one last sweep before allowing me into an office. There was an obviously well used desk in there, ornate and hand made, but that desk wasn't in use, instead,there was a smaller side desk where Ian and Hanse were looking over paperwork and arguing about something or another. When they saw me, they both stood up to greet me.
"Colonel Hull," Hanse greeted me with a firm handshake. "A pleasure to see you again."
"Hull." Ian said and shook my hand immediately after Hanse was done. "Take a seat." He sat down, moved the thing that Hanse and Ian had been arguing about out of the way and gestured for myself and his brother to sit.
"You wanted to see me?" I asked, as I took a seat in one of the surprisingly comfortable chairs.
"Yes." Hanse and Ian looked at each other before Ian nodded to Hanse. "What is your real backstory?" Hanse asked outright. "No one, not even a confirmed time traveler should have been able to access the gear that you magically produced over the last couple of years." Hanse paused and stroked the small beard he had grown since I last met him. "Ian and I like you, but unless we get the truth we will not be able to trust you."
I sat there for a moment, gathering my thoughts and decided to let them know at least part of the truth.
"I was a part of the Star League Intelligence Corps towards the end of the Amaris Civil war." I then told them my story making sure to leave out things like the Manassas, the locations of them where I had stashed it and the other depots, and my extradimensional origins.
"That…" Ian leaned back in his chair. "Is a lot to digest."
Hanse just sat there quietly, mulling over everything in the space of his own mind.
"Is there anything that you can give us that would help us recover any Lostech?" Hanse asked after a second. "Anything that can help prove that what you say is true?"
I paused, thinking it over before nodding to myself and smirking at the two brothers while stroking my beard mysteriously. "Tell me, what do you know about a world called Helm?"
Kentares IV Draconis March, Federated Suns December 17th, 3008
"Kentares is beautiful." Sheppard said to his girlfriend Erika Lamb, was sitting beside him while she picked at his false leg.
"I still don't understand why you didn't go for a cloned leg?" She replied. "Not that I hate the prosthetic or anything…" She tried to wave off any offense as Sheppard just laughed.
"No, it's just that I find it funny that you took this long to ask." Sheppard pulled the shorter brunette into his arms and placed his head on her shoulder. "I'll change to a cloned leg if you want." He said. "But I wanted to get back to what I was faster, and we couldn't afford the downtime as a unit then." He laid a kiss on her cheek and eased down onto the blanket beneath them to look at the gorgeous sky.
"I think I'd prefer your regular leg back." Lamb responded, having taken a moment to think about it while relaxing back into her lover's arms. "I know it's silly, but it bothers me that it's missing sometimes." She rolled over onto her side and made sure he could see her face. "I will still be with you regardless of your decision. But I miss the warmth of you having two legs and I hate how the prosthetic sometimes causes you pain even though you try to hide it."
She stroked his slightly worn face and smiled gently at him. "I want you whole and to not feel pain. That's why I want you to go with the cloned leg." She then smirked. "Besides, you'd enjoy using the downtime to go and instruct the new recruits."
Sheppard just chuckled and poked her in the side, starting a slight tickle war that went on for about five minutes before subsiding. "Alright Erika." He got serious. "I'll talk to Hull when he comes back from New Avalon and have him put me on training rotation until I get used to the cloned leg." Then his eyes twinkled a little bit. "But you're the one that has to break the news to Peterson's wife."
Erika's eyes widened at that. "On second thought, you can keep the prosthetic…." She tried to argue against her previous case, not wanting to be glared at by the new mother.
"She'll kill me." Erika said. "You can't do that."
"She won't kill you." Jack waved his hand nonchalantly. "She just seems scary, she's really sweet though."
"Yeah, I know." Erika said. "I just don't want to cause a rift between her and Thomas."
"You won't," Jack stated. "She'll understand, after all, Paige and Mathis stepped up while he was in recovery for his eye surgery."
"I forgot how much paperwork Sheppard and Hull handle." Peterson said to his wife Francesca Jones who was sitting on the couch in his office, nursing their three month old son while he was finishing up the last of the paperwork.
"Hey you." Francesa said while Thomas looked at his wife questioningly. "I love you!"
Thomas just smiled back at her. "I love you too. Let me finish this last couple of pieces of paperwork and I'll burp him for you." He took a couple of minutes to read over the submissions before sorting them into three piles, accepted, for further review, and rejected and when he was done, he went over and began helping his wife take care of their son.
Authors note: I know that it was a bit of cuteness overload there at the end, but this story isn't just about Hull