Chapter 11

Jason�s eyes snapped open and he was breathing heavily. Beads of sweat were on his forehead. He didn�t sit bolt upright nor did he make a noise apart from the heavy breathing. He was back in the infirmary with the medics attending to other people. No one had noticed him. He wiped off the sweat with his hand and forced himself to relax once again.

�It was only a dream,� he thought to himself.

After he had calmed down he started to think. This wasn�t the only nightmare he had had over the years. The one that had seemed to haunt his dreams was one where he was watching his brother on a mission. He knows what�s going to happen and he tries to warn his brother, but he doesn�t seem to listen. Then the nuclear reactor goes critical. At that point he wakes up.

He wasn�t sure why he kept on getting that repeat nightmare and now he has a new one to add to it.

He swivelled on the bed and put his legs over the edge and pulled himself up into a sitting position. A medic saw him and came over to him.

�You�re not going anywhere until I check you over,� the medic said.

Jason had been with medics long enough to now not to argue with them about your discharge. The medic began the physical examination looking at pupil dilations, temperature and then he looked at the blood pressure and pulse monitors. He wrote down something on his PDA.

�OK. Everything seems fine. If you suffer from anything report to the infirmary immediately.�

Jason nodded. The medic removed the IV line and Jason got to his feet. He felt a lot stronger and he made his way out of the infirmary. There were people walking up and down the corridors and Jason felt instantly better.

He made his way to his quarters and logged onto the computer in his room. There were several e-mails waiting for him.

A few of them were e-mails sent round asking for volunteers. But there were a few of interest. The commander had sent him an e-mail to report for a debriefing as soon as possible. There was also one from Rose asking him to send an e-mail to her to let her know when he was out of the infirmary. He sent an e-mail to he saying he was all right and that he�s out of the infirmary, and he�ll see how the squad�s doing after a debriefing.

He got dressed into a new set of clothes and left his room to go to the debriefing room. The commander was already there, so was Dr Biggington. He noticed that he was really the only one there, which he concluded to being one of the last people to be debriefed. He was only half right.

�Good to see you back on your feet,� the commander said. �But unfortunately we have a problem. Thanks to your hard work we were able to identify the weapon used by the enemy, unfortunately we have nothing to protect our MAWs from it, in fact we�re surprised that they actually were able to make a small scaled down version. Normally such weapons need to be carried by the big ships because of the shear power requirement for it. This means we have a large threat against our pilots. But the main problem was not the weapon, as the ship shields guard against it. No, the main problem is that someone took a copy of the AH-MAW prototype design during the attack and escaped with it. If they combine it with the ionised particle accelerator (IPA) it could mean that they could hold and press an advantage against us. At the moment we sent the data you scanned to the R&D department�

�From looking at the data,� Dr Biggington added. �We can�t replicate the technology on such a small scale, but we are trying to develop a small energy shield to help repel the attack. Results are promising and we hope to get a new shield out as soon as we sort out an energy supply. I hope we won�t get a reoccurrence of the incident that killed squad 12.�

The all looked down at that out of respect.

�The funeral service will be held tomorrow at 1100 hours. We are also going to space station Mahria to restock and take on additional personnel,� The commander said. �As before do not mention anything of the AH-MAW to anyone. Dismissed.�

Jason saluted and left.