Book 3: Chapter 71: Victory
Herschel
April 2257
Sol
We had to wait several more full seconds for follow-up. Bill and Will were apparently very busy Bobs, for the moment.
Finally, Bill popped in, a huge grin on his face. And a patch over his eye, his arm in a sling, and several Band-Aids done in typical cartoon cross patterns on his body.
Neil burst into gales of laughter and fell off his chair. I just managed to keep a straight face, raised an eyebrow, and said, in my best frosty voice, “Really?”
Bill chuckled and vanished the special effects. “Well, inappropriate humor is our trademark, right?”
He invoked a bean-bag chair, fell backward into it, and went boneless. “I’m indebted to you, Neil, for reminding me how much we used to love these things.” After a pause, “So anyway, the carnage is just incredible. We lost 90% of our ships, and I don’t know if we have enough busters and bombs left at this point to hold off a Girl Scout troop. But we’ve knocked out every piece of Others’ hardware in the system. Except Bellerophon, of course. And we’ve got drones doing full reconnaissance, just in case. We’ve all seen the movies where everyone relaxes too soon. No thanks.”
We all sat, silently, for a few milliseconds. I called up a beer. Without saying anything, Bill and Neil did the same. We raised our glasses in a silent toast, and each took a drink.