Ohio

10 - The Enterprise

Since you've been gone

All that's left is a band of gold

All that's left of the dream I hold

is a band of gold.

And the dream of what love could be

If you are still here with me

-- Freda Payne (Band of Gold)

=/\=

"Feeling ready?" Kevin asked Tom.

"I am," he drawled.

"Oh, wait, shots!" Kevin recalled at the last second, "It's kinda silly for us to be doin' this, but it's still the rule. You and I gotta take birth control shots," he explained.

"I don't know what you plan on doing, but I'm just gonna watch the bomb get dropped," Tom said.

"Well, me, too. But it's still the rule. If we forget this time, you might forget some other time, when you really need it," he went over to the replicator and had it produce the two shots.

"I take it this is a Rick Daniels rule," Tom said.

"It is."

"Not that I wanna gossip but, uh, you figure it's anything more than a precaution?" Tom asked.

"That's all I know about such things." Which was true – Rick had not shared the truth about the Empress Hoshi Sato's pregnancy with anyone but Carmen and his sister, Eleanor. And then Carmen had had to deal with the fallout with the delegation from that side of the pond. She had gone to bat for him, so he owed her.

Shots done, Tom looked at Kevin and said, "You might wanna tighten your collar up. I can see a few scales."

"Ah, thanks. I need to think with my mammal side, not the reptile side right now," Kevin said. He was almost two meters tall and about a quarter of a metric ton, but he was a sweet soul. His late wife, Josie, had referred to him as a gentle giant on more than one occasion. It wasn't just a few dermatological scales that could potentially give him away as not belonging to Phillip Green's band of ruthless eco-warriors.

=/\=

"So, Sheilagh, tell me about this mission," Rick said.

"All right. This is a protest, right?"

"Yes, it's anti-war."

"Uh huh. The Vietnam War is going on, and the United States President – uh, Richard Nixon – he wants to extend the war to Cambodia."

"Actually, he has – he announces it on, if I recall correctly, April thirtieth."

"Ah, okay. And there's this nationwide student strike going on. The students are unhappy about all of this because they had thought the war was winding down. Now they realize it's really not, and they're gonna have to go out and fight it."

"Yes, but only the men."

"Really? How strange," she said, "Anyway, they march and whatnot and this is not the only place where these demonstrations are going on."

"Yes, but this one gets ugly."

"Right. And it doesn't start on May fourth; it starts on May the first. And it gets violent rather quickly. Kent State University's administration calls in the police on the first; by the fourth, the National Guard has arrived. And that's when things really go haywire."

"And?"

"And that's when the shooting begins."

"That's correct. What are the casualties?"