Ezra's First

Part 14

Ezra groggily woke up up to see Admiral Marshall sitting at the foot of his hospital bed reading his tablet

"Sir?"

"Ah you are awake Ezra, great news. How are you feeling?"

"Like I'm made of cement, did they attack? Is Daniel alive?' His voice quivering at that last point.

The Admiral stood up and walked toward the head of Ezra's bed and sat himself down on the bed.

"Never in my wildest dreams could I be more proud of you right now Ez."

"Thanks to you and Daniel we were able to get the jump on them, using our new experimental fleet that gave them a bloody good scare. In the end they retreated. Ezra you know that in our entire history with the Preshk they have never once retreated. Good thing they did too, the fleet suffered heavy losses and the rest of our ships didn't have the new weapons. You literally saved millions if not more."

"How did you find us? We were so far out and our comms down?"

"We anticipated something big from the Preshk which is why we equipped our scout fleet out with more talented commanders like yourself and watched for the gaps. We had other ships dropping into systems to get the updates you left at the satellites. The minute we saw a gap in your progress we dropped into your systems and got your update and rushed back to prepare the fleet."

The Admiral continued.

"The damage you caused them paused them for days, and the fact that they couldn't catch you paused them for even longer, you got under their skin!."

"Daniel? Did he make it?"

"Sure did kiddo!" came a voice from the bed next to him.

Ezra turned to see Daniels face beaming out from behind the dividing curtain. A wave of relief washed over him.

"I'll leave you two to catch up, I'll be back in a few days to talk about your new command."

Ezra's eyes widened considerably and the Admiral smiled to himself and walked off.

"Hear that? Your own command kid, finally something worthy of your skills." Daniel said in jest.

"Oh shut up, are you okay? How are your injuries?"

"A lot better than yours it would seem, I just need a few more days for my wounds to finish healing and I lost a lot of blood."

Memory slapped Ezra in the face and he ripped off his sheets to see that his right leg now ended at his knee.

"Oh."

"Don't worry about it kid, you'll get a fancy prosthetic paid for by command, you'll be better than new."

Ezra gave a weak smile, he hoped Danny was right, but he needed time to process that.

"You ain't the only person getting a fancy promotion either."

"Oh?"

"In recognition of my many years in the Scout division I've been given command of an entire wing. Training, deployment, planning, all me."

"Oh I'm so happy for you Danny!."

"Thanks, so tell me, what happened while I was out cold? I only know how it ended....."