Commitments

UN, Haven, Botanical Gardens

Cheers and applause followed the smiling couple as they walked down the carpet of flower petals. Two wind wolves howled in unison as they competed with the roaring of two dragons trying to outdo each other in their way of cheering. James Bone, ex Marine and now a Major with the newly established UN Army held on to his just wedded wife, Kristine Bone.

He wore his uniform with all his medals in display and waved at his friends while his wife dressed in an ivory white dress clutched a bouquet of flowers. Her tummy slightly bugling can be seen under the flowing dress as she threw the bouquet of flowers over her head, a traditional custom hailing from their home planet.

"Congrats!" Mills shook his previous section leader's hand and gave a hug to Kristine before he stepped back and grinned at Kristine's condition and shook his head at James. "Damn... you dog! How many months?"

Bartley also gave James his congratulations and a hug to Kristine too while his two wind wolves, Grey, wearing a bow tie and Sasha, wearing a floral necklace, laid down next to the couple, gnawing away at a giant muffalo thigh bone.

"Two months," Kristine giggled at the expression on her husband's face. "I took off my birth implants... since I wanted him to settle down! Hehe! Nah... its a joke! He didn't know about me being pregnant when he proposed! It was double surprise for him! Hehehe!"

"Oh... man! Good for you!" Mills laughed at James's expense. "You finally found a woman to lock you down!"

James rolled his eyes at Mills's antics and poked a finger at his chest. "How about you?"

He jerked his head to the group of ladies playing around with the bouquet of flowers. "When are you planning to get hitched too?"

"Ehh..." Mills scratched his head and put on a confused expression and looked at Bartley for help. "What? Who?"

"Tsk..." Kristine shook his head at Mills's act. "You can't keep a lady waiting for so long! They are not the elves in our fantasy novels or games! Their life span is the same as us! If you are not going to commit to a relationship, then do not waste the other's time and youth!"

"Ahh..." Mills who was chided, gave a sigh and said. "I know... but... I just do not know how to... propose to her..."

"MEN!" Kristine rolled her eyes like her husband. "You can brave bullets and monsters but the thought of proposing to a girl you like turns you into a coward! Oh, my gods..."

"Hahahha!" Mills gave an embarrassed laugh. "So how did James proposed to you?"

"Yes yes!" A low rumbling voice came from overhead, followed by a shadow blocking out the sun. Blue Thunder leaned over, his breath had a hint of sour cheese. He blinked his dinner plate sized eyes rapidly in anticipation of James answer. "Tell meee!"

Kristine giggled when she saw her husband's face turning red at the question. She reached up and patted the snout of Blue Thunder and said, "Well... He brought me to a fancy restaurant..."

"Oooo!" Blue Thunder thumped his tail excitedly, making the two wind wolves growl in irritation. "Woops sorry! Anyway... Are there candles? A violinist? Or a pianist in the background? Flowers?"

Blue Thunder's eyes were like glittering and he had his tongue sticking out from the side of his jaws in excitement, looking like some kind of gossip reporter. Mills sighed in disappointment at the look of the dragon and whispered to Bartley. "Damn... My ideal impression of dragons has just done and gone down the crapper..."

James cleared his throat and said, "Erm... Mrs. Bone... Why not you entertain the dragons... while I entertain the guys?"

"Ha!" Mills grinned evilly at James. "Trying to get out of this eh?"

James glowered at Mills and lightly dusted his shoulder tabs, "Why... there's dust on my MAJOR rank..."

"Oooh!" Mills glanced at his own uniform rank tabs where he had only the two bars of a full lieutenant. "So you wanna play rank now..."

"Come on, Lieutenant!" James grabbed Mills and Bartley and dragged them off. "I will be right back honey!"

"Hehehe!" Kristine shook her head at the antics of James and his friends before she turned to impatient Blue Thunder. "Now... where were we?"

-----

"Cheers!" James and the rest raised their mugs. "Congrats on the wedding and your child!"

"CHEERS!"

"Didn't expect you to get married and have a kid at the same time," Mills said as he placed his mug of beer down. "Time... really goes by fast..."

"Yes..." Bartley mumbled in his mug. "Three years already."

"Yea..." James nodded in agreement. "I am already thinking of this place... as... home..."

Bartley nodded as well. "Here... is a good place. Good people, good land and air."

Mills shook his head in disagreement. "Hell... no! I still want to return to earth! Powered toilets, twenty four seven temperature controls, VR entertainment... and the food! God... I missed food from Earth! Even from a slum in the big apple!"

"What about Titanna?" Bartley asked. "Are you going to leave her?"

"I- I probably will bring her back with me..." Mills hesitatedly said. "Hell... I don't know!"

"Hey... This place isn't like back home," James frowned at Mill's words. "They don't have our ideas and cultures of having flings or short term relationships."

"She is a good woman," Bartley added. "Shame for her to meet you."

"What?" Mills glared at Bartley who gave a shrug. "Arghh..."

James looked over to where his wife was entertaining the dragons and the womenfolk with their romance story, including the subject of their topic, Titanna. "Just tell her you love her and marry her."

"And have kids," Bartley added. "Many kids."

"You think making kids is like growing fruits?" Mills rolled his eyes at Bartley. "Besides, from what the Doc has said, us Humans and Elves have a much much lower chance of fertility in making babies."

Bartley raised an eyebrow at Mills's word. "Really? That's sad..."

Mills sighed, "I guess that is why the Captain..."

"Shhh..." James hissed angrily at Mills. "Fucking hell, Mills! You are in public!"

"Oh..." Mills grimaced before he turned to Bartley. "Forget what I just said."

"Hmmm... Okay..." Bartley nodded stoically.

"Mills!" Titanna suddenly appeared beside Mills, clutching a bouquet of flowers. "I just learnt something interesting about the bride!"

"They say that if you caught the bouquet of flowers thrown from the bride, you will be next to get married?" Titanna blushed when finished her sentence.

"Oh... fuck..."

-----

The Isles, Port Sanctuary, UN Naval Base

Commander Ford was tired, he was not only running the Navy but also the work from Captain Blake, managing the entire affairs of the UN. He picked up the proposal from Naval Intel regarding the plans to secure the probe over the planet's orbit.

He flipped through the documents, seeing the costs, time, and resource projection before closing the folder. Captain Blake's staff had filtered as much as possible before sending the important stuff over for him to oversee but still he was overworked.

The idea of a supercarrier proposed by the goblins keeps nagging him at the back of his head, making him unable to concentrate on his work. He admitted that it will be awesome if something the concept works, but he was worried that if all the time, money, and resources were committed to this project and it failed, all the efforts will have gone down the drain and also the lives of thousands of men and women on board the ship.

He knew that on Earth, no one ever designed something of that size despite being able to since there was no need for such a behemoth. As to service should a behemoth will require dock facilities and ports large enough to be able to accommodate its size. Which meant before the unification of Earth, having such a ship will require the countries' allies to upgrade their naval facilities which no country will be willing to do so and furthermore, ships of such sizes will not be able to past through canals and certain straits.

Hence, wet navies on Earth tend to be designed up to a certain size, to accommodate passage through canals and usage of port facilities. And of course, with the constant threat of guided missiles and nukes, such a behemoth was just a big juicy target.

"But here..." Ford mumbled to himself as he reread the report of the 'Super Duper Greg Ship' or SDGS as the goblins been calling it. "It might be feasible."

First, there was no missile tech. Even if they had some kind of rocketry or meteor spell, the six month old AEGIS defence project being developed as a shield against large projectiles and flying creatures was bearing fruit.

The R & D team had taken apart the point defence turrets of the UNS Singapore to study and reproduce them. They had managed to do so, but with lower quality materials since the UN has not yet able to produce certain high tech materials for the unforeseen future.

The prototype Close In Weapon System runs on a dual gun system. Each gun had a six barrel 20 mm gatling cannon powered by an electric motor. It could fire at 2,000 rounds per minute, enabling it to destroy any rapid approaching projectiles or even slow flying monsters, designated by radar or manual controls. It was lucky they had the point defence turrets to study and copy from, if not they would have taken years just to even develop the coding and complex machinery and parts to run the CIWS.

Ford thought of the next advantage of the supercarrier concept, and that was the inability to support a fleet over the End Zone. The End Zone was still a mass of question marks and dangers. If they send a fleet in and somehow they luckily crossed the End Zone, who knows how vast the distances will be. Which means, they need an exploration ship with the ability to be self sufficient, which means they will need a lot of hull space for supplies and fuel, just like a spaceship.

But instead of having oxygen recyclers, they will need food and water for the crew and having them all on board the same ship saves a lot of logistic headaches compared to have dedicated supply ships. Supply ships can be sunk and similarly the supercarrier, but it does not matter if either were sunk since whoever survived will still be alone and out of supply or protection later on.

Ford was worried about the rumours of giant whirlpools and water spurts. But after thinking about it, he wondered if there was a whirlpool that was large enough to suck in a two hundred thousand ton ship. Maybe just to be safe, they should make a three hundred thousand ton ship instead?

"Oh my god..." Ford stood up and stretched himself in the office. "I am getting badly influenced by this!"

"Oh what the hell..." Ford sighed. "Let's do this... We don't have any other ideas to explore either, it's better to do something than nothing!"

He picked up the desk phone and dialled to his Naval HR office, "I want HR to open up recruitment for the Navy."

"Yes... Sailors, techs, mechanics," Ford replied to the HR person on the other side. "Cut off numbers for recruits?"

"Hmmm..." Ford glanced at the SDGS report. "Sev- No... Ten thousand."

"Yes... you heard me right," Ford repeated to the confused HR person over the phone. "I am looking to recruit ten thousand new naval personnel for combat roles!"

After answering a few more details from HR, Ford ended the call and returned the phone back to its cradle. He dug out his budget reports and sighed, needing to amend the year end report now that he started mass recruitment.

"There goes my naval budget for next year..."