by Ingo Potsch
It took three months at Khosrow Memorial Military Hospital, followed by six weeks on Planet Maiden’s Mare, to set matters right, but the junior lieutenant's injured leg was making him permanently unfit for cruiser service. To his great relief, Sylvain Antoine Tanguy-Raucoule was not invalided out of the Service, although unfit for long-distance, long-duration outer-space jobs. He was given a good billet in the Intelligence Department, his district covering the space ports of Planet Coria Warden’s Boulder, Planet Hanson Homes, and Planet Lively Pools; the last one being a place with many volcanic lakes.
With a generous expenses budged at his disposal, Tanguy-Raucoule was in ease and luxury. His sole regret was his inability to tread the decks of a Human Nation’s war-ship. The call of outer space was strong. He would willingly have relinquished his "cushy job" to be in command of the slowest little space-boat flying the colours of the Human Nation.
"I’d love talking to you, but I’m very much in a hurry, unfortunately," said Astley at length.
“Where are you going?”
"Just off to the station, old man," replied Astley. "Want to get home now. Take the regular express liner."
"Not at all," said Tanguy-Raucoule, with a grin.
“What’s that?” bawled Astley.
"Still living in your old place, I guess?” speculated Tanguy-Raucoule.
Astley nodded, in order to save time.
“It’s centuries old and very beautiful, and you have your roots there, so your family won’t move out of there. – You see I’m doing intelligence work now, so I do a little bit of thinking”, boasted Tanguy-Raucoule, showing off his ability to draw conclusions.
“So what…?” Astley was getting jittery.
“I doubt it, old friend, that you’ll go home taking the regular express liner. You've missed it. - No, I'm not to blame. It had gone long before you tried to commit hara-kiri under my glider. Look here; hop in and I will drop you at Maple Leave Town Ground Station in plenty of time to pick up the liner to Planet Charles Baker. There, you can change and get home still well in time."
Astley accepted the invitation with alacrity. Being whisked through the air in a comfortable glider was infinitely to be preferred to being cooped up in a subway-carriage after a tedious wait in an overcrowded metro station. Having spent so much time in the comparative solitude of outer space, Astley felt uncomfortable with too many people too close by; especially if he didn’t know them.
It turned out that the regular liner to Planet Charles Baker was already over-booked. The next possibilities for Astley to get going into the direction of his home were leaving only in sixteen hours.
“Will need to stay in a hotel over-night”, the young junior lieutenant on vacation told his old friend.
“No way”, declared Tanguy-Raucoule. “You see, we have some means that you may not be familiar with.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Military intelligence, I am talking about”, replied Tanguy-Raucoule. “You see, I can have a look at what military couriers are scheduled, where convoys are going, Space Fleet vessels on patrol duty. I’ll just see who’s going into your direction and I’ll make them offer you a ride. You’ll be home before even the liner arrives, trust me!”
Astley agreed.
Presently, Tanguy-Raucoule made his glider turn and approach the nearest ground station, where he parked the vehicle on the preferential lot for official used.
Soon later, the two befriended officers stood in front of the command master sergeant in charge of the military flight schedules. Before Tanguy-Raucoule could get a slot for Astley, his friend had to be identified. By the use of biometric scanning, this was conducted quite quickly. With the identity of Astley confirmed as worthy member of the Human Nation Space Fleet, and Tanguy-Raucoule confirmed as officer of the Military Intelligence, the latter was able to access the requested information and soon after had really – just as promised - organised a ride on a frigate doing patrol work, and going right from here to where Astley needed to reach.
The flight was scheduled to leave in two hours. In the meantime, the officers wanted to sit in the military lounge reserved for service members of their rank and talk; about the old times and all those things. Soon, though, they came to touch the subject of the great battle in the Inter-Arm Void.
“They gave us hell!” declared Tanguy-Raucoule. “Not allowed to tell that officially, but its looking very bad for us. We deployed double as many ships and each ship on average fired of double as many missiles and yet we hit half as many as they did.”
“That is…” stammered Astley.
“Exactly”, confirmed Tanguy-Raucoule. “They destroyed double as many of our ships as we destroyed of their ships. And per ship destroyed, it took us double as many missiles.”
Astley gulped. “Any reasons known?”
“Still in the process of analysis”, replied the military intelligence officer.
“Preliminary results?” asked Astley. “Armchair reasoning?”
Tanguy-Raucoule opened his mouth to answer but just in that moment, the command sergeant major entered the officers’ lounge. “Sir, lieutenant Tanguy-Raucoule, message for you, sir”, he informed with over-eager military correctness. The message had come from fairly high above, so the soldier decided that he had to add some superior stiffness to his anyway perfect formality.
When Tanguy-Raucoule came back from reading, he smiled at Astley.
“Seems we have something for you”, the military intelligence officer said to his space fleet comrade. “We need somebody to find out something for us on location. – I mean, go there and have a look. Seems they saw your report and decided that you were the right fellow for the job.”
T H E E N D