by Lance Berry
“Are you serious?” he asked, more than somewhat amazed.
Mara nodded enthusiastically. “Remember when I was six, and we were staying on that base in Biloxi? There was a parade, and I marched behind it?”
“I remember your mother crying hysterically when we realized you had walked away from us in the crowd,” Mark said gruffly. “I remember being close to shooting my Zuk-Lar in the air to get everyone’s attention and force them to spread out to look for you.” His tone and features lightened slightly as he added, “Boy, but you did march perfectly in-step though.
Looking every bit in the world like a little soldier.”
“Except for my polka-dot dress.”
Mark chuckled. “Yeah. Except for that. But the Citadel…
Mara, they’re so exclusive…what made you decide?”
Mara started to shrug, but then remembered what happened the last time she had done that to her father. She simply shook her head. “Well, I guess with all the different bases we stayed on while I was little, I just sort of came to really like the structure I saw. And with all that’s been going on with the war recently, I really want to do my part. I honestly believe that with the right weapons and enough manpower, we can win this war. I want to be a part of that fight.”
Mark nodded slowly, looking at his daughter with a type of appreciative wonder. “That’s very good, Mara. Very noble.
You’ve only got one thing wrong…”
Mara stared at him in puzzlement, and Mark stepped forward and placed his hands on her shoulders. “It’s with enough womanpower that we’ll win this war.” He smiled as he said this, which made her smile in return.
“So…is it okay?”
Mark nodded again. “I’m proud of you, sweetheart. As proud as I could have ever hoped to be.” He pulled her forward and she laid her head against his chest as they embraced, feeling his heart beat—happily, she imagined—beneath her. It had been quite a long while since the two of them had hugged, and Mara wanted to savor the moment for all it was worth.
“Well, this is a nice development,” Gloria said quietly as she approached from the rear of the apartment. “I wish I had a camera.”
Mark and Mara broke their embrace. He nodded his chin at Gloria as he asked his daughter, “Did you tell her?” Mara shook her head. “You can do it, Dad.”
A proud smile beamed across his face. “Honey, our daughter just informed me that she was accepted into one of the most prestigious military academies on Earth. She’s going to be joining the Citadel.”
The smile which had been on Gloria’s face disappeared instantly. “What?” she said in disbelief, then looked at Mara, appalled. “What did I just hear?”
Mark unwrapped his arm from around Mara’s waist and held his hands up to his wife in a placating gesture. “Now, honey—I know you’re against the war…”
“I’m not against the war,” Gloria snapped, then lowered her voice abruptly as she remembered the sleeping child three rooms back. “The Calvorians have made the war a necessary evil—of course I’m not against it. What I am against is our daughter going off to get herself killed!”
“Mom, I’m not going to get killed,” Mara said, almost amused by her mother’s overreaction. “I’m going to—”
But Gloria stepped up directly to her, waving a finger in her face. “Don’t you dare presume to think that you know the future! Only God can know the future! I thought I had raised you with better sense than this!”
“So does that mean I don’t have any sense?” Mark interjected angrily. It might be one thing for his wife to disagree with their daughter about her life choices, but to spread such a blanket statement about the organization he so proudly served was unconscionable.
“Of course not,” Gloria shot back, still trying to keep her voice low. “But we were both adults when we met, Mark—your life-plan had already been chosen and laid out! This is our child we’re talking about…and I don’t think she’s thought this through all the way.” She said this last with a deliberate and meaningful look at Mara.
The eldest daughter in the Elliot family crossed her arms defiantly. It killed her, tore Mara apart inside, to see her mother in such anguish over a decision she had made…but she was determined not to lose this argument. “I want to do my part to keep Earth free,” she said, and couldn’t believe she was able to keep the empathetic tears she felt for her mother from flowing.
“And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that,” Mark added in solidarity.
Gloria’s bottom lip scrunched up as she shook her head in defeat. She looked at Mara one more time, hoping for a last-minute deviation from the road she had set herself upon…but no such divergence was forthcoming. “Then I guess we’ll just have to see what happens.” Gloria said sadly. She turned and headed back to the third room down the hall to check on Sara once again.
Gloria never mentioned the Citadel again, or Mara’s enrollment into the institution. Whenever Mark or their elder daughter brought the subject up in conversation, she listened silently for a while, politely, then changed the topic at the first opening. Both Mark and his oldest learned to take the matriarch’s cue, and easily dove into whatever subject she preferred to discuss.
Mara entered the Citadel later in the year and decided to take up courses in command principles, which were designed to provide rigid discipline that would enable the students to have careers leading them to attain the ranks of Heavy Cruiser captains. She lived at the campus on Earth and did exceedingly well in her courses, even winning the Nancy Mace Award for Academic Excellence in her second year. Yet she was unaware that her decision to enlist in the military had sparked an intense ongoing debate between her parents. Gloria was convinced that Mara had signed up solely to garner her father’s affection, and that she truly had no idea what she had gotten herself into.
Mark defended Mara’s actions and called his wife’s accusations not only baseless, but intensely stupid as well. Unbeknownst to either Mara or now six year-old Sara, the couple’s marriage came dangerously close to dissolution more than a few times over the matter.
The arguments didn’t last too long though, once Gloria realized she was pregnant again. The news brought her and Mark back together a bit, and both the girls were ecstatic, especially Sara, who relished the chance to finally be a big sister herself. With Mara doing so well in school, Sara, and the new life growing within Gloria bringing joy into the Elliot home once more, things were finally sailing along on a smooth and pleasant course…
Chapter 1
Stephanie Poole rolled over in bed, her face scrunching up at the sound of the buzzing vid-com on the desk at the other side of the room. “For God’s sake, get that, Nick,” she said in groggy annoyance. Nicholas Sterling threw the covers off and climbed out of bed, casting a mixed glance of irritation and desire at the young black woman with the impossibly smooth and round posterior.
Sterling and the married woman had been having a sexual affair for about four years now, ever since they met aboard the shuttle arriving at Luna, when he had escorted the pregnant passenger off the ship. Most women he had bedded, whether married, involved in a steady dating relationship or otherwise, were never reluctant at all to sleep with him. His father had taught him how to easily charm the underwear off nearly any woman, but Stephanie had been more of a challenge. He had to work to get her into bed—it had taken nearly six months—but finally she succumbed to his charms, and it had been well worth it. He enjoyed doing her, and unlike when she was with her husband, she enjoyed letting herself go to the fullest during what came to be known by her and Sterling as their “therapy sessions.” She could be commanding when necessary, but was generally submissive as he liked, and did things for him that she would never dream of doing with her husband, a thoughtless clod who worked construction at the south side of Alpha base.
Just thinking about climbing back into bed with Stephanie made him stir below, but he forced himself to focus as he switched on the com and the face of his
head nurse popped into being. “Doctor Sterling! Thank goodness I’ve reached you!”
“What’s going on, Agatha?” Sterling asked, concerned. The forty-something head nurse was usually the calmest soul he had ever encountered. Calvorians could blast their way into the operating room during surgery, and she would be the one to ask if they had an appointment before going on to pass him some dermal sealant.
“It’s your patient, Mrs. Elliot…she’s gone into labor, but there seems to be some difficulty. She’s experiencing more pain than normal.”
“I’ll be right there,” Sterling said certainly, and switched off the com before Agatha could reply. He jumped to his feet and hurried to the bed. Looking at Stephanie, who had rolled away from his side of the bed to go back to sleep, he was tempted for a micro-second to get in a quickie. He shook his head, forcing himself to come back to reality as he sat down on his side and picked up his pants, shoving one leg then the other into them.
He stood up to fasten them securely, and slapped Stephanie on the rear, jarring her awake.
“Wake up, babybuns. Time to get out.”
“Well, thank you very much,” she sniped. “After all we did together the last few hours, and you’re kicking me out just like that?”
“One of my patients is having complications with her labor.
I’ve got to get moving, which means you’ve got to get moving.”
Stephanie sat up now, a small frown drawing her youthful features tight. She was a mother as well, and had some empathy for women in that situation. “Is she going to be okay?”
“It’s probably nothing,” Sterling answered as he found his shirt, which had somehow come to rest under the bed rather than beside it. “Possibly some intestinal cramping, or the baby might be facing the wrong way. Long as I get there quick, I can handle it. So, would you please—?” he said as he gestured to the panties and nightgown he picked up off the floor—the only things she had worn underneath her coat when she arrived earlier.
Soon enough, both were dressed and headed for the door.
They kissed and fondled each other all the way from the bedroom through the living room and to the foyer. “Good luck with your patient,” she said as she finished giving him one last lingering kiss. “I don’t need luck,” he said as he opened the front door. “I’m—”
He stopped and Stephanie cried out in surprise as they saw her husband, Tye, standing just outside in the apartment complex hallway. A moment of unpleasant silence fell between the three of them.
“Doctor,” Tye said, an almost neutral expression on his face as he broke the silence. He then looked to his wife. “Bitch,” he said pleasantly, and it was only then that Stephanie realized the large black man had on a long coat. Tye opened the coat… revealing the machete his grandfather had left to him among other heirlooms when he passed away.
“Commander Elliot? I’m Doctor Mtumbe,” the slender, bespectacled black man said as he approached Mark, who was sitting anxiously in the base hospital’s pre-op waiting room.
Mark stood and eagerly shook the hand Mtumbe had offered him.
“I’m sorry that Doctor Sterling hasn’t shown yet. I have absolutely no idea what could be keeping him,” Mtumbe said apologetically.
“How’s my wife?” Mark asked in as normal a tone as he could manage. He had just arrived from work when Gloria went into labor, and hadn’t had time to change, so he was still wearing his green security uniform—in his mind, it wouldn’t do for anyone to see him in an agitated state of any kind.
“Your wife and child are doing just fine,” Mtumbe said confidently. “We just did a micro-sound, and the baby’s heart is strong and healthy. Your wife’s blood pressure is up slightly and she says she’s having a little more pain than she remembers from when she had your first two children. The fact that she’s older now, of course, factors into this, and we’re looking to give her something modest to alleviate the pain. However, I feel there should be no problems with h—oops, almost let the gender slip—its delivery. I’m sorry, I read your doctor’s file and I know that you and your wife wanted to be surprised with this one’s sex. It’s just that I find childbirth to be such a wonderful duty as opposed to the routine, that I sometimes can’t contain myself.”
Mark nodded in empathy, and allowed himself a slight yet relieved smile. “It’s okay. We’ve been looking forward to having another child for a while now. So both of them are fine, then?”
“Yes. However, your wife’s contractions are coming along rather closer together now. She should be allowed to give birth.
I don’t know what’s keeping Sterling, but I’d like to just get started.”
Mark unintentionally frowned. “No offense Doctor, but I would really like to wait for him. It’s just that I know him…you know, when Gloria was in labor with our second child, she was in an awkward spot. She was on a shuttle coming into the lunar base.”
“I’ve read Sterling’s notes on the matter,” Mtumbe said with a curt nod. Time was precious, and he wanted to cut to the chase.
Mark nodded in a type of understanding. “Well, back then
Sterling gave her some medication to slow her contractions until he could get her here. Can’t you give her another shot of that?”
“Commander Elliot…the drug he gave her, dilauinar, is a very powerful inhibitive. It’s not recommended in the best of cases, and as far as I’m concerned Doctor Sterling shouldn’t have used it at all. It is a decent drug for stalling off a birth, but it can have a cumulative and injurious effect on the respiratory system if used more than once. Believe me, I am by no means being hyperbolic in the slightest when I say that the shock to your wife or the baby could doom them.”
Mark expelled a harsh gust of breath in shock. He had to hand it to this man, he pulled no punches. Mark lowered his head slightly and nodded in resignation. “Okay… okay,” he said quietly. “Get started, then. I’ll just wait here.”
Mara was in the midst of tucking Sara into bed when the doorbell chimed. She had no idea who could be ringing at this hour, her father hadn’t called to tell her to expect anyone. She and Sara shared the same curious look, but Mara quickly smiled to cover up the slight apprehension they both felt. She wished Sara pleasant dreams, kissed her on the forehead as the bell rang again, then turned on her sister’s night light. Mara rose, turned off the overhead light and closed the bedroom door partway as she exited the room. On the path down the hallway, she made a quick right into her parents’ bedroom, the lights coming on automatically as she entered. Mara opened the closet and removed her father’s Zuk-Lar handgun from its holster. He had shown her how to use it years before as a precaution for moments such as this.
Although Luna had a crime rate of less than ten percent, humans still sometimes did evil things to one another, and her father had wanted Mara to know what to do in case of trouble. While not overly full of ego, Mara was aware that she was a very attractive young woman—her parents told her so, and enough boys and men had made passes at her on both Luna and Earth that she couldn’t help but be aware of it. Mother Nature had also favored her, bestowing her with an ample bosom by the time she was fourteen, in addition to her good looks. While being able to protect her younger sister if her parents were away was of course the priority, she also knew full well the other reason why her father had taught her how to use his gun.
She left the safety on and set the Zuk-Lar down on the nightstand near the door. Mara didn’t want to bring a loaded gun to the door, for fear of shocking the person on the other side, who for all she knew was actually just a friend come calling. She was in perfect running shape however, and knew she could pretty much outrace anyone if she needed to, to pick up the gun once more—she and her father had practiced such a drill several times.
The doorbell rang a third time, and Mara stood on her toes as she looked through the peephole. She saw that it was Mrs.
Tan, the lady two houses down. Mara smiled as she opened the door; Mrs. Tan was a friendly woman with a
n always pleasant demeanor. “Hi, Mrs. Tan, how—” she began, but stopped abruptly as she saw the troubled look on the young Vietnamese woman’s face…a look she had never seen before. “Is everything okay?”