by Lance Berry
“Wow, I can’t believe my sister married David Christenson,” Peter was saying as his hand shot forward toward the captain.
David chuckled in a friendly manner and accepted the hand.
“Actually, there are some days I can’t believe it either. I’m an extremely lucky man.” He then looked at Mark. “You’ve done a fine job raising this woman, sir. Commendable.”
For a moment, it seemed that Mark didn’t know what to say.
“She’s always been a good girl,” was all he could find to offer.
Sara went to shake David’s hand, but the flagship captain instead took hers gently in his own and bent down to kiss the back of her palm in gentlemanly fashion. She giggled, impressed and flattered. Mark gestured to the table. “Well, dinner won’t serve itself. Let’s have a seat. Sara, give me a hand, would you—?”
Dinner consisted of flank steak, garlic potatoes, corn, collard greens and biscuits, all prepared by Mark and Sara only a half hour before David and Mara had arrived.
“Dad, I have to say I’m impressed. You’ve become quite the cook over the years,” Mara gushed. “And Sara…these collard greens are taking me all the way back to being a little kid in Biloxi!”
“Thanks,” Sara replied, and appeared to be genuinely touched by the sentiment.
Mark finished chasing a forkful of corn with some wine, then chimed in. “I finally learned to serve up more than ration-worthy dinners after you left, Mara. It took some doing— watching some of those criminally boring cooking shows—but I can at least make spaghetti now.”
Mara let out a laugh, then calmed herself enough to answer her husband’s questioning look. “Dad used to be so bad at cooking the simplest things! He’d put spaghetti in a pot, but never measure out the water right to submerge the whole thing.
So he’d cook one end soft, then turn it over in the pot for the other end. He could never understand why, when he pulled it out, it was always still hard in the middle!”
David, Peter and Sara laughed as well at this. “I remember that,” Peter said with a half-full mouth. “I used to beg Dad to order in on spaghetti night!”
“I remember a couple times when you actually cried,” Sara remarked with a love-tap to his shoulder.
“Did not!”
“Did so!”
“Alright, all right…so I wasn’t Chef Cosmique,” Mark said, referring to the most famous of the staid cooking shows. “But at least you had some sort of food on the table. There are others who are much worse off than we are, even in this enlightened political time.”
Sara nodded, suddenly serious. “God bless ‘em.” Peter picked up on the inference and looked to David. “What’s your take on the Freeholder situation, sir? If you don’t mind my asking?”
David took a sip of wine, considering the question carefully before answering. “It’s a slippery slope, Peter. On the one hand, the squatters who’ve taken up residence in the mostly undamaged portions of Maine have, in my opinion, every right to be there. I don’t want to sound critical of our government, but I believe that after the nuclear bombing by the Calvorians, those in charge of UEF back then didn’t respond fast enough.
Or at the least, with not enough resources. Of course, what goes on in the Freehold now should be stopped…or possibly minimalized as much as it can be.”
“Minimalized?” Sara said mockingly. “There’s rape gangs in there! There’s murder on an almost weekly basis, theft of property and people, from what I hear! How much ‘minimalizing’ is enough for a situation like that?”
“Sara,” Mark said sharply. “You watch your tone towards our guest!”
“No, it’s quite all right,” David said as he waved dismissively. “I can see the same passion in her for justice as in her elder sister here,” he said and smiled briefly at his wife.
“She’s going to make some man very lucky someday…if he can avoid being burned by her fire.”
Sara cocked her head quizzically, as if trying to discern his sincerity. She blushed and lowered her head slightly as she took in another forkful of collards. David set his own fork down and leaned forward a bit, looking to each of the Elliots in turn as he said, “No one’s really certain how accurately the pressnets can report on a situation like the Maine Freehold, when no one can legally enter it. From what our intelligence gathers, sending troops in would be like engaging in guerrilla warfare, much like the U.S./Iraqi War of the early 21st Century…and we all know how that turned out. Until we can gather accurate intelligence, we should be attempting to ascertain all facts about the Freehold and the status of its citizens, rather than conjecture. Then a solid and decisive plan should be put into effect. Send an amount of troops in to minimalize criminal activities, then pacify the criminal element. Then lock down the Freehold permanently. But again, Sara…I agree that our leaders are moving too slow on that point.” He smiled that disarming smile of his as this last was uttered, and Sara nodded mutely in agreement.
The conversation continued fairly pleasantly from that point on. Peter asked David numerous questions about flying DFCs in Her Majesty’s Royal Star Force, until Mark finally shut him down in order to allow the captain to be able to finish his meal.
Mara grilled Sara on details of her boyfriend, and to the elder sibling’s surprise, she was remarkably forthcoming. After dinner, the family entire sat down to watch a sit-com. Then it was finally time for the couple to head back to their hotel on Earth. Mara said her goodbyes to her brother and sister, and Mark walked the couple to the door.
“I have to be honest with you both: I was very disappointed…and hurt, Mara…that none of us were invited to your wedding. David, my daughter and I have had our major differences over the years, but what she might not realize is that I am very proud of her. I should have been there to share in the happiness on your wedding day. And nothing in the universe will convince me that I’m wrong on that point.”
Mara had bowed her head slightly, embarrassed. “You’re right. I was holding onto past grudges, and I guess it was really without even knowing why. I’m sorry, Dad. I want us to be close again, and I guess we’ll both have to try harder.” She said this last while pointing to David and herself.
“That’s all I can ask,” Mark replied. He leaned forward, and this time placed the kiss properly on his daughter’s forehead.
She smiled and kissed him on the cheek. Mark offered his hand to Christenson once more, and the captain accepted. “You take care of my daughter out there. Anything happens to her, and I’m coming looking for you.”
David nodded. “Her life comes before mine, sir. You have my word on that.”
Chapter 36
Four years passed. It was now 2189, and a great many things changed.
UEF found itself keeping the Calvorians away from their home space, yet still not actually reclaiming much territory.
The Calvorians in turn began fighting with a greater ferocity, in order to make inroads to finally reaching Earth. It was an odd type of status quo without victory on either side, maintained against the will of both parties, yet it endured.
Doctor Benjamin Williams eventually transferred to the
Horizon, replacing former CMO Lana Barrows, who was promoted and became chief of staff of a new medical center on Mars. Mara Christenson was very happy to finally meet the man that had helped put her traumatic past behind her, and the doctor often joined her and David for picnics in the new arboretum that had been placed aboard ship during a stopover at the Hephaestus Shipyards.
The crews of Heavy Cruisers were sometimes away from Earth for weeks, months, or even years at a time—and so the arboretum was put aboard the Horizon as a trial run, to see if the park-like setting would help to ease the homesickness many crew members experienced. It contained several different types of trees, live birds, flowers, a walking path with benches placed at irregular intervals, a large pond and babbling brook. Both watered areas would drain automatically when general alert was sounded, in order to keep water from splas
hing every which way in reaction to the sometimes jarring movement of the ship.
Hugh McCaffie, the ship’s engineer, earned enough service credits to retire from active service. He was replaced by Lieutenant Jamie Hughes, who at the age of 18, was the youngest chief engineer to ever serve aboard an Earth vessel, let alone its flagship. Jamie was granted special dispensation partially because of her status as intellectus superior, a new breed of human so intelligent that Identity Quotient tests were not accurate enough to gauge the limits of her learning power.
Another reason she was allowed to serve in such a position was because of something she had done to aid the Earth government while still in school…what this was exactly, she was under direct orders from the highest levels of Command not to reveal. Even David Christenson’s inquiries from UEF Command met with polite yet firm rebukes. Nevertheless, Jamie became a trusted member of the crew in a short amount of time, and she and Mara enjoyed a sister-like relationship.
Mara and David’s marriage was a happy one, almost too good to be true. In a time of horrendous warfare, when soldiers fought and died every day, their union seemed to be something straight out of a storybook. They even commanded well together, their methods and tactical strategies complimenting one another.
Late one night after they’d gotten off duty, David was sitting at the vid-com in their expanded quarters—Tanner Matthews had surprised them when they returned from their honeymoon by having the walls between the captain’s and first officer’s quarters removed in order to create one master suite—while Mara finished drying her hair, readying herself for bed. “Dear, take a look at this,” David said with a nod toward the screen.
Mara walked over and sat on the edge of his lap as she studied the screen. There was a picture of a young, handsome black lieutenant on it. “What’s this?”
“Since that debacle at Doradus, I’ve been pouring over files to find us a suitable helmsman—”
“I’ve been doing the same thing,” Mara interjected. “As a matter of fact, that is technically my job. You don’t need to do that, let me handle it.”
David wrapped his free arm around her, lightly rubbing her thigh as he answered, “I trust your judgment, of course. But as captain, I do need to be involved in every aspect if I’m to command properly. Once I’m dead and gone, you’ll understand when you take charge.”
He had said this last jokingly, but Mara didn’t appreciate it.
“Don’t say things like that. You know I don’t like it.”
His nose crinkled mischievously. “I’m going to will the ship to you—”
“Don’t say things like that.”
David got the point. “Sorry.” He looked to the vid-com once more. “Anyway, take a look at this fellow. Travis Rand.”
Mara leaned forward, reading the file and tabbing keys to advance to certain spots. “Interesting, but not too distinguished. Says he’s currently helmsman aboard the Archimedes.”
“Yes…but look here,” he said, quickly scrolling back to a certain point.
Mara read what was there and her eyebrows rose. “Bullshit.
No way.”
David shook his head. “Wouldn’t be in here if it wasn’t true.
He defeated a Calvorian soldier in hand-to-hand combat on Argones Four. In my entire career, I’ve never heard of anything like it.”
Mara was astonished. “How?
”
David pointed to an area of the file. “He used a type of martial art called Jeet Kune Do.”
“Never heard of it, but he must have been one hell of a student, to pull that off…” She trailed off, studying his photo for a moment.
“What?” David finally asked.
Mara let out a light chuckle and shook her head in disbelief.
“Oh, my lord…” She snickered again and wagged her finger at the screen. “Remember I told you about that time at Westview, when two visiting noodle-noggins made that comment about my breasts?”
“Yes. Actually, you said only one of them made a comment, but moved out of view so that you only caught a glimpse of his friend.”
“That’s the friend.”
David did a double-take, looking to Mara, then back to the service photo on the screen. “Him?”
Mara nodded in certainty. “I’ve always been bad with recalling names, but you know I never forget a face. There’ve been people I’ve seen on the tram ten years after I first saw them somewhere else, and I’ll always remember their face.
That is definitely him.”
David’s mouth scrunched up a bit. “Well, if that’s the case…”
“We should have him on board.”
David looked at her in puzzlement. “Why? He obviously offended you in the past, and—”
Mara waved him off. “It’s nothing. They were a couple of stupid kids, and he really didn’t do anything. We’re looking at his file, not his idiot friend’s, anyways. And look here,” she said as she scrolled to another section of Rand’s service file. “It says he prevented one of his classmates from murdering another.
He also pulled out of a DFC plunge that by all rights he shouldn’t have survived.” She tapped the photo with her index finger. “He’s obviously matured quite a bit in the intervening years. From all accounts, he’s someone who’s forthright, doesn’t hesitate to do the right thing when called upon, and has no hesitation in facing the enemy. Rand has a lot of potential, and we need that.” She crossed her legs as she adjusted herself slightly on his lap. A wry smile spread across her face.
“Besides, we can have some fun with him when he comes on board. I want the opportunity to tease the hell out of him for that incident. You’re the flagship captain…make it happen.”
David laughed. “I don’t know…I’m not sure I like the idea of having a former admirer of my wife’s ample gifts on board.” He clutched her breasts in his hands, pushing them together as he addressed them directly. “What do you girls think,” he said over his wife’s abrupt peal of laughter. “Do you think we should bring this Rand character on board so he can ogle you from afar?” He then placed his ear against one of the breasts, pretending to listen.
“What do they say?” Mara said between laughs.
David sighed lightly as he released the mammaries. “The twins have always been stubborn, as far as I’m concerned. But I guess the decision’s been made.” He looked to the screen once more, his expression becoming somewhat more serious as he said, “Only the best serve aboard our ship…and it’s true, he could very well be that, one day. We’ll put him in as second chair, after McCarthy.”
Mara reached over to the vid-com’s touchpad and tabbed in commands, checking Rand’s service number. “All right,” she said. “I’ll put in the transfer request for him tomorrow.”
“Thank you, darling.”
Mara caressed his cheek and they shared a tender kiss.
“Come to bed. The girls want to say hi.”
A few weeks later, Travis Rand transferred over from the Archimedes. Mara and David did indeed seize upon the first opportunity to tease him about the incident at Westview, but the young lieutenant-commander was a good sport about it. To the couple’s surprise, Ben Williams and Travis were old acquaintances from a time when the doctor treated the young man for an injury at Ben’s former M.A.S.H. posting on Titan.