by Smith, Glenn
One man in particular though, a tall and slender Cirran, seemed to go out of his way to avoid him, as if being in close proximity to an Earth soldier might somehow adversely affect him. Odd behavior, considering that Solfleet had led the assault that had liberated their world from Veshtonn domination a few years ago. Oh well. “Guess you can’t please everybody,” he mumbled under his breath as the violet-eyed stranger moved to avoid him a second time.
Putting the stranger out of his mind—he had more immediate concerns, after all—Hansen stepped behind the royal-blue velvet curtain that separated the storefront from the private offices and paused one last time just outside Sir Nigel’s door. Having visited the elderly proprietor there on more than one occasion in the past, thanks to Heather’s behavior, he knew exactly which of the four identical gold-trimmed doors led to the man’s office. He gathered his patience, then knocked twice and stepped inside.
“Ah,” Worthington exclaimed from his seat behind the desk as he looked up. He stood up and reached across the desk to offer his hand. “Admiral Hansen. How nice to see you again, sir.”
Whether or not the proprietor was being sarcastic when he said that, Hansen couldn’t be sure. He certainly had every right to be, given the amount of grief Heather had caused him over the last few years. But knowing the gentleman as he did, Hansen sincerely doubted it.
He approached the desk and shook the man’s hand, and greeted him with a simple, “It’s good to see you, too, Colonel.” Then he clenched his jaw and glared down through blazing eyes at his delinquent daughter, who sat cowering in a chair just out of backhand range to his left, near the corner of the small office, staring silently at the floor in front of her, hair hiding most of her face from view. At least she’d worn some semi-decent clothing for a change, he noted, instead of the too sexy, often too revealing styles that she and most other girls her age usually wore these days. “I only wish our meeting were under better circumstances,” he added.
Worthington let go of the admiral’s hand and picked a sparkling gold chain necklace up off his desk and held it out, dangling it in front of him where Hansen could get a good look at it. “This is the necklace your daughter attempted to steal,” he explained. “One of my clerks saw her hold it up to the light, then drop it down inside the front of her blouse. When he confronted her, she tried to tell him that it was an accident, and that she had intended to take it out immediately. However, given her storied history in my establishment, he found that quite hard to believe. Honestly, Admiral, I do as well.”
Heather slapped her hands down on the arms of her chair and angrily exclaimed, “I swear to you, I wasn’t trying to steal it!” When both men looked at her and didn’t say anything right away, she seized the opportunity to explain to her father, “Dad! That clerk guy grabbed me like two seconds after I dropped it! He didn’t give me a chance to pull it out! And I wasn’t trying to leave the store, either! Hell, I wasn’t even facing the damn door!”
“You watch your language, young lady,” her father told her. Then he looked back at Worthington and folded his hands behind his back. “Grabbed her, Colonel?” he asked. “Your clerk put his hands on my daughter?”
“Damn right he did!” she adamantly asserted.
“You be quiet!” Hansen barked, glancing at her again, but only briefly. She clammed up immediately and averted her eyes.
Worthington dropped his gaze and exhaled as he carefully set the necklace back down on his desk, then looked back up at the admiral. “I’m afraid so, Admiral,” he readily admitted with regret. “Unfortunately, my employee did become somewhat overzealous in his duties, and for that, I sincerely apologize. I would like to add, however, that he only took her by the arm. I can assure you that nothing more inappropriate occurred.”
“I accept your assurance of that, sir,” Hansen told him. “I would never have suspected otherwise in your store.” Then he asked, as he reached into his breast pocket for his identicard, “So, would you like me to pay for the necklace, or...”
“Oh, heavens no, Admiral,” Worthington answered, deflecting the suggestion with a wave of his hand as if the idea were ridiculous. “Not at all. She didn’t damage it a bit.”
“All right,” he assented, slipping his card back into its place. “I do appreciate your calling me, Colonel, as I told you before, but...”
“Well, as I said on the line, Admiral,” the proprietor interjected, “you’ve always done right by me in these situations. You’ve even returned the things she stole without getting caught when you’ve found them. You’ve always acted honorably, and I thought it only proper to reward that honor by not involving the police in the matter. That being said, however, this is growing quite tiresome. I cannot allow this to go on any longer.”
“I understand completely, sir,” Hansen said, “and I assure you,” he continued as he turned and took a single, ominous step toward his daughter, staring down at her, “this will be the last time. You have my word on that.”
Heather gazed up at her father again, mouth open, but didn’t dare say a word. Everyone who knew him knew that Admiral Icarus Hansen wasn’t one to promise anything lightly or recklessly. If he gave his word that something wouldn’t happen again, then he had a plan in mind to ensure that that would indeed be the case.
“As of right now, young lady,” he continued, his voice filled with unyielding authority, “you are confined to our quarters for at least two weeks.”
“You’re grounding me?” she asked timidly.
“Yes, Heather, I’m grounding you,” he assured her. “And for the next six months, you are not permitted to set foot inside this store for any reason unless I’m with you. Do you understand me, young lady?”
“But me and my friends come in here every weekend!” she complained.
“I said, do you understand me?” her father repeated unwaveringly.
She huffed and turned her face away. “Yes, sir, Admiral, sir,” she answered sarcastically, but nonetheless submissively. “I understand you.”
“Good.” He turned back to the proprietor. “And please, Colonel Worthington, if my daughter does come in here without me at any time over the next six months, feel free to contact Civil Security and have her arrested, before you call me.”
“Dad!” she exclaimed, glaring up at him again.
Her father silenced her with a simple look, then continued, still speaking to Worthington, “You’ve been more than patient, sir. I’m truly sorry for all the trouble.”
“I appreciate your saying so, Admiral. Thank you.”
At that very moment, a pair of uniformed Civil Security officers walked in and quickly scoped out the room. Clean cut and muscular, they were two of the most confident and professional looking civilian law enforcement officers Hansen had ever seen. A frightened look of concern crossed Heather’s face as soon as she saw them. She licked her suddenly dry lips and swallowed hard.
“Admiral Hansen, I presume?” the one with the single chevron on his sleeves said in a clear, baritone voice after glancing over the admiral’s uniform.
“That’s right,” Hansen acknowledged with a nod.
“The chief said you needed some help here, sir?”
“Yes indeed, gentlemen,” he confirmed. He pointed Heather out to them. “This young lady here is my not yet fifteen year old daughter, Heather, and she’s gotten herself into a bit of trouble.” It wasn’t that he didn’t trust the officers. But with Heather looking the way she did, and human nature being human nature, he’d thought it prudent to let them know how young she was. “Now, I have to get back to my office, so I’d appreciate it if the two of you would escort her back to our quarters and see that she’s locked inside for the day.”
“Dad!” she shouted. “That’s not...”
“I don’t want to hear one more word out of you right now, Heather!” he scolded, pointing at her almost as if his finger were a lethal weapon. “You’re damn lucky I don’t just march you straight over to juvenile confinement!”
“Sure thing, Admiral,” the other officer said with a shrug of his shoulders. “We’ll be more than happy to take her home for you.”
“Good. I’ll leave it to her to lead the way to our quarters, but if she starts leading you on some kind of wild goose chase or gives you any grief at all, go ahead and lock her up for the rest of the day, on my authority as her sole parent, and I’ll pick her up this evening. Clear?”
“As crystal, sir,” the ranking officer answered. “No problem.”
“Thank you, gentlemen. Please, proceed.”
The officers took up positions on either side of her. “You heard your father, miss,” the second officer said. “Stand up. Let’s go.”
Heather huffed again as she stood up wearing an angry scowl on her face and gave her father a look that would have killed him if her eyes had been laser emitters, then stormed out of the office with the officers flanking her on both sides.
“Thank you again, Colonel Worthington,” Hansen said as soon as they closed the door, offering his hand.
“I hope your day improves, Admiral,” Worthington told him as they shook hands.
“Yeah, so do I,” Hansen agreed. And with that, he turned and walked out.
Chapter 5
Starcarrier U.E.F.S. Victory
Earth Standard Date: Saturday, 17 July 2190
Captain Suja Bhatnagar grasped the arms of her chair and slid forward to the edge of her seat, watching the action unfold on the enormous main viewscreen through unblinking eyes as her vessel’s last four plasma torpedoes soared through space and closed on the wounded and fleeing Veshtonn battlecruiser. Both interceptor squadrons, having already launched and formed a wide defensive perimeter in anticipation of the ambush, had been more effective against the lone enemy vessel than she could possibly have hoped for. No sooner had the battlecruiser jumped in than the interceptors fell upon it like a swarm of angry hornets and quickly knocked out some of its most vital systems, including all of its offensive weapons. Incredibly, the enemy hadn’t gotten off a single shot at the Victory before they’d forced it to turn tail and run.
“Come on, my little babies,” she quietly coaxed, as if her gentle, coddling words might somehow encourage the torpedoes to pursue their prey a little bit faster. “Make mama proud.”
They glowed white-hot from launch, as bright as burning magnesium, but cooled quickly as they sailed through the icy cold of space, cycling through steadily darkening shades of yellow, orange, and red, then disappearing altogether in the distance.
“Tactical display,” Bhatnagar ordered the second she lost sight of them.
Dull green lines instantly appeared on the screen, forming a grid over the image of the exterior reality and breaking it into sectors identified by small numbers in the lower right corner of each square. A narrow, dull red oval marked the location of the shrinking enemy vessel, and four blinking blue dots represented the torpedoes, each with its own set of numbers, rapidly decreasing in value to indicate its distance from target.
In what would hopefully turn out to be their final act of desperation, the enemy suddenly threw what must have been every defensive countermeasure in its inventory at the incoming torpedoes, represented on the viewscreen by dozens of small red dots that formed what looked like a kind of glowing smokescreen over the enemy vessel. But once a Mark-II plasma torpedo locked onto a target, there was no fooling it. Theoretically at least.
Seconds seemed to stretch into minutes as all eyes remained glued to the screen. The red enemy vessel continued to shrink in the distance as it somehow still managed to outrun the pursuing Victory, despite the heavy damage the interceptors had inflicted upon it. The blue torpedoes continued to blink in their own, much faster pursuit. Knowing full well that the longer their pursuit dragged on, the less likely it was the torpedoes would hit their mark, the captain began to regret having given the order to fire, fearing that she’d wasted their last four torpedoes for nothing.
Then, just as she was about to proceed as if they had indeed missed their target, a blinding flare of super-heated gases like a small sun gone nova burst forth in the center of the screen and quickly expanded beyond its borders.
“Hell yeah!” the tactical officer exclaimed, waving her fist in triumph as she spun her chair around to face the captain. “Target destroyed, Captain!” she reported victoriously, just to make it official. “Completely annihilated!” she then added for good measure as she turned back to her console.
Lieutenant Julienne Irons wasn’t usually so loud and animated, and Captain Bhatnagar wouldn’t normally have tolerated such an outburst on her bridge. But the younger woman had received word only yesterday that her even younger brother, a Marine Corps PFC assigned to the Tripoli, had been killed in action two days earlier in this very star system, during a boarding action his unit had carried out against one of the Veshtonn command cruisers. Bhatnagar had suggested she take some time off afterwards to deal with her loss, but Irons had respectfully refused, saying simply that she had a score to settle with the lizards. Since that time, her already superior performance of duty had risen to a whole new level. So, as far as Bhatnagar was concerned, Lieutenant Irons’ dedication to her duties had earned her the right to celebrate every moment of her revenge. She was not going to rebuke her for it.
“Mister LaRocca,” she called out, turning to the helmsman instead. “Plot a course to the Tripoli’s sector and engage. Best speed. They need all the help they can get over there.”
“Already plotted, Captain,” the helmsman advised her as his long, slender fingers danced over both his helm and navigation controls at the same time. “Engaging now.”
Bhatnagar turned her chair around to face the fully manned four-station operations deck that dominated the rear of the bridge, and saw right away that the new engineering ensign was working there again—the teenaged-looking one whose name she could never seem to remember. That made three days in a row. Commander Marshall must really have felt a lot of confidence in the young man to assign him that much bridge time. The chief engineer usually rotated his young officers through bridge duty on a daily basis.
“Engineer,” she called out. But before she could say another word, her chair suddenly dropped out from under her and she found herself tumbling head-over-heels sternward across the ceiling as a thunderous crash and the crew’s pained and frightened screams resonated through the bridge. And then, when the artificial gravity promptly compensated for whatever catastrophe had befallen them, she fell backside-first to the operations deck with a solid thud. Excruciating pain like a high voltage electrical shock shot up her right side and down the length of her leg, and she let out a quick yelp of her own.
Purely out of instinct—she’d always preached that a ship’s captain should know her vessel’s heading at all times—she looked up at the viewscreen to find the stars rolling upward rapidly. Whatever had happened had sent the ship into a sudden and certainly unexpected high-speed positive pitch.
“What the hell was that?” she demanded as she picked herself up off the deck, wincing against the piercing pain that pulsed through her right side and shot down her leg again and again with every move she made. Then, glancing around the bridge to quickly assess the situation as she hobbled back to her chair through a thickening cloud of acrid smoke, she saw that those officers and crew who were able to, and who could afford to stay away from their stations for a few more moments, were busy running around the bridge with hand-held extinguishers—the automatic fire suppression system had apparently been knocked offline—putting out a number of small fires that had flared up.
Those personnel not helping with the fire control efforts were picking themselves up from wherever they’d come to rest and would resume their posts momentarily. As far as she could see, no one had been seriously injured. No small blessing, that, and one for which she was very grateful. She could only hope the s
ame held true throughout the rest of her ship.
“Whatever hit us came in from below and behind us, Captain,” Lieutenant Irons reported, standing behind her broken chair and leaning over it to read the computer’s impact analysis. Broken chair? Someone had to have been thrown directly into it for it to have been broken off of and then jammed down onto its shock absorbent mounts like that.
Bhatnagar watched as the tactical officer sat down very gingerly, fearing that the chair might not support her weight. But it did, at least for the present. “Where did the Saratoga go, Lieutenant?” she asked, squirming in her own chair, trying to find a sustainable position that minimized the pressure on her injured pelvis. She expected to have one hell of a bruise on the right half of her backside tomorrow. “They’re supposed to be covering our back.”
Irons targeted her scanners on the corvette. “They’re out of the fight for good, Captain. Both jump nacelles have been severed, and their main hull has been ripped in two and is drifting apart. Multiple fires burning on several decks. Cargo holds and engineering decks are venting atmosphere. Indications of secondary explosions...” She cross-checked the Victory’s onboard sensors. “As a matter of fact,” She straightened and turned to the captain, “our onboard sensors aren’t picking up any residual radiation from direct weapons impacts. I think it was a piece of the Saratoga that hit us.”
“Escape pods?” Bhatnagar inquired hopefully, still squirming. Her hip really hurt.
“I’m on that, Captain,” the helmsman chimed in. It wasn’t really his job of course, but he wouldn’t have wanted to inadvertently vaporize any of the Saratoga’s surviving crew who might have been drifting directly behind the Victory’s fusion cowlings, had Bhatnagar called for speed. “At least ninety escape pods are free and scattered all over the place. About two dozen more are indicating occupied but have so far failed to launch. Various allied vessels are moving in from all directions to pick them up.”