by Mark Wandrey
* * *
As Minu entered the lift in the Chosen Tower she looked at the button for the top floor, feeling the instinct to push it and go up to her old home. It was months since she'd requested her families be things moved to a storage locker in the basement. Someone else would be moving into that once familiar apartment, if he hadn't already. Jacob wasn’t married; he’d have a lot of spare room.
She exited in the basement and followed the signs. Quite a few Chosen lived in the tower from time to time and took advantage of the storage room to keep personal effects. Even with a last name like Alma, it took her a few minutes to find her stuff. All her family memories and experiences were reduced to ten uniform plastic bins stacked inside a painted square on the ceramic concrete basement floor. Minu pulled over one of the bins as a stool to sit on as she started going through the others.
An hour ago she'd left the reading of her father's will, the last step in the process of legal death. Minu never even considered that her father would have one. A city judge, two lawyers, and a half hour of legal bullshit later and her account was considerably fatter than before. And she owned some real estate now.
“It is my wishes that my daughter, Minu Alma, take possession of all my worldly goods, intellectual property, or other products of my person.” Unlike the rest of the legal will, that part was simple and straight forward. “There is only one condition to the will,” the lawyer explained before she signed the legal papers. “Your father has decreed that the family estate of Harper Island can never be sold. It can only be reverted in trust to the Plateau Historical Society or passed onto your own heirs.”
“I would sell it,” Minu assured them as she signed the many forms. Who knew dying required so much paper work?
“You know,” the judge said as they processed the forms, “that island and cabin is where Mindy Harper lived at the end of her life. You could make it into a quite lucrative tourist spot...if you were so inclined.”
Minu finished going through a box of clothes, marked it for charity and moved onto another. “A fucking tourist spot?” she said, her voice echoing in the abandoned basement. “What an asshole.” As she worked through her family possessions she quickly realized it was a mistake. The second box she found was from her father’s closet. And on the very top, carefully rolled into a towel by her months ago, was the wedding picture of her mother and father. The ghosts whispered in her ear with distant laughs and moments of intermittent joy. Hot tears rolled off her cheeks and splattered the glass of the picture frame. She picked up the coat upon which the frame had rested, her father’s winter jacket. It still smelled of his cologne. The thick wool caught and soaked up the torrent of tears.
Her father never forgave himself for being gone when her mother died. The torment was clear on his face at her funeral, and for many months afterwards as he threw himself into work with single minded determination. It was as if he hopped the fatigue of endless hours of duty would somehow scour away the anguish of losing the love of his life. Now she understood a little of that pain. Her dad was supposed to have died a million light years away. Not only did she never get to say good bye, she also lacked the closure he'd gotten when they lowered her mother into the sacred earth of their Plateau. No casket to lower into the earth and no grave marking his final resting place. Upstairs in the lobby of the tower, one wall of solid granite was carved with the names of all the Chosen, a collective monument to their sacrifice.
Minu replaced the picture and spent a harried few minutes going through boxes rapidly until she found hers. When she found the two bins they were just small enough to be carried while stacked one on top of another and still allow her to see around them. She carried them into the lift and up to the lobby where she sat them next to the main door.
The floor to ceiling granite monument was about thirty meters long by four meters tall and she'd hardly paid it any attention in all the years of walking past it day after day. The names were all in one centimeter tall script, a name followed by stars for their rank. They were grouped alphabetically based on date of service. She found her father about halfway along, almost at eye level. Some names farther along had no stars carved. You only got your stars added when you retired, or died. With typical Chosen efficiency, a single star was already carved next to his name. And like almost a third of those with stars on the wall, his was resplendent with gold leaf rubbed in. Those were the Chosen who’d gave their lives in service.
With a sigh she picked up her bins and headed toward the door. Just before she passed the end of the monument she stopped and went back to the newest names added. There she was, the last of the newest names added for her class. She cocked her head as she looked at those hundred names. They were carved from Alphonso to Yates. But there, after Yates, was Alma, Minu. That was weird. Someone must have screwed up. Her name came before Alphonso, why would her name be last?
She started to turn and go again, her arms getting tense from holding the bins for so long, when she noticed three of the newest hundred already had stars and gold leaf. Her eyes were drawn inexplicably to Higgens, William, in gold, with five stars. Such a simple footnote for a life lost in such a horrific manner. A little later was Johnson, Harry. Minu remembered hearing of his death in a training accident last year. And finally there was Krum, Alexis, also in gold with five stars. A candidate who died in the Trials was awarded a posthumous position as full Chosen. With one more sweeping glance over the wall she walked out of the tower.
Chapter 9
Octember 1st, 515 AE
Chosen Headquarters, Steven’s Pass
The flight to Steven’s Pass was very different from her first time. The Chosen ran regular flights between their installations so she only needed to wait an hour before a capsule shaped transport came buzzing in for a landing. Minu got a small thrill of importance as she walked across the ceramic concrete landing pad in full view of the large picture window crowded with passengers waiting for a scheduled dirigible flight. A woman stood holding the hands of her two children, both watching her pass with wide eyed wonder. Of the two, a girl about ten, stared with open mouthed amazement at seeing a female Chosen. Minu caught her eye and winked making the girl cry out in joy. She felt like a giant striding across that pad in her jet black Chosen jumpsuit. As she approached the transport, a door was already opening.
The Chosen pilot inside was talking to another sitting in the only occupied seat as she climbed inside. "Welcome aboard, Chosen," he said as she entered, automatically noting her stars to be sure he wasn't breaching protocol. The Chosen didn't go in for saluting and all that pomp of a true military, however adding a sir to a superior rank was a basic courtesy not to be ignored easily.
"Thank you," she said, noting his rank of four green stars. The passenger wore three green stars marking them both from the logistics branch. "Good afternoon, sir," she added to him as she secured her harness, a hard won habit from the Trials.
"Chosen," he said simply and went back to his conversation. Minu took a seat two rows farther back and tried not to listen in. The nature of the craft made it almost impossible, even as the gravitic impellers spun up and the vehicle jumped into the sky the noise level remained low enough to hear their every word.
"So what happened to the new transports we were supposed to be getting?" the pilot asked the three star.
"We have a deal in hand, the funding is the issue."
"Isn't it always?"
Both of them chuckled and shook their heads before the three star continued. "It's a never ending battle between the planetary modernization plan, funding and equipping of the Chosen, and the Tog keeping our scouts so busy they don't have much time to scrounge. We hardly have a credit to spare."
"Those transports are so sweet," the pilot complained. Now that his craft was airborne, he'd programmed the autopilot and swiveled his seat around to better talk with his passenger. "I test flew one last year,” the lust in his voice was almost sexual. “Fully programmable for multiple destinations, voice-ac
tivated, massive cargo capacity...”
"I know,” the older man said, “I was in on the evaluation and presentation to the Chosen Council. Don't forget a supersonic flight speed. They'd put those clunky old dirigibles out of business overnight. Of course, that’s part of the problem. The owner of one of the biggest freight lines, guy named Malovich, he's none too thrilled with the idea of the new transports. He's been heavily lobbying the civilian leadership council against the plan. 'An unnecessarily drastic modernization' he called it." The pilot made a raspberry sound and his passenger laughed. "Yeah, I hear he flies around in a personal aerocar he just bought recently. That doesn't seem too modern for his liking."
"I'm sorry," Minu spoke up, hoping she wasn't going to regret it. "I couldn't help but overhear your conversation."
"No problem Chosen," the older man said, "you have something to add?"
"Why would anyone be against modernization like that? I mean, the transports would be sold or leased to private companies anyway, right?"
"That's correct, but with much more efficient moving of freight he'll have to lower his costs considerably or be underbid by competitors. And of course there is the cost of leasing the transports versus domestically manufactured dirigibles, which are cheap and readily available. Most cargo dirigibles are just old passenger models."
Minu shook her head in consternation. "So for personal gain, he is slowing the growth of our entire planet."
"Pretty much, yep. He's not alone in that attitude."
Minu knew the Malovich family well and it really didn't surprise her a bit. "Maybe the Chosen should just buy them and operate them ourselves. Everyone would benefit except the credit pinching dirigible owners."
"That is a good idea!" the pilot said.
"It is," the three-star agreed, "the problem is the Charter."
"The Chosen Charter?" Minu asked. She remembered studying it first in school, then in Chosen training. A complex legal document enacted a century ago to create the Chosen. It set forth their powers, provided for basic funding, and in the same document limited the scope of their influence.
"Correct. It states the Chosen cannot profit from business endeavors on Bellatrix."
"Kind of counterproductive in this case, isn't it?"
"In many cases, but that is how it is. We're mostly above the law except when it comes to property and profit. It's a vague document, but interpreted by the courts we usually come out the losers. Politicians and legal types don’t much like us, we follow our own path and they can’t really do anything about it.”
"So that's why we permanently lease our facilities from the tribal councils?"
"Exactly."
"Minu thanked him for the information and he said it was his pleasure. It was another example of knowledge that one branch of the Chosen got which another didn't. She guessed that Cherise would know most of this as well. Logistics were often the more business savvy of the Chosen branches, and that apparently extended to legal matters as well.
For the remainder of the flight the pilot and passenger chatted about mundane issues like purchasing of power off world and the challenges of finding buyers for salvage. She noted that the profit exclusion extended to the Chosen selling salvage to private companies on Bellatrix. They were forced to sell them to the central government who then passed them along in a bidding process. That or to other Concordia species who often paid low-ball prices. It didn't seem very efficient to her. What would a woman who'd never held a real job know of economics?
The transport landed at the Steven’s Pass pad and she stepped from the perfectly controlled climate of the transport onto hard packed snow. A couple of bored looking civilians came over to unload cargo and she gave one of them her bins with instructions on where to take them. He nodded and left while the other began hooking up the transport to ground lines. The three-star departed the craft and quickly headed inside on his own business. Minu followed once her personal goods were taken care of.
The buildings of the complex were arrayed like spokes on a wheel; five of the six spokes corresponded to a branch of the Chosen and was four stories tall with a two level sub-basement. The spokes were connected to the central hub with a flying buttress in the color of the corresponding branch. The gold arch for command was the straight down the hall from the entrance as she walked from the landing pad. To her left was scout and logistics, to the right science and training. The six was generally only used as classrooms or storage. The entire complex was only about twenty percent occupied, including hundreds of Chosen billets in each wing, and showed considerable forethought by those who had designed it fifty years ago. Constructed from ceramic concrete and dualloy it would long outlive the great grandchildren of the Chosen currently in residence.
By having branch members billeted with their own kind it helped foster a sense of unit cohesiveness. Each hub was a standalone building connected to the circular hub by a tunnel at the fourth floor and ground level. The central hub was a huge courtyard garden on one side, and the portal facilities on the other to allow access to the distant warehouses. The hubs thick upper walls held dozens of offices mostly used by the command branch and the top floor housed the Chosen Council chamber and offices.
The empty spoke, number four, held her original barracks with Cherise and the other young five-star Chosen awaiting assignment. This would be the first time she was to be living with her own working team, and ironically it wouldn't be in the command hub. She went down the mostly empty spoke four. In the room she shared with Cherise she found one of the other girls studying and exchanged greetings. She said she'd been reassigned and the woman congratulated her. That was the extent of the conversation. Minu added a good bye after she packed and left without waiting to see if it was reciprocated.
Back down the hall, through the spoke, and into the science wing. It was Minu's first visit to science and she half expected the halls to be filled with wild eyed scientists, whirling experiments, and unfathomable devices. Instead it looked just like the other spoke she'd been living in the last year, only populated with Chosen mostly wearing the silver stars of science branch. Minu stopped in the first open office at the head of the hallway leading into the section. Like all the others spokes, this was the office of the branch coordinator.
A young five-star looked up when she entered. "Can I help you, ma'am?" he asked.
"I'm reporting for an assignment." The boy seemed dubious as he accepted the computer chip and slid it into his terminal. After a moment he nodded and spoke into thin air.
"Chosen Minu Alma is here, sir. Certainly."
"The Coordinator would like to speak to you," he said and gestured at a door behind him as he handed the chip back. Minu thanked him and came around the counter. The door was adorned with two silver stars and the name "Bjorn Ganose". Hoping protocol was the same in science, she knocked once and entered.
Bjorn Ganose came to his feet, tall thin frame unfolding gracefully. He looked the same as the last time she'd seen him at the after action report from the mission when William died. "Minu," he said and came around his desk with a huge smile. She heaved a sigh of relief and went forward to meet him half way. She almost went head over heels by tripping on a massive pile of electronic components. "Oops, sorry about that!" he said and gracefully caught her elbow. “Cleaning lady is out this week.” His huge head of wild gray hair, bushy mustache and equally bushy eyebrows gave him a slightly amusing countenance. His eyes were keen and always moving as he shook her hand with a firm but not overbearing grip. "I knew your father, you know" he said, nodding as if to agree with himself, "I was in the support team when he came through the Trials."
"Honored to meet you, sir."
"Pht," he spat and patted her on the arm, "any daughter of Chriso can call me Bjorn.” Sit and talk a minute," he said and gestured to a chair piled high with computer tablets. "Who left that junk here," he cackled and tipped the contents onto the floor. Minu sat, careful not to dislodge one of several piles of equipment stacked on the
desk. There was so much piled there she had difficulty seeing him once he'd sat back down. "I understand you came through with the Trials with Pipson?" he asked around a stack of paperwork.
"Pip? Sure, he was invaluable."
"Smart lad. My grandnephew, you know? Sadly his father proved not to be of mindset to be Chosen. Couldn't handle even the passing discipline needed to get through the Trials." Minu sat while he mumbled and stared off into space for a minute. It was amazing how much older he appeared than Jovich, but they must have been nearly the same age. He came around and noticed she was sitting there. "Oh, my, what were we talking about? I'm sorry; I was in the middle of an experiment when you came in." He gestured over his shoulder to a work bench. On it was a Concordia device that looked a little like an espresso machine that was making a whirring noise and vibrating. Occasionally an ominous puff of smoke came from the device while a more recognizable computer tablet say nearby and recorded its emanations.
"My assignment to the science section?" she reminded him of her reason for being there.
"Oh yes, right. Anyway, after your last mission the leadership council was informed that you were to be granted four stars. As a member of Command the rules say that you must be given your own team. There weren't any available so everyone was going round and round about what to do with you." As he spoke he gestured expansively, almost knocking a pile of old style paper books off his desk. Minu caught the tilting stack and righted it without Bjorn taking notice. "Naturally, knowing all about you from Pipson and hearing nothing but glowing reports through training branch, I offered to take you on. You see we are required to have a couple chaps from command here anyway. Fosters inter branch cooperation or some such crap."
"I understand," Minu said, glancing at the strange device that was now beginning to whistle and spit puffs of fire.
Bjorn saw her expression of concern and gave a dismissive gesture, "Happens all the time," he laughed before continuing. "So, Pipson said your instincts are top notch. This is good because I think an outside idea or two will do us some good. We've been working on a few projects for decades and don't seem to be getting anywhere."