Every Last Mother's Child
Page 28
Chapter 1: The Wayward Daughter
As Jill Wilson waited to get off the Star of Logan she reflected on her trip.
She had been surprised at how easy it had been to get a ticket to Trena. She had her military dependent’s ID and what appeared to be a letter from her father requesting that she join him on Trena; where he was supposedly part of the permanent MP unit stationed with the Imperial Marine contingent at the Imperial Embassy on Trena. She had spent most of the night working on a set of forged documents that supported her trip to Trena. The Empire even paid her fare as her dependent ID showed her as the daughter of a serving enlisted man en-route to join her father. Although her ID showed her current status as the daughter of a marine enlisted man; the cloned human who was the shipping lines ticket clerk recognized the name. The girl’s documents were plainly forgeries. The clone thought for a second and allowed the girl to travel. As the girl went to the waiting area, the Beta biowomanclone quickly created new documents for the nervous girl.
“Miss Wilson,” the bioengineered woman came up to the girl as she waited to be called to board the shuttle to the liner, “I need to see your papers again. I think I messed up on the bookings.”
Jill nervously handed the ticket package to the clone, afraid that she had been busted. She looked around nervously expecting to see her grandmother or the MPs to take her back to her grandmother’s home. But no, the clone handed her the ticket package back. Jill didn’t notice at the time that the clone had switched her papers out. It wasn’t until she was on the shuttle did Jill realize that the ones she had been handed back looked more official than what she had started off with. In fact what she received from the clone were official forms filled out with all the official seals and documentation to accompany them.
Unknown to Jill she had stumbled onto one of the station masters of the Biopeople’s Underground Railroad. This was not the first time the station master was breaking rules, the Beta bioperson had done so for others less deserving souls than Sergeant Wilson’s daughter. The Beta type clone like many of her brothers and sisters would do anything they could to help this marine’s family, including seeing that his daughter could join him. The girl’s family had sacrificed much for the biopeople. This girl’s grandfather had been killed trying to infiltrate an Ebio world. As Jill’s shuttle launched to the liner, the Beta quietly sent on word to other biopeople down the line to watch for and assist Jill if they could. She smiled, happy that in some small way she could help the family of her people’s hero.
Once aboard the Star Mist, Jill found herself in a cabin that was considerably tini smaller than any room she had ever slept in. Although she would have preferred something larger, as a marine dependent she couldn’t ask for any special privileges. Jill caught the aroma of fresh cooking, feeling suddenly ravenous she went in search of the dining room and found the line for breakfast. While waiting in line for breakfast there, she saw a man who she recalled as having been in her father’s MP unit at the Marine’s Capital Barracks on Earth, noticed her. He had obviously left the marines and was now one of the security officers on the liner. I’ll have to greet him before we land, she thought to herself.
John Gordon made a note to himself to look after the recognized the young woman standing in line for breakfast. He was pretty sure he recognized her from the he had seen her with holos his Sergeant at the capital barracks when she had visited her father. Sergeant Wilson’s, his sergeant. His sergeant also had had holos on the back of his desk showing the girl he now sawback in . She was older, but John could see that this was the same girl. Sarge had helped him get his stuff together and now although he had left the Marine Corps, he was still in law enforcement, at least generally, and he felt he owed his old sergeant a favor two. John had been on duty the night Master Gunnery Sergeant Wilson had left the barracks with a prisoner who it turned out that he owned. On arrival at Aeries Station, he decided to send a message to the girl’s family to make sure that they knew Jill was traveling onboard and to let them know that Jill had gotten that far safely.
At Aeries Station, a Captain from the Interstellar Rescue Service, who had dined with her grandmother quite often, saw Jill as she left the Star Mist heading for her next connection. The Captain, who was in route to his next duty station, where he would become the Commander of the Space and Air Group on board the attack carrier War Spear, offered to buy her dinner.
Jill felt fortunate that her grandmother’s friend would offer to treat her to a meal. She didn’t leave home with many imperials and was wondering if she would have a vending machine dinner of a snack bar and water, this would be much better. She eagerly accepted his kind offer. Over dinner as they spoke, Jill had been surprised. Jill had thought it would be the typical conversation of a friend of her grandmother making nice to her. It was far from that.
“Where you headed Miss Wilson?” the man asked as he held her chair while she sat.
“Trena,” Jill said, “Grand mom wants me to be educated at the Trenaport Boarding School.”
“What you do? Tick off the Iron Maiden so she’s sending you away?” the captain used her grandmother’s nick name.
“No! Grandma Wilson thought that getting off Mars for a while to go to a school outside the Empire would be good for me.” Jill replied, “It was my choice to go to the Trenaport Boarding School.”
“I have heard of that school,” The Captain said, “It is very good. They have a lot of our service kids there, even a few others, including some Thonians. It’s a great melting pot. My wife spent some time there. It’s in Trenaport isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Jill replied.
“Trena’s a beautiful place.” The captain continued. She had little or no idea what Trena was really like. She settled back and listened to the captain.
“My wife grew up on Trena,” The captain said, “Her father was a member of the Marine contingent at our embassy there. I’ve been back with her a couple of times. It’s a beautiful world. If you get a chance you should go over to West Princess Falls. It’s a water fall that is breath taking. It’s a horseshoe that drops into the ocean on the west coast of Main. The thing has got to be three or four miles across. Getting there about sunset makes the water sparkle as it catches the spray and causes rainbows all over the area.”
“It sounds beautiful,” Jill remarked. Jill had learned a long time ago from all the military officers that frequented her grandmother’s table, that they often saw sights and things that were not always the horror of war, or of human suffering.
“It is,” the captain said, stopping long enough to order their meal, “But you’ll want to check out Trenaport Beach. There is one section that seems to stretch on forever, pristine sand that just goes on and on. The crown has prevented any housing or development on it so there is nothing on it. You can walk for miles without seeing another person. It’s just like it was when James McAllister found it four hundred years ago.”
She listened to the officer talk about Trena. He suggested that she go to the north of Trenaport to see the ice caves. Surprisingly it was an enjoyable dinner with the captain. Never once did he ask how she was doing in school. He treated her as an equal, not the granddaughter of a senior officer. Jill would remember this all her life. He escorted her to the ship that would take her on the next leg of her journey.
The Captain, in a letter to his wife that night wrote how he had stumbled across the admiral’s granddaughter, and how the young woman had carried herself. Commenting that for a young lady of her upbringing, her manners were better than half the young supposedly officer material candidates that were coming out of the academy.