“Hello, Mom.”
“Hello, Avi. It’s good to see you. Have you come to take me away, ha ha?”
Avi could hear the smile in her voice. “Yes, we need to boogie before someone finds us.”
“Hug first.” Rose stood and hugged her daughter, picked up a flight case and headed for the ship’s ladder. Avi picked up the rest of the luggage and stowed it in the ship’s hold. Avi directed her mother to the fire control seat. She helped her mother out of her helmet and made sure she was strapped in. Avi was pleased to notice that her mother wore a flight suit under the EVA suit. Once certain her mother was secure, Avi took the pilot’s seat. She was still strapping herself in when the sentry ship hailed her. Her sensors told her it was accelerating at two G in her direction. At that rate it would need an hour to be in missile range. As long as she kept the P I’s heat shields to the sentry, its lasers would not harm her so she was not worried about it. In a face to face battle, the sentry was no match for the P I. Avi hoped the pilot realized what he faced if he attacked. The Avi’s only concern was that this type of ship had a short operating range which meant that a mother ship was not far away and there was no telling what was attached to it.
“Well, Mom shall we light the candle and blow this pop stand?” Avi said cheerfully.
“I’m ready. Let’s go.”
Without responding to the hail, Avi kicked the throttles open and headed for open space. As soon as it was safe to do so, she transitioned into hyper drive. Twenty minutes after Avi arrived on Triton, mother and daughter were safely on course for Homestead. They escaped without a shot fired.
“Avi? Who was that that called us?” Rose asked.
“A guard ship. A sentry,” Avi replied.
“Are we in danger?”
“Not any more. Once we transitioned into hyper drive, they can’t follow us,” Avi explained.
“Why not?”
“Sentry ships are not hyper capable.”
“I guess that makes sense.” Rose paused a few minutes before asking, “How long is the trip? Is it far to where we are going?”
“Yes, it is very far, and how long it takes depends on how fast we go. It is so far that the star we are going to can only be seen from Earth with a strong telescope. We are accelerating at one G in hyper drive now. That feels the same as the force of gravity on Earth. If we increase our acceleration we will get there faster, but we will not be as comfortable due to the increased apparent weight on our bodies.”
“What is the fastest we can go?” Rose asked.
“The ship can go faster than we can survive. Two G is as fast as I think is safe,” Avi replied.
“Can we try it? I am in a hurry to see the kids.”
Avi smiled. “You’re on. Is your flight suit inflated?”
“It is now.”
“Then we’re off!”
Once they had reached 2 G of acceleration, Avi noticed how labored her mother’s breathing had become. “Mom, you can use the face mask to increase the oxygen if you like.” She heard the rustling as her mother put on the face mask.
“Much better,” Rose said after she had secured the mask in place. “I’m exhausted. Do you mind if I nap?” Avi smiled. “Be my guest. It’s a long flight. We’ll have plenty of time to catch up.” Rose “napped” for twelve hours. Avi slept part of the time and was awake when her mother woke up.
“Avi?”
“Yes, Mom?”
“It is true. I thought I dreamed it. Is this your ship? The one you wrote me about?”
“Yup, one of the coolest, meanest, nastiest, toughest, most heavily armed little warships ever built. We could take on a warship a hundred times our size and beat it.”
“Well, let’s hope we don’t have to do that,” Rose said.
“Let’s hope not.”
“What do we do for breakfast?”
Avi had removed her EVA suit, but kept her flight suit on. She helped her mother out of her EVA suit and showed her the galley. In short order the scent of cinnamon buns wafted through the cabin. However much Avi liked cinnamon buns, her mother liked them more.
“I still can’t believe I’m traveling faster than the speed of light. Can I look out the window?”
“Not much to see, but sure.”
Rose moved slowly. The force of the acceleration weighed her down. Avi noticed her difficulty and asked, “We can slow down if you would be more comfortable.”
“No dear. I want to be there yesterday. I will learn to live with this. Is this why you are so strong? Do you do this all the time?”
“I do it a lot and yes, it is part of the reason.”
“Greg does this too?”
“Yes, and the girls, too.”
“They must be strong.”
Avi smiled. “Yes, they are. Rachel has turned into something of a hellion.”
“Like her mother?”
“I was never this bad.”
“I’ll be the judge of that!”
“Mom, I know you loved me and you will love Rachel, but I hope you will love Wendy.”
Rose smiled. “I will love them all and their friends too. Have no fear. Tell me about them.”
For most of the first half of the voyage Rose slept as much as she was awake. The force of the acceleration tired her quickly and she slept soundly in long stretches. The time she was awake they spent chatting about the girls, Greg and the community on Homestead. By the time they reached the half way point where Avi turned the ship around to begin the deceleration, Rose felt like she knew everyone in Avi’s life and felt prepared to jump in with the family that had seemed so distant.
Buzzy had sent Avi a letter which Rose carried with her. Avi read it out loud to Rose who vehemently protested that she did not read other people’s mail. “My dearest second cousin once removed, would that you had married me. Life would be so different.”
“His wife is a dear. Don’t let him fool you,” Rose commented. “Besides, you would have killed him. You’re more woman than he could handle. I was heartbroken when you turned him down, but you were right, my dear.”
“The Swordsmen are making life difficult. It is reminiscent of the Spanish Inquisition. Jews are being singled out and forced to leave their jobs and their homes. After we drop Rose off as you requested, I am taking my family, my brother’s family and my sister’s family to one of the new Jewish colonies for resettlement. The cost of the ship rental will leave us broke when we get there. Being poor where we are going is better than being rich where we were. I will write you care of New St. Louis when I know where we land. Take care of yourself. Give Rose a hug for me. I miss you. Buzzy.”
“Buzzy always was a good boy even if he was a lawyer,” Rose said.
Avi laughed. Greg had taken the time to load the ship’s data storage with movies and music that he hoped Rose would like. The second half of the trip was spent watching the movies from the luxury of their flight seats. Avi showed Rose how the exercise and fitness features of the seats worked, and they developed a work out schedule that kept Rose from becoming stiff with the long sedentary periods in the chair. Even with everything Avi knew how to do to make the voyage as comfortable as possible, they were both ready for the trip to be over when they approached Homestead.
Myra was on patrol when Avi and Rose dropped out of hyper drive at the edge of the system. Within minutes, the defense tracking system had acknowledged her presence and directed her to the landing spot next to the house. “Hey Avi! Welcome home!” Myra called.
“Good to be home,” Avi replied.
“Hello Rose, welcome to Homestead.”
After fumbling with the microphone control for a moment, Rose said, “Thank you. To whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?”
“I’m Myra.”
“I am glad to be here. Will I see you when we land?”
“I’ll be on patrol for another few days, but I’ll stop by after my watch is over.”
“I look forward to meeting you.”
“The girls are breath
less in anticipation of your arrival.”
“I was hoping to surprise them.”
Myra laughed. “Too late for that. Greg had the alert system programmed to call his personal communicator the moment you hit the system. He’ll be there waiting for you.”
“Well, Mom let’s go home,” Avi said.
“Don’t I get a chance to put on my makeup?” Rose asked.
“Mom, we don’t wear any here.”
“No makeup?”
“Nope. We are who we are. That’s it. Besides when we first settled here merely getting a bath was a challenge. Makeup seemed like a waste of time, and we never looked back. Don’t worry, everyone will love you the way you are.”
“If you say so.”
As Avi made her final landing approach she noticed with pleasure that a new room had been added to the side of the house. A picture window faced out over the lake. She hoped her mother would be happy here. If not, it would not be for lack of trying on their part.
The girls did not wait for Avi and Rose to exit the ship. As soon as Avi dropped the crew ladder, Rachel and Wendy raced inside the ship. Their loud, energetic, tearful greeting quickly dispelled any doubts Rose may have had that this was the right thing to do. Almost ignoring their mother, the girls whisked their grandmother off the ship to help her get settled in her new room grabbing the luggage on the way. Once the noisy entourage had faded out of sight, Greg quietly ascended into the ship. He gave his wife a long hug and kiss before he said, “Go tend to your mother. I’ll do post-flight.”
“Greg, you know I love you.”
“Yup, and I love you, too.”
Rose was quickly assimilated into a community accustomed to assimilating new people. Within a month it was almost as if she had been one of the original settlers. The girls thrived on Rose’s attention. Sean got his share of attention, but he tended to prefer more solitary activities than the others. Rose recognized his need to be left alone and reacted accordingly.
Avi was watching Rose interact with the children when she realized that during the whole trip she had not heard a word about her siblings. She had an older brother and a younger brother and sister. She wondered what had happened that her mother did not mention them. It was not as if she was on speaking terms with any of them, but for her mother to not mention them at least in passing was odd. Avi knew better than to press the issue and left it alone. Rose would tell her when it was time. Rose had an uncanny knack for knowing when the time would be.
As Avi had anticipated, of the children, Rachel was the one who related to Rose the best. They had long philosophical discussions. Where before, Myra had been Rachel’s confidant in times of confusion, Rose provided Rachel a sense of perspective no one else, even Myra, could match. They often walked together through the forest picking wild flowers or fruit in season.
One afternoon Rachel and Rose sat on a rock overlooking the settlement and Rose said, “You know, on the trip here I wondered what it must be like living in so isolated a community without the companionship I had growing up, but you seem to have done fine.”
“I think since we have our parents so close, we’ve never been lonely. Even when we take the long trips through space, the four of us are always together. Living and working with our parents has made us closer than we would have been if we were in a normal household where we spent more time apart than we did together.”
“I would have thought you would miss the social life.”
“I am not sure you miss something you’ve never had,” Rachel said slowly. “I mean it’s not as if we lack for companionship. Myra has been my special friend since I was born, but she’s away on patrol a lot and I don’t see her as much as I would like, but we talk all the time except when she has to leave the system. You met Brownie and Blondie. We travel with them sometimes. We don’t spend much time with Katherine or Sam, but they come by from time to time.”
“I know. It’s that sometimes I fear you have not had a childhood. You spend so much time learning to be fighters,” Rose said with a sigh.
“Mom worries about that, too. But you know we get to fly one of the coolest, meanest, nastiest, toughest, most heavily armed little warships ever built. We could take on a warship a hundred times our size and beat it. That certainly beats the daylights out of Cotillion!”
“Your mom used those exact words.”
“The fruit falls not far from the tree as they say,” Rachel said looking out over the lake.
“You know, Rachel, you will always be a warrior. It suits you. I fear you will fight many battles and some of them will be soon. I know you are worried about the Swordsmen attacking, and I think they will eventually, but I am not worried about that battle. Somehow I know you will survive it. You all will. There will be others, and I am not so sure of those.”
“Grandma, when one takes up the sword, one has to be aware of the risks. We have all taken the sword. It’s not like we had a choice, Mom and Dad being who they are, but we are comfortable with it. It’s what we do. If we are going to do something, we should at least do it well.”
“I understand.”
“I get the feeling you don’t approve.”
“I sort of do and sort of don’t. George Orwell once said that we sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm. As long as humans are greedy and selfish it will always be this way. You are preparing to visit violence on people we believe intend us serious harm. Someone has to do this. Your mother and father are violent people.”
“I noticed,” Rachel interrupted.
“But they are experienced and can lead a force into battle. I can accept their decision to be those rough and violent men. But you are children. I have a problem sending children into battle. They have robbed you of your childhood.”
“Perhaps, but if we do nothing the Swordsmen will rob us of our adulthood.”
“Must it always be so? Could we somehow change things?” Rose mused.
“I wish I thought we could.”
“When your grandfather and I were young we went to a peace rally. One of the speakers said that the purpose of a strong military is not to make war, but to enforce the peace.”
“How can you do one without doing the other?” Rachel asked.
“I don’t know, but you, my dear, need to figure it out. With the human race expanding beyond what was imaginable as little as hundred years ago, we will need to figure it out or the strong will be picking off the weak forever and the human race will return to the dark ages. The danger is not so much for your generation. These things take time to happen, it would be your children and their children for whom I fear.”
“And you expect me to figure this out?” Rachel asked.
“Not by yourself. You will need help, which brings me to where I was going with all this. You, my dear Rachel, are your mother’s daughter in a way that Wendy is not. Wendy is like Avi’s sister.”
“Mom never told us she had a sister.”
“She has two brothers I’ll bet she didn’t tell you about either.”
“No, she didn’t.”
“I’m not surprised. My point is that I do not want to happen to you and Wendy what happened to Avi and Tanya. Tanya is four years younger than Avi. She adored Avi. Avi was her protector. We lived in a tough neighborhood, and Avi defended Tanya from the street thugs. They had an argument. Avi walked away from Tanya in anger on a street corner. Avi had gone around the corner when the thugs jumped Tanya. Avi heard the screams but she was so angry she did not turn back. The thugs raped Tanya and beat her so badly she was in the hospital for months. If a shopkeeper hadn’t come out with his gun and started shooting, they might have killed her. Avi never forgave herself or her brothers because neither of them would ever go out of their way to take care of their sisters. Buried in their books, they ran like frightened rats when they were on the streets and hoped no one ever bothered them. When she got out of the hospital, Tanya made things worse by insulting
Avi in public for failing to keep her from being assaulted. They haven’t talked to each other since. Not long after that, on her eighteenth birthday, Avi joined the Air Force.”
“Some of this I already know,” Rachel said. “She went to Air Force Basic Training. While she was there she took a whole bunch of tests and some psych whiz kid straight out of college decided she was officer material.” Rose chuckled. “She told me about the whiz kid. He tried to make a pass at her.”
“So her squadron training instructor gave her this long speech about how she should become an officer because the pay is so much better only she knows she can’t because she hasn’t gone to college. She only has a high school diploma. To become an officer she has to go to flight school, and that’s an eight year hitch,” Rachel recited from memory.
“And she blew him off,” Rose chuckled.
Rachel continued the story her father had told her many times. “Yup, and every enlisted man or officer that approached her for the next three weeks. Finally they sent her to the Rabbi, and the Rabbi did it. He broke down her resistance. He must have been something else. I would have liked to have met him. He told her that some day someone would have to stand up to the Swordsmen. It would not be soon but it would happen eventually, and he feared the only ones standing at that point could well be the Jews. If it came to war with the Swordsmen we damn sure better have the best officers because we will be the smaller force. It is not always the biggest army that wins the war. Sometimes it’s the smartest officers. So she agreed to go to flight school. But how did she wind up at the Academy?”
“While she was in flight school, they gave her another battery of tests. The same whiz kid got hold of them and started pushing to get her reassigned. Her squadron’s commanding officer ordered her to apply to the Air Force Academy. She did not give Avi any options,” Rose chuckled. “I remember how angry Avi was at being ordered to apply to a stupid college full of snotty people. It was a lawful order by a lawfully appointed superior officer. Failure to obey the order would result in a courts marshal. They had her dead to rights. The instructors inspected everything Avi turned in and verified that Avi was expending the proper amount of effort. The Federation Space Force and the Air Force used the same applicant pool and at that time used the same campus. Space Force Flight Academy has since moved to the Utah Salt Flats. Even though she applied to the Air Force Academy, she was accepted to the Space Force Academy. They sent her to pilot school, and the rest, as they say, is history.”
Solomon Family Warriors II Page 23