Massoud (Massoud Chronicles Book 1)

by Amanda R. Norris

  “Well, what you do is important, of course, but the lifestyle, Elizabeth.”

  “The lifestyle? You mean living on a spacecraft with men I’m not related to. Is that what you mean? Did you think I was sleeping around?”

  “Well, no. I mean...not exactly. But it just wasn’t proper. How could it be?”

  “Of course, it could be proper, if I was proper. So, let’s be clear, here and now, Noor. I never had sex in space. Never. And it was a conscious decision on my part for a number of reasons—including propriety. And morality. And what’s more, I’ve had more problems with the so-called respectable men you’ve introduced me to over the years, than I ever had on board. Perhaps all those I-go-to-prayers-on-Friday men thought I was slutty because my sister told them so!”

  “I never said such a thing.”

  “You thought it. You believed it. So, they believed it too.”

  “Well, what about Teloc. You had a relationship with him,” Noor retorted defensively.

  “What about him? He’s my husband. He’s the father of my child. It’s not exactly a casual relationship. The circumstances were totally different. Can’t you show me some respect? You’re my sister! At least show me the same level of respect you do your Denisonian neighbors and your non-mosque friends.”

  Little tears had appeared on Noor’s cheek and she said quietly, “Elizabeth, you’re my sister. Of course, I respect you. I love you. I just want what’s best for you. Maybe we have different ideas about what is best. I know we see things differently. It’s so hard for me—living here. This planet is so strange. I know I don’t really fit in. You do. I can’t just stop being me or stop looking at things the way I always have. I didn’t move here because I wanted to. I was only following Abdul’s job. The mosque is the only place where I feel truly comfortable. People understand me there. I know you don’t.”

  Elizabeth sighed. “Just because we’re different, doesn’t mean that I don’t understand you. I do. But you have to accept me for what I am and stop trying to put me into a box that I ran away from a long time ago. I never fit in that box, Noor. You did. I’m not Meccan wife material.” Elizabeth slumped onto the wide border of a planter and let her shoulders sag. “I’m not even mother material.”

  Noor joined her on the seat and spoke gently. “Of course, you are. You’re a wonderful mother. Constance loves you. You’re just tired. Anyone would be with that child. She’s exhausting. It’ll get easier as she gets older.”

  “I’m not going to be around as she gets older, Noor. They’re sending me back to space.”

  Noor went rigid and held a helpless hand to her neck. Chrostowski joined them, sat on the other side of Elizabeth, and picked up her hand.

  “What do you mean?” Chrostowski asked kindly.

  “They’ve changed the policy. They’re so desperate for space-experienced people that they’re no longer making allowances for family circumstances. The old rule that permitted only one parent to be deployed in space is being thrown out. I have to find someone to take Constance or they will send her to a foster family.”

  The other women digested the information. Noor realized why her sister had been so short-tempered. As Constance’s half-mother, her heart ached for her sister and the little girl who hardly ever saw her father. Chrostowski had seen the advertisements exhorting people to volunteer to foster elderly relatives of fleet personnel. There had been one or two that hinted that children would need homes too. She knew there had been massive casualties in those sectors where the Xeno invasion had not been as decisively quashed as it had in the Delta Sector. It was hard to argue that Massoud was not needed in space.

  Noor broke the silence first. “You know I will love her like my own. I do already. Abdul does too. He knows how to make her laugh, serious little thing that she is. You won’t have to worry about her. My boys will watch out for her. We’ll send you messages every day. You’ll see her during shore leave.”

  “No, no,” Elizabeth shook her head in despair. “It’s worse than that. I was warned today about new policies that are in the pipeline. Family members will not be allowed to serve in the same ship or serve under the same command structure. The more senior you are, the more rigid the rules will be. Teloc is already quite senior in D-SUF. They will keep him where he is. I’ll probably be sent to the Beta Sector, where the fighting is most intense. There won’t be time to come back during leave. It takes too long to travel between the sectors. Civilian interplanetary travel is at a standstill; Constance will never be able to visit me. I’ll never see her again. I’ll never see Teloc again.”

  “But the war can’t last forever,” Noor exclaimed, but immediately knew she misspoke. The Last War had spanned almost two generations.

  Chrostowski and Noor didn’t know what to do or say. There was no comfort they could provide. They held Elizabeth’s hands silently as the light breeze cast wispy clouds in front of the speckled moons and then whipped them away. They sat there so long that Noor’s friends exited the restaurant, glanced at them disapprovingly, and moved on without comment. They sat so long in unbending tension that the women’s bodies began to stiffen.

  At last Noor declared. “I will take care of her. You’ll never have to worry about her. I promise.”

  Elizabeth rested her head on her sister’s shoulder. “Thank you,” she said simply.

  They all stood up, carrying the burden of the news. Noor offered to walk Elizabeth home, but it was not what she wanted. Elizabeth just wanted to see her baby. She wished she had not left her tonight and suspected she would regret taking this negligible break from parenting. She left Noor and Chrostowski standing together, watching after her with concern.

  18. Crazy-assed Woman

  M assoud had left several messages with Vice Admiral Lightfoot’s aide without getting a response. Finally, she realized why the messages were being ignored. “Tell Admiral Lightfoot I want to see him about a mutual friend,” she told the aide. She promptly got an appointment for the following morning, when the admiral was to be on-planet and at headquarters.

  When she entered the admiral’s office, an office that had once been that of Suzette Williams, he did not rise from behind his desk. He watched her attentively as she made her obsequies, his face guarded, and waited for her to speak. She inhaled deeply.

  “Admiral, I came here today to talk to you about Lt. Chrostowski.” No, that was not quite right, and she corrected herself. “I came to talk to you about the fraternization and nepotism policy.”

  “I don’t set the policy, Lieutenant. I’m only supposed to comply with it.” His mouth twisted sourly with this statement.

  “I know. But I was hoping you understood now how hard it is to comply with the policy. So that when you think about implementing it, you would inject a little humanity into it.” She knew she wasn’t being clear and that this wasn’t what she had planned to say.

  “Humanity?” He scratched his jaw. “Is this about your deployment? That’s what you first told my aide you wanted to see me about. I suppose you want to leverage my relationship with Belle, to get your assignment changed to suit your tastes?”

  “Good heavens, no! Chrostowski is a friend. That’s not something I would exploit.” She shook her head slightly. “Well, to be honest, I suppose I did exploit it, to get in here to see you today. But apart from that, I wouldn’t use what I know about you two. I don’t want to drag either of you through the mud. Look, I’m here because the admiralty is setting new policies that are hurting real people, ordinary servicemembers and their families, and no one is asking us what we think about it or how best to manage it. I just wanted an opportunity to get my voice heard, to give my point of view.”

  “We’re a military organization, not a democracy,” he said with some asperity. “If you have something to say about policy, why not go to the Sector Commander’s office? Why reach out to me?”

  “I couldn’t think of how to get through to his ivory tower. You were reachable.”

  “Because o
f Belle?”

  “Yes, I suppose so.”

  “And you just want to have your say? You don’t want me to change your assignment?”

  “No…well yes. Of course, I want a different assignment. It would be a lie to say otherwise. I want to be able to see my husband and child. But I am not asking for that; I just want that. I am asking for a better policy for everyone. I’m not blind. I understand the situation. You don’t need top level intel to see how badly the ranks have been depleted. I’ve been instructing at the academy. I’ve seen the graduates get thrown into roles they’re not ready for. You need me, and people like me, to get off our butts and up into space. You’ve got to increase the experience levels up there. I get it. You need me to be up there. I need to be up there to protect my family. It’s where I belong. But the new fraternization policy is screwy. It’s totally excessive and misses the point.”

  “Misses the point?” Lightfoot looked at her mistrustfully.

  “Yes. The point is operational effectiveness. Isn’t it? You don’t want officers making poor decisions to protect the people they love, at the expense of the greater good. So, it makes sense not to have family members serving under each other. It makes sense not to have them on the same ship. But why go beyond that? Why send us to different sectors? Why tear families apart, without a chance to ever see each other, even when they’re on leave? Why do that? That goes against everything humans believe in. We are fighting for our families; to keep them intact. We are fighting to protect them. The Xenos want to destroy us, so why are you helping them do that? We are supposed to follow orders and trust our senior staff, but if that staff tears apart our families almost as effectively as the Xenos would, why would we trust them? Why would we trust you?”

  “That’s a very personal criticism, Massoud.”

  “It feels very personal,” Massoud responded with restrained bitterness.

  “You think I am behind this aspect of the policy?”

  “That’s what everyone says.”

  “I might be in favor of it,” he stated neutrally, before rising to his feet. “So, let me get this clear. You don’t object to separating family members onto different ships or into different command structures. You just object to relocation to different sectors. You object to your relocation to a different sector.”

  “Yes.”

  “Isn’t that self-centered?”

  “No. Just the opposite. I am a parent and a spouse. I have responsibilities outside my profession. And it’s not just about me. It’s about everyone in the same position. It’s about the welfare of the fleet too and if you can’t see that then you’re an...”

  Massoud broke off before she uttered the word. Lightfoot raised his eyebrows, before being distracted by his earpiece and swiping a control. Massoud’s jaw dropped as a holo-image of Admiral Sabika appeared to Lightfoot’s right, but Massoud was not shy by nature, and she recovered herself. She had come to speak to power, after all.

  “Why are you here?” she asked impertinently. Then she remembered to bow.

  Sabika’s eyes sparkled with amusement. “When the second most senior officer in the sector admits fraternization and is concerned that he might be blackmailed because of it, the most senior officer in the sector is the only person authorized to resolve the issue.”

  “You’ve been listening in.”

  “Exactly. So, tell me why the Vice Admiral is an idiot.” Sabika smirked at his colleague, crossing his arms in front of his chest. Lightfoot scowled.

  “I didn’t say that.” Massoud glanced guiltily at Lightfoot.

  “Of course not. But continue.”

  “Look, the admiralty might want us all to be automatons, or be like the stereotypical A Fleet jerks who think of nothing but their egos and their careers,” Massoud failed to observe Lightfoot change color at this, “but that’s not who we are. If you want to recruit only that type of person, you are going to run out of people pretty quickly. This is war. You need every competent person you can get to run our ships. You can’t be picky about their psychological profiles and whether they fit some kind of template. You have to deal with people like me, who have feelings, who have normal relationships. You need us. You need me. I’m not an automaton. If you strip my baby away from me, I’ll fall apart. I’ll be no good to you, nor would anyone else in the same situation. We can make sacrifices. We can do without—when it makes sense. But to ask us to make an unnecessary sacrifice is counterproductive. Why do it?” She inhaled deeply. “That’s all I have to say.”

  “That might be enough,” Sabika said, wearing a sympathetic smile. He was listening. She could see it.

  “You don’t think very much of us, do you?” he asked.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “You didn’t have to. However, only some of this policy is up to me. Most comes from Earth Central...”

  “And you are our voice at Central,” she interjected. Sabika stared her down.

  “Sorry,” she mumbled the apology for her interruption, but then added, “You can’t only take advice from a person with no attachments. That advice won’t be very good.”

  The color of Lightfoot’s face deepened still further at that pointed rebuke, and this time Massoud noticed. She didn’t care and, before he could bark her down, she added, “You know, I’d rather be busted for insubordination than fail to do everything I can to keep my child.”

  To her surprise, Sabika intervened and said compassionately, “I understand.” Finally, she was rendered speechless.

  “Redeployment to other sectors can only happen with my clearance. I might consider rescinding your orders,” Sabika offered while narrowly observing her.

  “Just me? That wouldn’t be right. There are others too. What about them?” she pled.

  “Let me think about it.”

  Sabika, satisfied with her words, gestured her dismissal with a movement of his hand. But Massoud did not leave. Instead she faced the seated Lightfoot, who though furious with her, had refrained from reprimanding her while his superior was tolerating her behavior.

  “Vice-Admiral,” Massoud said taking a deep breath, “I forgive you.”

  “What!”

  “I forgive you for how you treated my friend.”

  “How I treated her? She lied to me!” he spluttered, annoyed with himself for engaging in such a preposterous conversation.

  “Admiral, she didn’t know who you were to begin with, and she liked you. She didn’t think it would be a big issue. That was her only mistake.”

  “She didn’t know who I was? I’m in every second edition of fleet news. How could she not know who I was?”

  “Oh, no one watches fleet news,” she replied offhandedly. “And you don’t really feature in fleet gossip”.

  Lightfoot’s vanity was clearly ruffled, and Sabika was having difficulty suppressing his mirth. Lightfoot grunted in disgust.

  “And there is one other thing I forgive you for, something worse,” continued Massoud. “I forgive you for trying to destroy my family.”

  Lightfoot stared at her in amazement. She bowed and left.

  After Massoud’s departure, Sabika’s image turned to Lightfoot. “I thought you said she was some kind of crazy-assed lunatic?”

  “She is, isn’t she?” he griped.

  “Why? Because she wants to forgive you? Lightfoot, your judgment is slipping. She’s passionate, but reasonable. And she’s not easily intimidated. Adjust your attitude to her. We’ll keep her. Promote her to do something useful—here on our patch. She’s overdue for promotion anyway. You know it. As for the request from the Beta Sector, we’ll send them our unattached personnel, maybe some of those A Fleet jerks who only care about their careers.”

  Lightfoot snorted, but Sabika was in a good mood. His sense of humor had been tickled to see a lieutenant take on an admiral; but he also had a responsibility to get his subordinate back on task.

  “Look David, if this is about that woman you were seeing, get over it. She wasn’t truthful
with you. You’re not the type to be interested in a woman like that.”

  “She duped me and I’m so fucking irritated about it. When there’s an inappropriate relationship between an admiral and a lieutenant, bringing charges against the lieutenant makes the admiral look like a despot. She undermined my authority, and there’s nothing I can do about it. And I wouldn’t have had to face that crazy-assed, insubordinate, Massoud if it wasn’t for crazy-assed, oversexed, Chrostowski.”

  “This sector has the most remarkable junior officers.” Sabika was laughing freely at his friend. “You’ve just been blindsided by one and browbeaten by another. The lieutenants here are so very intimidating, Vice Admiral.” Sabika wiped a tear of laughter from his cheek. “You got yourself into this mess, David. Thanks for keeping me entertained, but do a background check on your dates in future, will you?”

  Lightfoot huffed as his superior blinked out of the room.

  It was a surprise to Massoud to be summoned back to headquarters, and to Lightfoot’s office, just two days later. She reviewed her last interview with the vice admiral trying to determine if everything she said would be defensible in a disciplinary hearing. She wasn’t entirely sure it was.

  When she was admitted to the office, Lightfoot was resting against his desk and conferring with a small wiry captain, who was unknown to her. Lightfoot looked relaxed, in direct contrast to her other meetings with him. He actually smiled at her as she entered. He waved his slate towards hers.

  “Your new orders, Massoud.”

  She checked her slate which she wore cuffed around her forearm.

  “Congratulations on your promotion, Commander Massoud,” the admiral continued. “This is Capt. Van Berge. He’s your new commanding officer—and he’s stationed in the Delta Sector.” Lightfoot added the last words with a sardonic grin.

  Massoud said some appropriate things to the two men, happy that she had not been demoted to sanitary tech. Van Berge described his new command.

  “The Cobalt is undergoing retrofit—new navigation systems, new power distribution network, and new engines. She’ll be in refit dock for another two weeks. The crew will be new, in the sense that they’ve not served together before. We’ll have veterans from the old A, B and C fleets, survivors displaced from ships destroyed during recent battles, fresh faced recruits, and academy graduates. We’ll conduct commissioning runs on the ship once she’s released from dock. Needless to say, I’m more concerned about the performance of the crew than the performance of the ship’s systems.”