Okuro she just mourned. Okuro had been an outstanding officer and person both. She'd shown real backbone in defying the pirates. She'd died for it. It was plain sad. The universe was simply a lesser place for her loss.
The man who'd pulled the trigger that fired the shot that killed her. His case it wasn't so simple. He'd betrayed his clan, his oaths, and abandoned common humanity in killing Okuro and joining the pirates. What he'd done to Bethany Wong at the pirate's urging just put the seal on his failure at being a decent human being.
He had in the end died protecting Jeannie and giving her a chance to escape. How much redemption did that earn him? Jeannie didn't know. She didn't know how to start calculating it.
In the end they were all dead, and Jeannie and Bethany still lived. Guess she'd have to be happy with that.
Well not just that. Her continued existence felt like a gratuitous gift. She intended to use that gift to keep pirates from doing what they had to her crew ever again to someone else's. Figured joining the SDF was the best way to do that.
That's not how she'd sell it to her father. No connections, valuable allies, useful training, and a breather from clan politics for Jeannie is how she'd sell it to him. All true and all beside the real point in her mind.
She'd get her remaining crew home. She'd sell her father on her plan. Somebody else would have to lead a new mission to the Beyonders to replace her aborted one. Somebody else would have to act as his right hand in the coming few years. If she had her way, and she would with or without her father's blessing however much she might like it, she was going to Earth. She was going to be an officer in the SDF.
She hoped her father would understand.
She could only hope it'd work out for the better.
She was going to make it happen.
* * *
Jeannie's childhood had been a wandering one, more so after her mother had left, and to an even greater degree after her brother's death. After her brother had died her father had taken her everywhere he went. He said so she could watch and learn what it meant to be the clan head. She suspected he was afraid to let her out of his sight too long. Despite that she'd always thought of Pedlar's Haven as home.
Now back there, more than a day after the Resolute had disembarked her, and her crew, it felt strange. The station hadn't changed, but she had.
She was standing in the same observation deck as she had before leaving on her ill fated expedition to the Beyond and she was looking at much the same view. Docks, shipyards, ships coming and going that weren't exactly the same but similar in type and purpose. And it just did not evoke the same emotions.
She thought perhaps it was the absence of Sheena. For years she'd always been there, Jeannie's living breathing and highly protective shadow.
Jeannie had spent most of her waking hours, on the Resolute and since she'd arrived on station, exercising. She had needed to get back in shape. She had hoped the effort would distract her from her worries. She was getting back in shape but the latter hope hadn't worked out. Sparring sessions with Sheena had always been a major part of her workouts and now her guard and friend was missing. The familiar places and sights of her former home reminded her constantly of what, and who, was missing.
She didn't wish to continue bearing the pain. She was determined to make a clean break with her past, to make her future somewhere else. Procuring a position at the SDF Academy as Torson had urged seemed the best way to do that. It's what she'd do. All that remained was to convince her father.
She'd be meeting him soon in the same conference room she'd made the decision to launch the expedition to the Beyonders in. Made without waiting for his return.
He might be there already. Best not keep him waiting. She moved off with determined strides.
Her father had indeed beat her there. He seemed to be just settling in.
"Feeling better today, dear?" he asked.
"Yes, much," she replied seating herself, "but I don't think it's ever going to be the same here as it was."
"You've reached some decision you're going to tell me about." He knew his daughter.
"I'm going to apply to the SDF Academy. I'd like your support."
"Not my opinion. Not my permission," he replied. "Just my support."
She gave him a long cool look. "Yes."
"Sorry," he said. "I've not suffered like you, or Bethany Wong, or the rest of the Chang's Venture's crew, but this incident has been rough all around."
"I understand Father."
"Do you?" he replied. "Allow me to double check."
"I understand that too."
"Good," he replied dryly. "Understand then that your absence will be felt."
"I do not believe myself indispensable to the clan."
"That is not the same as not being missed," her father replied seriously with a hint of reproach. "Still it is true we'll find ways to do without you if you leave us. Are you sure you want that?"
"I know you won't disown me. I know I will always have something to offer the clan."
"True. After you've been gone for more than five years though, do you believe that you will return to find the clan the same. That what place is open for you here then will be the same as that you may have now?"
"No, but it need not be a worse one either, Father," Jeannie said. "I will return with contacts and skills of great potential value to the clan."
"Ours is a trading clan," her father replied. "Trade is what you need to learn not military tactics. Also are better contacts in the SDF what we need? As opposed to better relationships with the Beyonders or other trading clans? It is not clear to me. The SDF confined itself to patrols and a minimum of police actions before this recent campaign. Is there any reason to think it won't pull back to the Core worlds again?"
"They are stretched thin," Jeannie replied. "It's getting worse too. I think that was what Captain Student, the pirate chief, saw and was waiting for. Some of them in the SDF see it too. They're going to try to do something before the situation becomes impossible. They'll reach out for allies. Allies in a fight that's going to put a premium on those military skills you just dismissed."
Her father sighed and looked away from her at something not visible except in his own mind. "It's a valid appreciation," he conceded. "Not that you can ever be certain about the future. Nor is it always clear what the impact of large historical movements will be on particular individuals or small groups of them."
"Translation, Father?"
"Prophecy is a mug's game," he said looking her intently in the eyes. "It's all well and good to be prepared, but you can never count on anything turning out exactly as you expect. It's uncertain. You should trust in me and the clan not wild speculations about the future of the galaxy."
"You're being emotional. Sure prediction is unreliable and therefore plans unreliable, but that does not mean its not better to make them. Fail to plan, plan to fail."
He smiled at her. She was quoting his own teaching back at him. "You know you'll always have a place in my heart," he said. "Just the same if you leave I will have to assume you might not return, and if you do you might not fit back in. If you believe you must go I will accept it. It will sadden me to do so."
"I love you and always will," Jeannie said. "I do not want to make you sad and I'll miss you, but I need to make my own way. I need to know I can."
"A last couple of points before you make your final decision," her father said in a melancholic tone. He must already realize he'd lost his argument and was just playing his last cards out of determination to do all he could to keep her.
"I'm listening of course."
"This will look bad," he said. "It will hurt your reputation here. It will look like you couldn't handle what the pirates did to you and are fleeing in fear. I know it isn't so but some, many, will think so. Our enemies will whisper it widely."
"My reputation is in tatters already," Jeannie replied. "I can try rebuilding starting now, or when I return, but it may be easier after mem
ories have faded and feelings cooled."
"Memories fading brings up another problem," her father said. "We had unsuspected traitors in the clan. Captain Lee's betrayal was unexpected and we still do not know why she did it, how much damage she inflicted, or if there aren't others like her in our ranks. How deep did the tentacles of that pirate organization wriggle themselves into local society. I'm going to have to find answers. Winkle those tentacles out. I could use your help."
"I'm truly sorry, Father," Jeannie said. "You're going to have to do without it. I regret that."
"That's it then?"
"Yes, Father, I've made up my mind I'm going to the Academy."
"So be it. You have my blessing."
* * *
So she was leaving.
Jeannie looked out from her favorite observation deck over the shipyards and docks of Pedlar's Haven and felt a sort of preemptive home sickness.
It'd be several months before the next Academy class began in what was the autumn of Earth's northern hemisphere. She had plenty of time to make it there. The journey would itself would take only a little over two months. She'd leave as early as she could.
It was prudent to have as much time to acclimatize herself to a new world, and a new culture, as she could manage. She'd never been further coreward than Newton.
She could also claim she wanted to see the many sights of humanity's home planet while she had time.
Both good reasons to go as soon as possible. Neither the real one.
In truth, as freeing as a new beginning would be she felt sad, and maybe a little trepidation at leaving her home and family behind. Letters, however frequent, would take two months one way, a four month, a third of a year turnaround time in conversations. She was going far away. Having beat distance on his home planet man had gone to the stars to find it again.
Personally she was going to be alone among strangers.
She'd always thought of herself as a loner apart from those around her. Both by nature of her position as first her father's daughter, then as his heir, and because of her physical and mental talents.
Now she realized that had never been completely true. Now that she was leaving she realized how attached she was to the people and places of her youth.
Maybe no man, and no woman, was an island.
Jeannie felt sure that was true.
She wasn't sure what sort of woman she was, and she wasn't sure what sort of world she would face.
She was sure she was no one else's woman.
She was her own woman.
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