by Rick Partlow
“You get a really good view from up here,” Logan Conner admitted, taking a sip of his drink. Just wine tonight; he didn’t drink hard liquor on a date. He’d been told it brought out the asshole in him.
“I didn’t even know there was a restaurant this far up Mt. Erebus,” Terrin said a bit too loudly, just reminding Logan he was there. A mischievous grin curled the corner of his mouth, but he quickly hid the expression behind a water glass. “Then again, Logan has never taken me along on a date before.”
“It’s just dinner, Terry,” he fired back, enjoying the way his brother’s eyes bugged out when he called him by the hated nickname. “You said you wanted to hang out before you went to the observatory.”
“Are you an astronomer, Terry?” Kathren asked him.
“I prefer Terrin and I’m an astrophysicist.” He shrugged. “Among other things.”
“Terrin Brannigan,” Logan informed her in a tone of affected gravity, “has doctorates in astrophysics and nuclear physics, and is working on a third in hyper-dimensional physics. He’s the brains of the family and he’ll never let us forget it.”
“Not everyone wants to spend their life bouncing around from one backwater to another, getting shot at.” Terrin was trying to hold back a smirk and doing badly at it. “Some of us want to actually accomplish something.”
“Did I mention I’m a Navy pilot?” Kathren asked, batting her eyes innocently.
Logan nearly spat out a mouthful of wine and Terrin began gabbling an awkward apology, rescued only by the arrival of the servers. In the cheaper places in downtown Argos, they might get away with using tabletop kiosks for ordering and server bots to bring your food, but in the Estatorio Erebus, they still used human waiters and servers and the manager still stopped by your table to ask how everything tasted.
That’s why it costs so damn much to eat here. And why it takes three weeks’ notice to get a reservation—unless you’re the Guardian’s son.
He didn’t like trading on his father’s name, but when he was trying to impress a girl…
“This is excellent,” Kathren enthused after her first taste of the lamb. She had a sudden, stricken expression as if she were about to choke on the bite. “I don’t know if my military pay account has been activated here yet.”
“I got it,” Logan assured her, waving it off, as if what was going to be a significant chunk of his next paycheck was no big deal. He grinned broadly. “You can pay for mine next time.”
“Awesome!” Terrin enthused, leaning forward between them on the table. “When are the three of us getting together again?”
Now it was Kathren’s turn to laugh around an extra-large bite of lamb, covering her mouth to keep it from spraying across the table, and Logan’s ears began to heat up, whether with anger or embarrassment he wasn’t sure.
“I thought you were heading up Bloodmark Mountain to the observatory for three fun weeks listening to interstellar radio signals or something,” Logan reminded him, stabbing at his own meal with a bit more force than was required.
“It’s a radio telescope?” Kathren asked him, brow scrunching in confusion. “In the mountains? Wouldn’t that be a better place for an optical telescope?”
“Bloodmark is an optical telescope,” he explained, casting an irritated glance at his brother for messing up the terminology, “but it’s also got a link to the radio telescopes in orbit and on Hecate’s far side.” He shook both the irritation and the explanation off with a motion like a dog shaking water off its fur. “Anyway, we’re cataloging man-made signals from the Dead Worlds, the old imperial center, in order to exclude them from future stellar surveys.” He shrugged. “It’s not sexy or ground-breaking, but it’s necessary and everyone has to take their turn.”
“You got a scientist girlfriend up there?” Logan asked him, a little bit teasing but also a little bit curious. His brother wasn’t exactly a monk, but you could count the number of girlfriends he’d had on one hand and still have enough fingers to signal you were “okay.” “Maybe one of those graduate students?”
“I’m researching a doctoral thesis,” Terrin said, waving a hand dismissively. “I don’t have time for a relationship.”
“Hell, you’ve been working on one doctoral thesis or another since you were nineteen. You’re about to turn twenty-five. By the time you manage to squeeze in a relationship, you’ll be the weird, old professor all the kids hate to get for physics class at the university.”
“Yeah and what about you? You going to give up being a mechjock to settle down, raise a family, get into politics?”
“Someday,” he allowed, perhaps a little defensively, eyes flickering toward Katy. She was observing the interplay with what seemed like amused fascination. “I mean, you can’t drive a mech forever. Even Colonel Anders is getting near the time-in-grade where Dad is going to force him to ride a desk.”
“So, not forever, just for the next twenty years or so, then?” He was openly mocking now, reverting to an adolescent, nasal whine Logan hadn’t heard from him since he’d left for the Academy. “And you think a warrior monk is any better than a scholar monk?”
“I think the scenery’s better,” he shot back, giving in to the anger and frustration of dealing with a smartass younger brother instead of rising above it the way the voice of reason in the back of his mind told him to. “I think one of these days, you’re going to wake up and find out half your life is over and you haven’t bothered to live it.”
“And killing people is such a great way to live your life, Logan?” There was a flare behind Terrin’s eyes, the same old sign that Logan had finally pushed a bit too far. “You think if you kill enough, it’s going to be revenge for Mom?”
Red floated over Logan’s vision and before he realized what he was doing, he was pushing up from his seat, the bottoms of the wooden chair legs scraping loudly against the hardwood floor.
“Food’s getting cold, boys.” Kathren’s words were casual, but there was an edge to them, a gentle scolding not unlike the tone his mother had used when he and Terrin were at each other’s throats.
He blinked, realized what he’d been about to do and settled back into his chair, still glaring at Terrin. He half-expected his brother to be smiling in satisfaction at pushing just the right button at just the right time; instead, Terrin’s face was still screwed up in his own steaming funk.
And maybe he’s right to be angry. I invited him along on what was basically a date just to avoid having to really talk to him. He hissed out a breath. Shit. I really hate having to say…
“I’m sorry,” he said it anyway. He set down the fork he hadn’t realized he was still holding, the metal clinking against the porcelain of his dish, an untouched morsel of lamb still speared on the tines. “I’m sorry I lost my temper in front of you, Kathren and…” This part was harder. “I’m sorry I was giving you shit, Terrin. Dad and I are both really proud of you and what you’ve accomplished. I know Mom would be, too. You’ve turned out exactly the way she hoped you would, Dad says it all the time.”
Terrin nodded, pushing the hair back out of his face.
“I’m sorry, too,” he said, voice and expression both calming. “I shouldn’t have said what I did about Mom.” He looked over at Kathren, guilt written across his face. “I’m sorry, Kathren. I hope we didn’t ruin dinner for you.”
She took another bite of lamb and chewed it well before answering.
“Terrin, my father is a cleric of the Old Way, a devout pacifist, and my mother is a medical missionary. And I have been wanting to fly military aerospacecraft since I was three, so if there’s one thing I am used to, it’s arguments at the dinner table…”
Kathren Margolis thrilled at the feel of flying.
Sure, it was just a hopper, a ducted-fan helicopter, and she’d only flown them back to the city from the restaurant parking area on Mt. Erebus, barely thirty kilometers. But it was still flying; she hadn’t flown anything, not even a simulator in weeks, since before she’d made
that last, ill-fated trip home.
She ignored the flashing warning about the altitude and the on-board computer imploring her to allow it to autopilot the craft the rest of the way down. She caressed the controls like the skin of a lover, guiding it to a soft and satisfying climax, the wheels touching down gently.
Wouldn’t have spilled the copilot’s coffee, she thought with a rush of satisfaction. If she’d had a copilot and if anyone in the hopper had been drinking coffee.
“Thank you for flying the Spartan Navy spacelines,” she murmured the old joke, hitting the control to raise the canopy. “Be sure to use us for all your transportation needs.”
She was feeling almost buoyant, not sure if it was the flying or the company. She cut power to the rotors, their lion’s roar winding down to a gentle grumble and then a whisper. She let Terrin and Logan get out first, watched them speaking quietly to each other for nearly a minute before the younger man offered his brother a hand. Logan looked askance at the hand and pulled Terrin into a hug. The scientist seemed embarrassed and awkward, but eventually he returned the embrace for a few seconds before the warrior let him go.
When she saw Terrin walking across the public landing field to his little three-wheel runabout, she popped open the side hatch out of the cockpit and stepped down, taking Logan’s proffered helping hand even though she didn’t need it. It was warmer down here in the river valley and the evening wind tugged playfully at the hem of her dress like the gentle teasing of the angels.
“Thank you for the delightful evening,” she said, holding on to his hand well after she was safely on the pavement. “Though if I’m treating next time, I’m afraid we’ll have to find someplace a bit more reasonably priced and with no hopper rental involved, especially if your brother comes along.”
“I promise,” he said, raising the hand not holding hers as if he were taking an oath, “next time it’ll just be the two of us.”
“No, it’s fine, I very much enjoyed meeting your brother. He’s a genius, which I am used to at home but have not met quite so many of in the military.”
He eyed her doubtfully.
“I’d ask if that’s some sort of wise-ass crack about the military except you’re in the military.”
“I’m a pilot,” she corrected him, grinning to take the sting out of the words. “We think of ourselves as separate from and, of course, superior to the rest of the military.”
“Of course. But I would still rather it just be the two of us on our next date.”
She let the corner of her mouth curl churlishly.
“Is that what this was? A date?”
“If it wasn’t, I definitely want the next one to be.”
He was direct, honest. She appreciated that. Too many men thought they could trick their way or talk their way into a woman’s good graces. She was, despite her joke to the contrary, in the military and she appreciated a direct approach.
“Fine,” she told him. “I accept your invitation to let me pay for our next, or perhaps first date. But only on two conditions.”
They’d been walking—very slowly—toward his motorcycle, parked against the side of the hopper rental office, now long closed. He stopped and turned to face her, their fingers still intertwined.
“Anything,” he vowed. “You name it.”
“First, only my father and my superior officers call me ‘Kathren.’ My name is Katy.”
“Katy.” He seemed to be tasting the name, smiling when he evidently decided he liked it. “It fits better.”
“I’ve always thought so, and while some people say it’s lame to choose your own nickname, I’m exercising the right anyway.”
“What’s the other condition?”
Logan was close now, so close she could feel his breath teasing at her hair like the wind. His breath smelled like the after-dinner mint she’d seen him pick up from the table and she grinned. Just like a soldier: always prepared. She leaned up and kissed him, her arms slipping around his neck, his going around her waist.
It was just right, just as she’d imagined it and warmth flooded her in all the right places, washing away all thought and consideration. Luckily, she’d taken care of the thought and consideration ahead of time.
She pulled away, just slightly and their matching intake of breath merged into a single sigh of satisfaction.
“The other condition is that we get on your bike and you take me back to your apartment,” she told him, her voice huskier than she thought it would be. “And our next date will be breakfast tomorrow morning.”
“Katy,” he said, something wild and ready in those grey eyes, “you drive a hard bargain.”
5
The cold night air slapped Logan in the face, whipped through his hair as he guided his cycle up the winding mountain road. The hum of the machine's electric motor was barely audible above the roar of the wind, giving the whole experience a dreamlike quality. He could almost believe it was a dream on a night like this; a pale fog clung to the craggy sides of Bloodmark Mountain, backlit by Hecate and Circe, Sparta's twin moons, giving everything an eerie luminescence. His headlights barely cut through the fog enough for him to navigate the treacherous road, with dark forest on one side and steep cliff on the other.
I could have taken a hopper up to the observatory. But no...I thought it would be fun to ride up.
Well, hell, it was kind of fun. Taking risks was always fun. Otherwise he'd have been studying science like his brother, instead of becoming a warrior. He chuckled softly to himself, wondering what his father would have thought of his eldest becoming a scientist. He wasn't even thrilled about his younger son forsaking the warrior way, but he surely understood that it was just as important to design new ships and mecha as it was to pilot them. And Mithra knew, they had regressed enough from the Empire without neglecting scientific research.
What the hell is important enough for Terrin to call me up to the observatory at this time of night?
His brother had refused to tell him over his link—he'd insisted Logan come in person. So, much against his better judgement, he'd hauled himself out of bed, leaving Katy slightly disgruntled, and fired up his bike.
It wasn't too much longer before the observatory came into view, a white, domed building that housed not only a comparatively small optical telescope, but the hookups to an orbital radio/X-ray telescope and spectroanalyzer. It was, Logan thought ruefully, Terrin's personal toy. He'd pushed their father to expand the existing site and put up the orbital assembly. It now seemed he was spending all his time there.
Logan pulled his cycle up next to Terrin's flyer, kickstanded it and swung a leg off, his flying leathers creaking as he straightened. He adjusted his gunbelt, unzipped his jacket and headed inside. The reception office was dark and deserted, so he went ahead up the stairs to the monitoring bay, a huge upper room filled with the main body of the optical telescope and the readouts from the orbital assembly.
A small group of people were gathered around a bank of readouts; two of them he recognized. One was unabashedly old, tough and wrinkled as old leather, his hair white as the snow on the mountains, skeleton-thin under his worn and faded jacket. Dr. Damian Kovalev was the head of the Sparta Institute of Astronomy, and an old family friend. The other was his younger brother. Terrin had always been an introvert, shy and soft-spoken; the only things that excited him were physics and astronomy, and he poured every waking hour into them. At the moment, it appeared he'd had one too many hours awake. Dark circles couched his eyes, he looked too pale and his clothes looked to have been slept in. He looked up from the readouts at Logan's approach, his eyes brightening.
"Hey, bro," he said, nodding. "I'm glad you're here."
"Hope this is something big, Terrin." Logan shook his head, slapping his younger sibling on the shoulder. "You wouldn't believe what I left behind for you."
"Sorry." Terrin grinned, embarrassed. Logan wondered sometimes if his brother was still a virgin. "But this is big. Real big. I thought about calling Fa
ther, but I wanted to run it by you first."
"What happened? You rediscover the stardrive?"
"Just maybe.” His brother's intensity surprised him. "You need to listen to this, Logan."
"We picked this up," Dr. Kovalev spoke for the first time, "from an isolated system about four hundred light years from here, on the other side of the Homeworld."
Logan thought it ironic that people still referred to Eurotas, the old Imperial capital, as the Homeworld, almost four centuries after it had fallen to the Jeuta. Nearly as ironic as the notion of an empire that spanned hundreds of light-years falling to the genetically-engineered slave race they’d created to do their grunt work.
"So, this signal originated three hundred years ago?" Logan cocked an eyebrow.
"Maybe more." Kovalev nodded, his manner just as serious as Terrin’s, with an excitement tempered by age.
“There's not much," Terrin told him, "but with computer enhancement, we've salvaged a little."
"Let me replay what we've got," the older man hit a control on the console. There was a deafening silence for a few moments, then a burst of static from the speakers set in the low ceiling of the observatory control room...and a voice.
"...Colonel Walken Zeir..." The voice, though distorted by static, sounded tired and resigned, yet still with an underlying strength and dignity. "…of the 403rd Imperial Ordnance Battalion." Another burst of static obscured the next few words. "...stationed here on Terminus for the last...”
"Terminus!" Logan hissed, eyes widening.
"Listen," Terrin admonished.
"...years," Zeir's message continued. "When I came here, there seemed hope we could yet pull the fragments of the Empire back together. Now with the Jeuta invasion of the Homeworld, that hope is dead."
