by Lance Berry
Mara sat back, relaxed and at ease. She had no doubt now that being part of the security team at Omega Base was a plum assignment. Let her father have Luna; this was her home now…
Once the shuttle landed in bay four, the privates all began to gather their duffel bags in preparation for disembarking. Mara helped the pigtailed girl retrieve her baggage from the overhead compartment even though she hadn’t asked for it, then offered her hand. “Thanks a lot for switching seats. It meant a lot. I’m Mara Elliot.”
The girl accepted Mara’s hand and replied, “I’m Melissa
King. But everyone calls me ‘Missy’.”
Mara smiled. Her name totally suited her, somehow. “Nice to meet you, Missy. I noticed you reading a bio about Jemmn.
Fan of hers, I take it?”
Missy nodded enthusiastically, and her eyes grew wide in hopeful anticipation. “Are you?”
Mara smiled again and nodded. “Big fan.”
Missy giggled slightly, then suggested they get a move-on, as most of the other privates had nearly evacuated the cabin.
Mara agreed, and the two of them disembarked the ship, chatting about Jemmn. and music in general, right up until it was time for roll call.
Chapter 19
The initial stage of friendship is one of the most unpredictable things in the universe. One can’t fully explain why certain people are drawn to one another, or how it is that one person you think will turn out to be a good friend becomes nothing more than an acquaintance, while another that you might barely pay attention to at first glance becomes someone you would trust with your life.
So it was that over a very short span of time, Mara Elliot and Missy King became the closest of friends. They took recreation time together, exchanged ideas and stories about their lives, including secrets they never thought they’d tell another living being. Mars was a very secure planet, as were the majority within the Sol system…it was a rare occurrence for the Calvorian Alliance to be able to push close to the star-system, and so there was quite a bit of downtime for troops stationed there, including security details. The planet had a lower crime rate than even that of Luna, and so Mara and Missy spent nearly all their free time together. They were like sisters, and even called each other such. The two were inseparable, until two years into their tour of duty at Omega, transfer orders came in for Mara. She was to be assigned to the Heavy Cruiser Hawking, to serve in its security division.
Mara and Missy had each received promotions the year before the transfer orders came in, and so it was they had managed to be assigned to quarters together. It was now the year 2181, the night before Mara was due to ship out. She and Missy stayed up a little later than they should have, watching vids and catching the late news as they shared popcorn in a bowl. A late-breaking report came in about a recent victory for UEF in a distant star-system. Two divisions of Heavy Cruisers soundly decimated an enemy squadron twice their combined size. The Earth ships had been led to their triumph by Captain David Christenson, commanding officer of the recently launched flagship Horizon. As the newscaster relayed the details of Christenson’s strategy to viewers, a sidebar displayed a picture of the captain, with information about his military history scrolling alongside. He was a handsome man, with dark, silky hair and piercing eyes that seemed to penetrate even from the depths of the vid-com.
Missy drew in a sharp breath. “Oh my god, I would so totally fuck his brains out.”
“Missy—!” Mara exclaimed with a laugh.
“Oh, come on, Mara…look at the man,” she said, gesturing to the screen. “He is hot as hell, and I’ll bet he has a big one!
Big and thick, and knows how to use it! He could own me any day of the week, and twice on Sundays!”
Mara laughed heartily, then nibbled her upper lip as she espied his image once more. “Yeah…he is sort-of cute…”
“Sort of…” Missy repeated with a roll of her eyes. “Poser!” she cried, then grabbed a fistful of popcorn and threw it at her friend. Mara screeched in surprise, and threw some back as they shared a laugh. “Admit it, Mara—you would totally spread your legs for him!”
Mara gasped, and could feel her cheeks flushing with embarrassment. “Would not! Come on!”
“You so totally would,” Missy said with a mischievous smile.
“Every single woman on this base—even a couple of lesbians I know—would like a shot at David Christenson. The man’s racked up as many victories as David Grossman, and he’s not even close to the same age! He’s a brilliant tactician, suave… and have you heard his accent—!”
Mara lay back against her pillow, a wistful sigh escaping her lips. “Yes. I have. He’s from England, you know.”
Missy nodded. “A small town called Blackpool. He was the captain of Her Majesty’s Royal Star Force, y’know.”
“Really?”
“Uh-huh. That is a man who knows what he’s doing.
Confident, take charge…you can’t tell me that if he was your commanding officer and ordered you to give him an ‘oral report’, you wouldn’t drop to your knees at lightspeed.”
Mara chuckled, a little anxiously. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess…”
There was a moment of awkward silence, and Missy looked at her curiously. “You’re not thinking about that bullshit that happened with that doctor creep, are you?”
“It wasn’t bullshit, Missy. It hurt, a lot. It was terrifying.
The scariest thing I’d ever been through.”
Missy’s features softened a bit, a semi-apologetic look washing over her features. “You know what I meant, though.”
She reached over, taking her friend’s hand in her own. “That was years ago, Mara. You were just a kid. You couldn’t have been expected to know what to do in a situation like that. You can’t let this eat you up for the rest of your life, honey. If you do, you’ll never have a decent relationship…you’ll die a virgin… and I’ll just have to keep David Christenson’s cock all to myself.”
The two shared a small chuckle. “You would too, you selfish bitch,” Mara said with a smile.
Missy stood on her knees on top of the bed and waved her pelvis at the vid-com. “Uh-huh, uh-huh. Mine, mine, mine—!” she said with a laugh at Christenson’s face. Mara slapped her on the rear, and the two fell into a brief tickle fight. When it was done, they talked for a little while longer about certain things, and vowed to keep in touch no matter where their assignments would take them.
The next morning, Missy saw Mara off to her transport.
Once it had lifted off and she was certain it had gained a high enough climb gradient so as she could not be seen from above, she stood in place and cried for a long time…
Chapter 20 (2184)
Life aboard the Hawking suited Mara well. By her second year there, she had moved up the ranks of the security department to become its chief security officer—third in command of the vessel, following Captain James Stubbs and first officer Nichole Tamamura.
The Hawking was a slightly older Heavy Cruiser, nearly halfway through its projected lifespan of twenty years. Yet it served well in its engagements with the enemy, thanks in no small part to the synergy of its bridge command staff. Captain Stubbs was an exceptional leader and Tamamura a steadfast and capable first officer. Although Mara wasn’t too fond of the phrase for its somewhat blasphemous aspects, she came to grudgingly accept the nickname “holy trinity” which the crew had bestowed upon the two main officers and herself, due to the fluidity and ease with which they executed their tactics under the duress of combat.
One day, during one of the few moments of down time for the crew, Captain Stubbs called his senior staff together for a meeting in war room A. The ship was at high lightspeed as it journeyed through its artificial wormhole within the fourth-dimensional realm of hyperspace. Mara sat at the side of the conference table nearest the window, watching as an ever-changing whirl of muted colors swam by outside. No ship was capable of holding position within hyperspace—at least, neither human no
r Calvorian—and so no one truly knew what it looked like. Scientists had theorized that the mix of unfathomable colors was the nearest the brain could come to dealing with what it was attempting to perceive without shutting down entirely.
The war room doors opened, and Captain Stubbs walked in, followed close behind by Commander Tamamura. Stubbs was a handsome black man, with hair prematurely whiting at the temples. Tamamura was a beautiful Asian-African mix, with long hair draping down to just above the lower arch of her back.
Mara unconsciously ran a hand through her own hair as she considered that many women in the UEF allowed their hair to quickly grow long, once they moved past a certain rank, usually lieutenant-commander or above. Although in many ways the human race was slowly moving toward a more androgynous state in certain areas of fashion and personal grooming, there was still something decidedly unfeminine about a crew cut— something which cut psychologically to the core of a woman’s being. Mara had dreaded looking at herself in a mirror after she first received one, and it took a week for her to get used to it. As soon as she hit the rank of lieutenant-commander, it couldn’t grow back fast enough to suit her. It now rested at just past her shoulders, and she did realize that she felt more like an actual female because of it.
She was brought out of her reverie as Stubbs made his way to the chair at the head of the table and remarked, “Mara, how is it that you always manage to arrive here before either of us?”
“Sorry, Captain…that falls under the heading of security protocols. I can’t tell you.”
“I think she’s hiding a teleporter in her room,” Tamamura said as she took a seat directly across from Mara. The two women shared a friendly smile, and Mara replied, “You got me, Nikki. First working one ever.”
“Then you should sell the patent to UEF,” Stubbs added.
“I’m sure you could retire off the royalties.”
Mara chuckled lightly. “They couldn’t afford it. I have expensive tastes.”
The trio laughed. The doors parted once again, allowing Chief Medical Officer Lana Barrows and ship’s engineer Hugh McCaffie to step in. “Okay, okay…what are we missing?” the youngish-looking doctor asked no one in particular as she took a seat beside Mara. Engineer McCaffie sat beside Tamamura.
McCaffie was a study in dichotomy: a dour-looking expression always clouded his countenance, yet he was usually the first one to come up with a joke in order to pull up another person’s spirits.
“Nothing. Just some nonsensical ramblings,” Mara answered the doctor.
“Oh? And this is different from any other time how—?”
Barrows said facetiously.
There were brief chuckles around the table, and then Stubbs finally held his hands up for all to settle down. “Okay, okay…as you all know, following our last battle at Arcturus, our crew is in serious need of some down time, and the Hawking needs some repairs to both the shield emitter array and several MPRS backup systems. We’ve finally been scheduled for some repair time at Hephaestus, and fortunately there is an informal conference on tactics at our security chief’s old stomping grounds—Mars Omega Base.”
“I hope you’re not expecting a tour,” Mara said. “It’s been a couple years since I’ve been there.”
“I believe they have maps at the intake station,” Stubbs said with a smile, then regarded them all once more. “Commander Tamamura, Chief Elliot and I will attend the conference. Hugh, I’m leaving you in charge of the ship and overseeing the Hephaestus team’s repairs.”
“Not a problem, Cap’n,” McCaffie replied with a nod.
“The conference is scheduled for two days,” Stubbs told them. “Hopefully the Hawking’s repairs will either coincide with that timetable, or at the least, won’t take much longer. All personnel non-vital to the repair effort are of course allowed to go planetside for R&R. Let’s get those repairs set to with expedience, then get right back to work. Any questions? No?
Dismissed.”
Only a few hours later, the Hawking was on final approach to the Hephaestus Shipyards. The vessel’s helmsman moved the Heavy Cruiser into geosynchronous orbit with one of the station’s extended dock ports, and the linkup was concluded briskly. Not long afterward, Stubbs, Tamamura and Mara headed for the Omega Base in a troop transport while several repair teams from the station headed to the Hawking in two shuttles.
Mara was piloting the officers’ transport, with Tamamura at the co-pilot’s station. Stubbs was seated in one of the forward passenger seats. “You’re really good at this,” Tamamura remarked as Mara effortlessly lowered the transport into Mars’ thin atmosphere.
“Thanks. When I was in my teens, my father took me up in a shuttle once and taught me to fly. He said it was one of those things that would round me out as a soldier. Since not everyone in the military learns much beyond basic flying skills, he thought it would be to my advantage.”
“It is. God knows, I would never have hired you otherwise,”
Stubbs remarked. Mara and Tamamura shared a smile at the joke, then the former turned her attention back to the console as a beep issued forth. Tamamura adjusted the com-line, allowing the signal to come through.
“Attention shuttle T-5721. This is Mars Traffic Command.
Come in to landing platform seven at vector one-nine-eight by two-four-five.”
“Acknowledged,” Tamamura answered, then clicked the com off once more.
“So how is your old man? Have you checked on him recently?” Stubbs asked in a very light tone. He, Tamamura and Mara had grown quite close in the short time they’d served together, and both officers knew something of her history with Mark Elliot.
Mara unconsciously cleared her throat and shook her head.
“Haven’t spoken to him in a couple of years, although I do keep in touch with my little brother. I know Sara’s just entered the Academy in Bridgeport. Peter’s doing well in school. That’s all I need to know.”
“You know, Mara—”
“Please, James,” Mara cut him short, her voice taking on a somewhat more serious tone. “If you’re about to advise me for the umpteenth time that I should reach out to my dad, no one lives forever, etcetera…I really don’t need to hear it. That line goes both ways, and if he wanted to, he could reach out to me.
Thank you, I do appreciate your concern as always…but if I have to endure some stodgy conference where a bunch of bigwigs who haven’t tasted battle in the field in a dozen years or more try to tell me how to fight a battle, I’d rather focus on one irksome annoyance at a time.”
Stubbs rubbed his hands together and shrugged. “Fair enough, Mara. Fair enough.”
Mara cleared her throat again, then brought the transport around in a small arc toward landing platform seven. The rest of the trip and its landing were conducted in silence.
The trio took an AirKab to the Sultan Resort, a fancy hotel at the southern end of Omega Base, and where the conference was set to take place. Upon their arrival, the trio of officers headed for the service desk and to Mara’s surprise, Captain Stubbs informed the concierge there were three rooms reserved apiece for each of them. As the concierge checked the reservations, Mara tapped Stubbs lightly on his arm. “What’s going on?”
Stubbs shrugged noncommittally, although the knowing smile on Tamamura’s face gave away that she was already privy to this knowledge. “I figured that we may as well take advantage of this conference,” the captain said. “So as of now, this is more than just a business meeting—it’s a mini-vacation.
