Chapter 7: Going Home
Valarie Mitchum was on her way home. A home she hadn’t been welcomed in for several years. She had no choice but to return to her parents’ home. It had been months since she had any contact with her father and mothers. But that wasn’t unusual. She hadn’t heard from her parents in months. Now a week after the Queen’s announcement she had left the boat and was on her way home.
A week before, Valerie Mitchum had been awakened by the Boson’s pipe announcing there was a ship wide announcement. She was in crew berthing trying catch some sleep before she took up her watch as junior helmsman of the watch. The captain announced that the Queen had an announcement to make to the kingdom. The image of the captain was replaced by that of the Queen. The seventeen year old girl watched the announcement with the rest of the crew of the Adventure of Learning. The Adventure was an almost exact replica of a pre empire sailing ship. In this case it was the war ship HMS Victorious, a famous war ship of the old United Kingdom of Earth. It was not a faithful recreation. It couldn’t be as it had to be built to modern safety standards. As such it had modern toilets, and sanitary services and foodservice equipment, along with an AI and a modern navigation computer. Although the hull was an exact recreation it was made of a super tough resin instead of wood, the only thing that was remotely built like the old war ship were the masts, rigging, and the sails. The big old ship’s crew was made up of adults and teenagers. The Adult who were the ships officers; also served as school teachers and counselors. The teenagers who made up the crew were all disciplinary problems at home or had run afoul of the law.
Mitch had come to ship after she had problems at home. Ever since her birth mother had been killed at work and her parents had remarried, home was anything but peaceful. Her new mother, Lynn had never liked her, even when her father and momma Loretta were dating her. Lynn had hid her feelings about Mitch to everyone. Once she was living with them she and Mitch seemed to do nothing but fight and argue. Finally a councilor they were seeing thought Mitch might benefit from some time away from the family. The councilor arranged for her to become part of the Adventure’s crew. An old sailing ship from centuries before man had gone into space let alone the stars. The old ship had served for nearly a century as an alternative to foster homes or juvenile detention centers for troubled teens. At first she didn’t like the Adventure as she was always in trouble. As time wore on and she found out that she wouldn’t be going home even for a short visit until she stopped being a disciplinary problem. She started to enjoy being part of the crew. After that she became, if not a model crewmen close to it.
That was four years ago. Every time the ship made port she went home to see it things would work out with her parents. It never did. Lynn (it always had been Lynn,) was who she had problems with. So she kept going back to the Adventure. The last time the ship had made port she didn’t try to go home. No one answered her parent’s coms. So she wasn’t allowed to go home as the ship wasn’t able to confirm that there was anyone at home for her. She stayed aboard ship with a couple of dozen other kids. As one of the older kids she became one of the junior officers of the deck.
They had been several hours out of Trenaport when the ship’s master Com System came alive with the holo of the Queen’s announcement. It was seen or heard in all spaces of the ship. Including crew berthing. The ship’s berthing areas, resembled the old ship it had been modeled after, was quiet for a few minutes after the Queen announced the evacuation of their world. For a few minutes after the announcement there was stunned silence in the berthing space. When it was broken; it was broken by a quiet sob as one of the girls began quietly crying. That started others crying and jabbering. The sound of the boson’s pipe cut through the noise, and the captain’s image materialized in the berthing space, his voice cutting through the din quieting the berthing space.
“There’s not much I can say about her majesty’s announcement,” The captain began, “needless to say this is the Adventure’s the last voyage. Tomorrow we will dock in Trenaport. As we sail to Trenaport we will be contacting your families letting them know what’s going on and when we’ll be getting in to port so they can pick you up. Over the next couple of days as you are reunited with your families, we’ll be decommissioning the Adventure. We won’t just throw you off the Adventure. We will make sure that you have a safe place to go. We will help you as much as we can. Try to settle down now. We’ll make Trenaport by 1400.”
At midnight Mitch took her post as the junior helmsman of the watch. As she helped to steer the big ship with the adult or senior helmsman she couldn’t help but look to the skies. McKay, Trena’s moon was full in the sky. It was so bright they could read the charts without turning on the lights on the chart table. The moon was so bright it dominated the sky. So much so she couldn’t see the stars in the night sky let alone the asteroids the Queen had warned them about.
“Can’t see them either,” the senior helmsman commented after looking to the skies also.
She stood her watch until 0400. Even after the moon had set they still couldn’t see the asteroids. There were many crewmen on deck who were trying to see the asteroids. Her relief was a few minutes late and was so distracted by trying to see the asteroids he barely relieved her properly.
As the ship sailed to Trenaport, the staff and AI called every family letting them know when the ship was going to make port. Unfortunately Mitch’s family couldn’t be found. She watched from the deck of the Adventure as parents and families picked up her crewmates. She had called home a couple of times herself, but no one answered. A few days later when her parents still had not picked her up the captain requested her presence in his in port cabin.
“Leading Seamen apprentice Mitchum,” the captain addressed her after she had reported in. “We still haven’t been able to get a hold of your parents. Have you had any luck?”
“No captain,” Mitch had answered, “They haven’t returned any of my messages. I don’t know where they could be.”
“Since we couldn’t locate your parents,” the captain continued, “We’ve made arrangements for family services in Trenaport to take charge of you. They will be around shortly to collect you.”
“I see,” Mitch replied. Not certain she wanted to go there.
“We also called your grandparents on McKay,” The captain continued. “But your grandfather is very ill and your grandmother didn’t think she could care for you. So we have no other choice but to turn you over to Trenaport family services. Are you packed?”
“I am ready to go,” Mitch responded.
“Mitch,” the captain spoke softly, “You have made tremendous progress on the Adventure. You are no longer the angry little girl you were when you first came aboard the Adventure. You have made so much progress, that we were considering promoting you to petty officer and giving you a section.”
Mitch had no idea the officers thought that highly of her. She had seen her evaluations of course. She had thought they were okay. They did show steady progress from one year to another. Although she had wanted to be promoted she hadn’t pushed for it.
“Between your grades, and the evaluations of your officers,” the captain continued, “you have more than qualified to be a petty officer leader.” He gave her a single pip for her collar. “I wanted you to have this before you left the Adventure.”
“Thank you, sir,” Mitch answered.
There was knock on the captain’s door.
“Enter!” the captain called.
“Captain,” the captain’s yeoman entered the cabin. “TFS is here for Miss Mitchum. She’s been signed off so all she has to do is get her things.”
“Mitch, take care of yourself,” The captain reached forward to shake her hand.
“I will sir!” Mitch returned, shaking the captain’s hand. She left the captain’s in port cabin and went down to her berth and got her things. It didn’t take long for her to pick up her things. She didn’t have much. Just some uniforms and toiletries, sh
e didn’t have that many street clothes. They all fit into a simple duffle bag. The only thing that wouldn’t fit was the guitar that the ship’s music teacher had given her a year or so back. She hoisted her “sea bag” onto her shoulder and picked up her guitar and left the berthing spaces.
When she got up on deck, she found an older man waiting patiently with the officer of the deck. As she walked up to the where they were standing by the gang way the Officer spoke to her, “Petty Officer Mitchum, this Mr. Dellacort he’ll get you to a Trenaport Family Service shelter.”
“Mr. Dellacort,” Mitch greeted the stranger putting her sea bag down as she saluted the officer.
“Is this all your stuff?” The older man with the graying hair asked.
“Yes sir,” Mitch responded.
“Then let’s get on our way,” Dellacort suggested.
“Mr. Asher,” Mitch addressed the officer of the deck, “Permission to leave the ship?”
“Permission granted,” the officer replied. “Take care of yourself Mitch!”
“Thank you sir,” Mitch replied, “I will.”
She saluted the officer, and turned to the mast where the national ensign was lazily flapping in the wind, and saluted the colors. She went to pick up her bag; but Mr. Dellacort had already picked it up. She picked up her guitar and followed him down the gangway.
The family services worker took her to a building in down town Trenaport. It was a two story rambling building. In the lobby of the building a young woman sitting behind a desk greeted them, “Hello Jamal! Is this Miss Mitchum?”
“Yes,” her escort answered the young woman.
“Let’s get her signed in,” the woman told them.
With that the young woman began to sign her into the facility. As the woman finished she gave Mitch a pamphlet, “These are the rules we ask you to follow.”
She glanced at the pamphlet. The first thing she noticed was that she could get a day pass as long as she didn’t cause any problems. That surprised her. She thought she would be locked up in the place, she said as much to the young woman.
“Mitch if you were a year younger,” the woman answered, “you wouldn’t be allowed out without an escort. Since you are seventeen and not a runaway, or have problems with the authorities you will be allowed a pass a couple days a month.”
“How soon can I get a pass,” Mitch asked.
“Maybe in a week,” the woman replied. “Let me show you around.”
The young woman showed Mitch around the building.
A week later Mitch was given a pass with instructions that she had to be pack by 2000, and she had to leave her pad on so she could be gotten a hold of. She still couldn’t get a hold of her parents so she decided to go home.
Hopefully she would find her parents at home and they would allow her to come back home. Although she wasn’t comfortable with going home she wasn’t certain she would be able to get off Trena any other way.
When the bus cane she stepped onto it and took a seat. The mass transit system of Trenaport was free to all users, as the transit system was paid by a sales tax paid by anyone who purchased anything within the Trenaport Metro District. As she took her seat and the bus pulled away she heard a couple people talking.
“I was doing some research on evacuations this morning before work,” a woman was saying to her companion, “There has never been a planetary evacuation of a major planet. No one has ever done it!”
“No one?” her companion asked.
“No one,” the woman replied, “the Empire, and the Realm have evacuated some colonies, and outposts but nothing more than a couple thousand people.”
“I read where this Wilson has evacuated a small town several years ago.” Another said, “He was very successful relocating that town.”
“The crown’s got an extensive history on him,” someone else remarked. “He sounds like someone who can get it done. Oh here’s my stop!”
Mitch watched as an older man stood up to get off the bus.
As the bus started up again one of the passengers remarked, “There is a lot of biographical information about the Marshal on Crown Net. He is one of the few living Imperial Medal of Honor winners.”
“Oh he’s that Wilson,” someone else remarked, “several years back on Josephine, during his last deployment with the guard. He had been dropped with his squad onto Josephine to affect the rescue of a group of passengers held hostage by a group of Theocracy terrorists. They rescued the passengers and exfiltrated to an LZ where a landing craft from the Hospital Patrol Ship Recovery had landed a medical action team to assist in the evacuation of Sergeant Wilson’s team and the people he rescued. As Sergeant Wilson’s got them to the LZ, Wilson’s group and the LZ came under fire. Sergeant Wilson and his team provided covering fire so we could get aboard the Elsy. As his team insured that we got aboard the landing craft, his team was decimated. Sergeant Wilson went back five times to rescue his team members. On his final trip he was nearly killed. For his actions in the rescue of 75 passengers and defending the Medical Action Team, and getting his wounded team mates to safety he was awarded the Imperial Medal of Honor.”
“How do you know this?” someone asked.
“I was there,” the man answered, “If this is the same Sergeant Wilson, the Queen got the best one she could get.”
Mitch silently took that in. She had never heard of the Black Guard, though she had heard of the Interstellar Rescue Service that the hospital patrol ship was part of. Their exploits were legendary. They were the empire’s space going coast guard, patrolling the empire’s space lanes, rescuing spacefarers who came to grief. Their hospital patrol ships were the basis of their rescue work, which included assisting planetary populations during medical emergencies. She was going to have to check out this black guard. She wondered what they did for the empire. She brought her pad out and was so engrossed in the exploits of the Imperial Marine Corps Black Guard that if her pad hadn’t chimed she would have missed her stop. She put her pad away and got off the bus. She checked her pad to see when the next bus she needed would arrive. It would be half an hour. She saw a table with an umbrella over it and wandered over to it. Seeing it was a street side café she thought of sitting down at one of the tables. Although she some cash that she had earned on the Adventure, she decided to sit on the wall that surrounded its tables instead of sitting at one of the tables and getting something to drink.
She was reading some more about the Black Guard when she was distracted by two people talking.
“II’s really slow,” a woman was saying.
“Yeah,” an older man was saying, “I sent Wilma and Allison home. Tomorrow I am splitting your shifts up. I want you to work 10 to 14 tomorrow. Wilma will work 6 to 10, and Allison will work from 14 till we close. If it’s this slow tomorrow I’ll close early.”
“I thought you might close early today,” A woman was saying.
“I should; but I am hoping the going home crowd will stop in,” The man replied, “I need you to stick around till after we see if we are going to have a late afternoon crowd.”
Mitch brought up the time display and saw that it was almost 1430. She saw an older man talking to a woman in the café. The cafe was deserted. There wasn’t a soul walking the street in front of the café. What few people that were walking on the street were not even glancing towards the café. She felt sorry for the café. It was clean and well kept. If she had had more than a couple of crowns in her pocket she would have gotten something to snack on while she waited for the bus. She tried to turn back to her reading; but distracted by what she had just witnessed, she couldn’t get back to it. Instead she watched the street observing what was happening.
There were very few cars driving down the street. No one seemed to be stopping to patronize the stores or businesses along the street. There were a few people in small groups talking among themselves. So she looked back to the street and saw her next bus arriving. She got off the wall and walked to where the bus
was slowing to a stop to discharge some of its passengers and to pick up more. She boarded the bus and went to the back of the bus and continued to observe the bus and the streets they were traveling on. There didn’t seem to be much traffic. They passed another bus and it was as empty as the one she was on. She turned her attention back to the people on the on the bus as they discussed the evacuation.
“I don’t understand why we’re not being evacuated right away,” someone was saying. “I looked on crown net and there are no plans to evacuate us!”
“It’s probably secret,” a younger man said, “probably the royals, and military officers get off first. The rest of us are on our own.”
“If that was true,” someone else injected, “Then they wouldn’t have made the announcement!”
“I just don’t understand why it’s going to take so long,” a woman with two kids asked.
“We don’t have the space lift or star lift to get us out of here,” a man behind her spoke up, “quickly.”
“That and the fact we have seventy five million or so people to evacuate.” Another person remarked, “Where can we go. No one’s going to have readymade housing to hold all of us.”
That got Mitch’s attention, where would they go? Who would take them? Or would they become like the mystical ghost fleet. The legend went that a Ghost Fleet containing a large population from a doomed world was sailing the known galaxy to find a place to land its crews and passengers to find refuge on. The fleet had been sighted many times; but no one had ever been able to get aboard it. Every time the fleet had been sighted an expedition had attempted to investigate it, it had disappeared. It would go years sometimes decades before it would be sighted again. It seemed to be on a line from Earth to Thonia. It had not been observed in over a decade. She was wondering if they would become a Ghost Fleet. The thought chilled her as she rode to her next stop.
As she got off the bus to transfer to her next bus she noticed all the people standing around the stop. She checked the time and realized that it was late enough in the day that people were getting off work. She listened to the people as they waited for the bus.
“We had a lot of people call off again today,” an older man was saying.
“So did we,!” another person was saying.
“I was listening to one of newsnets at work today and they were saying that they almost canceled school today because of teacher call offs and student no shows.” A woman was saying.”
“My wives didn’t send our kids to school the last couple of days,” a man was saying. “I thought they should go. Thinking that the more normal things are, the better things will be for all of us. But my wives were adamant about them not going to school. I didn’t see any point in arguing with them so I just went to work.”
“Yeah I heard you,” A woman chimed in, “Me and Yoa argued most of last week. He thinks we can leave this week. We’ve been planning our honeymoon on Venice for almost a year. He seems to think we should just go now. He seems to think that since thickets were bought and paid for months ago we should be able to change the travel date. I didn’t think we can get passage off world right now. I checked with the booking agent he seems to think since the tickets are bought and paid for before the announcement there should be no problem changing our departure date.”
“So are you going to try?” The woman sitting next to the first woman asked.
“Yes,” the first woman respondedcommented, “We’re booked on next Friday’s flight from Trena to The In Between, where we’ll get the ship to Venice. Hopefully the flight won’t be canceled.,”
“What will do when you get to Venice,” Someone asked.
“We haven’t thought that far ahead,” The young woman answered. “We’ll find something.”
“Does anybody know why the crown is restricting off world travel?” Someone asked
“They haven’t explained why yet,” a man a couple seats away commented, “I imagine they want to make sure that there wasn’t a riot at the space port. The Marshal did say he wants to get every last mother’s child off Trena. This may be a way to account for everyone.”
“With 75 million or so of us to get off world,” a thonian towards the middle of the bus remarked, “So they are restricting off world travel until they find a way to account for everyone leaving the planet. Once that’s done they’ll most likely loosen up off world travel.”
“I wonder how long it’s going to take,” Someone else asked.
Mitch saw her stop coming up and signaled to get off the bus. When she got off the bus she saw a grocery store and decided to get a snack. She walked into the grocery thinking to pick up a drink and a piece of fruit. When she saw the prices of what she wanted, she changed her mind. She didn’t have much money. The fruit and soft drink she had wanted cost more than she wanted to spend. She thought about getting a candy bar, but even that was too expensive. A candy bar and a soda had been half a crown the day before was now were five crowns apiece! She walked out of the store concerned that if prices went up as they had in this store the home might not be able to feed them.
The bus came almost as she left the grocer. She had just gotten to the stop when it showed up. She climbed aboard and took a seat in the back. She tuned out the chatter on the bus as she pondered what she was doing. Her parents had sent her to the aAdventure four years ago. She had not been able to talk with them in months. She hoped that the reason she couldn’t derget a hold of them was something simple. She hoped they would take her back in because of the situation. She was still pondering her situation when it was time to get off the bus.
As she walked into the apartment complex that her parents lived in she noticed that the name had been changed. It also appeared to be not as well kept up as it had been when she had lived there with her parents. She walked up to theher old building and saw Mrs. Tory, a neighbor woman standing by a moving van. She wondered what was going on. She walked over to where Mrs. Tory was standing.
“Hi Mrs. Tory,” Mitch approached the woman, “are you being evacuated?”
“Oh hi Mitch,” the woman turned at hearing her name, She turned to see the young girl she hadn’t seen in years and asked “What are you doing here? Are your parents back?”
“Back?” Mitch asked. “I didn’t know they were gone!”
The middle aged woman looked at the young girl. She remembered when the Mitchum’s had left a few months year ago. It had been sudden. “You didn’t go with them. They said you had gone ahead of them to your uncle Carl on The In Between.”
“No,” Mitch replied, “I didn’t know they had left.”
“After you father and Loretta divorced Lynn. They left for The In Between.” Mrs. Tory said, “You’ve been on Trena all this time?”
“Yes,” Mitch answered, “I’ve been on the Adventure of Learning for four years. Are you being evacuated?”
“No,” Mrs. Tory answered, “We finally found a place to move to. The new owners doesn’t take care of things like they should. Last month the plumbing in your parents place sprung a leak. The ceiling collapsed in our bathroom. We haven’t been able to use it for over a month. We gave them our notice early this month. We found a place overlooking the harbor.”
“So dad and momma Loretta divorced Momma Lynn.”
“There was a hell of an argument. Lynn moved out. A couple of weeks later they divorced,” Mrs. Tory answered. “They left a short time after that.”
“So everyone’s gone,” Mitch asked.
“Yes,” Mrs. Tory confirmed.
“Then I guess I better head back to the home,” Mitch turned to go back.
“The home,” Mrs. Tory asked wondering what the girl was talking about.
Mitch went on to explain how she ended up in the home.
“Let me talk my husband,” Mrs. Tory commented after hearing the girl’s story, “Maybe you can stay with us. Then when we are evacuated you can come with us.”
“I would love that,” Mitch replied. Mrs. Tory went to find h
er husband.
“I am sorry Mitch,” Mrs. Tory came back a few minutes later, “Luke said no. He says we’re having enough problems feeding ourselves. My mother is living with us. Now with the evacuation he’s not certain how we’ll make ends meet. Do you have a place to stay?”
“Yes,” Mitch replied truthfully, Mrs. Tory had forgotten that she had told the older woman where she was staying, “I am staying with Trenaport Family Services.”
“Here’s our new address,” Mrs. Tory gave her a piece of paper it had her new address on it.
A little while later she left. She rode the nearly deserted bus back to town wondering what would become of her.
Every Last Mother's Child Page 18