by PJ Strebor
In two days’ time, this bliss would end and the family would report to his new posting. Then the lonely months awaiting his return while he went out on his boat to battle for Athens. He had certainly done a lot of battling during his final-year cruise aboard the monitor Truculent.
On his return from that danger-fraught mission, Nathan had said little about the incident. Most of the information she gleaned on the subject came from the news nets: “Athenian Naval midshipmen rescue kidnapped children from pirate warship”. What did her beloved have to say on the subject? “Nothing much happened. Pretty routine, really.”
Nathan had exercised such reticence with regard to the absolute truth since their first meeting on Kastoria six years ago. She had become accustomed to his reluctance to discuss certain matters, even with her. Considering how much life had taken from him, she could forgive his occasional circumspection.
Truculent had been another example of his protecting her from the truth. This time, he had returned from that “routine” patrol a changed man. Outwardly, to those who did not know him well, he remained the same quietly spoken, good-natured individual who had left the academy three months earlier. However, she could see the difference in him — and not only him. Moe and the other middies on that ill-fated voyage had been touched by the presence of death.
Livy had tried to draw Moe out about what had happened out on the frontier. She had been equally reticent and even more troubled by the experience than Nathan. They and the crew from Truculent had fought their way onto a fleeing pirate warship and rescued twenty-three kidnapped civilians who had been taken from the freighter Genevieve. Something had happened out in the coldness of space. Something so jarring, the two of them were forever marked by the experience.
Livy shook the unpleasant thought aside. Nathan had proven to be smart enough to take care of himself. As she knew from personal experience, he could kill without compunction if the circumstances warranted it. Besides, he had promised her to be careful. Yes, he’d be fine.
Livy glanced at Nathan and caught him staring at her in a way that melted her heart. A pleasing glow spread throughout her body as she cuddled into him. They needed no words between them after so long together. Livy knew in her heart that he loved her and would miss her when he went on patrol. Nathan could never bring himself to express such feelings, but Livy found contentment in the absolute certainty that he loved her.
“Don’t you two ever take a break?” Moe said.
“Envy is a terrible curse,” Nathan said.
Returning from the house with two bottles of wine tucked under her arm, Moe offered them to Nathan. “Swap you, Nate.”
No one called Nathan by that abbreviated name. No one but Moe Okuma. They had known each other since they were kids, grown up together, joined the academy together and had gone on the Truculent’s eventful patrol together.
Nathan did not relinquish possession of his daughter lightly, but this was Moe, after all. Nathan carefully handed over their daughter. Moe could well qualify as the toughest woman Livy had ever met. She had mellowed over the years, but her upbringing on the colony world of Kastoria would always be part of her makeup. Even so, Moe took to the role of clucking nanny as if she had been born to it, fussing over their child with possessive adoration.
“Hello again, my beautiful girl,” Moe cooed to her.
Ellen seized Moe’s nose with her tiny hands on every possible occasion. In the universal language of babies, the gesture said she highly approved of her godmother.
The air split with the high whine of a landing boat on descent. Nathan sprang to his feet, his body tense, his eyes alert. Stepping from under the plocklar tree’s board canopy, he followed the small craft as it came to rest on the landing pad inside the walls of the Telford family home.
“Anyone expecting company?” Nathan’s tone sounded a warning that did not fit the tranquil scene. Neither of them knew. The Telford family home of Beachport rested on the high coastline well outside of the town of Praxis, and received few visitors. Still, they were on the Athenian core world of Corinth, not on a colony world that could be subject to attacks.
They stood in a tight group, watching as the landing boat hatch opened. A large, middle-aged man stepped from the craft. He had a spring in his step that would put many a younger man to shame. Livy, Moe and Nathan relaxed as soon as he turned around.
“Uncle Ben,” Livy yelled, waving her hands to attract his attention. He smiled and waved back while making his way up the incline to the picnic area.
Benjamin Thornby received approval from Nathan not shared by Livy’s father. Being from her mother’s side of her family helped matters. Nathan most certainly did not approve of her father, Magnus Marshal, the governor of Kastoria. Livy and her father had been estranged for years, and Uncle Ben had become closer to her than her own father’s cold emotions could ever allow.
“Olivia my dear,” he said, embracing her in a huge bear hug.
“What are you doing here, Uncle Ben?”
“Well, that’s a fine greeting, isn’t it?” He chuckled at his own implied witticism. “How are you, Nathan?” he said, shaking hands firmly.
“Never better, Ben.”
“Excellent. Are you keeping him out of mischief, Moe?”
“Never,” Moe said.
“And how is my beautiful grand-niece today?” he asked, poking his face into range of the infant. She grabbed his bulbous nose and gave it a tiny tweak. Moe had just gotten her hands on Ellen and would fight to the death before relinquishing possession.
“So what brings you to the Telford manor?” Livy asked.
“I was on my way out to Brandon on business and thought I would drop in and visit with my favorite niece and grand-niece.”
Nathan handed him a glass of freshly chilled riesling. “Thank you, my boy,” he said, taking a healthy sip and clucking his lips in approval. “Corinth Riesling, wonderful stuff. Not as good as the red I produce on my own vineyard, of course, but still quite refreshing.”
Livy often thought the words “larger than life” had been created for the sole purpose of describing her Uncle Ben. Back in the days when rebellion had not yet become fashionable, he broke with family tradition and went out to seek his own fortune rather than relying on the considerable influence of his family’s wealth to kick-start his career.
Nathan had known him since they first landed on Athens, five years ago. Ben doted on his niece but showed little regard for his brother-in-law, which put him in good stead with Nathan. The older brother of Livy’s mother, Finella, he had made a name for himself by the age of twenty-five. Now, at the ripe old age of forty-six, he had wealth to spare.
The group settled on the large rug under the broad canopy and continued to pick at the remains of the extensive picnic lunch. Ben, being a self-made man, did not stand on ceremony. He sampled food from everyone’s plate, making his usual judgment call on the quality of the product. Ben usually found it fine, but his dairy, ranch, or farm could not be matched.
“So, my boy, how is the restoration coming along?”
“Slowly.” Nathan took in the sprawling estate.
The residence of Beachport had been the home of the Telford clan since they had fled the north shortly after the end to second Franco-Pruessen war. Space traders by occupation, every member of the family had died during that terrible time when Nathan was a boy. He alone survived to continue the bloodline.
On his 21st birthday, Nathan was presented with his family’s legacy. The lawyers had held the estate documents until the prescribed date.
Two adults and a baby occupied a fraction of the estate which had been in steady decline for the last fifteen years, since Bellinda’s loss.
Now, Beachport was in the hands of the last of the Telford clan. While on leave, Nathan had done what he could to restore the crumbling façade, but lack of time and funds made the task an impossible mission. Besides, as he had said to Livy on one memorable occasion,
“Unless you’re planning on having fifty kids, I don’t see the point of restoring the entire complex.” Still, Beachport remained as his only tangible link to a lost past, so Livy allowed him his more circumspect moments as he wandered the dusty corridors he had known as a small boy.
“We have a small part of the east wing that serves us nicely,” Nathan continued, “but I don’t know what to do about the rest.”
“I own a company that could have two hundred artisans on site by the end of the week,” Ben said. “This place could be brought back to new condition within a month. What do you say?”
Nathan’s sardonic smile said everything. They had discussed this topic before.
“You are family, Nathan,” Ben complained, “and if I can’t do something for family, then what kind of an uncle would I be?” Receiving the same lethargically stubborn smile gave him his answer. Benjamin Thornby had not achieved his high status by surrendering. “Don’t think of it as charity. Think of it as an investment in my family.”
“Spoken like the perpetual bachelor,” Moe said.
“Quite right. Quite right. I am a bachelor with no family of my own to care for. So I would feel a sense of familial fondness if I could help the only family I have.” Still Nathan said nothing. Ben sighed elaborately. “All right then, you can pay me back. A dollar a week for the rest of your life. What do you say? Hey?”
Finally Nathan broke into a quiet laugh and Moe joined in. “I accept…” —a grin came to Ben’s face— “…that you have the best interest of my family in mind. And for that I thank you. But we’re doing fine. So thanks, but no thanks.”
“Never in my life have I met a more stubborn negotiator than you, Nathan.” Ben took a sip of wine and chuckled. “I’ve never had so much trouble giving money away before, either. Must be getting old and losing my touch.”
“That’ll be the day,” Livy said.
“I don’t suppose I could convince you, my darling niece, to let me help you out? We could really have this place sparkling by the time Nathan gets back from patrol.”
Before Livy could decline, Nathan stiffened.
“How do you know I’m going on patrol?” Any trace of humor had disappeared from his tone.
Ben snorted, then did a double-take when he saw the hardness on Nathan’s face. “As I said, you are the only family I have. So I keep tabs on everything you do. And before you ask how I got a hold of classified naval information … don’t.” He tapped his nose and winked.
Nathan’s jaw hardened as he stared at Ben.
“The sun’s going down in an hour,” Livy said, breaking the spell, “so I think we should start heading inside now. Ben, give me a hand, would you?”
Nathan gave her a short smile, acknowledging how deftly she had defused a potentially unpleasant situation. While she relieved an aggrieved Moe of Ellen and began tidying up, she thought again of the subdued change Nathan had exhibited when they returned to Beachport.
Nathan traversed a dichotomy of emotions regarding the old property. He had said he experienced a familial affection for the stone walls and never-ending hallways. Together with those warm memories of a more innocent time came the jolting reminder that this once-populous home would never again echo to the sound of scores of family members, engaged in those myriad activities that once engaged their time. Any memory of his lost family brought with it a pain he could never, would never, discuss with her. She had always suspected that somewhere in his past lurked a greater tragedy than even the loss of his family. Not surprisingly, he became markedly stiff-lipped whenever she broached the subject. There were times when he carried his pain on his sleeve, but instead of talking to her he held her close as if to draw on her strength and support. During her year on Kastoria, she had learned, firstly from Moe and then from personal experience, that his occasional reticence on certain subjects was part of his makeup.
Some memories were best left untouched. After all, the future beckoned.
CHAPTER 15
Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible. Saint Francis of Assisi
Date: 4th February, 322 ASC.
Position: Sentinel Hector. Planet Thebes. Monitor Insolent, briefing room.
Status: In preparation for departure.
Captain Steven Bradman entered Insolent’s briefing room. His inspection of the boat had gone well, and everything looked to be on schedule for departure the following day. All was well with the world, his world, his boat. And yet the forthcoming meeting filled him with antipathy.
Bradman cast his mind back to the first time he had met Telford, nine years ago. A kid, just a lean, brown-skinned kid, with the innocent, grey eyes which masked an inner toughness. The lad had been through so much, suffered such inconceivable loss, and yet he had endured. More than endured, he had beaten the odds against his survival in such a way as to stagger the most conservative of statisticians.
Of the billions of human beings who inhabited the Tunguska Fault, he alone had survived exposure to the Derwent Plague.
Bradman could only imagine the horror that must have been inflicted upon the boy by the fervently curious scientists on Mylor. They would undoubtedly want to know how he accomplished such a miracle, and would have been none too gentle about undertaking the task. From what he could gather, they had held Nathan on Mylor for four or five months. No wonder he hated doctors with such vehemence.
Bradman knew, in his rational mind, his animosity toward Telford was worse than unfair. The kid could not be blamed for surviving the impossible. He could not be held responsible for the trouble he had inadvertently caused to Impudent’s captain. So why did Bradman have such difficulty in controlling the resentment roiling within him? He knew his duty and had done his job. In fairness, only a professional bureaucrat could have foreseen the trouble brewing in his future.
He had, to the best of his knowledge, followed the strict letter of the quarantine regulations before bringing the lad aboard. He had isolated him in the tank, a small isolation room cut off from the rest of the boat. He had done his job. However, his D-O had discovered a well-hidden sub-section in the twenty-year-old quarantine regulations. The small piece of bureaucratic butt-saving had cost him dearly. Unfortunately, it surfaced after he had brought Nathan on board. The small sub-section of red tape had begun a spiraling downturn to his career.
Firstly, they had taken his boat. The level of paranoia concerning the plague flared to life when word of Impudent’s discovery seeped into certain ears. Even when evidence determined the boy did not carry the plague, the boat did not carry the plague and none of the crew carried the plague, nothing changed. She would forever be unfairly branded a plague boat. The task of opening all air locks had been his last official act as captain. The pain associated with killing his boat turned out to be just the beginning of his woes.
Bradman had avoided court martial by the skin of his teeth, mainly because the incident had remained classified at the very highest security level. The politicians did not want any mention of the plague getting out to the public and creating a panic. They had manufactured a convenient cover story to explain the boy’s reappearance, and fostered him out to the colonies. They could do little, under the circumstances, to officially punish Bradman for an understandable indiscretion. However, behind the scenes, at the highest level of the Athenian Naval Service, a black mark had appeared on his record. Bradman had never seen the mark, but some suggested it resembled an ebony skull-and-crossbones.
The first manifestation of this attitude had come when he applied for another boat. He had been one of the stars of the academy who had been placed on the promotions fast track, his future bright, his expectations promising. Bradman had spent the next four years on the beach. With the help of friends, he had finally got another boat. Since then, he had struggled for professional survival as lesser officers passed him on the promotions ladder. Only as he moved into his late forties had he been granted t
he command of a squadron and the monitor escort boat Insolent.
Without official confirmation, Bradman knew his career would go no further. Those senior officers who put politics before ethics would never forget his single mistake. Flag rank would elude him till his dying days. Bad enough to have such a black mark on his jacket, but to be a colonial as well spelled the end of his advancement within the Corps.
His old friend Donny Waugh had been one of a few senior officers who supported him over the years, for which he would always be grateful. However, his gratitude had waned somewhat when she seconded his D-O and promoted her to a high-level administration position on Hector.
The admiral compensated Bradman for his loss by appointing an underaged D-O with only three patrols as operations officer under her belt. The new marine detachment presented an unknown factor that might also require his attention. His woes continued with two grommits coming aboard as replacement pilots, one of them being Nathan Telford. The albatross had returned. He wondered what wind of ill-fortune had blown the young officer to his hatch, and what it could cost him this time.
Bradman held a sneaking suspicion that Donatella Waugh knew more about his association with Telford than she let on. Of all the pilots who could have been assigned to his boat, the chances of a bad-luck charm like Telford ending up on his deck balked the percentages. What is Donny up to?
It irritated him to feel this way. Nevertheless, his antagonism toward the innocent junior officer fermented in his gut, reminiscent of a raging acid storm.
The hatch chime sounded. “Ad-mit.” He activated the holo that showed his boat hovering above the briefing table.
“As requested, Captain, I have Ensign Telford for you,” Lieutenant Reiffel said.
The acid in Bradman’s stomach churned afresh at the sight of the fresh-faced operations officer. He would be surprised if Reiffel could find her way to the head. He glanced past the junior wanna-be D-O to Telford.
