“Jealous?” Gemma said, taking her sister’s hand and gazing at the stones.
Perhaps a little. Though not because of the ring; she could easily afford several like it if her heart so desired. No, rather because of what it represented. Susan had found someone; even if the man was a pig. Who did she have? No one. Well, perhaps not no one. Maybe one man, with sandy-blonde hair … But how long had that been going on? Why, after so long, had they never let each other in?
“Yeah, she’s jealous,” Susan quipped to Kelly’s silence.
“Excuse me, girls,” her father’s voice came from behind the twins. He had finally returned with their mother. The pair pushed the two twin girls aside so they could get a better look at their eldest daughter.
“Hello, dear,” Kelly’s mother greeted her, presenting a bright smile of perfect white teeth.
“Hi, Mum,” Kelly said, feeling her own smile and happiness returning.
“Home for Christmas?”
“I’ll be in service,” Kelly said, regretfully. “Back in about six weeks.”
“Oh, not to worry. We’ll see you then. Everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine.”
“Good; it’s nice to know that you’re keeping well,” her mother said, always very practical and to the point.
“Are you okay, Mum?”
“Yes, fine.”
Kelly saw her eyes flicker briefly to Susan’s ring. They hovered there only a moment, but Kelly was sure her mother had noticed her catch the glance.
“I’ve just finished reading the last entries of your journal,” Barbara said, changing the subject. “The more recent ones have been a little hard to understand, but it’s still very interesting.”
“Yes, sorry about that,” Kelly said. “It’s still all classified, I’m afraid.”
Her mother waved away the apology. “Don’t worry, I understand. I was actually speaking with a senior editor at Whitmore-Price the other day, and he said he would be very interested in working with you sometime to get a couple of books out. He said your journals were exactly the sort of thing they will want to publish in the next few years. He especially liked your eye for detail.”
“Oh, really?” Kelly said, a little surprised. So the writing hadn’t been a waste of time after all. It was possible that she could go on to inspire many others to fulfil their maximum potential and strive for greatness in their lives. She felt her chest swell with pride.
“Only snag is …” Her mother turned to look at her father, who began to chuckle a little. Her mother seemingly couldn’t help but join in.
Kelly couldn’t see what was amusing them so. “W … what’s so funny? What’s the snag?”
Barbara calmed herself. “He said that you might need to work on your style a bit.”
“What do you mean?”
That look again between mother and father. “He said … he said that right now it reads more like the diary of a teenage girl, rather than the memoirs of a naval pilot, out in the field.”
Kelly flushed and felt herself deflate. For every way in which she thought she had escaped the stereotype of an unsophisticated, air-headed daughter of a billionaire entrepreneur, it seemed that it was still nestled somewhere within her bones.
“Don’t worry, dear,” her mother continued. “I had a look at some of the earlier entries and re-wrote them for you. I’ll have your father send them to you in a moment. If you use those as a style guide when you come to write your newer ones, I’m sure Mr Kent will find them more suitable.”
Kelly flushed again, a little embarrassed, but grateful that her mother would go out of her way to help her in such a way. “Thank you,” she said.
“Don’t mention it. Now, tell us what’s been happening in your world …”
The family spoke at length, discussing the highs – business still good, excellent snow in the resorts in Tigibel, and a number of very flattering pieces about Kelly’s accomplishments within naval service; as well as the lows – Susan’s abrupt engagement, which seemed to be the source of a rift between father and daughter. They still managed to share a number of laughs in between. Eventually, Barbara decided she needed to return to her cooking and preparations, and started back to the kitchen, herding the twins along with her.
“That’s what we have maids for,” one of Kelly’s siblings complained.
“Whilst you’re staying here, you can show some gratitude and help your mother out in the kitchen,” Barbara said. “One of you has a lot to make up for.” There was more grumbling before the two skulked off in the direction of the music that was still being played at a remarkable volume.
“We’ll see you soon, dear,” Barbara said, before departing.
“I love you, Mum.”
“I love you too, Kelly. Aaron, could you forward those edited journal entries to her, please? I put them in the outbox marked KT.”
Kelly’s father nodded and set to work, his hands working across the screen in front of him.
“I’ll send you over my latest ones, too,” Kelly said. “Connection’s still bad though, so it might be a while.” The contents of the data card she had inserted popped up on the display as a number of little icons, appearing like pieces of paper, neatly arranged in their own little container on the right-hand side of the screen. She placed a fingertip onto the screen’s touch-sensitive surface, over one of the icons, and smoothly ran it across to where another small receptacle resided.
“How are your friends enjoying their new found fame?” her father asked her, as she moved on to the next entry to transfer.
Kelly laughed, thinking about it. “Estelle is loving the attention she’s getting; it’s like a dream come true for her. She’s getting a lot more respect and admiration from senior command, too. Looks like she’s finally getting all the recognition that she always wanted.”
Though that wasn’t all. Kelly remembered the look on Estelle’s face when she had come to her new quarters aboard Spirit Orbital, to show her her pay cheque. There had quite literally been another digit added to the total. Allegedly, with the increased amount of money that Estelle was now sending home, the de Winters had moved house twice. And, for the first time in nearly ten years, Jed was now walking without the aid of a cane, the family at last able to afford the surgery to correct his knee.
“Dodds and Enrique are just taking it in their stride,” Kelly added. Though she cut short of telling her father how the two men were capitalizing on their fame to exploit some of the female cadets, much to Estelle’s great irritation. “And Chaz, is … Well, Chaz is Chaz. He’s hardly brightened at all.”
Aaron nodded in understanding. “And how are you getting along?” he wanted to know. “After all, part of the reason you enlisted was to get away from that sort of thing.”
“It’s not changed anything for me,” Kelly said, placing two fingertips on the screen, to drag a couple more entries over to the transfer queue. She was almost done. “People already knew who I was, anyway.”
Aaron nodded again. “How long have you been with the navy now?”
Kelly paused momentarily as she finalized the entries to be sent over. Odd question; she was sure he already knew. “About nine years?”
“Hmm. That’s quite a long time really, isn’t it?”
“Well, it’s sort of flown by, if you’ll pardon the expression.”
“You know, I think it’s time you came home,” Aaron said.
“Uh huh,” Kelly murmured, as she started the data transfer. Along the bottom of the screen, a small notification appeared and a luminous horizontal white bar began to fill, indicating the transfer progress. It was filling rather slowly. “I’ll be back in six weeks; straight after Christmas. After all of this, I intend to stay for at least two weeks. Hopefully a month.”
“I meant for good.”
Kelly’s brow creased. Up until now, her father had been one hundred percent behind her naval career, doing whatever he could to help her succeed and get through the difficult times.
She felt a little bewildered. “Sorry?”
“Well, you’ve been there a long time. Don’t you think it’s time for a change? You must be ready for something else by now, surely? I mean, you’re not thinking about staying there forever, are you?”
Kelly stared at her father for a moment. Did he really just say that? Was he really asking her to pack it in and come home? Something wasn’t quite right there. His face looked sincere, but there was something else there – there was concern; something was amiss. For several months now, Kelly had had a number of questions playing on her mind, all of which begged for immediate answers. One in particular she had wanted to discuss face-to-face with her father, and with the data transfer showing no signs of finishing up any time soon, now was as good a time as any.
“Dad, something I wanted to ask you; never had the chance before with the recorded messages.” Or rather, you never answered them. “When we were … when we were on that mission six months ago …” She paused as she thought about how to phrase what she was going to say, before opting to come straight out with it instead. “What was one of Gloucester Enterprises’ freighters doing in Imperial space?”
There was a pause. “Freighter? What freighter?” her father asked. The man started to touch absent-mindedly at parts of his face, tugging gently at his ear lobes.
You’re hiding something from me, Kelly thought. Whenever her father became nervous, he would begin to scratch at some non-existent itch, usually located somewhere about his face. His ear lobes would suffer the most if he was feeling particularly pressured. He had never been a very good bluffer as a result.
“I saw one of our freighters, Dad,” Kelly continued. “There were people onboard.”
“Well, yes, those freighters aren’t automated. They require a crew to—”
“I mean civilians, Dad. Refugees!” Kelly watched her father’s expression closely. He hadn’t totally denied the freighter’s existence and she was certain of what she had seen when she and the other White Knights had approached Arlos starport. “What was one of the company’s ships doing out there? Where was it taking those people?”
Aaron composed himself, taking his hand from his face. “I’m not sure what you think you saw, Kelly, but none of our freighters are anywhere near Imperial space,” he said, keeping his expression as straight and deadpan as he could. Something there looked to be begging to be scratched. “No one within the Confederacy has been granted a trading permit within any Imperial systems for decades, not since the Imperial Senate laid out and pushed forward their bills of restrictions on transport and commerce.”
“I know what I saw—” Kelly protested.
“You’re starting to see things, Mouse,” her father countered. “You’ve been in that job for too long, and things like that blow to your head couldn’t have helped matters. Some deep space pilots have been known to suffer from mild delusions, caused by spending too much time out there. They claim to see people and faces, and hear whispering voices and such. It never is anything of the sort – the brain is very good at picking out things that aren’t really there. That’s why people used to think they saw ghosts in old photographs.”
Kelly couldn’t help but scowl. “Are you suggesting that I’m going crazy?” she asked, incredulously.
“No, darling, but it sounds like you’re seeing things that you want to – freighters, refugees, zombies, sold—”
“Zombies?” Kelly interrupted.
Her father hesitated.
“I never mentioned that.”
Aaron flushed. “You did; in your journal,” her father contradicted her again.
“No, never.” Kelly continued to regard her father in silence, wondering what it could be that he wasn’t telling her. There was little doubt in her mind that he knew what she was talking about, and perhaps even some things that she didn’t. What was it he wasn’t telling her? Why didn’t he want to tell her?
“Dad—” she started. The console before her jingled. The little progress bar at the bottom of the screen had now filled. The transfer was complete. It must’ve sped up when they were talking.
“I have to go help your mother,” Aaron made his excuses, the sad look once again visible in his eyes.
“Okay,” Kelly said reluctantly.
“Have you still got your pendent?”
Another odd, out of the blue question. “Of course. I never take it off.” She felt her hand involuntarily move to where it hung around her neck, fingering its oval shape.
“Good. Don’t.”
She rubbed at the pendent, subtly feeling the engraving. “I was thinking of getting a new chain for it, but otherwise it’s fine.”
“Good … good,” Aaron said. He looked as though he wanted to say something else. “I love you, Kelly.”
“I love you too, Dad,” she said, and prepared to sign off.
“Come home soon, okay?” he added. He was clearly very worried for her, for reasons he refused to share. Or maybe for reasons he thought she was better off not knowing.
Kelly smiled back at him, though unable to help feel sadness entering into it. “Don’t worry, Dad. I’ll be fine,” she said. “I promise.”
II
— How Are the Mighty Fallen —
First Lieutenant Simon Dodds steadied himself as CSN Ifrit trembled beneath his feet. The vibration that shuddered its way across the carrier’s bridge was accompanied by a deep rumbling, coming from somewhere lower down within the vessel. Before him stood the ship’s acting captain, Commodore Christian Hail. Dodds strained to hear the man clearly, as the grumbling from the stricken vessel drowned out the brief he was attempting to deliver.
Hail raised his voice, “We’re going to drop into a low orbit around Mythos and then start—”
A tremendous boom silenced him and the ship gave a sudden lurch. Dodds was almost knocked off his feet as Estelle crashed into his side. He set himself and his commanding officer straight, and looked back to Hail.
Hail raised a hand and looked around to the frontal viewport. “Just a minute!” he said, before he hastened down the bridge’s length, the man’s stature and way he moved reminding Dodds of a beardless Captain Meyers. Hail went to stand by the helmsman’s console, taking hold of the back of the operator’s seat for support, and began pointing and gesturing at both the console and the viewport. His words were lost to Dodds’ ears, consumed by the distance, continuous rumblings and wail of alarms.
Dodds watched him for a time, before his eyes moved to the scene beyond the carrier, seen through the massive central viewport. Ahead of them loomed the increasingly huge, blue form of Mythos. Ifrit was now so close to the planet that Dodds was able to start making out the more intricate details of the many continents below. Streaks of white cloud lay scattered over the vast blue oceans and yellowy-green land masses, giving the planet the appearance of a huge, misty marble.
Between the carrier and the planet a desperate battle raged, Ifrit’s meagre complement of starfighters totally overwhelmed by the sheer weight of numbers that made up the opposing forces. With its position towards the rear half of the carrier, Ifrit’s bridge presented its occupants with a view of the top of the enclosed flight deck. From his experience of visits to similar class carriers, Dodds would have expected to see a great fiery emblem of the carrier’s namesake spread across the top. Further forward, two plasma accelerator cannons would be affixed to the bow, as well as a number of other cannons, dotted across the surface.
The sight that greeted him now couldn’t be more different – the bow of Ifrit was shattered, torn and crumpled, as though the ship had been driven headlong into a thick, impenetrable wall. Somewhere in that mess of battered steel were the accelerators, never to be fired again. The emblem of the fiery jinn was all but gone, the outer surface of the forward portion of the ship blackened by impacts from laser, plasma, missile and rocket fire. Parts of it looked as though they had been split apart by a great knife. The carrier’s shielding had long since relinquished its full power
to the onslaught of fire the enemy had thrown against it. Every now and again, as a plasma round missed its intended target and crashed into the carrier, a thin skin of rippling blue light would materialise, the sliver being all that remained of the defences. It would dissipate quickly, the energy barrier seemingly unable to fend off even the most trivial of attacks.
Many of the defensive cannons that Dodds could still make out were a shadow of their former selves. And whilst some didn’t appear to have suffered as much damage as their cousins, they stood silently by as Imperial starfighters wheeled overhead, the turrets not even turning to track them. A few of the carrier’s remaining offensive armaments still functioned, though their rate of fire had diminished greatly, the efforts now more akin to that of a garden hose, whose inconsistent water pressure was causing it to splutter.
With Hail still issuing orders to the helmsman at the front, Dodds’ eyes strayed to the screens of the operators, who sat at consoles parallel to the central aisle. The operators were working frantically at their systems, conferring with one another and jabbing at the screens and consoles before them. Many of the screens were displaying statistics and information pertaining to the particular system the officer was currently assigned to monitoring. Others were displaying the health states of various parts of the ship.
One that he could see was displaying a two-dimensional overview of the carrier, appearing like a set of schematics. Many of the different sectors of Ifrit were reported to be suffering from considerable stress, bands of yellow and red splashed throughout the graphic. There were few remaining undamaged portions of the vessel left, as far as he could see; not a single part of the overview suggesting any sector of the carrier was operating under normal conditions.
He then caught sight of one of the live security camera feeds from the lower decks of the ship. It was cycling between views every few seconds. Each rotation of the feed painted a grim picture. The image was a little hazy in the current feed, but the floor of the corridor it monitored could clearly be seen to be littered with debris and molten metals, from where the ship’s invaders had blasted their way in through a bulkhead. There was movement somewhere further up the corridor, around a corner. Dodds could see feet moving and shadows leaping.
The Battle for the Solar System (Complete Trilogy) Page 46
