First Admiral 02 The Burning Sun (33 page)

“We’re gonna have us a nice long chat, ain’t we Micky?” Jed smiled viciously as he leaned forward and caught Micky with a quick, vicious open-handed slap to the left side of his head.

“A nice long chat,” Jed said with a calm menace in his voice that indicated there would be a lot more of what had just been dished out coming Micky’s way.

Staunching the blood from his nose with a dirty tee-shirt, Micky cringed away from his attacker, shrieking with terror, feeling real dread for the first time in his life.

Chapter 39

Planet Earth

Emma Wallace sat bolt upright in bed, eyes wide, with a loud gasp.

Sweating and trembling, Emma felt her head dizzying and her mind spinning from the latest episode of a recurrent dream. In the still darkness of her bedroom, Emma checked the dull glowing digits of the radio/clock/alarm on her work desk. 1:58 the dull red digits seemed to mock her inability to shake off the dream in which she was aboard some weird alien spaceship being buffeted and thrown about like a rag-doll. Still panting heavily, Emma rose from her bed, her troubled mind trying to make sense of what she was dreaming. She couldn’t believe how vivid the dream was as she slipped her bare feet into her pale green slippers. It was always the same dream, the same people and the same narrative.

Pulling on her dressing gown, Emma felt the same dry throat and thirst that she always had when her sleep was interrupted and began to walk slowly to the sanctuary of the bathroom. Scratching her head and yawning, Emma opened her bedroom door, having successfully navigated the minefield of her furniture in the darkness, and lumbered quietly towards the bathroom door. The Wallace household would all be asleep, and Emma had no intention of wakening them.

Reaching the bathroom, Emma pulled the cord, briefly flooding the landing with bright dazzling light before she closed the door. Squinting from the unaccustomed darkness, Emma leaned on the wash-hand basin and turned on the cold water tap. For a few moments the clear cold water sloshed heavily in the basin as she lifted her tooth mug and half-filled it. Raising the pink ceramic mug to her lips, Emma heard a familiar voice from the other side of the door.

“You all right in there, Princess?” the concerned voice of her father asked.

“Yeah, sorry dad,” Emma apologised after taking a sip of the cool refreshing liquid and opening the door.

“Same bad dream?” a yawning and concerned Andrew Wallace asked scratching his thick curly blond hair.

“Yeah, I just can’t shake it,” Emma replied taking a longer sip of water.

“It’ll be something to do with all that solar flare panic,” Andrew Wallace speculated leaning against the doorframe in his white cotton tee-shirt and striped pyjama trousers, “those television people gave everyone a fright with that.”

“Probably, but it’s so real…” Emma began and felt strangely uneasy.

“I know, Princess; it’ll just take a couple of days to pass. When I was a lad I had this dream about falling into a deep dark hole and that felt real too; it took me about a week to shake it off,” Andrew tried to comfort his daughter.

“Yeah, but you’d be frightened of the dinosaurs that roamed the planet in those days,” Emma joked weakly to try to reassure her father that she was okay.

“Hey, I’m not that old,” Andrew Wallace protested with a smile, “it was the sabre-toothed cats we had to dodge.”

Despite the joking and bravado, Andrew Wallace knew that something was troubling his daughter. Emma had never been prone to bad dreams before and he felt powerless and angry that he simply couldn’t make things better for her as he had when she had been younger.

“It’s just…it’s just…it’s just so real, I’m on this spaceship with my Biology class and it’s being thrown around. I’m in this strange seat all strapped down and I can’t move and I’m so frightened. I’m screaming, but no one can hear me and the ship is falling to pieces around me,” Emma recounted the dream anxiously.

Quietly, Andrew Wallace listened to his daughter.

“The strangest thing is that then I’m lying in this strange room with funny looking people all around me and Billy Caudwell’s there,” Emma continued, “and I feel all tired and sleepy and he’s leaning over me, but his face looks all pink and horrible like it’s been all burned and he says ‘go to sleep now’ and then I wake up,” she seemed to plead for understanding.

“You like this Billy, don’t you? He’s that red-haired lad that used to come over to help you with your maths? His mother’s that writer isn’t she?” Andrew questioned

“No! Don’t be silly, dad!” Emma protested, “Billy’s just a friend,” she replied as a strange feeling of unease and guilt swept over her.

“Oh right,” Andrew Wallace replied as he mentally rolled his eyes in confusion.

The word ‘friend’ had a far different meaning in his younger day than the current, more flexible, definition of ‘friendship’ amongst the younger generation. In Andrew’s day you were either going out with someone or you weren’t, there was none of this confusing half-way house that seemed to be called ‘friends’.

“So, is he a friend-friend or a boyfriend-friend?” Andrew sought clarification.

“Ugh, no!” Emma protested and blushed profusely, “he’s got red hair and he’s so dull.”

“Well, he looked like a nice enough lad…” Andrew continued.

“Anyways, he’s going to some posh private school, up in the Highlands somewhere,” Emma said with an overwhelming feeling of disappointment that she just could not understand.

“Well, that’s that then,” Andrew Wallace said with a knowing smile, “come on, give your old man a hug, then.”

Emptying the remaining water into the basin, she set down the tooth mug and stepped over to her father. Slipping her arms around his waist she felt his strong, gentle and powerful embrace that made her feel safe and comfortable.

Andrew Wallace, holding his daughter in his arms, felt an overwhelming sadness. Emma was sixteen now; she was a young woman. She was no longer ‘his little girl’. Deep down, Andrew Wallace knew that soon she would go her own way in life. He had always encouraged her to be independent, but a part of him wanted her to be five or six years old again, as cute as a little button, and to stay that way forever.

Breaking the embrace, Andrew Wallace smiled and gently swept away the strands of straggling hair from his daughter’s face before kissing her softly on the forehead.

“Goodnight Princess, sleep tight,” he said and turned to go back to bed.

“Night, dad,” Emma replied putting out the bathroom light.

Walking slowly back to his own bedroom, in the new darkness, Andrew Wallace worried about Emma’s future. She had some crazy notion of being a fashion designer, but she wasn’t really all that academically bright. But, that was a worry for another day, he considered. Maybe she would flourish just before the Qualifying Exams, he prayed. Maybe it would all come out right in the end. At least she would have some kind of career to go to on that dreaded day when she would leave home.

Until then, he wasn’t quite prepared to lose ‘his little girl’ to the adult world, not just yet.

Chapter 40

The Star-Cruiser Aquarius

Intelligence Technician, Junior Grade, Marilla Thapes lay on her bunk in the darkened cubicle she shared with a young female Scanner Technician named Desmus. The cubicle that passed for Quarters for Marilla and her room-mate measured exactly three metres by two metres and was dominated by a large two-tier bunk bed. However, owing to the vagaries of their shift patterns, the two Technicians very rarely met. When Marilla was off shift, Desmus was invariably on duty. Given the small size of their shared quarters, Marilla considered it to be a blessing.

Marilla Thapes was off-duty, yet she never seemed to stop working. There was always some aspect of her work that held her attention or required additional time for her to feel truly comfortable that she had dealt with it. This off-shift period was no different. For other Technicians, the off-shifts were times to catch up on sleep, contact loved ones or engage in some form of recreational activity. For Desmus, her off-shifts were divided between sleep and visiting the Social Interaction Areas where crewmembers could meet, eat, drink and interact rather than stare at the blank, sterile ceilings of their quarters. Marilla had no interest in the Social Interaction Areas as they tended to be very noisy and full of people she would prefer to avoid given the opportunity. At heart, Marilla was a quiet and reticent creature who did not like loud people and crowded rooms.

As was her usual custom, Marilla had brought several folios of work to her bunk, and lying on her stomach, she was busily devouring the latest data on supply convoys to the more remote Bardomil military garrisons on the Ganthoran frontier. Hacking her way through the interminable lists of supplies being delivered she scanned the data looking for the patterns, the out of the ordinary, that could be indicative of developing military action; and, hence trouble for the Universal Alliance. For a moment she paused and considered that there might be a Bardomil Intelligence Technician doing exactly what she was doing. Well, she thought, I hope that they’re having better luck than me. The usual round of the mundane in Bardomil logistics was about as boring, clockwork-regular and tedious as it always had been. As she read it was becoming clear that there were no unusual patterns, no increases in certain supplies and no indication of a build up that would herald an offensive against the Ganthoran Empire.

It was with this mundane and yet comforting thought that Marilla prepared to turn in for a well deserved eight hours of sleep before her next shift. Extinguishing the small light built into the low headboard of her upper-tier bunk, Marilla had just rolled onto her side when the cubicle intercom buzzed the low droning note of an incoming message.

“Technician Thapes, Technician Thapes, report to Senior Intelligence Officer Sownus’ Office immediately,” the harsh tinny disembodied voice announced.

“Oh no,” Marilla groaned, rolling onto her back.

“Technician Thapes, Technician Thapes, report to Senior Intelligence Officer Sownus’ Office immediately,” the voice repeated with added insistency.

“All right, I’m coming, I’m coming,” Marilla sighed sliding out of the bunk and dropping to the floor, “keep your uniform on,” she quietly scolded the intercom Technician.

“Technician Thapes, Technician Thapes, report to Senior Intelligence Officer Sownus’ Office immediately,” the harsh tinny disembodied voice announced for a third time.

“Yes, yes, give me a chance will you?” Marilla muttered fastening up her uniform overall.

“Technician Thapes, Technician Thapes, report to Senior Intelligence…” the intercom voice blared but was cut short by Marilla stepping onto the pressure pad behind the door as she left the cubicle.

Passing through the grey force-shielding that closed neatly behind her, Marilla began to trot purposefully towards the teleporter station at the end of her brightly lit accommodation corridor as she finished fastening her uniform. Being summoned by Senior Intelligence Officer Karap Sownus, when off-shift, either meant something major was happening or that she was in serious trouble. As she trotted along the busy corridor, the first pangs of anxiety began to gnaw at her mind.

At the teleporter station Marilla stepped onto the square yellow plate and entered the required six digit code on the key pad built onto the hand rail in front of her. Screwing her eyes tightly closed, Marilla always avoided the bright flash that accompanied the ‘molecule scrambling’ as she described the teleport process. After an internal count of three, Marilla opened her eyes and found that she was on the teleport plate in the Intelligence corridor. Taking a deep breath, Marilla wondered what was happening. The usually busy Intelligence corridor was totally deserted. No Officers or Technicians scampered to and fro carrying important data, interpretations or messages. There was nothing of the usual hustle and bustle of a busy Intelligence Department. Feeling slightly uneasy, Marilla Thapes set off along the oppressively quiet corridor moving rapidly towards the Office of Karap Sownus. With every passing step, Marilla felt more and more uneasy. Searching her memory, she found that she couldn’t find anything that she could have done that was so wrong to merit a call to the Senior Intelligence Officers Office for a dressing down.

With her feet starting to feel heavier and heavier and her stomach knotting to the point of revolt, Marilla exhaled one last final heavy sigh of anxiety as she stepped onto the red plate outside Sownus’ Office.

“Come in!” the voice of Karap Sownus sounded beyond the grey force-shielding of the door.

“You sent for…” Marilla began nervously as she stepped over the threshold of the doorway.

“Come with me, Technician Thapes,” a stern faced Sownus indicated rising from behind his work desk and walking in a very brisk waddle towards the doorway.

This was not the quiet, friendly Karap Sownus that Marilla Tapes knew and had grown accustomed to. There was a coldness in his voice that sent her anxiety level into orbit.

“But, sir, what…” Marilla began as Sownus pushed past her to exit the office.

“The First Admiral has sent for you, so just keep your mouth shut and play it by ear,” Sownus said flatly as he waddled quickly into the corridor heading to the teleporter.

“But, sir, I…” Marilla began to protest as she tried to keep up with the rapidly advancing Sownus.

Now, Marilla was genuinely frightened. She had never seen Officer Sownus like this. She had heard that when he was angry his manner turned icily cold and brought out a really nasty and sarcastic vicious streak in him. Still shaken at the response, Marilla tried her best to keep up with the Intelligence Officer whilst cudgelling her overheating brain to try to figure out what hideous transgression she had committed to deserve this kind of treatment. With her brain rebelling almost as much as her churning stomach she decided to keep her mouth shut as Sownus had instructed. With her head still swimming and her bowels dissolving, Marilla stepped onto the teleport plate as indicated by Sownus. With a stern-faced Sownus punching in the six-digit code, Marilla closed her eyes and counted to three once more. When she opened them again, she stepped down from the plate just in time for the bright, dazzling flash that heralded the arrival of Sownus.