Heavens of Glory

Chapter III

He gazed back at Earth through his window and wondered if he had made the right choice. Yes, he concluded. He had nothing back there. His family had been killed. He had never really considered Earth his home in the first place. He wanted to travel. Taking his gaze from the window, he glanced at the ship’s passenger cabin around him. Most of the riders were about his age, 13, some were a little younger and some were a little older, numbering in about 100 overall. He turned his attention back to the quickly receding Earth.
         He woke up some hours later with a huge crick in his neck from leaning against the window. As he rubbed it out, rather peeved that he had slept through his first hyper-space jump, he happened to see the small planet covered mostly by water that the ship was approaching. As the ship whizzed by one of the many moons (or more correctly the moon whizzed by them, as the moon was going much faster), he found the planet growing rapidly in his window as the shuttle sped towards it. A lenothias came into the large passenger compartment and announced to the mostly human passengers, “We are now approaching Eria, commonly known as the Water Planet. Its surface is 98.23 percent water. The small group of islands on the equator is where you will go to the Academy. The planet is neutral ground. The air is 26 percent oxygen and you will have no trouble breathing. Gravity is approximately 1.8 Earth G, but you will adjust to the additional weight.”
         The ship descended through the atmosphere, the lenothias constantly bellowing out facts about the planet. When he was done with that, he went on to tell the passengers the hull temperature, descending rate, and their location above the latitude and longitude lines of the planet- mostly things Orion didn’t care to hear…

         The next morning Orion woke up in their own apartment to the sizzling of bacon in a frying pan. He glanced over to the other half of the bed and saw that Tournia had made it extremely smooth and comely, despite the fact that he was still sleeping in it. As the smell wafted into the room again, Orion licked his lips in the anticipation of a breakfast that would far surpass the bland synthetic rations dolled out by the fleet once a week. Not that his cook couldn’t do wonders with them, but still, nothing beat the real thing. It had been too long since he had eaten real food. He flipped the sheets over and stood up. Pulling a pair of loose civilian clothes out of the dresser, he stepped into the shower room and shut the door, turning on the water with an experienced wave of his hand.
         When he came out, Tournia was just putting eggs on a plate alongside the bacon and pancakes. “Good morning,” she remarked cheerfully, seeing him eye the pancakes with an appetite. “About time you’re up.” She put down the empty egg pan and gave him a quick peck on the lips.
          “Hey, I get about five chances a year to sleep in- you can’t blame me. This looks great!” he replied, returning the kiss.
          “Well, of course it does. I made it,” she retorted even more cheerfully, then gently smacked his hand as he reached for a slice of bacon. They sat down at dark wood table in the center of the kitchen and began eating.
          “So how is your research coming?” Orion asked.
          “Same old. A little bit of progress, but always limited by funding. Our new ship, though, the Andrew, is performing great. Amazing facilities on that thing. You should take a tour sometime.”
          “I’d like that. How’re the engines on it? You said they were state-of-the-art in your last message, but not much more than that.”
          “Well, they better then the ones on the old ship, but nothing like what the army is outfitted with.”
          “Yeah, what with upgrades every couple of months or so. It gets to be a bit of a hassle.”
         Tournia rolled her eyes. “Oh, come one. You know you like it. Sometimes I think that you love that ship more than anything.”
          “Hey, now. You know that’s not true. I love your cooking far more than the Neyna.”
         Once they were done eating, Orion cleaned the table and stuck the dirty dishes in the AUTOMAID™ while Tournia got ready for her conference on the research she was doing. They left the room together and walked down the hall in silence. When they reached the doors leading outside, Orion said, “Well, I’m meeting some of my crew downtown, then I’m gonna go check up on my ship. What time will the conference be over?”
          “Noon-ish. Wanna go out to lunch?”
          “My thoughts exactly, I’ll meet you back here at about 1230 hours, OK?” They kissed and said goodbye, then turned and walked in different directions, with Tournia shaking her head in good humor and muttering about military neat-freaks and their messed up timing system.
         At his ship, Orion ran into Seedo, his tactical officer and best friend since the Academy.
          “Hey, Orion. Did you hear? Maria’s ship is landing today. Looks like they’re getting all the medical ships they can in this new fleet they’re assembling.” Maria Vieny was Orion’s other best friend since the days at the Acadamy. While Orion and Seedo had gone into the space combat division, Maria had gone on to be a medic on the ship Caleb. After the Academy, Orion had only seen Maria on three occasions, once during her graduation from medical school, and twice at various conferences.
         Amid the constant clatter of mechanics walking about the corridors fixing the few places that had been damaged during the last mission, Orion helped Seedo finish doing a systems check. By the time they were done, the Caleb was scheduled to land. They walked over to launch pad A34, and looked up in time to see a black and white dot grow rapidly until it took on the awkward visage of a medical ship. Orion and Seedo reflexively stepped back as the launch pad reflected hot air and a strong wind into their faces. The Caleb touched down smoothly and powered down its engines.
         When the door opened, two stretchers carrying wounded people were rushed off and loaded onto a nearby transport bound for the hospital. Several other doctors and medics, whom Seedo and Orion greeted cordially, unloaded before Maria stepped off. In that strange way she had, she waved and walked quickly towards them without so much as having appeared to have looked their way.
          “Hey, guys.” She paused for a second and looked both of them up and down, flashing a quick smile. “It’s been a while.” She gave them each a brief hug.
          “A long while. So, how’s life as a medic been treating you?” Seedo asked amiably.
          “Oh, you know. Not bad. Pretty restful until a battle breaks out, and so on. Most of the time it’s a breeze. We can just sit back and let the technology work. Every now and then we get a tough surgery to work on, though. Like last week, some poor Bonscout had tube stuck through his leg that we had to cut out. Ended having to replace his tibia altogether.” She gave a shrug, dismissing the incident. “So what about you two? I hear you have your own ship now, Orion.”
          “Yep. It’s called the Neyna. It’s parked over at A28, do you want to see it?” Seedo interjected, knowing that Orion would probably start gloating if he had the chance.
          “Sure.” Maria was nonplussed by Seedo’s interruption, taking it as a matter of course. They walked over to the Neyna, talking and laughing as if they had never been apart.
         After they had given Maria the tour of the ship, Orion glanced at his watch. “I have to go meet Tournia. I’ll catch you two later, OK?”
          “Hold on a second. Isn’t Tournia that one gal you were with at the last conference I saw you?” Maria asked.
          “Yep. We’re engaged now.”
          “Oh? When’s the wedding?”
          “We’re not sure.” Orion began to blush, remembering the event. His speech slowed in semi-embarrassment. “I actually only asked her a couple weeks ago.”
          “It’s good that you’re not rushing this, but don’t you dare hold it without me.”
         Orion laughed softly. “Don’t worry. You’re the… hold on.” Orion made the motions of counting on his fingers. “Eleventh person on the list. After Seedo.”
          “Only eleven?” Maria laughed. “Well, it was nice seeing you again, Orion.” Waving goodbye to Orion, she and Seedo walked back to the Caleb. Orion turned around and headed to the closest transport. He got in and told the driver to head to the primary military complex. He had some business he wanted to take care of before he met with Tournia.

*           *           *

         Tournia sat back down as the council discussed her speech. She was beginning to understand why so many of her colleagues wanted the council gone. All she needed was ninety-thousand marks and she could complete her research. She just needed a handful more of things from the Federation traders, and refinement of the abundant trilithite found on planet C-N3 could start. They could mine enough in one day to pay back the council five times over, and then some! Yet still the council debated giving her the money, beaurocratical jerks! She glanced at her watch: past noon. She doubted she could be out in time to meet Orion for lunch. She silently urged them to hurry, knowing already what their decision must be.
         The council members moved their chairs back to their original position at the far end of the long table. The Head-of-Council announced, “Due to your lack of concrete results, and the deficit in monetary wealth currently experienced by this nation, this council rules to give you a total of five-thousand marks to apply to your research. Meeting adjourned.” The council members stood up and left the room. Despite her prior presumption of their ruling, Tournia still fumed silently to herself, sitting quietly in her anger for a few moments before gathering together her logers and papers and walking out of the hall.
         Outside of the building she palmed the lock on her skimmer and the door opened. She got in and tapped in the coordinates of their apartment building’s parking lots. The skimmer lifted off smoothly and zipped into the brown smog that constantly covered the city despite the government’s best efforts to clean it up. A few minutes later, the skimmer touched down in an empty space in the lot and Tournia got out. Palming the doors locked. She hurried over to a nearby aerotube destined for the normal terrain-level entrance. She found Orion already waiting there.
          “You’re late,” he said pleasantly.
          “Yep, an entire three minutes.”
          “And fifteen seconds. I think your penalty should be to let me buy lunch.”
          “Oh no, not that!” she said in mock horror. They both laughed.
          “So, how did the conference go?”
          “Umm, well, you know… stupid idiotic bureaucrat jerks,” she replied, bighting her lip in anger. Orion understood perfectly. Wrapping his arm gently around her waist, he guided her to a nearby aerotube destined for downtown Hera City.

*          *           *

         The restaurant which Orion chose was another superb one. Its location next to the Terralon Arena, which was host to many sports, including Ton, Soccer, and Kaischew, made it a prime location for sports fans. With so many costumers, the bar had grown in size until it covered almost the entire block and twenty stories, and it now served some of the best food in town. Fortunately, the restaurant was not overly crowded on this particular day. When they sat down, two menus dropped out of a slot next to the table. After looking through them awhile, Orion and Tournia dropped them back into the slot, with their choices highlighted on the menus’ screens.
          “So I take it the conference didn’t go well?” Orion asked.
          “Well, you know that stupid council. They only gave me five-thousand marks. I mean, come on! You can’t do squat with five-thousand.”
          “Well, I may actually have a solution.” He looked at her eyes, trying to judge her response. “I informed Admiral Hadrmagar of your situation, and he has agreed to allow you to give the Federation the results of Operation Farshot, which he believes should be more than enough to cover all expenses, in return for the army controlling fifty percent of the profits.”
          “Really!?” Tournia exclaimed. “But why would he do that?”
          “Well, you know that the government is in a tight spot where money is concerned. So, apparently, is the military. They need more money in order to support the fleet. Job payments alone are killing them.”
          “So they need the money produced by the refinement process to pay for the war. OK. I have just two concerns: first, what’s ‘Operation Farshot’?”
          “Operation Farshot is a highly secret military program, which would result in allowing us to launch ships to the Andromeda Galaxy, and hopefully to the Federation Governmental Sector, in about one and a half weeks. The Federation, as you know, requires about three years to make the journey, so we believe they would be very interested in this technology. In addition, it would allow us to directly appeal for trading rights, and not be subject to their high trading taxes. It is highly secret, and you would be accompanied by a high-ranking officer to make the transaction.”
         When she was satisfied that Orion had finished, Tournia said, “Ok, that’s fine. But I’m not sure I can guarantee them 50%. You know that phrase: ‘When the government gives, the government takes.’ Up until now, the government has given us all of our support, and they’ll claim full ownership of the operation.”
          “How much did they give you total?”
          “Five-hundred thousand. Why?”
          “The designs for the Farshot catapult is worth far more. Estimated at around 200 million to the Federation. We would have a very good case for the army controlling at least half. Besides, everybody is well aware that, for the present, the Warring Branch is more powerful than the Cricular and Executive branches combined, and the army could take over the entire operation if it is put it to a vote. If you inform the Council of Alliancic Research of the situation, the deal will go through. I can help, if you want me to. The Council will have no choice but to comply.”
         Tournia laughed. “You make it sound like a dictatorial takeover. But then again, if it was against the Council, that might not be such a bad idea.” She leaned across the table and kissed Orion. “Thanks,” she whispered, looking into his eyes.
         Orion smiled. “Anytime.” A waiter came by with their food, and the conversation turned to more mundane topics.