Holidays in the Sun
30 Sep 2020Prochaska
Months ago already Zoe had received an invitation from Montgomery. He was just participating in an OSA exercise on Lave. The exercise took place on a remote area of the planet. At first she was reluctant to spend her time on a military exercise and had evasively responded to the invitation. In the meantime, however, the desire to see her old friend again prevailed and she changed her mind. After arriving on Lave, she had to park the Icarus at a predetermined point; the exercise area was in a restricted zone and she was taken by shuttle to the base camp. The camp consisted of a few tents, where Roger was awaiting her at the landing point, and in the background she saw two further people she didn't know between the tents. The roofs of the tents were sagging, the rainwater collected had formed puddles on them. "Now that looks promising," grinned Zoe.As Zoe stepped out of the shuttle, her boots sank into the softened mud. "High Imperial Visit! And, how does it live among slave drivers?" Zoe was greeted ironically by Roger. Zoe replied that she was surprised herself that she was already happy about the change; she could never have imagined living in the Empire before. And especially to find herself in the wake of Aisling at any point. "They said there had been complications with the princess, I heard?", he continued. Zoe told him how she had been arrested in the palace on Emerald, under suspicion of working undercover for an enemy intelligence agency. How perplexed she was by the accusation until she finally remembered during the interrogation that her contact with Major Reedings of the FIA had put her in this situation and she was able to clear up the accusations against her. Roger reacted with surprise and said, "this information about Reedings is classified and was never meant for your eyes. "Pending your confirmation just now, no one gave me this information either," Zoe replied, raising an eyebrow, "but it seemed logical to me. After all, I have been working with her for some time now." Roger indicated a nod of his head and raised his shoulders slightly, which in Zoe's experience normally meant 'okay, enough of that', and he promptly changed the subject and gave her a briefing on the exercise.
Roger was a model of sobriety and objectivity. She had never seen him stunned; she found this calmness admirable. He was so different in his nature that she had feared time and again to encounter incomprehension or rejection of her way, but her fears had always remained unfounded. The limits of his acceptance of her moods often seemed to her to be almost unlimited. And his characteristic shrug of the shoulders had always been one of the most intense ways of expressing his emotions. For the most part, Zoe envied his calm, but sometimes she could strangle him for it.
There was no precise information on the purpose of the exercise. As was usual when working for Ms. Reedings. Zoe went into her tent, dropped her backpack on the ground somewhere, lay down on an mattress and relaxed, stretching out and listening to the raindrops falling on the tent. She took the whole thing as a recreational vacation. Weapons training, camouflage in the field, fire and movement, building booby traps, guerilla tactics and the like formed the curriculum. Drones provided the opponents. Against whom do we practice war? Thargoids, Relic AIs, terrorists? As usual, her questions were answered with meaningless comments only.
Everyday life in the next days consisted of patrolling deserted villages, tracking down enemies, laying ambushes. Mud and never ending rain. In the evenings she sat together with the team in the camp and listened to anecdotes of the men who reveled about their basic military training in the distant past and raved on and on about weapons technology. Zoe found the company pleasantly uncomplicated.
The sense of community reminded her of moments in her childhood when she had sat with her father on the shore of the lake that had once been the Valles Marineris trench system and he had told her stories of the red, icy desert that Mars had once been. Memories from a time when her life had felt natural, simple and uncomplicated. Uncomplicated moments had been far too few for Zoe ever since. And suddenly she felt a longing to see the places of her childhood again.
A few days later, her small troupe again roamed the local wilderness, Roger leading them towards one of the abandoned settlements. As she walked behind him, Zoe suddenly remembered a conversation with Julie Price. On one of the endless flights through the vastness of space they were sitting in the Icarus together, and they were talking about Roger. After Julie asked if there was more than friendship going on between Zoe and Roger, Zoe burst out laughing: "A relationship? With him? If I asked him why he's been a friend of mine for years, he would only answer (and Zoe pulled a face, and spoke in an exaggeratedly indignant voice) 'because we met when we worked together at the UDS', and would be completely stunned by how I could ask such a stupid question. He would be totally clueless and seriously thinking that I had forgotten that already."
"Are you on the point?" Roger's comment abruptly brought Zoe back to reality. He had stopped and looked at her. Zoe suppressed the amusement that forced a smile on her face and only produced a short "I'm fine". "Then we can go on," he said, clearly not convinced by her answer, and turned back to the path.
At that moment, the sun broke through the clouds and Zoe felt the warmth brush across her cheeks. For a moment Zoe stopped, closed her eyes and took a deep breath. I don't know yet where the path will take me, she thought, but I feel that I am headed the right direction. Then she gripped the handle of her weapon tighter and followed the rest of the group.