Personal Log 146: 21 December 3302 – 7 January 3303
12 Jun 2017Jemine Caesar
21 December 3302 – 7 January 3303The Christmas Holiday passed happily. Plenty of food and drink was consumed and, in accordance with ancient custom, gifts were exchanged. Father was clearly besotted with Diadem, praising both her beauty and his good fortune at every opportunity.
Diadem, for her part, gave every indication that she loved father as much as he loved her, and yet... something wasn't quite right with the relationship. There was nothing I could really put my finger on, and any attempt to prise enlightenment from Diadem was met with a rapid change of subject. There was no doubt in my mind that she was hiding a secret of some kind, but I couldn't confide my suspicions to father without proof.
On New Year's Eve I took Sam to one side, out of earshot of my father and his fiancée. The four of us had been spending the evening drinking and watching "Marcia Bannerman Sees Off 3302" on holovision.
"What do you think of her, Sam?" I asked, when we were safely alone.
"Well," he began, "she has her moments, but I find her brand of sarcastic humour a bit too— "
"No!" I cut in. "Not Marcia Bannerman! I mean..." I lowered my voice to a whisper. "I mean Diadem."
"Oh. Er, well, she has charms, I suppose. She's very friendly, outgoing, very easy to talk to. She seems to like me..."
"For fuck's sake!" I said, exasperated. "Stop thinking with your willy! What I mean is, do you believe she's right for my father?"
"She certainly appears to be in love with him."
"Yes, appears to be," I repeated. "Still, you know what they say about appearances."
Sam blinked in surprise. "Are you saying you suspect Diadem is deceiving Edward?"
"Not exactly," I replied. "But something isn't ringing true about her. You saw how evasive she was about her background when we first arrived."
"I remember," said Sam. "She told us that her relocation from Reorte to Turir was a career move, then clammed up about it. Perhaps it was something she'd prefer to forget. We all have experiences we'd rather leave in the past. You of all people know that, Jem. Have you mentioned your suspicions to Edward?"
"No, of course not," I said. "You've seen how he dotes on Diadem. He wouldn't believe a word against her. I hope I'm wrong about her, for his sake."
"Time will tell. Speaking of which, it's just gone midnight. Happy new year, my love."
Sam leaned in to give me a long, tender kiss on the lips, and then, hand in hand, we went back to rejoin my father and the woman he wanted to marry.
*****
Sam and I stayed at Lugh another two days, during which the news broke that Beta Hydri was now once more under Federation control. The ruling Imperial forces had withdrawn following a challenge mounted by activists loyal to Felicia Winters. This turn of events cheered Sam immensely, especially as his parents had been in touch to say they would be making an imminent return to Stevenson Base.
"If things go according to plan," Sam told me, "the Red Rose will be a Hodkin pub again by the end of January. And what's more, we'll be celebrating with a reunion gig by the Timelords."
He explained that all but one of the five original bandmembers had agreed to reform and 'give it another crack'.
"Unfortunately our lead singer isn't available," he said, "so his place is set to be taken by none other than my sister, Sarah. Of course, we'll have to rearrange some of the music to suit her vocals, but that shouldn't present too much of a problem."
"I'm sure she'll fit right in," I replied. "Sarah has an amazing voice."
And so, on the second of January, 3303, I said my goodbyes to father and Diadem and set off to return to Beta Hydri. Once settled back on Stevenson Base, my thoughts turned to life's realities. It had been lovely spending Christmas and New Year with my father, but now I needed to get back to work. I took a few delivery jobs over the next few days, though I was already convinced that my career as a trader had reached its natural conclusion. What I wanted now, more than ever, was to develop my combat skills and abilities as a bounty hunter. But there was an altogether more immediate ambition I wanted to satisfy first...
Galnet had been full of reports about sightings of apparently non-human spacecraft out in the Pleiades Sector. These flower-shaped craft had been randomly pulling ships directly out of supercruise, scanning them and then disappearing. Apart from enduring a temporary shutdown of all ship's systems, no harm had come to any humans. Commanders from all over the bubble had flocked to the Pleiades hoping for an encounter with one of the mysterious flower-ships. Sam wasn't impressed when I told him I wanted to go too.
"We've no idea what these things are, Jem," he said. "Granted all they've done so far is carry out some sort of scan and then bugger off. What if they suddenly decide to turn nasty, and start destroying ships instead of just powering them down? What if it's you they get nasty with? I'd rather you didn't take that risk."
"Sam," I said, wide-eyed, "are you telling me I can't go?"
Sam held up his hands. "No. I wouldn't dream of telling you what you can or can't do. What I am saying is... I don't want to lose you."
I smiled softly, and said, "You won't lose me. There's so far been no reason to believe that the flower ships are hostile. They've interdicted and scanned dozens of ships. No one has been harmed in the slightest, according to all the reports. I think I'll be perfectly safe out there."
"All the same— "
"— All the same... I promise I'll keep an eye on Galnet. First sign of any nastiness, I'll get out of the Pleiades and come straight back. OK?"
Sam nodded. "OK, I s'pose so. Just... I don't understand why you want to go all that way, just to see one of those things."
"It's simple," I replied, with a shrug. "I keep reading stories of commanders who always seem to be in the thick of the action. I just want to join in the fun, that's all."
*****
Popular wisdom amongst those pilots 'in the thick of the action' indicated that my destination should be a system called Maia. So, on January 6th, I packed some belongings into The Last Thing, kissed Sam farewell, and set course for what would be the longest single trip I had yet undertaken.
My first port of call in the Pleiades was Darnielle's Progress, a planetside outpost on Maia A2-A. Darnielle's Progress turned out to be a popular place, with a constant stream of ships placing heavy demands on its overworked landing pads and underpaid dockworkers. The normal business of the outpost, refining imports of bauxite, rutile and methane clathrate, had been curtailed by the influx of pilots hoping to stumble upon a flower-ship. The refinery workers, quick to recognise a golden opportunity from Maia's sudden increase in popularity, had offered themselves as unofficial guides to anyone willing (and stupid enough) to pay an exhorbitant fee.
I myself had gone to Maia with no real idea of how to go about finding a flower-ship, so I therefore did what any self-respecting pilot does in these circumstances; I went to the bar. Most kinds of information can usually be found in a starport bar and, sure enough, I soon fell into conversation with several pilots who seemed to know what they were doing. One of them, Leigh Mathers, said he'd be happy to have me tag along with him and his wing on a flower ship hunting expedition.
"Matter of fact," he said, "I'm about to hit the trail now, if'n that suits you. Just gotta to meet up with the boys at Obsidian Orbital first, then we can be on our way."
"Sounds good," I said. "Have you had much luck so far, commander Mathers?"
"Nope, reckon we ain't. But we got word of fresh sightings in a system about sixty light years from here, so we're gonna check that out."
It didn't take long to reach Obsidian Orbital, since it was in orbit above the same rock that supported Darnielle's Progress. Obsidian Orbital served as a focal point for pilots whose ships were in need of more advanced maintenance than could be obtained at Darnielle's. It was also rumoured the food and entertainment on the starport was considerably better, too.
Outside Obsidian Orbital, Mathers introduced me by ship's comms to his wingmates. Then, not wanting to waste any further time, we moved away from the starport and spooled up for the first jump. We headed straight to the system where the fresh sightings had been reported, but, after an hour or so of circling around, we gave it up.
"Let's split up into two teams," said Mathers finally. "Maybe we'll have better luck. Simmons and Vickerson, you go thataway. Jemine, you're with me."
Several hours later, Mathers and I found ourselves patrolling a system almost one hundred light years from Maia. We'd already passed through nine systems, scanning anything that seemed remotely likely be a flower-ship, but all to no avail. By the time we'd jumped into the tenth system I'd grown despondent.
"I don't think it's going to happen, Mathers."
He reluctantly agreed. "Sure am sorry this has turned out to be a no-show for you, ma'am."
"Don't worry," I replied. I was exhausted by this time, and told Mathers I was going to turn back to Obsidian and get some sleep. "Perhaps I'll give it another try tomorrow."
"Sure thing," he said. "Reckon I'll stick around here a little longer, though, if it's all the same to you. I got a feelin' in my water that there's one of those critters around here somewheres."
"Of course. Let me know how you get on. I'll see you back at Maia."
I set the course back to Maia and docked at Obsidian Orbital, after which I took a welcome shower and an even more welcome several-hour sleep. When I woke I found a k-cast recorded message on my dataslate. The message was from Leigh Mathers:
"Howdy, ma'am. Sure wish you'd stuck around for a mite longer. No more'n thirty minutes after you left, I had me a solid encounter with one o' them flower-ships for myself. Just like all the reports say, it yanked me clean out of supercruise and disabled all my systems. Then, after it scanned my ship awhiles, the dang thing just clean vamoosed. Reckon I got what I came for, though, so I'mma gonna mosey on back to the bubble 'n cash in my story. Hope y'all have good luck, y'hear?"
So, another thirty minutes would have been all it took! Our Gracious Lady Gaia was most certainly not smiling on me; presumably she'd finally tumbled to the fact that I'd stopped believing in her ages ago. After cursing my rotten luck for a few minutes, I put in a request for take-off clearance and went to the docks.
Soon I was back out in the void, this time hunting flower-ships on my own. But, following another five or six hours of fruitless meandering from star to star, I reluctantly decided to give up on the whole idea and head back home.
Just two jumps short of an inhabited system I was interdicted by a Fer de Lance. Her Deadly-rated pilot wasted no time in bringing his plasma accelerators to bear on The Last Thing, and my shields were soon breached. Putting all available power to systems, I desperately jinked and swerved to stay out of my attacker's line of fire long enough for my frame shift drive to recharge. However, just as I hit the button for the jump, The Last Thing was violently rocked by two missile impacts.
Mercifully the FSD kicked in straight after, and seconds later I was hurtling through witchspace, glad to have escaped the onslaught. My ship had taken very heavy damage to all systems, and hull integrity was down to a mere 8%. I checked Galmap for the nearest inhabited system. There were several candidates, but one in particular caught my attention: Inara.
Although Inara was not the nearest, it had the advantage of being a system with which I possessed at least some passing familiarity. It was there that I'd met Kyla Emmerich in November. I smiled at the memory of that meeting; what had begun as a very public spat on PFedSocMed had developed into a mutual respect and then friendship. We'd not been in touch with one another since, but such is the way of life for spacers.
I set course for Inara and powered up the frame shift drive, hoping that The Last Thing would hold together long enough to get me to Citi Gateway starport.
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OOC bit
My thanks again to commander Sam Hodkin for his continuing part in my story.
Thanks also to others who contributed to this instalment (you know who you are)