A Galaxy Unknown 10: Azula Carver (17 page)

"If he no there and camera make no noise, is alright," Cayla said.

"How about you, Tayna? What do you think?"

"Agree with Cayla. Okay if no noise or movement. Wilkysson help Jumakas by giving us voices. We like him."

~     ~     ~

Jenetta had been trying to slow down ever since arriving on Obotymot, but she had found it difficult. She couldn't just turn off a work discipline that had consumed almost every available minute of every day for more than two decades. She tried not responding to vidMails right away but couldn't sleep at night until she'd gotten up and cleared her queue. And she tried to delay other simple tasks but found herself getting upset because she hadn't completed them. Her greatest success in avoiding— or, rather, procrastinating— normal tasks occurred when, instead of working, she went and played with her nephews and the Jumakas. Cayla and Tayna were decreasing their playtime activity, but Thor and Nicky took up the slack.

The two young boys loved racing around the garden with the Jumakas, playing hide and seek or tag. With their incredible olfactory and auditory senses, the Jumakas never had a problem finding the boys and could run them down in an instant if they wished, but they always pretended to either not sense the boys' presence or to be considerably slower than their actual speed because it made the game more fun for the children and, therefore, more fun for them.

~     ~

As the day of Hugh's arrival grew near, Jenetta found it more and more difficult to think about anything else. She sent the CPS-14 to pick him up two days early, knowing he couldn't leave until his scheduled time, but she wanted to make sure the ship was there and ready when he was. As it was, Captain Simpson excused him a day early. He'd done a great job during her absence and she knew how anxious he was to see Jenetta.

As the CPS-14 touched down in the open field next to the palace grounds, Jenetta was there waiting. There was no band or greeting party of servants, but Hugh hadn't been expecting any.

As Hugh stepped down from the ship's ramp, he braced to attention and saluted. Jenetta wasn't in uniform, but she was a four-star admiral and deserving of the salute.

Neither Jenetta nor Hugh made any efforts to embrace in public. It wouldn't be proper. So they made small talk as they walked to the palace with the four Jumakas trailing along. Hugh naturally knew all about the new Jumaka and the new collars that allowed the Jumakas to converse with Jenetta and the wildlife expert she had hired.

Jenetta's mom and her sisters-in-law were waiting to welcome Hugh at the palace. Everything was very proper and they made small talk for about ten minutes before Jenetta asked to be excused to see Hugh privately.

As the door to her bedroom closed, Jenetta pivoted, giggled, and jumped at Hugh. He was expecting that and caught her as she reached him, then pulled her to him. It wasn't a very dignified action for a four-star admiral and a commander, but propriety was the last thing on their minds.

~

"Wow!" Hugh said as he pulled the sheet aside and stared, out of breath, up at the ceiling. "It's been so long I thought I might have forgotten how."

"You didn't. I can testify to that."

"I guess it's like walking. You may get too old or infirm to do it one day, but it's not because you've forgotten how."

"Are you ready for another go?"

"Already?" he said with a chuckle. "Give me a chance to catch my breath."

"You're getting old, lover."

"All of us can't stay twenty-one forever."

"Okay. I'll let you rest. But I want you fit and ready in fifteen minutes, Commander."

"Yes, ma'am, Admiral," Hugh said as he rolled over and began tenderly kissing her breasts.

"I thought you needed fifteen minutes?"

"I never said that. You established the time. I just said I needed to catch my breath."

"Have you caught up with it?"

"Almost."

~

"Do you want dinner?" Jenetta asked a couple of hours later.

"Can we have it delivered in bed?"

"I'm the Azula. I can have it delivered in the bathtub if I want."

"Then yes, wherever you want. As long as I don't have to get dressed. I think I'm too tired to pull on my pants. You've worn me out."

"I'll tell them to knock, then leave it outside the door. I don't want to shock the entire palace staff."

"I think they probably know what's going on in here."

"Do you want oysters?"

"Oysters?"

"Isn't that what most men say is an aphrodisiac?"

"I don't need an aphrodisiac. I need energy. Make sure they send up a couple of pots of coffee. And not decaf."

~     ~     ~

"Well, it's about time you two made an appearance," Jenetta's mom said two days later. "We were beginning to think we wouldn't see you until Christmas."

"We had a lot of catching up to do," Jenetta said.

"Yes, I imagine so. Twelve and a half years is a long time. I haven't seen my husband since I moved to Obotymot, but it certainly hasn't been twelve years."

"I can send my barge to bring him here for Christmas if he can take the time off," Jenetta said. "I already offered to bring Christa here if she can take a few days off. She's going to let me know. Daddy's never seen the Family Carver Estate, has he?"

"No, he hasn't. It would be wonderful to have him here for the holiday. I'm going to send him a vidMail right after breakfast and ask him if he can come. Oh, I'm so excited! Too bad the boys can't come."

"Billy's not that far. Perhaps he can make it. It would really be great if the entire family could get together, but Richie, Andy, Jimmy, and Eliza are much too far away."

"It would be so wonderful if Billy could make it for Christmas," Regina said. "Arturo and I haven't seen him in two years. If not for vidMails, Arturo probably wouldn't even remember what his daddy looks like."

~     ~     ~

Christa's schedule was the most flexible, so the barge picked her up on Dakistee first, then raced to where Captain Quinton Carver's heavy cruiser, the
Octavian
, was on patrol. Lastly, the CPS-14 flew to where Billy's ship, the
Seoul
, was on patrol.

On December 24
^th
, four Space Command senior officers named Carver assembled with other family members at the family estate on Obotymot. It was the first time Jenetta had seen her father face to face in two decades.

~

"So you ran away?" Captain Quinton Carver said to his daughter as the four Carver officers and Commander Hugh Michaels met privately in Jenetta's sumptuous third-floor office. "I thought I taught you better than that."

"As I recall, you were trying to figure out a way for me to run away from a general officer position back then."

"Not run away. Never run away. I just wanted you to get what I thought you wanted— a shipboard command. I never expected you to leave the service."

"I haven't left the service. I'm on an official leave of absence. I even have use of a barge while I'm on leave, courtesy of Admiral Moore."

"And when does your LOA expire?"

"Well, Hugh is here until mid-March, so it will last at least that long."

"And then?"

"I don't know."

"You're not going to resign your commission, are you?"

"I was so angry when I learned they had planned to give me a fifth star without consulting me, I was ready to resign. But since then I've cooled down and rethought my position and my future."

"And?"

"Still no decision."

"When are you two getting married?" Quinton asked as he looked at Hugh.

"Daddy!" Jenetta said loudly.

"I'm ready, sir." Hugh said. "I've proposed twice since I've been here, but Jenetta hasn't accepted."

Looking at Jenetta, Quinton said, "You can't seem to make up your mind about anything these days."

"Getting married to a fellow officer in Space Command is a difficult proposition."

"Only if you're in the same command structure. Hugh's in Admiral Platt's fleet."

"And if I accept the fifth star, everyone in the service will be in my command structure, including all of you."

"Uh, that's true. However, I believe there are special exemptions where the discrepancy in rank is more than two levels and the officers don't have close contact because of their positions. But there will always be a magnifying glass turned your way by people just waiting to scream nepotism."

"I could tolerate that. Hugh has achieved his rank on his own, without any help or involvement from me, and he's on the verge now of becoming a warship captain. He's on the latest promotion list."

"Congratulations, Hugh," Quinton said as Billy and Christa expressed congratulations as well.

"Thank you. It's just a matter now of reaching a point in the line where a destroyer is available. I was hoping to get a command in Region Two so I'd be closer to Jenetta, but now I don't know what to hope for."

"See what you're doing by being so indecisive?" Quinton said to Jenetta. "You're keeping everyone hanging. You don't know if you want the fifth star. You don't know if you want to get married. You probably don't even know if you want children."

"Daddy!"

"Okay, that last one was unfair," he said as the others chuckled. "Your mother put that in my head."

"Speaking for myself, sir, I've been wanting to start a family for years."

"Hugh!"

"Well, it's true, honey. You never seemed to want to talk about it whenever I've tried to bring it up."

"Is that what's really behind your LOA?" Quinton put to Jenetta. "You want to have children but you don't want to be in Region Two while your husband and most of your family is in Region One?"

Jenetta didn't answer right away.

"It is, isn't it?"

"It's been a— consideration. I didn't think it would be fair to our baby to have only one parent and no other family nearby, especially if that one parent was always running off to distant parts of GA space to fight invaders from outside our space or put down insurrections by nations such as the Uthlaro or the Tsgardi."

"From what I hear, you've pretty much pulled the teeth from both those groups. When you created a Region Two Territorial Guard from the former Milori military, I was afraid you had made a serious miscalculation, but so far they seem to be loyal to the Galactic Alliance."

"The military strength added to our forces at the Battle of Quesann by the Milori enabled us to defeat the Uthlaro armada with minimal losses on our side. Everything I've seen since then tells me the people of Milor are happy to be part of the GA, and their leaders have no desire to renew the decades of conflict they suffered through under Maxxiloth. Still, there always seems to be a new group waiting in the wings, just itching for a crack at the grand prize. I've begun to wonder if it will ever end."

"No, it won't," Quinton said. "Not ever. It never has in recorded history and never will. There will
always
be a new threat from an unexpected enemy who wants to kill us or enslave us and our people simply because some despot wants power or wealth. We must remain vigilant and be prepared to take them on whenever and wherever they come at us. We are the final, stalwart line of defense between them and our nations, our people, and our families."

"That's such a depressing thought. To think there will never be a time of peace where someone isn't threatening to destroy us."

"With every victory against enemy forces, we improve the chances for peace. But we can never let down our guard and allow the enemy to see any sign of weakness. Because if they see weakness, the will come at us again, believing they can now destroy us while we're weak. After the first world war on Earth, everyone except the military believed it had been the war to end all wars, and the politicians began disbanding the military as soon as it was over. Two decades later, a new world threat appeared and the militaries of those nations who only longed for peace weren't strong enough or trained well enough to properly defend against the initial attacks. There were terrible losses, and the enemy took an enormous amount of territory until the peaceful nations managed to rebuild their fighting effectiveness. Then it happened yet again two decades later in southeast Asia. The politicians— the same ones who made it impossible for the military to do what was necessary to win that war— immediately cut the legs out from under the military when a truce was signed. Two decades later, the military wasn't prepared when the next conflict arose. You'd think they'd have finally learned their lesson after that, but after the next conflict they did it once again. Most politicians never seemed to learn that if you want peace, you must always be prepared for war. President Theodore Roosevelt, a former military man, once said something like, 'Speak softly but carry a big stick.' I'm thankful the Galactic Alliance is a bit more aware of the dangers than Earth's leaders. Yes, it is depressing, Jen, but the only other option is to surrender and die."

"Okay, enough of the surrender and die talk, Dad," Billy said. "This is supposed to be a holiday celebration. It's Christmas, so let's all have a cup of eggnog, spiked slightly if you prefer, and relax. Jen, you told us you were going to take us on a tour of this magnificent home of yours."

"Of ours, Billy. This is the Family Carver Estate. There's always space for you, Regina, Arturo and the rest of the family. It's not like we're likely to run out of rooms. The cleaning bots spend most of their time maintaining the cleanliness of rooms that have never once been occupied. Come on, I'll show you a couple of hundred bedrooms that have never been slept in, then the rest of the palace and the grounds."

~     ~     ~

"Well, Ambello," Uthlaro Minister Ulalahu Valhallo said to Minister Neddowo as he gestured towards the images on the large monitor at the front of the Council Chambers, "there's the proof you've been seeking— images of the battle outside of GA space where Space Command destroyed the warships guarding our new space docks. This arrived shortly after the battle, but the transmission was garbled and it took until now for the experts to clean it up sufficiently to be viewable. Are you quite satisfied now? Carver has destroyed all of our hopes for a future fleet of warships, along with the warships the Raiders had contracted with us to build for them. Now we truly don't have a single warship left. Not one decent warship we could use to protect our planet, not that there was ever any chance of opposing Carver if she came back."