The Honour of the Knights (First Edition) (13 page)

“
Well, welcome to the rest of our military lives,” Enrique
said, shuffling in his seat, his arms folded across his chest, his
eyes closed. Estelle half scowled at the back of his chair. The man
was just pretending to be asleep, so as to avoid making
conversation with her. It seemed that, although he too was
disappointed, he had been quick to accept it.

Dodds
had spent the time before the transport picked them up talking
things over with Estelle and trying to reassure her that, like
Parks said, it was not a reflection on her; although his efforts
had done little to persuade her either way. Chaz had
characteristically said nothing to the others following their
meeting with Parks and had instead buried his head back in his
book. No-one had since questioned him about it, a heavy cloud of
rage still lingering over him.

“
This is your captain speaking. We are now
leaving jump space,” came a pleasant and cheery voice over the
transport
’
s intercom. From the way she had spoken throughout the
journey,
Estelle
got the impression that the transport
’
s captain was used to ferrying VIPs
and didn’t change the way she addressed her passengers, regardless
of their rank or status.

With
their impending arrival at their destination, Estelle leaned over
to take a peak at Dodds, whose eye were glued to the window he sat
beside.

* * *

Dodds
watched out the window as the blue haze peeled away and the stars
outside came rushing by. A massive, far-off transport vessel, its
engines glowing with cyan hues, entered the meagre space afforded
by his window and began to slow along with the stars outside. The
effect was something of an illusion: the disengagement from jump
space giving the impression of a rapid burst of speed.

Dodds
was greeted by a view of Spirit not long after, the large blue and
green ball looming in his window. As he’d heard a number of times
before, the orbital ring that wrapped its way around the planet was
far from complete, with sections missing here and there.
Construction equipment drifted close by, looking as worn out and
neglected as the ring itself. It appeared that work on the ring had
been put on the back burner. As the planet slid from his view, the
captain changing heading to bring the shuttle in line with their
destination, Dodds could not help but feel that it was a fitting
preview of things to come. After the initial excitement and great
anticipation of his call back to duty, was this really what he had
returned to? Maybe his father had been right all along.

As well as the ring, Dodds could make out the wheel-like form
of the orbital station hanging high above the planet. It was the
first station of its type that Dodds had ever seen,
Xalan
’
s own
orbital station being more saucer shaped with rounded tops and
bottoms like most others. The design of Spirit
’
s station looked as though it had
wormed its way out of the reject pile. Either that or it was just
cheap.

Kelly,
seated in front of him, turned around with an ominous look on her
face, her first impressions of their destination leaving much to be
desired.

“
Disengagement complete,” the
transport
’
s captain said as cheery as ever. “Welcome to the Temper
system. We will be entering Spirit
’
s orbit within the next twenty
minutes, before landing at Spirit Orbital Station and completing
our flight. I trust you will have a pleasant stay.”

Estelle
went back to sulking.

VI

—
An Admiral’s Confession —

C
ommodore Parks
’
transport shuttle touched down on
its appointed cliff-side landing pad, and the man made his way
along a connecting jetty that led towards a number of tall
buildings, set up against a small mountain range. The buildings
that he walked towards were home to a number of research centres
and offices, one of which had been designated to Admiral Turner for
the duration of his stay on Xalan. Though the admiral had been
present on Xalan during the three week ATAF evaluation program, he
had, for various reasons, remained far from the Obex Research
Centre, upon a different continent entirely; the ground that Parks
now trod.

Despite being home to the Confederation
’
s main research and development
facilities, Xalan was also populated by a number of thriving
cities. Civilian immigration and migration was rigidly controlled.
On a planet such as Xalan, the Confederation were careful not to
allow free movement and risk losing value research and findings to
enemy, or even allied, hands.

Unlike
Spirit, Xalan had no orbital ring, a standard orbital station
sufficing. Even so, the planet was one of the most fortified
throughout the Confederacy, a huge array of long range planetary
defence platforms circling a vast distance. Many of the platforms
were automated and would open fire on any unidentified object that
came into range, after issuing only a single warning.

Turner
’
s
office was high up, affording him a stunning panorama of the city.
It was early evening when Parks arrived and the many lights from
buildings and low flying vehicles could be seen twinkling in the
fading light. Occasional patrol craft passed by his office
window.

“
Good evening, Commodore,” Turner said as
Parks was shown in by the admiral
’
s security.

“
Good evening, Admiral,” Parks responded, saluting.

“
Please leave us,” Turner looked to the security personnel who
stood either side of the door inside his office. The pair saluted
and left.

“
Don
’
t concern yourself with any
standards of correctness, Commodore, I don
’
t expect this to be a formal
meeting,” Turner said once the door had shut. “Let me apologise for
having you run around so much these past few days. I appreciate
that the constant back and forth can be stressful and I myself find
space travel so much more convenient. No need to worry about things
like atmospherics.”

“
That’s quite all right, sir,” Parks said.
“Whatever was needed to get the job done.” Parks had indeed been
travelling a lot recently. Whilst in the Indigo system he had
divided his duties between Xalan
’
s many research centres and the
orbital station, spending a fair amount of time being transported
between all of them. The constant travel had begun to take its
toll, but he was coping.

“
Spectacular, isn
’
t it?” Turner changed the subject,
nodding to the view out of the window.

“
I was about to say so myself,” Parks agreed, looking out at
the bright lights of the city in the distance. “How do they manage
to get any work done here with a view like that?”

“
That
’
s part of the reason we move most
of them underground!” Turner chuckled. “Drink?” The admiral walked
over to a cabinet and removed two spirit glasses. He picked up a
near full decanter of whiskey and gave it a gentle shake, with a
smile. “Imperial White Label.”

“
How did you get that?” Parks asked, knowing that the contents
of the vessel the admiral held were not only very expensive, but
also difficult to get hold of.

The
admiral smiled, pouring out a modest amount of the amber liquid
into each glass. “It was confiscated from one of the local
residents returning home. I saw it on the seizures list and decided
to help myself. One signature and it was mine.”

Parks
raised an eyebrow at just how blasé the admiral was acting. Never
in his career had he seen the man behave in such a
manner.

“
Anything else?” Parks asked as Turner dropped a couple of ice
cubes into each glass.

“
No,” Turner waved a hand dismissively. “A man of my authority
shouldn’t abuse his position. So, knowing that, I just took the
other two bottles.” The admiral smirked and handed one of the
glasses to Parks. He then returned to his desk, sinking down into
the comfortable black leather chair with a contented sigh. He then
raised his glass. “Congratulations on a job well done, Commodore,”
he said, before knocking back some of the liquor.

“
Thank you, sir.” Parks took a small sip of the whiskey, never
too sure if he would ever acquire a taste for it. The Imperials
tended to like their drink strong, vodka being high on their list
of exports. The spirit was drunk in vast quantities by asteroid and
mineral miners all over the galaxy, the most popular being a brand
known as Velda; coincidently made by the same company that produced
the White Label whiskey. Parks had tried some on occasion and found
it to be, in his own words, “lethal”. At close to one hundred and
fifty proof it was not a drink to be taken lightly. It was also
quite flammable and, as a consequence, banned in many bars
throughout the Confederacy.

“
Looks like we got our men then. Or, in this case, women,”
Turner said cheerily. He rocked the whiskey glass in his hand,
staring at the liquid within and watching the way it washed over
and around the ice cubes.

Parks
said nothing.

“
You don
’
t agree?”

“
With all due respect, sir, I feel
the
Knights
would have been a better choice.”

“
Don
’
t take it personally, Elliott, this
isn
’
t a
competition,” Turner said with a small air of impatience. “You have
to remember that at the end of the day we may in fact be doing them
a
favour
.”

“
There was very little in it,” Parks objected.

“
In the
test scores
, yes. But I have doubts
about their psychological profiles, Commodore and
that
is what will count.
We only have nine months or so to convince those five women of the
truly monumental task that we will be expecting them to undertake.
For now, we may as well take the opportunity to celebrate one thing
going right over the last six months. God knows we could use it
with the prospect of never seeing
Dragon
again. I
’
d sooner have that battleship
completely destroyed than in the hands of the Enemy.” The last part
became something of an irritated mumble. He took another drink from
his glass, leaned back in his chair and looked up at the
ceiling.

Parks, tired of standing, sat down in a chair adjacent to the
admiral
’
s desk.
He recalled going over the results of the ATAF evaluation test
scores and seeing the minimal differences between the
Red Devils
and
White Knights
. There
were various aspects of the evaluation where the two teams had
out-performed one another, leading to a very difficult decision. In
the end, however, the
Red Devils
had just edged out the
White Knights
, leaving Parks with
the painful task of reassigning the team to the border. The
Silver Panthers
had
performed to a far lesser degree when compared to the others and
Parks had returned them to their previous duties.

“
What happens if the
Devils
refuse to go
through with it?” Parks asked.

“
That
’
s why we need to be absolutely sure
that they won
’
t,
Elliott,” Turner said in a gruff voice. “We cannot afford to have
them pull another Patrick Dean on us. That little incident set us
back well over a month.” He paused, staring into space, then said,
“remind me: what was the official line on that
incident?”

“
That all members of the
Yellow Dogs
were killed
during covert operations. There were no bodies to recover because
they were all vaporised in starfighter explosions,” Parks
recited.

“
That
’
s not a story we can spin out for
another five pilots if they also decide to run,” Turner said. “I
don
’
t like the
idea of keeping secrets from our own men, but if it means the
difference between keeping the facts away from the general public
and chaos on a quite literally galactic scale, then so be
it.”

“
And if the
Devils
do try to run?” Parks wanted
to know.

“
Then we will have to find another way,” Turner
said.

But both Turner and Parks knew that there was no real other
way and the tone of Turner
’
s voice had already acknowledged
that fact. In order for the ATAF project to successfully run its
course from here on out, there could be very little room for
deviation or stalling, meaning that both men would have to be dead
certain of their every decision. But neither of them wanted to talk
about it now, Parks himself figuring there would be plenty of time
in the coming months. He decided to change the subject.