Earth Star

10

‘I hate aliens,’ I said to Fian.

He gazed at my breakfast. ‘I hate cheese fluffle as well. That stuff isn’t meant for your breakfast, you know. It’s intended for the fighter pilots who’ve done one of the night shifts up in orbit and are having dinner before going to bed.’

I grinned. ‘Nobody has objected to me stealing it yet.’

‘I have. Repeatedly.’

I ignored this. ‘As I was saying, I hate aliens. Why did they have to make that thing a sphere? It’s unbelievable how many old paintings have weird circular things in them. One more day of …’

I broke off, looking across at the door of the dining hall. ‘Here comes Drago!’

Fian gave a heartfelt groan.

I greeted Drago with a welcoming smile as he joined us at our table. He took my hand, and gave my palm one long and lingering kiss, before giving Fian a teasing wink. Fian grimly concentrated on eating his breakfast.

‘You’re looking even lovelier than ever this morning, Jarra,’ said Drago.

‘He says that to all the girls,’ said a female voice. Captain Marlise Weldon, Drago’s deputy, sat down next to him. She nodded to me and Fian in turn. ‘Major. Captain.’

I nodded back to her, grateful that everyone had stopped the manic saluting. It had taken me days of heartfelt pleading, but I was finally being treated like any other officer instead of a walking Artemis medal. ‘Morning, Captain.’

She looked at my plate. ‘Cheese fluffle again. Of course, you’re only 18, Jarra, you can eat anything you like. Older people, like Drago and I, have to be far more careful.’

Fian laughed, and nearly choked on his drink of frujit.

‘I’m 29, so stop talking about me as if I’m 92!’ said Drago.

‘Did I mention age again?’ asked Marlise, in a voice of startled innocence.

A whole crowd of people came into the dining hall, led by Nia Stone. She went up to the end wall and turned on a vast vid screen.

‘Oh no,’ muttered Drago. ‘They aren’t going to …’

Marlise smiled sweetly at him. ‘Everyone wants to watch your big moment of fame, Drago.’

Drago pushed his plate aside so he could bang his head on the table.

‘You want to be careful,’ said Marlise. ‘At your age, you could hurt yourself doing that.’

He looked up indignantly. ‘I’m only two years older than you.’

She shook her head sadly. ‘Yes, but the doctors did have to start your rejuvenation treatments early.’

It was obvious from Drago’s face that he’d been teased mercilessly about this in the past. ‘One cycle! They did one rejuvenation cycle last year, and it was only because I was in a tank after being injured.’

‘Well, that’s what the doctors said, but we all knew it was really because of the effect of your wild life style.’

Drago’s eyes narrowed. ‘Captain Weldon, shut up. That’s an order!’

She smiled and turned to look at the vid screen. It was set to Earth Rolling News.

‘… temporary extra Transit areas, to prepare for a possible evacuation to Ark,’ said a cheerful young man. The screen showed a single large inter-continental portal to his left, and a whole row of normal local portals on his right.

‘It looks like they’ve put up a standard Military training dome without bothering with any internal walls,’ I said

‘Exactly,’ said Drago. ‘They just need a nice big space to take the portals.’

‘You should be on soon,’ said Marlise.

Drago sighed.

I peered around the room. The people who were just here for the show were standing at the back, leaving the tables for those who were eating either breakfast, lunch, or dinner, depending on their shift.

The young man on the screen wound up his piece on the extra Transit areas. ‘… and now, a vid made yesterday by special permission of the Military.’

A close-up of a female presenter, a real glam girl with glittering makeup, filled the screen. ‘I’m thrilled to be talking to one of the heroic pilots who are defending Earth from the incoming comet debris. The devastatingly handsome Major Drago Tell Dramis.’

She turned, and the image on the screen panned out to show Drago. He gave her a relaxed, charming smile. Whatever he said at that point, was drowned out by a sudden volley of piercing whistles from around the dining hall. I jumped, startled, and guessed from the look on the real Drago’s face that the whistling was some sort of Military custom of ridicule. It died down after a moment, and we could hear the vid again. The presenter was giggling as if Drago had said something complimentary.

‘You’ve had experience of this sort of thing before in the Hera blockade, Major?’

‘That’s right,’ said the screen Drago. ‘Several veterans of Hera are helping out.’

‘Perhaps you could talk us through what you’re doing.’

‘We have several teams of fighter pilots working shifts to keep a continuous guard up in space. Our ships are at a temporary Military base on Earth. We take off, fly through portals up into space, and watch out for trouble.’

The presenter gazed adoringly at him. ‘You’ve got the Earth Africa solar array standing by to help you out as well?’

‘Yes, if there’s anything we can’t handle with just fighters, we can call on the solar array for assistance.’

‘My viewers would love to see one of your fighters, but I’m told that isn’t possible for security reasons.’

The screen Drago gave an apologetic nod.

‘Disappointing. Amateur astronomers are also a little disappointed they’re not getting any exciting displays in the skies at night. Presumably that means you’re doing your job very well.’

The screen Drago laughed. ‘I hope we are.’

‘How long will this situation last?’

‘I’m just a fighter pilot, so I can’t predict that, but I promise you we’ll be here to keep you safe for as long as necessary.’

The presenter seemed to take that personally, because she had another burst of flirtatious giggles. ‘Well, I’m really glad to hear that, Major Tell Dramis. May I call you Drago?’

The screen Drago smiled into her eyes, with the same intense, meaningful look that he’d used on me a few times. ‘Of course you can.’

‘Well, Drago, should my viewers be panicking if an Ark evacuation is called?’

He gave a shake of his head. ‘No need for panic. We just want to make sure everyone is perfectly safe if we’re forced to pull out our fighters because of a solar storm. There may well be no problems at all, but we never take risks with civilian lives.’

The interview ended, someone turned off the vid, and Marlise climbed on to our table and raised a glass of frujit. ‘A toast everyone! To the devastatingly handsome Major Drago Tell Dramis, the finest liar in the Military!’

I giggled and drank the toast with the others, while Drago buried his head in his hands. When Marlise got down from the table, he peeped through his fingers at me.

‘Let’s run for it, Jarra.’ His eyebrows bounced suggestively. ‘Come with me, and let me show you my fighter.’

I instantly abandoned the remains of my cheese fluffle and stood up. We went out of the dining hall, with Fian trailing after us, and Drago headed towards his room.

‘I need to change into my impact suit.’ He grinned at me. ‘You can come in while I do that if you want. Betans don’t have a nudity taboo, or at least not as much of one as the officious Gammans would like.’

‘We’ll wait in the corridor,’ said Fian.

Drago sighed, vanished into his room for a couple of minutes, and reappeared wearing a Military impact suit with the hood down. He led the way outside to the nearest base internal portal. I watched, thrilled, as he selected the Shift 2 Attack area as our destination, and authorized us to accompany him.

We went through to where four fighters were parked in neat formation by a huge portal. I could see three more of the great portals nearby, each with a group of sleek, black fighters.

‘Zan! Totally, totally, zan!’ I just stood there for a moment, absorbing the sight.

‘You can sit inside my fighter, Jarra,’ said Drago. ‘You can run the pre-flights and take her up on hovers, but I’m not giving you the portal codes, so you aren’t taking her into orbit.’

When we reached the lead fighter with the gold flashes on its side, Drago tapped his wrist. I hadn’t even been able to see a line in the ebony beauty of the ship, but now the whole side unfolded and I eagerly climbed in. Drago squeezed in beside me, and gave a tormenting grin back at Fian before he closed the cockpit on us.

‘I’m afraid it’s a tight fit for two.’

I was staring at the controls. ‘Hovers. Flight. Attack grid. Oh zan!’

Drago laughed. ‘You’re killing my ego here, Jarra. I’m being outclassed on sex appeal by my own fighter.’

‘What?’ I asked. ‘Sorry, I was looking at the attack grid.’

He sighed. ‘Never mind.’

‘Can I run the pre-flights now?’

‘Go ahead.’

I triggered the pre-flights, the screens ran through the system checks, and the attack grid holos flickered into life around me in the final sequence.

‘Amaz!’ My eyes widened, and the holo grid echoed their movements as I looked to left and right. Bright red circles focused to target first the portal ahead of me, and then Fian, who was standing to one side of the group of fighters. I hastily turned my eyes away from him.

‘I can’t shoot by accident?’

‘No,’ said Drago. ‘You haven’t confirmed firing sequence, and anyway safeties automatically engage when you’re on the ground. You’d have to deliberately override.’

‘Good,’ I said breathlessly. ‘I’d hate to shoot up the place by mistake.’

I spent five more glorious minutes playing with the attack grid, and then ended pre-flight checks.

‘Hovers now?’

‘If you want,’ said Drago. ‘Watch it though. She’s not going to respond like a standard aircraft.’

I nodded, checked the hover controls were the same as the ones I’d seen before, and engaged lifts. The fighter lifted smoothly upwards, but when I tried moving forward I pulled a face.

‘She’s very sluggish.’

‘Flies like a rock in atmosphere.’ Drago sounded amused. ‘This isn’t what she’s designed for. She comes to life out in space. Sorry you can’t try that.’

‘Not as sorry as I am.’ I carefully landed the fighter again. ‘Thanks Drago, that was very special for me. I appreciate it.’

I hit the cockpit release and climbed out. Drago followed me, and Fian came hurrying over to join us. I waited until he was standing next to me before I turned to frown at Drago.

‘Now, Drago, I think it’s time you stopped using me to make Marlise jealous.’ I saw his forehead wrinkle. ‘And don’t try to lie your way out of this, because you can’t.’

Drago pulled a rueful face. ‘How did you find out?’

‘I knew Marlise didn’t approve of you paying attention to a kid like me, so at first I thought she was deliberately appearing whenever you were flirting with me. Then I realized it was actually the other way around. We’d be having a perfectly sensible conversation until Marlise walked into the room, but then you’d suddenly start paying me compliments and kissing my hand.’

He groaned. ‘How long have you known?’

‘A few days.’

Fian joined in the conversation. ‘Jarra wanted to see your fighter before she yelled at you.’

Drago laughed. ‘You’ve been playing me along, using me, Jarra.’

‘You started it, Drago.’

‘I was a desperate man,’ said Drago. ‘Marlise is my deputy, so Military regulations put me at a huge disadvantage. I can’t so much as kiss her without a legal contract. When she warned me not to flirt with Jarra, I thought that …’

‘I don’t care what’s going on between you and Captain Weldon,’ interrupted Fian. ‘I just want you to stay away from Jarra.’

‘You’ve no need to worry,’ said Drago. ‘I’d never have flirted with her if there was the remotest risk of her falling for me. It’s perfectly obvious from the way Jarra looks at you that she isn’t interested in me or anyone else.’

He grinned and saluted. ‘Major Jarra Tell Morrath, you have my Military Oath that I will behave towards you with perfect propriety in future. I formally request a truce.’

I glanced at Fian.

‘All right,’ he agreed. ‘On condition I get to hit Drago at least once. I know exactly where I’m going to hit him as well!’