Crineal Chronicles 1: In Hera's Service (13 page)

“Another
exciting day of admin work,” he grumbled good-naturedly. “Have a think about
anything else you might need and go ahead and use the replicator,” he paused
for a second, “Are you still ok for credits?”

Cyndora
looked at him over her cup of kafe. “I think I’ll be able to get by,” she said
with a wry smile. Yesterday’s purchases had barely dented what he’d allocated
her.

“Ok,
good. You’ll also find a movie and music library on the entertainment unit. I
think there’s a good choice there. Can’t say that I look that often though.”
Crineal checked the clock. “Ok, time to go. Try not to have too much fun.” He
gave her a quick wave and was gone.

Crineal’s
day was largely spent in paperwork. He completed his commendations report and
forwarded it to the admiral along with his battle report. It looked as if his
squadron’s ships would all be fully serviceable by the time the Annihilator
pulled out of Earth orbit. Now he just needed to get two replacement pilots. He
put a request through to Personnel Section but he wasn’t hopeful about getting
anybody before they reached their next stop over. That left him with the sad
duty of arranging a memorial for Bannerman and Rochelle. He scheduled it for
after all his pilots were back from leave and they’d left orbit. With that done
he decided to take lunch in med section with those unlucky enough still to be
held there. He promised them all faithfully that, if they weren’t out in a
week, he’d arrange a prison break for them. Feldea pointed out that she might
not be capable of digging the required tunnel. Crineal was buoyed to see that
she was in good spirits and it made his afternoon easier. The only black spot
was a terse and almost accusatory note from Commander Del’Tarim to report that
some of the major repair work to the flight bays had been completed and that
they would be fully operational again before they left Sol system. Crineal
snorted at that. He thought that if Hantos had been aboard the bays would be
back up and running within the next ten days. Crineal logged the report in
disgust without even bothering to reply. Finally the day was over and he felt
that he’d made some progress in clearing the backlog. When he got to his
quarters he found Cyndora sitting in an easy chair watching another news feed.
She had her legs tucked under her whilst nibbling a lock of hair and appeared a
little out of sorts.

“Hey
you,” he said, “What are you watching?”

Cyndora
looked up and glanced past him to make sure that the door was shut. “Hey,
Crin,” his name sounded awkward coming from her, “I’ve been trying to catch up
on stuff that’s been happening since I was imprisoned.” She shut down the
entertainment unit and got up. “So, what are we having for dinner?”

He
pondered that for a second. “Hmmmm… steak pie sounds good I think. I have a
preset meal on the replicator.”

Cyndora
brightened a little. “Sounds good to me, too. I’ll get it punched in.” As she
went to the kitchen, he took his jacket off and hung it up in the bedroom
closet.  By the time he got back, Cyndora had two trays of food on the table.
They sat and started to eat. When their trays were empty Cyndora spoke up.
“Crin? Do people really believe the Imperial new shows?”

He
shrugged a little. “Probably a lot of people do. Some take it with a pinch of
salt and some don’t believe a word.”

She
frowned at his answer. “But a lot of it is so obviously false. I saw some
reports about the situation on Earth that aren’t even close to the truth. Happy,
smiling citizens continually celebrating the Emperor, and then being viscously
attacked by rebels with tear gas.” She reddened slightly as she remembered that
Crineal had lost his whole family in a rebel attack. “Who would believe all
that?”

Crineal
shrugged again. “People who haven’t been to Earth. You can’t verify what you
don’t see. If I told you that the flamingos on Pallonus IV have two heads,
would you believe me? Even if I showed you a picture?”

She
thought about that. “Well, no,” she looked at him curiously, “do they have two
heads?”

He
nodded. “Surprisingly, they do. A really odd evolution. But that’s the point,
not everything in the news feeds is a lie. The rebels do carry out attacks, so
it’s easy for people to believe reports that another incident has occurred. I’m
sure if your rebel leaders had told you that an Imperial strike force had
attacked a rebel base, killed all the men, raped all the women to death and
eaten all the children, you’d probably believe it. The Imperial propaganda is
no worse than the rebel stuff.”

Cyndora
looked upset by his answer. “The rebel newscasts stick to the truth. Ok, they
may exaggerate a bit sometimes, but you account for that.”

Crineal
shook his head in amazement at her naivety. “Cyndy, I’m not going to argue with
you on this. There’s a lot more you haven’t seen. Yes, the Imperial stuff is
hardly accurate, but then neither is the rebel stuff. In the end you believe
what you want to believe. Why don’t we shelve it, tidy up and watch a movie?”

Cyndora
still looked ready to argue, but decided to let it go for the moment. She
cleared the table whilst Crineal took a quick shower. He came back in a long
silk bed robe, the pale yellow color seemed to shimmer and it had some odd
looking markings on it.

Cyndora
looked at the markings a little more closely. They were silhouettes of birds
with long legs and…

“They’re
two-headed flamingos!!!” she exclaimed.

Crineal
smiled. “Yep, got it on shore leave on Pallonus IV.”

Cyndora
giggled in response, which Crineal thought made her sound really cute, and she
went and changed into her pajamas. They watched an Imperial action movie with a
highly improbable plot before retiring to their separate beds. Crineal felt
Cyndora was still unhappy about the news issue. If only she knew the truth, he
thought sadly.

The
next day started the same as the previous one: exercise, shower and breakfast. 
Crineal went to his office and cleared a few more reports before meeting with
the other squadron leaders in the Hera ready room. He outlined the idea about
having their seconds do the debriefings during the current leave cycle and then
proposed that it might be a good practice to have them do it on a regular basis,
perhaps once a month to help with their development for promotion. The
discussion on the subject was short and all were in favor of it. With the
matter settled, Crineal wished them all a relaxing leave and then made his
daily visit to the med bay. The afternoon was more reports and he filed a
record of the mornings meeting to be sent to all the squadron leaders and their
seconds. By the end of the day, he was glad to get back to his quarters. That
feeling lasted for all of five seconds. Cyndora was sitting in front of the
entertainment unit again and this time she was fuming.

Crineal
looked at the display and saw it was showing more news. “I take it that they’ve
been stretching the truth again?” he asked, thinking that he might as well trip
her explosion early rather than let it simmer.

“A
celebration rally in Leicester. Saying how much they love they Empire,” she
snarled, her green eyes flashing angrily.

“I’m
assuming that’s not the case?” Crineal hazarded.

“Leicester
is practically an internment camp. Or was when I was there last. I really doubt
that it’s changed that much in a year.”

“Probably
not,” he agreed not wanting to stretch the argument out at all.

She
looked up at him in disgust. “You really don’t care what they say, do you?”

“Not
much. I don’t believe it, so I don’t pay much attention to it. My job is to
fight the enemy combat forces, not get involved in civil political
discussions.” He headed to the kitchen. Crineal had hoped that they’d got past
this ideology rubbish, but apparently not. Suddenly he wasn’t very hungry, so
after dialing up a sandwich he took it through to the bedroom to eat in there.
Crineal left Cyndora seething in the lounge and he was asleep before she even
came to bed.

Exercise
the following morning was short because of his scheduled patrol. Cyndora didn’t
say much and he didn’t stop for more than a bite of breakfast. He changed into
his flight suit and left his quarters with a bare “See you later.” If Cyndora
replied, he didn’t hear it. The patrol was a long one and he was glad of the
quiet friendly chat of the Apollo pilots. They proved as diligent as Major
Quenna had promised and he wondered if they really had been studying. But their
flying didn’t show any text book stiffness, just the smooth competency of
veteran pilots. Although he was tired when they finally touched down in Delta
Bays, he almost wished he could stay out there in space. Instead, he remained
with the pilots and had dinner in the Apollo mess hall whilst getting to know a
few of the newer pilots a bit better. The younger ones seemed a bit awed that a
general was sitting with them; the old hands just took it in their stride. They
always liked to give the impression to outsiders that Crineal was hard as nails
and his combat reputation reinforced that, especially the way he ruthlessly
dealt with rebels. But those who worked closely with him were aware that he
cared very much for the pilots under his command. They knew he would do
whatever he could for them, unless they broke the rules. Those people who were
dismissed from the carrier’s squadrons only furthered his legend of toughness.

Once
the meal was over he stopped in at med bay to find that two more pilots had
been discharged during the day. Only Captains Saymes and Treynar, Lieutenants
Feldea and Arralyu, and Pilot Officer Wakred were left. He chatted with each
and then headed to his quarters. He stepped in the door, saw Cyndora still
looked angry and just gave her a “Hi” before taking a shower and going straight
to bed.

When
the alarm went the following morning, they both rose without a word although
Cyndora kept glaring at him. Their exercise was conducted in silence and he
didn’t even bother to stop for breakfast after his shower. He decided that with
his foul mood today he may as well take a tour of the Alpha flight bays. He
checked in with Commander Del’Tarim who was only too pleased to let him wander
around on his own. He certainly didn’t want to spend time with the general;
especially not in the obviously poor humor Crineal was in.

Crineal
visited each bay and spoke with whoever was most senior on duty in each one,
ending up in Alpha Bay Ten. The impression that he got from them was that they
were working hard despite Del’Tarim and, if there were any delays, the root
cause was the commander. It was about as Crineal had expected. The work crews
did seem a little lifted by his visit, though. A stop at the medical bay just
after lunch revealed that Arralyu and Wakred had been discharged as well,
leaving just the two captains and Lieutenant Feldea. Saymes and Treynar had
been told that they would be released in the next few days. Crineal made a
mental note to make sure that any pilots back early from shore leave would make
regular calls on Feldea once she was the only one left in there. He commed a
quick message from his office to Cyndora that he would be working late and she
should fix her dinner when she felt hungry. He received a reply, but deleted it
without even looking. He was not going to play her stupid games of
recrimination, he told himself. He finally finished up his paperwork about
twenty hundred hours and headed to his quarters. This time he didn’t look at
her or even speak, just got a shower and went to bed, exhausted from the long
hours he’d put in.

Crineal
struggled out of bed with a massive headache. He killed the alarm and stumbled
out of the bedroom to the kitchen. He dialed up some water and a painkiller
from the replicator. As he swallowed the tablet with a gulp of water he saw
that Cyndora was leaning against the bedroom door wearing a long bath robe that
he hadn’t noticed before. His head was pounding and she just stood there
glaring at him.

“Going
to be another long day at the office, Sir?” she asked with a voice laced with
venomous sarcasm.

Crineal
put the glass down and leaned on the counter. “Cyndora, you really don’t want
to do this,” he said tiredly. Actually, today was a rest day for him.

“Do
what? Remind you of the lies that the Empire puts out to cover up its
brutality? Remind you that you’re fighting for a corrupt system that beats
innocent people and tortures its prisoners? Remind you that you don’t really
care what they do?” she was shouting by the time she reached the end of the
sentence. “What are you going to do? Have me thrown back into the slave pit you
call recreation to be raped every day?” she shot at him.

Crineal
stood up and looked at her, enraged but absolutely ice cold. His pilots would
have all been backing away from him and the person he was focused on, at this
point. Cyndora mistook it for plain anger but still backed up a little as he
came around the counter towards her.

“Going
to hit me and then rape me, Sir?” she sneered at him.

He
pushed past her into the bedroom, pulled on his bath robe and then opened a
panel in the wall she hadn’t even known was there. He placed his hand on the
hatch behind the panel and spoke. “Crineal six eight seven nine three four
delta two four.” She watched as his face was illuminated and before he opened
the small hatch she saw a smear of blood on his thumb. He reached inside and
pulled out an orange cuboid data crystal, then closed the hatch again and slid
the panel shut. He reached the bedroom doorway and stood no more than six
inches from her.