The Honour of the Knights (First Edition) (15 page)

“
oh dear god,” Kelly said in a low voice. “I really wish I was
back at Gabriel.”

“
Uh huh,” Enrique answered.

“
Please sleep next to me,” Kelly said to Enrique. Dodds noted
that the men in the dormitory were already eyeing up the two women,
and were being anything but subtle about it.

“
Wouldn
’
t want it any other way,” Enrique
said.

Dodds
was in agreement. After three weeks of his own personal space, and
five months back home before that, this new regime was going to
take a lot of getting used to.

Estelle
coped a lot better, striding in, finding a spare bed and claiming
it for her own, tossing the random items that occupied it onto
another nearby bed. In the hours that followed it did not take her
long to discover that she was the highest ranking officer in the
dormitory (something that genuinely astonished her) and as a
consequence one of the least popular.

At another time, in another place,
Dodds would have advised her against flexing her muscles in
the very first instance, but right now he was not in the
mood.

Chaz
found himself a bunk, acting as always with his trademark silence.
With his locker filled with clothes, boots and other personnel
effects the man kicked back, pulled out his book and disappeared
into the pages.

* * *

“
Welcome to Mandelah Naval Base, boy and girls; and welcome to
Spirit. I’m Captain Meyers and while here you will be acting under
my command,” the portly, ginger bearded man said.

The
White Knights
were seated within a small briefing room,
alongside other new arrivals to the Temper system, some of whom
shared their new quarters.

The
group had been given a brief tour of the base and found that, even
though Spirit had an orbital station, the overpopulation of
available pilots meant that many of them had to be based on the
ground. It also meant that in order to perform their duties, they
would have to be transferred back up to the orbital station on an
almost daily basis.

This would not have been the case if construction on the
orbital ring had been completed, allowing for crew, service
personnel and starfighters to be housed within, Estelle grumbled
during the tour. As it stood, not even the craft that they would be
required to pilot were stationed planet-side. Standard
Confederation starfighters were not capable of withstanding the
stresses that atmospheres would put upon them whilst attempting
planetary leave or re-entry. All this, Estelle had also reminded
them, slipping into a sulk, was not something that the ATAF
suffered from. Dodds caught Chaz
’
s eye and swore later he saw him
crack a smile. For his moody exterior he was starting to find some
mirth in Estelle
’
s continued moaning.

Dodds
suppressed a small sigh, folded his arms and tried to appear
interested in what Meyers was saying. The captain was giving them
an overview of what would be expected of them whilst they were
stationed at Spirit.

“
The Temper system is the principle route, and therefore the
closest Confederation border world, to Independent World space,”
Meyers went on. “In general terms this means that all sane traffic
wishing to safely enter or leave Confederation-controlled space
must do so via this system.”

“
Why?” a female voice behind Dodds asked. He didn’t bother to
look around to see who was asking the question. “I mean, we can
easily travel all the way from Earth to Kethlan in a single jump if
we wanted to.”

“
Not any longer, no,” Meyers said. “Owing to recent
developments within the Mitikas Imperium, the Confederation is no
longer permitting jumpgates, save for those along the border, to
allow incoming or outgoing traffic to non-Confederate
destinations.”

“
So everyone is having to come through here
instead?”

“
For the foreseeable future, yes.”

“
But the volume of traffic must be incredible!” the voice
sounded quite taken aback.

“
It is, yes, but it’s a necessary precaution that the
government wishes to take.”

Dodds
had the image of an egg timer in his head, the grains of sand being
the starships that were waiting - with strained tempers - to pass
through the gates and move on to their destination.

“
But what about everyone else? If they have their own jump
drives they don’t need to use the gates. Somewhere between ten and
fifteen percent of all space craft can form their own jump
points.”

Dodds
met Enrique’s eyes and raised an eyebrow at the comment from the
well versed informant.

Meyers
put up his hand and waved the woman down. “We’ll get on to how we
are tackling that in a little bit. For now, all of the
Confederacy’s navigation buoys are refusing to supply data on
routes towards non-Confederate systems and, in particular, the
Mitikas Empire. Without that data, space is once again as the sea
was to early sailors on Earth: a treacherous place with little to
no land marks.”

“
Until they learned to use the stars to navigate,” another
voice chipped in.

“
True,” Meyers began to chuckle. “But you’d have a hell of a
time doing that up there.” He nodded towards the ceiling.
“Now…”

“
Excuse me, Captain, but what are the government taking
precautions against?” yet another voice piped up.

“
Mass immigration,” Meyers said simply. “The increased
instability of the Imperial systems has led to a greater amount of
traffic coming into Temper, and from there into further sectors of
Confederation space. Most of these are traders attempting to find
new avenues of business now that their old ones have closed.
Unfortunately, organised crime is also suffering the same loss and
you can bet that they will also come flooding in with them.
Now…”

“
Sir?”

“
Yes?”

Dodds found that Meyers was proving to be incredibly patient,
given the continued interruptions. He’d heard that the man was like
that though: very pleasant and accommodating; and that was also why
he was still a captain and not a commodore. Heads turned around,
following Meyers
’
eyes. Dodds looked about this time, seeing an olive-skinned
man with a puzzled expression holding his hand in the air. For a
moment Dodds thought he recognised him as one of the five men from
the lecture theatre all those weeks ago, but realised he was
mistaken. Meyers scratched at his beard as the man
spoke.

“
I’m sorry, Captain, but this sounds like a job for the local
police, not the Navy.”

“
True, but the police forces throughout Temper have come under
increased stress whilst attempting to handle this issue and have
requested our assistance. You should be aware that it could also
soon no longer be a matter for the police; remember that this is
also a game of politics: whilst relationships are now good with
previously troublesome Independent World systems, a show of
strength is no bad thing.”

“
Sounds like they’re turning us into the flood barriers,”
Dodds heard Enrique whisper to Kelly. He noticed Kelly appear to
snap awake, as if she had been daydreaming. He could relate: he was
drifting in and out of the room himself, trying to think of a way
he could escape to somewhere more interesting and not involving
apples.

“
So we
’
re going to be making pre-emptive
strikes against known pirate bases and insurgent strongholds?” the
questioner asked, his face brightening at the prospect for some
action. At the man
’
s words the assembled pilots all became much more awake and
alert. Dodds imagined that they, like him, were visualising
scenarios in which they were performing important and heroic
services to the Confederation, none of which went unnoticed, and
all of which resulted in a great deal of action, grand recognition,
and well deserved promotion.

“
Not at this point, no,” Meyers said, almost as if he was
apologising. “For the foreseeable future you will all be assigned
regular patrols within the Temper system.”

“
Oh dear God, please just kill me now,” Enrique said under his
breath and slid down in his seat.

“
Make that a double,” Dodds requested, his own dreams of
valour vanishing before his eyes. It was as if some twenty four
hours previous he had been quaffing the highest quality Dom
Pérignon, but was now being force-fed cheap plonk. Estelle, seated
in front of the pair, turned around and shot them an angry glare
that said, “Sit Up, Shut up and Put Up”. Enrique and Dodds pulled
themselves both upright and attempted to stay focused.

Meyers, with the aid of a map of the Temper system, went on
to list patrol routes, potential trouble hot spots,
(
Yeah, right
,
Dodds thought to himself) and schedules.

“
White Knights
?” Meyers asked as he ended the briefing with the flight
roster.

“
First Lieutenant Estelle de
Winter,
White
Knights
,” Estelle said, standing up and
saluting.

“
I wonder where she learned that one?” Dodds muttered
sarcastically to Enrique, lowering his voice a lot more this time
so as not to enrage his superior.

“
Lieutenant, you will be performing your first patrol tomorrow
afternoon at fourteen hundred hours. All route information will be
provided to you on Spirit Orbital before the start of your patrol.
You and your team should be ready one hour prior to commencement
for transfer to orbit. So, thirteen hundred hours at landing zone
D.

“
That is all boys and girls. Please ensure you check the
flight roster regularly, as it will change. Dismissed.”

* * *

Tuesday, June 10
^th
2617

I have to confess that I am actually enjoying my posting to
Spirit a lot more than I first thought I would. When we were
initially transferred here I thought it would prompt the end to my
time in the Navy and I would hand in my resignation.
I
’
m glad that I
didn
’
t as I would
only have been disappointed with myself upon returning home. I
haven
’
t been in
contact with my family for a few weeks now, not since arriving. But
I don
’
t expect
they will be concerned.

When I first arrived here it was like my first day in the
service all over again. That
’
s what too much pampering will do
to you, I guess. I figured that Spirit would be a dull, lifeless
rock with nothing to keep me sane between the endless patrols. As a
matter of fact there is quite a lot to do here and I’ve taken up
running and some other activities with Enrique and Dodds. The
planet is quite temperate, not as hot here as I would like
(shouldn
’
t expect
it to get any hotter than 22c, I
’
m told) but it could be far
worse.

We get most of our evenings free here, though not the
weekends any more. The schedule of the patrols means that our days
off vary, but we usually don
’
t have to do more than five days on
the trot. We don
’
t have to patrol at night either because those stationed on
the orbital handle that, although some of our patrols do end rather
late and then we might have an early one the next morning. Today
I
’
ve got another
day off after four days of patrolling. There are a few towns
nearby, but I couldn
’
t be bothered to head into any of them. I felt like just
unwinding and doing a bit of a work on my journal, so I went for a
walk instead.

I
’
ve never
been stationed on a planet that had an orbital ring before, at
least, if I was, I don
’
t remember being so. It
’
s only half finished, but it is
quite a beautiful and surreal sight. On clear days you can make out
the ring from the ground, high in the sky. It
’
s in a geostationary orbit, so
it
’
s pretty much
the same thing every time, but it
’
s still amazing to look at. Night
times are spectacular, with portions of the ring lit up in the sky.
I expect that once it is finished then it
’
ll be even more so (although
that
’
s probably
wishful thinking since I
’
m told it probably
won
’
t be for
quite some time).

Chaz seems to have come out of his shell a bit. They have a
number of boxing and other martial art type classes here, so he and
Enrique often go there together to practice. I
’
m not sure if there is much left
for Enrique to learn, but he tells me that Chaz is helping him to
hone some of his skills, so I guess there
’
s a lot more to it.