Earth Star(50)

Fian was always complaining I didn’t talk about things enough, but now I had something important I wanted to say. ‘Fian, when I was rushing back here, I was thinking it makes no sense for you to come to Ark with me. I’d feel much happier knowing you’d gone to Adonis, or home to Delta sector, and you were safe.’

‘No,’ he said.

‘But it’s silly. It just doubles the risk of one of us getting hurt.’

‘Oh no it doesn’t. I dread to think what trouble you’d get into without me.’

‘But if you get hurt, I’ll feel …’

‘The answer is no, Jarra.’

I sighed, sent some messages, and managed to arrange for both of us to help with the foaming up. ‘We’ll need to wear impact suits for this. Apparently, it gets pretty messy.’

Fian nodded.

Our impact suits were in the bedroom storage area. I had two, because Military issue suits had been waiting in our quarters when we arrived here, and I’d also brought along my own precious personal impact suit. It had been a gift from the Cassandra 2 team, after I’d helped dig them out from under a collapsed tower on the New York Dig Site.

I got out the Military suits, and Fian and I played around with the controls, setting our names and ranks on the displays.

‘We’ll have plenty of time to suit up and get over to the Attack area when we know Drago is heading back,’ I said. ‘He’ll take half an hour to get to the portals, and the rest of shift 2 will come in ahead of him to leave their landing area clear.’

‘Will shift 3 be going in to relieve them?’

‘Yes. Threat team have worked out new guard positions outside the point where the sphere’s meteor defence triggers.’

We spent the next couple of hours listening to the command channel, while I worried about the power of the sphere’s beam, and tried to talk Fian into leaving Earth during the next solar storm. I failed miserably.

I started getting restless as 14:00 hours approached. Shift 2 would normally be landing now. Instead, they were still out there, with an injured Drago in his damaged ship. I felt it was time the Colonel got them moving back to safety. In fact, Marlise called them home.

‘Colonel, I think we should start back,’ her voice broke into the command channel. ‘Our team have been chatting to Major Tell Dramis on ship to ship, and in our opinion the strain is getting to him and he’s becoming irrational.’

‘I’m perfectly fine,’ objected Drago.

‘Captain Weldon doesn’t seem to agree with you, Major,’ said the Colonel. ‘Military Command has finally found you a deputy capable of calling a halt when you push yourself too far, and I intend to pay attention when she does it.’

‘Yes, I know all the jokes.’ Drago sounded distinctly annoyed. ‘Members of my clan are capable of getting into life and death situations while buying ice-cream, and we shouldn’t be let out alone, but in this case Captain Weldon is wrong. I’m not suffering from strain, and I’m not irrational.’

‘Captain?’ asked the Colonel.

‘He’s just proposed marriage to me, and suggested we elope to Epsilon,’ said Marlise. ‘I think that’s a bad sign.’

I giggled, looked at Fian, and found he was lying on the floor, clutching his stomach and turning purple. ‘Are you all right?’

Fian gasped for breath, and I realized he was having a fit of laughter rather than dying. ‘Military Command thinks members of your clan shouldn’t be let out alone. They’re quite right too!’

I threw a cushion at him. ‘Poor Drago. His whole team listening in and Marlise still doesn’t believe him.’

Fian threw the cushion back at me. ‘It serves him right for being the finest liar in the Military.’

The Colonel ordered shift 2 to move at minimum speed towards the portals, while shift 3 approached the new guard positions. Fian and I changed into skintights, the minimal clothing you wore under impact suits, and then started putting our suits on.

Getting into an impact suit is never easy, and either these were different from civilian ones, or more likely I was overconfident and rushing things, because I triggered the material while I was smoothing it up my arms and it went solid. I had to wait for the fabric to relax before I could move my arms again, which meant I had the suit on in ten seconds over the Military standard time of two minutes. Fian took only a few seconds longer than me. We both left our hoods down of course, since we weren’t in a hostile environment.

‘Do you think Drago’s serious about that proposal?’ Fian asked as we headed out of our quarters. ‘He hardly seems the marrying type.’