Terra Group: Moving

by Majick

January 2001

The bed creaked as Mike tossed and turned. The decision had eventually been reached with the help of his friends and family, but it was not an easy one. He sighed and gave up trying to sleep. Throwing off the covers, he looked around the room that had been his for as long as he could remember. The bed, that had supported him through many a troubled night. The wardrobe, in which was stashed all the evidence that he was something other than an ordinary student. His gaze lingered on the back of the bedroom door. Hanging from a hook was a present from Kelly, who'd taken him out shopping three days before when she'd visited in response to his call for help. The black trenchcoat was far more luxurious than the one he'd seen destroyed aboard the Admonitor, some two months before.

He looked at his bedside clock, and wondered whether to leave it here or take it with him. Anything to avoid accepting the reality of the situation. It was four in the morning, and he was still fretting over whether he'd made the right decision.

Absent any wish to continue fighting sleeplessness, he slid to the floor, and leant against the solid frame of his bed. He picked up a controller from beside his ancient TV, and switched on his N64. Soon enough, he was lost in the world of Rogue Squadron, tackling the Jade Moon, fighting the Battle of Taloraan, and liberating Gerrard V.

*****

The goodbyes has been drawn out, and tearful. It wasn't that often someone went to live in a new country, even though he tried to explain he'd be back all the time. He didn't think it'd taken, really. It was hard to explain to people that he'd be living half way around the world, but would be popping back most weekends. How could he explain the idea of personally accessible spaceflight without sounding like a madman.

He'd tried to explain to his family what was going on, but he didn't think they'd taken it in. It was hard for them to accept that he was leaving home to live halfway around the world. Any qualifiers to that bit of information were perfunctorily received.

The line had been quite long. Mike wondered if he'd picked a Saturday in the Christmas holidays to make sure all his friends would be there. Was that unworthy? He did like to make a scene, after all...

Still, it was in the past. One last person to say goodbye to. An embrace. He wouldn't cry. Not now. Not with everyone watching. Not a good time to start having 'dust in his eye'. On with the helmet. Onto the back of the bike. He slapped the visor down. And now he could afford a little emotion. He waved, watching the curiously tinted congregation make gestures of farewell. He knew he'd be back. They thought he wouldn't. He wondered if they knew better than he did.

*****

A manly handshake, this time. Some people you hugged, some you didn't. Love to the lady. A nod. Slap the back box shut. Turn your back as he accelerates away. Bless him, he hadn't asked why Mike had wanted to be dropped in Newcastle, of all places. Not even Newcastle proper, but out by the Angel of the North.

How to explain that it was where it had all began?

He waited for darkness to fall.

*****

The Gaia made landfall over the North of England. The convenient gap in radar coverage made it a good place to bring craft that, perhaps, wouldn't be best uncovered by the British military. The construction of the craft made sure of that. Vickie was still nervous, though. It was the first time she'd flown the Gaia this far. She didn't want to break it. Sci was very possessive about his ship.

There. That was the landing zone, she thought. An Angel figure, highlighted by a single torch. And by the base of the figure. . . . Was that Mike? She squinted, wishing for her twin's perfect eyesight. She aimed for the field, and as she bought the craft down, refocused the viewscreen.

It was her friend, okay. But he looked. . . . Forlorn, she decided. She'd never seen him look that way. If anyone looked forlorn in Terra Group, it was usually Emily, or sometimes Josh Cochran. People who'd really suffered as a result of Project Boussh. Emily had lost her best friend, while Josh had been forced to renounce his citizenship. It hadn't been easy for either of them. She shook her head as the craft sank to the ground. Everyone, after all, was entitled to their bad days.

*****

The ramp dropped to the ground with a hydraulic hiss, and Vickie was halfway down before it touched the grass. She grabbed her friend in a big bear hug as he stepped up to the ship, then frowned as he failed to respond. She looked up at his face. With Mike being one of the tallest of the Group members, it was a position she'd gotten used to. But his face was totally, carefully, blank, for the first time she could remember, and when she reached out with the Force, she found him totally closed to her, also a first. Since their days as semi-padawan, a few months before, the two had shared a link that had survived Mike's loss of his powers. For him to be shut off to her like this. . . well, she couldn't remember a time he'd felt like this to her.

"Are you okay?" she asked, her concern evident.

"Yeah," he replied, shortly. "Are you ready?" he added, stepping onto the ramp, and disappearing into the craft.

Vickie followed him up, and walked into the cockpit, expecting to find him in one of the seats. But the area was empty. She looked back into the guest area, and saw his bag lying on a seat. But there was no sign of Mike. Then he exited the 'fresher, wiping his hands, and looked up at her with a watery smile. She stepped back into the cockpit, expecting him to follow her. But, again, she was confused. He dropped, full length, onto a couch, and opened his bag, pulling a datapad from it, and that was weird as well. Why did he only have one bag? Shouldn't he have clothes, and CDs. Especially CDs. This was Mike, after all.

She shrugged, certain the answer was forthcoming.

"Buckle up," she said, brightly. "We'll be taking off in a couple of minutes."

"I'm sure with you at the controls, I won't need to," he said, distractedly. He didn't look up from his pad.

Well. Vickie gave up, and moved to the pilot's chair. With the engines still warm, it was a matter of seconds until they were airborne again, and heading out to Mendellia.

*****

With the ship set to auto-pilot, Vickie moved back into the cabin, where Mike was now asleep on the couch. She looked regretfully at her friend as he twisted restlessly. Then she looked at his bag. It was empty, and its contents were spread over the seat in front of him. She catalogued them. A datapad with a history of Mendellia open on it, his lightsabre, a Terran laptop running Microsoft Word, and a small case, open to reveal a few apparently personal items. She couldn't help but see a few photographs of different people, and in the centre of the case, a gold ring. She looked at it, uncomfortably aware that she was coming close to snooping. But now that Mike was asleep, his mental blocks had thinned. She could tell that he was uneasy, and unhappy. Glancing at the laptop's screen, she looked away in embarrassment as she realised it was a diary document.

Behind her, she felt iron doors clang shut, and all hint of turmoil vanish.

"Seen enough?" Mike asked, quietly.

She turned to face him, as he shut down the laptop. She shivered as she looked at her friend, shrouded in darkness. His eyes glimmered in the light that crept past her from the cockpit. She tried to read his expression, but it remained blank, not to mention mostly invisible. But she detected no hostile intent from her friend, which should have burned through his mental guards.

"I'm worried about you," she said, simply. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," he said. "Everything. Maybe both, maybe neither." He looked up at her with the faintest of smiles on his face, and for the first time, he looked a little like how she remembered him.

"I took the Geiger counter back to the university," Mike began. Vickie remembered that Mike's original lightsabre had been constructed from a Geiger counter he'd obtained, perhaps not entirely honestly, from his university.

"What did they say?" she asked, taking a seat beside him.

"Well, once I explained that I was prepared to pay for the repairs, they were more understanding. Showed them the results I found, and they said they'd send a team up to investigate, but I checked while I was waiting," he waved the datapad, which had a sensor device attached, "and there's nothing there now."

"You're done with university?" she asked.

"Probably. If this doesn't work out, I can go back next year, they said. I guess it's nice to have the safety net," he added, wistfully.

"You're not sure, are you?" Vickie asked, catching waves coming off him now that he'd dropped his mental blocks.

"No, I'm not. I'm leaving a lot behind," he said. "Not just university, but friends and family. But I talked to Sharon Kerr, and Mendellia needs people to help rebuild. And maybe I can do that. And I'd kick myself if I didn't at least try a bit. Besides, I can't go back to my life right now."

Vickie said nothing. She listened, instead, smiling at her friend to continue. He did so.

"I worked it out, the other day. One stormtrooper in New Hampshire, five in Washington for an even half dozen, and Rawa T'Cab, of course. I'm just not sure how to make my peace with that. It's one thing to say 'the troopers were trying to kill me, and T'Cab had a gun on me', but I can't help feeling there was another way. And until I reconcile myself, I can't begin to go back to being the person my friends are friends with."

"You seemed to do okay before," she said.

"I had to survive before," Mike commented. "There were battles to fight and that. I had to keep my head together. Hopefully, if I can continue to be necessary, like I was during the battles, I'll feel better about myself. Like I took those lives because my life was worth protecting. Home. . . I'm not needed there. My friends, my family, they all have things to do, people who need them more than I do. So I had to leave, and Mendellia seems as good a place as any to make a go of it. There has to be something I can do there."

"But why have you bought so little stuff?"

"What could I bring? Most electronic stuff won't work out there, so I can't use it. As for my clothes, my books, my music, they're all things that have more to do with who I was, rather than who I am. . . ."

"You want to get away so badly?" Vickie asked.

"Yes. Travel light, move fast, and I can build a new life, a really new life, in Mendellia. Maybe I can integrate my old stuff into the new. Maybe I'll have to start my music collection from scratch."

He looked up at his friend, and gave her something approximating a real smile.

"It'll work out, V. I have a knack of landing on my feet, after all. Besides, it's not been all bad. I got a lot of new friends," he added, standing up. Vickie wrapped her arms around him, and this time he returned the hug.

"Don't forget it," she said.

*****

April 2001

The weeks passed. Mike offered to help restore the Mendellian media and, along with Egro 'Fir' Firyni, Mike went some way towards getting the island's main radio station back on the air. Mendel FM had been one of Enad Atner's most vociferous supporters, and when Eugor Atner usurped the throne, he had seen fit to shut the station down.

With his experience as a DJ, Mike had volunteered to help re-establish the station, and he had worked wonders with the music collection, raiding the palace and striking a deal with the island's main importer. The two colleagues had joined forces to convince Egro 'Fenya' Fenyajul that the mechanic was best served spending his free time in restoring the station's equipment, which Eugor Atner or his soldier's had seen fit to smash. Fenya had reluctantly agreed, but only after making sure Mike and Fir would be getting their hands dirty too.

In fact, Fenya had been pleased with how well the work had gone. He'd complimented Mike on the latter's intuitive grasp of electronics, something Mike had laughed about.

"Just wait until I actually start *using* this stuff," he'd commented, with a roll of his eyes. "You'll see just how much of a 'grasp' I have on getting it to work."

Flicking the switch to bring Mendel FM back online? None other than Thayer Atner, who co-hosted the first show, and selected the first song to played on the relaunched station. Sensing that the time required something special, he'd selected Nina Simone's 'Free', adding that, while Mendellia had a long way to go to being on a standing with the nation his father had reigned over, he knew that, should everyone pull together, the job was within their reach.

It was, Mike thought, a classy (if somewhat political) way to launch the station.

*****

Mike sighed as he took a seat in his room. He'd been ignoring the beeping on his datapad all day, until he just gave up. He looked at the pad and, sure enough, it was a message from the Boss, asking him to report to his office.

Mike strolled slowly to Sci's office. He had had little to do with the Major since they had arrived in Mendellia. Truth be told, he'd been hoping Sci had forgotten he existed.

Fat chance. He was drawing money from the Terra Group budget and was, therefore, entirely at the mercy of Sci's whims and caprices. Whatever it was, it would likely only serve to remind Mike of the other duties he'd performed for Terra Group. He'd felt his discomfort fading as he worked on the radio, but he had a feeling that whatever Sci had in mind, it would place Mike smack bang in the middle of it again.

Mike entered the office without knocking, drawing a foul glance from Sci's stunning new secretary.

"Afternoon, boss," he said, throwing himself into a chair. "Nice secretary. What do I have to do to get staff that attractive?"

Sci actually coloured slightly as he looked down at his desk. He scratched at his piltrum in order to hide his smile from his other guest. Eventually, he looked up, and caught Mike's eye.

"Mike, this is Noreh S'ytsirk," he began, gesturing towards the other guest. Mike turned towards the woman, who took the time to nail Mike with a devastating smile. Mike froze as he re-ran the faux pas in his head. He took the time to flagellate himself mightily as he leant forward in his chair to offer the more than just attractive woman his hand. She paused, before shaking his hand coolly.

Mike scratched the side of his neck, looking up at the ceiling in a mighty effort to present Sci with a straight face. He just about managed it, but Mike knew his eyes sent the message to Sci clearly enough: This round is yours. We keep at it.

Sci nodded, his own eyes dancing, before coughing lightly into his hand.

"Mike, I need your ship," he began.

"My shi- You mean the Red Home?" Mike asked, incredulously. "Why do you need the Home? It can barely fly!"

"Not. . . strictly true," Noreh said. "Myself, Fenya and a couple of others have been working on it. It's fit to fly, sir."

"Sir? And what do you mean, 'working on it'? That's my ship!" Mike said, sitting upright in his chair, and glaring at Sci and Noreh. "I never gave anyone permission to touch it, let alone work on it!"

"Mike, relax," Sci cut in. "It's best if you look at it as. . . rent."

"Rent?"

"As in, you haven't paid any hangar-," Noreh added, helpfully.

"So, my rent, is to let you guys fix up my ship?" Mike asked, bewildered.

"And take it out on a mission for us," Sci said, almost under his breath.

"There's always a catch," Mike breathed. He cast his eyes upward. "Why not the Gaia, or any of the other ships?"

Sci took a deep breath, before nodding at Noreh to continue.

"We need the cargo hold on the Red Home," she said. "We're going after wreckage from the Admonitor."

*****

"This is insane," Mike said, beginning the pre-flight check.

"So you've mentioned," Noreh said, patiently.

"The Admonitor got trashed," he added. "Blown up! Boom! Most of it got vaporised, and a lot of the rest got knocked to the corners of the solar system. I can't believe Sci thinks there's anything left to salvage."

"There has to be something," Noreh said, remaining patient.

"And you! I checked your bio. Why are you even here? You've been trained up on the Interceptors and TIE fighters, but you've never flown anything as big as this ship."

"Well, that's not exactly true," she said.

Mike paused with his hand on a switch. His face coloured a deep red.

"There's an unspoken qualifier here. I can feel it. And the unspoken qualifier," he continued, "is that, somewhere along the way, you, and probably other people, have flown this ship. Correction, my ship."

She looked at her instruments, realising that whatever she said he wouldn't like.

*****

The Red Home sat in the middle of the battle field. Far to their left, they could see the first stages of the replacement Hubble. Bit by bit, it was being put together, in an expensive programme jointly funded by many different nations.

Mike spread his arms wide, encompassing the whole of space in one irritated gesture.

"Nothing, you see?" he said. "I told you. I told Sci. What a waste of time."

Noreh looked hopefully at the sensors.

"There has to be something," she said.

Mike rechecked his sensors, and was about to switch them off, when something caught his eye.

"Wait," he said, holding up a hand. Noreh looked at him quizzically. Eventually, she caught his eye, and raised an eyebrow.

"That asteroid, just coming in range. . . . It's off the scope for readings on quadanium, among other things. God, let's get closer."

The two pilots engaged the sublight engines, moving their partially cloaked vessel closer to the oncoming asteroid. Gradually, the asteroid hove into view. Mike exhaled, a quizzical note drawing Noreh's attention.

"What is it?" she asked.

"It's not an asteroid," he said. "It's. . . a chunk of one of the ships. My God it's big."

The two looked at the lump of metal. Measuring more than 200 metres in length, Mike eventually recognised it as a portion of one of the Star Destroyers that had been part of the Imperial force a few months before.

"It's too big to haul back," he said. "Any readings on it?"

"Too small to have its own oxygen. Running it through the computer. . . we have a match. It's a part of a Star Destroyer docking bay."

"The Admonitor," Mike breathed. "I'll be damned. It was breaking up when I left it. The force of the explosion must have thrown this clear before the rest got vapourised. . . ." He half closed his eyes while he worked out the math. "It must have got thrown into orbit around the sun, achieved escape velocity on it's way around, and now it's coming back towards Earth."

"And we can't let it hit Earth, right?"

"It's too big. It'd get melted some in the atmosphere, but enough of it would get through to be a major headache for whoever it landed on."

"So?"

"Oh, radio Sci. Tell him I'm going aboard to plant some maneuvering jets. It's too big to haul out of the way with the Home's tractor beam. Just as well we keep a stash of the things in the hull."

"You want me to take the conn?" Noreh asked, disbelief evident in her voice.

"I don't think I have much of a choice," Mike replied absently, looking out the screen at the oncoming mass of metal. "Unless you want to risk the Home by trying to push it back towards the sun?"

"No. . . ." Noreh replied. "I'm sure you're right, but how will you get the jets over there?"

"Carefully," Mike replied, quietly.

*****

Mike re-checked the integrity of the space-suit for the umpteenth time. Since his encounter with Major Eripme aboard the Admonitor, months before, he'd had nightmares about finding himself in the vacuum of space, unprotected from what he knew would be a horrible and painful death.

He looked at the docking bay door, making sure the connection to the rest of the craft was sealed tight. The light blinked red. He exhaled, and flicked the tongue switch to activate the comm unit.

"Ready?" he asked.

"Ready up here," Noreh confirmed. "Just say when, and I'll deactivate the grav system in the docking bay."

Mike took a deep breath, and nodded. "Do it."

Emergency lighting activated, in addition to the standard illumination.

"Open main door when we're inside the asteroid," Mike said.

"Aye," Noreh replied, her voice muted as she concentrated on controlling the ship. Mike watched on a view screen as the asteroid's lazy roll was gradually negated by Noreh's skillful handling of the Home. Begrudgingly, he allowed that she was a better pilot than he, but he would still be having words with Sci when he returned to Earth.

The viewscreen grew dark as the asteroid obscured the light from the sun and the more distant stars. Mike could make out the outline of the docking bay, and wondered once again if the Admonitor had been heavily modified, or if it was a special design. The same size as a standard ISD, it carried three times the number of docking bays, reducing crew numbers by nearly two thirds, but increasing starfighter capacity to more than 200. And this docking bay had been one of many. Mike wondered briefly if it had been the one the Home had landed in before. As he wondered, a tremor ran through the hull of the ship. Noreh had landed.

"Opening main door, venting atmosphere, good luck, sir," Noreh said.

"Not sir, Noreh. Just Mike. I don't agree with my promotion, I don't want any responsibility, and I'll be buggered if a better pilot than me is going to be 'sirring' me."

There was no reply from Noreh, but Mike didn't entirely expect one. All military types seemed to be programmed, at least as far as rank was concerned. He remembered bumping into Josh Cochran on his first night in Mendellia, when he'd been having dinner with Vickie, and Josh hadn't known whether to call Vickie Captain, Master, Ma'am or Sir. Mike, for his part, had developed a healthy disrespect for the command structure that went back to his days as an Air Force cadet. He wondered what he'd be like without that experience, unfulfilling as it had been.

But the past was prologue, or so the philosophers said. Now was the only time that mattered. And now, Mike mused, he had a job to do. He stepped out into the docking bay, sweeping his wrist-light around.

The bay was a mess. Corpses and equipment floated in the air, held to the asteroid by its meagre gravity. He brushed one body away as it came near, and watched guiltily as it spun gracelessly upwards and crashed hard into the ceiling.

He pushed the guilt from his mind, and looked around. The Home was equipped with six spare maneuvering jets, each with a small fuel supply. With luck, that would be enough to divert the asteroid away from Earth. Ideally, it could be sent back towards the Sun, a fiery end to match that engineered by Josh Cochran months before.

*****

"Time?" Mike rasped.

"You've been working for more than three hours, Si-Mike. Why not come in and have something to drink?" Noreh's voice crackled over the staticky comlink

"No, I'm nearly done. We need to get this thing going away. Did you talk to Sci?"

"Yes. He said he's prepping the Gaia with additional supplies, if we need them. He'll launch when we ask him."

"Great. Hopefully, this should do it. Maybe then he'll leave me alone for a while. And stay away from my ship."

". . . I wanted to apologise about flying this ship. We shouldn't have done it without your permission."

"Forget it," Mike said, welding the fourth jet into place. "What's done is done. We can't change it, so why worry about it." Something niggled in the back of his head, but rather than go after it, he decided to add: "I'll still chew Sci up over it, but that's between me and you, okay?"

"I've come to expect nothing less from you, Mike," Noreh replied, and Mike could imagine the impish grin on her face. He sighed, and tried not to think about women with impish grins. His last visit to see Shalla hadn't gone well

When he was satisfied the seal on the jet was tight, he kicked off from the bulkhead, and swam easily through the vacuum back to the Home. Maneuvering easily through the cargo door, he dived down to grab a fuel cylinder. Coming out of the Home, his foot snagged on the rim of the door, and he was swung around and about, eventually coming to rest on the floor of the bay, looking out at the panoramic view of the starfield beyond. He blinked, as his mind accepted what his senses were telling it.

"It's beautiful," he breathed.

"It is that," Noreh agreed, her voice crackling through the static. "I was wondering if you might notice."

"I've been busy," Mike said, guiltily. And that was true of the rest of his life, too. Mike felt a switch flick in his head, and suddenly the last few months swum into tight focus in his head. He felt like kicking himself. Barring the few days at the end of Project Boussh, when he'd been too busy to think about it, T'Cab and the stormtroopers had been successful. Regardless of who'd killed who, he'd been dead for the last four months. By not letting himself live, not letting himself experience life and all its myriad wonders, he'd been cheating himself, and everyone he knew. Well, that was at an end. From now on, he was going back to being himself. And this time, he thought with a tight smile, it was going to stick, and he was going to have fun. Lots of it.

*****

The jets were in place, lined up at regular intervals along the rear bulkhead. Mike had stashed all the equipment aboard the home, and had wondered whether to take the bodies as well. In the end, he'd decided against it. He'd thrown together a bracket that held the half-dozen bodies against the floor, out of the way of the jets. A brief word to God had probably been unnecessary, but it made him feel better. Their clothing suggested they were technicians, innocents, if there were any, in the battle. They'd burn up with the asteroid, when it met the sun.

Mike walked back from the jets, pausing to look at his work. He tongued the comswitch, and said "Ready."

The jets came online, suddenly, and Mike realised at the last second that he was standing far, far too close.

*****

"Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu---*"

Noreh watched as the body tumbled end over end as it flew at a fair speed past the bridge of the Home. She blinked twice, before engaging the repulsorlifts and guiding the Home out of the asteroid. Checking the sensors, she could see the asteroid slowing noticeably. As she left the shelter of the docking bay, and cut in the main drive, the asteroid slowed to zero, before momentum was reversed and it began to move away from Earth. A minor course correction on her part sent it on a direct course towards the sun. And then she forgot about it. There was something more important to focus on.

And there he was. With one hand, she scraped her long hair back from her face. The other sought to amplify the comlink range as she tried to make sure Mike was alright. The Home zeroed in on the floating figure as it hung motionless in the void. Noreh tried to imagine what was going through Mike's mind as he hung in the vacuum, unable to talk to anyone, unsure whether help was coming.

*****

Mike was seriously unhappy. His comlink had too short a range to reach the Home, he couldn't see whether the ship was coming for him or not, and he was going to die with a Whitney Houston song running through his head. There was really no justice in the world. Just because he'd made his peace, didn't mean he was ready to shuffle gently off this mortal coil. When he went, he'd go kicking and screaming. Death would be getting two fingers in his bony eye sockets.

In fact. . . .

HELLO

"You're a figment of my imagination," Mike said, matter-of-factly

PERHAPS, Death allowed. ARE YOU PREPARED TO WAGER YOUR LIFE ON THAT ASSUMPTION?

"Yes," Mike said. "I don't believe in you," he added. "I know that doesn't count for much. I don't believe in a lot of things that exist. For an example of that, you need only look at how I refuse to believe my football team is as bad as results suggest. But I don't believe in you, and right now, that would appear to be the important belief I lack."

PLEASE YOURSELF, I'M SURE.

"You're not helping, you know that? I'm glad I decided to snap out of that self pitying bender I was on. No offence, but I'd hate to be in the state of mind that I'd have to put up with you." 

BUT THE NEXT TIME YOU KILL, I WILL BE HERE. I HAVE BEEN WATCHING YOU, AND NOW YOU ARE ABOUT DO DIE, I CAN FINALLY PAY MY RESPECTS.

"I won't be killing again. You're right. That sort of decision isn't for me. But blasters have stun settings, starships have ion cannons, my lightsabre has a variable power setting. There's lots of ways to take someone down without killing them. I won't be placed in that position again.

"And as for me dying now. . . . Apart from anything else, I'm in a space suit, protected from the ravages of cold, with several hours of oxygen left in reserve. Surprisingly, the backwash from the jets didn't compromise suit integrity, so I'm hanging around for the forseeable future, at least."

NOT AS FAR AS I AM CONCERNED. EVERYONE DIES. *THAT* IS THE FORSEEABLE FUTURE.

"Oh, bugger off."

PLEASE YOURSELF. I WILL SEE YOU LATER.

The vision of Death resolved itself into the Red Home, slowly moving toward Mike with the receding asteroid as a backdrop.

"-peat, can you hear me?"

"Loud and clear, Noreh. Come on in."

"That's my line," Noreh replied.

"Saucy," Mike said, knowing that Noreh would probably understand. Then he saw something, and all other thoughts vanished from his mind.

*****

"Give me the conn, quick," he said, barreling into the cockpit.

"You're welcome," Noreh replied nonchalantly, without moving. "You can buy me dinner when we get back."

"I'm sorry. Thank you for saving my life, Noreh. I owe you one."

"Here you go," she said, yielding the pilot's seat to him.

He hopped into the seat, the collar of the space suit riding up and threatening to obscure his vision. He ignored it, and pulled the Home into a steep turn that had the inertial compensators complaining.

"There," he said, pointing wildly.

"That?" she asked. "It's a wreck! The viewport has been blown off, and it looks all twisted and warped."

Mike paused to call up a datafile from the ship's computer. "Look at that," he said. "We need it."

He looked across at his co-pilot.

"You know, Noreh, this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

She looked across at him, one eyebrow raised. "You think?"

"Yeah, actually. You're beautiful, I've got a ship, now we just need to get to be friends."

*****

October 2001

"Come on, tell me! It's all the palace talks about nowadays. Scuttlebutt among the other pilots suggests that the Queen Mother is *not* amused."

"Good. But there's nothing to tell. Hydrospanner. Thank you. The girls and I just talk."

"Rubbish. You're getting a reputation around here. It's all the girls are talking about."

"I hope the reputation is as a good listener. Look, you know Thayer has no patience for his mother's games, and when he loses his patience with the Ladies in Waiting, they need someone to come and pour their hearts out to. All their dreams of marrying the Dictator -Ratchet. Thank you- have been blown to smithereens because he still loves Becki. They need someone to talk to. We talk. That's all."

"And you never take advantage of that? I don't believe you for a second. You're a man, aren't you?"

"I live just a few doors from them. It's out of the question. I can't believe I'm having this conversation hanging upside down in a starfighter's guts."

"Deal with it. I'm going to keep on asking until you tell the truth."

"I'm telling the truth! Look, I'm a gentleman. If I took advantage of any of them, that'd be it. The end. Kaput. No more easy life here in the palace, because they'd all be after my blood. Been there, done that, easier to stay out of the way of that sort of complication.

"Besides. I've only recently left a serious relationship. I *can* say that with a straight face. Wonders will never cease. Anyway, you're a fine one to talk. I saw you and Elassar just before the NR left."

"Yes. Well. Perhaps we can talk about something else after all."

"Perhaps. How'd your date with Sci go last night?"

"That's not changing the subject! Anyway, the Major is a very nice man."

"So he didn't get anywhere then?"

"You're filthy."

"Well, yes. I'm covered in grease, if that's what you mean."

"What are we ever going to do when we get involved in serious relationships?"

"You mean remove ourselves from the centre of all this courtly intrigue? Become separate from the lusts and fantasies of, oh, 95% of all eligible people on this island? Abandon our main, nay solitary, topic of conversation other than starfighter thrust to input ratos? I shudder to think. Let's never do that."

"Agreed. You keep on not taking advantage of your role as confidante, I'll keep on not taking advantage of my role as the only female pilot, and we'll keep on working on this thing and exchanging notes."

"Agreed. By the way, did I tell you what I have planned for Vickie's birthday next week?"

"No. . . . Go on. . . . "