'Oh, it's like the saying; 'head over heels in love' only it implies that she ends up on her back with her heels up high, at the ready,' Laura teased.
Victor snorted, his female counterpart burst into laughter. 'Oh, I'm using that one,' she breathed as she managed to calm down.
'Now you've done it. They'll never take me seriously again,' Ayan half jested, shaking her head in mock shame.
'Considering the bad boy you're chasing these days, I don't think anyone will have trouble taking you seriously,' Laura replied.
'I'm not chasing him, he's chasing me,' Ayan retorted, mildly offended.
'Fooled me.'
'Okay, maybe we're chasing each other. Either way, I don't think this is the best time to air out the laundry.'
'And there's another one,' Victor quipped from behind.
'What?' Laura asked.
'Another expression I've never heard.'
'This one uses 'laundry' in place of 'private business,' like Ayan and the Captain.'
'Oh, you think that's private? Everyone on Triton seems to make it their business to know what's going on with you two. Even if they didn't, nothing stays private for long on a ship. Scuttlebutt is gold.'
'One of the sad facts of my life,' Ayan rolled her eyes with a crooked grin. 'Grew up on a ship, then trained to build ships, to command ships, and then spent more time on a ship than anywhere else, really.'
'Wouldn't change a thing, would you?' Laura asked.
'I'm afraid I'm a ship rat for life.'
'Did you ever actually build a ship?' Asked one of the security team. She was a young woman with striking, light brown eyes.
'Laura and I worked on a few prototypes. We also helped design a new class of small carrier for Freeground. '
'A carrier? No wonder Chief Grady likes having you in engineering.'
'Speaking of which, I can't believe he stayed behind.'
'The word is that Chief Grady was all up for Oz’s, I mean Commander McPatrick’s plan. I wish I could have been around for that, but I was too busy with the evacuation and making sure the Samson would hold together long enough to get us to the rendezvous.'
The landscape outside started to brighten, the dun soil lightened until it was replaced with ruined farm land surrounded by black and brown stands of trees. The clouds thinned, illuminating the territory beneath them. 'It looks like they just left everything to rot,' commented one of the security staff behind Ayan.
'The toxicity of the land around it probably seeped in. I wonder what happened to spoil their terraforming efforts,' Ayan wondered aloud.
The shore came and went in a flash, leaving them with a view of tall blue waves. For several minutes the group watched the open water drift by. 'I grew up on Ima, there's no large bodies of water there,' whispered the brown eyed girl behind Ayan.
'I know how you feel. We grew up on a space station,' Laura said quietly. 'I only learned to swim four years ago.'
'I learned in the Academy,' Ayan added.
A brown and black rocky shore loomed ahead, and after a moment, the water was gone. They were under thick cloud cover again, and from the shore all the way inland a mist clung to the ground. Greydock was located in the middle of a sizable island, and that island told a story. As they passed over the brown, lifeless terrain they caught glimpses of terraforming machines, cleaning and re-nutriating the soil the old fashioned way, by digging it up and seeding it with activated soil. The bacteria within would cleanse and revive the earth over the space of several years.
The work camps several kilometres back from the shoreline were like a new sea of white and brown tents. All around were tilling pits and reforestation lots. There was a visible division between the contaminated soil and the area ready for replanting drawn by a tall stonework barrier. The camp was on the inside, with long fields of saplings and several large, hangar like buildings.
“That’s gotta be complicated. All those poor Confederation workers down there need to be moved out of the solar system because the Carthans are taking over. I think I know where our deserters are going to end up if they can’t afford to get off world,” Laura said quietly as she watched the tent city disappear.
For several minutes they passed over dusty brown, rolling hills of undeveloped soil. It didn’t look poisoned, only featureless, and when a broad winged, graceful black bird appeared on the horizon Ayan couldn’t look away. They were past it after a moment, and she noticed a feature ahead on the horizon, like a broad, lonely tower.
They closed in on it quickly and slowed down, joining a light stream of traffic headed towards and past the massive structure. It was the first time they’d seen activity in the sky since they broke atmosphere, and as the city grew nearer, a circular pattern of hundreds of ships became visible. The walls of the tower were over twenty kilometres wide at the base, and it had taken on the colour of the dirt. It was like a hundred storey tall fort, and if there was an enemy on the ground that could threaten such a place, Ayan didn’t want to meet them.
Atop the tower was a modern city made of dark metals, a metropolis to rival most of the cities that Ayan had seen. As broad armoured doors opened in the side of the square tower Ayan realized that that was where they were headed, that was Greydock.
“Ayan, I think this is Expansion Age construction. This place is over four hundred years old, probably more,” Laura said in awe.
“Aren’t most Expansion Age structures on the core worlds?” asked Vic.
“Not all, they had several outer colonies, this must be one of them,” Ayan said quietly. “I never thought I’d see anything like it.”
The four customs enforcement ships swept down towards the widening bay doors. There were a dozen or so other such ships inside, with room for several more. What Ayan wished she could see was the city above, but it was well out of sight.
The ship touched down and she could hear the deployment ramps lowering. She couldn’t help but feel a little intimidated at having to deal with a military force that could take a solar system with advanced third era technology. A mental image of her mother emerged in her mind. She could see her, her mother the admiral, and she couldn’t imagine why. It wasn’t the mother who wanted to reconcile that she recalled then either, it was the parent she had knock down, drag out arguments with when she was a young teen, before she signed up for the Junior Academy. If she could picture that woman while facing hard nosed military officers and block headed beaurocrats, then she’d be ready for anything.
The hatch at the end of the corridor opened and she strode for it. Marched like she was on the parade ground and not only did everyone fall in step behind her, but the customs officers got out of her way. When she arrived at the bottom of the main deployment ramp Colonel Davies was there to meet her. She was checking something on a work pad, and only spared a momentary glance at Ayan before telling her; 'This officer will lead you to the Office of the Governor. We've found no reason to detain you.'
'Thank you,' Ayan said before turning and nodding at the young unarmed officer who waited for them. He was a nervous looking thin man who must have been a clerk. He was in a dark brown uniform that looked crisp and new.
'I-if you'd follow me ma'am,' he stammered.
Ayan let the hint of a smile crack her lips and walked several steps behind him.
'Wow, I forgot that about you. It's like a switch,' Laura whispered just loudly enough to compete with the sounds of the Triton soldier's boots behind them.
'What's that?'
'You and your mother, all personable one minute then all cold intimidation the next.'
Ayan couldn't remember a time when she'd been that way in front of Laura. Perhaps she was serious minded or bent to a task when they served together on the First Light, but never had she exhibited the sense of presence she felt as they crossed the large landing bay. It was like a comforting weight across her shoulders. 'Really?' Was all she managed.
