Chapter Three
The stairs were narrow, and Murphy steadied his wife by the elbow as Simron's heels and a few cocktails made the descent more precarious than usual. The stairs delivered them to a garage with a long line of waiting limos, and a young man in the same uniform as the party servers opened a door to a vehicle with a custom hood ornament and enough chrome highlights to make it stand out even from the rest of the luxury.
“Dad doesn't do 'unostentatious' very well, does he?” Simron said, shaking her head with a crooked smile as she slipped into the back seat and kicked off her shoes. “He would have us in a Ducati 11, wouldn't he?”
Terrence closed her door and went around the back with the valet, and their muffled conversation lingered on the other side of the limo.
A window between the passenger and driver compartments lowered and the driver turned around and tipped his cap.
“Pleasure, ma’am,” he said. “Where can I take you?”
“Missing someone,” Simron replied, and squinted at her arm rest, searching for controls.
“I’ll get it."
The driver hit a button. The window opposite Simron lowered and she leaned toward it just as Murphy grasped the valet’s upper arm and shook his hand.
“You take care,” the rear admiral said to him, then opened his own door and sat down.
“Home now,” Simron said to the driver, then shook her head at her husband as the screen went up between the compartments.
“Now you’re chatty?” she asked. “I have to twist your arm to say more than five words to Dad’s chief finance officer and the new head of Stellara Lines—and I can’t believe what she was wearing—but then you get buddy-buddy with the help?”
Murphy had a faraway look in his eyes as he glanced out the window.
The limo rose up over the car line on counter-grav emitters in the wheel wells.
“Terrence,” Simron snapped, “care to explain?”
“What? Oh he was aboard the Carson,” Murphy said. “He wanted to. . . reminisce for a moment.”
“You never served aboard any Carson,” Simron narrowed her eyes slightly.
“It was one the ships we lost at Steelman,” Murphy said. “We rescued some of her crew after the battle. . . He remembered me on the bay floor when we opened his pod. Said I was one of his litter bearers when he was taken to med bay.”
“You remember him?”
“It was a long day, Simmy,” Murphy said gently.
“I suppose his status got him hired on for the night,” Simron flicked her hand twice and an emitter in a bracelet projected a screen showing her face. She adjusted the thin layer of the make-up liner with deft motions from her pinky nail. “He seemed all right.”
The limo passed out of the garage and lifted up to crisscrossing levels of air traffic strung through the skyscrapers of Olympia. The Republic's capital was notorious for its crowded airspace, and Murphy tensed as the limo slipped into a gap in the air cars and sped up as it rose through faster and faster bands.
The human in the driver’s seat was almost an affectation, he reminded himself. A networked AI handled their actual route.
“His arms are prosthetic below the elbow,” Murphy said. “You didn’t notice that the fingers on his left hand looked a bit arthritic? Low quality replacements.”
“This night wasn’t supposed to be a Republic Service Veterans’ lodge meeting,” Simron sighed, and changed the projection to several media feeds. Pics of the two of them arriving at the party and news articles scrolled up. “All positive coverage. . .you’re quite the war hero from these headlines.”
“You father ‘adjusting’ the algorithms again?” Murphy asked.
“You’re a newly minted rear admiral. New command. Medals from the Battle of Steelman’s Star. Don’t complain if we make your star shine a bit brighter. Helps the family. And aren’t you a hero?”
“No,” Murphy looked away. “We were losing a fight and I managed to turn it around. Any officer would’ve done the same.”
“But it was you that did it and there’s nothing wrong with telling people that. Besides, wouldn’t that valet back there think you were a hero?”
“I’m just glad he made it out alive,” Murphy said.
Simron pinched the bridge of her nose.
“Let’s see if I’ve trained you right,” she said. “Who was the tech officer with the obnoxious cologne?”
“Lionel Fanx, Goodridge Shipping Conglomerate,” Murphy said. “He was with his assistant and not his wife for the evening.”
“That wasn’t his. . . he does like blonds. Anyway, he was going on and on about the Beta Cygni Sector and how your post is in New Dublin. What was he getting at?”
The limo’s speed leveled out as they slipped past penthouses. There was no traffic above them.
Murphy frowned. Travel in this high a band came with a premium toll. A waste of money in his opinion.
“Don’t even start about the cost,” Simron raised a finger. “I know you. Back to the guy that smelled like flour and vanilla.”
“The bulk of the Republican Navy is fighting in the Beta Cygni Sector. On the verge of a breakthrough—if you listen to the news—the same breakthrough that’s been promised for ten years, since we lost at Mangalore. New Dublin is almost two hundred light-years from Earth . . . in pretty nearly the opposite direction from Beta Cygni,” Murphy said.
“And?” Simron made a circular, warp-it-up motion with her hand, urging him forward.
“It was his way of implying I’m either not ready for a frontline deployment. . . or afraid of one,” Murphy huffed.
“Wait. . . you just let him get away with that?”
“Fanx was never in uniform. What do I care about someone that got a deferment and skipped out of his mandatory service?”
“Because,” Simron’s finger shot up and the news feeds vanished, “Fanx is from the Five Hundred and the heir to one of the more influential families in that group. His opinion matters, Terry. You can’t brush people like that off just because they didn’t go the same route you did, and you know who else hasn’t been in the military?”
“Don’t start,” Murphy said.
“Vyom, our darling firstborn son." Her face darkened with anger.
“I’m well aware of who he is,” Murphy sank slightly into his seat.
“The Republic is very clear that military service isn’t needed from those with key positions in our economy,” she said. “And Vyom is a rising star in Father’s company. He’s already the head of the new destroyer concept team and—”
“I never said Vyom wasn’t qualified for his position,” Murphy said. “He’s done very well for himself.”
“But you were against his deferment. Don’t deny it.”
“Family tradition,” Murphy said. “My grandfather and my father—”
“We’ve got Callum to follow in your footsteps,” Simron said. “Vyom can take after his other grandfather. And I’m glad you’re keeping such a close eye on Callum during your deployment. A deployment to a much quieter part of the war.”
“Speaking of,” Murphy slipped a matte black case from a pocket in his trousers.
