Please, if anyone has criticism, post it!
Oh, and for all those people out there who love a fair dose of BLAM (Phil), well, you're about to get what you want.
Pity that Chapter Five was unrecoverable from my disk accident, it had fighter action in an asteroid belt (yes, I've watched Episode III. Does it show?
) between Tamarillho and..... You didn't really think I was gonna tell you, huh?
Just gonna have to rewrite Chapter Five. Oh well.
-----CHAPTER TWO: THE SECRETS THAT REMAIN-----
Tamarillho remained in her quarters for the rest of the trip to Yheta, pondering about what Heggson had told her. Then, when they prepared to exit the warp point to the Yheta System, her self-imposed solitude was broken by a visit from the young Lieutenant.
“Captain?” Tamarillho still hadn’t gotten used to being called that, and so it took a second or two before she reacted.
“Yes?”
“We’re approaching the Yheta System. Could you come to the bridge please?”
“Why?”
“Could you imagine the face of Captain Degbar when he sees
you on the bridge of
his ship?”
Tamarillho grinned broadly and got up to follow Heggson to the bridge. She could imagine the look on the face of her old engineer from the Vulture.....
*****
“This is Captain Degbar to the NKCX Faint Haz..... Oh my god!”
“Hello Yuin.”
*****
After several hours, and after she took a shuttle planetside, Tamarillho still found her old engineer to stare at her goggle-eyed.
“But..... you’re..... you’re dead!”
“Well, thank you very much for being happy for me that I’m alive and well.”
“Oh, yes, of course..... Sorry.....”
She looked at him as he struggled to find words. After a minute or so of this, she silenced him with a look and asked for passage to Kythera.
“Of course! Well, you outrank me so I’d be insubordinate if I
didn’t take you.....”
*****
Needless to say, Central Command was very surprised to see an officer deemed dead for ten years enter the CC building. The desk clerk at the entrance almost had Security apprehend her, until the DNA checks showed she was indeed Captain First Class Elsee Tamarillho, in person, in good health, and, most of all,
not being a clone. She was admitted to the CC conference chamber – which was more than unique, since CC members are the
only people allowed in the conference chamber, under penalty of lifetime imprisonment or death – where everybody stared at her in wonderment. How could this be?
The CC Chairman was the first to speak after several minutes of silence.
“Captain Tamarillho?”
“In person.”
“We thought you were dead?”
“I was. I don’t know how, but apparently I’ve been resurrected some way after ten years of being, well, dead.”
The Chairman looked ponderous for a moment.
“You don’t know what happened with the nanos in your suit?”
“No, why? I know there was something about them that made a young science officer wet his pants, but I don’t know what.”
“That young science officer was still in training, but is now on his way to being catapulted onto the Board of Science Directors.”
“Why?”
“He’s studying your nanos, and what he’s discovered is going to make
everybody on the Board of Science Directors wet their pants.”
He motioned Tamarillho to step closer, as he waited for a simulation to load into the viewscreen.
“We need to update that viewscreen with nano-optical computer circuitry,” one CC member half mumbled.
An image appeared on the viewscreen. Before Tamarillho could recognize it, the viewscreen flickered and distorted coloured bands zipped across the screen. The Chairman cursed, opened a panel below the screen and gave the inside a good kick. The image resolved into a standard-issue vacc suit nano – the standard of ten years ago, that is. An elongated, blockish “head” from which twelve tiny three-jointed legs ending in claws
“Yep, really need to update.” another CC member agreed.
“Shut up. I told you we need to wait until the tech’s been refined.”
“It’s less prone to bugs than what we’re using now.”
The Chairman grumbled and pressed a few buttons. The image flashed off for an instant, then the nano began to “pulsate” as the scientists call it. The standard motions of an idle but activated nano.
“This is what the nanos in your suit looked like when you, well, died.” the Chairman resumed.
“It’s OK, I’ve gotten used to people talking to me about my death and what happened after my death.”
The image began to change. Slight changes in pulsations, small bulgings. The nano was mutating.
“This we do not know exactly, it’s a computer-generated simulation of the transition from the normal suit nanos to –”
He pressed a few buttons and the nano started to change more quickly. After a few seconds it slowed down again.
“this.”
Tamarillho was stunned.
-----END OF CHAPTER TWO-----