Duty, Honour, Love

Two women sat in an office high above the ground. Outside the streets were bustling with midday foot traffic. The office was typical of its kind with a wooden desk made from local wood. A terminal sat on its surface and behind the desk framed by a large picture window was a number of filing cabinets. Unlike most offices these actually contained items. A settlement like Hawthorn could hardly afford to waste the space for non-functional furniture. One of the women sat behind the desk her long jet-black hair in a braid down her back. Her skin was the colour of milky coffee and her eyes were dark. She held a mug of coffee in her hand and took a sip. Her companion on the chair opposite her was a few years younger. Her sandy coloured hair was done up into a bun showing the slight points on her ears. She was a hybrid a blending of both human and T’Arni genes. ‘Brid’ was the official Confederacy designation for her. She was also drinking coffee clearly savouring the taste. Both women were dressed in hospital uniforms.

The part T’Arni woman regarded her opposite closely. She had never been able to get a reading of her and it wasn’t as if she hadn’t tried. To everyone Doctor Kathleen Morin was a closed book. Frankly she was surprised when the Kathleen who was also the hospital administrator had called her into her office. “So you didn’t call me in for coffee as excellent as it is?”

“Enjoy it while you can that’s the last I’ll be getting for a while,” Kathleen said sounding regretful but it was an act she was trying to gauge the other woman’s reactions.

“Oh?” Laura replied taking another sip of her coffee. Laura Rollins was the hospital’s senior counsellor. She sat back on her chair and tried to sense Kathleen’s emotions. It was what made her a good counsellor. As with the countless times she had tried before she couldn’t get a grip on Kathleen’s emotions somehow she kept herself on a tight rein.

“It’s from Earth,” Kathleen stated simply studying Laura’s face carefully.

“I don’t have a problem with that,” she replied extending her senses towards Kathleen she caught a snatch of worry behind the woman’s iron mask. “Good coffee makes my day. But this isn’t about coffee no matter where it hails from?”

“You’re right I do have a ulterior motive.”

Laura leaned forward and took another sip. “Now I am intrigued, is the famous Virgin Queen about to crack?” That was the hospital staff’s nickname for their administrator. She had never taken a lover in the ten years she had been here. Often stating running the hospital and looking after patients didn’t give her the time for other pursuits.

“Far from it,” Kathleen said her voice took an edge. “I need to know it I can trust your integrity?”

“Patient confidentially is my number one creed.”

“To tell the truth I’m worried.” That was the first truthful thing Kathleen said.

“About the war, it has everyone worried but this is not about that is it?”

“That and more.”

“I’ve read the comm you sent to all department heads in regards to what you were told by the Base?” Base was the local name for the military listening post outside Hawthorn but the Base was fifty kilometres distant. Any trouble would head that way. Laura speculated further Hawthorn’s spaceport was on the Base side no need for an invader to cut through any civilian areas to get at the Base.

“This isn’t about that.”

“Ok now I am really curious?”

“I have some ‘family’ on Earth,” Kathleen tried to make it as non-committal as she could without revealing the truth.

“Ok?” Laura could tell Kathleen was hiding something very important to her. The way she said ‘family’ meant something else to her.

“I haven’t been able to contact them.”

“There is a war on?”

“No this started before the war.”

“Then you have cause for concern but I don’t see how this concerns me in an official capacity?”

“I may have to talk to you about my ‘family’ I’m getting a bad feeling it’s all connected?”

“Well as long you aren’t a mass murderer my door is always open.”

Kathleen began to doubt that she was doing the right thing. “I’m not sure you’re always busy.”

“I can shift my schedule to fit you in.” At that moment Laura’s comms bangle chimed she glanced at the display. “Speaking of schedules I’ve an important client.” She quickly rose and left.

Kathleen noted that Laura had taken her cup with her. She sat back in chair and wondered if she was right to trust Laura. She had been in the situation before trusting someone and look where that had led.

With a wishful sigh Kathleen powered up the holographic terminal on her desk seeing dozens of comms in her missed calls box. Being the administrator of the largest hospital on the planet meant she had many calls on her time. One of the comms caught her eye it was headed, re: coffee order availability. She had never ordered coffee although she had told Laura that she did. It was a perk for her exile. She guessed the message was a front for something else she checked it carefully. To the untrained eye it seemed a list of coffee types and prices but the coding hid an encrypted message. It took her a while for it was heavily encrypted. The first she had since Central Command had gone dark. She still sent in her reports not that she had anything to report but she knew her duty even exiled from home. At first she had been bitter about being exiled but in the intervening years she had come to the realisation that exile had saved her life. She knew a dangerous secret one she had discovered by accident. She had told someone she trusted but he had betrayed her. It was the type of secret that would have got her killed. Kathleen grimaced Constantine had offered her exile because the secret was about him. Anyone else would have had her tortured and killed for what she knew.

She always the realist had accepted exile knowing the alternative. Finally passing the layers of encryption she opened the comms and stared hard. The comms contained two words in plain text ‘Breaking Dawn’. A sudden chill ran down her back as if a ghost had touched her. The message was older than the Empire, from a time when there were still national governments on Earth. It was from the time of the first contact with the T’Arni when an overly paranoid intelligence agency had coined the phrase. It referred to a hostile alien take over of government agencies. Very few nowadays knew the code word she being one of those. The comms had been aimed at her a warning of sorts by someone who knew her and knew she would understand the message. She was on her own Central Command was in alien hands and that was the meaning of the comms. Suddenly things that had been puzzling her since Constantine’s death and the sudden attack on the Confederacy made sense. Something big was happening and some premonition made her guess that sudden appearance of a Terran ship was part of it. Her hands shook a little as she typed a response. Her fingers hovered over the send icon a chill feeling in her blood. She pressed the icon and sent the message ’Shattered Twilight.” That was it she had burnt her last link to Earth.