Claire Takes On The Galaxy

Claire - Chapter Eight

At the second pool party, again while they were both hanging off the deep end pool wall, James asked Claire what she thought of Colonel Murchison. The marine shrugged.

“He’s okay,” I guess. “A hard case. Major Horne seems nice. But I haven’t had much contact with them. We’ve been in company shake down, being frozen to death. I heard two marines have been banned from The Doll House. Were you involved in that?”

“I had a hand in the matter,” said James, cautiously. “I was talking to Major Horne afterwards and he had heard about pool parties here.”

“Was that a problem?”

“Only that marines from The One-Five wanted to know why they also couldn’t go to pool parties.”

Claire smiled. “Do you know any of The One-Five marines?”

“Not really. They’ve only been here a couple of months and they’ve also been on exercises, and none of them have yelled at me. I did know one of The One-Eight marines, the company before The One-Five for a while, but she’s gone of course.”

“Where is she now?”

“Back on earth and expecting to be re-deployed soon for a year’s tour, but to a planet with a real settlement.”

“Do you miss her?”

“Of course, but we knew she was going to be shipped away. It was about having fun. Maybe she also didn’t see an exiled criminal as a long-term bet.”

Claire thought about that conversation and about whether she wanted to have “fun” for the next twelve months, or studiously ignore James. She did not want to tell her mother that a big-time bank robber was charming her, but then, as messages took a full week to get to Earth, she did not have to tell her anything she did not want to. Could she have fun for a time and move on, so that James could then meet another girl for fun. Being one in a sequence was hardly an attractive thought, but then weren’t all relationships like that? Well, no, Claire told herself. When people got into a relationship they did not do so with a definite use-by date stamped on it. People got into relationships thinking that it would last, even if it didn’t – even if they ended when, almost at the altar, you opened a closet door in a church. All that said, however, she liked James and what was she going to do in her spare time for a year but watch soaps? Claire was still thinking about this when James called to ask her to dinner.

“We could do without the crowd scene this time. In order for you to make a definite decision on whether you hate me or not, you have to have dinner with me.”

“I’m pretty sure I don’t hate you?”

“Does that mean you like me sufficiently to come to dinner?”

“I still just haven’t made up my mind.”

“My being a criminal is an issue?”

“Are you robbing banks at the moment?”

“I’m just never going to cure you of using the word robber, am I? And no, there are no banks in Devil’s Pit to relieve of wealth.”

“Just as well,” said Claire.

“I guess. You’ll come to dinner?”

“I’m still thinking.”

“Well I can’t help that I suppose.”

The call finished on a friendly note, but with both parties having quite different ideas about what the conversation meant. Claire thought that James would try again, as guys often did with her, while James thought that Claire had put him off, as the still-thinking line was nicer than saying no. He was not one to get resentful simply because he had been refused, but he was saddened. He liked the marine who disapproved of his activities. He told himself regretfully that Claire was showing good taste in declining to be associated with him, and went back to trawling through records.

Those records showed little of interest, and certainly no obvious red flags. As a junior officer in pre-SMC career Colonel Murchison had seen some anti-terrorist action, but over the years his superiors had expressed concern over his occasional lack of judgement. Major Horne was a distinguished, hard-working officer who, through no fault of his own, had yet to hear a shot fired in anger. The other files were routine. Corporal Henshaw had once been confined to barracks for a week at another posting after the provosts had fetched him from a police cell. During a hard night of drinking the corporal had relieved himself against a handy wall which happened to be the side of a police station. No charges had been laid.

James thought that he could have done without reading that, and went back to trawling through the messaging systems.

On the marine base, Claire found the weekend had arrived and she did not have any plans. When marines were rostered on stand to they had to be at the base and ready for whatever happened, but otherwise weekends at Devil’s Pit were just like weekends anywhere. No one expected another party and, in any case, they were not so much in need of warming up as in past weeks. Then Lou announced she would be gone for most of Saturday, touring the northern cliffs with Brew in his transporter.

“You’re going on a date with Brew?” said Claire. They were sitting in the common area for the female marines. The had separate sleeping cells but spent most of their time in the common room.

“Yep. Did James call you?”

“He called.”

“And?”

“I told him I was still thinking.”

“Thinking about what?” asked Lou.

“Thinking about whether to go out with him.”

“You put him off.”

“I didn’t say I wouldn’t go out with him, I just said I was still thinking.”

“Sounds as if you were putting him off,” said Adria who was tapping away at her phone, as she always did. The Annies thought that Adria spent so much of her off duty time texting that she must have half a dozen secret correspondents. When they asked her about this, however, all they got were vague and dismissive answers.

“I wasn’t putting him off, definitely. I just can’t make up my mind.”

“He probably thinks you did put him off,” said Adria, looking up from her phone.

“I didn’t. I’m still thinking.”

Adria went off, saying that she was going for a walk, and Taylor had decided that she could stand a hooch-drinking session with a bunch of One-Fives, including one she had a mild interest in, leaving Claire to catch up with films and drama series she had missed, alone. On her way to the automated laundry to pick up clothes, before settling down to her dramas, she saw Captain Chan walk pass the laundry building, texting as he walked. Claire thought there were a lot of marines texting people on earth. Then she saw the captain turn left, making a beeline for the tunnel to the Dollhouse.

“Men!” she snorted to herself.

At dinner in the mess hall one of The One-Five marines, a very blonde, well-endowed female called Abigail sat with Claire. At first Claire was grateful as it looked as if a couple of The One-Five male marines might try their luck, but then found out that Abigail wanted to talk about James.

“You’ve been to a pool party at this James guy’s place?” she asked.

“I’ve been there a couple of times.”

“Is he like this big-time bank robber?”

Claire told Abigail about the framed letter she had seen. As the letter was on display, James was unlikely to mind, she thought.

“Wow! So, it’s true, he and his grandfather took twenty seven million dollars.”

“What?” Claire said this so loudly, that others in the dining hall look around. She lowered her voice. “He said just a few gold bars.”

“It was gold?”

“The letter said gold bars. James said he took just a few. He didn’t say anything about his grandfather.”

Abigail then wanted to know how Claire had met James so soon after arriving and about Maddie and where the school was, then about the Shade attack and how they were supposed to be myths. Claire could hardly refuse to discuss such matters, but she was left with the uncomfortable thought that Abigail intended to engineer a meeting between herself and James. Did that bother her? Claire thought that it did. She was not sure of a lot about James, but she did know she had seen him first.

After dinner Lou returned from her date, happy with how it had developed, Adria returned from whereever she had got to and Taylor dragged herself in to promptly start sleeping off the hooch she had drunk. The three friends kicked around this new piece of gossip.

“Twenty seven million is an impressive amount of money,” said Adria. “The first thought that would come into any girl’s head is whether all the gold had been found and returned.”

“It didn’t come into my head,” said Claire.

“Bet it came into Abigail’s head,” said Lou, “and stayed there.”

“Abigail’s no competition for you,” said Adria to Claire, “if you indicate interest.”

“But I’m here a year, and he can’t go anywhere”

“I had three boyfriends in a year when I was sixteen,” said Adria.

“I’m not sixteen,” said Claire.

“Then make him last the year.”

“Cry when you get back on the transport home,” said Lou, “then find another man.”

“Anyway, he’s hot and a gentleman. The fact that he’s a big-time bank robber adds to the interest. What more do you want for a year, girl?” said Adria.

Claire decided that her friends were right. What else was she going to do in Devil’s Pit anyway? But after finally making up her mind to accept an invitation from James, she did not get one. Sunday came and went without a call, and the business of being a soldier resumed. This involved a women-only meeting with Lieutenant Ada Addington, second in command of The Zero-Five support group which had come with The Two-One, and now the senior female marine officer in Devil’s Pit. A former senior sergeant turned officer with a combat record, a near adult daughter back on earth and an ex-husband she knew not where, Lieutenant Addington was not a person to be taken lightly. She had wanted a combat role but as an older officer graduate she had to make do with a spot in a support unit.

“I hear you marines are already making friends in the community?” she said to Lou and Claire.

“Yes ma’am,” they chorused.

The also met The One-Five sniper teams, only one of which made any impression on Claire and Lou when they walked into the conference room.

“The Annies, some competition at last,” said a voice behind them. Claire and Lou turned to see a lanky, blonde young man with prominent nose and the eyes of a killer lounging in chair at the rear, one arm lying casually over the back of another chair.

“Chad,” said the man, gesturing at himself. “Sniper, One-Five A team. That’s spotter Bron.” He indicated a short, solidly built older man sitting a few chairs away, looking at a screen in his hands. “On the surface he seems calm,” said Chad, “but underneath Bron is a seething mess of emotions.”

“I’m a seething mess of emotions,” said Bron, deadpan. He looked up. “If Chad I’d shoot straight, I’d stop crying.”

Claire and Lou recognised that friendly banter as the sign of a crack team like theirs; two men who trusted each other and who knew their lives depended on each other doing their jobs.

“Bron here is working his way through the Superman comics from the start,” said Chad.

“I like the Super Villains,” said Bron. “Lex Luthor’s trying to save the world from this guy in tights, as he sees it, and he’s a billionaire industrialist. Seems good to me.”

“See what I have to put up with,” said Chad. “Just try talking about something other than superman comics. Heard you Annies came second in the sniper’s cup in your intake.”

“Missed by two points,” said Claire.

“We won in our intake,” said Chad, indicating himself and Brad, “but your score was higher.”

“You been checking us out?” said Lou.

“Not much else to do here, unless you want to talk drivel about comics.”

“The Toyman – first appears in 1943 – has lots of gadgets,” said Bron. “That’s cool too.”

“Good to know,” said Lou.

Later, Bron remarked to Chad, the Annies were hot.

“True,” said Chad, “the Annies are also the ones to beat in any competition. The others have their moments but they’re kids with guns compared to the Annies.”

Monday came and went with no call from James, then Tuesday.

“It’s kinda cool that he’s respecting your choice by not calling,” said Adria. “He’s a gentleman like I said, but that also means he’s not calling.”

“I never made a choice, I tell you,” said Claire.

“Call him,” said Lou. “Lots of girls do that and it’s Devil’s Pit.”

“You can at least call Maddie,” said Adria, so Claire did that at lunchtime.

Maddie answered straight away. “Claire!” she shrieked. “James said you’d put him off politely, and that I wasn’t to call for a while.”

“I didn’t put him off.” Claire heard someone talking in the background. “Where are you?”

“In my virtual classroom. My virtual teacher wants me to hang up.”

“You’re in the middle of a lesson?”

“Oh yes. It doesn’t matter. I get summoned to the scary virtual principal’s office and don’t go. They send a message to James who ignores it. Then the system resets. In two minutes, it’s as if nothing has happened.”

“You should pay more attention to your lessons,” said Claire, amused.

“But I’d miss your call, and I’m so glad you called. I hope you’ll go out with me.”

“Of course, but I didn’t say no to James, I said I was still thinking.”

“James said that was a no, and at least you hadn’t told him you were washing your hair.”

“It wasn’t no, for star’s sake, and why weren’t you allowed to call?”

“I think he was worried I’d push you to go out with him after you’d said no. He said I’d interfered enough.”

“Where is he?” said Claire. “I want to yell at him again – if that’s all right with you.”

“He could do with some more yelling at,” said Maddie judiciously. “I think he’s working on the vats. He’ll have his phone on.”

Claire rang James.

“This is James.” His voice echoed.

“I never said no, James Truslove,” said Claire without any preliminaries. “Can’t a girl have time to make up her mind?”

“Claire! I’m impressed that you remember my last name,” said James. “Some of my best friends on earth never even knew my first name.”

“Difficult to go past that name,” said Claire. “And twenty seven million dollars?”

James sighed. “I wish your Colonel Murchison could have kept his mouth shut.”

“What’s he got to do with it?”

“He mentioned the amount. Everyone I know here has rung me, now including you.”

“You said just a few gold bars.”

“Well, okay, it took us a while to load them, so maybe I didn’t remember the number right.”

“You and your grandfather?”

“Granddad had conventional ideas. I wanted to steal lift crystals or maybe switch around the block chain labelling on a major work of art, that kind of thing, but he was having none of it. Old-fashioned gold he wanted, and he hated banks. They were the face of evil as far as he was concerned. Turned out the price of gold spiked while we were doing our thing, but it’s unlikely we would have made that much if the police hadn’t taken it all.”

“Where is your grandpa now?”

“Dead, sadly. He was far gone in cancer when we did it. The police had to go to his hospital bed to question him, not that he said much.”

“He was half dead from cancer and still you did this?”

“His idea, but Claire I don’t want to say too much as the details could still turn up in court, and that might mean calling Private Claire Williams as a witness.”

“Oh, okay.” Claire had no wish to being called as a witness.

“You mentioned something about making up your mind. I’m going to take Maddie into the tunnels this Saturday, back to where her foster parents were taken?”

“Is that a good idea?”

“It’s her request, she thinks it might help her, and I figure we could explore those tunnels some more. We could use a military escort.”

“I won’t be able to bring a gun or anything. What happens if we get attacked by these Shades? Isn’t it a dangerous place to take Maddie?”

“You’ll be able to show us how to run away in approved military fashion. But joking aside the attacks are rare and the miners have collectively worked out a theory. You recall Maddie saying how her foster parents were outside the transporter and all the power in the ship had been turned off?”

“Yes.”

“Electric fields or electromagnetic waves might be what excites them. Maddie’s parents were in their suits with scanners on, so they were attacked.

“But Maddie was also attacked.”

“To be exact the craft she was in was attacked. You recall she was using her games device, playing games while her parents were outside?”

“That’s right.”

“She dropped her screen and ran when they attacked. She didn’t have any other electronics on her at the time, just that. When we got there, the side of the ship had been damaged, one of the side hatches opened and the device was gone.”

“There was nothing to stop them getting in?” said Claire. “I thought it was because the doors were closed.”

“They got in, but they weren’t interested in Maddie, just her device. The one other ship we recovered with relatively little damage, incidentally, also had its power and electronics shut down – the owner was saving power – except for a tracker device on the control panel, and that was smashed. The owner was outside with electronic stuff on, but the stuff in the craft was all off.”

“You told this to the investigator that came?”

“Oh yes, but he had no interest in the theory – like talking to a brick wall. Evil humans had done it and any talk of Shades was just an attempt to sell books and Tee shirts to tourists.”

“You get tourists in Devil’s Pit?”

“Not one yet, as far as I know. If they come out this far it’s not to see the sights. It doesn’t help that we don’t have a body or a picture of one to show him, or any evidence at all apart from damaged mining transporters. That said, I don’t expect to actually meet any Shades. Miners with weapons have tried to find them with no luck, but if we do meet any we have a plan. Switch off the systems and hope they don’t care.”

“Still sounds kinda dangerous, but poor Maddie,” said Claire. “If she wants to do this then I’m in. Claire Williams, alien hunter, has a ring to it.”

“That’s a new one,” said Adria when she was told of this, “searching for aliens on a first date. I’d still prefer dinner and a film myself, but an alien hunt makes an interesting change.”

“Brew says he tried finding the Shades a couple of times with no luck,” said Lou, “so you guys ain’t likely to find much, but the main mining pit is worth seeing – once, and the tunnels are interesting for about five minutes. The scenery above the cliffs is better – that’s where Brew and I are going this weekend.”

Out in the ’burbs of Devil’s Pit, James persuaded his fellow committee members to lift the ban on Henshaw and Gellert, on the condition that Major Horne made it clear to them that they were to behave. Sergeant Wettenhall was also pardoned on the condition that he did his job. James and May then agreed to record everything Henshaw and Gellert said while with the girls.

“No need to listen to those two grunting, just monitor the recordings when the girls tell you something interesting was said.”

“I can do that,” said May, “and I’ve heard grunting before. What about the digital hunt?”

“Still at it, but I can’t see much. No unusual activity, and nothing in anyone’s records that screams Merc spy. I’m still investigating however.”

That night while dozing off to sleep James thought of Claire being called on to fight out in the valley. Two companies of Stellar Marines on their home turf would be no light challenge, even if four or five companies of Mercs invaded, a huge force to cart around the galaxy. Now that he thought about it, if the Mercs had gone to the trouble of putting agents in place, they would expect those agents to do something to make the job of the attackers easier. But what?