The Khruellian Encounter Page 14

  The orientation consisted of a welcome by Admiral Dexter along with an explanation by the Director of Operation of the significance of the merger of the two forces and finally, an explanation of their opportunities in the CSF as compared to the TFSF. According to the commander explaining the career paths open to them, the opportunities were actually considerably greater in the CSF, because of the size and reach of the Confederation’s operations. He alluded to upcoming activities that might accelerate their promotion paths but did not elaborate. The orientation ended with the announcement of the promotion of several of the officers present to their own command, mostly destroyers or destroyer escorts. Regardless of the size of the ship, having your own command was a significant milestone in an officer’s career. Annika was not one of the officers selected, but Commander Edward Willard was, along with a promotion to Captain. While Annika was happy for him, she was also a little envious. She had finished higher than he had at the Terran Space Academy. Perhaps the stigma of failure planted on her by Secretary Gavito had somehow sullied her chances in the CSF.

  After the announcement, the officers were invited to dinner in the Officers Club. Captain Edward Willard walked by Annika’s side on the way to the club. His message was clear; he was laying claim to the most beautiful woman in the crowd. He guided her toward a table with several of his friends and was just about to seat her when a voice at his elbow said, “Excuse me Captain, but I would like to have a brief word with Commander Masterson.”

  Edward bristled slightly at the nerve of someone horning in on his quarry and turned to tell the intruder to back off, only to come face to face with the winter grey eyes of the retired Commander-in-Chief of the CSF, Jonathon McKinnah, Senior. Edward’s eyes were immediately drawn to the array of ribbons and decorations, all of which he knew were earned in actual combat. He did not have to read the name tag to know who it was. It took him three efforts to say, “Certainly, Sir.”

  Annika hid a small smile and accepted Jonathon’s offer of his hand. He led her a short distance away and when they were out of hearing range said, “I just wanted to offer you our congratulations on being accepted into the CSF Space Force, Captain Masterson. I put my heart and soul into creating this organization, and it pleases me greatly to see your caliber of officer joining our ranks.”

  Annika could hardly contain herself. “Thank you, Sir. Is Jon here?”

  Jonathon smiled broadly as the beautiful young woman accepted his compliment and immediately switched to seeking information about his grandson. It pleased him. “Yes Ma’am, but he’s running a little late. He doesn’t know you’re here or that you are now a CSF officer. I think I can safely say he will be surprised and pleased. Please join us if you can, unless of course you are otherwise occupied,” Jonathon said looking over her shoulder at an anxious Captain Willard.

  She blushed a deep red and hastily said, “Oh no, Sir, but I will need to be rescued.”

  Jonathon’s smile grew broader, “I understand completely. Let me take care of that right now.” The retired Commander-in-Chief walked over to Captain Willard, and after a few brief words, Annika saw Edward’s face fall. The poor man could hardly refuse whatever Jonathon McKinnah Senior asked of him, but it didn’t keep his face from reflecting his disappointment. Jonathon walked back toward Annika and winked at her. He offered his arm to her, and the two of them wove their way through the tables, every eye in the place watching their progress to the table reserved for the McKinnahs. Dinner was well under way when a harried Captain Jon McKinnah appeared. He did not pay a lot of attention to who was sitting at the table until he was through kissing his mother on the cheek.

  “I believe there’s someone else’s cheek that needs kissing, Son,” she said with an impish smile.

  Jon looked up and stared across the table at Annika with a blank expression on his face as if his mind could not grasp the fact she was here instead of on Earth. Then he saw her CSF uniform and put two and two together. “With pleasure,” he said and circled the table. He missed her cheek but managed to find her lips and stayed there a little longer than was necessary. By some conspiracy the chair next to her was unoccupied.

  “How are you,” she whispered when he got settled.

  “A little rattled, thanks to you,” he said and squeezed her thigh under the table.

  Annika found she was comfortable with the McKinnahs, and as the evening went on, she traded stories with them as if she had known them for years instead of just weeks. She was acutely aware of Jon’s presence next to her, and the thought of what lay ahead was never far from her mind. Jon’s dad, James was interested in her experiments on Vajrashila. The entire table got into the discussion of how to use the techniques developed by the Vajrashilan plants and animals to their advantage. Jonathon Senior’s observation of, “I’m sure Michael and his crowd will give us the answers,” satisfied everyone’s curiosity.

  For Jon and Annika, the evening ended as everyone at the table expected.

  Chapter 24

  Newhope

  Early the next morning Jon reported to the CSF Clanship Islandia, the personal spaceship owned by Jonathon and Marcia McKinnah, given to them many years earlier by a grateful Confederation when the Commander had decided to step down. Jon’s grandparents, along with the two androids had spent the better part of fifteen years visiting all the member worlds of the Confederation and exploring the worlds discovered by the CSF’s mapping teams. This recent stay in Newhope was their longest since Jonathon Senior had retired. In spite of the rule against permanent retirement on Newhope, the pair still maintained their original Newhope residence overlooking the spaceship field and grand promenade leading up to the General Assembly building.

  Jon was not certain what his grandfather had in mind to do today, and while he was anxious to find out, he would have preferred to stay in Annika’s warm bed. She had not moved when he got up to leave. Jon had stood looking down at her before he left, thinking not of the previous night, but of the future. He realized he was having a hard time imagining a future without her. They needed to talk before they were split up again on different assignments.

  Jon was pleased to see his grandmother on the ship when he came aboard. He thought she would have preferred to have stayed at their apartment, considering how much time they had spent on aboard their ship in the last fifteen years.

  “No,” Marcia answered when he questioned her. “This ship really is our home. Besides that, there are friends on Islandia I haven’t seen for a while.” She sipped the tea favored by all who grew up on Islandia and asked coyly, “You slept well, I hope.”

  “Don’t be devious Grandma, you know I didn’t get much sleep,” Jon said, knowing she was responsible for Annika’s ship being delayed the previous time they were on Newhope. “Your scheme is working. She’s a pretty special woman.”

  “I’m glad, dear since you spaceship captains never seem to have the time to take care of such matters.”

  Jonathon Senior came back to the wardroom, which ended the conversation on Jon’s love life. The McKinnah Clanship was fully automatic under Talo’s control, but Jonathon still liked to pilot her off the planet and then let Talo handle the ship the rest of the way. “I’ve instructed Talo to do a slow flyover of the Sippi Sound,” he said to Marcia in particular. “I thought you might want to see some of the changes in the old place.”

  “Sometimes I wonder if all the changes are good, Jonathon. Islandia is such a pristine world. I hate to see it lose its charm,” she said with a little sadness in her voice.

  “Especially the baths,” Jonathon said with a little laugh.

  Marcia smiled remembering her first look at a naked Jonathon McKinnah in the communal baths. “Some things should definitely not be changed,” she added with a grin.

  After an hour-long cruise, while his grandparents relived part of their youth, the clanship put down at Gruenwald. There was no reception committee this time, which was just as well as far as Jon was concerned. He had grown up with all the
attention associated with being a McKinnah and was always relieved when he was able to get away from it. It was one of the things that pleased him about his career in the CSF. How you performed was more important than who you knew or who you were. The five of them, including Talo and Talia, took the maglev to the labs where Michael was expecting them. From his conversation with Annika last night and his parents and grandparents precise questions about the devil-bats and the Yogamundi, Jon had surmised they were here to listen to Michael’s opinion of the specimens and Annika’s report of her experiments on Vajrashila.

  Michael greeted them emotionally. He was keenly aware of the role Jonathon, Marcia and Talo had played in his life. One of the world’s great minds had blossomed as a result of their individual and collective intervention. Michael never forgot the debt he owed these people. They exchanged news about friends and relatives before Jonathon Senior became impatient.

  “Do you have anything for us today, Michael?” Senior asked directing the conversation back to their reason for coming to Islandia.

  “I believe I do, Jonathon, I believe I do,” Michael said with his usual enthusiasm.

  The five of them were standing in the original lab where the first android, Talo1 had spoken his first words. Since then, the current version of Talo and eventually Talia had been an integral part of the McKinnah’s lives. No one could count the number of times the android pair had saved a McKinnah from death or injury.

  The group looked to one end of the lab as a door opened and a new android stepped through. It did not have Talo’s towering height but was more man-sized. The elastic, carbon fiber skin was an iridescent, deep gun-metal grey and the facial expression appeared to be softer and closer to a human appearance. The android strode directly up to Jon and extended his hand. “Hello, Jon. My name is TM4, that is until you give me another name,” the android said in a normal human voice. “I am the newest manifestation of the original Talo.”

  For the second time in twenty-four hours, Jon got a blank expression on his face. “Until I name you?” he said incredulously.

  “Yes,” TM4 answered, continuing the handshake. “If I am to be your life companion, it is only appropriate that you should be the one to decide what to call me.”

  The full impact of the situation finally sunk in and a mixed bag of thoughts went through Jon’s mind. Would the CSF approve? Would Annika freak out? What to name his own Talo? The idea of having his very own Talo pleased him beyond measure. His Grandfather’s Talo had been Jon’s very own special companion when he was a young boy. Talo had explained things to him in words he could understand. There was no problem too big for Talo to help him resolve. As he grew older he realized that Talo had never actually resolved the conflicts; he had only helped Jon to resolve them, teaching him a valuable lesson in the process.

  Jon became aware of the other people around him and let loose of TM4’s hand. “I don’t know,” he said in the small voice of a man taken back to his youth. “Can I call you TM4 until I decide?”

  “TM4 it is,” the android said.

  Jon asked his granddad, “What’s Admiral Dexter going to say when I show up with my own Talo?”

  Jonathon Senior smiled and said, “He has already approved of the idea.”

  Jon was surprised that his grandfather had assigned a personal Talo to him. One of the first things Jonathon Senior had done on becoming the first Commander-in-Chief was to ban any more individual androids. Only three had been manufactured before TM4. The original Talo had self-destructed on Earth, taking out a good portion of the Industrial Council with him. Jonathon and Marcia had the only other two, Talo2 and Talia.

  “Why would the Admiral do that?’ Jon asked not being able to think of any good reason why the Admiral would agree to let him, a lowly captain be given one of the most powerful weapons known to man.

  “The admiral recognized the value of your having Talo with you when you went to Vajrashila. Since you’ll be part of an expedition going to negotiate with the Alphans’ potential allies, he thought having another Talo with you would prove helpful.”

  “But why me?” Jon wanted to know.

  Jonathon sensed his grandson’s concerns and moved to reassure him. “Jon, you’re one of the brightest stars in Admiral Dexter’s bag of tricks. You’re also a line captain, which is where a weapon like TM4 belongs. That’s the reason he agreed that you and not some admiral sitting behind a desk should get an android. Besides, they all have access to the admin version of Talo any time they want.” Jonathon didn’t add that he would not have approved giving an android to anyone else. When the labs had first developed the android body before the formation of the CIP, Jonathon and Talo had agreed that a general distribution of Talo-androids was not a good idea. The temptation to abuse the use of a powerful personal servant was too great. He only agreed to allow Jon to have one because he had grown up with Talo and Talia and had been conditioned in their proper use. Talo had approved of his decision.

  Satisfied, Jon asked Michael, “How did you make another android so fast? The existence of the Khruellian Hegemony has only recently been discovered.”

  Michael put his hand on TH4’s carbon fiber shoulder and explained. “Well actually, TM4 has been under development for almost two years, but not activated. Jonathon and I felt that someday the need would arise for another, more advanced Android. He feels the need is now.”

  Jon was looking forward to learning what “more advanced” meant, although he was having a hard time envisioning what could be more advanced than Talo or Talia. He looked at his new companion and said, “Well, TM4, we have some catching up to do.”

  The android smiled in a way Talo was not able to and said, “Just remember, Jon, I am the same Talo who played with you as a child, just in a different suit.”

  The “different suit” TM4 spoke of was a marvel of advanced engineering, a combination of Talo’s vast store of the Ankh’s scientific research and the genius of Michael’s lab personnel. That combination had produced the original spaceship, the Clanship Islandia, the FTL drive, the gravity well propulsion and Talo’s mobile platform, the android. Being man-sized, TM4 would have far fewer restrictions on his movements. His new, flexible and more expressive exterior would cause less apprehension in those who were not familiar with androids.

  Jonathon said, “We should be getting back soon, but Marcia wants to visit her school before we leave. While we’re doing that, why don’t you and TM4 work out the rules for living with each other?”

  His grandfather’s suggestion caused Jon to smile. He looked at the android and said, “Looks like we’re getting married, TM4.”

  Jonathon laughed along with his grandson and then said soberly, “It’s that serious, Jon. TM4 will be with you for the rest of your life. The rules of conduct you established today will make that relationship a bad one, a good one or a fantastic one. I know that for a fact.” The former commander-in-chief put his hand on Talo’s forearm. “This is my close friend and confidant. You can make TM4 the same.” Commander McKinnah dug around in his pocket and pulled out a small, object on a chain. “This will make communications easier,” he said and handed it to Jon.

  Jon recognized it immediately and knew the full implications of what his grandfather had just given him. He and TM4 would be married for life.

  Five hours later, the Clanship McKinnah took off with Jonathon McKinnah Senior in the pilot’s seat. Jon and TM4 were still in deep conversation during the ride to the atmospheric boundary. It was evident to Marcia who watched that the two of them, human and android were establishing a tight bond. Talia confirmed it for her. “Now, if I can get you married off to Annika,” she thought with a sly grin on her face.

  It was twilight when they settled on the field at Newhope. The senior McKinnahs were going to have dinner with James and Jennie and spend the night in their apartment. Jon needed to check on his ship and would spend the night aboard unless Annika was available for other arrangements. He was anxious to introduce TM4 to his crew,
but he was most anxious to have Annika meet the third person in their relationship. He just hoped it wouldn’t kill their budding romance. Several messages were waiting for him when he got aboard Islandia. One from Admiral Dexter told him to report to his office early tomorrow and to be ready to speak to the General Assembly. The next one was from Annika saying she was free this evening and to give her a call and the third one, again from Annika wanted to know where he was. Jon smiled at the last one. “I hope she will be just as anxious after I introduce her to TM4,” he thought. He called her and made arrangements to meet her at the officer’s club for drinks before deciding what to do for the evening.

  The officer’s club was crowded when Jon and TM4 came in. Within seconds the place fell silent. Everyone in the room was familiar with Talo and knew of his incredible abilities, but they all associated the android with the former commander-in-chief, not a line captain. In their eyes, Jon McKinnah, spaceship captain had just become their potential commander-in-chief in the future. The dynamics were completely changed. Jon saw Annika at the bar with Captain Willard draped all over her, trying to resurrect their old romance. She had a strange expression on her face that Jon could not fathom. He would deal with that, but first, he had to deal with his peers, his subordinates and the superior officers in the room.

  In the silence, he said, “Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to introduce Talor.” The name just popped out of his mouth, but he liked it. “Talor is obviously an android, directly related to Talo, whom all of you are familiar with. Talor has been assigned to me for a special mission. I trust you will extend him the same courtesy you would to Talo.” With that said, he walked straight toward Annika. The conversation began again, and Jon was certain one hundred percent of it was about Talor.