Reunion: Chapter 7

  After exiting the rift, New Horizon was greeted by a small fleet of ships which were waiting to greet them on the other side.  The size and design of them gave Kathryn a pause of concern as she was reminded how woefully behind them Haven was.

  “Are they all here for us?” Kathryn asked Jaren.

  “Some,” he acknowledged, “but not all.  There is a constant contingent stationed at the rift to render aid should any incoming ships require it, as well as to deal with any… unexpected guests who might show up.”

  “Unexpected guests?” Felix asked in surprise.  “You mean like… hostile aliens?  An invasion?”

  Jaren laughed.   “Some people do consider it a possibility yes, if an outside one.  It’s never come up of course, I assure if it had I would have mentioned it by now.  If that did happen though, the small fleet permanently stationed here would be the first to greet them whatever their intentions were.  There is after all no way to prevent anyone from coming through other than destroying our own crystal but like I said, it’s never come up.  We are currently drafting plans for a permanent space station here to supplant some of the ships always needing to be stationed here, but so far we haven’t started constructing anything.”

  “Anyone else in the universe with similar technology, could in theory lock on to our crystal quite easily but like Jaren said,” Irvina added, her narrow facial features narrowing further, “but so far it’s never come up.”

  “I’m surprised it never occurred to me to ask before,” Keri observed, “but have you set up rift crystals anywhere besides Earth and the colony planets so far?  If you’ve had the chance to do so around these planets, then…”

  “Not yet,” Irvina answered, “but the process is underway.  We have drone rift construction ships underway to half a dozen systems with promising planets, but none have made contact so far and we don’t expect to hear back from them for years yet.  Our first priority was of course the other colony planets.  Not only did we want to know if anyone else had survived, but…” she trailed off as though she hadn’t meant to divulge what she was going to say and reconsidered.

  Jaren finished her thought for her without concern.  “If you hadn’t survived, we at least knew that there was definitely a planet in that system which could be colonized if you hadn’t been able to.”

  “Right,” Kathryn acknowledged.  “Makes sense.”

  “It’s pretty ambitious,” Felix said, “to have sent out all of those drones already.   What have you got planned for those systems?  You’ve made it clear that your people aren’t very interested in exploration for exploration’s sake.”

  “Well, if there are any plans for those systems, they’re over our pay grade,” Jaren answered dryly with what appeared to be a hint of bitterness, but then he just shrugged.  “It’s just a long-term process.  If we wait to establish the rift until we have plans, those plans will immediately be delayed by decades.  It’s basic capacity building at this point.  Once we have the network established, if we find something useful or come up with plans, the capacity is already right there in front of us.  It’s a very resource intense process to set up a portal in a new system, but our government has set up a continuing budget for the project.  We’re currently aiming for a cadence of one new drone ship launch every year.  So far we’re on schedule, and every new rift we set up will create a new and more distant launch point.  One of the things our government will want to negotiate with yours is the launch of such ships out of your system as well.”

  “I had no idea your people were so ambitious,” Keri commented as bright multicolour lights began exploding in front of them between the New Horizon and the ships they could see.  “What’s that?” she asked with a clear note of concern.

  “Fireworks,” Nadelle explained with a warm smile, “of a sort.  It’s our way of saying welcome, and of celebrating the arrival of you and your ship.”

  “Welcome New Horizon, we’ve been expecting you,” A voice was heard over a loudspeaker back at the entrance hatch to the bubble.  “The people of Kobol celebrate your arrival and offer warm greetings.”

  Jaren led Kathryn back to the hatchway using their airburst belts.  He tapped at the panel and gestured Kathryn towards it with his hand.  “Thank you, greetings received and returned equally warmly.  To whom and I speaking?”

  “This is Admiral Velora, commander of the Kolob Space Fleet flagship Utah.  With your permission we have tow ships which can attach to your vessel and get you to Kolob in approximately seventy hours.”

  Kathryn raised an eyebrow at Jaren who nodded his approval.

  “That’s… very kind of you, thank you,” she offered with a slight shrug.

  “Very well, please retract the bubble structure forward of your main engineering section.  As it is currently deployed it blocks the grapple point on your ship which we have deemed structurally preferable.”

  “Will do, please stand by.”  She turned around to the others.  “Alright, that’s us.  Everyone out.”

  She ushered everyone out of the bubble and back into the engineering section of the ship.   “Let’s all head up to the bridge,” she suggested as she followed Jaren out and firmly closed the hatch behind them.

   

  Once on the bridge they all watched on the external cameras as four vessels approached.   They seemed little more than scant skins of ships wrapped around massive antimatter engines like the ones on Jaren’s ships, only much larger and more powerful.  One by one they anchored to the engineering section of the New Horizon and then pulled away with just enough engine power to pull the thick cable taught and hold position at the correct distance.  Once all four had done so they cleared departure with Kathryn on the bridge, and then all four mighty engine ships gradually powered up to full power and together they all gradually pulled away from the sun.

  The realities of orbital mechanics forbid a direct flight to the planet, instead the thrust was directed towards increasing the distance of their orbit from the sun ever outward until they could meet up with the orbit of Kobol.  Under New Horizon’s own power it would have taken more than a month to reach an orbit that high fighting the gravity of the sun as they were, but with their powerful tow ships attached, it would apparently only take them a few days.

  Although there were occasional operational communications between the ships in their small fleet, nobody boarded or exited the New Horizon.  The president of Kobol had left clear instructions that after Jaren and his people, he wanted to be the first to officially greet the visitors at their formal reception ceremonial in the capital.

  These three days seemed to drag on much longer than the two weeks it took to initially reach the rift.  They now felt familiar enough with the ship that it was no longer exciting just to be there.  They kept diligently working at their research, but their minds now kept wandering to what lay ahead, to the new planet they’d be seeing so soon.  Their minds were also on the incredible responsibility of only the four of them representing their entire civilization to the people of an entire other planet.

  The days dragged on, but passed nonetheless.  Before long they could see Kolob appear before them.  A tiny speck at first, which grew larger and larger over the course of the last day.  As they approached, they were able to see as well the small moon which orbited around it, which was roughly half the diameter of Earth’s moon, and which orbited at about two thirds the distance.

  Once the tow ships had inserted the New Horizons into an orbit around the planet, they detached and wished them a safe descent.  Once sailing on their own, Kathryn and her crew couldn’t resist reinflating the observation bubble and having a clear look at Kobol from orbit.   It was a beautiful view, but to them seemed to have an odd geography.  There was a vast global ocean which circumvented the entire equator with massive landmasses capping both poles, each approximately a third of the way down to the equator from the poles.  The regions which bordered the oceans appeared rich and lushly green, while some distance inland there were some arid yellow-orange regions, and beyond them only white all the way to the poles.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?” Jaren asked Kathryn.

  “Yes.  It is certainly an… interesting geography.”

  “Yes, it actually leaves us relatively little land area on which we can settle.  We’re certainly nowhere near capacity, but…”

  Jaren’s words drifted off and he never got around to finishing his thought.  He was distracted by the beauty of his home planet.   For several minutes he and Kathryn floated in silence together looking down on the planet as it raced past them.   “Are you ready?” he eventually asked.

  “As I’ll ever be…” she answered with distant awe.

   

  The eight-person crew gathered up what they would need from the New Horizon and boarded Jaren’s smaller ship which had remained docked with it.  After consulting with aerospace control on his planet, Jaren disengaged his ship from New Horizon and began their descent to the planet below.  Although atmospheric braking was required to slow them from orbital velocity, the ship was sufficiently advanced that they hardly noticed.  

  Through barely noticeable vibrations, Felix asked Irvina if they used ablative materials to slow the ship down the way New Horizon’s shuttles had, but she informed him that this had not been necessary for some time.  Their engines were sufficient to slow them down from orbital velocity to the point that the advanced materials of the ship’s hull could withstand the friction of re-entering at their reduced speed without ablating away.   

  After slowing down considerably, the ship still rapidly soared through the air across the vast ocean until the capital city on the shore came into view and grew larger as they approached through the apparently transparent walls.  The city glittered in such a way that it appeared to be constructed of light, but as they approached they saw that it was only an illusion created by all of the tall towers having all glass surfaces which reflected the sunlight between them.  As they got closer, they could see that each building had a gold coloured metal lightning rod on the top of it in the shape of a figure in robes blowing a simple straight trumpet high up into the air.

  They approached a large clearing surrounded by towers clad in green glass.  It was a large parkland with trees and grass sporting a landing pad to one side, vaguely reminding Kathryn of the park which Jaren’s ship had landed in back on Haven.  As they landed Kathryn could tell that there was something different about the building across the street from where they were landing.  There were hundreds of people gathered a respectful distance from the ship, aside from the pathway from between where the ship landed and the steps leading up to what appeared to be a primary central tower.  

  The ramp extended from underneath Jaren’s ship as the door opened for them.  Jaren urged Kathryn to go ahead and exit the ship first.   From within the ship, she looked out at the crowds and had a momentary flash of anxiety as the gravity of the situation washed over her in waves.  First the personal significance for her of setting foot on another world for the first time, then the cultural significance of her people meeting and reconnecting with humans of another world, and then the weight of the pressure of her personally being the primary emissary from her world to this one.  She drew in breath to take a moment to hold onto the historical weight of the moment and the special place in it she was privileged to have.  Distant words from her grandmother urging her to savour the moments that made her life drifted through her mind as she closed her eyes and made a special effort to absorb everything. 

  Knowing she would never be truly ready, she only gave herself a moment, only a few beats of her heart holding onto the moment before she started down the ramp.   She was so startled by the eruption of cheers from the crowd that she nearly fell over and off the side of the ramp.   Jaren came up from behind her and put his hands on her hips to steady her.  It was the most intimate physical contact they’d had so far, and she spared one more heartbeat to savour this as well before she looked back at him to thank him.  She quickly composed herself and together they walked down the rest of the ramp, followed by the rest of their crews.

  Kathryn led them along the path, smiling and waving to everyone in the crowd as they walked.   Before long they reached the stairs and began climbing towards the person whom she could only assume was the Koboli president, flanked as he was by various aides on either side which reminded her of her own president’s entourage.  She was momentarily struck once more by the similarity of this scene to the one which had greeted Jaren when he’d landed and mused to herself at the reversal of roles.  

  When she reached the top of the stairs the president reached out his hands and when she took it he surprised her by pulling her towards him and embraced her warmly.   Her own people weren’t particularly averse to physical contact, but she was now cluing in that it wasn’t only Jaren who was unusually physically expressive.  She realized as the president squeezed her that they must all be more like this than her people tended to be.  Accepting this she decided to embrace it and hugged the man back, even allowing herself to enjoy the seemingly genuine affection in it.  She saw to her side that Felix, Elim, and Keri were all likewise being welcomed by their counterparts, and she decided that this was something she liked about these people.  She wondered if things could be friendlier between people back home if they were a bit less reserved about physically expressing platonic physically.

  The president pulled away and introduced himself as Adam Mortensen, President of the Kobol Colony, offering her his full name and title.  “This is a day that will long be remembered and celebrated by our people,” he announced.  She noticed that his words while directed to her, were being amplified on loudspeakers for the crowd.  “Our long-divided family has finally been made whole again.”  He put his arm around her shoulder and turned her around to face the crowd.  He put his fist in the air and yelled out to the crowd: “UNITY!!!”  The people exploded with cheers.  

  The weight of the alien crowd’s attention on her and the sense of the president using her as a prop both made her feel anxious.

   

  Several hours later Kathryn and her team found themselves at their formal reception at the president’s residence.  The building at the foot of which they had met the president turned out to be the heart of their central government.  At the base of it, at the top of a flight of stairs, were the congress and senate where the business of government took place, with the various conference rooms and member offices on the upper levels, and the top half dozen or so levels taken up by the president’s personal offices and residence.  It was somewhere on one of these upper levels where the reception was being held, in an area ringed with a spacious open-air patio, beneath the narrower top three levels of the building which housed the official presidential residence.

  The Haven team spent the afternoon being shown to their official guest accommodations in the presidential residence and being helped out of their mission jumpsuits and as gifts, into fashionable modern high end Koboli clothing.  Kathryn, Elim, and Keri found themselves in different long elegant dresses not entirely uncommon to Havenite fancy dress, complete with the less familiar gold jewelry on their ears which attached to the top of their earlobes and draped many fine strands of gold over their ears, matching the apparent favour of gold adornment in the rest of the fashion and interior design they’d seen.   Felix found himself swaddled in a luxurious fabric worn as what could only be described as a toga.  They all found the man’s formal wear somewhat amusing at first, but the amusement quickly gave way to an appreciation of how comfortable the garment was to wear.

  The ballroom was a buzz with excited energy, and Kathryn felt out of place being such a centre of attention.  As a military woman her training had never included proper behaviour at fancy cocktail parties, and it was not an environment she’d ever much sought out and could not become comfortable with.  She felt pretty in the dress and while she appreciated it, looking pretty had never been something she’d devoted much energy to, and she had an acute dictate over the emphasis the Koboli seemed to place on it.  She was having trouble stifling how uncomfortable it made her feel to be so much the centre of attention, especially with the discomfort of feeling objectified in her dress layered on top of it.

  “Barnes, Parker, Terey, Reed.  I have a couple of people here I’d like to introduce you to,” Jaren offered.  “This is Francis Galway,” he offered as he introduced a man in a black robe with a bone white beard complementing his somehow even more white hair pulled back into a thick ponytail down to his shoulder blades, “and his wife Teresa.”  Beside the man was standing a woman of similar age, wearing a distinctly more conservative dress than her own, which left Kathryn with the instinctive urge to cover herself up.  Both of their appearances quite noticeably distinguished them from the Koboli, even the man’s beard which she then noticed she’d seen no facial hair on any other man here.  The expressions on their face revealed a certain sternness compared to the Koboli, who by comparison had moments of infections joie de vivre.

  “They are the Roman ambassadors to Kobol,” Jaren explained.  “They are accompanied by a full diplomatic staff, but if you have any questions about Roma or the Catholics,” he put one arm around Francis’ shoulder and his other around the woman’s, causing them both to noticeably stifle a wince which Jaren didn’t seem to notice, “these are the people to ask, alright?”

  “Oh yes, wonderful,” Kathryn exclaimed, thankful for the introduction and the opportunity to meet people from yet another world.  “Thank you, Jaren.”  Jaren nodded contently, stopping one of the residence staff carrying a tray of drinks and taking one before moving on.

  “Sirs?   Madams?  May I interest you as well?” the server swaddled in the traditional male toga asked while holding out the tray.  With a nod of permission from Kathryn all four took one of the fluted glass full of bubbling rose coloured liquid.

  “What is it?” Keri asked as the Roman ambassadors respectfully declined with a raised hand.

  “It is a drink fermented from the nectar of the beashou flower which grows wild on this planet,” the server informed.  “It is a delicacy on this planet and quite delicious if I do say so myself.”

  “Alcoholic?” Keri asked with mildly surprised curiosity.

  “Oh yes,” he answered.  “Roughly nine percent by volume.”

  “Forgive me, but…” she cautiously asked, “wasn’t abstinence from alcohol and other substances a rather strict rule for your people?”

  “A lot can change in seven hundred years,” the server said with a mischievous smile before disappearing back into the crowd.  Keri seemed to watch him move off for a time in thought.

  “So Francis, Teresa,” Kathryn addressed the Roma, “I’m so happy to meet you.  We’ve been looking forward to it every bit as much as to meeting the Koboli,” she offered.

  “Thank you, Commander Barnes, we’ve been quite eager to meet you and your people as well,” Francis responded.

  “We are both fortunate to have been granted the opportunity to do so by the Koboli,” Kathryn diplomatically offered.

  “Indeed,” Teresa said with a hint of sourness.  Her face was weathered like that of someone who’d spent a lifetime working outdoors.   She struck Kathryn as a large woman, but more from having a sturdy barrel-chested torso than from extra weight.

  “I look forward to seeing your world as well, Ambassadors,” Kathryn said with sincerity.   “As exciting as it is to be here, as an explorer I seem to find myself only hungrier for more to discover the more I see.  I feel something like a child first confronted with the infinite wonder of the cosmos.   There is so much to see and learn, it would all be so intimidating if it weren’t just so exciting.”

  “Indeed,” Teresa repeated with more genuine satisfaction this time, brushing her short blonde hair out of her eyes.  “Would you care to join me for some air on the terrace?”

  “Certainly,” Kathryn answered respectfully.

  “My husband will be happy to entertain your crewmates while we talk,” she said, indicating that she’d like to speak with her alone, and Kathryn got the message.   She hoped her concern at the woman having something private to relay to her was just healthy groundless paranoia.   

  The late middle-aged woman led Kathryn outside and walked out to the edge of the terrace.   It was dark outside now, and in front of them was the park where they’d landed in.  Beyond it on all sides were all manner of glass towers with a random pattern of rooms lit in the various towers.  Lights would occasionally flick on and off, almost creating the effect of twinkling twilight.  All back dropped by the clear night sky, it was an overwhelming and hypnotic sight to behold.

  The ambassador leaned over the railing and looked all the way down to the ground before turning her back on the city and facing Kathryn again.  “First of all, it is not only my duty, but truly my pleasure to formally extend to you and your people our warmest greetings and a formal invitation to visit Roma.  Whether you’d like to send an exploratory expedition first or jump right into sending official dignitaries, we will celebrate the day the first representatives of Haven set foot on Roma.  From what I understand the Escher Rift can open a portal between our systems as easily as between them to Kobol.”

  “Thank you,” Kathryn respectfully acknowledged.  “Any of us would be honoured to take you up on your invitation and I have no doubt that a delegation will be assembled as soon as I have the opportunity to transmit your invitation back home.  I also have every confidence that a similar invitation will immediately be extended to your people from mine as well.”

  Teresa smiled warmly with only a hint of mischievousness.  “Well, now that all of the formalities are out of the way,” she winked, “what do you make of these Koboli Commander Barnes, one off-worlder to another?”

  Kathryn felt the need to be exceedingly cautious, but also the need to get whatever information about their host from her as she could.  She got the sense that she could trust that anything she might say would be kept in confidence, but at the same time she had only just met this woman and she was representing all of Haven here.  “Please, call me Kathryn.”

  Teresa nodded, acknowledging the pleasantry and inviting her to continue.

  “The Koboli seem generous enough to me, given all that they’ve done for us so far.”
 “Ah,” Teresa acknowledged, “but you have something of value to them, don’t you?  That archive of yours… they truly consider it to be one of the most valuable things in the entire universe, don’t they?”

  “That’s what they seem to think…”

  “Hmm.   We would as well of course.  We will also want to negotiate for a copy of it for ourselves once it’s recovered, but sadly I fear we have much less to bargain with.”

  “I can’t personally speak for my government on this matter of course, but off the record I have no doubt that my people would be happy to make the archive available to you as well.  It seems to me a legacy to which all of the children of Earth are entitled to.”

  “Yes… Earth.   Tell me Kathryn, are you any more curious about the mystery of what happened to Earth as the people of Kolob are?”

  “Oh absolutely!” Kathryn exclaimed with a more forceful outburst than she’d intended.   She moved across the terrace to stand beside Teresa and look out over the city with her.  “In fact, we are quite dumbfounded at the Koboli’s lack of interest in it.”

  “Well thank the lord for that!” Teresa exclaimed with relieved levity.   “Although they have only recently made contact with the Escher facility in the Sol system, we are finding ourselves quite frustrated both at their lack of interest in exploring the mysteries of our home planet, and our own inability to investigate ourselves.”

  “Jaren says his people have little interest because they don’t see the story of Earth after they left as a meaningful part of their own story,” Kathryn said.

  “That’s what they tell us as well… sounds somewhat chauvinistic don’t you think?”

  “Perhaps, but…” Kathryn hesitated, not sure if she should add what came to mind.

  “Yes?” Teresa insisted.

  “Talking to Jaren I get the sense that… it’s somehow more about technology to them.   They seem to value it above all else.   They made a few passes of the planet and after doing some survey scanning determined there was nothing technological they could make use of or learn from.  With no technology of interest, there was no value in any further investigation for them.”

  “What a waste…” Teresa uttered.

  Kathryn nodded thoughtfully.  “They can’t be entirely single-minded about it though,” she offered.  “If they were then the archives wouldn’t interest them.   I find it hard to believe that they think they’ll find any technological secrets in it, technologically they are now far superior to those who created it.”

  “Perhaps.”   Teresa seemed unconvinced.

  “If I may ask, why hasn’t Roma launched its own expedition?”

  “Oh we are desperate to believe me!” she exclaimed.  “But… well unfortunately I’m somewhat embarrassed to admit that we would need the Koboli’s help to do so.”

  “I see.”

  “We are sufficiently technologically competent to eventually mount such an expedition on our own, but it will take many years to develop the technology required to build a sufficiently sophisticated vessel with the right tools to mount such an expedition.  We currently have no space program of our own to speak of.  As much as we are passionately curious about Earth in particular, my people don’t have much of a more generalized interest in exploration for its own sake, so our space technology is somewhat rudimentary.  As you’ve seen though, everything we’d need are off the shelf technologies here on Kobol, and we are growing impatient with their apparent reluctance to share it.”

  “You think they’re deliberately blocking you?”

  “No,” she said with a long heavy sigh, “even worse.  I think they really just don’t care.  I think Earth is such a low priority to them, that… aiding us in our interest in it is an equally low priority.”

  “That must be frustrating,” Kathryn observed.

  “Incredibly,” the ambassador acknowledged through gritted teeth, “but now you’re here, aren’t you?  And with that marvelous ship you brought with you…” she stated leadingly.

  “What are you suggesting?” Kathryn was beginning to suspect, but wanted the woman to say it out loud.

  “We really have no right to ask of course, but… I could offer a suggestion to you as a friend with mutual interests.”

  “Go on…”

  “With that precious archive you have a bargaining chip with them which we don’t.   With that ship you’re already halfway there.  You would only need to request certain modest upgrades to the New Horizon from the Koboli to be able to mount your own expedition to Earth.  If they declined for some reason, Roma could provide you with surface to orbit shuttles and whatever supplies you’d need, but it would take months to get there and then to Earth under power of New Horizon’s existing engines.  With a refit using Koboli anti-matter engine technology you could get to Earth in as little as four days.”

  “Wow, that’s…” she turned around, leaned back against the railing and looked up into the night sky.  “That’s so ambitious,” she said with some admiration as she looked back at her again.   “My mission was only to open relations with Kolob and Roma while we let Kolob harvest the data in the archives in exchange for access to the Escher technology.”

  “Access to the rift system is so limited without upgrades to your ship’s engines that you could easily argue that this is implied in the agreement,” Teresa suggested.

  Kathryn took a moment.  “I never imagined… it just never occurred to me that we could use the New Horizon in that way, that we’d be in a position to launch our own missions through the Escher rifts, that we could actually use it as a ship like that.  To us the New Horizon was always a… you know, a purpose unto itself, more of a destination than a ship.  It never occurred to me that we could actually you know, use it, like as a ship on a continuing basis.  I mean until a few weeks ago there was nowhere for us to go in it unless we wanted to leave Haven forever the way our founders left Earth forever.”

  “Well it’s something you’re going to need to think about now,” Teresa stated matter-of-factly.  “The only ships we have of our own are glorified orbital shuttles, for everything else we can only rely on the kindness of the Koboli.  We have nothing on the scale of the New Horizon.  As long as you retain control of it,” she reminded her, “you are automatically the second most space capable colony, but your capacity remains incomplete.  As I said, we would be happy to provide you with whatever provisions and materiel we can if you are kind enough to grace us with participation in you mission.  The engines you currently have are at least adequate to slowly make your way between worlds already, and we can have the ability to provision you with additional fuel for your existing engines if you require, but an anti-matter engine upgrade would make rapid transit quite practical for your people.  If you can correctly play the Koboli in renegotiating access to your archives, you could get both from them tomorrow.”

  The woman put her hand on the arm Kathryn was resting on the banister.  “Think about it,” she urged before heading back into the party.

  Kathryn stood there for a time, lost in thought looking back inside at the party.   It was so bright, and everything had a golden yellow tinge to it.  She wasn’t sure how long she was standing there lost in thought when she noticed that Irvina approach her through the doors.

  “Nice night,” she offered.

  “Yes,” Kathryn agreed, “remarkably warm.”  She was always amused when small talk was so small that the weather was actually discussed.   “What are the seasons like here?”

  “Quite mild actually, there’s only an eight percent axial tilt to Kobol, so there isn’t much change between the seasons.  Of what we do have we’re in what you’d call spring right now.”

  “Your president is an interesting fellow isn’t he, very…”

  “Superficial?   Glib?  Glad-handy?  Smarmy?” Irvina offered with a wry smile.

  Kathryn laughed aloud.  “Oh, tell me what you really think…”

  “I don’t particularly care for him myself… neither does Jaren.  He’s too conservative for our liking.”  She paused, and then added: “Not that we’re wild-eyed liberals or anything.”

  “I understand,” Kathryn nodded.

  “He doesn’t support the space fleet’s efforts to open up new worlds, and he’s repeatedly tried to reduce funding for the effort.”  Irvina pushed off of the railing and turned around to lean on it instead, bracing herself with her hands out beside her.  “Doesn’t stop him from taking as much credit as he can for all our successes though.  I don’t like that.  I don’t like what that says about him as a person.”

  “Frankly, it’s refreshing to hear someone talk so… openly.”

  Irvina shrugged.  “I’m not a diplomat,” she stated indifferently as she finished her drink.   “Just an engineer.”

  “I can definitely relate,” Kathryn offered with a sigh, “I’m not exactly in my element here either.”  She smiled, looked down at her dress and pulled the fabric out beside her.  “I honestly can’t remember the last time I wore a dress at all, let alone getting all fancied up like this.  I’m a test pilot for god’s sake,” she laughed.  “I’m far more comfortable in a flight suit.”

  Irvina stepped forward and pulled two more glasses off of the tray of a passing server and handed one to Kathryn, who obligingly took it.  The two looked into the party and saw Jaren continuing to glad hand and converse with the other party guests.

  “Not like him though,” Irvina said with a smile that masked a hint of sadness which left her pale blue eyes all the more striking.  “He loves this sort of thing.  Total extrovert that one.”

  “Is that why it didn’t work between you two?” Kathryn asked without thinking, immediately chastising herself for it.  Irvina shot a suspicious look at her which then softened when she saw the regret in Kathryn’s eyes.  She was seemingly surprised at Kathryn knowing about her history with Jaren at all but then seemed to put pieces together.

  “No, no…” the woman answered somewhat distantly as she looked back at him.   “That was never a problem.  If anything, I found that it tended to compliment my relative inwardness rather well.  Who knows why it doesn’t work out between two people, you know?” she rhetorically asked.  “Sometimes it just doesn’t.”

  “Yeah, I can relate to that…” Kathryn agreed, looking down as she reflected on Tobyn.

  The two were quiet for longer than it felt like, both reflecting on the disappointments of their respective romantic pasts.

  “He is, by the way,” Irvina said with a smirk as she took another sip of her drink.   “If you were wondering, that is.”

  “Is what?” Kathryn asked, quite confused.

  “As into you as you are him,” Irvina said with a side-eyed glance.

  Kathryn blushed in embarrassment and immediately looked down and away trying to mask it.  Irvina laughed in a playfully friendly way.

  “Don’t worry,” she reassured her with a continuing smile.  “So far you’re hiding it as well as you should be expected to… And no Commander, there is no big dark secret you have to worry about with that one.   For better or worse he really is exactly as he seems.”

  Kathryn nodded somewhat sheepishly.  “Appreciate the intel Irvina, thanks.”