“But where will he go!” Jill asked, “Maybe now I can be with him!”
It was tempting to take the Traveling Lady, her yacht, to Trena and see her son. Jill was right it had been too long since Jill had been with her father. Jill was also right in another way though, she needed to be with her father. With every passing day her grandmother understood why young people were blessed with the adventure of raising children. Their younger minds, spirits, and bodies were better able to deal with the adventure of raising children. She had never raised children of her own. By the time she had finally married at age forty, she still had years of space duty she had to endure, and then Michael’s father died the second year of their marriage; never giving her the chance to raise their children. Michael was a young marine when she had first met the young man who would become her son. She had raised Jill. Joyce had raised the girl as though Jill was her own child. The retired admiral was the closest thing to a mother that Jill would ever have, as Jill’s mother had died in childbirth. Although rare, it still happened.
Knowing that he still had years of space duty, Michael had helped her buy the large estate on Mars that she retired to. Letting everyone think he had helped her buy it when in fact he had purchased the old property and then went on to update the property. By the time they moved in, only EmpQuar, the home of the emperor was more secure. When her son, she never thought of him as a step son, had non-dependent tours, where he couldn’t have his family with him, Jill stayed with her grandmother. For most of Jill’s toddler years her father had many no dependent tours with the Black Guard. Even when he later joined the
MPs he still had few dependent tours. As such Joyce had mostly raised her granddaughter.
A few years later when he had been injured he had been assigned to the Capital Marine Barracks as the Chief MP for the capital. With the new assignment he had been promoted to Chief Master Gunnery Sergeant. He had received the new position based on his second Imperial Medal of Honor and being bestowed a Knight Commander of the Empire. For a handful of years he had been home to help raise Jill. She hadn’t realized that she needed the help. Unfortunately that didn’t last.
“No Jill,” Grandma Wilson said sadly, “as much as I would like to; now’s not the time.”
The next morning Jill was gone. She had left a note that simply said, “Gone to dad’s
I’ll write!”
She never did write her father a more private note thinking the sooner she got there the better. Then she could have it out with him.
By the time Admiral Wilson found the note, the girl had been gone nearly eighteen hours, and had already cleared Earth space.
###
The end of class of bell rang and the cadets began to file out. When they were gone the princess who had been hanging back while the others filed out was noticed by the general.
“Yes princess,” the general asked.
“General,” Princess Lisa asked, “I have been trying to find something about grandma Jill’s real mother, not grandma Lisa, can you give me any place to look?”
“Not much is known about the Queen‘s birth mother,” the general replied, “We know she was an only child. We think her parents were part of a free trader crew. Lord Wilson met her on the Bella station when his Hospital Patrol Ship was docked. He was part of the Special Forces unit assigned to the ship. For about a year the two ships were on the same schedule and they began their romance. The best we can tell Killeen’s parents were pacifists and strongly objected to their daughter’s romance and marriage to an imperial marine. They objected to the point of shunning her when they married. They never knew they had a granddaughter.”
“I see.” the young princess commented softly, “The other thing that has got me bugged is that when one of my friend’s father was posted MIA, she was very angry. She’s still not over that business. Yet there is little mention of how Queen Jill felt about her father abandoning her and discovering him on Trena.”
“Have you read her diaries?” the General asked.
“I didn‘t know she kept any diary,” The future queen of Home commented, “Would they be in the library?”
“Yes,” the humbot said as she made a call to Librarian AI. Within seconds she had found the diary, “See the Librarian. He has a copy for you. They are all hand written. And the queen’s handwriting was never the best. You might find the information you seek in them.”
“Thank you ma’am,” Princess Lisa left the class room. During her free time that evening she went to the library and began to read her great grandmother’s diary.
Chapter 2: Journey to Trena
It was a week later and Princess Lisa was hurrying towards Marshal Langtree Hall where their history class was being held. She had been reading Queen Jill’s diary, trying to understand more about her great grandmother when time had gotten away from her and she was late to class. She was almost to the hall when a voice yelled, “Raw Meat!” “Yes Sir,” She came to attention.
“I didn’t give you permission speak,” the second year cadet yelled, “Aren’t you supposed to be in class?”
“Yes sir!” she answered wondering if she was getting more grief because of who she was.
“Why,” the second year cadet asked, “aren’t you?”
“I was studying sir and time got away from me,” The Princess answered.
“Let me see your butcher bill,” the cadet asked, “You have to learn how to better use your time wisely.”
The cadet knew what bill he was talking about; she uncovered and took her demerit book out of her hat. The Princess handed the book that held her demerit record to the senior cadet.
“One demerit Cadet!” the senior cadet said entering the demerit in her book, “for being late!”
“Yes sir,” the young woman responded. The Princess recovered her book and put her cover back on and saluted the cadet until he saluted. When he was gone Princess Lisa visibly slumped and hustled on to history class.
“Glad you can join us cadet,” the general called as the young girl entered the classroom. “Take your seat.”
She had been looking out the window as the class assembled and had seen the upper classman hand out the demerits and had decided to not add salt to the wound. She smiled a bit remembering when she had been first assigned to academy two centuries before. She always thought it a miracle there were so few resignations over the way the senior cadets tenderized the raw meat, as they called their hazing of the first year cadets.
“Now that we are all here,” the general began, “We’re going to talk briefly about Queen Jill’s journey to Trena.
“Being a security officer in my early career it has always amazed me how easy it was for Jill to get to Trena,” the general continued, “But she did.”
As the general began speaking the young Princess settled down to listen to the senior officer.
###
She had been surprised at how easy it had been to get a ticket to Trena. She had her military dependent’s ID and what appeared to be a letter from her father requesting that she join him on Trena where he was supposedly part of the permanent MP unit stationed with the Imperial Marine contingent at the Imperial Embassy on Trena. She had spent most of the night working on a set of forged documents that supported her trip to Trena. The Empire even paid her fare. As the daughter of a serving enlisted man, going to join her father, on his current assignment, were dependents were allowed, they paid for the fare. Although her ID showed her current status as the daughter of a marine enlisted man; the cloned human who was the shipping lines ticket clerk recognized the name. The girl’s documents were plainly forgeries. The clone thought for a second and allowed the girl to travel. As the girl went to the waiting area, the Beta biowoman quickly created new documents for the nervous girl.
“Miss Wilson,” the bioengineered woman came up to the girl as she waited to be called to board the shuttle to the liner, “I need to see your papers again. I think I messed up
on the bookings.”
Jill nervously handed the ticket package back to the clone, afraid that she had been busted. She looked around nervously expecting to see her grandmother or the MPs to take her back to her grandmother’s home. But no, the clone handed her the ticket package back. Jill didn’t notice at the time that the clone had switched her papers out. It wasn’t until she was on the shuttle did Jill realize the ones she had been handed back looked more official than what she had started off with. In fact what she received from the clone were the official forms filled out with all the official seals and documentation to accompany them.
Unknown to Jill she had stumbled onto one of the station masters of the Biopeople’s Underground Railroad. Biopeople escaping their indentures sometimes needed help to get to safety. The railroad modeled after the underground railway of the 19th century or 3rd century before empire that helped to get the slaves of that era to freedom. The Imperial Bureau of Justice knew of the railroad and some of the station masters on the road, the bureau made no effort to shut it down. This was not the first time this station master was breaking rules, the Beta bioperson had done so for others less deserving souls than Sergeant Wilson’s daughter. She was not to allow norms, non-bioengineered humans, to use the railway. Although the girl wasn’t on the railway, the biowomen let the station masters down the line know Jill Wilson was on her way to Trena, to be with her father.
Like many of her brothers and sisters the beta biowoman would do anything they could to help this marine, including seeing that his daughter could join him. The girl’s family had sacrificed much for the biopeople. This girl’s grandfather had been killed trying to infiltrate an EBio world. As Jill’s shuttle launched to the liner, a fast mail boat was taking a piece of innocuous mail to the other stations on the Trena route of the railroad.
Once aboard the Star Mist, Jill found herself in a cabin that was considerably tinier than any room she had ever slept in. Although she would have preferred something larger, as a marine dependent she couldn’t ask for any special privileges. Jill caught the aroma of fresh cooking, feeling suddenly ravenous she went in search of the dining room and found the line for breakfast. While waiting in line for breakfast, she saw a man who she recalled as having been in her father’s MP unit at the Marine’s Capital Barracks on Earth, noticed her. He had obviously left the marines and was now one of the security officers on the liner.
I’ll have to greet him before we land, she thought to herself.
John Gordon recognized the young woman standing in line for breakfast. He was pretty sure he had seen her with his Sergeant at the capital barracks when she had visited her father. Sergeant Wilson’s, his sergeant, had displayed holos on the back of his desk in Sarge’s office at the Capital Marine’s MP headquarters. She was older, but John could see that this was the same girl. Sarge had helped him get his stuff together and now although he had left the Marine Corps, he was still in law enforcement, at least generally, and he felt he owed his old sergeant a favor or two. John had been on duty the night Chief Master Gunnery Sergeant Wilson had left the barracks with a prisoner, who it turned out that he owned. On arrival at Aeries Station, he decided to send a message to the girl’s family, to let them know that Jill had gotten that far safely.
At Aeries Station, a Captain from the Interstellar Rescue Service, who had dined with her grandmother quite often, saw Jill as she left the Star Mist heading for her next connection. The Captain, who was in route to his next duty station, where he would become the Commander of the Space and Air Group on board the attack carrier War Spear, offered to buy her dinner.
Jill felt fortunate that her grandmother’s friend would offer to treat her to a meal. She didn’t leave home with many imperials and was wondering if she would have a vending machine dinner of a nutrition bar and a cup of water, this would be much better. She eagerly accepted his kind offer. Over dinner as they spoke, Jill was surprised. Jill had thought it would be the typical conversation of a friend of her grandmother’s making nice to her. It was far from that.
“Where you headed Miss Wilson?” the man asked as he held her chair while she sat.
“Trena,” Jill said, “Grand mom wants me to be educated at the Trenaport Boarding School.”
“What you do? Tick off the Iron Maiden so she’s sending you away?” the captain used her grandmother’s nick name.
“No! Grandma Wilson thought that getting off Mars for a while to go to a school outside the Empire might be good for me.” Jill replied, “It was my choice to go to Trenaport
Boarding School.”
“I have heard of that school,” The Captain said, “It is very good. They have a lot of our service kids there, even a few others, including some Thonians. It’s a great melting pot. My wife spent some time there. It’s in Trenaport isn’t it? Will you be boarding at the school?”
“Yes,” Jill replied.
“Trena’s a beautiful place.” The captain continued. She had little or no idea what Trena was really like. So she settled back and listened to the captain.
“My wife grew up on Trena,” The captain said, “Her father was a member of the Marine contingent at our embassy there. I’ve been back with her a couple of times. It’s a beautiful world. If you get a chance you should go over to Princess Falls. It’s a water fall that is breath taking. It’s a horseshoe that drops into the ocean on the west coast of Main. The thing has got to be three or four miles across. Getting there about sunset makes the water sparkle as it catches the spray and causes rainbows all over the area.”
“It sounds beautiful,” Jill remarked. Jill had learned a long time ago with all the military officers that frequented her grandmother’s table that they often saw sights and things that were not always the horror of war, or of human suffering.
“It is,” the captain said, stopping long enough to order their meal, “But you’ll want to check out Trenaport Beach. There is one section that seems to stretch on forever, pristine sand that just goes on and on. The crown has prevented any housing or development on it so there is nothing on it. You can walk for miles without seeing another person. It’s just like it was when James McAllister found it four hundred years ago.”
She listened to the officer talk about Trena. He suggested that she go to the north of Trenaport to see the ice caves. Surprisingly it was an enjoyable dinner with the captain.
Never once did he ask how she was doing in school. He treated her as an equal not the granddaughter of a senior officer.
As they finished diner he commented, “I hope you enjoy your time on Trena!” It was obvious the captain hadn’t heard about the Trena disaster.
Jill would remember this all her life. He escorted her to the ship that would take her on the next leg of her journey.
The Captain, in a letter to his wife that night wrote how he had stumbled across the admiral’s granddaughter, and how the young woman had carried herself. Commenting that for a young lady of her upbringing, her manners were better than half the young supposedly officer material candidates that were coming out of the academy.
###
The station master for the Underground Railroad on the Rio Lobo space station was an old prostitute known as Thunder. Through the imperial mail boat that made the trip from Earth Space to Rio Lobo in a third of the time Jill’s liner did, she had received word that the daughter of Sergeant Wilson was on her way to Trena via Rio Lobo. Trena was one of the final destinations on the railroad for biopeople fleeing EBio and the empire. When she later learned that the girl had ran away from her grandmother’s home on Mars, she was torn between helping the authorities to return the girl to Mars, or helping her on her way to Trena. Thunder was pondering what she was going to do when the beat cop for the neighborhood where her bar was located, came in for a cup of coffee. She tried to hide the photo of the girl from the cop; but she wasn’t fast enough.
“What do you have there, Thunder?” the cop asked as
she poured him a cup of coffee. He picked up the photo of Jill. “Pretty girl, is she one of yours?”
“Did you ever hear about a Sergeant Wilson in the station’s MP unit?” Thunder asked knowing she wasn’t going to be able to get around this young cop’s questions, nor did she want to as he sometimes, though unwittingly, helped her get her passengers along the railway.
“No,” the cop replied.
“He was before your time. He was a Marine MP,” Thunder continued, “who helped me out years ago when one the officers off an IRS hospital ship had raped me. He made sure that sorry piece human offal was sent to Dungeon.”
The young cop nodded he knew of Dungeon. It was a prison world where the empire and other star nations sent the very worse of their criminal element they convicted.
“Anyways that’s his daughter,” The old prostitute continued. “You haven’t seen her have you?”
“No.” The young man asked, “I haven’t, why?”
“Her ship is due today or tomorrow,” Thunder answered. “Could you keep an eye for her? I owe it to Sarge that she is looked after on her lay over.” “What do you want me to do?” the young man asked.
“Let me know if you see her.” Thunder asked. She had decided that since the girl was going on to Trena one of the destinations on the railroad that she couldn’t risk blowing her cover and return the young woman to her grandmother. But there was no reason why she couldn’t put the fear of god into her old friend’s daughter however. She was going to look after the girl just not in the way the young cop thought.
###
The next ship of the journey was not as spacious as the first one. To Jill’s astonishment she found that they could fit a room in an even smaller space than the last one. It held just a bed, a wall light and two drop-down shelves which would have to be raised at night in order to sleep without banging into them if she got up in the night to go to the toilet down the passage. Lucky me she thought, that I didn’t bring much with me. Food wasn’t as available either. The crew on this ship wasn’t as pampered as the last one either, and Jill found that because she was on a dependent fare she had to eat in the crew mess. After she got used to the hours though; she really liked the crew meals. The crew was generally friendly and easy-going. One of the purser’s crew had been very helpful, showing her where everything was located on the ship. They kidded and joked with him about adopting a mascot. She didn’t care as it made her feel a little less lonely so far from everything she’d ever known before.