The Ascendant Stars - Michael Cobley [15]
‘Why am I not surprised?’
As they headed forward and then up more stairs, Greg heard how several days ago Ash was carrying out a stealth mission on Nivyesta when he was captured by the Uvovo. Greg remembered hearing about this from the Sentinel, details which Ash confirmed, how the Uvovo scholars had neutralised the binary bomb in his chest. Ash gave a brief account of how he and Uncle Theo were rescued from pro-Hegemony Tygrans by Franklyn Gideon, captain of the renegade Stormlion troopers. It ended with the encounter with the Tygran Marshal Becker aboard his flagship, and the intervention by a bizarre vessel sent by the Roug, an ancient and mysterious species.
Ash finished up as they entered the bridge, a split-level space narrowing towards the forward viewport. Its curved transparency glimmered at the edges with data feeds and system graphics of one kind or another, but it was the view of Darien that held Greg’s attention, a bright blue and white orb set against the hazy swirls of interstellar dust which blurred the stars into glimmering haloed jewels.
Home. The pang of yearning he felt was unexpected, and conflicted with his thoughts of Catriona and an instinctive reluctance to leave her behind. But leave he must.
Commander Ash settled into the captain’s chair and attached comm devices to ear and mouth. A moment later he was in conversation with one of the other two bridge officers whose stations sat on the lower level. He nodded and turned back to Greg.
‘We’re still out of the effective range of the portable communicator back on Darien. Another twenty minutes and we’ll be able to establish a secure link.’
‘Thanks,’ Greg said. ‘I appreciate your efforts. In the meantime, there’s a wee gap or two in my understanding … ’
‘You mean how we came to be here?’
Greg nodded. ‘Was it the result of a clash of politics?’
Ash frowned. ‘On Tygra we don’t have your kind of political debate. We have been a military society for so long that many aspects of public provision – health, education, or power supplies, for example – have remained universal due to a consensus of necessity. Resources are not plentiful, which has led to restrictions on market influences. Our energies are instead directed towards improvements in our combat abilities and readiness. There is honour in battle and the love and litany of battle forces certain responsibilities on every Tygran soldier.
‘But our principles are only as strong as the men and women who live by them. Marshal Becker was corrupted by the Hegemony and in turn he has corrupted the commanderies, the Bund and Tygran society … ’
The Bund was the semi-elected council governing Tygran society, and the commanderies were like regiments, each with its own history, tales, axioms and heroes.
‘Becker is unhesitating in his compliance with the Hegemony’s needs,’ Ash went on, ‘no matter how cruel and ignoble, even if it means Tygran troopers using the all-enclosing Ezgara armour when deployed in Human-centric environments. Captain Gideon and the Stormlions are implacably opposed to Becker’s poison, thus we have become outlaws, criminals to be hunted down. It was in the captain’s mind to head for the Earthsphere to find commercial security work, but then he met your uncle. He convinced Captain Gideon and the rest of us that Darien was worth fighting for, especially after … ’
Ash fell silent, sentence incomplete, his face clouded by some underlying anger which Greg decided to avoid for the time being.
‘Darien is certainly worth fighting for,’ he said. ‘But it’s my people that are worth dying for.’
Ash gave him a look of faintly surprised approval, then pointed at an auxiliary console to the right of his own. ‘Mr Cameron, there’s a seat there which swings down … that’s it. Now, are you hungry? I can have some food and drink brought for you.