Day 100 on New Earth...
Daniel sat on the couch rocking Selene, wishing the little one would stop crying. It was like she hated being held by a man, Justin even had problems with her. Shushing the babe, he heard and saw Kara running for her cellphone for the first time in weeks. The living room didn't give her much privacy for her conversation, the whole downstairs was completely open with no complete walls or doors to close.
"Thrace." She said and there was a long pause. "Absolutely fine." She nodded while talking. "Yeah, yeah." Now she was biting on her lower lip. "No, not a problem at all." She ran her hand quickly through her hair. "No, of course I don't mind. It's okay. Don't worry." She went back to biting her lip. "Alright... Okay... Bye, Sir." She lowered the phone and pressed the end button. "Shit!"
"What was that about?" Daniel asked with Selene now whaling her little heart out.
"Davis, he wants to talk to me at the base over my stupid busted ship and that signal they found coming from Earth." She walked into the living room from the kitchen with her hands out to receive her spoiled daughter.
"Didn't Justin warn you about this yesterday?" He asked placing Selene in her arms. Instantly his granddaughter settled down. He rolled his eyes as he stood up from the couch.
"Yes, but I thought he was joking. I didn't think he was serious." She adjusted Selene on her shoulder.
"When is Justin ever serious with you? Only time I remember was when you were in the hospital after the crash." He walked over to the kitchen to pour some coffee in his empty mug and started making Kara her tea. "Tea, Kara?"
"Yeah, sure. I need to get ready. I'll feed her real quick, Tristan's already asleep, I'll call Nikki to see if she can babysit so you can take me to the base."
"Yeah, sure." He said. "Just let me go take a shower."
"It's going to be like thirty minutes until we leave, so don't rush." She said while walking over to the stairs already on her cell again.
Kara was still on maternity leave for one more week and Justin wouldn't let her drive just yet. Even though the base was fifteen miles from her house, there was no driving at all. She felt like she was fourteen again, having her mother drive her to places but that was once in a blue moon. Half of the time she left and took the light rail or bus. Now that she was twenty-seven, she felt foolish. But in a week she didn't even know if she wanted to drive. What she did know, she frakkin' wanted to fly.
She had been working on getting her body back in shape to fly again. She hated how her stomach was her biggest problem. Though she really didn't gain much weight from her pregnancy, the twins really stretched out her stomach. Justin told her to take it light until a couple of weeks after giving birth. She saw a couple of weeks as two and went to work on toning herself. She was glad to see her feet again, but hated looking in the mirror without a shirt on. In the mornings, she went on light jogs and quit as soon as her body told her too. At night, she would watch TV and do sit-ups and push-ups. She didn't want Dr. Ass riding up her ass for over doing it.
Kara fed and change Selene within twenty minutes, giving herself ten to get ready. She hopped into the shower, leaving the door open so she could hear the twins. But knew they wouldn't wake up until another three hours at the earliest. Her shower could have been a sponge bath it was so fast. Quickly she wrapped the towel around herself leaving the ground wet were she walked. Carefully and quietly, she opened her dresser and closet to get her uniform and underwear. At least she liked this officer uniform unlike the uniform she was wearing over a month ago. She didn't feel like the Russian Circus was in town, pitching their tent up as her uniform. She slipped on her bra, underwear and socks, then the khaki pants and tanks. Looking at her dresser mirror she braided her hair into her military ponytail. Still she was debating on cutting it, but it had grown on her. Grabbing her shirt from the bed, she began smoothing the wrinkles out of it. "Should have ironed this."
Then it happen. This time she had to hold onto the dresser or she would have hit the floor.
There's a young pilot with brown hair, blue eyes and just in a towel in the Pilot's Quarters with her. "Anyway, she says she's not gonna lose the vote." He says putting on his boxers under his towel.
Kara stands up from the bench from just lacing her boots. "She says a lot of things." Then walks over to her locker to grab her jacket and sees there's blood still on shoulder of the jacket.
"Don't you think you should wash that?" The guy asks her, still with no shirt.
"I did." She grabs her towel and begins to wipe the blood off.
"Like when, a month ago?"
She puts the jacket on anyway with the stain. "Do you have a problem with my hygiene?"
"You have hygiene?" He asked walking to get his towel.
She grabs a cane and puts it in her right hand and walks away from him. "I clean up good sometimes, all right?" Then limps her way out of the room.
He wipes the water dripping from his forehead. "Well, let me know when it's one of those times."
"Gods." Kara moaned through her teeth. She then looked at the mirror again, breathing deeply like it's her last one. And another one hit her.
She pokes around the goo infested machine's insides. "Come on... you're part biological, right?" She continues to cuts tubes around her. "Which means that you need oxygen, right? So, it's gotta be here... somewhere." She finally cuts a tube with a hissing sound. She puts her O2 meter in front of it and it turns green. Unlatching her helmet, she gasps for air and sticks it in her mouth. Her lungs fill with the rich O2 from the machine, even though the smell of the machine was Gods awful.
"Shit!" She yelled at herself. If another came she didn't know what to do. Her head was throbbing in pain, then she heard a slight knock on her door that made her jump.
"Kara, is everything alright? I just came up here to see if you were ready and I just heard what you said." Daniel said from the other side of the door.
Kara took another deep breath before answering. "Yeah I'm fine..." She inhaled again. "Just hit my toe on the edge of the dresser. I'll be downstairs in a few minutes."
"Okay, well Nikki is here. I guess I'll go warm up the car then."
Kara grabbed her shirt and began buttoning up the front. "Okay." She said while looking at her Major rank insignia on her collar and then the Poseidon insignia patch on her left arm. For some reason this whole uniform was wrong in many ways.
Inside the crib, Tristan and Selene were sleeping peacefully. Kara smiled, wrapped the blankets around them tighter. "I'll be back soon. You won't even notice that I'm gone." This was the first time Kara would leave them behind and not take them with her. It felt like her heart was being torn from her body. But then remembered that this had to happen at some point. She grabbed her jacket from her bed and the baby monitor then left the room to go downstairs.
Nikki looked up when she heard Kara coming down the stairs. Out of all the clothes Kara could wear, a military uniform was the last on her list that she thought Kara would look good in. She laughed to herself. "Well, well Kara. I see khaki is the new black for you."
Kara walked over to the door to put on her boots. "You're just jealous that Justin and I have matching uniforms and you feel left out." She smiled up at her while she laced her boots. She pushed her ponytail back over her shoulder while she stood back up. "Okay, if I'm not back in time for a feeding, there's some milk in the freezer. Just put the bottles in the bottle warmer. Make sure you burp them after four ounces. Make sure they are warm, I don't want them to get sick. I hate those head caps but if you notice they are getting cold, put them on." Kara handed Nikki the baby monitor.
"Yes, yes, Kara. This isn't my first time babysitting them." Nikki said holding out Kara's jacket she picked up from the front entry way table.
"Last time I was taking a nap upstairs. This time I'll be fifteen miles away." Kara was freaking out. She felt like she was abandoning her children. Taking her jacket from Nikki, she put it on and opened the front door.
"Your father will be here to help too. I promise nothing is going to happen. They'll sleep and that's about it. You might not be there as long as your think."
Kara pulled out her cellphone. "Call me if anything..."
"Would you just get going, you're making the house cold." Nikki pointed to the door and shoved Kara outside to close it.
The walk to the car felt like miles. Kara looked up at her bedroom window and stood there. The honking of her car brought her out of her trance and hopped in.
"Hey." Her dad said, handing her a cup of hot tea. "You don't need to worry, sweetie." He put the car in reverse, rolled out of the driveway and was driving off.
The glare Kara gave him was not necessary but any mother would give it at a time like this. "Call me if anything. I mean anything goes wrong, call."
Before Kara knew it they were at the base. The officer at the gate asked for an ID badge, Kara flashed it to him. She was finally back on base, the first thing she heard was the sound of the F-22's engines that were taxing on the landing strip. Oh she couldn't wait until Justin gave her the okay to fly a F-22 or the new model of space ship that they copied from her Viper. Daniel pulled up to Kara's building and quickly Kara hopped out of the car. "I'll call you when I think I'm about done here, okay?" Daniel nodded and drove off.
After keying in the security code, she stepped into the busy corridor. A few officers welcomed her back, while a few didn't even look at her. Blowing them off, she walked down to Davis' office, wanting so badly to be going in the other direction instead. She didn't want to deal with this today or tomorrow or ever. Looking at pictures or the ship itself wasn't going to bring her memory back of how she got here. It was pointless and senseless to her. Raising her hand, she knocked on the door, telling herself not to worry about this.
"Come." Davis called and she entered the room. "Ah, Eris. Come in, come in. Have a sit." He pointed to the chair in front of him. "You are looking good for a mother of two infants, if I may say so."
'What? Why was he doing this? All this small talk, just get to the point!' She thought to herself. Kara sat in the chair, placing her hands in her lap. "Dr. Bracken told me you wanted to see me, Sir."
Davis stood up while grabbing a file from his desk and walked over to her. "We pieced together your ship. I assume Bracken told you." Kara nodded. "Good, so we can skip this introduction then and get you out of here sooner." Handing her the file, he continued on. "So do you have any clue as to why there's a signal coming from Earth?"
Kara shrugged her shoulders as she looked through the file. "I could have pushed it when I was crashing but I crashed on New Earth not Earth. It doesn't make sense if that's my emergency locater beacon. Why don't we send someone out there and take a look around? It makes sense to me if we did that. I mean we have the resources to do so. Though nothing like this has been done before. You have built defense battle ships but never really used them."
"We built those ships just in case there's an attack on the planet." Davis said while taking a sip from his coffee cup.
"There never has been an attack on New Earth. Those ships just sit out there, so plan a mission. I bet there will be tons of volunteers that want to go out and see space." Kara hinting she was one of them.
Davis chuckled. "I look at you, Thrace, and you remind me of my daughter."
Kara's eyebrow arched. "So, she's both a handful and determined?"
He chuckled again but this time longer. "No. I was going to say she's stubborn and brilliant but yes to your answer too. I was thinking about the same thing. A mission and the N.E.S. Poseidon and the Hephaestus have just been assigned for this mission. But I need head CAG and well put together squadron that I can trust."
That's when it hit her, her eyes widened. "Excuse me, Sir, but are you asking me?"
"Eris, do I have to ask? I give orders and they need to be cared out."
"I... I... Yes, Sir." She kept her cool, though she was jumping with joy inside. She thought she would be stuck in an office for months before they let her in a ship again. Now Davis was putting her on the front line.
"I understand that you might be worried about your children." Davis said walking back to his desk.
"I was more worried about Williams, Sir. He will not allow this. He hates me and will find a way to stop this."
"Nonsense, he can't touch you now. It will take us almost three months to reach Earth with our new jump systems. It would have taken a year with our old ones. That gives you more time for training yourself and some new nuggets. You will be head CAG and flight instructor for both ships. Now back to your children."
"I can't leave them behind now, they're only a month old!" She yelled at her commanding officer. She would not take the offer if she had to leave them behind and her father too.
"Control yourself, Major!" Davis snapped back at Kara.
"Sorry, Sir."
"Now, I can not bear to make you leave them behind. They still need you and since your "brother"," he said using the quotation marks with his fingers, "will be on the ship as head medical, the Commander and I do not see a problem with your family coming along. The mission has also allowed some scientist and non-military personnel to come along as well. So Bracken's wife and your father will be coming along too."
"Uhm, Sir? That's against protocol isn't it?" Kara asked. This wasn't following any command or protocol she was used too. 'Non-military personnel on a military ship? What is Davis trying at?' She thought to herself as she rubbed the back of her neck. She had to make him understand that he shouldn't do this just because of her. "The government is allowing this?"
"The President sees this as a learning experience and approved it. The Poseidon and the Hephaestus depart in two weeks. The mission has been scheduled. You have your orders as the new CAG. Pack your things... well just pack your father's house." He said while walking over to the door. "You're dismissed."
Kara stood up and saluted. "Yes, Sir." She walked back into the corridor and down to her office to get a few things she needed. 'What the frak just happened?' She asked herself. 'Davis has gone off the deep end to allow this or is there something that they are hiding from me?' Once in her office she picked up her phone. "Hey Dad where are you?... Yeah you should have just stayed. So turn back around and I'll met you at the gate. I have some news to tell you." She hung up her phone and right away there was a knock on her door.
Spitfire and Jinx both were standing outside her door. They had just graduated from her class with another instructor but they were the top two students from her first group of space flight.
"Good morning Captains. What brings you to my cold corner of the base?" Kara asked while sitting at her desk.
"So are the rumors true, we're leaving for Earth, Sir?" Spitfire asked.
"Yes that's my question too and Major Thrace?" Jinx asked walking up closer to Kara and leaned against the wall. "It's good to see you around here again. Maybe since you're here you, can go and control Hawk and Thor since Davis can't. They have been messing up their landings..."
"Like that's a surprise." Spitfire added in.
"... and there's been problems." Jinx continued.
Kara held her hand up to silence both of them. "News travels fast, uh?" Both pilots nodded. "Well technically I'm not here, so don't tell me all of the problems you be having. I'm still on maternity leave. And besides they are big boys and need to put on their big boy panties on if they want to go on this mission." Kara then went back to working on her computer. She needed files on all pilots in the area that could qualify for this mission. It didn't take long to download the files, put them on a jump drive and log out. "You two need to just focus on flight." She grabbed her jacket and walked up to both of them. "Now which one of you want to take me to the gate?"
tbc...
And review... thanks... some of you are great guessers!! But you're going to have to wait and see.
Please let me know on this chapter... I'm iffy on it, just threw it together last minute. I should be studying for my ENT (ears, nose and throat) test for tomorrow but I wanted to finish this.
