Cassandra's Challenge (4 page)

“I was looking around the ship, getting my
bearing, the hatch was open I came in.” Cassandra decides less was
more.

“Chief?”

“I found her looking at the laser targeting
system, she didn’t touch anything.” He says quickly. “She just
started asking questions.”

“Since when are questions a bad thing?”
Cassandra demands.

“It’s part of our defense system.”

“I was asking about the laser, not the targeting
system,” Her eyes start to blaze into the Admiral’s. “Hell it’s not
like I don’t have the clearance….” Suddenly Cassandra stops
realizing she doesn’t have any clearance, not here, the fire in her
eyes quickly dies. Looking away she says nothing. The room is
silent.

“Admiral,” The Chief risks the Admiral’s fury.
“What we were arguing about is the same thing any second year cadet
would argue about. Nothing specific to the Retribution.” Leander
looks over at Cassandra, she intrigues him. “She has
knowledge.”

The Admiral looks at the Chief. He’s known the
man since he was a boy, had served with his father. He trusted his
judgment.

“You have what you need and the time?”

“Yes, sir.” They both look at Cassandra, who is
frowning at them trying to figure out what’s going on.

“Nothing that’s not common knowledge Chief.”

“No sir.”

“Then carry on, keep me informed.” With one last
look at Cassandra the Admiral leaves.

“Would you mind telling me what just
happened?”

The Chief looks at the small woman, wondering if
he’d done the right thing. “You’re going to school.” He tells her
in his best intimidating voice and is surprised by her
reaction.

“REALLY!!” She gives him a blinding smile.
“Where do we start?”

For the rest of the day the Chief works between
his engineering duties and Cassandra, giving her volumes of
information, mostly in digital form on his comm center. He’s
somewhat surprised at the rate she is digesting the material. When
she has a question it’s direct and to the point. Looking at the
time he interrupts her.

“That’s enough for today. I need to get my
daughter from class.” Leander shuts down the screen. Cassandra is
about to protest when what he says penetrates.

“Class? What time is it?”

“1545”

“Crap! I need to get Tori.” She looks at the
Chief. “Can you send this to my comm center? I’d like to work on it
later.”

“Where you at?”

“G43.” The chief pushes a few buttons and the
information is sent.

“Now I need to go.”

“Thanks.”

Leaving engineering Cassandra discovers that the
chief’s daughter is in the same class as Victoria. They arrive just
as class is getting out. Leander’s daughter runs up into his
arms.

“Papa!” With a quick hug he puts her down and
together they walk off.

Cassandra sees Victoria coming out of class and
can tells that she’s not happy.

“Bad day?” Cassandra asks quietly and just gets
‘the look’.

“Hey! How’d it go?” Lucas comes up all smiles.
The faces that turn to him have it fading.

“I think it’s been a long day, let’s head back
to quarters. You think?” Cassandra looks down to Tori, who just
nods and takes her Aunt’s hand. “We’ll see you later Lucas.”
Turning she leads Victoria away.

Sitting on the couch Cassandra turns to
Victoria. “So what happened?”

Victoria raises miserable eyes to her. “This
teacher…educator, is acting like I’m stupid or something!”

“Did she give you any home work?” Tori hands her
a sheet. “That’s it?”

“See she thinks I’m stupid!”

“What were the other kids doing?”

“They were working on screen.”

“Okay, how about this, tomorrow we will go in
early and I’ll talk to the…educator. See what can be done. Did you
make any friends?” Cassandra asks changing the subject.

“Not really, there is this one girl. She’s my
age, her name is Amina. She smiled at me a couple times.”

“Well that’s a start at least.”

Walking to engineering the next day, Cassandra’s
feeling confident about Tori’s day after talking with educator. She
seems honestly interested in helping Tori to adjust to her new
setting and is willing to teach her at the same level as the other
kids to see where she is in their learning process. The girl called
Amina happened to be the Chief’s daughter, when she’d gotten to
class she’d come over to talk to Tori. It was a good sign.

Passing through engineering Cassandra enters the
Chief’s office impatient to get started she doesn’t see the Admiral
until she literally runs into him. Gripping her arms to keep her
from falling Cassandra’s surprised eyes shoot to annoyed ones.

“Admiral.” She takes a quick step back, his
hands releasing her. Moving past her the Admiral leaves
engineering.

That woman is driving him to distraction, the
Admiral thinks as he heads to the bridge. Here he is, checking in
with the Chief on her progress, personally, when a call would have
been enough. But he’d wanted to see her. Her running into him had
caught him off guard. He hadn’t touched her since he’d brought her
onto the Retribution. It annoyed him that he’d wanted to pull her
closer instead of releasing her. Entering the bridge the Admiral
pushes thoughts of her aside.

“So what have you got for me today?” Cassandra
turns from the Admiral’s retreating back to the Chief. The
Admiral’s obvious annoyance causes her heart to ache for some
reason.

Not sure what he’s just witnessed the Chief
looks at Cassandra. For the Admiral to personally come down to see
how far they’d gotten yesterday is unusual, for him to not verbally
acknowledge her, even more so.

“You can start up where you stopped yesterday.
I’ll be out in engineering.” He rises from his chair.

“I got through the rest of that last night, but
I have some questions.”

“You finished…the entire file?” The Chief sits
back down. There’d been over a thousand pages remaining in that
file, detailed pages.

Cassandra sits down across from him, pushing the
Admiral out of her mind. “I have a few questions regarding to the
configuration of the Kryer system in relation to the crystal.” As
the Chief answers her questions and they discuss differing options
the day flies by.

Victoria is all smiles as she comes out of class
that afternoon. Seeing it, some of Cassandra’s concerns ease.

“Aunt Cassie, this is Amina.” Tori grins at a
girl standing next to her. She’s just a little taller than Victoria
with long blonde hair and brown eyes.

“Hi Amina, I’m Cassandra.” She smiles down at
the girl.

“Hi!” Amina voice is sparkly. “Mama! Come meet
Cassandra and Victoria.” Cassandra turns as Amina’s mother
approaches. While her hair is brown she and Amina share the same
eyes.

“Hello.” The woman says in a polite if somewhat
reserved voice. “I’m Javiera Michelakakis.”

“Cassandra Chamberlain.” Cassandra holds out her
hand, the other woman shakes it firmly. So this is the woman her
husband had told her about last night. “You’re Chief Michelakakis
wife.”

“Yes.” Is all the woman says. “Come on honey, we
need to go.”

“But mama I want Tori to come with us.” Javiera
looks from her daughter to the little girl.

“Not tonight,” Javiera looks at Cassandra.
“Maybe another time?” Cassandra can take a hint.

“Not a problem, we need to...”

“Hey!” Lucas interrupts with a big smile on his
face. “Oh, hi Javiera. So how was it today?” Lucas asks looking
down at Victoria.

“Good! This is Amina, my new friend.”

“Well hello Amina.” Lucas turns smiling at her.
“Any friend of Victoria’s is a friend of mine.” Amina giggles.

“So do you ladies have plans?” Lucas looks from
Victoria to Cassandra.

“Looks like we do now,” Cassandra replies. “It
was very nice meeting both of you.” She tells the Michelakakis’ as
they walk away.

Walking towards their quarters Cassandra asks.
“So what’s got you in such a good mood?”

“I back on the flight schedule.” Lucas
grins.

“What’s that mean?” Victoria asks.

“That means I can fly missions again.”

“But…” Victoria looks at Cassandra.

Cassandra knows where this is going and quickly
opens their hatch. “Let’s go inside.” She gives Lucas a pointed
look.

“Sure.” He gives her a confused look.

Once the hatch is secured Victoria starts. “You
can’t fly again Lucas!”

“Victoria, that’s what I do.”

“No
!” Running to Cassandra she buries her
face in her stomach. Cassandra shoots him an angry look.

“What!” Lucas looks on helpless.

“Can you really not figure it out?” She kneels
down to console Victoria.

“Hush now. Victoria, hush.” But she’s
inconsolable.

“Lucas you need to leave.
Now
!” Confused
he leaves, not sure what has just happened.

“Tori calm down, it’s okay.”

“No! What if he gets hurt again? We won’t be
there to help him!”

“Shhh….Victoria, you know who the Admiral is
right?” Cassandra’s grasping at straws.

“Yes. He’s Lucas’ dad.”

“That’s right, do you think he’d let Lucas fly
if he wasn’t good at his job?”

“But he crashed.” Cassandra had known this was
coming.

“I know baby, but he didn’t die did he? He knew
what to do to stay alive. You have to trust him to know what he’s
doing now. Trust that the Admiral knows what he’s doing.”

“But what if he
dies
, Aunt Cassie?”

“That’s not going to happen.” She prays she
isn’t lying. “Trust him, Victoria.” Exhausted even though it wasn’t
even 1800 Victoria falls asleep in her aunt’s arms.

Lucas can’t figure out what just happened.
Victoria was having a good day, she’d been all smiles and laughter,
had made a new friend. What went wrong? Looking down the corridor
he sees his father approaching.

“Lucas, what’s wrong?” The Admiral knows his
son.

“Are you heading to quarters?”

“Yes.” Lucas follows him into his ready
room.

“I don’t understand women.” Lucas bursts
out.

The Admiral goes still knowing he’s is talking
about Cassandra.

“No man really does.”

“I mean, what’s the big deal. I’m back on the
flight schedule. That should be a good thing right?”

“I take it that didn’t go over so well.” The
Admiral tries not to visualize Cassandra upset about his son.

“That’s an understatement. First she’s all happy
telling me about her new friend then she’s all upset. Cassie’s
trying to calm her down, telling me I should be able to figure it
out and then orders me to leave.”

The Admiral stares at his son. “
Who
is
upset?”

“Victoria
! She’s crying and hugging
Cassie.” Lucas looks to his father. “What did I do?”

William turns away, looking at the painting of
the setting suns of Carina. Finding he’s relieved that Cassandra
isn’t the one his son’s talking about. Piecing together what has
happened he turns.

“She’s scared, Lucas. Victoria’s scared. She’s
in a new place, new people. You’re someone she’s come to depend on.
You were on Earth, on the Raptor, now here. It makes sense that
knowing your flying again would scare her. She’s scared to lose
anyone else.”

Lucas looks at his father. “What do I do? Shit,
I don’t want her upset.”

“You do your job.” The Admiral tells him
forcefully. “She has to understand that this is what you do. And
you come back. Every time.”

In the middle of the night Victoria sits up
screaming.

“NO! NO!”

“Victoria! It’s okay! I’m here!”

“Fire! Fire!”

“Shhhh, open your eyes, there’s no fire here.
Victoria! Open your eyes!
” As the frightened child does she
sees her Aunt and the room beyond her.

“Your safe, Victoria there is no fire.”

“Aunt Cassie….”

“Shhh….it’s ok, I’ve got you.” Cassandra rocks
the weeping child. Every night it’s been the same, nightmares of
being trapped in the fire. But tonight it’s worse. Cassandra knew
it is her fear of losing Lucas. When Victoria finally falls back
into a fitful sleep Cassandra tries to too, knowing it was going to
be a very long night.

Over the next week, Cassandra and Victoria
develop a routine. Tori’s adapting quickly, developing a close
friendship with Amina. While she’s still having nightmares they are
starting to lessen in severity. Lucas stopping over every couple
days to check on them helps.

Cassandra’s learned all the ‘common’ knowledge
of the laser system, the Chief with the Admiral’s permission is
moving on to the areas more specialized for the Retribution. And
while there have been no more ‘run ins’ with the Admiral, Cassandra
does occasionally see him in the corridors. He gives her a quick
glance then ignores her.

“But you can turn it into a backup system with
just changing out the chips here, here, and here.” Cassandra points
on the schematic to the Chief.

“Well yeah it’s possible, but
look
where
it’s at. It’ll take a good hour to get the casings off to get to
it. In an emergency, that’s too long. Besides we have a backup
system.” The Chief argues.

“Then what’s this access hatch and ladder for?”
Cassandra argues back.

“For once the casings are removed. You’re little
enough you might fit but otherwise….”

“Ah, ah, very funny, you know I used to be
considered big.” Cassandra and the Chief have started to become
good friends.

“Only around a bunch of kids.” He jokes back.
“Speaking of kids I’m supposed to ask you if Victoria can come for
a sleep over next week, Amina having a couple classmates over.”