Transmission

© 2019 by Walter Reimer


Thumbnail art by  ahro


The Kiss Me in the Dark had left Moncayo, headed to Jokauke with its holds full of grain, without Meredith receiving a reply to her message. The mare sat back in her seat as Jax and the day shift crew looked after things, and tried very hard not to look too concerned. Hyperspace communications sometimes took a while. Any responses might be waiting for pickup at the waypoint beacons.

As she sipped her morning tea, Jax remarked, “We’re at Waypoint 837-k, Captain. Datapacket downloading.”

She hurriedly swallowed her mouthful of tea and said, “Maybe some good news.”

“Wouldn’t be hard,” the rat said. “Heard a rumor that the Confed was sneaking around.” The senior engineer grunted noncommittally at that.

“So far,” Meredith said, “we’re neutrals, and I haven’t heard any reports about the Confed going after cargo ships.” The others glanced at her and she added, “Yet.” That drew mordant chuckles.

The freighter passed the waypoint and continued on to Jokauke, uneventfully. After another hour, Meredith went on an inspection tour of the ship, from the dining hall to the engine core and back, stopping to talk with the cargo handlers and off-duty crewmembers before returning to the bridge. It was something she’d picked up from observing Gartabin k’Jen; Captain Kodai normally delegated such tasks to underlings, preferring to stay on the bridge or in his office.

The mare found that she preferred the kam’s approach to command. At least it worked well with a small crew.

She took a late lunch in the dining hall, and after finishing the meal she unfolded her padd and accessed the datapacket. There was the news, which she laid aside (no sense in ruining her digestion), and there was mail. A large percentage of it was for the rest of the crew, requiring each fur’s personal ID to open, so she left those alone.

That left the mail for her, eleven messages in all. Nine were from Transcosm, detailing the ship’s itinerary and the cargoes to be picked up, the companies she would be doing business with, etc. One was from the Colonial Diplomatic Team’s headquarters on Moncayo, thanking her formally for bringing the castaways of the Tau Beta to their attention.

The final one made her chest tighten and her heart skip a beat.

720144CFI3636
From: 2131982 D’Estcourt, Javid, Marie and Thea
To: 1872900 D’Estcourt, Meredith

Meredith hurriedly closed her padd, taking her glass of fruit juice with her and going to her cabin. Once she’d closed the door and sat down, she composed herself and reopened the file.

It was her father, Javid. The dark iron-gray stallion grinned at her as he said, “My little Sunflower! It was a surprise when your message showed up, and a welcome surprise indeed. Ukwehe said that it’d take longer than it did to re-establish communications; I’m very glad, and so are your mothers, that he was wrong about it.

“We’re glad that you’re well, and are staying out of trouble for once.” His daughter rolled her eyes and bit back a snort of laughter. “Marie and Thea are nursing your brothers right now, and I’ll be bringing the imager in so they can say hello after I bring you up to date.

“We lost communications shortly after the Kashlani crossed the border. From what we were told, it was interference, and not that the hypercomsats were destroyed. The planetary defenses were still online, and our patrols were constantly on alert. I have to applaud Ukwehe, actually. The elephant really earned his pay the past few weeks. Sort of redeems him a bit in my eyes.”

Javid took a drink of something in his mug; it was steaming slightly, so Meredith guessed that it was his favorite coffee. “Ah. Anyway, more than a week ago the news broke that a Kashlanin ship had come out of hyperspace and was asking to talk to This Far’s government. They assured us that they were unarmed, and had no warlike intentions. The meeting was shown to everyone in real time.

“So much for what we’d been hearing from the newsnets coming from the Core. We’re not conquered, so no worries about that. The representative was from their Political Monitors Ministry, which sounds a bit odd, but they just want to make sure that we are neutral and will stay that way. When you think about how many ships we have, yeah, Ukwehe folded like a padd.” The stallion chuckled.

“So we’re all fine here – there isn’t even a garrison - and now that we have comms back you can talk to us a bit more frequently, please?” He grinned like a colt as he set his mug down and picked up the imager. “Well, that’s all the news we have right now.” He brought the device closer, making his features balloon at his daughter. “We’re all so glad that you’re safe, Merry.” He kissed the imager pickup, and chuckled as he wiped it clean. The image rocked and moved about as Javid gave it to one of the palomino mare’s mothers.

“Hello, Merry!” Marie said, the piebald mare’s ears dipping as little Javamir nursed at her breast. Marie angled the pickup to show Thea waving in the background. Her son Javiberto was sleeping cradled in her arms.

Meredith felt tears in her eyes, and wiped at them while Marie brought herself back into focus. “I’m sure Javid brought you up to speed about the news. We carried on after New Horizon got destroyed, as you might expect. We are pretty far away, you know. I did have an idea after the Empire showed up, and I hope the management approves it – “

“You know they will,” Thea said.

Marie gave her a look. She was a good one for looks; one, Meredith knew, could stop an errant filly from doing something wrong. “Hmmph. I had an idea at work, and brought it up to the management. Since the shlani aren’t likely to go back across the border, why not add something to our manufacturing base that we can trade with?

“So I went to the managers and suggested that we set aside part of the meat farm – just a few tanks, to see if it’ll work – and start growing meat for shlani? It might require a few changes, since we’d be working with a non-Terran biology, but if it works another export will mean more money coming in.” Her expression suddenly grew distant and the imager wobbled as the piebald mare shifted her colt from one nipple to the other. “Well, it might work. But leaving that aside, Merry, we all miss you and we were worried about you. I know Javid probably forgot to say it, but we all love you. Here’s Thea,” and she gave the padd to Meredith’s birth mother.

Meredith’s smile grew wider and her eyes threatened to mist over again as the older palomino looked at her. “Hello, sweetie. Berto’s sleeping so he can’t say hello to his sister – of course, at the rate you’re away, he’ll be in school when you get here again.” She chuckled to take the sting out of her words. “Things have been quiet with me, just work and looking after the colts while Marie’s at the meat farm. Javid pitches in when he gets home from work, of course.”

“He’d better,” Marie chimed in.

“Damned right,” Thea said, and they both chuckled. “Anyway, I don’t want to talk for too long. Berto takes a lot out of me, and I could use a nap. I love you, Merry, and I hope you get back to This Far soon.” She then gave the padd back to Javid and the stallion stepped out of the room.

Javid looked a bit shifty. “No, I didn’t forget, no matter what Marie thinks; I’m not going soft in the brains. I love you, my darling daughter.” His face drew back as he put a paw to his lips and kissed his fingertips, placing them below the imager as his eyes gained a wistful look. “We’ll . . . we’ll talk to you again.”

The screen went dark, followed by a series of numbers and letters that indicated the route the message had taken.

Meredith’s tears made it hard to see, though.