In the system of Sol is the Capital planet of the Terron Kingdom called Earth, also known by the much older name of Terra. It is the third body in a system of many diverse planets and moons. Mankind used his knowledge to terraform a few of the other planets in this system, but the mother world of the human race still remains much as she had always been. Her vast blue oceans and lush green lands were made naturally and are still rich with an assortment of life forms. The Terron capital of Utopia is far from the largest city on Earth. Throughout history there are many other, much older, better known cities that were once considered to be the center of the world. As the Kingdom of Terra grew a new capital was needed to handle the ever growing needs of a bureaucracy to support it. The Terron council decided to build it on the oldest soil known to have been inhabited by man, the continent of Africa. Mary was staring out the window of the tall Terron Civil Defense Center building. She could see the busy streets far below and a good deal of traffic in the skies all around her. Utopia was very much alive. Many hover cars blew their horns as they made way through the thick traffic. Everyone seemed to be in a hurry, working hard to support and control the small, but still important Kingdom of Terra. She looked up at the slender majestic skyscrapers that surrounded her building. The largest and oldest of these towering structures was the capital building where the council's meeting chambers and living quarters were when they stayed on Earth.  Far above the buildings she could just make out a few small spacecraft and atmospheric transporters flying high among the clouds. The bright yellow sun hung high above it all, giving everything the warm glow of a noon day sun. Mary let out a loud yawn. She had been living on Earth for almost a year now she still had not gotten used to the longer day and night cycle. Oma, her home world, had a twenty plus hour a day cycle which was much closer to galactic standard time. She stared off into the distance in a dreamy gaze. She smiled and thought about the old days back home with John. She remembered the last time they were both at the mountain park under a tall blue Sasif tree late at night. There under the stars they made love again in their favorite spot. Their nude bodies glistened in the glow of the stars. Many flowers and trees filled their noses with sweet smells. She rejoiced as the scents filled her lungs. Mary let out a soft grown remembering just how wonderful it all was. “It's all just too much for me,” suddenly said a man busting Mary's world like a flimsy soap bubble. Mary awoke to see a couple of fellow co-workers walking by her. The man was tall, lean and well dressed in a modern pink suit. The other was a burly blonde lady with short hair wearing a dark top and matching slacks. Mary looked down at her simple plain purple dress. It was a far cry from the more expensive garb most of her co-workers wore. Since John had been drafted he had lost a good chunk of his earnings. This was one of the reasons Mary had to find work to help pay her bills. Most of their saving and banking funds were taken offline after the Empire invaded Oma. “…and now they want to be able to get married!” the blond exclaimed. After seeing Mary nearby she continued in more of a hushed tone and asked the man, “Can you believe it?” Oblivious to Mary's presence the man also asked with a chirp, “How can you have a marriage with more than two people?” “I was telling my wife this has to be stopped,” the blond softly replied. “Oh I know, even my husband thinks so too,” the man interjected. “What's next, marriage to robots?” added the blond looking utterly appalled by the thought. The two continued talking as they made their way down the hallway. Their discussion made Mary wonder just how old fashioned her marriage to John must seem. Mary walked off in the other direction and headed back to work. She entered a large room full of sectioned off cubical spaces. She slowly made her way towards her workspace. The room was full of the soft hum of workers talking to each other and all the other subtle noises they made as they did their daily tasks. Mary finally made her way to her small cubical space. It had a small chair and a corner desk shelf with a holographic computer terminal. She had a few pictures of John and his ship, the Sandra, on the cubical wall, but not much else. Mary sat down in her chair and with a soft sigh she places her hand over the empty terminal access area. A beam of light quickly scans her hand and disappears. Mary retracts her hand and a holographic flat screen display appears with a three dimensional keyboard. In the display area bold green letters appear reading, “Access Granted.” A soft warm computerized voice then says, “Welcome Mrs. Marret.” An image of a holographic meadow appears in the rectangular defined screen area. In the middle of it appears a tall blue Sasif tree, causing Mary to smile. Then numerous file icons floated around the screen and begin to line up one after another. They quickly begin to cover the entire view of the meadow and the tree. A large blue screen appeared with a number of select options. Mary reached for one of them so she could start working again on organizing yet more files for the CDC. Just as she was about to touch the holographic screen she stopped and looked up at the right hand corner of the display to see the time and date. “Hum,” she mumbled to herself, “I've still got over ten minutes before my break is up.” She moved her finger down to the bottom of the screen and selected the network access option. The blue screen was covered up by a white one with a number of options on it. Quickly Mary selected a search engine option. Within seconds she was furiously typing on here keyboard of light. Once she was done she looked up and the screen changed. The word “searching” flashed on and off on the display before her. After waiting for a few moments the screen displayed in the white search area, “Last know location: Earth…” Mary smiled, finally after all this time she had finally gotten a lead on her sister. It's been a long time and Mary has only been able to check the galactic network from work. With all her budget concerns having a home system, much less network access was out of the question. Then just as the system was about to give her more details the holographic screen and keyboard controls dimmed then disappeared. From behind her a sharp loud voice barked, “Mrs. Marret!”     A tall plump man dressed in a crisp, long sleeved, formal, white uniform stood at her cubical entrance. He stared down at her with contempt. His cold brown eyes burned through her and his red hair seemed to glow as if it were aflame. The wrinkles on his forehead packed together tightly as he continued to rage, “Mrs. Marret what in the hell are you doing? You know network access is strictly for work related duties only! We have been monitoring your access via hyper wave to other systems on numerous planets.” From behind this odd fellow Mary could see other co-workers popping up from their cubicles to see what was going on. “And exactly who the hell are you anyway?” Mary snapped back and stood to face the man eye to eye. Taken by surprise the man took a step back and out of Mary's cubical. Then with a quick snort he replied. “I am Mister Uona, I'm the new Manager of Operations of this center Mrs. Marret.” “It's never been an issue before as long as I'm not on the clock. I still have a few minutes of my break left,” Mary grunted. “Since the previous manager did not understand how to run things properly I enacted a new policy on this matter. You should have been informed that this was no longer to be allowed via memo,” Uona quipped back. By this point a number of Mary's co-workers were out of their cubicles and watching the heated exchange. Even the tall, lean man in the pink suit and the burly blond lady were now hovering nearby. “I'm only using it to find my sister Mister Unoa,” Mary explained. “She's been missing for…” “Why don't you just do that from your home system,” Uona interrupted. “I can't afford it any longer since my husband had been drafted,” Mary quickly snapped back, offended by Uona's interruption. “We all must make sacrifices in order to ensure our freedoms Mrs. Marret, besides our systems should never be used for such trivial matters”. Uona said wide eyed with all his forehead wrinkles squeezed together. Mary exclaimed, “I don't think finding my missing sister is a trivial matter Mister Uona!” Mister Uona stepped back, spun around and headed towards the level elevators. “I see we have an attitude problem Mrs. Marret. I shall advise Level One personal of this matter immediately,” he said as he walked away. Uono's words echoed in Mary's head while she was wondering where she could find another job. Mary realized a few of his words had a strange familiarity to them. She had experienced that voice, some of those words, and a feeling of anxiety before. Just like a light had been turned on in her head she came to a startling conclusion. “Mister Uona, when was the last time you were on Oma?” Mary asked with her eyes narrowing on the man. Uona, suddenly stopped, he bit his lip and slowly turned around to face Mary. The audience, whose attention he was enjoying so much before, now annoyed him. “Get back to work! There's nothing you need to concern yourselves with here,” he snapped at them all. Slowly they all started to creep away until Mary said, “Oh no, let them stay and hear it all, the entire story.” “Mrs. Marrent I'm sorry for over reacting. We can discuss this matter further in my office,” said Uona as beads of sweat formed on his wrinkled brow. “I don't think so,” she replied glaring at Uona. “I've had enough of this,” Uona grunted and made his way out of the room of cubicles and down the hallway towards one of the elevators. “Oh no,” Mary exclaimed and was quickly on Uona's heels. She found Uona in the hallway at the elevator. Uona was franticly waving his hand over the access panel to call the lift. He and Mary both knew it could take a while before one would arrive. Mary slowly came up to Uona and stood a few meters away. She was unaware there was a crowd of people behind her. “I told you all to get back to work!” Uona yelled. Mary looked back to see all her fellow workers, even the pink suited man and his blond lady friend was there. Slowly, they all started to turn around and walk away because of Uona's order. “Oh no, let them stay Mister Uona. I'm sure they would like to hear what you've got to say,” growled Mary. A few in the crowd continued to leave, but the rest stopped and turned back around too at the behest of Mary. Mary grabbed Unoa by his left arm and demanded, “Tell them! Let them know what a great man you are!” “You know as well as I there was nothing we could have done. It was best just to give up, it saved lives.” Uona replied avoiding eye contact with Mary. “But that's not the point! You were only concerned about your own worthless skin!” snapped Mary “Just what could I have done?” Uona moaned looking at the floor. “You could have negotiated with the Empire to buy time for withdrawal, organized some more peaceful surrender, Hell I don't know. The fact is you didn't even try,” snorted Mary as she glared at Uona. “Mrs. Marret please!” Uona screamed as he shook his left arm trying to loosen Mary's grip. He managed to get free from her but ripped his left sleeve in doing so. Upon inspecting the damage Uona yelled, “Shit!” and his face turned red with rage. Looking Mary in the eye he barked, “Mrs. Marret I'm going to call security and ask for your immediate removal!” Mary clinched her right fist, swung it and screamed, “You son of a Bitch!” It struck evenly on Uona's jaw causing him to collapse with a heavy thud. He landed on the hallway floor just past the elevator doors. Uona looked up at her shocked. A small drop of blood dribbled from his lower lip. He slowly rubbed his jaw and felt the warm wetness on his hand. Quickly he looked at the blood on his hand and froze. Not with fear or terror, but from the shear reality of it all. “Ah,” exclaimed the pink suited man after seeing the blood. He fainted into his burly blond companions arms.      “You left Oma before the Meant fleet even got there. You didn't give a shit about anyone except yourself. You damn coward, how could you do that to us!" yelled Mary at the top of her lungs shaking her right fist over Uona. She raised it and prepared to strike the man again.      Just as she was about to let loose of the swing it was stopped. From behind her some one had grabbed her right wrist. Quickly she turned to find out who would dare try to stop her. A tall, dark, handsome man wearing a blue uniform stood in the now open elevator smiling at her. “Mary, my, my.” He scolded, more with his eyes than his soft warm voice. Mary bolted into his arms and began to cry. She sobbed out loud to him. “He didn't do anything, he didn't even try. Oh John how could he do that to us, his own people.” Looking down at her John softly replied in her ear, “I don't know dear. He may not even know himself.” Quietly he led her, arm in arm into the lift. They stood there a moment and looked at one another. Mary tried to dry her eyes with the backs of her hand. She was even able to smile up at John. “Don't get used to it Hon. I can only stay for a few days. Our fleet is to be stationed in this area for the time being, but I won't be granted leave much,” calmly said John with a long smile. She cuddled him as he hit the holographic first floor button inside the elevator. She sniffled and a tear flowed down to her chin. John gently wiped it away. As the doors closed she purred up at him, “I'm going to enjoy as much of it as I can.” Uona rose to his feet, looked over and stared at them. Once the doors were closed he let out a long sigh of relief.  ©Lee Crystal's Outpost 13 All rights reserved