Sacred Honor

By Michael Black

Vic was an orphan, and she was unhappy. The only person in the orphanage she felt comfortable with left, she was even more unhappy, so she left too, sneaking out after dark one day, having no idea what to do or where to go. She only knew she had to put distance between her and the source of her unhappiness. She didn't know what she was looking for, but when 'it' found her, Vic learned more than she had ever known...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michael Black
• Release date: Nov 19, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463589427

Michael Black

I was born in 1948, to two delightful parents, in Brockton, Massachusetts. From about 5 years old I knew I loved Science Fiction and Horror movies. I graduated from Braintree High School in 1966. The Military draft was going strong then, and since I didn't want to be conscripted, I joined the Naval Reserve the next year. From 1968 to 1970 i served on my first ship, going to the Mediterranean on one 6 month cruise, being released after my 2 year obligation. From 1970 to 1972 I did Weekend Warrior time on two reserve Destroyers once a month, and two weeks in the summer. Just before my enlistment was up, I found I liked the life of a sailor, and reenlisted in the regular Navy, for the remainder of a twenty year carreer.After that, I went to work for a private Ship Yard, and spent the next 24 years working on more Navy Ships, making much more money of course. I retired in 2016, and have been learning how to enjoy retirement ever since.

Book preview

The woman approached the small orphanage carefully, hesitantly. She knew what she had to do, but it was so hard. In her arms she carried a small wriggling bundle, a baby. Not just any baby, but her own child, and she had to abandon the girl. The woman was sick, very sick in fact. The ship she had arrived on was an exploration vessel, and she was one of the Science Officers that made up the crew of the ship. Their last stop, a planet orbiting a classic ‘G’ type star, was unremarkable in itself. But its fourth planet had some very interesting structures placed randomly around the surface. More like what was left of structures, anyway, and the survey proved to be rather a waste of time, as there weren’t any artifacts at all, just empty buildings, and fragments of some. The find had been properly cataloged though; perhaps some other survey would make an astounding discovery later on.

Apparently they did find something though, or it found them. When the star ship stopped off at this planet, Scion, to replenish their stores, the crew began to come down with colds. That’s what it looked like, and the Medical staff at the hospital didn’t think it unusual, and prescribed the usual antihistamines. All was well, until a week later two of the crew simply died. The symptoms had pretty much eased, but their whole system just shut down; one moment alive, the next moment not. That got everyone’s attention. The only one of the crew that didn’t get a cold was the woman’s daughter, because, it turned out, the baby had never left the ship. The baby was fine, and doing what babies do. The woman still hadn’t come down with it either, but she could feel the tickle in her nose. She knew she would follow the rest into oblivion.

The planet Scion’s Medical staff even quarantined the crew only for a week, once they were sure that it was not contagious. No one else had ever been infected. Apparently the ‘bug’ was a very personal, one shot deal. You had to visit the planet of origin to be infected, and then come in contact with the bug itself. It did not transfer from host to host, it was not contagious. That planet of origin did indeed get quarantined with a 00 Classification, meaning ‘Zero Contact and Zero Chance of Recovery; and all the proper warnings were sent out telling inhabited space NOT to visit.

As the rest of the crew died one by one, the woman grew more frantic. What would happen to her precious daughter, there was no one she knew here, and the local government would just put the baby in an orphanage anyway if she turned her child over to them. But if the woman took her there herself, at least she would have her daughter close for just a little while longer. So she steeled herself to accept the inevitable, and when the full symptoms attacked, she made the long journey to the small orphanage.

The woman made it to the front door of the orphanage, tears already in her eyes. Because she had waited, it was full dark out, after midnight in fact. The door was locked. Knowing she had little time, she placed her baby on the doorstep, in front of the door, and kissed the girl.

My precious, know that I love you, always and forever. We cannot be together, but I will be watching. Be safe, and live well… With trembling hands, the woman cupped the tiny face, and gave her one last kiss. Then she tried to make the long trek back to her ship. She almost made it…

When the first of the staff arrived just after sunrise, they found the small bundle lying on the steps. The woman had left a note explaining who the girl was, and asked them to care for her, but as fate would have it, the note blew away in a gust of wind, never to be seen again.

All that remained of her identity was a small name tag on her tiny ships coveralls. Three fourths of it had torn off, and only three letters were left. It said:

‘Vic’

As was customary and compassionate in those times, the government buried all of the ship’s crew, even putting small headstones above each grave. Then they notified the corporation that owned the ship to come pick it up. With the distances involved, and the company’s interests in other sectors of space, they never did; and the ship was eventually placed in the planet’s ‘junkyard’…it was an older ship and truth be told, was of little use to anyone way out here.

Chapter 1

Brave New World

Vic was an orphan and she knew that. She had been found on the doorstep of the orphanage one morning, wrapped in an old blanket to keep her warm. There was no note attached, no hint of who she was or who had left her there, just a torn nametag with ‘Vic’ on it. So all she had was a vague memory of a pretty face hovering over her, and tears raining down on her; a ghost of a face, and the remembrance of a gentle kiss. The orphanage took her in of course, but not for strictly humanitarian reasons. They were a business after all, and their subsidy increased with each child they took in, so putting Vic on the register was, for them, a smart business move rather than a sign of compassion.

Life in the orphanage was a bit harsh, simply because life on this entire planet was a bit harsh. Scion was way out on the edge of explored space, merely a footnote in the Republics catalog of inhabitable worlds. It had little real value in terms of precious minerals and heavy metals, but Scion did have one good point. The popular Garaad beans grew quite well here, while they grew poorly most anywhere else. About 50% of the populace grew them, with the other 50% growing the essential foods for survival. Similar to coffee beans in their end use, Garaad beans produced a delightful hot drink when ground up and steeped in water, with a fruity taste and just a touch of cinnamon to enhance it. Garaad Beans were the major export from Scion, and allowed the population to improve their lives in an agricultural society, or at least the higher echelon did. Many towns had popped up all over the planets single continent, and the one large city, Chandler, had prospered. It was the seat of Government, as well as the central point for all produce slated for shipment off world.

Vic didn’t care much about all that, but it had been included in the skimpy ‘schooling’ she had received in the orphanage. What she did care about was the shabby treatment all the kids were put to on a daily basis. Oh, the staff wasn’t cruel or anything like that, they just didn’t hold the children’s welfare as their first priority. So Vic and the other kids found themselves in the dubious class of being the ‘workers’ that kept the orphanage fairly clean.

There was little time for what they ‘liked to do’. Vic, for her part, liked to repair things. Not just ‘liked’ to fix things, she really loved to dig into every strange broken device and make it work.

And she was good at it too. Vic could take any broken toy and make it ‘almost’ brand new. Mechanical devices, little or big, became her own toys, playing with them for hours on end. Once the staff noticed the trash heap getting smaller, they accorded Vic the lofty title of ‘Fixer’. While it didn’t get her any special treatment, she did notice that the staff no longer called upon her to clean up the orphanage; at least not as often anyway.

Vic had been at the orphanage for eight years, which made her about nine years old. The endless routine of work was beginning to wear on the young girls mind. In fact, the only real reason she had not run away, was ‘Gramma", the old woman who impersonated a ‘Doctor’. The government required the orphanage to maintain a ‘Resident Staff Physician’, but stopped short of requiring a licensed Doctor. Since Gramma had been a medic in the Republic Marines, she knew more general medicine than many licensed practitioners; and the government turned a blind eye to the paperwork.

Most of the children didn’t even know that Grammas real name was Ariel Kishner, and many of the staff didn’t either; but Vic did. Everyone simply called her Gramma, and everyone liked her, including Vic. She didn’t realize it as such, but Vic actually loved Ariel Kishner, the old woman represented something she wasn’t aware existed anywhere; a feeling of family.

So it was a major disruption when Gramma announced to the staff, that she would be leaving. The woman had been in with the administrator, ‘discussing’ how to improve the orphanage, and make the children’s existence there better and happier. Being a businessman and more interested in revenue than children, the discussion devolved into a shouting match, which lasted all of twenty minutes. Ariel came storming out of the administrator’s office, and shortly thereafter was packed and ready to leave.

To say that the loss of ‘Gramma’ had a profound effect on Vic would be an understatement, at the very least. It made her mind up for her though, in less than an hour. She would venture out into that ‘great unknown’ beyond the front door...

Three days later, Vic took her own leave from the orphanage, not quite an escape, but close. She packed the only things that meant anything to her, her small bag of tools she had collected over the years, and left one night in just the clothes she wore.

Being out in the world was scary for Vic. They had a play yard outside in the back, so they knew open sky, but few if any of the kids had ever ‘gone’ anywhere. So, as Vic began her journey, she had little idea of ‘where’ she was going. She was a smart young lady though, and knew instinctively that people would be looking for her in the morning, so Vic took to the back alleys and tried to remain unseen. She simply had to maximize the distance between her and the orphanage. Going out into the desert was out of the question, people died out there, she had seen the news.