Light Up My Life

Done the film star, now it's the rock star. All song titles don't exist (except 'Wish You Were Here')I haven't actually written any lyrics for any of the songs, they wouldn't be as good as they should be.

***




Excerpt from the interview with Dave Barrett in the Magazine ‘New Rock’.
NR: You seem to be coping with your increasing fame rather well?
DB: I suppose I am. I’ve always just taken things as they come, not taken them for granted. I’m happy to be well known, but if it all went away I hope I’d still be happy.
NR: No tales of booze, pills and groupies from you then?
DB: (Laughs) That’s because boringly, there aren’t any. I won’t deny I like a drink now and then, but never to excess. As for drugs, well, I find the buzz from performing more than enough.
NR: And the groupies?
DB: They’re still around of course, but not as many as in the days of the rock giants. Some unbelievably pretty girls have made it obvious what they’re offering but unfortunately for them I’m still hung up on a girl I went to school with.
NR: Does this girl know?
DB: (Shaking his head in sorrow) No. I never told her how I felt.
NR: Any idea if she is going to be at the special concert you’re holding in your hometown in a few weeks?
DB: Unfortunately I don’t know. But I can hope. (Wry smile)

***

“Hello out there.” I said as I came out onto the stage, peering out through the evening gloom at the thousands of attentive faces, one or two I thought I recognised. “It’s good to be home.” This elicited a huge cheer from my fellows. The free outdoor gig in the park where I had hung around as a kid had been my idea. One reason was that I wanted to give something back to all those fans who had been there at the start: The people who went to the tiniest places just to see me play and set me on the road to fame. That was the explanation I gave to everyone who asked, but there was another reason.
“Lets start with something I know you all want to hear.” I told them. With that we launched into ‘Torn Between Pink And Led’ the song that got me noticed. A song about two rock behemoths and how they inspired me.
We went through most of my back catalogue from the loud ‘No Line Between Rock And Roll’ to the quieter ‘No Fool But Me’ with one or two Floyd and Zeppelin covers thrown in for good measure. We played for over two hours and then did a couple of encores before we played ‘Wish You Were Here’, our usual finale.
Everybody expected the stage lights to go out at this point and most of them did, but one spotlight stayed on, focused on me. I had one more song I wanted to play; a new song, sort of.
“That last song doesn’t quite say what I want to say. What I actually want to say is ‘Hope You Are Here’ and it, and the new piece I’m about to play for you, are both for a girl who is special to me, who I really do hope is here. She doesn’t know who she is, because I never told her back then, but maybe someday I will. This is called ‘Light Up My Life’.”
I began to play it as I’d written it, just me and an acoustic guitar, how I’d started more than fifteen years ago. It wasn’t a long composition, just four verses and no chorus; a simple ode to an unrequited love.
As I finished, the last note hanging in the still night air for a moment, I looked down at the stage. The crowd was silent for a second then exploded into cheers and whistles and calls to hear the song again.
“Glad you like it.” I looked up and smiled. “But the curfew is up, no more time allotted I’m afraid. Thank you all and goodnight.” The spot went out and I left the stage, the cheers still ringing in my ears. I was immensely proud of the reception that ‘Light Up My Life’ had got. That song was the other reason I’d wanted to do this gig. It wasn’t really a new song; I’d written it a long time ago, before ‘Pink And Led’ even, but I felt that I wanted it’s first outing to be special, at the right time and in the right place. This was definitely the right place and I’d decided that tonight was finally the right time.

***

I had invited as many old school friends as I could contact to a club after the gig. I moved around greeting most of them and they all had the same question: Who was the girl in the song? It seemed to be the main topic of conversation. I just shook my head, telling them that it was a secret for now. Apparently there was no real consensus as to her identity, but a lot of suggestions. Some serious, some ridiculous, but no one mentioned the one name I knew it was. Eventually I sat down with what most people would have realised were my ‘core’ friends: John, who had introduced me to the freedom of playing a guitar; Andy, his younger brother, who had been the drummer in a short-lived band we’d had at school; And Gary, an old neighbour who had been the singer in the same band. The band had broken up because the other three, Andy, Gary and a bass player called Rob, thought they might be holding back the guitarist; me. I would have been happy to keep gigging with them even now, but they insisted I was destined for greater things and encouraged me to strike out on my own.
“I reckon if anyone can work out who this mystery girl is, it’s us three.” John said with a smile.
“Go ahead, you’re welcome to try.” I smiled back. I had known it would be like this when I’d introduced the song that way and was determined to keep quiet.
“Okay then,” He paused, “She’s most likely a copper-top, you always seemed to have a thing for a redhead.”
“No point in denying that.” I laughed.
“Probably in your year at school.” He continued.
“Maybe, but not necessarily.”
“And most likely someone we’d not suspect.” He finished and rubbed his chin in thought.
“Never in a million years.” I smirked, but thinking ‘Not bad, he’s nearly there’.
“I know! It’s Mad Mandy!” Gaz shrieked.
“Mandy Ellis? The girl who thought it was funny to kick every boy on the shins at least once a week? You’re kidding right?” I laughed. “And she was a blonde, you berk.”
“Sounds like true love to me!” Andy added.
“Pillock.” John said before going back to his original line of thinking. “It isn’t Miss Harmsworth the music teacher is it? You seemed to spend a lot of time with her.”
“That was because she was helping me write music and teaching me to read it as well. Though I will admit she did have red hair, she was a good ten years older than us, well me, anyway. She was just pushing me in the right direction.” I said.
Not long after I’d first begun to play the guitar I’d gone to see Miss Harmsworth, the junior music teacher, to ask for her help with an early version of ‘Light Up My Life’. She had been delighted to assist me, showing me how to read and write music; she had helped me get ‘Light Up’ finished and even gave me the idea for ‘Pink And Led’. It was also Miss Harmsworth who suggested I try performing some local gigs on my own after the band had split up, even finding the first few for me. If any one person was responsible for setting me on the road to music as a career it was her, so I suppose John’s guess hadn’t been that wide of the mark, but for her it had always been about spreading the love of music, all sorts of music. I was still in contact with her and she kept telling me about children with one musical talent or another. In fact I had dedicated my first album ‘Sunshine After The Storm’ to her, but few people realised that.
“I thought I had it then.” John said ruefully.
“An interesting guess, but I knew this girl way before then.” I gave them a clue before I could stop myself, I did want to tell them.
“Hey! It’s not my little sister is it?” Gaz exclaimed. “She had red hair.”
“Ha!” I laughed. “Your sisters hair was every colour under the sun at one time or another.”
“But you used to walk home with her.” Gary persisted.
“We lived next door to each other Gaz.” I reminded him, rolling my eyes to the ceiling before the four of us collapsed to the floor laughing. As we recovered I saw one of the club’s doormen trying to catch my eye. “Oh well, much as I’d like to hear more of Gaz’s strange suggestions, I have to circulate some more. I’ll catch you later guys.” I got up and walked over to the doorman.
“You requested to be informed if a particular lady arrived sir.” He said in a low voice. “Well I’m pleased to say she gained admittance five minutes ago and is now in the bar I believe.”
I had to know one thing. I asked.
“Was she alone?”
“Her ‘plus one’ was not taken up sir.”
My heart leapt.
“Thanks. There’ll be some drinks for you guys later on.”
“We will appreciate that sir. And I thank you in advance.” He said and then returned to his post. I smiled to myself; she was here!

***

I’d known (perhaps not the right word in the circumstances) Elizabeth Mary Patterson since my early school days, attending the same schools as she did without ever being in the same classes. To begin with she was just part of the background to schoolboy life, one of those kids who didn’t play football and who ran funny; a girl. As we reached our teens and passed through puberty (although not necessarily in that order) I began to look at girls differently and at Elizabeth Mary in particular. However I was shy of actually going up to her and asking her out. Talking to her was manageable; I’d been doing that for years now; but asking her out on a date? No chance. That’s not to say I didn’t go on dates with other girls. There were a fair few I did date at one time or another, but always my thoughts returned to Elizabeth Mary Patterson. She was a redhead of course, and probably the cause of my long-standing fascination, John had been spot-on there. She was a little bit on the short side but with everything in proportion to her height. By the age of fifteen she was to me the most gorgeous creature on the entire planet but I found I couldn’t tell her that. Instead I got tongue-tied and tried to make witty remarks that instead came out as banal and unfunny. I persisted with my attempts for a while but, to me at least, it became obvious that all I was doing was alienating her. I stopped because I couldn’t bear the imperceptible glazed look of ‘not him again’ that flashed across her face. She was still polite to me though, long after other girls would have told me to shove off. That politeness endeared her to me even more but I had to give up for my own sake if not hers. However she was still the girl my mind defaulted to when I was writing a song; I had to make an effort to imagine someone else. Now I wondered if I might finally be able to talk to her properly so I went to the bar area to find out.

She was standing away from the bar looking a little lost and lonely, but observing those around her. She still looked as beautiful as I had always pictured her.
“Hello Elizabeth Mary Patterson.” I said and kissed her hand. “I wasn’t sure you’d come.” There was no reaction so I felt safe in assuming she wasn’t married.
“I wasn’t sure I should.” She smiled her heartbreakingly pretty smile, her green eyes lighting up in the way I was fond of recalling.
“Why on earth not?” I asked.
“To be frank, I didn’t think the big rock star could possibly remember me and had just picked my name out of some old records or something.” She looked a little ashamed at the thought. This also seemed to be good news to me.
“Elizabeth Mary, you don’t know how far from the truth you are.” I grinned.
“My parents are the only ones who still call me that.” She grinned back.
“Well, you did tell me that’s what your name was.”
“Twenty years ago, at our first school.” She giggled. “And look at you now, famous and everything. It’s hard to believe that the writer of that beautiful ‘Light Up My Life’ is the same person who couldn’t string two coherent sentences together.”
I blushed at the praise from an unexpected source.
“So you were at the concert then?” I asked to cover up.
“Not as close to the front as I’d have liked.” She said nodding.
“No.” I smiled. “Somebody at the site told me that those at the front had been camping out for two nights to make sure they got good spots. I don’t think I would have. Not just to listen to me. AC\DC maybe, but not me.”
“Oh I don’t know. I might have if I’d thought about it.”
“You? I don’t remember you as a rock chick?”
“I’m not really. But the guy who was playing guitar went to school with me.” She smiled.
“There is that I suppose.” I grinned again, I couldn’t help it, she had that effect on me. “So you enjoyed the new song?” I asked.
“A lot.” She nodded. “I felt that it was as if it was written about me, but I can’t see why.” She laughed nervously. “I suppose a lot of girls say things like that?”
‘NOW!’ My sub-conscious screamed. ‘TELL HER NOW!!’ But I bottled out.
“Well, we did go to school together for a long time, maybe some of it rubbed off on me.” I said instead.
“You wouldn’t care to hint about who that song is really about would you?” She smiled.
‘She knows, she knows’ the inner voice said.
“I don’t think I ought to, it might cause problems.” I told her.
“I suppose.” Elizabeth Mary grudgingly agreed, disappointment in her tone.
“Listen, can we talk later? After everyone has gone home?” I asked. “I’d like to catch up with you, but at the moment I sort of have to circulate.”
“Well…” There was a hint of uncertainty in her voice.
“You’ve got someone waiting for you? I understand.”
“No, it’s not that. I just think I shouldn’t be hanging around with a rock star.”
“How about hanging around with an old school friend?” I countered but Elizabeth Mary still seemed unconvinced. “I promise I’m not going to whisk you off to some secret sex dungeon.” I smiled.
“Another illusion shattered!” She laughed. “All right I’ll wait here for you.”

Everyone was leaving noisily via the front door of the club now. I found Elizabeth Mary waiting for me more or less where I’d left her.
“Hi!” I said.
“Hi back!”
“I don’t suppose you know of somewhere we can go to talk?” I asked. “Only I wouldn’t feel right taking you to my hotel room.”
“That’s not proper rock star behaviour.” She laughed.
“No, but it is Dave Barrett behaviour.” I grinned back.
“I suppose we could head to my place, if you don’t mind a walk that is. We can cut through the park, and talk as we go.” She suggested.
“Sure. It’ll certainly fox the paparazzi out the front.” I said with a smirk. “Lead on Elizabeth Mary Patterson.”
We slipped out the rear of the club and into the park unobserved. The cool night air was invigorating as long as we didn’t dawdle.
“So then Elizabeth Mary, no romantic attachments to speak of?” I asked as we followed one of the paths through the park. It was one of the things I was still concerned about.
“Why do you say that?”
“Apart from being nosy? Well, you came alone, you’re not worried about taking me to your place, and you have no wedding band on your finger.”
“Well, you’re right; there is no special person in my life. Congratulations, very Sherlock Holmes.” She grinned. “But it still sounded like you were fishing.”
“I was I suppose.” I went red.
“Any reason?” She asked mildly.
‘Now or never’ the inner voice said. I took a deep breath.
“Because Elizabeth Mary Patterson ‘Light Up My Life’ actually is your song. I wrote it for you back at school.”
She stopped suddenly, a look of shock on her face. For a brief moment I wondered if I should have kept quiet, but I wanted, no, I NEEDED her to know at long last.
“You’re kidding right?” She said finally.
“No.” I shook my head. “I’m serious. At school I could never tell you how I felt, that was how all those ridiculous conversations came about.”
“If that’s the truth...?”
“It is.”
“…Then why wait until now to tell me? You’ve been getting famous for a while now.”
“I told you; at school I couldn’t express my feelings for you, now I’ve learnt how. And I actually have something to offer you other than pipedreams.”
“You’re offering me fame and money? What sort of woman would that make me?” She was genuinely upset at the suggestion and I knew I’d said it all wrongly. Some things never change. “I’m not some sort of gold digger. Go to hell!” Elizabeth Mary shouted and stormed off.
“Wait! That’s not what I meant at all.” I called out into the now empty night, but she was gone. ‘ You’ve buggered it up again’ the inner voice said quietly.

***

I was heartbroken and mortified by inability to say the right things in the right way to the woman I loved. I contemplated slipping into a world of despair but I realised that I had work to do. ‘Light Up My Life’ had to be got ready for release. I was going to use the live recording from the park, its debut performance. My original intention had been to leave the spoken introduction on the release but instead I edited most of it out. The producer thought it should stay. I wondered if my state of mind was clouding my judgement on the issue so we compromised and released two versions; with and with out the intro. Download sales seemed to indicate I had been wrong as the version with the intro outsold my edited version by two to one, aided no doubt by the concert footage. Still feeling sorry for myself I began to work on some new songs for another album but it became clear I needed to cheer up or I was going to end up with a totally depressing record. Then I got into a spat with the music press because I still steadfastly refused to talk about ‘the light up girl’. And was getting fed up with having to find off questions about her identity. I still felt that I had to protect Elizabeth Mary; it wasn’t her fault that some idiot guitarist had written a song about her.
I’d been trying for the past six months to get in touch with Elizabeth Mary so that I could apologise and try to explain what I’d really meant, but it was all to no avail. She refused to reply to any of my various attempts to contact her. I felt I had to do something and soon. My malaise was worsening and I was turning more to alcohol for relief. I recognised that was a downward spiral that I needed to avoid. To that end I decided that I must do something dramatic or inventive or both. The ‘all or nothing’ approach appealed greatly to me. Add in some old fashioned romancing and I might have a shot. I had found Elizabeth Mary Patterson’s address (I’d tried writing to her) so I decided to go for broke. I knew there was a good chance that I was going to make a complete and utter fool of myself at best and a very real possibility I could end my career at a stroke; but Elizabeth Mary was worth chancing everything for.
I had been investing my money in property for a while now, buying buildings, fixing them up and selling them on or renting them out, so I had bought the house where Elizabeth Mary lived by the simple expedient of offering twice what it was worth. It did cross my mind to just knock on the door and introduce myself as the new landlord but that wasn’t the effect I wanted to achieve. What it did mean was that in my plan the question of trespass became moot, or at least debateable.

***

It was a cold November evening when I finally put my grand scheme into action. Elizabeth Mary’s front room light was on as I pulled up in a battered old van that I had borrowed, so at least she was in. A possible hiccup suddenly occurred to me: Perhaps she had a boyfriend? I shrugged it off; it wouldn’t make me any bigger a pratt than I felt I was already. I pulled my old guitar and the battery-powered amp that I’d used at the start of my gigging career out of the back of the van and set them up in the front garden. It took me back to those early, simple days when I had to set up my own equipment; sometimes in rooms that were even colder than this garden! I switched the amp on and checked it was connected up properly, slightly amazed that I could recall how, and then I spoke into the microphone in the guitar.
“Hello in there!” It didn’t exactly boom out, but it was louder than I remembered. A curtain twitched aside and I saw Elizabeth Mary’s face appear. “This is most definitely just for you this time Elizabeth Mary Patterson.” I said and then began to play ‘Light Up My Life’ just for her in her front garden. I grinned inwardly as I saw a look of complete and utter astonishment appear on her face but didn’t let that stop me from finishing the song. Other residents had heard me and several of them had come outside to see what was happening, one even recognising me. After I finished I waited, hoping that Elizabeth Mary would open the front door, even if it were only to tell me I was an idiot and to get lost. That would at least provide me with some closure. So it was with some relief I saw the door open and Elizabeth Mary poke her head out.
“What are you doing you bloody fool? Get in here, people are staring.” She snapped.
I picked up my gear and followed her inside. She shut the door behind me and span around.
“Are you deliberately being embarrassing? What are you trying to achieve here?” She frowned.
“Actually I’ve achieved my aim.” I said smugly. “I’m talking to you.”
“Pardon me?” She looked confused.
“You’ve been ignoring all my attempts at communication so I devised a little scheme that I thought would do the trick, even if it was only for you to tell me to take a running jump. Again.” My smug grin began to sag as I saw the discomfort on her face.
“I’m… I’m sorry about that. I needed a couple of days to get to think about things. You telling me I was the subject of ‘Light Up My Life’ caught me off guard; shocked me in fact.”
“And then?” I probed gently.
“And then I realised what an ass I’d been.” She went red. “I said some stupid and hurtful things and I was too embarrassed to get in touch with you and say sorry.”
“No. You shouldn’t feel bad. I didn’t say what I wanted to say in the right way, it came out twisted and was easy to misunderstand.” I hung my head.
“Thank you for that.” Elizabeth Mary said, lifting my chin and looking into my eyes.
“Friends again?” I asked.
“Friends.” She said, hugging me.
“Could…could we be more than friends Lizzie?” I asked nervously, using her shortened name for the very first time.
“Maybe, if we work at it.” She smiled. I’d missed seeing that smile in person for a long time. “Hey! What gives? You called me Lizzie!”
“Everyone you know seems to call you Liz or Lizzie so I thought it was about time I did too. If that’s all right with you Elizabeth Mary Patterson?”
“Of course it is, you nitwit.” She threw back her head and laughed.
I smiled with joy. I’d finally got something right. A thought that had been teasing me popped up into my mind.
“Lizzie, how would you like to come and sit in for a while when I record my next album? I still need to finish off writing a couple of songs but that won’t take long now.”
“Won’t that reveal your secret?” She asked matter-of-factly. “I know you’ve been keeping my name out of the press.”
“That was more to protect you than me. And I think I’ve rather let the cat out of the bag with tonight’s little escapade, don’t you?”
“Very probably I suppose.” She giggled.
“So, are you interested?” I persisted.
“Well, I would like to see how it works, the whole process I mean. It’s always interested me.” Lizzie said thoughtfully.
“It’s a deal.” I said. “You do know my studio is at my home, don’t you?” I asked, the thought suddenly coming to me.
“Aren’t they always?” She smiled back.
“I mean you can stay over, if you want. No hanky panky, I swear.” I added as I saw that look cross her face again. “My housekeeper won’t allow it.” I grinned.
“Who is your housekeeper then? Your Mom?” Lizzie laughed, the green in her eyes sparkling in amusement.
“Funny you should say that…” I reddened.
“It is?” She burst out laughing. “Are you sure you’re a rock star? You’re supposed to be throwing TV’s out of windows, not looking after your Mom.”
“Says who?” I grinned now.
“Isn’t it in the manual?”
“There’s a manual?” I managed to look dumbfounded, but couldn’t keep it up. The two of us burst out laughing.
“Why do you call your Mom your housekeeper Dave?” Lizzie asked after we’d recovered.
“It’s an in-joke. She wanted a job title when I put her on my payroll.” I shrugged. “She said if she was being paid she should be doing something. I told her she didn’t have too, but she wouldn’t accept it unless I made it official. In any case she’s there more than me so it works out nicely.”
“It sounds logical when you put it like that,” She mused, “just not very ‘rock star-y’ I suppose.”
“Not really if you put it like that.” I held out my hand. “ “But is it a deal? You come and see how I record an album.”
“How long? For the whole record I mean.”
“Depends. Sometimes we can get most of it down in a few days, sometimes it’s longer.”
“Well, I think I can take a few days off soon, so the answer is yes.” She gave a shy grin.
“Great!” I could hardly contain myself, grinning from ear to ear. “I’ll let you know when as soon as I know.”

***

It was barely three weeks later when I pulled up outside Lizzie’s place in my Aston-Martin. As I braked she was already out of her door with her suitcase.
“Nice wheels.” She said as she dropped her case in the boot.
“Courtesy of your song.” I smiled. “I always wanted one, so I thank you.”
“Hey, you wrote the thing, not me.” She grinned at me. “Come on then, show me how you do it.”

I had to leave Lizzie to settle in and be shown around by my ‘housekeeper’ mom, as I had to take a call from my manager. Apparently a couple of magazines had heard about my little performance in Lizzie’s garden and were keen to interview me. They hadn’t wanted to get in touch directly as they usually did because of my previous attitude about anything concerned with ‘the light up girl’. After a moments thought I told him it would probably be okay but I would call him back; I had to check on something. What I wanted to check was Lizzie; would she be prepared to be revealed formally as ‘the light up girl’?
I found her still in the room that was to be hers for the next week or more.
“Elizabeth Mary, I need to ask you something.” I said.
“Oh dear, that sounds ominous: I’m back to being Elizabeth Mary.” She smirked.
“Sort of serious.” I started, and then paused for a second. “I want to ask if you’d come to a magazine interview with me. I’d like to tell them who ‘the light up girl’ is.” I managed to explain.
Lizzie’s brow furrowed.
“Well,” she said slowly, “revealing all: Not a problem, carry on. But I’m not sure I should be there.”
“Why ever not?”
“Because… well, because they may think we’re more than friends, and that makes me uncomfortable.”
“The ‘gold digger’ thing?”
“Yes.”
“We could always tell them the truth; that we’re just starting to work up a relationship. But you shouldn’t worry about what people think of you Lizzie. Some of them will think the worst whatever you say or do, but we know the truth and so do our friends and family. They’re all that’s important.” I took her hand to reinforce my reassurance.
She looked at me for a long moment, obviously running through things in her mind.
“Okay, I’ll come with you. I’d like to learn as much about your life as I can.”
I smiled.
“Me too. Maybe I can come and watch you at work?”
“At the bank?” She laughed. “You’d be bored in five minutes flat.”
“I never get bored around you Lizzie. Never have, never will.”
“Oh!” She said, taken aback a little. She recovered. “When is this interview then?”
“In the next couple of days.” I shrugged. “I just need to confirm it. But first I want you to come and meet the guys in the band. They should be here by now.”

The three guys who made up the rest of the band; John Henry the drummer, Jonny Twist the bass player and Jimmy Turner the second guitarist, were already in the studio setting up their instruments. Steve Topp, my long time roadie, was there too. He also ran the recording desk for us and was checking it over. I introduced Lizzie to them before I popped back outside to confirm the interview with my manager, telling him there would be two of us present. When I re-entered the studio a couple of minutes later I found Steve showing Lizzie how to work the mixing desk. One look was all I needed to tell me that she wasn’t going to be content with just watching!
I was proved right on that count: Lizzie was soon helping Steve run the desk and quite successfully. However, having tried for most of the day, we found that we couldn’t get the right sound for the song we were trying to get down.
“I can’t put my finger on why, but it just doesn’t sound right.” Jim said as we listened to yet another playback.
“No, it sounds sort of thin.” I agreed.
“The sound?” Jonny asked.
“Yeah. It needs something else.” I said. “Something light and twinkley.”
“How about a piano?” Lizzie suggested.
“That’s right!” I exclaimed. “It needs a piano in the background.”
“Pity none of you can play one,” Steve said, “cos we’ve got a keyboard.”
We all looked over to the rarely used instrument and gave a variety of sighs.
“I played piano at school if that helps.” Lizzie piped up.
The rest of us looked at each other, considering her offer.
“If nothing else, it’d give us an idea.” Jimmy said slowly.
“It would, wouldn’t it?” I mused, rubbing my chin. “Okay then Lizzie, if you want to give it a shot.”
“Weeelll…” Now she sounded dubious. “It’s been a while you know.”
“If it don’t work we ain’t lost nothing Miss Patterson.” Steve said reassuringly, patting her on the shoulder.
“All right then,” Lizzie made up her mind, “I’ll give it a go as long as you don’t expect too much.”
It wasn’t a perfect rendition, but it was good enough to tell us we needed a piano in the mix.
“Sorry, but I am out of practice.” Lizzie apologised.
“But you nearly nailed it.” I said enthusiastically. “If we gave you some time to sort it out, you could play on the track.”
“I could? Would that be okay?” She was goggle-eyed at the suggestion.
“Guys, what do you say?” I asked them.
“Sure.”
“Why not?”
“She’s practically there already.”
“Go for it.”
“There you go Lizzie, you’re voted in as a guest artist.” I turned back to the band. “You lot go and get some grub, I’ll stay and help Liz with the tune.”

***

That first session started something I hadn’t anticipated but was happy to accommodate: Not only was Elizabeth Mary integrating into my personal life she was integrating into my professional life with the band as well. That integration became almost complete a few days later, the day before the interview was scheduled. Lizzie and I were having a morning cup of coffee, waiting for the others to rise (“Like real rock stars.” Lizzie sniggered.) When she asked me to look at something.
“Sure, what is it?” I asked.
“Over the years I’ve written some bits and pieces, poems,” she said nervously and blushing a bit, “and I was wondering if any of them might be worth making into songs.” She gave me a wane smile.
“Let’s have a look and see.” I smiled.
She pulled a sheaf of papers from a bag by her side and, still reddening, passed them to me.
“I doubt that they’re very good, but I’d still like you to see them, tell me what you think.” Having brought up the subject Lizzie was now looking hot and flustered, possibly wishing she hadn’t.
I read through the first few papers that she’d given me, not saying anything as she sat opposite me nervously chewing her lip. I looked up.
“Some of these are really good Lizzie.” I said, looking up.
“You sure you’re not just saying that?”
“No, I’m not. These first two are nearly perfect. Got any ideas for how they’d sound?”
Slightly disbelievingly she looked at the two sheets I was holding up.
“That first one I saw as a gentle song, like ‘Light Up’ is.”
“Yes, I can see that working.” I said looking back at the lyrics.
“That second one I imagined as drum-driven, slowly building up to a climax. Finishing with a bang.”
I nodded. Again I could see what she meant.
“Oooh kaay then. Lets go see.” I said and stood up.
“What? Go where?” She said, startled.
“Down to the studio. To see if we can fit some tunes to these words.”
“You sure? I only wanted to know if they were decent rhymes you know?”
“Liz, these are excellent lyrics. I’m sure with a nudge in the right direction you can put them to music.”
“What do you mean?” Now she was puzzled.
“I mean if you hum it, I’ll play it. And then when its right, we’ll write it down.”
“You’ll write it down you mean?”
“I can’t teach you how to write music that quickly, but I can write down what you want it to sound like.” I smiled. “Though we might have to wait for John Henry to get the second one right. My drumming isn’t that great.”
“Are you being serious?”
“Yes. My drumming sucks.”
“Not that nitwit! Are you serious about turning these poems into songs.”
“Sure. They’re good lyrics. Good enough to go on the album.”
“Now I know you’re pulling my leg.”
“We can wait and ask the others if you like, but they all know a good lyric when they see one.”
“Don’t they just do as you say?”
“I suppose I have the last word, but they have to be able to play this stuff live don’t forget.”
“Look Dave, I don’t want you to put these on your album as a favour. It’s going to have your name above the title.”
“And your name as the composer don’t forget.” I reminded her with a smile. “But only if we can get the tunes right.” I held out my hand. She took it and stood up.
“What are we waiting for?” She grinned as she stood. “Lets get to the studio.”

By the time Steve and the boys in the band arrived Lizzie and I had put together a reasonable demo of the ballad and sketched out some ideas about how the other song should sound.
“You two have been busy.” Steve said with a smile, knowing my work ethic of old.
“Hey, I don’t remember seeing these before.” Jim said, picking up Lizzie’s words.
“What do you think?” I asked, shushing Liz as Jim passed the two pieces of paper around.
“Bit different to your usual stuff.” Jonny said. “Damn good all the same.”
“I like them.” John Henry added. He never talked much unless he felt he had something to add to the conversation.
I smiled and then swept my arm around towards Lizzie.
“They’re not mine. May I present the author.”
The guys all looked to a beaming but blushing Liz.
“Good grief girl, is there anything you can’t do?” Steve asked incredulously.
“I can’t write music.” She giggled.
“Yet.” I added for her.
“So you say.” She became serious again. “Look, I don’t want to put anyone’s nose out of joint. You guys have all been with Dave for years.”
“There’s something you should realise about all of us Liz.” Jim said. “That is that we’re all in this for the music, not the fame and the money.” The others nodded in agreement.
Liz looked at me.
“Miss Harmsworth?” She asked.
I nodded.
“You remember too?”
“I do.”
Steve clapped his hands together.
“So Liz’s songs are in. Lets get them recorded.”

***

Lizzie had been nervous before the interview with the two journalists, asking me what she should say. I told her to just answer the questions they asked, reminding her they weren’t expecting her to be there so any prepared questions they had would be for me. And all they really wanted was the story behind ‘Light Up My Life’.
In the end it was the two journalists who were the most nervous at the start of the interview. They had been thinking I was going to stonewall them again and they’d struggle to get a decent article out of the process. As it turned out it was a very pleasant couple of hours for all of us. Right at the start I had introduced Elizabeth Mary Patterson, telling them that she was ‘the light up girl’ and after answering a few questions about the song; my reasons for writing it and why I’d taken so long to unveil it, it became more or less an interview with ‘the light up girl’ herself. Despite her initial trepidation Lizzie soon settled down, talking easily to the journalists. However when they asked about our feelings toward each other she seemed to become a little twitchy.
“My feelings for Dave are still a bit confused.” She started. “I’m certain of our friendship; we’ve known each other for a long time now. And I’m certain that he wrote a beautiful song about me, and sang it just for me. I would be foolish to deny the depth of feeling Dave has for me, but to me it all happened so quickly; I’m still trying to process it. I have to say that I’m feeling a little overwhelmed at the moment, but bit at a time I’m sorting my feelings out. So all I can say for now is that I do have feelings for Dave, but I’m not sure how deep they are compared to his for me.”

After the journalists had gone Liz and I were sitting in the kitchen sipping coffee.
“I didn’t say anything silly did I?” She asked.
“Not at all.” I smiled. “Although I was happy to find out you had feelings for me.”
“Fool! Of course I do. I’m just not prepared to say how deep they are.” She grinned back. There was a mischievous sparkle to her eyes. During our schooldays I had spent a lot of time looking into those green eyes. Always looking for some hint of benevolence towards me that until recently had never been there. Now there was generally a more caring look; probably not actual love, but caring at least and that was enough for me.
“Why are you staring at me?” Lizzie broke into my thoughts.
Caught off-guard and suddenly flustered I said the first thing that came into my head. Not usually a good idea.
“Sorry. I was lost in the depths of your eyes.”
“Very poetic.” She grinned. “Your next song perhaps?”
“Been done before.” I laughed. “To be serious for a moment, would you like to come and work for me? You’re wasted at the bank you know.”
“As what?” She asked a little suspiciously.
“I don’t know. I haven’t thought it through yet.” I replied helplessly. “You’re still worried about being labelled a gold digger?”
“I am. So unless you’ve got a job that I can do it’s not happening, okay?” Now there was a steely determined look on her face. She meant it. The word ‘wife’ suddenly presented itself to the front of my brain as an alternative, but, attractive as the idea was, I discarded it. It was still too soon to make that suggestion. Instead I changed the subject again.
“Are you going to stay until we’ve finished getting the album tracks down?”
“How long will that be?”
“Maybe five days.”
“Too long. I’m due back at the bank on Monday.” I could tell she was tempted though. “I think I’ll have to stick to the original plan of a week.” She sighed.
“We’ll miss your help.” I suggested.
“You managed before without me, so I know you’re trying to entice me.” She smiled. “But I thank you anyway.”
“You know you can stay as long as you want Lizzie.”
“I think it’s time I returned to the real world.” She gave a shrug.
“Been there, didn’t like it much.” I laughed. Lizzie joined in. The easy laughs of people comfortable with each other. “How about if I take you out to dinner before I run you home Sunday then?” I asked.
“As long as you promise not to try to make me stay on.”
“Promise.”
“Then you’re on.”

***

I was going to take Lizzie out to dinner as promised. She was getting ready in her room and taking her time so I went to chivvy her on a bit. I was about to knock on the door when I heard her singing through the shower door in her room. She was singing ‘Light Up My Life’ and was word perfect. But what really caught my attention was the quality of her voice. It was exquisite. I knew I had to find a way for the rest of the world to hear it; Miss Harmsworth would never forgive me if I didn’t. A sudden recollection hit me: I had never mentioned Miss Harmsworth to her, but she knew about the music teacher’s devotion to all forms of music. Lizzie had played piano at school; that probably meant Miss Harmsworth had taught her. So why had she been working in a bank? The only thing I could think of was that the redoubtable Miss Harmsworth had been unable to inspire Lizzie the same way she had me. Liz obviously had musical talent, but also tended to be realistic. Music hadn’t been the haven for her that it had been for me. Nonetheless I wanted to find a way to get her to sing. Hoping that the band hadn’t left yet, I went to find them. They needed to be in on this as well.

“Guys, I want to find a way to get Lizzie to play at least one concert with us. Any objections?” They shook their heads. “The best way I can think of is for us to play a warm-up gig for the next tour in my and Lizzie’s hometown; get her to play the keyboards as a guest star.” Now they nodded.
“You think she will?” Steve asked.
“I hope so, because that’s not all I want. I want her to sing ‘Light Up’ with me. I’ve just found out what a beautiful singing voice she has.”
“I could’ve told you that boss.” Steve grinned. “She was singing to herself half the time we were recording. I thought you knew.”
I looked at him mildly stunned.
“I wish you’d told me earlier Steve. Now I’m going to have to make something up off the cuff rather than have time to think it through.”

***

The dinner was… well, a bit strange. For a change Liz was doing most of the talking; chattering away about how much fun she’d had ‘watching’ us in the recording studio. This was because I was trying to think of a way to ask her to play with us but couldn’t come up with a way to broach the subject without sounding like I was breaking my promise not to nag her about staying on. Instead I let myself be pulled along by her enthusiasm. By the time we ordered dessert Lizzie was running out of things to say and had noticed my lack of involvement in the conversation.
“What’s the matter?” She asked. “Have you had a relapse and can’t speak to me again?”
“What!? No! Its…” I spluttered, caught off guard by the question.
“Spit it out Dave.” Liz said patiently.
“All right.” I sighed. “Me and the guys really want you to play with us, at least for the warm-up gig we’re planning at home, and I can’t think of a way to ask you without it sounding like nagging.”
“Me? Play with the band? In front of people?” She looked at me in astonishment. “I don’t know if I could Dave.” She said, frowning.
“That’s what I thought you’d say. But I’m not giving in that easily. I’m going to keep on asking for the next couple of months.”
“Why a couple of months?” She asked, smiling at my intensity.
“Because that’s when the album is due out and the tour starts.”
“Then there’s time for you to convince me.” She grinned evilly.

***

It was the warm-up concert for the tour we’d called ‘Green Depths Of The Universe’, the title of the new album. We were in my and Lizzie’s hometown. I’d finally convinced Lizzie to be part of the band; we knew she could play the keyboards and two of the new songs were hers, so I’d kept asking her, almost begging her to join us, at least for this one show. Ever since I’d heard her singing ‘Light Up My Life’ in the shower that evening I did have that other reason. She’d finally said yes, although I was beginning to think she’d been teasing me since the dinner date.
“Hello again!” I called out to the packed theatre, receiving the usual cheer in response. “Shall we start?” I asked. Another cheer greeted the question, so we launched into ‘Pink And Led’.
Two hours later and we were just finishing ‘Wish You Were Here’ having run through most of the new album and our other crowd favourites. Lizzie’s songs had been well received and I caught her smile of satisfaction at their reception. Now was the moment to spring my surprise.
“I know what you’re waiting for.” I smiled to the crowd. “And it’s coming. But it’s going to be a little different.” I turned and motioned for Liz to come and join me at the microphone. Somewhat dumbfounded, she came over. “I thought ‘the light up girl’ herself could help me out.” There was a barrage of applause.
“You can’t be serious!” Lizzie said quietly, her words masked by the cheering.
“Deadly.” I grinned. “I know you can sing it, I’ve heard you.”
“But it sounds wrong when I sing it. The thing is written from a male point of view.” She protested.
“I’ve tweaked it. Your words are on the card on the mike.”
“I can’t…”
“You can Lizzie. You can. Just wait for the noise to drop then we’ll start.”
She gave me a helpless look but took up position behind the mike. The crowd quietened and I began to play. Lizzie began to sing ‘Light Up My Life’ with me joining in. We sang alternate verses; girl version and then boy version. By the time we finished the audience was watching open mouthed at the sheer beauty of the revised song. Lizzie had tears in her eyes as I sang the last verse, joining me in the last lines. There was something else too; the thing I’d been hoping for since childhood, a look of love. We finished and I wrapped my arms around her.
“Thank you Elizabeth Mary Patterson.” I whispered as the audience erupted once again.
“For what?” She sniffed, the tears in her eyes now running down her cheeks.
“For lighting up my life of course!” I said softly. Then, for the first time, and in front of my home crowd, I kissed her properly.

***

Excerpt from interview with Elizabeth Mary (Lizzie M) Patterson in the magazine ‘New Rock’.
NR: So, what’s it like joining a famous band and being the only girl?
EMP: (Laughing) Not as intimidating as I’d feared. All the guys, not just Dave, wanted me to join and I found them to be very protective of me, particularly where the negative reactions to my joining were concerned. There was a fear amongst the fans that I was going to be some sort of ‘Yoko’ figure.
NR: Those fears were dispelled straightaway at the warm-up gig in your hometown though?
EMP: Yes. ‘Light Up’ again. When Dave got me, tricked me really, into singing the revised version with him everyone could see what it meant to both of us. I have a lot to thank that song for: Dave too. He does ‘Light Up My Life’.

A Ning Thing

This 'list' for want of a better word was inspired by an episode of 'sound charades' from the radio 4 show 'I'm sorry I haven't a clue', when Barry and Graham had to describe 'The Shining'. They came up with the tale of a little creature called a 'Ning' that didn't like meeting people; hence The Shy Ning. I wondered what other variations of this creature might exist and this is what I came up with. There may be more. Some of them may seem not to work at first but it's all in the pronunciation I promise.



The Ning's


Mining – The Ning that is mine
Yawning – The Ning that is yours
Lining – The Ning that tells fibs
Frowning – The wife of a German Ning
Fawning – A Ning who plays golf
Lightning – A Ning who is not heavy
Shortening – A Ning who is not tall
Evening – The first female Ning
Deafening – A Ning who can’t hear you
Deadening – A Ning who is no longer alive
Phoning – Not a real Ning
Pining – A Ning who is a baker
Hardening – A Ning with tattoos
Groaning – A Ning with an Allotment
Straining – A Ning with no home
Graining – An off-white Ning
Planing – A magazine with pictures of naked Nings
Owning – A Ning who likes to be spanked
Gaining – A Ning of alternate sexuality
Steepening – A Ning who is more vertical
Morning – A Ning that wants extra
Crooning – A Ning aboard a boat
Joining – A Ning for the amusement of other Nings
Honing – A Ning prostitute
Whining – A Ning that asks questions
Adorning – A Ning loved by all
Manning – A Ning sheep
Mooning – A Ning cow
Scorning – A Ning who puts the ball in the back of the net
Spurning – A Ning who rides a horse
Buttoning – A Ning in charge of dairy products
Pruning – A Ning who sells insurance
Stoning – A Ning in charge of packing
Quickening – A Ning who is fast
Ballooning – A Ning from ‘The Jungle Book’
Thickening – A Ning who isn’t very smart
Widening – A Ning who is fairly broad
Broadening – A Ning who is quite wide
Innings – Nings who are ‘cool’
Earning – The Ning that belongs to her
Preening – A Ning foetus
Awakening – A Ning that can’t sleep
Training – A Ning who carries drinks
Scanning – A Ning who likes ‘Madness’ and the ‘Specials’
Defining – A Ning who stands up for itself
Reddening – A Ning who supports Liverpool Football Club
Awning – An Alternative Ning
Gardening – A Ning on sentry duty
Staining – A Ning who doesn’t go anywhere
Signing – A psychic Ning
Condoning – A Ning living in an apartment block
Meaning – How a Ning introduces itself

Serial Bad Decisions

This was going to be longer, but the other ideas I had for this story seemed to be tacked on, so I left it as it is.

************************************************************************************


I was walking home in the cold drizzle when the car pulled over a short way ahead of me, the engine stuttering. The driver, who I could just about make out in the evening gloom as a woman, got out and opened up the bonnet, peering in at the engine. As she looked over the recalcitrant motor I heard her speak.
“Oh you silly cow Carla, you didn't do the radiator cap up properly.” She breathed.
The name 'Carla' hit me like it always did: The name of the girl I’d grown up with, the girl I’d fallen in love with but couldn't tell, the girl I’d stupidly left in France with my supposed best friend over twenty years ago.

* * *

The three of us, Carla, Mark, and me, had grown up together, walked to the same schools together, and generally just hung around together. Not that surprising you might think; we were all roughly the same age and lived close to one another. What was surprising to me, at least in retrospect was that Carla continued to enjoy being with us even after she began to develop as a young woman; a beautiful young woman who could have garnered the company of any guy in town if she'd wanted. Being around Mark I could understand; he was a sporty athletic type with a dazzling smile and a hearty laugh, but me? I got tongue-tied talking to shop assistants and could have made a Tuxedo look scruffy. I suspected that Mark kept me around because it made him look good and he wasn't threatened by my presence, but Carla? What could she possibly see in me? She had no real reason to keep me around other than our long standing friendship. But she did. She made sure I got invited to all the parties she did and I went along because it was her asking me, even if I did feel like a fish out of water most of the time.
As we finished our final term at school I was totally devoted to Carla, but never said a thing. And I was beginning to feel like an extra wheel when the three of us were together. I was so in love with her that I couldn't bring myself to turn down the invite to tour Europe that summer with the two of them. I knew they weren't the 'item' that Mark pretended to everyone else, so I thought that one last blast for the three of us would be a laugh. And that had been when I lost her through my own stupid thinking.

* * *

I came back to the present, before the litany of similar bad decisions on my part could begin to play through my head again, and instead began to wonder if this 'Carla' could be 'MY' Carla, a ridiculous hope I knew. I pushed it from my mind and hunched up my shoulders as I walked past the stranded motorist.
“Excuse me?” The woman called out as she saw me. I looked up, it wasn't Carla. “I was wondering if you knew where I could get some water, my flatmate topped up the radiator yesterday but didn't tighten the cap properly and now poor Lizzie here is overheating.” She waved her hand over the car. Much as I didn't want to get involved I couldn't bring myself to ignore her.
“Errrm, sure. I, errr, live just round the, errr, corner. I can get you some water.” I blushed. I just couldn't talk to women without feeling foolish.
“Thank you. You're a sweetie.” She smiled.
“Errr, s'all right.” I gave a quick smile and then found myself frowning.
“What's the matter?” The girl asked.
“Nothing, I was just trying to think of a way to ask if you wanted a cup of coffee that didn't sound like a come-on or a trap that made you report me to the police.” I said with a sad smile.
“Oh, it's too late for that,” she grinned, “I am the police.”
“A pretty girl like you?” I said in surprise.
She gave me a hard stare.
“Are you suggesting that in some way some of my sister officers do not possess womanly charms.”
“Errrrrr, no. Not at all in fact. And if I did, I didn't mean too.” I said in a bit of a panic.
She laughed.
“Only teasing. Some of them can seem a bit butch. Lead me to the coffee.” She held out her hand. “I'm Tina by the way.”
“Dave.” I said, shaking her proffered hand.

Tina sipped at her coffee after I had handed her the mug.
“Mmmm, that tastes familiar.” She said.
“It's only the Instant that I’ve drunk since I was a boy.” I shrugged.
“I think it's the same stuff Carla likes though.”
A little bell went off in the back of my mind. My Carla had always liked the same coffee as me; the stuff our mothers had given us when we were kids. Was it actually possible...? I shook myself.
“You seem to think a lot of Carla?” I said.
“I do. She took me under her wing when I was sent here. I owe her a lot.”
Again that sounded like my friend.
“In what way?” I asked.
“The usual. If I was doubting myself she'd give me confidence; If I was down she'd cheer me up with some story about her travels on her own in Europe after she'd left school.”
It sounded more and more to me that Tina was talking about my Carla.
“So, she and Mark split up?” It slipped out. I cursed myself silently.
“Right after the other guy left.” Tina nodded. “Mark had got annoyed when she said it wouldn't be the same without Dave, I think she said his name was, so she ditched him.” I thought for a moment Tina hadn't spotted the connection, but then realisation spread across her face. “It's you isn't it? You're the guy who did the vanishing act?”
I went red and bowed my head.
“Yes, that was me. I thought I was helping, doing the right thing, but from what you say, the one decision that I thought I’d got right was as wrong as all the others I’ve ever made. I’m bloody useless.” I sighed deeply. “Could you tell Carla I’m sorry?”
“No.” I looked up in surprise. “No, I think you'd do better to tell her yourself.” Tina grinned.
“Will she even want to see me after I just upped and left?”
“You'd be surprised. She talks about you a lot.” She smirked. “Come on, tidy yourself up and I’ll take you home.”
“Home?”
“Flatmates remember?”
“Oh, yeah, right.”

“Hey Carla, I’ve brought someone to see you.” Tina called out as she opened the front door to her flat.
“It's not one of your strange university mates is it?” A voice that I’d missed hearing for twenty years called back from the kitchen.
“Nope,” Tina laughed, “just some lost soul who claims to know you.”
“Someone who knows me?” Carla said, coming out into the small hallway while drying her hands with a tea-towel. As she saw me she stopped and stared, the colour draining from her face in shock.
“Hello Carla,” I said quietly, “long time, no see.” I gave her a watery, apologetic smile, worried that despite Tina's confidence she was wrong and Carla didn't want to see me.
The huge and much-missed smile that spread across her features proved my fears groundless. Carla dropped the tea-towel and threw her arms around me, hugging me in the way she'd always used to.

* * * *

We'd had a fun day in Paris; taking in all the usual sights and amusing the Parisians with our faltering attempts to speak their language. In the evening all three of us had imbibed perhaps one glass of wine too many and consequently were all a bit giggly as we got back to the cheap hotel on the outskirts of the city, making a bit too much noise on the landing as Carla went to her own room and Mark and I went to ours. He pulled a couple of cans of lager we'd bought on the ferry from his backpack and passed one over to me. We sat down and sipped at the cans in silence for a while and then Mark spoke.
“I gotta tell you Dave, I’m getting a bit fed up with waiting for her to make up her mind.” He declared with a little slur.
“Who? About what?” I replied, mystified by his statement.
“Carla of course. About us.” He'd definitely had one too many.
“What 'us'? You and me?” I asked, more confused than before about what he meant.
“No, me and her. I’ve been asking her out for two years now, but, but it's always got to be all three of us she says.” He tipped back his can. “I dunno if she don't trust me, or she don't wanna upset you, but I can't get her alone for more than ten minutes.” Mark sighed and drained his lager.
Suddenly that extra wheel feeling came back to me; I was getting in the way of my friends.
“Sorry mate.” I mumbled.
“Iss not your fault.” He muttered.
“Why not say something to Carla?” I suggested, hating the idea.
“Maybe t'morrow. Get her to decide.”
“Yeah. Sleep on it.”
“Yeah. Thanks Dave.” Mark said, rolling up in the blanket.
He was soon asleep, a release I could not find forthcoming. I tossed and turned for two or three hours until I came to a conclusion: I couldn't, wouldn't, make Carla choose, so I’d make it easy and leave them to it. They were my friends and they deserved the chance to be alone. As I made my decision I acted on it. I rose quietly and gathered my gear together, stuffing it into my pack before slipping out and down to the front desk. After I’d paid my part of the bill I headed for the central railway station. I knew we had been planning on going to Germany and Italy, so I used my rail pass to board a train going the other way, south to Spain.

* * *

“ So you just gave up and left?” Carla said, a glimmer of annoyance in her eyes.
“Mark had as good as told me I was getting in the way.” I shrugged, reddening under her glare. “It seemed to be the best solution.”
“You were both drunk.”
“It still seemed to be the right thing to do.”
“Mark was an idiot who thought all he had to do was smile at a girl to make her go weak at the knees.” She snapped, her eyes again blazing momentarily.
“It looked like it worked most of the time.” I replied, remembering how easy Mark had made picking up girls seem.
“And you're no better.” She gave me another glare. “You didn't once think about how I might feel.”
“I promise I did Carla,” I said as soothingly as I could, “I thought that a clean break you could do nothing about would be easiest all round. For everybody.” I stood up. “I think I should go now. It looks like I’m raking up things you would rather forget, messing things up as per bloody usual.” As I turned to go, Carla reached out and grabbed my wrist.
“Stay.” She said softly, all annoyance gone from her voice. “Please, this time, stay.”
I sat down, clasping her hand in mine.
“Tell me what to do to make things right.” I said. “I'll do anything for you, I always would.”
“I know you would.” She gave me a watery smile. I gave her a little grin in return.
We sat in silence for a while, just holding hands, until Tina passed into the room, evidently on her way out somewhere. She looked at the two of us and rolled her eyes.
“Good grief! Hasn't he guessed yet?” Carla shook her head. “And you still haven't told him?” Carla shook her head again.
“Told me what?” I asked, more than a little puzzled.
Tina went to open her mouth but Carla spoke first.
“No Tina, I’ll do it my way.”
“Do what?” I asked, now thoroughly bemused.
“Tell you the reason why I wanted to keep us as a trio.”
“It wasn't some sex thing was it?” I said jokingly. Tina sniggered eliciting a glare for both of us from Carla.
“Dave, I’m being serious here. I liked having you around; you made me laugh and treated me like a real person.”
“You are a real person.” I interrupted, but Carla carried on.
“Mark, in those last four years, seemed to think I was some sort of trophy, something to be won and then paraded around.”
“But you were, you still are, astonishingly beautiful.” I said, feeling some need to explain my former best buddy.
“Thank you,” Carla blushed. I’d forgotten how red she could go. “but that didn't mean that I was some sort of prize; I still had feelings; I wasn't some dumb bimbo desperate to win popularity by any means. But that was how Mark saw me, how he treated me.”
“I'm sorry, I didn't realise. I thought that you and he were mutually attracted; in love in fact.”
“Maybe we were, sort of, at the beginning.”
“I knew I wasn't completely wrong.” I said thankfully. “What happened?”
Tina was shaking her head.
“I thought YOU were going out?” Carla said to her pointedly.
“I was, but this is getting interesting.” The younger girl grinned.
“Just go Tina please; You're putting me off.” Carla sighed.
“Spoilsport.” Tina grinned, poking her tongue out as she left.
A pregnant silence fell on the room after Tina left. Carla obviously wanted to tell me something but didn't know how. Equally obviously she was hoping that I would guess what it was; but I was drawing a blank. Whatever it was wasn't as obvious to me as she thought. To break the deepening quiet I asked a question.
“When we were at school you never mentioned wanting to be a rozz.... a police officer.” I hurriedly corrected myself.
“At school I didn't,” Carla smiled, “it developed at university. I wanted to make a difference to society. I haven't the patience to be a nurse so I became a cop.” She grinned at 'cop'. “What about you? What are you up too?”
“Well, when I went to Spain I found myself a job at one of the British bars in Malaga; found I had an strange aptitude for it. I worked there for about five years and then came back home. I work the bar at the big hotel outside of town now, plus some handyman work. You know the sort of thing, painting, gardening, other repairs, you know the sort of thing.” I wasn't proud of what I did; there were no qualifications needed other than I could do it. Being a police officer seemed much more responsible. At least I had a job I told myself every day.
“A man of many talents then?” Carla grinned.
“Not really,” I grinned back, “I'm just about adequate at the things I need to be.”
“Surely that’s a talent in itself?” Carla said reproachfully. “You do yourself down Dave, you always did.”
“Carla, dear Carla,” I shook my head, “the only thing I’m good at is making bad decisions. If you don't know what to do, ask me, and then do the opposite of what I would.” I smiled although I wasn't really joking.
“You seem happy enough about it though?”
“Happiness is relative. I’ve not been truly happy since that one day we had in Paris.”
“Not even now?” Carla asked.
“Sorry, not even now. The thought that both you and Tina, who I hardly know, both think that there's something I should have realised makes me feel more than a little foolish.”
“You shouldn't be.”
“But you're still not going to tell me what it is?”
“Nope!” Carla laughed. “Even with your gloomy outlook I reckon you'll work it out for yourself, and I’m prepared to wait.”
“Don't be so sure: I’ve got bugger all right for the past twenty years.” I warned her.
“Oh, I don't know. Coming here to see me wasn't a bad idea.”
“Not entirely my idea I must say: Even then it was a bit touch and go early on I thought.” I gave her a grin. I had grinned more in the past twenty minutes, genuine grins, than I had for the previous twenty years.
“It was a bit wasn't it?” Carla said, pecking me on the cheek.
We lapsed into silence again for a short while until I felt the need to speak.
“Carla, can I ask you something? You don't have to tell me if you don't want to, I’ll understand.”
“Try me.” She replied.
I took a deep breath.
“What happened after I left in Paris? Between you and Mark I mean?” It obviously wasn't the question she was expecting as she gave me a surprised look. “You don't have to tell me.” I added hurriedly.
“No, it's okay. I’ll tell you.” She sighed and looked away for a moment before turning back to face me. “ I woke up that morning feeling full of beans; I was out on a big adventure, away from parental control for the first time. And suddenly you weren't there; one of the props of my life was gone and everything felt wrong.” She paused for a moment. “When Mark suggested maybe it was for the best and he and I could be alone together at last I freaked; I called him all sorts of horrible names; told him that I was never going to go out with him. I grabbed my stuff and stormed off to the railway station on my own, catching the first train out and finding myself in Switzerland.” Carla looked down at the ground. “I was really mean to poor Mark. I blamed him for messing up my carefully nurtured plan, even though I soon realised most of it was your fault, you idiot.” She thumped me on the arm.
“What happened to him?” I asked. “I never found out, even after I came back.”
“I'm not really sure what he did in Paris. I have seen him about a couple of times since, in the distance. I think he owns a car showroom, BMW's, a couple of towns away.”
“Perhaps I should go and find out?”
“That's up to you. I never felt the urge to find him myself.”
“That's something. How come I’ve never seen you around before. You know, out and about on the beat so to speak?”
“When I was a beat copper I was stationed somewhere else. After I was promoted I wangled a posting back here as a desk sergeant, so unless you'd come into the station we had no chance of bumping into each other.” She flashed me another grin. “Won't be there much longer though.”
“Oh?”
“I'm packing it in. Too many cheeky young devils on the force now. I’ve got it all planned out.”
I missed her implied invitation to ask what she was going to do as another, more important question occurred to me.
“Carla, I have to ask; how come you never looked for me? I mean, I thought that you were with Mark, so I never tried to find either of you.”
“I went around to your Mom's house when I got back from Europe, but they didn't know what you were up to, and then I went to uni. I never forgot you, but I had no idea about where to look.”
“Of course. I should have realised, sorry.” I looked down and then back up, catching sight of the clock. “Carla, I have to go. I have to be at work in less than an hour. Can I come back and see you again?”
“Of course you can,” She smiled, “but not in the mornings please; I’m on duty until six.”
“The graveyard shift?”
“You got it. Ten til six for a month.”
“I'm glad you're not still mad at me.” I said.
“I'm just happy to see you again; at least at the moment.” She laughed.
I held out my hand at the door. Carla looked at it in amusement for a second and then grasped it as if to shake it. Instead she pulled me towards her and then planted a kiss firmly on my lips.
“See what you missed.” She smirked mischievously as we broke apart. I couldn't think of a coherent reply I was so confused.

I was still confused later, behind the bar, when I saw a grinning Tina ordering a round of drinks.
“Hiya Dave. She tell you yet?”
I shook my head no.
“She wants me to work it out for myself it seems.”
“Maybe I could give you a clue?”
“I'd appreciate it Tina. I have no idea what I’m supposed to be working out.”
“Okay then.” She paused for a moment to think. “Okay. Think about what she doesn't say rather than what she does say: And her reactions rather than her actions.” I gave her a bemused look that said she wasn't really helping much. “Sorry if that seems a bit cryptic, but you'll work it out. Carla says you're not as stupid as you like to pretend.” With that she took her drinks and disappeared into the crowd.
I mused over Tina's 'hint' whenever I got a slack moment, which wasn't that often as we were busy that night. It wasn't until after we'd closed and I was cleaning up alone that I could really put my mind to the issue. I pondered on Carla's words and actions earlier and things began to click into place. The way she'd held my hand to stop me leaving; the way she seemed to prefer my company to Mark; her description of 'freaking' in Paris when she found I’d gone; and finally, and most tellingly, the kiss she'd planted on me as I’d left her flat. Carla seemed to be telling me she loved me. My first instinct was one of denial; there was no way on this earth that Carla had ever, would ever, be in love with me. My deductions were wrong, they had to be. But the more I thought about it, the more I went over what had happened, the more sense everything she had said and done made. It all fitted together so neatly. I nearly dropped the tray of glasses I was putting away when I suddenly realised what I had done, what I had thrown away. I had to see her; I had to see Carla now! Locking up quickly, I hurried to the police station where she had said she would be on duty tonight.
I don't know why but I expected to see Carla behind the desk at the station when I went in; I mean that’s what 'desk sergeant' implies, right? Instead there was a bored looking, baby-faced youngster who looked like he should still be at school. He looked up as I walked in.
“Is Carla around?” I asked politely. A look of incomprehension crossed his face. “Sergeant Owen?” I added helpfully.
“Oh, the Headmistress.” He grinned as he realised who I was talking about. “She's checking the drunks in the cells at the moment sir.”
I smirked at her nickname, knowing immediately how she'd come by it, and wondering if she knew about it.
“Well could you ask her if she'll see me when she's done? It's a personal matter.”
“A personal matter? I didn't know the sarge still had those.” He beamed. “What name shall I tell her sir?”
“Tell her it's the idiot from earlier today. She'll know who that is.”
“Very well. If you'd like to take a seat, I’m sure she won't be long.”
As I sat down the young policeman went off to locate Carla and pass on my message. He was soon back with a smiling Carla.
“I guessed it was you Dave; I don't meet that many idiots when I’m off-duty.” She said laughingly as I stood back up.
“I worked it out Carla; at least I hope I have or every stupid thing I’ve done before will pale into insignificance when I tell you what I think it is.”
Carla took my arm.
“I'm sure you're right, so come outside and tell me without an audience.” With a nod of her head she indicated three or faces watching us from the other side of the desk.
She led me out of the station and around a corner until we were out of sight of prying ears and eyes. There was a hint of hope in her eyes as she said: “Okay, tell me.” That reinforced the feeling that I was right about this. Taking a deep breath I plunged in with both feet.
“I'm sorry that I didn't realise earlier that our feelings toward each other were mutual and not one-sided on my part.”
The relief on Carla's face told me I was spot-on for once.
“Not entirely your fault; I could have said something.” She said meekly.
“Why didn't you?”
“Because of the lack of attention you gave me. I thought you had someone else.”
“Someone else? Carla, I worshipped the ground you walked on.”
“You disguised it well.”
“Of course I did. I thought you were in love with my best friend, not me. And in any case, what girl ever looked at me twice?”
“You'd be surprised. Quite a few girls at school expressed more than a passing interest in my broody friend, but I put them off. Sorry.” She added at the shocked look that crossed my face.
“I don't believe it.” I said.
“It's true. I wasn't the goody-two-shoes you think. I let them think there was something wrong with you, without being specific.”
“Not that, shocking as it is. I don't believe that any girl, especially you, was remotely interested in me.”
“I forgot about your innate ability to do yourself down; I’ve missed that.” She stroked the side of my face, looking into my eyes to reassure me that it was true.
“Is it permissible to kiss a police officer?” I asked softly before I brushed my lips against hers.
“Depends which officer you're thinking of kissing.” She breathed in my ear.
“I was thinking, maybe Tina?” I smirked and then crushed my mouth to hers.

Asteroid Patrol: Turbulence In The Belt

A third Patrol story, ties up some loose ends.

*****

I was just finishing reading the days reports when my Senior Pilot and friend, Sergeant Stacey Grainger, came into my office. Glancing up, I told her to sit down as I was nearly done. She looked a bit glum; she had for a couple of days. I closed the report and looked her in the eye.
“What’s the matter Stace? You seem really down.”
She shrugged non-committedly
“It’s just….” She sighed. “It’s Paul, Emmy. He’s so indecisive.”
“He still not named a marriage date?” She nodded. “I thought you two were settled?”
“We are. And I do want to be with him. But he always wants me to take the lead. I want something a bit more old-fashioned I suppose.”
“You want him to tell you that you’re getting hitched.” I laughed.
“I suppose.” She grinned back weakly. “But he’s so shy about it.”
“Maybe he doesn’t think you’ll take kindly to taking orders from your junior?”
“That’s what it seems like.” She sighed now. “How do you and Big Dave manage?”
“Easy. At work, he knows who the boss is, and then at home I let him get away with thinking he’s in charge.” I grinned.
“Only think?” She smiled properly for the first time in ages.
“I let him make major decisions like what coffee we buy.” I grinned. “Do you want me to have a word with Toddy?”
“It might come better from Dave.”
“I’ll see what I can do. Where did they go anyway?” I asked. My husband, Senior Sergeant Dave Baldwin, had stuck his head around the door earlier and told me that he and Stacey’s boyfriend, Officer Paul Todd, were nipping out and not to wait for him.
“I got the impression that they were going to McLeary’s for a drink. They’d been talking to that detective in charge of the meteorite case for an hour or so before.” Stacey said.
She and I both had the same thought. I reached for the intercom and asked traffic control the status of JHU, Stacey’s patrol ship. I was told ‘Juliet’ had departed half an hour ago on a shakedown cruise after a short refit.
“The sneaky sods! Stace, see if you can find that detective. He’s not to leave ‘the Boonies’ until I’ve had a word with him.”
“What are you going to do while I find him?”
“I’m going to find his latest report; I must have been sent a copy.” I called for Elsie, my LC15 unit who had been my compatriot since I arrived here on ‘the Boonies’, to help me find the thing. Elsie had become my confidante while the others were all busy and I had been stuck in my office; she always listened and said nothing unless asked a direct question; she never told anyone what I said. She was the perfect sounding board.

---

“You sure this is okay Big Dave?” Officer Paul Todd asked.
“Course it is Toddy.” I grinned. “As Senior Sergeant I’m allowed to follow up on an investigation.”
“If you say so. But I still think we should have told Stacey and Lieutenant Baldwin what we’re up to. What is Emmy going to say when she finds out?”
“Emmy will understand the need for urgency. This is very time sensitive.” I hedged my answer; I wasn’t a hundred percent sure what my wife and senior officer would say, that’s why I hadn’t told her.
“I know, but….” Paul obviously had reservations about going behind both our bosses’ backs, and it was weighing on him.
“But what Paul?”
“I just don’t like lying to Stacey. Sorry Dave.”
“You haven’t exactly lied to her, you just didn’t tell her.” I sighed. “Look at it this way. If we don’t tell them, they can’t worry about us.”
“I don’t know about that,” he said dubiously, “they seem to find out nearly everything that happens.”
I laughed.
“Who do you think tells them most of it? Us!”
“It just feels like we’re doing something wrong.” He shook his head.
“What would be wrong is missing the opportunity we have to find out more about the meteorite attack. So relax: You’re only following my orders. If anyone gets into trouble it’ll be me.”
“Okay, I’m probably worrying for nothing.” He sighed. “How long until we get there?”
“About four hours. We need Juliet, as she looks unobtrusive, but she’s too big to take through the belt at the moment, the ‘roids are acting up, realigning orbits or something.”

---

“So then, it seems as if Lafarge was connected to the gang responsible for the meteorite attack; and the bank job was going to payroll that assault on us.” I said, looking up from the report. “Makes some sort of sick sense I suppose; steal the money from ‘The Boonies’ and then use it to destroy the place. Our foiling the raid and then Dave killing Lafarge must have delayed their plans. It leaves us with a lot of ‘whys’ though.”
“And it doesn’t explain why Paul and Big Dave have rushed off, or where to for that matter.”
“No it doesn’t.” I mused. “Dave must have seen a connection between what he knows about Lafarge and something else that we’re missing.” I had an idea. “You keep looking Stace, I’m going to call my dad, he’s the only person who knows more than Dave about Lafarge.”
“Okay, but it would help if I knew what I’m looking for.”
“Something not in the report: A note, a reminder, something like that.” I sighed. “If only the gang hadn’t got to the detective before us.”
“They must have realised he was on to something and had him killed.”
“It looks that way.” I sighed. “I should have made sure he reported to me and not just Dave.” I shook myself; there was no time for ‘what-if’. “Keep rooting, I’ll contact my dad.”
I opened up a comm line to the academy where dad was a tutor and was soon greeted by his smiling face.
“Hello Baby Girl, or is this an official call by Lieutenant Baldwin?”
“It’s a bit of both dad, and in either case you don’t have to call me ‘Lieutenant’.” I grinned.
“Okay then, what’s up Michelle? What can it be that only your dad can help with?” He grinned back in return. He was the only one who still called me ‘Michelle’, my given name.
“Well, we just got some intel linking Lafarge to the meteorite gang, or rather Dave got it before I did, and now he’s gone off somewhere without telling me. He must have spotted something else in the report, and connected it to what he knows about Lafarge. Now if anyone knows more about that man than Dave, it’s you.”
“So what do you need from me?”
“Anything that might help me find out what Dave is up to, or where he’s gone. Stuff not in the files, something actually IN the files that me and Stacey are overlooking, anything. Please?”
“Maybe Dave has his reasons for not telling you what he was up to. Perhaps he thinks you shouldn’t get involved.”
“Of course I’m involved; I’m in charge here not him. And how do you think I’ll feel if something happens to the daft bugger? The gang have already murdered the detective who made the report.”
“All right Michelle, I’m convinced. Give me half an hour.”
“Thanks dad. I owe you one.”
“You’ll never owe me a thing Baby Girl. I’m immensely proud of you.” He smiled as he broke the connection.
As I looked up I saw Stacey looking at me with a wistful smile.
“What?” I asked.
“Sorry!” She jumped a little. “It’s nothing really.”
“Tell me anyway.”
“I was just thinking how proud your dad is of you, and…” She tailed off.
“And?”
“And I wish my dad was half as proud. He might be I suppose, I just don’t know.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t know where he is.” She shrugged hopelessly. “I haven’t seen him since I entered the academy. I got the impression he didn’t approve.”
“I had that problem too!” I laughed. “Dad never wanted me to follow in his footsteps, that’s why I enrolled using my mother’s maiden name.”
“But he never held it against you when he found out; he accepted that it was your choice. My dad has never said a thing to me. I hoped things would change after they said I was a hero, but I’ve not heard from him.”
“Maybe he just didn’t like the idea of his little girl growing up; I’m pretty sure all dads feel that way about their daughters.” I smiled, wishing I could help my friend more.
“Maybe. I can’t help thinking there is something more to it though.”
“Like?”
“Like he’s involved in something he shouldn’t be.”
“Now you’re being paranoid my girl. Back to the files.”

---

We were about halfway to our destination when a thought struck me.
“Hey Paul, what was Juliet in dock for anyway?”
“Nothing major.” He said, continuing to monitor his instruments. “Stacey wanted the new transmat escape system installed, that’s all. They’re retro-fitting all our ships at the moment.”
“Transmat escape system?” I was a bit surprised; it sounded expensive.
“Yeah. When Stace used the escape pod on the Sierra and we caught her, she realised it would have been pointless if no-one had been around to pick her up, so she badgered Central until they agreed to upgrade all our stuff and put receivers in all the stations. That pretty much covered the entire sector.”
I turned around and looked at the new fittings behind the pilot’s seats, where two of the four rear seats had been removed.
“But that looks like a receiver to me.”
“Stace had them put receivers in all the bigger ships, Juliet, Boozy Bee, Nobby’s, and the transports, as a precaution.”
“She’s very thorough.”
“Just trying to safeguard her crews.”
“Let’s hope none of us have to use them anytime soon. I suppose when someone with the Armstrong Cross asks for something it’s hard to turn them down.” I grinned.
“I get the feeling that helped her argument no end.” He grinned back.

---

Stacey sat back and looked at me thoughtfully.
“What is it?” I asked.
“I was just looking at this geology report about ‘Big Blue 7’ that Elsie found.”
“And?”
“And it seems that BB7 is a pretty close match for the ‘Boonies’ asteroid geologically. So I was thinking that maybe it was just a coincidence that I had Paul land there, that we weren’t the target, that it was just a test run.”
“It’s possible.” I agreed slowly. “What about the attack on Station 6?”
“Elimination of possible witnesses?”
“That makes sense. It could mean that the sighting report was real, not faked, that someone was trying to draw our attention to what was going on. Where did the report originate?”
Stacey found the relevant report.
“It was made to the sub-station on Mondas, the small settlement near station 3, well away from 6.”
“So maybe someone WAS trying to tell us something.” I mused. At that point I got an incoming comms call from the academy.
It was my dad.
“Michelle, I think I have the connection you’re looking for. Lafarge’s uncle Dante runs a supply and repair business that is thought to be a front for the meteorite gang, and there is a whisper that they’re looking for a new pilot today. My guess would be that Dave is going to try and infiltrate the gang as that pilot.”
“Without proper back-up, a very sketchy plan and without telling me first? The bloody fool.” I practically shouted. Dad just looked at me impassively. Realising that losing my temper wasn’t going to help I took a couple of deep breaths and calmed down. “Okay dad, sorry about that. Where is this business?”
“I understand girl. The business is run out of Mondas, on the other side of the belt.” He smiled ruefully.
“Thanks, that confirms the conclusion we were coming to. Stacey found a clue pointing to Mondas as well. I think we need to get there ASAP; before the reckless idiots get themselves caught or worse.”
“How are you going to do that Michelle? They have a big head start.”
“If we take our quickest scout and cut some corners, we shouldn’t be far behind them.”
“You just be careful baby, the belt in flux is a dangerous place, even around the edges.” He frowned in worry.
“We’ll be fine dad. Stacey didn’t get to be Senior Pilot just by looking good.”
“I should hope not, good though her looks are.” He gave me his ‘teasing’ grin.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Stacey blushing.
“Dad! She is here with me listening you know.” I admonished him.
“Doesn’t make her any the less attractive. The pair of you be careful; you’re both too pretty to lose.” He rang off.
I was blushing as well as I turned to Stace, about to apologise, when she grinned at me.
“Your dad has a way with words, doesn’t he?” Her grin grew wider. “How do you feel about having a younger step-mom?”
“Stacey Grainger! That’s my dad you’re thinking naughty things about!”
She just burst out laughing and I realised that she was joking and joined in.
“Seriously though,” she said, “your dad is right about the dangers of cutting through the belt at the moment.” She paused. “But I’ve got an idea, if you give the okay.”
“That depends on what it is.”
“We take one of the scouts fitted with the transmat device, get within range of ‘Juliet’ and then beam in. It would be better if you could get them to hold position for a while though.”
“Well, I can try. They’ve ignored me up till now though. What about the scout ship?”
“I can land it on one of the rocks and turn on the beacon. Then Nobby can find it and bring it back.”
I nodded slowly, turning over the pros and cons.
“You sure the transmat works?”
“They haven’t had any problems on the trials or I wouldn’t have pushed so hard to get the system installed.”
I made up my mind.
“Okay, we’ll do it. I’ll meet you in the docking bays in five minutes.”
“I can tell you how to set up the transmat on the way and then you can get Big Dave to stay put for ten minutes or so.”
I gulped a little; although Stace was confident in the new system, I wasn’t exactly sold on it yet.

---

Paul looked across at me as we received the message to hold our position thirty clicks out from Mondas for ten minutes, and to wait for a further transmission.
“That was the Lieutenant; what shall we do?”
“We’ll hold off and see what she wants. It’ll probably be a ticking off for not telling her what we were up to. She must have worked it out; she didn’t get put in charge by accident.” I grinned.
“Will she tell us to scrub the mission?”
“I doubt it; she’ll be able to see how important it is.”
“So, we wait?”
I nodded.
“We’ll wait and see, but I’m carrying on whatever Emmy says.”
Paul looked a bit concerned but nodded.
“Okay, I’m still with you.”
Suddenly there was a buzzing behind us. We both turned around to see Emmy and Stacey appear on the receiver plate. Emmy staggered backwards slightly against the rear of the cabin, but Stacey’s legs weren’t under her and she went down to the floor in a sitting position, landing hard.
“Oww! That hurt!” She cried out.
“It certainly needs refining a little.” Emmy panted.
Paul and I stared for a long moment until I found my tongue.
“Where did you two spring from?” I asked in amazement.
“Sierra Alpha Sierra, if you must know.” Stacey smirked as she gingerly got to her feet, feeling her sore bottom. “Emmy told you to expect another transmission.”
By now Paul had got up from his seat and wordlessly hugged her.
“Don’t ever use that again unless it’s really necessary.” He said quietly.
“We wouldn’t have had to use it this time if you two macho lunatics hadn’t taken off without informing me.” Emmy glared, but I could see the worry etched into her face.
“Sorry beautiful.” I smiled. “Forgive me?”
“Maybe, you silly bugger.” She leant forward and kissed me. “Now exactly what were you bloody fools planning on doing?”

---

I listened as my husband sketched out what he and Paul intended. It was a fundamentally sound plan, if a little ‘on the fly’.
“Not bad for an outline,” I mused, “but it needs a few tweaks.”
“Like what?” Dave replied with a touch of petulance.
“Like; it can’t be you who goes undercover. You’re too well known all over the belt you twit.”
“I could have managed.” He sulkily said.
“If Dave doesn’t go, then who will?” Paul asked, evidently thinking I meant him.
“Stacey of course!” I smiled. “They want a good belt pilot and she’s the best.”
“ME? But I’ve never done that sort of work!” Stace was almost plaintive.
“You’d never been a belt pilot before either.” Dave grinned; despite his disappointment as he knew I was right. “Anyway, I’ll be there to back you up, right Em?” He looked at me pointedly, daring me to disagree.
“That’s right Stace; Dave will be on the other end of your earwig device. He’ll tell you what to do if you have a problem, okay?”
“If that’s what you think will work boss, I’m willing to try.” Stacey didn’t sound completely convinced, but I knew with Dave’s help she’d be fine.
“What about me?” Paul asked.
“Toddy, you and I are going to find a way to have a look around their repair yard. It would be the perfect place to build those meteorite engines, so I want to check it out.” I turned back to Stacey. “If they offer you the chance to look around the yard, take it, but don’t ask.” I turned to Dave next. “Any information you get from Stacey that you think might be helpful, tell us.” He nodded. “Right then team,” I smiled, “let’s get to Mondas.”

---

I was worried as I sat in the Café booth not far from where Stacey was meeting the gang contact. I was confidant enough in her; I knew her logic and quick-thinking would serve her well. I also knew her earpiece and listening device were both top-notch and undetectable. What I was worried about was getting to her in time if she uttered the distress word. Because I was so well-known (Emmy was right about that!) there was no way I could just hang around outside the building where the meeting was taking place, I would be spotted for certain. So I was forced to ensconce myself in this private booth in this out-of-the-way café just around the corner; fairly close but still a good minutes run away. I just had to hope if things went awry Stace would manage to look after herself until I arrived.
“All right Dave, I’m going in.” She said over the comm.
“Roger that Stace. I just want you to remember that THEY want YOU. Be confidant, cocky even.”
“Cocky? Me?” She seemed surprised at the suggestion.
“Yes, you. Like you were with Joe on your SP test.” I grinned to myself, remembering with how much relish Joe Winters had described her ordering him about on Station Six. “Now go on, you’ll be great.”
I heard Stacey asked to enter the doorway and being gruffly told she would be searched. There was no way that they’d find the bug and the earpiece but we hadn’t had the time to get a mini camera as undetectable so we’d reluctantly decided not to chance using one for this reason.
“Watch where you’re putting your hands, I can be ticklish.” I heard Stacey say. There was a grunt of acknowledgement. I could hear hands patting her down as they got close to the microphone and then that stopped.
“You don’t carry a weapon?” The gruff voice asked.
“You’d only have confiscated it.” Stacey laughed. She was doing well so far.
“True. Follow me.” The other voice said. There was relative silence for a while, wit only the sound of footsteps as Stacey was taken to meet the gang leader. “In here.” The voice said brusquely, as I heard another door opening.
“You in charge?” Stacey asked. “I’m here about the piloting job.”
“A pretty woman like you is a pilot?” A new voice said.
“What have my looks got to do with my skill as a pilot?” Stacey replied cheekily.
“Not a thing I suppose. How good a pilot are you? In the asteroid belt I mean.”
“There might be someone better, but I’ve never met them.” Stace was taking my advice and being cocky. I could imagine the grin on her face as she spoke. “What’s the job?”
“We need someone to fly through the belt to a specific asteroid and pick something up, and it needs to be done by tomorrow.”
I blanched at the thought while Stacey whistled.
“While the belt is in flux? The pay better be damn good.”
“It is more than sufficient.”
“I want paying up front.”
“Why would we do that?”
“Because it’s bloody dangerous. I want to know my family is taken care of if the worst happens.”
“Half now, half on completion.”
“Done. What ship do I use and where is this rock?”
“The ship is docked at our repair facility; your guide is waiting on board. Alphonse will take you there.”
“Money?”
“Ah, right. Here is the first payment.”
“I’ll need half an hour to get it safe.”
There was a pause.
“All right. Be back here in half an hour and Alphonse will take you to your ship.” Another pause. “What do I call you?”
“Stacey.” It must have slipped out; it wasn’t the cover name we’d decided on. “Stacey Ferguson.” She recovered well.
“Well Stacey, I’m Dante; I look forward to seeing you again when you get back from the belt.”
“Just make sure you’ve got the rest of my money.”
I breathed a sigh of relief; she had pulled it off. She was on the inside, at least temporarily.
“Stace?” I called her up as she left the building. “Meet me on ‘Juliet’. We’ll sort out how I’ll follow you.”
“You know you can’t take her into the belt Dave.”
“I do, that’s what we’re going to discuss.”

---

Paul and I stared at the high security fence around the repair yard; it seemed to afford no easy way in.
“We can’t climb that.” I muttered.
“Could we go under it Lieutenant?” Toddy asked. We both crouched down to take a closer look. The ground was solid concrete. “Probably not.” He said after some consideration. We stood.
“At least not without leaving some sign that we had.” I smiled wanly, feeling discouraged. “There has to be some way in.” I said softly to myself as I tried to think.
“Well, there’s always the front gate.” Paul said jocularly, trying to cheer me up.
The notion exploded into my head.
“Brilliant! Absolutely bloody brilliant!!” I exclaimed, kissing a bemused Toddy.
“W… what is?” He stammered, surprise by my response.
“It’s so simple. We just walk in with all the other workers.”
“Won’t we be spotted?”
“There’s a chance, but most of the people here are unaware that this is a front for some nasty people. To them we’ll just be other workers, new faces. Then once we’re in…”
“We can grab a couple of clipboards and start poking about.” Paul finished for me.
“Clipboards?” I raised my eyebrow in puzzlement.
“No-one ever questions someone with a clipboard; you can go anywhere and do nothing at all.” He grinned sheepishly.
“I’ll have to remember that when I see someone wandering around the station not appearing to do anything but carry a clipboard.” I smirked.
“Just don’t tell anyone who let it slip will you? Or my name will be mud amongst my fellow idlers.”
“Any other little skives I should know about?”
“I think you can work the rest out for yourself boss.” He said, going very red.
“All right,” I laughed, “now let’s find some overalls and bluff our way in.”

---

Dave and I had decided that the only thing he could do was track me from ‘Juliet’ from the edge of the belt. Once again it was far from ideal, but it was the only sensible option. He left Mondas as I returned to find Alphonse, my guide to whatever ship I was supposed to be piloting, the idea being for him to get to a point on the fringe of the belt where he could maintain contact with me. Just before I left we got a call from Nobby saying he had recovered Sierra Alpha Sierra and was towing it back to the hub.
Alphonse wasn’t the talkative type; he just led me to the yard’s docking bay and there pointed at some guy stood next to a small patrol-type ship, checking something. He introduced us.
“Stacey Ferguson, meet Andreas Bergman, your co-pilot for this trip.”
“Pleased to meet you.” I said, holding out my hand as the guy turned around. I nearly gasped out loud when he did; it was my dad! Or his twin brother.
“I used to know a ‘Stacey’.” He smiled, shaking my hand. He had to know it was me! I nearly said the distress word there and then, Dave would be getting nervous, but something told me it wasn’t necessary. “She was very pretty too. I wonder what she’s doing now?” He smiled.
“Maybe she’s wondering what her father is up to?” I asked cryptically.
“Maybe she doesn’t need to know yet?” He laughed.
Alphonse looked from one of us to the other, obviously wondering what the hell the joke was. He shrugged to himself, not paid to think, and walked away. I could hear Big Dave calmly, but with a hint of worry, talking in my earpiece.
“Stacey, if you’re in trouble, just say the distress word. No need to work it into a sentence, just say it.”
My dad pulled me close and whispered in my ear.
“I suppose you’re wired up, but there’s no need to worry. I’ll explain everything when we’ve got off base.”
At the same time Dave was getting more and more worried.
“Stacey? Are you there Stace? Say something.”
With a secret grin to myself I answered both of them at the same time.
“All right old man, let’s get this done.” Dad gave me a look and I heard Dave say ‘Bitch’ in my ear.

---

The Lieutenant and I had split up as soon as we had passed through the gate to enable us to cover more ground at once. The clipboard scam appeared to be working well. As long as I made the occasional note on it no-one bothered me. At the moment I was checking out some likely-looking sheds not far from the docking bay. They looked dilapidated and unused but there seemed to be people constantly moving in and out of them and there was the noise of some sort of construction work coming from within. I knew I had to find a way to get a look inside somehow. As it happened it was simple. One of the workers came out of the shed looking for something. It appeared to be in a large crate or box. He looked up.
“Here mate,” he called out, “gis a lift with this will ya?” He hefted one end of the crate upwards.
“Sure, no problem.” Talk about luck I thought as I stuffed the clipboard into my overalls and picked up the other end.
“I know some of you supervisory types don’t like getting your hands dirty, so thanks.” He said.
“Glad to help out actually. Sometimes I feel like an extra wheel around here.” I laughed.
“Yeah, I know what you mean. Sometimes it feels like we got more chiefs than Indians around here.” We both grinned as we manoeuvred the unwieldy box inside the shed where we set it down next to a bench where the guy was working. Around the inside of the rest of the shed were several of what we had come to call ‘meteorite engines’ of varying sizes and in various states of construction. My eyes lit up: We had been right, this was where the machines that been used to attack ‘The Boonies’ had come from. I chatted with some of the other workers in the shed, getting a good look around at the same time, before I slipped away to get to the rendezvous with Emmy.

---

After Toddy and I had split up I had decided to try and get a look around at some of the offices. I shed the overalls and cap I had disguised myself in to gain entry to the yard, primped my hair and put on a pair of glasses: Criminal types always seemed to think secretaries wore glasses. As I began to poke around in the office block I found that Paul’s ‘clipboard’ idea worked much better than I thought it would. I varied it for snooping around the offices by slipping some blank pieces of paper into a couple of empty file folders I picked up. This proved highly effective as if there was someone in an office I just waved the folders and said ‘Is Jenny here?’ If there wasn’t then I had time for a quick snoop through the desks within.
Pretty soon it became obvious that it wasn’t just the repair yard that was run from here; there were too many people busily working away on paperwork for that. Most of the lower floor offices were open, I could just walk in, but most of those on the upper level weren’t. I had to resort to following someone in, still using the folders as an excuse and then hoping that they’d leave so that I could nose around.
Eventually I came across a door marked ‘Dante’ in elegant curly script. Someone who in no way could be thought of as a ‘Dante’ came out of the door. I decided to take a chance and walked quickly up to the man.
“Could you hand those files to Mr Dante for me? I’m in a bit of a hurry.” I held out the files to him.
He looked me up and down, a perverted grin spreading over his face as he mentally undressed me. It was a disgusting experience, I felt more violated than when Lafarge had stripped me of my uniform blouse and body armour.
“MISTER Dante ain’t in at the moment.” He continued to leer. “Just leave them there on his desk.” He held the door open but didn’t move out of the way as I squeezed past.
“I need to know he’s read them.” I said in my best ‘plaintive’ voice. It was taking all my self control not to strangle this loathsome creature.
“Then you’ll have to wait here sweetie. He’s gonna be about an hour.” He gave me one final leer and then shut the door on me.
I gave a shudder and then smiled to myself; men with a tiny bit of power in a big organisation were so predictable. And the vile but stupid man had even told me how much time I had to search the office. I quickly went to work. The first thing I wanted to do was copy his computer files. As I started that I noticed that part of the hard drive was partitioned off, so I copied that too. As my mini drives downloaded that I went to find the safe. When I’d been at the academy I’d never realised that I might need to crack a safe. Luckily for me Big Dave had seen this gap in my education and taught me a few tricks; Nobby had taught me some more until I was a safebreaker of some repute, at least around the hub. It took me less than five minutes to get in and start to copy the documents inside.
After half an hour I had done as much as I could, I didn’t want to push my luck any further. It was time to rendezvous with Toddy.

---

The ship was a disarmed version of an old ‘Delta’ class patrol vessel: Small, nippy, fairly reliable, but old. As with all patrol craft the pilots seats were side-by-side and were dual-control. Although I’d never actually flown one before, the Delta proved easy enough to pilot. It was like a cross between ‘Juliet’ and a Sierra scout.
Once we were clear of Mondas dad spoke;
“Can your partner hear me?” He asked.
“I can hear.” Dave said. “Are you absolutely sure about him Stace?”
“Of course I am Dave. Where are you and ‘Juliet’?”
“About thirty clicks ahead of you.”
“Who are ‘Dave’ and ‘Juliet’?” Dad asked.
“Senior Sergeant Dave Baldwin, and ‘Juliet’ isn’t really a person; she’s my ship.”
Dad gave a low whistle.
“Don’t you move in exalted circles? You’re the girl who succeeded ‘Big Dave’ as the pilot of good old ‘Juliet’ then?”
“You’ve heard of them?”
“Everyone who works in and around the belt has heard about Big Dave and Juliet. It wasn’t you who married him as well was it?”
I heard Dave spluttering and smiled.
“Sorry dad; that was Emmy, my boss. I was just the bridesmaid.”
“Wait a damn moment. That would make you the one who won the Armstrong Cross?”
I nodded, still embarrassed by the award.
“My little Stacey is a hero, who’d have thought it?” Dad mused.
“I would.” Dave broke in. “This is all very touching, but can we get to the point Stacey? Like what does your dad know about the meteorite engines and why is he working for that scumbag Lafarge’s uncle Dante, who is probably an even bigger scumbag.”
“All right Dave; keep your stripes on. I’ll ask him shall I?”
“Ask me what?”
“Who you work for, and why.”
Dad looked across at me, surprise on his face.
“I rather thought you knew. I work for you, the space patrol, a special undercover unit.” Puzzlement was evident in his tone.
“Stace,” Dave said quietly in my earpiece, “we don’t have an undercover unit, nor do any of the other sectors, or even the local planetary forces. And even if we did, we wouldn’t use a civilian as an operative. Either your dad has been duped or he’s trying the strangest defence ever.”
The blood drained from my face.
“How…how long ago were you recruited dad?” I asked haltingly.
“When you were accepted into the academy princess, I thought that was why they asked me. I was a bit upset when they told me I had to cut all my ties with my family for safety reasons though.” He saw the shock on my face. “Why, what’s happening Stacey?”
“Tell him.” Dave said. “If he’s faking it then he’ll realise we’re on to him. If he’s not then he deserves the truth.”
“Okay.” I said quietly. I took a deep breath; this wasn’t going to be easy. “Dad, we don’t have any undercover units, and even if we did we would never put a civilian at risk like that.”
“You mean I was set up?” He asked, the realisation showing on his face.
“It looks that way. What were you doing at the repair yard anyway?”
“I designed a system to guide the meteorites when they were fitted with an engine.”
“But they used that to propel them at us! Dad, you could have wiped out the ‘Boonies’!”
“But I told my undercover contact about the emergency override that I’d fitted….” He tailed off. “Except he wasn’t an agent was he? I told them that I’d sabotaged my own design. Stupid of me.” He looked downcast.
“You didn’t know that dad.”
“But I suspected it. That was why I reported some ‘unusual activity’ near where they were testing the engines and the guidance system.”
Dave suddenly spoke very loudly and urgently.
“Stacey! I’m turning around and coming back for you. The whole thing is a trap!”
“How do…” I started to ask.
“I’ll explain later. Tell me, just how thoroughly did you check the ship before you took off?”
“Pretty thoroughly. I thought they’d be suspicious if I didn’t.”
“Doesn’t matter really, there are dozens of hard to spot ways of sabotaging an old ship. They could have just put an explosive device on board.”
“SERGEANT BALDWIN, YOU ARE NOT HELPING HERE!” I shouted.
“Oh! Sorry Stace.” He mumbled sheepishly. “But we need to get the pair of you off that ship smartish.”
“How? We’re literally in the middle of nowhere. As we can’t breathe vacuum we can’t just get out and float around till you turn up.”
“I’m working on it. I’ll be there in about eight minutes. Don’t die or Emmy will kill me!”
I smiled at his feeble attempt at a cheerful joke. Dad nudged me. I realised that he’d only heard my half of the conversation and didn’t know what the shouting was about.
“What’s happening princess?” He asked.
“Dave has got it into his head that the ship is rigged somehow. We need to stay alive long enough for him to rescue us. Any ideas?” I smiled a lot more jovially than I felt.

---

Toddy and I had met up and we had returned to the sub-station on Mondas. I was anxious for news of Stacey’s mission and so was Paul. Dave had left a terse message saying that she had been accepted as Dante’s new pilot and he was tailing her, but there were no details. He also mentioned that Nobby had recovered Sierra Alpha Sierra. I wanted to tell him what Paul had found and I also wanted to see what was on the mini drives I had downloaded from the computer in Dante’s office. For some reason I felt that here on Mondas wasn’t the safest place to be doing that, so I needed the resources of ‘Juliet’. With all that in mind I called Dave on the comms.
“Juliet Hotel Uniform, this is ‘Big Boss’, (He’d know who that was!) What is your status and location?”
There was a pause while I wondered if he was going to answer.
“Big Boss, I’m a bit busy at the moment. Things are a little awkward. Please refrain from calling in the red zone. Meet you at the usual place in thirty minutes.”
That didn’t sound good. The ‘red zone’ meant that he felt the communications were compromised and the usual place must mean the docking bay. I looked at Toddy and saw that he understood all that too.
“What’s happening Lieutenant?”
“I wish I knew Paul. We’ll have to trust Big Dave and meet him in thirty minutes like he said. It sounded like it wasn’t just the communications he was worried about though.”
“I hope Stacey is all right.” He said fervently.
“So do I Paul, so do I.” I said, wondering what the hell had happened out there, and whether I should get Nobby and his repair ship out here.

---

Stacey had halted near a meteorite on the cusp of the belt’s influence.
“Now what?” She demanded a little petulantly, evidently not convinced that the ship was in danger.
“I’m going to open the cargo hatch. Then you release your canopy and make for it as quick as you can.”
“We can’t breathe space Dave!”
“Don’t. Just get across the gap.” I was getting a bit annoyed now, probably because I wasn’t used to people questioning my decisions. Even Emmy would (generally) accept what I said in cases of extreme danger. Stacey couldn’t seem to grasp the trouble she was in. I knew that I was going to have to explain my reasoning about why she was in a trap. “Stacey, our detective was murdered not long after Toddy and I spoke to him. They also seemed to have found out about your dad’s ‘unusual activity’ incident report. All this points to us having a mole at the hub. Your dad also told his ‘contact’ that he’d fitted something to disable the meteorite engines. Dante must have decided to cut his losses and have him rubbed out. Knowing who his daughter was and what a good pilot she is, he let us know he needed a belt pilot. That, along with some other little clues, probably planted, meant he was confidant of getting either you or me to try and get into his organisation. It didn’t matter which one of us he got, he wants us both dead. Now do you understand?”
“DAD! Get ready; we’re going across to Juliet.”
“Stacey, I’ve never swum in space.” He said apologetically.
“Just aim for the open hatch and push yourself off after I blow the canopy away.”
“NO! Stacey, crank it open. The explosive charge would be easy to tamper with.” I nearly screamed.
“I don’t know that I can crank it quickly enough.”
“Course you can, a fit young thing like you. Quicker than an ‘old man’ anyway.”
“Sorry about that, it seemed funny at the time.”
“It was.” I laughed.
“Get ready dad.”
I could hear then both taking deep breaths and then I heard the rapid whirring as Stacey manually opened the canopy as fast as she could. I looked over at the little ‘Delta’ ship and saw the pair of them pushing out of the cockpit and heading towards ‘Juliet’. Locking the controls I ran to the outside of the cargo bay and peered through the tiny window. I wanted to close the outer door as soon as both of them had passed the threshold so I could pump some air into the hold. Stacey had already reached the edge of the door but her father was lagging behind, obviously tiring rapidly. She reached back and grabbed his flailing hand. With a tug she threw him into the hold and dove through the door herself. I hit the both sets of control sat once; the door slammed shut and the hold began to repressurise simultaneously. I opened the inner door and rushed in to check that they had survived. The two of them lay on the floor gasping for air. Stacey seemed to be recovering quite quickly but her father didn’t look too good.
“Stace, look after your dad. I’m heading back to Mondas to pick up Emmy and Paul.”
“They all right?” She gasped.
“It sounded like it when Em called a few minutes ago, but I want to get to them ASAP just in case.”
“Okay, go. We’ll be up in a while.”
I dashed back to the cockpit and immediately set course for Mondas once more.

---

Lieutenant Baldwin had been pacing the docking bay at the Mondas sub-station for forty minutes, getting increasingly anxious as ‘Juliet’ failed to appear.
“Where the hell is he?” She muttered. “He should be here by now.”
“Are you sure he meant this docking bay Boss?” I asked, a little concerned myself.
“No I’m not Toddy, but where else could he mean?”
“How many docking bays are there here on Mondas?”
“That can accommodate ‘Juliet’? No more than four or five. And one of those is the repair yard, which I doubt he meant.”
“Where are the others?”
“The municipal docks and two mining companies have larger bays.” A thoughtful look crossed her face. “I wonder….”
“Wonder what?”
“If he was speaking in some sort of verbal code.”
“Why would you think that?”
“Because he called me ‘Big Boss’.”
“But that was the call sign that you used.”
“But Dave didn’t use his call sign. What if by ‘usual place’ he meant somewhere else? An UN-usual Place.”
“Like where?”
She slapped her forehead.
“Stupid of me! One of the mining companies is called ‘Unusual Element Mining’.”
“And you now think that’s where Big Dave meant?”
“Well, he’s not here is he?”
“True. Let’s go look then. Lead on ‘Big Boss’.” I grinned.
“You can shut up too.” Emmy grinned back. “I’m regretting that already.”

---

Dave and Emmy were still bickering four hours later about whether Dave had been trying to be too clever or Emmy had been particularly slow on the uptake as I brought ‘Juliet’ slowly towards her berth on the hub. Toddy had been talking to my dad for most of the trip back which I had found a little disconcerting, but not as disconcerted as I felt now, bringing my ship into dock with my dad sat behind me. Paul gave me an amused smile from the co-pilots seat. He could tell I was trying to be perfect. Eventually there was a satisfyingly solid ‘clunk’ as the ship settled into place. I gave a sigh as the unexpected tension left me. Toddy clapped me on the shoulder.
“As smooth as ever,” his eyes were laughing at me, “Little Boss.”
“What?” I asked, wondering where he had got that from.
“Well, if Emmy is ‘Big Boss’, then that must make you ‘Little Boss’, yes?” He laughed.
“Oh yes? And what does that make Dave?” I retorted facetiously.
“How about just ‘The Boss’?” Paul grinned again.
“And that would make you ‘Nearly Boss’ would it?” Dave said, coming up between the pilot seats and putting his hands on our shoulders as Emmy left the ship quickly, carrying all our recently gathered Intel. He gave us both a serious look.
“Come on, I think we all need a refreshing drink while Emmy is getting all that data sorted through.”
“In a while Dave,” I said, “I want to show my dad my office first.”
“We may as well stick together Stace; your dad is a valuable witness who needs protecting. I think the three of us can manage that.” He turned to my father. “What do you think sir?”
“I think, Big Dave, that I couldn’t be in better hands.” He said heartfeltly. “And I like the sound of a drink.”

---

Things were not going how I wanted at this meeting to plan our next move; the other three were ganging up on me. Dave was going to lead the team raiding the repair yard; Paul was to take charge of the blockade of Mondas flying Juliet and Stacey had somehow convinced me to let her attempt to reach the asteroid Dante had mentioned. Her father, sitting in on the meeting where we could keep an eye on him, had said that there was something there worth the risk, a fully primed and guided engine. He was fairly certain it held something else too, the reason why ‘the Boonies’ was so important to Dante. I didn’t really want to let her try while the belt was still in flux but she was determined she could do it, so I reluctantly acquiesced. The thing that was really annoying me was that they wouldn’t let me take a more prominent role.
“Emmy, you are not coming with me into the belt while it is such a perilous state.” Stacey said flatly.
“And there is no way that you are going on the raid.” Dave was equally stern.
I looked beseechingly at Paul. For once he didn’t give in.
“Don’t you think you’d be better employed co-ordinating things from the Ops Centre ma’am?” He said quietly. The other two nodded in agreement. I sighed: I knew they were right of course, but the events of the past day or so had whetted my appetite for action again.
“In any case, I can’t think of anyone I’d rather have looking after my dad.” Stacey said, looking at her father who nodded in approval.
“Stace, we’re in the middle of the hub,” I exclaimed, “there’s coppers everywhere.”
“And almost any one of them might be the mole who has killed once already.” Dave interjected sombrely.
“There is that I suppose.” I said, my shoulders slumping, resigning myself to missing out on the last act of something that had started the day I had first arrived here at ‘The Boonies’. “All right then, I’ll stay here.” I turned to her, “Stacey, I’m going to get Nobby to trail you. That way, if something does go wrong, you can use the transmat to escape.” She began to say something. “I just want you all to be safe.”
“And that is precisely why we want you to stay here.” Dave said, not unkindly. “Big Boss’.” He added with a chuckle.
“I’m really going to regret that for a long time, aren’t I?” I sighed as my so-called ‘friends’ all sniggered.

---

The Ops room was nearly empty; all non-essential personnel being removed. I had brought in some old friends, people I trusted implicitly, to help me run the operation. Wrighty was co-ordinating the repair yard raid with Dave; Brown was talking to Toddy about the blockade and Rodriguez was monitoring Stacey’s progress. He kept wincing so much every time Stace got a little close to a rock that I had to ask him to keep it down. I had even brought in Elsie to keep an eye on Mr Grainger, who sat close to Rodriguez where he too could watch Stacey’s progress. The LC’s had been used mainly to man the front desks for a while now, but that wasn’t important. I knew that just ordering Elsie to protect the life of Stacey’s dad would help keep him alive far more than appointing a human bodyguard ever would.
The raid went smoothly; most of the people at the yard were, as I had said earlier to Paul, completely unaware of who they were working for. There had been a bit of a shootout with some of the hardcore gang members but the firepower we had mustered soon put all resistance down. Dante himself was caught trying to run the blockade in another ‘Delta’ class ship, again easily overpowered. Now it was just a case of rounding up all the loose ends, sorting out who was in the gang and who was just working in the wrong place. I could leave Dave and Paul to run that between them, communicating through Wright and Brown. That just left Stacey to complete her mission. I went and stood quietly behind Rodriguez and watched as she made her way through the asteroids. I tapped him lightly on the shoulder.
“How much further to the rock?” I asked in a hushed voice, lest I distract her.
“It’s in sight Ma’am.” He replied, covering his mike with his hand.
“Then all she has to do is get back.” I muttered.
“The belt seems to be settling down again Lieutenant Baldwin.” Mr Grainger said. “It should be stable in a couple of hours. Then you can send your friend Nobby in to recover the engine and everything it contains.”
“So we could have waited?” I asked.
“Sergeant Grainger has passed at least two ships that have obviously been trying the same thing she is and failed Lieutenant.” Rodriguez said.
“You know she wanted to run the belt anyway Lieutenant Baldwin, while it was in flux I mean, just to prove she could.” Her dad said softly. “I think she wanted to show me how good she was. She didn’t have too.”
“I know sir, and so does she.” I patted him on the shoulder. “And I think you can call me ‘Emmy’, all my friends do.” I paused, a thought coming slowly to me. “Could you instruct Stacey on how to use the engines guidance system sir?”
“Yes, I think so. It’s not that complicated and she is a quick learner.”
“She is.” I smiled. “Okay Roddy; after Stace touches down, tell her to wait until we’re sure the belt is settled again and then she’s to bring the whole meteorite back to ‘The Boonies’. Should be nice and safe.” I rubbed my hands together. “This has all gone rather well.”
Suddenly the door to the Ops room was blown in, catching Elsie and knocking her to the floor. I span around and saw Nobby’s girlfriend Heather framed in the doorway. It was a very different looking Heather; she was armed and angry.
“You’ve ruined everything!” She screamed. “First you kill my cousin and now you’ve arrested my father. There’s nobody left. You’ve left me with nothing!” She pointed her weapon at me. “At least I can kill you, the bitch who started all this off.”
Everyone else in the room was frozen. The boys were all sat facing the wrong way, there was no way they could help. Mr Grainger had fallen to the floor out of sight. I motioned him to stay there. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Elsie picking herself up out of the wreckage of the door very quietly. She was damaged but still functioning. I needed to give her a few moments.
“Heather, what do you mean by ‘there’s nobody left’? What about Nobby?”
“Nobby? That was always just a scheme to get close to the core; you, Baldwin and that annoying brat Grainger. It was never real.”
“Maybe not for you.”
“Or him. He’s still hung up on Grainger.”
“So you’re just going to throw your life away in some stupid act of vengeance?”
“It looks that way doesn’t it?” She sneered.
Her body tensed as she went to pull the trigger. Time seemed to slow at that moment. I was expecting to feel the heat of a blaster bolt any second. Instead I saw Elsie throw herself in front of me, the bolt I was waiting for hitting her squarely in the chest. As the robot hit the floor popping and crackling I launched myself at Heather, crashing her through the open doorway and into the wall of the corridor. The blaster skittled along the floor, well out of reach. All the frustration I had felt earlier welled up. There was anger too. I had thought of Heather as a friend, we all had, but she had betrayed us. On top of that, she had blasted my most faithful companion. It didn’t matter that Elsie was a mechanoid; she had always been there when I needed to talk and wanted someone to just listen. All this went into the punch that knocked Heather unconscious. I drew back my fist to land another blow and then realised that there were other people in the corridor watching, people that looked to me to set an example. I lowered my fist and at the same time let Heather slip to the ground.
“Somebody take this bitch away and lock her up.” I said as I turned and went back into the Ops room. Elsie’s power pack was obviously shattered beyond repair. “Thank you Elsie.” I whispered as I knelt beside the broken mechanoid. “But why?”
“Core….Program….Reinforced….Dave….Protect….Michelle Elizabeth….” She managed to say before the light behind her eyes went out and I started to cry. Brown and Wright came and knelt alongside me, Rodriguez still busy with Stacey.
“Can she be repaired?” Wrighty asked softly.
“Don’t know.” I sobbed.
“Nobby will be able to fix her I’m sure.” Brown said comfortingly.
“Maybe.” I shook myself and stood up. “I’m going to my office; send the others up when they get back.” I looked around the Ops room. “Get someone to tidy this up. And have Elsie taken to Nobby’s workshop. No-one but him is to try fixing her.” I caught sight of Stacey’s dad. “Mr Grainger, you’re welcome to come with me.”
“I think I’ll stay here, just in case Stacey has a problem.” He said apologetically.
“Good idea. I think I’d like to be alone anyway. Carry on guys.” I left and made my way slowly to my office.

---

As soon as I heard about the incident in the Ops room I took off from what had become known as ‘Mobile Rock One’ and collected Nobby before heading back to ‘The Boonies’ at full speed. It sounded like Emmy needed someone to talk to now and Dave, her husband, was going to be processing prisoners for a while yet. Nobby assured me that his crew were more than capable of getting ‘Mobile Rock One’ back to the hub so we left them to it.
I slipped Sierra Alpha Sierra into her berth and was out of the cockpit almost before the clamps gripped her. Nobby headed for the workshop where Elsie had been taken to begin to assess what could be done for her. I dashed into my office and grabbed a bottle I’d been keeping for a special occasion and then headed up to find my friend.
Emmy was sat in a darkened office, a stark contrast to a few days earlier, staring at nothing. In fact she was staring at the spot Elsie habitually stood in to listen to her. I hadn’t seen Emmy so upset since the early days, when she had been injured and it had looked like Dave could be in trouble. Elsie had been there as well; unobtrusive but ever-present. I plonked the bottle down on her desk in front of her.
“We need to sign off duty so we can drink this.” I said quietly.
Emmy looked at the bottle and then up at me, her eyes red from crying.
“Isn’t that your celebration bottle for when Toddy finally pops the question?”
“It is, but I think you need to drown your sorrows and numb the pain.”
“No Stace, I won’t open your special bottle.” She reached into her desk drawer and pulled out another bottle. “I was waiting for one of you to get here; I didn’t want to drink alone.” She smiled a sad watery smile. The bottle was joined by two glasses. Emmy poured a generous measure into each and handed me one. Picking up the other one, she raised it to make a toast. “To Elsie, keeper of all my secrets.”
“Elsie.” I said and knocked back the drink. “What do you mean by that Em?” I asked, wondering what she was getting at.
“Exactly that. Elsie knew everything about me, simply because while you and Dave were off gallivanting around and enjoying yourselves she was the only one I could talk to and know she wouldn’t blab.”
“I didn’t realise you felt like that.”
“Neither did I until I saw her lying broken on the floor of the Ops room.”
“No, I meant about me and Dave.”
“Oh that. I suppose in a way I was jealous.”
“Jealous?”
“Envious that the pair of you still got the opportunity to get out and interact with people, while I was stuck in here on my own.”
“I thought we’d agreed that you didn’t have to do it like that?”
“It’s not that easy now Stace. After we became a fully-fledged sector there was too much for me to do. I couldn’t just abandon my office on a whim; there were problems to solve, questions needing answers, people to talk to.” She sighed sadly. “I told all this to Elsie and just having her listen helped me enormously, I don’t know why. She never said a thing unless I asked her a question.”
I was more than a little shocked to hear Emmy talk like this; she had never given any indication that she was unhappy with her role.
“Well Lieutenant Baldwin, as one of your department heads, I think you should tell Dave. And then the three of us should consult the Captain.”
“How will that help?” Emmy looked puzzled.
“Give me a chance here Em, I’m thinking on my feet. Maybe the Captain will have some ideas. The situation must have cropped up before.”
“Maybe.” Emmy mused. Just then her comm line beeped. It was Nobby; he’d completed his initial diagnosis.

---

“The good news is her core programming and memories are intact, so is her head section, but most o’ the body, especially the torso, is knackered.” Nobby spoke with unaccustomed authority. “That leaves us wiv three options Em…. Er, boss…. Er, ma’am.”
Stacey and I exchanged glances; even now Nobby wavered between overt friendliness and full-on official protocol when he talked to me.
“What options?” I said, not daring to think that there might be a hope for my metallic confidante.
“Well, the sensible thing would be to chuck all the bits away and start again.”
“Not an option we’re considering here.”
“No, I know, I’m just sayin’ boss. Number two; I could re-animate her head and mind, but that’s all she’ll be: A talkin’ head, stuck in one place. Bit borin’ for the ole gel.”
“Better than nothing.” I murmured, thinking that if I had her put in my office I could still talk with her. “The third possibility?”
“I might, and only might, be able to find enough spare parts lyin’ about to build her a new chassis.” He looked at me expectantly, a satisfied grin playing across his face.
“Please Nobby, I just want her back, but can you cancel that ridiculous ‘protect Emmy’ command from her program; that’s what got her blasted.”
“You dunt really know much about LC’s, do you Em? The one command they all got is to protect human life, Dave juss tweaked Elsie’s.”
“Why would he do that?”
“At the time there was juss the three of you out on patrol in the town. He dint want her choosing to help him over you.”
“You sure Nobby?” It seemed reasonable.
“Sure am!” He grinned.
I felt my depression of the past hours dissipate like morning mist in the sunshine. I grinned back.
“Fix her for me Nobby.”
“Course boss. I know what it’s like, having Elsie as the only one to talk to.” He looked embarrassed for a moment and then turned to Stacey. “Hey toots, where’s yer pop?”
“He’s still down in Ops, helping with ‘Mobile Rock One’.” She bowed her head for a moment. “Nobby, I’m sorry about Heather.”
“So am I.” I added.
“Don’t be.” He gave a shrug. “I reckoned that she might not be for real anyhow. To good for the likes o’ me.”
“Don’t talk wet Nobby.” I smiled as I remembered something. “You might be interested to know that my admin assistant keeps making goo-goo eyes at you.”
“She does? That pretty brunette?” I nodded. “Maybe I’ll ‘ave a natter when I bring Elsie up.”
“Just don’t take to long.” I laughed.
There was a booming announcement over the workshop tannoy.
“Will Lieutenant Michelle Baldwin and Sergeant Stacey Grainger please return to the Lieutenants office; thank you.”
“Now what?” I muttered.

---

I had left Toddy in charge of the minor interrogations, reasoning that it was about time the lad had the chance of some responsibility. Dante and his key lieutenants needed to be moved to the hub ASAP and when I heard about the ructions in Ops I decided to transport them myself in the ‘Boozy Bee’ with a couple of the lads as guards. I felt guilty that Emmy had been put in danger by my refusal to let her come on the raid with me. Wrighty’s brief message had said there were no injuries but Emmy was crying. I needed to find out what was happening. I had arrived back at the hub to find a meteorite practically docked to one of the outlying bays. What the hell was going on here?
After making sure all the prisoners were securely locked up I went to Emmy’s office as instructed, expecting to find her there. Her admin assistant told me that Em and Stace had gone down to the workshop so I put a call through the tannoy system.
After about five minutes the two of them sauntered into Emmy’s office, all laugh’s and smiles; no sign of tears.
“What is happening here?” I demanded. “First you nearly get shot because I left you here; then I get told you’re crying so I come running back to be told to meet you up here; but you’re nowhere to be found and then you waltz in with a huge grin as if nothing has happened.” I grabbed Emmy and hugged her. “I was so worried.”
“Sorry.” Emmy smiled. “Things were bad for a while, but they just got better.”
“But what upset you so badly? I’ve only seen you cry once before.” I stroked her hair.
“Elsie got blasted instead of me and I thought I’d lost her, but Nobby thinks he can put her back together, so everything is fine again.”
“Elsie? You got upset because a …..” I stopped as I saw a look in her eyes, and Stacey’s, that told me to shut up before I put my foot in it. “I’m missing something aren’t I? Something important that I should know?” They both nodded. “Go on then, tell me what an idiot I am.” I sighed.
“You’re an idiot.” Emmy grinned as she pecked me on the cheek. Then she told me about how left out she’d felt and how having Elsie to talk to had helped her; Stacey chipped in, saying she thought the captain ought to know as in his long career he might have experienced the problem before and know of a solution.
“Why didn’t you say something Emmy?” I asked.
“So you could do what? Give up doing the thing you were born to do? I couldn’t have that on my conscience.”
Her comm beeped interrupting us. She stepped forward to answer it.

---

Dave was a little concerned when he found out how I had been feeling, and upset when he realised that by not noticing earlier I’d been forced to confide in Elsie. Before we could discuss it further I got a call from the head of the team doing the initial survey of ‘Mobile Rock One’. He sounded excited about something and insisted I should come and see it. I told him I’d be down momentarily. Dave came with me, but Stacey went to the Ops room, saying she wanted to see how Toddy was doing.
I looked at the lump of rock that had somehow been docked to the hub.
“All right, what’s got you so fired up?” I said to the survey team leader.
“We think we’ve discovered why they attacked ‘The Boonies’!” He said enthusiastically.
“You’ve got my attention; go on.”
“Well, it seems that if you place a small quantity of a specific mineral around the meteorite engine, it generates a sort of field that holds nearby asteroids in formation around it.”
“What has that got to do with our asteroid?” I was puzzled.
“That mineral is present in large quantities here at ‘The Boonies’.” He said triumphantly.
I could see the connection now.
“I can’t see how stabilising the belt has any advantage to Dante.” Dave said.
“Maybe he could blockade a settlement for ransom, or form a barricade around somewhere he wanted kept private, I don’t know; I’m only a scientist, not a detective.” The team leader seemed a bit put out by his question.
“It could help us though Dave.” I said thoughtfully.
“What do you mean?”
“Think about it. A few of these dotted about in the right places could keep the trade routes open when the belt is in flux for a start.”
A light went on in his head.
“You’re right Emmy,” he smiled, “as always.”
“I think we should tell central and get some bods on it.” I said.
“I’ll go and transmit my preliminary report straight away.” The scientist said before rushing off.
“A stable belt will be a lot more attractive commercially.” I mused, clasping Dave’s hand.
“True.” He said. “It will mean a lot more work, particularly for someone not a million miles away.” He gave me a smile and kissed my hand.
“I’m sure I’ll manage so long as I’ve got Elsie to talk to.” I grinned back.
“You could try talking to me you know: I am your husband and second in command.” He said reproachfully.
“A blabbermouth like you? No fear!” I laughed.
All of a sudden the emergency klaxon sounded.
“Good grief! Can’t I spend five minutes of quality time with my wife?” Dave said.
“Apparently not today.” I said as I snatched up a comms handset. “What is it?” I demanded.

---

Emmy repeated to me what she had been told: Dante and one of his men had managed to jump their escorts as they crossed outside the interrogation room. It had to be an error of timing on someone’s part as usually prisoners don’t get to see each other. The net result of the bad timing was two armed prisoners holed up in interrogation with hostages.
“What do you want to do, Big Boss? Send in the Special Squad?” I asked.
“I’d like to take them alive if possible. The Specials can be a bit trigger-happy at times.” Emmy replied, carefully considering her options.
I had an idea.
“Meet me down there.” I said. “I need to fetch something.” She gave me a puzzled ‘okay’ as I dashed off to our quarters.

“Are you sure about this? Emmy asked as I handed her my old Colt, keeping the one she had bought me as a wedding present for myself. “It seems a bit risky.”
“We want them alive Em; and you and I are the only ones who can fire these.”
“Hey! I know how to fire one.” Stacey protested, having joined us from Ops.
“Stace, you’re lucky if you hit the floor.” I sighed and then smiled at Emmy. “Besides which mighty leader, weren’t you just complaining about a lack of excitement?”
“I was,” she said ruefully, “and I’m beginning to appreciate boredom instead.”
“Rubbish!” I laughed. “Are you ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
“Okay Stacey, lose the mirror.”
Stacey detonated the small explosive charges around the edge of the two-way mirror. It fell forward into the interrogation room, revealing Emmy and I with weapons cocked and aimed at Dante and the man Em had identified as the secretary molester.
“Dante!” I called out. “Surrender or we fire!”
“With that outdated shit?” He sneered.
“They did for your nephew.” I said calmly.
“Don’t antagonise him even more.” Emmy said out of the side of her mouth.
“Now is not the time to nag dearest.” I said back.
“What makes you think you can hit me and not my shield here?” He sneered again, shaking a young cop who had been his escort.
“Well, I can hit a fly at a hundred yards.” I said.
“Liar.” Emmy muttered.
“And my wife here can hit one while it’s flying.”
Dante’s eyes flicked to Emmy. She gave him a cheeky wink.
Thinking our attention was diverted, the secretary molester made a move, bringing his blaster up. I put a round through his wrist and one through his shoulder. Dante immediately dropped his blaster and raised his hands as the room suddenly filled with cops.
“Nice shooting,” Emmy said, “but I’d have put one through his balls.”
“That’s just because you’re vindictive about those you hold a grudge against my love.” I laughed. “Besides which there was a hostage in the way there.”
“I suppose.” She grinned.

---

Now it was the day after all the excitement. All the prisoners from the raid, including Dante, had been transferred to Central which meant that Paul had arrived back on the hub to Stacey’s delight. We had all been busy writing out our reports so I had asked my dad to collect Mrs Grainger and bring her here to be reunited with her husband. I was holding a dinner party for Paul and Stacey, her mom and dad, and my dad in mine and Dave’s quarters. I had asked Nobby too, but he claimed he had work to do on Elsie. I suspected that he just wanted some uninterrupted flirting time with my goo-goo eyed admin assistant though.
Dave was having a word in Paul’s ear at my request regarding Stacey. While Toddy was otherwise engaged my dad took the opportunity to flirt with Stace! I was so embarrassed I had to go and drag him away from her astonished look. He laughed and told me he was only teasing.
“Me or Stacey?” I asked.
“Mainly Stacey.” He said. “But it’s funny the way you react too Michelle.”
“And Paul’s watching you.” I hissed.
He looked at me seriously.
“That was the point, perhaps the boy needs to feel he might lose his girl.”
“Did Dave put you up to this?” I asked suspiciously.
“Actually, no. I had a good talk with her mom while I flew her in, and with her dad an hour ago, they’re both worried that she might let him slip away.”
“You know as well as I do what she wants.”
“Of course I do Baby Girl. I was just hoping that if he saw she was attractive to other men he might make his mind up.”
“You old fool dad.” I said kissing him. “What do you think I’ve got my esteemed, if slightly bemused, husband talking to Toddy for?”
“Oh.” He looked at his feet. “I feel a bit silly now.”
“You are silly. But I think once Stace is over the shock she’ll appreciate you trying to help. Now come and help me in the kitchen. I know you can’t cook, but you can open some wine.”
Before we reached the doorway Dave spoke loudly so everyone could hear.
“As you all know, Officer Todd here has been asking a lot of questions recently. I believe he has one more he wants to ask.”
Toddy shuffled his feet nervously.
“I-I-I don’t know q-quite how t-to s-say this, b-but S-Stacey Grainger w-will….”
“YES!!!” Stacey burst out, running to him and throwing her arms around him. The rest of us applauded.
“See, I told you it wasn’t so bad.” Dave said, clapping Paul around the back, grinning hugely.
“You promise you’ll be best man?” Paul asked plaintively.
“Well….” Dave hesitated.
“Of course he will.” I said.
“And you’ll be my bridesmaid?” Stacey asked.
“I’d be upset if you didn’t ask. I’d probably post you to Mondas or something.” I laughed. “Now we have to get organised………….