Starfire
Copyright© 2025 by Mark Randall
Chapter 15
Elisabeth Palmer, Grandmother’s secretary, tapped lightly on her door.
“Come in, Elisabeth,” Agnes said. When Elisabeth entered, she asked, “Has Cynthia arrived? She’s early.”
“No, Grandmother, Bob Chambers would like a word with you. He says it’s essential.”
“Chambers?” Agnes paused for a moment, in thought. “Oh yes, one of the new congress members. Did he say what was so important?”
“No, Ma’am, just that it was important that you needed to take an action as soon as possible.”
“Really? You would think that I would already be aware of whatever it is. Very well, I will give him a couple of minutes, let him in.”
As Elisabeth opened the door, Chambers rudely pushed past her and strode into the room, closely followed by another man. “Agnes, finally. We need to discuss this situation. Immediate action needs to be taken, or the safety of the whole ship will be at risk.”
Before he could say anything else, Agnes interrupted him. “Good morning, Mr. Chambers, so good to see you again. Who is the gentleman with you? I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.”
Chambers glanced over his shoulder, “Oh, him, he’s Larry Martin, my assistant. Nobody you need to concern yourself with.”
Mr. Martin spoke up and cheerily said, “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Grandmother Agnes.” Chambers glared at him.
“My pleasure as well. It’s so refreshing to meet a polite young man nowadays. Wouldn’t you say so, Mr. Chambers?”
The apparent rebuke went unnoticed as Chambers turned to Martin, saying, “You wait outside, you won’t be needed here.”
Agnes spoke up, “Elisabeth, you can go too. See if Mr. Martin would like a cup of tea while he waits to be summoned again.”
Elisabeth said, “Yes, Grandmother.” She followed Martin out, softly closing the door behind her.
Turning back to Chambers, Agnes asked, “OK, Bob, what is so important that you needed to barge in here without an appointment?”
“Grandmother, this concerns the captain and this foolhardy waste of the ship’s resources.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean this blatant disregard for the finite resources available, to wit, fuel.”
Agnes waved her hand in a come along gesture.
“It concerns these fighter squadrons that he has arbitrarily activated without congressional review and approval. This is an unnecessary expenditure of the limited amount of fuel that is available for our mission. We could soon find ourselves in a situation that we will not be able to resolve. I demand that this project be terminated, and Captain Sullivan be censured for his wasteful and shortsighted thinking concerning this issue.”
Agnes waited until Chambers had his say, then responded.
“Mr. Chambers, this decision was made several weeks ago. It was discussed extensively in meetings that I remember you were too busy to attend, sending your assistant instead. The question of fuel was brought up and answered quite thoroughly. If you had taken time to attend the planning meeting or read the mission proposal that was freely available on the ship’s info web, you would have been fully aware that once we are in Jovian space, we will be able to harvest from the Jupiter atmosphere the raw materials we would need to manufacture unlimited fuel.”
Agnes leaned back in a chair and closed her eyes. Her face was red and she was breathing hard.
Elisabeth sprang forward, to her side, “Grandmother, are you alright?”
Gasping, Agnes tried to say, “I’m fine, dear. Just give me a chance to catch my breath.”
Reaching over to Agnes’ commo panel, she punched in an emergency code. “Medical emergency in Grandmother’s office”
A voice came back over. “Emergency team is on the way. What is the problem?”
“Grandmother is having difficulty breathing, and it appears that she may be having a coronary.”
“Copy, EMS team is 3 minutes away.”
“Agnes, can we PLEASE get back to my concerns”? Chambers demanded.
Elisabeth glared at him, and he stopped talking and fearfully took a step backwards.
When the ER team arrived, Doctor Holland was in the lead. Rushing into the room, he pushed past Chambers and knelt next to Agnes. He quickly had his stethoscope out and listened to her chest.
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