General Terrence Tordan reached across the table for the hands of his bride of eighty some years. Trouble to his enemies, Trouble to his superiors, Trouble to his friends, he had finally come to think of himself as just plain trouble.
Tonight, he was worried; something he rarely allowed himself to be. So he made gentle circles in both his wife’s palms.
“What’s worrying you, trooper?” Ruth, his wife, asked.
“I told you, I never worry. Worry is for the other guys.”
“Yeah. Some people believe that guff you spout off. Remember, I’m your wife, the mother of your kids, grandkids and great-grandkids, as hard as it is to believe. What’s eating you, Marine?”
“One of our grandkids,” Trouble admitted.
Ruth rolled her eyes at the ceiling for overly dramatic effect. “Lordy, which one now?”
“Kris.”
His wife sighed, then puffed out an “Oh.”
Shrugging, she said, “You, me, and anyone paying attention to the future of the human race. Has anyone heard from her?”
Trouble shook his head. “Not a peep.”
“It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”
“Too long.”
“She was headed for the other side of the galaxy, you know, love.”
“But she kept a courier ship with her. We should have heard something by now.”
“Honey, she also kept eight battleships and her four corvettes had those… what-do-you-call-them?”
“How’d you hear about them?” Trouble demanded.
“Marine, I’m your wife. I know how to read between the lines, and I follow other sources than the crap that passes for mainstream media. You may have your secure net, but I go places that are just about as good as yours.”
“Likely better,” he grumbled.
“You said it, not me,” she said with that wonderful smile he had not gotten enough of in eighty years.
The waiter was finally headed their way. In a Greek restaurant, Trouble always let Ruth do the ordering. The menu made sense to her; it was all Greek to him.
His computer beeped at the same time Ruth’s did. Together, they both reached for their own trusted source of information on the world. Trouble took one glance at his report and raised an eyebrow.
Ruth’s eyebrow was up, too.
“You first,” he said.
“Kris is back.”
“Yeah. What else?”
“That’s all I got,” she said, ignoring the waiter at her elbow. They’d been here often enough that he knew who did the talking for this couple.
“What did you get?”
“Order, for gosh sakes, lady, before he walks away.”
She glanced again at the menu, and spoke in rapid fire, no doubt ordering what they’d had last month. When the waiter left, she put the menu down, and growled, “What else did you get?”
“You know I wouldn’t tell you if I had. It’s the secure news net.”
“Yes, but tell me you know more than just that Kris is back.”
Trouble let out a long sigh. “You know everything that I know.”
“She’s back,” Ruth exploded, but, after years of being a Marine’s wife, she kept her voice low. “No location! No information about the fleet! Just that Kris is back! You know that can’t be all. Even our darling Kris can’t make her way back from the other side of the galaxy without a ship. Is her Wasp back? Or is it just the courier ship and not even her?”
“Love, don’t get carried away. You know what I know. The secure net says Kris is back, so she must be. That would likely mean the Wasp is back, too.”
“But all those other ships, dear?”
“Don’t borrow trouble,” he said, and knew she’d take it for all its double meaning. “When there’s more to say, they will say it.”
“On your net, at least.”
“Yes.”
“And you won’t tell me a thing about what you get.”
“No, I won’t.”
“Eighty years a Marine’s wife, and I still can’t get used to this game of ‘I know something you don’t know.’”
“How much you want to bet me that your net tells you what comes out next before mine does?”
“General, you have a message of the highest priority,” a pleasing young woman’s voice announced.
“I thought you agreed to change that voice on your computer,” Ruth snapped.
“I don’t recall promising that,” the general lied.
“You’re getting senile. I swear I’m going to put you in for rejuvie one Saturday. You’ll go to sleep Friday and wake up three months later all shiny and new. And remembering what you promised me.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” he said as he glanced at his wrist unit. R EPORT TO THE R OYAL CHAMBERS SOONEST.
He stood. “Sorry, Ruth, I got to go.”