Soul of the Swordsman

by J A Stone

  “Snake bite?”

  “How’d you know?”

  “The same things seem to occur on each world, common threads,” as Warfell answered, the Spirit of Caelum Fovea/Fey materialized.

  “Whoa!” Tawnee slinked the rest of the way into the neoprene.

  Forgive me. Tom Snow is located on the bottom floor, cell 122A. James is topside in the central Guard Station.

  “Topside with the Guards?” Danica asked, clipping her gun belt in place.

  Yes. she has taken control of the Station. We should be able to land safely and enter through the surface air-dock.

  “That’s no fun. Besides, we’re already inside,” Brey chimed as she came down the short set of steps, grabbing a helmet and tank set. “Let’s go get our boy.”

  Tom Snow paced nervously back and forth. He felt the shockwaves from high above through his feet—the facility was under attack!

  “I can’t believe this shit,” he said to himself.

  “I can,” a young woman’s voice came through the speaker. It was Brey. Tom whipped about and smiled ear to ear, shaking his handsome face side to side for the beautiful sight of Brey Fovea at his door.

  “Boss, what am I going to do with you,” he said.

  “Put this on, ya goober-head,” she answered, stuffing an oxygen mask into the slide drawer and pushing the button. “This has to be quick.”

  The door hissed and the incredible cold rapidly paralyzed the Snowman. He remembered strong hands grabbing him. He thought he saw a hundred and fifty foot spacecraft in the dormitory common area next to the chow hall—imagined he read the word Snowflake, printed in bright red near the nose of the fuselage…sure, sure he did.

  When he opened his eyes, Tom was on a padded couch. He heard Brey’s voice from thirty paces away.

  “No, no, no you will need to come to us, we’re not going in there. Let me touch pads at the air dock—gimme just a minute.”

  “Somebody is awake I see,” Tom shot his head up. He recognized Warfell as Denali Warren. “On my world, he has a crush on me,” she added, speaking to a strange girl with grey hair.

  “And meh too?” the girl asked, partially exposing her long incisors.

  “Yeah,” Warfell blushed.

  “I can see why,” Tom sat up and stood to a stretch and Danica averted her blues in shyness. “Nice ship, what is it?” he added, panning eyes about mid-deck. Brey waived from the huge cockpit next to a massive man—Johnstone, Rob Johnstone, Snow remembered him. Tawnee approached with a mug in her palms and an answer on her lips.

  “Welcome to Snowflake. He’s a prototype, Vapor-7 Moorcraft 425 Fighter.”

  “He’s big!”

  “Only one of his kind,” Tawnee handed him the warm mug of enriched broth. “You are malnourished, drink. Boss lady is trying to coax James out.”

  “No, not James,” the Snowman replied, accepting the cup, rising and moving towards to bridge.

  “Aghh, that’s a negative Miss Fovea, how do I even know it’s really you?”

  “James, it’s me.”

  “Computers are designating your vessel as a Moorcraft, big one too.”

  “Snowflake, my baby.”

  “Snowflake—really.”

  “He’s all white like a…never mind, listen, Tawnee is here with me,” Brey grinned like a schoolchild, flashing a glance to her girlfriend.

  “On my way,” the immediate, anxious reply, as James dropped the mic and ran for the exit, leaping over the bodies of the dead and around the living pile of guards handcuffed to a steel grate holding pen.

  Brey, Danica, and Tawnee stood at the far end of the telescopic tunnel as James jogged the distance with a smile on her pretty face—Danica recognized her, it was Jaime Weathers.

  “Soulless,” Warfell said the name and Brey moved forward to meet the young woman…who dodged around her, to come face to face with Tawnee.

  “Hey—damn girl—you came for me.”

  “Nooop, Brey insisted,” Tawnee crossed her arms.

  “So cool—you came for me—I knew you would Tawnee. Where is Fovea anyway?”

  “Right next to you,” the pixie replied, highly amused by James’ incredible affection for her girlfriend. For years on end, the escape artist had worked for the Fovea, just so she could be close to her crush, Tawnee. Brey didn’t mind—she knew better and it was well worth it for the skillset James brought to the table.

  “Who’s this?” James ignored Brey, placing her sharp green eyes on Warfell with a smirk, hands on her hips.

  “Danica Warfell, this is James,” Brey held her palms up. Danica stepped in, looking down on the impetuous kid she knew as Jaime, AKA Soulless.

  “Sup,” she nodded with her nose.

  “Stay away from Tawnee or I’ll kill you, you tall, skinny white haired, freakin’ elf lookin’ thing.”

  “I am not a lesbian,” Danica replied, leaning in, “nor an elf, and if you threaten me again,” she struck James with her fingertips three times like lightning from bodice to nape. “I’ll do that,” she scoffed as James’ eyes rolled upwards and the girl fell paralyzed to the floor.

  Back aboard Snowflake, Tawnee carried James to the small but luxurious common area. As she leaned in to lay the girl down, James opened her glassy-green eyes, smiling with a drunken face.

  “You came back for me, I love you Tawnee.”

  “Oh my gods of shit,” she dropped her and stormed away, pounding boots on the grated steps to the upper deck and slamming the door to the cabin she shared with Brey.

  Up front, Brey booted systems.

  “Where to Captain, can I call you Captain?” Bigfoot was doing well as Snowflake’s Navigator—he liked the job too. Brey nodded her approval.

  “Aleutha, give me an ionospheric orbit over the northern polar cap at fifty thousand feet. I want you to sit on top of the methanosphere, cut power to the thrusters and glide—can you pull that off?”

  “I can,” said Robert with pride.

  “Cool beans, that will disrupt any radar. They’ll see us coming in and then lose us just as fast, savvy?”

  “Aye, about two hours boss.”

  “I’ll be in my cabin if you need me.”

  “Get some rest,” Robert added as she left, her small frame replaced by the tall stature of Tom Snow.

  “Hey buddy, need some company? All these hot chicks are giving me blue balls,” Tommy chuckled—mostly to himself.

  “Your little jelly beans are blue?”

  “Nah—so tell me about this big-ass Moorcraft.” Snow was a decorated combat pilot in the Moorian Flight Corps, serving aside Brey for years until he found a better job at Fovea Interests working directly under Brey. He took a seat behind the Navcom, eyes scouring the instruments, familiarizing himself—knowing well he would most likely be at the helm from that point forward.

  “Well,” Rob began. “Snowflake has twin rotating thruster banks, port and starboard on helium micro-compressors. Aft thrust is independent on a hydrogen coil—biggest one I’ve ever seen Tom. The infrastructure on each is sealed into the superconductors so he’s fully insulated with a constant gravity adjustment from atmosphere to open space. Snowflake is powered for several lifetimes, but in a pinch, he has this…” Bigfoot tapped the screen panel and the schematics of an intricate, advanced mechanism appeared. Tom leaned in, eyes growing wider by the second.

  “Is that?” he pointed, turning his face to Rob.

  “Yup,” Bigfoot grinned like a kid. “Snowflake has a surfboard dude.”

  The ‘surfboard’ was an industry nickname given the Tibor-glide, a magnetic rappelling system woven into the fuselage, allowing the craft to fly with full power inside a rich planetary magnetosphere, or use that powerful field to thrust the craft away at incredible velocity, even jumping between planetoids if needed. Brey Fovea stole the schematics from a Tiborean Prince in a daring raid on his palace—Tom remembered—he was there.

  “Dammit-man, I could live on this boat forever.”

 
; Warfell’s Aleutha, Fort Salvos, negative altitude four hundred feet

  “Dammit-man, your affection for Danica is clouding your reason. I need both of you up top—what if we can’t stop these things? Two of my best are not there because they would not listen!”

  “I know that boss but c’mon you put together a substrata team without your Dwarf or the Arenthian. Personally, my little friend here is hurt, it hurt boss, I mean it really hurt,” Tom was losing it fast with his line of crap. British’s steely eyes were burning a hole through his brain. She stepped into Tom’s personal zone and hissed.

  “Maybe I would need your superior skills topside in the event of…”

  Logos stepped forward. “Boss, what’s going on? We felt the cave in,” thank the gods for good Dwarven sense. British relaxed, breaking eye contact with her disobedient Knight.

  “Alright, have you ever heard or read anything about Therianthropes?” she asked Logos, turning to stand face to face.

  “Lizards, men,” the small Thief coursed his eyes over the bodies of the Therians. “There are no fables or myths in the Dwarven lore for things like this boss. Closest parallel would be the Arenthian. Iris is living proof however, that the attributes of higher vertebrates can show up. Once, a Dwarven baby in my town was born with gills—it can happen, why not on a level as this, given enough time through the ages?”

  “Oh, it’s happened alright, and there are hundreds of them—here to get some kind of justice on the late Duke. First encounter was, was not good. We killed several dozen—what we assumed was an expedition. But further down, there are so many of them. It’s a wide open world not far from here.”

  “And Danica? Um, Warfell?” Tom asked, his anxiousness teeming through the words. Bigfoot answered.

  “They took her Tommy,” Robert answered for the boss. “Her gun fired and we were all cut off. In the dark. Thank you for saving me. Missus British?” the big man was finally coming around. “Snow and Lo saved my life—those things had me dead to rights.”

  “Alright, forgiven—let’s go find our girl,” British pointed a finger at Tom and growled. “But a couple things first, we are Knights, Thomas Barrow Snow. EVERYTHING we stand for relies upon trust. Also, now that the majority of our strength is below, we must end it down here—none of these critters can make it topside to our people, savvy?” she hugged Antigua’s wide neck and the two bolted away, Tom, Logos, Robert and Torpa right behind them.

  Never Desist

  Alternate Reality, Aleutha’s Ionosphere

  Danica sat in her new favorite place—Snowflake’s port gunner pod, marveling at the aurora borealis beneath her, the yellowish orb of Aleutha spreading out wide—the pinkish-white clouds. Aleutha possessed a tight, thick atmospheric layer of highly charged methane ions, glued to the underside of the ionosphere, lending the large moon its yellowish hue. It was the middle of the equi-fade. In the background, mighty Ana filled the starlit sky. She relaxed in the padded seat and closed her eyes, dreaming of home, her real home.

  “Danica?” Tawnee asked from the end of the short tube leading to the pod. Warfell opened her brilliant blues. “Master Fovea has returned.” During the trip home, Tawnee referred to the Spirit this way, still uncertain herself how to behave in the presence of a real Ghost.

  “On my way.”

  Several times, the Spirit left the crew to return to Aleutha and search for his murderers, collecting as much intelligence as possible for a mission he did not want his Daughter to conduct. But he knew she was a little bulldog—unstoppable when she focused her will on something. Better to help than detract.

  I have located Viggo Forenz, imbedded with the Tiborean Command. Brey, he is using what you have done to convince Tibor to declare war on Aleutha. The Royals you killed; three of them were purebloods with lines of ascension, Atria’s Grandchildren.

  “It was a stage-two bar fight Dad, they pulled guns first, and I reacted a little too aggressively,” Brey shrugged her slender shoulders and Warfell laughed outright, awkwardly coughing and clearing her throat afterwards. The Spirit was not amused.

  I know, I read the reports and your statement. You killed twelve Officers with tableware cutlery, critically wounding seven more. Why was the entire pub after you?

  “Well, I was there by pure chance with a friend in the kitchen playing cards, winning big, when the party arrived out front, shooting their mouths off, insulting the barmaid—sooo as a joke, I offered the galley hand all of my take, if he would um…pee on their salads. They did not take it too well—that kid did a thorough job with a bladder full of beer. I slinked into a dress and served the salads myself—the table knives were all I could get my hands on—left my gun in the galley on the prep-board next to the onions.”

  Damn I love this girl, Warfell thought.

  The Ghost of Caelum Fovea shot Danica a severe look and then shook his incorporeal head. He continued.

  The Moorian Parliament will hear the evidence of my own murder today. I believe they will use my assassination to justify military reprisal and possibly even ratify their own declaration of war on Tibor. I will be there watching, listening from within the walls. Daughter mine, you have created quite a mess between these powerful moons. We must act to stop this.

  Brey nodded—head down, whispering soft to the grated decking.

  “I’m gonna sack that fool, right in front of Chancellor Atria and the Tiborean Command.”

  “Brey,” Warfell came closer, taking a seat next to her friend. “How would you escape?”

  “I played in that building as a child,” the diminutive woman raised her head to meet Danica’s gaze. “Trust me, I have no intention of…”

  “It can be done,” James interrupted, lounging with a leg kicked over a sofa, twirling a small knife. Danica shot her a hard stare, slowly replacing sights on her partner.

  “I wasn’t saying that. I have no doubt you can pull off an assassination. Didn’t you go to school with Viggo?” Danica realized that she never asked.

  “Nope, never met the man.”

  Warfell wondered, the entanglement of British Fey and Viggo Frantz seemed to be a solid, commonality—but why not here? The Spirit responded.

  They are indeed connected by virtue of my assassination and Brey’s future act of vengeance. Forenz is a wealthy savant, a prodigy as well. His family has held a High Command Chair in Tibor for centuries. Born into royalty, he has set his considerable wealth and talents into aircraft development, much as my Daughter and I have below on Aleutha. They invented the Tibor-glide system and the helium micro-compressor currently installed on the Vapor7. Their Fighter-craft are small but very powerful, the Moorcraft are no match for them in speed and weaponry.

  “BUT!” Brey stood, now at eye level with the seated. “Easy there Daddy, now, they have nothing as advanced as Snowflake,” she gently patted the edge of the leather lounger.

  “She’s right Sir,” Tom Snow said respectfully. “I’ve been studying the hydrogen coil and the micro-compressors. How did you guys weave them into the superconductors like that? And the hull, how did…”

  Brey placed a finger to lip, the Spirit of her Father doing the exact same. Tom smiled, nodding. He’d flown military prototypes for years, for Moor and later for the Foveas. He knew better than to poke around trade secrets—did have one question though.

  “So may I call you Captain and are you gonna let me fly him?” Okay, two. Brey gazed deep at Tom Snow for the longest moment. Finally, she grinned.

  “He pulls to the left—workin’ on that, but yeah, wouldn’t have it any other way ya goober head,” Brey nodded and Tom smiled ear to ear.

  “I’ll take good care of him Cappy,” he leaped to a stand, dashing the distance on mid-deck and taking the steps proudly to claim his coveted chair as Helmsman—leave the rest of the tactical-talk to the philosophers. Bigfoot joined him, both men grinning like idiots, two wide-eyed kids taking the reins to the most sophisticated vessel ever made.

  “Gunners to the pods, we got c
ompany,” Brey’s calm voice over the com, bursting Warfell’s blues wide after a three hour nap. She leaped from her bunk and snatched the door to the side. She saw Tawnee’s butt disappearing down the starboard tube as she ran for hers, leaping through the portal.

  Once in, Danica strapped in tight and leveled her headset mic.

  “Star is go,” said Tawnee.

  “Port is go, what’cha got Captain?” Warfell shot her eyes over the pale yellow globe beneath her, causing the plasma turrets to follow her vision faithfully.

  “Okay, Snowflake has picked up a small fleet on a trajectory for Aleutha’s northern hemisphere. Moor has launched an Emissary vessel to intercept. Danica, tap the grid panel on your left.”

  Warfell complied and the hull outlines of twenty ships appeared on a green-lined background. “Got them,” she answered.

  “Hold please…” Brey paused. “Okay, they’re powering weapons, accelerating.”

  Warfell watched the solitary vessel rising from the surface, maintaining its course as a dozen of the Fightercraft leaped forward on the screen, closing the distance rapidly.

  “Oooooh, I love this. Good boys!” Brey laughed. “The Emissary is armed! HA! Tom, boot the coils we’re going in.”

  Danica’s screen displayed the lone vessel launching an array of missiles and then veering away abruptly—the smaller Tiborean Fighters bursting into evasive maneuvers, pitching and rolling to evade the attack. She felt her body sinking into the padded gunner-chair as Tom moved Snowflake free of Aleutha’s thick ionosphere. Within seconds, she could see the small invasion fleet with her true eyes, darting about the larger ship, harrowing the craft with plasma fire, scoring multiple hits on the broad fuselage.

  “They are calling for help,” said Bigfoot from the Navcom.

  “Moor will dispatch rescue ships—our focus will be on the Tiborean Fighters. Tom, bring us in fast and hard, girls, catch as many as possible on the fly-by, they won’t see us coming but the first blood gives up the game.”