Breeze struggled to his feet as Sally tried to help him.
Raza was in a trance as she nervously paced back and forth. “I will not be a part of this, I cannot do this again.” She then stopped to look Breeze in the eye.
“Go. Leave. All of you. I will not be a participant in this madness. Go back to your ship and leave at dawn.” She turned and walked away.
“Where do we go?” Sally cried out.
“Anywhere but here. I will not let you destroy what little tranquility I have. I won’t let you or Oslo stir up the past.”
Ray spoke up. “Oslo is coming soon—”
“He’s not coming child, nor my Nina, with him. They probably have taken him into custody by now,” the old woman said as she looked up at the stars.
“If Oslo says he’s coming, I believe him. We’ll stay in the ship and await his arrival,” Ray said.
Raza waved a hand as she wandered off into the darkness. “There is a town on the other side of the mountain. Go there to find the parts you need to fix your ship. Then, go west, and stay away from here.”
Her fading voice was followed by the sound of beating wings. Then, silence.
Ray raised a glowing hand and filled the ravine with light, but Raza and the winged creature were nowhere to be found.
Sally was leaning next to Breeze when he took a step forward and stumbled. Sally grabbed his arm to steady him.
“What happened to you? How come we couldn’t see your vision?” she asked. “That creature stood over you while you convulsed on the ground. Ray and I couldn’t do anything to help you. It was horrible, Breeze.”
He patted her hand. “It’s okay,” he replied, then tapped his nav-compass incessantly and began to say something.
“What is it?” she said with a wide eyed look.
“Nothing. Look, it’s cold out here. Let’s get to the ship and we’ll figure out what to do in the morning.
“Don’t need to convince me,” Ray declared.
They continued through the ravine and reached the river bank. The scout ship lay ahead to the north and they gratefully walked toward it, never thinking they would be happy to see it again. They quickly boarded the ship and withdrew the gangplank.
Later that night, they gathered around the table in the ship’s mess and ate some of the meager rations they found in the galley.
“What now?” Sally asked.
Ray sighed while Breeze shifted in his chair. They both looked at each other, then at Sally.
Ray spoke first. “I want to stay here, at least for a few days. I’m convinced Oslo will show. He sent us out here for a reason, so why would he lie to us?”
“Raymond, even if he does show up, what then? You met that crazy woman. If that really is his wife, I can see why he’s stayed away for so long,” Sally said with a sneer.
“No, that’s not the reason,” Breeze responded. “It’s because of their daughter, Nina. She can’t leave Perihelion.”
“Why?” Sally’s face became solemn.
“She’s tied to the island. It’s like a life support system for her and she can’t really leave it, maybe never.”
“That explains why she got so crazy when she found out Nina wasn’t with us,” Sally said as she pulled her hair back into a pony tail. “That poor woman…,” her voice trailed off.
“Is just like the rest of us. Either no home to go to or family is missing, or both,” Ray finished for her.
Breeze spoke up. “I know what it’s like to lose someone. My mother died when I was young. But I don’t know what it’s like to lose a home. My home isn’t much, but it’s home.” He rapped his knuckles on the table. “Look, I want to try and fix the ship first thing in the morning. Raza is right. We should go to town and see if we can find the parts we need, then when it’s repaired, I want you guys to come with me back west. We’ll stay with my father and we can try to contact Oslo from there.”
“You can’t even reach your father over the comms,” Ray said.
“Yeah, but we have to try to get out there. The old woman did suggest we go west and besides, where else do we have to go?”
They finished their meal without any further discussion, and then retired to their bunks.
Later, Breeze was still awake as he lay in his bed. He thought about the night’s events and he especially dwelled upon his vision of fighting in space. It felt so real to him, yet he wondered if it was just a trick conjured up by the winged creature. He reflexively looked out the narrow window of his compartment as a part of him expected the winged creature to swoop down any minute and press its face against it with its hideous red eyes. He was greeted instead by the stars splashed out across the night sky.
As his head began to nod, and his weary eyes closed, all he could think about was seeing his father again. He drifted off to sleep.
SEVENTEEN
THE MORNING CAME AND the rising sun lit up the valley.
Breeze was the first to rise. He dressed and then stepped out of his quarters, and saw that Ray and Sally’s doors were still closed. Not wanting to awaken them, he quietly headed for the propulsion room.
Descending into the bowels of the ship, he came to a stop when he arrived at the engines. He stood before the twin massive electromagnetic generator engines and admired them. He always had a fascination with engines of every sort ever since he was a child. His gaze dropped to the aisle that ran between them and ended at a workbench against a wall. He stepped over to it.
Memories of his father’s workshop arose when saw how tools made up of odd shapes and sizes were neatly placed on the rack above it. He grabbed one and was immediately puzzled as to its purpose. Everything about this ship was just like what he had experienced at Perihelion in that everything seemed ancient, but fantastic in its capabilities.
He wandered about the engine room, trying to find anything that would give him a clue how to repair the damaged engines when he came upon a door that automatically slid away when he approached it. Lights flickered on when he stepped in to take a look. In the center of the room he saw the shape of a hover underneath heavy tarpaulin. Surrounding the vehicle were rolling racks filled with tools and the very sight of them struck him with an idea.
He ran to one of the tool racks and rummaged through the drawers. He flung aside tools until he found a disk sitting at the bottom of a drawer. He had seen them before when he was exploring Perihelion’s hangars. It was a diagnostic tool for mechanics, and the RF often had one attached to their chests. If they didn’t, they would pull them out of rolling tool racks and use them to scan whatever ship they were assigned to repair.
He flipped it over. The manufacture’s emblem was faded.
He then remembered the vision he had from the winged creature. The man that smashed the battle cruiser in half had signaled him by tapping a device on his wrist. Breeze pulled back his sleeve to look at his nav-compass. He tapped the screen and it flickered alive.
The man then pointed at the planet below and spoke a single word into his mind: Helena. Breeze replayed the scene in his head but couldn’t fathom what he was trying to convey. Was that the name of someone he was supposed to find? He did remember Oslo telling him how Bram long ago discovered a world named Helena during an expedition while projecting out into space. Was that Bram I saw? He wondered to himself. Is he trying to reach out to me?
He looked again at the disk, wondering if it had the answers he needed. He turned it over so the screen faced him and touched it, but nothing happened. He then double tapped it, and it immediately lit up.
The disk made a warbling sound as it displayed a rainbow of flashing colors while scrolling through an endless stream of data until it came to a stop. The words “Welcome to Corinth Industries Diagnostic Scanner” flashed across the screen. He fumbled the disk and almost dropped it to the floor, then shook his h
ead. Is this for real?
A soft and gentle woman’s voice spoke. “Hello Jacob, would you like to synchronize data now?” as a red light glowed at the bottom of the disk. A similar light appeared on his nav-compass. He placed them close together and both devices glowed and pulsated in unison.
“Um, yes?”
“Thank you, just one moment,” the voice responded as both lights began to flash.
He looked at the tiny screen of his nav-compass, then the disk. Both had reams of data streaming across it, but he couldn’t make any sense of it. It all came to an abrupt stop and the red lights ceased.
“Thank you. What is the first item you would like to scan?” it asked.
Breeze thought about it for a moment, and then remembered how the RF who did not have disks on their chest plates used them. He ran out of the room and over to one of the generator engines where he carefully placed the disk on it. It barely touched the surface when it clamped onto the metal and immediately flashed “Diagnostic Phase” across the screen. In moments, it was finished. He removed the disk and scrolled through the information. It listed a series of parts and repairs that were needed.
The ship’s intercom crackled. “Breeze, where are you? Please come to the galley,” he heard Sally’s voice say. He looked at the workbench and saw an intercom terminal above it. He pushed the call button. “Down here in the engine room. Be right up.”
He held the disk tightly as he bounded up the steps and out into the main corridor. He arrived at the galley where he found Sally and Ray sitting at the table and eating breakfast.
“I made something for you. I’m afraid it’s not much, but there’s not a lot of food here.” Sally got up to make him a plate.
“You didn’t have to. Besides, Oslo didn’t really have this old tub filled with supplies. I guess he figured we would be at the farmhouse by now, eating breakfast and getting settled in.”
“Yeah, didn’t work out that way, did it?” Ray said. “What a night.” He shook his head and drank water from his cup.
“You have to eat something,” Sally said as she put a plate of food before him, then sat down. “So, what now?”
Breakfast wasn’t much. Just a slice of bread with a little bit of rice. Breeze grabbed a spoon and shoveled it down. “Well,” he began between mouthfuls of food, “we definitely need to head into town. We’re going to need supplies, especially food, and the parts we need to fix the ship.”
“But how? What do they do for money around here? Besides, it’s not like we have any,” Ray said.
“Trust me, I’m from the desert,” Breeze said as he chewed loudly, “this place is probably no different than where I come from. You barter.”
Sally shrugged and looked at him innocently. “I don’t understand.”
Breeze chuckled. “Boy, you two are definitely high class people.” He waved a hand. “This whole ship is full of stuff that has value. Just the scrap metal alone can let us trade for whatever we need. We’ll be fine. We can scavenge for things in the utility closets throughout the ship. It’s a start. Then, we head off into town.”
“Oh, I’m not walking again, especially through that ravine,” Sally declared.
“Do you even know what parts we need?” Ray said.
Breeze wolfed down his last piece of bread and chased it down with a cup of water, then slammed the cup onto the table and let out a satisfied “Ahhhh,” as he wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve, ignoring the napkin Sally handed to him. He pointed a finger at Ray. “Parts? No worries there. Found an interesting tool to help us out.” He nodded at Sally. “Walking? Ravine? Don’t think so. Pack your gear and meet me in the engine room. I think I found us a ride.”
Less than an hour later, they were grouped together in the engine room where Breeze led them past the workbench and towards the sliding door off to the side. They stepped in as overhead lights flickered on.
“Can you guess what this is?” Breeze said as he walked to the other side of the covered hover.
“Is this the scrap metal you had talked about bartering with?” Ray responded as he tugged on the tarpaulin and peeked underneath it.
“Nope, it’s our ride.” Breeze yanked the tarpaulin to reveal the hover.
Sally gasped. “That’s the same kind of hover that Excort was always zooming around on campus with! How nice to see something from home.” A puzzled look appeared on her face. “Is Perihelion home?”
Breeze shrugged. “It was for a while. Looking back, it was definitely more hospitable than this place.”
They all nodded in agreement.
Breeze jumped into the pilot’s seat and began to flick switches and fiddle with dials. Soon the hover’s motor was humming, and the craft began to slowly rise up from the deck of the garage.
“Just one thing, genius,” Ray said as he hopped into the back seat while Sally was strapping herself into the passenger seat, “how do we get out of here?”
Breeze hit a button on the dashboard and immediately the wall before them slid up with a grinding noise into a recessed groove, leaving them more than enough space to get out.
Breeze reached into his jacket and pulled out a pair of goggles, and they immediately reminded him of his ill-fated debut at the air show. He placed them over his eyes and adjusted the band, then turned to the others and grinned. “Hang on, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.”
He pushed down hard on the throttles and the hover leapt out of the garage. Sally screamed with a mixture of fear and delight as Breeze raced towards the river, then banked hard to follow it south. He skimmed over the surface of the river at a high rate of speed, creating a plume of water that shot up behind the hover.
Ray whooped with joy as Breeze shouted “look out everybody, here we come!”
Further downrange, Breeze pointed to the left. “That’s the entrance to the ravine.”
“We’re not going back in there, are we?” Sally said anxiously.
“Nope. Been going over the maps. We follow the river further to the south where it forks, and then we take the river that runs to the east. That leads us into town.”
“What’s the name of the place anyway?” Ray shouted over the roar of the slipstream.
Breeze looked back at him, then over to Sally. “Mount Pleasant,” he said.
Seconds went by and nobody said a word, then they all burst out laughing.
“Are you serious?” Sally said. “Well, I sure hope so. Our experience here has been anything but.”
Breeze looked over at her. She was staring straight ahead while the deflected air from the windscreen tousled her hair and the sunlight caressed her face. She turned to him. “Eyes on the road.”
Breeze immediately swerved hard to the left.
“What were you looking at?” Sally asked.
“Oh, just something I thought I saw on the riverbank over there,” Breeze lied as he pointed.
“I don’t see anything.” Sally turned to look.
“For a moment I thought I felt…saw something.” Breeze gripped the helm, and then looked into the rearview mirror. Ray was looking right at him.
They traveled in silence, save for the stray comment about something interesting they saw along the riverbank until they arrived at the fork. Breeze banked the hover hard left and followed the eastward flowing river where ahead, they spotted something floating on the surface.
Ray leaned between the front seats and pointed. “Is that a boat?”
Breeze decelerated and banked to the right. Ahead of them a river vessel with an oversized propeller spinning behind it was heading in their direction. The upper half spun above the surface while the lower half churned the water into a froth.
The passengers casually waved as they glided by. They waved back.
Ray tracked them until they faded from view, then blurt
ed out, “did they just see us zip past in a hover and didn’t even care?”
Breeze nodded. “Yeah, but I get the feeling it’s normal around here.”
“How do you know?” Sally said.
Breeze pointed ahead at a pair of hovers heading toward them. One of the hovers flashed their running lights, and Breeze banked to the right to get out of their way. Ray raised a hand and waved, only to receive a nasty gesture from one of the pilots as they careened by.
“I guess I should stick to the right side of the river,” Breeze said.
They spotted structures that dotted the banks of the river as traffic began to increase both on the river and above it. Soon, they merged with the flowing traffic of hovers and followed them into Mount Pleasant.
Sally looked over at a hover traveling slightly below them on the right where she could see the pilot and the passenger behind him. The hover was old and disheveled and made a high pitch whine as the engine would surge, then fade, then surge again. The body panels were a mismatch of different shapes and colors and a stream of smoke trailed behind it.
The passenger stared right at Sally. It was a little girl. She tapped the shoulder of the pilot and pointed up. The pilot turned to look and glared at Sally as she quickly slumped down in her seat.
The town of Mount Pleasant loomed before them. It was a sprawling settlement spread out across both sides of a river that meandered to the north and Breeze banked the hover to follow its course. “Down there,” he said, “I think we can land.” He pointed to a harbor that appeared on the east bank of the river as streams of hovers were flying towards it, and river boats changed their course for the channel that led into it. He banked to the right to follow the hovers into the harbor and was greeted by the blast of an air horn from a hover behind them whose path he swerved into. He banked hard to the left and descended, then yanked the helm hard to the right and mashed down on the throttles. They roared ahead until they were clear of traffic.
“Have to be a little aggressive around here,” Breeze shouted above the din of motors and horns.
Breeze Corinth (Book 1): Sky Shatter Page 35