by Frank Carey
TABLE OF CONTENTS
TABLE OF CONTENTS
COPYRIGHT
CHAPTER ONE: Flashback
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN: Flashback
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE: Flashback
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: Flashback
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: Gus’s Flashback
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: Flashback
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: Flashback
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: Flashback
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Gus
Heroes of the League Book 16
By Frank Carey
COPYRIGHT
Copyright © 2017 by Frank Carey
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
This story appeared previously as Redemption.
League Tale #28
CHAPTER ONE: Flashback
Twenty years ago, aboard the Storen Trade Ship River’s Edge...
It was deep into the ship's late shift as Gus finished his repairs on the ship's auxiliary control console. The River’s Edge was a good ship, but she was showing her age in places, especially the backup systems. A shipment of needed parts had caught up with them at the last port, and Gus wanted to get them installed before something original decided to take the long nap, thus his spending his off-time installing parts in the darkened engine room.
"One last check and I'll be able to connect you back into the system, Old Girl," he said lovingly to the panel. Gus was one of those Storens who personified every piece of equipment he came into contact with. His father, Nelson Curran, the first Storen space freighter captain to take his entire family into space, was a river Storen who felt that every machine had a river spirit attached to it to guide its user. His mother, Theresa Curran, also a mountain Storen a good eight inches taller than her husband, felt the complete opposite. To her, machines were nothing more than necessary evils that had to be tolerated.
The sound of a blaster powering up interrupted Gus's musings. "Come out of there," a rough voice ordered in Standard. Gus extricated himself from the console and found himself facing two spacesuited figures.
"Who the hell are you?" he asked in the surly voice his father tried to teach him.
The larger of the two intruders pressed a button on his sleeve, retracting his helmet to reveal a male, river Storen with dark tan fur marred by a jagged white stripe running down his forehead and the bridge of his nose. "My name is Glant. Do as I tell you, and no one will get hurt." He nodded toward the wall-mounted view screen. On it was a feed from the bridge. Gus could see his family held at gunpoint by a group of nasty looking individuals.
Gus looked at his captor. "What do you want?"
"Your pa locked-down the ship, and we need access to the forward hold. Release the computer and no harm will come to you or your family. You have my word."
"And if I refuse?"
"You watch them die before I kill you myself. Then we take the ship to a boneyard and open the forward hold with a can opener."
"There's nothing in the forward hold except a crate of machine parts destined for Stora, nothing valuable to kill for," Gus pointed out. "You do know who this ship works for, don't you?"
"Yes, I do, and no, I don't care. Computer access! Now!" he yelled. He stabbed Gus in the ribs with a blaster for emphasis.
Gus thought quickly. Maybe if he tackled the other suited figure, Glant wouldn't fire. He looked at the viewer and knew his family would die if he tried anything. He made his first mistake. "Computer, release, release, release, Gustav 5-8-7 actual."
"Working... All systems and locks released."
Gus watched his father scream in anger. Glant reached over and turned up the volume so that Gus could hear his father curse his name in ancient Storen. In seconds, Gus went from son to nothing.
"That didn't go well," Glant said as he reached over and tapped a switch. Gus made his second mistake. He froze as the Storen activated the Bridge airlock in emergency mode. Gus screamed and leapt at the pilot, but Glant calmly stunned him just as the lock opened and everyone on the bridge was sucked into the void. The last thing Gus saw as he slammed into a wall was the looks on his family's faces as they died in the cold vacuum of space.
###
Gus woke up on the floor. Slowly, he sat up, his ribs on fire where they had impacted the wall. Slowly, he remembered what had happened. Standing up despite the agony of his injuries, he made his way to the console. "Computer, crew status."
"One crewperson present in engineering."
"Full space scan to one light-year," he ordered in desperation.
"Working. Space is clear to one light-year."
"Bridge view."
The Bridge was empty.
"Where are we?"
The computer reeled off a set of coordinates.
"System status."
"FTL scrammed. Real-space engines scrammed. Thrusters out. Life support on emergency power. Forward hold open to space..."
"Stop. How long have I been out?"
"One standard day."
Think, Gus, what would Dad do? "Computer, playback autolog starting twenty five hours ago."
Gus watched the pirates—he was sure they were pirates—as they boarded the ship and killed the crew. The log continued, showing what happened after. "Computer, stop playback. Record following and append to log."
"Working. Recording."
Gus recounted what he remembered. "I take full responsibility for this disaster, and I offer my life in the hope that it is payment enough to see safe passage down the Great River for my family. As the only living heir, I designate my Uncle Stavros as sole beneficiary of all family holdings which I now control. Gustav Curran out. Computer, launch log buoy. Launch all EPIRBS. Activate emergency beacons. Standby for whole-ship shutdown."
"Working. Standing by."
Gus made his way to the empty bridge. On the way, he made a quick stop at the infirmary.
The Bridge was quiet when he arrived, there was no sign that over a dozen people had died here. Gus sat down in the pilot's seat and strapped himself in before swallowing the bot
tle full of tranquilizers he had retrieved from Sickbay. "Computer, activate ship-standby," he ordered as consciousness slipped from him for the last time.
###
As Gus fell into a coma, two figures appeared on the Bridge. One was a woman, tall, statuesque, with flaming red hair. The other had the body of a human body builder and the head of a hawk.
"We seem to be too late," the body builder said as he walked over and placed his hand on Gus's shoulder.
"Is he alive?" the woman asked.
"Yes, barely."
"Then mitigate it!" She ordered.
"Is that not interfering?" he asked as his hand glowed.
"Zeus can ream me a new one later. Right now, we have to save the young Storen."
"Whole ship shutdown in thirty seconds," the computer announced.
"What is that?" the beaked one asked.
"He set the ship to mothball itself until help arrives. Environmental controls lower the ship's ambient temperature to below minus forty Celsius and the pressure to just above vacuum."
"Can you stop it?"
"Not for the whole ship, but I can for the Bridge," she said while examining a wall. Ripping off an access cover, she reached inside the wall. With a loud ripping noise, she tore out a module, crushing it in the process. "That'll do it. Bridge environmental is on emergency standby and will stay that way until someone replaces that part."
"I can see why the others have never called you subtle," he said as he removed his hand. "He will sleep now. You do realize that the three of us are bonded now."
The woman nodded. "As it was destined to be." She stopped and listened. "A Starguard ship has picked up his beacon. It will rendezvous inside of a day. Will he be alright if we leave him?"
"Yes. He will be fine."
The woman walked around and placed her hand on the captain's control console
"Logs are taken care of. No one will know we were here, We should go." She leaned down and kissed the top of Gus's head. "Sleep well, Gus. There is much for you to do."
They were gone, Leaving Gus to his dreams.
###
Starguard rendezvoused with the River’s Edge the next day. The medics found the empty pill bottle and marveled that the young Storen was still alive.
###
Gus opened one eye and looked up at the ceiling as the pain in his head attempted to crack open his skull.
"Ah, Mr. Curran. Welcome back."
He opened his other eye. "Ungh," he mumbled as his eyeballs seemingly cramped. He turned his head and saw a young Storen woman with a stethoscope around her neck holding his wrist. "Is it working?" he asked.
She smiled. "Why yes it is. I'm Dr. Narris. How do you feel?"
"Like a truck ran over me. Where am I?"
"Ventos Prime General Hospital. We were the closest facility. What do you remember?"
He stopped as memories flooded his mind. "Why did you save me?"
"Ever hear of the Oath of Minar? The humans call it the Hippocratic Oath. You know, the one that says I can't let you die?"
"Yeah, I know it. I think it starts with a line about first doing no harm. I think the log entry on the Edge made it abundantly clear that I'm already dead. All you've done is delay the inevitable."
"What are you talking about?"
"My father disowned me. He blamed me for allowing a bunch of pirates access to our computer core, access which was used to space my family and a number of other pirates. Do you know who my maternal grandfather is?"
"No, who?"
"Kayleth Rennick, the last of the great warriors of the Mountain Storens. He feels most strongly that disowned Storens are a blight on the planet and should be dispatched with great alacrity."
Narris stared at him. "I thought those were tales to scare children."
"So did I, until I watched him do it at a family function when I was twelve. I promise you, his victim felt no pain."
"That's horrible."
"No, that's Granpa Kayleth when he's angry. So, I'm a dead Storen. Well, Doctor, how did you pull off such a miracle?"
"I didn't... We didn't save you. When Starguard brought you in, you were in a deep sleep. They gave us the pill bottle. We assumed you had taken the whole bottle, so we pumped your stomach and injected you with two courses of nanorobotic scavengers. That's when we started scratching our heads."
"And such a pretty head. What was the cause of your consternation?"
"You had thirty capsules of a tranquilizer formulated to knock out an angry Goranthi in your stomach for forty-eight hours before twenty-nine of them decided to start dissolving."
"What did you say?"
"Mr. Curran, your heart and respiration should have stopped no more than ten minutes after you took those pills. Instead, you had a good sleep. The scavenger bots found nothing to scavenge, and I have a dozen pharmacologists pulling their hair out trying to figure out why you're alive. As for you family, I'm not quite sure what to do..."
"Do nothing. Grandpa prefers to do his own wet work." Gus lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling.
"Oh, I almost forgot. You have two friends waiting for you outside. One's a human woman and the other is a not human male."
"Not human? What's that supposed to mean?"
"You'll see. Call the nurse if you need anything."
"When can I get out of here?"
"Soon. Now rest,” she said, walking out. Moments later, two people walked in, a woman and something. Gus sat up and stared. The woman was a beautiful human with flaming red hair, a very rare color on his home world. The man—if you could call him that—had a muscular, human body—possibly a weight lifter—topped by the head of a hawk.
"What the hell are you?" Gus blurted out.
"Complicated," the hawk-headed man said.
Gus turned to the woman and stopped. "Have we met before?"
"Yes, aboard the River’s Edge. I thought you were out at the time."
"You two saved me, why? How? Who the hell are you two anyway?"
She smiled. "My name is Minerva, but you can call me Minnie. My friend here is Horus."
Horus closed the door, then the two sat near the young Storen. "A long time ago, a group of advanced, and very long-lived, beings came to this part of space. They interacted with the locals, helping them find their own versions of civilization. Eventually, these beings—call them immortals—moved on. Well, now they have returned, using the InterWeb and your ships to travel from planet to planet."
"For what purpose?"
"To meddle," Horus said. "We are quintessential busy bodies."
"I like him," Gus said. "So what does this have to do with me?"
"One of our kind is a soothsayer, a seer of possible futures. It is their opinion that you will be instrumental in determining the course of the future of not only the League, but another civilization as well."
"OK, this is some psych test the doc is giving me, right? She wants to see if I've got a screw loose, WELL IT AIN’T GONNA WORK!"
"You don't believe us?" Horus asked.
"No, I don't. All that you've told me is on the log tapes, including my taking a bottle of pills. I can't believe a Storen doctor doesn't know about family honor and what it means to be disowned by a parent. Well, I do, and I know what the protocols are. Now, you two nice people get the hell out of this room and leave me the hell..." He stopped when the door into the room became part of the wall as Horus turned into a small owl and jumped up on Minnie's shoulder, Meanwhile, Minnie's rather stylish jeans and blouse transformed into a gold armor top and white linen skirt with gold greaves. She literally glowed with the light of the sun as she stood there leaning against a very sharp looking spear.
Gus passed out.
"Too much?" she asked the owl.
"Maybe just a little," he said as she caught him, picked him up, and laid him back in bed.
Slowly, he came-to. He looked at her, calmly. "OK, I can admit when I'm wrong. You two are either gods or immensely powerful aliens. If t
he latter, please tell me you're not here to harm the League or its people."
She knelt down next to him. "Horus and I are here to teach you and guide you. We can no more harm the people you cherish then the river can run uphill. The three of us are bonded until the king says otherwise." She helped him back to a sitting position on the side of the bed. He noticed that Horus was back to Mr. Universe form while the door had returned, Meanwhile, Minnie was back in jeans and a blouse,
Reaching into a pocket, she extracted a pendant on a silver chain. On the pendant was the likeness of an owl. "This signifies our bonding," she said, placing the necklace around his neck. "You can contact us through this. We can also stay inside it during your travels. We have much to teach you. Are you up to the task?"
He frowned as he decided. "Yes, at least I think I am." He suddenly yawned, the room light glinting off his sizable canines. "Damn, I'm suddenly so tired." He fell over, fast asleep.
"He needs rest, mistress," Horus said.
She covered him with a blanket. "Sleep well, young Gustav, for you have much to do."
He was alone in the room, his only companions those who inhabited his dreams.
CHAPTER TWO
The sound of hammering broke the morning stillness as the cargo handlers prepared archaeological samples for shipment back to Alyson. Overhead, the unfamiliar stars of the Large Magellanic Cloud were giving way to the light of dawn.
The planet—named Cerberus—was located only four light-years from Arctillus, home to both the Basili and Sokuhl refugees from the Milky Way Galaxy, and the Malroth, the original inhabitants of the planet. Found during a recent automated survey of the space surrounding Arctillus, Cerberus was the home of a once great civilization, one which had abruptly died out millennia ago. Not only was Cerberus rich with artifacts left by its previous occupants, the planet itself possessed an environment similar to that of Earth, Ventos Prime, and the Sokuhl home world, making exploration of its surface a shirt-sleeve affair.
Standing off to one side were the survey team leader, Jarrus Miln, a Basili archaeologist from Arctillus, and Milo Toss, a Malroth xenohistorian. "That's it, Milo, the hold of the mother ship is filled, and we are done with the survey. We break orbit in two hours, then it’s back to Arctillus."