First Admiral 01 First Admiral

by William J. Benning

  Billy, having stepped aside from the wild swinging charge, had delivered a calculated upwards punch to Reilly’s solar plexus. A blow which Billy knew would forcibly and painfully expel all of the air from his lungs. With a great animal grunt, Reilly had sprayed the white painted wall with blood, before dropping to the ground as if he had been pole-axed.

  Billy knew that with two calculated blows, this fight was over. Reilly lay clutching his stomach, having released the knife from his damaged fingers. He was trying to force air through his ravaged nose and mouth into his tortured, burning lungs. Billy calmly picked up the half-folded knife with two fingertips on the blade, and dropped it into a discarded white confectionery bag lying close by.

  “Time to go home Reilly,” Billy said calmly to the groaning, gasping, doubled over figure clutching his stomach.

  Billy slipped the bag containing the knife into his blazer pocket. He resisted the urge to savagely kick and punch the prone figure. The police would likely be involved in this incident now. Billy made sure that the knife, with Reilly’s fingerprints on it, would be in a safe place.

  Looking around calmly, Billy noted the fear and terror in the eyes of the playground observers. The King of the Heap was dead, long live the new King. The students were wide-eyed with fear that a new reign of terror would ensue. Reilly’s cronies had disappeared, Billy noticed, fearing the retribution of the new top predator in the playground. They had run off as soon as Reilly had fallen, smearing his blood in a long red streak down the painted wall. Tomorrow was another day, and Billy would call Reilly’s erstwhile lieutenants to account later.

  He fixed his gaze on Julie Martin, on whom it was gradually dawning that perhaps she was in trouble. She began to shuffle nervously at the rear of the crowd as Billy spoke deliberately and slowly to no one in particular.

  “Ladies,” Billy called for their attention, and got it, “isn’t there someone you would like to have a word with?” he said calmly his eyes never wavering from Julie Martin’s.

  For an instant the playground was silent. Then, all eyes turned onto the female arch-bully. Realising what was about to happen, Julie Martin took to her heels heading for the school gates. She was swiftly pursued by a horde of banshee-like screaming, resentful and angry schoolgirls. As the vengeful horde streamed after Julie Martin, Billy caught sight of one particular running girl. She was a small girl with greasy blonde hair, thick-lensed spectacles, and the Elastoplast secured bridge. She wore grubby white socks that never quite managed to stay up inside her scuff-toed sandals.

  “You, with me”, Billy said calmly to the wild-eyed, eager-to-hurt-the-bully schoolgirl, who stared at him in terror.

  As they walked slowly behind the shrieking mob, Billy told the girl what he wanted her to do. She nodded enthusiastically with an evil smile on her angelic face. A terrified, fleeing Julie Martin hadn’t quite made it to the safety of the school gates. She was caught by the flowing mane of beautiful jet black hair she was so proud of, by one of her faster pursuers. She had then been dragged clumsily to the ground. The rest of the pursuing shrill-shrieking horde had then fallen upon her like a pack of vengeful wolves.

  As Billy and the small girl approached, Billy could see only a large screaming scrimmage of girls. They were kicking, punching, scratching and hair pulling at the panic-stricken figure struggling to escape the savage rain of blows and pain. Never fight with girls, Billy reminded himself. He was slightly appalled at the savagery and unrestrained pent-up violence being meted out to Julie Martin by these vengeful harpies. The small girl with Billy was eager to join the maul, but frightened of the new top predator of the playground. She held her station next to him, as they watched the ensuing savage beating.

  In a few minutes it was all over. The mob, having quenched its thirst for vengeance, and having re-paid in full what Julie Martin had been owed, began to drift away. With curses, and spitting upon the prone, dishevelled, torn-clothed, beaten bully the vengeful mob began to disperse. Julie Martin half sat up, her beautiful black hair torn and shredded, with her scalp bleeding. To Billy she looked like a cartoon character who had stuck her fingers into an electrical socket. Her face was bruised, scratched and bleeding from a dozen injuries, as were her bare legs and arms. Hot, stinging tears began to run down her face carving channels through the grime, as she sobbed, still stunned from the ferocity and violence of the attack. Now she was beginning to regret her actions.

  “Your turn,” Billy said to the eager, anticipating small girl beside him, “don’t worry, she won’t do anything.”

  Like releasing the brakes on a runaway train, the small girl launched into the prone figure of Julie Martin with a scream like a steam whistle. What followed made Billy Caudwell flinch, and further reinforced his notion that fighting with girls was not a great idea. Like a tornado the small girl laid into Julie Martin by grabbing her hair viciously and then unleashing a barrage of kicks and punches into her arms and body. Weakened by the previous beating, Julie Martin could only shout and wave her arms feebly in something approaching a form of defence from the rain of vengeful blows.

  When it was over, and the force of vengeance was spent, the small girl stood panting, her little frail chest heaving at the exertion. Her face was set in a twisted rictus of anger and satisfaction. Julie Martin lay moaning on the ground, wishing that she had never said an ill word or lifted her hands to anyone in her life.

  “Okay,” Billy nodded to the small panting girl, who stepped forwards and lashed two final, venom-filled kicks, with her scuff-toed sandals, into the ribs of Julie Martin, who gasped with pain on their impact.

  “Right, go home”, Billy instructed the small girl, “and tell the other girls not to let anyone ever bully them again,” he added.

  The small girl nodded, and then spoke, “Thank you,” she smiled nervously, in a small reedy voice, before scampering away to join her friends in their victory celebrations somewhere in the town.

  Walking over to the groaning, bleeding, torn heap that was Julie Martin, Billy squatted down on his haunches, and surveyed the wreckage. Yep, he thought to himself again, don’t ever tangle with girls. For an instant, he felt a pang of pity for the fallen Queen Bee, but quickly suppressed the emotion. After all she had brought it upon herself. Grasping the lapels of her near shredded blazer in his left hand he dragged her torso upright. Julie Martin, torn from her world which now consisted of pain and humiliation, flinched at the sight of Billy Caudwell. She feared she was now about to receive a beating from him. Instead, she saw Billy Caudwell smiling at her.

  “You were right Julie,” Billy said softly, “life is a bitch, and, yes, you certainly are one,” he added.

  Then, with his free right hand, he began gently brushing her blood-matted and torn hair from her bruised, scratched and cut face. Julie flinched from his hand and staring wide-eyed with fear, trembled with the anticipation at the prospect of even more pain and injury. He leaned down carefully and whispered in her ear, “but I’m the cure”, before releasing her lapels and letting her body slump.

  She fell with a sickening thud, onto the hard tarmac of the same playground upon which she had wrought so much pain, fear, shame and terror.

  She watched him rise to his feet through her bruised and now closing eyes, with every inch of her body aching. She was unable to move with the shock, trauma and fatigue of the beatings she had taken. Julie Martin watched the figure of Billy Caudwell walk away from her towards the school gates. She wished she had never laid eyes upon him, and wished she had never come to this school. The tears that ran down her face would gather no pity from anyone at that school. At that moment, she began to feel ugly. As ugly as the behaviour and attitude she had shown to all those others with whom she could have been friends.

  At that moment, she truly hated Billy Caudwell, but most of all, she hated what she had let herself become.

  Epilogue

  The Black Rose smoothly broke into the atmosphere of Garmauria’s second moon, which was named Clyon. The for
ce-shield trail from the swiftly moving vessel, cutting through the thick atmosphere, lit up the sulphur-laden sky of the moon like a great white streak in the orange sky. The outside temperature registered on the hull of the Black Rose at almost two thousand degrees. Cocooned snugly in the Control Cabin, Billy had already engaged the protective force shield that would prevent him from roasting like a Christmas Turkey in an oven, and the ship from melting as it began the descent to the churning rock and lava strewn surface of the moon.

  The surface of Clyon was as close as Billy dared to imagine what the depths of Purgatory would look like. The surface was strewn with enormous volcanic craters and rivers of molten lava carving great snaking and winding orange-red canyons in the cooler more solid brown rock. It was a hot, deafeningly noisy, violent world, convulsing like a great wounded beast writhing, thrashing out and roaring in pain. The navigation computer had identified the spot that Billy sought, and he took over manual control of the flight. The Black Rose lurched just perceptibly as the computerised autopilot surrendered control to the manually operated systems. The last part of the journey, and the inevitable landing were always the most dangerous part of any flight, and on an unforgiving world like Clyon one mistake, Billy knew, would be fatal.

  The computerised terrain map, superimposed onto the front window indicated his position relative to the landing site, the outline of the site bright and yellow against the dull grey of the map background. Taking a deep breath of anticipation, Billy gently guided the craft down from the fractured surface into a deep gorge. The brown rock formations rose majestically above him, worn smooth as glass by centuries of hot flowing lava, the red-orange glow of the lava stream below casting wonderful rippling shadows and flashes of light on the sheer cliffs that had so fascinated and enthralled his passenger.

  Billy anxiously monitored the seismic scanners superimposed next to the terrain map. Billy could feel the tightness in his chest, his heart about to jump out of his mouth. His hands felt sweaty and clammy as he gently manipulated the controls of the Black Rose, and he prayed they would not slip at a vital moment. Even with the considerable power of the vessels force shields and the engines, an unexpected heavy rock fall could still bury the Black Rose for an eternity. This canyon running route was dangerous, but the more direct route, down into the side of the great crater, through the massive thermal up draughts, was almost suicidal. Even under mind control an unexpected blast of superheated air could throw the vessel into the lava or the canyon walls.

  Just behind him, two great geysers of yellow-orange lava had just erupted and spewed forth towards each other from the side of the cliff. They forced molten lava to the surface through weakened fissures in the soft malleable rock by the enormous pressures at the superheated, molten heart of Clyon.

  To Billy it looked like a great arch of fire was welcoming and protecting the Black Rose as it flew to the landing point. Like two great burning sentinels the fiery fountains of lava would now ensure that no other creatures would follow Billy to the shores of the molten lake.

  Not that Billy expected anyone to follow the Black Rose to its final destination, however, an instinct within him felt a little bit safer knowing his back was protected. In the cockpit, the distance indicator rapidly counted down the numbers on the terrain map as the Black Rose crept carefully through the canyon and emerged over a great lake of lava that stretched as far as the eye could see. The orange-red glow seemed to light up the entire sky of Clyon, as the surface of the lake oozed, bubbled, seethed and flashed with activity from a dozen other lava streams pouring their molten rock contents into it.

  Billy was struck with awe at the sheer beauty and magnificence. The naked, raw power and destructive forces in this place of fire and lava made him feel small and insignificant in the great scheme of things. Despite all of the advanced technology aboard the Black Rose he felt very vulnerable and more than a little anxious. However, his self-imposed duty made him shrug away the anxiety to prepare for the most careful of landings. Manoeuvring carefully, Billy located the landing site, a small plateau jutting out from the crater edge trapping a small lava pool to its front in the angle of the rock face.

  The plateau was more than big enough and level enough to accommodate the Black Rose, however, Billy was taking no chances; he did not know if the force shielding on the Black Rose, and hence Billy himself, could survive being immersed in the molten lava.

  Lowering the Black Rose down gently, Billy set the stability vector fields to keep the ship in exactly the same position, even if the plateau should collapse under it. If the plateau did collapse, he would at least have a chance of making an escape onto a stable platform, rather than sinking into lava. Disengaging the main thrust engines and with a sense of relief at finally being able to move Billy unbuckled his seat straps, put on his uniform cap and swivelled the seat around to face his passenger.

  The mortal remains of Tega Samarasa lay on the Med-bed, levitating at about waist height to Billy, shrouded in the flag of the Garmaurian Government Forces; the light blue background overlaid with the narrow dark blue and white side by side diagonal stripe from top right to bottom left. Her face and shoulders were uncovered showing she was still in her uniform. Placed respectfully on her torso were her service cap and her honours set out on a light blue tray. The medals, and their sometimes gaudy ribbons, looked so out of place against her uniform. The green blotches from the virus which had killed her were still visible on her face. Aside from the lack of movement, those blotches were the only indication that Tega Digima Samarasa was not asleep.

  In his exploration of the Black Rose he had found Samarasa’s Personal Diary and had learned her fears and her wishes from it.

  Having lived what were to be her final days, cramped and isolated, on the ship, Samarasa had brought all of her personal effects with her. Now he would ensure that those wishes were put into practice, and she would be buried in the Garmaurian way.

  Engaging the force shield on his Personal Environment Suit, Billy opened the side hatch of the Black Rose. As the white metal panelled doors parted along almost half of the side length of the ship, Billy at once heard the great roaring and rumbling of the lava lake and the seismically active moon. After a moment, he gazed upon the vast lake of lava set out before him. Only then did he appreciate how beautiful, and yet deadly, this place really was.

  For a few moments he held his breath and marvelled at the wonder of the place, and was able to understand why Samarasa had fallen so hopelessly in love with Clyon. Tentatively, Billy jumped down the few feet from the hatch to the glassy surface of the plateau and, almost slipping, immediately felt the constant vibration and shaking of the seismic activity.

  “Okay,” he said to himself, drawing a deep breath, “take your time, Billy, and do this right.”

  With great reverence, he guided the levitating Med-bed, with its flag bedecked cargo, from the side hatch of the Black Rose down the half dozen or so steps to the edge of the plateau. Looking over the edge of the plateau, Billy could see some three or four feet below him, the surface of the lava trapped in the pool. The temperature of the atmosphere must have been over two thousand degrees, yet still a chill ran down his spine at the thought of falling into the burning reddish substance below. His Personal Environment Suit may have been able to protect him from extreme temperatures, but he was not prepared to take that chance here.

  The lava trapped in the pool had cooled to a deep red colour that still spoke of heat beyond his imagining. Whilst beyond the pool brighter yellow orange lava thrashed at the walls of the crater like an angry ocean throwing up shards of bright molten rock that fell back down into the great body of the lake. To Billy it seemed like the shards of lava were somehow trying to escape the inferno of the lake, failing in that quest, and then falling despairingly back into their hellish captivity.

  With great care and tenderness, Billy covered the yellow and green mottled face of the dead Tega Samarasa, the last of the Garmaurians, with the folds of the flag she had
so proudly served under. Then, slowly, using the mind-link, he guided the Med-bed out over the edge of the plateau, until he brought it gently to rest just above the centre of the glowing lava pool. He had carefully practised that manoeuvre; fearing he would send the Med-bed out too rapidly, and, consequently dislodge the body aside when he halted it.

  The force shielding around the bed would have prevented the body from falling off completely. However, Billy felt it would have been undignified for Samarasa to meet her ancestors shunted and squeezed against one side of a force shield like a sack of potatoes.

  The movement went entirely smoothly, and Billy noted, that the force shield he had set around the Med-bed was holding up to the heat. He also noticed the oblong dimple in the fiery red surface of the lava where the force shield was keeping the Med-bed aloft.

  Taking another deep breath Billy stood at the very edge of the plateau and looked up to the orange sky. Floating large and round in the sky was the familiar emerald green shape of Garmauria. The huge planet hung in the sky like some giant scowling schoolteacher of old observing and scrutinising him, waiting for him to make a mistake for which he would be savagely punished. He saw the edges of this vast crater stretch out before him like the ragged, sharpened teeth on a very old kitchen knife, making him feel small, insignificant and humble.

  Then, he raised his arms aloft.

  “Great Power of Garmauria, I beseech you, pay attention to my words!” he began, yelling into the rumbling and roaring chaos that drowned him out.

  Somehow, he felt so very inadequate shouting his words into a seismic storm. He felt the words were so false and insincere coming from him, someone who had barely known the dead warrior. Really, standing on a violent volcanic moon shouting the words of some ancient alien litany was just making him feel stupid. Still, it was what Samarasa believed, and what she had wanted, that was the important thing here. Fighting back the feeling of stupidity, he carried on.