by M. Garnet
Teens and adults danced, what the music dictated. Sometimes fast, and sometimes slow. They sometimes danced in groups, or with a couple, or alone, as dancing was acceptable on this planet, under the large-close moon. There were a couple of other moons that were farther away to balance the pull of gravity. But only the large blue one was the important one, for the dancing. So, when it came up twice a year—the parties got larger, louder, and longer.
There was only one thing stopping Lila from totally enjoying the dancing on her world. It was the memory of a tall male with dark eyes. She had to wonder where he was and what type of danger he was in at the present time.
****
Flying the Mark VI Alpha in stealth mode, close behind the large freighter, Dono used the big spaceship as a distraction. Not that he needed it, because the stealth mode on his ship was exceptional. What he was doing was listening in on a vessel in the distance that was sending messages out to the satellite.
On this run, he was bored and wanted to slip out from behind the freighter to go after the vessel sending out messages and blast it out of the dark space. For months now, he had been put on nothing but research and observation projects. He had been forced to retire the persona of Bridge, as the ship jockey had become too well known among some illegal individuals.
Instead of blasting out laser blots, he did the right thing and stay behind the behemoth and listen, making sure every message that the distant ship sent out was recorded. He had been trailing this group for weeks.
The place where all the messages were going to, for the most part, was a satellite that was owned by a legitimate corporation, with holdings on many worlds. That they were tied in with a crime organization had been proven. Why was the big question? They were large, and in some of their areas, they were highly successful.
They owned property that was worth many funds and backed politicians on some world governments. The owners were varied now but originally could be traced back to an old family with ancient ties. What would make a legitimate corporation get tied into crime affiliations?
On this project, Dono and many other Dark Guardians were watching and trying to answer that question. It seemed that the OOW had looked into the situation but had not found any actual proof. Now the OOW had problems with the possibility of a war with some rim organizations.
As usual, when one family got eliminated due to getting too close with information on a crime family that might have been connected to the corporation that was supporting welfare housing on two moons, it was too small for OOW. So, if the OOW was too busy looking into a possible war, it was time for the DG to help out a family. The small work was what the DG was set up to handle when the local law was overwhelmed.
The problem was that the DG had no legal recognition. They were called vigilantes or criminals themselves. But they were always supported when they did come into a sector to help someone out against criminals.
At last, the call came in for everyone to report in for a final briefing, and Dono smiled. He was glad to head his special small ship into the meeting place. As usual, it was hidden nearby, on a busy satellite, where the movement of ships would not be noticed.
It was in the middle of the meeting with over thirty of the Dark Guardians in a room and a Commander was laying out the plan when something unusual happened. The Commander was showing the center of the crime lord's supply station when suddenly Dono stood up and shouted, "I'm going to kill her." The dedicated Guardian began pushing his way out of the room, past friends as if in a hypnotized mode.
"Sit down, officer." The Commander shouted.
Someone tried to stop the big young man but was pushed away to fall against a table. At that point, a couple more, who were between Dono and the door, spoke up.
"Sir, he has a strange look about him."
"Yes, his eyes are glazed."
With these words, a couple of others grabbed at Dono to prevent him from leaving. It was like trying to stop a moving vessel, as the man was dragging the ones who hung onto him. Finally, someone hit him with a taser, and he went down.
The Commander came over to look at the unconscious man. "Get a corpsman and confine him to the medic room. Someone, check out what happened. Was it poison or something else? We don't need to have something loose in here."
With that, they carried Dono out.
After the meeting, a concerned Commander went to check on his man acting strangely, to find him gone. No one had seen the man leave the medic area. He made a comm to the landing pad area, and sure enough, Dono's special spaceship was gone. Now he had to put out a special alert.
Chapter Twenty
After a year working on the ranch, doing Records and Auditing, and being home for almost the same length of time, Lila had long red hair. She wore it braided and tied in a knot at the back of her head. That kept it out of her way when she worked at the boxing plant.
At this moment, it kept her hair out of the way, as she was going through some of the things that had belonged to her parents. All of the boxes and crates had been delivered by friends and cousins shortly after she had settled into her comfortable apartment. At first, she just piled them in the extra room and ignored them.
But this was during the full moon time, and there was dancing each night. She had a day off, and there was not much to clean, with Toy enjoying doing so many chores. At last, she went into the extra room for something else and saw the boxes. What caught her eye was a metal crate. She knew it was her mother's and had played around it as a child.
Pulling the rusted, dented packing case out into the middle of the floor, she sat before it and waited for a moment. It took some strength to open the top that held her mother's items. Her mother and father had fought the OOW and been killed in the name of new rules. Sighing, Lila unlatched the top and pushed it up.
First, there was the smell of the desert diamond flowers. It was a dusty and sweet odor. The dried specks of the seeds were on top, not sparkling anymore, just small dry seeds. It was not unusual to use the seeds to keep bugs out of drawers and packing supplies.
On top were books and ledgers. Lila sat them carefully on the floor, stacked them in piles to read later. Next, folded carefully, were some of her grandmother's old clothes. There was an apron, a blouse of a style almost one hundred years ago, and several skirts.
Taking out the material, she thought it felt like it might have been hand-loomed. There was a small box covered in faded colors that, when she opened, it held some old jewels. They looked expensive, and she thought they were the forbidden jewels for the dancers' dresses.
There was a divider that was made to be lifted out, so Lila stood up and pulled on the small cloth handles. Taking out the divider, she set it aside on the floor and moved the container to get a better look into the bottom. There it was, and it took her breath away. It was a simple halter and a skirt. But not a simple halter and skirt. It was the one worn by her mother when she summoned and married her father in an ancient dance that was passed down for centuries on this world.
The halter was made of a soft material, the color of the sand in the desert. It was not a daring top, as it was meant to allow coverage while the woman in it danced. It had some beautiful braid sown in a circle on the front.
The soft full long skirt was also the same color and had some of the braid sown on it where it was made to fit low on a woman's hips. The skirt was not one piece but was in two sections that met at the hips with an opening on each side of about two inches, depending on the female's size. There was a single tiny, jeweled button on each side that held the split skirt together, just at knee level. It would be very revealing when on the female figure, especially when the woman was dancing.
Lila turned and looked at the small box with the jewels. There were long gold chains, and she knew from hearing her mother talk where the chains belonged on the body. Some went on both upper arms, and small ones went on the ankles. A long one went around the waist. To finish was a small compliment of braided material in circles th
at fit on the forehead.
In the moonlight, there would be a lot of sparkles returned from the costume in different places. She left all of the costume on the floor and got up slowly, thinking about how with all her friends and cousins, she was still so lonely. Her feet were taking her out to her room, where she opened a bottom drawer and moved items to find a small cloth with a brown stain.
This brought a memory of coming into the ship's control room to help Toy patch up the injured Bridge. The attack on the ship had been so sudden that they all had been shaken, as the ship was hit from behind. Bridge had succeeded in taking out the enemy and getting them into safe space.
Toy had begun to take care of the long gash on Bridge's chest, pulling items from the bot's first aid kit in its center. It handed her the rag with blood first and then began to pass her cotton balls and sterile wipes as Toy cleaned up the wound. Without thought, she had stuck the first bloody rag into a pocket because there was no apparent trash basket nearby.
But as it became apparent that she needed something to collect all of the throw-away items that Toy was using; she was able to pull off Bridge's shirt and collect all the medical waste. Eventually, the shirt and all were tossed into the correct disposal chute. Everything that is, except a forgotten small rag with a small amount of blood, tucked into a back pocket.
Now Lila looked at the small rag and knew there was DNA on that rag. Could she do what was forbidden against the law, just because she was lonely and wanted to see a pair of dark eyes one more time?
****
The main spaceport on the planet Kaveah was next to its largest city. Still, that city was not what visitors thought of as significant, compared to most cities on worlds around the civilized universe. There was a strong need for the people of this world to spread out and not overpopulate their planet.
It is not the only planet chosen to respect its home and keep it comfortable with large natural places of untouched beauty. If tall buildings of glass and concrete covered worlds, there was also an extraordinary world far out on the wing of the area known as the Milky Way that has preserved the entire planet. On that world, intelligent people chose to live underground to enjoy a natural planet's development.
On Kaveah, the people have made a partial agreement with nature and what allows their people to have growth and technology. They have small cities and production, importing most of the higher-tech items needed to keep them in the modern system.
As a result, personal transportation was allowed, and getting to the spaceport was easy for Lila. She just hitched a ride with whoever might be going in the right direction. It didn't matter if she knew the driver; friendly people of Kaveah didn't mind having someone else in their vehicles. No one questioned the fact that she had two robots with her. She was dressed in a ship suit and carried a small travel tote.
Getting through the city traffic was easy and fast, but the spaceport was different. There the traffic was different, bigger movers that were carrying imports and some exports. Visitors and people, moving on and off of Kaveah, were progressing through different gates, checked through the proper authorities.
The problem was that Lila wanted to get out on the landing field. She needed to meet a particular small ship. It would stand out both by the fact that it was unusual and rare but that it would have no ID numbers on its sides. On its nose, it would have painted small wings, one white and one black.
It was Toy who got the gate opened at the side area, that at the present time was closed. The notices that could be read in the sunlight were the information sheets of where the next open gates were located. The bot rolled up and extended a tool, and the first gate opened. As they moved through the long, fenced walkway, Toy came to the second gate and extended the same device to open the final gate.
Now they stood and watched the ships in the distance land or take off. After about an hour, a ship came in and landed over in the area appointed for the smaller vessels. This is where Lila and Toy, with Toy's friend, were waiting.
Walking out on the heavy padding, Lila watched the narrow back ramp of the ship lower, and then a tall figure came down to stop at the bottom.
This was her plan, but the next few minutes could make everything work or go all to hell for her. Like in the stories, they walked towards each other, but unlike the love novels, they stopped about two feet apart and just stared at each other.
Finally, it was Dono who spoke. "Lila Beam, I am here to arrest you in the name of the Organization of Worlds for crimes against civilians."
There was a long silence between them on this noisy shipyard. Then in his sudden ability, he jerked forward and had her in his arms. He didn't have to work at it, as she went up on her toes and tilted her head to accept his lips. It was not a gentle kiss. It was what he had been thinking about while escaping from the medic unit and while taking the Alpha through jump after the jump to reach this planet.
No, the kiss was deep and intense and took more than one second, as he needed to taste every bit of her. She had called him, and damn it, he was now here. He wanted all of her because that was what she had offered.
He had no intention of finding some fancy hotel room as he picked her up and carried her into his ship. There was a small bunk inside his cabin, and it would do just fine.
Toy stood guard at the end of the ramp, its little friend by its side. A robot can wait for a very long time, and this one could be very dangerous so that no one would enter or bother the ship with the small wings.
Epilogue
The Dark Guardians are made up of a large number of well-trained volunteers from all walks of life. How they got into the hidden protection unit was different for almost each of them.
Sometimes it was an orphan that was saved. Others needed to do something right and were frustrated that the law had its hands tied.
Some soldiers watched the OOW chase down rumors of war but ignored crime lords who were taking over a small satellite. So, they heard the stories, and talked to people in cafés, and looked for somewhere to join.
A multi-billionaire's daughter is taken by some minor criminals, who have paid off the local law enforcers. When she had been returned for the ransom, she had been repeatedly raped.
Her father went out and hired some retired officers of the OOW, and those people went out and got others and wiped out the petty offenders.
The man with money talked to others, who had funds to spare, and they decided the universe needed something that could take on those beyond the reach of regular enforcers. So, the Dark Guardians began and grew. Now it was everywhere and invisible.
To keep their identity undercover, they had very little to single them out. Mostly they traveled alone unless a project called for numbers. As a result, they had the best and latest equipment. Their ships were usually small and fast and had weapons that were not even on the market.
Most of the ships had no IDs on the nose, except for a tiny set of wings, and were handled by one individual. But some had partners that had teamed up over time that no one questioned. As long as the work was done and no attention was drawn to the DG, the choice was theirs.
Perhaps one of the most unusual units that were surprisingly successful was a Mark VI Alpha that had a team on board. During the last few assignments for this ship, everyone had been done quickly, quietly, and efficiently. One would be surprised to check on the team comprised of a highly trained soldier, a flexible female able to disarm the largest of foes, and a robot that could open any lock invented by humans.
Those making the decisions of who needed to be rescued or eliminated next recognized that this team was one of the best. One did not take apart a perfect weapon.
The End.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
The author lives in Florida and under the pen name of M. Garnet (Muriel Garnet Yantiss) and spends all her time writing, reading, or talking to writers and readers.
Writing SciFi and Mystery with a touch of Romance with her award-winning 50th book, THE STORM TAMER. Her webs
ite is www.mgarnet.com to show all the books she has written.
Find her on her Amazon Author's site at https://www.amazon.com/author/m.garnet
If you would like a free book from her and get on her mailing list, drop her your email to [email protected].
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Books by M. Garnet
SCIFI NOVELS
The Dancer’s Summons
Brae Ter
The Spacebinder and The Thousand and One Nights
File a Proper Claim
Slave of the Blue Ghost
Submit Objective
Hunting in the Gull Wing Ship
Predators of the Pyramid
THE VELDAN SERIES (SHAPESHIFTERS)
Help the Beast #1
Forgive the Beast #2
A Bounty on the Beast #3
Hunting in the Gull Wing Ship #4
Love the Beast #5
The Captain’s Beast #6
Stealing the Beast’s Heart #7
CRIMES AND MAGIC SERIES
Midnight Flavors
The Midnight Queen
The Black Cat Mystery
Killing with Love
THE FAR FUTURE SERIES
The Rift Avatar #1
The Rift Traveler #2
The Runaway Jewel
The Hidden Jewel
The Death Mask Moon
WITCH’S CURSE SERIES
Witch’s Smoke Aaron
Witch’s Moisture Breandon
Witch’s Heat Cian
Witch’s Cold Donal
Witch’s Curse Collection
LOVERS CURSE SERIES
Lovers Knot of Four
Untie the Lover’s Knot
MOORE, MOOR & MORE INVESTIGATORS SERIES