A Warrior's Return

by Guy Stanton III

  Wow! Was all I could think.

  How my life had abruptly changed yet again. I felt a hand in mine and I glanced up to see Talaric smiling down at me, “Thank you for bringing me along with you!” I said softly, as I fought the urge to lean up and kiss him.

  His eyes registered an understanding of my unexpressed desire and he winked at me, “Thank you for coming!”

  Was all he said, but I felt if we had been alone a lot more would’ve been said and done. I noticed movement and gasping I pointed to the source of it, which was coming towards us down the hall.

  The others turned and we watched as the figure came to a stop before us and bowed at the waist slightly.

  “Hello and welcome to the bar-Seth. I have been created to help you integrate with the ship’s systems and to answer any questions that you might have.”

  He was by appearance a clean-cut young man, but apparently not fully human or human at all.

  Roric asked quietly, as Krista stood within his arms, “You served Tadias?”

  An image of tinged sadness crossed the young man’s face, “Yes I did, for many years until his time drew short. He left me here so that I might help those that followed in his footsteps. It is sad knowing that my master has long since passed away, as it has been a very long time, but I am glad that just as he was given to believe by his Creator even so it has come true and that all of our planning has not been for nothing. Welcome Roric, Talaric, and Ellanara to the heritage left to you by the father of your blood line. The bar-Seth is yours to command. How may I serve you?”

  Sparky glanced at Ellanara and shook the bag at his waist slightly.

  Ellanara quickly cleared her throat and asked, “How is it that you know our names? We have not spoken them in your presence?”

  “The names of Tadias’s descendents who would follow in his steps were given to him in a revelation by God. It was not difficult to determine which of you corresponded with the names, as the ship has already scanned your biometrical properties.”

  Ellanara nodded, “I see. Do you have a name?”

  “Levyon.” He replied simply bowing his head respectfully once again.

  “Levyon do you know where these go?” Ellanara asked, as she pulled the two crystals out of the bag, as Sparky held up the uniquely faceted diamond.

  Levyon smiled openly and beckoned to us to follow, “Come I will show you.” He said, as he led us down the hall.

  Exiting the hall we drifted over to yet another and we all began to get an appreciation of how massive this ship truly was. Countless doors lined the halls we passed through and here and there galleries opened up showing that there were multiple floors both above and below us yet.

  This ship had been built for thousands upon thousands, but yet it’s only passenger to date had been one man. The hall ended opening up into a wide room that had to be in the nose of the newly emerged spacecraft. There were a series of descending levels that were set back from each other in a semicircular pattern, as that of an amphitheater, only the focus in this case wasn’t a stage, but rather series of glass panels which allowed the eerie shifting red light of the outer dome world to filter into the ship.

  Each level had rows of consuls and screens. This must be the primary control room. We followed Levyon down a central stairway to a flat circular floor in front of the glass paneled nose of the ship. With a whisper of sound three floor panels slid to the side and out of the floor rose three pedestals which held nothing.

  “Take the crystals and hold each over the two side pedestals and hold the diamond over the center pedestal.”

  I held one crystal suspended, while Ellanara held the other and Sparky the diamond.

  Levyon nodded, “Good now let go of them. It’s alright to let go they won’t fall.”

  Unsure of what was going to happen I obeyed and let go of the crystal, ready to catch it again if it fell, but the crystals and the diamond slowly moved downward. The material of the pedestals gave way to them and re-materialized again, as if the hard metal was just a viscous heavy liquid.

  The pedestals sank back into the floor and the floor tiles clicked back into place. If I had thought the ship impressive before I thought doubly so of it now, as every console within the room flickered alive with an electric whirl of binary thought.

  Screen displays flickered alive, as they hung in midair all throughout the room and appeared to be made up of only colored light that one could pass your hand through. The glass panels at the nose of the ship displayed large amounts of information, as they were put to double service.

  “The ship is going through a system wide analysis. It will take a while. How about we spend the time familiarizing all of you with your new duties on board ship. Now for the first question, who wants to fly the ship?”

  Eleanor’s hand shot up.

  Levyon smiled and approached her, “Okay then our first volunteer. Let me check a few things first please.”

  Levyon ran a finger over her skull behind the ear and then to the other side.

  “It tingles some.”

  “That’s because I’m scanning to see if your inner ear needs augmenting, as well as a neural pathway analysis.”

  Levyon’s eyes seemed to be looking into Eleanor as he said, “Not having the use of several of your fingers will have absolutely no bearing on your ability to fly the bar-Seth Eleanor.”

  Her eyes flickered up, “You can read my thoughts?”

  “Yes I can when linked like this with you.”

  “You’re changing stuff in my head aren’t you?” Eleanor said, as if she wasn’t too worried about her own statement whereas I sure would have been.

  “Very little my dear, everything was mostly in place already. Just opening a few neural pathways and increasing your equilibrium endurance a little. There perfect! Now if you would follow me please.”

  He led Eleanor to the second level down to a console space area somewhat removed from the surrounding consoles.

  “This is your space. Now come stand here.”

  Eleanor stood in an empty square of space and shook her head puzzled, “But I don’t see any controls?”

  Levyon shook his head, “When flying the ship your mind is synced with it. It does what you do. Have a seat.”

  Eleanor looked even more puzzled, as she glanced at the empty space behind her.

  “Have a little faith and sit down.” Levyon said patiently.

  Eleanor bent backwards at the knees and then with surprise sank down the rest of the way. A floating cordon of blue lit lines had materialized beneath her.

  “Relax and lean backward now.”

  She did and more blue lines appeared supporting her, as her legs elevated off the floor and she floated up into space. Green lines of light curled over top of her in a harness of sorts and meshed together with the blue lines.

  A series of panoramic screens appeared around Eleanor’s head so that we could see only glimpses of her face in between the screens.

  “Do you see it now? Do you feel how you are connected with the ship?” Levyon asked.

  “Oh yes! This is incredible! Everyone’s got to try this!”

  Levyon laughed slightly, “Everyone could not do it my dear. You are one of a select few that can. The only other one here that could fly the ship by my analysis would be Ellanara. It would be wise for her to learn to fly the ship at a later date to, in case of a casualty to yourself or if you should be unavailable to fly. There is an intuitive autopilot mode, but the ship handles far better when in the hands of a skilled pilot such as yourself.”

  “Shouldn’t autopilot mode be on? Surely it would be more consistent in terms of flying than me at the moment, because I can see myself either over or under compensating way to easily!”

  “In terms of consistency for the moment perhaps, but overall the human mind, when streamlined like I’ve just done to yours is far more able to deal with the emergencies of the moment and the changing strategies of a battle engagement. How good you are as a pilot det
ermines how well the bar-Seth performs.”

  “Well then we don’t have anything to worry about, because she’s the best pilot I’ve ever known!” Talaric said firmly.

  “Well said, indeed I’m inclined to agree with you.” Levyon echoed in response.

  I saw Eleanor flush slightly at Talaric’s praise of her.

  “Do you see the simulation menu? Good. Why don’t you go ahead and run through some of them to familiarize yourself with flying the bar-Seth before we try the real thing.”

  Eleanor must’ve engaged one of the simulations, because the floating chair abruptly swirled and rocked side to side and.

  “Oh my! Was all that came out of the sudden movement that had my stomach in knots of sympathetic pain for her.

  After a moment the chair’s erratic movements evened out and became more gradual and I heard a slightly awed whisper, “This is bloody amazing!”

  Yes, Eleanor would be fine. Levyon after an initial grimace apparently must have thought so too, because he was back to smiling, or perhaps he could just cover his true thoughts well.

  He approached Katie smiling warmly, which seemed to melt Katie’s guard down a little.

  “Katie my scans show that you next to Eleanor have the fastest reactionary reflexes. I wonder if I might call upon you to operate the ship’s shield force capacitors and flex array? It requires both a quick eye and a steady hand such as yours to be properly operated to its best capacity.”

  Katie had flushed slightly from the praise that he had so artfully given to her.

  “Sure what do I do?” She said sounding eager to try something she would supposedly be better at than anyone else.

  “Step right over here.” Levyon gestured to the space across from Eleanor, who was lost in a world of her own.

  It looked like she was driving an expensive sports car around a sharp winding mountain road. All that was missing was the sight of her hair rippling out in the breeze behind her. It was readily apparent that Eleanor was having the time of her life.

  Katie eagerly stepped into her consol area in anticipation of something equally fun to do. A large green interlaced circle matrix formed around her. In the center of the circle a replica model of the bar-Seth hovered. The model was big enough for Katie to stand inside of.

  The model wasn’t see-through; where Katie’s torso connected with the model her legs couldn’t be seen. Katie gasped and jumped back from the model reflexively no doubt afraid that parts of her had been erased.

  “Relax Katie it’s just an illusion to help with seeing the model. All of you is still intact I assure you. Now please step back into the model.” Levyon said patiently.

  Katie stepped back inside the model somewhat hesitantly. A bluish veil appeared like an elliptical oval around the bar-Seth.

  “That is the ships flex force shield. It is always on in at least a limited capacity. At its lowest capacity it’s enough to shield out radiation and very minor impacts such as asteroid dust. The problem with all energy-based shields is that to work them at full capacity it requires an enormous amount of energy, which is hard to sustain over a long period of time. The shield, if overextended too far, in power usage, can cause the shield to crash altogether leaving the ship completely exposed to enemy fire or other dangers. We don’t want that to happen. We attempted, in the construction of this ship, to design a force field that could help navigate around some of the weaknesses inherent to this type of system. We created the flex shield. Allow me to show you how it works.”

  Levyon stepped into the green circle and stood to the side of the model and placed his hand on the inside of the model shield. A red dock came flying towards the model from the outer green lined matrix wall.

  “A hostile weapons fire blast. The ship’s analysis of the power of the incoming strike will sound a warning, when the ships force field isn’t great enough to withstand the force of the strike. There’s been no warning so safe to assume the shield is at enough capacity to deflect the strike.”

  The red dot collided with the shield and disappeared. Another larger red dot appeared coming towards the model of the bar-Seth. Almost at once a low alarm sounded and in corresponding sequence a square section of the shield turned yellow and flashed repeatedly.

  “Now as you can see the ship has recognized that the shield in the area likely to be struck has insufficient power to deflect the strike.”

  Levyon reached forward with two fingers and brought them together over the yellow surface of the shield, which briefly showed the percentage dial up figure of extra power needed. The yellow turned green as the power needed was successfully transferred to that section of the shield.

  “The ship automatically, when initialized to do so and if there is enough power to draw from, will bring the shield deflecting force up to a sufficient strength to deflect the strike in the affected area, while the rest of the shield remains at a lower power requirement level. In this way we can extend the life and degree of available power for the shield by flexing the available power to where it is needed the most on the shield and not waste it where we don’t need it. You can also increase the overall shield strength by mentally thinking in increments of ten percent to adjust the entire shield to power up or down. Think you can handle it Katie?”

  “I think so.” Katie said shaking her head confidently.

  “I hope so Katie, because a battle can often look like this.” Levyon said grimly.

  Red dots appeared from everywhere in a direct line with the ship. From the top to the bottom and from all sides in staggered rates of speed the red dots raced toward the bar-Seth.

  Katie’s face had a look of stricken horror on it for a moment, as she stood staring frozen by the sight of so many incoming strikes and then to her credit she leapt into action.

  The fingers of both hands were moving incredibly fast, as she twisted and turned about initializing timed shield force flexes. Red dots of various sizes pinged into the shield from all over, but all of them dissipated into nothing and went no further.

  After five minutes of intense action the last red dot disappeared against the force field. Katie mopped the sweat that was dripping off her face with one arm and turned toward Levyon with an expression that still echoed her earlier horror and with her lips quivering slightly in emotion she said fervently, “I don’t want this job!”

  “Too late you’ve proven yourself much more than competent to handle it. Keep practicing. Come on group let’s move on there are still more positions to fill.” Levyon said briskly, as he moved down to a lower level of the amphitheater inspired control room.

  Katie turned to Talaric and shouted, as she pointed after Levyon, “Tell him I can’t do this Captain! Tell him!”

  Talaric was doing everything he could do to bite back a smile, “You know Katie you are actually pretty good at that. Wasn’t she Sparky?”

  “Oh my yes, an excellent example of grace under fire so to speak.” Sparky intoned not bothering to hold back a wide smile.

  “Cut the crap!” Katie screamed out in fury.

  “There’s got to be someone else who can do this!” Katie said addressing the room in general.

  Levyon deftly turned back and smoothly said, “Talaric is the only other one with a sufficient reactionary agility, but he’s too tall and big of frame to adequate perform the job well.”

  Katie’s white complexion turned beat red, “Are you telling me that I got this job over him, because I’m short and small?”

  “In a way yes.” Levyon responded before turning and continuing down the stairs followed along by the rest of us.

  “You done been set up girl!” Titus said laughing, as he walked by and patted her lightly on the shoulder.

  Katie remained standing there glowering hatefully after us, before turning back to the flex shield consul to start running through simulations.

  Chapter Twenty

  Pull the Trigger!

  “I need two volunteers, one for primary weapons and one for secondary weapons.”


  Before I knew what was happening Titus’s big hand closed down over the top of my shoulder and practically thrust me in front of Levyon.

  “This one’s ours Miss Eva. We’ze gonna have mass effect.”

  “Titus no!” I exclaimed.

  “Sign me up for primary and give the little lady secondary!” Titus interjected over top of my objections.

  “Okay then.” Was all Levyon said.

  He pointed first to the left and then to the right, “Primary weapons for you Titus and secondary for you Eva.”

  I tried to beg out one last time, “I have terrible depth perception! You probably don’t want me to be in charge of something so vital!”

  “Depth perception won’t be a problem. The ship does all the targeting telemetry. All you have to do is pull the trigger and choose which targets to pursue, as well as where the point of fire concentration should be. It will be critical for you to help out Katie taking out incoming projectiles, but primarily you will be responsible for the elimination of any small targets such as enemy aircraft. That about says it all I think. The simulation will start up automatically once you sit down.”

  My eyes drifted to Talaric fleetingly, but all he did was give me a big thumbs and a grin. He had betrayed me, just as he had Katie!

  I turned away and advanced into my designated space. I sat backward into space and was caught by the light strands the same way that Eleanor had been. Panoramic screens appeared around me and lit up with more options and configurations than I could begin to fathom ever getting a firm grasp upon.

  There were dozens of small red diamond shapes that a coolly modulated voice informed me were enemy aircraft attacking the ship. They buzzed about the bar-Seth like a swarm of angry hornets, as they popped off awful little red flashing lights at the ship.

  “Oh God please help me!”

  I glanced over between one of the screens surrounding me to see Titus having the time of his life, as he pounded away with mass effect in his own simulation.