“I think we’re ready to begin, Dr. Wilson,” said the anesthesiologist.
“Very good. Please proceed with anesthetizing the patient, Dr. Van. Nurse, please apply the preoperative antiseptic to the patient’s forehead.”
Attika clenched her teeth and tried to free her hands. She thrashed against her head restraint, but it wouldn’t yield. She screamed, “No! No! No!”
The nurse put her hands on Attika’s temples and tried to calm her. Dr. Wilson leaned over the table and held both her arms firmly against the bed as Dr. Van placed the mask over Attika’s face. Dr. Van pressed a few buttons on the computer. Attika tried to free herself of the mask, but it was firmly strapped onto her face. After a few moments, her struggling became less pronounced and her eyes started to close.
Suddenly, the door swung open and Linsky entered the room. Pushing aside the nurse, he ordered the anesthesiologist to turn her computer off. He quickly removed the mask from Attika’s face and leaned over her.
“Attika,” said Linsky, gently shaking her. “Wake up, Attika.”
She slowly blinked her eyes. After a few moments, she was able to keep them open, focusing them on Linsky’s smiling face.
“There you are,” said Linsky. He gently caressed her cheek with his left hand. Straining her eyes to the side, she saw the black bandages around his right wrist where his hand should have been.
Linsky watched her eyes then raised his right arm for her to see. “You and I have both been wounded by this senseless struggle,” he said in a soft voice. “My wound is here for all to see, but yours are hidden deep in your mind. My name is Linsky. I heard about your adverse reaction to the therapy and came as quickly as I could. I know you’re suffering terribly, and I’m deeply sorry. But happily, this surgical procedure won’t be necessary.”
Attika looked at Linsky, tears welling in her eyes.
“I think you’ve provided us with everything you know, haven’t you?”
She nodded her head as much as her restraints would permit and gently sobbed.
“Of course you have,” he said softly. “And although this medical procedure would cure you of your migraine headaches, it would leave you…diminished. And we don’t want that, do we?”
Attika mouthed the word “no” as a tear fell down the side of her face.
“No, of course not,” said Linsky.
He looked at the nurse. “Please unfasten the restraints.”
The nurse quickly moved to comply. When Attika was free, Linsky gently slipped his left hand behind her head. He slowly lifted her into a sitting position. Her face contorted in pain as she sat up, but she said nothing.
When she was sitting upright with her feet hanging off the edge of the operating table, Linsky sat down next to her and smiled. He reached into his pocket and removed a bottle of pills and held them in front of Attika.
“The doctors tell me the migraines will never go away,” he said. “But they can be managed with medication. You will need to take two pills every day or the migraines will return, perhaps with even greater severity. You will need to report to your assigned clinic once per month for evaluation and to refill your prescription. Is that understood?”
She narrowed her eyelids and stared at the bottle.
“The alternative is to undergo the procedure,” he said as his eyes darted toward the tray full of surgical tools. “The choice is yours.”
Attika looked into Linsky’s gray eyes. She slowly reached for the bottle. Linsky popped open the top with his thumb and shook two little blue pills into the palm of her hand. He signaled for the nurse to give him a cup of water, which was sitting on the cart. Attika put the pills in her mouth and accepted the cup from the nurse. She drank a sip, wincing as she swallowed.
“Good,” said Linsky.
He looked at the nurse and said, “Please bring us a wheelchair. I believe our patient would like to return to her room.”
He gently patted Attika’s left hand with his. The nurse returned with the wheelchair and they helped her move from the operating table to the chair. The nurse started to spin her around toward the door when Linsky crouched down, his eyes level with Attika’s.
“I hope you don’t mind if we chat from time to time,” he said. “Although you’ve provided us with essential information about the item of interest and where it is being taken, I think we still have much to discuss. Agreed?”
Attika remained silent.
“I need to hear you say that you agree,” said Linsky, a hint of steel in his voice.
“Yes,” whispered Attika as she looked away.
Linsky looked at the side of Attika’s face for a few moments. Then he nodded to the nurse. She rotated the wheelchair and pushed Attika out of the room.
Chapter 43
“Tell me about your father,” said Ravenwood to Logan.
It was their second day on board the Chippewa and conversation had dried up.
“I suspect you already know about my father,” said Logan.
“I know something about him, but I want to hear your perspective,” said Ravenwood. “You don’t want to speak about him. I understand and respect that. But your mind dwells on memories of him. You should give voice to your thoughts. Do not let reflection turn to rotting rumination.”
Logan took a deep breath and said. “Fine. He was an army captain. During the Rededication, he and a dozen other officers in his battalion signed a letter to protest a series of unlawful orders they’d been given. They were immediately charged with treason and executed by firing squad.”
Ravenwood nodded. “I’m told he was a good man. I’m sorry he was taken from you.”
Logan shrugged. “It happened to a lot of officers,” he said. “It’s okay.”
“I’m surprised they admitted you into the Weller Academy if his name was on the purge list when Harken took over,” said Kane. “You must have been under a cloud of suspicion while you were there.”
Logan nodded. “Yes. I had to be very careful not to give them any reason to think I was undedicated.”
Cap got up from the floor where he had been sitting and said, “But then all that bottled-up emotion exploded when he got a note from his grandfather and decided to steal the biggest military secret the world has ever known.”
“Your academy admissions officer must be very proud of you right now,” said Lena with a grin.
“What about your mother?” Ravenwood asked. “May I ask if you know what has happened to her since you became the PRA’s most wanted fugitive?”
Logan shrugged. “She’s probably doing just fine. She’s always been a dedicated PRA citizen, but when my father was reported dead, it intensified. She was constantly praising the Guardians’ wisdom, condemning whatever country we were at war with. She even reported colleagues to the SPD from time to time.”
Ravenwood rubbed his short gray hair and said, “Sounds like you had to hide your thoughts from a very early age,” said Kane. “Probably came in handy at the Weller Academy.”
Logan nodded. “Everyone needs to pretend if they want to succeed in the PRA, but I probably did it better than most.”
“Sorry friend,” said Cap, “but that honor goes to Lena. Think about it. Her father is the damn Defense Guardian and no one had a clue. She’s hardcore.”
“Thanks for the compliment,” said Lena in an ironic tone.
“And what about you, Cap?” asked Ravenwood. “What’s your story?”
“Not much to tell,” said Cap. “Both my parents died when I was baby. I have no idea who they were. Like thousands of other kids, I grew up in various government institutions and foster homes, causing as much trouble as I could along the way. Finally, I landed in the home of a really nice old lady down the street from Logan’s place. Logan and I got to be good friends. When I found out he was going to Weller Academy, I applied and got in. The rest you know.”
He sat down on a makeshift chair of canvas and storage crates and laced his fingers behind his head.
“
You must be pretty smart,” said Kane.
“I am,” said Cap, smiling.
“Weller Academy isn’t interested in troublemakers unless they’re smart, right?” continued Kane, his eyes glinting.
Cap shifted somewhat in his chair. “Yes. Well, I have a variety of talents which qualified me.”
Logan chuckled.
“What are you laughing at?” asked Cap, defensively.
“You want to tell them or should I?” asked Logan, a wide grin on his face.
Cap narrowed his eyes at Logan. Then he said, “I may have gotten some advance notice of what would be on the entrance exam.”
“You cheated?!” Lena jumped to her feet. “I knew you couldn’t have gotten in without help.”
“Hey now!” said Cap. “I did all right once I got in. And I’m the best damn pilot they ever saw. Best scores in the history of the academy’s pilot program!”
Ravenwood laughed loudly and clapped his hands. “Bravo, Cap. Your resourcefulness never ceases to amaze me. I wish the PRA produced more people like you.”
Lena wasn’t so quick to find the humor in Cap’s entrance-exam story, but she eventually smiled at him and sat back down.
“I guess every team needs at least one person with a questionable character,” she said.
Conversation died down again. Logan yawned repeatedly. He was exhausted, but he could not sleep except for a few minutes at a time. He was finally dozing off when he felt a tingle in his left hand.
Here we go, he thought to himself, resigned to what was about to happen. After a moment, he lost all sense of where he was. His thoughts went blank. He started clenching and unclenching his jaw muscles.
Suddenly he saw a million lights appear all around him, and he felt as though he were floating among them. He saw a small orange and red light. He moved toward it with amazing swiftness. Soon he was surrounded by yellow, green, orange, and red gases in what he could only describe as a nebula. He saw two lights circling each other. He moved toward them and was suddenly facing massive stars in orbit around each other. He looked into the distance and saw a bright circle of colored lights with a great pillar of white light piercing the middle like a great lance. He approached the lights and peered into the circle to see a black void. Bright gases were disappearing over its black rim.
Then Logan was back on the Chippewa. He blinked a few times and saw the others were standing in a circle around him.
“What happened?” he asked as he looked from face to face.
“You tell us,” said Cap. “I’d say you were having one of your seizures, but this time your eyes were wide open and darting back and forth. Normally, you just have a blank look. And you were talking to yourself. You’ve never done that before.”
Logan ran the fingers of his left hand through his hair and exhaled a long breath. “It was different this time. I felt like I was in space, shooting from star to star.”
Ravenwood crouched down next to him. “Are you sure that’s what you saw? You were moving among the stars?”
Logan nodded his head. “It was like I was flying from place to place looking at nebulae, black holes, binary stars.”
“Do you have the Apollo Stone?” asked Ravenwood.
Logan looked down at his right hand. He opened it to reveal the small black orb. A red and yellow ribbon of light rolled into view inside the little sphere, followed by a streak of bright white, then it faded to black.
Ravenwood suddenly stood and stepped back from Logan, an expression of wonder on his face. “This is extraordinary,” he said mostly to himself. “Absolutely extraordinary. Highly unlikely, but why not? It must be possible, however remote the chances.”
Realizing the others were watching him, Ravenwood stopped his muttering. He looked from face to face, finally resting his eyes on Logan. He cleared his throat and said, “As I previously explained, your grandfather and his Sahiradin helper had been working to create a navigation device for the Blackhawk to shift space. The Sahiradin ships have been able to shift space for a very long time, but only with the assistance of a navigation device, an interface between what we call the Apollo Stone and the ship. But you must understand the Sahiradin stole the Apollo Stone, and a dozen others like it, from another race, called the Alamani. Among the Alamani there were a few who could shift space using just their minds to connect with the small orbs. It’s been centuries since the last of the Alamani were slaughtered, but it is possible you have this ability to connect directly with the stone. You may be a navigator.”
“A navigator? I don’t understand. How is that possible?” said Logan.
Ravenwood raised his hand to his head and vigorously rubbed his short hair. “It was an extremely rare talent among the Alamani, and the odds against you also having this gift are incalculable, but I don’t know how else to explain what you just experienced.”
“I don’t know what happened,” replied Logan, “but it doesn’t mean I’m one of these navigators.”
Ravenwood was about to respond, but before he could speak, Lena said, “And what did you mean when you said the Alamani were slaughtered?”
“The Sahiradin hunted them down on world after world and killed them,” said Ravenwood, his voice tinged with sadness. “They are a species entirely devoid of mercy.”
“Why?” asked Lena. “Why did the Sahiradin exterminate another species?”
“It’s a very long story,” said Ravenwood.
“We’re stuck in the hold of a ship. We’ve got time to kill,” said Cap.
Ravenwood looked at his companions’ faces and took a deep breath. “Very well. What I’m going to tell you is going to sound extremely farfetched, but I assure you, it is the truth as I understand it.”
“We past farfetched when Kane told us how you appeared naked in the snow over a hundred years ago,” said Cap.
“I see your point,” said Ravenwood. “Well then, as I said, the Apollo Stone, and twelve other orbs like it, belonged to a species called the Alamani. They were a technologically advanced species living in an area of the galaxy many light years from Earth, and they successfully colonized many distant worlds using the Apollo Stone orbs, what they called Kaiytáva.”
“The Alamani would use the Kaiytávae to leap across vast distances of space to habitable worlds and establish colonies. Once they had reached the new solar system one of the first things they would do is build a khâl in nearby space. The khâl could generate a single, point-to-point, stabilized wormhole gate. These gates allowed other ships to follow and integrate the colony into the vast Alamani trade network.”
“So that’s how they were able to overcome classic limitations on exceeding the speed of light,” said Lena. “Their ships didn’t need to go faster than the speed of light in order to go from colony to colony. They were taking shortcuts through space.”
“That’s a good way of explaining it,” said Ravenwood.
“Okay, so what happened?” asked Cap. “One day they start a colony and find the planet is already occupied by these Sahiradin guys?”
“Not quite,” said Ravenwood. He rubbed his head again before continuing. “The relationship between Sahiradin and Alamani was complex. At one time, the Alamani helped the Sahiradin considerably, and in return the Sahiradin protected the Alamani.”
“Protected them from what?” asked Lena.
Ravenwood did not respond.
“I get the feeling you’re holding something back,” said Cap. “What’s going on?”
Ravenwood paused before replying. “Please understand that I do not have a perfect understanding of how I came here or how I know what I know.” He looked from face to face. “Many people believe I am a lunatic, and at first I doubted myself as well. But even though I do not know why I have certain knowledge, I have learned over time to trust my instincts.”
“Okay, we get it. Your knowledge is patchy and there’s a chance you might be crazy.” said Cap. “So what are you holding back?”
Ravenwood folded his arms acro
ss his chest and continued. “There were species other than the Alamani who participated in the Alamani trade network. And, as with any trading relationship, there were rules which needed to be enforced. The Sahiradin enforced these rules, and I believe the other species came to resent the sometimes heavy-handed Sahiradin methods, which they felt worked in favor of the Alamani. These other species conspired to split the Sahiradin away from the Alamani, and they succeeded. The Sahiradin turned on the Alamani, but they went too far and they exterminated them. The Alamani trading partners formed what they call the Lycian Alliance and sought to intervene, to stop what they had started, but the Sahiradin were too strong and too determined. What had begun as a plot to win more advantageous trade terms escalated into a war for survival. And not just for the Alamani, but for each species because the Sahiradin do not make peace. Now, with the arrival of the Sahiradin and the Apollo Stone, the war has come to Earth.”
“But what brought the Sahiradin here in the first place?” asked Cap. “It sounds like we’re thousands of light years from the fight.”
“That is exactly why the Sahiradin came here,” said Ravenwood. “The Alamani had explored Earth long ago but plans to colonize it were abandoned.”
“They probably found it was already occupied,” said Logan.
“Possibly. At any rate, the records of that ancient exploration were forgotten until the Sahiradin rediscovered them. Earth is a perfect place for them to establish a base and launch strikes using the Apollo Stone without fear of reprisal due to Earth’s immense distance from the area of conflict.”
For a few moments they thought about what Ravenwood had told them. Logan listened to the Chippewa creak as it rolled over waves.
“Maybe the war is over,” said Logan, breaking the silence. “It’s been over a hundred years since the Sahiradin ship exploded.”
Ravenwood frowned and shook his head. “It is tempting to believe the war is over, but I’m afraid it will continue as long as there is one Sahiradin left to fight.”
“Given the present state of things here on Earth, the longer we can stay out of an interplanetary war the better,” said Cap. “Maybe if those asteroids hadn’t clobbered us we’d have advanced enough to be able to handle the Sahiradin. But not now.”
The Navigator (The Apollo Stone Trilogy Book 1) Page 25