“Don’t do anything crazy, Mack,” Hank admonished his son. And you,” pointing at Krag, “Do your stuff. Keep that pretty lass and me boy safe.”
“Yes, sir.” Krag looked at Hank’s wife. “I Promise.”
Krag led his team up the ramp into Griffin. Hank hugged his wife and, with his arm wrapped around her shoulder, led her to the hatch where they would be safe from the deathly cold and vacuum of space that would soon fill the shipyard hanger.
Klaxons sounded and all of the workers left. Hank and Anna made it to an observation dome. Krag, Keiko and Mack walked past the two CERVEs, the executive shuttle, through engineering, through the living quarters, up the stairwell and arrived at the flight bridge.
“Duke, seal up,” Krag commanded as he took his place in the command pod.
After a pause, “Griffin is sealed up, Captain,” Duke replied.
The huge shipyard hanger doors slid open. Krag worked his touch pad and gently lifted his ship from the deck. Keiko, sitting in the pilot/navigator pod, monitored his progress and checked for any anomalies. Mack, sitting in the sensor/weapons pod, scanned the surroundings and watched for any hazards and dangers.
“Buster?” Krag sub-vocalized.
“Captain?” Buster answered to Krag, only.
“Keep Duke at the fore. But keep all monitoring open.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Ready?” Krag asked over the internal comm.
“All green, Captain,” a very professional Keiko answered.
“Thumbs up, Cap,” was Mack’s response.
Krag had to remind himself that he was no longer in the military. He would have to give Mack some slack on the formality. But not the discipline.
Anna had her arm around Hank’s waist and her head on his shoulder as she watched her son fly into the emptiness of space. Hank had his arm around his wife’s shoulder and pulled her close as he watched one of the few men in the entire galaxy that he would entrust his son to fly into the stars.
* * * * *
The six day leg from Arium to Corrinar saw Krag and Keiko get back into their regular routine. Each morning they met in the cargo bay, Krag dressed in his white martial arts gi, Keiko in here black gi with the baggy sleeves and swallow-tailed piping. Krag chose padded batons. Keiko gripped her training knives. Mack curiously watched with a mug of coffee in one hand and a napkin-wrapped pastry in the other. He eagerly looked on in anticipation of watching a very small woman train with a very large man.
Krag and Keiko looked around the deck. With the CERVEs, extra gear and shuttle, the large storage area became an obstacle course. With the artificial eight-tenths of earth-normal gravity the bay became a three-dimensional practice ground.
With batons pressed to his legs, Krag bowed to Keiko. With her knives crossed across her chest, Keiko returned the formal recognition. Krag had learned. He didn’t assume a formal fighting position. He raised his batons, took a short step towards Keiko and attacked with a flurry of motion and strikes. Keiko reacted defensively, parrying some strikes, avoiding others, pivoting, jumping and dodging. All the while she was counter striking, attempting to penetrate Krag’s defenses. The combat traveled around the bay, Keiko leaping atop a CERVE or ducking behind a crate to leap out in surprise.
As Mack watched, he was struck with the impression of a hunting dog attempting to root out a cat that was intent on defending its turf. Mack saw a relentless Krag constantly march forward, trying to corner the elusive Keiko. Mack watched Keiko as she was a bundle of swirling energy, variously darting in or jumping out and re-establishing her defensive zone.
The exercise went on for the better part of an hour. Krag and Keiko, through mutual looks, ended their training. Mack watched the whole time. He was very impressed. He saw two highly disciplined fighters utilizing moves that he had only seen in the action vids. He watched a very powerful man utilizing his strength of position to herd and corner his opponent where his overwhelming reach and strength come into play. Mack also saw a fearless, lightning-quick woman use her speed, flexibility and size to evade and avoid as she constantly probed for offensive openings and attacks.
As Krag and Keiko leaned against the shuttle, toweled their faces and arms while draining water bottles, Mack approached. “I’m impressed. That looked really dangerous. Don’t you guys hurt each other?”
“Yeah, we do,” Krag replied.
“If we didn’t we wouldn’t be able to prepare for a real fight,” Keiko added.
“And, we’ve been doing this a while so we know how far to push ourselves and each other.”
“And now, I have some bruises and sore ribs to take care of before our afternoon projects,” Keiko said as she pulled the towel around her neck and headed towards her cabin.
The two men watched the small, Asian woman walk away. She favored her left leg for a couple of steps. And then, as if she knew she was being watched, straightened her gait and walked normally as she exited the bay.
“So, who won?” Mack asked.
“She did. She scored five killing blows and three crippling. I got three killers and four cripplers. But don’t you dare tell her. A man’s got to keep his dignity, after all.”
“Don’t worry, Cap. We guys have to stick together,” Mack laughed. “Could you teach me?”
“I could teach you some things. But, you’re what, thirty-something?”
“Thirty-Six.”
“At your age, your small motor nerves and fine muscle control are already matured. So, you won’t be able to get quicker or faster. But you can overcome that with discipline and precision. You will be able to improve your hand-eye coordination, so there’ll be improvement there. So, yeah, I can teach you. Since Keiko and I usually take the next day off, after a workout like today, let’s start tomorrow.”
“Great! What do I wear?”
Grav liner, sweats, athletic shoes, headband.”
“Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow, it is,” Krag answered as he watched an exuberant Mack almost sprint to the hatch. “That boy has spent too much time with Mommy and Daddy,” Krag thought. “He definitely needs to get laid.”
Krag toweled his face one more time and headed to his own cabin to get cleaned up and prepare for the rest of the day’s chores.
* * * * *
The next morning proved to be a huge letdown for Mack. Keiko sat on the cargo deck and performed static stretching exercises as she watched and listened to Krag teach.
Krag stood in front of Mack with his legs shoulder width and his hands resting on his bamboo practice sword, or shinai, which had its tip pressing against the deck. “First, you need to know how to walk.”
That brought a crinkled brow to Mack’s face. “I know how to walk.”
“No, you know how to stop yourself from falling. We need to get you to move your body with control. When we walk, it’s not really a walk. It’s a falling motion that we catch by dropping on a foot. We lean forward, reach out a leg and fall on it. This morning, we are going to change that motion.”
Mack listened with a look of resignation, impatient to learn the good stuff.
“Stand at attention, with your feet at forty-five degrees and your arms at your sides.”
Mack complied. Krag circled him, softly sliding the shinai edge down his back. Stopping behind him, Krag pressed the bamboo tip into the back of Mack’s left knee.
“Now, with all of your weight on your right foot, I want you to reach as far forward as you can and softly touch your left heel to the deck. Don’t put any weight on it. Just touch the deck.”
As Mack did as he was told, Krag walked back around to the front and touched a spot on the deck with the bamboo sword. “Move your foot a little left, keep your weight on your back foot and slowly roll onto your front foot. Keep your back straight and keep as much of your weight on the back leg as you can.”
Krag, and Keiko, watched as Mack struggled to comply.
Once Mack’s front foot was on the ground, Krag continued. “Now,
by only bending your front knee, and keeping your back straight, press your hips forward until most of your weight is on your left leg.”
Mack shifted forward. Krag held the shinai on his student’s shoulder and commanded, “Now, without leaning forward, only using leg and hip muscles, draw a banana shape with your right foot, sliding your feet together, extending your heel, rolling the foot down and shifting your weight onto your right leg. Don’t rise up. Keep your head on an even plane.”
Mack wobbled and almost lost his balance as he tried to do as he was told.
“Not bad. Do it again.”
Mack repeated the slow sliding step, this time with a little more success.
“Again,” Krag commanded, while still holding the shinai on Mack’s shoulder.
After four more steps, Krag announced, “Ok. You’ve got the fundamentals. Do that back and forth for the next hour and get back to me. If you’ve got it right, we’ll add some hand work.”
Throughout the teaching, Keiko watched. She saw Krag educate, not only with strong discipline, but also with attention and awareness for his student. The more Keiko watched this large, ex-military commander, the more she liked the shy farm-boy man.
For an hour Keiko stretched, Krag worked on his ship as it sped through the gate towards Corrinar and Mack struggled to accomplish the simple act of balanced walking. Sweating profusely, mumbling profanities at his clumsiness, Mack stopped his practice as Krag walked up, again holding his shinai. Keiko continued her stretching and flexibility exercises as she watched the two men continue to train.
“Well?” Krag asked.
“Not fun,” was Mack’s reply.
“True. Learn something?”
“I learned I’ve got muscles I didn’t know I had.”
“Wait until tomorrow,” Krag laughed. “Now, let’s add some simple hands. Get into your step with your right leg forward. By the way, that is called a ‘forward’ stance, or zenkutsu dachi.”
Mack assumed the position, with his hands hanging at his sides.
“Now, put both hands on your hips, palms forward, fingers up.” Krag tapped each hip as he issued the command.
Mack, still holding his stance, complied. Holding the shinai across both palms, Krag continued, “Now, do the same step, but as the heel touches and you roll forward onto your foot, I want you to push your hands forward until your arms are straight out. Not locked, but straight out from your chest.”
Hold the shinai against Mack’s hands, Krag moved with his student and insured that both hands moved at the same time.
“Almost. But you pushed with your shoulders. Do it again, but feel your hips instigate the pushing.”
Mack took another step and tried to time his push with the footfall.
“Better. Again.”
For the next ten minutes, Krag worked with Mack to get his timing down. At the end, Krag instructed, “Good. Now, another hour. Then call it a day. Tomorrow you practice this while Keiko and I train.”
Mack groaned.
“Look, Mack. You wanted to learn. Literally, you can’t run until you can walk. The trip to Corrinar is all about walking. Bridgelen will be about slow jogging. You will get your first set of blocks, punches and your first form.”
“OK, Master,” Mack said while giving a humorous half-bow.”
“And, don’t you forget it, Grasshopper,” Krag answered with a slap of the bamboo sword on Mack’s shoulder and a grin.
The third morning of the voyage had Krag and Keiko again training hard with Mack practicing his stance changes with hands pushing. Morning four was Keiko doing her isometric and flexibility stretches, Krag teaching and Mack learning. Krag taught Mack four basic blocks, two simple punches and incorporated them into Mack’s stance changes, along with a simple one hundred-eighty degree turn. Morning five was more practice. Morning six was skipped as it was the day that they would exit the gate and enter Corrinar.
All of the afternoons were spent alternately maintaining Griffin, continuing to plan for the job or gaining further experience at their assigned positions of Commander, Pilot and Weapons Specialist. Throughout the trip, Mack and Keiko became more accustomed to communicating with Duke, running the ship and practicing their assigned tasks.
During their trip through the wormhole to Corrinar, Krag, Keiko and Mack struggled for a solution of hiding the CERVEs. It was highly illegal, to the point of treasonous, to even have them in their possession, regardless of any justification that they could come up with. By the morning of day six, the three of them had come up with a plan and they had energetically implemented it.
They had pulled one of the remote-guided torpedoes from its loading crib and gutted the munitions. Next, they mounted grapples to its casing. After shutting off the magneto-gravitonic field in the bay, they floated the two stealth craft over to the modified projectile and attached them on opposite sides, bellies down. As the resultant mass of rocket and twin jets was weightless, Krag and Mack manually floated the result over to the bay doors and lashed it down, in preparation for the next step.
Five minutes before entry into the Corrinar system, the three took their assigned stations-Krag in the command pod, Keiko as copilot/navigator and Mack at weapons/sensors.
One minute before entry Keiko opened the cargo bay doors. Mack ignited the rocket with the lashed CERVEs. He slowly floated it out into hyper-space and aligned it with the underbelly of the Griffin. As the ship and rocket broke through the hypergate into Corrinar space, Mack fired the torpedo’s oversized chemical engine and guided it at a slightly dropped angle from the Griffin. After a fifteen second burn, Mack cut the engines, turning the rocket and its attached CERVEs into a cold, non-traceable ballistic piece of space flotsam. Keiko set her board for the next hypergate and responded to the regional border patrol.
Krag sat in his command pod and monitored his charges. He was pleased with what he saw. Everyone performed flawlessly. Keiko commanded Duke with precision and confidence. She worked her touch panel with speed and accuracy. Mack handled his sensor duties and rocket control as though he had been doing it for years. His young team was coming together. Their natural intelligence, emotional mindset and physical being easily overcame whatever neophyte limitations that they experienced. Krag felt comfortable, at peace. For the first time, in a long time, Krag began feeling bonded to others and it felt good.
The ubiquitous agents never saw the jettisoned equipment. Krag hove to his ship, patiently accompanied the inspectors and waited for them to finish.
Keiko played her role of high-powered executive, lounging in her quarters. Mack worked at being the perfect engineer, fussing over his engines, spewing various and sundry complaints.
Once the inspectors left and a suitable amount of time passed, Mack activated an encrypted beacon in the drifting torpedo and passed the coordinates to Keiko. She brought the ship to the new heading and, with a small burst of power, rocketed towards their drifting stealth jets. Once they retrieved their wayward cargo, Keiko reset the heading to the Bridgelen gate.
Entering the hypergate, everyone settled into their fourteen-day routines. Every other morning saw Krag and Keiko working each other hard. They competed as team mates, sharpening their own mental, emotional and physical skills as they pressed to force the other one to constantly improve. Every other morning saw a large man and a small woman sharpen their interpersonal awareness and develop their non-verbal communications. The bruises, hematomas and strains were still there, but they were more controlled, less severe and less debilitating.
The alternate mornings saw Krag patiently teaching Mack more martial arts techniques and mindsets. Keiko would look on as she stretched and meditated. Morning four, Krag taught Mack his first form, or kata. After morning ten, Krag introduced Mack to batons and began teaching him a baton form.
Afternoons, they worked on ship maintenance, reviewed and planned the heist or individual studied. Krag studied everything he could find on the alien artifacts. Keiko studied more about piloting an
d running Griffin. Mack alternated between learning more about the inner workings of the ship that his dad had built and following Krag’s lead on learning about the alien technology. Meals were updates on what they accomplished or learned.
The thirteen days passed quickly. The fourteenth day was the day, they prepared for entry. Everyone checked that their disguises were in place and their associated paraphernalia matched their facades. Mack rechecked the rocket/CERVE configuration and ran through the pre-flight diagnostics. Krag prepared the ship for reentry.
* * * * *
Again, the entry went off without any issues. Mack fired the CERVE/Rocket payload, aimed it towards the darkness of space. Again, the ship was inspected. The Griffin was just an executive transport ferrying a snooty aristocrat to Cencore. They picked up the CERVE payload and Krag guided his ship to the Cencore hypergate where they entered and settled in for the six day trip.
During the trip through Alcu-space, Krag called Keiko and Mack to the wardroom, where they all grabbed drinks and snacks.
“I’ve been thinking,” Krag began, once the three of them were sitting at the table. “From everything I’ve learned about the currently discovered artifacts, they seem to all have heavy circuitry components. Even though none of them function, they appear to be mostly electronic.”
“I got that, too,” Mack contributed.
“This led me to guess that they all might have some sort of computer components. Maybe not like we think of computers, but something like that.”
“I agree with that,” Mack said. Keiko nodded in agreement.
“So, I was thinking. We need someone with a heavy electronic intelligence background. Not necessarily hardware wise, but more software. Mack, you’re the hardware guy. But we don’t have anyone for the software angle.”
“Even if that is true, where do we find someone?” Keiko asked. “Mack, should we have brought someone from the shipyards?”
“Nah. No one there would know what to do. Any electricians are just technicians. We don’t have any theorists, except for me pa.”
“Would Gregor know of someone?” Keiko asked.
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