Kingdom of Stars (The Young Ancients: Timon Book Three)

by Power, P. S.

  "My new shield will do that. Commoners can't have them in Noram, but I might be able to help with that part, if I can make a separate field. Someone else will have to make the copies this time though." He was being just a touch surly about it, but Monroe worked out what was needed and set up a test that wouldn't even kill Tim if the shield didn't work. Not at first.

  It was a simple two step process. He held a tiny meter that could tell if radiation of different sorts was getting through and then the man blasted him with a tiny lead colored device.

  After ten minutes of readings the other man smiled at him. Very happily.

  "That works. As well as the hull of the ship even. Can the shield EVA?"

  "I have no clue what that is."

  "Oh, um, space walk? Go outside the ship on its own?"

  "It should control the temperature well enough and let a person fly in space, and breathe. It isn't perfect though. It's not going to be very fast, compared to a ship, but it will go about a thousand miles an hour, at a guess? Maybe two? Less in atmosphere. Mentally directed. I stole that design from one that Tor made, but only used for himself. Most of the parts of this are lifted from other peoples work. The only new part is making air from the person inside in a pinch."

  "Brilliant. Well, it's radiation resistant. Who's taking it out for a drive?"

  That took a few seconds to work out, but he let his chin come up.

  "That will be me, since it's my design. If I messed it up, I should be the one to pay for it. I'm getting the Captain to stop the ship first though. Is that still Judy?" He said it like Monroe would know, but the man just shrugged, making it seem innocent.

  "They don't really tell me things like that. We have twenty of the High Servants now however, so we could test it on them? Mage Deshi has those compression units for you, several hundred of them. Ones to move and capture dust too. We had to work on the designs for that for a while to get it right. Otherwise it would have just made a mess however. Clutter the moon up, you know?"

  "Good. I guess. We'll have to teach the new people how to use them. It's different." To demonstrate he moved up about four inches and started to float away. Monroe didn't follow him, but he did call out.

  "Get me those radiation blockers for my project?" It was a question, not an order at all. He nodded anyway.

  "Yes. I'll... We need to farm more work out. I'll make some templates."

  Sorvee House could make them. They had manufacturing things set up, businesses that did nothing but copy magic and all that, didn't they? He'd send a note or something.

  It was more work though. It weighed on him suddenly. He could say no, but this wasn't about some already rich merchant trying to get him to make them even more wealthy. It was about survival. If he did less than he could, and everyone died, then that was going to be on him. There was a time when Tim wouldn't have felt that way. Oh, he would have helped and known it was the right thing to do. That would have been easy. You helped others if you could. That was the country way.

  The way that he'd been raised into.

  Now he actually felt it. He knew that it was all on him, as stupid and moronic as that sounded. As if the whole world sat on his narrow and underfed shoulders. If that was the case, then they were dead. Because he nearly was. Oh, it wasn't a physical thing, it was one of the mind. Of the soul, if that existed. He thought so. It was what he worked with after all. The field that created life was there in everyone, and what any builder had to use as leverage to make things happen.

  Not that he knew that for certain. Still, he was tired, deep inside. Not gone, or dissipated, but inside, there was something that had worn away. Some bit of him that just wasn't there anymore.

  Not that it made things right or fair, but that didn't matter anymore. Even good had to be set aside, given what they were facing. The Ancients... They were evil, he realized. Not all of them, but enough. Gray and her clones, Cordes and whatever he had going on. They weren't just bad, or greedy, or anything that Timon could understand. They were vile, all the way through.

  That meant that Timon had to do whatever he could to stop them, because no matter how you did the sums, everyone dying was worth his life to save. Yes, he valued himself more than he did most people he didn't know, but there was a limit to that, wasn't there?

  So if he had to die, work himself to death, or trying to fight against beings that he could barely understand to protect people that would never even meet him, so be it. No matter how tired he got, he could stand for another step. He hoped. That would work for now. It would keep working too, until he just couldn't get back up again.

  The thing was, he could see that time coming. His field was strong, but his soul hurt. It was like everything had been taken away from him and he could never, ever get it back. Everything that mattered was gone, and all he had was...

  That next step.

  So he stopped whining and took it. He wasn't in pain, not even emotionally. He knew what that felt like, and this wasn't it. Right now he had some work to do, but later, after he rested for a bit, there would be more.

  That was all.

  Timon took strength from the idea somehow and thought that he managed to even look bold, rather than like a person going to their own execution. It might be, of course, his death, but he didn't think so. Not that day. Not unless Remy was waiting for him to wake up, so that they could have a fair fight. As if that could happen at all. It really couldn't. In the end it was going to have to be very unfair, if Tim wanted to live. That's what he was planning on at least.

  On the bridge he didn't find Judy, who was gone it seemed, but a totally different Captain. He was a Noram nobleman, it was clear, and stood at least eight feet tall. Or he would if he hadn't been sitting. The man wasn't familiar to him, but Tim waved anyway, when he turned to stare at him from the door.

  "Captain? I need for the ship to stop, so that I can take a trip outside."

  The man looked at him blankly, his face not all that old, but he was probably about thirty or so anyway. Giants didn't age as fast as commoners in looks. Nobles didn't. The man had red hair, but it was a dark red that almost could pass for brown in the right light. His skin was dark and he looked familiar.

  "Oh? I suppose that's one way to die." The man smiled though, and let the words come out softly. Then he stood and bowed.

  "Captain Peterson. Countier three. We've met? I was at the battle of the Capital."

  Timon had no clue who he was. There had been a Captain Peterson there, but it wasn't this man. His brother, most likely.

  "Call me Tim. I have a new shield that will let us go outside, but it has to be tested. It holds to vacuum, and radiation, but the movement and all that will need to be checked." He sounded very bland, but not lifeless. How that worked he wasn't sure.

  It would have been within his rights to refuse, or call him a liar. Timon almost expected some excuse to be made, since he was only a child after all, but the giant just nodded.

  "Finally. High Commander Orange mentioned that we needed something like that. I didn't know that I'd be honored with seeing it firsthand so soon. She projected it taking five years or more. We can test it on some of the High Servants."

  After a few seconds Tim shook his head. It was a slow thing, but he did smile himself, after a bit.

  "Everyone keeps suggesting that. It's not going to happen, but why is that? How bad have they been being?"

  The man let his vast hands spread in the air and shrugged.

  "Bad? Why, they've been perfectly noble about the whole thing. Entitled, whining little wastes of space. That isn't totally fair, three of them are worth their beds, but the rest... It's a dangerous time, Countier Baker. Tim. For anyone to act like they have been, standing on title, instead of duty... Let's just say that my orders are to use them to death, if it's needed. Or if they don't shape up, I'm to find a way to make sure it's necessary. This comes from Sir Derring, not High Commander Orange. Their own leader."

  "Oh." If the man thought that he was
going to have a problem with that, he could think again. It made sense to him, in the moment at least. "Fine then. Let's have the first class on how to use the new devices. Can we have a large room emptied of air? I don't want to lose any into space."

  The man didn't seem upset by the idea at all.

  "I think we can do that. Do you want it opened to space with them in it?"

  Timon nodded.

  "Yes, we'll need the ship to stop, then have it set up so we can go out and play for a bit. I don't know how long it will take. I have a few million of the shields, so after the first round here, everyone can have one, if we don't all end up dead." Timon yawned and had to wave an apology for it.

  For some strange reason the man seemed to think he was joking, but he sent people to get it all going, which meant that twenty minutes later he was walking around with a box and handing out red glowing amulets to two lines of white robed trouble makers. To his surprise, Monroe was there too, along with Wistra, the kitchen woman. They might have been joking but they held out their hands, so he gave them the shields too. Even the Captain got one.

  "Wistra, you and Monroe are the last out. Captain Peterson, you need to stay here, to make sure it all goes smoothly. I'll go first. Everyone, these are the new shields that will let you do the work you need on the moon's surface. I'll go over what they can, and cannot do, in a moment."

  There was an annoyingly nasal tone that came from the second line. A tall thin man that looked to be in his thirties.

  "I'm not doing this! You can't just throw our lives away on some trinkets made by a boy that isn't even old enough to shave. Have your balls even dropped yet?" He was trying to push him around, Timon thought, but in an abstract way. Honestly he didn't care about it at all. It was strange really. He should have been mad, being challenged like this in front of all these people.

  He grinned wickedly instead.

  "No, I don't shave, and yes, all dropped and ready. Why are you that interested in my balls, exactly?" That got a chuckle from some of the others at least, which told him that this man wasn't just a problem for people outside the unit. "I suggest you put the trinket on and activate it now. In thirty seconds that wall is going to open up, but in five all the air is going to leave this room. Do it or die." He tapped his on without thinking. As long as they had them though, the things would turn on, when the air started to get too thin to breathe. It was a safety feature.

  Wistra, Monroe and Captain Peterson who was by the interior wall, all followed suit, along with about a third of the people in white. Timon gave the Captain a look and he touched the wall with a single large hand. After a few seconds some of the people were turning a bit blue and slapping at the amulet, and after fifteen they'd all turned on.

  It was then that Tim realized his big error. They couldn't talk to anyone. They had air to do it, but sound didn't travel in a vacuum. He wanted to wince, but just moved to the wall that was going to go away in a moment. Some of the people looked panicked, but most of them actually seemed to get the basic idea and followed along. That was pretty trusting of them.

  The complaining nobleman refused to do it, and actually walked to the door of the room. As if he thought he was going to be allowed to use it. When he tapped the glowing sigil next to where the door was supposed to be, it just didn't open at all. The man just kept hitting it, his movements becoming more and more desperate, as his anger grew. On the nice side of things, Timon couldn't hear his yelling or carrying on, so just turned to everyone else and started to pantomime what he wanted them to do.

  The easiest way to get things done, he soon discovered, was to first do them himself, while making a simple hand motion. For flying he used the motions that would have worked if they all had standard flying rigs on. Lifting his left hand up and rising at the same time for instance. One woman picked up on it first, and followed along, clearly acting as if the hand motion controlled hers. Still, she rose into the air about six feet, just like he did, and hung there. Timon motioned her down and did it again without the hand motion, then landed and used the lifting gesture to indicate she should go up. It took a bit, but after seven tries she got it well enough.

  Everyone else, except the angry noble that was trying to cause problems still at the door, watched with rapt attention.

  A few even managed to lift off when he included them in the exercise. In all, after only two hours, they had the basics down, and a set of hand gestures they could use to communicate movements with each other at a distance. Then, pretending that he was being bold, Timon went outside, not gesturing that anyone follow him at all. The first woman to have gotten things followed anyway. She was in fact right behind him. The woman was tall, so of noble birth, and lanky, which could mean she was young, though her face didn't seem to speak to that at all. She was probably in her forties and had short cropped hair that barely brushed her collar. She did however have enough sense to make her white robe into a white tunic and trousers for flying about, which confirmed the idea that she wasn't new to flying.

  The woman looked scared, as they exited the relative safety of the ship, which was just hanging in a stationary orbit over Noram. They were, more or less, over the Capital, which he pointed to as soon as the planet became visible underneath them. The Ranford was slightly in the way, which, he realized, was a good thing. Not because it was frightening, being so far above everything, but because the awe he felt overpowered him for a few minutes. The woman next to him too, it seemed. At least she just hung there with him for a while.

  Where the sun hit them darkened visibly, and he could look right at it without going blind, which was a good thing. He didn't get too hot either, which had been a major fear for him. Then, carefully, he started to move, the High Servant coming along with him, almost as if they were tied together somehow. It was comforting, even if it meant they'd both probably die if anything went wrong. Nothing did however.

  After landing on the cooling vanes on the dark side of the ship, Timon waved at the woman to follow him back inside. They'd been out long enough to prove it was safe and that everything worked, and just flying off into the black on a lark was stupid. Oh, it could be done, but there was no real reason for it. They did need a speed check though. So Timon stopped before getting back to the door, and held both his hands up. The woman nodded, seeming a lot more at ease now.

  Without pausing in particular, he turned and flew away as fast as he could. It seemed like he was barely moving at all, but after a few minutes he noticed that it seemed like the Earth was moving under him a bit. Doing the math, he had a range then. It was rough and probably wrong, but he should have been moving at a few thousand miles per hour. That wasn't going to happen with air around him, he bet, and wasn't fast enough for real space travel, without a ship, but it was enough to do things outside, in a pinch, if people were careful.

  Also enough to allow him to land, he bet. Not that he was mentioning that idea yet.

  When he got back, the others were still just standing around the large open room, and had to be coaxed outside. The only good part about that was that he, personally, didn't have to do it. The woman, the High Servant that had gone with him before, got the others moving, as if her bravery meant she was in charge.

  Timon shrugged. It worked for him at least. There was more to being the lead High Servant than just being willing to do the job, and she might be a moron or something like that, since there was probably a reason that Karen Derring had sent her along with the others, but as far as he could tell without talking to her, she was about the best they had.

  Wistra floated toward her and then froze in place, staring at Tim. Monroe was still back by the far wall, where he'd been told to wait, but the commoner girl was willing to go out ahead of everyone else, orders or not. Her control was still a bit shaky, but Timon waved to her, so that she'd move over. For the Nobles there, that was about the same as having a tiny child go first and they all knew it. It got Captain Peterson to move away from the far wall himself, even though he was supposed
to stay inside, since they actually needed him for something important. Or might. It was a powerful lever however, and the High Servant woman that had already been out smiled.

  That got most of the others to try it, even if they were terrified. Two, both women, stayed in, out of fear. One was even crying she was so scared. Timon could see that. If he were afraid of high places, this would give him nightmares for the rest of his life. The annoying man though wasn't scared seeming at all, he was just being a pain, because he thought he was too good to be risked at a task like this, even though he'd taken oaths that basically said he was willing to do anything to help others.

  It made Timon mad. Not so much he was willing to kill that man yet, but enough that he wouldn't mind him being banged up a little.

  Still, that wasn't his job, was it? He gestured for Monroe to go, since it seemed pretty safe, then flew over the heads of the two women that couldn't make themselves move from the open wall area and got in front of them.

  "It's all right. You don't have to go. We can find someplace else for you." He could hear himself, though it was a strange and empty thing, but he had air around him. The others couldn't, but he bowed and smiled at them, gesturing for them to move back.

  Then something amazing happened. The crying one, who was about eighteen or so, if he had that right based only on looks, and had lovely blonde hair, closed her eyes and flung herself outside. Blind, which was stupid, but it was also brave of her. Seeing that, the slightly older scared one swallowed and did the same. Tim floated out with them, going backwards the whole time. The others were off to land on the vanes on the dark side of the craft, so they didn't run into anyone at all.

  Neither one of the others froze, except when they saw the Earth. Unlike him, they didn't seem awed as much as terrified and he was almost certain that the younger one wet herself, hanging there like she was. He ignored that. She'd shown her bravery for the day, as far as he was concerned. Instead he just stayed with them, and, after the others had gone in, the wall still down, they stayed there. It took hours, but finally the two women were able to move around, and even went away from the craft with him, then landed on the vanes, and did a circle of the whole ship.