Casten nodded. “Huh, pretty weird. Well, I guess it’s a good thing nothing happened on your return trip or today would have gone a lot worse without you around.”
“Yeah, I guess that’s one way to look at it.”
The cars had been stopped while Paress and Casten were talking. They were told ahead of time not to get out until told to do so, so they waited patiently. Even so, the tension of the day combined with the waiting was starting to get to Paress. When he thought about how much his life had changed in the space of a couple days, he was unnerved. Luckily, he could see Dr. Behlen approaching after getting out of the lead car.
Behlen walked up and opened the car door, smiling. “Alright, guys. Sorry for the wait. But here we are. Casten, you remember our ship, right?”
“Yes sir,” Casten said.
“Good. Paress, have you ever been on a private mini-ship before?”
“No, I was just telling Casten how I’ve only ever been on a school field trip to the real moon and to Saint Chandres and that was on a standard cruise liner.” Paress looked at the sleek craft. “What a cool ship!”
“‘Real moon’?” Behlen asked. And then almost to himself, “Oh, you mean Cladoril. I see. It is the real moon after all…compared to Barotil. That’s an interesting local term then.”
He refocused on Paress’ comment about the ship, “You’ll see, we’ve got the best stuff at the Academy.” He grinned at the approaching Marine. “No offense, Lieutenant.”
The Marine laughed, “None taken. Our ships are built to do actual fighting and look the part while doing so. But I’ll give you a call if we ever need to impress the enemy with ships that look like they belong to heiresses and debutantes.”
Behlen clutched his heart, “Oh, my heart! You’ve wounded my pride as a designer!” But then he laughed and the two men shook hands. “I’ll be seeing you the next time I’m on-planet.”
“Absolutely,” the lieutenant said. Then to Paress' surprise, the Marine turned to him and Casten. “That was damn good work you guys did. You keep doing that kind of stuff and the next time we see each other I’m sure you’ll be giving me orders.” He straightened into a salute and once again, Paress found himself trying his best to return the gesture with sufficient precision. Just in case, he bowed, followed by Casten, hoping that would be enough to smooth over any mistakes in his salute.
The Marine chuckled, “Excellent. See ya around, Space Knight and Companion.” Then to Behlen, “See ya, ‘Doctor’, and I use that term loosely.”
As the Marine lieutenant strode off and got in his car, Behlen chuckled and shook his head, “That goofy bastard…”
The Marine private that had been driving their car had unloaded their baggage from the car and driven off. Just as Paress was about to pick up his suitcases, Behlen said, “Don’t worry about it, somebody’ll be along. Ah, here we are.”
A young Mundee man approached from the hangar. Mundees were very similar to humans with the exception that they had extra limbs, usually arms or legs, but sometimes an extra head.
There was a Mundee opera singer named Rondo in Gustav II’s day that was an international star. He had two heads and while one sang tenor, the other sang bass. It was all the more impressive because while a two-headed Mundee had two brains, he only had one mind and personality, so Rondo had to consciously remember how to sing both parts at the same time.
The Mundee walking up now had four arms and wore the dark blue tunic of the Space Knight Academy. He saluted Behlen with his topmost right hand and without waiting for a response, picked up Paress’ and Casten’s luggage. Paress knew a Mundee girl in his school who also had four arms, so the man wasn’t out of the ordinary in that respect. His massive size and heavily muscled arms were. As he walked past the boys, he winked and Paress realized he was gaping. He shut his mouth and stammered out thanks for taking care of their baggage.
“Who was that?” Paress asked, thinking about how the Mundee made his quick salute to Behlen and then went on his way in a manner bordering on disrespect.
“Oh that’s Gondlin. He’s still angry because I beat him in a pretty heavy card game a few days ago and he lost a lot of money to me,” Behlen said. “I think he’s mad because he was cheating and I still beat him fair and square.”
“Cheating?”
“Oh yeah, he isn’t the first Mundee to think that having extra arms gives him an advantage in hiding cards in his extra sleeves. But enough about that guy, let’s get you two on board so we can get this trip underway!” Behlen strode off toward the ship without looking back to see if the boys were following. They did of course, not wanting to be left behind.
Behlen walked up the stairs leading into their ride and Paress and Casten followed. Before entering the ship, Paress noticed a small painting of two girls holding hands and twirling in a circle with script that read “Frosche” underneath— apparently the craft’s name. Did Behlen come up with that? Paress couldn’t be sure because the Academy rep had been a different person since arriving at the space port. Somehow more dynamic and interesting. Maybe because he was more in his element now?
The Frosche's interior was lush with soft materials everywhere— even the walls were soft to the touch. Paress supposed that would help in any sudden failures of the ship’s inertial and acceleration/ deceleration dampers. Behlen led the boys toward the back of the ship through a curtain and to a large comfortable couch with a table nearby and a television.
“Here you go, you guys can sit here,” he said. Paress obeyed and plopped down onto the well-cushioned piece of furniture. It was so soft and warm, he felt like he could easily drop off to sleep. “I’ve got some work to do and some vid-chatting with the admissions staff to let them know you’re coming,” Behlen said. “You guys’ll spend most of the trip without me so just relax, watch TV, play games, whatever. Casten can show you where the bathroom is and a server will check on you once in a while for drinks and food. Try not to eat too much candy.” He winked. “And Casten, lay off the booze. We don’t need you getting drunk and tearing the ship apart.”
“What?” Casten stammered. “But I never had anything to drink!”
“Well then you’d better get to it!”
“What?” Casten repeated. “But you just said…”
“I’m just teasing,” Behlen said, and Casten visibly let out a sigh of relief. Behlen turned to walk back to the front of the Frosche. “I’ll see you guys later. We take off in about fifteen minutes. Casten, show Paress the seat belts. Have fun!” He disappeared back through the curtain.
When Paress was certain Behlen was well and truly out of earshot, he turned to Casten. “Why’s he so different?”
“Different?” Casten looked confused.
“Yeah, he seems so informal now. Like, I just realized I’ve haven’t called him ‘Sir’ nearly half as much as I’m supposed to and he doesn’t seem to care. And the joking with you and talking about the card game with the Mundee guy. None of that seems different?”
Casten thought for a moment. “Yeah, I guess maybe he does seem different to you because you’ve mostly only known him as a recruiter. He probably has to be a pro around your parents and everything. But when he’s with his own kind of people, he’s more like this. I’ve seen him around my Creator since they’ve known each other a while and he’s pretty much the same.”
Paress nodded thoughtfully and then leaned close. “But none of it seems…I can’t think of the word. It’s not ‘fake’ because that has kinda a different meaning. Like, false? Or a disguise or something? I can’t describe it.”
“I don’t think I understand.” Casten looked almost worried.
“It’s like, he’s playing a character with these people— with us even— but he doesn’t realize he’s playing a character. He’s too deep in his role.”
“Uhh…”
Paress made a small growl, annoyed with himself that he couldn’t exactly explain what it was that unnerved him about Jeddeg Behlen. The man had been nothing
but kind to him— in some ways acting like a cool uncle or something. “Ah, never mind, I’m probably just tired and getting weird because of it.”
“No problem,” Casten smiled. “I understand. I’m pretty tired too and I’m not the one who did all the crazy telekinetics. You deserve a rest.”
“Yeah, maybe.” But as Paress sank back in the couch and tried to clear his mind, all he kept thinking of was Behlen’s interchange with the Marine lieutenant.
Something that on the face of it, seemed like the kind of ribbing men often gave each other. He’d seen his father give his friends a hard time, and Paress and Casten themselves had often teased each other. But Paress couldn’t help but think that he’d seen, or maybe even felt, a deep antipathy and maybe even annoyance from Behlen directed toward the Marine lieutenant as well as the other Marines. It was like he tolerated the men…that he needed them to accomplish some goal…but at the first sign that they were no longer of use to him, he’d just as soon destroy them without a second thought for being in his way.
Paress shivered hoping that Behlen would never feel the same about him. The man made no secret that he hoped Paress was the answer to his problems with the mysterious Hyper Battle Machine. But what if he wasn’t up to the task? Would he suddenly find himself the focus of Behlen’s anger and scorn?
I guess I’d better get that Hyper Battle Machine working then… he thought.
A few minutes later, someone came by to ask if the boys needed anything and Paress asked for a candy bar and some soda. Casten did the same and soon after the Frosche's captain came on the intercom to say they’d be taking off and to please fasten their seatbelts. Casten reached around Paress and pulled the belt and buckle from under the couch’s cushions and helped Paress buckle-up before he did the same himself.
There was the slightest lurch as the Frosche's repulsor drive came online and gently lifted the small ship into the air. Paress looked out the window and watched as his city, his home, dropped away beneath him. The great irony of a Space Knight’s life was that he would spend nearly all of it in far away places championing a home that he’d probably never see again.
There would always be VR experiences, games, and vidcasts that would allow him to see his home planet almost whenever he wanted… but those experiences would all be artificial. This was the real thing spread out under him and he didn’t take his eyes off it until the Frosche reached a sufficient height, and with another small lurch began to accelerate into escape velocity and blast away from Wystra’s pull.
Casten, seeming to understand that Paress needed to be alone with his goodbyes to the surface, now slid over and patted Paress’ back as they both looked out the window at all of the activity in Wystra’s orbit. Space stations that were home to tens of thousands could be seen in the far distance, their cylindrical bodies slowly turning, while starships of all shapes and sizes went about their business in the foreground.
Colorful private vessels from colossal space freighters to tiny single-person sport ships made for a colorful ballet as squadrons of police cruisers and military starships prowled around to keep the peace. Not all the ships were Francescan or even Wystran. Many different worlds were represented in countless starship designs as traders, diplomats, and tourist ships all joined the ballet.
As the Frosche got farther still from Wystra, the chaos of color and movement of thousands of starships gave way to the quiet serenity of outer space. Occasionally some far off shapes caught Paress’ eye; giant starships tasked with guarding the Empire’s home world.
“Those are super-heavy battleships,” Casten said, pointing to what looked to Paress like three tiny light gray pencils slowly moving in a line across his window.
“They must be really far away to look so tiny from here,” Paress said. “I wish I had your Companion eyes so I could see them like you can. I mean you can even tell what type of ship they are. I can barely see them.”
“Yep, these babies aren’t just here to look cool,” Casten said blinking his eyes quickly.
Paress was squinting so hard to look at the far off battleships that he nearly fell backwards when a heavy cruiser accompanied by three destroyers suddenly rose into his view much closer. “Whoah!” He and Casten both pressed their noses to the window trying to get a better look at the starships, but they were quickly out of view, heading toward Wystra while the Frosche was heading away.
“If you look out your left side windows, Cladoril moon will soon be coming into view,” the ships’ captain said over the intercom.
Paress was happy that he and Casten had the entire rear compartment to themselves as they scrambled over to the couch on the ship’s port side to look out. He knew they were getting close because the emptiness of space gave way to more and more starships as they neared the moon. There were almost as many starships flying around Cladoril, Wystra’s main waypoint, as there were the planet itself.
Cladoril was the largest of the two satellites orbiting Wystra. It was the planet’s natural moon (or “real moon” as people in Paress’ part of town called it) that had been colonized by people who were descended from Ancients who had crashed there over seven millennia ago— at the same time when most other Ancients had come on the Great Ark to Wystra itself. Those Ancients who landed (the Old Races said “crashed”) on Wystra had become the ancestors of the non-magic humans of the planet, and ultimately, most Francescans.
After being attacked soon after winning the Great Wystran War, the original Francescan Empire had battled and eventually subjugated those people on Cladoril in the First Space War and the moon kingdom had been a Francescan subject ever since.
Without knowing its actual name, Wystra’s other, smaller satellite was known as Barotil, a moon-sized artificial sphere that had been orbiting the planet for as long as anyone could remember. According to Dragon Lore it was said to have arrived in Wystran orbit at the same time as the Ancients, and was actually a device sent by the Ancient Enemy to destroy the Great Ark and possibly Wystra itself… or even the entire star system.
Most dragons, recognizing the machine’s apocalyptic capability, had used nearly all their magic to seal the device inside a type of shielded magic prison and render it inert in stasis. As far as anyone knew, Barotil had always been either dead or asleep since then, silently watching Wystra from afar.
Since the dragons, an Old Race, had used their most powerful Life-Magic to imprison the alien machine, nearly all had died in the process; the magic was so powerful that even now, nearly 7,500 years later, nobody could get past the magic shield to land on the artificial moon and explore. Ever since the earliest attempts to explore Barotil had ended in disaster, the Imperial government had rendered it off-limits and a large fleet of starships were stationed nearby to ward away any would-be intruders.
Thinking of Barotil now, Paress said, “Too bad we can’t see the false moon. It’s always been on the other side of Wystra whenever I’ve been in space. I’d like to see it.”
“Not me,” Casten said with a shiver. “Even pictures of it make my skin crawl. It was in the distance when I came through here to come live with you, but I tried not to concentrate on it. God knows what’s inside waiting to get out. I don’t like to think about it.”
“You don’t think the Imperial Navy and the Space Knights could take care of anything bad that came out?” Paress asked.
“I really don’t know. The Ancients were scattered all over the universe trying to get away from the Ancient Enemy and things like Barotil. Then most of the dragons died just to imprison it— like, were they not strong enough to just destroy it? I don’t know. But if it was giving the Ancients and the dragons problems, what can we do?” Casten shivered some more.
Paress had to admit the young Companion had a point and so he just nodded thoughtfully and went back to watching the colorful ebb and flow of the starships around Cladoril. Although the moon was one fifth the size of Wystra, the use of local level gravitic devices gave the on-planet gravity the same amount of pull as
on Wystra itself instead of what would have been the normal fractional amount.
Nearly half the small world had been terraformed with thriving green farms and were home to beautiful cities, while the other half was home to large factories and processing plants like the agro facility he, and then his sisters, had visited on school field trips. There were two space elevators on opposite ends of the planet to better facilitate getting people and material into space. Each had been in service for nearly a hundred years and having proven themselves, plans were underway to build space elevators on Wystra.
The Frosche sped past Cladoril and as with the ships around Wystra, those around the moon began to become less common and the view thinned out to only show open space.
“We hope you enjoyed this special scenic version of our trip,” the Captain’s voice said. “We’ll be going into space jump in five minutes so please return to your seats and fasten your seatbelts.
“‘Special scenic version’?” Paress asked. “What does that mean?”
“You got me,” Casten said.
After one last check from the ship’s steward to make sure the boys had their fill of snacks and were buckled in, the captain came back on a few minutes later and announced the countdown to jump. Space distorted around the little ship and it slipped into jump space.
A couple hours later, Paress and Casten had been playing a video game together when Dr. Behlen emerged from the curtain and came walking back. Paress turned the game off as Behlen eased into a seat facing the couch that he and Casten were sitting on.
“I used to love playing games,” Behlen said. “Now I’m too busy. Sometimes I wish I could leave what I’m doing behind and relax, but I’m pretty much set in my course.”
Paress could only nod at what he thought was a slightly odd statement.
“So, what’d you guys think of the trip out?” Behlen asked. “We took the long way so you could see everything. Well, everything but Barotil, but wrong time of the month to catch both moons.”
Space Dragon Allepexxis Page 14