The Army Of Light (Kestrel Saga)

by Fender, Stephen

  “Then it’s fortunate that I have just what you seek. So… please tell me, is it a matter of life or death, Capitaine? I do love a harrowing adventure.” Another mischievous smile played across Jack’s chiseled face as he folded his long arms across his immaculately tailored suit.

  “I’m not at liberty to say,” Shawn replied with a forced smile.

  “Cest infortuné,” Jack began blowing smoke circles as he examined Melissa lasciviously from head to toe. “Well, since you cannot, or do not wish to tell me, then the price is…double.”

  “Double!” Melissa leapt another step forward. The Temkorian’s were quick to react. Before she’d reached the desk, Shawn was back down on his knees with a muzzle now pointed dangerously at the back of his head. From his vantage point, Shawn saw that the other bodyguard had both of his sidearm’s drawn, one aimed directly at Melissa, the other at Trent. All that was required was a simple look from Jacques and it would be over for all of them.

  Standing close enough to strike him with her fist—far closer than Shawn had ever seen anyone physically stand to De Lorme and not get physically ill—Melissa glowered at him angrily. “You are a pirate, aren’t you?” she hissed.

  “That’s quite an obscene accusation from such a beautiful woman.” Jack lifted himself from his desk and stepped closer to her. He leaned his head over her shoulder, close enough that wisps of her hair fluttered across his high cheekbones. “Where on Minos did you find such an enticing creature, Captain?” As he looked at Shawn, the two men shared a stare of such intensity that it threatened to ignite the combustible material in the room. Jack let out a hum of satisfaction. “She smells like jasmine, Captain,” he whispered lecherously.

  As Shawn slowly staggered to his feet, Jack inched back from Melissa and propped himself back onto his desk. “If you want double, fine. We’ll pay it,” Shawn said calmly, then slowly reached into his pocket and withdrew three stacks of credits, then tossed them in a flurry onto De Lorme’s ornately carved desk. “Just give me the damn parts, Jack.”

  De Lorme’s eyes never left Melissa’s. A smile seeped across his face before he puckered his lips into a pseudo-kiss, followed by a slow wink.

  Shawn would be more than content to never be on the receiving end of the glare she gave him in return. The Frenchman only bowed his head slightly, then flicked his fingers limply in Shawn’s direction. The trio heard the sound of the doors behind them open for a moment before closing tightly once again. Two large aliens, more Temkorian’s, carrying a dark wooden crate entered the room, then placed it on the floor in front of Trent.

  “There are your parts, Captain Kestrel. Take them and go. But please, feel free to have a drink on the house as you depart.”

  “Let’s go,” Shawn turned and nodded to Trent. They each grabbed the heavy crate by its thick rope-like handles. With Melissa in the lead, the two men headed for the door.

  “I trust next time your visit will be more… social?” Jack said darkly as they neared the door.

  Before exiting, Shawn craned his head around and lobbed Jack a stone-faced glare. “I don’t make those kinds of promises, Jack.”

  Whatever questionable first impression Lexy had made on Melissa, it was now completely gone. The beautiful little craft was parked right where they’d left it, eagerly waiting to return them to Tericeria. The ride back had been blessedly uneventful, the small skimmer making the voyage without incident.

  For her own safety, Shawn had suggested that Melissa stay in the Old Flamingo’s office for the night. While she had reluctantly agreed, she didn’t realize then she’d be regretting that very same decision in the morning.

  The surplus military cot that she’d bunked on was undoubtedly the most uncomfortable sleeping arrangements she’d ever encountered. Its stiffness was equaled only by its inadequate length, and what little rest she actually received was fleeting. She awoke the next morning to the sound of metal panels being repeatedly beaten, as a blacksmith might forge a piece of crude steel. Unable to sleep through it, she dressed quickly and sauntered out to the hangar. Once inside she rounded a corner to get a better look at what was going on, only to have a large piece of anodized hull plating land at her feet with a loud clang.

  “Head’s up,” someone shouted from the other side of the ship.

  “Thanks,” Melissa yelled back with tired sarcasm, “but it’s a tad late.”

  She bent down and peered beneath the ship, noticing a pair of feet that had turned and began walking aft. She maneuvered around the fallen debris and likewise walked to the rear of the vessel to greet her would be assailant. However, before she reached the rear of the ship, Shawn poked his head around the stern. He gave her a wide-eyed smirked, followed by a halfhearted wave. What right does he have to be so chipper?

  She returned his gesture with one of her own, conveying efficiently that she was not quite the morning person he appeared to be. He seem to pay it little mind.

  “Good morning. Sleep well?” he asked.

  “No, Mister Kestrel. I most certainly did not. Whatever you call that thing in your office, it’s not a bed.”

  Shawn disappeared behind the ship without a response. Melissa then heard what sounded like metal being brushed against metal.

  “Well, we here at the Waldorf-Astoria are quite proud of our surplus military furnishings,” Shawn replied laboriously.

  “Mister Kestrel,” she started, but was silenced by his voice.

  “Please, we’ve been through so much. Call me Shawn,” he said from behind the ship, but tilted his head around the corner long enough to finish with “Melissa.”, before he vanished again.

  Deciding now was not the time to correct him, she simply scowled at his former location. “Mister Kestrel, this is taking entirely too long. I would’ve hoped you’d be ready after all that banging and prattling around you’ve done this morning.”

  He grunted with exertion. “Well, space flight is an exacting science.”

  She then heard several dull thumps from the other side of the vessel. She was about to step around the corner to see what was going on when she heard a loud smack. So loud was the sound, in fact, that the noise stopped her in her tracks. She cautiously moved around the ship and saw Shawn, hands on his hips, a bead of sweat running down his brow as he looked defiantly at the side of the vessel. Melissa followed Shawn’s glare and saw a perfect footprint stamped into the center of a panel.

  She drew her hand to her mouth to try and stifle a chuckle. “I do hope it’s closed for good.”

  “Piece of crap panel,” Shawn muttered under his breath.

  She noticed he was clutching a red shop towel loosely in his hand. She slipped it from his grasp, then dabbed the sweat from his brow. “Yes. Space travel: an exacting science, to be sure.” She couldn’t help but smile at his obvious frustration. Well, we may not be getting anywhere, but at least he’s trying.

  He reached up in an attempt to reclaim the towel, but inadvertently grabbed her fingers in the process. Shawn brought their combined hands down slowly, then slipped the towel from her grip. “Thanks,” he muttered, “but I think I can manage on my own.”

  She stepped back and leaned against the side of the ship, the words ‘Sylvia’s Delight’ painted in beautiful script above her head as she contemplated those few words. Manage on my own, she thought. “Does it get any easier?” she asked dejectedly, not really knowing why she’d asked it, nor expecting Shawn or anyone else to answer. Thus, she was a bit flustered when a soft but strong voice did.

  “We do the best we can.”

  The words snapped her back to reality. Disturbed that she’d momentarily let her guard down, she looked back to the grimy shop town in Shawn’s hand. “Please see that you get cleaned up before we take off. I don’t want to go up there with a sweaty pilot.”

  Something had upset her, and though he didn’t exactly know what it was, the captain decided against saying anything that would make the situation any less comfortable for her. He simply nodded and s
miled softly. “Yes, ma’am.”

  *

  “Alright Trent, let’s see what she’s got,” Shawn voiced into the Mark-IV’s cockpit intercom, then glanced out of the port window.

  Trent, holding a small transmitter in his hand, looked up to Shawn from the hangar floor and gave the captain a quick salute.

  Melissa, who up to this point had been standing silently next to Trent, could see the captain moving around in the cockpit, likely throwing switches and readying the engines for their initial start up. Shawn had been right about one thing: it hadn’t taken long to install the new stabilizers on the engine—much less time than Melissa had anticipated. Trent was a truly magician when it came to working on Sylvia’s Delight—assuming he had the time and the right parts. But time was now a luxury, and none of them could afford to waste it.

  Seconds later Melissa could hear a faint buzzing sound emanating from the vessel. As its pitch and intensity increased, the noises seemed to be coming from everywhere all at once, even inside her.

  In the cockpit, Shawn stole another gaze outside, this time directed at Melissa. She was wearing a bright summer dress, her thick auburn hair pulled tightly back, and her alabaster skin reflecting the rays of the binary Minosian suns as they streamed into the hangar. She looked like a sunflower in a sea of weeds against the dingy hangar floor. As his eyes traveled the length of her body, they finally rested back on her face, and he realized she was scowling at him questionably. It dawned on him that, not only had he been staring at her, but that he’d almost been smiling. He blinked rapidly, then redirected his attention back to the ships instrument panel. With a swift shake of his head, he tried to clear his thoughts of everything around him except for the task at hand.

  “Okay, here goes nothing,” he said under his breath. His fingers snapped the igniter switch and he immediately heard the whine of the engines turn into a low roar. He looked down to the engine status monitor and saw the impellors on the engines had begun to glow with a faint blue hue. The sounds and vibrations of the two engines spinning to life were music to his ears. He reached up with his right hand and began slowly applying power to the hover controls. As Shawn watched the altimeter, the ships landing pads slowly lifted from the hangar floor.

  Glancing back down to Trent, Shawn offered the mechanic a slow thumbs up. Getting the same gesture in return, he turned his attention to the ships master control panel—showing a brief summary of the ships every system. He began to go through the flight checklist as he’d done a hundred times in the past. His eyes then swept deftly over the panorama of computer displays and physical gauges above his seat. Fluid pressure? Good. Solid fuel level looks about right. Hydraulics? Everything okay there. Vector control seems to be in specs, too. Once he ran through the rest of the preflight list, he informed Trent via the intercom that the ship was ready for launch.

  “Roger that, Skipper. Try not to hit anything this time,” Trent chuckled, then gave the captain a halfhearted salute before shuffling clear of the ship. Having momentarily forgotten Melissa was still standing too close to the hovering transport, Trent jogged back to her side, cupping his hands over her ears so she could hear him over the roar of the Mark-IV’s engines. “Let’s get out of the way! Come on over here!”

  Shawn watched from above as they bounded across the hangar and out through the open clamshell doors.

  Seeing that his path was now clear, the captain applied more power to the retro thrusters and fully retracted the landing pads. He then gradually applied more power to the engines until Sylvia’s Delight began to drift slowly out of the hangar. Her silvery hull shimmered in the sunlight as her thrusters cleared the thin layer of sand on the concrete landing pad adjacent to the outer doors. When the cockpit was parallel with the hangar entrance, Shawn looked down to Trent and once again gave the same two-finger salute that he’d received from the mechanic. Trent simply nodded in return, which was all Shawn needed to see.

  Just as the ship cleared the hangar, Shawn set the engines to full throttle, the maximum power of the engines springing to life. With a great howl, the Mark-IV rocketed forward, parting the sands of the beach and the waves beyond as it skimmed the surface and picked up speed. Soon, all Melissa and Trent could see was the cloud of ocean spray left in the vessels wake.

  Shawn guided the Mark-IV up, leisurely pulling on the steering controls while continuously checking his gauges. Once he was satisfied that everything was reading normal, he decreased altitude and set the ship in a thirty degree bank to starboard. Sylvia’s Delight continued in her slow turn, nearly one-hundred and eighty degrees, until she was heading straight back for the hangar. The horizon indicator rose up until it was nearly level, showing Shawn that the vessel was quickly nearing the ocean’s surface. Now flying more by feel then by instruments, he set the engines to three-quarter power and gazed out of the front view port. Within seconds he heard the altitude indicator buzz in defiance of his position, which was quickly followed by the synthetic voice of the ship’s computer stating the same thing. “Proximity warning, Captain. Please take evasive action.”

  Ahead of Sylvia’s Delight was Tericeria, and he was dead inline with the Old Flamingo’s hangar.

  Back on the landing pad, the trajectory of the vessel made Melissa a little more than nervous. “Umm, Mister Maddox?” Melissa asked, not averting her gaze from the incoming transport. “Is he quite high enough to clear the building?”

  Trent let out a chuckle and he sucked at a tobacco pipe she hadn’t seen him light. “I think so.”

  Sylvia’s Delight suddenly screamed directly over the hangar, missing the roof by less than twenty feet. The roar was enough to cause Melissa to flinch and instinctively crouch as she watched the vessel disappear behind the roofline. The sound of D’s engines began to fade in the distance as the captain took her into another slow climb, this time to the South.

  “I guess he cleared it,” Trent said, laughing and standing tall.

  Melissa suddenly felt foolish as she picked herself up from the concrete pad. “That man has got some nerve.”

  Trent tilted his head down in silent contemplation, withdrawing his hand from his pocket and scratching at the back of his neck. “Yeah, but he’s got the spine to back it up.”

  She pursed her lips and, hearing the telltale wine of the ships engines once again, turned to face the ocean. She watched as the Mark-IV went into another dive over the sea, then rocketed out between two large coral formations jutting from the seafloor. Melissa agreed the captain appeared to have some skill, but this test flight was far from the perils they might encounter on their journey—where safety nets and spare parts weren’t exactly plentiful.

  “We’ll see about that, Mister Maddox.”

  *

  Shawn spent another forty minutes testing the rest of D’s systems before bringing the ship into a perfect landing, maneuvering the vessel to the loading dock adjacent to the hangar.

  Unfortunately, the waiting containers, heavily laden with armaments and ammunition bound for Welga, were marginally unstable. Using a small gravcart, Trent could only pack one at a time into the ship—which was making for a long loading procedure. Melissa had sat idly by, surveying the procession first with curiosity, which had since morphed into boredom. In an attempt to disrupt the monotony, she stretched her back and headed for Shawn’s office.

  She opened the door unannounced, and was greeted by Shawn holding a small computer tablet up to a light suspended from the ceiling. He didn’t acknowledge her presence as she walked to the front of his desk. She regarded him for a moment, watching as his eyes squinted slightly, moving the tablet away from his face and then back again.

  “Well,” she began in astonishment, “this has turned out to be a rather enlightening day for me.”

  “How so?” he asked, his eyes intent on what he was reading.

  “First, I’m nearly wounded by your poor throwing ability and serious lack of aim in the hangar. Then I’m almost decapitated by you and that ship of yours w
hile you’re out joyriding around the island; which, by the way, I won’t be forgetting anytime soon. And now there’s this.”

  Shawn narrowed his eyes, moving the tablet within an inch of his face. “I’m a little busy. Could you be more specific?”

  She folded her arms defiantly. “It appears that I’ve hired the services of a blind pilot. At least that would explain everything that’s happened so far.”

  He sighed heavily, his eyes still searching the screen of the palm sized computer. “First off, I throw just fine… and I hit everything I aim for. Secondly, I can assure you that I would never have decapitated you. That beautiful hair of yours might have clogged the engines I just repaired. And third, I’m far from blind. My computer’s backlight isn’t working, and it’s hard to make out this weather report that just came in. But, you go ahead and keep on saying things you think are important, and I’ll go ahead pretending it means something to me.”

  Melissa threw her arms at her sides; hands clamped into fists, and spoke through a clinched jaw. “Just hurry up, Captain. We’re wasting time!”

  He raised an eyebrow at his device. “Trent is still loading the crates. We’ve got a few minutes.”

  “He might move faster if he had some help, you know?”

  “Well, you don’t seem to be doing much. I’m sure he’d appreciate the offer, although all we have left is an old two-wheeled hand truck.”

  She watched as he continued to stare at the worn out computer. “If you didn’t use antiquated equipment, we’d be in space by now. Haven’t you ever heard of a holographic terminal? It’s time to get with the twenty-fourth century, Mister Kestrel. We’re all waiting for you to arrive!” Then she turned and stormed out of the office, slamming the door behind her.

  Shawn finally glanced up from the pad and smiled at the now firmly closed door, the blinds covering its solitary window rattling back and forth. Melissa definitely had William’s fire, of that there was no doubt. Shawn remembered fondly the last time William’s anger had been directed at him. It had come after a particularly ugly brawl with a Kafaran destroyer—one that Shawn had decided to take on all by himself. Shawn, a junior lieutenant at the time, had easily bitten off more than he could chew, and it was only by sheer luck he’d managed to incapacitate the much larger vessel. That outcome had allowed him to avoid the court martial he would have surely received from disobeying Williams’ orders, but didn’t help him bypass the verbal lashing he received from Graves during his debriefing.