by Chris Hechtl
A freak spring hurricane swung up through from the south, hammered other continents and destroyed flying citadels, then hit the water of the Xtl'na Ocean, picked up more energy from the spring warmth, and then bore down on their flying cities. The hurricane had increased from a five to a force six of eight, powerful enough to smash the floating cities about, into each other or into the ground or nearby bay. The bulk of the people on the cities fled, either to orbit or to the nearest canyon or mountain city.
There were those left behind, however, those who were judged expendable, or those who refused to leave. Those who were also foolhardy enough to think that by braving the wrath of the hurricane they could change their fate, somehow prove to the clan leaders that they were brave and worthy of reconsideration.
In truth they were sacrifices, necessary to keep the floating buildings running. Perhaps they would survive, but none would earn thanks because of it. If they survived. Survival was looking increasingly unlikely the youngling thought darkly, watching the weather feed and the slow march of the storm towards the coastline.
The young Zerinoth turned the repulsors off. “What are you doing?” The temple guardian demanded, aghast as the temple fell. “We'll be killed!”
“Just wait,” the juvenile said, hands on the controls. He brought the repulsors up slowly, enough to arrest their fall, but kept the inertial dampeners off. He also locked out the computer's attempt to compensate for the wind. In order for this to work, they would have to work with nature, not against it, he thought.
“We need to rise above the storm! Not fall below and into it!”
“We can't rise; soaring is out. The air is too thin to breath above the storm. So, we must adapt,” the elder wraith said.
“But…”
“I was against these floating things from their conception,” the elder said, shaking his massive head. “I told Xile it was a foolish thing, a waste of power and resources. But did he listen?” he growled, glancing with a slitted eye to the guardian. He shook his head.
“You…you knew Xile?” the guardian stuttered, taken aback.
The elder exhaled noisily. He'd kept that detail to himself and the juvenile, not letting on his age to any. He'd been so careful, covering his tracks, erasing his computer trail, but all for naught. The youngling needed the distraction in order to prove his worth. “Of course. He was ever the tinker like this young one,” the elder said, waving a hand to the juvenile. “Broken tooth was much the same early on, but then he fell into the trap of being a leader. He let them saddle him with the weight of clan leadership,” the elder said shaking his regret. “I know he regretted it for the rest of his days.”
“You…you know…how may I ask?”
“Time, young one, time. It is no friend to our species,” the elder whispered. He closed his eyes briefly, then opened them to look at his artificial arm. He held it out before him, turning it to examine it. “I remember many things. I remember the contract on Xile and Broken tooth when I was…whole. I remember because I was the one asked to kill them by a particularly stupid group of minor clansman with delusions of taking over,” he said, huffing a laugh.
The guardian stared at him. The elder examined his claws and then flicked some bit out from them. “I tore those who would harm our saviors apart for what they suggested. Which was why the two then saddled me and other wraiths with the thrice cursed job of protecting them!” He said, shaking his head before he laughed. “Sometimes I wonder if I'd made the right decision,” he muttered, looking away to the night sky.
The guardian gaped at him for a long time, staring. The elder waved a hand. “It is all in the past now. Now is the future,” the elder said, indicating the hard-working engineer juvenile.
The juvenile ignored the distraction; he had other far more important things on his mind. The repulsors were designed to remain on and balanced, but he had to override that, and he'd have to control them manually. Carefully he turned the cluster of antigravity devices off and on in varying amounts to slowly move the temple out of the hurricane's main path.
It took hours of agonizing concentration. The elder sat there with him, crossing his arms in front of his body and folding his wings against his back. After a time the guardian went off to see to other duties.
Once the other station controllers noted what he was doing, they demanded to try. The juvenile stuttered but then worked with them over the radio network, explaining his technique. It felt good to do it, to explain to those older and wiser than he on something he knew. He felt embodied.
By dawn it was obvious that they were out of the path of the storm. There was a bit of stiff wind but not enough to endanger the temple. His saving the floating cities earned grudging respect from some of the staff in the wraith temple. The guardian watched in amazement as the juvenile cloaked and moved, embarrassed. “He…” he turned to the elder.
“He is a prized student. Take care of that one. With the right nurturing, he will go far,” the elder said, noting the medics coming up behind the guardian. “You betrayed me?” he asked, rumbling.
“With apologies old one. It is well past your time,” the guardian said, bowing.
The elder sighed, “Perhaps. Perhaps you are right,” he rumbled softly. He turned to the old one. “Go on, you've earned it,” the wraith elder urged, poking him.
The juvenile needed no further urging. He lifted his muzzle skyward as he inhaled, then roared a brassy roar. The elder nodded but noted others looking at the youngling with surprise and some contempt.
“Unlike you, he's earned his right to roar,” the elder growled, eyes locking with the keenest of the youngling's tormentors. After a moment the young bull turned away, ducking his head. “We all serve where we need to be,” the wraith said softly, nodding to the youngling who chirruped happily. He patted the youngling on the shoulder. “Even me,” he said, shifting about. A weight lifted from his mind and body. He turned to the medic. “I am ready,” he said simply.
“Ready for what?” the youngling asked, turning his head to the elder.
“To become a great one,” the elder said, shifting uncomfortably. “I had fought it for so long, hoping some miracle medical advance would allow me to return…but no.” He shook his head.
“Will…will I ever see you again?” the youngling asked, now uncertain.
“I hope not,” the wraith said, waving a talon. “I am going to be bred briefly then sent to the front lines most likely. I have wisdom but not the wisdom the council needs,” he said. He shrugged. “I am a wraith, not a commander,” he said. “I have no taste to lead,” he said.
“But you have done well teaching,” the young one said.
“Don't fear the future young one. You have many, many hands of turnings before you get to my age. Many,” the elder wraith said, then chuffed a chuckle. “Many,” he said.
“How…how did you stay young so long?” The young one asked.
“He starved himself,” the nurse said. “This way elder. We've been waiting,” she said reprovingly. “The race needs your genes,” she said.
“Fine, fine,” the elder wraith said, waving his good hand. “Just so long as I have hatchlings that turn out half as good as this one,” he said, saluting the engineer youngling. “Then I will be happy,” he said. “Do not fight your fate or the sky. Soar with the winds young one. Fear is there to temper foolishness. Listen to it, but don't let it keep you low,” the elder said as he moved off with the nurse.
“I'll…I'll try,” the youngling answered, saluting the elder back.
“Do that,” the elder said, looking over his shoulder. “Remember, roar and soar. Don't let anyone keep you down.”
The End
Sleigh Ride
When her CAG had offered the assignment, Elena was both troubled and enthused. The idea of seeing space in deep recon patrol was both alluring and terrifying. Boredom was the usual major drawback for recon patrol, strapped in a fighter on autopilot for sixty hours on patrol covering the AWAC’s bird
Hawkeye 1.
Then again, the patrol did have its perks as she felt her eyes wander the glorious star field around her. A squelch of static interrupted her reverie “…enjoying the view, Petroyka?”
She felt her face dimple in a small smile as she turned her view to her wing mate. “It is quite beautiful, Alexi.”
He grinned at her through his helmet and then teased her. “Not quite as good a view as I am seeing.” She felt a familiar blush and burble of laughter escape as he waggled his eyebrows and then his wings.
She turned her head and rolled her eyes and felt the heat in her cheeks intensify as his voice came over the shortwave once more “I saw that!” She turned quickly and stuck her tongue out at him and laughed at his cheeky remark.
They had started dating a few weeks ago, having been introduced at her introduction to the wing. Hazing in the Remington Clan was a light thing but still there among pilots and some crews of the warships. She frowned as dark thoughts of her clan flowed within her mind. The Remington had been a Britannia class colony ship with a class B hyperdrive when she had left Earth with ten thousand colonists and two thousand crew. The long twenty-six year voyage was quiet for most of the colonists since they had boarded in stasis capsules.
The ship had arrived at her destination only to discover the worst fear of some of her colonists—claim jumpers. Apparently, there had been a shift in the government during their long voyage. Coupled with the inevitable advances in hypertravel they had been passed by several ships traveling ten times the speed of the Remington.
The captain had awakened the council and a core of engineers prior to the exit of hyperspace, and together they had agreed to contact the planet. When contact had been established, the claim jumpers had ordered them to stand down for boarding. A pair of warships had been sighted en route, and the captain ordered the ship to flee.
Crossing to the hyperlimit had been a perilous journey; the warships, with better drives and power plants had managed to get within firing range of the Remington, shattering the doubts of the remaining crew by slamming energy beam weapons into the thin hull covering the stasis pods. Hundreds had died, including Alexi’s grandmother and her aunt. The captain had attempted a blind jump, and when they came out of hyper, an enraged crew made repairs. The Trail of Tears had begun.
Now some thirty years later her clan had spread to dozens of ships, some including warships, like her new assignment, the escort carrier Halsey. Halsey was here covering the Ticha, a giant factory ship vital to the clan. Her hyperdrive had been damaged in a freak accident, and she and her covering task force had been trapped when an unknown task force had entered the system.
Outgunned, the Halsey’s skipper had elected to play a cat and mouse game of hide and seek, keeping the ships in stealth mode while the other ships made repairs or resupplied. Without long range active sensors, it was up to the Hawkeye’s passive sensors and their recon cover to act as a DEW network for the fleet.
“What are you thinking about my little one?” Alexi could always break her out of her maudlin mood. He always teased her about melancholy spells; it was a “normal Russian thing.”
She shook herself and forced a laugh. “Dark thoughts for dark skies, Alexi. It will be good to get back to the carrier.”
“This leg of the trip should be our last. I am down to 25 percent fuel, and Petro and Walt are on their way.” They looked over at each other and then back to the Hawkeye. The bird was an albatross, whatever that was Elena mused as she studied the craft. Built off the hull of an ancient fighter bomber, she had a massive sensor dish on top and a sensor array deployed below. She was an alpha craft, lacking the latest upgrades and defense suite. She was also one very large lumbering target.
Shaking her head at the courage it took to fly an unarmed brick into a combat zone, she turned and shook her head reprovingly at her wing mate. He had flipped over in her moment of distraction, now going upside down to her. “You know CAG will chew your rump for wasting fuel, Alexi,” she warned. He waggled his wings and muttered “spoil sport,” and then righted himself.
“My grandfather once told me of a wild ride back in the old country,” he said. He was droning on about another Russian story she thought and tried to listen to alleviate the boredom. “Grandfather Peitro would tell us of a wild time back in mother Russia, long before flight when travelers would travel by horse-drawn sleigh in the winter. Many were besieged by wolves and predators in the darkness of night,” he said, coloring his voice to make the story sound interesting. She frowned at that idea. “He said the travelers would whip the horses into a frenzy, churning up snow as their rails cut across the white snow. Howls from the wolves and the panting of the horses were their music. If there had been a long hard winter, the travelers were attacked by raving hordes of wolves, chased across the arctic landscape,” he said.
She felt her eyebrows rise at this. Wolves were something she had studied in class, and according to her teacher none had been known to attack groups of humans. “Americans call it a Man…, no, Nantucket sleigh ride,” he said as she snorted. “Da, is true my little bird. Look it up when we get back to the boat.” She nodded at that.
Turning her attention to the pinpoint laser communicator, she concentrated on her biotechnics to open a channel. The computer calculated speed and lined up a beam on her target, even handling the opening handshake protocol. “Recon, Alpha One to Eyes One, do you have an update on our replacements? Bingo fuel in one hour from…mark,” she warned. A pair of squelches of static made her mutter in annoyance.
“This is Eyes one, roger that little bird. Recon Bravo One and Two are four minutes behind schedule. Seems Bravo Two had a “stuck throttle to work out”… stupid fighter jocks,” the pilot of Eyes One ended in a mutter, not realizing he was still on vox. She grinned and waggled her wings. “Wait one,” he said curtly a second later. She felt her eyebrows rise at that. Unusual for them say that. Tension began to sing in her veins, and she tried a mantra to calm her nerves.
Not so patient Alexi came over the communicator “Eyes One report,” he ordered. Gone was the playful attitude of her wing mate; tension it seemed had awakened his duties as commanding officer.
Eyes One reported a second later. “Recon Alpha, we have a pair, wait make that two pair of sensor ghosts on a heading of one forty-five point one mark three forty-one point six six seven…heading in this direction at…damn it is hard to get a read…” he continued on vox.
Alena punched in the coordinates of the suspected tangos then waited. “It looks like they are one hundred and forty-five thousand clicks out on a course…forty-two point eleven by mark one twenty-five point seven…Maybe one thirty…thirty-nine…Damn piece of crap… okay looks like they are…damn! Make that three pair, repeat six possible tangos on previous sighted bearing…speed is…four hundred and seventy G?” He said in disbelief. “How the hell can they pull that kind of acceleration off?”
Alena frowned. “Control could it be a sensor glitch? No one can go that speed!”
Alexi came over the communications channel. “Eyes One report contact to the boat and Recon Bravo flights. The unknowns look to be crossing our return course to home.”
Alena wished she had some of Alexi’s cool. Of course, some of it had to be his biotechnics; at eighteen he had the second-generation fighter pilot augmentation. Her biotechnics were limited to communication links and visual enhancements.
“Recon Alpha, lead to flight change course to two three one by one three six point three and then go dark. Eyes One alert Aerie control with a sitrep squeal and order Recon Bravo to go dark as well.” Alexi’s firm commands were a breath of fresh air to her, steadying jangled nerves. At sixteen she had only been a pilot for two years, spending her first year as a shuttle jock before winning her wings. She had yet to have engaged in combat though. He'd cautioned her many times to not be so eager.
She twitched the stick over to the heading and followed the prearranged course. A few moments later Eyes One came over
the tight link. “Recon Alpha, it looks like we were too late. Tangos have changed course directly for us and have sped up to four eighty Gs. Repeat, four eighty Gs! It looks like they are spreading out,” the soft voice of Enrique told them.
She knew Alexi was cursing their luck softly as he tried to find a way out of the tangled mess they were in. She didn't see a way; the clan’s tech was old, over two generations out of date despite what knowledge they had been able to gather from their pirate raids and their own research. Now they were going to pay for it.
Sweat prickled Alena's brow getting caught in her sweat band. Odds of two to six with the enemy having a major speed advantage was suicide. Still they had to protect the unarmed eyes craft. “Recon Alpha, Aerie reports they have changed course to the Baker two pack.”
Quickly she concentrated on the words BAKER TWO and felt her communications pack upload that to the crafts computers. As an act of concentration and to get some of her willies under control, she pulled up the course change of the fleet solely by her biotechnics. She hummed as she worked and pulled up a course change for them. The computer flashed a red warning on her eyes, momentarily startling her. Pulling up the warning she felt dread. The course change would put them past bingo fuel limits to get back to the carrier.
“Recon Alpha lead to flight. I am going to afterburners to draw them off; you head back to the barn,” Alexi said, so noble.
She felt a winter smile then turned on her communications link. “Nyet, my love. We go together,” she told him softly as she sent the fuel estimates to him on a data band.
“Alena, no!” he softly protested, knowing it was futile. She turned her attention to the enemy bandits. They were still too far too get a good read, but their acceleration made them something other than Terran built.
A shiver of fear was quickly outpaced when she opened the channel. “Bet you I get the first kill,” she murmured slyly to him. A burble of resigned laughter was only reply for the first few seconds as her witty remark struck home, awakening his competitive streak.