DarkStar Running (Living on the Run Book 2)

by Ben Patterson

  “We could use a crewman with your abilities,” Lilia said. “Whatta ya say? Join us?”

  Carl stepped back to look at Reliant. “I would rather fly a million years with you in this old tub than spend another minute as an Enforcer.”

  “Well then,” Lilia said, “you’re hired.”

  Carl seemed unable to wipe the smile off his face. “If freedom of religion is part of the deal, Lilia, could you tell me about this faith of yours?”

  “You betcha,” she confirmed, and preceded the men back into the ship.

  Stan wrapped a friendly arm around the younger man as they followed her. “Glad to have you at my wing, Carl. Let’s keep flyin’.”

  A shower, a room of his own, a seat on the bridge, and an enthusiastic Carl Ogier took his place among his new friends.

  Reliant lifted off and headed out of Praxis’ atmosphere undetected by Andrews or any of his people.

  This was a new day. Carl would be taking orders from a waitress—well, former waitress—and that was fine with him. It was far more preferable than taking orders from a maniac like Lieutenant Troy Younger.

  Somehow, the stars seemed brighter, the expanse of the Milky Way crisper, and his friends truer.

  An orphan, Carl had no ties to the Confederacy that mattered. Not even his life’s savings sitting in a bank on Parandi was worth his attention.

  With the promise of a great future, this was a new day indeed. Yes!

  Chapter Seventeen

  Stan stared into the coffin with blank eyes. This was just wrong. These wooden caskets were supposed to be for old people, not young boys . . .

  . . . not for his best friend.

  Twelve-year-old Stan felt his chin quiver, but the more he tried to stop it, the more it took on a life of its own.

  Stupid government medical system was totally worthless. Why’d they let this happen? Even as tears gathered in his eyes to blur his vision, he reached in to take hold of a cold, lifeless hand.

  “Stan!” his mother scolded.

  “Let the child be, woman,” his dad said. “Let him grieve his best friend’s passing and say good-by however he wants.”

  Mrs. Archer sniffled. “He was precious to me, too. Dennis was a wonderful boy.”

  Precious? thought Stan. You saved my life, Dennis. Being at his funeral was hard, probably the hardest thing Stan had ever had to do.

  Right then, Cindy stepped to Stan’s side to rest a soft hand lightly on his shoulder. Stan wrapped an arm around his sweetheart and released Dennis’ lifeless hand. She sobbed, he pulled her closer, and she pressed her face into his shoulder. His own tears streamed down his cheeks, and fell into her long, black hair, but he couldn’t let go of his only tie to his onetime best friend. The three of them had been inseparable.

  Looking back over his shoulder, Stan saw the people that filled the room; many wept, some held loved ones close, others chatted quietly. Why did this have to be real? he thought. Why did this have to be, at all?

  He became aware of other mourners reaching out to him, pushing aside their own anguish to comfort the two adolescents.

  Grammy Dugan, Dennis’ grandmother, eased through the crowd to wrap trembling but warm arms around both children. Assaulted by a strong mix of menthol and eucalyptus, Stan held his breath, but didn’t pull away.

  “You two were his greatest joy,” Grammy Dugan said. “You know that don’t you? His last words were, ‘Tell Cindy and Stan, I’m waiting. I’ll be at heaven’s gate to greet them.’ You kids have been such a wonderful blessing to Mr. Dugan and me as well. Don’t lose sight of that. Neither of you lose sight of that.”

  Like electricity fizzing through him, her words broke through his grief. Stan wrenched himself free and glared at the old lady. Anger seared away the numbness.

  ‘Heaven’s gate? Blessing?’ Was this old woman a . . . a Trog? Dennis, his best buddy in the whole world, was religious? How could Stan not have known? How could he have missed the signs? Perhaps he secretly knew, but saw that saying so would have cost him the friendship of a great guy.

  Sick to his stomach and needing air, he pushed through the crowd to the door and hurried out of the house . . .

  . . . but found himself standing on the deck of the Emperor’s Princess.

  Standing in the hallway, an adult Stan Archer faced his childhood friend, Dennis Dugan.

  “Dennis, what are you doing here!”

  Feeling betrayed, Stan caught his breath and stared at Dennis as if seeing him for the first time. Dennis, you were loyal to me, Stan thought. You wouldn’t duce me by keeping a secret this big and dangerous, no matter what. You’re not a stinking narrow minded, finger pointing Trog. No way. Impossible. You’re not here.

  Blond and blue eyed, the young face morphed into that of Carl’s. Then an explosion . . . the Emperor’s Princess shook and rumbled in her first death throws . . . fire ran through the hallway . . . Dennis . . . Carl was consumed.

  “Captain, wake up!” DarkStar’s quiet voice persisted.

  Stan jerked awake. Though his mind was still hazy, reality slipped into place, and he realized that he still occupied his own bed aboard DarkStar.

  “Are you ill, Captain?”

  Shaken, he let the last wisps of the memory fade, but didn’t answer.

  “Were you dreaming?”

  He threw back the sweat-soaked sheets, sat up on the edge of the bed, and speared trembling hands though his hair.

  “Nightmare, Captain?”

  With a voice raspy from interrupted sleep, Stan guardedly answered, “More like buried memories forced to the surface, DS. All these years . . .”

  Stan rubbed his face hard to wake himself. “I forgot Dennis, my childhood best friend, was a . . .” but he stopped short of saying the epithet out loud.

  DarkStar’s calm voice broke the long moment of silence. “A follower, Capt. Archer?”

  “A Trog,” Stan snapped, before taking another minute to calm his tone. “We called believers, Trogs.”

  “And his family? Were they believers as well, sir?”

  Stan took a deep breath. “More than likely, DS.”

  “Capt. Archer, did you turn them in?”

  Stan halfheartedly shook his head. “No. He died of cancer when he was twelve. I suppose I pushed aside the idea of Carl being a Tro . . .”

  Stan faltered.

  “. . . a believer.”

  “I’m sorry, Captain. Didn’t you mean Dennis?”

  “Dennis. Yes, Dennis. I’m sorry.” Tears welled but, by sheer strength of will, he held them back.

  “In my dream I saw young Dennis aboard the Emperor’s Princess the day I downed her. Do you understand what I’m saying, DS? My very best friend in the whole world . . . I killed him . . . I did.”

  “Sir, it was just a dream. He wasn’t there.”

  “He might as well have been, DS. By killing that ship, I killed Carl . . . just as if he had walked those decks himself.”

  “Sir. That is the second time you’ve substituted Dennis’ name with Carl’s.”

  “What? Did I?”

  Jumping to his feet, Stan showered, dressed, and remade his bed with fresh sheets.

  Then, in the watchless hours, cool and quiet, in an effort to walk away from his memories, Stan headed to the galley in search of warm milk to help him sleep. Fighting exhaustion, he stumbled through the halls, and down the stairs to find the galley.

  Stan shook himself. Eerily alike, did he actually see blond, blue-eyed Carl as an adult Dennis? Was this the reason, from day one, Carl had bothered him . . . and the reason he trusted the young pilot at his wing?

  If he could just put the image of Carl out of his mind, thought Stan, then he caught himself. Why now did the image of Carl insist on replacing that of Dennis? Maybe there were real reasons his childhood invaded his dreams now, after all these years.

  Dennis Dugan succumbed to cancer at age twelve, and though such things were common in the Confederacy, it just didn’t seem right that one o
f “The Immortal deity’s chosen” should have passed away like that, if this Immortal Architect, so-called, was real.

  If this deity’s Word was true, then why did this image come to shake him from his bed? Had it come, by design, to bring Stan to his knees?

  In the dark, Stan sat on the couch to ponder as he sipped the mug of warm milk. A follower of the Immortal Architect died. Why did that strike him as unusual? When he and his marauders swooped in on the Princess, why didn’t the Immortal Architect warn His followers of the approaching danger? Stan couldn’t put his finger on any real reason that made sense . . . if the Immortal Architect was indeed real.

  Thoughts of his sitting comfortably in his Dart diving on the liner forced their way into his mind. Although he was the one firing one torpedo after the next—sickening—it seemed like someone else’s hand on the trigger.

  Watching the slaughter of bodies blown into space, Stan felt numb. Without call, a lone tear stole down his cheek. He wiped it away with his fingers, then studied the moisture, mystified that it was there.

  If coming to this so-called compassionate Immortal Architect afforded no one any greater protection from calamity, then why be a follower at all?

  Lilia said the Immortal Architect came to free people from their guilt, but was that it? Was that all there was to a life as a follower?

  Wouldn’t it have been smarter to have let Dennis live to preach and bring others to the Undying One? If the Immortal Architect is Love, then where was the Love in letting a child suffer with cancer . . . and die?

  And here sat Stan, guilty of murder, surrounded in comfort by an ancient, yet beyond modern spacecraft supposedly given him by the Great immortal creator of the heavens, Himself. Where was the justice in that?

  “DS?”

  “Yes, Master Archer.”

  “When we reach Providence Prime, I’ll get off to find my own way back to Atheron. Watch over Lilia, will ya?”

  “I don’t think so!” Lilia’s stern rebuttal came from the doorway. Dressed in a quilted robe over a shimmery nightgown, the hall’s nightlights illuminated her form well enough for Stan to see her firm stance. Arms folded, she stood just inside the room’s permanent entrance and glared at Stan, as anger infused her words. “What makes you think this ship isn’t yours just as much as she’s mine? Didn’t you suffer the genetic alterations, Stan? Don’t you think that changed you permanently?”

  “Yeah, well . . .”

  “We don’t know the full effect of those alterations, now do we? Do you think you can even exist without DarkStar?”

  “Well, no. I . . .”

  “Didn’t you rescue the two life pods? Didn’t you pilot us through Captain Andrew’s fiasco? Could either DarkStar or I alone, or either of us together, for that matter, have done that without you? This is where you belong, Mister, and don’t you think otherwise.”

  Stan pushed himself to his feet and went to her. “I’ve done awful things, Lilia. You’ve seen the hashes on my helmet—the high count. You know what they mean. It was my job to kill followers, remember?”

  “Oh, stop with the self-recriminations!” Raising her chin, she assumed a dignity that startled him and robbed him of any defense. “I don’t remember your doing those horrible things, Mr. Archer.”

  “Well, regardless of your inability to recall the obvious, things need to be rectified.”

  “My memory is fine, Mr. Archer. Just as my Lord has done, I choose to let go of and forget the guilt the Immortal Architect has forgiven you of. Your job is to do the same and put them behind you once and for all. You did this for Troy Younger; now give yourself the same grace.”

  Stan stiffened. “How can I forget things that flood my dreams and shake me from my sleep? If I’m ever to have peace, I must go back and face my past.”

  Lilia’s eyes held a determination that seemed to see straight through to his heart.

  “You and your one track mind,” she snapped. “Face your past? You are to face your future, and see yourself as the Self-existent One sees you, Mr. Stan Archer. I realize that all this is new to you, and that it will take you a while to get your head around the truth. Sometimes the simplest principle is the most challenging, so let me give you a clue.”

  He focused. “Yeah? I’m listening.”

  Lilia tempered her tone. “To properly love others, you must first love yourself, Stan. It’s just that simple.” Having said that, she turned and headed away.

  Stan watched her disappear into the shadows of the hallway. “Love myself? Who doesn’t love himself?”

  “She’s right, Captain Archer,” DarkStar said. “You don’t love yourself.” Usually DarkStar’s voice had a universal quality to it as if coming from everywhere. This time it came from directly behind him.

  Stan turned, and jerked with surprise. Before him stood a six-foot tall ghostly figure of a woman. He stared, transfixed.

  “DarkStar?”

  Her stature, though obviously feminine, was regal. Her flowing floor length gown was an almost blinding iridescent white, yet he could bear it easily. Pale hair cascaded down past her shoulders, flowing to her trim midriff. Her eyes glimmered so brightly they made dull by comparison, the polished gold choker that trimmed her delicate neck, and the broad belt that girded her waist though the metal seemed made of the finest and purest Stan had ever seen. He touched her shoulder—she was real.

  “In the confines of this ship, sir, I do have substance, such as it is. But back to the point, Capt. Slone is right. You don’t love yourself.”

  Stan took a deep breath to regain his composure before addressing the vision before him. “Maybe I don’t like the guy I see in the mirror. I hope to change that by going back to Atheron. I want to be a Dennis Dugan, a selfless, honorable man.”

  “No, sir.” Her voice held an uncompromising austerity. “The universe has had its Dennis Dugan, and for the appropriate amount of time. What the universe lacks now, and is waiting for, is a proper Stan Archer. You won’t find him reflected in some man-made martyrdom but in the right mirror.”

  “The right mirror?”

  “When you see yourself in the right mirror, you’ll know who you are and what you should do. Until then, you’ll impress no one but yourself with your self-styled acts of nobility.”

  “So where do I find this Right mirror you speak of?”

  The DarkStar avatar raised an eyebrow as if to say the answer was obvious, and then motioned toward the doorway. “Who you really are is reflected in Lilia’s eyes. You just haven’t noticed.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Stan turned from the door to DarkStar. “Should I go to her now?”

  “No, sir. You should go to the bridge.” The avatar’s image faded into the dark.

  Setting his cup in the sink, Stan turned away to the bridge, and found it illuminated only by the soft glow of the consoles. The air was cool and except for the faint dutiful hum of a few instruments, the room was quiet.

  He slipped into the pilot’s seat half checking the scanner before noticing the faint blip. “Well, what do we have here?” he mumbled to himself. “What’s this dead ahead?”

  Stan zeroed the scanner, narrowing in on the object. What’s a shuttle doing way out here? he thought. Suddenly two more blips entered the screen heading at high speed toward the smaller.

  “Full speed, DarkStar. Give me all you’ve got.” Once within range, the scanner started tagging the blips with I.D. numbers, identifying two corsairs pursuing the shuttle.

  Stan cursed and hit the com. “Lilia, Carl, to the bridge. Pirates!”

  It looked as though two pirates had caught a short-range shuttle off guard, blocking its way home, and were now chasing it out and away from the safety of police and patrols.

  In stepped Carl followed an instant later by Lilia. Stan spun his seat to face them.

  “Pirates have blocked a shuttle’s escape. They’ll reach it before we do. Suggestions?”

  “Looks like we’ve got a fight on our hands,” Lilia
said. “I say we give ’em a showing they won’t soon forget.”

  “Agreed, Swift,” Carl said.

  “Stan, we’ll man the guns. Get Reliant between that shuttle and those pirates as soon as you can. Looks like you’ll have your hands full, but your piloting is our best chance to beat them.”

  Stan nodded and turned back to the screen. “Hang on to your seats. We’re going in.”

  Carl took aim and pulled the trigger, but at this distance the plasma charged two-pounders did little more than distract the pirates, yet it was enough to give the shuttle occupants hope and to see that help was on the way.

  The pirates reached their prey and, to knock out its defenses, started hitting it with ion shield-busters.

  Defiantly, the unarmed shuttle turned and dodged between the corsairs in an effort to turn their own guns against them.

  “Cheeky move,” mumbled Stan. By the shuttle’s old-school maneuvers and by the way it turned and dodged well beyond the craft’s design limits, Stan guessed its Captain was once a Wasp pilot, a military man. Even if the pirates never connected, if its pilot kept this up, the shuttle would soon tear itself apart.

  “Hang tight, bud. We’re almost there.”

  Suddenly one corsair’s shot clipped the shuttle and sent it spinning, careening out of control. When a second shot tagged it, the shuttle began to spew smoke into space.

  Carl fired and kept firing as Lilia released several rockets. The pirates started taking blows and turned to address Reliant to see what she could give them.

  The shuttle, dead and adrift, was spitting fuel and flames.

  Stan cut between the corsairs and headed for the shuttle as Carl and Lilia heated the guns.

  “Scanner readings look grim,” Stan said.

  “Never too late,” Carl said. “Get us beside her! Lilia take the guns.” He called for the cargo bay and dived through the door before it fully opened.

  Stan brought DarkStar up next to the shuttle, tractored it in close, and extended DarkStar’s shields around it. “Reliant, give me the cargo bay and take the helm,” he said. Jumping to his feet, he bolted out of the room.