Wave Mandate

by Schneider, A. C.

  How had she gotten here? Where did she go wrong? Did she go wrong? No, she didn’t. She had experienced something they refused to believe. She wouldn’t have believed it herself if she were in their position. That’s why she had acted on her own. She didn’t regret her actions, only that things turned out the way they did.

  She was glad the Motherhood didn’t think to ask her about Quinn. No way she could have kept her thoughts about her best friend’s involvement quiet if they had. Feeling a bit better, she turned her thoughts toward Kelerin.

  Cheating? How could they possibly think that? Why is it whenever someone does something extraordinary they’re automatically suspect? She wondered if Kelerin was going through a similar misguided trial-by-fire at present down at the Academy. Maybe I could find out, she thought. After all, she’d done it once before without the aid of Readers and Mist, why not again?

  Analel rubbed her eyes and wiped away tear streaks from her face. She brushed her hair back, running her fingers along the small of her neck, arching her back, stretching, breathing in deeply and tracing her hands down her sides until they came to rest on the tops of her thighs. She already began to drift. She was getting better. Her senses floated away from her immediate surroundings and began to merge with the deeper Wave of reality. There, all things connected, all Waves merged into one glorious Current.

  In the far distance Analel spotted an individual pattern, flowing, discernible to her from the greater whole. It was making itself known to her, singling itself out from the collective confusion. It was familiar. It was Kelerin.

  Chapter 24: Know

  Island Guard outpost - Near-orbit, Osmos

  Kedbury unconsciously wrung his hands, muttering to himself while running through a tireless loop in his head of all the possibilities. He’d tried to keep his thoughts from venturing too far down the path of speculation but the monotonous trip to the Island Guard outpost where the Nebulous liner’s Life Pods purportedly lay waiting, possibly harboring his son, left little hope of success in that regard.

  On the one hand reports brought news of multiple pods recovered, add to that the fact that Bunvern was a Race official and the son of a Parliamentary Representative, surely he and his family would have been afforded preferential treatment for evacuation. On the other hand, there had been no communication from any of the pods, whatsoever. Not from when they first jettisoned the Nebulous and not now that they’ve been picked up by the Guard.

  At least that’s what the latest updates claimed. It was entirely possible the status quo had changed. Several hours had passed since Kedbury was last filled in, back when he began waging his bureaucratic and logistical campaign to procure an immediate transport to the Island Guard outpost.

  At this very moment his son could be sitting, wrapped in a thermal blanket and recovering from the ordeal of surviving days of space drift inside the meager accommodations of a Life Pod. That man-eating daughter in-law of his would be chewing his son’s ear off about how horrid this vacationing experience had been. Bunvern would have suffered some, a little worse for the wear, but he would be alive.

  Or he could be dead. His poor, pathetic son, dead.

  Bunvern wasn’t bad as far as sons go, just incompetent, a push over and completely incapable of taking care of himself. For the first forty years of his life it had been his mother who’d taken care of him. When it became clear that her time in this world was coming to an end she made sure to find an equally overbearing woman to takeover where she would leave off.

  Kedbury was well aware of his son’s limitations but he never took to his wife’s sheltering methods. He had his own ideas for his son’s future. Once his wife was gone, Creator watch over her soul, he set out to put his plans in effect.

  Having Bunvern follow in his own footsteps as an Island Representative was laughable. Even a cushy job at one of the Borgus Isle’s large corporations carried the all-too-real probability that at some point, sometime, something would come up requiring a modicum of competence, especially given how politicized the Ipsidian trade had become, and then where would his son be?

  No. Such a career path wouldn’t do at all. What Bunvern needed was a cushy job that paid well and required as little actual work as possible. When the Mandate Race was announced two hundred such jobs were instantly created. It was the perfect solution.

  Kedbury used his Representative connections to pull some strings and have Bunvern selected as the Borgus Isle’s Race delegate; a government job with high pay, little oversight and even less cause for productivity. Bunvern was required to monitor a race taking place light years away to which there was rarely any information at all coming in to monitor. A more ideal setup could not have been imagined.

  Yet, somehow Kedbury’s hapless progeny found a way to mess even this up. Taking advantage of his clout as a Race official, Bunvern, most probably at the behest of his nagging wife, managed to secure for himself two places on the new luxury liner, the Nebulous. Just his luck, the Nebulous was raided by homicidal Mainlanders on its maiden voyage. Now Kedbury found himself flying into near orbit to determine whether or not his son was indeed still alive.

  The constant emotional back and forth was simply maddening. Kebury was a practical man and his only comfort lay in the knowledge that they must be very nearly at their destination. The Pilot had announced a one hour ETA over the intercom what felt like ages ago, surely no less than three quarters of an hour. Once there, his nightmarish limbo would be over and he could set himself to the definitive task of being thankful or mourning.

 

  “It’s about time,” Kedbury muttered to himself and ceased his unconscious hand wringing.

 

  He did so, and sure enough, a small, odd looking contraption could be seen, of metal and bright flood lights stuck like tacks on a background of featureless black. He identified several unoccupied docking stations, their skybridge terminals jutting from the outpost like villi looking to suck whatever nutrients they could from the great void to feed their host.

  On the far side of the outpost Kedbury spied the edges of at least one Life Pod peeking out from behind a gangly frame. The sight was short lived, the visible piece of the pod disappearing behind the outpost altogether as the transport drew closer and slowed to docking speed. Hull capture was nearly imperceptible. Only the telling sound of locking pins clicking into place and the subsequent hiss of depressurization informed Kedbury that they’d officially arrived.

  “Representative, you can begin… Oh, you already have.” One of the pilots had poked his head into the passenger cabin to let the Representative know he could now unfasten his harness and begin disembarking, only to find Kedbury was already waiting by the cabin door. “Yes, right this-” the copilot started to say but Kedbury pushed passed him into the ship beyond. “Um, right then. After you.”

  The old Representative moved directly into the neck of the ship and along the short gangway before coming upon the hull capture door. He pressed down on the large, round depressor just to the right with his palm and straightened his tunic in anticipation of the greeting party that was sure to be waiting for him on the other side. The door remained closed. Looking angrily down at the depressor, he pushed it several times more in rapid succession before turning to the copilot waiting uncomfortably behind him and asking with an old man’s impatience, “Will you please get this thing opened, already?”

  The copilot snapped into action, trying haltingly to maneuver around the Representative who was still partially blocking the depressor with his well fed, albeit elderly frame. “Yes, of course... um… if I may...”

  Kedbury shuffled back a few paces, his annoyance increasing with every tiny step taken to make room. “Just get on with it, man.” The copilot pulled a safety lever to the far right of the door before returning to the depressor and pressing down on it once again. Escaping air hissed loudly
as the entrance panel slid upward, disappearing into the hull in a flash of speed revealing an empty corridor on the opposite side.

  Kedbury stood at the threshold to the skybridge, taken aback at the lack of even a single Guardsman, let alone the full welcoming party to be expected for a visiting Parliamentarian. Tacking this latest oversight onto his growing list of grievances against the Island Guard and how it was handling this entire ordeal, which he was sure to air at the next Parliamentary session, Kedbury stomped onto the skybridge and marched the thirty meters to the outpost’s hull entrance all by himself. Arriving at the far end he was again disappointed to note the panel door there was closed and no one was around to greet him for the second time.

  There was a moment when the absurd notion crossed his mind that he might actually have to knock. Luckily for the career of every officer aboard the outpost, the door finally did slide open without his help and a lone Island Guardsman was waiting to greet him on the other side. The young officer sported neatly cropped brown hair, several days’ worth of stubbly growth on his chin and a meek, apologetic smile on his face. “Representative, it’s an honor-”

  “I won’t bother asking you why there were none to greet a Parliamentary Representative at the point of entry to the skybridge.”

  “Yes, Representative, I’m sorry about that. We’re incredibly understaffed-”

  “This entire episode is shaping up to be a series of blunders, one after another, so the trivial failings of protocol no longer surprise me, nor do they, at this particular juncture, concern me.”

  “Of course.”

  Kedbury was finding comfort in this opportunity to put on a display of authority, as if by building himself up sufficiently before discovering the fate of his son he might actually be able to pull rank on fate and demand Bunvern be waiting for him on this outpost, safe and sound. “Now then, where are the survivors?”

  The officer’s mouth remained opened for a moment before his brain could tell it to switch gears and answer the question. Kedbury didn’t have the patience to wait. He pushed passed the officer, an action that seemed to have a quickening effect on the young man’s thought process. “We don’t yet know if there are any survivors, Representative.”

  Kedbury froze mid stride and rounded on the Guardsman without warning, nearly causing the poor man to fall over as he overcompensated in stopping short, trying not to ram into the elder Representative. “You don’t know? How could you not Know!”

  “We haven’t yet opened the pods.”

  Kedbury was furious. “There could be survivors in there - my son could be in there! What in the Creator’s name are you waiting for?” Turning in a huff, he barreled forward passing a number of access doors and corridor offshoots on his way toward the center of the outpost. He figured he could cut across to the opposite side where he’d caught a glimpse of the Life Pods during his approach, presumably docked at a second set of docking stations located there.

  “It’s a curious situation, sir,” explained the officer while hurrying to keep up.

  “Curious,” Kedbury spoke the word under his breath while working his tongue over his palette, as if he’d just tasted something unsavory. If that wasn’t the most understated and unintelligent characterization of a state of affairs he’d ever heard.

  The Guardsman continued to explain. “There’s been no communication from anyone inside.”

  “I’m aware of that, officer.”

  “And our sensors aren’t picking up anything but static, which is very strange.”

  “Which is probably why you should have opened the pods to see if there are any survivors for yourself.”

  “Representative? This way please.”

  Kedbury turned to see that the Guardsman had stopped in front of an access door he’d already passed. Grunting in reluctant acknowledgement that this man probably knew more about the layout of this outpost than he did, Kedbury doubled back. Wisely, the young officer didn’t latch on to this small victory, instead, stepping aside to allow Kedbury to pass through first.

  They were now on another skybridge where Kedbury could see a second Island Guardsman at the far end holding a bio-sensor in one hand and running it slowly up and down the door while looking intently at a small, handheld device capturing readouts of the scan. Next to him resting on the floor were a portable Pulse cutter and a protective visor.

  Kedbury recognized the cutter from the Borgus shipyards with its square base, a hose wrapped haphazardly around it and its nozzle head stuck up in the center. From this distance the cutter leaning next to the visor looked like a coiled serpent, towering over the severed, helmeted head of its foe.

  “There’s been some severe scarring all along the hull entrance,” continued the first Guardsman behind him. “It could have come as a result of the proximity to the Nebulous blast, however, if that were the case the scarring shouldn’t be this localized.” By this time Kedbury had come up to where the second Guardsman stood and began conducting his own assessment of the pod’s entrance door. “The strangest part is how the door has been sealed.”

  “Sealed?”

  “Yes, Representative. Every door on every pod. The Pulse marks on the entrances appear superficial and shouldn’t be jamming the basic mechanism. Without knowing better, our best assessment is that the pods were sealed from the inside.”

  This was the first piece of good news Kedbury had heard since this whole fiasco began. “So cut them open, man. Must you be told everything!”

  “With all due respect, Representative, the situation is rather suspicious. It’s just the two of us here. Everyone else has been diverted to the shipping lanes after the Nebulous incident. We’ve called in a priority request for a team to help with the scan and extraction but until then we’re not really equipped to handle any unexpected eventualities that might arise as a result of opening that door.”

  Kedbury could not believe what he was being told. “Just what kind of eventualities might you not be able to handle?”

  The Guardsman leaned in close and brought his voice down by a few decibel levels. “Why would the pods be sealed from the inside? It doesn’t make any sense?”

  Kedbury’s new found optimism was the only thing keeping him from taking the young ignoramus by the neck and throttling him. With no little amount of effort he collected himself and suggested: “Has it escaped your tiny inquiring mind that the passengers of the Nebulous who launched these pods were survivors of a raid. A raid perpetrated by criminals who apparently take pleasure in blowing up entire liners and killing everyone on board, despite the fact that they had already gotten what they came for.

  “Would it not then be unreasonable for the occupants of this pod to want to block a scan that would reveal the fact that they’d survived? Would it not be unreasonable that they would want to seal themselves in against a possible boarding by the same perpetrators who were undoubtedly still in the area immediately following the blast?

  “Even you, institutionalized robot that you are, surely can see that survivors of the Nebulous have now been kept for hours, cowering in fear, suspecting that they must have been picked up by their tormentors and are now being held for some unknown reason - for if they were picked up by the Islands, surely they would have been cut free by now. After all, what kind of fool would leave them to suffer needlessly due to some unnamed and unknown eventuality!”

  The officer swallowed hard and turned to his colleague, who had been listening to the exchange and was now standing, mouth agape, with his scanner hanging limply at his side.

  “Get the cutter,” the first officer ordered.

  The second Guardsman quickly set down the scanner and knelt beside the cutter. He unwound the hose, grasped the nozzle and began adjusting its settings with his other hand. Donning the visor as he stood, he checked the machine one last time to ensure the settings were correct, turned to the hull capture door, selected a spot and released the Pulse stream.

  Sparks flew from the place where he worked. His progre
ss was slow and methodical. Kedbury shifted his weight from one foot to another and began wringing his hands again while the first officer watched him uneasily.

  Until that moment Kedbury dared not believe his son was still alive, but now he could no longer control himself.

  Bunvern, you are on the other side of that door. You must be.

  Somewhere inside his head a voice brought up the concerns of the Island Guardsman, but Kedbury brushed the pesky thought away.

  I am your father and you must listen to me. You will do as I say and you will be on the other side of that door.

  The cutting ceased. The officer lifted up the visor, turned to Kedbury whose expression was urging him to get on with it, then looked to his colleague whose expression was far less certain. The second officer set down the cutter, took a deep breath and punched down the door’s depressor.

  A Pulse burst originating from inside the pod blew straight through the second Guardsman’s chest, dropping him and spraying the nearby walls of the skybridge with an oddly geometric sequence of splattered blood. Shock overtook Kedbury. His world was collapsing. Everything sounded like it was taking place under water. He could hear screaming behind him and what sounded like muffled footsteps from inside the pod moving fast and coming closer. He was vaguely aware of another Pulse burst and more screaming, but mostly he was aware of one, now inescapable fact.

  My son is dead.

  Chapter 25: Attack

  Kelerin

  The Headmaster’s Compound - Academy Island, Osmos

  Something in the distance.

  Floating… A soft glow… A person… A girl.

  She’s saying something. She’s distorted from the glow emanating from her very essence. Brown hair. White robes. She seems peaceful. She makes me feel peaceful.

  Floating... Closer… Slowly.

  No, not so slowly.

  Closer now…

  Moving faster, faster.

  She’s not peaceful. I don’t feel peaceful anymore. She’s trying to tell me something. Yelling something.