Promises & Prophecies

by Lee Watts

  "Reports indicate the commander of the Dauntless is an Admiral Balin. He's proven to be a clever one. We'll wait until his forces and fully engaged before arriving. I've studied his file. If he has committed his forces, he will be unwilling to withdraw without them. His compassion will be his undoing and then... I'll have him."

  "Dismissed," Crex said to the still at attention bridge officer who delivered the news. The words were much to the junior officer's relief and he quickly returned to his station.

  "Captain," Ra'daq said after the man was gone. "It seems we need to tighten the reigns of discipline. Have that man report to my quarters at twenty-three hundred hours."

  "Yes, Warlord," Crex answered with veiled concern. He never saw that officer again, and all records of the man were deleted by morning. Crex thought it best never to broach the subject with his commander – it was a wise decision.

  ***

  Scores of tri-winged fighters launched for the station at Kademah but the Ramillie cruisers kept in tight formation to the station.

  "Watch yourself, Jansen," Dakota warned as a Ramillie fighter lined up behind the Realm craft.

  Feinting to the left then doing a quick barrel roll to the right Jansen tried to shake his pursuer.

  "He's still on me!"

  "Hang on," Dakota called out. "I'm almost there."

  Knowing Jansen was in serious trouble, Dakota pushed his ship for every bit of speed it had. Jansen's ship made jagged turns attempting to get out of the enemy's line of fire. His target lock indicator sounded a quick warning as the Ramillie's missile sped toward him. Rear shields already gone, Jansen knew his ship wouldn't survive the impact. Half a second before the missile hit its target Jansen pulled the eject lever – launching himself from the doomed craft. Helplessly, Dakota watched as the rocket slammed into the Realm ship destroying it. It took a second later for him to notice the small ejection capsule rocketing away from the detonation. For a moment he breathed a sigh of relief, but then wreckage from the explosion slammed into the tiny capsule. It spun wildly for a few seconds then went dark.

  "JANSEN? JANSEN," Dakota called over the radio. Checking his sensors, he detected no life signs in the damaged capsule. It was the first person who had died under his command, but before this battle was over, it wouldn't be the last.

  CHAPTER 12

  "...a wicked man is loathsome, and cometh to shame." – Proverbs 13:5

  On the bridge of the Fortune, Sosimo LaRouche sat in his command chair, drumming his organic and artificial fingertips together while formulating his next move. Having penetrated The Cloud, he faced the seemingly insurmountable task of finding a single, hand-sized prism among the worlds of more than six-hundred-star systems.

  Shen Mei pursed her dark-hued lips as she studied her captain warily - wondering what schemes of genius or insanity he was developing. Suddenly, the drumming of the fingers stopped, and a broad, devilish smile crossed the pirate captain's face. Turning to his surrogate daughter, he extended a single finger upward, and she braced herself for the plan.

  "Mei, access the Ramillie's public information network. Run a search for the location of their central museum of antiquities. Byron, scan the area and see if you can find an asteroid about…" He trailed off as he punched up some data on the screen at his station. Finding what he sought, he finished his statement. "…twelve meters in diameter."

  "Aye, Cap'n."

  Jaiden was puzzled at the captain's odd orders given without explanation, but as this was standard on the Fortune, he was growing accustomed to it.

  "I have it," Mei announced. "The central museum in a system bearing three-three-seven mark one-five. I'm sending the coordinates to helm control."

  "Good work, Mei, but send the coordinates to the weapons targeting system instead."

  The high-cheek-boned first mate tilted her head in confusion, then shook it off and carried out the instruction.

  "Byron, any luck finding a suitable asteroid?" Sosimo asked.

  "I think so," the bulky pirate answered.

  "What do you mean?"

  "Well, I'm not pick'n up any asteroid belts within scanner range, but in the system ahead of us, there's a barren moon around the outermost gas giant. We could land and use the hand weapons to carve out whatever size rock you want. Gravity is way low. So, it wouldn't be too hard to load the rock onto a shuttle and bring it back to the ship."

  "Sounds good. What kind of traffic are we looking at?"

  "Doesn't seem to be anything worth comin' out that far. No ships in the system past the third planet."

  "Excellent," Sosimo said. "No need getting careless though. Mei, configure for stealth mode. Jaiden, when she is done, lay in a course for that moon. Make the acceleration nice and smooth. I don't want any sudden energy spikes drawing unwanted attention."

  "Aye, Captain."

  Jaiden watched with interest as the business-like woman to his left keyed the controls. Her inputs caused sensor absorbing panels to extend from panels that covered the majority of the hull. Outgoing communication control was locked out, and high-power output systems, such as the weapons, were taken off-line.

  "Stealth mode configuration complete," Mei announced.

  Jaiden returned his stolen, admiring gaze from her and focused on the helm controls. Inputting the course, he eased the Fortune toward its goal. Lurking as an unseen predator, the cloaked starship Fame observed the Fortune's movement and discreetly stalked it, patiently waiting for the right moment to strike.

  Within a few hours, the image of the crater-pocked moon filled the main screen of the Fortune. Sosimo ordered the ship into a station-keeping orbit. This used the moon to effectively block the Fortune from view of Ramillie ships deeper in the system. Cloaked, the Fame had no such concern and watched with piqued interest as a shuttle launched from the adventure-worn Fortune, heading to the surface.

  "Why are they heading down there?" wondered the Fame's one-eyed captain aloud.

  A crewman on the Fame checked the sensor display.

  "I'm not picking up anything but rock down there. There are trace amounts of tizanite, but that's it. It's stupid to try and mine it. They'd use more energy than they'd get back out."

  Keeping his eyes on the screen, Crimson spoke lowly.

  "No, LaRouche is crazy, but he's not stupid. He's up to something."

  "Do you think The Vault's down there, Captain? It might be masked from sensors somehow."

  "I doubt it. The Vault is supposed to be where treasures were hidden from the Ramillie. It doesn't make sense to hide it here in their core systems - too great a chance of being found. No, there's something else down there, and it must be valuable if LaRouche is going after it. Take us to the other side of the planet and hold position. I'm taking a shuttle down. Once it leaves the cloaking field, it'll be visible. I don't want the Fortune to see me coming," Crimson remarked.

  "What about the Ramillie?"

  "The shuttle's too small to show up on their sensors this far away. You, take the bridge. If I'm lucky, LaRouche is down there himself, and I can kill him before the day is out."

  Wearing environmental suits, Mei and Jaiden made their way across the low-gravity moon's surface in search of a boulder fitting the captain's requirements. Jaiden wanted to bounce his way across the lunar surface to enjoy the experience of near weightlessness, but he denied himself, not wanting to seem immature in front of Mei.

  "There," Jaiden heard her say over the speaker in his helmet. "That ridge straight ahead - it should do nicely. We'll set the rifles for a low power beam. They should slice through those rocks with ease. Then we can use the shuttle's tractor beam to pull one into the ship."

  "Will do, Ma'am."

  "Ma'am? That hurts. Over the years I've had guys on the Fortune call me a lot of things, but no one has ever called me ma'am."

  "Sorry, just trying to be respectful."

  "I know all about respect. My father made sure of that. Growing up on a ship full of pirates, a girl has to get their
respect to survive."

  "How'd you do that?"

  "A broken arm, broken hand, broken nose."

  "Wow, I guess if you took a pounding like that and kept coming it earned their respect."

  "No, not me - them. My father taught me how to fight, and I've given more than one beating to some of those guys during my time on the Fortune. My father said people give you respect if they're courteous, if they don't, then you must make them respect you out of fear. The latter seems to work best for most men I've met." Realizing she just insulted Jaiden she added, "No offense."

  "It's alright."

  "Sorry, Jaiden. After a lifetime with those jerks, I guess it's made me a little jaded. Listen, you seem like a nice kid, and I don't want you to wind up like the rest of those guys-"

  She kept speaking, but Jaiden didn't hear her. As much as 'ma'am' hit Mei, 'kid' decimated him. The word made it clear that she saw him as too young to be considered as a romantic interest. With each passing day, he had become more infatuated with her beauty, cunning and worldliness, but now berated himself for thinking she could be interested in someone like him - an inexperienced kid from a backwater world. Eventually, he returned to the moment.

  "I realize the captain brought you aboard because you knew about that jungle planet back there, and you've picked up fast in working the helm, but… you don't belong a ship like the Fortune. With how we live, the kind of business we're in, you're, well… better than that. When we get out of The Cloud, I can ask the captain to take you home if you want."

  "…He already did," Jaiden mumbled.

  "Huh?"

  "That jungle planet, Acatus V - is... was my home. At least as close to a home as I've ever had."

  "But we picked you up on Theera."

  "I've only been there a year. Sure, everybody is nice to me because of my time with Alex-, King Lyons, but there's no real purpose for me in the Realm. My sister works for him as the royal translator, but I don't have talents like her, and I don't want to be a soldier. I have no education, no experience… no prospects. Being on the Fortune is the first time since leaving Acatus that I feel like I have a real purpose. But I guess I don't belong there either."

  Mei paused a long while before speaking.

  "Jaiden, it would be great to have someone in the crew who isn't a sleaze, but I want you to understand what you'd be getting into. We're pirates - plain and simple. We pillage, we plunder, we rifle and loot. It's not exactly the high moral cause like the Realm is fighting for. The Fortune may have a pardon from crimes in the Realm, but in most sectors were on the most wanted list. If we're caught its life in prison or worse. The captain and crew are in this for one thing: to get rich. Is that what you want?"

  "…No."

  "They why would you want to stay?"

  "Why do you?"

  "What?"

  "You said 'the captain and crew' are in it to get rich. I noticed you didn't put yourself in that group. So, why are you on the Fortune?"

  "It's a… long story."

  Jaiden was about to ask her to elaborate, but a high-pitched squeaking suddenly emitted inside both of their helmets. Quickly reaching for the volume controls, they muted the ear-piercing sound. Mei recognized the crackling of a jamming signal and turned to see five people rapidly approaching. Tapping Jaiden, she pointed behind them, alerting him to the stalkers. Indicating for him to follow, she ignited her thruster pack, propelling herself forward. Jaiden activated his pack, but inexperienced with the equipment bolted erratically from side to side. Eventually, he slammed onto the powdery ground and skid forward several meters before disengaging the pack and scrambling to his feet. Gingerly, he re-ignited the pack. More in control, he eased the power lever upward and raced after Mei who had darted into a cave. Reaching the opening, he extinguished the pack and activated his helmet's forward lights as he stepped inside the lunar cavern.

  "Kill the spotlight," Mei instructed.

  Switching off the lamp, he whispered to her.

  "Mei… where are you?"

  "Over here," she softly answered as she switched on her helmet's inner light.

  "Who's that outside?" he asked while making his way toward her.

  "I don't know, but you can bet it's bad news."

  "Those environmental suits were green, but Ramillie ones are red."

  "Red? Are you sure?"

  Remembering his experiences in the asteroids of Oosay, he reassured her of his answer.

  Mei tapped the communication controls on her suit.

  "Whoever it is, they're still jamming us," she reported with a grimace.

  "It's not like there's a lot of places to hide out there," Jaiden noted with rising urgency. "It won't take 'em long to figure out we're in here. What are we gonna do?"

  "Let's see if this tunnel has a back door."

  Moving deeper into the cave, they hurriedly rounded several corners, eventually reaching a terminus of solid rock.

  "Now what?" Jaiden asked nervously.

  "Now, you tell me what you're looking for," came an oily voice all too familiar to Shen Mei.

  "Crimson," she growled in disgust as she turned to face him, each group's weapons were now pointed at the other. "How did you get through The Cloud? You can't tell me your crew figured out how to navigate through that."

  "Didn't have to," he sneered in superiority. "I've got a cloak, remember. We flew right passed those ships guarding the portal. All I had to do was wait for the Fortune to show up on the other side. Took you long enough. I was beginning to think you didn't make it, but I'm kind of glad you did. Now I can kill you and LaRouche myself."

  "What do you want down here, Crimson?" Mei demanded, her patience wearing thin.

  "I want whatever you want. LaRouche wouldn't send you down here for nothing. Something on this rock is valuable, what is it? What are you looking for?"

  "You really want to know?" she answered sarcastically. "Fine, I'll tell you. We're here looking for rocks."

  Crimson puffed as if it were a joke.

  "Come on, Mei. I'm not an idiot."

  "Could've fooled me. Think, Crimson. If we start shooting in here, it will ignite the tizanite and blow us all up. Plus, if the Fame and Fortune start slugging it out, then it'll draw the Ramillie's attention, and we'll both be captured."

  "You're scared Mei; I'm not. That's the difference between you and me. I'm willing to take risks to get what I want."

  "Like when you lost your eye and wanted to chase that colony ship into the energy distortion just to get revenge. That ship was never heard from again, and you would've had us follow them right in there and get us all destroyed. You're doing it again! You want something and are willing to let everyone die as long as you get your way!"

  "Yea and the first person who's going to die is you if you don't shut up! You're not fooling me with that tanzanite bit. We scanned the moon, and there's not enough down here to set off a firecracker. You going to tell me what you came down here for, or am I gonna have to shoot you first and then get it anyway? I've got you outnumbered five to two. There's no way you're leaving here alive if you don't tell me."

  "Fine," Mei snipped. "If you think you can decipher the markings, then go for it. We came for that," she seemingly confessed and looked at the cavern's ceiling indicating that there was the prize.

  Instinctively glancing upward, Crimson and his party took the bait, and Mei quickly blasted the spot where they were looking. Rocks rained down, and dust filled the vast chamber. Due to the low gravity, the rocks ricocheted off of the cave walls and hovered in mid-air.

  Grabbing Jaiden by the upper arm, she ducked, ignited her thruster pack and jetted the way passed Crimson's men. Turning back toward the entrance, she pointed her blaster rifle behind her and fired blindly. Orange bolts shot out after the escaping pair. Missing their targets, the energy blasts slammed into the rocky walls, increasing the melee of flying stones.

  Emerging from the dust billowing of the mouth of the cave, Jaiden also activated his thruster
s, and the pair skirted the lunar surface. Trying to distance themselves from the large chunks of flying rock loosened from the mountain, their flight paths were anything but straight. At last, reaching their shuttle, they disengaged the packs and hurried aboard. Quickly taking the twin command seats, they worked in tandem for a rapid takeoff.

  "Wait," Mei interjected, stopping Jaiden from switching the control to close the forward hatch. "I've got an idea."

  "I don't think I'm gonna like this."

  "I think you're going to hate it, but we still have a mission to complete, and I've got an idea on how we can do it."

  "There's no way we can land and collect the size asteroid the captain wants with the Fame out there somewhere."

  "You're right; so, I don't intend to land. See those rocks floating over the cave."

  "Yea," he answered warily.

  "We're going to make a flying catch. You take the controls."

  "ME? It's your idea!"

  "Yes, but you're the helmsman, and you seem to have a knack for flying. I'm in command, so follow orders."

  "Aye… Ma'am," he answered, overemphasizing the last word in expression of his consternation. Weaving left, and right, the shuttle dodged spinning boulders of various sizes. A few of the smaller rocks pelted the ship. A sudden impact by a medium size rock jolted them mid-flight.

  "Whoa," Mei exclaimed.

  "Hey, it was your idea."

  Peering deep into the field of moving stones, Jaiden spotted one meeting the captain's requirements.

  "Hold on," he cautioned as the shuttle barrel-rolled to avoid colliding with a massive flying boulder. "Almost there!"

  Crimson and two of his men exited the cave to see the low-flying shuttle buzz overhead with its forward hatch extended downward. Appearing to eat one of the loose rocks, the hatch began to close, and the shuttle gained altitude. Taking potshots at the departing ship, Crimson spat curses at Mei and here unknown companion.

  "Come on, let's get back to the ship and see what they're up to," Crimson growled.

  "What about Grax and Minar?" one of his men asked about their two companions who had yet to exit the cave.