A Warrior's Journey (33 page)

Orhanin helped him to his feet and listened
as his brother said in a slurred tone, “It’s been a good fight! I
hate to leave it so soon, are you coming along brother?”

“Yes, I’ll be along soon Thannic.”

“We’ll talk about this battle for all
eternity big brother!”

“I’d rather talk about something else with
the Creator Thannic, but if you want to, you go ahead.”

Thannic patted Orhanin’s back slightly, “No,
you’re right. You’re always right. We’ll talk about something
else.” Thannic said finishing softly as he slumped down against the
con and Orhanin.

Orhanin let him slip to the floor, as gently
as he could and then straightened back up difficultly as a trickle
of blood eased out of the corner of his mouth, from a lung that had
been punctured by a stray bullet. He was bleeding from half a dozen
other wounds as well, but he stood in front of the wheel like an
oak planted on sure ground in a time of flood, as waterspouts from
enemy shells landed in the water all around the patrol boat, as he
steered it straight for the biggest ship in the bay.

The words of his Creator still hot on his
mind he thanked the Creator for the ability and privilege to be
where he was at this critical time in his nation’s history. That
his life should have such a meaningfulness to it and that out of
this hard moment of sacrifice an everlasting significance would be
measured in the number of redeemed souls in eternity helped made
possible, because of his actions this night.

As his life had been a life worth living, it
had become even better to now give it up. The patrol boat was
literally being shot to pieces all around where Orhanin stood, but
he continued to hang on to the wheel. Some indomitable force of
will from within enabling the body to do what it could not normally
have done.

Reaching with his bandaged hand into his
open bloody shirt front he pulled out a gold necklace that had
belonged to his wife.

“Not long now Esme. You to Lucy. Daddy is
coming home!”

The patrol boat plowed into the cruiser’s
side shearing the armored skin with its momentum and possibly the
force of will of the man behind its wheel.

The patrol boat’s fuel exploded touching off
secondary explosions within the cruiser, which triggered one of the
ship’ s magazines to go off and within moments the entire cruiser
was an exploding fireball that lit the night sky up, as it
reverberated thunderous echoes of its own destruction across the
waters of the bay.

Larc gave the burning wreckage one last
glance before he closed the hatch of the space vessel. The wreckage
and the sea may hold the remains of his two friends for a time, but
it could never hold their souls, which were already looked after
and cared for from above.

The metallic sides of the space vessel
dipped beneath the waters as it headed out to sea for the beacon
array and home.

I sat panting heavy in my seat in front of
the control panel with its symphony of flashing lights and images
not really seeing any of it, I was too lost in the scene of what
had happened on the surface only minutes before.

My hands were shaking and I was overcome by
the desire to kill the enemy unmercifully, while at the same time I
wanted to hide in a darkened room and fall apart emotionally, where
no one could see it happen and think the less of me.

Torren, who was sitting beside of me
monitoring the autopilot journey of the vessel towards the beacon
array, reached a hand out and laid it over top of mine and gripped
it tightly. Moments later Corrigan’s hand closed tightly over my
other hand. I forgot the emotional mess of my mind for a moment. It
was good to be in the presence of men, who were like brothers to me
again.

I wasn’t going to let them down and the
conscious decision not to, steadied my nerves and I quit shaking
and they seemed to know that they could let go now and they did.
Looking at the screen in front of Corrigan I could see the proof of
the fact that we were not alone out here in the deep ocean
blue.

There were other contacts all around us,
with more coming on to the screen all the time, but for whatever
reason they seemed to be unaware of our presence and our passage
right through their midst.

The material of the vessel or some
technology of our ancestors had to be keeping us from their view. I
wondered what would happen though when we engaged the energy beam.
We would surely be visible then as we waited for the upsurge of
seawater needed for the journey to be complete.

Would the enemy ships swarm down on us like
an enraged hives of bees and take from us our ability to escape
from his world?

I hoped not for we were so close to victory.
I said as much to Corrigan.

Corrigan smiled mischievously and glanced
across me at Torren, “Should we tell him?”

“Nah let him find out!” Said Torren
jokingly.

“Tell me what?” I asked.

Corrigan began, “Abby only told us the basic
how to instructions to operate the ship, fearing that if she told
us too much we would not be able to cope with the complexities and
make a mistake. Me and Torren have had a good bit of time though to
figure out things.”

“Get to the point Corrigan!” Larc said
heatedly from behind me.

He had overheard the conversation and his
fears were much the same as mine had been. Corrigan quickly spilled
out the knowledge that he and Torren had been withholding.

Pointing to the display above him he said,
“The vessel has weapons and this display controls them. In
particular there is a weapon array that shoots out concentrated
beams of light that cut through anything in their path destroying
it in the process. It’s referred to as the crystal zalinger array
and it’s the only one of the ship’s weapons I recommend that we
use.”

“Why?” I asked.

Corrigan looked uncomfortable, “Let’s just
say it appears to be the most stable and safest of the available
weapon platforms to use. The other systems are more complex and
have a bigger impact so to speak. This ray of focalized light
system, all you have to do is push a button, the system is
completely automated after that, you just have to make sure you
turn it off before....”

Corrigan trailed off seemingly not wanting
to finish the sentence.

“Before?” Intoned Larc questioningly.

Torren completed the sentence, “Before too
much energy is diverted from the ship’s power supply, which if it
happens could weaken the energy beam output, which could weaken the
water vortex field causing the ship to drop out into space
somewhere along the way.”

“Or cause us to crash into the surface of
our planet, which could be disastrous given some of the properties
that this ship is made of and contains.” Corrigan finished.

Things just got better and better on this
mission. I looked from one to the other, “I vote that we don’t use
the little flashing lights!”

Corrigan ignored me and said to Larc, “Eight
seconds, eight seconds is how long we can have the weapon on
without taking too much energy from the beam generator.”

Larc studied him for a long moment, “We will
use it if we have to.”

Corrigan turned back to me and I didn’t want
to hear what he was going to say, “Zevin you’re going to have to
tell me when to turn it on, as you will be the best one to know
when it will be the most effective going off of the screens in
front of you.”

I looked away from him back at my screen. I
felt a drop of sweat run down the bridge of my nose. At the stress
level that I was working under lately I’d be lucky if my heart kept
working past the age of 18. I half laughed and when I did both
Torren and Corrigan looked at me askance.

That had been a positive thought, believe it
or not. I had lived two years longer in that scenario anyway.

There were no contacts on Corrigan’s screen
a few days later as the vessel began to elevate into its vertical
takeoff position, after the ship’s cultured female voice told all
the passengers to buckle up.

I heard Evette mutter under her breath, “Oh
God!”

Amen I thought, amen.

I glanced off and over to my right and saw
that Ileyano was strapped in. Ileyano had come out of the deep
sleep he had been in, but everything hadn’t come back with him. He
could function, but that was about it and sometimes he needed help
to do just that. Larc had given him the Bible to hold and he
clutched it to himself, as if he drew some comfort from its
presence.

It was the strongest emotion he’d yet shown
since coming back from the deep sleep. It was something that was at
least somewhat positive. I turned back to my screen.

The vessel clicked into place atop the
beacon array and I initialized the particle energy beam. The vessel
shook as the bolt of energy shot up from the vessel and through the
sea above it. The water began to boil, as it was sucked up the
water vortex channel. I glanced at Corrigan’s screen, still no
contacts other than our own symbol glowing brightly.

Good!

Maybe we wouldn’t have to use Corrigan’s
power eating little flashing lights after all. The minutes ticked
by and my water meter ran full and after I gave it a few extra
seconds I engaged the launch and the vessel moved off the beacon
array on the sea floor and into the vortex channel.

As we crested the seawater level and moved
into the air warning indicators flashed all over Corrigan’s screen
as it fairly lit up with fast moving icons. They were moving too
fast for ships, they had to be more of the peoples of the Earth air
vessels like the big bug eyed ones we had seen at the wharf.

More alarms went off as smaller icons were
approaching us faster than the bigger ones were. That had to be
weapon fire.

“Zevin when do I push the button?”

Yelled Corrigan frantically. “We’re out of
the water and the beam is already formed! Push the dumb button
anytime!” I yelled back at him.

Corrigan slammed the button on his upper
console down, as the fast moving icons were coming up fast upon us.
From one of the views that I could see of the exterior of the ship
in the sky around us on one screen I saw the drama take place.

Something like faceted red crystals broke
out of compartments all along the vessel and stuck out about 6
inches. Focused beams of red tinted light shot out of each of the
faceted sides of the crystals. The base then swiveled in a circular
motion and the crystals themselves spun in their sockets. Split
segments of focalized light shot outward in every direction from
the vessel, as it made its way up the vortex channel.

I couldn’t see it, but at approximately 500
feet off of the sides of the vessel the light rays converged to
make a solid wall nothing bigger than a nail could have passed
through.

What missiles that didn’t make it through
the gauntlet of outward radiating light segment streams were
disintegrated on impact with the wall of focused light.

The gaps between the light segments
increased as they went further out, but they maintained a
sufficient enough cross indexing pattern to take out most of the
fighter jets that had been deployed by over five different Earth
factions.

The few scattered remaining planes were
hopelessly left behind by the space vessel’s rapid ascent to the
upper atmosphere and then space itself.

I got out of the seat I was in and smacked
Corrigan’s shoulder.

He said, “That was....!” Leaving the rest
unfinished.

“Yeah, close!” I said.

The vessel was on autopilot mode and after a
few blessedly boring days, with nothing exciting happening we would
be home. I was planning on laying down and sleeping away at least a
day of the journey to start out with.

Larc held up a hand to stop me as I was
walking by, I simply held my hand up, as if to say back off, no
more missions or duties right now, and Larc stepped aside.

“Sweet dreams Zevin.”

I merely grunted in response as I moved
past.

Larc smiled as he watched Zevin go down the
hall. It was hard to believe he was only sixteen. This mission
wouldn’t have been a success without him, of that Larc was sure.
Zevin didn’t know it now, but Larc bet this mission had only been
the start of something great that the Creator was going to use that
young man to accomplish.

Larc turned back to the room and saw that
Evette was still sitting in her chair strapped in. He made his way
over to her and sat in the chair next to hers.

She had the look of someone trying hard to
take it all in, but failing to do so because of the magnitude of
everything there was to consider.

She looked at him and smiled wanly and said,
“Space!”

“Didn’t ever think that you would be in
it?”

“Can’t say that I did!”

“Scared?”

“No, not really.”

“How about of living on my homeworld?”

Her head nodded slightly, “A little.”

“Well I have to tell you, you might be asked
to do something that you might not like at all.” Larc’s face was
completely serious.

Her eyes scanning his face and with her
voice full of apprehension Evette asked, “What?”

“They might ask you to.....” Larc paused
looking as if it pained him to tell her what he was about to, “They
might ask you to wear a dress.”

Nothing happened for a second and then Larc
was rearing backwards laughing, as Evette tried to swat him. Giving
up she had to laugh at herself for the way she had been had.

“I think I can manage that.”

“And I’ll help you manage all the rest.”
Larc said completely serious this time.

She gazed into his eyes for a moment and
then looked down, “About my father and...”

Larc cut her off by placing a hand over onto
her arm and said, “That’s strictly your business and up to you to
tell or not tell anyone. Me and Zevin won’t breathe a word about
it. You have my word on it.”