The Army Of Light (Kestrel Saga) (3 page)

    
“We don’t know that for certain,” Shawn continued. “Just because we’re the
first ones they usually call on, it doesn’t mean there aren’t others waiting in
the wings to pick at our table
scraps.
And, you better
believe that one wrong move on our part is all they’d need to step up and take
over our trade routes. Besides, just because the local magistrate gives us a
tax break in exchange for discounted shipping, it doesn’t mean we don’t have
bills to pay. We have debts like everyone else. Add to the fact that the
planetary government isn’t responsible for the upkeep of this ship,” Shawn
waived his hand in a grandiose fashion towards Silvia’s Delight parked in the
hangar. “If we don’t fly, we don’t make money. If we don’t make money, we can’t
buy parts, let alone food.” The thought of a hot breakfast past over his mind,
conjuring up images of bacon and eggs, and before he had a chance to expunge
the thoughts his stomach growled in protest.

    
If he heard it, Trent didn’t seem to pay the sound any mind.
“What
about all those credits you saved up during the war?
We have reserves,
don’t we?”

    
Shawn shook his head dismissively. “We talked about this last week. The
reserves are going dry. We needed this paycheck from De Lorme. That was the
only reason I agreed to turn the run to
Averna
into a
damn three-legged triangle route.” He inclined his head in the direction of his
stricken ship. “And you can see how well that decision turned out.”

    
“Well, let’s just take out a loan and—”

    
“We can’t take out a loan, Trent,” Shawn casually interrupted his friend’s
chain of thought.

    
“Why?”

    
Shawn motioned Trent to follow him out into their small maintenance hangar. The
bay, covered on all sides and separated from the weather by a pair of large
clamshell like doors, was just large enough to hold the
Hypervarion
Mark-IV interstellar transport, a full load of cargo, and precious little else.
In an inconspicuous corner of the hangar, behind the wounded silver transport,
was a stack of square crates twenty feet high.

    
“You see those over there?” Shawn asked, pointing to the large boxes with one
hand while the other rested on his friends shoulder.

    
“Yeah,” Trent said, jerking his head back slightly.

    
“Those crates are full of weapons and ammunition. And we’re not talking about
pea shooters, either. This is some pretty serious military grade hardware; the
kind that can get you a few years in a Unified penal asteroid colony if you get
caught peddling it. Every one of those crates has to be hauled to the Port of
Welga in three days. They have to get there on time, and under no circumstances
can they be late or be delayed, or you and I will be very 
very
 unhappy people.”

    
“So, what’s that got to do with getting a loan from the bank?”

    
Shawn guided Trent over to the nearest crate. He withdrew a small computer
tablet from his pocket, pointed it momentarily at the cargo,
then
handed it to Trent. Due to the poor backlighting of the old device’s screen,
Trent had to squint to properly read what was being displayed. “Property of the
Bank of Welga,” he read aloud. He cocked his head and slowly turned to face Shawn.
“You mean…?”

    
“Yep,” Shawn smiled.
“The good old locals, my friend.”

    
“And we’ve got to… you know?” Trent asked as a look of deep concern crossed his
face.

    
“That’s right. We sure do. And something tells me Toyotomi Katashi isn’t going
to look too kindly on a loan request when his own shipment fails to arrive.”

    
With a penchant for mathematics, it didn’t take Trent long to calculate the
travel time required to haul the crates all the way to the large trade port on
the planet Persephone. “In three days?”

    
Shawn placed his right hand back on the mechanic’s shoulder, but quickly
realized it was now coated in whatever filth was dusting Trent’s clothing.
Unfortunately, without a rag handy, there was nothing he could do to clean it.
He dejectedly regarded his soiled palm, then glanced over to 
Sylvia’s
Delight
 sleeping serenely, albeit broken, and waiting for her next
adventure. Beyond the hangar doors, off on the distant horizon, the twin
suns
of Minos were only now rising, bathing the hangars
innards in a soothing orange glow.

    
“Yep.
In three days.”

*          
*           *

    
Melissa Graves sat in tears, her once perfectly applied make-up running like
twisted roadways down her ivory cheeks. Minutes before, she’d planned to call
on an old friend for morning tea. In the blink of an eye, however, her whole
world—everything she’d ever known—had been turned upside down and changed for
the worse. Her lengthy red hair, once pulled back tightly and tied with a black
bow, was now hanging loosely around her shoulders as she attempted to organize
the cascade of feelings screaming throughout her body. 

    
It had started innocently enough with the chime of her doorbell.

    
A young man, a Sector Command administrative lieutenant, was there to greet her
as she opened it. Having seen a great number of officer’s parade through her
life, it didn’t surprise her that his face was unfamiliar. What did strike her
was how short he was. At five foot four, Melissa was average height for a woman
of thirty two, but she still had to tilt her head slightly downward to see
eye-to-eye with the young officer. He had an almost childlike quality about
him, a type of impertinence that spoke volumes of the person that he was. And,
if there was one thing for certain, it was that Melissa was well trained in
reading people instantly. This was definitely a young man who had never faced
death on equal terms. His gray dress uniform was spotless, his black shoes
shined like mirrors on his feet, and the silver buttons on the front of his
coat were at just the right angle to reflect sunlight into Melissa’s green
eyes. There was a determined formality to his presence, which Melissa
immediately interpreted as a bad omen.

   
 He had asked for her name and, when she’d provided the information and
the proper identity code, he’d promptly handed her a small, unadorned wooden
box and an unassuming envelope. Once the items were in Melissa’s hands he
offered a quick salute, and then departed as quickly as he’d arrived. She watched
as the young man stepped into his olive drab hover car, the standard government
vehicle of choice these days, and sped away in a small plume of dust. She
stepped back inside, giving one last look in the direction of the departing car
before allowing the front door to close itself.

    
Knowing her childhood home as well as she did, she deftly maneuvered around the
furniture as she looked over the envelope on her way to the study. She glided
to the vintage writing desk in the corner of the room, setting the wooden box
on its angled surface as she inspected the envelope more closely.

    
It was yellowish in color and with no writing on it, save that of her name and
prefecture address on
Thress
. It had been years since
she’d seen a handwritten letter, much less received one, and she wondered with
curiosity at its contents. Melissa opened the long lower drawer of the desk,
remembering that a few weeks ago she’d seen a bladed instrument in there
somewhere. After rifling about for a few moments she found just what she was
looking for. She momentarily regarded the small, highly polished knife before
sliding it along the adhesive side of the envelope and withdrawing its
contents.

    
Dear Miss Graves,

 
   Unified Sector Fleet Command, in conjunction with the Office
of Personnel for the Unified Collaboration of Systems, wishes to inform you of
the disappearance of your father, Admiral William B. Graves. While Sector
Command has made every effort to discover the location of your father, we
regret to inform you that we are, at this time, unable to determine his current
whereabouts. Due to the nature of his last assignment, we are incapable of
disclosing any further information on this matter. Sector Command wishes to
inform you that Admiral Graves freely chose this assignment, and he fulfilled
it to the highest standards of military excellence. Should it be determined
that Admiral Graves has ceased to be, it should be noted that he gave his life
for his service and the ideals that he fought for, and will not soon be
forgotten.

    
Regards,                    
                     
                     
 

    
Admiral K. L. Swanson

    
Unified Sector Fleet Command Headquarters

    
Melissa bit her lower lip, almost shredding the letter right then and there as
she fought back the simultaneous waves of anger and sorrow that washed over
her.
Ceased to be? Only a computer could be so cold, and only Sector Command
could be so callous as to have one of those machines compose such a letter! I
can’t believe they would have the gall to send me this.
Granted, she’d
likewise been guilty of having the computer at her office send automatic
letters in the past, but this was far from the mundane writings she was used to
dictating. In the end, after she had read the letter a second time, she
delicately placed it in the envelope and on to the table top.

    
She gazed out of the large window in the study that overlooked a sprawling park
beside her residence. Seeing the beautiful sunny morning that was alive in its
entirety, tears began slowly rolling down her cheeks. Somewhere in the distance
she could discern a dog barking, and then a few hover car horns in the
vicinity. Beyond the park a gleaming new office complex was going up, stretching
nearly a mile into the sky. The familiar sounds of the world started to press
on her ears, despite the overwhelming feeling that the life she’d known was now
changed irrevocably.

    
In truth, she’d always known something like this might happen. When you have
parents in the military, it was something that they tried to teach you from a
young age. Still, even in her grief stricken state, she wondered why her
vid-phone wasn’t ringing. Surely they would have called by now, not that she
wanted to speak to any of them.

    
She averted her reddening eyes from the beautiful sunny day outside, reaching
for the wooden parcel that had been delivered alongside the letter. It was a
small container, perhaps eight inches on each side and half as tall, made from
pine or some similar soft wood. The hinged lid was secured several times over
with a heavy twine-like string wrapped around the container. It had no
distinguishing marks on it; save for a small etched brass plate near the front
opening that identified the owner as William “Wild Bill” Graves. Melissa
managed a diminutive smile, remembering when her father would occasionally
recount stories of his fighter pilot exploits during the Galactic War, and how
Wild Bill was always being asked to save the day in one form or another.

    
Resolved to discover the contents of the package, Melissa reached again for the
gleaming handle of the letter opener and gave it a closer inspection. She read
aloud the words etched across the blade.
“Unified Sector
Command Fleet, Carrier Strike Assembly 12, USCS
Fahrenwald
,
CM-5, 2306-2311.”
 
2306. The first year of the Galactic War.
She rubbed her thumb over the smooth ivory handle, right above the emblazoned
logo of her father’s former fighter squadron. With a deep sigh she aligned the
blade and began cutting into the heavy string encircling the package, but was
instantly stopped by a familiar sound just as the blade made contact with the
second layer of twine.

    
Her vid-phone was chiming the distinctive, pre-programmed ringtone that told
her who it was that would be calling at this precise moment.

    
For all of his admirable qualities as a pilot, Shawn Kestrel’s parking jobs
left a lot to be desired. Granted, 
Sylvia’s Delight
 was inside
the hangar and away from the oppressive heat of Minos’s twin
suns
, but just barely so. The hangar’s large clamshell
doors wrapped around the stern of the Mark-IV like a tight fitting glove,
leaving little room to maneuver around the craft. The vessel was also sitting
off kilter to the centerline of the hangar, making it impossible to use the
structures built-in hydraulic lift that was needed to heft the stricken craft
and repair the damaged strut assembly. With their first priority clearly laid
out before them, the two men set about moving the wounded craft into her proper
position—not that they had the money or the parts to repair her when the time
came to do so.

    
Twenty minutes later, with the Mark-IV backed completely out of the
hangar,
Shawn sat at the controls in the air conditioned
command deck of the ship. Inside the cockpit—a space just large enough for the
two pilot’s seats to sit side-by-side—he nursed the remaining semi-operational
engine as he attempted to line up with the center of the hangar. With his left
hand hovering over the throttle controls, he was a master at tasking his ship
to do exactly as he wished—so long as the vessel was actually capable of the
requested maneuvers, which neither he nor Trent were sure it was currently able
to do.

    
Outside of the large, wraparound view port he could see Trent methodically
waving his hands over his shoulders as he visually guided Shawn into the
hangar. Even from this high up, the thick bead of sweat on Trent’s face was
apparent. Thankfully, within a few steps he would pass from the blistering heat
of the two suns into the welcoming shade of the hangar. Shawn felt a twinge of
guilt as the cool breeze of the internal air conditioner wafted passed his
face, but let the feeling pass just as quickly as he turned his attention back
to his controls.