Free Bird Rising

by Ian J. Malone

  “Bright girl, your sister,” Ron said.

  “Yes, she is,” Taylor said proudly. “Given the choice, I still wish she’d gone to Florida State and stuck close to home. But that’s just me bein’ selfish.”

  “And a Seminoles fan,” Ron shot back.

  “True story,” Taylor said.

  Ron pocketed his hands. “How’s Jolene?”

  “Believe it or not, Jo’s fantastic,” Taylor said of his other sister. “She’s been clean almost eight months now. She’s got a job. She’s steady in rehab. Hell, she’s even talkin’ about goin’ back to school for a social work degree so she can help other—”

  Ron’s gaze hit the pavement as if attached to an anvil.

  Now who’s the ragin’ dumbass? Taylor looked away.

  Ron’s middle son, Samuel, had graduated eight years ago from the Duval Mercenary Service Track program as one of the brightest coding minds in the state. He was a real whiz kid, so much so that his accomplishments had earned him an apprenticeship with one of the big-timers in Houston. Problem was, computer programming wasn’t the only thing Sammy had studied while in Texas. As the story went, he’d also become quite the frequent flyer of Space City’s drug scene, a misstep that eventually cost him his ride.

  Sammy returned to Jax a total disgrace, to himself and the entire Carnegie family. To his credit, the boy had managed to stay clean for a while. But then, being the resourceful kid he was, Sammy had found a way to score some cash and had used it to fund a New Orleans bender with friends.

  Ron was off-world on contract when he’d gotten the call. NOLA Police had found Sammy’s corpse in a Bourbon Street hotel room, the needle still in his arm.

  Ron had announced his retirement after the funeral.

  “I, um.” Taylor cleared his throat.

  “How’s your mom?” Ron changed the subject.

  Taylor didn’t answer.

  “That good, huh?”

  Taylor shrugged. “At least she’s talkin’ to me again. Granted, our conversations center mostly on the weather, local news, and baseball. But I reckon that’s a start.”

  “You listen to me, son.” Ron leaned in to catch Taylor’s full attention. “You did what was necessary to take care of your family. End of story. I know your mom didn’t want any more of her kids entering the merc business after Terry’s accident, but she didn’t want a terminal illness, either. Your decision to take MCA’s money and reopen the Eagles saved her life. Don’t you ever forget that.”

  Taylor nodded, grateful. “So, this alternative of yours. What’s it all about?”

  Ron’s smile returned. “Better to show than tell. Follow me.”

  Taylor trailed his host across the blacktop to the hangar where two mercs in gray BDUs slid the entrance open. Once inside, Taylor let out a gasp. No friggin’ way.

  The ship on the docking platform before him measured roughly four hundred feet in overall length with a seventy-foot beam and a streamlined frame that gave her a visibly sleeker look than others of her class.

  “Is this a Navarro?” Taylor asked in awe.

  “Good eye.” Ron folded his arms. “The Navarro Starship Company’s famous—or infamous, depending on whom you ask—Model 12 cruiser, at your service.”

  Taylor couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

  Even though mankind had spent almost a century traveling the stars of the Galactic Union, they still hadn’t perfected the process of building their own ships. Many companies had tried, including offshoots of Binnig and Lockheed Martin, but most had found only nominal success. The lone exception, to some degree, had been a Michigan native named John Navarro.

  Navarro had devoted years of his life to studying alien engineering, and had even spent five of those years abroad, analyzing the tech in person. When he returned to Detroit, he did so with what he deemed a revolutionary new design and ambitions of starting his own shipyard. He’d almost succeeded, too. Then one day, the authorities showed up at his home with handcuffs and a federal warrant for embezzlement charges.

  As for Navarro’s ship—a modified take on an Izlian warship—most hailed it as the first real success story of Human starship engineering. Sadly, only a handful had made it to market before its designer had gone to prison. Now, they were more or less a novelty.

  “What is this?” Taylor asked.

  “This, kid, is the alternative I mentioned.” Ron stood up straight. “Or, as I like to call it, Swamp Eagle Security’s new flagship.”

  Taylor stepped forward, appraising the vessel from the tip of its sleek, copperhead nose, down the hull of its tapered body, to the bulbous, circular housings of its fusion torch and primary thrusters. “I appreciate the gesture, Ron. I do. Fact is, though, this ship belongs in a collection. Not with me.”

  “Oh, stop with the judging already.” Ron looked offended. “She may be older, but she’s by no means ready for the shelf. She’s just…”‘ He paused, searching for the word. “Seasoned, like the rest of us.”

  “That may be,” Taylor said. “It still don’t change the reality that I can’t afford her price tag.”

  “Who said anything about a sale?”

  Taylor faced his host. “Wait, are you…givin’ this ship to me?”

  Ron nodded.

  “But…why?”

  “Because she’s yours,” Ron said. “Well, technically she belonged to your brother, but you catch my drift.”

  Taylor stood there, dumbfounded.

  “Terry purchased this ship on a whim from a guy in Houston looking to liquidate some assets off the books,” Ron said. “I told your brother the whole thing sounded shady, but he assured me it was fine. Besides, we all know how Terry loved his toys.”

  Taylor frowned, recalling the ocean of debt he’d inherited with the Eagles.

  “Anyway,” Ron continued, “it took Terry some time to have the vessel moved back to Jax. However, once that happened, he sent her straight here to me for storage, and she’s been here ever since.”

  “Terry had his own service crew with the Eagles.” Taylor wrinkled his nose. “Why would he send the Navarro here instead of back to his own shop?”

  “You got me, kid.” Ron shrugged. “This arrangement was supposed to be temporary. Terry asked me as a personal favor to stow this thing so his people could tweak her systems, then she was supposed to go home. That was the deal.”

  “What kind of tweaks are we talkin’ about?”

  “Again, no idea.” Ron faced the Navarro. “All I know is that Terry’s engineers would stop by after hours, work on her until sunup, then lock the door on their way out.”

  “And that didn’t strike you as the least bit odd?” Taylor asked.

  “Terry was a lot of stupid things,” Ron said. “Untrustworthy wasn’t one of them. I knew your brother had his reasons. I also knew he wouldn’t put me or my organization in a tough spot. So, I took him at his word that all was fine and stayed out of it.”

  Taylor stroked his chin whiskers. “And this was when exactly?”

  Ron pursed his lips. “About a month before the Hammerhead trip.”

  Taylor cringed.

  In addition to a species of shark defined by its hammer-shaped nose, Hammerhead had also been the name of Terry’s final contract as head of the Eagles. At least, folks had assumed it was a contract. No one knew for sure, since Terry hadn’t kept anything on the books, save for a name. Some had suggested Hammerhead was an unsigned training contract, others a handshake agreement to provide garrison work somewhere.

  But for who? Taylor had scoured the Union’s GalNet for an answer to that question. He’d come up empty, just like everyone else.

  Whatever Hammerhead was, Terry had thought it enough of a priority that he’d fast-tracked a recruiting trip to Karma Station as soon as he’d returned home from his previous deployment. He’d made it to Karma without incident. It wasn’t until his ship, the EMS Bogrider, had entered hyperspace back to Earth that things had gone horribly wrong.

  “Y
ou okay?” Ron asked.

  “Yeah, fine.” Taylor’s mind snapped back to the present. “If this ship has been here in your hangar for the last six years, why am I only hearin’ about it now?”

  Ron shifted his stance. “Taylor, this cruiser is all that remains of Terry Van Zant’s legacy. Had I breathed a word of its existence to anyone, even you, odds are better than decent that the creditors would’ve swooped in and claimed it along with the rest of Terry’s estate. I didn’t want that. So, out of respect for your brother, and on the off-chance that the Eagles ever returned one day, I filed the title change under Steeldriver, then kept both my mouth and this hangar shut until I had another option.”

  Taylor furrowed his eyebrows. “You do realize we’ve been back open a year now, right?”

  “Kid, you’ve run four contracts in twelve months, three of those off-world. Let’s face it.” Ron huffed. “You’re not the easiest cat in town to catch up with these days.”

  Taylor laughed.

  “Oh, I almost forgot.” Ron snapped his fingers. “We do know one change Terry made to this ship.”

  Taylor perked up. “Which is?”

  Ron led his guest around the hangar and halted near the front of the Navarro. There, stenciled in a thick red font on her bow, was the vessel’s name.

  EMS Ryley Osyrys. Taylor sounded the words out, trying to wrap his head around their meaning. “Ry-Lee O-Sy-Ris.” His eyes bulged. “Oh, my brother is a world-class dick!”

  “I know, right?” Ron snickered. “What I wouldn’t give to be a fly on the wall when your blockhead XO catches sight of this.”

  Taylor tried in vain to stifle a snicker of his own.

  “Excuse me, Colonel Carnegie?” One of the mercs approached from the entrance with a handheld comm unit. “I’ve got the captain on the line. He needs to speak with you right away.”

  Taylor motioned to the handheld. “You couldn’t take that yourself?”

  “Are you kidding? The first thing I did after retiring was have them take all that electronic, pinplant crap out of my skull.” Ron winced. “That shit ain’t natural, man.”

  Taylor extended a hand. “Thanks, old man. I mean it, thank you. I really do owe you for this.”

  Ron knocked the hand aside. “You owe me squat, kid. Truth is, every merc in this town owes a debt of gratitude to your brother. Steeldriver, the Conquistadors, Stonewall Solutions. None of that would have happened without Terry. He was the original Duval County Madman. We’re just a bunch of posers, following his lead.”

  Taylor gave his new flagship a parting glance.

  “Now go,” Ron said. “Get out of here before your idiot logistics guy cashes the Eagles in on that rust bucket you’ve been eyeing. I’ll have the Osyrys transferred to your campus first thing in the morning.”

  Exiting the hangar, Taylor returned to his Harley in time to see his XO’s name flash in his field of vision. “Hey, Billy. What’s up?”

  “Smitty’s transport just emerged from hyperspace. I thought you’d want to know.”

  “And?”

  “And she reports the contract is solid,” Billy said. “She’s prepped to make the pitch as soon as she lands.”

  Looks like we’re gonna get to kick the tires on our new ride sooner rather than later. Taylor chuckled, recalling the Navarro’s name.

  “What?” Billy asked.

  “Oh, nothin’.” Taylor smiled and strapped on his helmet. “Call up the crew and tell ‘em we got church in an hour. I’m headed back now.”

  “Ayew,” Billy said.

  * * * * *

  Chapter 4: Church

  In stark contrast to the sweeping asphalt and sprawling industrial landscape that was the Steeldriver Defense Group’s main campus, the Eagles’ complex was scarcely considered habitable by most who visited. The facility had been erected from the bones of the old Castillo Airfield, located thirty miles south of downtown Jax in St. Johns County. Formerly a private airstrip for the local research community, the place had been ravaged by a hurricane some forty years earlier and subsequently abandoned. That, coupled with the property’s location in the heart of swamp country, had made it taboo to most city mercs, which in turn had made it a bargain real estate buy, even by North Florida standards.

  These pansies swing some of the biggest guns known to man, yet they’re freaked out by some water snakes and an oversized lizard with teeth. Taylor had never understood that. Then again, he’d grown up with this country—predatory species and all. The latter didn’t change the fact that this land was also home to some of the most striking natural beauty either Floridian state had to offer, from its thick plumes of palmettos and Spanish moss to its dense pockets of wetlands covered in cypress trees, red cedars, and cabbage palms.

  “Welcome to God’s Country, boys,” Taylor’s late father had said upon bringing his sons out here on their first-ever hunting trip. “You respect it, and it’ll respect you. That’s how this whole deal works.”

  Taylor remembered that speech like he’d heard it yesterday. Crossing through the complex’s rickety back gate, he taxied his Harley up the sun-bleached pavement—past the admin shack, the two remaining hangars, and the tarmac—then brought the bike to rest out front of the old air-traffic control tower. The latter now served as the Eagles’ command post, aka the Clubhouse.

  “Excuse me, Mr. Van Zant?” a female voice called once he’d killed the engine.

  Taylor hung his head. For a company that specializes in security we sure do suck at it some days.

  “Mr. Van Zant,” the voice repeated. “Can I please have a word?”

  A brunette in her late-twenties trotted over, wearing faded jeans which were frayed at the knees and a green blouse with the sleeves rolled past her elbows.

  “Ms. Kouvaris, I presume,” Taylor said.

  “That’s right.” The reporter halted and produced a small device the size of a pencil, clicking it active. “And it’s Lisa, by the way. I was hoping maybe we could chat.”

  Taylor glowered at the device. I hate bein’ recorded. “About what?”

  “About being back in business,” Lisa said. “As of this Friday, Swamp Eagle Security will have been back in mercenary action for exactly one year. My editor seems to think that’s a newsworthy event around here.”

  “Well good for him.” Taylor dismounted from his bike and spun to go.

  “Ah, come on!” Lisa protested.

  Taylor ignored her and kept walking.

  “So much for Southern hospitality!”

  “Hey, lady, you’re the one who ambushed me, remember?” Taylor said. “Maybe it’s different up north, or wherever you come from. But down here, that ain’t how you start a conversation.”

  “Maybe I wouldn’t have to resort to such tactics if you’d man up and take my call.”

  Taylor chuckled at her attempt to bait him with the “man up” line and kept walking.

  “I’ll bet your brother would’ve talked to me.”

  Taylor froze in his tracks.

  “I just got here six weeks ago, so I didn’t know him myself,” Lisa added. “From what I hear, though, Terry Van Zant never missed an opportunity to put the Eagles’ name in lights, especially here at home.”

  Taylor kept his eyes on the orange and red horizon. “That was certainly part of his charm.”

  “But it’s not yours,” Lisa surmised.

  Taylor sighed and returned to face her. “Listen, Ms. Kouvaris.”

  “Lisa.”

  “Lisa, fine. Whatever. Let’s get somethin’ straight, right here and now. I didn’t re-open my brother’s company to become some sort of fargin celebrity. I did it because a lot of people dear to me really, really needed me to.”

  “So you didn’t want to be a mercenary then?” Lisa stepped forward, her recorder still out and on.

  “No, I’ve actually wanted to be a merc since I was little,” Taylor said. “Most kids from around these parts do when they come out of school. Fact is, things change, and someti
mes our priorities need to change with them. It just so happens that, later in life, my priorities shifted again, and that brought me back to the Eagles.”

  Lisa nodded, seeming to get his meaning. She turned off her recorder and tucked it back into her shoulder bag. “I’m sorry I played the brother card on you. That was probably out of bounds. It’s just that…well, I wasn’t here at the time of Terry’s accident. I guess that means I lack perspective.”

  Taylor appreciated her candor. “It was a hard time for a lot of folks, ma’am. Not just me.”

  “Which is precisely why I’m here to write this story. Your brother—and by extension, Swamp Eagle Security—meant a lot to the Jacksonville community. At a time when outsiders were flocking to their city to milk it for all they could, Terry gave them one of their own to cheer for.” Lisa chewed her lip. “Listen, I get it. Your brother was a camera flower, and you’re not. That’s fair. But, if I could offer you some unsolicited advice?”

  Taylor gave a reluctant nod.

  “Terry recognized that by putting the Eagles in the limelight, he could use that platform to direct attention to other causes that mattered.” Lisa paused. “With all due respect, Mr. Van Zant, that’s a skill you’d be wise to learn.”

  Taylor stared off into the sunset and considered her point. “You said you’ve only been in town a few weeks. Where’d you come from?”

  “Houston,” Lisa said. “I’ve got a lot of experience covering mercs out that way for the Chronicle, so my company sent me down here to work with the Times.”

  “Your accent doesn’t strike me as native Texan,” Taylor said.

  “That’s because I’m not one,” Lisa said. “I grew up in Chicago.”

  Taylor found that interesting. “Chi-Town, huh? Good ballclub.”

  “Yeah. They do okay.” Lisa raised her forearm and presented her Cub tattoo, her sea-green eyes seeming to shimmer in the sun. “Not the same since they moved out of Wrigley, though. I grew up with that ivy.”

  Taylor laughed and keyed his comm via pinplant. “Post, this is Van Zant. You got a twenty on Doctor Wright?”