Breeze Corinth (Book 1): Sky Shatter

by Olson, Michael John

  Breeze looked at her with a blank stare.

  She continued. “By the thousands they would come together and undermine the very society that they swore to protect and defend. They would sow the seeds of dissent and bring the world that nurtured and created them to its knees.”

  Oslo strode over and stood next to her. “Kera is referring to the name of the shadow group,” he declared.

  “The Elephim?” Breeze said.

  “The name is derived from an ancient language no longer spoken but by only a few who study the old ways. The Elephim came from all segments of society. But the common thread they shared is that they were like us. Paranormal. You see, Earth of the past was guarded and served by the Helios. Think of them as paranormal sentinels. They were the noble warriors that were Earth’s champions. I am proud to say I was able to meet the remaining few, until a new government regime put them into… retirement. Never to serve Earth again.”

  Oslo stroked his chin as he looked toward the ocean. “The Elephim showed themselves to the world once their grip on the levers of government was complete. They would use paranormals at their disposal to enforce their regime and the population never resisted. The Helios who did continue to fight were hunted down and destroyed.”

  Breeze backed away slowly.

  “Your recruiting skills are lacking, my dear Oslo, look how he shrinks away,” Kera said and pointed at Breeze.

  “He asked for the truth. He is now receiving it. It is up to him to choose his reaction. If he runs, so be it. Outrunning the truth is no different than trying to outrun death. We all succumb to it,” Oslo replied.

  Breeze held up hand. “Your story sounds great. Really does. But if you’re trying to get me to join up for some sort of a...super team of sorts, to do who knows what, forget about it. Suddenly, life back home isn’t so bad.”

  Oslo chucked. “After listening to myself tell the tale, I would be forced to agree with you. Not a pleasant picture did I paint for you. But then again, reality is never really pleasant. One must fight to create a better life, as there will always be those in the shadows so eager and willing to tear it down.”

  Breeze jerked a thumb toward the stairs. “Look, your story sounds great but this school of yours, whatever. And the crazy man in the basement, not so great. You brought us here to put together a team of teenagers to fight some invisible enemy. I can see why you held out on us for so long. I don’t blame Sally and Ray for taking off. I guess I should follow their lead. I’m out of here.” He turned and walked down the steps.

  “Breeze, please. There is so much more,” Oslo called out.

  Kera grabbed his hands. “It’s over, my good man. Let it go. Let’s not make any more trouble than what has already been created.”

  He wrenched his hands away from her. “You don’t understand, Kera. I have nothing left to go on if he leaves.”

  “No, you have Nina. You always have. Don’t make the same mistake I made by turning your back on your child. Better to die together, than apart.”

  Breeze dashed down the steps and toward the hangars. He had an eye for a sleek sliver of a ship he saw the RF repairing from when he first arrived and checked upon its progress periodically over the weeks. It was jet black with a tinted canopy. It seated one comfortably, with a just enough space behind the pilot’s seat for storage.

  He arrived at the hangars and slipped underneath a partially raised vertical door.

  Oslo stood before him. “Breeze, please. Hear me out.”

  “How do you do that?” Breeze jumped back with a startle. “I mean seriously. I’m running all the time like a maniac and you just show up out of nowhere.”

  “Young man, what I can do, you are capable of so much more. Paul, listen to my words. Stay. Give me a chance. I have failed you, this I know, but let me at least balance the scales.”

  “No one calls me by that name. I don’t know why you would think using it would make me listen any more than what I already have.”

  Oslo raised his hands. “Forgiveness, and there is much of it I need. Breeze, I have lived for so long and to the point where I can barely keep track of my memories. I close my eyes and I’m overwhelmed by a flood of images of all the people I have known, but the faces fade away before I can recall their names. But I do remember a time, and it was a glorious time, when dynamic young men and women such as yourself, would take up the cause of protecting Earth from those who would do her harm. Those were good times. It was a time of peace and incredible prosperity. But everything has a cycle and we were due for a fall. This is the way of the universe. But the pendulum has not swung back in our direction. It seems to be...stuck. Frozen in time. This is not natural. There is a force, of some unknown origin, that is holding it back and preventing us from regaining and rebuilding what we have lost. I grew tired. Tired of the sleepless nights of being haunted by these memories. I left my home in Scandinavia and sailed across the ocean to come back here after I was awakened from my slumber towards death by a voice from the past. It was Bram, whispering in my ear to wake up, telling me that hope was not lost. He was coming back from his journey into the depths of space with the solutions to our troubles and to overthrow the yoke of oppression that hangs over our planet. Come back to Perihelion, he said to me, and help me guide my spirit back to my body. I yearn to come home and become whole again.”

  “So I did. Under the cover of darkness, I went to the docks close to my home along the shore, and onto my sailing boat, where I slipped out of the fjord and into the cold ocean to come here. I reopened this outpost, my old station, to help bring back a friend, whom due to my foolishness and hubris, sent him on a fool’s quest.”

  Breeze stood quietly. Half of his mind was eyeing the black transport while the other tried to placate Oslo by listening to his story.

  “I can see your mind wanders. My tale is fantastic and strange, this I acknowledge, but I will hold nothing back from you. It is the truth. To this I swear. You and others your age have grown up in a time of diminished expectations and shortened outcomes. You have seen nothing but poverty and despair, yet this is normal for you. I come from a time when I witnessed the end of prosperity and the beginning of despair. I stand as a bridge between those two worlds as I have seen both sides of the equation. I want to return to the gilded times.”

  Breeze nodded politely as he slowly moved to the ship. “I get it Oslo. You come from a better time.” He looked around the hangar. “And judging by the way this whole place looks, Perihelion definitely has seen better days. I just don’t know what we have to do with your plans.”

  “Bram told me he had solutions. Many of them. One of them required the formation of a new generation of Helios to become a brilliant light to shine on the world and to combat the encroaching darkness. Bring them together, he said, scour the planet and search for them. The days of despair will soon be over, he assured me.”

  “Okay, right. So your friend, who just disappeared into thin air, comes back as a ghost and tells you to go on some quest to find freaks like me to fight some imaginary enemy that no one knows exists. Again Oslo, thanks for the experience. I will never forget this place. Who could? But I really have to get going.”

  Oslo rushed up and blocked his path. He reached out to place a hand on his shoulder, hesitated, and then withdrew.

  “Breeze, I know I can’t keep you here against your will. This I know. But can I try to appeal to your sense of duty and honor and your desire to do so much more? Indulge me. There is so much to show you. You just need to give me chance.”

  Breeze side-stepped him, then made his way to the craft and climbed up the ladder that led to its cockpit. He tapped the canopy and it slid back with a pneumatic hiss as he tossed his backpack behind the pilot’s seat. “Oslo, I think that you’re an okay guy, but definitely strange. Heck, this whole place is strange. I know that I’m different and these flight powers I
have are all well and great. But I don’t really get to do anything with them. Back home, my father has me hiding them. I came here, and I guess you wanted me to use them for some sort of combat mission you have planned with your mystery ghost friend. The way I see it, Sally and Ray were right. Best to just go home. At least there I can handle the problems I have. What you want sounds...crazy.”

  Oslo sighed as his head drooped. “Crazy? Perhaps I am. And foolish.” He looked up. “Foolish to think that you have grown at all. Observing you from a distance, I could have sworn you had awakened to the fact that you are not much of a joiner or a follower. Yet here you are, following in the footsteps of those who have put you down countless times. Ja, crazy I am.”

  Breeze grimaced, then jumped into the pilot’s seat and strapped himself in. “You won’t get me that way. I know what you’re trying to do and I won’t fall for it. In the end Oslo, I’m just a loner and the son of a scrap metal hoarder.”

  “No, you are so much more and with the potential to do great things. You just need the will to break out from the rut you are in right now. Do you remember when you first arrived here, you told me you plowed a trench into the ground after the air show, a trench so deep and long you had to walk back for what seemed like miles to the point of impact just to get out?”

  Breeze tapped a control screen in front of him and gauges and displays began to light up. “Yeah, sure, what about it?”

  “Let that trench symbolize your life young man, and it showed that you were heading in the wrong direction, but you have the power to admit your mistakes and turn around to rediscover the road you were meant to walk down. I know I have made mistakes, but I try to learn from them. Please do the same?”

  Breeze hit the ignition and the engines spooled up with a soft whine. “Oslo, I’m leaving now, you best step off the platform and away from the ship. I’m taking her out.” Breeze depressed the throttle and revved the engines to underscore his point.

  “What makes you think I would let you leave with military property? I can always stop you,” Oslo said and stared him down.

  “Fine. I’ll just fly back under my own power. And if I crash into the ocean and drown trying to get to the mainland, you can have my death hanging over your head. Is that what you want to do to your students?”

  Oslo closed his eyes. “No, of course not. That would be absurd.” When he opened them, a gentle smile appeared on his face tinged with a hint of sadness. “Take the ship with you. Think of this as a gift from me, to you. I’m sure you have nothing like this at all back home in Conception. Let this ship serve to you as a reminder of the wonders you have witnessed here.” He took a deep breath. “If you see—” his eyes fluttered, “when you see your father, tell him I said hello.” He reached down and touched shoulder. “Son, listen to me. When you return home and you sense that it was not the right thing to do, no worries. The door to Perihelion is always open for you. Remember, like the trench, you can turn around and find your way back.” He pointed at the navigation screen. “These ships are all equipped with a go home mode. It will reverse your course and send you straight back here. I...all of us will be waiting for you.”

  Breeze nodded and gripped the helm. He pushed the throttle control forward and the engines responded immediately with a high pitched whine as the hull of the ship vibrated. He pulled back on the helm and the ship drifted away from the platform. As the canopy slid closed, he waved to Oslo.

  The old man waved back and the canopy shut and sealed itself with a hiss.

  An indicator light flashed across his screen informing him that pressurization of the cockpit had begun.

  He swung the ship around and pointed the bow toward the hangar doors. To the left and right of the ship stood a multitude of RF staring at him as he glided by. They held tools in their hands as their mechanical eyes shined and tracked the ship out of the hangar and into the brilliant morning sunlight.

  He waved at them, and then stopped, realizing how foolish it was. The canopy was tinted with a heavy black film that made it difficult for anyone to see into the cockpit. Besides, what do they care?

  As the ship glided out into the daylight, one lone RF with a streak of orange across its breast plate raised a hand toward Breeze’s ship and waved goodbye.

  He steered the ship past rows of hangars until he reached a taxiway that led to the landing facility. He pushed forward on the throttles and the ship picked up speed while around him, majestic palms and ficus trees swayed from the gusts of wind blowing in from the ocean.

  He flashed back to when he first arrived on the island and the sense of wonder he felt traveling away from home for the first time to go somewhere exotic and different, followed by the crushing wave of disappointment at how the experience turned sour. His thoughts then drifted to the moment he met Ray and Sally.

  Sally.

  He pictured her face. The few times she even smiled at him seemed like magic in itself. But those good feelings were swept aside when he remembered how cruel she became whenever Ray was in her presence.

  He snapped out of his trance when a proximity alarm went off as he was about to collide into a thick royal palm ahead of him. He jerked the helm to starboard and returned to the taxiway.

  He eventually exited onto a runway, then hovered up slightly higher and spun the ship slowly to take one last look back at Perihelion. Convincing himself he wouldn’t miss it, he brought the bow about and pointed it toward the ocean. He activated the stasis brake and pushed down on the throttles to allow the engines to spool up for greater takeoff power, then released the brake and shoved the helm forward and the ship accelerated rapidly across the tarmac. He jerked back the helm and the ship angled up toward the brilliant blue and white sky and climbed until he was above the clouds and leveled off.

  He looked down through a break in the clouds and saw that Perihelion was but a tiny dot in the middle of a vast ocean.

  He touched the navigation screen and it prompted him for a destination. He typed in the coordinates for his home in the far western desert, and the navigation computer chimed its acceptance as the ship rolled to point the bow towards the west.

  He leaned back his seat as his eyes began to flutter.

  “Prepare for vortex,” a woman’s voice announced over the ship’s intercom.

  I thought Ray shut down the fog, he thought to himself. What’s happening?

  The nav computer flashed. On the display, the bull’s eye was locked in and an oncoming target. Through the canopy, Breeze could see thick clouds spinning into a tunnel.

  The light around him flashed into a brilliant green as the ship entered the vortex. The sound of static filled his ears and he quickly passed out.

  Nina emerged from the palm forest and onto the beach near the landing facility. A shadow of distress crossed her face as she watched Breeze’s sleek black ship disappear into the thick white clouds overhead.

  She turned and rushed back into the forest.

  Oslo sat on the platform steps inside the hangar. He waited patiently, hoping to hear the sound of the ship’s engines and Breeze returning. I should have reactivated the fog, so he couldn’t leave. He shook his head. No, forcing him to stay wouldn’t be right.

  His hopes were dashed as he heard the sonic boom of a ship as it ascended to gain altitude. He grimaced as he stood up, and then clambered down the steps and onto the floor of the hangar.

  The RF around him immediately stood at attention. He ignored them as he strode by. They waited until he stepped out, and then resumed their work.

  Oslo entered his office and dropped his tall frame into his high back chair. He placed his hands onto the wooden surface of his desk and looked at the endless row of books of his library that surrounded him. All of them contained the history of the world. A history he was beginning to realize that the world had forgotten about.

  He chuckled. His c
huckling turned to laughter followed by a hearty belly laugh. It trailed away into a deep sigh as he closed his eyes and clenched his fists.

  “Well Captain, what should I do? What would be the best course to follow?”

  He opened his eyes and stared at his lamp in the shape of a ship’s captain with one hand gripping the helm as the other shielded his eyes as he gazed into some unknown future. Is there a storm up ahead? Is that what he sees? Oslo shook his head.

  He stood up when he heard the sound of the gulls outside had stopped. He reached over to depress the intercom button just as Kera materialized before him.

  “I suppose, after all these years, asking you to knock before entering has been a complete waste of time,” Oslo said.

  She ignored his words. “The boy is gone, yes?”

  “Why do you ask what you already know? You can sense his departure just like you sense everything else.”

  “Yes, of course Oslo, just trying to make conversation.”

  He wagged a finger at her. “Not one of your stronger qualities. Stick to what you know.”

  “It was for the best, you do understand this?” she said.

  He shrugged as he reached for a bag and began filling it with personal items. “I know what I did was foolish. I rushed back here like a schoolboy on a whim. Bram is not coming back. What I experienced back home in Scandinavia was nothing more than a vivid dream. It’s over. All of it. I’m shutting down Perihelion once and for all. But of course you already know that.”

  She watched as he filled his bag, then he slung it over his shoulder, and stride from his desk to the door when he stopped and turned to her. “This was never meant to be,” he said. “This was all but a foolish exercise to bolster my ego. An opportunity, if you will, to prove to myself that I could take command and make some sense in this world. Well, Kera, I stand before you now and will say the words that you already know I’m going to say. I was wrong.”

  She shook her head. “No. I did anticipate your leaving, but not to run home like a whipped schoolboy. I envisioned you leaving to track down your students and bring them back.”