The Reign: Destiny - The Life Of Travis Rand

by Lance Berry

  Travis nodded. “All I have to do is take a remedial course in theoretical physics, and I’m in.”

  “No, all you have to do is pass a remedial course with a ‘B’ or higher, and you’re in,” she corrected with a smile. “When does class start?”

  “Three weeks. And…they don’t have that course anywhere in my town. Virginia North has it, though,” he said with a hopeful rise of his eyebrows.

  Lisa shook her head slowly and smiled at him. “Well, hopefully by the time you graduate from Sanderson, they’ll at least have instilled enough discipline in you to get you to make your bed, if not clean your room entirely. Until you get there, though, I guess we’ll just have to leave your room looking like a smart-bomb went off, while you’re here.”

  Travis left for Garrison the next morning as scheduled. Expecting to soon return to his aunt’s, he left half his luggage at her place, so as not to burden himself with excess bags when it was time to come back. The transit-tram put him in Garrison in just under two hours, and he waited anxiously for his father for nearly a half hour at the station. Although he was dressed decently, in a light leather jacket, jeans, t-shirt and loafers, Travis felt unduly embarrassed as he watched other commuters get picked up by waiting friends and family. Others received warm hugs of greeting or kisses promising more intimate welcomes to come later, while Travis stood alone with his shoulder bag and suitcase, seemingly unwanted. He finally decided to use one of the public vid-screens to call home, and found a recorded message waiting for him. Jack’s debriefing had run over schedule, and he wouldn’t be home for at least another two days. He left some Unicreds attached to his message, and Travis was able to scan them onto his Unicard in order to take an AirKab home.

  He entered the old house on Aqueduct Road, and was at ease to see the place hadn’t changed in the slightest. He had lived here with his father for twelve years, off and on, when Jack wasn’t on assignment and Travis wasn’t at Lisa’s in Virginia. In all that time, his father had barely changed a thing about the house. The old-style wall clock with batteries still hung above the fireplace in the living room. Pictures of several generations of the Richards and Pfeiffer families–none of them Travis’ true blood–were carefully arranged on the mantle. Hard-print magazines were stacked up on the living room table’s edge, and the table itself was professionally dusted. Now that he took an observant breath, he noticed the lemony scent of cleanliness, which hung unnaturally in the air. He had probably just missed the cleaning woman, Mrs. Harcourt.

  Travis headed upstairs to his room. As he dumped his bags on the floor beside his bed, he looked around for anything out of place. As he expected, nothing was…his father knew Travis didn’t want him in his room when he wasn’t home. As he finished scoping the room, he realized just how much he had outgrown its dimensions, and eagerly began to look forward to taking up residence in proper quarters at the Sanderson School. Over the years, Travis had occasionally stayed with his father at a couple of military outposts in New Mexico or other areas of the country. Jack was more than just an ordinary Cruiser captain; he had contacts in the Intelligence Division of United Earth Force, and still did some work with them from time to time. Travis was surprised to find that he liked the structured discipline he saw on military bases, and this was a part of what motivated him to decide to join. He looked forward to having more structure in his life, and a chance to serve the cause of keeping the human race free from the possibility of Calvorian rule.

  He went to his Heavy Cruiser model, which still rested on its stand on his desk. He remembered that it took him nearly four weeks to put the model together. Although his parents offered to help him, Travis had insisted he do it himself; it was his to build, his to either succeed or fail in its construction. His fingers were small and sometimes had a hard time holding the resin tube steady while trying to fit pieces together, and he had sweated quite a lot under the lowered lamp on his desk, but in the end it was well worth it. He had perfectly built, on his own, an exactingly detailed model of the Independence–the very first UEF Heavy Cruiser ever built and launched to fight the Calvorians.

  He was proud of himself…and more importantly, so was his mother.

  He stepped out of his room and walked down the hall to his father’s bedroom. He glanced around, then went to the dresser. Several framed pictures sat on the top, and Travis picked up the photo of his mother, which rested in the center of the others. He sat on the edge of the bed and stared at her smiling face for a long while.

  A knock at the front door downstairs finally brought him out of his daydreams and back to the here and now. He reverently set the picture back in its place of honor and headed downstairs at an unconcerned pace. He reached the front door just as the person on the other side had started to knock again, and opened the door on them in mid-swipe. His jaw dropped open at the sight of the person waiting outside.

  “Gilda?” he said in flat-out astonishment. “Gilda Ramirez?”

  “Travis?” she replied, aping him in a friendly teasing manner. “Travis Rand?” And with a laugh, the lovely brunette threw herself at him, wrapped her arms securely about his shoulders and gave him a quick peck on the lips. For his part, Travis wasn’t eager at all to let Gilda (“Jill-da”) go, but he forced himself to take a step back in order to get a better look at her. The cute little Hispanic girl who had caught his attention when she first moved in next door more than a decade earlier, had grown into a delectable beauty: her dark hair ran to just past her shoulders, neither too long nor too short. Her almond-shaped brown eyes shone with a quick wit, pleasantly accented by a warm smile and generous laugh (Gilda had a touch of Filipino to her makeup, thanks to her grandfather, but considered herself mainly of Spanish descent). Travis forced himself to not let his gaze linger too long on her perfectly palm-sized breasts, and moved his eyes ever downward. She had shapely hips, and he was very glad she had worn such a short skirt. Although like most sixteen year-old girls, she still had the slightest bit of baby fat on her, and a sudden very LeVoyesque thought came to him: Nothing we can’t work off.

  He was instantly disgusted with himself for thinking it.

  Travis had known Gilda Ramirez for twelve years, ever since he had returned from staying at Lisa’s for summer vacation, the year he turned five. The children had instantly bonded, and became best friends very quickly. When a school bully had picked on her one semester in middle school, upon his return Travis promptly found the boy and taught him a lesson in manners. When the boy’s father came to the Richards house to talk with Jack about what Travis had done, Travis was amazed that not only did Jack defend his actions (“a very chivalrous deed”, Jack had called it), he threatened to do the same to the man at the front door, if he didn’t get the hell off his property and go tell his own boy why he was wrong to pick on a girl.

  Travis and Gilda corresponded regularly while he was away at school, and they stayed up late many nights in a mutual Overnet chat room, exchanging notes on similar home work problems and waxing on about the state of their lives, present and future. Although they were the same age, he always looked upon Gilda as a type of kid sister…and you certainly don’t do the types of things he was currently thinking about, with a sister.

  “You look great,” he offered, then abruptly found himself at a loss for words.

  She waited a moment, an eager expression on her face. “Thanks,” she acknowledged finally. “I saw your ‘Kab pull up a couple minutes ago. I knew you were coming home this week, but I didn’t know it was today. I hadn’t seen your dad around, so I figured you’d still be at your aunt’s.”

  “He’s still undergoing debriefing,” Travis informed her. He never called Jack “dad” anymore, and barely referred to him as his father. “I figured there was no point in waiting, since I have no idea when he’ll be back anyway. If I’d known you were going to improve this much over just the course of a few months, I would’ve come back sooner.”

  “Shut up!” Gilda laughed, and playfully swatted his arm. Tra
vis looked around awkwardly a moment, then gestured to the kitchen, which was around a bend in the corner from the living room. “Want something to drink?”

  Gilda followed Travis into the kitchen, where he got two sodas out of the fridge, then into the small dining area immediately past the kitchen. They sat down, enjoying each other’s company as they drank, and quickly caught up on their school activities, what mutual friends were up to, and how their own lives were going.

  “I cannot believe you’re joining the military!” Gilda said, shaking her head in wonderment. “You’re one of the nicest guys I’ve ever known, Travis! I just can’t picture you hunkered down on the ground on your belly, shooting at someone across the distance while smart-bombs explode all around you. What in the world made you decide to sign up for training?”

  “I want to defend Earth. What’s wrong with that?” He threw the words at her, a bit more sharply than he intended. Gilda half-shrugged, unoffended by his tone. “Nothing, I guess. I always just thought of you as the kind of person to go into something in the private sector. I don’t know…be a civil engineer or something. What do you think your dad’ll say when you tell him?”

  “He’ll probably have a heart attack, in the rush to throw my bags onto the next transport out of town,” he answered, and they shared a laugh. Gilda’s tongue briefly glided across her lips, and she asked him, “Have things really gotten that bad between you guys?”

  “Gotten’?” Travis said with a mirthless chuckle. “It’s always been bad, and growing worse over the past decade or so. I don’t know. We’ve reached some sort of…détente, I guess you could say. When I’m in Virginia, he vids-in like clockwork every two weeks to see how I’m doing, and in return I do well in school and keep out of his hair. It’s a good arrangement, and it works for me.”

  “Does it?” she asked skeptically. “I know that if my dad wasn’t active in my life, I wouldn’t know what to do. He and my mom give me so much support, they’ve helped me out so much…I thank God for them every day.”

  “I happen to like not having my father active in my life, Gilda–it gives me the room I need to be myself.”

  “And what is that, Travis? Whenever we’ve chatted lately, it’s always about what tests you’ve got coming up, or what you and your two buddies did last night, or what trouble that LeVoy character’s gotten into. Personally, I don’t even see why you hang around with that kid, anyway.”

  Travis smirked, barely able to suppress a chuckle at her echoing of Lattimore’s own words only a month or so before. “In spite of what I might have said during those communiqués, Jared LeVoy is actually an okay guy. He plays the jerk big time, but he’s really a decent person at heart.”

  “Whatever. My point is, you haven’t really talked to me like we used to talk. You haven’t opened up for some reason. What do you think, Travis? What do you feel, or like, or not, or…” she searched for more examples. “You say you want to be free to be who you are, but who is that? Who are you now?”

  Travis looked at her askance. “School’s out, you know. You don’t have to toss Philosophy 101 questions at me. I’m the same guy you knew when I went away to school last year. The only difference is that I’m going to be heading into a military academy, come the fall. Other than that, I’ll still be the same guy next year, too.”

  “The same guy, huh,” she said with a curious smile. “Too bad. I was looking forward to you becoming even more handsome than you are now.” Before the surprise could even fully register on Travis’ face, Gilda quickly leaned over and gave him a slightly lingering peck on the lips. Travis could only stare at her speechlessly as she got up. “I gotta get back home. I told my dad I was gonna run over here, say hi, and run back–I’m helping him paint the front foyer while my mom’s at her sister’s. See you later?”

  “Um…yeah. Yeah, sure.”

  She smiled, and stepped out of the dining area. She exited the kitchen and after a moment, Travis heard the front door close. It took another moment for him to fully register what had just happened, but he got his wits about him enough to go to the front door and lock it. He watched through the small quartered windowpane set in the door as Gilda halfjogged over to her house. She stopped at her own door and briefly glanced back, catching him in the act of spying. She smiled, and Travis could swear he felt his heart flutter, just as it did the first time he had ever laid eyes on her. She went inside, and it took him another minute to break away from the window and go up to his room to start unpacking.

  Travis trudged through the mud, his Blastrifle at the ready, protectively surrounded by his platoon. He wasn’t the sergeant in charge, but the second-in-command. This suited him well enough at present; time and experience would provide him the promotions he desired. For now, he had to focus as the platoon made its way through the uncomfortable muck of this gray, alien world.

  The dark sun lay hidden behind misty clouds, its rays refusing to cast light to pierce the fog that had settled. He didn’t know how long the platoon had marched through the battle-scarred forest, searching for the enemy; it seemed like forever. Behind him, Carver Mackee said something, but Travis couldn’t make out what. Something about not knowing when it was going to happen. Travis had no idea what “it” was, but he brusquely hushed his friend, not wanting his voice to carry on the air and possibly give away their position. Up ahead, the sergeant raised his hand, signaling the squad to halt. Travis couldn’t see the sarge’s face from this distance, and for some reason that disturbed him. The sergeant muttered something, and the platoon obediently put down their weapons, some simply dropping them into the mud.

  Travis didn’t. He refused to obey, though he said nothing aloud–he simply held onto his weapon, gripping it tighter. And all at once, it seemed his senses had become sharper, clearer, somehow. He suddenly knew what was coming before it happened…but still turned too slowly, the action mired by the muck, to warn Carver. Carver stood silently, uncomprehending, and his skull suddenly split open as a beam of charged coherent energy ripped through bone, muscle and brain matter as if it weren’t even there.

  With a yell to his comrades, Travis dove face down into the mud as more laser fire ensued. He rolled onto his back, just in time to see his platoon being blasted apart, their bodies shredded and disintegrated as beam after beam shot out from under cover of a copse of trees ahead of them. All of them, every one–Lattimore, LeVoy, Gilda–cut down as Travis watched helplessly…all except the sergeant.

  And now, at the last, the sergeant turned to face him.

  A Calvorian, dressed in an Earth Force uniform.

  It smiled as it watched the Earthers fall and a leering, triumphant grin spread wide across its face. It focused its red eyes on Travis and its jaws gaped open to reveal row after infinite row of butcher knife-sharp teeth. It moved forward, muscles rippling under and bursting out from the sergeant’s uniform. Travis brought his gun up–but was again too slow, his movements hampered by the damned mud. The creature leaped through the air, somehow both beautiful and terrifying as it soared toward him, jaws spread wide for the kill.

  Travis jolted awake in his bed, jerking his head around at the sound he had just heard. It took him a second or two to realize the sound had come from him–a gasp as he snapped out of his dream. There was another sound, echoing beneath the remainder of his own noise, and he realized it was the steady briiiip-brip-briiiip of the vid-com in the den downstairs.

  He swung his legs over the edge of the bed, even as he brought a hand up to wipe across his forehead. Sweat. He was surprised; it had been years since he’d had any type of dream that awoke him in such a state of lucid fear. Even then, the dreams had always been about his mother’s death.

  He clicked on his old-fashioned lamp, which was one of the quaint decorations his parents liked about the house when they had bought it. The light provided enough illumination that he could make it to the hallway stairs without killing himself, and then turned on the hall lights themselves. He glanced in his father’s room, and
for some reason was disconcerted to find Jack hadn’t yet come home.

  Shrugging the feeling off, he hurried downstairs through the living room and down into the basement. He had missed the stair light when he swiped at it, and held onto the banister for dear life as he tromped downward. Fortunately, the den was almost immediately to the right of the last stair, and this time he didn’t miss the light switch in here. The com continued to briiiip-brip-briiiip, and Travis felt a rush of anticipation waken him further, as he hoped it might be Gilda. He was amazed to find Jared LeVoy’s face snap into crystal clarity on the screen instead.

  Travis checked the call’s time index: 2:15am. “Are you out of your mind, Jared? Do you have any idea what time it is?”

  Jared smiled wide, pleased that he had caught his friend off-guard. “Yeah, I know what time it is. Time for you to come open your front door.” He stuck his tongue out, and the screen abruptly clicked to an “end transmission” status alert as the call was severed on his end.

  Travis sat back in his chair, trying to make sense of what was going on. Jared lived in Connecticut, there was no way he could be here at 2:15 in the morning–his parents would never allow it. Then again, as much as Jared loved his folks, he also had a fondness for breaking rules…even theirs. He turned off the vid-com and jogged upstairs, a mixture of curiosity and annoyance swirling around his brain. He glanced out the quartered pane and saw the silhouette of a ‘Kar, its headlights pointed to an angle at the porch…not enough to blind any observers in the house, but just enough to keep from seeing the vehicle and its occupants clearly.

  Travis’ lips twisted slightly; he had never liked surprises, even from his friends. He jogged up to his bedroom and changed to jeans, a t-shirt and sneakers. He instinctively snatched up his Unicard from the nightstand and headed down once more. He paused a moment before the door, then opened it and headed outside.