by Reiter
“Dragons!” Hanvashi sighed, leaning heavily on the glass window of the tram car.
“West Nest is one of seven nest cities of the barony,” Kollette explained. “It’s the smallest of the seven, but it’s also one of the friendliest. Some of the nests are completely shut off from outsiders, just like the Realm of Dragons, unless you can actually find the door.”
“Kollette, is audience to the courts of the Dragons ever awarded to visitors to the barony?” Hanvashi asked. “I am assuming they have courts.”
“Yes, they do have them, my Baron. I believe the Star-Wing Corps holds province over that,” she answered. “I could get you in to see the Baron, and even an appointment with one of the Corps, but that would be the limit of my influence.”
“Then please exercise the limits of your ability, Kollette,” Hanvashi said softly. “The light of Xaythra has led us to this moment. We must see it through!”
“I will not fail you, my Master!”
“And when we are done here, we will see to these changes you have made to your body.” Kollette’s body shook in fright as she quickly looked to the floor.
“It was cosmetic surgery, my Baron,” she whispered. “I survived the destruction of Tau Upsilon, but only just. My father put three of us into an escape pod and one of the SpellCasteRs sent us off. I think the pod I was in was the third they had sent. I know there wasn’t a fourth.” Zoll’s arm wrapped around the woman and pulled her close to him.
“We shall reform you in Xaythra’s light and remove the human error that you have had to contend with these many years. But tell me, Kollette, do you know where the other survivors are?”
“I left the colony, sire,” she advised. “The moment they said you were dead and Xaythra had abandoned us. A number of us parted ways with them. The man who became my husband is also one of us.”
“And is this who you are taking me to meet?”
“No, I am taking you to meet with my son, Frederick. He may not have been born under Xaythra’s light, but he believes in her. And recently he has threatened to leave the house in order to go and find the true followers of Xaythra. I can’t help but think that he might have been referring to you.”
“I want to meet this young man,” Hanvashi said with great eagerness. “While he and I discuss matters, you do what you can to arrange those meetings.”
“As you will it, Master.”
** b *** t *** o *** r **
“This is magnificent!” Hanvashi remarked, looking over the layout of the facility.
“These are just the lower hangar bays,” Frederick explained. “This is where the applicants store their vehicles, if they brought one of course, while they apply to Ozone.”
“Ozone?” Hanvashi inquired.
“That’s the name of the battery of tests each applicant has to go through before they can be considered for instruction,” Frederick stated. “They call it that because the ozone of a planet serves as a filter. It lets in the light but keeps out the stuff we don’t need.”
“Frederick,” Councilman O’Darlok said, feigning a smile. He took hold of the young boy and gave a squeeze of his arm. “The Baron is here on official business. We should let him and the Commanding Officer speak, don’t you think?”
“It would be different if he were wrong,” Sarshata stated, smiling down at the boy. “About any of it. Hey, how would you like to take an aerial tour of the proving grounds?”
Frederick’s blue eyes lit up with excitement. “Me? Really?!”
“You indeed, hatchling,” the woman replied, running her hand through his blonde hair. “That way words, and blood, can flow more freely.” The Councilman quickly removed his hand from the boy as the Commandant pressed the button for the next approaching floor before turning to one of her three aides. The woman did not have to say anything to the young man. He stepped away from his given position, smiled at the boy, and offered his hand.
When the doors of the lift opened they departed, moving at a pace suitable to Frederick. Commander Sarshata Ravinguez, of the pilot name Swan, pressed the button that kept the doors of the lift open. “Tonight, Councilman, when you are thanking the gods for your blessings, add an extra gratitude that it was not my child you were handling in such a fashion. I realize that politics and clean living seldom share the same space, but on these grounds, there are only two rules: I rule this facility and the Dragons are our benefactors. Touch another child like that and you won’t have to worry about clean living… or any other kind ever again. Say you understand.”
“I understand, Commander,” O’Darlok spoke aloud. He knew better than to risk being made to say it again. She had quoted the rules for a reason. Harming a Councilman would have rated as slightly below average of the complaints registered against the Star-Wing Corps.
“Good. Now get out.”
Again, the man knew better than to try to argue with the woman. She had given an order and there were still two aides in the lift car with him, not that she needed them to handle a councilman. Clearing his throat and begging their pardon, Feleous O’Darlok stepped out of the lift car and thanked the Commandant for her time. She nodded in response and allowed the doors to close.
“What is that?” Hanvashi thought, feeling something tickle his senses, the very senses he had removed from conscious thought due to where he was and the power each of the Dragons had reflected. Still, through all of that, something was registering, but it was not power. It was an itch on the back of his neck; the first time he had felt such a sensation. He looked around, the lift shaft was made of high-grade but incredibly clear plastic, but he could not see anything that would have triggered what he was feeling.
“Is something wrong, Master?” Gedonia inquired. Both the tall, dark warrior woman and her moonwolf, Ziko, had noticed the Baron’s actions. Hanvashi shook his head ‘no’.
“I don’t know about the rest of you, but I for one feel like the air is clearer,” Sarshata said as the lift car resumed its ascension.
“And the lift car is lighter both literally and figuratively,” Hanvashi added, receiving light laughter. Rubbing the back of his neck, Hanvashi dismissed the feeling and returned his thoughts to the moment at hand.
The Commandant had clearly established herself, leaving nothing to guess as far as his request was concerned. Any effort to talk around an issue would only frustrate her. Hanvashi would have to take an alternate course. Surely in the seven nests on this side of the Dragon Realm the Baron of Renatus would be able to procure a Dragon!
Look at the sky. We are not alone. The whole universe is friendly to us and conspires only to give the best to those who dream and work.
A. P. J. Abdul Kalam
(Rims Time: XII-4203.28)
It had taken three hours for Jocasta to fly through the winding tunnels of the slipstream and she had taken the opportunity to get some sleep, trusting Tuitonn to navigate the turns. She awoke as the Daedalus emerged from the slipstream into outer space; nearly the same mystifying picture of space she had seen when she had entered Tween-Space, and she was just as humbled then as she was now.
“Nope, it doesn’t get old at all!” she thought.
Just beyond the nose of her ship, Jocasta could see the floating marker that served as the boundary line for Pearl Barony Space. In the distance, she could see a glistening white sphere that was the heart of the barony, and nothing was showing on her sensors. Jocasta could not shake the feeling something was nearby.
“That’s just plain odd,” Jocasta said as she yawned, firing braking thrusters. “You awake back there, Tuitonn?”
“I do not sleep so much as I meditate, Mistress,” Tuitonn explained. “It allows me to focus more intently on what my sub-conscious has seen that my conscious might have missed.”
“Lost me at meditate, T,” Jocasta replied dismissively.
“Of course, Captain.”
“Give me a sensor sweep for the sector, please.”
“At once, Captain.” Tuitonn said, activating
the equipment at his station.
“And what are you?” Jocasta whispered, looking off to the space just to the left of the boundary marker. There was nothing there that she could see, but again Jocasta could not shake a feeling… an itch at the back of her neck.
“Contact,” Tuitonn alerted.
“Let me guess, two degrees port of the boundary marker, right?”
“Indeed, it’s a ship! A reconnaissance vessel to be exact. According to our database, it is from Nemus, the Iolite Barony.”
“The tree people, right?!” Jocasta asked as her grips on the controls tightened.
“Yes, Captain,” Tuitonn replied, “they are called the Tonnogard.”
“Yeah, I’ve seen ‘em before,” Jocasta said through gritted teeth, activating her nose cannon.
Jocasta fired as Tuitonn pleaded with her to show restraint. Both bursts streaked out toward the middle of nothing but suddenly stopped and exploded. After the second explosion, a wavy ripple of energy started at the point of impact and revealed a small bio-ship that appeared to be more like a buoy than an actual ship.
“I am detecting a power build up,” Tuitonn notified.
“Do you now!” Jocasta whispered as she engaged her engines, accelerating to attack speed. “Come on, you bucket of old, smelly roots. Let’s see what you got!”
Three white fireballs flared to life as they came from the ship and Jocasta moved the stick to the left. All three passed on her right side.
“I’d call that a piss-poor opening volley, boys!” Jocasta ribbed.
“That’s only because you didn’t know those things were turning and coming after us,” Tuitonn argued. “The weapons station can’t get a lock on them! Recommend anti-MannA pulse.”
“You’re assuming they’re MajiK,” Jocasta said softly, kicking in the booster engines. “Which would make it the first spell to get by Z’s sensors.” Proximity alarms started sounding off inside the fighter-craft. “I’m guessing they threw something else at us! Deactivate audio on all alarms!” she commanded as she took the Daedalus into a barrel roll. “Sure hope they can take what they dished out!” The fireballs followed her maneuver but she had timed it so that at the end of the roll she was on one side of the bio-ship and the fireballs were on the other.
“By the gods,” Tuitonn said softly as three explosions burned into the hull of the shuttle. The first two appeared to be absorbed into the shields, but Tuitonn saw debris in the middle of the third explosion. “Their shields are down!”
“That’s what I wanted to hear,” Jocasta said as she prepared a missile, bringing the Daedalus around for another attack run. “Open a channel.”
“Channel open… and received,” Tuitonn reported.
“Just in case you were wondering, the name’s JoJo… Captain JoJo Starblazer and you crapstacks messed with the wrong First Mate!” Jocasta fired her missile as the bio-ship’s engines fired. It had just started to move when the missile struck in the middle of the starboard side.
“Unidentified ships, this is the Protectorate of the Pearl Barony,” a voice came over the comm-line. “We are opening a channel to you now. Please respond.”
“This is Captain JoJo Starblazer of the Xara-Mansura, license code Mike, Lima, Papa, nine, nine, seven three. I am currently flying the fighter-craft Daedalus.”
“Roger that, Daedalus. Is there another ship in your vicinity?”
“Not for much longer, Protectorate,” Jocasta replied, looking at the ship as the engines died while the explosions continued. “Pretty much a bonfire at the moment. It had markings from Nemus. You could say the people from that place and I have something of a standing argument.”
“Apparently,” the Communications Officer replied.
“If you have vid capabilities, please activate them,” another voice came on to the line. It was aged and sounded like it came out of a very thin and very authoritative person.
“And who am I speaking to now?”
“That is not important just now.”
“This is Daedalus, signing off,” Jocasta said before she terminated the connection.
“Captain, I am reading a massive energy wave headed into this sector,” Tuitonn reported. “It looks like another aperture! It’s of a different make than the ones the Field Marshal used.”
“Which side of the boundary?”
“Outside Pearl Barony Space,” Tuitonn informed.
“Better known as free game!” Jocasta said, arming another missile and readying one of her two bombs. She slowed her engines long enough to make a very tight turn and then throttled up again. “Let’s get those shields up.”
“Activating emitters,” Tuitonn said. The shields were forming when the orb suddenly realized that they had not been used in the previous engagement. Jocasta opened to broadcast on all channels.
“Attention, new arrival,” she said, “it’s been a long day and I haven’t had much fun with apertures lately. Please identify so that we can avoid all sorts of silliness.”
“But what if silliness is what I had in mind, Captain,” a voice replied. “There’s nothing like a soft, sexy voice promising doom and gloom without actually saying anything offensive.” Jocasta smiled at the response she had received. “Anyway, you can stop keeping count of the bad doorways because this one will break the streak. I am Flight Officer Reynold Fieldsmith, call-sign Jericho. This aperture is meant to relieve you of the grind of administrative channels. We pilots hate those things.”
“We?”
“Your arrival’s a bit overdue, Captain, but you were expected,” Reynold stated. “Please enter the provided aperture and leave the rest to us.”
“And just who is us?”
“I am a Star-Wing Flight Officer. And as I said before… we’ve been waiting for you!”
Jocasta muted the canopy before screaming in delight. She piloted her ship through a spinning loop before turning to enter the aperture. She put her hand to the back of her neck, under her helmet. There was no itch, and she engaged full thrust to fly into the energy portal.
“This is a nice first,” Jocasta said softly as she piloted her ship toward the aperture. She could see the hailing signals from the same registry that she had earlier disconnected. “Sorry, boys. You snooze, you lose!”
“Okay, Daedalus, we see you on approach,” Reynold advised. “Make preparations to burn atmospheric in five… four… three… two… one…”
A near blinding flash of white light gave way to an open blue sky and thick white clouds. The Daedalus trembled for a moment until the air-intakes opened and the flames from the jets went from crystal blue to a fiery red and orange mixture. Tuitonn made checks for the quality of air and found it to be slightly oxygen rich… the last thing, he thought, a group of would-be elite pilots needed!
“Now that is what I call a big, blue sky,” Jocasta sighed.
“It is quite beautiful,” Tuitonn agreed.
“Hate to break it to you, Captain, but you are flying away from us at the moment,” Reynold notified. “How’s about you pull a one-eighty and get a glimpse of the Sky Stone Academy.
“Roger, Jericho,” Jocasta replied as she turned her ship. “I’m bringing it around to port so that I can get a good… look… at… you…” In the middle of the pure and clean blue sky was a gigantic stone. It was almost as if someone had taken Black Gate and turned it into a rock. “Sure,” Jocasta nodded. “Sky Stone. I get it.”
“You’re cleared to land on the platform under the rock, Captain. Bottom deck and the third quadrant from your approach vector… bay eleven. I’ll see you there. Jericho out.”
“Third quadrant,” Jocasta repeated as she took the Daedalus into a dive. It was a considerable drop in altitude but still incredibly high above the ground, above most of the clouds actually, was where she found the platform. “Okay, Tuitonn, get to the cane and let’s keep you face down until we know what game we’re playing.”
“I am so very glad to hear you say it, Mistress,” Tuitonn said
as he started to power down his station. “It saves me the awkwardness of having to suggest a better plan.”
“Never be afraid to speak up, Tuitonn,” Jocasta said as she spied her destination with the help of her goggles. “Just don’t take it personally when I either ignore what you have to say or decide to go the stupid route anyway. I must have nicked a wall back with the Silverbeaks. Feels like I’m dragging or the starboard stabilizer is out of whack. One thing we cannot do is bring this baby back to Z all busted up!”
“Indeed. That cannot happen,” Tuitonn replied. “Besides, I get the feeling he would hold me more responsible than you!”
“Don’t kid yourself,” Jocasta stated, releasing her seat straps. “… he’d just glare at me. You he’d put on the pool table and yell ‘rack ‘em’!”
Though it took a little more handling of her sticks, Jocasta was able to put her ship down in the eleventh bay. After locking her ship to the surface, she started powering down the ship’s systems and opened the canopy. She stood up and stretched her legs. By the time she removed her helmet, she could hear engines quickly approaching. She looked up to see a rolling transport coming into view, and it appeared to be filled with technicians. Jocasta decided to move quickly to step out of her ship and intercept them.
“That’s okay, fellas,” she said, holding up her hands to stop their approach. “I appreciate the offer, but I’d just as soon have absolutely no one lay hands on my boy.”
“We can get to that after we deal with the biological signature you’ve got on your ship,” the driver said as he got out of the transport, putting his hand on his pistol. “You got a co-pilot on board?”
“Here’s a notion, let’s use the universal playbook,” Jocasta said, turning her left shoulder toward the people departing the transport. “You or anyone in your company draws, I drill you first and deal with the rest as they come.”
“I said you have a biological–”
