StarFlight: The Prism Baronies (Beyond the Outer Rim Book 2)

by Reiter

  “You should allow the gray to show,” Jocasta remarked. “It’d go a long way to explaining a few things. But if you need me to, grandpa, I’ll break it down for you. As I mentioned, you interrupted the exchange of credits, and no one takes kindly to that. But before that, you levied some pretty hard justice to somebody in my ‘cherish pocket’. You remember Rouge, relic?”

  “Rouge!” Uhnveer whispered, allowing his head to drop to his chest. Now things were finally beginning to make sense. If this wench had been in the stable of Rouge, she was trained in more than the combative arts. Uhnveer had faced the noted pirate twice, though he believed she only knew of their second encounter. In his mind, it had been a perfect revenge. The pirate wench had cost him his first captaincy. He had spent seven years after that meeting rebuilding and laying all sorts of traps in her path, finally managing to get a number of operatives on her flagship crew. That battle would be the day when Murphy’s Law would plague her. Her shields would stand, but not be quite strong enough. Her guns would fire, but not quite accurately enough. Her ship would swim, but not nearly fast enough. He had decimated her and thought he had driven the woman out of the profession. Apparently that was one student too late.

  “Yes, I remember that woman,” Uhnveer said softly.

  “I would love to say she sends her regards, but in actuality, we’ll be drinking over your ass-kicking when I see her again,” Jocasta promised. “And I’m still at Sky Stone if you’re interested. Don’t send a fleet! Stand up and be a man,” she challenged before her face went blank. “Wait, you are standing. Sorry. Step up in your chair and be a taller man!” The projector did not survive the first blast; the center of the table did not withstand the fourth. As loud as his gun was, it could barely be heard over his booming war cry!

  “You want to fight me, bitch?!” he cried out, tearing the blaster into two pieces. “You want me?! That sentiment we share!”

  Colonel Tennon started to speak in protest but Rosina Quinique cut him off, “Be silent, Colonel! We will await our orders.”

  ** b *** t *** o *** r **

  There were no more towels. Between their roughhousing and the sweat they worked up piloting the power-suits, Jocasta was left with the options of either having Alpha dry her or simply walking around naked until she was dry. She went with the latter of the two.

  “And we have energy showers on the ship, why?”

  “Water storage and usage, Captain,” Dungias said as he received the tray of food from the robot. “Thank you.”

  “You are most welcome, sir,” the robot replied before floating away.

  “Shall I make you a plate?”

  “No, I got it,” Jocasta answered, looking out of the window.

  “As you wish,” Dungias replied. “With regard to wet showers, once you use the water, you have to get more.”

  “Oh man, don’t give me that Kot,” Jocasta complained. “I’ve got a five-centimeter wide blade that fits into a two-centimeter wide cane.”

  “Two point five centimeters, actually.

  “And to think I missed you!” she snapped, taking the roll off of his plate. Dungias pressed his lips together before returning to the tray for another roll. “Figure it out, Z. Collect it, clean it, recycle it, just don’t tell anyone. If anyone asks, tell them to come talk to me about it.”

  Jocasta ate part of her roll as she took a seat on the sofa. Her brace-com beeped and she looked at Dungias. “You see me here resting, right?”

  “Woman, you are pathetic,” he said opening the channel from his brace-com.

  “I love you too, Z.”

  “Captain, I have an update for you,” Satithe transmitted. “The interactive message has been delivered, along with the breach programs Shotgun composed.”

  “Yes!” Jocasta cheered and Dungias smirked. “What was the response?”

  “The Field Marshal fired on the projector.” Jocasta cheered and Dungias shook his head.

  “Sati, baby, with the exception of the whole legs crossed thing, you fuckin’ nailed that message. I trust the Baron and his sister are still secure?”

  “And they send their gratitude, Captain,” Satithe replied. “But of course you know–”

  “Bah! Let him come,” Jocasta said, taking another bite of her roll and smiling at the thought of fighting the diminutive Delbred strategist, who apparently was not that good at strategy. “Eventually he’s going to take a shot at the title. I’d rather not be blindsided by the effort this time around. A girl can only get rescued by a blue mountain so many times. It’s in the rules. I looked it up!”

  Dungias nodded as he observed his commanding officer. He closed his eyes to examine her. “It is as I suspected, her potential treks are tied to mine and therefore blurred. I cannot allow this to deter me.” A soft vibration came from Dungias’ brace-com. He looked down to receive a message.

  I doubt you and I would use verbal words were we to meet face-to-face. That is understandable. It occurs to me there is a strong imbalance with regards to Persephone now with what has happened to Jocasta. That imbalance, I predict, will grow as she works her way into the ranks of the Star-Wing Corps. Your distrust in me is warranted, but I will not have a break in our agreement. Outside the Xara-Mansura, a package is about to be delivered. It contains a gift for Persephone. It will not match what Jocasta has received stride-for-stride, but I leave you to make it work. You have yet to fail her. I will not serve as a reason why you might. Fare thee well, Traveler – Dal

  “Dragons, apparently, do not grow old being incredibly idiotic,” Dungias thought. “For the words I have for V’Dalthian are certainly not of the verbal sort. I shall see to this package and make my decision. I will either take his offering or awaken Persephone much sooner than I expected.

  “Hey you!” Jocasta called out. “Blue and brooding! Am I supposed to be thick as a brick and not figure out you and the crew are making serious moves? Satithe might’ve worked up that message, but she didn’t do it out of the blue, pardon the pun. And she damn sure didn’t do it because she thought I wanted her to. You waited until the trials were over, and I got back into a can. Distraction potential has been minimized. You want to fill me in on the particulars now?”

  “It would be my pleasure, Captain.”

  I don’t care about age very much. I think back to the old people I knew when I was growing up, and they always seemed larger than life.

  Chinua Achebe

  (Rims Time: XII-4204.10)

  As their trek dragged further and further on, hopelessness loomed over their heads, growing heavier with every step. It was getting more difficult for K’Jolun to maintain a hopeful and confident demeanor. The looks of fatigue and frustration showing on his students’ faces, the way they no longer walked with a sense of purpose let alone a sense of awareness, and the sighs that boredom and a perpetual fear could create… they chilled even his eager and burning hope. He had stopped giving a verbal count of the number of transports they had taken, but in the thirteen days since his confrontation with Vhusetti Gru, he and his small band had been passengers on nine different ships.

  Hopping transports of all kinds and eventually coming to the city of New Dakota which was high up in the Gandhi Mountains, there had been a steady deterioration of morale in the student body. All, that is, except for Cleopatra and Pharaoh who possessed seemingly untouchable dispositions. Patra could never go very long without smiling, and Phay hardly ever showed any emotion at all outside of his concern for his charge whom he considered to be his younger sibling.

  “It felt like we had been delivered,” K’Jolun thought, “… when we ran to the docks with only seconds before our given time. Two ships were there, one floating above the other. The attached ship was atmospheric, but it was the spacecraft that had been registered as a parked vessel at that docking slip.” The young Temple Fighter remembered how he, Misharee, and their students had climbed aboard the atmospheric ship and flew from the docks. One ship headed for the stars, the other for the coast
. By the time the Magistrates stopped the transport, they had already been spirited away in a hovercraft piloted by a young man who had very little regard for the protocol of safe transport. Still, they made good time and wound up spending the evening in the rear of a processing plant that made and packaged nutritional units. It was still dark when K’Jolun and the children left aboard an automated delivery transport that took them to the other side of Vastion. It was there where they boarded a short-range shuttle, piloted by a robot, which took them to Glory. Five modes of transport later, they were on the opposite side of the largest moon of Vastion.

  From there, it had been a ten-day pilgrimage along with some hill folk who were making their way home after their work seasons; the students of the newly-formed Southern Temple were more than just a little tired. The answerless questions were beginning to echo in their minds, and they wondered if they were simply prolonging the inevitable.

  “Looks like we’re splitting up,” Phay pointed out as most of the people turned to continue further up into the mountains. “Didn’t you say that we need to take the fork to the right?”

  “That is what I was told,” K’Jolun replied.

  “So we’re going where no one else is going,” Tenjas complained.

  “Not no one,” Patra called out, pointed at the path that turned to the right. “There’s one!” With his back against a large boulder, a tall man stood with his head against his walking stick. His long, loose gray hair with black roots covered the side of his face, but it was not the inability to see his face that gave K’Jolun pause.

  “Aside from what my eyes see, there is nothing there!” K’Jolun thought, taking only a moment to look at Misharee who knew the reason for his glance and shook her head ‘no’.

  “You two need to work on your coded communications,” the man said, and K’Jolun frowned, feeling as if he had heard the voice before. “That’s not all you need to work on, but it’d be a passable start. You know something’s up, and those are the faces you wear? Yeah, you definitely have to work on that.” The man stood up from leaning against the boulder and cleared his throat.

  “I know you from somewhere,” K’Jolun said softly, trying to recall the moment. The man chuckled, allowing his stick to lean against his chest. With his hands free, he lifted his right arm and grabbed his forearm with his left hand, performing a nerve pinch. K’Jolun recalled the instance immediately. “The homeless man!” K’Jolun concluded. “You were trying to warn me the day that Vhusetti betrayed us; the one who wrote the message on the wall!” The man chuckled, taking hold of his stick. “Did I say something funny?”

  “Vhusetti Gru betrayed you long before that day, Cage,” the man stated, moving his hair back over his shoulder. “The curtain was lifted the day he put you through a wall, but he had worked his treachery in weeks ahead of then.

  “Well,” he continued, “we’ve got miles ahead of us and they aren’t going to walk themselves.”

  “Wait!” Tenjas called out. “How do we know you haven’t worked your treachery?!”

  “That was not advisable, Tenjas,” K’Jolun said softly.

  “You got that right,” the older man agreed. “But I’m going to do you one better than saying that was wrong, boy. First, to say ‘your treachery’ implies a foregone conclusion, and that’s damn rude no matter what sort of fix you’re in. ‘A treachery’ is what you’re looking for. And second, to answer the sentiment of the inquiry, you don’t have a damn clue! That brings us back to the fix you’re in. Now… you’re young, stupid, scared, and gods know you have every right to all three. You, kiddo, have allowed those three traits to get in the way of simple thinking. In order to pose that question the way you did, you had to blow right by ‘you were trying to warn me the day that Vhusetti betrayed us’. Tried. Warn. Message on the wall. Slept straight through those, didn’t you?

  “The name’s Winpruhl Dierman and I’m a Blood Paladin,” the man proclaimed and each of the older students looked at each other and their teachers in shock. “That’s right, I kill Chevaliers as a profession. Killed my first one when I was fifteen, and I’ve been at it for one hundred and forty-five years!”

  “Wow, you’re weely old!” Patra exclaimed and Winpruhl smiled in response.

  “Yes I am, little one.” The Blood Paladin looked up at K’Jolun and nodded. “Before I forget… that was solid work on Gru.”

  “I am not a Blood Paladin,” K’Jolun stated.

  “Now I see where the boy learned how to assume,” Winpruhl said, turning to walk down the path. “I was there to kill Gru, boy. You saved me the trouble. Notice that I haven’t come after you and the young ones. At least, not yet!”

  “C’mon, Patra,” Phay said, walking to follow the old man. Patra was quick to follow behind her brother. K’Jolun looked back at Misharee before taking to the path. The young woman ushered the boys forward as K’Jolun walked more quickly to catch up to Winpruhl.

  “It might have helped if you had said you only killed wayward Chevaliers,” K’Jolun pointed out.

  “Yeah, but that would have been a lie!” Winpruhl answered. “I don’t take too well to lying.”

  “You’re not a homeless man.”

  “One, you don’t know that, and two, who says I’m not? We’re in the Terran Triangle, where Chevaliers are shat from the stars! You think I have a home here?! I’m not coming after you because your name’s not on the board, and I’m not in the market at the moment. Your name won’t get on the board until you become a Chevalier. You’ve got moves, and perhaps one of the most powerful Energy bases I’ve ever seen. But you lean Northern way too much for your own good, and you’re making all the rookie mistakes. I received word to get you to a safe location. I don’t like the assignment, but I know why I got it, so… I’m going to do it so I can be done with you. If we ever meet again… chances are it will be for a different reason.”

  “And it will be doubtful that I will be making the same rookie mistakes,” K’Jolun added.

  “No. By then I’m sure you will have conjured up all new fresh ones!” K’Jolun stopped walking as the Blood Paladin continued down the path. Only when Misharee had caught up with him did he start walking again.

  “So that is a Blood Paladin,” she remarked after a while. Looking over at a silent K’Jolun, she decided it would be best to say one other thing. “Don’t worry. It’s because of you that we’re still alive… that the Southern Temple is still alive. Soon we’ll be in a place where we can resume our studies.”

  “Let us hope,” K’Jolun said softly. “For I am certain our temple would be better off with a stronger pillar.”

  ** b *** t *** o *** r **

  Sarshata walked into her office, reading the reports logged by her instructors, and not looking the least bit pressed by the company of men who had been waiting for her to arrive. The report concerned the class of cadets and was therefore more pressing; the news was not surprising and the Commander did not hesitate to send a message to Eugenia, giving her permission to proceed with what was referred to as a Stage One Rattling. She smiled and almost giggled imagining Snow’s howling response.

  “Well, at last, the Commandant arrives!” Commander Ravinguez looked up from her brace-com to see a skinny man dressed in what had to be the most recent outrageous of fashions. Most of his suit was metallic gray save for the lapels, collars, and the panels of cloth draped between the man’s shoulders and his arms.

  “I wonder if he can glide,” Sarshata thought as she walked over to her desk. “Why am I getting the feeling we’re about to find out?!”

  “We are honored the great and legendary Swan could ho–” a projectile fired through the exaggerated collar, cutting the skinny man’s speech short. While his eyes and mouth froze wide open, Sarshata slowly lowered her gun to her side.

  “You see how not one of the three armed men in the room are making a move?!” Sarshata asked. “This is not your first time here, parrot.”

  “No, it isn’t,” the Pearl Baron said, gett
ing up from his chair. He put his hand on T’Podio’s shoulder and ushered him to sit down. “But the reason why I am here is not within our historical mainstream. I received a communique from Uhnveer Plarzo today.”

  “Indeed! Don’t forget to mark your calendar,” Sarshata replied quickly.

  “Sarshata.”

  “I am well aware of the developing issue regarding the Field Marshal, Baron,” the woman fired back. “Exactly what do you really think is going to happen here? You’re going to square your rather impressive shoulders, I’m going to nervously withdraw to go and fetch the woman and hand her over to you so you can do the same to that diminutive fop?! Baron Straum, up until this moment I’ve had the greatest respect for you. You’ve not been dealt a good hand, and you’re playing it masterfully.”

  “And the Pearl Barony is on the rise, Commander!” Ivus snapped. “And I don’t mean just the tourism. We’re actually receiving measures of respect and inclusion from the other baronies! Do you know what this can do to what we’re all trying to build?!”

  “Your inclusion comes because of the growing appeal and influence of the Onyx Barony,” Sarshata answered. “And, at the risk of losing your respect for me, Baron, I’m about the business of building Sky Stone, not the Pearl Barony. According to our charter, which I fully support, the Star-Wings Corps is obligated to protect the Pearl Barony. If the Field Marshal wants to bring his warships inside the protocol limits, he’ll be reminded of the Corps the same way your parrot was. Only then we won’t shoot to miss.”

  “And what are twenty fighters going to do up against the same number of warships?!” Ivus shouted. A flaring of white light passed over Sarsahta’s eyes. Ivus swallowed hard as he withdrew a step.

  “I think, good Baron, you’ve forgotten why you’re afraid of us,” she said at just above a whisper. “Get me Flambé,” Sarshata called out and her computer responded by opening a channel. After a few seconds, the tell-tale tone sounded.