Of Hearts And Stars (Classic Editon) (The Cadet Starship Chronicles)

by West, Edward

  “I still intend to bring you back- by force if necessary, but I'd actually like to know why you're here, in this imperial research facility of all places. When I saw you up on the surface, I almost didn't believe it was you.”

  Fisher held up his hands and said “Why am I here? Spying on The Empire of course.” Just then Gin rushed into the room and Fisher asked “Oh? Who's this?”

  “Oh yeah. Fisher this is Gin. Gin, Fisher.” Swift said.

  Gin greeted Fisher with “Hello.”

  Fisher waved a hand and said “Yo.”

  “Mind telling us why you're spying on The Empire?” Swift asked.

  “I've already told you. I plan on ending the war.” Fisher answered.

  “By stealing information for the rebels?”

  Fisher began to engage Atheist and said “Whatever. You wouldn't understand, being blinded by The Empire's lofty ideals, so I'm done talking.”

  “If that's the way you want it, then you've got it. I'll beat the answers out of you.” Swift said and engaged Wrath.

  Fisher made the first move by dashing forward and whipping an energy cord at Swift. Moving quickly, Swift retaliated with a punch to Fishers gut. Unaffected by the punch, Fisher responded by lashing his energy cords around Swift's ankles and pulling. Swift fell backwards onto the floor, rolling left and right, dodging two savage whips from Atheist. Swift placed himself into a kneeling position as the next energy cord sliced through the air towards him. Using Wrath, he was able to catch it and pull Fisher forward and into an enhanced uppercut. Fisher then wrapped Atheist around Swift's waist, swinging him around the room, through some furniture, and up through the ceiling. Gin ran for cover from the falling debris. As the dust settled he saw that the fight relocated to the room above. He climbed the ruined furniture and debris to find himself in what looked like a large storage area. Atheist's energy cords splashed down unto Swift with vicious intensity, only to be parried or absorbed by Wrath. Sensing another stalemate, Fisher leaped backwards.

  “Looks like you've gotten stronger after all.” he commented.

  Swift rolled his shoulders and said “Well I'm not all worn out from fighting big effin' robots and your faceless rebel mob this time.”

  “True.” Fisher leaned forward, jutted a thumb at what looked to be a sword grip on his shoulder and asked “Remember this?”

  “I saw it.” Swift shrugged and said “Figures that you returning to Mars would mean that you'd take your Runic Blade back.”

  “You've always been pretty good at hand to hand combat, but let's see how you handle this.” Fisher said and brandished a luminescent sword, but Swift knew better. It had heat alright- Fisher's Runic Blade could carve diamond like butter. Wrath's shielding capabilities were miracles of light and heavy beam forming, but against slashing and piercing attacks they were barely adequate. Also physical objects, such as bullets, presented a challenge, and deflecting these required quite a bit of stamina. However Swift did have one advantage here. Even if Wrath couldn't completely stop Runic Blade's edge, it could mitigate it due to the blade itself being composed entirely of pure energy.

  “Giving up on that shoddy knock off you call Atheist then?” Swift jeered.

  Fisher smirked and burst forward with a lightning fast slash. Swift vaulted out of the way and then dodged two more slices. This is not going to be good, Swift thought. Fisher was familiar with Swift's fighting style, particularly the creation of false openings as lures. This meant that an attempt to counterattack Fisher's sword strokes could see him missing an arm or leg. Still Swift felt as if he had no other choice and left himself open. Fisher pounced on this opportunity and aimed a savage attack at Swift's head. He was surprised, however, to see that Swift did not dodge this attack, but instead caught the blade of the sword with his hand. What thin shielding Wrath could provide was reinforced by a steady output of energy by Swift. Even so the blade began to pierce Wrath and sink into his hand. Swift threw an enhanced uppercut into Fisher's ribs, who responded by redoubling the pressure he applied with Runic Blade. Swift could feel his arm buckling underneath the tremendous force and released Wrath's charged up energy in a small explosion that sent both boys sliding backwards. Fisher took deep, whistling breaths through clenched teeth as he held his aching side. Swift was in bad shape as well, his hand looking literally like a hot mess. Nevertheless they both began to resume their fight, but Gin scrambled up into the room and stood between them before they could.

  “Stop it!” he shouted “You two are best friends!”

  Fisher laughed, but stopped abruptly when he tasted the warm, coppery flavor of blood in his mouth. He rolled his eyes and carefully said “Swift made his choice a long time ago. He went back to the academy where all of his important friends were.”

  Hearing these words, Swift had enough and roared “Benedict” so loudly Fisher looked at him in shock “I tried to follow you and you shot me for it!” he said in a voice wrought with emotion.

  Now Fisher ignored his pain and yelled back “Of course I did! It was all for you! I had to be the evil villain so that you could go home a hero!”

  “I didn't ask for that.” Swift replied quietly.

  “Oh? And what would everyone have done if you hadn't come back? What would Revy had done?” Fisher asked.

  Swift said nothing, and simply stood there looking miserable.

  Fisher held both hands up and said “I thought so. Moron. But me? The academy seems to have done just fine without me. Surely I wasn't missed.”

  Swift waved a hand in front of himself as if to shove away the idea and shouted “You weren't missed!? Did you know that your entire crew suffered so much grief from the news of your death that they resigned? Against the advice of the board, the headmaster had your picture placed in the hall among the most honorable cadets. Hangar bay two is still unoccupied because no one will ever take your place.” Swift balled his fists as a tear rolled down his cheek and he added “After all of that. The crying, the sadness, the emptiness; you come back from the dead only to tell me that not only had you died, but our friendship along with it!? You might as well have stayed dead!”

  Silence fell upon the storage area, and Fisher looked down. Not out of sorrow, or misery, but shame. He had forgotten that, like it or not, Swift was always hurting. Somewhere deep inside, beneath the jealousy and resentment, Fisher had been hoping that his friend's pain had eased since they had last seen each other. Fisher felt horrible now to see that it did not, and even worse: he had only added to it.

  “Bitterness” Fisher said, his voice now softened “and isolation had led me to madness and errors. All of this time I've blamed you for taking everything away from me, but you're right. You never asked for my help.” he then looked Swift in the eyes and added “I guess I wanted to be the hero, if only just once.”

  Swift wiped his eyes with his uninjured hand and said “I'm glad you're not dead.”

  “Me too. There's a medic bay located downstairs. Let's heal up and I'll explain to you what's going on, or at least what I know.”

  -46-

  Before they set out for the medic lab, Fisher had caused a minor explosion in the storage area. The reason for this, according to Fisher, was that him and his allies were being watched by the Rebel Faction. Thanks to the miracles of post-modern medicine, both boys soon found themselves completely healed.

  After double checking his smartphone, Fisher said “Now then, I seem to recall you asking me what it is that I am doing here? A little bit of spy work indeed. My sources tell me that The Empire is undergoing trade negotiations with an alien race.”

  “Those tanks in the organics lab!” Gin exclaimed so suddenly that both Swift and Fisher jumped. They had forgotten that he was there.

  “That's them alright.” Fisher said “The Empire is working on portal technology that can bring a shipload of them to our dimension.”

  “Extra allies to fight the rebels?” Swift asked.

  “Bingo. In exchange The Empire has been trading shi
ps, information, and prisoners of war for who knows what. I can imagine, though, that none of it is pretty.” Fisher said.

  “So you're here to steal that tech for the Rebel Faction?” Gin asked.

  “Not even close baby. The rebels have already made contact with our foreign dimensional friends, and are working on their own portal tech as we speak. I'm here to confirm the extent of The Empire's portal program.”

  “Then the aliens are playing both sides.” Swift concluded.

  “Oh! You're not as stupid as I thought!” Fisher jeered.

  “Hey!” Swift barked.

  “I'm kidding. But yeah, neither side knows about the other.”

  “What do you think the aliens plan to do once they're here?” Gin asked.

  “I'd love to say 'you can't judge a book by it's cover', but in this case the cover seems as transparent as glass.” Fisher said.

  “Those were some pretty big teeth they had.” Swift said.

  “All the better to eat you up with.” Fisher said grimly.

  Gin shuddered and asked “So what do we do?”

  “All we can do for now is watch and wait. In the meantime I'm going to send you what data I've collected so far.” Fisher said “LC?”

  LC, still inside of the little robot, rolled over to Fisher and said “Benneh!”

  “Long time, no see. Download my events and schedules. Also update Swift's database where necessary.”

  “So... are you coming back with us?” Swift asked hopefully.

  “I can't. Even with what you said earlier, I still don't have a place at the academy. Not yet at least. Also there's the issue of me being under near constant surveillance by the Rebel Faction.”

  “Really? You mentioned that earlier, but aren't you a rebel soldier?” Gin asked.

  “I am...but I do a lot of covert work. Truth be told I'd consider myself a double agent of sorts. Me and the girl you saw earlier do a lot of investigating on our own, and selectively share our information with the Rebel Faction.”

  “Selectively share huh?” Swift asked.

  “Yup. I've lost faith in the current imperial regime, but I've no greater trust for the leaders of the Rebel Faction either. I've no doubt in my mind that you've gained the attention of the ones who follow, or stalk, me. Be careful on your way home.” Fisher said.

  “Then how do you intend on just walking out of here?” Gin asked.

  “Like this!” Fisher shouted and threw a handful of plasma grenades at them before running out of the room.

  Swift grabbed Gin by the back of the collar, pulled him into the hallway, and sprinted with enhanced agility back the way they came in. Only once they were safely on the surface did they stop to speak.

  “Man that was nuts!” Gin exclaimed.

  “I know right? Now aren't you glad I got you a Snickers?” Swift asked.

  “Ha! Definitely!” Gin patted his stomach and added “But real live aliens! I can't believe it! Wait til we tell the others!”

  Swift put his hands into his pockets and said “About that. It'd be better if we kept this under wraps for now. It's not that I don't trust the crew, but the less people working on this the better. At least until I can figure out what's going on.”

  “Ah, got ya. Secret mission.” Gin said.

  “Most definitely.”

  The ride back up the orbital elevator started the same as the descent. Swift appeared to be dozing with his hands in his pockets, as usual, and his chin on his chest. Gin assumed that he was tired from the fight earlier, so he did his best not to disturb him. However it seemed that Swift was destined to not get his nap after all. The elevator car came to an abrupt halt which sent Swift flying to the floor.

  “Wha...? No!” Swift cried, still half asleep “Are we dead? I don't wanna be stuck in the afterlife with Gin for eternity!”

  “Aw, real cool man. No, we're not dead.” Gin said while helping Swift up “The elevator stopped.”

  Swift said “It shouldn't have stopped.” and walked over to the control panel. He pressed a few buttons, and then a few more “And what was that loud crashing noise about?” he wondered aloud. Just then the elevator car gave off an ear splitting screech.

  “What did you do!?” Gin asked, clearly in a panic.

  “I didn't do anything man!” Swift shouted.

  “Ya-huh! You were mashin' buttons and junk!”

  “I don't mash buttons! I was just checking for errors in diagnostics! I didn't actually change anything!”

  A whirring sound grew around them as they began to slowly rise from the floor.

  “We're falling!” Gin shouted above the ruckus.

  “Ya think?” Swift shouted back and whipped out his smartphone before going to work on the console.

  “Stop that! You'll kill us both!”

  “Stop that! You'll kill us both!” Swift mocked him in a jeering tone of voice.

  “Stop repeating what I say!” Gin shouted angrily.

  Swift sang in a falsetto “Stop repeating what I say!”

  In a fit of rage, Gin removed his shoe and tried to throw it at Swift. It barely left his hand before going directly to the ceiling.

  “Oh my god that was dumb! Gin, stop doing dumb things this instant!” Swift scolded him and continued working on the console.

  “What do we do, what do we do?”

  “Stop throwing shoes for starters!”

  Gin was now on the ceiling himself, and quite sure that they were going to die in a fiery explosion. Couldn't he do anything? He thought briefly about hollering for help before realizing, that too, was dumb. He looked around and saw that somehow Swift was still at the console with an intense look of concentration on his face. Then a miracle happened. Gin began to fall bit by bit until he was halfway to the floor. They were slowing down! Had Swift really done it?

  “Gin...” Swift strained to speak, his eyes tightly shut.

  “Yeah dude?” Gin said as he awkwardly swam over to Swift.

  “The time...what's it say?”

  “Uhh...six minutes, forty seconds.”

  Swift nearly fired off every curse word he had ever learned. He had managed to slow the elevator enough to where they'd live through impact. The catch was that to do this he had to use Wrath to polarize the elevator car within the elevator shaft's electrical field. At most he could keep this up for another moment or two. But six? He'd pass out well before that and probably die before the elevator car hit the surface of Mars like a bomb.

  “New...plan.” Swift struggled once more to speak.

  “Wait, what?” Gin asked.

  “Ceiling...open the...emergency door.”

  Gin didn't question him any further and did what he was told.

  “Climb...on my...back.”

  Gin did this too and before he knew it they were out of the elevator car and soaring upwards at a very fast speed. The elevator shaft was illuminated with a broad spectrum of colored lights, and looked quite beautiful as they raced by them all. Swift had changed the target of Wrath's energy to himself and reversed polarity. He couldn't save the elevator car, but he could get Gin and himself to the top before the blast reached them. Just then a loud boom issued from below, followed by an ominous rumbling. Gin looked down and his eyes widened in fear.

  “Look!” he cried.

  “No!” Swift said. He knew in situations like these that it's best not to look down.

  “There's a lot of fire coming!”

  “Shut up dude!” Swift shouted. As if he already didn't know about the huge fireball coming to BBQ them, and hearing about it only made matters worse.

  They managed to beat the flames, and not a second too soon. Just as Swift used an energy burst to send them tumbling onto the floor of the spaceport, fire spewed out of the elevator shaft like flames from the mouth of an angry dragon. He had only a split second to react, and invested it wisely in putting up a shield. Bright plumes of orange, vermillion, and red as searing to the eye as they were to the touch surged by inches above their f
aces. When it was over they sat up and surveyed their surroundings. The entire corridor was scorched, and small fires remained here and there. Swift turned to Gin with a grin on his face.

  “Remember. Don't tell Revy.”

  PART FIVE

  All At Once

  -47-

  Just another busy Saturday morning in Ready Room One Gin observed. Though in his opinion, busy Saturday mornings were run of the mill, as every morning for ESC 1 was busy in one way or another. The crew of LaCroix's dedication to research and development never ceases to amaze him. Technically all SC and ESC members had to do was participate in matches and talk strategy- typical stuff a soccer or football team might do he guessed. However it also appeared that part of training for an ESC was not only practicing shipboard skill, but also crafting new tech.

  “Zhao” Revy spoke as she made her rounds “How are those adjustments going?”

  “Smooth I'd say.” Zhao said as he tinkered with a hologram in front of him. A particularly cool innovation had to be the holobench that Zhao was using. Engineers and technicians could use this to edit the hologram, save the changes, and a machine would apply them when ready. Zhao wiped his forehead and added “I just need to recalibrate the planar reticulation module.”

  Revy clapped her hands together and said “Excellent! Felix, how is that research going?”

  “Done and done. Check your inbox.” Felix said, and caught Gin staring at Revy. He gave him a wink and a thumbs up. Gin saw this and quickly looked away as Swift walked in.

  Cookie nudged Allie and said “Hey, look who decided to finally show his face.”

  Allie folded her arms and asked “Oh ho ho, you think he'll say yes this year?”

  Cookie gave her a knowing smile “Nah. He'll say no and end up going to the dance with her anyway like the last two years.”

  Allie shook her head “Honestly. Aren't you men sposed to be straight forward about these things? Alpha male and all that good stuff? I don't get the whole 'I don't like dances' deal.”

  “No way. Men have gotta play it real cool. All aloof-like.”