by John Short
“On our way Dragon.” Suddenly the Leviathan appeared in space above them and rocked gently as it settled in and bled off the motion of its jump.
“Lev, let the ships internals select a landing bay and get the Fayie loaded. We're taking it to Favor 3.”
“Working on it Dragon. Are you all ready to come in or are you going to stay out and play some more?”
“I'll stay out for awhile until we get the Fayie secured in the bay. We still have all that scrape to sell before I'll feel really comfortable allowing the ship to bring other ships onboard by itself.” Jon commed. However he didn't need to worry. Leviathan moved in close with its huge hanger bay open and simply swallowed the Fayie in one big gulp before the bay closed again. Jon flew forward and entered the shuttle hanger. The landing bay doors closed and the pressure in the bay grew as he settled his shuttle down on its pad and shut down the engines. He then rose from his seat only to find that his legs would not support him. He'd been sitting in the flight chair too long and over exerted himself. He needed help and he needed it now.
“Captain, plot a course to Favor 3 and jump us there please. Then send Jarrieal here to me with my wheelchair.” Jon ordered.
“Very well Admiral. Jumping in 3, 2, 1, Jump!” Like magic the Leviathan was there one second, the next it was approaching standard orbit around Favor 3. It took the ship less time to travel light cycles away to some distant planet than it took for Jarrieal to bring Jon his wheelchair from across the room! Such was the miracle of the jump drives. Wrenches had promised to go over every aspect of them to find out how they worked so she could copy the design but so far all she had managed to do was adapt a couple of spare engines to work on the Defiance which right now was tethered in the same bay as the Fayie. Leviathan began releasing the Fayie back into space as the Freighter's Captain called down to the surface for help in repairing his engines. Then the Captain commed Jon, “Thank you Dragon. There are a bunch of sick farmers down there who needed the cure we're carrying.”
“It was our pleasure Captain. One day you'll owe us a favor. Just remember it was the Stars and Stripes Security Co. that came to your aid.” Jon commed to the Captain.
“How could I forget that ship of yours? I don't believe I've ever seen its like. I am just glad you’re on our side. Anything we can do to help, you just need to name it and it’s yours.
I couldn't help but notice that you have the Defiance secured in your hanger bay.” the Captain continued. “If the Butcher is onboard your vessel, we have a message for him and the Defiance. He, his crew, and the ship are requested for a special mission. If he is with you, and I think he is, ask him to meet the agent at Jake's Tavern on Hiliost 5 any day he can at 1900 hours local time. If he is not, please pass on the message to any ships you don't destroy first.”
“I'll make sure he gets your message Captain. Safe flying.” Jon ended the COM link. “What do you think Jarrieal?” Jon asked his friend who was walking beside him as he rolled in his wheelchair.
“I'm not really sure Jon. This whole thing is new to me. You're the one with family ties in the shipping business. My family has always been career Military. Who or what is this agent?” Jarieal asked.
“Say you have a shipment that needs to go from planet A to planet B but you don't own a ship to get it there. You hire an agent who hires a ship, arranges for the pickup and the payments to the ship. You pay your agent, he pays the ship owners, and your cargo gets taken to where you need it to go. Then once it’s confirmed that the shipment arrived intact, you get paid after the Agent takes his cut of course. Its all pretty straight forward until you head out to the rim worlds and have pirates to deal with. Of course in that case, the rates go way up as do any assurance policies on the cargo. The only strange thing is we've never listed Defiance as a cargo ship and the call is specifically for her, her full crew, and me. We've really just started using her and she's always been under the security branch. I never listed her for cargo. Before that, unless you used it while I was in the medical lab back on Lexon II under the Peacekeepers care, the ship only went on one mission under my command. I think we have time to decide and a cargo bay full of scrap to sell in the Leviathan's holds once Phillie has finished picking through it for anything she can use. After that is all taken care of we'll make up our minds on this special request for our friend Butcher. I'll see you at Last meal. Go wash Phillie or something.” Jon kidded him.
“You think its a joke, but I'll wager she gets extra dirty now just so I get to wash her fur cause she knows I enjoy doing it.” Jar laughed as he hurried off and Jon rolled into his stateroom all the while wishing good things for his two friends and their newly found love. Nothing like what happened between Satrina and him.
Rather than using his com badge which just might cause his commands to be broadcast to the Fayie, which was still floating in close range of Leviathan, he used the wired com in his stateroom to order the Captain to have Leviathan return to its hiding place in rim space. “We need to meet with the rest of our fleet who have orders to come to us there with our crew and supplies. I only want to know if one of our ships is being attacked.” Jon explained. “I also want each of them loaded with the salvage we have onboard that we collected from Leviathan's resting place. I want that stuff off the ship as soon as possible.”
Chapter Fourteen
Jon stayed in his stateroom going through the boxes of items he'd found in the hidden vault at his house back on Haven. Most of what he found would only hold the interest of historians and scholars. He found video records from old Earth, a few of which showed his ancestor near a house almost identical to the one on Haven. This house had to have been the one on Earth because the layout of the surrounding property and the types of trees were totally different. He also found disks containing recordings of what were labeled “OLD TV SHOWS.” These held everything from a show called 'Wagon Train' about settlers crossing a vast tract of parched land in wagons being pulled by a strange beast of burden called a horse to a show called 'Star Trek Enterprise' about humanities first travels to the stars. It took some time for Jon to understand that these were not accurate histories but fantasies made as simple entertainment.
There were charts of each system Leviathan had visited as the original Earthlings had searched for a new home. He found a full account of the events leading up to their departure from the doomed planet and the selection process that had been used to select the survivors. Apparently the only humans to have been selected came from a place called the United States of America. The banner displayed on the bow of Leviathan was an exact copy of the nation's flag! Only those who came under the heading of Politically Conversative had made the long list of possible people to be saved. Apparently the original leaders of the survivors had wanted only people who could be trusted to work together without a lot of arguing about religions or cultures or any of the millions of other different disagreements that were normal on Earth. The men had all served in the nation's military at some period of their lives, or worked at the same job for more than three years before their names were added and space provided on the ship. Women had to agree to give birth to two or more offspring once they found a home. While these Americans covered the entire human race in terms of different people from all the races and nationalities living in the country at that time, in making the selections they had, they'd lost untold volumes of knowledge from different cultures and histories not to mention the talents of those people left to die when the planet met its end. He would pay good credits to have someone who understood what this Bible Phillie had mentioned was really trying to say. Jon was sure that one book held many more secrets from human culture than he'd unlocked so far.
To their credit they did make an extensive library of the knowledge of every group on the planet, so they lost very little of their science and medical knowledge, such as it was. Only the cultures in places that had shunned the modern world had been completely lost. Most of the information on human culture was already available to everyone
back in the Public Library on Haven. Unfortunately, these days no one cared enough to read the hundreds of volumes of information available at the Library. Even Haven's schools taught that the files were mostly made up legends and not worth studying.
From what Jon had learned, their medical knowledge was limited. People on Earth had still died from diseases that had long ago been wiped out here in space. No one even knew what cancer was now and diabetes had long since become something used to frighten children who refused to eat their vegetables. Everything else had been recorded and stored in Leviathans data banks! The knowledge could all be recovered, if only interest in the human race survived past him. As far as Leviathan itself was concerned, maybe there would be some way to disable her weapons and her drives, before parking her at a station as a living museum or something. He needed her now though just as she was.
The more he discovered, the more he was glad for all those times when his uncle had made him learn the human's English language. More specifically the American version of English. Jon could understand most of what he read and those few things that were beyond him, Phillie seemed to know instantly. What had taken Jon cycles of his childhood life to learn how to read and understand had come to Phillie as if she were born knowing them. Then he opened one very large and heavy box.
Inside he found a kind of metal device that he could not figure out at all. Once he managed to unflod the thing it had a long metal base, with springs to raise or lower one end. On the base were two rubber treads and some rollers. Then came two posts that were fixed to the base that came up above Jon's waist with some type of control panel on top that spanned the twin vertical posts. Coming off of the control panel was a power cord of some kind. It had taken Jar over an hour to shove the thing outside of Jon's house and into the shuttle the day he left home. Now he'd need Phillie's help to figure out what exactly it did. He commed her to his stateroom then went back to opening boxes. He'd just opened one that said, “Private Collection” when Phillie knocked.
“Come in Phillie!” Jon called out.
“What's up boss?” she questioned.
Pointing to the strange machine that he had moved to the side out of the way of the rest of the boxes, “Have you got any ideas on what that is?” he asked.
“I watched a vid about this thing that was in with all the technical stuff you gave me. Its some kind of device for walking without moving.” she admitted with a confused look. “Why would a person waste their time walking someplace and never get there?”
“It must have been important to at least one of my ancestors. I found it in with the things that were hidden in our family vault. Somebody had to have brought it from Earth before the ship left.” Jon told her as he dug through the stacks of data disks from the box marked Private Collection. Selecting one, he went over to his desk and inserted it into his tablet. Suddenly his quarters were filled with the sounds of harsh, loud music with a heart stopping beat! Pulling the disk out Jon breathed a sigh of relief and smiled over at Phillie who had either fallen or jumped into the box she was digging in when he first inserted the disk. All he could see were her eyes peeking over the top of the open box. “Sorry.” Jon apologized. “I had no idea that was going to happen.”
“Next time warn a person. Jon Connell that must have been some kind of secret weapon or something.”
“That label just says 'Iron Man, ACDC'. I thought it might be the schematics for one of the suits of armor we found in the hanger bay with those ships in the rear hanger.” Jon explained.
“If they used that as a weapon, no wonder they were such great warriors! No one would dare stand against such a noise!” Phillie commented. “AAHHH here it is. Get me out of this box.” she asked with her arms held out to him. “This is the instruction book. It will explain more about this thing and don't be like Jarrieal. You can not point and shoot that thing, you need to read the directions to see what its supposed to do.”
“He's right you know. Most of the things Jar and I use all you need to know is point and shoot.” Jon told her with a grin as he lifted her from the box and gently placed her on the floor again.
“AAARRRRGGGGG! MALES!” she half smiled as she sat on Jon's couch to read, while Jon continued to take the Private Collection disks in and out of his tablet. He found several that he liked and these he would place in his desk to listen to later, others he'd toss back in the box. Some were just too slow, others far too fast and loud for his musical tastes. A couple of the ones he was going to put back in the box, Phillie had asked if she could listen to with the promise to return them when she was finished. So Jon started to make three piles. Pile one for him, pile two return to box, and pile three loan to Phillie. There were two groups who Jon liked better than all the others. One was an orchestra called “Two Steps From Hell.” and the other was a group of females who called themselves 'Escala'. Another of Jon's personal favorite players was a young female named 'Lindsey Stirling'. The last two because they played the same instrument in the violin and the first because the music they made seemed to give Jon the feeling of victory over unbeatable odds in their music. He could picture a small band of warriors emerging victorious over a vastly larger force of attackers. Much like what his teams had done right up to the Canari raid when they had lost Zeprik to a bunch of pirates. Now that he had Leviathan in his grasp, he had half a mind to return there and turn the entire planet into space debris!
The angry male voice came back!
“Take a care Warrior” an angry voice called to him. “The time comes when you must decide to forgive. If you can not, my ship will betray you and you will be he of the painting knowing only darkness and death when love is calling.”
“JON! JON! HEY JON!” Phillie was calling to him.
“Sorry lil' sis. What did you find?” Jon snapped back to the present.
“This thing is called a tread climber. It was a kind of exercise device for people too busy to go to what they called a gym or who lived in climates where the weather was too harsh to exercise outside. I think it could help you get the strength back in your legs.” she told him. “Watch, I'll try to show you how it works. First we have to find the right kind of power. This machine has been modified to use the same power crystals as the ship.” Opening a small compartment she checked on a crystal already installed in a holder. “Looks like its still got plenty of power. So next thing to do is you put your feet on the belts, one foot on each tread, like this.” she showed him. “Now you just turn it on and start walking,” and when she did, the treads began to raise and lower while the belts traveled in circles around the rollers. Pushing more buttons on the controls she said, “You can make it go faster or slower, even increase or decrease the amount of slope.” She continued to change the settings and raised up the speed until she was practically running. Then she turned it off and stepped down, out of breath. “The directions say that if you use it for thirty minutes a day it will increase your stamina and develop the muscles in your legs and stomach. Not that your legs or stomach need more muscles, but your legs could certainly use more stamina. Jar told me that he had to help you get out of your ship after the mission earlier.”
“Jar needs to learn to keep his mouth shut.” Jon said sullenly.
“He's worried about you, just like me. He loves you too you know? Its just he's too much of a Warrior male to tell you.” Phillie told Jon for her mate. “And yes, he'd point and shoot me if he knew I said that. So don't you go telling him!” Phillie pushed against Jon, “Your turn, climb up on that thing and give it a try. If it works, you can wear yourself out in here all day and no one will see you falling on your face out in the rest of the ship. Not to mention Talga screaming until someone comes to pick you up like the last time you went for a walk without your chair!”
“You really like Jar, don't you Phillie?” Jon asked her as he mounted the exercise machine.
“Yes Jon. I never thought I would fall in love again after my mate died. Jar makes me feel all special again. I love him very much.�
� she told him. “You gave me a new life and he makes it worth living.”
“That's a good thing. Hold on to him tightly. He's a good male to have on your side when things get tough.” Jon assured her. “He might be a little rough around the edges, but he always tries to do the right thing.” Turning the machine on to one of the slowest settings he began to make the walking motions needed to prevent him from falling off. Then he slowly advanced the settings until he was walking at a crisp pace while not over doing the effort needed to keep up with the moving treads. “This thing is really easy.” he said to Phillie.
“Make sure you have one hand on those handles all the times to help you keep your balance. When you think you can go faster, turn up the speed. Just go easy until you feel safe. You can over do it and then end up back in the tube again.” Phillie warned him.
“Yes Mother!” Jon kidded. “I think I got this figured out.” Stopping the device he stepped down from it having made up his mind to put the machine to good use at least once everyday. “I still want to go through some more of the stuff in these boxes. You want to go through them with me?”
“I'd like to, but I still have to finish up with all that salvage. Venus is scheduled to arrive soon and I want to have the first load ready for her to take back to the scrap yards. Then Mars will arrive shortly after Venus leaves, with Mercury right on her exhaust pipes. Pluto is coming in last. It will be good to see the old crew again even if it’s just for a quick hi-bye visit.”
