Knight Errant

by Paul Barrett

  Trey grimaced. “In a half hour. And it’s spaghetti, not rats.”

  Gerard looked at Hawk. “You’ve returned intact, so the call wasn’t a trap. What’s going on?”

  Hawk took a few snacks from a platter on the table. “Yonath Maratai and his family have been kidnapped.”

  Hawk explained the situation as the others listened, munching on a few snacks as he talked. Laura got up and made another drink for them. Wolf continued jotting notes. Gerard fiddled with his machinery, and Ashron started a game of chess with Trey.

  Despite their seeming lack of attention, Hawk knew that, apart from Trey, any of them could have repeated every word he said.

  “Ship,” Hawk said when he finished explaining.

  “Yes, Captain.”

  “I’ll need everything you have on the Tekranese Destruction Force, and we’ll need three-D plans of the Candash fortress. I figured seventy-five hours to Tekran. Give me a real time with Gerard pushing.”

  “Seventy-three hours, thirty-seven minutes, plus or minus seven minutes. Gerard?”

  “Show me the path.”

  A map of nearby space appeared on the table. A line showed the trajectory Ship had plotted, along with mathematical symbols Hawk didn’t even pretend to understand. Gerard glanced at it for ten seconds, then turned his gaze to Hawk. “I can trim two hours without effort. Six hours if I exhaust myself.”

  Hawk shook his head. “I want you coherent to help us plan, so give me the two, don’t burn yourself out.” He regarded the rest of the crew. “Study the information Ship has provided. We’ll plan during the trip. We’re getting an extra agent to act as a courier. He’ll be here at 0500, and then we’re out of here.” He threw the chip he was given at the meeting onto the table. “Here’s the Council intel in case anyone cares what their strategy was. Any questions?”

  “Yeah,” Ashron said. “Where’s Dijon?”

  “Who?”

  “You know damn well who. Dijon, my python.”

  “Python?” Hawk said. “Oh, yeah. Trey’s cooked a special surprise for dinner tonight. Let’s go eat.”

  As everyone filed out, heading for the galley, Ashron said, “I thought we were having spaghetti.”

  Hawk shrugged. “He had to make the meatballs out of something.”

  “Going out on the town tonight are we, Captain?” Ship asked as Hawk changed shirts in his quarters. The crew had just finished dinner, which turned out to be vegetarian spaghetti. Ashron found Dijon contentedly wrapped around one of the small trees that decorated the dining room. Hawk gave the crew the rest of the night off since they had three days’ travel to plan their assault.

  “If I can get anybody to go,” Hawk answered, pulling on a coat and slipping a knife into his boot. “Tekran’s not known for its nightlife, so this will be the last chance to take in some local color for a few days.” He left his quarters and headed for the wardroom.

  “Are you sure you want to do that, Captain?” Ship asked as Hawk walked down the hallway.

  Hawk paused and looked at the floor. “I have to,” he said in a soft voice. “We’re going to be traveling for over seventy hours, which is seventy hours I have to wonder and worry about what’s happening to the Maratais. My mind is already offering me plenty of visions I’d rather not have. For tonight at least, I need to forget.”

  “Be careful, captain.”

  Hawk nodded and continued walking. He didn’t bother to tell Ship the Maratais weren’t the only thing he needed to forget. He had told her many times, and just as many times she told him to stop being foolish.

  As he arrived at the wardroom, he found Trey and Laura enthralled by a game of Scrabble. Putting on a smile to push away his troubled thoughts, he walked to their table and said, “Come on, Laura, let’s go paint the town.”

  “Sorry, I already have a date for ice cream and a movie.”

  “With who?”

  “Me,” Trey said, standing up defensively. “Make somethin’ of it.” Although the boy was teasing, Hawk detected the slightest trace of animosity. Of all the crew, Trey had bonded to Laura the most. Not surprising given his circumstances.

  “Please, Trey,” Laura chided. “Gentlemen avoid fights whenever possible.”

  “They also remember whose ship they’re living on,” Hawk muttered. He turned and walked over to Wolf. The large Uraxian stared at a holo display of Ship’s blueprints and made notes on an oversized datapad. “How about it, Wolf?”

  “Are we departing tomorrow morning?” Wolf asked, eyes not leaving the display.

  “Yeah, but…”

  “Then I’ve got work.”

  Hawk sighed. “Gerard?” he asked without much hope.

  Gerard looked up from the book he was currently reading, Love’s Savage Fury. “Uh-uh, I’m in the middle of the good part. Plus, I have to help Wolf with some adjustments on the rip drive.”

  Hawk turned to Ashron, who offered an enviable impression of the Cheshire Cat.

  “You want to go?”

  “I’d love to,” Ashron said. “Let me get my coat.”

  “No.”

  Ashron stopped at the sound of Wolf’s deep voice and gave an irritated hiss. “What do you mean, no?”

  “I’m going to need your help on the rip drive, too.”

  “It’s going to involve large wrenches and slithering into tight places where your lummox body won’t fit, isn’t it?”

  Wolf nodded.

  Ashron’s scaly green face drooped in defeat. “Sorry, Cap, guess you’re on your own.”

  “I can drink alone here,” Hawk grumbled. “What kind of sorry-ass crew is it where the captain has to talk them into going out for a night on the town?”

  “A professional one,” Wolf answered without looking up from his work.

  Everyone except Wolf studied Hawk, waiting for his reaction. With a sigh, Hawk nodded. He wouldn’t have tolerated an answer like that from the others. Wolf’s response stopped short of a rebuke and made it simple fact. They were a professional crew, and he was their captain.

  Hawk nodded. “You’re right,” he said with the barest trace of regret. The siren call of alcohol pulled on him and the desire to sit in a dive and drink until forgetfulness was almost overpowering.

  Wolf’s somber tone recalled the aftermath of such actions. He would need his mind clear tomorrow, not clouded by a hangover and filled with remorse at his behavior. Even worse, everything he drank to forget would rebound twice as strong, doubled by shame at his weakness.

  Even with his decision made, Hawk still felt a great need to forget his problems, at least for a little while. “Can you spare Ashron for an hour?”

  Wolf nodded.

  “How about a little shoot-out in the simulator?” he asked Ashron. “If I can’t get shit-faced, I might as well practice.”

  Ashron offered his toothy grin. “You’re on.”

  Laura watched as Hawk and Ashron walked away. Once the wardroom hatch closed, she looked at Wolf and said, “Thank you.”

  Wolf gave her a quick smile and returned to his work.

  Trey shuffled the tiles around in his holder. “How come Hawk drinks so much?”

  Laura studied the boy’s earnest face, one blue eye looking at her, the other perpetually hidden by a bang of thick brown hair. “Hawk has a lot of pain, and sometimes he drinks to forget it.”

  “What kind of pain?”

  “It’s complicated,” Laura said. “It’s your turn.”

  Trey nodded and stared at his tiles. “I’ll never drink,” he said with the sincerity of youth.

  Laura fervently hoped the boy could hold to that promise. She said nothing about Hawk’s past because it too closely echoed Trey’s loss, still less than a year old.

  Only eight months ago, they had found the frightened boy on the civil war-torn planet of Kel. Laura remembered all too clearly the strange, almost strangled crying sound coming from a burned-out house. Inside the charred shell, they found a barely clothed Trey, his body filthy, h
is brown hair trailing to his shoulders and matted with dirt and oil. He huddled in a corner, crying as he tried to choke down a piece of rotted fruit. When he spotted them, he snarled and backed away, protecting his treasure.

  Despite his threatening manner, Laura’s heart had gone out to him. She had approached, trying to soothe him with soft cooing sounds. When she drew close, the terrified boy struck out. Putrid fruit splattered over her face. The child’s jagged fingernails raked across her cheek, rendering two bloody scratches. Laura had grabbed at her cheek and backed away; the sight of blood seemed to break something in the boy. His eyes had grown wide, and he had collapsed to the ground sobbing.

  “I didn’t mean to do it!” he shouted in a voice raspy from disuse. He had curled up into a fetal ball and shook.

  Laura had stayed near the boy while the others left to do a quick recon of the two-story house. Still whispering words of reassurance, she had moved closer. He uncurled and lunged toward her. She tensed, expecting another attack. The boy had no fight left. He fell into her arms and bawled.

  The others had returned with grim news. The months-old bodies of a male and female lay in a bedroom; a holophoto on the dresser confirmed they were the child’s parents.

  Laura had insisted they take the boy with them. Hawk had refused at first. Laura, in her only act of open rebellion, had demanded it. She insisted she would stay with the boy and they could leave without her. They had been too late to save the person they were sent to rescue; this was a chance to get something good out of their failed mission.

  “Laura?”

  “What?” Laura said, her eyes and mind returning to Ship and the present.

  “It’s your turn,” Trey said.

  “Sorry, I was lost in thought for a moment.”

  “What were you thinking about?”

  She smiled at him. Eight months ago, Trey had been a mute wraith afraid of his own shadow. Now he was a healthy, eager member of the crew. Even Hawk had admitted his reservations were misplaced. “I was thinking about what a wonderful kid you are.”

  He squirmed and looked down at his tiles, hair falling in front of his other eye. “Quit being silly and play.”

  She watched him a moment longer; her heart wrenched with love for this lost little boy they had saved. She refused to consider what would have happened if they had not found him. They did find him, and in the past months, Laura felt she was meant to find him. She was being given a second chance, and she prayed nightly that she could protect him better than she had her first son.

  Trey glanced up from his tiles to find Laura still staring at him. “Laura, are you okay?”

  “I’m fine, Trey,” she answered as she pulled her eyes down to her tray of letters. And with a little luck, I think you will be too.

  “Captain, this is your four-thirty wake-up call. Rise and shine,” Ship said in a cheery voice.

  “Go away,” Hawk said, pulling a pillow over his head.

  “Captain—”

  Hawk lifted the pillow. “What part of ‘go away’ did you not understand?” He returned to the pillow.

  “I’m only doing what you told me,” Ship reminded him.

  “Arrgh,” Hawk said, throwing the pillow to the floor and dragging himself to an upright position. “I hate getting up this early.”

  He stretched to work the kinks and stiffness from his lean body. He and Ashron had practiced in the simulator for almost three hours before Wolf had come to claim the Lorothian for help on the rip drive. Hawk felt every hour in every muscle. Despite the soreness, he was much better off than he would have felt after a night of carousing.

  He slipped into the shower. “I think I need to quit drinking so much,” he said as the hot water, scented with aloe soap, pounded against him, working the aches from his muscles.

  “Yes, you do,” Ship agreed.

  Hawk smiled. Such a thing was easier said than done. Right now, he believed he could do it, even as a voice deep inside told him he was living a fool’s dream. Something would send him back to the bottle. Someone else would leave him. It always happened. His mother left him first; then his father tossed him aside like unwanted garbage. Tahorton, his true father, died only eight years after Hawk came to him. That had precipitated his first binge. He and Moran had gone together, pouring drink after drink and slamming them down. Even as the alcohol deepened and sharpened their despair, it also pushed them toward an idea that still seemed sane after they sobered up. Tahorton’s will had bequeathed his fleet of ships to his most promising students. Hawk and Moran got the Light Support Cruiser Paradise Run. That night, as they drank and remembered, they agreed to form their own business. They would finish school, join the Council Navy, and gain their starship ratings.

  Despite the intoxicated origin of their dream, they stuck with it. Eight years later, with commissions in hand, they had left the Navy, re-christened their ship The Flaming Star, and gone into business as mercenaries. A few years later, Force 13 recruited them, and life had been everything they hoped for on that despairing night so long ago.

  Then Sara came along.

  “Shower off,” Hawk said, pounding his fist against the cream-colored plastic wall as the repellers dried him. Old memories best left buried. The very memories alcohol helped to chase away.

  He slid the door open and stepped out. Time to put his heart and soul into the mission at hand. The past couldn’t be helped. He had a crew in the here and now who depended on him. Time once again to show them he deserved their loyalty.

  He dressed in a loose-fitting navy shirt and black pants, trimmed some unruly mustache hairs, and ran a comb through his wavy brown hair, shoulder-length in the true mercenary fashion.

  “The agent is here,” Ship said.

  He made one final pass with the comb. “He’s just now walking up to the door,” Ship continued. “There’s one other man with him.”

  “On my way.” Hawk tossed the comb onto the sink counter and walked out of his cabin. As he strolled down the corridor to the docking hatch, he hummed an old tune off key. With his mind settled and the prospect of work ahead, his mood improved.

  Hawk saw the two men on his monitor, waiting patiently on the other side of the door as he stepped up to it. One of them was Stearns, and the other was a short, black-haired human with a wiry build and an expression of extreme anxiety. He wore a dull brown jumper suit. A new automatic suitcase sat beside him. “Open the hatch, Ship.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  “Right on time,” Hawk said after the hatch opened. He stepped to one side. “Welcome aboard, gentlemen.”

  The courier walked in. The suitcase rolled in behind him, keeping a foot behind. “Thomas Wilcox,” the man said, extending his hand.

  “Captain Sean Grey.” Hawk shook Thomas’ hand, then turned with an inquiring look at Stearns, who had remained motionless.

  “I’m just here to make sure he arrived safely,” Stearns said. With a curt nod, he turned and walked away.

  “That man makes me nervous,” Thomas said after Stearns disappeared.

  “That man should make a lot of people nervous,” Ship said over Hawk’s personal monitor, so Thomas couldn’t hear. “He is impressively armed and has an extremely high tech jammer on him.”

  Hawk gave Thomas a brief appraisal. A good stiff wind probably makes you nervous, he thought. “This is your first field assignment, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  Great. “Ship, close the hatch.”

  The hatch began closing. Ashron picked that moment to come around the corner. Thomas let out a little squeal of fright and then blushed.

  “Ah, Ashron,” Hawk said in the tone of voice that immediately put the Lorothian on his guard. “This is Thomas, our rookie agent. This is Ashron, one of my crew members.” The two shook hands. “Ashron is going to show you to your cabin.”

  “I am?”

  “Yes, you are. I’m going to get us away from the station and into a clear field for the rip jump.”

  “
Oh. Okay, follow me.”

  Hawk watched as they walked down the hall. Thomas followed timidly behind Ashron. The suitcase brought up the rear with robotic precision. Another disadvantage of working for a government agency was the inevitable bureaucracy involved. The kind of bureaucracy that managed to do things like put a green agent on a high-risk assignment.

  Hawk sighed. Nothing to be done about it now. It was time to leave and make the best of the situation.

  8

  Departure

  Hawk checked the screens one last time, and then looked at Gerard, who sat in the pilot’s chair, a silver cap on his pale hair, thin wires plugged into his cybernetic arm. “Everything good?”

  Gerard nodded. “Just like the first four times you asked me.”

  Hawk chuckled. He always acted like an overprotective mother when they headed into ripspace, despite Gerard being one of the best rip pilots alive. Both Ship and Gerard constantly checked their calculations, and Gerard handled the physically and mentally demanding task of piloting rip space with greater aplomb than his frail-looking body would indicate. Hawk hated not knowing how to fly the currents, but he didn’t have the requisite physical and mental makeup. Once, maybe. No longer.

  Hawk shied away from that thought.

  “It’s all yours, then,” Hawk said. “I’m going to the bunkroom. Rip us when we’re all bunked in.”

  “Aye, Captain,” Gerard said.

  Hawk left the bridge. A seven-meter walk brought him to the bunkhouse. He stepped in to find Wolf and Ashron laid in their “bunks,” padded niches cut into the light blue wall. Thomas occupied one of the three extra beds in this room. Two cuffs hung from clear tubes beside each bunk. The devices that would administer the “good time shots” as Hawk called them. Wolf and Thomas already wore theirs around their right arm and Laura stood over Ashron, attaching the thick strips of black plastic to his muscled bicep.

  “Where’s Trey?” Hawk asked.

  “Last minute trip to the head,” Laura said. With cuffs attached to Ashron, Laura tapped a keypad on his bunk, setting the dosage she had calculated for the trip.