A Thread of Time: Firesetter, Book 1 (22 page)

The Firesetter
series continues with book 2

Amyr’s Command

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And now, without
further ado, a sample of Amyr’s Command

Chapter 1

Lance

Nobody ever told me that raising a
teenager would be akin to driving a stake through the center of your foot.  You
have to watch every step you take, tiptoeing as if you were walking on glass,
or else that stake would send a jolt of electricity through every nerve in your
body.

“Sandy has run away,” Noodnick said, the
first words any of us had ever heard out of his mouth. 

Frankly, I didn’t think he knew how to
speak.  After more than ten years of working side by side with the guy, I
figured he was mute, or possibly, telepathic.  Actually, it might have been
better if he was.  His voice was so high, and shrill, it threatened to burst my
eardrums.  Wen and Taul both covered their ears, while Taul’s cousin, Amyr held
up a hand.

Noodnick shut his mouth and bowed his
head, nodding to the guy, as if he had just issued a royal command.

“What's with that?” I murmured to Wen,
glancing back at Taul's cousin, and noticing again how he resembled the dude on
my ancient gold coin.  Of course, the Great Emperor had died more than a
century ago, while this kid looked about Sandy’s age.  Sandy.  Sandy!  Sandy
had run away and I was wasting time ruminating about that stupid coin.

“When?” I asked, turning back to Noodnick.

“What?” Wen replied. 

“Not you.  Nood, when did she leave?”

“I didn’t see her,” Wen insisted, pointing
at the hydraulic fluid leak that was creating a serious puddle on the docking
bay’s floor.

“Noodnick!” I shouted, repeating his name
in case he was also deaf.  “When did Sandy leave and where did she go?”

Noodnick shrugged, but I saw his eyes
flicker back to Taul’s cousin, as if waiting for permission to say more.  Five
minutes in our presence and already this kid was taking over my ship, my crew
deferring to him as if that was perfectly fine.

“She’s a teenager, Lancelot.”  Wen
strolled across the bay to poke a finger in the hydraulic fluid.  He stirred it
around, creating circles on the floor.  “It’s a spacebase.  She couldn’t get
very far.  Probably, she was hungry.  Kids’ stomachs are like bottomless pits
that are always empty.”

“Thank you,” I snapped, already bolting to
the lift.  “You guys are such a wealth of wisdom when it comes to raising the
kids that you don't have.  I'm going to go search the commercial transport deck
in case she bought a ticket on a plane, or is trying to hitchhike a ride with
someone.  For all we know, she could be headed anywhere.  She might be on her
way to the Black Eye Galaxy.”

“Maybe, she wants to visit her mother,”
Taul suggested, looking at his cousin, as if the Emperor-looking kid had all
the answers which I didn't.  “We can go look for her.  She's a skinny red head
with the most amazing emerald eyes.  Come on, Amyr.  Let's hit the upper
decks.”  Then, he held up his hands and drew the shape of a woman before his
cousin's eyes.

“Hey!” 

“Sorry, Captain.”  Taul apologized before
I could punch him.  “Don’t worry.  Amyr can’t hardly see anyway.  He’s either
near-sighted or far-sighted, or both.  I’m not sure which.”

“And you want me to hire him for our
crew?”  The lift door swished open.  Fortunately, it was empty.  “What exactly
can a blind man do in space?”

Amyr pointed his finger at the pool of
fluid beneath Wen’s feet. 

“I think he can fix our leak,” Taul
suggested, nodding at his cousin, as if telling him to go ahead. 

A microsecond later, the hydraulic fluid
burst into flames, evaporating a mess that would have cost me dearly to clean
up. 

“Yikes!” Wen screeched, jumping out of his
shoes.  He bolted across the bay to the safety of the boarding ladder.  “Next
time, give me a minute’s warning before you blast me into toast.”

The alien kid shrugged, telling something
to Taul in his weird, alien language, while the fire died down as quickly as it
had erupted.

“You can add more fluid now, Wen,” Taul
called.  “The leak is sealed.  See, Cap'n, Amyr's got a lot of skills that
can't really be quantified.  He'll be useful though.  I promise.  Let's go find
Sandy, little cuz.” 

“Hold on!  Wait a minute.  I’m the
captain.”  I stood in the middle of the lift doors, blocking both Taul and his
cousin from joining me inside.  The doors started squealing, a high pitched
noise even worse than Noodnick’s voice until Amyr held up a finger and pointed
it at the control panel.  It silenced and for a moment, the lift’s lights grew
dim and blinked.  “You're telling me that guy fixed our hydraulic leak by
pointing at it?”

Again, Amyr spoke to Taul.

“Actually, he says that he sealed it by
fusing the hole in the composite materials with high heat.  Incidentally, he
says the hole was caused by lack of maintenance on the part of the previous
owner, so you should probably have the vessel fully serviced as soon as
possible.  You need a bonding continuity check, and the hull should be sound
tested every three feet.”

“Heat?” I repeated.

“The fire, you know...”  Taul smiled.  “It
got rid of the excess fluid, right?  We don't have to take it to a hazard
materials disposal dump, so as soon as we find Sandy, we can be on our way.”

“That is useful!” Wen cried joyfully,
joining us in the lift.  “Now, I don’t have to clean it up.  I vote we hire
him, Lance.”

“This isn't a democracy!” I snapped,
inadvertently pushing the
UP
button with such force, it prompted the lift
to squeal again.  This, I silenced with a resounding slam of my fist.  Maybe, I
couldn’t do it magically with my finger, but I sure could break it with my hand
if I wanted.  “What?”

Taul grinned, “Amyr says you shouldn’t do
that.  You’ll be arrested by the spacebase’s police and have to spend three
days in jail for malicious vandalism.  That would be a waste of our precious
time.”

“Tell Amyr to shut up,” I ordered, as we
rocketed up three decks to the food court and shopping arcade.  “Tell Amyr he
needs to find another job.”  The last thing I wanted in my crew was a weird,
asshole, know-it-all, telekinetic alien kid with fire in his finger.

“But,” Taul protested.  “He repaired that
hydraulic leak, and he says he’s going to be very useful in the future.”

“Alright, temporarily,” I grumbled, just
to shut Taul up.  My priority was to find Sandy, and this kid was distracting
me from my mission.  The lift doors swung open, then, to reveal a mall teeming
with space people.  Somewhere my daughter was out among them.  “He can join our
crew on probation, but he had better learn English right away.  You're not
going to translate for him, Taul.  He needs to understand and take his orders
directly from me.”

“Roger!”  Taul snapped a salute.  “Don’t
worry.  He’ll pick it up just like that.  Amyr can…”

“I don’t give a damn what Amyr can or
cannot do.  If you’re helping me search for Sandy, get to it.  We’ll deal with
everything else when we leave this port.”

“Yes, sir!”  This time, both Taul and Amyr
saluted, although the smirk on Amyr’s face told me he thought this was a joke.

He definitely wasn't going to be the best
crewman.  In fact, from the way he looked down upon me with his strange, nearly
closed eyes and the ever so slight smirk upon his lips, I got the impression
that he was going to be a lot more trouble than he was worth. 

“You guys look over that way,” I ordered,
pointing to the right.  “Wen, you check out the food arcade.  She likes
milkshakes and French fries.  I’ll head to the left and look in the commercial
docks.  Oh, and Taul, when you're done, go into a store and get your cousin
some glasses.  I'm sure there are bifocals, or something that he can wear for
his near-sighted and far-sightedness.  I'm not about to cut him any slack just
because he can't see.”

“Roger that,” Taul called again, as the
two of them disappeared around a corner. 

I was about to shout something else,
something along the lines of getting the guy some clothing, as his leather
leggings and tunic looked more appropriate for a rodeo.  However, I was
distracted.  In fact, I was so out of it, I accidentally bumped into a woman,
who was standing next to the door of the SpaceWay Inn Motel.  Even more
unfortunate, this woman was the absolute last one in the entire Milky Way I
wanted to see. 

“Jill!” I cried, extending my hand,
offering to help up my one time flame, the mother of my missing, but beloved
daughter.

“Oh!  Lance.  You idiot!” she gasped,
giving her hand to another guy, a short SpaceForce lieutenant easily half her
age.  

“Are you alright, Captain?” the guy asked,
as Jill dusted off her uniform, even though as far as I could tell, there
wasn't a speck of dust clinging to the spandex.

“Yes, I'll be fine, Jerry,” she barked,
her eyes burning holes in my face, not unlike the alien kid had done to the oil
with his finger.  “Why don't you go inside and see if our room is ready.” 

“Yes, Captain!”  Lt. Jerry saluted and
jumped away.

“Do you make him call you Captain in bed?”
I asked, a question Jill didn't really appreciate.

“What are you doing here, Lance?  Weren't
you discharged from the service and your space license revoked?  Shouldn’t you
be in prison serving a life sentence for something?”

“Very funny, Jill.”  I crossed my arms in
front of my chest so I wouldn't be tempted to do something else with them, like
wring her neck.

“I thought there was a rumor going around
SpaceForce.”  She shrugged and smiled in that way I had grown to hate, a grin
that was solely to remind me of her superiority. 

We could have volleyed back and forth a
few more times, lobbing insults and cutting each other to shreds, but she was
obviously anxious to get with Jerry, and I was equally anxious to quit this
base. 

“Would you kindly tell Sandy to hurry back
to the Mule?” I said instead.  “I'm ready to head on out.”

“Sandy?”  Jill’s brow furrowed.  “I
haven't seen her.”

Uh oh.  “You mean, she wasn’t with you?”

“Did you lose her?”  Now, Jill spun
around, and took a step in my direction, her hands on her hips where she wore
two holstered guns.  I knew the left one was a laser and the right one, a 9mm
semi-automatic, neither of which I wanted to find in my face.  “Where is
Sandy?”

“She said she was going to visit you,” I
lied.  “Did you lose her, Jill?”

“I haven't seen her!” Jill shrieked again,
alerting everyone in the food arcade.  Then, true to form, she wiped out the
semi-automatic and pointed it somewhere south of my waist.  “You sure as hell
better find her, Lance, or you’re going to be looking for some new vital organs.”

“I'm searching,” I insisted.  “My whole
crew is looking for her, even the blind guy.”

Then, we went at it again, playing
volleyball with insults.

“You asshole.”

“You bitch.”

“You’re worthless as a father.”

“A droid would make a better mother, not
to mention, have better fashion sense.”

We could have stood there another hour,
but there were only so many put-downs we could think of, when in truth, we knew
we were both abysmally bad parents.  Instead, we headed to the base’s security
office, and asked some old guy in a mall cop uniform if he would put out an
APB. 

“How old is the kid?” he asked, looking up
from his vid.

“Seventeen,” Jill and I replied together.

“Sorry.  She's too old.  If she was seven,
I'd call it in.  Even if she was twelve, I'd try to help you find your kid. 
However, at seventeen, they're nearly emancipated.  By the time we find her,
she might be eighteen, which means all our efforts, not to mention the cost of
the search, would be wasted.”

After that, he went back to his vid, and
Jill returned to blaming me for everything wrong in her life.  I didn't need
this added guilt, for I was already feeling lower than an Altarian Slime
Weasel.  I lost my kid, my beautiful daughter, the only reason I had to live.