DarkStar Running (Living on the Run Book 2) (11 page)

Stan stared into the coffin with blank eyes. This was just
wrong. These wooden caskets were supposed to be for old people, not young
boys . . .

. . . 
not
for his best friend.

Twelve-year-old Stan felt his chin quiver, but the more he
tried to stop it, the more it took on a life of its own.

Stupid government medical system was totally worthless.
Why’d they let this happen? Even as tears gathered in his eyes to blur his
vision, he reached in to take hold of a cold, lifeless hand.

“Stan!” his mother scolded.

“Let the child be, woman,” his dad said. “Let him grieve his
best friend’s passing and say
good-by
however he wants.”

Mrs. Archer sniffled. “He was precious to me, too. Dennis
was a wonderful boy.”

Precious?
thought Stan.
You saved my life, Dennis
.
Being at his funeral was hard, probably the hardest thing Stan had ever had to
do.

Right then, Cindy stepped to Stan’s side to rest a soft hand
lightly on his shoulder. Stan wrapped an arm around his sweetheart and released
Dennis’ lifeless hand. She sobbed, he pulled her closer, and she pressed her
face into his shoulder. His own tears streamed down his cheeks, and fell into
her long, black hair, but he couldn’t let go of his only tie to his onetime
best friend. The three of them had been inseparable.

Looking back over his shoulder, Stan saw the people that
filled the room; many wept, some held loved ones close, others chatted quietly.
Why did this have to be real?
he thought.
Why did this have to
be,
at all?

He became aware of other mourners reaching out to him,
pushing aside their own anguish to comfort the two adolescents.

Grammy Dugan, Dennis’ grandmother, eased through the crowd
to wrap trembling but warm arms around both children. Assaulted by a strong mix
of menthol and eucalyptus, Stan held his breath, but didn’t pull away.

“You two were his greatest joy,” Grammy Dugan said. “You
know that don’t you? His last words were, ‘Tell Cindy and Stan, I’m waiting.
I’ll be at heaven’s gate to greet them.’ You kids have been such a wonderful
blessing to Mr. Dugan and me as well. Don’t lose sight of that. Neither of you
lose sight of that.”

Like electricity fizzing through him, her words broke
through his grief. Stan wrenched himself free and glared at the old lady. Anger
seared away the numbness.

‘Heaven’s gate? Blessing?’ Was
this
old woman a . . .
a Trog? Dennis, his best buddy in the whole world, was religious? How could Stan
not have known? How could he have missed the signs? Perhaps he secretly knew,
but saw that saying so would have cost him the friendship of a great guy.

Sick to his stomach and needing air, he pushed through the
crowd to the door and hurried out of the house . . .

. . . but found himself standing on the deck
of the
Emperor’s Princess
.

Standing in the hallway, an adult Stan Archer faced his
childhood friend, Dennis Dugan.

“Dennis, what are you doing here!”

Feeling betrayed, Stan caught his breath and stared at
Dennis as if seeing him for the first time.
Dennis, you were loyal to me,
Stan thought.
You wouldn’t duce me by keeping a secret this big and
dangerous, no matter what. You’re not a stinking narrow minded, finger pointing
Trog. No way. Impossible. You’re not here.

Blond and blue eyed, the young face morphed into that of
Carl’s. Then an explosion . . . the
Emperor’s Princess
shook
and rumbled in her first death throws . . . fire ran through the
hallway . . . Dennis . . . Carl was consumed.

“Captain, wake up!”
DarkStar’s
quiet voice persisted.

Stan jerked awake. Though his mind was still hazy, reality
slipped into place, and he realized that he still occupied his own bed aboard
DarkStar
.

“Are you ill, Captain?”

Shaken, he let the last wisps of the memory fade, but didn’t
answer.

“Were you dreaming?”

He threw back the sweat-soaked sheets, sat up on the edge of
the bed, and speared trembling hands though his hair.

“Nightmare, Captain?”

With a voice raspy from interrupted sleep, Stan guardedly
answered, “More like buried memories forced to the surface,
DS
. All
these years . . .”

Stan rubbed his face hard to wake himself. “I forgot Dennis,
my childhood best friend, was a . . .” but he stopped short of
saying the epithet out loud.

DarkStar’s
calm voice broke the long moment of
silence. “A follower, Capt. Archer?”

“A Trog,” Stan snapped, before taking another minute to calm
his tone. “We called believers, Trogs.”

“And his family? Were they believers as well, sir?”

Stan took a deep breath. “More than likely,
DS
.”

“Capt. Archer, did you turn them in?”

Stan halfheartedly shook his head. “No. He died of cancer
when he was twelve. I suppose I pushed aside the idea of Carl being a Tro . . .”

Stan faltered.

“. . . a believer.”

“I’m sorry, Captain. Didn’t you mean Dennis?”

“Dennis. Yes, Dennis. I’m sorry.” Tears welled but, by sheer
strength of will, he held them back.

“In my dream I saw young Dennis aboard the
Emperor’s
Princess
the day I downed her. Do you understand what I’m saying,
DS
?
My very best friend in the whole world . . . I killed him . . .
I did
.”

“Sir, it was just a dream. He wasn’t there.”

“He might as well have been,
DS
. By killing that
ship, I killed Carl . . . just as if he had walked those decks
himself.”

“Sir. That is the second time you’ve substituted Dennis’
name with Carl’s.”

“What? Did I?”

Jumping to his feet, Stan showered, dressed, and remade his
bed with fresh sheets.

Then, in the watchless hours, cool and quiet, in an effort
to walk away from his memories, Stan headed to the galley in search of warm
milk to help him sleep. Fighting exhaustion, he stumbled through the halls, and
down the stairs to find the galley.

Stan shook himself. Eerily alike, did he actually see blond,
blue-eyed Carl as an adult Dennis? Was this the reason, from day one, Carl had
bothered him . . . and the reason he trusted the young pilot at his
wing?

If he could just put the image of Carl out of his mind,
thought Stan, then he caught himself. Why now did the image of Carl insist on
replacing that of Dennis? Maybe there were real reasons his childhood invaded
his dreams
now
, after all these years.

Dennis Dugan succumbed to cancer at age twelve, and though
such things were common in the Confederacy, it just didn’t seem right that one
of “The Immortal deity’s chosen” should have passed away like that, if this
Immortal
Architect
, so-called, was real.

If this deity’s Word was true, then why did this image come
to shake him from his bed? Had it come, by design, to bring Stan to his knees?

In the dark, Stan sat on the couch to ponder as he sipped
the mug of warm milk. A follower of the Immortal Architect died. Why did that
strike him as unusual? When he and his marauders swooped in on the
Princess
,
why didn’t the Immortal Architect warn His followers of the approaching danger?
Stan couldn’t put his finger on any real reason that made sense . . .
if the Immortal Architect was indeed real.

Thoughts of his sitting comfortably in his
Dart
diving on the liner forced their way into his mind. Although he was the one
firing one torpedo after the next—
sickening
—it seemed like someone else’s
hand on the trigger.

Watching the slaughter of bodies blown into space, Stan felt
numb. Without call, a lone tear stole down his cheek. He wiped it away with his
fingers, then studied the moisture, mystified that it was there.

If coming to this so-called compassionate Immortal Architect
afforded no one any greater protection from calamity, then why be a follower at
all?

Lilia said the Immortal Architect came to free people from their
guilt, but was that it? Was that all there was to a life as a follower?

Wouldn’t it have been smarter to have let Dennis live to
preach and bring others to the Undying One?
If
the Immortal Architect is
Love,
then
where was the Love in letting a child suffer with cancer . . .
and die?

And here sat Stan, guilty of murder, surrounded in comfort
by an ancient, yet beyond modern spacecraft supposedly given him by the Great immortal
creator of the heavens, Himself. Where was the justice in that?

“
DS
?”

“Yes, Master Archer.”

“When we reach Providence Prime, I’ll get off to find my own
way back to Atheron. Watch over Lilia, will ya?”

“I don’t think so!” Lilia’s stern rebuttal came from the
doorway. Dressed in a quilted robe over a shimmery nightgown, the hall’s
nightlights illuminated her form well enough for Stan to see her firm stance.
Arms folded, she stood just inside the room’s permanent entrance and glared at Stan,
as anger infused her words. “What makes you think this ship isn’t yours just as
much as she’s mine? Didn’t you suffer the genetic alterations, Stan? Don’t you
think that
changed
you
permanently
?”

“Yeah, well . . .”

“We don’t know the full effect of those alterations, now do
we? Do you think you can even exist
without
DarkStar
?”

“Well, no. I . . .”

“Didn’t you rescue the two life pods? Didn’t you pilot us
through Captain Andrew’s fiasco? Could either
DarkStar
or I alone, or
either of us together, for that matter, have done that without you? This is
where you belong, Mister, and don’t
you
think otherwise.”

Stan pushed himself to his feet and went to her. “I’ve done
awful things, Lilia. You’ve seen the hashes on my helmet—the high count. You
know what they mean. It was my job to kill followers, remember?”

“Oh, stop with the self-recriminations!” Raising her chin,
she assumed a dignity that startled him and robbed him of any defense. “I don’t
remember your doing those horrible things, Mr. Archer.”

“Well, regardless of your inability to recall the obvious,
things need to be rectified.”

“My memory is fine, Mr. Archer. Just as my Lord has done, I
choose
to let go of and forget the guilt the Immortal Architect has forgiven you of.
Your job is to do the same and put them behind you once and for all. You did
this for Troy Younger; now give yourself the same grace.”

Stan stiffened. “How can I forget things that flood my
dreams and shake me from my sleep? If I’m ever to have peace, I must go back
and face my past.”

Lilia’s eyes held a determination that seemed to see
straight through to his heart.

“You and your one track mind,” she snapped. “Face your past?
You are to face your future, and see yourself as the Self-existent One sees
you, Mr. Stan Archer. I realize that all this is new to you, and that it will
take you a while to get your head around the truth. Sometimes the simplest
principle is the most challenging, so let me give you a clue.”

He focused. “Yeah? I’m listening.”

Lilia tempered her tone. “To properly love others, you must
first love yourself, Stan. It’s just that simple.” Having said that, she turned
and headed away.

Stan watched her disappear into the shadows of the hallway.
“Love myself? Who doesn’t love himself?”

“She’s right, Captain Archer,”
DarkStar
said. “You
don’t love yourself.” Usually DarkStar’s voice had a universal quality to it as
if coming from everywhere. This time it came from directly behind him.

Stan turned, and jerked with surprise. Before him stood a
six-foot tall ghostly figure of a woman. He stared, transfixed.

“DarkStar?”

Her stature, though obviously feminine, was regal. Her
flowing floor length gown was an almost blinding iridescent white, yet he could
bear it easily. Pale hair cascaded down past her shoulders, flowing to her trim
midriff. Her eyes glimmered so brightly they made dull by comparison, the polished
gold choker that trimmed her delicate neck, and the broad belt that girded her
waist though the metal seemed made of the finest and purest Stan had ever seen.
He touched her shoulder—she was real.

“In the confines of this ship, sir, I do have substance,
such as it is. But back to the point, Capt. Slone is right. You don’t love
yourself.”

Stan took a deep breath to regain his composure before
addressing the vision before him. “Maybe I don’t like the guy I see in the mirror.
I hope to change that by going back to Atheron. I want to be a Dennis Dugan, a
selfless, honorable man.”

“No, sir.” Her voice held an uncompromising austerity. “The
universe has had its Dennis Dugan, and for the appropriate amount of time. What
the universe lacks now, and is waiting for, is a proper Stan Archer. You won’t
find him reflected in some man-made martyrdom but in the right mirror.”

“The right mirror?”

“When you see yourself in the right mirror, you’ll know who
you are and what you should do. Until then, you’ll impress no one but yourself
with your self-styled acts of nobility.”

“So where do I find this
Right
mirror you speak of?”

The DarkStar avatar raised an eyebrow as if to say the
answer was obvious, and then motioned toward the doorway. “Who you really are
is reflected in Lilia’s eyes. You just haven’t noticed.”

Stan turned from the door to
DarkStar
. “Should I go
to her now?”

“No, sir. You should go to the bridge.” The avatar’s image
faded into the dark.

Setting his cup in the sink, Stan turned away to the bridge,
and found it illuminated only by the soft glow of the consoles. The air was
cool and except for the faint dutiful hum of a few instruments, the room was
quiet.

He slipped into the pilot’s seat half checking the scanner
before noticing the faint blip. “Well, what do we have here?” he mumbled to
himself. “What’s this dead ahead?”

Stan zeroed the scanner, narrowing in on the object.
What’s
a shuttle doing way out here?
he thought. Suddenly two more blips entered
the screen heading at high speed toward the smaller.

“Full speed,
DarkStar
. Give me all you’ve got.” Once
within range, the scanner started tagging the blips with I.D. numbers,
identifying two corsairs pursuing the shuttle.

Stan cursed and hit the com. “Lilia, Carl, to the bridge.
Pirates!”

It looked as though two pirates had caught a short-range
shuttle off guard, blocking its way home, and were now chasing it out and away
from the safety of police and patrols.

In stepped Carl followed an instant later by Lilia. Stan
spun his seat to face them.

“Pirates have blocked a shuttle’s escape. They’ll reach it
before we do. Suggestions?”

“Looks like we’ve got a fight on our hands,” Lilia said. “I
say we give ’em a showing they won’t soon forget.”

“Agreed, Swift,” Carl said.

“Stan, we’ll man the guns. Get
Reliant
between that
shuttle and those pirates as soon as you can. Looks like you’ll have your hands
full, but your piloting is our best chance to beat them.”

Stan nodded and turned back to the screen. “Hang on to your
seats. We’re going in.”

Carl took aim and pulled the trigger, but at this distance
the plasma charged two-pounders did little more than distract the pirates, yet
it was enough to give the shuttle occupants hope and to see that help was on the
way.

The pirates reached their prey and, to knock out its
defenses, started hitting it with ion shield-busters.

Defiantly, the unarmed shuttle turned and dodged between the
corsairs in an effort to turn their own guns against them.

“Cheeky move,” mumbled Stan. By the shuttle’s old-school
maneuvers and by the way it turned and dodged well beyond the craft’s design
limits, Stan guessed its Captain was once a
Wasp
pilot, a military man.
Even if the pirates never connected, if its pilot kept this up, the shuttle
would soon tear itself apart.

“Hang tight, bud. We’re almost there.”

Suddenly one corsair’s shot clipped the shuttle and sent it
spinning, careening out of control. When a second shot tagged it, the shuttle
began to spew smoke into space.

Carl fired and kept firing as Lilia released several
rockets. The pirates started taking blows and turned to address
Reliant
to see what she could give them.

The shuttle, dead and adrift, was spitting fuel and flames.

Stan cut between the corsairs and headed for the shuttle as
Carl and Lilia heated the guns.

“Scanner readings look grim,” Stan said.

“Never too late,” Carl said. “Get us beside her! Lilia take
the guns.” He called for the cargo bay and dived through the door before it
fully opened.

Stan brought
DarkStar
up next to the shuttle,
tractored it in close, and extended
DarkStar’s
shields around it. “
Reliant
,
give me the cargo bay and take the helm,” he said. Jumping to his feet, he
bolted out of the room.

Beside the bay’s large open door sat the shuttle. From its
open hatch, smoke billowed into
DarkStar
.

From the smoke, Carl dragged the pilot into
DarkStar
and Stan dropped to perform CPR on the unconscious man.

“
Reliant
,” Carl said, “jettison the shuttle and vent
this smoke.”

“Negative, Ensign. I detect two more life signs.”

DarkStar
jolted and rumbled as the pirates began to
fire on her.

Carl took a deep breath and hurried back into the thick
black smoke.

Even though his mind was divided between the pirate threat, Lilia
on the bridge, Carl in the burning shuttle, and the pilot beneath his hands, Stan
kept his compressions to a steady pace.

Suddenly the man gasped in air on his own, then collapsed
into a coughing fit. As soon as he could breathe again, the man reached out
toward the shuttle. “My wife. My baby . . .”

The ship jerked hard again. A sudden piercing scream from
the shuttle sent a cold jolt straight through Stan.

As he stood, the ship bucked, knocking him to the floor. He
scrambled to his feet, stumbled, and then shot toward the shuttle’s hatchway.

Carl dragged a woman, still clutching her baby, from the
ship. His right arm and shoulder, seared and blistered, hung limp at his side,
but he didn’t let go of the woman with his good arm until he had her well clear
of the smoke and flames.

Stan eased her to the floor.

Then Carl collapsed.