Of Blood and Angels (The Two Moons of Rehnor, Book 3) (22 page)

Chapter 23

Katie

Andromedeans, Berkan had said.  That made
little sense.  The creatures from Andromeda were highly functioning,
multi-celled organisms but lacking in high levels of intellect and incapable of
reasoning.  Each individual was essentially part of a complex organic machine
controlled by some sort of central processing unit.  Why would they come and
take Senya?  What use would they have for him?

I considered joining the others on the
bridge of this ship. 

“Go to bed,” Thad said.  “We’ll wake you
as soon as something happens.”

I was on the verge of collapse, wrought up
and exhausted, so I took his advice and went to my assigned cabin.  We had a
long way to travel, even in this ship which seemed to be moving at four times
the speed of the Discovery.  I could use some sleep.  I took off my shoes and climbed
into bed. 

Senya had visited Berkan metaphysically
rather than me.  Of course, he was physically talking to Berkan a whole lot
more than me these days too.  Since I had come home from space with Steven,
nearly six months ago, I could count on one hand the time I had spent with
Senya. 

That was going to change, I decided.  When
we got him back, I would forgive and forget everything and start all over.  I
made a bargain with Senya even though he was far away somewhere and couldn’t
hear me.  Come home and I will take care of you again.  I will support you in
everything you need to do.  I will be strong and I will love you as you deserve
to be loved.

I had a dream.  In this dream, I was at
the Spaceforce Academy on Mars going through flight training.  I was with my
girlfriend Karen, both of us following similar career tracks, flight training,
weapons training, astrophysics, and military science.  Our task today was to
pilot shuttles to Mars Moon Deimos.  The two of us lined up in the shuttle bay
along with our flight instructors.

“Pick a ship, Cadet,” my instructor
ordered and so I selected a shuttle with dark blue stripes and the name Lil’
Eagle printed above the forward cockpit. 

“That’s the one I wanted,” Karen teased. 
“Eagle is my favorite.”

“You can take it,” I was about to say but
a voice whispered in my ear.

“The Eagle is yours,” it said.  “Take the
Eagle.”

“Why don’t you take Lil’ Osprey,” I called
to Karen and climbed into the cabin of the Eagle.  “Osprey’s a nice little ship
too.”

“You owe me, Golden!”  Karen cried.  “Race
you to Deimos!”  She jumped aboard the Osprey and was out of the bay while my
instructor and I were still going through the pre-flight checklist. 

Karen had always been a better pilot than
me.  She passed every exam with higher scores and received top ratings for all
of her test flights.  My scores were middling and my test flights were always
in need of improvement.  By the time I took off, Karen’s shuttle was a tiny
blip in the red Martian atmosphere.  I concentrated on my flying and felt I was
doing well until without realizing it, I nearly landed on Phobos instead
Deimos.

“Minus 30 points for that, Cadet,” my
instructor said and marked me off on his tablet. 

I nearly panicked.  I needed a score of 70
to pass and without that, I wouldn’t advance to the next round of training.  I
would either be dropped from flight training or held back another semester. 
That would totally screw up my chance to join a Starship crew in the summer.  I
had to be absolutely perfect on this flight from here on out. 

Trying to stay calm, I steadily guided the
shuttle back into upper Mars orbit until Deimos came in sight, and then I
glided it down into the weak gravitational belt, letting the moon pull us
gently toward it's surface. 

“Your friend is already here,” my
instructor commented, noting the Osprey was already parked in a crater.  I
looked down at it, gauging my track for a parallel landing when I noticed
something was wrong.  The stern of the Osprey was standing nearly upright, the
bow smashed into the ground. 

“She crashed!” I cried and though my hands
were shaking, I managed to land the Eagle right where I was supposed to. 

The instructor and I immediately donned
spacesuits and gravitated over to the wreckage.  Karen and her instructor were
both dead from internal injuries caused by impact.  We carried the bodies one
after another back to the payload bay on the Eagle and then I flew my dead
friend back to Spacebase Mars.  When the Osprey was recovered the next day, the
crew discovered a pinprick hole in a hose.  The Osprey had run out of hydraulic
fluid and Karen had lost all steering controls.

My dream shifted to a few years later when
I was already serving aboard the Discovery.  We were orbiting above Lumineria
II, conducting a series of Vessel Inspections.  As spacecraft, both freighters
and private vessels, departed the planet, we would track them and pull them
into our docking bay for a safety check.  I was certified as a Vessel Inspector
and had spent the whole morning climbing in and out of various spacecraft
looking for safety violations and writing up those I found.  The owners of the
vessels had then 30 days to repair the violations, request an appeal or pay the
fine.  Unfortunately, most chose to pay the fine and move on with their cargo
despite the hazards their ship presented to those who served aboard as crew and
the other ships of the galaxy.

My duty shift had ended and I was leaving
the bay, prepared to go meet Caroline and Jerry in the pub for lunch.  I
stopped in my cabin to change out of my jumpsuit and back into my Operational
Duty uniform when I noticed a message on my vid.  It looked like it was from
Caroline.  It said, ‘Meet me in Engineering, Deck 4.’

I didn’t think much of that as Caroline
had a new boyfriend from Engineering and I figured she just wanted me to meet
him.  I headed down there without delay but couldn’t find her anywhere.  I
walked around the cavernous room, looking at all the systems that controlled
our ships engines and steering systems when I happened to notice a whiff of
smoke coming out from under a sealed door.  I wasn’t sure what was in that room
as the windows were fogged over but I was pretty sure it wasn’t supposed to be
smoking. 

“Hey,” I called over to a crewman who was
standing next to a console.  “Something’s going on in this room!”  The guy came
over and studied it for a moment. 

“I think the turbines are overheating,” he
said and opened the door by pressing some buttons on the panel.  The doors
swished open and a huge wave of heat and fire drafted out at us.  I ran for
cover.  I wasn’t sure what happened to him.  A few other crew in the bay
started yelling and a fire claxon sounded.  Someone was screaming that the fire
suppression system was showing a fault and would not activate. 

From where I cowered underneath a console,
I could see the fire creeping towards me like a hungry snake, consuming
everything in its path.  I realized as smoke filled the air around me that I
needed to move from where I was, or surely I would die in here.  Then I heard a
voice telling me to look up.  I did.  I looked at the panel which was housed
underneath the console I was hiding in.  It was flashing red and showing a
fault.  There was a miniature touch screen there and a series of lights.  I had
never seen this panel nor knew anything about this system but the voice spoke
to me and told me which buttons to press, what to type, and a moment later, the
room hissed as it filled with nitrogen, extinguishing the fire. 

In my dream now, I watched myself attempt
to climb out from the console but the fire had weakened the support posts and
as I did so, the unit collapsed on top of me, knocking me in the head and
burying me beneath it. 

Rescue crew came running in while I lay on
the floor but no one saw me or even thought to look for me as this wasn’t my
duty post but far from it.  They carried out everyone and I saw both Jerry and
Caroline checking them and then the Captain ordered the room sealed off until
we could be delivered to a space repair facility. 

“Wait!” Jerry yelled and ran back inside
searching for something, searching for me.  He walked right past me but then
turned around.  A man was standing next to the collapsed console, a man who
glowed with silver light, long silver hair and beautiful silvery wings.  He lifted
the console to show Jerry me and I was saved.

I woke up from my dream just then or so I
thought, to discover that man hovering above me, his wings drawing a gentle
breeze across my body.

“Sister,” he whispered.

I followed him from my cabin and through
the ship.  I was floating just as he was, my feet never once touching the
ground.  We entered the bridge and I looked at the panels and screens that
hovered at each duty station.  I watched the panoramic view of the stars as we
sailed past them, the monitor showing present speed at Light +10.  I saw Berkan
sitting at the Navigation desk, another winged man speaking in his ear.  Thad
and Loman were sitting in chairs further forward, a winged man invisibly
between them.

Not long after I arrived, our long range
scans located a disturbance, a cluster of emissions and energy that was moving
towards Andromeda at a fraction of our speed.  I glanced up at my angel as we
closed in on it and he smiled beatifically back at me.  As it had in the skies
above Rozari, the alien mass appeared to be a cloud, obscuring the vessel
within. 

A message was broadcast to the alien
vessel and a threatening response was received in return.  It told us to turn
back or we would all be destroyed.  It told us the MaKennah was already dead
and a picture of his corpse was flashed upon our screens.  He looked like a
corpse, mutilated, bruised and sodomized.  My angel touched my head and I woke
up in my bed.

Chapter 24

Senya

His ship was within range now.  Though the
propulsion system was silent as he had designed it, he could feel the pulsation
in the forces around him.  He could feel the presence of his brothers too. 
They had guided it here.  They had saved him again.  He returned to the
chamber, the cavernous room with the brain and the gurney upon which lay his
battered body. 

He looked down upon himself and realized
while he was away they did brutalize him more.  He was glad he was not present
for it.  He would remember it when he inhabited the body again.  The terrors
would rush upon his soul and it would take a long time for him to recover, both
mentally and physically.  He wouldn’t dwell on that now though.

“Are you ready now?” the brain inquired. 
“You have little time.  Neither I nor your body will last much longer.”

Indeed, he agreed.  The brain was showing
yet more signs of atrophy.  His own brain was shutting down too.  They had him
on a respirator and a heart pump to keep his blood circulating. 

“Go!” the brain urged.  “Go now before it
is too late for both of us!”

He listened carefully, waiting, waiting,
and then he heard it, the hiss of the EMP engaging.  The heart machine and
respirator went silent as he leapt back into his mortal being and died.

The Royal Guards boarded the Andromedean
vessel.  It was darker than night, the only source of light was the distant
pinpricks of stars outside the windows.  Lasers would not work.  Torches were
useless.  A match and a cigarette were used to guide their passage from deck to
deck and room to room. 

The creatures that inhabited this vessel
were mindless, circling in place, posing no threat to the Rehnorians, as their
brain was dead.  Some circled until they collapsed.  Others wandered out of the
airlocks and exploded into space.  A guardsman raised a pistol and shot one
which promptly turned the creature into gelatinous glue that stuck to the floor
and made their passage more difficult. 

Eventually, the Guards came upon the
chamber where the MaKennah lay.  They approached him hesitantly, for now it was
their unwelcome task to return his body to the very ship that he had created,
to bring him back to the planet that was only now starting to prosper again
under his stewardship.

“Come on,” the squad leader urged.  “We
have only twenty more minutes until our air supply runs out.  The others stared
at the body afraid to touch him.

“He’s dead,” a guardsman whispered. 
“Senya’s dead.”

“Come on,” the squad leader said and
reached out himself to heft the body.  Just as he did so, three silver orbs
appeared in the room.  The Rehnorians lurched backward toward the door, staring
transfixed as the orbs hovered above the MaKennah’s body.

Senya reached out to his brothers.

 “I will heal you,” his brother said. 
“And I will fill you with my healing powers.  I grant you the strength to cure
others with your touch.”

“I give you my wisdom,” his other brother
said.  “I give you the knowledge and foresight from this time and all before
and after.”

“I give you my strength,” his last brother
said.  “May you be victorious against the evil that threatens the Heavens and
the Earths.  May you save us all again from the despair.

Senya felt their power infuse him with new
life.  He basked in the light and he blessed them.

“Bless you, our brother,” they said as
they disappeared.

Senya moaned. 

“He’s alive!” the squad leader yelled and
they ran for him.