Of Hearts And Stars (Classic Editon) (The Cadet Starship Chronicles) (23 page)

This alien was a pasty off-white color, and combined with the texture of it's skin gave Swift the impression of curdled milk. It's brow appeared permanently furrowed and its eyes forever locked in an open position. That didn't matter though, as it's eye sockets were barren anyway; picked clean and pitted. A long tongue overlapped it's chin, the base of which protruded from a lipless slit on the face. Swift concluded that this thing was largely gross and pretty disgusting.

“
I don't think I'll be able eat for a week...” Gin said, only to be betrayed by a low growl issued from his stomach. He laughed sheepishly and took the Snickers bar from his pocket.

“
Just be glad” Swift took his own candy bar out of his pocket and unwrapped it “that you'll never find one of these under your bed.”

Once they'd completed their gawking, Swift and Gin hit the corridor once more. They'd only walked a short distance before LC warned them of a person detected ahead.

“
Just one? Can you tell if he's a guard, or a scientist?” Swift asked.

“
Neither.” LC replied.

“
A janitor maybe?” Gin suggested.

“
My sensors indicate that I have this person's name in my database.”

Swift stopped walking and asked “Who is it?”

“
Benedict Fisher.” LC replied.

Gin narrowly missed grabbing a hold of Swift's sleeve as he broke into a full sprint.

“
Wait! You don't know what could be ahead!” Gin shouted, but Swift ignored him and kept running.

“
So this is what they've been up to.” Elliot said as she scrolled through a tablet in her hands.

“
It's exactly what we figured. Things can only get worse from here.” Fisher said.

“
I'll head back to the ship and upload this information.” she said, turning to leave.

Just then Swift burst into the room and called out “Benny!”

Elliot reached for her pistol, recognized him, and relaxed.

“
You go on ahead L. I've got this.” said Fisher.

Elliot looked at Fisher and said with a smile “Don't kill him.”

Fisher shrugged and said “No promises.”

Elliot waved goodbye to a confused Swift and made her exit before he could ask her any questions. Fisher then turned to Swift and said “You know Leo, I'm a soldier now, so you should call me Fisher.”

“
Yeah? Well I go by Swift, and you know this, man.” Swift replied.

“
Fair enough. So what brings you here? Sight seeing? Or maybe...” Fisher cracked his knuckles and asked “you're looking to settle things?”

“
I still intend to bring you back- by force if necessary, but I'd actually like to know why you're here, in this imperial research facility of all places. When I saw you up on the surface, I almost didn't believe it was you.”

Fisher held up his hands and said “Why am I here? Spying on The Empire of course.” Just then Gin rushed into the room and Fisher asked “Oh? Who's this?”

“
Oh yeah. Fisher this is Gin. Gin, Fisher.” Swift said.

Gin greeted Fisher with “Hello.”

Fisher waved a hand and said “Yo.”

“
Mind telling us why you're spying on The Empire?” Swift asked.

“
I've already told you. I plan on ending the war.” Fisher answered.

“
By stealing information for the rebels?”

Fisher began to engage Atheist and said “Whatever. You wouldn't understand, being blinded by The Empire's lofty ideals, so I'm done talking.”

“
If that's the way you want it, then you've got it. I'll beat the answers out of you.” Swift said and engaged Wrath.

Fisher made the first move by dashing forward and whipping an energy cord at Swift. Moving quickly, Swift retaliated with a punch to Fishers gut. Unaffected by the punch, Fisher responded by lashing his energy cords around Swift's ankles and pulling. Swift fell backwards onto the floor, rolling left and right, dodging two savage whips from Atheist. Swift placed himself into a kneeling position as the next energy cord sliced through the air towards him. Using Wrath, he was able to catch it and pull Fisher forward and into an enhanced uppercut. Fisher then wrapped Atheist around Swift's waist, swinging him around the room, through some furniture, and up through the ceiling. Gin ran for cover from the falling debris. As the dust settled he saw that the fight relocated to the room above. He climbed the ruined furniture and debris to find himself in what looked like a large storage area. Atheist's energy cords splashed down unto Swift with vicious intensity, only to be parried or absorbed by Wrath. Sensing another stalemate, Fisher leaped backwards.

“
Looks like you've gotten stronger after all.” he commented.

Swift rolled his shoulders and said “Well I'm not all worn out from fighting big effin' robots and your faceless rebel mob this time.”

“
True.” Fisher leaned forward, jutted a thumb at what looked to be a sword grip on his shoulder and asked “Remember this?”

“
I saw it.” Swift shrugged and said “Figures that you returning to Mars would mean that you'd take your Runic Blade back.”

“
You've always been pretty good at hand to hand combat, but let's see how you handle this.” Fisher said and brandished a luminescent sword, but Swift knew better. It had heat alright- Fisher's Runic Blade could carve diamond like butter. Wrath's shielding capabilities were miracles of light and heavy beam forming, but against slashing and piercing attacks they were barely adequate. Also physical objects, such as bullets, presented a challenge, and deflecting these required quite a bit of stamina. However Swift did have one advantage here. Even if Wrath couldn't completely stop Runic Blade's edge, it could mitigate it due to the blade itself being composed entirely of pure energy.

“
Giving up on that shoddy knock off you call Atheist then?” Swift jeered.

Fisher smirked and burst forward with a lightning fast slash. Swift vaulted out of the way and then dodged two more slices. This is not going to be good, Swift thought. Fisher was familiar with Swift's fighting style, particularly the creation of false openings as lures. This meant that an attempt to counterattack Fisher's sword strokes could see him missing an arm or leg. Still Swift felt as if he had no other choice and left himself open. Fisher pounced on this opportunity and aimed a savage attack at Swift's head. He was surprised, however, to see that Swift did not dodge this attack, but instead caught the blade of the sword with his hand. What thin shielding Wrath could provide was reinforced by a steady output of energy by Swift. Even so the blade began to pierce Wrath and sink into his hand. Swift threw an enhanced uppercut into Fisher's ribs, who responded by redoubling the pressure he applied with Runic Blade. Swift could feel his arm buckling underneath the tremendous force and released Wrath's charged up energy in a small explosion that sent both boys sliding backwards. Fisher took deep, whistling breaths through clenched teeth as he held his aching side. Swift was in bad shape as well, his hand looking literally like a hot mess. Nevertheless they both began to resume their fight, but Gin scrambled up into the room and stood between them before they could.

“
Stop it!” he shouted “You two are best friends!”

Fisher laughed, but stopped abruptly when he tasted the warm, coppery flavor of blood in his mouth. He rolled his eyes and carefully said “Swift made his choice a long time ago. He went back to the academy where all of his
important
friends were.”

Hearing these words, Swift had enough and roared “Benedict” so loudly Fisher looked at him in shock “I tried to follow you and you shot me for it!” he said in a voice wrought with emotion.

Now Fisher ignored his pain and yelled back “Of course I did! It was all for you! I had to be the evil villain so that you could go home a hero!”

“
I didn't ask for that.” Swift replied quietly.

“
Oh? And what would everyone have done if you hadn't come back? What would Revy had done?” Fisher asked.

Swift said nothing, and simply stood there looking miserable.

Fisher held both hands up and said “I thought so. Moron. But me? The academy seems to have done just fine without me. Surely I wasn't missed.”

Swift waved a hand in front of himself as if to shove away the idea and shouted “You weren't missed!? Did you know that your entire crew suffered so much grief from the news of your death that they resigned? Against the advice of the board, the headmaster had your picture placed in the hall among the most honorable cadets. Hangar bay two is still unoccupied because no one will ever take your place.” Swift balled his fists as a tear rolled down his cheek and he added “After all of that. The crying, the sadness, the emptiness; you come back from the dead only to tell me that not only had you died, but our friendship along with it!? You might as well have stayed dead!”

Silence fell upon the storage area, and Fisher looked down. Not out of sorrow, or misery, but shame. He had forgotten that, like it or not, Swift was always hurting. Somewhere deep inside, beneath the jealousy and resentment, Fisher had been hoping that his friend's pain had eased since they had last seen each other. Fisher felt horrible now to see that it did not, and even worse: he had only added to it.

“
Bitterness” Fisher said, his voice now softened “and isolation had led me to madness and errors. All of this time I've blamed you for taking everything away from me, but you're right. You never asked for my help.” he then looked Swift in the eyes and added “I guess I wanted to be the hero, if only just once.”

Swift wiped his eyes with his uninjured hand and said “I'm glad you're not dead.”

“
Me too. There's a medic bay located downstairs. Let's heal up and I'll explain to you what's going on, or at least what I know.”

-
46
-

Before they set out for the medic lab, Fisher had caused a minor explosion in the storage area. The reason for this, according to Fisher, was that him and his allies were being watched by the Rebel Faction. Thanks to the miracles of post-modern medicine, both boys soon found themselves completely healed.

After double checking his smartphone, Fisher said “Now then, I seem to recall you asking me what it is that I am doing here? A little bit of spy work indeed. My sources tell me that The Empire is undergoing trade negotiations with an alien race.”

“
Those tanks in the organics lab!” Gin exclaimed so suddenly that both Swift and Fisher jumped. They had forgotten that he was there.

“
That's them alright.” Fisher said “The Empire is working on portal technology that can bring a shipload of them to our dimension.”

“
Extra allies to fight the rebels?” Swift asked.

“
Bingo. In exchange The Empire has been trading ships, information, and prisoners of war for who knows what. I can imagine, though, that none of it is pretty.” Fisher said.

“
So you're here to steal that tech for the Rebel Faction?” Gin asked.

“
Not even close baby. The rebels have already made contact with our foreign dimensional friends, and are working on their own portal tech as we speak. I'm here to confirm the extent of The Empire's portal program.”

“
Then the aliens are playing both sides.” Swift concluded.

“
Oh! You're not as stupid as I thought!” Fisher jeered.

“
Hey!” Swift barked.

“
I'm kidding. But yeah, neither side knows about the other.”

“
What do you think the aliens plan to do once they're here?” Gin asked.

“
I'd love to say 'you can't judge a book by it's cover', but in this case the cover seems as transparent as glass.” Fisher said.

“
Those
were
some pretty big teeth they had.” Swift said.

“
All the better to eat you up with.” Fisher said grimly.

Gin shuddered and asked “So what do we do?”

“
All we can do for now is watch and wait. In the meantime I'm going to send you what data I've collected so far.” Fisher said “LC?”

LC, still inside of the little robot, rolled over to Fisher and said “Benneh!”

“
Long time, no see. Download my events and schedules. Also update Swift's database where necessary.”

“
So... are you coming back with us?” Swift asked hopefully.

“
I can't. Even with what you said earlier, I still don't have a place at the academy. Not yet at least. Also there's the issue of me being under near constant surveillance by the Rebel Faction.”