Spin the Sky (32 page)

“Well, that was interesting,” I gasped. “But now the fool is just double damned. Does he think he can fly away with both of them in his back pocket? They’ll just tear him apart. Sweet Mother of God.” There were no replies from my officers. They were too busy watching the action on their comms.

There were four wide-eyed officers on duty with me and several more who had found various reasons to loiter on the bridge, so the roar of surprise was almost deafening when that fat cow of a cargo ship started spinning like a Russian tether. The harpoon cords wound around it, reeling in both of those cursed orbitals.

Just before Scylla and Charybdis crashed together into the cargo ship, that tiny black fighter shot out of the cargo hull.

Then all hell broke loose. Literally.

The cargo ship exploded, shredding Scylla like a paper ball. Charybdis fizzled and warped and shrank into itself. The resulting gravitational wave rocked the whole fleet back. My coffee mug shattered against a bulkhead as I flung a hand out to steady myself.

The black fighter was flung out into voidspace. I ordered my command ship to follow it. As we retrieved the black fighter, my officers informed me that the tinker fleet was picking its way through the wreckage and readying for their long trip home to the Greek Camp.

“But they want their Captain back,” my comm officer reported with a grin. The Ex-World Fleet is uniformly of the opinion that the next best thing to fighting a good battle is watching one.

The black fighter was in a tumbling free fall. The death blast of Scylla and Charybdis had knocked it hard. Fortunately, we quickly gathered it into our modest flight deck and extracted its pilot alive.

That day, I watched one man in a tiny black fighter destroy two monsters that I thought too large to even contemplate attacking directly, much less destroying utterly in a single blow. I commanded the Ex-World Fleet to the best of my abilities and that day I realized I had been failing them. My best wasn’t good enough. We spent years sailing around the Trojan Camp, hoping that if we showed we were pious and honorable, some orbital would take us in and give us a home.

This man showed me that I needed to act as though anything were possible. Instead of wandering in search of a home, we needed to make our own orbital, found our own empire in the spheres. Of course it was many years and many wild adventures until our story ended, but in my mind the path finally became clear that day. He was my greatest hero and I eagerly rushed to meet him on our flight deck.

But you don’t want to hear my story. You want the story of how I met your father.

I stood on the flight deck in my threadbare full dress whites, my spine so straight it hurt. Two of my men gently helped the black fighter’s pilot out of his ship.

“Well, my girl
Surprise
is banged up, but she’ll keep flying. Just like me, I guess,” I heard the pilot say to my men as he limped towards me.

Even with the scars, the white hair and the limp, I recognized your father. I spent so many nights studying all the files I could find on my great adversary that I could pick Cesar the Scorcher out of a crowd. My mind reeled. My new hero was my old enemy.

Your father stopped two feet in front of me, snapped to attention and gave me a crisp salute. What could I do but offer him my hand?

“It is an honor to meet you, Captain Cesar Vaquero.”

If hearing his true name surprised him, the only indication was a slight twitch of his left eyebrow.

Gripping my hand and shaking it enthusiastically, Cesar the Scorcher, replied, “The honor is mine, Admiral Maria Aeneas.” He bowed low and kissed the back of my hand before returning to his ship without another word. The tinker fleet collected him quickly.

After that, the tinker fleet regularly traveled between the Greek and Trojan Camps, but your father was never with them again. I checked every time.

May God Watch Over You,

Admiral Maria Aeneas

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

T
revor is standing on a strange orbital alone with practically nothing but the clothes he is wearing. Almost everyone he knows thinks he’s dead. There are rich and powerful men after him who will stop at nothing to kill him if they know he is still alive. He is still weak from surviving a near-death experience and mourning the death of a beautiful girl. Holding his throbbing burned arm tight against his body, Trevor walks slowly into town alternatively gulping back sobs and wanting to sing.

Trevor represses the sudden desire to skip and makes an attempt to feel traumatized again, but it just isn’t working. He wonders if his weird attacks of good mood are the after-effect of almost getting killed. Some sort of survivor’s euphoria, maybe?

Trevor makes a mental note to ask Cesar about that.

He would know. Cesar, the guy who used to be Ulixes who is his dad.

Trevor still isn’t totally sure what to think about that. Instead, he thinks about how starving he is.

Mike and his wife Jane stuffed him full of food before dropping him off, but Trevor is always hungry these days. He went back for second and third helpings once Mike assured him that they had plenty of food.

While he wolfed down some sort of curry-spiced bean and rice soup, two small boys watched his every move with eyes wide as saucers. Trevor grinned at them and they shyly grinned back and ducked under the table, but that was all he knew of them.

If there were more time, he’d have asked a million questions about life on a junker and how the ship handled and what they ate and how they washed their clothes and everything. But Trevor needed to sleep an awful lot and they were in a wicked hurry.

He and Mike and Cesar went over the plan at least half a dozen times before they dropped him off. It was a fairly straightforward plan.

“You need someplace to hide out until I can signal that all is clear,” Cesar told him. “Al and Arete are great people and the last time I saw them, they seemed to think they owed me a favor. You go and ask if they will put you up for a week or two until things get more settled.”

Mike chuckled, “They do owe you a favor. You lost a ship helping them.”

“That wasn’t their fault,” objected Cesar.

Trevor perked up. It sounded like there was a story here. “What happened?” he asked.

“It doesn’t really matter,” Cesar said with a wave of his hand and a warning look at Mike. “Now, they have a little girl named Nausicaa, real sweet kid and very independent. Why when I first met her, she didn’t come up to my belly button and they’d leave her in charge of the family laundry business all by herself! See, son, Lazar House is a textile orbital and Al and Arete run the laundry.”

Mike broke in, “Lazar House is also a Synthlep colony.”

During the Worlder Wars, someone came up with a synthetic version of leprosy that was easier to catch that the original disease and, without the medication, progressed towards the skin-and-fingers-falling-off phase much faster. Synthlep is a fluid-borne disease that still doesn’t have a cure, but with the right medication, infected people infected can live a normal life. Without the medication, Synthlepers die a slow, excruciating death, but it takes almost a year to reach the end stage.

“So what?” asked Cesar with a frown. “They are good people.”

Mike raised his hands up defensively and then pointed at Trevor. He said, “Hey, the kid needs to know what he’s getting into.”

“He has a point, uh, Cesar,” Trevor spoke up. “I need to know what I’m getting into.”

Cesar relented.

Mike explained, “So we were bringing meds to Lazar House a while ago. There are some shipping companies that won’t go there. The fools think they’ll catch Synthlep just by docking.”

Cesar wrinkled his nose with disgust for such squeamish behavior and muttered, “Little Nausicaa developed a rare manifestation of Synthlep. That sometimes happens to kids born with the disease. She needed special meds to fix the problem and they were willing to pay a premium.”

“Captain dragged us all down to Earth and made us deal with the dirt-lovers to get those meds,” Mike said, remembering with a grin. “Almost got our butts shot off. We didn’t want to go, but Captain said the kid would die without our help. Seemed real keen on helping her. We all figured it had something to do with, well, his kid. You, I guess. Also, when Captain sets his cap to do something, it’s better just to fall in line or else get out of his way.”

Trevor looked at his dad. Cesar was picking at his fingernails and looking like he’d like to shove Mike down an airshaft.

“Yeah, well, we had the meds,” Cesar said gruffly. “We show up to drop them off and Lazar House is screaming on every channel of the Ether. Long story short: Al and Arete had taken a puddle jumper over to Satsuma Silk World to negotiate a trade for some silk. Lazar House makes cotton and they wanted to do something with silk. I don’t remember what.”

“Cotton silk blends,” Mike broke in promptly. “They breathe like Egyptian cotton and have excellent drape.”

Cesar raise an eye at Mike and the man blushed bright red before mumbling, “Bought some dresses for the wife last year and she’s always going on about ’em.”

“Anyway,” Cesar said loudly, still eyeing Mike suspiciously as though the man might suddenly make them talk about shoes. “Al and Arete and a half a dozen others were on this runaway puddle jumper, about to smash right into the side of their own orbital. Lazar House isn’t built sturdy like Ithaca. An impact like that could have vented the whole colony into the void.”

“And like always, we jumped into the fray,” Mike broke in with a grin. “Your dad was awesome. He goes all cold and steely and starts barking orders. It’s a sight, kid.”

Trevor looked at his dad. “I’ve seen it,” he said.

Mike ran on with his story while Cesar shared a smile with his son.

“And then we come swooping in and catch them up like fish in a net,” Mike was practically shouting, holding his hands in the air like they were ships to show Trevor how it was. “I’ve never seen anyone like your dad with a ship. I swear ships just love him. They do whatever he wants. They sit up and sing if that’s what he asks them to do.”

“I didn’t ask that ship to crash, Mike,” Cesar said mildly.

“Yeah, but that old clunker practically broke itself to pieces because you asked it to,” Mike answered. “Too bad you had to abandon your little skiff. You should have seen his skiff, Trevor. Shiny and slick and as fast as anything, but we lost it out there. So then we got everybody into the escape pods with barely enough breathing room. Yet your old man still remembers to grab that box of meds before he fires us off, seconds before the ship goes careening out of range and out into deep space.”

Cesar remarks with a faraway look in his eye, “And we landed on Lazar House with a box of meds and nothing but the shirts on our backs. Flat broke and hungry again. Why on earth did you crew with me so long, Mike?”

Mike replies, “Cuz it was fun as hell.”

“I remember you always were crazy,” says Cesar as he and Mike grinned maniacally. “Now, back to the current situation. Al and Arete did right by us back then. Gave us a better than good deal on the meds and then bought what was left of the tinker for scrap metal. They put us up for a week, fed us up and even sent us off with a change of clothes. I hate to ask them for favors now, but there’s no one else and Lazar House is close.”

“Their girl sure took a shine to your dad,” Mike told Trevor. “Little thing followed him around begging for stories and made him show her how to fly. She kept telling us all she was going to marry him and go be a pirate too.”

Mike chortled, “That girl had spunk. You give her a hug from me if you see her again.”

“So,” said Cesar, slapping Trevor on the back. “We’ll drop you at Lazar House. You go see if Al and Arete are still there and ask if you can stay with them for a little while. You tell them I will pay them back with interest as soon as I can and you be on your best behavior. If that doesn’t work out for whatever reason, call your Mom and get a shuttle back home. You’ve got enough credits?”

“Sure do,” Trevor said, holding up his right thumb, the one he usually swipes to pay for things. “Mom may be a hard ass, but she isn’t stingy with the allowance.”

“Good,” grunts Cesar. “Because I’m broke. I don’t know how I will ever repay Mike here for his incredible generosity.”

Mike waved away the thought, “Don’t worry about it, Captain. Least I can do.”

“No, I promise I will compensate you for your time and generosity,” insisted Cesar.

Mike growled, “An I’m telling you I won’t take a dime from you. Just accept it, say thank you and don’t forget to tell me where you end up.”

They bickered back and forth about it. Trevor nodded off. By the time they docked at Lazar House, Cesar must have told Trevor to be careful about a million times.

“I’ll be fine. Jeez, you’re worse than Mom,” Trevor finally cried with exasperation as Cesar hovered over him anxiously giving advice while his pulled on his boots to leave.

“I don’t want to leave you here,” admitted Cesar, shoving his hands in his pockets.

Trevor hugged his dad and it felt good, but he also wanted to go explore and have a little time to himself to think about suddenly having a dad. After all the stories he’d heard, it was hard to think of this guy standing in front of him as an actual person and yet, he was just too… real.

Trevor always wondered if finally meeting his dad would be a let down. If he’d be a jerk or a liar or just boring. He isn’t any of those things. Cesar is real. It is a little overwhelming.

Trevor looks around at the Lazar House orbital. This is his first time alone on a strange colony. Hell, this is his first time off Ithaca. So far, Lazar House looks like the town part of Ithaca, but more brightly colored and packed closer together. He starts walking; following the directions his dad gave him.

There are more people on the streets than Trevor expected. At first, he just thinks this part of Lazar House is more crowded or has more people, but then he realizes that there is something going on, some kind of gathering.