The Army Of Light (Kestrel Saga) (22 page)

*          
*           *

    
Aboard 
Sylvia’s Delight
, Trent was just finishing tying down his
exceedingly large tool chest. Shawn, with Melissa close behind, sauntered up
the rear cargo ramp and headed for the control panel on the far side of the
hold.

    
“Is everything aboard?” Shawn asked of Trent, his hand hovering over the lift
actuator.

    
With one final tug on the nylon locking strap, Trent leaned against the large
red box.
“Yeah.
That’s the last of them. I think we’ve
got everything we’re going to need.”

    
“Good,” Shawn said. His hand was about to come down on the button when he was
interrupted by Trent.

    
“So, are you sure you still need me to come along? I mean, I could get sick… or
injured. What if I need medical attention and we’re light-years away from a
hospital. I’ll die. Then you’ll have to eject my body into space. You wouldn’t
want that on your conscience, would you?”

    
With a smirk, Shawn turned back to the control panel and firmly pressed the
switch. The cargo ramp slowly retracted closed, the thick hydraulic rams on
either side slowly retracting into one another as the door moved with a handful
of creaks and groans. When the ramp had fully closed there was a soft hiss as
the locks around the frame formed an air tight seal.

    
“If you die, I promise I’ll get over it as soon as I can.”

    
“Wow. Thanks,” Trent replied acerbically.

    
“Hey, you brought it up.” Shawn smiled as he turned and headed to the control
deck. Midway to his destination, as he passed the port and starboard entrances
to the individual engine rooms, Shawn asked Trent to remain there and maintain
a watch on the newly repaired propulsion units—just
incase
anything happened.

    
“What could happen?” the mechanic had asked, to which Shawn replied that he shouldn’t
have asked in the first place, and that the ship would be taking off shortly.

    
The doors to the command deck hissed open and, once Shawn and Melissa were
inside, abruptly sealed behind them. The captain began inputting commands into
the overhead navigational computer before he’d even sat down. Not three minutes
later, just after he’d turned on the heated seat controls, Melissa wordlessly
slipped past him and sat down in the copilot’s chair. He did a quick double
take as soon as he noticed that she’d changed into a black and gray military
issue flight suit—and quite a form fitting one at that. 

    
“What?” she asked with hesitation as she caught his gaze.

    
“You keep a flight suit in your suitcase for emergencies, I gather?” he asked
in disbelief at her quick change act.

    
She stared back at him expressionless and silent.

    
“Never mind,” he dismissed with a shake of his head and went back to his
pre-flight checklist. “I’ve about given up trying to figure you out.”

    
She smiled contentedly to herself when she was convinced he was no longer
scanning her out of his periphery. Melissa glanced down to the auxiliary engine
control monitor, watching as the front of the starboard engine began spinning
faster and faster as the unit climbed to full take-off power. On the screen,
the cone-shaped tip was awash with a bright blue-white light as 
Sylvia’s
Delight
 announced with a series of gentle shudders that she was ready
to lift off the surface of Minos once again.

    
Shawn tapped the intercom button in front of him. “Trent, is everything ready
back there?”

    
“Roger, Captain. The engines are at full power, and I’ve got my puke bag
ready.”

    
“Just don’t throw-up on my engines,” Shawn shouted back. “Once we break out of
the atmosphere, I want you to divert all the bleed energy into the backup
navigational screens.”

    
“You sure you don’t want full power? I’d feel better if you—”

    
“If I ran the ship based on your feelings I’d have painted her pink with little
unicorns on the bulkheads,” Shawn retorted, and he swore Melissa let out a fit
of stifled laughter. “I want enough energy to withstand anything we might
encounter out there. I’d hate for us to get caught with our—” Shawn began, but
stopped as he looked to Melissa. “I don’t want to run into any surprises, okay?
Stand by for a full power ascent.”

    
“And what does that mean?” Melissa asked cautiously.

    
He looked to the copilot’s chair and examined Melissa, making sure her
three-point safety harness was fully attached. “It means you’re in for one heck
of a ride,” he replied, then pressed the drive igniter button. With a
thunderous roar, the Mark-IV abruptly launched nearly straight up from the Old
Flamingo’s landing pad and into the lower atmosphere.

    
Melissa could feel herself being pulled back into her seat as gravity fought to
keep the ship—not to mention her stomach—on the ground. She didn’t even have
time enough to scream before the inertial stabilizers came on and she felt her
body loosen up in the seat.

    
Breathing heavily, she pushed some fallen strands of hair out of her face. “Is
that your idea of a joke, Captain?”

    
“No. That’s my idea of a quick getaway.”

    
“Getaway?
From what?”

    
Just then a voice came through the ships intercom from the surface of Minos. It
was the same male tower operator that they’d heard when landing.
“
Sylvia’s Delight
.
Come in,
Sylvia’s Delight
.
You are not cleared for take-off at this time. Please return to Minos immediately.”

    
“Fat chance of that happening,” Shawn replied, not bothering to press the
button that would’ve sent the response to the ground controller.

    
“Is there something I should know about?” Melissa asked.

    
Shawn turned the ground radar off,
then
activated the
space navigational computer as he prepared to engage the jump drive that would
send them away from Minos at nearly the speed of light. Before he could enter
the last two commands, however, a bolt of green light rocketed over the bow and
out into space. 
Sylvia’s Delight
 lunged downward abruptly, but
the captain was able to quickly right her.

    
“Who’s shooting at us?” Melissa cried as she gripped her armrests tightly.

    
Shawn looked to the short-range sensor display as the ships female computer
voice cheerfully read out the report on the ships attacking the Mark-IV. On the
screen, a three-view computer generated wire frame representation of a fighter
was displayed, as well as armament and shielding information on the vessel. It
was a sleek, bullet shaped fighter, with two large thrusters on the rear and
sweeping wing-like
farings
jutting out from the front
of the craft. 

    
“Temkorian’s,” Shawn replied as he looked the schematic over.
“And four of them, too.”
Shawn was silently impressed that
Jack felt so highly of his abilities that the Frenchman had to send four of his
goons out to retrieve him.

    
“They’re a long way from home,” Melissa replied hesitantly.

    
“Not if their home is at Jack’s place. They must have taken off before we left
the ground. There is no other way they would have gotten here so quickly.”

    
A blue light on Shawn’s control panel began to blink, signaling to the captain
that the lead Temkorian fighter wished to communicate. Reluctantly, he flipped
on the yellow toggle switch. Shawn cleared his throat as he summoned his best
command voice. “This is Captain Kestrel onboard 
Sylvia’s Delight
.
What gives you the right to fire on an unarmed vessel?”

    
Melissa looked at him suspiciously, but he shot her back a look that said
‘whatever he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.’

    
The alien’s voice came back immediately. It was a high pitch, squeaky sounding
thing, and not at all frightening. However, Shawn knew the latter was far from
true when it came to Temkorian’s. “It doesn’t need to go this way, Kestrel,”
the alien began. “Return to Minos and you will be unharmed. All we want is the
girl.”

    
“The girl?”
He replied too softly for the Temkorian to
hear him. His eyes pivoted towards the copilot’s seat and the attractive,
strangely calm woman occupying it. “Why would Jack want only you?”

    
“I can’t imagine why,” she replied blandly.

    
“Neither can
I
. I mean, not unless there was a profit
in—” he stopped himself in mid-sentence as he contemplated what he was about to
say. The Temkorian made another round of demands before Shawn spoke up to
Melissa again. “That’s it, isn’t it?”

    
The volume of his voice caught her by surprise. “That’s what, Mister Kestrel?”

    
“This isn’t about me at all.
It all about you.
You’re hot!”

    
Melissa instantly blushed and smiled sheepishly. “Why thank you, Mister
Kestrel.”

    
Shawn looked at her in confusion just as the ships proximity alarm came on
briefly,
then
extinguished itself. “Thank you?
For what?”

    
“You just said I was hot. While I know that it’s something of an archaic term
for someone who is attractive, I do suppose that I have turned my share of
heads in the past and…” She looked to Shawn and, seeing the look of utter
perplexity on his face, wondered what was going on behind his eyes.

    
“What are you talking about, lady?” he asked wide-eyed.

    
“Didn’t you just call me hot?”

    
Shawn shook his head in disdain. “No! Not 
hot
 
hot
. I mean hot… as in wanted.”

    
There was a hint of rejection in her voice. “So… you’re saying you don’t think
I’m attractive?”

    
Shawn wasn’t sure if she was being serious or playing. “Are you some type of
crazy person?”

    
The Temkorian jumped back into the conversation. “Repeat, Captain Kestrel: We
just want the girl. You’ll be free to go on your way once we have her.”

    
Shawn gave Melissa another glance,
then
looked back
out the forward view port. He leaned into the microphone and pressed the
initiator button. “Well, that’s too
bad,
pal, because
you can’t have her.”

    
“Very mature response, Captain.” Melissa scoffed.

    
“Am I to understand you’re claiming her, Kestrel?” the alien angrily snapped
back.

    
Before Melissa could think about what she was about to do, she reached across
Shawn’s lap and punched the communications control. “Excuse me, Mister…Mister
Man, or whatever you call yourself.
No
one
claims me. I am my own
person.”

    
Shawn slapped her hand away from the control. “Stop that! Do you have any idea
who you’re talking to? Those are Temkorian’s out there!”

    
“So what?” she rallied, rubbing the pick spot on her hand before folding her
arms across her chest.

 
   “So, I know you haven’t been around the interstellar block a
few times yet, so I’ll tell you that Temkorian’s are something of an interstellar
packrat species.”

    
Melissa shook her head.
“And?”

    
“And, if something in space isn’t claimed, it’s considered free game by their
race.” Shawn could see she still didn’t comprehend. “If I don’t claim you then,
in their eyes, you are considered free game… and they can take you—by force, if
necessary.”

    
The alien’s squeaky voice came back over the speaker as one of the Temkorian
fighters passed slowly over the bow of 
Sylvia’s Delight
, then
cantered off to port. “I’m sorry, Captain. I did not copy your last
transmission. Repeat your last.”

    
Shawn held up a finger, as if to stop Melissa from saying or doing anything
else that would make their situation worse. He reached over and pressed the
communications button once more, clearing his throat in the process. “Yes. Yes,
I’ve claimed her. She’s mine. Besides, even if I hadn’t claimed her, you
wouldn’t want her. She’s…”

    
Wondering what on Third Earth he was going to say next, she rested her elbow on
the armrest,
then
leaned her chin into her palm,
hanging on the captain’s next words.

    
“She’s… cranky.”

    
“I am 
not
 cranky!” Melissa all but screamed in response. “And
I am 
not
 a crazy person!”

    
 
“Really?
Have you tried listening to yourself
lately? I mean, I’m less than four feet from you, and you’re screaming at me
like I’m a mile way,” Shawn said calmly, his eyes still gazing into the sensor
display at the four Temkorian fighters now in pursuit.

    
One of the fighters had settled into the Mark-IV’s aft quadrant, with one each
on her port and starboard flanks. The only unaccounted for Temkorian was the
leader, and he was probably somewhere distant, directing the rest of the group.
The fighters were sleek and, from what Shawn’s computer casually and almost
joyfully informed him, quite lethal. While he’d encountered fighters of this
type under more friendly circumstances during the war, he’d never tangled with
the business end of one of them. Back then, the Temkorian’s had fought on the
side of the Unified Collaboration of Systems against the Kafaran’s. Now it
looked as if Shawn was going to have to face off against these fast and
well-armed fighters with only the minimal lasers of 
Sylvia’s Delight
.

    
Needless to say, the odds were not in his favor.

    
“And you can’t claim me either, Captain.” Melissa continued in annoyance. “I am
not some… some
trophy
!”