BORN OF HEROES

— by Jeff Karamales

Chapter 32
 

Before returning to the ship, Elias rented a small lifter to make a side trip. It wasn’t something that he wanted to do, but at the same time he couldn’t avoid it. It had been years since he’d gone to visit his parents, and as he was so close, there was no reason not to.

  He was quiet as he and Cerise, who insisted on coming along, climbed into the small aircraft. Unlike a standard helicopter, the lifter used three ducted fans to provide lift and thrust, the two fans mounted on the ends of the stubby wings would rotate forward once the desired altitude was reached. Elias sat in the pilot’s seat, bringing the engines up to speed while his mate looked at him.

  The vixen was curious as to her husband’s silence during the entire morning, and the dark feelings that hung over him like a cloud. It was something that she hadn’t seen from Elias before. He was normally very lively and positive. She didn’t like the change, and even though he’d given her the option of staying behind with the rest of the crew, the vixen had insisted on coming along to support her husband.

  “Do you think your parents will approve of me?” she’d asked innocently enough.

  Elias turned and looked at his wife, his eyes unreadable behind the reflective lenses of the sunglasses he wore. When he did answer, his voice was low and soft.

  “We’ll see,” was all he said in response.

  The flight to the small town of Odeon that Elias had been born in was a fifteen minute flight from the starport. There really wasn’t anyplace to land, and it might have been easier to have taken a ground car, but the fox found a field on the edge of the little village and set down there. Elias shut the engines down almost as soon as the landing skids touched the green-gold grass of the field. He took a deep breath and sat for a moment, collecting his thoughts as Cerise watched him pensively, not speaking, but wondering why this side trip was affecting him so much.

  A knock on the window of the vixen’s door made her jump.

  “You can’t land that here!” a gray fox shouted from the outside. He wasn’t hostile, but he was insistent.

  Elias released his safety harness and opened the door on his side of the lifter, taking of his sunglasses and dropping them on the seat. “We’ll be gone shortly, Mister Corbin. I just wanted to visit my parents for a little bit.”

  The gray fox took a step back, his yellow eyes going wide. “Elias? Elias Tivnan?” he asked softly.

  Elias nodded and smiled. “Yes, Sir. We’ll be going before too long. There’s just no other place to put down at.”

  The gray fox bustled around the front of the lifter and took the other fox’s hand in his, pumping it vigorously. “I’m sorry, Elias! If I’d known it was you I wouldn’t have said anything at all! How have you been, lad?”

  Elias gave the older tod a wan smile. “I’m doing all right, Mister Corbin. I’d like for you to meet my wife, Cerise. Cerise, this is Mister Anthony Corbin. He’s sort of the mayor here.”

  The gray fox turned and looked at Cerise before giving her a somewhat stiff and clumsy little bow. “Oh my. Elias. She’s lovely! Pleased to meet you, young lady!”

  Cerise smiled. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mister Corbin,” the vixen said with a smile.

  “You know, we heard about that crash you were in last year. Had the entire town worked up. Right glad that you made it through that! So are you still with the SPF?” the older fox asked. “Folk ‘round here won’t believe that your back!”

  Elias shook his head. “I’m sorry, Mister Corbin. I’m not going to be able to stay long. I have to get back to my ship and crew. And no. I’m running a freighter now. We had to drop off some…cargo. Over near Cybria. We’ll be lifting tomorrow.”

  “Isn’t that where those kids were taken from? Heard that the SPF got ‘em back on the news the other night. Good group, there. Don’t know why you left ‘em?” Corbin said.

  “It was time. I hate to be in a rush, but I need to get this taken care of. I would stay and talk longer if I could…”

  The gray fox gave the younger one a small smile. “You’re right, of course. And here I am just babbling on. Well, if you find you do have time, come on over to Shelly’s. I’ll buy you lunch.”

  “If I have time. Thank you,” Elias said.

  The gray fox nodded and tottered off towards the center of the small town, leaving Elias and Cerise alone by the aircraft.

  “Let’s get this over with,” Elias said.

  Cerise stepped up beside her mate and took his hand, baffled by Elias’ continued lack of vitality. Instead of leading her to one of the small but neat houses that surrounded the town, Elias followed a narrow, worn path through the damp grass that was still laden with morning dew. They entered a little area that was surrounded by a well-tended, knee-high stone wall and stopped.

  Elias knelt down and Cerise wondered why, until she looked down and saw the small head stone resting in the grass, wilted flowers and dried leaves scattered around it.

  No wonder Elias had been so reluctant to make this trip. She put her hand on his shoulder in quiet support as she read the inscription.

Ellis Lloyd Tivnan

Father, Husband

Carol Dena Tivnan

Mother, Wife

As in life, so it is beyond

  In slightly smaller script beneath it read;

What the caterpillar calls the end of the World

The Master calls a butterfly.

  Cerise stared. She had no idea that Elias had no family left. She knew that he’d been an only child, but that had been all. She realized that his shoulder was trembling as he was wracked by silent sobs. With tears welling up in her eyes, she sank down onto the sodden grass next to her mate and wrapped her arms around him, resting her head against his shoulder.

  It was a while before Elias could speak, and when he did, his voice was soft and tremulous. “I was on my first space run with the Navy when my Father died. He was at work when he got dizzy and took a spill. At the hospital, the doctor that examined him said that he’d discovered multiple tumors that were causing his balance issues.

  “I didn’t get the letter from my Mother telling me about it for almost a month. By then it was too late. I was given leave to come home to help bury Dad, but I was too late. Mom just couldn’t make it without Dad being there for her.”

  Elias looked at his wife, and his eyes were filled with pain and anger and regret the likes of which she hadn’t known he carried.

  “I wasn’t there for them when they died. Some great son I turned out to be, huh? Everyone in town told me how proud they were of me, how Dad would go to the diner and brag about me being in the Navy, how I was going to be something someday.” He swallowed hard and wiped the moisture from around his eyes, though the gesture was useless as tears continued to fall.

  “The message was late because of a clerical error and it got transmitted to the wrong ship. I never got to say good-bye.”

  Cerise saw so much more to Elias than she had before as she held him and let him cry out all of the pain that still festered in his heart and soul. Like a flash of intuition, she knew why he brought the kids they’d rescued home himself, why he had gone to great pains to reunite families. It was because of the loss of his parents, of not being able to see them one last time that had left a wound in the fox that had never healed. He carried a knot of guilt and regret deep inside, and it seemed to her that many of the things that he’d done had been so that no one else would have to endure what he did.

  Her heart swelled with feeling for this complex individual, making her hug him all the tighter.

  “Where did you get the idea for that inscription?” she asked softly, reaching down to trace the letters with one finger. “It’s beautiful.”

  “After I got back to my ship, a friend gave me a copy of a book to read. It was about a human that lived centuries ago on Earth that told of meeting a messiah of sorts. He learned that he was also a messiah, so was every other soul alive, and that nothing in the universe is really as it seems. I took that from the book because it seemed…fitting.” He wiped his eyes again. “You know, they would have loved you. Mom always wanted a daughter so badly, but was never able to have any more kits after me. Look here,” he said, pointing slightly to his right.

  There was another small headstone of the same material that Elias’ parents had. There were three names on it;

Van Tivnan

Renee Tivnan

Neria Tivnan

You are no less loved

No less missed.

  “They were my littermates. They didn’t live very long. I think it took a lot out of Mom. She loved me, but I don’t think I remember her ever really being happy.”

  The vixen tried to give her mate all of the support she could, just letting him know that she was there and that she loved him. There was so much sadness in her mate’s past.

  They knelt there for almost half an hour, the moisture on the grass soaking through their clothes and footwear before Elias shook himself, his tears shed. Cerise stood with him, her hand slipping into his.

  “Let’s find some flowers for them, she suggested.

    “There’s no florist in Odeon, Love.”

  “Then we’ll find some on our own,” she said simply.

  The little cemetery was on the edge of the forest that dominated this part of Alexandrius, and she and Elias walked into the gloom of the woods.

  There was nothing oppressive about these woods. Despite the deep shadows and damp air, the forest felt alive, with the scents and sounds of life all around them. It wasn’t long before they found a small but thriving patch of flowers in a small clearing. The blooms were curious, with crinkled looking petals of light blue and deep indigo centers. Their aroma was subtle and sweet, and made Cerise feel light in heart and soul. The vixen noticed that even Elias smiled slightly as he took in their fragrance.

  “They’re called Evening Blooms. They only grow in the depths of the woods around here. My Mother loved them.”

  Cerise smiled at him. “Then they’re perfect.”

  Instead of picking the blooms, Elias took his knife from its sheath and carefully extracted three clumps of the flowers. Once they returned to the headstones, the fox again drew his knife and made small holes in the ground, placing the root balls deep enough that they wouldn’t be exposed to the air and elements and could take hold in their new place, placing two next to the marker for his parents, the third at the apex of the stone for his siblings.

  They both stood, and Elias slipped his arm around the petite vixen’s waist. “I think they would like this.”

  “I wish I had known them,” Cerise said.

  “Like I said, they would have loved you. And you and Dad would have gotten along great. He loved fishing almost as much as you do.” He stood there for a moment, past and present seeming to meet within him, and for some reason that he couldn’t understand or explain, he felt the guilt that he’d carried and suffered with for so long begin to lift, like a fog that is driven away by the rising sun.

  “Come on, Love of mine. Let’s go home,” Elias said to his mate.

  She looked up at him and smiled before giving him a kiss on the side of his muzzle and let him lead her back to the lifter.

***

  The Guiding Angel headed back towards the Van Connor Nebula after less than a week on Alexandrius. The crew wasn’t ready for shore leave yet, and most were simply relaxed enough without a dozen-plus hormonal teenagers running rampant through the ship. Lena was perhaps the most relieved at the lack of youngsters.

  “Do you know what it’s like to sit in a bath, music playing and trying to have a good soak only to realize there are four sets of eyes ogling you?” the rabbit had asked the others over breakfast while they had still been at the hotel. “Flippin’ disturbing is what is!”

  “You never complain when I ogle you,” Randal observed.

  It was the first time that Elias had ever seen a breakfast pastry used as a weapon.

  Long range imaging showed the nebula as a swirl of gaseous clouds floating in the vastness of space, a riot of colors running the entire spectrum of the rainbow, with interior discharges of energy providing eerily beautiful illumination. Elias wished that it wasn’t such a hot bed for raider activity. It would be a great sight for travelers to witness, and the amount of research that could be gleaned would last lifetimes.

  At the Guiding Angel’s  relatively slow cruising velocity, they were still well over an hour away from the celestial body when the fox, taking his shift at bridge watch, thought he saw something that wasn’t quite right. Leaning forward, he entered commands on his console for the ship’s sensors to enhance the image, pushing the equipment to its limits. Elias stared at the image for several long seconds, refusing to blink so he wouldn’t miss what he believed he saw, ignoring the tears that formed as his eyes succumbed to the cool dry air circulating around the bridge.

  Then what he was looking for hove into view, passing between tendrils of luminescent gas. The extreme magnification left no doubt. He hadn’t just been seeing things.

  In one quick motion, he slung the straps of the seat restraints over his shoulders as his other hand slapped the alarm actuator.

  “All hands! All hands! Prepare for battle! To your stations now!”

  As he made the call for general quarters, Elias was able to fasten his safety restraints and began adding power to the engines. Cerise was already at the communications console and had nearly jumped out of her seat when her mate tripped the alarm klaxon.

  “What is it, Elias?” she almost screamed, her heart racing achingly fast in her chest.

  He didn’t even turn around as he answered, locking all of the Guiding Angel’s sensors onto the object he’d found.

  “It’s the Shiva!” he snarled, his teeth bared and an almost feral glint in his eyes.

  Saul burst through the hatch from the corridor, undressed save for a pair of thin shorts, the spicy scent he exuded attesting to his having been working out when the alarm was hit. “What have we got, Captain?” he asked as he began bringing up data at his station before fully sitting down.

  Elias was too focused on keeping the other vessel in sight, leaving Cerise to answer the First Officer.

  “He has a lock on the Shiva,” she said, her voice thin with apprehension, though it didn’t keep her from using all of her talents to better tune the equipment that was her specialty and track the other ship.

  Saul swore under his breath as he fastened his restraints and began preparing for battle. “Engineering crew ready. Infirmary is standing by,” the jaguar said as the various stations checked in with him.

  Odette had quietly slipped in to her seat at weapons, brought up her station and called out. “Weapons ready. Pulse cannon and missiles at your command, Captain.”

  “Affirmative,” Elias growled.

  The bridge crew all spared a glance at the white fox. None of them had ever seen him like this before, so focused, so cold seeming. Odette threw a quick look at Cerise and tried to reassure the vixen with a smile. It didn’t help Cerise in the slightest.

  They had been getting reports of the Shiva’s predations from all over the PA for the past four months, and it seemed that each bit of news was worse than the one before. A freighter, the Iron Maggie was able to squeak out a distress call before it was silenced. A patrol boat from the Kantus Defense Force found the freighter a week later with no survivors as the interior, and everyone on board, had been incinerated. Weeks later it had struck an asteroid mining operation in the Anya system, using its cannon to hole the main habitat and vent its atmosphere into hard vacuum before ransacking the outpost for stockpiles of raw materials.

  A Planetary Alignment emergency response ship had been ransacked the previous month. Again no survivors. And most recent at three weeks earlier a liner with Astarte Eridani Space Lines had been attacked. The Shiva’s crew hadn’t even attempted to board to plunder the ship and passengers for loot. They had simply destroyed the vessels drives and left, leaving almost three hundred crew and passengers floating in space. That event had actually ended on a high note as the ship was found by a Tanthean battleship which had been able to rescue the castaways.

  Not a single encounter had varied in their description of the marauding vessel; a black colored Terran made Carrack class ship with bright red designs.

  “Boarding team is standing by and the Cherub is ready for launch, Elias. We’re ready,” Saul said, trying to swallow with a mouth gone suddenly dry.

  “Copy,” Elias said, his face still locked in a feral grin of teeth. “Distance to target?”

  Cerise consulted her board. “Over one hundred thousand kilometers. At present speed and course, we should intercept in eight minutes. I don’t think they’ve seen us yet. They’re too close to the nebula. It should render them blind to our presence.”

  “At forty seconds out, broadcast an order to stand down,” Elias ordered. “Odette,” he continued, “at the first sign of resistance you are weapons free. Understand?”

  “Aye, Captain,” the bear said. She activated the dorsal and ventral turrets and set the other systems on stand-by.

  The tension on the bridge was palpable, and Cerise felt all of the muscles in her back tighten and knot with the stress she was experiencing. With an eye on the relative distance between the two ships, she toggled the communications board, sending her words out on multiple frequencies simultaneously. “Attention, attention, attention. This is the Spatial Police Force. Heave to and prepare to be boarded. Refusal or hostile action will be met with force. Do you comply?” She repeated the order, even as Elias gave his own order.

  “Lena! Launch now, now, now! You are weapons free at the first sign of hostile intent. Copy?”

  “Understood, Captain,” The rabbit replied. “Good luck!”

  While the Guiding Angel had been in dry dock months earlier, the ship yard crews had installed a magnetic accelerator and exhaust baffles so that the fighter could perform a hot launch from the converted cargo bay without fear that it would damage the interior or put the converted freighter at risk. It had enabled the Raptor class interceptor to be deployed even faster than before, and Elias noted with approval the greater speed of the operation as the small craft took off like it had been fired from a cannon.

  Cerise had been monitoring the enemy vessel and as soon as she detected variations in her instrument readings, she relayed it to the rest of the crew. “I’m detecting increased power signatures! Looks to be pulse cannon and magnetic launchers warming up!”

  “Got it,” Elias said coolly, almost emotionlessly.

  Captain and crew watched as the black and red vessel turned to meet them head on, the enemy maintaining radio silence. As soon as its bow was pointed in the direction of the Guiding Angel, miniature green-white suns erupted from the Shiva’s forward weapons. The rounds were easily soaked up by the freighter’s shields.

  “That’s it! Weapons free! Take ‘em down!” Elias yelled, depressing the triggers on his control yokes even as he spoke.

  The Okami freighter-turned-warship had weapons with a higher firing cycle than the units the Shiva sported, and while lacking the punch, the rapid bursts had greater effect in reducing the energy shields of the pirate vessel. Odette added to the conflagration by firing the dorsal and ventral turrets in an alternating pattern. The brilliant white beams of the mercury vapor lasers clearly visible despite the luminescent bolts that crossed back and forth between the two ships.

  The Guiding Angel and the Shiva passed by each other at tremendous velocity, the raider momentarily losing initiative as the ellipsoid shaped ship moved beyond its forward firing arc. Not so with the clandestine SPF vessel. Odette kept the lasers firing at the other craft, though with less effect as the beams of light were dissipated by the untouched flank and aft shields.

  With a snarl, Elias flipped the Guiding Angel over, using the large power plants of his ship to slow and tracked the enemy, again triggering a series of blasts from the pulse cannon at his command. Even as the freighter began a rapid deceleration and brake before lurching after the pirate, the fox watched as Lena in the Cherub strafed the Shiva and let go with a salvo of Sparrow missiles. The small projectiles were modeled on antipersonnel rockets, their warheads actually comprising dozens of sub-munitions that would disperse meters from a target and saturate the shields with miniature explosions, further eroding them and dropping their potency substantially.

  Even as Elias drew within firing range, he saw the marauder execute its own flip so that it was traveling backwards. He instinctively knew what was coming next.

  “Talon missile signatures!” Cerise almost screamed. “Eight in all!”

  “Give me a distance count!” the fox ordered, his eyes darting from what he saw outside the viewports to his instruments.

  “Four thousand!” Cerise called out. “Three-point-five thousand! Three thousand! Two-point-five thousand! Two thousand!”

  Nodding his head, Elias cut forward thrust, slewed the ship ninety degrees on its axial plane before initiating a roll and triggering the shock thread emitters. The missiles, while equipped with small semi-intelligent computer processors, didn’t understand the threat. The projectiles continued to head for the target they’d been launched at, the need instilled in their programs to impact with the target sending them unerringly on towards the Okami starship.

  And into the energized lines of the shock threads.

  The power that coursed through the missiles slagged processors, triggers and controls. The munitions bounced harmlessly off of the Guiding Angel’s shields as random, inert debris.

  With the same fluid grace that had sent the freighter into a wild and uncontrolled seeming maneuver, Elias brought his vessel back on track with the Shiva.

  The raider had not gone unpunished as Lena continued her assault of the larger vessel, harassing it with pulse cannon fire and two more shield consuming Sparrows.

  In an attempt to save itself from the unexpected firepower the freighter had, the pilot of the pirate ship tried to run. Lining up on it, the greater output of his engines closing the distance in a matter of seconds, Elias set his sights on the port engine cluster. He squeezed the trigger sending bolt after bolt from his pulse cannon into the shields around the primary power plants. Odette, realizing what her captain was doing added the lasers to the effort. The pummeling was finally too much for the other vessel and the engines exploded silently in the vacuum of space. The debris trail consisted of congealed metal, plastics, fragments of ceramics and fuel as the forward part of the Carrack class vessel continued its established vector on inertia alone. It was canted at an odd angle in relation to its flight path, but Elias sighed as the pirate vessel that had caused so much trouble was finally neutralized and no longer a theat.

  “Boarding team, prepare for action. Randal, ready the powersuits. I’ll be down momentarily. Elias out.”

  The fox seemed to shrink in on himself slightly as the adrenaline that was coursing through his blood began to thin out. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly before sucking in another.

  The ship that had plagued waking and sleep, the thing that haunted his nightmares for so long, that had been the death of friends, was now so much space junk.

  The moment felt surreal, as if Elias were watching things from another’s perspective. He shook his head and started to reach for the release of his restraints when Lena’s voice burst over the communication channel.

  “I really need a little help out here!”

  “What’s wrong, Lena?” Elias said with concern.

  Before the rabbit could answer, Cerise informed him and everyone else of the problem, her voice heavy with disbelief. “It’s…it’s another Shiva.” She checked her sensors. “It’s emerging from the nebula! It’s another Shiva!”

***

    Lena looked on from the cockpit of the Raptor class interceptor as the Captain put ‘Paid’ to the Carrack class vessel. She watched in awe as the engine cluster turned to slag and molten junk from the withering fire that erupted from the ship she’d called home for almost eight months. Surprising herself, she ‘Yipped!’ with glee as the pirate vessel was knocked out of commission with enough damage that even a year in dry dock wouldn’t be able to repair what her Captain and friends had done to it, ending a reign of terror and predation that spanned the entire PA.

  She continued orbiting the two ships, monitoring the progress far enough away from both that the two vessels resembled stars themselves. The rabbit could hear what was happening on the Guiding Angel through the communications link that Cerise set up for her.

  A sudden and insistent beeping sounded in her ears, and Lena looked at her instruments in reflex and swore vehemently. Even as she pushed the throttle controls forward, first missile detonated too close to her ship, impacting with the automatic countermeasure that the computer on the fighter had deployed.

  Another alarm sounded as she watched her shield indicators go from green to red, feeling the impacts against the hull as shrapnel and debris rained against the armored skin.

  “I really need a little help out here!” she screamed over her helmet’s comm channel, urging her small craft away from the new threat as fast as possible.

  The interceptor felt sluggish as Lena fought the controls, noting that the Cherub’s speed was substantially reduced. She craned her neck around and saw something that was completely unexpected. The first was that the rear portion of the cockpit canopy was missing. The second was the gaping hole in the hull directly behind the compartment. Fuel was jetting into the hard vacuum of space, catching the light from the nebula. A small part of her mind that wasn’t in shock or terrified noted that the small semi-fluid globules were rather pretty. Then that same part of her mind screamed as a bright bolt from a pulse cannon passed so close to the crippled fighter that it singed and bubbled the paint of her starboard wing.

***

  “Odette! Target that ship and fire missiles! Elias hollered, reacting instinctively as he pushed the Guiding Angel  towards the new threat to save Lena.

  The bear did as ordered and within the space of a few frantic heartbeats had the latest arrival locked on. She activated the launchers and two sleek, tadpole shaped projectiles belched forth from the port and starboard missile racks. “Positive lock! Odette called out. “Impact in five…four…three…”

  “Blanket signal coming from the new contact!” Cerise informed the bridge. “They’re trying to jam!”

  “…Two…One. Hits are good!” the weapons officer exclaimed. “Jamming signal had no effect!”

  Through the forward viewport, Elias saw that the missiles had indeed hit the new Shiva. Before he could get closer, he saw stuttering streams of fire burst from the Carrack class ship, bright tracers lancing through space to repeatedly punch through the badly damaged interceptor as autocannon spat out round after round.

  Swearing furiously, the fox added even more power to the engines, and lined up on the second Shiva. Not even waiting for the targeting reticule superimposed over the enemy ship to indicate a lock, Elias squeezed the triggers on his controls sending two more missiles streaking away and hosing the other ship with continuous fire from the Guiding Angel’s pulse cannon.

  The concentrated fire ate through the other ship’s hull like hot water through ice. Still Elias didn’t relent. He was almost maniacal in his need to destroy the other ship so that he and the crew could rescue Lena. Unable to withstand the punishment of the high energy discharges anymore, the second Shiva silently exploded into an expanding ball glowing gas as the containment units for its engines failed catastrophically.

  “Randy!” Elias called on the intercom. “Lena’s disabled. Clear the deck and open the cargo hatch for rescue.” He switched to another line. “Lem, get ready to head to the cargo bay. Do not enter the lift until ordered. Bridge out.”

  Both individuals signaled their response. A quick glance behind ensured the fox that his mate was scrutinizing the space around them as far out as the sensors could reach and would inform him if another threat appeared. Elias then turned his attention to rescuing the interceptor and his missing crew member.

  Reducing thrust drastically enough so that the entire ship lurched, Elias used the Guiding Angel’s inertia to approach the stricken fighter. Though only seconds had passed, it seemed to the fox that the process was taking hours. He willed himself to be calm, though, as it would do no good to retrieve the rabbit, only to destroy the ship and kill them all because he got impatient and rushed the operation. It was one of the hardest things that he’d ever done in his life.

  With deft movements, and a gentle touch to the maneuvering thruster controls, Elias watched as the fighter slid out of sight below the bridge. There was clanging that came from the deck below the bridge, followed by a loud, vibrating thud.

  “We have her, Captain!” Randal cried out over the intercom. “Get the Doc down here! Lena’s hurt!”

  The intercom sounded with static for a moment before it clicked off. Lemuel was already on his way down with Treena. Hoping that the doe was all right, Elias turned the ship to intercept the first vessel that was still drifting away from the area. He had a lock on the wreckage, then winced as the crippled ship was engulfed in the fire of a nuclear detonation.

  “Twelve Hells!” Saul swore “They scuttled rather than let themselves be captured. And what was with the other ship? Two of them? What’s going on?”

  Elias shook his head. “I haven’t a clue.” He checked his readings and inquired with engineering on their status.

  “We’re good down here, Captain,” Stram’s voice said. “A little warm with all of the action, but we’re one hundred percent.”

  “Copy that, Stram. Good work,” Elias said. He clicked off, removed the headset and turned to his First Officer. “Lay in a course for Joplin. We need to refit. And Sandy will be interested in this little turn of events.”

  “Roger that.” The jaguar entered a few commands before he stood up. “I have the con if you want to go check on Lena,” he said.

  Elias gave the navigator an appreciative smile. “Thanks, Saul. You have the con.”

  Elias made it down to the cargo bay, and stopped so suddenly his boots slid on the nonskid surfacing. The Raptor was little more than a pile of junk that had only the faintest resemblance to the fighter it once was. The smell of leaking chemicals and fuel assaulted his nose, along with the reek of burnt carbons and synthetic materials. He spotted the ship’s Doctor and Treena off to the side near the armored cubicle that on a normal freighter would have been the loadmaster’s office and domain. They were bent over a supine form on the deck, with Randal kneeling next to them, his armored suit open and standing lifeless near the pile of junk that used to be the Cherub.

  Running the few steps needed, the fox paused as he looked down at his subordinate and friend.

  Lena had burns on her hands and wrists that had scalded away the fur. The pink skin underneath was exposed with angry red cracks that the tiger was treating with a spray that would not only clean the wounds, but had powerful anesthetics in it as well. Randal was stroking her head, unabashedly shedding tears, though he smiled reassuringly at the doe. Her eyes were red with burst blood vessels, what was called petechia, and normally looked worse than it actually was. There was also some bleeding from her ears. All of it signs that she had been exposed to hard vacuum.

  As if in mute testimony, there were several spots of her flight suit that had swatches of engineer’s tape plastered against the insulated material.

  Elias knelt down as well. “How are you doing, Lena?” he asked in a gentle tone.

  The rabbit chuckled hoarsely. “Not bad, Captain. Learning the hard way that you can’t breathe space. It really doesn’t work well at all.” She cast a look over at the ruins of her interceptor. “Sorry about the Cherub. It was a good little ship. Think the brass’ll make me pay for it?”

  Elias shook his head and smiled. “Nah. We can send the pirates’ a bill.”

  She nodded as Lemuel and Treena continued to address what seemed to be the worst of her injuries. “I was a little out of it. Did we get them?”

  “Yeah. We got them. I would have preferred it, however, if you hadn’t tried to make a target of yourself.” Elias smiled and shook his head. “Not the best tactics, though you might have been trying something that I’m not familiar with.”

  “Hardly,” Lena said sourly. “I wasn’t paying attention. Let that other ship catch me with my britches down.”

  The fox shook his head. “Hardly,” he said copying the rabbit. “That nebula could hide an entire solar system. There was no way that you could have known it was out there.”

  “Maybe,” Lena said, looking unconvinced and with a shake of her head. “Maybe.”

  “All right. Let’s get you to the infirmary so I can cut you out of that flight suit,” Lemuel said, putting away his materials and equipment.

  “Wow, Doc. I didn’t know you were interested,” the rabbit said with a smile.

  “Only in the gross bits. I leave the naughty parts to Randy, here.”

  Lena stuck out her tongue. “Gee, you really know how to sweet-talk a girl.”

  Randal followed the Doctor and others to the infirmary, the worry in his eyes clear. Elias stayed in the cargo bay and continued his inspection of the Cherub. It had taken some devastating damage behind the cockpit, and there were perforations all over the fuselage. That Lena had made it back was nothing short of a miracle. As he looked over the pilot’s compartment the fox saw numerous through penetrations in the armored shell that was supposed to protect the pilot.

  Elias called for Stram and Rutger over his DataCom as he continued to inspect the craft. The fox was crawling around the starboard engine, surprised that the Cherub hadn’t exploded with the amount of damage that he found when the badger and tuxedo tom appeared next to him. Rutger whistled through his teeth when he saw the condition the Raptor was in, while Stram simply looked at the wreckage with wide eyes and disbelief.

  “I’ve been an engineer for nigh on twenty six years. I’ve patched up battle wagons, shuttles, fighters and everything in between. I ain’t never seen nothin’ like this where the pilot walked away,” the badger said, removing the ever present stick of jerky from the corner of his mouth.

  “Captain, you aren’t thinking of trying to have us fix this are you?” the cat asked seriously.

  Elias looked at him for a moment. He burst out laughing, even Stram guffawed. “No, Rutger. What I do want is for you to document the damage. Once you’re done with that, pull the computer, set charges and jettison the hulk. We’ll get a replacement interceptor at Joplin. The Cherub has had it, but it served well.”

  “I always found it sad to say good-bye to a ship that’s been good to the people I care about,” Stram said. “Foolish, but I’m old ‘nough to get away with it.”

  “Let me know when you’re ready to jettison and we’ll drop into real-space. I’ll be on the bridge.” With that, Elias left the two engineers to do what was needed.

  Before returning to the bridge deck, Elias stopped by the infirmary. Lemuel was working on the minor injuries that Lena had, with Randal staying close to the rabbit. Making his way up to the small group unobtrusively, Elias looked at his primary fighter pilot.

  “Still doing all right, Lena?” he asked with a slight smile.

  The doe giggled a little. “Doc haz got some rilleee fine stuffff in me,” Lena said, slurring her words. “I don’t feel anything at all.” She scratched at her nose, went cross eyed looking at her finger as she did it again, and then shrugged. “I can’t ev’n feel m’ noze.” She started giggling and repeating, “Nozenozenoze,” in a sing-song voice.

  Elias looked at the tiger. “Doped her, huh?”

  Lemuel chuckled. “You think this is bad? She got a quarter of the dose I’d normally give someone her size. Apparently Lena has a very low tolerance,” he informed his Captain as he wrapped her hand in bandages specifically meant for treating burns.

  “A quarter of a dose? And she’s this far gone?” Elias asked with amazement as the doe continued singing about her nose.

  “That’s all. Fortunately her injuries are fairly minor. Some burns, as you can see here, but the bio-gel will take care of that. She should get the fur back in a couple of weeks or so. The vacuum injuries are minor as well. Some petechia in the eyes and light bleeding from the ears and nasal passages, but nothing debilitating. She will be on bed rest orders for the next week, though.”

  Elias smiled as he watched Lena become interested in her other hand, staring at the bandages before moving her hand and watching the action with wide, dilated eyes. “Oooooo.”

  “Doc, I think I’ll be fine with her taking it easy until we get back to Joplin. And much more sober.” He stood straighter and put a hand on the rabbit’s shoulder. “Get some rest and take it easy, all right? I need my number one pilot back.”

  Lena forgot about her hand and looked up at Elias with unfocused, dilated eyes. “Aw, you’re so sweet, Cap’n. You know, Cerise iz rilllyyy lucky to haf you.”

  “Um, yeah. You just get some rest, okay?” the fox told her, his ears turning pink with embarrassment. “When she’s done here, why don’t you put her to bed, Randy,” the fox suggested.

  “Yayyy! Snugs and nookies with my woof!” Lena sang happily.

  Randal gave his friend and Captain an apologetic look. “Can do.”

  Elias fled the infirmary before he burst out laughing.

  The others on the bridge looked at Elias as he entered. He took a spot next to Saul, leaning against the forward console, letting the jaguar maintain his position in the pilot’s seat. “Lena is going to be fine,” he said trying to suppress a chuckle. “Lem has her medicated and is taking care of the last of her injuries. The bad news is the Cherub is toast. As soon as Stram calls up, drop out of warp so he can jettison it.” He turned to Saul. Think you can handle things up here for a while. I’m not ashamed to admit that right now I’m feeling a little washed out.”

  “Go ahead, Boss. I’ve got things here. Go get some down time. It’s not like you’re going to be too far away if something pops,” the jaguar said.

  Elias dropped a hand on his First Officer’s shoulder. “Thanks, Saul. When we get to Joplin, the first five rounds are on me.”

***

  As the Guiding Angel turned and departed the area around the periphery of the Van Connor Nebula, small, dark colored spheroid tracked it, the iris of a recording lens expanding and contracting as it enhanced focus and documented all aspects of the departing vessel. It’s program complete, the object shutdown all functions, save those needed to maintain the integrity of the recordings and the timer that was built into it. Once the timer reached zero, it would automatically broadcast a request for retrieval in a specific direction and patiently wait.

— NEXT CHAPTER —

Unless otherwise noted, all material © Ted R. Blasingame. All rights reserved.