BORN OF HEROES

— by Jeff Karamales

Chapter 38
 

The cargo bay of the Guiding Angel was little more than a burned out cavern and memories as Elias walked across the tarmac of the Grandstorm spaceport. A cordon around the dead ship had been setup by SPF officers and members of the Dennieran Home Guard and Grandstorm Police. A Spatial Police Force officer in battledress and carbine held across her chest moved to intercept the fox as he drew close to the taped off boundary.

  Reporters had already come and gone, though there were still a few curious on-lookers gathered at the fence and on the observation deck of the terminal building. This didn’t concern Elias. The ones that had attacked his ship and crew already knew who he and the others were. If any of them were in the crowds, they would have already spotted him. He didn’t slow his pace as he drew close to the cordon.

  “Sorry, citizen. This area is off limits,” the SPO said, a coyote with sergeant’s stripes on the pauldrons of her armor, the Sword and Star shield of the SPF on her breastplate. She held up her left hand, the right tightened on the grip of her carbine.

  “Major Elias Tivnan, Special Operations. SPF number 3587-87-7482,” Elias said as he held out his SPF identicard.

  The coyote looked at the card and jerked to attention. “Sorry, Sir!” she said, though she maintained the hold of her carbine. “Is there anything that I can help you with?”

  Elias looked over her shoulder at the medical response team as they shifted a body bag. He felt a lump in his throat as he saw it was occupied, one of his crew…one of his friends, inside it, and set it on the reinforced concrete of the tarmac. One of the medics treated the body as if it were little more than a burden of wood, and even at this distance, Elias heard the sound of the body hitting the ground.

  Elias moved past the Sergeant, a growl forming in his throat and his teeth bared. He ducked slightly as he reached the perimeter tape, his left arm sweeping the bright red ribbon the rest of the way over him and continued stalking towards the medic.

  “Be careful!” the second medic said angrily, a golden lab, turning to the remaining two body bags on the ramp of the destroyed freighter.

  “Why?” the first one, a frustrated looking Dalmatian, said in a casual tone. “They’re just meat. They aren’t going to feel it. We were already supposed to be off duty when this call came in. It was bad enough we had to pry them out of the lift, so let’s just get them tagged and loaded so we can go home, okay?”

  Elias didn’t slow in the slightest as he closed in on the medic, his left hand darting out and grabbing the paramedic by the throat and pushing him back until their momentum was stopped by the edge of the ramp. He already had his pistol out and ground the barrel into the forehead of the offending Dalmatian.

  “You will treat my crew with respect, or I will splatter what little there is in your head over the side of my ship, understand?” Elias asked in a flat, quiet voice. “Each one of those bags has an individual that was not just a friend, but an honest to gods Hero. Am I making myself absolutely clear?”

  The Dalmatian nodded vigorously, unable to speak.

  Elias released the medic and let him proceed with his task. As he slid his pistol home, he turned to the wide eyed coyote female that had followed on his heels. “Do you have your DataCom, Sergeant?”

  “Yes, Sir,” she said, stepping forward.

  Elias unzipped the body bag and looked at the individual inside. “Positive identification, Fallon, Rutger James,” he said softly. He resealed the bag and laid his hand on the chest of the cat and muttered a few words. The medics set down another black plastic sack. Elias turned to it and pulled on the zipper. “Positive identification, Molson, Stramberg.” He closed the bag and mumbled the same words he had for the tom.

  The third bag was set down on the concrete and the medics backed away. Elias took a deep breath and steeled himself as best he could. It was no use, though. As soon as he opened the bag, a small sob escaped his throat and tears began to flow freely down Elias’ face. “Positive identification, Rains, Melise Colleen.” He wiped at his eyes before kissing the ends of his fingers and placing them on the panda’s lips. “Identification by Tivnan, Elias. Spatial Police Force number 3587-87-7482, Major, Special Operations Division. Also make a note that each died in the line of duty, please.”

  The Sergeant stopped entering the information she was given and looked up. “They were SPF, Sir?” she asked in shock.

  Elias nodded his head. “They were. See to it….” He sobbed again, “See to it they’re taken well care of, Sergeant.”

  “Yes, Sir!” the coyote said crisply. She turned to a small knot of other SPF officers and whistled shrilly, waving her fellows over and speaking with them at length. The small group of SPF officers reverently picked up the bodies and moved them away from the wreckage of the Guiding Angel and posted two guards over the concealed forms of their fallen comrades. Each of the SPO’s stood at rigid attention.

  “Is there anything else you need assistance with, Sir?” the coyote asked.

  “I need to get some things from my cabin if I can go onboard,” Elias told the officer.

  “Sir, if this was an SPF vessel, you are the ranking officer. I can’t stop you, but I can bloody well make sure I keep the Dennierans off of her. They were already talking about the salvage rights,” she said, her eyes bright.

  “Yes, it’s an SPF ship. They have no claim. Flash a message to Sander Brees, Special Operations Commandant, on what’s happened and keep everyone else out of her. I’ll only be a few minutes.” Elias turned to walk up the ramp and into the interior before he paused and turned back to his uniformed counterpart. “Sergeant, if you could also summon a personal lifter for me, it would be greatly appreciated.”

  The SPO was already pulling out her DC again. “You mean Colonel Sander Brees, Sir?” she asked swallowing hard. Elias nodded. She seemed to shake herself and activated the little unit “Right. I’m on it, Sir! And I’ll have your lifter here ASAP!”

  Elias nodded again and entered the remains of his ship.

  The cargo bay was scorched a uniform black, though a majority of the damage he saw came from the engineering section. In the corners of the deck were small mounds of fire retardant foam and the deck stank of chemicals and burned synthetics. He looked at what he saw, and could almost envision what had happened.

  The cargo hatch had been open when the missile was fired, that much was obvious. The projectile had missed the Kestrel interceptor that Lena had named Penance, and continued back until it struck the aft bulkhead leading into the engine compartment.

  Walking slowly aft, Elias could see where the missile had impacted against the thick plating separating the cargo bay from the engine room. There was a small crater in the bulkhead plating, with a neat, smooth pencil thin hole in the center. Warheads of that nature were meant to penetrate the armor of tanks and other heavily armored vehicles. They carried a shaped charge warhead that turned a thin copper plate and the explosive material into a thin jet of plasma that burned its way through armor.

  With the hatch to the engine room open, the jet of superhot copper gas had ignited materials that really weren’t meant to burn, flashed other substances that were volatile into an aerosol before igniting the entire mess into an unimaginable shockwave and fiery maelstrom. That Stram, Rutger and Melise hadn’t been incinerated was because they’d been in the lift. Their lungs had cooked with the hot air, and their insides jellied from the concussion wave, but their bodies were intact.

  If they hadn’t been on the lift…if they could have stayed on the second deck just a few more minute his three friends would still be alive.

  The resultant damage had carbonized the cargo bay and engineering section.

  Elias found an access panel that had warped slightly under the heat and blast, and fought to get it open, the aching remorse and loss that settled into his chest rapidly turning into fury and anger, pumping him full of adrenaline and giving him the strength he needed. With a howling snarl of rage, he pulled the panel free and threw it across the bay.

  He reached the second deck, the panel there offering hardly any resistance at all. He climbed out into the laundry cabin and after manually opening the hatch to the corridor, paused for a moment. The second deck was virtually untouched. The worst he saw was that some of the deck plates had buckled slightly, and it was a little warm with residual heat from the explosion and fire, but that was all. The force of the blast in the cargo bay had vented through the large open hatch saving the upper decks.

  There was little doubt that the ship was as dead as his three friends outside. There were no lights save the emergency glow strips along the juncture of the deck and bulkheads with other markers around cabin hatches. There was no hum or vibration from a vessel that was sleeping but ready to go at an instant’s notice. The Guiding Angel was well, and truly finished.

  Without any side trips, Elias headed straight to the cabin he and his wife had shared for almost a year, opening the hatch via the manual override. Moving with rapid precision, he located a duffle bag and began to put a few articles in it. The first was the picture of them on the day of their wedding. This was followed by the collection of mugs from other ships that Elias had served on. One from the Argent had a small chip in it while, oddly enough, the mug from the Scimitar was completely unharmed. He wrapped the mugs in some clothing and put them in the bag with the picture and frame. His hand found the scrapbook that Cerise had been working on and crammed it into the bag as well. The last item he grabbed was the Tambor Family Sword.

  He exited the cabin and headed to the bridge.

  Having to again use the manual override for the hatch, Elias didn’t pause to wax nostalgic. He went to the weapons locker and methodically began to load several pistols, four sub machineguns, two stunner carbines and ammunition into the bag. He hesitated for a moment before filling the pockets of his leather coat with grenades of all types.

  Replacing the sub machinegun he’d taken from the intruder at the house with one of the ones from the locker, he loaded the weapon, charged it and let it fall under his arm before snagging several more magazines. He also added two sets of body armor to his burden, putting a third one on as quickly as he could.

  The duffle bag he was using wasn’t made to withstand that kind of weight, but it held, despite the creaking of the straps as the material was pushed to its limits, and grunted as he hauled it over his shoulder and made his way back to the access panel. Fortunately it was easier to get down than it was to get up. He exited the ship to find the SPF detachment loading the bodies of his crew into a waiting ambulance. The coyote in battledress approached him at a trot when she saw Elias emerge.

  “Arrangements have been made for you crew, Sir,” she told him. “I’ve seen to it myself. They’ll be taken care of at our field office here before transport to Joplin.”

  “That’ll do well, Sergeant, unless they had special requests in their dossiers. Just keep them safe for me,” Elias said.

  “Affirmative, Sir. And your lifter should be here in approximately ten minutes.”

  “Thank you,” the white fox replied automatically.

  Elias noticed that the coyote still remained close, and he turned to her.

  “Is there something else, Sergeant?”

  She hesitated, unable to look her superior in the eye. “I was…I was wondering if you could use a hand with whatever it is you’re planning, Sir. I know that they were your crew, but they were also SPF. I…we…need to stick together, Sir.”

  Elias shook his head. “I can understand the sentiment, Sergeant. I really can. But this isn’t SPF business anymore. This is personal.”

  “I might not have served with them, or you, Sir, but they were teammates. They wore the grey and crimson like I do,” the female protested.

  “Sergeant, I really do understand, but you have a job to do, and by the Maker you will do it.” He looked at her name tag affixed to her badge. “Understand, Choir?” He pulled the identicards from his pocket and gave them to the Sergeant to scan into her DC before taking them back and told her of the two individuals that he’d killed at the Tambor house. “Get Brees to run a check on them as well as the ones in the groundcar,” he ordered, filling in details on the attackers that had gone after Merlin and Sam.

  The coyote nodded. “Yes, Sir,” she replied in a slightly sullen tone.

  Further conversation was put off by the whine of an approaching aircraft, and Elias looked up to see a nondescript four-fan lifter coming in low. The pilot flared the ducted fans and settled the small aircraft well beyond the cordon, the landing being guided by another SPF officer with glo-wands.

  As soon as the pilot, a ferret in the standard SPF jumpsuit duty uniform climbed out of the cockpit, Elias tossed his bag in to the cargo compartment and started to slide into the pilot’s seat.

  “Hey! What do you think you’re doing?” the ferret asked, his hand dropping down to the holster on his belt.

  The coyote put her hand on her comrade’s shoulder. “It’s all right, Lieutenant. He’s one of ours! SPF, Special Operations Division. He’s cleared,” she told him, pushing the other officer’s hand away from his sidearm.

  “But I signed that out! I need a receipt!”

  Pulling the officer away from the aircraft, the Sergeant said something to the pilot that Elias couldn’t hear as he shut the door, clipped the restraining belts, and fed power to the fans. The wash from the ducted thrust units forced the others to turn away and Elias lifted into the darkening sky while talking to Grandstorm Air Traffic Control.

  “This is an SPF override, Wendigo Ay four four one Actual. Erase all flight data regarding this aircraft. How copy, over,” the fox said as he turned to the west, beginning a wide circle that would eventually take him towards the Tambor cabin near the Cathedral Mountains.

  “Affirmative, Wendigo Actual. Setting automatic scrub on your flight. Grandstorm ATC, out.”

  It was a relatively short flight, and Elias kept the aircraft as low to the ground as possible. Whoever had initiated the attacks might have orbital assets that could track him, but if that were the case, nothing he did would help anyway. He might not be able to evade orbit-to-surface tracking, but he could confound ground radar.

  He neared the cabin, seeing the Dragonfly on the small packed dirt landing pad, and small VTOL jet with the Binfurr arms logo on the tail sitting next to the small ‘copter via the windscreen’s light enhancing abilities. He swung the rear of the lifter around so that the nose was pointing back in the direction of Grandstorm and shut down the fans and other systems. Before the multi-bladed fans could drop from a muffled roar to a dull whine he was out of the cockpit and jogging towards the cabin.

  Even in the dim light he could pick out Cerise’s form and dropped the duffle once he reached her so that he could hold her to him. They were quiet for several long minutes, reassuring each other that their mate was indeed alive and well by simple contact. It was within the warmth of his mate’s arms that Elias finally felt able to unleash the anguish he felt in the core of his soul.

  “Elias?” Cerise asked in alarm as she felt him tremble. “What’s wrong?” She pulled back and looked up at her husband, seeing the tears falling from his eyes.

  “Melise, Stram and Rutger are dead,” he told her softly.

  Cerise stared at him uncomprehending. It was several seconds before the words he’d spoken sank through the fear and uncertainty of the day. He mouth fell open. “No…” she whispered, her eyes going wide. “No,” Cerise repeated, her own tears welling in her eyes. “Oh, Elias.” She rested her head against her mate’s chest and wept.

— NEXT CHAPTER —

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