[Sf] The Second Empire (T)

Well now, this is a new step forward for me - posting my novel in an online forum. This is one of my few ideas that actually made it to a full length (most all of my other works have had trouble filling out). While I am very pleased with what I have written I would love to be able to put it into print someday. For that cause I feel I need to find what elements of my writing appeal to a large and varied audience. Perhaps that is my motivation for posting...

In any case, I will be posting this novel chapter by chapter - all told I only have 13 - over the next couple of weeks. I would write a blurb about what goes on in the story, but I do have a nice prologue that might strike your fancy. Please enjoy!

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Prologue

Space is dark and forbidding. It is cold and unforgiving. Space is a cold hearted killer. But for some, Space is home. For the brave few who dare to explore, they take the risk and explore the galaxy in ways that cannot be comprehended by those who are unwilling to take the risk. For years the people of the Tethini Empire took that risk and colonized the galaxy. None were more powerful than the Empire. None were more peaceful. It was in the fourth dynasty that trouble began to brew. Always in the past dynasties honest, loyal, good men were the emperor of the Empire. But that was not so with one young man who had dreams of power and delusions of grandeur. He portrayed himself as a good man, but he was vile and evil. He quickly rose to power and took control of the Empire. No one was able to stop him. He began slowly at first to change the Empire to fit his own will and plan. He ordered that the shipyards that built all the great starships that explored the galaxy build ships of war in the name of protection. After five years the Empire was no longer what it once was. It was now the 2nd Empire, ruled by fear and power. To most all was lost, life would never be the same. But they were wrong, for there was a small band of people who were willing to defeat and overthrow the evil emperor. But to do this they would have to seek the help of the Ancients. The Ancients were a people of goodness, knights of the galaxy, defenders of truth. There was but one problem, no one knew where they were...


Chapter I
The Code of the Ancients

Part I
Escape

“Colonel?” The man in question looked up from his desk at a short young lieutenant.

“Yes?” As the word left his lips he noticed that something was wrong with the young man, “What do you need?”

“Sir, the Commandant will have a word with you sir,” the lieutenant said shakily.

“Alright, I’ll be there in a minute, you’re dismissed,” as the young officer left the room the colonel considered the weight of the words he had just received. The Commandant didn’t normally order him to talk to him. After all he was only a lowly colonel. He put down what he was working on and grabbed his coat as he left his office. The weather outside was not the best of weather, rain, fog, and cold temperatures. He had counted himself fortunate to get a post as a colonel, not many were left. The Commandant was the highest ranking officer on the facility, he answered to the Grand Admirals who in turn reported to the Emperor himself. Granted life was not easy on the facility, but at least he still had his old rank sort of. At best he was the lowest ranking officer in the entire fleet. When the 2nd Empire had taken full control there had been a question about his loyalty, so they gave him a token rank of colonel. Upon entering the Commandant’s building he was searched for any weapons. ‘They still don’t trust me,’ he thought to himself. The door to the Commandant’s office was open but the lights were dimmed.

“Come in Colonel,” the Commandant’s sibilant voice sent shivers down the colonel’s spine. He came to attention and saluted.

“Colonel Sullest, reporting as ordered sir,” he waited for the Commandant to return the salute.

“Colonel,” he began, “you’ve heard the reports of dissident activities in the system right?”

Colonel Sullest had to be careful with his words, “Yes sir,” short and quick was always the best policy.

“Come with me please,” The Sullest followed the Commandant to a door in the far left corner of the room. The Commandant opened the door and showed the colonel in. It was very dark in the room and Sullest had the feeling that he would not like the room with the lights on. As the lights came on his worst fears were confirmed. There inside a camber that could only be some kind of resonance torture chamber was one of the other undercover officers. Sullest did his best not to show any emotion, he couldn’t for the sake of the Resistance. “Do you recognize him colonel?”

Honesty or bluff his way though this, those were his choices. He decided to be honest to a certain degree. “Yes sir,”

“Who is he?”

“Tech officer 33rd Mic Torrent.”

“Oh? I have sources that tell me his real name is Mike Thrrent. What do you say to that colonel?”

“The dissidents aren’t very creative with names.”

“Ah, such wit. Too bad your compatriot here sold you out. He could not take the pain and told me all I needed to know to squash the small group of dissidents here at the facility. Guards!” There wasn’t much that Sullest could do, he would have to wait for a chance to escape later. He would try and save as many people as he could before he got out though. Outside the rain came down harder and the temperature dropped lower. Life was suddenly more complicated for Sullest. ‘I’m going to need a break after all this mess,’ he thought, ‘And I should let command know that our operation here has been compromised.’ Once again Sullest noted the dull appearance of the garrison.

“You know,” Sullest began dryly, “It’s a shame that these compounds are all the same, it gets really dull sometimes.”

“Don’t speak! Keep moving,” one of the guards shoved Sullest forward none to gently.

Sullest was glad to be out of the rain and cold. The cell block was not the best that the facility had to offer, in fact it was designed to make life harder for the prisoners kept there. Sullest was not sure how he would get out, he had never seen the cell block before and wasn’t sure about the type of security that it had. First off he would have to find out where they were keeping his friend Mike. Betrayed or no, Mike was still a friend and needed to be rescued too. ‘Besides,’ Sullest wondered, ‘I know Mike, and he would never do anything to give our work away.’ He silently shook his head, ‘There must be some other factor,’ he thought as the guards threw Sullest into the dark prison cell; with his restraints on it was hard not to fall down. Sullest found that the ground was very stable and dense, the hard way.

“Hey! Come on now,” Sullest yelled as he struggled to get to a sitting position, “No need to throw me around, I’m perfectly capable of walking in here on my own.”

“You dissidents are all the same, all voice and no force,” the guard that had thrown him in the cell said as he shut the door.

“Hey,” Sullest said from the floor, “Don’t I get a free call or something like that?”

“You’ve got your life right now,” one of the guards responded through a small grate in the door, “I’d be happy if I were you.”

“Yeah, thanks.” Sullest mumbled sarcastically. Standing up slowly he took stock of his situation. It was a standard cell, four walls, a ceiling, a floor, a door in one of the walls, and a small insignificant light in the ceiling. ‘That could come in handy,’ he thought to himself, but he still had the restraints on. Kicking his boot off, he removed the small data splicer that he had. Working carefully he used it to fry the electronics in the restraints. With just a little bit of force he was able to get them off. Putting his boot back on he looked at the small light. It wasn’t too far for him to reach, but what could he do? He needed a plan and a quick one. If the Commandant already knew all that he needed to know then why was he still alive?

“Well...” Sullest racked his brain, “What to do...”

Quickly he pulled some of the hair from his head and began to burn it on the light. It had the desired effect of making the room smell rancid, almost like something had died. Soon the guards would be down to check on him. They would smell the smell and open the door to find him waiting to knock them out. It was a simple plan, but it might work. The smell was almost too much for him when the guards came by.

“What is that smell?” One of the guards recoiled at the stench.

“I don’t want to find out, let’s keep on moving,” the other guard picked up his pace and soon both guards were gone.

‘Oh well,’ Sullest thought, ‘it was worth a try.’ Sullest threw himself at the door. It didn’t budge, it was soundly set in the wall. But he did notice the hairline fracture in the paint at certain intervals along one side of the door, where the electronics for the pneumatics of the door were. Removing his belt he began scraping away at the crack with the buckle. Soon he could see a small panel in the door and had it removed in a matter of minutes. Looking inside he figured he had a one in three shot of shorting out the entire door. He took his data splicer and shorted out one of the wires. The lights went out.

“Aw nuts!” Sullest rested his head on the door, “I knew that I should have paid more attention to the smaller details of electrical circuits.” He tried again. Suddenly the door’s pneumatics kicked in full and shot the door through the other side of the doorway. ‘Hmm, that was unexpected,’ Sullest mused. Guards had heard the noise and were coming to investigate, Sullest hid in a corner of the cell. As soon as the guards came around the corner into the cell he jumped both of them and took both of them down with swift hits. He removed one of the guard’s uniforms and exchanged it for his own. The door wouldn’t close and there was rubble all over the floor so Sullest made his way to the control center for the cell block. He had to work fast before the guards were discovered in his cell. He found a control terminal and looked for his friend Mike. Mike was in the other side of the cell block. ‘This is a good thing,’ Sullest thought, ‘While everyone is distracted with my escape in the east side of the cell block I’ll be getting Mike out of the West side of the cell block. Then we can go liberate a ship and leave this planet.’ Sullest took the key-card for Mike’s cell and walked quickly to the West cell block. Oddly enough there weren’t many guards in the area to deal with. ‘Strange,’ Sullest thought as he found Mike’s cell and opened the door. Mike was in bad shape.

“Hey, Mike can you hear me?”

“Yeah, I didn’t sell you out.” Mike was almost sobbing from the pain.

“Hey, it’s ok I’m fine, you’re the one we need to worry about now. Can you walk?” Sullest asked.

“With help, yeah,” Mike was lifted up by Sullest and they began their trek to the hangar “I knew you wouldn’t leave me behind.”

“What are you talking about? I need you to help me pilfer a ship and get us out of here.”

“I suggest that we get a fighter, it’s faster and more maneuverable,” Mike suggested, “and since this is an out of the way planet they don’t really guard them.”

Sullest chuckled softly, guards were very lax out on the outer rim planets. “Wait here and I’ll check to see if there are any ships on the pad or if they’re all out on patrol,” he set Mike behind a pile of shipping crates.

“Good idea,” Mike breathed. It looked like they were going to make it.

Opening the door to the hanger Sullest found that there were two fighters on the deck and that there were also two guards. “Fun stuff,” Sullest whispered to himself. He looked around for a weapon suddenly regretting not picking one up off of one of the guards he had stunned earlier. Suddenly alarm klaxons blared. ‘Great! They’ve noticed our escape,’ Sullest looked back towards the guards and noticed that they had left to see what the commotion was about. Sullest rushed back to Mike and lifted him from behind the pile of crates. He carried Mike up the step-ladder to the boarding platform beside one of the double seated fighters and opened the cockpit.

“Come on, in you go,” he helped Mike in and then got in himself. “Do you know how to set a course for one of these?”

“Yeah, just tell me where we need to go.”

“Let’s go to the Ffring Asteroid Field in case we’re followed and then we can head out to Broken Bow.”

“Sure thing,” Mike sounded like he was getting better, “Just keep any fighters or capitol ships off our tail.”

The hangar wasn’t much more than a canvas top over four tall walls, outer planets had a harder time getting funding for building projects, so all Sullest had to do was go up and out. He oriented the ship and then kicked in the engines to full. The fighter screamed out of the hangar tearing the top to shreds. The canvas top was a bad idea because it caught fire from the exhaust of the engines and soon the whole hangar was in flames. Coming out of the atmosphere Sullest saw the frigate Dark Lightning in orbit around the planet. It was the fastest ship in the whole sector and would be tough to evade. Sullest, however, was an accomplished pilot and soon had passed the orbiting ship. The frigate broke orbit and turned to chase the small fleeing craft. As its guns came to bear Sullest raised the defensive screens, a technology used to deflect or absorb energy weapons, but nothing happened, there was no shimmer of blue light to show that the screens had come online.

“Mike why didn’t the defensive screens come up?”

“Looks like they were working on the screens when we stole the ship. In short, we don’t have any.”

“Please tell me the gravytic generator is working.”

“That we do have, but not much else. Weapons, screens, countermeasures all gone.”

“As soon as we’re clear of the planet’s gravity field, bring the generator online.”

Several beeps issued from the seat beside Sullest where Mike was sitting, “Just tell me when.”

Sullest looked at the field compass. He had to time this jump just right. Another second and they would be out of the gravity field of the planet and it would be safe to make a jump. Any ship without a compass meant that it was almost impossible to make a jump. Jumping while inside a gravity field meant instant death in a slow way. Miniature black holes were know to be formed trying such a feat. Bursts of bright blue energy were suddenly all around the little fighter. “Ion cannons!” Sullest was not having a good day. One shot from an ion cannon with no screens and it would fry the entire electrical system of the fighter. Sullest put the fighter through all the moves that he knew pitting his skill as a pilot against the skill of the frigate gunners. He looked down at the compass, they were free of the planet’s gravity field. “Now, Mike. Turn the generator on now!” Sullest put the ship in a straight steady course for the generator to come online.

“Generator charged, firing.” Mike reported as the stars shifted in color to the near ultraviolet scale. They were safe, for the moment. No one had been able to produce a weapon that could be fired during a gravytic jump. It would take several minutes for the frigate to find out where they had gone, but by then they would have left the Ffring Asteroid Field.

“Are you set back there for the next jump?” Sullest asked.

“Yeah. Listen, what do you think happened back there?”

“I’m not sure,” Sullest thought aloud in response, “All I can think of is that there must have been a leak somewhere. People can be bought or broken.”

“Yeah, but who?”

“Who knows,” Sullest said.

“Are we going to tell command?”

“Of course,” Sullest assured, ‘I won’t let anyone else get hurt,’ he added to himself mentally.

“Alright.”

“Get ready we only have one shot of pulling this off,” Sullest changed the subject, “As soon as the ship is reoriented punch it.” The ship came out into a massive asteroid field. The Ffring Asteroid Field was the largest field in that sector of space; it was a favorite of the Resistance. Flight convoys would fly into the field to evade being chased and then disappear from the field before the Empire could catch up. Sullest had the ship reoriented in record time, “Punch it!” The ship responded to the commands given to it by Mike. Once again the ship took off into a gravytic jump. Now they were safe. It would just be a little over an hour before they reached Broken Arrow, home base of the Resistance.

Pretty sweet. Nice writing and well balanced everywhere.

I look forward to the following instalments; enthralling expectations now .

Part II
Broken Arrow

Broken Arrow was an old shipyard and mining facility located deep within the Tyranius Nebula and Mine field. It was used long ago as a battle ground for a civil war the Ancients fought. The only thing left was a bunch of mines which had been strategically rearranged so that the Resistance could get in and out. It was like a maze, a dangerous maze, but Sullest knew the route almost by heart. While the Empire knew about the Tyranius field, they did not suspect that anyone was living in it, much less the Resistance. The Tyranius nebula had one planet in its depths along with a local small brown dwarf star. The planet was not suited to living, but it was a great source of resources such as ores for metals and sand for the construction of glass. It was also a planet rich in Sylvpher, a crystalline mineral used in most electronics. It was a planet off most of the system charts that the Empire used and was found accidentally by a group of cartographers that worked for the Resistance. To most of the Resistance Broken Arrow just a base of operations. To Sullest it was home, and he had longed to be home for some time.

“Sullest to Broken Arrow Control, requesting permission to land,” he waited a moment for the answer.

“Welcome home Sullest, you have docking bay four. Please proceed at your convenience.”

“Thanks,” It was good to be home. We’ll get you to the medical bay and they’ll patch you up nicely,” he said turning to Mike. “You just take it easy now.”

“I will, and when I get better I’ll see if I can’t get another commission somewhere.”

“Hey I said to take it easy no need to rush back into things. Let everything cool off before you get back into things. Relax a little, you’ve earned it.”

“Alright, what are you going to do?”

“I think I’m going to take some time off to relax a little. See some people.”

“You do that Sullest, you deserve it too,” Mike added.

“Yeah,” Sullest set the fighter down gently in docking bay four. As he got out he called one of the flight crew over and told him that Mike needed medical attention. He waved goodbye to Mike and left for his quarters. It wasn’t much and it wasn’t even the biggest room on the station, but it was the one that he wanted. It was his home. He slid his card through the lock and the door opened effortlessly. He walked in and closed the door. The lights were out but he knew his way around the room, or so he thought. He barked his shin on a piece of furniture and decided that it was time to turn on the lights. When the lights came on he allowed himself a little laugh. Someone had rearranged the furniture in the room. ‘I wonder when she did it?’ he thought absently. He looked over in the corner of the small kitchen and saw that Foxx was sleeping quietly. On the table was a note; he picked it up and read it.

Hey Todd,
I’ve kept the room picked up and cared for Foxx like you asked, but every time I picked it up all of the furniture rearranged itself. Just kidding, it wasn’t a problem really. I’ll be gone for a while so that’s why I’m leaving the note. Don’t know when I’ll get back. Talk to you when I get back.

Rayne Wynnigold

Todd Sullest chuckled softly as he read the note. Todd recalled the last time he had seen his friend. It had been the night before he left for that tiny planet on the outer rim. He and Rayne had flown on surveying missions to so many sectors that they had been almost everywhere. In fact it was his team that had found Broken Bow. “I wonder where she went off to,” Todd wondered aloud as he looked for his pet, Foxx. Todd ruffled the reddish-brown fur on his pet. Foxx wagged his tail and looked up at Todd appreciatively. Todd went into the bathroom and turned on the shower. The water was never warm, but it wasn’t freezing either. After a quick shower and a light meal, Todd settled down for a nap. He felt good to be relaxing at home, to not have to do anything, to not have to hide all the time. He could openly express his feelings without consequences. Todd let his eyes close and was soon fast asleep.

~~

Rayne stepped out of her cargo ship onto docking bay four. The first thing she noticed was the new arrival, the fighter from the planet that Todd had been stationed on. Rayne was a brilliant person, but it wasn’t too hard to put two and two together. A ship from Todd’s assignment meant that either Todd was back, or something had gone wrong with the assignment. Wasting little time she left the bay and walked quickly to Todd’s room.

~~

Todd awoke to the sound of his door chime. He quickly looked at the clock on the wall and saw that he had been sleeping for over an hour. He got up and composed himself before opening the door. Releasing the lock on the door it opened to reveal Rayne.

“Thank goodness you’re not in trouble,” she said.

“Umm... should I be?”

“Well if you were I would have to go rescue you. I’d have to take time out of my busy schedule to go pull you out of trouble.”

“Always happy to disappoint,” Todd joked.

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. How have you been?” Todd asked.

“I’ve been better but I’m fine now that I’m back,” Rayne responded, “This last mission took it out of me.”

“I know what you mean.”

“By the way,” Rayne walked into the room and sat on the sofa, “Why are you back so soon? Command told me you weren’t do for at least three more months.”

Todd left the door open, “Mike and I were found out, so we had to take an early leave.”

“A fighter isn’t the standard issue for a colonel of your type.”

Todd sat in the chair opposite his friend, “Nah, we had to go fast and be able to outrun the Dark Lightning.”

Rayne sat up with interest, “Oh? Reports said nothing about the Dark Lightning being in that sector.”

“It looked like it might have had some ion damage from a storm that had passed through the area not too long ago.”

“Must have stopped for repairs,” Rayne mused.

“The techs won’t find much on the fighter, it was in repair when I liberated it,”

“No screens?” Rayne interjected.

“Nope, and no weapons or countermeasures.”

Rayne slouched back into the sofa, “Agh, we never get any good toys to play with.”

“Hmmm... Thanks for keeping tabs on Foxx for me,” Todd changed the subject, “I really appreciate it.”

Rayne sat up and waved a hand off into the air, “It was nothing, besides what are friends for? You would have done the same for me.”

“So what kind of assignment did they give you?”

“I had to run some medical supplies over to Broken Sword. They were running low and their normal trader wasn’t due to drop off supplies until much later in the quarter.”

“Broken Sword, nice place should be quieter too.”

“Nope, a local virus developed and soon spread throughout the whole station. I had to drop the cargo in front of the station. Didn’t even get to get onboard.”

Todd stood up, “Well, no harm done. Would you like some juice?”

“That would be nice, thank you.”

Todd poured some juice for Rayne and himself in large glasses. He handed her the glass and they both drank and talked for several hours. Friendship was something that Todd missed. Being a spy wasn’t the easiest job, he couldn’t really get to know the people he worked with. He had to mask who he really was in order to work without being seen. Friendship was a wonderful thing for Todd. He could live off of friendship for days without eating.

Rayne set down her glass and stood up, “Well, it’s been fun, but it’s getting late so I better go and let you get some sleep.”

“Alright, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Bye.”

Todd closed the door to his room and cleaned up the glasses. He locked the door and went to bed. It was good to be home.

~~

“Well Sullest,” the base commander said, “looks like the data you got from the computers on your splicer is mostly ruined. Can you explain the reason why a top of the line splicer has damaged information on it?”

Todd thought a minute, “I had to use it to escape.”

“Why were you in prison?”

“They found me out.”

“How?”

“I’m not sure,” Todd responded quietly.

“So why was Mr. Thrrent tortured?”

“I’m not sure, sir,” Todd responded, “The base commander had started to get a bit of a mean streak in him, maybe it was a disciplinary action.”

“I see, I’m glad that you are safe and that you were able to rescue Thrrent as well. We need all the people we can get.”

“Why is that sir?”

“To tell you the truth, the war is going very badly for the Resistance. We’ve lost too many people and we don’t have enough resources to keep all the bases supplied.”

Todd wanted to know more, but he wasn’t going to pry, “I understand sir.”

“I see, well I’m working on a project that might give us the needed advantage to win this war, but I’m going to need your help.”

“With all due respect sir, I just signed up for leave. I’ve been on assignment for almost three years now.”

“That’s the beauty behind my plan, you could spend your leave working on the project.”

“There’s no way I’m getting out of this one is there sir?”

“I’m afraid not, I need the best there is.”

“Once again sir with all due respect, there are those better qualified to do the job.”

“And yet you escaped from a cell block with a belt, rescued a fellow officer, stole a fighter and left without a scratch.”

“Maybe it was just a string of good luck?”

“Or maybe you have more potential than what you’re using.” the base commander said.

“How long do I have to think about this?” Todd asked.

“I’ll give you as long as you like, but the war won’t give me that much time. Your decision will have to be given soon.”

“Give me an hour or two sir.”

“You’ve got it and any more time you need.”

“Thank you sir,” Todd stood and saluted.

“You’re dismissed Mr. Sullest,” the base commander returned the salute and went back to work on some papers on his desk. Todd turned and left the room quietly. He needed to talk to someone about his decision. He called Rayne and asked her to meet him on the observation deck as soon as she could. He didn’t have to wait long on the deck for her, she was quick to come.

“Something wrong?”

“Well... I don’t know,” Todd was slightly confused.

“What’s happening?”

“I’ve been given another assignment.”

“But you’ve just signed up for leave,” Rayne said indignantly.

“I know, but the base commander has a lot of faith in me to do this mission. I don’t want to let him down.”

“Has he said what it is yet?”

Todd took a seat beside one of the tall windows looking out into the nebula, “No, but I think I may take it anyway.”

“Why?” Rayne took a seat across from Todd.

“Well, he did say that I could accomplish the mission while on leave.”

Rayne was interested, “Oh? It sounds good.”

“I’m thinking I’ll take the job but only on the condition that I pick the people going with me.”

“Who would you take?”

“I thought that I might take Mike with me as soon as he’s recovered enough. He needs a good assignment that won’t rough him up.”

“Sounds good, anyone else?”

“Depends on if you want to go or not,” Todd responded.

“I’d love to, it’s been ages since we’ve flown on a mission together.”

“It’d be fun. I’d get to do a mission that wouldn’t involve hiding who I really am.”

Rayne stood up, “I’ll make the preparations for the trip, you go tell the base commander that you’ll do it only if you can pick your crew.”

“Alright then, it’s settled. I’ll go find out the finer points of the mission from the base commander,” Todd stood to leave. Rayne reached out with her hand and Todd took it. They shook hands and left the observation deck. Todd headed for the base commander’s office. ‘Three people would be plenty for a small mission,’ he thought, ‘I just hope that Mike has had time to recover. I want him on this mission. He needs to build some confidence in his abilities.’ The lift took him down to the deck where the commander’s office was. Todd had to squint as the lift’s doors opened. The light pouring from the hallway was more than he was used to. ‘The Empire could do with a little better lighting in their facilities,’ he mused as his eyes adjusted to the light. The commander’s office was spacious, but sparse. Todd came to attention but before he could salute his commanding officer, he was waved down.

“Have a seat Sullest, I bet I know what this is about.”

“Sir?

“I’ll begin looking for someone else to take the mission,”

“Sir?” Todd interrupted respectfully, “I’m willing to accept the mission, but on one condition.”

The commander was suddenly interested, “And that would be?”

“I’d like to choose my crew for this mission and not be assigned any.”

“Sure,” the commander shocked Todd, “Take whoever you need. I’m glad you’re willing to take the job.”

“Umm... thank you sir,” Todd stumbled.

“I’ll send you the specs on the mission before you leave," the commander spread his hands over some papers on his desk, one with 'ORDERS' printed in block lettering, "You are dismissed," he finished.

“I’ll keep you posted sir,” Todd's eyes drifted to the papers on the desk.

“I know you will,” the commander responded, “I know you will.”

Todd left the office and hit the communication button the wall panel. “Rayne, we have a go. Let’s get things ready to go within the hour.”

“Understood,” Rayne’s voice came over the intercom.

Todd went to his quarters to find that someone had already packed for him. As he grabbed his gear he heard a small mewing noise from the floor; it was Foxx. “I’m sorry fellah,” Todd said as he stroked Foxx’s fur, “I’ve got another mission.” Then the idea hit Todd, he could take Foxx with him. They would probably travel on Rayne’s cargo transport so there would be lots of room. He quickly added the required things to take care of Foxx to his baggage and scooped his furry friend up. “Come on, let’s do some exploring,” and with that he left the room. In docking bay four, Rayne already had the ship set and packed. She had even gotten Mike out of the medical bay and gotten him packed and ready for the mission.

“I’ve got another mission?” Mike was asking Rayne when Todd showed up, “But I thought that...”

Todd interrupted Mike, “Hey would you mind seeing to my things while I take care of some business here?”

“Sure thing sir,” Mike had forgotten what it was that he was about to say to Rayne.

“What was that all about?” Rayne asked.

“Tell you about it later, come on let’s go already.”

“Alright, you’re the boss, why the hurry?”

“I’m on vacation time right now, but once I get the mission orders I’m on work time,” Todd explained as he set Foxx down who promptly ran into the cargo ship.

“Ah, I see. This way you can have double the vacation time?”

“Well if you’re on work time, then I’m on work time,” Todd stepped onto the boarding ramp to the cargo ship and entered it. Rayne was right behind him.

When Rayne had caught up to him in the cockpit she asked, “I know that vacation time is not the real reason you’re in so much of a hurry to leave, why are you in a hurry?”

Todd pulled up the boarding ramp and prepared the ship for takeoff, “Because I happened to see the mission orders in the commander’s office before I left.”

“What did they say?”

“We’re going to go looking for the Ancients!” Todd beamed, “We’re going to find them and they will help us to win this war once and for all!” Rayne was so dumbfounded that she didn’t even know that they had left the station.

Part III
Zilch


The Galactic Records Repository building was the largest repository of books and knowledge that had been gathered from all over the Empire. While it hadn’t seen as much use since the 1st Empire, it was a good source of information for scholars, students, and anyone that wanted to learn more about something. At this hour the Repository was mainly empty. Somewhere in the depths of the great library, was a small group of people. There was a tall, lanky young man with sand blonde hair. He was busy searching the higher shelves. Below him was a smaller figure. While she looked like she was small in stature, she was really of average height. A book fell from where she was looking. She bent down and picked it up brushing a lock of sable brown hair out of her face. Looking at the cover of the book she walked over to where a man with rust-brown hair and steel green eyes sat, pouring over other volumes. She set the book down on the table, “I think I might have found something,” she said.

“Let me see,” the man said. His eyes scanned the cover of the book and some of the pages. He looked up at the pair of deep brown eyes that were staring back at him, waiting for an answer. “This might be the one we’ve been looking for,” he said excitedly.

“Great! I’ll go get Mike so we can start translating it,” Rayne said.

“Right, and I’ll see what I can figure out about it’s authenticity,” Todd responded as Rayne left. It had been a long four weeks of searching through books and scripts and texts and all manner of written material for something that might give them a clue as to where the Ancients had gone. Todd opened the book and began to read it. Something wasn’t right and while Todd couldn’t put his finger on it, it was enough to bother him. Something was wrong with this book, it wasn’t like the others that he and his crew had found earlier. At the sound of people walking Todd looked up. Rayne and Mike sat down at the small table with him.

“Did we find something?” Mike was curious to know.

“I think so,” Todd was doubtful, “but I’m not sure. Something’s wrong with this book and I can’t put my finger on it.”

“Here, let me see,” Rayne reached for the book and Todd let her have it. She began reading through it slowly, trying to find whatever it was that was wrong with it. Then it dawned on her, “The grammar is all wrong!”

“What do you mean?” Todd asked.

“It’s alright, but the grammar is just slightly off. Aside from that there’s just a bunch of gibberish that I can’t quite make out.”

“And that would mean what?” it was Mike’s turn for a question.

“Could be anything, could be nothing,” Rayne looked up from the book, “This is too elaborate to be a hoax. It has to be the real deal.”

Todd was irked “So after four weeks of fruitless searching, the book that just happens to fall onto the floor is the one that we need?”

Rayne was confident and it showed in her voice, “Yeah, I’m pretty sure that it’s what we need.”

“So now what do we do?” Mike wondered aloud.

“We figure out what the first paragraph means, then we figure out what the gibberish means.”

“That might take a while,” Rayne argued, “And we don’t exactly have all the time in the world. This isn’t a swashbuckler-type story, we need to hurry.”

“Well, we better get started,” Todd declared. As he took the book to begin translating the large double doors on the opposite end of the hall burst open. A small squad of Imperial Shock Troops entered the room. As the guns came to bear Todd yelled, “Run! Run for the ship!” Rayne picked up the book and took off down one of the rows of books. Mike was right behind her. He was a fast runner and had caught up to Rayne in a matter of seconds. Todd had made a big deal of showing off and running down an opposite corridor to draw most of the attention from his friends. He looked back and saw that there were lots of troops following him. He turned a corner and threw himself against the nearest bookshelf. It was old and fell over easily, onto the following troops. Doubling back quickly, Todd raced to find Mike and Rayne. He found them trapped behind a large desk using the one blaster that they had to hold off the troopers. Todd looked at the situation and realized that his friends would not hold out much longer. To make things worse the troops that he had immobilized were starting to regain composure. He picked the nearest trooper and disposed of him quietly. Todd picked up the trooper’s gun and began to fire upon the troops. Mike poked his head over the desk and saw that Todd was keeping the troops occupied. He took Rayne by the hand and left the room like a bullet speeding for the ship. When Todd saw that his friends had left, he turned and followed them.

“Come on!” Mike yelled as Todd reached the landing bay.

“I’m coming,” Todd screamed over the noise of blaster fire, “Tell Rayne to get the ships engines on and running.”

Todd took a look over his shoulder and saw the troopers closing in fast on him. At the last moment he jumped for the open door. Landing with a bone-jarring thud, Todd yelled, “Go! I’m inside, close the door and get this ship off the ground.” As the ship took off the shock troops fired upon the ship scoring several hits before it as out of range.

Helping Todd up Mike ordered, “Rayne get us somewhere safe. Are you ok?”

“Yeah,” Todd groaned, “It’s just a little bruise.”

Rayne was an excellent pilot. In no time she had the ship in orbit and off to someplace where they could reroute, reorient and recover. “What was that all about?” she inquired.

“Well,” Todd began, “Mike and I are wanted criminals associated with the dissident group called The Resistance.”

“And you look like our accomplice,” Mike finished.

“Todd,” Rayne began, “You are always getting me into trouble. What did I ever do to deserve this?”

“You offered me your friendship,” Todd responded uneasily.

“Friends are supposed to protect each other.”

“I protected the two of you,” Todd defended, “I stayed behind to fight the bad guys.” He struck a dramatic pose while he spoke. Rayne and Mike could not help themselves, they began laughing uproariously. “What’s so funny?” Todd asked.

Between the laughter Mike told him, “That pose fits you.”

“Yeah,” Rayne added, “the ‘comical hero’ you.”

“Oh? Well what about this?” Todd struck an even more outrageous pose. Mike and Rayne were to the point of tears they were laughing so hard. Todd tried one more pose, “How about this one? Oh ow, my arm.”

“Are you ok?” Rayne asked trying hard not to laugh.

“It’s just my arm, I think I might have pulled something when I landed on the barding ramp. I’m fine.” The laughter subsided while Todd worked on his arm.

Mike broke the silence, “By the way Rayne, where are we headed?”

“I set a course for the Zeta-Tarseese system.”

“The system with fourteen stars?” Mike’s face looked incredulous.

“Yeah, why?”

“With that many stars,” Mike began, “The gravitational pull could easily rip the ship to bits.”

“But it won’t,” Todd put in, “This ship is small enough that it can skip around the gravity fields without a problem.”

“The ships following us however,” Rayne interrupted, “They will be ripped to little, bitty pieces.”

“All brawn and no brains,” Mike scoffed.

“Don’t put down the Empire,” Todd was suddenly serious, “If they realize what we’re doing, they will be able to avoid the system and catch us as we leave.”

“How?”

“They can use the system’s gravity against us. Depending on where the stars are there are only a few places where we will be able to pass through. All they have to do is find where we entered the system.”

“Oh,” Mike was dumbfounded.

“But don’t worry,” Rayne assured, “I’ve lost them before, I can lose them now.” The ship began to shudder, “I better go pilot the ship now. We’ll be entering the system any moment now.” Rayne went to the small cockpit and took her seat at the controls of the ship. Space flight had been made easier in recent years due to more sophisticated instrumentation. Rayne, however, felt that there was something lost when one depended entirely on technology. As a result her ship, the Silver Wolfe, had a more vintage look to the cockpit. There were lots of dials, knobs, toggle switches, and even an old pilot control stick. The Silver Wolfe was not only a fast ship, it was also a powerful ship. For its size it had a power output of a ship three times as large. There wasn’t going to be any problem navigating trough this system. The ship came out of the gravytic jump, and into the midst of a fleet of the Empire’s best ships. “Oh boy,” Rayne breathed, “This is going to be tough.”

Todd was already taking a position in one of the gun turrets. “Rayne, I’m ready back here.” Todd looked over at Mike, he looked worried. “Mike take the turret opposite mine.”

“I’ve never used a turret before,” Mike’s voice quavered.

“Look Mike, I know that you’re unfamiliar with the gun, but if we are going to get out of this one alive I need you to help me.”

Mike took a seat in the turret, “Ok, now what?”

“Just follow my lead. Soon fighters will be intercepting us. Just pick your targets and pull the trigger.”

“Alright,” Mike took a deep breath to calm himself, “Here I go,” he turned the power on and the turret from the inside of the ship to a point just outside of the ship. He brought his guns up and mentally prepared himself. ‘I can do this,’ he thought, ‘I will do this. Todd is trusting in me and I will not let him down.’

Rayne’s voice came over the intercom, “Whiskers detecting at least 40 interceptors guys.”

Todd let out a roar, “Wooohooo!”

Mike followed suit, “Yahrooo!”

“Yahroo?” Todd inquired, “What kind of battle cry is that?”

“Umm, never mind,” Mike just decided that maybe he should concentrate on shooting.

Todd was shaking his head in wonder. Mike was starting to come around, he was starting to be bolder. Todd squinted through the targeting reticule in his turret. “Why couldn’t Rayne have put turrets in with electronic sights?” he wondered aloud.

“Because an electronic sight won’t work after being hit with an ion pulse,” Rayne answered.

Todd looked down at his console, the intercom was still on. The interceptors were getting closer by the second. Todd waited for the right time to fire. He had taught this little stunt to Rayne long ago; confuse the enemy and fly past them. By the time they would turn around you wouldn’t have to worry about them. Todd pulled the trigger and fired a burst of tachyon energy. He just clipped one of the ships, but that’s all he was trying to do. As a result they fighters moved out of the way and the Silver Wolfe slipped past them. But Mike was intent on hitting the ships, he had already destroyed three before they passed and was turning his turret around to have another go at them. Todd laughed aloud. It was good to see that Mike had potential. Todd turned his turret around and began firing at the fighters. One at a time he would destroy them. Even though they had shields, the fighters stayed back a reasonable distance. The tachyon turrets were wreaking havoc among the interceptors.

But it wouldn’t matter, soon the little cargo ship would be caught between the fighters and the larger ships.

Back in the cockpit, Rayne planned her next move. She looked at the field compass. There was a small hole in the gravity fields of the stars in the system, she would have to thread the needle. It would be no easy task. Putting a ship through a gravytic jump through a hole like that was dangerous. One wrong move and it would tear the ship apart. “Guys, you need to come back inside. I’m about to make our escape.”

“Right,” Todd pulled his turret back into the ship as did Mike. Upon seeing this new development the interceptors accelerated coming in closer for the kill. Todd and Mike strapped themselves in to the other flight seats in the cockpit.

“Hold on,” Rayne advised, “this might be a rough ride.” She put the ship into a gravytic jump.

Time seemed to stand still for Todd, it seemed like it took forever just to make the jump from one side of the system to the other through the hole. However, just as soon as they were clear they jumped again to another location.

Rayne pulled the ship out of the jump and then entered another one. “There that ought to confuse them for a while.”

“The question is, where do we go now?” Mike stated.

“Good question Mike,” Todd thought for a minute, “We need a place where we can hide and do some research on this book we have. Anyone know of a good deal on a room in the Imperial Hotel?” Todd’s sarcasm was greatly appreciated. He was always good at making a tough situation lighter with his sarcasm. “But seriously, we need to find somewhere that we won’t be discovered.”

Mike was deep in thought, “Why not go back to Broken Arrow?”

“We can’t afford to be followed.”

It was Rayne’s turn to say something, “We could go to Broken Spear.”

“Maybe,” Todd was uneasy with the idea, “We’d have to go through a part of Imperial territory.” All three were silent as they delved once again into the depths of thought.

Mike broke the silence, “What’s the status of our supplies?”

“We have enough to last for a while,” Rayne answered, “Why?”

“We could hide out in a nebula,” Mike proposed, “Scanners don’t work in a nebula, we’d be safe.”

Todd was impressed, “That’s a good idea. Rayne do you know of any nebulas around the area that might work?”

“Sure, there’s one in the Inia sector. We could even come out of the nebula occasionally to resupply. Inia IV is a developed world.”

“Sounds good,” Todd reviewed the data, “Let’s go,” Rayne set up the coordinates and input them into the navigation system computer. In a matter of minutes they were on their way.

~~~~~

Part IV
Homework


“Well, I got rid of our pursuit.” Rayne said animatedly.

“So what do we do?” Mike asked.

“Like I said earlier, we have to figure out what this book says,” Todd picked up the book and set it on a table in the small mess area, “And then we’re going to have to figure out what it means.”

“Sounds like we’ve got a lot of work on our hands,” Mike said dejectedly.

Rayne perked up, “Not necessarily. If we can just figure out what the code to the gibberish is then we can get the ship’s computer to translate it for us.”

Todd just had one thing to add, “If we can crack the code. It’s harder than it sounds.”

“Then we don’t have a moment to lose,” Mike scooted Foxx aside and took a seat at the table. “It’s getting harder to move around the sectors; which must mean that the war isn’t going well for the Resistance.”

“Mike that’s a good observation,” Todd complimented, “Let’s have a look at that book.”

Rayne handed it to Todd, “Sure.”

He opened the book and began reading.

“Klaeium val tier estra. Mer si morenneca. Skri alikon velmani. Patying pernoy eleminarium. Suprianas ceremu onami. Antakei selestium vilcata. Fermi anath.”

Mike looked at Rayne, “Did you understand a word he said?”

“A little,” Rayne was blunt, “I hope he understands more though.”

“Of course I do,” Todd defended himself, “Here let me translate it for you.” Todd looked at the words carefully, “Roughly it says: The Ancient books of the stars. Knowledge for those. Search along life. Filling entire illumination. Space long journey. Took to celestial abode. Fear nothing.”

“Like I said, the grammar is all wrong.”

“No it’s not,” Mike was deep in thought, “All you have to do is look at it from another perspective.”

“What do you mean?” Todd questioned, “This is the only script in the book. The rest looks like a bunch of astronomical data from surveys.”

“Don’t you see?” Mike stood up, “The Ancients left, but they left a clue for us to follow them.”

“What?” Rayne was confused.

“It’s not just a book of astro-data, it’s a book of all the planets and systems that the Ancients have been to.”

Realization hit Todd like a ton of bricks. It made sense, all they had to do was travel to all of the planets that the Ancients had been to that xeno-archeologists hadn’t. Surely they would find something that would lead them to a clue about the Ancients. “Mike I need your help to put all of the coordinates into the ships computer.”

“Now you’re talking,” Mike was happy that Todd had caught on.

Rayne was starting to see what was going on “We cross-reference them with the known coordinates that we have and go to the ones we’ve never been to before right?”

“Exactly,” Mike exclaimed. He and Todd went to the bridge and began feeding the data into the computer. Rayne went to the cargo bay to do a quick inventory on their supplies. They would have to get some supplies soon, but for now they were fine.

Three hours later in the cockpit of the Silver Wolfe, “I think
that’s all of them,” Todd said wearily, “I don’t want to see another letter in Ancient for a long time.”

“I can sympathize with you,” Mike was finishing the program that would filter out the coordinates that they already knew about, “I’m tired of programming.”

Rayne entered the cockpit, “How long is this program going to take to run?”

“Considering that there’s at least 1400 entries, I’d say about 30 minutes.”

“I’m going to take a shower and get something to eat,” Todd proclaimed. He got up from his seat and left the cockpit. Weaving his way through the ship he made it to his cabin. It was small, but at least it felt like home. Foxx had made his way back to the cabin too and was sleeping soundly on a chair. Todd turned on the shower and closed the bathroom door. After his shower he felt calm and relaxed. “One mishap to another, life is getting harder,” Todd sighed absent mindedly, ‘I’m looking forward to the day this war is over.’ He decided to go to the small galley in the back of the ship for some needed refreshments. Rayne and Mike were already there eating some sandwiches. “Hey guys.”

“Hey,” Mike looked up from his sandwich, “Pull up a chair and have yourself a sandwich.”

“Feel better?” Rayne inquired.

“Yeah,” Todd sat and took a sandwich from a tray, “It seems like I just keep going from one problem to another.”

“Computer’s finished,” Mike said around a mouth-full of sandwich.

“Good,” Todd took a bite of his own sandwich, “How many do we have to look at?”

“About 800,” Rayne didn’t look happy.

“Hey,” Todd tried to liven the mood, “We might find something on the first planet that we come across.”

“It’s a distinct possibility,” Mike explained, “We’ll find something, it might even be something Ancient.”

“Come on,” Todd pleaded, “It’ll be fun.”

Rayne seemed to perk up, “Yeah, it will be fun having you two guys along.”

“Why do you say that?” Mike asked.

“Because Todd here is a big joker,” Rayne explained, “He’s always making a joke or pulling a prank.”

Todd put on a face of mock hurt, “Me? Make jokes and pull pranks? Never.”

“Yeah right,” Rayne smiled, “Sure.”

“So where are we going first?” Mike wanted to know.

“The planet that’s closest to our position,” Todd stated, “That way we have a place to fall back to in case of trouble.”

“There won’t be anything there if the Empire is there waiting for us,” Rayne added.

“The Ancients also had defense platforms in orbit around their planets,” Mike explained, “Technology can run amok.”

“Oh, I remember that now,” suddenly in Rayne’s mind she was back in her highschool history class with Dr. Weebler.

“...And so to defend themselves from any attack, the Ancients built large defense platforms to safe guard their planets.”
“But Dr. Weebler,” Rayne interjected, “Why would that be bad for xeno-archeologists?”
“Because Miss Wynnigold, time will eventually destroy the basic principles that those machines were built on,” Dr. Weebler explained to one of his favorite students, “such destruction is responsible for technology doing weird things like blowing friendly starships out of the sky.”
“Oh...”

“Hey,” Todd brought her back to the present, “What plane of existence are you on right now?”

“Umm, uh,” Rayne was befuddled.

“You’re the only one that’s familiar with the controls on this ship,” Todd explained, “You’re the one to set the navigation computer.”

“Right,” she got up and entered the cockpit. Todd and Mike followed.

“You could teach us how to fly your ship,” Mike began.

“Oh, but then we would have no need of her,” Todd joked.

“You two could teach me the different things that you know,” Rayne was powering up the drive system.

“But then she would have no need of us,” Todd moaned humourously.

“Hold on,” Rayne set the drive to full power and the ship took off out of the nebula and into the blackness of space. The trip was not a long one, so while Rayne piloted the ship Mike and Todd packed some supplies that would help them to see if there was anything worth looking at on the planet’s surface. As they returned to the cockpit Rayne called them, “Guys, we’re here.”

“So we are,” Todd said as he checked the instruments to see if any of the orbiting platforms were operational. “Looks like we’re safe from the defense platforms. Rayne, put us down near one of the larger buildings please.”

“Sure thing boss,” with an agility that only Rayne could have, she put the ship down without a single bump.

Mike was first up, “Alright, let’s head out.”

The small group left the little ship and headed for the one door facing them. The architecture was old, and it contrasted with the technology present in the orbital platforms. The stone on the buildings was formed into angles and smooth curves. It was visually pleasing to the eye and seemed to fit to the landscape. Once inside the building, the three friends noticed that the outside of the building belied what the inside looked like. Inside there was more metal and glass, well... shattered glass, than stonework. The floors were tiled with a deep blue marble which was covered with a smattering of debris.

“Wow,” Rayne was amazed.

“I’ll say,” Mike looked up into the vaulted ceiling of the foyer area, it went up at least 30 floors.

“I wonder what this building was used for when the Ancients were here?” Todd asked.

“Let’s have a look,” Rayne walked over to the front desk, “It looks like an information desk.”

“Yeah, but for what?” Mike wondered as he dropped the supply pack.

“It’s for information,” Todd stated.

Mike and Rayne stared at him.

“Sorry,” Todd apologized, “I just thought we could use a little sarcasm right about now.”

“In reality, it looks like the reception desk for a hotel of some sort,” Rayne answered Mike. She took a panel off of the back of the desk and took a look at the machinery on the inside of the desk. “It looks to be in good condition, all we may need is a power supply to make it work.”

“I’ll go get one from the ship’s hold,” Mike offered.

“While you’re doing that, “Todd began, “I’ll see if there’s a way to the upper floors,” as Mike left for the ship Todd gave him and Rayne instructions to set their communicators to the third frequency so as to avoid accidentally activating any traps. “If you find anything,” Todd was saying to Rayne as he walked towards the elevator shaft, “let me know.”

“Will do boss.”

Todd found that the door to the elevator was easy to open and that the car was on the first floor. Once inside he found the shaft access hatch and lifted himself onto the top of the elevator car. There was a ladder set into the wall of the shaft ‘I wonder if there’s really going to be anything on these floors,’ Todd thought to himself as he climbed, ‘If this place is just a hotel like it looks like, then all we’ll find is some towels and a few bars of soap in the bathrooms.’ Todd opened the door to the first floor without much difficulty. “Odd,” he thought aloud, “I would have thought that after so long the doors would need some persuasion to be opened.” Stepping out of the shaft he could hear that Mike had returned with the power generator. Todd tried the first door he came to and was surprised to find it swing open. It was, however, dark inside and he could not see much. Turning around he yelled down at his friends, “Hey! Either of you have a flashlight?”

“Hang on a sec,” came Rayne’s reply. In just a few short seconds the entire building lit up. “Now you don’t need a flashlight,” she told Todd.

“Thanks,” Todd turned and walked into the room. It was a mess. Tables, chairs, beds, general hotel equipment, all were out of place and just thrown around as if someone had left the room in a hurry. Todd began to pick around the debris. And found what he was looking for, a data pad. Surely there would be some form of news stored on it that would tell the story of what had happened. He put it in his pocket and went back to the hallway. “Hey guys,” he hollered, “I’m headed up to the top floor to get a view of the area.”

“Alright,” Rayne answered, “Don’t have too much fun.”

Todd pushed the elevator button, a moment later the door opened revealing a faster way to the top of the building. Todd was amazed that it didn’t take more than a few seconds to get to the top. He then realized that this was his first time using Ancient technology. The top floor looked like it was once a dinning hall and observation deck to watch incoming flights from. It was now a desolate and barren place. Todd walked over to one of the large windows and looked out. It was a stunning sight, with mountains in the backdrop as the sun was setting. Then Todd noticed something that made his blood run cold. Everything was green and growing, except for a long strip of land that passed right over the city and part of the surrounding valley. They hadn’t noticed before because they were too busy looking at the buildings. Todd hoped that it wasn’t too late. There was only one thing that he knew could do something like this. A biogenic compound. Todd ran to the elevator and began his decent. Stepping out of the elevator before the doors had fully opened he ran towards his friends. “We’ve got to get out of here now!” he exclaimed.

“Why?” Mike looked up from one of the consoles.

“I think that this place might have been subjected to a biogenic compound,” Todd answered.

Rayne disconnected her computer from the terminal and began running with it towards the ship. “We have to hurry then, there’s no telling if we’ve been infected.” It was a frantic rush to the ship followed by the long and tedious task of decontamination. Clothing was incinerated and everyone had to go through the small decontamination chamber.

“Man I hate that thing,” Mike said as he caught up with Todd and Rayne. Rayne was drying her hair while Todd was eating a sandwich.

“Did you find anything?” Todd asked Rayne between mouthfuls of sandwich.

“Maybe, but I’ll have to get a better translation first.”

“Oh?”

Mike spoke up, “Yeah, she thinks she may have found a Transfer Gate.”

“A what?”

Rayne continued, “I think it’s what the ancients may have used to leave this galaxy, I’ll know more when I can translate it better.”

“Until then I suggest that we all get some rest and food,” Todd suggested, “I’ve had enough excitement for one day.”

“Yeah me too,” Mike added, “I’m going to bed. See you two in the morning.”

“That sounds like a plan Mike I think I will head for some sleep as well,” Todd followed Mike, “Rayne you headed to bed?”

“Nah, I’m still wide awake, I think I’ll finish the translation tonight so we can review it in the morning over breakfast.”

“Well, don’t stay up to long and don’t have too much fun.”

“I’ll try,”

“And if you need any help, let me know. I’d be more than happy to.”

“Ok,”

Todd left Rayne to work on the translation. He did not realize how tired he was until he lay down on the bed. Foxx curled up at his feet and fell asleep in minutes. Todd just lay there for a while alone in his mind. He thought about what was going on in the war for freedom, about the friends he had left on the base, he thought until he fell asleep thinking. He’d forgotten about the data pad that he had retrieved from the complex. Little did he know that it would hold the key to many things.



~~~~~

Part V
A Gate to the Future


Todd woke up a little before dawn. He showered, dressed and went up to the bridge to check on things. On his way he noticed that Rayne was asleep in the galley. He could smell the smell of burnt coffee and knew that she must have put on a pot earlier that morning. Todd stole silently into the room and looked over her shoulder. ‘Looks like she’s got most of it translated,’ he noted silently to himself. He turned off the power to the pot and put a small blanket over her sleeping form before slipping back out of the room. Closing the door he allowed himself a small chuckle, “She’s going to need some rest.”

“Rayne?” Mike had appeared from around the hallway.

“Shhhh,” Todd put his finger to his lips, “She’s inside sleeping.”

“Oh,” Mike looked at the door pensively, “So no breakfast today?”

“There’s a small food replicator in the secondary bridge,” Todd assured, “Come on, let’s go eat.” Together they turned down the corridor and walked in companionable silence to the secondary bridge. “Well,” Todd proclaimed stopping in front of a bulkhead wall, “Here it is.”

“Where?” Mike looked confused, “I don’t see a door.”

“Ah, but looks can be deceiving,” Todd turned and pushed on a small place on the wall. Without warning the wall disappeared as a door opened up to reveal the secondary bridge.

“Cool,” Mike’s face showed that he was impressed. He entered as the lights came on. Finding the replicator he ordered up breakfast for the both of them. “So tell me,” He began as the replicator hummed, “What’s the story with you and Rayne?”

“What do you want to know?”

“It’s obvious that you’ve been on this ship before, you’re too familiar with the controls and such,” Mike handed Todd his food.

“That might be because I helped her rebuild it,” Todd took his food, “We’ve been friends since we were kids back on our home world. While I went on to be a pilot and later a commander for the Interplanetary Defense Corp. Rayne took to running a small freight line for a while.”

“So then what?” Mike said around his breakfast.

“Then she went and joined The Resistance when the war first broke out,” Todd set his plate down, “I stayed in the Empire for a while, but eventually my force was defeated and disbanded.”

“That’s terrible,” Mike commented, “I thought that you were part of the Royal Space Navy of the First Empire,” Mike was confused, “When I met you, you had been transferred from Imperial Command to that little outpost.”

“I guess,” Todd paused for a moment before resuming, “Because my squadron had been defeated, I was reassigned as a colonel to that far off distant world where I first met you and decided it was time for me to join the Resistance. Most of that was a front as you know.”

“I’m glad you were there to bail me out though.”

“Well, anyway,” Todd continued, “Rayne began flying survey missions as a cartographer, I took a leave of absence from that lonely world to join her for a while.”

“Yeah, you’d told me that you were part of the team that had found Broken Bow.”

“Well,” Todd said standing up, “Let’s see if Rayne is up yet.”

“So you and Rayne have been friends for a long time?” Mike followed Todd out of the bridge with the dirty plates.

“Oh, just leave those in the replicator,” Todd said noticing the plates, “It’ll break them down and reuse the material later.” After Mike had done so Todd continued, “In answer to your question, yes Rayne and I have been friends for a very long time.”

“And we’ve saved each other’s lives more times than I can count,” Rayne added, “I see you’ve shown Mike the secondary bridge.”

“We had to,” Todd quipped humorously, “We needed breakfast and didn’t want to wake you.”

“I’ve finished the translation,” Rayne prompted, “I think we can follow the Ancients to wherever it is that they went.”

“Good,” Todd smiled, “Let’s go shall we?”

Rayne stuck out a piece of paper “Here are the co-ordinates to the site of the transfer gate.”

“I’m already on it,” Mike took the piece of paper and turned to head for the bridge.

“Do you need to sleep some more?” Todd inquired with an imperceptible touch of worry in his voice.

“I’m fine,” Rayne assured him, “I got more sleep than you think. Now let’s go get to the bridge and find those ever elusive Ancients.”

Smiling Todd had to agree, “Ok, let go.”

On the bridge Mike had already set the controls and run through the pre-flight checks. “All set.”

Mike looked at Rayne expectantly. She responded by turning to sit in the copilot’s chair “Take us out, Mike.”

With a shudder the Silver Wolfe took off the ground and screamed for space above the planet. Mike kept a watchful eye on the field compass as Todd and Rayne strapped themselves in for the jump that was soon to come. A small light under the compass told Mike all that he needed to know. He threw the levers for the gravytic generator and the hurled itself into a speed faster than light itself. Mike turned around to face Rayne “Well,” he asked hesitantly, “How did I do?”

Rayne nodded her head in approval, “Very good,” she had been giving him lessons on piloting the ship before the incident at the library. “I’m glad that you’ve been able to familiarize yourself with the controls.”

“It’s a little more archaic than some of the controls on ships nowadays,” Mike admitted, “But I like it.”

“How long do we have to wait?” Todd queried.

“Not long really,” Rayne checked some instruments, “It wasn’t very far from the planet we were on.”

“I have an interesting question to ask,” Mike stated suddenly.

“Yes?” Rayne and Todd answered at the same time.

“How will we activate the gate once we get to it?” Two pair of eyes stared back blankly at Mike.

“That’s a good question,” Todd said at last, “Rayne?”

“I don’t have anything from the translation.”

Todd sighed “I guess we’ll just have to wing it.”

“Fun stuff,” Mike muttered sarcastically as he turned back to the ship’s controls, “Get ready, I’m about to pull us from the jump.” Mike put his hand on the lever and with a nod from Rayne slid the lever down dropping the ship out of the gravimetric jump.


~~


On the small desk in Todd’s room the data pad turned on and started to beep and hum rhythmically. Foxx perked his ears at the noise, but did not get up to investigate. Instead Foxx just laid back and stretched. It was of no concern to the little creature.


~~


As soon as the ship came out of the jump everyone knew that something was terribly wrong. The ship began to buck and shudder making it difficult for even Rayne to pilot the ship.

“We must have jumped to close to a massive gravity field,” she informed them from her position in the copilot’s chair, “We seem to be drifting to the right and slightly behind.”

“Any idea what it might be?” Todd was curious. A ship’s field compass kept it from inadvertently coming out to close to a planet. ‘Something is very wrong,’ Todd frowned.

Rayne turned the ship around to take a look at the source of the intense gravity. The sight that greeted them was not a welcome one. “Oh-boy,” Rayne’s voice was barley more than a whisper and her face was as white as could be.

“Is that?” Mike’s voice faltered.

“Aw nuts.”

“It’s a black hole,” Rayne intoned emotionlessly.

“Aw nuts,” Todd said again, “We never get a break.”

The ship began to shudder violently, the hull was straining with the extra forces of gravity. “I’ve put us into full reverse,” she yelled over the noise of the straining ship, “If this keeps up much longer the ship will be torn to shreds!”

Todd’s mind was thinking rapidly, trying to come up with a solution to their predicament. “Rayne, is there a way to slingshot the ship around the accretion disk to gain momentum?” he finally asked.

Rayne’s brown eyes shone with realization, “Yes, if we can build up enough momentum, we could snap out and away from the gravity field of the black hole!”

“Timing will mean everything,” Mike warned, “We have to pull this at the right time and at the right angle.”

“Anything’s better than sitting here waiting for the ship to tear herself apart,” Rayne set about her task of setting the controls on the Silver Wolfe for the difficult maneuver. “Todd, I need the field strength, position, and orientation numbers from your console,” Rayne instructed without looking up.

Todd quickly glanced at the panel “Strength is off the scale, position is fluctuating between near and far, and orientation is up and down?”

“How is that possible?” Mike questioned.

“It’s a black hole,” Rayne answered, “Anything’s possible. The gravity data’s no good I’ll just have to estimate it.”

“Our position has not changed , so if we set the force of our ship equal to the force of the black hole,” Mike thought aloud.

“Then the gravity of the black hole will be the same!” Rayne finished.

“Rayne, can you set us in an orbit around the black hole?” Todd asked.

“Why?”

“I think that the position of the field is changing because of the spin of the black hole,” Todd theorized, “If so, then a geo-stationary orbit will solve that problem.”

Rayne acted quickly, the tremors in the ship were becoming more violent

“Yes!” Todd yelled triumphantly, “The position is stable at far.”

“All that leaves is the orientation.”

“If the orbit trick worked for position,” Mike voiced, “Then why not try it for the orientation?”

“How?” Todd looked at Mike, “We’re already in an orbit, you can’t have two orbits at the same time in a situation like this.”

“What if we roll the ship?” Mike inquired.

Rayne did not even wait for further argument, she set the ship into a slow roll. “Check the orientation now.”

“It’s holding at up,” Todd said, whenever you’re ready Rayne.”

“Better strap in then,” She cautioned them, “This is going to be one incredible story, if we pull this one off.”

“If not, it will be one long-short story,” Mike expressed humorously.

“Hang on!” Rayne shouted as she initiated the program to fling them to safety. The ship took off like a bullet racing towards the black hole. “Looks good so far,” Rayne reported.

Todd glanced at his panel, sudden horror filled him “Guys,” he shouted above the din of the shaking ship, “We’re not going to make it.”

Rayne looked at Todd and saw the fear in his eyes, she looked at Mike who had silent tears of sadness and fear falling down his face. “It was fun while it lasted,” She said at last.

“Yeah, same here,” Todd said brushing away a stray lock of hair.

Mike just sat there with tears in his eyes and his thoughts to himself.


~~


Foxx was going nuts. The ship did not normally shake and tremble like it was doing at the moment. And to top it off the little data pad that was on the desk had fallen to the floor and was really making a racket with all the humming and beeping. Foxx decided that he had had enough of the little pad and promptly went over to it and pounded it with his small paws. He was rewarded with one last beep and the pad grew quiet. Foxx was slightly satisfied. The ship was still shaking, but the humming and beeping had stopped.


~~


Todd took one last look out the viewport and was blinded by the sudden flash of a brilliant white light. “What is that!?”

Mike had to shield his eyes “It’s not supposed to do that.”

“But it is,” Rayne had screwed her eyes shut against the glare. Suddenly the shuddering stopped.

Todd could hear his own heart beating rapidly in the unnerving silence that followed. The Light was everywhere and then it was gone along with the black hole. “What just happened?”

“I’m not sure,” Rayne was busy checking instruments as she spoke, “But I do know one thing.”

“And that would be?” Mike blinked away the sunspots from his eyes.

“We’re not in the same galaxy as before.”

“What do you mean?” Todd was incredulous.

“Take a look at the star charts,” Rayne pulled up the charts on the main screen for all to see, “Nothing matches, not even remotely.”

“Then where are we?” Mike looked out into the depths of space and wondered.

~~~~~

Part VI
One Crazy Trip

“Rayne,” Todd got up from the chair, “Check those star charts again. Mike, come with me, we need to check over the ship and see what the damage is like.”

“What if the charts don’t match anything again?”

“Then we had better start looking for a place to land, our supplies won’t hold out for long,” Todd turned and left with mike to see if the ship had incurred any damage. The engine room and cargo bays checked out fine, as did most of the ship. The problem was in the navigational system.

“This might be a problem,” Mike stated slightly dismayed.

Todd had run a diagnostic on the nav system, the results were not good. “Yeah, I know,” Todd paged Rayne on the bridge, “Rayne, what’s the situation with the star charts?”

“Nothing matches,” Rayne’s computerized voice echoed in the room, “I think I might have found a planet not too far from here, but I think that there might be a problem with the nav system. It won’t respond.”

“Yeah, it’s messed up,” Todd ran a hand though his hair, “Can you get the ship there without the nav computer?”

“It might take a while but I think so, I’ll have to take it slow so as not to overshoot the planet.”

“Take your time, I don’t think that we’re in any hurry.”

“So now what?” Mike queried.

“Now we try and pick up the pieces to find out what exactly happened and where we are.”

“Well, the ship is ok, so I think I’ll head to the bridge and run over what the computer might have recorded before we ended up here.”

“I guess I’ll head there too then,” Todd chuckled, “No sense in sticking around here, nothing I can do until I have new parts.” In silence they both headed back to the bridge where Rayne was trying to coax all that she could out of her little ship. She had to keep the ship in a constant jump-stop-jump cycle to make sure that she was keeping her heading. “You know that this is going to ruin your gas milage right?” Todd teased.

“Haha, funny,” Rayne mockingly laughed, “Maybe you should get out and push?”

“Oh I’d just love to, but what if there’s a black hole?”

“Wait,” Mike looked up from his computer screen, “Where did the black hole go?”

Rayne and Todd both looked at Mike, then at each other.

“Why did we not check on that before?” Rayne asked.

“Because we were all to glad to be alive?” Todd quipped.

“That’s very odd...” Rayne took the ship out of the jump, and almost right on top of the planet. “Whoa! That’s too close.”

“Steady Rayne, you’ve got it,” Todd encouraged, “Gently now.”

Rayne eased the ship into a high orbit nearly running into an orbiting satellite. “Well that’s a good sign,” Rayne breathed a sigh of relief, “Looks like the planet is populated, we might even find the parts that are needed to rebuild the nav computer.”

“Mike see if you can find out if we can speak their language and get us some landing rights.”

“I’m on it.”

“Rayne what are the Whiskers saying?”

“Looks like it’s a type IV planet, breathable atmosphere, 63% water coverage, four main land masses, and normal temperatures in the mid to low 70's.”

“Nice place.”

“Yeah, well it won’t be for us for long,” Mike looked up from his screen, “We’ve got an incoming missile!”

“Rayne! Get those...”

“On it,” Rayne interrupted. Her fingers were flying across the control panel. Soon the deflector screens were up and Rayne was moving the ship to a safer distance. The missile blew up right behind them rocking the ship violently. “Why are they firing on MY ship?!” Rayne demanded, “Mike what did you say to them to get them so irked at us?”

“I didn’t say anything, they never answered on the communication channels.”

“Well, that hit did a number on us, I’ll have to take the ship down,” she put the ship into a dive, “Hang on this could get bumpy.” The Silver Wolfe hit the atmosphere of the planet at a steep angle causing the atoms around the ship to turn into a hot plasma. Rayne was right, the ride was indeed bumpy due to all the friction of the atmosphere against the hull of the ship. Soon the ship slowed down and the bumping stopped. “Now all we need is a place to land.”

“Our entry was probably tracked,” Mike was back on the terminal looking for a place to land with the ship’s , “We should fly for a while then find a place that’s quiet to set down.”

“Preferably someplace close to civilization,” Todd suggested, “I fear that the missile might of had some debilitating effects on the ship.”

“I found a place, Rayne turn on a heading of 30 degrees from our current and head out for 2.3 kilometers. That should do for now.”

“I wonder what made them mad enough to try and shoot us down?” Rayne reflected.

“Well,” Todd began, “We sort of popped out on top of them, maybe they were just startled.”

“Maybe,” Mike commented, “But until we know for sure, we had best stay low. It would do no good to be caught as outsiders.”

“Unless you know what it is the people here are wearing, or speaking for that matter, it’s going to be pretty obvious that we are outsiders,” Rayne observed.

“We’ll just have to make do with what we have,” Todd sighed, “It’s dark out right now, so we should probably work on hiding the ship as best we can before someone finds us. Rayne shut down all systems except emergency lighting.”

“Man,” Mike breathed, “It’s going to get cold tonight.”

“Better cold and secure than warm and in a world of trouble,” Rayne remarked as she shut down the systems.

“I fear we may already be in a world of trouble,” Todd observed quietly, “It just keeps getting better.”

The next hour was full of preparation. Mike and Todd worked on covering the ship with a giant camouflage tarp that would make it next to impossible to see from the air. After Rayne had shut the ship’s systems down, she set about examining the ship. The engines were over stressed and some key circuits were fried, but with a little bit of work it would patch up good enough to get back on the move. Next she made her way to the navigation room. Rayne punched in the access code to open the door. The stench of fried circuitry greeted her nose as she entered.

“This is not a good sign,” she breathed. It was going to be a long time before the nav computer was completely repaired. She opened the first panel and crawled under the bank of transistors and capacitors. Rayne’s ship was older than most ships which had state-of-the-art nav computers. The newer models had crystal components while her ship had the older, more sensitive rare metal components. “I wish that I had overhauled you,” she muttered to the ship. The small room was soon filled with even more smoke from soldering the burnt circuitry together to form something that resembled a nav computer, bits of plastic and wire littered the floor.

“Well, somebody’s been busy,” Todd was standing in the doorway to the room, “Why don’t you take a break and come get cleaned up, then you can get something to eat.”

Rayne slid out from under the panels, “Sounds like a plan,” she panted, “Did you and Mike get the ship hidden?”

Todd held out a hand to help Rayne up, “Yeah, we’re so hidden now that we might need to set up a transponder just to find the ship if we leave,” he joked.

“I hear ya.”

“So what’s the diagnosis on the nav computer?”

“We are in serious need of some key parts,” Rayne looked over at the computer, “We may need to go into the city and scrounge for stuff.”

“Stuff?” Todd queried sarcastically, “Is that the correct technical term to use?”

“Yeah, well,” Rayne drawled, “You know what I mean. So do we know anything about this planet’s inhabitants?”

“Mike’s been experimenting with different communication devices. As far as we can tell they use a lot of radio frequencies. The language is complex, but with some practice I think we can manage it.”

“Any idea on the type of clothing?”

Todd shook his head, “I’m afraid not, we’ll just have to wing it once we get into the city.”

“Well let’s go eat,” Rayne directed Todd back the way he had come, “I’ll get cleaned up later, right now I’m starving.”

“I know what you mean,” Todd chuckled, “By the way, it’s really dark and cold outside tonight.”

“It’s dark already?” Rayne was incredulous, “What’s with this planet? We got here before dawn.”

“Yeah,” Todd explained, “It’s already been a day here. Evidently the planet rotates a little faster than what we’re used to.”

“How much faster?”

“Mike says 12 hours.”

Rayne was dumbfounded, “Wow. This makes things really interesting.”

“Yeah, I wonder how the local populace deals with it,” Todd followed Rayne to the chow hall onboard the Silver Wolfe. Owing to the fact that the Silver Wolfe focused more on cargo transport rather than creature comfort, the majority of the compartments not given to cargo were small. The chow hall was no exception. It had one booth table set into the far wall. Across from that was the tiny kitchen that allowed for a moderate amount of food to be prepared at one time. It wasn’t much, but it was cozy. After all it was Rayne’s ship.

“Who’s ready for lunch?” Mike asked the pair as they entered the room.

“Haha, funny Mike,” Rayne mocked sarcastically, “Did you spend all day trying to fix the nav computer?”

“No,” Mike handed out the food to Todd and Rayne, “I spent the day working on hiding the ship. Long, but fun.”

“So what now?” Rayne asked around a bite of food, “Mmm, this is good Mike. You should cook more often.”

Todd looked up from his meal, “Mike how much of their language do you understand?”

“Enough to get by as a foreigner, but with time I’ll be able to blend in better.”

Todd thought on this bit of information as he ate, “Then we should go into town tomorrow, take a look around and see what there is.”

“Oh yeah,” Rayne smiled, “I get to go shopping.”

Todd and Mike looked over at Rayne.

“We need parts for the nav computer, and I know what’s needed.”

“Oh thank goodness,” Todd breathed a sigh of relief, “I thought you were talking about shoes or clothes or something like that.”

Mike laughed, “But we will need those things Todd, that is if we are going to blend in.”

The trio laughed uproariously at the thought. For now they were able to keep the thought that they were hopelessly lost out of their minds. They were able to keep hope for the moment. They ate their meal in good cheer, owing to the fact that there was not much else that could be done about the situation.

Todd stood up from the table, “Well, I’m going to get some sleep,” he yawned, “Tomorrow’s a big day and I want to be ready for it.”

“That’s probably a good idea,” Mike stood up from the table as well, “We should all get some sleep. Going through a black hole is not what I’d call restful.”

Rayne was deep in though, “I wonder if that’s what really happened?” she posed, “I wonder if we really did go through a black hole?”

“Well, we know that it was a black hole and we’re still alive,” Todd reassured, “So the most that we need to worry about right now is getting some well deserved rest.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Rayne agreed, “I guess there’s really no point in wondering whether or not it really was a black hole,” she looked up at Todd who was standing by the doorway along with Mike, “Goodnight then, see you both in the morning.”

“‘Night Rayne,” Mike yawned.

“Goodnight Rayne,” Todd turned and walked towards his room. When he got to the room he noticed that it was a bit of a mess. ‘Oy,’ he thought to himself, ‘I guess I should clean all this up.’ Todd began picking up the pieces of his room when a small bundle of red fur ran smack into him catching him off guard. Todd fell to the ground with a thud. “Well hey,” Todd stroked Foxx’s fur, “Where have you been?” Foxx purred softly for a moment and the jumped out of Todd’s arms. Foxx was over at the table in an instant nosing around under so debris. “What is it?” Todd took a closer inspection of what Foxx was looking at. “Oh,” Todd picked it up, “It’s only that data pad that I picked up,” Todd looked at it contemplatively, “I wonder what’s on it?” Todd sat down in a chair that had not fallen onto the floor and turned the data pad on. The screen brightened and remained black for a bit, but after a few seconds it gave way to blue lettering and a flashing green light. “Hmm,” Todd mused, “This doesn’t look right.” Todd got up and walked over to a terminal on his desk. He pushed a button and called up a translation code on his computer. Carefully he plugged the data pad into the terminal and began to run the translation program. After a few minutes it was decoded and Todd was able to take a look at the results. “Oh, wow,” Todd whooped, “I’ve got to show this to Rayne.” Todd turned and hit a button on the wall next to the desk and called up Rayne.

“Yeah?” Rayne yawned, “What is it?”

“You doing anything right now?”

“Well,” Rayne began, “Not anymore.”

“Sorry to wake you but I think you should see this.”

“I’ll be there in a few minutes,” Rayne said groggily.

Todd looked at the state of his room, ‘Oy, I guess I had better clean this place up a bit before she gets here,’ he thought, ‘Otherwise she might kick me off the ship for messy living habits,’ he added with a smile. Todd was not able to get the whole room fixed up in time, but he had enough of it cleaned that it was presentable. The door chime sounded and Todd moved to open the door, which was already open.

“Do you ever lock your door?” Rayne asked sarcastically.

“I seem to forget it often.”

“So,” Rayne said in a more serious tone, “What is it that you wanted to show me?”

“Ah, right, this,” Todd showed her to the seat behind the desk and motioned to the monitor, “What do you make of this?”

Rayne stared at the screen for a while mouthing some of the words as she read. “Wow.”

“Yeah I know,” Todd beamed, “Sounds crazy, but there’s no other explanation for what happened.”

“So it was planned?”

“Yeah,” Todd ran a hand through his hair, “As far as I can tell that black hole was created as a transfer gate from our galaxy to this one. How it works is beyond me.”

“It says here that the system was activated manually, but I know for a fact that it wasn’t you or Mike or myself.”

“Well, the only other thing that could have turned it on was Foxx, but I...” Todd stammered to a halt.

“I wonder if Foxx could turn the system on?”

“We may never know, but for now let’s just say that he did and leave it at that.”

“So now we know how we got here, but how do we get back?”

Todd shook his head, “Unless there’s a transfer gate, I doubt that it’ll work going back.”

“Then until we find the Ancients, we won’t be going home?” a touch of sadness was evident in Rayne’s voice.

Todd was solemn, “That seems to be the case, yes.” It was quiet for a long moment as they both thought about the possibility of getting back home. Finally Todd broke the silence, “Ah, who knows? Maybe you can figure out the system and then all we would need to do is find a black hole.”

“Maybe,” Rayne yawned, “But I don’t plan on doing anything until morning, so I’m going to get some sleep.”

“Alright Rayne, get some rest.”

“Hey, you do the same now,” Rayne teased, “Can’t have our leader being sleep deprived now can we?”

Todd chuckled softly, “I’ll be sure to get some rest, see you in the morning Rayne.”

Rayne turned and left the small room leaving Todd there by himself. ‘What have we gotten ourselves into this time?’ Todd wondered, ‘How are we going to get back?’ Todd shook his head and turned off the lights. Turning down the sheets he made himself comfortable in his bed and awaited sleep. “One day at a time,” Todd murmured to himself, “Just take things one day at a time.” Todd was asleep before he could think or say anything else. Tomorrow would hold new surprises.


~~~~~

Part VII
In the Fray

Tomorrow almost didn’t come. Todd woke up early that morning to the sound of battle. A dull roar caused by the yelling was the only thing that could be heard inside the ship, but it was definitely audible. Todd quickly got up and went to a viewport and cautiously looked outside. The scene that greeted him was dim, but horrific. In the pre-dawn light he could see that there was a myriad of people running around through the forest and across the field. He quickly threw on a pair of fatigues and rushed out of his room and down the hall to wake the others. As he passes Rayne’s door he rang the chime and quickly headed to Mike’s room. By the time that he had Mike up, Rayne was up and about wondering what was going on.

“There’s just a bit of a war going on out there,” Todd explained.

“So what are we going to do about it?” Mike groggily asked.

“We need to secure the ship,” Rayne started back up the hallway, “I don’t want to take any chances with whoever it is out there getting in!”

“Too late!” a voice from around the bend in the hallway said as it swung a pole-arm into the side of her head. Rayne collapsed in a heap on the floor.

“Rayne!” Mike ran towards the sound of the attacker. A six foot tall furry creature was standing in the hall over Rayne. Mike struggled to wrest the pole from the creature’s grasp, but it was to no avail. The creature struck Mike three times in quick succession. Mike now lay on the ground beside Rayne.

Todd had opened a small wall locker and retrieved a small ion pistol. Quickly arming it he took aim at the creature. “Get away from my friends!”

The creature just stood there, immobile.

“I said move!” Todd was just only slightly beyond irked. Strange creatures had invaded Rayne’s ship and had injured both his friends in the process.

The creature lifted his pole and pointed it at Todd, “You can come with me conscious or un-conscious, it makes no difference to me.”

“Why are you on my ship?” Todd demanded.

“Because you are an enemy of the state!” a swift barking reply came from Todd’s left causing him to momentarily glance in that direction. That was all the creature that was standing before him needed, with a swift move a bolt of blue energy shot out of the pole and struck Todd in the chest.

Todd fell to one knee gasping for breath. Looking up he shot the creature that had shot him. He turned to the left just in time to be shot again by the second creature to his left. Todd groaned as darkness enveloped his vision, the world spun and the nothing.



~~


Todd woke with a start to find himself on a cold hard surface. “Oy, not again,” he mumbled to himself as he tried to sit up.

“Todd?” a voice from somewhere called out to him, “Todd are you ok?”

“Yeah Rayne,” Todd sighed, “Are you ok?”

“I’m fine, just a bit of a knot on the side of my head,” she laughed a bit, “I guess I’ll be sure to fix the little problems with unauthorized entry to my ship now huh?”

“Yeah, where’s Mike?”

“He’s over in the corner still out cold, and no you aren’t blind it’s just very dark in here,” Rayne informed.

“Ah, I was wondering about that.”

A low moan from the opposite corner of the room announced that Mike had regained consciousness.

“You ok, Mike?” Todd inquired of his friend.

“I think so,” Mike moved into a sitting position with his back against the wall, “Just answer me this, what were those things?”

“They looked like overgrown versions of Foxx,” Rayne commented.

“Well, sort of,” Todd clarified, “Sort of like a water dog and Foxx, and they can talk.”

“And hit really hard,” Mike interjected.

“Hitting’s not the only thing they can do,” Todd remarked, “Those poles shoot something similar to our ion pistols.”

Rayne perked up, “Then maybe if we can get out of here we’ll find stuff that we can use to repair the ship’s nav computer!”

Todd carefully stood up to take stock of the situation, “Well we need to get out fo this place first.”

Suddenly the room was filled with a bright light. Someone had opened the door to the room and turned on the lights. “Please try not to move around too much until your eyes have a chance to adjust to the light,” a mellow voice instructed them.

“Who are you?” Rayne asked bluntly.

“My name is Rymn Adelaide, I apologize for the rough treatment of you and your people. We honestly meant you no harm, we figured that you were an Alliance special task force sent to destroy us.”

Todd was still squinting a bit due to the light but was able to make out who it was that was addressing them, “So what are you going to do with us now?”

“That is for Sovereign Ryu Adish to decide, now if you will follow me.”

“And if we decide not to?” Mike defied.

Rymn turned quickly towards Mike with blurring speed, “Then I’m afraid that you will have to be killed,” he snarled.

Mike nervously nodded and walked over to where Todd and Rayne were standing.

“Come,” Rymn led them through a series of tunnels and corridors all of which seemed to be underground, or devoid of any windows. It was dimly lit in the corridors and not much on space. It was narrow and constricted, and slightly crowded by many of the creatures.

“May I ask you a question uhhmm...” Todd hesitated.

“Rymn, and yes you may.”

“Not to sound in any way disrespectful, but what do we call you as a people?”

“We are the Ruuvulpue, a people caught up in a bloody civil war.”

“I see,” Todd commented, “And where exactly are we?”

“The last holdout for the Coalition, Vos Räv our home.”

“Wait,” Rayne interjected, “This is the last holdout? Why is that?”

“As I have said before, this civil war is a bloody and costly one. More will become apparent to you when you speak with the Sovereign.” The small group continued on until they reached a small door with security guards on either side of the door. Rymn approached and slid a small card that he had produced into a slot next to the door. With an almost silent whoosh of compressed air, the door slid open. Rymn walked inside and motioned for the three friends to follow. Turning he stopped in front of an older looking Ruu with a more grey tone to his fur. “Sovereign, our guests as you have requested.”

“Thank you, Rymn,” the Ruu stated quietly, “Make sure that they are comfortable.” He turned to the trio standing before him, “Please have a seat and make yourselves comfortable. I am Ryu Adish, Sovereign of the Coalition forces, welcome to our place of refuge.”

Todd took a seat, “Thank you, you are most kind to offer such a liberty to us.”

“I apologize for any ingratitude that you may have suffered, but you must understand, we in all honesty believed that you were the enemy.”

“We understand,” Todd began, “We’ve only just left a civil war in our home.”

“I see,” Ryu noted calmly, “It is evident to me that you posses knowledge of things that we yet do not understand. It has also come to my attention that your ship was damaged by our missile impact. I am willing to offer you help in repairing your ship, if you would be willing to help us.”

“How can we help you?” Mike queried, “You already posses weapons that match our own, what more could we have that you don’t?”

“You have a starship,” Rymn noted quietly.

“As Rymn has probably already told you, our war is not going so well, we are losing, badly. Our only hope of survival is to escape from this world and move on to another world. Our scientist are brilliant, and they have come up with many new breakthroughs in technology, but we need to speed up the process before it is too late.”

“We can give you help,” Rayne commented, “But it seems to me that you’d need a rather large production facility in order to build a starship.”

Ryu lowered his head in pensive thought, “It is true that we need a larger facility in order to build such a project, and up until recently we had just such a facility.”

Rymn filled everyone in, “About two months ago our forces at Kel’Jardina, the location of our factories, was overrun by the enemy. Intelligence has informed us that the facilities are still intact and that the supply dumps have not been found.”

“How’s that?” Mike interjected, “How come they haven’t found the supply dumps?”

“It is quite simple,” Rymn explained, “The supply dumps are hidden deep within the vast underground complex. There are passages there that are well hidden whose locks have not been broken or tampered with.”

“I’m assuming that you’re wanting our help in fighting off the occupying force, am I correct?” Todd inquired.

“We need competent leaders that can lead us to victory. Most all of the commanders of our forces have all been killed or captured. We still have plenty of people that are willing to follow and die for the cause at hand, but we need leaders.”

“That brings up a good question,” Rayne looked Ryu in the eyes, “What exactly is the cause that you and your people are fighting for?”

“We are the last of a dying breed,” Ryu began slowly yet confidently, “We are all that is left of the true settlers of this planet. Many years ago we left our homeworld in search of another planet that would allow us to live free from the oppression and evil that was our world. We found this planet and settled it building for ourselves and future generations a better place to live in. That was two hundred years ago. Since then we have grown and tamed this planet. We have thrived and built a society worthy of the people that risked their lives in buying us the time we needed to escape. However, as with all societies, evil found it’s way to one of the neighboring countries. Soon war broke out. We have been fighting now for thirty years, and continue to fight for the promise that someday soon we will be able to overpower the Axis Alliance. Our only other option is to leave this world. That is why we fight.”

“I see,” Rayne softly voiced, “Then I offer you my ship in order that your people might live the life they fight for.”

“Rayne, do try to remember the mission that we’re on,” Mike mentioned, “We can’t spend a lot of time here, people are depending on us.”

Rayne turned towards Mike, “I know that,” she vocalized, “But what do you expect us to do? We can’t just sit here waiting for things to even out, and we sure can’t get off this planet without their help!”

“Hey, let’s not get too terribly emotional over this,” Todd diplomatically stated, “Yes we are stuck here, but that’s not the reason that we’re going to help these people out. We’re going to help them out because they’re in the same predicament as we are.”

“Here then is what you must do in order for us to accomplish anything,” Ryu commanded, “Rymn I want you to form a team of your best to take with the four of you to reach their ship. Once that is done send us a signal and we will have a means of transporting the ship back here sent out to you. My friends, I thank you. You may have just saved our people.”

“With all due respect Sovereign,” Rymn began, “We are not out of this war yet. One ship cannot do everything.”

“I’ll have you know there’s a lot more about this ‘one ship’ than you could know,” Rayne reasoned, “One ship can make all the difference.”

“While that is true in some cases,” Ryu built upon Rayne’s words, “Rymn’s words do ring with a certain amount of truth. We must at all times not let up our guard lest we fall into a trap or worse.”

Rymn was nodding agreement, “Then it is settled I will go and make preparations for the capture of their ship.”

“Good,” Ryu turned to Todd, “In the meantime, you would all do to get some food and rest. Rymn, would you kindly escort them to a place where they can eat and rest?”

“Certainly,” Rymn looked towards the group, “If you will follow me,” Rymn turned and walked out the door.

As the rest of the group followed, Todd turned towards Ryu. He looked intently into the eyes of the leader, and it seemed to Todd that Ryu was old and tired and weary of the things going on around him.

“I’m not sure that I can carry on much more in this capacity,” Ryu breathed quietly.

“We will do everything that is in our power to save you and your people,” Todd affirmed, “Rest easy, know that your people are going to be saved soon.”

“I only hope that it is soon enough,” Ryu noted with sadness in his voice, “Do be careful, much depends on your success.” With that Ryu turned around and faced the wall behind him. Todd stood for a moment longer then left to catch up with his group. “Do be careful,” Ryu uttered after he knew that Todd was gone, “I have a bothersome worry about this situation.”


~~~~~

Part VIII
Victory Through Sadness...

“I wonder where Todd got off to?” Mike wondered aloud as he ate some of the food that Rymn had made sure was provided, “It’s not normally like him to not walk with us.”

“I’m not sure where he’s at,” Rayne commented, “But I do know that he’ll be here soon enough.”

As if in response to her words the door to the room suddenly opened and Todd stepped through. Todd looked at the table which at this point was scarcely covered with food, “Is there anything left for a starving commander like me to eat?” he joked.

“It’s your own fault,” Rayne teased, “I always eat a lot when I’m worried about my friends.”

Todd took a seat and began to eat what he could find that was not already gone, “So, any ideas as to how we can take our ship back?” Todd ate some of the cooked meat that was in a little black bowl, “Hey, this stuff is pretty good,” he said around a mouthful of food, “Anyway, ideas?”

“We could always go in the way Rymn’s people came through and surprised us,” Rayne voiced.

“Are we planning to do this during the daytime?” Mike inquired, “I believe that a night assault would work better.”

“I agree. Man this stuff is great! Better than some stuff I’ve had to eat before.”

Rayne had to suppress a chuckle as she talked, “We still need to get inside the ship, and aside from the front door, there’s only the main cargo door, the path that Rymn’s people came through, and that really small and narrow fuel dump hatch on the top of my ship.”

“Well,” Todd was licking his fingers, “The front door is probably going to be guarded, and the main cargo hatch is still sealed and would give away our position, so that leaves us only the path Rymn’s people took, and the fuel dump.”

“But won’t there be fuel in the dump?” Mike asked nervously, “That type of fuel is not really compatible with humans you know.”

“You’re right,” Rayne affirmed, “But there’s one little detail you forgot; there’s no fuel in the dump. The Silver Wolfe is an older model of starship, but I did rebuild her somewhat. That rebuild included a new engine-fuel system. She’s totally ion-fusion powered for in-system flight. Now the dump is more of a hidden cargo compartment,” Rayne finished with a slight smile upon her face.

“Rayne have you been running smuggling operations?” Mike was dumbfounded.

Rayne adopted the look of innocence, “Me? A smuggler? Oh, goodness no, I prefer the term Stealth Cargo Pilot,” Rayne laughed.

Todd brought them all back to the moment, “Rayne, is there any way to activate the main cargo hatch from the outside?”

She shook her head, “No, only from the inside, why do you ask?”

“If we can get someone inside the ship,” Todd explained, “To open up that door, it might distract the guards long enough for us to get inside through the main door and the other back door which they may have found.”

“So how do we get someone inside?”

“I can fit through the fuel dump hatch,” Rayne stated, “I’m the smallest of us three, and I’m confidant that Rymn won’t be able to find anyone smaller than me.”

“Are you sure Rayne?” Todd asked cautiously, “It’s going to be the most crucial and dangerous part of the mission.”

“Yeah,” Rayne was confident, “I’m sure, and besides, I’m probably the only one who knows where everything is on my ship in the dark.”

“Then it is settled,” Todd finalized, “Rayne you will get inside and activate the main cargo door distracting the guards, while the rest of us get onboard to fight it out with the guards. Can she still fly under her own power?”

“As long as I don’t have to push her too far, and can use landmarks to get to where I need to go, then sure, she can still move, well, at least limp.”

The door opened at Rymn walked in closing the door behind him. “I take it you are all well rested?”

“Well,” Rayne began, “We haven’t slept since the last time we saw you, but I think we are all well rested.”

“That is good to hear indeed. Have you discussed amongst yourselves the plan for capturing your ship?”

“Yeah,” Todd explained it to Rymn in brief, “So all we need to do now is find out where we need to place the ship once we get her airborne.”

“If your ship can truly fly, then we could take out the forces at Kel’Jardina, and secure the area. Repair work could then begin on your ship.”

“How are we going to manage that?” Todd questioned the logic of such a move.

“So long as our timing is set, we can have a force on the ground to take over Kel’Jardina while the garrison there is distracted with a great starship over their heads. Most if not all will either run or surrender as long as you fire your weapons a few times into non-essential buildings.”

“Rayne, is that possible?” Todd asked.

“We can squeeze off a few shots, but I would suggest that we not overload the system too much.”

“I will inform the Sovereign of your plans. He will be most please I should think. When then shall we begin the attack?”

“I think it would be in our best interest to attack while it is night outside,” Mike stated.

“Night comes in two hours,” Rymn noted, “We have that much time to prepare for this tactical maneuver. We must succeed. If you will excuse me,” Rymn turned and left leaving the three friends in the room.

“Now what?” Rayne asked.

“I don’t know about you guys, but I want to see the armory,” Mike smiled as he got up. Mike loved the thought of testing out new types of weaponry, and was unashamed to let others know that he liked to shoot things. “You going to come along Todd?”

“I think I’m going to take a walk around the base for a bit, I kinda want to get my bearings since it seems that we’re going to be staying here for some time.”

“Rayne?”

“Sure, let’s go see what kind of toys they got for us to play with,” She giggled, “It’s like going to a new toy store!”

“You two be careful now,” Todd playfully chided them, “We are guests here, so be respectful.”

“Oh, now don’t worry about us,” Rayne assured, “We’ll be fine, go find Rymn and see what he’s up to why don’t you.”

“Yeah, I figure that I’ll go do that,” Todd mused, “I guess I need to find out how far we are from our ship, we might need to leave sooner if it’s too far away.”

Rayne got up and left the room with Mike, “Later Todd, do take care not to take a wrong turn.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll do that,” Todd left through the door as well and pulled it shut behind him. He turned and walked off to the left of the corridor, soon finding a dead end. After further inspection he discovered that there was a door in the side of the wall. Upon opening the door he was able to climb a ladder to the floor above and enter through yet another small door. He found himself in a busy place where people were bustling about. The smell of ink was in the air. “Hey, what’s going on around here?” he asked a passer-by.

The Ruu turned towards him and looked at him for a moment before talking, “This is the Conclave of Archives,” the Ruu explained, “It is here that we continuously chronicle the events that influence our way of life. We hope to keep working even until we are able to leave the planet for a new home.”

“Wait just a second,” Todd interjected, “Haven’t you even considered the possibility that your people might win the war yet?”

The Ruu dropped his gaze for a moment, his voice had a certain air of sadness to it, “We can’t win., ever.” Without another word the Ruu wandered off into the busy crowd to continue his task at hand.

Todd looked around; it seemed that everyone was sad and busy. “Why,” Todd murmured softly to himself, “Why can’t we win?”

It was then that a smaller Ruu approached him, “Why do you include yourself in this war?” she asked is a soft yet confident voice.

Todd looked in her direction, she was smaller than most Ruus that he had seen, and her fur was a much lighter color brown than most. It was almost a golden brown. Her eyes were a bright sapphire in color and pierced Todd to his core, momentarily keeping him from speaking.

“Why do you involve yourself in our sad war?” she inquired again softly.

Todd regained his composure, he was not used to having someone look at him with such piercing eyes, “Because I cannot stand idly by and watch so many people die needlessly,” He answered calmly, “And besides, I know the feeling,” he recounted, “My people are in a great war, and losing.”

The young Ruu’s face then changed completely, “Oh, how silly of me,” she fumbled for words, “I forgot to introduce myself,” she proffered her hand, “I’m Mrilly, Rymn Adelaide is my father.” She noted the look on Todd’s face, “I see you know my dad huh?”

Todd was slightly taken aback that Rymn had not said anything about having a family, but then again Todd hadn’t asked, “Yes, I do know your father, I’m Todd Sullest” he began taking her hand and shaking it, “Have you seen him recently?”

Mrilly shrugged, “Nope, but I know where he’ll be in a bit,” she said, “Follow me,” she walked off through the crowd and lead Todd down several passages and one set of stairs. The floor that they finally arrived to was much quieter than the others and had long rows of doors on either side of the hall. “Welcome to the places that we call home,” Mrilly spoke with happiness in her voice. Although the war took a great toll on everyone’s emotion, Mrilly was able to keep it together and keep a positive outlook on life. She stopped in front of a door with some markings on it, “This is where my family lives,” she explained in her soft upbeat tone of voice, “Come on inside, mom will be pleased to meet you ‘cause she’s always saying how ‘any friend of you dad’s is a friend of the family’,” she opened the door and walked briskly through yelling, “Mom, I’m back from work! Look who came home with me!”

Her mother came out of another room where great smells were coming from wearing an apron, “Oh, hello,” she smiled at Todd, “And you are?”

“Good evening ma’am,” Todd put out his hand, “I’m a friend of Rymn’s.”

She took his and shook it in a friendly manner, “Oh I see, I assume that Mrilly brought you here so you could wait for Rymn?”

“Yes ma’am, I wanted to talk to him for a bit, but couldn’t find him.”

“First two rules you need to follow; relax, this home is your home, and please, call me Agnes. I’ll be in the kitchen working on dinner, you’re welcome to stay for dinner if you’d like,” Agnes walked back into the kitchen but continued to speak, “Help yourself to something to drink if you’d like.”

“I’m going to go clean up,” Mrilly informed her mother, as she walked over to another smaller room off to the side of the main living space. Todd looked around the room. It was sparsely decorated, but the furniture was placed in such a way that it made the whole room more comfortable and cozy than one would expect.

Todd walked into the kitchen where Agnes was, “The drinks are in here I suppose?” he queried as he pointed to a small black box of a cabinet.

“Yes indeed, why don’t you get one and relax in the living room while you wait for Rymn?” Agnes was chopping some fresh looking green things to put into something that smelled like really good soup. Todd was about to get something when Rymn came through the front door. Todd turned to greet him, but Mrilly bolted out of her room barreling into her dad.

“Yay! You’re back!” she yelled with pure joy.

“Hey there my little strong one,” Rymn said softly, stoking her hair, “Your mother in the kitchen?”

“Yup, and Uncle Todd too,” She let go and ran back inter her room to do whatever it was she had been doing earlier.

“Todd,” Rymn walked into the kitchen, “It’s good to see that you’ve met my family and that my daughter has taken to you as an uncle,” he chuckled softly.

“She sure does have a lot of spirit for someone who’s in the middle of a war,” Todd mentioned offhandedly.

“Indeed she does,” Rymn nodded, “She is the reason that I fight in this war, I want her to grow up in peace and safety,” Rymn walked over to Agnes and gave her a hug, “I’m going to be leaving in a few hours.”

“Why?”

“We have to rescue Todd’s ship so that our scientists can finish the design of the one that will take us all off this place to somewhere where we can be free,” Rymn explained gently.

Todd stood in the background quietly, and just a bit uncomfortably.

Agnes’ voice was stressed with a slight note of worry, “Please be careful,” she pleaded, “Remember your promise to me and Mrilly; don’t die.”

Rymn chuckled softly. “I won’t. I’ll come back in one piece.” Rymn turned to Todd, “It’s good to see you my friend, are you ready for the coming event?” His voice was solemn, but still contained a hint of happiness.

‘So this is where Mrilly get’s her joy, she’s much like her father,’ Todd noted to himself, “I’m ready, but I did have a question.”

“Go ahead.”

“How far away is the ship from this place?”

Rymn motioned for them to move to the living room and sit down, he took a large leather-looking chair, “Close to 40 furlongs away, we’ll be traveling by Quillom.”

Todd took a seat on a medium sized couch across from Rymn, “Transport by beast, why is that?”

Rymn smiled, “Sensors don’t care about native living organisms, only technological devices,” Rymn explained, “So far the Axis hasn’t found out about our use of the creature so it’s been an invariable asset to us as you can imagine.”

“Indeed I can, with something like that you’re virtually impossible to detect so long as there are multiple wild herds of the creature in the wild.”

“Wait a minute,” Mrilly interrupted, she had at some point come out of her room to listen in, “Have you ever seen one Uncle Todd?”

“No.”

“How did you know then that they were creatures and not land transports?”

“That’s a good question,” Todd thought for a moment then continued, “I guess I picked something up in the tone of how your dad said the word I guess.”

“Hmm, interesting,” Mrilly then sat down beside Todd on the couch, “Are you going to go fight the Axis for your ship now?” She looked right at him with those piecing eyes.

“Not right now, but soon we will,” Todd answered her.

“Then we can leave this place right? And go somewhere where we can all live in peace and happiness?”

“We have to build another ship first little one,” Rymn began to explain.

“Why? Todd’s ship is really big inside right?”

Todd looked at her, “It is a cargo ship, how did you know?”

“I guess I picked something up in the tone of how you said the word,” Mrilly mimicked.

Todd smiled.

“Is it possible?” Rymn wanted to know.

Todd though for a moment, “It is possible, however, it would be ill advised due to the fact that there would be no room for supplies for your people.”

“Then we will continue on as planned. We will get your ship and recapture our plant. From there we can continue work on our ship, the Alida Celest, our wings to the stars.”

“You have a ship already?”

“Only a shell, it needs something to drive it, and a power supply, but it is a start.” suddenly there was a knock on the door, “I wonder who?” Rymn got up to see who it was.

The door opened and Mike and Rayne were standing there with really big grins on their faces.

“Hey Rayne, Mike,” Todd spoke from the couch, “Looks like you found Rymn’s place easily enough.”

Mrilly jumped up from the couch and ran towards Mike and Rayne. “Hi! I’m Mrilly,” she stood there looking at them both.

Mike spoke first, “Hey, nice to meet you Milly.”

Mrilly giggled, “No, no, no, not ‘milly’ Mrilly.”

“I thought that’s what I said,” Mike was confused, “She said Milly right?”

“Please enter our home, you are most welcome here,” Rymn’s mellow voice instructed, “We were just about to have dinner, why don’t you stay and rest a bit before we have to go?”

Rayne entered with Mike following close behind, “That would be lovely.,” she looked at Mrilly, “Hi, I’m Rayne, and the other guy is Mike,” she pointed over her shoulder.

“Uncle Todd, Aunt Rayne, and Mike,” Mrilly listed.

“Hey, don’t I get to be an uncle too?” Mike joked.

“Nope, I only need one uncle, you can be my big brother or something like that,” she laughed.

“Oh, I see,” Mike laughed too, more out of confusion than anything else.

Introductions continued until everyone was well acquainted with each other and familiar with names. By that time Agnes had dinner ready and Mrilly had set the table for six. Dinner was a savory soup made with vegetables and some tubers that Agnes and Mrilly had harvested the day before. Talk went on about families and histories. Places they had been, things they had done. Friends lost, friends gained. Todd told stories about his days at the Imperial Starfighter Academy, while Rayne talked about her dad’s inter-system shipping and trade business. Rymn talked about the good days that could be found among the war. Agnes talked about family. Mike, however, stayed quiet; Todd figured that his past was too painful to talk about. Mrilly sat there taking it all in. Partway through one of Rayne’s stories he noticed that she had lost interest in her food. The space bug had bitten her. Todd realized it would be hard for her to live a life on the ground for much longer. ‘This could make things difficult in the future’.

“I would love for this to continue on throughout the night,” Rymn lamented, “But we have a job to do. Let us promise to return and celebrate our victory in this manner.”

Todd stood up, “Then we had better get this done.”

“You’re right,” Rymn stood up, “Agnes, Mrilly my little one, we will come back soon.”

There was a note of caution and worry in Agnes’ voice, “Just be careful Rymn.”

Mrilly sat at the table with the beginnings of tears starting to form in her eyes. The small group left the house without many more words being exchanged. Todd looked back as he heard a small sob emanate from the house, but Rymn closed the door before Todd was able to see much.

“Let her be,” Rymn sighed sadly, “Agnes will take care of her.”

Todd put a hand on Rymn’s shoulder, “You have to make it back, for her sake. That’s probably the first time that I’ve seen her sad since I’ve met her.”

A smile played across Rymn’s eyes and face, “We’ll get back fine, we’ll succeed. Let’s go,” and without another word they caught up to the others. “Our group is waiting in this direction, we should get under way as soon as possible.” They went on until they reached a ladder. Just a couple of floors up they found themselves in a room with two other Ruus and several stables with Quillom in them. “This is Reis and Keiji, both are the best warriors that we have to offer. Reis is one of our best shooters, even though she has a bit of an itchy trigger finger.”

“Hey now,” Reis argued, “I just get sort of excited sometimes.”

“Keiji is not only one of our finest sharpshooters, he’s also one of the best tacticians.”

“Caution prevails in battle,” Keiji calmly dictated.

Rymn mounted one of Quillom and instructed the others to do so as well. After all were saddled, they rode into the night towards the Silver Wolfe. It was a long and quiet journey, all were worried that things might not go as well as expected. Todd was thinking about little Mrilly. She was so cheerful and happy, then to suddenly be sad at the leaving of her father. Regardless of the cost Todd assured himself that Rymn would get home safe and sound. That he would be there to watch his little girl grow up. Even though the distance was long, it was covered in a rather short time. Soon Rymn had stopped his steed and dismounted.

“We will go on foot from here, it’s not much farther. We will be more effective and silent on foot.”

“How much farther to the ship then?” Rayne was curious.

“Just over that hill there from what I remember,” Reis answered.

“You’ve been here before?” Mike questioned her.

“We were the ones that boarded it in the first place,” Reis responded.

“Quiet now,” Keiji warned. The crested the top of the hill and peered over it. Down below the campfire of the guards could be seen. “What must happen next must happen quickly.”

“Agreed,” Todd looked at Rayne, “You ready?”

After a moment’s hesitation Rayne spoke up, “Yeah, I had forgotten though that there was a giant tarp across the entire top of the ship. Getting through the fuel dump won’t be as easy as I thought at first.”

“So what now?” Mike was beginning to worry.

“I could drop those two guards at the back end where we came through quickly enough and I’d be able to do it soundlessly enough, but there’s another concern,” Reis informed, “There’s another two guards walking a perimeter around the ship. Looks like they might be on a two minute interval.”

“So in other words I’ve got two minutes to get to the front of the ship and open the cargo door?”

“Precisely. Are you ready?”

“Yes,” Rayne steeled herself for the job.

Reis took aim and then fired off a shot noiselessly into the night followed closely by a second shot. Rayne was already on her way down by the time the second shot was fired. She reached the venting shafts and swung herself up into the ship. Reaching frantically for the handle that would allow her to climb up into the main engine room of her ship. Time was creeping away faster and faster. Once inside the engine room she raced off down the corridors of her ship in the darkness, knowing full well where every obstacle was. She reach the forward cargo room with less than a minute to spare. Quickly she hit the main door release. As the door began to creak open the lights came on, a side effect for which she was not prepared. She ran straight into a ladder on the opposite side of the room due to her eyes not adjusting quickly to the light and getting disoriented. She fell unconscious to the floor.


~~


“Time is up,” Keiji stated blankly.

“Give her just a bit more time,” Todd assured, “She knows what she’s doing.” As if in response the main door began to open and the main light in the cargo bay came on. “See? She did it, let’s go!” The fairly flew over the hill and raced to where the other guards were taken unawares of the situation at hand dispatching them quickly.

Mike ran to close the main cargo door, but Todd stopped him, “Don’t worry about that now Mike, we need to get off the ground as soon as we can!” As Mike turned around a bolt from a weapon outside caught him in the shoulder. “Mike!,” Todd rushed to him as more bolts followed. “Come on we’ve got to get you out of here,” Todd lifted mike as Keiji and Reis returned fire towards the assailants outside the ship. “Rymn,” Todd handed Mike to Rymn, “Take Mike, and get him somewhere safe and bandage him up. I’m going to get to the bridge to help Rayne get this ship off the ground.” Todd ran off down one of the corridors.

Rymn took Mike and left through another corridor with Keiji and Reis following behind closely. Once through, Keiji closed and locked the door.

Rayne was still unconscious behind a crate.


~~


Todd reached the bridge and immediately started the launch sequence. A thousand thoughts were going through his head. Was everyone all right? Would Mike be ok? Where was Rayne? It was at this thought that Todd stopped, “Where is Rayne?” he muttered worriedly to himself. Absently his fingers finished the launch sequence as he tried to remember if he had seen her on his way to the bridge. Had she gone with Rymn to help Mike? Todd assured himself that it was the case at hand. A momentary thought came to him as the ship was slowly rising;; he hit the intercom. “Everyone hold on to something stationary!” he closed the switch and began to tilt the craft upward on its nose setting the floor of the cargo room perpendicular with the ground, “This will get them out of the cargo bay!” He told himself.


~~


Rayne woke to the sound of Todd’s voice on the intercom. She was still groggy though and couldn’t make out what it was he had said. Suddenly without warning to her, the ship tilted up on end and sent her flying out of the front end of the cargo ship onto a pile of Ruus. Once again she slipped into unconsciousness.


~~


After the ship was in position Todd lifted the ship off the ground high enough to be out of range of the guards. He oriented the ship back to normal and closed the cargo hatch from the bridge. Keiji joined him on the bridge.

“She is not onboard.”

“What do you mean?”

Keiji remained calm and seemingly cold, “Rayne is not onboard this ship.”

“How do you know?” worry was creeping into Todd’s voice.

“I have, with the help of Reis, checked the entire ship, she is not here.”

Todd turned and oriented the ship so that he could look out the window at the ground. What he saw made his heart sink. In the dim light of the fire it could be seen that the Axis Ruus had Rayne in their midst. Todd turned on a floodlight to get a better view of things, and was immediately sorry to have done so. They had bound Rayne and were pulling her along to put onto one of their ground transports. He felt fully responsible, it was the last thing that Todd ever wanted to have happen to anyone in his care. So many emotions played through his innermost being that he let out a cry of anguish and pain that startled the normally placid Keiji. Todd turned towards Keiji and began to move towards the exit. “Get out of my way Keiji.” he demanded in a most dangerous manner.

Keiji did not move from the doorway.

“I said move!” Todd tried to push Keiji out of the way but failed to move him.

“Todd, you cannot rescue Rayne in this manner nor at this time.”

“Shut up! Don’t you realize that it was I that caused her to be down there in the first place?!”

“And you know this how?” Keiji’s voice was dangerously low.

“It happened when I tilted the ship up, she must have been in the cargo bay and fallen out. I have to go rescue her now!”

“Again I say you cannot rescue her in your present state,” Keiji’s eyes softened ever so slightly, “I know how you feel at this point, truly I do, but you must heed my words. We cannot save Rayne right now. For the moment we must escape and liberate the production plant. We have people waiting on our success. Mark my words though, we will be back to rescue Rayne. I will do everything in my power to aid you in her eventual safe return. But, in order for me to do this for you, you must listen to me and do as I say. Is this clear?” Keiji said this last part in a firm almost commanding manner.

Todd was silent but nodded acknowledgment. They had achieved a victory through sadness.





~~~~~

Part IX
The Will to Live


When Rayne finally regained consciousness she found herself in a dark room. “Oh, not again,” She groaned. She attempted to move into a sitting position, but unable to find the wall to lean against finally gave up. Her whole body ached and her wrists were slightly raw from where the bonds that had tied her were kept. As her thoughts became more coherent and clear, she began to try and take stock of her situation. None of the things she had been carrying with her earlier had made it with her to the cell. They had even taken her boots and belt. All she had was the clothing on her back. She figured that by now her eyes should have adjusted to the dark, but she still couldn’t see anything. “Must be a tight cell,” she mused aloud to herself. She crawled a short way until her outstretched hand made contact with the wall. Moving to a corner of the room she began to count off how many hands the room was in length and width, it came to about 40 hands in both directions. “Great, a four meter by four meter room,” she sat in a corner for a while regaining her strength. She stood up running into the ceiling which was about two meters off the ground. Rayne sat down with a bit of a hard landing rubbing the top of her head. Upon further inspection she found that a part of the wall would fold out into a sort of cot. She pulled the cot from the wall and lay down on it for a while. Presently she awoke to the distant sound of voices talking. She sat up out of the cot, a mistake for which her forehead would remind her of later. There was a small grating noise, then a sliding noise followed by the grating noise again. The voices she could hear fading into the distance. She crawled from her cot to inspect the area from where the noise came, carefully probing with her fingers she found a small tray with several items on it. She quickly identified it all as food and ate rapidly. She had not realized how hungry she was until the food was placed before her. She just hoped that the food had not been poisoned or tampered with. As she finished eating she began to work through in her mind the events that had led to her being in this dark place. She eventually came to the conclusion that she had been captured by the enemy. She retreated to her bed and lay there wondering. Would they come looking for her? Would Todd be able to find where she was at? What were her captors going to do with her? Would they kill her, or let her live in suffering torture? She turned over on the cot as silent tears streamed down her face, worry etched into her eyes. “Please find me quickly Todd,” She managed to whisper to herself in the darkness of the isolation that was her prison, “Please save me from this place,” with those final words she closed her eyes and slept.


~~

A grey mist had formed during the earlier hours of the day. The sun had not yet risen, but most everyone at the plant was up and about. A tall, lanky, figure with sand blonde hair could be seen moving from one spire of the plant to another. Rampart to rampart. The Ruus had built their plants not only for work but also as a small fort. The figure continued his climbing and traversing of the structure, almost as if he were looking for something or someone. Mike was indeed looking for someone, he was looking for Todd, who for the better part of the night had been difficult to find anywhere in the plant. Mike climbed yet another ladder to a higher spire and found Todd.

“There you are,” he lifted himself up onto the top and sat down beside Todd, “Been looking for ya, breakfast will be ready in a few.”

Todd did not respond.

“Now come on Todd,” Mike adopted a more commanding tone, “This is not like you at all, get a hold of yourself and buck up. Rymn said that soon we’ll be leaving to go rescue Rayne.”

Todd looked up slightly over the distant horizon, and a slight smile played across his face, “I think I have it now,” he stated calmly, “I think I know how to rescue Rayne. All I need is to know where she’s at.”

Mike was slightly taken aback, perhaps he had misjudged Todd’s attitude. Had Todd spent the whole night planning on how exactly to rescue Rayne? “How?” Mike figured it could not hurt to ask.

“We get ourselves captured.”

“Todd that’s probably the daftest plan that I’ve ever heard. You’re nuts if you think that I’ll go along with it.”

“Oh, I’m not the one that’s nuts,” Todd mentioned, “You’re the one that’s nuts, ‘cause you’ll go along with it.”

Mike let out a frustrated sigh of exasperation, “You’re right of course, I’d do just about anything to get Rayne to safety,” Mike paused slightly, “But do we have to get caught?”

“Yes,” Todd began slowly, “You see if we’re caught then we can know exactly what the condition of the guard rotations is, what the prison camp looks like, we’d know everything there is to know about the place and as such would be able to set up for an escape easily.”

“One problem Todd, with us in prison there will be no one left to rescue us.”

“Oh yes there will,” Todd beamed, “Most Ruus all look alike, so all we’ve got to do is find someone to impersonate a guard at the camp for us.”

“But how will they get us out?”

“Same way they get us in of course, we won’t let them actually capture us, we make it look like they’ve captured us.”

“I think I get it now,” realization had begun to dawn upon Mike, “We’d just waltz right in then waltz right back out under the security of our ‘guard’ right?”

“Exactly,” Todd affirmed, “It’s simple all we need is a volunteer.”

“Rymn?”

“Nah, they would probably recognize him.”

“Keiji?”

“Maybe,” Todd was thoughtful, “But I’m not totally for sure about it.”

“Reis, of course, is totally out of the question as she would probably shoot anything that moved,” Mike joked.

A small bolt of energy suddenly hit the side of the spire on which Mike was sitting. It was followed shortly by the yelling voice of Reis, “I heard that! You had better watch out, I might not miss next time!”

Mike was in a slight state of shock. Was her hearing that good? Todd answered the question even though Mike had not voiced it aloud.

“No, she does not have super hearing (although the Ruu people have extraordinary hearing anyway). The acoustics of this place are quite remarkable, that’s why I haven’t been talking very loudly,” Todd chuckled.

“Very funny,” Mike sulked humorously, “Wish you had told me sooner.”

“Come on,” Todd laughed, “Let’s go get breakfast.”


~~


During breakfast Todd outlined the plan that he had for rescuing Rayne. Rymn was silent through the whole of the proceedings, and hardly touched his breakfast. Rymn was deep in thought. Keiji, who was normally placid and calm was enthusiastic about the whole affair. He liked the idea of sneaking into a high security area, hopelessly outnumbered, and doing it all in broad daylight. Reis was fascinated by the idea, but agreed with Mike’s humourous jab earlier that she might shoot everything that moved. Cereth, the battle hardened Field Commander who was in charge of the plant, was opposed to the whole idea and suggested instead that a full assault during the night to divert attention so that a small group could rescue Rayne was the best way. Arguments and debates for both sides and both ideas raged across the table where they were eating breakfast for quite a while until Rymn held up a hand for silence. All eyes turned on Rymn as he finally spoke up.

“Todd you’re idea is prudent and would cause the least amount of life to be lost in a worse case scenario whereas Cereth’s would have many more casualties in a worse case scenario. The point of the matter is this, in both cases life will be lost. Rayne is most probably being held at a high security location. The cost for getting her out alive would be tremendous. Even if we combined the two ideas to form a third plan of action using the best of both plans life would still be lost,” here Rymn paused to take a drink from his glass filled with some form of red juice. Setting it down he continued, “What I propose will probably be one of the most difficult to accept, but it may be the best that we can do at the moment. I know of an informant,” Rymn said the word slowly almost as if trying not to give too much away, “He has a high enough rank that he could possibly get us either information on where Rayne is exactly and what we would need to do to get her out, or get her out himself without any loss of life. This fourth plan of action requires of course a great deal of faith, not only in the informant but also in Rayne. Faith that she will continue to have the will to live and overcome the difficulties that face her as a prisoner of war,” Rymn turned to face Todd, “I understand the difficulty of what I am asking you to decide upon,” Rymn’s eyes conveyed the message that he felt just as much hurt as Todd did, “However, you must realize that I would never suggest something that I myself would not be able to do. All I ask is that you have faith and that you trust me in my judgement as you would that of a good friend. We are not the same, and we do not even fight the same war, however, I believe that we have come a long was as friends. Todd, will you trust me on this matter? Will you trust me with Rayne’s life?”

There was a long pause as all eyes turned towards Todd and awaited an answer. Todd sat and considered all the options, plans, and ideas that had been presented to him during the past hour and a half. It was difficult to come to any decision based solely on the ideas and theories that had been presented to him. Several points had been brought up that shot holes in his plan, similarly cons had been suggested that shot holes in the other plans discussed. Rymn’s plan, however, had no such holes. At the most the informant would give the location of Rayne and her condition and possibly the means of helping her to escape. Todd knew that he wanted to go in the guns blazing and save her, mostly due to the fact that she had done the same for him countless times before and would probably do the same in his position now. The silence was growing to a point of being unbearable and awkward. Todd locked glances with Rymn.

“I trust you Rymn,” Todd confided in Rymn, “Make the necessary arrangements. Let’s get on the road to rescuing Rayne.”


~~



Once again Rayne woke up in the dark confines of her cell, unable to see even the smallest degree. She sat up carefully remembering how earlier she had smacked her head on the low ceiling.

“Well, at least I know now that the food wasn’t drugged,” she commented dryly. She figured that a bit of humor couldn’t be a bad thing considering the present circumstances. It was what happened next that startled her; for out of the darkness came a voice. It seemed to be talking to her and it seemed to be not more that four meters away.

“Of course the food wasn’t poisoned,” The voice was deep and rumbled slightly, but was gentle at the same time.

“Who’s there?” Rayne asked nervously, she feared what the answer might bring.

“Names are of no importance,” the voice continued, “However I am in need of knowing your name,” he demanded.

“Where I come from we have a saying; ‘A name given is a name earned, but a name spared is a name spurned.’”

“And that would mean what?”

“You give me my name and I’ll give you mine, otherwise we’ll both go on calling each other ‘hey you’,” Rayne attempted a jab a humor more to calm herself than to make the voice laugh. However, the voice did an unprecedented thing, it laughed.

“All right,” the voice chuckled, “I’ll tell you what my name is and you tell me yours,” it continued on in a gentle and friendly manner, “I am Ruut Garuth, you may call me Garuth.”

Rayne hesitated for a moment before answering back, “I’m Rayne.”

“Well then, now that we’ve got that cleared up, perhaps you can tell me just exactly why you were with the forces of the Coalition?”

Rayne realized that this was sounding too much like an interrogation. The voice was putting on the idea of friendship and gentleness to lull her into a false sense of security. “Why would you care to know?”

At this point Garuth’s voice turned to a cold almost deadly sharp bark, yet it was still gentle, “It does concern your safety, if I were to find that you were consorting with the enemy you would most probably be put to death. However, if you were just mistakenly caught up in the moment of things, then perhaps there is something to be gained from a friendship between you and myself.”

Rayne was slow in trying to formulate an answer, she was glad that there were still no lights on in the room. No lights meant no ability to see her face and the expression of worry and frustration that was on it. Then a thought hit her, what if there were lights in the room? What if during the course of things she had lost her sight somehow? The thought frightened her and she began to try and look around to see if there was anything, anything that she could make out to justify the fact that she had not lost her vision. The room was still pitch black, she still could not see her hand in front of her face.

“Perhaps you need time to think and recall what exactly happened,” Garuth suggested, “If that is the case then I will leave you in peace and quiet to let you try and recall what happened earlier.”

With that Garuth’s voice was gone and Rayne was left in the darkness that engulfed everything. Even her breathing, she felt, was hampered by the darkness which had begun to close in all around her. Before it had just been a nuisance, but after that thought had entered her head the darkness became more real than before. Almost alive. Rayne shook her head trying to dispel the thought. Regardless of whether or not she had lost her vision she needed to focus on the situation at hand. She needed to find a way to escape. ‘There has got to be a way out of here,’ she thought, ‘After all there was a way in here, otherwise I wouldn’t be here,’ she added laughing quietly to herself. But in the dark, cold, small room her small laugh was just that a small almost insignificant laugh. Somehow she had to find the will to live in this dark, small, and cold environment, and then escape from it when the time was right.


~~~~~

Part X
Another Side to Things



Rayne woke up just as the voices she had heard in her sleep were slowly fading into the distance. She lay there on her cot thinking for a minute, then carefully got up and looked on the floor for her tray of food. She was very careful not to disturb the tray’s position as it might reveal a clue to the whereabouts of the door that allowed the food to be placed before her. She found that the tray was nearest the wall opposite to the cot, and after eating she began to examine the wall. In all respects it felt like an ordinary solid wall, but she knew that there had to be something more to it. How else did they get the food to her? Much less put her in the room? She thoroughly searched all of her pockets for anything that she might have of use; she found nothing. “Blast they were thorough,” she breathed in exasperation.

Then she began to examine her clothing, surely they had overlooked something. Then she remembered. Her boots that she wore contained a special alloy that acted like a metal with all the strength of a metal, however it was undetectable as a metal. She slowly began to work open the toe of her boot where the alloy was located. Soon she had worked the leather on the inside of the boot to the point that she was able to remove the alloy. It was just as she had hoped, it was small, sharp at one point, and slightly curved. With some work it would make a nice dirk. She removed the other plate from her other boot as well. Rayne began to think about the position of the meal tray and based on the trajectory that she came up with she figured where the door must be located at. She gingerly leaned one of the small curved plates on the spot on the wall where she figured the door was at. ‘Now all I have to do is wait for them to come and get my meal tray,’ she thought to herself satisfied that the alloy would do the job she had planned for it.

Only one thing remained, she pushed the tray up to the edge of the wall and made sure that it made a noise upon contact with the wall. Then she went and sat down on the cot. Soon she heard the mumbling voices of guards come to retrieve her tray. There was a slight grating and hissing noise and then the tray could be heard scraping along the floor. Once more the grating and hissing noise and then nothing.

Rayne was perplexed. Had the whole thing been done in the dark? Or was she really blind after all? She soon had her answer as the light out in the hallway suddenly blinded her. The brilliant light made her eyes hurt and forced her to shield them against the glare.

Her trick had worked.

When the door was opened the alloy plate had fallen to the floor, and at the angle that it was set it happened to fall directly beneath the rim of the door keeping it from closing all the way. After a while Rayne got used to the blinding light and was able for the first time to look around her prison.

She laughed.

Earlier she had bumped her head on what she perceived was the ceiling, however it was nothing more than a small protrusion from the ceiling about a meter wide on both sides of it’s square dimensions. What it was she could not guess at, but it did not matter, what interested her the most was the small panel inset on the side of the door.

The problem with a prefabricated room is that there are things that sometimes go unnoticed. In the case of the Empire back home Rayne and Todd ha both found that the barracks rooms and the cell rooms were basically the same type of room. Both prefabricated at some plant somewhere. The only difference being that the cell didn’t have a control panel on the inside that operated the door. But being prefabricated, the wall had a small cut in it so that the buyer could install a control panel system. In the case of the cell that hole had been covered with another plate. A plate which Rayne was able to pry loose with her alloy plate from her boot.

Rayne looked inside the little hole that she had uncovered in the wall beside the door. To her disappointment there were no electrical parts or components to be seen. Only a mess of tubes of varying size. She reached in with her lithe fingers and examined the tubes to the best that she could.

They felt like a simple garden hose.

‘Figures that they’d use hydraulics in this place,’ she mused, ‘Wonder which one controls the doors?’ At this point Rayne did not care. She cut them all with her alloy plate spilling the contents of each tube into the wall.

Nothing happened.

‘Odd,’ Rayne was slightly perplexed something should have happened to the door. Without hydraulic pressure the pumps would cycle and the door would rush up into its recessed alcove. Rayne moved to the door, bent down, and looked out into the hall way. As far as she could see there was no one in the area. She stood back up and leaned against the door, which wobbled slightly. Turning she tested the door pushing on it. It felt similar to a loose tooth, and since she figured that she could not pull it out, she would instead push it back up into its ‘root’. Reaching down she took hold of the door and lifted. The door gave no resistance and slid up into its alcove neatly. Stepping out into the hallway she carefully let the door come back down, removing the other plate so the door would fit neatly in place.

“Now where to?” she whispered to herself.

She remembered the direction that it seemed the guards voiced had trailed off to and went in the direction opposite. Carefully making her way down the corridors until she was out of the cell block she stopped every once in a while to listen for signs of guards.

“Funny,” she continued to whisper to herself, “I wonder where all the guards are at?”

She turned a corner and found a door leading into a cylindrical chamber about two meters wide. Rayne figured that it was a lift of some kind and decided that there were far less observable ways of getting to the places that she wanted to be. After a bit more investigation she found a much smaller door that when opened revealed a ladder that extended a short distance down and a long, long way up.

“Well, I guess I should get to climbing,” Rayne was feeling much more confidant now that she had lights and the ability to move freely. She began to climb up when a thought struck her. She had no idea whether she was in an underground complex or an above ground complex. She looked on the walls for any indication of where she was at and promptly realized that she did not understand the numbering system on the walls much less the language. Having exhausted her options thus far she decided that since the bottom of the shaft was not that far away she would start on the bottom and work her way up until she found the ground floor. She reached the bottom in no time and slowly, carefully opened the door and peeked out. There was a window at the end of a long hallway and light could be seen shining through the window. Rayne stepped cautiously out into the hallway and worked her way down the hall inch at a time.

She could hear the beat of her heart ringing through her ears as the perspiration dripped down her back and face. She cautiously spied around the corner of an open door and was relieved to see that there was nothing more than storage containers in the room. Rayne sighed audibly and wiped some of the sweat from her face. Confidently she strode to the end of the hall and looked out the window. Her heart sank along with her stomach. The view was awesomely stunning, but it signaled the end of hope for her. There was nothing below except clouds. Occasionally she could see patches of the land between the clouds, but the fact remained she was in a floating fortress. One she could not escape.

Rayne turned to run back the other direction but found herself staring down the barrels of several weapons. She stopped dead in her tracks.

“Rayne, I commend you for your resourcefulness on getting out of your room,” Garuth complemented, “But as you can clearly see there is no where for you to run to.” Garuth made a motion for his men to lower their weapons as he stepped forward to come face to face with Rayne. It struck Rayne as odd that he was such a short Ruu, yet he had all the graces of a leader and what could be deemed good breeding. He stepped directly in front of Rayne, not more than a few paces. “As you have probably already guessed, my fortress and refuge is actually a floating one of sorts,” his hand swept towards the window and the sky beyond it, “From here we can not only live in peace, but we can also try and win the fight in this bloody war.”

The words seemed very familiar to Rayne.

Garuth smiled an elegant smile, “You’re probably wondering just how big this floating fortress is, am I right?”

Rayne nodded silently.

“This fortress is large enough to house all the families of the men and women who fight for freedom on this wretched little planet. Our numbers now number only in the tens of thousands, but that is a number far less than what we had to begin with. We were a people in the order of tens of millions. We were a proud, happy, peaceful people, until the war began.” He waved away the guards and the left leaving Rayne alone with Garuth who walked over to the window to look out it.

Rayne was wondering if he was setting her up, but she decided to take the bait anyway, “How did the war begin?” she asked joining Garuth at the window.

Garuth’s eyes were unmoving as he looked down through the glass to the foliage below. “I cannot remember,” he answered almost sadly, “So much life has been lost, all I want is for the war to end. I no longer want to send my troops away from their families. I no longer want this war to continue.”

“Why don’t you just stop then?” Rayne tried to reason, “Why not just live up here until things simmered down enough for coexistence?”

“I would love for nothing more, however, I must accept the fact that although general sentiments would die out with the old, the histories would still be there. People take a long time to forget differences.”

“What do you mean ‘differences’?”

“My people lived on the norther continent, Ryu’s people lived on the southern one. Due to the differences in climate and such little matters, our ways of life are totally different. At first we tried peaceful coexistence, but in the end only war was the answer that people choose.”

Rayne looked over at Garuth and studied him for a while. He did not seem to be that old, yet his fur had started to grey due to the stress associated with a war. His eyes were a deep brown that had nothing but sadness in them. In fact the longer that Rayne looked at him the more that she thought he started to age. Rayne mentally shook her head trying to remove the thoughts of doubt that were forming in her mind. Was he playing tricks on her to brainwash her? Was he telling the truth? What about Ryu’s people? There were clearly a lot less of them than Garuth’s, yet she still felt sorry for Garuth’s people. Rayne decided not to reveal any form of information until she was sure of Garuth’s motives.

“What can I do to help?” Rayne felt that she was treading on very thin ice.

Garuth remained silent for quite some time, looking at her he gave her his answer, “I don’t know,” his eyes were pleading with her, “What would you do? What should I do?” He turned and left the little observation room, leaving Rayne alone.

This bothered Rayne to no end. Why would he leave her imprisoned in the way that she had been when he felt this way? Things did not add up. Rayne knew she had to get to the bottom of things.

She laughed silently to herself.

It was at a time like this that Todd would have made a joke about the fact that she was indeed at the ‘bottom’ of things. Specifically the floating fortress. Suddenly Rayne was hit with a tumult of emotions. She felt lonely and small and wanted nothing to do with this floating place. She longed to be home with her family. She longed to be on her ship with Todd and Mike. She tried to regain her emotions, but found that in the end it was futile. She collapsed on the floor looking out the window, sobbing.

All she wanted was a quick and easy answer, but there were none to be found. Ryu was right, and now it seemed that Garuth was right. How could they both be right and still continue to fight in the same war?



~~~~~