Defender of the Empire: Cadet #1 (33 page)

             
And how do you answer someone you respect and who you want to respect you a question like that when the truth was considered by most to be crazy. Only a Shade would believe me and Westley wasn’t one. At least none of the Spectrals had said that he was one. So I settled for giving myself time. “Let’s go find Jason. After he is safe I will tell you.”

             
Westley stared at me and I met his gaze steadily. It was all I could tell him at this point. “Fine.” He said in a tone that told me quite clearly that I would be telling him what he wanted to know and soon.

             
Now that Westley was no longer fighting me, we moved quickly. Luckily the medical staff ignored us because we were both dressed in normal clothing. If I had been still wearing my hospital gown we would have been stopped immediately. So I was glad that someone had left the uniform on the door… which made me wonder who it had been. Only for a moment though. It was probably just common practice to leave a uniform on the back of a door in anticipation for the day when the cadet was well enough to return to a normal schedule.

             
We left the medical center and made our way to the landing pad. I smiled at the timing. At a distance we were just part of the crowd going to class. And people were too preoccupied with the coming exams to pay us much heed. Exams, by the way, that I would also have been worried about if I didn’t have a friend in extreme danger.

             
We were just entering the main courtyard with the jewel garden when someone did intercept us. “Rylynn! Westley! What are you two doing?” I started like I had been caught with my hand in the cookie jar.

             
“Marius!” Westley said in relief. “Do you have to be so loud?”

             
The green-eyed shade grinned. “So? What are you two up to?”

             
“We are going after Jason.” I told him. Silently I thought to the mouse in my head
Scrae, can you please tell him that Kylesst gave me coordinates to where Jason is going to be in a few hours?

             
OF COURSE. The mouse spectral said. I knew the moment that Marius heard the message. And, apparently, he had been expecting something like it.

             
Marius nodded at both my silent message and what I had said aloud. “Good.” He replied with that mischievous smile of his. “I’m glad to hear that I didn’t steal that LFA in vain.”

Chapter 25 – Hanging in the Balance

              “That shouldn’t have worked.” Westley muttered to the endless field of stars out of the front view screen. “I can’t believe it worked.”

             
“Be glad that it did.” I said from my seat in back. I glanced at the empty seat next to me. It shouldn’t
be
empty. And, God willing, it wouldn’t be when we returned.

             
“I am glad… sort of.” Westley replied glancing at me. A confused tangle of emotions flickered in his hazel eyes. “But we just stole an LFA from the Legion Fleet’s seat of power. The layers of security should have kept us from doing this.”

             
“I have long believed that the more complicated something is, the more holes it has in it.” Westley’s co-pilot said philosophically. “Also, the more elaborate the system is the more complacent people become, trusting the system to protect them when in reality it should be them protecting the system.”

             
“And when did you get so poetic?” Westley demanded.

             
Marius flicked him an amused glance. “Come now, you know the defenses are for those on the outside. Besides, who would expect a trio of students to do something so career threatening?” And Marius had a point. We could be kicked out so fast we would never catch up.

“And fool on them.” I replied in a tone that had both of them looking at me with raised brows. “They shoul
d have known we wouldn’t just sit on our hands while our friend is in danger. Isn’t it also one of the Legion Fleet’s own tenants we are following? Leave no man behind?”

             
“Yes, though they expect their orders to be followed. And by ‘they’ I mean Admiral L’Seral and Admiral Knight.” Said Westley

             
I snorted.  As I figured it, we were following the oldest orders of the Legion Fleet. It may be old, but it still held.  I did wonder, though, if security measures would be changed to keep something like our adventure from happening again. And if and when they went to change it, would they find anyone else sneaking through the red tape? As Marius and I knew well, there was already a traitor in the ranks. How many more where there? I shook my head and turned my thoughts away from that issue to focus on the more immediate one.

             
Marius’s chuckle drew my attention. “Oh please! Westley, don’t try to tell me that the best pilot in his class never once bent the rules a little. And I know, from good authority, that your idea of bending rules included pushing LFAs speed records after hours, if you know what I mean.” He said winking back at me.

             
“You mean to tell me that Westley took LFAs out for joyrides?” I asked in disbelief. My eyes flicked between the two of them, wondering if it was possible that Westley had truly done something like that. It seemed impossible considering his love of rules. Then again, he had ignored orders in an attempt to keep a perceived coward from sullying his beloved Legion Fleet. Was it possible that I hadn’t engendered a onetime event?

             
Westley grunted. “I only took them out every once in a while.” Westley grudgingly admitted.

             
“Truly?! Without permission?” I actually asked aloud.

             
Marius laughed, from the gut this time, while Westley grumbled. “Don’t let the good boy facade fool you, Rylynn.” Marius began in a tone of playful insight. The green eyed imp ignored the warning look shot his way from Westley. “When our dear Westley says that he once in a while took an LFA for a fly around, he
means
to say that he was part of high speed races with his friends. You could say it was a divine vocation granted him to make sure LFAs were still testing the limits of their construction.”

             
“And where did you hear this?” Westley demanded.

             
“Some old racing buddies of yours.” Marius said.

             
Before Westley could demand exact names I interrupted. “How fast can you fly one of these things, anyway?” I asked.

             
“Just shy of the speed of light.”

             
“And you flew that in an atmosphere?” I asked.

             
“She is onto you, my friend.” Marius warned.

             
“Because you had to bring things up.” Westley said. Marius’s only reaction was to smile. Westley must have felt my stare because he finally confessed to a single race in the imperial system. He added that there had been safety measures taken but still…

             
“Were you ever caught?” I asked.

             
“Yeah, but I just got a slap on the hand because I was able to point out tweaks to the ship’s design; ways to make it faster, more economical, and make it handle like a dream.”

             
“So, how soon will this ship get us to our destination?” I asked. As fascinating as I found it that Westley had had a direct hand in designing the Legion Fleet’s scout ships I was also worried for Jason. We only had so much time before we lost him forever.

             
Westley seemed to understand. “Five hours at this speed, but I’m going to jump into hyperspace once we are away from the disrupter field. That will cut it down to two hours. In the meantime, what’s the plan?”

             
“Arrive. Take stock of what we are up against. I have this feeling that we’ll need some assistance to deal with the mercenaries’ employers. So we’ll send this message to Admiral L’Seral and Captain Wingstar once we get there. Then we will find where Jason is being held, get him out and escape. Failing that, stall till we are rescued.” I said. “Obviously there are a lot of holes, but that can’t be helped till we know what the situation is like.” I added. 

             
“Two things, why don’t we send that request for aid sooner so we are not sitting ducks for too long if we have to stall.” Marius suggested before asking “And why only send it to Admiral L’Seral and Captain Wingstar?”

             
He knew one of the reasons, the one I couldn’t say aloud yet. The other was simple enough. “They are the ones heading up the investigation.” I replied. 

              Moments later when we must have been pass the disrupter field Westley phased us into the hyper field. The light of space and time folding around us washed into the cabin. On the
Hail Mary
I had spent hours staring at it. Now I just concentrated on learning as much as I could about the sector we were flying to and any hints in the database about the Telmicks that we could use to aid us. Maybe some custom that I hadn’t seen or understood back on Colony Lenti. Of course, there was no guarantee that any of this information would be useful when pitted against a large sum of credits. After all, we were up against mercenaries. As to the information I was getting on where we were headed… there was very little of interest to the empire. Just a brown dwarf surrounded by a cloud of debris that had stayed around because the star had never ignited, never releasing a solar wind. Granted, the debris could be used for fuel, but there were many other brown dwarfs in the empire. One on the edge was of little consequence, apparently.

             
I sat there with my head tilted back against the seat and wondered how we could use any of this information to our advantage.

***

Spectral Empire

Edge of the N’avé
System

              Talis’talklen ses-Ky sat among his men in the mess of their ship the
Dark Claw.
He chewed thoughtfully on a Heral Beast leg. The dense meat relinquished its flavored juices against his tongue.  He took great, primal pleasure in shredding it with his teeth. Reclining next to him was his second, Saffa’tauta ses-Ky. The male was laughing with the men next to him. It was right. It was how it was supposed to be.

             
The raid had been successful against an enemy with more teeth than they had thought.  They only lost a few and only due to the fact that they had been unable to escape the fiery explosion. Talis’talklen ses-Ky mentally shrugged. The Ky danced with, ate with, and slept with Death every breath they took. Life was never a guaranteed thing. It was a gift, not a right. All of the ses-Ky knew that. So they lived and took what they could from it before Death stole them away.  Talis’talklen ses-Ky took another bite of his meat considered how the universe now lacked in two honorable enemies.

             
It was rare for anyone to cross blades with the ses-Ky. Any who did tended to use excessive violence to overwhelm his warriors. It only proved to him how weak most were, but they were wise in one way only. You had to kill a ses-Ky to permanently stop one.

             
It was even rarer to run into a group of cadets,
human
cadets, mind, who were unsuspecting and under armed to fight against his warriors. Humans were renowned to be a weak race as a whole. Most were too polite to say it to their faces, but even they knew the truth. Which was why they had developed the one thing that gave them an advantage. And that was technology. It artificially granted them the abilities nature had not seen fit to give them. It could make them faster and stronger. With it they were also able to develop weapons such as blasters that made them very dangerous. Telmicks had fallen in love with the versatility of the blasters and had taken some for themselves.

             
What had made the scuffle with the cadets so rare was that they had not tried to kill his men, but instead had disabled them. It had intrigued Talis’talklen ses-Ky. He hadn’t been the only one who had been fascinated. It was why he and his men had not killed the cadets by their own hand when they could, and usually would, have. Sadly, the strange creatures were little more than ash and dust now. The only one who had likely made it was the boy who had followed Saffa’tauta ses-Ky to the shuttle.

             
Talis’talklen ses-Ky took a swig of his
mrak
in a personal toast to his fallen enemies. The frothy fermented drink burned his throat in that way he enjoyed. 

             
He grinned when one of the men, one who had seen the bottom of too many mugs, swayed to his feet and tried to fight another who was laughing at him. Apparently, Kifen’alusa ses-Ky did not like to be laughed at. Problem was, he was only making it worse for himself. Ai’alusa ses-Ky didn’t have to raise a hand to defend himself since the over-drunk man kept swinging himself to the ground. Talis’talklen ses-Ky had to give the drunk credit for perseverance. Eventually Kifen’alusa ses-Ky couldn’t figure out which way was up anymore, so he stayed on the ground, to the great merriment of his fellows. Although they were a little disappointed that the entertainment had quit for now.