Breeze Corinth (Book 1): Sky Shatter (27 page)

“So I did. Under the cover of darkness, I went to the docks close to my home along the shore, and onto my sailing boat, where I slipped out of the fjord and into the cold ocean to come here. I reopened this outpost, my old station, to help bring back a friend, whom due to my foolishness and hubris, sent him on a fool’s quest.”

Breeze stood quietly. Half of his mind was eyeing the black transport while the other tried to placate Oslo by listening to his story.

“I can see your mind wanders. My tale is fantastic and strange, this I acknowledge, but I will hold nothing back from you. It is the truth. To this I swear. You and others your age have grown up in a time of diminished expectations and shortened outcomes. You have seen nothing but poverty and despair, yet this is normal for you. I come from a time when I witnessed the end of prosperity and the beginning of despair. I stand as a bridge between those two worlds as I have seen both sides of the equation. I want to return to the gilded times.”

Breeze nodded politely as he slowly moved to the ship. “I get it Oslo. You come from a better time.” He looked around the hangar. “And judging by the way this whole place looks, Perihelion definitely has seen better days. I just don’t know what we have to do with your plans.”

“Bram told me he had solutions. Many of them. One of them required the formation of a new generation of Helios to become a brilliant light to shine on the world and to combat the encroaching darkness. Bring them together, he said, scour the planet and search for them. The days of despair will soon be over, he assured me.”

“Okay, right. So your friend, who just disappeared into thin air, comes back as a ghost and tells you to go on some quest to find freaks like me to fight some imaginary enemy that no one knows exists. Again Oslo, thanks for the experience. I will never forget this place. Who could? But I really have to get going.”

Oslo rushed up and blocked his path. He reached out to place a hand on his shoulder, hesitated, and then withdrew.

“Breeze, I know I can’t keep you here against your will. This I know. But can I try to appeal to your sense of duty and honor and your desire to do so much more? Indulge me. There is so much to show you. You just need to give me chance.”

Breeze side-stepped him, then made his way to the craft and climbed up the ladder that led to its cockpit. He tapped the canopy and it slid back with a pneumatic hiss as he tossed his backpack behind the pilot’s seat. “Oslo, I think that you’re an okay guy, but definitely strange. Heck, this whole place is strange. I know that I’m different and these flight powers I have are all well and great. But I don’t really get to do anything with them. Back home, my father has me hiding them. I came here, and I guess you wanted me to use them for some sort of combat mission you have planned with your mystery ghost friend. The way I see it, Sally and Ray were right. Best to just go home. At least there I can handle the problems I have. What you want sounds...crazy.”

Oslo sighed as his head drooped. “Crazy? Perhaps I am. And foolish.” He looked up. “Foolish to think that you have grown at all. Observing you from a distance, I could have sworn you had awakened to the fact that you are not much of a joiner or a follower. Yet here you are, following in the footsteps of those who have put you down countless times.
Ja
, crazy I am.”

Breeze grimaced, then jumped into the pilot’s seat and strapped himself in. “You won’t get me that way. I know what you’re trying to do and I won’t fall for it. In the end Oslo, I’m just a loner and the son of a scrap metal hoarder.”

“No, you are so much more and with the potential to do great things. You just need the will to break out from the rut you are in right now. Do you remember when you first arrived here, you told me you plowed a trench into the ground after the air show, a trench so deep and long you had to walk back for what seemed like miles to the point of impact just to get out?”

Breeze tapped a control screen in front of him and gauges and displays began to light up. “Yeah, sure, what about it?”

“Let that trench symbolize your life young man, and it showed that you were heading in the wrong direction, but you have the power to admit your mistakes and turn around to rediscover the road you were meant to walk down. I know I have made mistakes, but I try to learn from them. Please do the same?”

Breeze hit the ignition and the engines spooled up with a soft whine. “Oslo, I’m leaving now, you best step off the platform and away from the ship. I’m taking her out.” Breeze depressed the throttle and revved the engines to underscore his point.

“What makes you think I would let you leave with military property? I can always stop you,” Oslo said and stared him down.

“Fine. I’ll just fly back under my own power. And if I crash into the ocean and drown trying to get to the mainland, you can have my death hanging over your head. Is that what you want to do to your students?”

Oslo closed his eyes. “No, of course not. That would be absurd.” When he opened them, a gentle smile appeared on his face tinged with a hint of sadness. “Take the ship with you. Think of this as a gift from me, to you. I’m sure you have nothing like this at all back home in Conception. Let this ship serve to you as a reminder of the wonders you have witnessed here.” He took a deep breath. “If you see—” his eyes fluttered, “when you see your father, tell him I said hello.” He reached down and touched shoulder. “Son, listen to me. When you return home and you sense that it was not the right thing to do, no worries. The door to Perihelion is always open for you. Remember, like the trench, you can turn around and find your way back.” He pointed at the navigation screen. “These ships are all equipped with a go home mode. It will reverse your course and send you straight back here. I...all of us will be waiting for you.”

Breeze nodded and gripped the helm. He pushed the throttle control forward and the engines responded immediately with a high pitched whine as the hull of the ship vibrated. He pulled back on the helm and the ship drifted away from the platform. As the canopy slid closed, he waved to Oslo.

The old man waved back and the canopy shut and sealed itself with a hiss.

An indicator light flashed across his screen informing him that pressurization of the cockpit had begun.

He swung the ship around and pointed the bow toward the hangar doors. To the left and right of the ship stood a multitude of RF staring at him as he glided by. They held tools in their hands as their mechanical eyes shined and tracked the ship out of the hangar and into the brilliant morning sunlight.

He waved at them, and then stopped, realizing how foolish it was. The canopy was tinted with a heavy black film that made it difficult for anyone to see into the cockpit.
Besides
,
what do they care?

As the ship glided out into the daylight, one lone RF with a streak of orange across its breast plate raised a hand toward Breeze’s ship and waved goodbye.

He steered the ship past rows of hangars until he reached a taxiway that led to the landing facility. He pushed forward on the throttles and the ship picked up speed while around him, majestic palms and ficus trees swayed from the gusts of wind blowing in from the ocean.

He flashed back to when he first arrived on the island and the sense of wonder he felt traveling away from home for the first time to go somewhere exotic and different, followed by the crushing wave of disappointment at how the experience turned sour. His thoughts then drifted to the moment he met Ray and Sally.

Sally.

He pictured her face. The few times she even smiled at him seemed like magic in itself. But those good feelings were swept aside when he remembered how cruel she became whenever Ray was in her presence.

He snapped out of his trance when a proximity alarm went off as he was about to collide into a thick royal palm ahead of him. He jerked the helm to starboard and returned to the taxiway.

He eventually exited onto a runway, then hovered up slightly higher and spun the ship slowly to take one last look back at Perihelion. Convincing himself he wouldn’t miss it, he brought the bow about and pointed it toward the ocean. He activated the stasis brake and pushed down on the throttles to allow the engines to spool up for greater takeoff power, then released the brake and shoved the helm forward and the ship accelerated rapidly across the tarmac. He jerked back the helm and the ship angled up toward the brilliant blue and white sky and climbed until he was above the clouds and leveled off.

He looked down through a break in the clouds and saw that Perihelion was but a tiny dot in the middle of a vast ocean.

He touched the navigation screen and it prompted him for a destination. He typed in the coordinates for his home in the far western desert, and the navigation computer chimed its acceptance as the ship rolled to point the bow towards the west.

He leaned back his seat as his eyes began to flutter.

“Prepare for vortex,” a woman’s voice announced over the ship’s intercom.

I thought Ray shut down the fog
, he thought to himself.
What’s happening?

The nav computer flashed. On the display, the bull’s eye was locked in and an oncoming target. Through the canopy, Breeze could see thick clouds spinning into a tunnel.

The light around him flashed into a brilliant green as the ship entered the vortex. The sound of static filled his ears and he quickly passed out.

Nina emerged from the palm forest and onto the beach near the landing facility. A shadow of distress crossed her face as she watched Breeze’s sleek black ship disappear into the thick white clouds overhead.

She turned and rushed back into the forest.

Oslo sat on the platform steps inside the hangar. He waited patiently, hoping to hear the sound of the ship’s engines and Breeze returning.
I
should have reactivated the fog, so he couldn’t leave.
He shook his head.
No, forcing him to stay wouldn’t be right.

His hopes were dashed as he heard the sonic boom of a ship as it ascended to gain altitude. He grimaced as he stood up, and then clambered down the steps and onto the floor of the hangar.

The RF around him immediately stood at attention. He ignored them as he strode by. They waited until he stepped out, and then resumed their work.

Oslo entered his office and dropped his tall frame into his high back chair. He placed his hands onto the wooden surface of his desk and looked at the endless row of books of his library that surrounded him. All of them contained the history of the world. A history he was beginning to realize that the world had forgotten about.

He chuckled. His chuckling turned to laughter followed by a hearty belly laugh. It trailed away into a deep sigh as he closed his eyes and clenched his fists.

“Well Captain, what should I do? What would be the best course to follow?”

He opened his eyes and stared at his lamp in the shape of a ship’s captain with one hand gripping the helm as the other shielded his eyes as he gazed into some unknown future.
Is there a storm up ahead? Is that what he sees?
Oslo shook his head.

He stood up when he heard the sound of the gulls outside had stopped. He reached over to depress the intercom button just as Kera materialized before him.

“I suppose, after all these years, asking you to knock before entering has been a complete waste of time,” Oslo said.

She ignored his words. “The boy is gone, yes?”

“Why do you ask what you already know? You can sense his departure just like you sense everything else.”

“Yes, of course Oslo, just trying to make conversation.”

He wagged a finger at her. “Not one of your stronger qualities. Stick to what you know.”

“It was for the best, you do understand this?” she said.

He shrugged as he reached for a bag and began filling it with personal items. “I know what I did was foolish. I rushed back here like a schoolboy on a whim. Bram is not coming back. What I experienced back home in Scandinavia was nothing more than a vivid dream. It’s over. All of it. I’m shutting down Perihelion once and for all. But of course you already know that.”

She watched as he filled his bag, then he slung it over his shoulder, and stride from his desk to the door when he stopped and turned to her. “This was never meant to be,” he said. “This was all but a foolish exercise to bolster my ego. An opportunity, if you will, to prove to myself that I could take command and make some sense in this world. Well, Kera, I stand before you now and will say the words that you already know I’m going to say. I was wrong.”

She shook her head. “No. I did anticipate your leaving, but not to run home like a whipped schoolboy. I envisioned you leaving to track down your students and bring them back.”

Oslo pounded the door frame with his fist. “Damn it woman! Why do you always make my head spin in circles? Why do you not ever tell me what I really should be doing?”

“Because, my dear man, you already have that power. You do not need me. You need to start trusting yourself and not be afraid to make mistakes, for there is much to be learned from them.”

Oslo clenched his jaw. He stared at Kera for a moment, then turned his back to her and walked out.

“What about Nina?” Kera called out to him.

He didn’t answer.

BREEZE WAS AWASH IN
a cloud full of static as his eyes opened and he stared blankly ahead at the instrument display. Needles were spinning wildly as vid-screens shimmered with white noise. He rubbed his eyes and sat up straight in his seat. He toggled the helm, but it gave no response.

He flipped and pushed switches and buttons, but nothing responded to his commands. He tried to concentrate but he felt so disconnected from everything. It felt as if he had been asleep for a hundred years.

He looked out the canopy and saw brilliant white clouds flow past like a river, then looked back at his instruments and was relieved to see them coming back to life. The altimeter stopped gyrating and vid-screens flickered and began displaying relevant data.

He leaned a little closer to the nav-screen and was surprised at how far he had traveled. The coordinates showed the ship was crossing over the Great Rocky mountain range.

Just a bit further to the west
,
and I’ll be crossing into Desert Country. Almost home
.

Home. He began to wonder what that meant. After all that he saw and the people he met, he began to wonder if he could ever really return home. At Perihelion he was free to fly at a whim, with no one to tell him otherwise. Back home, he would be restricted again to flying at night.

Funny, such a wide open space the desert is, and yet I have to fly under the cover of darkness. At Perihelion, I could fly day and night. In the middle of the lifeless desert, I can’t do anything. In the middle of the ocean, I was free to do whatever.

The ocean is also a desert, but with its life underneath
, he heard a whisper came from the back of his mind.

He shook his head and rubbed his eyes.
So tired
, just
want to go home
.

The ship rocked violently as warning alarms whooped. Breeze gripped his seat harness as the ship spun like a whirlwind. Through the canopy, he could see the contrasting view of blue sky followed by white clouds until it all became a blur.

The ship was rocked by another impact. The canopy glass cracked as a massive fissure snaked across it. Breeze looked around to find the source of the attacks, but the intense gravitational pull from the flat spin made it difficult for him to move.

A black streak rushed across the path of the ship creating a wall of turbulence that the ship slammed into.

The canopy shattered and rained shards of glass upon him while the roar of the slipstream overwhelmed his senses. He tried to breathe, but couldn’t, as the air rushed by him too fast to even catch a breath. He heard alarms shrilling in the background as his seat rocketed out of the cockpit with a mighty blast.

Suspended in the air for a moment, high above the clouds and strapped to his seat, he watched his sleek black ship pinwheel across the sky and disappear into the clouds before he dropped like a brick to earth below, when a violent jerking motion arrested his descent. He looked up as a parachute deployed, unfurling itself completely before settling with a loud snap as the canvas stretched itself taut. The lines securing it to the seat creaked from the strain.

As he floated down, he couldn’t understand why the seat didn’t separate from him.
This isn’t right
.
What kind of ejection seat is this? Unless it’s malfunctioning.

He was startled by a black streak that whipped past at a blistering speed, and the turbulence it created swung him and the ejection seat like a bell, while below mountain peaks revealed themselves as he broke through the clouds

He shivered violently as shock combined with the freezing air began to take its toll. He knew he was either going to crash into the snow packed mountains or get hit by the fast moving black streak. He needed to break free from his seat and parachute if he was going to survive.

He fumbled with the harness as he desperately tried to find a way to cut loose from the cumbersome chair.

He never imagined a scenario like this: a flier at the mercy of a parachute to save him.

As he scrambled to find the release lever, he caught a sweeping motion from the corner of his eye. He turned to see several black streaks hurtling his way.

He was mesmerized by their precision formation as he groped for the release lever when he yelled in fear as a figure in black suddenly appeared before him. It matched his rate of descent while pointing at the top of his ejection seat, before turning and racing toward the oncoming black streaks.

Breeze was stunned by what just transpired, but snapped out of it and reached up and felt a pair of loops. He pulled down on them and the seat broke away. He shouted with a mixture of fear and joy as the parachute was better able to slow his descent now that it was free of the bulky and heavy seat.

Below, the snowcapped mountains rose up to greet him and he was seconds away from crashing into them. He remembered seeing free fallers in Conception use the lines attached to their parachutes to steer through the air and decided to try it himself. He jerked on one line which sent him veering hard to the right. He yanked on the opposite line and he careened to the left.

He steered the parachute as he tried to avoid a mountain looming below. He hoped he could just skim over the entire mountain range and land in a wooded area, until he looked at the horizon and saw how the mountains stretched as far as the eye could see in all directions.

He was too afraid to break free of the parachute and try to fly on his own. He spotted a valley below and aimed for it.

He then remembered the black streaks and looked up. Two were rapidly approaching him.

Sally and Ray looked out the windows of their transport. The ship maintained a steady speed as it skimmed the surface while racing up and down mountains and valleys.

Sally was becoming nauseous from the way the ship was flying and complained to Ray about it. He told her the flying pattern was to avoid detection.

“Detection from whom? What’s going on?” she asked him.

“Nothing. Just a safety precaution, I suppose,” he replied with a half-hearted shrug and looked away.

Ray then began to think about her question.
Why was the ship trying to avoid detection?

When he was finally able to get in contact with his father, he assured his son that everything was fine back home, but it was important that he return immediately. His father admitted that sending him to Perihelion was an error in judgment on his part and whatever concerns that might have existed regarding his safety at Greenbrier were overblown.

Ray told his father about the fog, and how difficult it was to communicate with anybody on the outside, let alone travel. His father then informed him that he knew how to drop the island’s defense field. Through a series of communiqués, he received the codes needed to negate the fog for a brief period so he could leave with a transport. He also emphasized to Ray the importance of convincing Sally she was to come along also. And if she resisted, bring her by force if needed.

Ray chuckled.
She sure didn’t need any convincing.

“But raise the fog after your departure so that the others cannot leave. It is for the best,” his father added, “that you not inform Oslo of your plans. I can only say the reason for being so clandestine is that I fear Oslo may not be that man we thought he was. Nevertheless, follow my instructions to the letter and come home now.”

Ray didn’t need to ask any more questions. His father was a military man and he trusted him. He knew that Breeze would be trapped behind the fog, but he didn’t really care about his teammate’s fate. He had Sally, and that was all that mattered to him.

He watched over her as she slept throughout most of the journey. Now and then he would dare himself to hold her hand or brush the hair from her face. Father had said she would be his and they would start a family.

“But I think she doesn’t like me,” he once said to his father in a moment of despair.

Father grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him gently. “Persevere, son, and endure. She will come around. She will eventually submit to you and be your bride. This I assure you.”

Ray smiled as he fell asleep. He thought of how he would do his father proud the day he would marry Sally. She would bear him sons. It was going to be a good life.

He awoke abruptly when the destination reminder chimed throughout the ship, letting them now they had crossed into the North Eastern territories. He turned to look at Sally. She was still asleep.

He got up and headed into the pilothouse. He stepped inside and saw the ship was flying flawlessly on auto pilot. He scanned the various vid-screens, but couldn’t see anything of concern. It was flying steady and on course.

He was about to return to the passenger compartment when a flash of light on the horizon caught his eye. He peered out the cockpit windscreen, where just above and beyond the mountain range that rimmed the valley where his home lay, he saw a distinctive orange glow.

He scanned the vid-screens again. Not seeing anything of concern, he shrugged his shoulders and was about to leave when the screens flashed then flickered out, followed by a hissing sound that filled the cockpit.

He grabbed a pair of headphones and plugged into the comm system. All channels were filled with static. He tried every frequency he knew, but to no avail. He couldn’t reach his father. He couldn’t reach anyone.

No matter, we’re almost home. Have to check on Sally.

He descended from the pilot house and back to the passenger compartment where Sally was awake.

“Why is it taking so long? Are we almost there yet?” she said as she put up her hair.

“We’ve just crossed into the North Eastern Territories and we’re almost to Olympica. We’re in safe country now and the ship will accelerate, you’ll see. No more flying close to the ground and going up and down mountains.” He didn’t want to alarm her by mentioning the fiery glow in the distance.

“Do you think I can contact my parents? It would be nice to let them we’re coming back,” she said in such a sweet and innocent way that it broke his heart.

“Well, Sally, I’m not so sure about that,” it pained him to say to her.

“What’s wrong now?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all. Other than the comm unit is down.”

“Again? Are you sure? How come nothing seems to work around here?”

Ray didn’t answer. He leaned closer to the window and his face turned into a sheet of white.

Sally saw his expression and turned to look. She screamed.

They were approaching the outskirts of their city of Olympica where their eyes were greeted by a devastated landscape racked by explosions and filled with burning buildings.

“Ray, what’s happening? Tell me?”

“Sally, listen, it’s going to be okay—”

The ship’s lights flickered as the engines warbled and whined, when the vessel began to buck wildly as it ascended and descended erratically before finally leveling out.

Ray fled to the pilot house with Sally close behind him. They dashed up the steps and toward the cockpit where they found vid-screens flickering erratically, dials and gauges spinning wildly. Outside the cockpit windows, a scrolling landscape of fire and destruction was spread out before them in a panoramic vision.

Oslo hopped out of his hover and strode toward the marina with his satchel slung across his chest. He stepped onto the floating bridge that led to the docks when he heard the whine of a hover from behind. He turned and saw Excort tumble out of his rusty hover and dash toward him. In all of his years at Perihelion, he never saw the dwarf run so fast.

“Oslo, wait!” Excort shouted as he dashed across the bridge and met him halfway. “What is the meaning of this? You have Mila and I up in arms over opening up the island, then you bring students for training and experience a few little mishaps, and you turn tail and leave?”

Oslo waved him off and continued across the bridge. He could see his sailing ship at the far end of the dock with its mast towering into the early morning skies.

“The weather is looking more toward my favor. I need to set off and take advantage of the winds,” Oslo said as he walked away.

Excort bounded after the tall man. He grabbed his arm and flung him around. “No! This is not meant to be.”

Oslo leaned over him and snorted. “Do you honestly think there would be a different outcome? Funny, were you not the one who was rock solid against my vision in the first place,
ja?
You were right, Excort, right all along. Bringing them here was foolish. I’m leaving. It’s over. Tell your wife thank you, along with my humblest apologies for the disturbance. The two of you can return to your peace and quiet, for I will not disturb either of you with my delusions of grandeur any more. The world has changed. For the worst, but so be it. Perhaps it is for the best.”

Excort growled. “I know I wasn’t exactly supportive of you, this I agree. But you have opened up my eyes, Ole, for I also remember a better world. Don’t forget, I am much older than you.”

Oslo laughed. “Ah, the seniority card! Nice play, old boy. I’m still leaving.”

Excort stepped in front of him. “Oslo, I sense they are in danger. You should have never let them leave.”

Oslo froze. “Yes, I had to ice the veins to my heart to keep me from going after them. But they should return to their families and prepare for whatever destruction may come their way.”

“You are willing to let them die?”

Oslo shook his head. “Willing? No. But I must accept the consequences of my actions. Had I let things be, I would not have stirred and awakened the Elephim. I can only hope that they destroy just a handful of cities as punishment. I know they are weak, but they are still strong enough to continue their dominion over this world. Let them have it. I wish to go home and sleep.”

Oslo turned and continued to his boat.

“You are a coward, Ole Auken. Go and slink back to your winter home with your frozen heart!”

Oslo kept walking. “Your words are true, but carry no import for me, my friend. I made a mistake and will have to pay the price.”

“We all do!” Excort roared at him.