The Army Of Light (Kestrel Saga) (12 page)

    
Seeing that Shawn’s attention was still focused outside of the main view port,
she smiled sarcastically and looked down to his lap. There was his pistol and,
as she looked down, noticed its green laser sight had placed a small dot on the
top of her chest. Melissa looked back up, and it was then that she noticed the
small mirror hanging above the instrument panel, only visible if you were this
close to the captain’s chair. 

    
“Is that really necessary?” she leaned in and spoke into his ear. 

    
He turned to face her. When she didn’t retreat, he held his nose less than an
inch from hers. “I thought I told you to stay in your seat.”

    
Her eyes flickered down to his gun. “You know, this is no way to start a
conversation.”

    
Shawn smiled nonchalantly. “Who said I was looking to start one?”

    
“Are you going to shoot me?” she inquired
cynicaly
.

    
He sighed, then flicked the safety back on the weapon and holstered it. He
casually turned his attention back to the forward view, leaving Melissa’s face
hanging next to his.

    
“How long until we get there?” she asked, intentionally
whispering directly over the skin of his ear.

    
This time her proximity had caught him off guard, and it sent a slight visible
shiver through his body. Shawn let out an uncomfortable cough. “Forty five
minutes, present speed.”

    
Satisfied she’d won this round, she leaned back, looking around the cabin while
fidgeting with her fingernails. She caught his eyes in the tiny mirror once
again. “To be perfectly honest with you, Captain, I’ve never been one to enjoy
solitude. I thought… I thought we might talk.”

    
His eyes didn’t move from her reflection in the mirror.
“Really?
About what?”

    
Melissa bit her lower lip nervously. “Well, about my father… for starters.”

    
It was then that Shawn turned fully turned to regard her. At the same moment
she moved her eyes down to meet his. Their eyes seemed to search one another’s
for memories of the one person who had meant almost everything to each of
them—albeit for entirely different reasons. The captain licked his lips, looked
back to the stars for a moment, then jerked is head sideways, offering Melissa
the empty copilots chair.

    
“Just please don’t touch anything.”

    
“Thank you,” she replied genuinely. She managed to squeeze past the captain,
but not before he flashed a look in her direction. Melissa scrambled into the
well-used seat, pleasantly surprised at its pushiness’. She located and latched
the seatbelt, gazed around quickly, then looked to Shawn, who was looking back
and softly smiling.

    
“What?” she asked innocently.

    
He turned his head and spoke into the window at his left.
“Nothing.
I was just thinking—”

    
“Yes?”

    
Shawn turned back to her. “I was thinking of the last time I flew with your
dad. The last time…” he began, but then let his words trail off.

    
The captain remained silent, and Melissa could tell he was replaying the moment
in his mind. “Yes, Captain?” she asked, trying to keep her tone inviting.

    
“The last time was when I flew him off the carrier, after the war had ended. We
were sitting… you know… just like this. I was the pilot and he was…he was...”

    
The captain seemed to be having a hard time with the words, and it was then
that Melissa began to realize how much this might be affecting him as well.
“The co-pilot?” she asked, hoping it was the right word.

    
“Yeah.
That’s it. Anyway, he asked me to ferry him
over to Tagus Station, where he was supposed to meet up a transport to take
him… to take him…? I don’t remember where he was going to from there, but I do
remember the flight to the station.” He chuckled as he recalled that afternoon.
“It was three hours of coffee induced insomnia, narrating space stories to one
another as if we’d never see each other again,” he smiled broadly at the
recollection. “Apart from my first solo flight, it was the best ride I’d ever
been on.”

    
She couldn’t help but offer a thin smile. The captain was quite the orator,
when his head wasn’t stuck up his hindquarters. 

    
“Yeah, he was one natural heroic son of a—” Shawn stopped mid-statement and
turned to Melissa, searching his vocabulary for a word that would annul any
further frustrations on her part. “He was a heck of a guy.”

    
She frowned at him. “I beg your pardon?”

    
The captain snickered.

    
Melissa looked at him quizzically, then shook her head and smiled. She recalled
her own share of stories she’d overheard other officers say about her father
when they didn’t think she was listening. She remembered wild tales of her
father—spurious in most every detail—blazing into battle, guns firing and
yelling orders to senior officers and subordinates alike. As with most legends,
they were fantastic tales that were bound to be some truth to them.

    
“Yes,” she offered. “I suppose he could be that way at times.”

    
Shawn looked to her and, still chuckling, replied “And then some.”

    
Her smile quickly faded as she recalled that the man they were speaking of was
missing, perhaps even dead. She felt guilty for allowing herself the freedom to
smile once again and, having tasted it, wanting it to last just a little
longer. Decided to hold onto that modicum of joy for as long as she could, she
pressed the captain further. “Tell me about a mission you flew with my father…
any one.
One that has a positive ending.
We have some
time and… and I’d very much appreciate it.”

    
“Positive ending,” Shawn asked as he quickly scanned his memory,
then
almost immediately chuckled. “Well, I do recall this
one time… but, I can tell you the outcome was anything but positive, at least
for me.”

    
Melissa positioned her elbow on the armrest and rested her chin on her upturned
palm, leaning in closer to the captain, as if their separation would cause her
to miss important details. “My, my,” she said wide eyed.
“An
unfortunate incident with my own pilot?
By all means,
Mister Kestrel.
Please elaborate.” She watched as his deep blue eyes
scanned the distant stars, and realized that she was grateful he’d shaved
before they took off. She decided then and there that Shawn Kestrel looked
very… presentable.

    
For his part, Shawn could only lick at his lips, thinking of where to begin…

*          
*           *

    
“Shawn, we just got word in from the 
Fahrenwald
:
there’s a wave of Kafaran deck fighters approaching the task force,” William
said smoothly over the tactical communication network. “The rest of our
squadron is retiring home after repelling the first attack wave against
Reeka
Station. New contacts are two hundred and fifty miles
east, relative to our current heading. We’ve been ordered in.”

    
Shawn scanned through the canopy of his F-A6 Raptor fighter to see his
commanding officer and friend, Lieutenant Commander William ‘Wild Bill’ Graves,
forming up on his starboard wing.

    
“Roger that, sir.
Let’s go get ‘
em
.”

    
Seconds later, Shawn could see the Kafaran fighters. They were long and sleek,
with forward swept wing-like structures mounted along the centerline that held
plasma cannons on their inboard edges. They were similar in size and armament
to the Raptor’s, so it looked as if it was going to be an interesting
scuffle—considering there were four of them facing off against the two Unified
Sector Command Fleet interceptors. The Kafaran’s had already begun their attack
run, fast approaching the Sector Command carrier 
Fahrenwald
 and
the three destroyers that formed her protective screen. The two pilots knew
they had to work quickly.

    
Wild Bill dove in first with a hard bank to starboard, and the surprised
Kafaran was caught completely off guard by the aggressiveness of his maneuver.
William aligned the enemy fighter in his forward sight and let loose with three
bursts from the laser cannons mounted in the leading edges of his wings. The
greenish Kafaran fighter’s rear engine began to smoke and sputter as it emitted
a shower of sparks into the coldness of space. After another salvo from William
there was a burst of flames as the starboard wing structure separated from the
fuselage. Moments later the entire fighter exploded into oblivion.

    
Shawn, on the other hand, hadn’t fared as well. On his first run, he’d
inflicted only superficial damage to one enemy fighter, while another had
managed to put a few holes in his dorsal oscillator. Nothing to serious, but
Shawn was ticked off about it nonetheless, and decided his next round would be
more successful.

    
On that pass, Shawn concentrated on the two fighters that were leading the
formation. He quickly closed the range between them and fired his powerful
particle accelerator guns with a fantastic degree of accuracy. The cockpit of
the first fighter disintegrated in the hail of white hot fire and it fell off
to port, almost becoming an impromptu kamikaze run on the 
Fahrenwald
. Shawn snapped his fighter around to
starboard and—as luck would have it—had his short-range lasers punch through
the second fighter’s fuel storage module. The Kafaran exploded seconds before
Shawn’s ship launched through its last position.

    
Shawn righted his vessel and looked out for a sign of his commanding officer.
After verifying the accuracy of his radar readings, Shawn caught sight of
Graves’s interceptor below and forward of his current position.

    
The Sector Command destroyer escorts, long and rectangular in overall shape,
along with the big and beautiful 
Fahrenwald
,
were letting loose with volley after volley of turreted laser fire. The rounds
looked like so many fireflies dancing around the taskforce as the Sector
Command fleet tried desperately to ward off the Kafaran fighters—not to mention
two enemy frigates that had just jumped into the area as well.

    
Shawn visually made out a lone Raptor miraculously avoiding both enemy and
friendly fire simultaneously, and he quickly decided it was time for him to
intervene. He rolled his Raptor to starboard,
then
pushed the control stick full forward, sending the little ship into a corkscrew
and heading straight down. He watched his relative speed indicator and radar
distance readings almost concurrently and, at two hundred feet from the 
Fahrenwald
’s
bow, pulled back hard and leveled the
sturdy F-A6. The 
Fahrenwald
 was
right below him now, and he could see the enemy deck fighters buzzing around
her like moths to a flame. He quickly transmitted his position, hoping to avoid
friendly anti-fighter emplacements.

    
He passed over the carrier—a mere thirty feet over the aft superstructure—and
pulled up into the path of an approaching Kafaran. Shawn was now head-to-head
with the fighter, but he’d been in worse places. He squeezed at the trigger on
the control stick, letting his lasers fly and disintegrate the nose of the
Kafaran, destroying any vestige of life on the vessel. The Kafaran’s own
inertia caused it to sail harmlessly past the Raptor and out into open space.

    
“We’ve had more enemy fighters come in from outside the sector. I’ve bagged two
more.” He could hear Graves say over the
tac
-net,
then
he visually saw his friend’s fighter spinning in a
tight victory roll.

    
“Nice maneuver,” Shawn said. “I’m about two hundred yards off of your
port-stern quarter.”

    
“Roger that,” Bill replied smartly. “Hey, wait a minute…What the devil?
Heads up!”
Graves yelled. “Get out of there, Shawn!”

    
Shawn swiveled his head around the cockpit, bewildered at his commander’s
statement. Suddenly a shadow cast itself over his controls. He looked up, and
instantly all the color drained from his face. Not less than ten feet above him
was a Kafaran heavy bomber, flying parallel with him, with her lower torpedo
bay doors wide open.

    
“Oh hell!”
A hard stick to port sent Shawn soaring,
but not fast enough. A single torpedo—a twelve foot long warhead packed with
enough explosives to open a hundred foot wide hole in a destroyer—had been
released by the bomber. Fortunately, it was destroyed before it had a chance to
arm itself. Unfortunately, it was the impact with Shawn’s wing that had caused
the weapons early demise.

    
Abruptly, all of the instruments on Shawn’s monitors began to waver with
static. Thruster control was lost, and Shawn’s ship began to spiral tightly as
he fought to regain control. The Raptor’s onboard computer network connection
had somehow been interrupted after the impact, causing Shawn to lose all
control in the engines vector nozzle. He swung the stick left to right, pushing
on the maneuvering thruster pedals in an attempt to stop the vessel from the
wild corkscrew he found himself in. Fortunately he was able to reach the manual
flight switch, severing all flight controls from the ships damaged computer.
After a few death defying moments—and with a lot of manual pressure to the
controls—the vessel had almost completely righted itself. The maintenance staff
onboard the 
Fahrenwald
 weren’t going
to be happy with all the repairs the Raptor would need, but at the moment Shawn
could care less.
Someone else’s problem
, he recalled someone had once
said.