The Army Of Light (Kestrel Saga) (17 page)

    
Pushing aside the burning question of how someone was able to get to the
surface of the planet without being detected, Shawn kept the conversation on
its current track. “If this were a government sponsored project, wouldn’t the
UCS or Sector Command have it buried in their computers somewhere? I mean, why
go to the trouble of trying to get it from the source?”

    
“A total blackout was ordered on the base prior to Sector Command losing total
communications with the entire planet,” Toyotomi said. “No information was sent
from the research base, and none was ever received. It was an entirely secret
project.”

    
A communications blackout wasn’t unheard of in military circles. Shawn recalled
a number of times when his own carrier strike group had fallen under that same
order for the sake of secrecy. “Why would the Unified government want to build
something like that? I mean, during the war I might have understood using a
device like that, but the war is long over. Why resurrect a dead project?”

    
Toyo folded his hands together and leaned back. “Intelligence believes that, at
some point, The Kafaran’s found out about this new weapon. They also surmise
that the Kafaran’s had no defense against it. Unfortunately, from what I can
tell, neither do we.
Total annihilation of an entire planet’s
eco system in minutes.”

    
Melissa stood up and approached Toyo. “Then you are saying that the Unified
government is continuing to build one of these devices?
To do
what?
Safeguard our future against another Kafaran invasion?”

    
“Don’t ask me, Miss Graves,” he said stoically. “Ask the OSI.”

    
“The OSI?”
Shawn repeated. “But I thought—”

    
Toyo looked to his old friend and cut him off mid-sentence. “The Kafaran’s are
arming again.”

    
It was Shawn’s turn to be defensive. “That’s utter nonsense. Besides, if what
you say is true, and I doubt it is, we could use one of these… these eco-bombs
to kill them all.”

    
Toyo licked his lips and leaned forward, leveling his eyes directly at Shawn.
“Approximately two months ago, Admiral Graves departed Space Station Delta-II
and headed for Second Earth. He arrived there safely,
then
departed two weeks later for the Corvan system. That is where you’re letter
came from, yes?” Toyo asked, swiveling his eyes to Melissa.

    
“Yes.” She agreed.

    
Toyo nodded. “One week later Admiral Graves—and his entire squadron of two
destroyers, the
Neptune
and the
Andromeda
, the heavy cruiser
Icarus
,
and the fleet carrier 
Valley Forge
—vanished from space. Six
thousand men and women…gone.” Toyo made a fluttering gesture with his
fingertips. “No trace has since been found.”

    
The words hit Shawn like a ton of platinum. 
The whole
strike group?
 What could do that?
 
“My God.”

    
Toyo pursed his lips. “Sector Command has called off any further official
searches for the missing squadron until the full impact of this…
catastrophe
has been ascertained. However, my intelligence sources inform me that the
Kafaran’s are behind the disappearance.” 

    
“Unbelievable,” Melissa muttered.

    
Toyo looked to Shawn. “Our former enemies have renewed several of their
previous alignments with old allies and they 
are
 arming again,
Captain. This new coalition is calling itself The Army of Light. And, if they
have the secret of this new weapon—”

    
“Nothing will be able to stop them,” Shawn finished with astonishment.

    
“So, Captain, you can now see my need for weapons to defend this house.” Toyo
waved his arms around the gazebo. “We are too far from routinely patrolled
Sector Command space. If this house is to come under attack, then I wish to be
ready to face the enemy.”

    
Shawn’s mouth was dry. “How accurate are your reports, Toyo.
Don’t
sugar
coat it. I want all of the facts.”

    
“Considering the arms shipment you just brought me is only the first half of my
order, I wouldn’t hesitate to say that I’d trust my life to them.”

    
And, it was only Shawn Kestrel’s undeniable trust in Toyotomi Katashi that was
stopping the captain from calling his old comrade’s speculations unwarranted,
paranoid, and potentially dangerous.

    
“Then we need to head for the Corvan system without delay, Captain,” Melissa
piped in and leapt quickly from her seat, then looked to Toyotomi. “And you
need to get off this planet as soon as you can, Toyo.”

  
  He smiled at her concern, but shook his head slowly. “I’m sorry,
but I cannot leave my family’s home. If I am to make a last stand somewhere in
the galaxy, then I will defend this place to my last breath.” He smiled as his
eyes fell back on Shawn. “I know you understand, Captain.”

    
Shawn nodded solemnly as he continued to ponder Toyo’s revelations. “Yeah, I
understand.”

    
“Then come,” Toyo said, stretching out his arm toward the doors leading back
into the house. “We must prepare you for your journey tomorrow. I have a number
of favors to call in, and you both must get some rest.”  

    
By the time Toyotomi finished making his calls to his information network,
Shawn and Melissa had long since retired to their rooms for the evening. The
captain tried hard to get some rest, but failed to get Toyo’s words from
bouncing around the recesses of his mind. Each revelation Toyo had made about
the Unified government, or about the coalition that was calling itself the Army
of Light, took Shawn’s imagination down a different path, some absolutely
terrifying in their implications. 

    
At last he was able to drift off, waking just before the sun rose over this
part of Persephone and bathed
Toyotomi’s
house in its
warming rays. Shawn quickly dressed in his comfortable shirt and trousers,
donned his well-worn leather jacket,
then
headed
downstairs in search of a pot of hot coffee. To his surprise and delight, Toyo
was already dressed and sipping at a cup near the bar.

    
As Shawn entered the room, Toyo appeared to snap out of a daydream he’d been
nursing.

    
“Good morning, Commander—I mean, Captain.” Toyo smiled at his faux pas as he
set his cup of hot tea on the bar,
then
motioned to
the vacant stool at his side. “Sorry. Old habits die hard.”

    
Hands in his jacket pockets, Shawn walked slowly to stand beside his old
friend. “Don’t worry about it, Toyo. I almost did something similar last
night.” He ran his hand through his slightly unkempt hair, flattening down a
handful of dark brown strands that had stiffened upright during the night. “Do
you ever wonder what it’d been like if we never got out of the service?”

    
Toyo smiled broadly as Shawn slipped onto the vacant stool. “Who says I ever
got out?”

    
Shawn blinked in surprise, wondering if his hearing was still fast asleep in
his bed. “Don’t tell me you’re still in the service?”

    
Toyo reached for his tea, swirling and searching the fluid for an answer that
would suit the captain.
“
Koketsu
ni
irazunba
koji
wo
ezu
,
my friend.”

    
Shawn scratched slightly at the back of his neck. “I’m afraid my Japanese is a
little rusty… and I haven’t had my first cup of morning coffee.”

    
Toyo softly chuckled. “It means ‘If you do not enter the tigers cave, then how
can you catch his cub?’“

    
Shawn rubbed his face with his hands, too exhausted to contemplate any more of
Toyo’s disclosures. “I’m not going anywhere near a tigers cave until I get some
hot coffee.” Shawn looked around with half open eyes, as if he were seeing the
room for the first time. It seemed a much larger space now than last night,
when its beautiful bamboo floors were crowed with half inebriated partygoers.
For the first time he noticed the paintings that adorned the high walls, and
the four ancient suits of samurai armor that stood watch over each of the
corners.

    
“Don’t tell me you’ve collected all of this stuff and forgot to buy a French
press?”

    
“I have not forgotten your penchant for that awful tasting concoction,
Captain.” Toyo waved an admonishing finger at Shawn, then stepped behind the
bar and produced the instrument for Shawn’s morning ritual. After the coffee
had been prepared and Shawn had nursed half the cup, Toyo returned to sit at
Shawn’s side. “And where is Miss Graves?”

    
“What makes you think I know what happened to her?” Shawn immediately
remembered the image of Melissa as she’d appeared in the hangar the morning
before, her hair disheveled and with a sour expression like she’d just given a
lemon a long and passionate kiss. “Anyway, from what I can tell, she’s not much
of a morning person. And, with as much as she had to drink last night, it’s no
wonder she’s still in bed.”

    
Toyo smiled meekly and nodded. “I see.”

    
“In fact, I’d hardly expect her to—”

    
“Hardly expect her to what, Mister Kestrel?” a voice called out from the far
side of the room.

    
Shawn and Toyo turned in unison towards the entrance to the room. There was
Melissa, looking as fresh as the day was new. She was back in her white polka
dot dress, her shoes in her hands as she padded into the room and plopped into
a stool on the other side of Shawn. Pulling her hair back and tying it off, she
smiled cheerfully and bid Toyo a good morning.

    
Toyotomi chuckled softly as he hefted his tea to his lips.
“Ah,
Shawn.
I see your knowledge of women hasn’t changed much.”

    
Melissa reached for Shawn’s half empty cup of coffee, cradling the warm mug in
her hands and gingerly drinking it in.

    
He looked at her with amused astonishment. “Help yourself, please.”

    
“
Ahhh
,” she breathed with satisfied delight. “I
needed that.”

    
Shaking his head, Shawn turned his attention back to Katashi. “Toyo, you said
last night that Sector Command wouldn’t have any official search team out
looking for the Admiral. Does that mean there might be an unofficial one
out there somewhere?”

    
“As with all things, Captain, it’s entirely possible.
I’ve been unable to gather much information on that front. Sector Command
Internal Security is clamping down hard around my small network.”

    
Melissa raised an eyebrow to his statement, knowing full well that it probably
wasn’t just the generally plodding SCIS that was clamping down on his
operations. “So, if that’s true, then how can you be sure the Kafaran’s are
behind my father’s abduction?”

    
“That is a piece of information I am quite sure of, my dear Miss Graves. In my
experience, there are simply too many markers, too many incidents that, when
placed together, form a puzzle that’s far from the shape of coincidence.”

    
“Markers,” Shawn asked with due curiosity.
“Such as?”

    
“Not to put too fine a point on it, Captain, but weapons sales for one. There
has been a marked increase in the overall sales of heavy arms to nearly all of
the border worlds within three parsecs of the demilitarized zone separating our
space from the Kafaran’s.”

    
“What kind of timeframe are we talking about here?” Shawn asked, becoming more
awake with each passing moment.

    
“All indications show that the number of sales in the old Outer Sphere have
increased ten-fold over the last six months, with Beta Sector accounting for
most of those figures.”

    
Shawn let out a slow whistle.

    
“Also, keep in mind that those are not just black market sales,” Toyo added.
“The military branches of most of those systems have also shown increased
activity.”

    
“How so?”
Melissa prodded before bringing her cup to
her lips.

    
“There has been a dramatic increase in fleet sorties from
Danarius
,
Rugor
, Beta Five, and
Zenchan
,
to name but a few.”

    
Shawn remembered tangling with more than a few enemies from some of those
systems, especially a particularly nasty flotilla from Beta Five that very
nearly clocked his ticket. “That’s not the best news I’ve heard all week,” he
said in monotone.

    
Toyo grunted in acknowledgement. “I can well imagine, Captain.”

    
Shawn smirked. “Of course you can. Remember that
Rugorian
warship we encountered near the Epsilon Tirana nebula?”

    
Toyo chuckled quietly. “I remember a young Lieutenant taking on an entire
destroyer all by himself.”

    
Shawn’s stance turned immediately to one of defense. “Hey, that was no toy-boat
destroyer. It was a full-fledged cruiser that was armed to the teeth with
everything the
Rugorian’s
could throw at us.”

    
Katashi clapped his hands loudly in delight. “And now you will recount the tale
of how you alone were victorious in that battle, yes?”

    
“Well, I admit… I did need a little help with that one.”

    
Toyo eyed him questionably. “The last time this tale was recounted, you had
managed to destroy the entire vessel all by yourself.”

    
Shawn frowned as he tried to remember the previous circumstances under which
he’d shared the story. “No. No, I don’t recall it happening that way at all.”

    
Toyo placed a gentle hand on Shawn’s shoulder. “Then perhaps I am in error. Old
age is the dragon we can never escape from.”