The Army Of Light (Kestrel Saga) (33 page)

    
Shawn let the words that had haunted his dreams slip passed his lips before he
could capture them. “It wasn’t my concern.”

    
Instead of pushing his clenched fist into Shawn’s face, Richard smashed it down
into the briefing room table top, sending the metal file folder scurrying
across its surface. “It was everyone’s concern, and you were one of the few
people that
was
in a position to do something about
it!”

    
“I did my duty and moved on.”

    
Krif
shook his head slowly, his words dripping with
disappointment. “That’s not how William saw it, and that’s not how Sylvia would
have seen it.”

    
The unspoken word oozed out of every pour in
Krif’s
body: he’d just called Shawn a coward. Shawn pulled back and brought his fist
up to
Krif’s
face.

    
Having anticipated Shawn’s outburst,
Krif
was already
one step ahead. Before the fist had an opportunity to make contact, lightning
fast reflexes allowed
Krif
to catch it mid-flight
inches from his own nose.

    
Shawn made no attempt to pull another punch, nor did he decrease the force
behind his initial blow. He continued to push against
Krif’s
hand, silently praying that the 
Rhea
’s captain would lose his grip
and cause his fist to crash into the pompous, upturned nose.

    
After a tense moment, when
Krif
felt Shawn’s force
begin to wane, Richard pushed the hand aside and stepped two paces back from
the enraged merchant. 
Krif
exhaled slowly,
watching as Shawn neither advanced nor retreated on his position as the two men
regained their composure. With a final exhale, Richard shook his head and
turned back to the open view port. 

    
“Wasn’t your concern, you say?
Wasn’t your concern.”
Krif
repeated it several more times, each one softer and
slower than the previous. He leaned against the heavy frame of the window and
looked to Minos, now several thousand miles astern of the 
Rhea
.
“Well, congratulations. It’s your concern now.”

    
“I don’t want it,” Shawn replied, still fuming from
Krif’s
earlier remark.

    
“I’m sorry to say, you have very little choice in the matter, hot-shot. Believe
me, I’m 
really
 sorry.”

  
  “Then I refuse.”

    
Krif
offered a light shrug without turning to face
Shawn. “You can do that, and I won’t stop you. But, I don’t think it’d be a
wise life decision. Then again, you’ve made those before.”

    
“Are you threatening me, Dick?”

    
“Threaten? No. I can’t do that. What would Sector Command say about one of
their Captains threatening a civilian?” He frowned, then turned and locked eyes
with Shawn. “And, that is what you are, you know?
A
civilian
.”
He spat the word as if the taste were disgusting. “While I don’t have sway over
you now, just think of what the Unified Trade Guild could do to you and your…
business.”

    
Shawn shook his head in revulsion. “You’d have them pull my license?”

    
“No. Not me, personally,”
Krif
said,
then
raised his eyebrows. “Regardless of what you may think
of me, I could really care less if you’re out here plying the space lanes
hauling crates of plastic trinkets for the rest of your life. Come to think of
it, it gives me a sense of satisfaction. However, there are other parties who
could make it their personal mission in life to see that you’re as absolutely
miserable as possible, and I’d think pulling your license would be the least
they could do.” 

    
“They’d take my ship, too?”

    
Krif’s
turned his attention back to the slowly
retreating planet beyond the window. “Who’s to say? By the time your ship is
repaired, we’ll be well beyond the Outer Rim, not to mention outside of the
protection of Sector Command. Why, you could just… disappear.” And with that,
Krif
quickly snapped his fingers. “And none would need to
be the wiser.”

    
He was being threatened, and Shawn didn’t need to read between the lines to see
it. Nonetheless, it didn’t matter. He’d been in sticky situations before, and
had just as easily gotten out of them. This one would be no different. On the
other hand, there was certainly something going on here, something that Admiral
Graves gave his life for and something his daughter was willing to sacrifice
her future for. And Richard
Krif
, while he may not
have all the answers, certainly knew more than he was admitting to.

    
No, this was not his fight. William and Melissa had—whether deliberately or
not—chosen their own fate. Shawn still had a way out of this mess, and all he
had to do was take it. He thought back to Toyo, someone with his own choices
and agenda. Toyotomi had decided to take up arms and fight against an enemy he
knew might someday come knocking at his door. Shawn suddenly began to feel like
he was on the outside of an exclusive club, an observer to events that were
being shaped beyond his control. Needless to say, it was not his favorite
position. Knowing it was best to hear both sides of the argument before rushing
to judgment, he decided to throw
Krif
a bone.

    
“And what’s in it for me if I agree?”

    
Krif
walked back to the metal file folder on the
table, tapping his index finger near the black thumbprint reader. This was
where his personal feelings ended, and his orders from Sector Command took
over.
“Full reinstatement back into the fleet, with no loss
of rank or privileges.
You’ll pick up where you quit. I mean, where you
dropped out.”
Krif
sneered at his own words. “Sorry,
I’m having a hard time finding the right phrase.”

    
“I get your point,” Shawn snapped back.

    
“This is top secret information, Kestrel. Once you touch this scanner, it’s all
done, because once you’re in this loop you don’t get out. If you decide to
leave because you don’t like what you find in there, you’ll be considered a
deserter, and subject to the full punishment as such.”

    
Shawn’s eyes were on the file container. He could see his reflection in the
smooth surface of the scanner.
“Meaning death.”

    
“The current accepted version is instant organic incineration,”
Krif
agreed. “But I’ve heard they take their liberties with
the term ‘instant’ when it comes to deserters and traitors.”

    
Shawn grunted. He’d heard the same rumors. “What else are you offering?”

    
“My word.
When did you turn so opportunistic?”

    
Shawn glared at him.
“The moment my livelihood was
challenged.”

    
Krif
nodded in approval. “Glad to see you can still
adjust to a quickly changing environment.”

    
“So, what else?
And what happens to Trent and Melissa?
And what about my ship?”

    
“As for the details about your re-commission and your assignment, it’s all in
the file. Considering your mechanic was once a specialist with Sector Command,
he gets the same deal you do. He’s been a part of what’s been going on down on
Persephone and Minos, so he’s just as much of a security risk as you are.
Besides, he’s the only one who knows how to fix that hunk of junk you parked on
my hangar deck. I’d like nothing more than to push that menace to navigation
out of the nearest airlock and use it for target practice, but my orders on
this matter are quite clear: you’re ship goes where you go, on board or not. As
far as your girlfriend is concerned, that’s not up to me to say.
She’s in enough trouble with the OSI as it is. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised
if they shit-canned her and shipped her out to a penal asteroid within the
hour.”

    
Shawn felt a knot form in the pit of his stomach. While he was still angry with
Melissa’s betrayal, the thought of her confined to a worthless rock, mining
iron ore, caused him some concern. It was simply no place for a woman of her
position and intelligence, even if she was as loopy as a donut. Although, since
she
had
been the one to mention it, the idea of her scrubbing toilets
with a toothbrush did give Shawn some minute sense of satisfaction. He pushed
the thoughts of corporal punishment aside for the moment and refocused his
attention to the closed file on the briefing room table.

    
“How long do I have to decide?”

    
“Simple. You have six hours. The repairs on your ship are scheduled to be
completed by that time. You’ll have a full load of fuel, so you should be able
to limp back to Minos with no problems. However, six hours and ten minutes from
now the 
Rhea
 will be jumping out of the system, so after that
we’ll be too far away for you to safely make the journey back in one jump. I
suppose you could sit yourself down on some nice rock along the way.
Considering our current heading, there are more than a few I can think of.
Perhaps you’ll even make a new life for yourself amongst the natives, but I
doubt it. Most of the systems we’re going to encounter seceded from the UCS for
one reason or another, and I’m sure they wouldn’t take too kindly to you
invading their space.”

    
Shawn looked to the sealed file for a moment, then to the view port and the now
very distant planet beyond it, wondering how Trent would take the news. “While
I’m considering it, I want you to get one of your people to take me back to my
ship.”

    
“I’ll get a marine to escort you back down to the hangar.”
Krif
turned, stepped away from Shawn and headed for the door, pausing in it midway
once it had fully parted. “You have six hours, Kestrel, starting five minutes
ago.”

    
Inside the immense hangar of the 
Rhea
, 
Sylvia’s Delight
 sat
patiently in her own dimly lit corner, poised for flight as the carrier’s
technicians completed their work fitting the newly fabricated cargo ramp onto
her stern. It’d been just over four hours since Shawn’s arrival on the carrier,
and nearly as long since his meeting with Captain
Krif
in the briefing room. Once the unwanted reunion had concluded, Shawn had all
but sprinted to the hangar to supervise the process of getting his ship space
worthy and underway once again. When Shawn had reached the hangar, and he was
delighted that his faithful mechanic was already there tending to the Mark-IV.

    
Only a short trip to the ships galley—grabbing a bite of something that could
loosely be called food—had taken him away from the repairs. Roslyn hadn’t been
there, and that didn’t surprise him. On a ship as large as the 
Rhea
,
there were thousands of crewmembers, and the chance of catching her within that
small window had been slight. 

    
Back in the hangar, the 
Rhea
’s metal fabricators had done an
adequate job of building and replacing the rear cargo hatch that Shawn had
blown out during their escape from Jacques De
Lorme’s
Temkorian thugs. Under Trent’s watchful gaze, the 
Rhea
’s
astronautic technicians were hard at work performing their last operational
checks of the hatch, making sure that it fully sealed to protect the Mark-IV’s
cargo and crew from the vacuum of space.

    
The color of the hatch set the new component apart from the rest of the ship.
It was the same angular shape as the previous one, but the new hatch was
gleaming—a far cry from the battered and mottled hull of the rest of the
ship—and the strut operation was nearly silent.

    
As the technicians lowered the hatch one final time, Trent stepped quickly
between them and entered the aft cargo hold of 
Sylvia’s Delight
.
The two technicians seemed unfazed by the mechanics presence as they continued
to scan the periphery of the new hatch for any sign of internal weaknesses. As
the two men withdrew various hand-held scanning devices and aimed them at the
ship, Shawn wasted no time in rushing to catch up to his mechanic. By the time
Shawn had entered the command deck, Trent was already seated in the co-pilots
chair performing a check on the starboard engine.

    
“How does it look?” Shawn asked as he unceremoniously plopped down in the
vacant pilot’s seat.

    
“It looks…
eh
.”

    
Shawn gave the mechanic an upturned eyebrow. “Could you define ‘eh’, please?”

    
Trent shrugged. “
Eh
, it means just that.
Eh
.”

    
“Look, I said I was sorry about your tools three hours ago. Then I said it
again an hour and a half ago, so can we drop this once and for all?”

    
If Trent’s silence was any indication, Shawn understood the answer loud and
clear. He tried to placate Trent as best he knew how. “I even got you a whole
new set from the 
Rhea
’s supply store,” he said. “Not even you can
argue that they’re not better than the stuff you had.”

    
“That’s not the point,” Trent said sullenly as he continued to pre-check the
navigational computer. “Those tools had a personal value to me. I’ve had some
of those tools since I was an apprentice. My mother bought me some of
those tools.” He looked up from the computer to stare squarely into Shawn’s
eyes. “It’s not just something I can forgive and forget, you know?”

    
Shawn cast his eyes to the deck,
then
nodded slowly in
understanding. “I see. Well, this ‘personal value’ you say those tools held?
How much will it cost me?”