Cutlass Sharpened (63 page)

Sadly though she had to deal with the fact
her sense of smell was as strong as any woman’s. A woman’s sense of
smell is more acute than men except for a Solarian male. Their
overall senses were much more developed as they were the primary
Hunters and trackers evolutionary speaking. It made sense to Renee
after she brought it up one night when answers eluded even her own
resources.

In the lab though she made tremendous
progress. She could do thing not even her synthesizer could manage
and she replaced everything rather than refill her field kit. Her
bracelet could simultaneously inject up to fifty rats at once,
using completely different solutions. Best of all, she could splice
others as well as herself better, accurate and more efficient than
anyone else alive. After finding this out on a mouse, she injected
Oliver with a goal. She made him as hygienically bald under the
arms as she and most everyone did.

So far it was a success.

Life wasn’t always guaranteeing great sex.
Their personalities clashed on more than one occasion and Oliver
slept alone out on the ship’s deck, usually up in the crow’s nest
of the tallest mast. Renee slept alone and hated those night.
Thankfully they always made up the next morning and made up for it
with him going balls deep and her screaming his name or thanking
the stars.

Oliver also managed to explore the bulk of
the Dorgenox and he was at loss. It was entirely self sustaining if
ever they got stranded in the middle of nowhere space. Below the
whole length of the deck was a small, lush forest teeming with
little animals, butterflies and all sorts of edible insects if
supply ever got that bad. Insects are full of protein. There was a
lake where regular fish were farmed. Chickens and goats were used
for food, eggs and fresh milk. There was even a farm where
genetically modified crops grew in days rather than weeks to
months. The plants were safer, more nutritious, resistant to pests
and supposedly more tasty though to Oliver it was more like bland
mush. It was a nice place, but also served a function.

The forest would continue to make breathable
air should life support fail. Able to support a total of over four
thousand without aid of carbon dioxide scrubbers. Forest supplied
air, animals supplied food, and water was recycled. Add to it the
psionic strength of the whole crew to maintain power, the crew
could last two thousand years or so plus if stranded. Which was a
highly unlikely probability. There was more chance that the ship
would exit FTL in the heart of a black hole to be crushed into
basically nothing.

The Piranha beasts were
stored in another part of the ship,
far
away from anyone and under heavy
security measures. They were all in five fresh water pools lined in
metal not even their deadly teeth could find purchase on to chew a
way out. Jumping from the water was out of the question by a
psionic shield covering the top.

Level eight found Davan Took settling where
the science area was located, same level as Stephanie’s artifact
room, but further away. He was really busy organizing everything as
he liked and cornered Oliver one day to bully him into becoming an
assistant one day to help solve his mystery mode of instantaneous
transportation. He accepted only when finding out it would take
months to settle in.

Of note was the ship’s engineer Jacob Wrench.
A rather tiny, bald man, but spliced to be so to get into cramped
places too dangerous to send children. He was maybe a hundred
twenty two centimeters, bald of choice as he told that he had been
shocked too many times and his hair caught fire. So he did away
with it. Jacob’s main mistress was the engines that made not a
sound unless it needed him for something the ship’s automatic
repair functions could not deal with. His tiny body made for easier
access in narrow spaces. He was also the equivalent of a handyman.
His power was weakest in all the ship. He couldn’t even
telekinetically move something in zero gravity. But he sure made up
for it by fixing practically anything. His favorite things are
puzzles. The harder it is the more determined he is to solve it
with wit over force. He was also a gentle man. Kind, caring and
would give away the shirt off his back if it would fit the
person.

Oliver also learned to associate and identify
thousands of foreign scents thanks to Stephanie when she had run
out of ideas to find the extent of his multi-tool, after her two
weeks of serving Jessica’s whims to fulfill a bet. She was also a
fan of learning Solarian translations like everyone else when Jake
made it available to the crew in the last week of the four in FTL.
And Jessica created a program to look into the smudge. She agreed
Oliver had indeed found something had been painted on it, but what
flecks that remained behind was inconclusive to be repaired without
having direct access to the original debris the rubble had been
pieced together with. It was beyond even her technological
reach.

After over a month of diligent morning
practicing, Oliver at last was comfortable in moving his body with
a more fluid grace when dancing with his sword. Muscle memory and
repetition smoothed down the jerking motions and made way for
haunting music. Now did his blade sing as he flowed from one
sequence to the next. Its whistle had its own melody in his hand
that was above what it made for Vanishing Claw. Like Renee in her
lab, Oliver practiced to music that made his heart soar, allowing
the slight sensation of invulnerability to set the mood.

Standing and watching him flow and make the
sword and body move as one was Stone as he and Satellite arrived
down on level ten’s workout room. They were caught by surprise by
the sound, speed and seeming ease at which he moved. The falcon
chirped “I see you’ve mastered the steps and remade them into your
own unique skill.”

Oliver didn’t stop as he spoke. “I wouldn’t
have been able to without you allowing Stone to spar with me and
find out how the human body moves and adapts from blow to
blow.”

“
I’m not into artistic
expression, but music I know.” Deegen admitted as he followed with
Bell at his side. “You dance to the tempo of death and that crisp
sound is the orchestra composing the last sound an enemy will ever
hear.”

Sweat poured down Oliver’s face, showing the
exertion was greatly demanding as he completed the routine,
sheathed the blade and grabbed a chilled, wet towel to clean up and
cool off. In the two months since being found, his hair had grown
in thick, but was still rather short. At least his eyebrows had
fully grown and made him look more normal for a man of his size.
Months remained ahead to get it to the way he would prefer styling
it, but it was still too short for any of that. “So what do I owe
this pleasure of you four coming in here so early?”

Stone got right to the point, he always had.
“We’ll be exiting FTL in about an hour, but before that we got a
surprise for you.”

“
Surprise? What are the four
of you up to?” Oliver had also learned how to feel suspicion and
gut instincts were sounding his internal alarm by the way they
looked at him.

“
Six of us actually.” Visor
clicked his beak as he rode perched on Steven’s shoulder. “Just
hold your questions and get your tail feathers together to
follow.”

“
Doesn’t sound too good to
me.” He wrapped the towel around the backside of his neck, enjoying
the cold pull heat from his flesh.

“
Just come on, Smartass.”
Steven quipped. “You’ll like it. I promise you.”

“
Any guarantee I’ll like
it?”

“
Let me put it this way.
It’ll be better than a good woman between the sheets… and less
maintenance to boot. As an added bonus, she won’t kill us all when
she gets upset like your hotheaded mate tends to do
hourly.”

“
She? What do you mean
by
she
?” Suspicion
grew deeper.

The other Hunters turned
with a bit of irritation on Steven who shrugged. “You’ll just have
to see for yourself. We won’t
force
you to follow, but if you don’t I’m going to keep
her all to myself.”

“
Well then if you want it
then I absolutely need to make sure it’s mine.” Oliver broke into a
grin, but that queasy gut instinct remained.

“
Thought you’d see it my
way, Brother. Keep up.” The Hunters all turned and Oliver could
only follow, which wasn’t hard as they didn’t run, not that anyone
could keep up with him. They rode the elevator all the way to the
private docking bay. As soon as it opened it was blatantly clear
something was different.

Normally the largest flyer was Renee’s
shuttle stood dominantly in the middle of the spacious room. To the
port side of the ship were the three fighters given to the Hunters.
Each were near identical cutters with sharper angles, narrower
sides and had wings which carried psionic cannons. Above the
cockpit was a single angled mast that would allow for aerodynamic
flight and speed.

But now there sat a fifth ship. To the
starboard of the shuttle was a slightly larger fighter than the one
which the other Hunters flew. Instead of a single angled sail, this
one had a double solar sail that attached to a clear fin above the
cockpit to double as a mast. It had cannons underneath wider wings
that looked more like wooden barrels that were three meters long
and would act like stabilizers should a water landing be necessary.
Three legs acted as landing gear for the sharply angled ship.

Right away Oliver’s mind brought up exactly
what kind of personal ship stood there. “A Flare? I thought only
three prototypes were ever made.”

“
Told you I’d want it.”
Steven chuckled.

“
Captain Dorgen has gifted
it to you,” Stone said as they all crossed the hanger’s expanse.
“but it has sat in his personal storage for three centuries and was
in need of serious repair. The three of us spent our free time
working on this beauty making her flight worthy. It needed a new
sapphire cockpit shield. We had to break or more accurately shatter
and wait as it took the ship two weeks to remake to our own
specifications. The sublight engines were murder to flush out the
dust, mold and other debris. It needed new seals for airtight space
travel too. Only the frame lived up to the durability to not need
any repair as it sat collecting dust. Deegen remodeled the sails.
Steven reconfigured the flight controls and I worked on the engines
and cannons to be twelve percent more efficient.”

“
But wasn’t the Flare
fighter model an original eighth generation prototype that failed
Empire safety standards? It was scrapped for another cutter class
fighter called the Barracuda if I remember correctly.” Oliver
recalled and laid his hands on the yellowish wooden
ship.

Visor glided off Steven’s shoulder and landed
on one of the yellowed wings that would act as a step to climb into
the double person fighter. It had two seats that could fold into a
bed, but the passenger seat had no ability to control the fighter.
The Golden Eagle clicked his beak out of habit before saying
“Correct. The only reason the Barracuda replaced the Flare is
because of over-sensitive fight controls. The shape allows for
acceleration like our Seeker fighters, but no one has come close to
duplicating a fighter with the maneuverability to bring out the
Flare’s potential. No one except the one percent of ace pilots
could keep up with its sudden turns and gravity alterations for
long. It gave even those pilots mental fatigue after just two
minutes. If anyone could ever fly this then no single ship made by
human hands could ever match this prototype.”

“
Except you I’ll wager.”
Steven said from behind his bird. “The captain learned I gave you
my flight simulator programs and after you scared the living hell
out of me, when you beat
my
top scores, he showed me the cutter of my wettest
dreams. Everyone knows Captain Dorgen has a hard-on for everything
pirate related of Earth back in the fourteen to eighteen hundreds,
but not even I knew he got his hands on a
Flare
. I’d give my left nut to own
one, but after doing a few preliminary checks I found out why it
never left the prototype phase. The speed and maneuverability makes
normal people see little more than a blur. Only excellent minds can
keep up. Minds
and
freakish reflexes.”

“
In other words my reflexes
would be able to keep up.” Oliver stated rather than questioned,
his amber gaze taking in the personal fighter.

“
Pretty much, Brother.”
Stone too could not help lusting after something so beautiful and
deadly. Every Hunter’s desire. “Deegen’s solar sail design was
selected for optimum capture of stellar photons. Steven calibrated
and made sure the dampeners are fully functional so you won’t feel
any acceleration or changes in momentum during high speed turns. In
the weeks we had fixing this beautiful piece of work we’ve only
been unable to test out the thrusters to full
capability.”

“
Roh, and Ressica rupdated
the gright comruter and reen display rince the original comruter
was three renturies rold after all.” Bell barked as her paws pushed
on other side to look over. Even her big yellow eyes liked the
cutter.

It was impossible not to take in every
smoothly sharp angle for the sleek Flare. The bow of the ship had a
curved edge resembling a blade. Its narrow design was perfect for
parting waves as well as air. Soft yellow wood was seamless, but
tough, being manipulated and reinforced with gemstone technology.
Sapphire without impurity was clear as diamond and was tough enough
to withstand most damage meaning it was perfect for the windshield
cockpit that covered everything.