Elora just stood there a moment, grinning and shaking her head, Ethan laughing with amusement beside her.
As everyone began to board, Jarred pointed to Ethan. “Your move,” he said, tossing him the remote.
Ethan caught the device and smiled broadly as Jarred mussed his already unruly head of hair, giving him a little push up the ramp before following after.
Quickly passing through the ship’s spacious hold, keeping an eye out for any unexpected sentries onboard, Jarred entered the flight deck and moved into the pilot’s seat, situated near the front of the large cockpit.
“If you want to find your seats,” he suggested, “we’re going to be leaving in a bit of a hurry.”
He immediately began flicking switches, prepping the ship for a quick take off, the others all finding a place to sit. Ethan jumped into the copilot’s seat, stationed next to and just behind Jarred’s, watching his every move.
He looked over at the boy and couldn’t help but smile at his enthusiasm. He’d seen the same look many times on the faces of grown men, in love with their ships and the freedom that came with flying them.
“Buckle up, partner,” he suggested to Ethan, watching the boy as he did so while grinning ear to ear.
Jarred turned back to the controls and fired up the engines. They purred to life and he could feel their gentle vibration through the soft, cushioned surface of his flight seat. Not the uncomfortable gyration he used to feel in his old freighter, its constant rumbling that could turn the strongest of stomachs.
Taliss was really going to miss this ship.
He almost felt guilty for stealing it.
Almost.
He piloted the ship out of the hangar’s opening and engaged its forward thrusters, receiving a thunderous roar from the powerful twin engines in response. Somehow, over the ship’s booming thrusters, he thought he could make out a faint cry of outrage coming from the dock below.
Jarred couldn’t help but grin as he punched the drive hard and drove the sleek craft up and away from the docking port, towards the cold void that waited beyond the moon’s atmosphere, bound for the planet that would be the last stop in this little misadventure.
He could only hope.
Chapter 8
SPACE, NEARING SOLTA
Dark and infinite, the utter vastness of space was beyond anything Ethan could have ever imagined, and he had spent a fair amount of time doing just that. Yet, none of the countless stills or video recordings he had endlessly examined and committed to memory could have prepared him for the overwhelming sense of smallness he now felt as they passed through the seemingly eternal black void. Not even the virtual environments created in the various flight simulators he had played had come close to accurately conveying its dizzying scope.
Gazing out into the surrounding star field from his seat on the flight deck, he found himself only the slightest bit disappointed, or more yet disillusioned, with what he had imagined hurtling through space at unimaginable speeds would look like. Without any fixed objects to measure their momentum against, it was nearly impossible to tell they were moving at all. They
were
moving though, and quite quickly at that, this amazing ship bringing them ever closer to their destination. Another place he had only dreamed of going. Turning to look through the front viewport, he watched Solta growing slowly larger directly ahead of them as they approached it.
Solta was supposed to be one of the largest moons in the system, their destination, Trycon City, taking up nearly half of its surface area. Ethan had been to a lot of cities, mostly in their sprawls, but never to one the size of Trycon. Elora said that it was a place where they could build a life.
Rebuild
a life. After their father had been taken and their home destroyed, they had been left to fend for themselves, becoming refugees. Elora had assumed the role of parent. Sometimes his sister’s over protectiveness was irritating, but he understood where it came from. It had been four years since that day when the slavers had come, but the memory hadn’t diminished. He didn’t tell Elora, but sometimes he still had dreams about it. Nightmares really. Losing his father had hurt more than anything he had ever felt and the hole was still there inside of him. He guessed it always would be. As difficult as it was for him, he knew it was much worse for her. She had lost both parents.
Ethan had never known his mother. She died giving birth to him. For as long as he had been old enough to understand the circumstances of her death, he had felt responsible for it. He didn’t tell Elora about that either. The guilt was his to carry with him. A dull, but constant ache that he kept buried deep inside, next to the spot his father had left.
He had flipped through still albums and watched video streams over and over when he was younger, memorizing the soft lines of his mother’s face and the gentle sound of her voice. Trying desperately to know the woman who had given him life in exchange for her own. They had all bin lost in the raid. All but one. A single image he kept close to him at all times, secretly fearful that if he were to lose it, he might forget her all together.
Sliding a hand into his tunic pocket, he retrieved the small, saucer shaped keepsake and held it out in front of himself, depressing its actuator. A miniature figure appeared from the device’s aperture. Ethan stared at the holographic image of his mother, as he did quite often. She had been a beautiful woman, looking very much as Elora did now. She was looking off to one side, as if daydreaming, her shimmering brown hair cascading down her back. Ethan let his eyes trail down to where her hands were resting over her rounded stomach. He often wondered if she had been thinking about him at that moment in time when the holo was taken. If so, then maybe when he looked at the image of her, perhaps somehow . . . somewhere between the fabric of time and space, they were both thinking of each other.
Ethan deactivated the holoprojector and slid it back into his pocket, returning his attention to the front viewport. He was beginning to see other starships now as they neared the moon, the small glimmering specs of light moving in slow orbits around it. He eyed Jarred’s hands at the helm, observing every adjustment he made and taking mental notes on which controls activated what systems.
Jarred was living the life that Ethan had always dreamed of having. Wandering the universe, free to go wherever he wanted, hunting criminals and scoundrels for profit, answering to no one but himself. His life seemed like the accumulation of so many of the adventures he had played out in his mind while gazing up at the stars. He knew that everyday life for Jarred probably wasn’t quite as exciting as the last two had been, though it was fun to imagine otherwise, but it was still a free life of his own choosing and that was what Ethan envied most about him.
As if having sensed Ethan staring at him, Jarred glanced back over his shoulder and grinned, regarding him for a moment. “This is your first time flying up front, right?”
“Yes,” Ethan answered, unable to hide his enthusiasm.
“Yeah, I thought so. You’ve got that look in your eye.”
“What look?”
“That look every spacer gets the first time they lay their eyes on open stars.” Jarred let his gaze move across the sectioned viewports, as if to emphasize his point.
“But, I’m not a spacer. I’ve never even piloted anything aside from my father’s old repulser sled.”
Jarred gave him a lopsided grin. “That doesn’t matter. Every pilot has to have a first flight. Besides, you don’t
become
a spacer. You’re
born
one. You can always tell a spacer by the way they’re always looking up . . . like that’s where they belong.”
Ethan smiled ear to ear. “So, I guess
you’re
a spacer?”
“Me?” Jarred shook his head. “No. I’m a fair pilot, but I don’t have the spacer blood. I like my feet on the ground too much. Some people are just born for the stars.”
Ethan’s face was almost beginning to hurt from the full on grin he had. The flight deck hatch hissed open and he turned to see his sister pass through it, returning the excited smile he gave her and rustling a hand through his hair before taking up a seat on the opposite side of the deck from him.
“How’s the fortune teller doing?” Jarred asked, turning to face Elora.
“Her usual sedate self,” she answered, looking back and forth between Jarred and Ethan, curiously. “What were you two talking about?”
“Just guy talk,” Jarred answered, giving Ethan a wink. “You wouldn’t be interested.”
“Fine,” Elora retorted, playfully. “Be that way.”
The comm chimed to life and Ethan sat up expectantly, waiting to hear the voice of a dispatcher with instructions for descent. When none came he noticed Jarred’s attention on one of the helm’s monitors and leaned forward to see if he could make out what was being displayed.
“What is it?” Elora asked before he could.
“Automated orbital instructions,” Jarred answered, casually. “Entry windows are backed up with heavy traffic. We’ll have to get in line.” Altering their course, he vectored them in towards a series of orbital pathways, each one marked by a pair of parallel strings of red beacons and congested with a steady stream of slow moving vessels. Slowing their momentum, he maneuvered into one of the lit pathways, and pulling in about a kilometer back from a large bulk freighter ahead of them, set the ship into a steady orbit.
Ethan took account as Jarred began flicking a number of switches, cutting power to the engines, their constant but steady hum and vibration fading away, leaving them all to sit in relative silence. He then stood up and walked over to the seat beside Ethan’s, sitting down and taking up the sealed plate of Mr. Kim’s take-out resting on the control console. Cracking its lid, steam rose from the plate, filling the flight deck with the sweet aromas of its contents. Jarred grinned and dug into it with its accompanying set of chopsticks.
“How long will we have to wait?” Elora asked, expectantly.
“Hard to say,” Jarred answered, taking a bite of the food from his plate. “A few hours maybe.”
“Hours?” Elora exclaimed.
“Yeah, hours. This isn’t some backwater hole in the middle of nowhere. Solta’s a busy place. Lots of people coming and going. It could take a while. I would get comfortable.” Jarred put his feet up on the console, sitting back in his seat as he continued to eat, Elora giving him an annoyed look.
“Hey, kid,” Jarred called forward and Ethan turned to face him, expectantly. “Do me a favor. See that transponder card sitting on the comm station over there?”
Ethan turned to face the direction Jarred was gesturing and saw the card he was talking about.
“The transponder card reader is just above the comm there,” Jarred continued between mouthfuls of food while nodding towards the comm terminal. “Pull the old one out and slide the new one in. We won’t get very far still broadcasting as the
Taliss Runner
.”
Ethan jumped up from his seat and ran over to the comm station, picking up the transponder card. Glancing around the comm controls, he quickly found the card reader, and depressing a button next to the reader slot, a card popped out. He removed it and slid the new card in. It clicked into place, sounding an affirming beep tone.
“And that’s that,” Jarred said, taking another bite from his plate. Ethan beamed and moved back to his seat.
“Oh, that’s it, is it?” Elora mocked from her seat. “Now that we’ve changed that little card, that crime lord, who’s ship this is, and his army of thugs will never find us.”
Jarred looked at Ethan as he continued eating. “Is she always this positive?”
Ethan grinned and turned to look out his viewport, watching the congested lines of orbital traffic waiting to enter atmosphere. The lanes were filled with various makes and models of small and medium size personal transports like the one they were in, most of which he could name off in his head, along with countless bulky commercial freighters, cargo haulers, even a passenger liner. One vessel in particular caught his attention, as he couldn’t identify its make, holding a position outside of the orbital pathways. It was a medium sized transport, militaristic in its purely functional appearance, though it resembled nothing he had seen in the Sect fleet. Their orbital rotation taking them away from the static vessel, it eventually disappeared beyond the edge of the viewport. Returning his attention to the rest of the orbital traffic, Ethan made a mental note to look the vessel up the next chance he got.
* * *
Various transports floated in orderly lines far above the surface of Solta, small slivers of metal orbiting the large moon, which was itself, dwarfed before the mammoth shadow of its ringed parent world, the gas giant, Turaus.
Suitably named for their War God, the massive world was a symbol of His warrior strength, its planetary ring, a great shield against attack, its size seconded to only Ushala, named for the Creator, who had forged the very Universe. Early Rai Chi had believed the planets and stars themselves were the Gods and not only symbolic representations of Them. Some believed that the Gods ruled on high from Their place in the Next World, a realm separate from that of the living that one crossed over to upon death, while still others believed that They existed in physical form on this plain, supernatural beings of great power that interacted directly with mortals. And some believed both.