Starfire (31 page)

He slid his hand off the crook down the shaft to the uppermost set of grip ridges, with the open end of the crook facing downward. “Now your attacker is coming toward you, and you see him, so you take this position, which we call ‘regrip,' the yellow light. The crook of the cane is in front of you, and you are holding the upper grip. The crook is facing downward. This is the second warning. To a casual observer or adversary this may not seem like a warning position.

“From here, there are a number of things you can do,” Ratel went on. “The easiest, of course, is to use the cane to keep someone away simply by poking at him.” He took a couple stabs at a mannequin that had been stationed nearby. “These, along with verbal warnings, are usually effective enough to deter an aggressive panhandler or young would-be robber. Obviously, with the adversaries we are preparing for, that would probably not be enough. I will teach you later on how to counter someone who grabs your cane.

“From the ‘regrip' position, if you are attacked with fists or a knife, you swing the cane from the outside, striking your attacker's arms between the wrist and elbow, as hard as you can. That twists his body away from you, and you have the advantage. You can strike with the crook on his knee, hip, or groin. Be warned, a blow to the head with the crook of the cane will probably kill or seriously wound. Killing in self-defense is permissible, but exactly what is ‘self-defense' is debatable in a court of law. Defend yourself at all times, but always be aware that your actions have consequences.”

Ratel had Brad practice the moves against the mannequin, doing each move on Ratel's orders, increasing speed as they went. Soon sweat was glistening on Brad's forehead. After just a few seconds of practice, Brad's arms were definitely getting weary. “Break,” Ratel said finally. “Once we build up those arms and shoulders, you should be able to both speed up and increase your hitting power.”

“But I won't be hitting an opponent for a long time, will I, Chief?” Brad asked.

“Our objective is to build up muscle memory so your moves become second nature,” Ratel said. “It'll take time and practice.” He motioned Brad away from the mannequin, then assumed the green-light position with both hands on top of the crook. He then assumed the yellow-light position, and then the red-light position with a loud
“Stop!”
command, the cane held out straight at the mannequin. The next instant the cane was nothing but a blur of motion as Ratel pummeled the mannequin from seemingly every possible angle, striking for an entire minute before assuming the three stances all the way to the relaxed green-light position.

“Holy crap,” Brad exclaimed. “Incredible!”

“There are more strikes and techniques we will learn,” Ratel said. “Until then, your primary assignment is to simply get accustomed to carrying the cane. That is the hardest task for new Cane-Ja students. You must learn the best place to keep it when it's not in use, remember to retrieve it after you set it on a bus or car seat, and always keep it with you. I guarantee, you'll lose your cane more than once. Try not to.”

“Yes, Chief,” Brad said. Ratel had Brad practice the swinging and striking moves on the mannequin until their session was up; then Brad changed back into his workout clothes, left the
beol
in a small storage box in the
dojang,
and headed back to Cal Poly.

Finals week was fast approaching, so after a quick shower and a change of clothes, Brad headed over to Kennedy Library to study. He found a desk, plugged his laptop in, and started going over lecture notes and PowerPoint slides provided to him by his professors. He had been at it for about an hour when Jodie Cavendish walked up to him. “Hello, mate,” she greeted him. “Well well, look at the conchy. Thought I'd find you here. Ready for a smoko?”

“I don't know what you just called me,” Brad said, “but I'm hoping it's something good.”

“Just that you're a hardworking dude, and I think it's time for a coffee break.”

“Then I'm in.” Brad locked his computer up in a small cabinet next to the desk and stood up to follow Jodie.

“Do you need to take that?” she asked, motioning back to the desk.

Brad turned and saw that he had left the cane at the desk. “Oh . . . yeah,” he said, and they headed to the stairs. “I knew I'd forget it.”

As they went downstairs, Jodie noticed that Brad really wasn't using the cane to help him walk. “What's the cane for, mate?” she asked. “You look like you're moving fine to me.”

“I still get a tiny bit dizzy once in a while, so I thought I'd carry it,” Brad lied.

“But you're still on the bike and jogging, aren't you?”

“Yes,” Brad said. “I don't need it all the time. In fact, I mostly need it just standing still.”

“I hope nothing's wrong with your noggin, mate,” Jodie said. “The bruise has gone away, finally, but maybe you're still affected by the whack.”

“I've had an MRI done, and they found nothing,” Brad said. He tapped his head and added, “In fact, they
literally
found nothing.” Jodie laughed at the joke and changed the subject, and Brad was happy about that. Maybe it was time to ditch the cane, he thought. Chief Ratel said he was going to start unarmed martial-arts training soon, and when he got as good with that as he was getting with Cane-Ja, maybe the cane wouldn't have to be with him all the time.

The coffee shop on the first floor was almost as crowded as it was in the daytime, and they had to take their coffee outdoors. Fortunately, the early-evening weather was ideal. “How's the studying going?” Brad asked after they found a bench.

“It's apples,” Jodie said. “I can't believe I used to study for finals without a laptop computer and all my professors' PowerPoint presentation slides—I actually relied on my own notes to pass finals back then! Insane!”

“Same with me,” Brad admitted. “I take lousy notes.” His cell phone beeped, indicating he had a message, and he looked at the number. “Someone in Administration, but I don't recognize it. Wonder what's going on?”

“Why are they calling so late?” Jodie wondered aloud. “Better return the call.”

Brad tapped the number on the smartphone and waited. “Hello, this is Brad McLanahan, returning a call from a few minutes ago. I just picked up the message . . . who? President Harris? You mean, the
university
president? Yes, of course I'll hold for him.”

“What?” Jodie asked. “President Harris wants to talk to you?”

“Maybe this is what we've been waiting for, Jodie,” Brad said. “Yes . . . yes, this is he . . . yes, sir, in fact, I'm here with one of the team leaders . . . yes, sir, thank you.” He tapped the screen and put the call on speakerphone. “I'm here with Jodie Cavendish, sir.”

“Good evening to both of you,” university president Marcus Harris said. “I have good news. The news actually came in about a week ago, but we have just finalized the agreement and signed the papers. Your Starfire project was one of three projects selected for research and development funding by Sky Masters Aerospace. Congratulations.” Jodie and Brad jumped to their feet, Jodie let out a yelp of glee, and she and Brad hugged each other. Harris let them celebrate for a few moments, then said, “But that's not all.”

The students sat down. “Sir?”

“I am also pleased to tell you that your project received half of the Sky Masters Aerospace grant money—twenty-five million dollars,” Harris went on. “That makes Starfire the highest-awarded undergraduate aerospace engineering research project in the history of Cal Poly.”

“Twenty-five million dollars?”
Jodie exclaimed. “I don't believe it!”

“Congratulations, you two,” Harris said. “Brad, find a time when your entire team can get together as soon as possible, call my office, and set up a time for a press conference. I know we're coming up on finals, and I don't want to take too much of your time, but we want to make a huge splash about this before everyone takes off for the summer.”

“Yes, sir!” Brad said. “I'll contact everyone tonight. We usually have a team meeting every day at eleven
A
.
M
., so that might be the best time tomorrow.”

“Perfect,” Harris said, his voice sounding more and more excited by the second. “I'll get your schedules and drop e-mails to your professors telling them you will be late for class, because I'm sure the presser and photo ops will take some time. We're going to go international with this one, guys, and we're looking to break more funding records with it. Wear something nice. Congratulations again. Oh, one more thing, as long as I have Miss Cavendish on the line.”

“Sir?”

“Miss Cavendish has been awarded a full scholarship to Cal Poly to finish her undergraduate degree, including tuition, books, fees, and housing,” Harris said. “We can't have one of our best undergraduate students leave when she was so instrumental in getting such a large grant, now, can we? I hope you'll accept, Miss Cavendish.”

“Of course I will, sir!” Jodie cried in stunned glee. “Of course I accept!”

“Excellent,” Harris said. “Congratulations to the entire Starfire team. Well done. Good night, Mustangs.” And the connection was broken.

“I don't friggin' believe this!”
Brad exclaimed after he hung up. “Twenty-five million bucks just dropped in our lap!” He gave Jodie a big hug. “It's unbelievable! And you got the scholarship you were looking for! Congratulations!”

“It's all because of you, mate,” Jodie said. “You're the jackaroo. You're
my
jackaroo.” And Jodie put her hands on Brad's face and gave him a big, deep kiss on the lips.

Brad savored every moment of that kiss, pulled back, then gave her one in return. When they parted after the kiss, Brad's eyes were telling Jodie something, something powerful and incredibly personal, and her eyes were immediately saying yes. But to her dismay, she heard Brad say, “I'd better contact the others. Tomorrow will be a big day.”

“Yes,” Jodie said. She was content, at least for the moment, to put an arm around Brad and sip her coffee while he texted on his phone.

Brad contacted the entire team leadership by text messaging, then included the Cal Poly engineers, professors, and students who had helped with the project, then decided to include anyone who helped with the project who was within a couple hours' driving distance of the university, as far away as Stanford and USC—he was determined to fill that press conference room with Starfire supporters. When he was done with that, he decided to text anyone who had supported the project, whether or not they could possibly make the press conference—everyone associated with the project should be aware of the presser and the impending worldwide publicity, he thought. Anyone associated with this project should not hear about the grant from anyone else but the team leader.

He read off all the text acknowledgents to Jodie, save one. It was the only Central Asia country code in all the messages he received, and it was from Kazakhstan, which had no Starfire contributors. The message read simply,
Congratulations. D.

When Brad put the phone keypad letters against the numbers that appeared on the message screen, the sender's name spelled
Resurrection
.

It was a few days later, and the weather, which had been outstanding during most of April, still couldn't completely shrug off winter, so they had days of rather cold, damp mist and rain. For the past three days, Brad had taken the bus instead of riding his bicycle. It was an enjoyable and relaxing trek to the
dojang
south of the city: an easy jog from Poly Canyon to the Route 6B bus stop near the Kennedy Library; an easy seven-minute bus ride to the Downtown Transit Center; switch to the Route 3 bus line; a longer twenty-minute bus ride to Marigold Shopping Center; and then another easy run from there down Tank Farm Road to the
dojang,
which was just north of the airport. He had lots of time to do some reading or listen to audiobooks or lecture recordings on his tablet computer. Brad wished he could take the bus all the time—it was free for Cal Poly students—but he wanted the exercise, so he stuck with it whenever the weather was cooperative.

The week had started, along with the rain, with an introduction to Krav Maga. “Krav Maga was developed in Israel for the military,” James Ratel had begun last Monday afternoon. “It is not a discipline, like karate or judo; it is not a sport, and will never be in the Olympics or on television. Krav Maga has three basic objectives: neutralize the attack through the use of arm and hand locks and parries, being careful to protect yourself; go from defense to offense as quickly as possible; and quickly neutralize the attacker by manipulating joints and attacking vulnerable spots on the body, using any tools that might be handy. We are assuming you have broken or misplaced your cane, so now you are left with having to defend yourself without a weapon and probably against a very angry attacker.

“Some teachers will tell their students that the amount of force needed to neutralize an attacker should be proportional to the force of the attack, which means, for example, you would use less force on an attacker that uses his fist than on an attacker with a bat or knife,” Ratel went on. “I do not believe in that. Your objective is to put the attacker down so you can escape. In training, you will do three blows to demonstrate you can do them, but on the street you continue to attack until your attacker goes down. Forget all the Bruce Lee movies you've ever seen: it's not one parry, one blow, and then let the guy get up to go after you again. Once you've blocked or locked up the attacker, you keep attacking his soft vulnerable spots and joints until he goes down, and then you run like hell and get away from the situation as quickly as possible. Understand?”