Voyage of the Dawn Rider

Chapter 9

Voyage of the Dawn Rider 7.

"So these creatures are what you humans suspect of taking your people?" asked Magiere. "They are," replied the doctor. "Furthermore…We have the body of one in cold storage." All of us looked at him in astonishment, "does my mother know of this, or Kolee or Trueblood?" Doctor Dall hung his head, "No, they do not, and I am breaking security by even telling you, however I have been giving it much thought since my son and I have boarded your vessel. Even though we have only been aboard a short time, many of the preconceived notions and prejudices' have gone by the wayside captain. There are photographs of this creature but I was not permitted to bring them, I'm ashamed for my country but meeting all of you, especially the delightful Elansa I can no longer keep any secrets, my son's life also hangs in the balance as well, no more secrets captain, we must truly get to the bottom of this." "Where did they find this creature," I asked. "We think one of them snuck off one of their vessel's while it was on the ground unbeknownst to it's companions, then got left behind where it was cornered in a barn and shot. A report was prepared detailing its anatomy, and while I could not bring that report as well. I'm familiar enough with it to be able to recreate it, Elansa has agreed to assist me utilizing one of these fabulous devices you call a computer. We should have something for you in a day or two captain." "That would be a great start doctor; we're kind of running light on solid data, searching for mysteries without any clues."

As the time passed, I started to see a real bonding aboard the Dawn Rider, indeed, doctor Dall and Elansa teamed up and produced a fairly detailed report mostly from notes and memory, I think at one point Elansa induced the doctor into a semi-trance probing his mind for facts and details his subconscious retained. One thing was for sure, he was able to improve on the drawing, giving us a better picture of what we might be up against. I also witnessed something else rather interesting, and that was Keith sitting at the dining table cleaning his handgun, but I also noticed Nessa sitting on a folded rag watching him. "I see you have a friend Lieutenant?" He smiled as he looked at Nessa, "I've grown rather fond of her captain, she sits and watches ask me questions, I answer. Nessa may be small, but she's quite a companion." He was working on a rather interesting sidearm, so I asked, "Rather interesting sidearm you have there Lieutenant?" "It's not regulation, it's my own personal weapon, it's a Parker, as soon as I get it back together, I'll let you hold it. .44 caliber so it's not a light weapon, it also takes a lot of practice to master, five chambers and one 20-gage shotgun chamber. When you hit someone or something with this, they go down, like right now! The 20 gage shells are loaded with fleshette's, razor sharp and needle-like steel pins that make one hell of a mess going through just about anything. Of the guns I own, I decided this was the one that might come in the handiest."

When he finished putting it back together, he let me hold it. No doubt about it, these humans knew how to make a true death bringer. When he showed it to Spanner, I could see the drool just roll out of Spanner's mouth. He defiantly had to have one. I also observed Keith and Magiere sitting together on more than one occasion in the cargo area, a subject I broached with her when we were alone at the helm one evening. "I see you've made up with doctor Dall's son Keith." Magiere shrugged, "I find him rather charming really, he's not like some of these half-wit princes I've been subjected to. He's simply fascinated by us Elves, and is more comfortable talking about me rather than himself all the time." She then looked at me, "You're jealous aren't you?" I shrugged, "Maybe a little, you've got to admit, having a real live princess as your pilot would tend to make anyone jealous." "Well we're just crewmates at this point captain, like I said, he's a refreshing break from what I'm used to." "What do you two talk about?" I got that "look" again, "Mostly about life on Isseth, he wants to visit so bad he can taste it, I told him that if we come out of this thing in one piece, both he and his father will get a royal invitation for a two week stay at the palace, but that he'd better dust off his "dancing" shoes, and break out the formal wear, because it would be one nonstop party." I laughed with that thought in my mind. "Do you two talk much about this mission?" Magiere nodded, "Yes, he tells me they're as worried about these creatures on Pyrra as much as we are, I told him all about Ogres and the wars we fought with them centuries ago, and in a way I wish I hadn't, I really alarmed him with that. The Pyrrians think all they might have to contend with is these strange looking beings, I told him they might have to deal with super Ogres as well." We continued to talk about the humans for a little while longer until Magiere left to get some sleep before her next duty. I was concentrating on flying, and almost didn't see the fluttering over my head, "Good evening Nessa, have a seat." She dropped down to the right consol, where I had positioned my hat, using it as a recliner. "So how's our favorite Pixie tonight?" "Flattery will get you nowhere captain." I chuckled, "Oh I know that, so tell me how are you getting along with the humans?" "Um, I haven't quite made up my mind yet, both are very polite to me, actually in awe, so I've been using that to my advantage," said the thought in my head. (Pixie giggle) "The old man always wants to ask me boring questions, his son…Not so much, if fact, if he's reading something, he'll read aloud if I ask him." "Well that's nice of him," I said. "I think he and Magiere have a "thing" going, I see them sitting together a lot lately." "Are you spying on them Nessa?" (Pixie Giggle) "Who, me? Besides, that's what we pixies were born to do, encourage young love." "Ah I think you've got that duty mixed up with another…Well I can't think of it right at the moment." I noticed on the long range scanner what appeared to be a large meteorite, well ahead of us, on a hunch, I said, "Nessa, would you mind hopping up to your little chair up there and watching the scanner, I'm going to hit it with the scan, see if anything jumps out at you."

No sooner had I started scanning the meteorite, than Nessa squeaked, "Something flashed." Immediately I sounded battle stations, and threw up the shields. Shouting into my comm mic "Battle Stations, Battle Stations, Everybody to their stations!" Magiere came pounding up half dressed, and threw herself into the pilots seat, as I switched over to the co-pilot and fire control seat. "Nessa spotted something behind that meteorite coming up!" No sooner had I said that then a spacecraft came boiling out guns blazing. Nessa had given me all the edge I needed however. Magiere immediately went into evasive maneuvers, going into a "twist tail spin" trying to out maneuver the other craft. I kept my eye on the shields, as well as any potential damage reports coming in from Spanner. Magiere wasn't saying anything, concentrating on getting off a first shot. "Hang on tight Nessa, things are gonna get real rough from here on out," I announced. Magiere continued to push our ship to it's limits, finally we lined up on it for a second, but that was all she needed, a quick burst from our Photon cannons caught the enemy craft at just the right point, causing it to explode. "Good work Lieutenant," I said "You too Nessa, I was right in having you watch that screen." "You're quite welcome!" came the reply in my head. "Lieutenant," I said, "Any chance there's enough of that craft, we could grab onto and do a little "looting."

"I don't know, captain," replied Magiere, "wait a minute, look there, that piece looks like it may have been the bridge section." "Spanner, get up here, I need a second opinion," I spoke over my mic. "What do you have in mind captain?" asked Magiere. "There's a possibility we can find out who or what we're up against, plus, I'd like to see if we can't grab some of their computer data." Spanner came running up to where Magiere and I were sitting. "What's up captain?" "Spanner, take a look at that larger piece of the fighter we just hit, any chance we can get close enough to see who's flying it, and possibly download their computer data." Magiere kept moving us closer to the piece of the destroyed enemy fighter as Spanner studied the screen. "We could shoot a couple grappling hooks on to it, I'll go over and check things out, but I want the Lieutenant here covering us in the pup just in case," said Spanner. I though about it for a moment, then said, Lieutenant, get out there in the pup, keep a watch, Spanner, suit up, Nessa, keep your eyes glued to that screen. Oh Spanner, activate a vidcam on your helmet I want to see everything your seeing, and get Keith to help you at the air lock." "I'm on it cap!" Said Spanner as he dashed out I slid back over into Magiere's chair as she got up to head for the aux fighter. "I don't like this captain, they may have alerted their base wherever that might be," observed the princess. "I'm quite aware of that lieutenant, the quicker we get this done, the quicker we can leave, but I want answers." Before long, Keith drifted up to the bridge, "You really shouldn't be here Lieutenant, but I'll let it pass for now, just be ready to assist Spanner at the airlock when her returns," I said." "Thank you sir, as soon as he starts back I'll get right down there." Magiere kept up her patrol while Nessa kept her tiny eyes glued to the scanner screen. I watched as Spanner used a jet pack to shoot over to the space debris, and attach a safety cable. "We certainly did a job on this thing cap!" remarked Spanner. "I know you always are, but be extremely careful over there Spanner, no doubt that twisted metal is razor sharp and jagged." Spanner had a portable torch, which he used to cut an opening in the wreckage. "Going in cap." We watched as the view from his vidcam showed just how bad things were ripped up. The forward section seemed to be intact. Suddenly Spanner turned his head revealing two bodies, "What do we have there Spanner?" I asked. The camera jiggled around as Spanner moved into a better position. He finally stood still long enough for us to get a better look. "These look like our boys.," said Spanner. "Do you think you could grab one and bring him along?" The "aliens" appeared to be in metallic looking space suits, dead because they didn't have their helmets on when the hull was breeched. "Pop the helmet on the one you bring, also look around for any hand held weapons as well as any data storage chips, crystals or actually anything that looks like it might have the ships mainframe data on it," I asked. We watched as Spanner found a helmet, placed it on one of the dead aliens and moved the body towards the opening. "One thing's for sure cap! These fellows don't weigh anything." Spanners camera kept moving around until he focused it on a small handheld device. "Think this is a weapon cap?" "Could be, just be careful with it," I replied.

I watched as the helmet cam focused on a metal chest on the floor, as I heard Spanner mumble, "What do we have here?" His hand opened the chest revealing four handguns inside; Spanner immediately scooped them up, and placed them in a recovery bag he was carrying. "See anything that looks like the ships main computer chief?" "I'm looking, but with no power nothing is lit up so it's hard to…Wait, hold on. What do we have here?" Spanner shined his pocket nucleo-lamp on a large panel. There seemed to be six square tiles spaced evenly in the middle of the unlit panel. "What about that large panel on you're right there?" I observed. I could see his suited arms and hands probing around the large panel. "What's he doing?" asked Lieutenant Dall. "Trying to locate the ships main computer," I replied. "If he can recover any data storage devices, we might be able to get a better idea of who we're up against and what their capabilities are." Suddenly Spanners hand pulled out one of the tiles. "Hello!" Announced Spanner, "Looks like this might be what we're looking for. Captain, rather than just grabbing the tiles, maybe I'd better take their docking hardware?" "Think you can get it all right," I asked. "No problem Captain," and with that, he proceeded to take his plasma torch and make four cuts, quickly removing the whole face of the panel. "Simple captain, now with your permission, I've got a full load here, I'm on my way back." "Be careful chief, we'll see you when you get back." I turned to Keith, " get down there and help him, oh, and tell Elansa and your father the chief is bringing them a "present." When I saw that the chief was safely back to our ship, I hailed Magiere, and told her to return. 'The chief's back Magiere; get yourself back here as well." "Copy that, captain, I'm coming around for my approach."