Soul of the Swordsman Read online

  “Patience noble Swordsman—clasp your fleeting calm my hero,” he spoke and Danica lost her breath.

  In the expansive study, the reverent man spoke kindly.

  “Girls, there are a great many dimensions of existence. This solar system is represented innumerable times in countless ways, the people almost always the same, situations slightly different. On one Aleutha, Ana swallows us whole when a planetoid careens into our far side, sending this wonderful moon into the helium and hydrogen bands in a cataclysmic event you cannot fathom,” the man closed his eyes for a moment. “The three of us rode it out together, holding hands as Ana consumed us…”

  A tear fell down his cheek.

  “I have been able to manifest physically now in more than one hundred dimensions, and I am getting much better at it.”

  “Daddy, that’s crazy. In meditations, maybe, just visions, but what you’re talking about is…”

  Caelum held a hand up.

  “You do not understand this, yet, but the Swordsman knows. Danica, there is a problem I wish to correct—a malfeasance needing tending, you see, in every reality, British dies at the age of twenty seven. I’d like to break that cycle and I need your hands to do it Swordsman—will you help me save her?”

  Danica’s crystalline blues were already welling with tears as she nodded yes, of course—of course she would.

  “I love her more than life itself Sir. British is far too special, too wonderful to die.”

  Brey scoffed.

  “You are both aware that I frequently kill a lot of people? Like bunches—several thousand, plus three just for the ride here, a rather bit of a busy day, but still! I think the overall mortem-tally speaks for itself to the negative, eh?”

  Danica Warfell and Caelum Fovea moved their eyes to Brey, shaking heads side to side.

  “Is she a wealthy, fighting savant in this world too?” Danica had to ask, but she already knew.

  “Every one of them Swordsman—every single one.”

  “How old are you right now Brey?” Warfell looked the girl in the eye.

  “Just turned twenty sev… Aawww C’MON!”

  “So, if I can save her in one dimension, this will correct the other timelines?” Danica was never a philosopher, not by far.

  “Well, first we have to stop thinking of each reality as a predetermined path or a linear arrow of events. The trajectories of the dimensions pulse and vibrate with continual change—each micro-event adding its weight towards an indeterminable, non-existent destination. We are altering this timeline or reality right now with our simple conversation. So is Robert in the living room, watching the fights on screen.”

  “I don’t understand,” Warfell almost did, but holding Caelum’s gaze for a long moment finally revealed the sad truth…

  “We can only save one,” she whispered as the wise man closed his eyes.

  “What about saving this one right here? I must be the cutest,” Brey was not kidding.

  “I would take any one of you, but it would be wonderful to go home,” Danica sighed.

  “You are still beneath Fort Salvos, Caelum continued. “I believe I can place you safely somewhere, but exactly where I cannot know until your Spirit comes free of the body.”

  Warfell shivered when she realized she was going to die.

  “How much longer do I have?”

  “I cannot tell Swordsman. Which is why she must first save you from the limestone, before we can save her.”

  “You guys are just,” Brey rose from her seat. “I’m creeping out over here,” she waived for Tawnee through the wide office window, tapping abrasively with a finger-ring on the glass. “I’m drinking now crazy people.”

  Warfell’s Reality, Fort Salvos Greens, negative altitude 175 feet

  Back home, Tom Snow and Logos Gravari reached the first of many open tunnels, the experienced Dwarf guiding his much taller friend towards the initial seismic disturbances when they felt the cave-in far away—much deeper than the search team should have been.

  Logos gave his friend a leather strap and whispered.

  “Don’t let go and keep up Brother, I can run through these tunnels but you can’t. If I chirp, better duck that head.”

  “Got it,” Snowman replied, his human eyes still making the last adjustments, the flows of water becoming visible first as they jogged and then ran.

  Not far from Tom and Logos, Emili and Iris were examining the headless Therian in the argon maze when the tremor from the cave-in cracked the ceiling. They entered the tunnel quickly, finding the Away Team’s gear and moving fast into the blackness.

  As with Tommy and Logos, the young green-eyed Knight from Tibor was having a difficult time compared to Iris. After several awkward moments, the Arenthian bade Emili stop, drawing her face within kissing distance and whispering.

  “Listen to meh pretty lady, ye must stop and wait for ye eyes.”

  “I know—I know. Iris, something terrible has happened, we can’t sit and wait.”

  “Aye, come and hold meh hand,” Iris clasped palms and the two took off into the insanity, Emili letting go of her fear, placing faith in the Arenthian’s superior senses.

  Deeper in the miasma, British lie still next to Antigua observing a band of Therians as they hunted through some rubble for survivors. There were more than they thought.

  “Easy girl,” she almost imperceptibly breathed to the canine the size of a pony. They rose together and moved, crawling, creeping over the limestone towards the past reports of Danica’s Chesterborne.

  British remembered the cracks of the pistol before the roof came down—the shots were wild and random, no calculation at all. Someone snatched that gun and just started pulling the trigger, was her initial and current thought.

  Nearby and yet so far away, on the opposing side of a wall of granite shards, marble and the ever-present slimy limestone, Bigfoot Bob roamed slowly—glued to Torpa, his breath rapid as that of a terrified child. Warfell’s loyal hound was insane with angst and worry for his Master, yet instinctively knew that Bigfoot could not make his way alone. The wise Huntsman’s Hound resisted his intense urges to run through the dark, following his nose, to howl like a whirlwind when he found her.

  Slowly, the intelligent Dane guided the frightened Giant towards the rapidly fading smell of Danica’s sweat.

  And Robert was scared, more so than ever before in his horror-filled life. Several times, the giant involuntarily tried to sit down, even curl up, mortified with terror. Bless his heart, Torpa saved his Soul, encouraging the big man, nudging him up and onward past incredible human urges to be still and hide somewhere—wait and pray for help to arrive.

  Further, deeper in the catacombs, Shadoweye rounded a corner to stare a Therian in its ugly face.

  Split-second thoughts as the Scimitar flew free, landing gently on the soft nape: first, this thing was wearing leathers, second, she saw the pearl handle of a pistol through a belt, and third, the thing was startled like a kid—and it was smaller.

  Tawnee stood menacingly, right arm pressing the blade’s edge against its neck, her left disappearing behind her slender waist. She spoke in the voice of the Assassin.

  “You understand me.”

  “Yessss,” it replied back.

  “Why are you here?”

  “The Dukes tells liesss when his little Dwarfs kills our Queen.”

  “The Duke has been gone for a year,” Tawnee needed information, but she knew damned well not to reveal an iota of Ft. Salvos intelligence. “He’s dead baby, you need to move on.”

  The Therian shook that lizard head side to side and made his move, but well before the taloned fingers could touch Danica’s gun, Tawnee had the short barrel of her own little boom stick pressing firm against its scaly, narrow chest, retracting and sheathing her Scimitar.

  “AAH!” she warned clear and cold—shoving the barrel in tight. “Where’d ya get that fancy pistol?” She snatched Warfell’s gun and shoved it through her belt. ”They got a Che
sterborne Foundry down here or something? Huh?” Shadoweye brought her angry tattooed eye right next to the reptilian face, holding insanely still—her clear animal message. After an eternity of choking silence and stale respirations, the Assassin whispered through clenched teeth.

  “Where is the owner of this gun—tall white-haired one?”

  Alternate Aleutha

  In a different reality, Danica watched in wonder as the forests flew by, Brey Fovea navigating the stolen ambulance shuttle-pod just above the tree canopy.

  “The northern reaches are beautiful this time of year,” the ponytailed girl spoke quietly, the knowledge of her impending death weighing her words down.

  “Where are we going?” Bigfoot asked from the back.

  “Fovea Mansion, the Federals have already searched it and once they clear a private structure they can’t go in it again—Aleuthian law. I should be fine for a minute or two. Tawnee has flown ahead. She’s already there putting everything back together.

  Since I was arrested off Tibor and jailed in a neutral facility, the Tiborean Nation no longer has any jurisdictional claim on me, however, my commanding officers here on Aleutha will be looking for me until Dad can execute my discharge papers—enough money can make anything happen, right?”

  “Very true,” Warfell answered solemnly as the forest began to thin, making way for the open grasslands.

  “My Supers have no problem with me killing a dozen enemy Royals off-world, but they will have a problem with my escape. I just don’t take hits for the team,” Brey unglued her browns from the instruments and smiled at Danica—then she frowned calculatedly.

  “So you are in the substrata, pinned down by rock, surrounded by lizard-like men. How would I search? What would I do?”

  Bigfoot leaned his massive head between the pilot chairs.

  “You should use dogs, they are very good for that,” he tapped his nose and receded.

  “We do have two big canines down there, if they survived the collapse,” Danica leaned forward as a slightly different version of her home appeared on the horizon. “Fort Salvos,” she murmured on the verge of tears once again.

  “Fovea Mansion,” Brey corrected. “I must enter unseen from below, you two can bring the pod in,” she abruptly landed the amazingly silent craft, setting down softly on the undulating grasses. She turned to face her new friends.

  “I can’t fly this thing,” Warfell outright laughed.

  “I can,” Robert said as if it were nothing.

  Danica gave her giant musclebound friend a look of admiration as he and the pixie switched places.

  “It’s a Moorcraft 315 with magnetic lifters,” the gentle-giant was a skilled pilot, go figure.

  Never say you have seen it all, Warfell chanted in her mind. Brey leaped down to the grass as tall as she as Bigfoot brought the Moorcraft cleanly aloft.

  “Your big Brother, can he beat you up Robert?” Warfell asked offhandedly.

  “Absolutely Missus Denali, I mean Danica, I’m older by two years, but he’s still bigger and meaner.”

  Warfell stared at the walls of Fort Salvos in a different dimension as Rob pivoted the small ship to hover over the central courtyard.

  “Killed my poor Momma coming out—” he added as they touched pads on the green deck.

  “Buggers, is he a good guy Robert?”

  “No Ma’am, he hunts bounties for pay, and charters field executions just like me—only difference is he works for the Tiboreans. Missus Danica, I am not a nice man, not by far. I’ve killed people for money.”

  “Does it hurt inside?”

  “Yes Ma’am, sometimes really bad.”

  “How many have you…?”

  “Eight, if you count the pilot of the Ambulance.”

  Warfell snorted a laugh, “Really? Eight?”

  “And you?” the big man asked as the bay doors hissed open to a smiling Shadoweye.

  “Couple more than that Robert, couple more, c’mon buddy,” Warfell patted the massive shoulder, sighed deeply and hopped down from the Moorcraft.

  Later that equifade, Brey, Danica and Robert stood at a window, watching the Aleuthian Federal ships land one by one on the furthest wall; the Honest Wall.

  “At least they’re being honest,” Warfell commented.

  “Yeah, they can’t touch me unless I make a run for it,” Brey replied with a grin.

  “So what will you do?” Robert asked.

  “Make a run for it,” the grin widened.

  “Do you have a ship here fast enough? The Federal Moorcraft on the wall can outrun our stolen shuttle-pod pretty easy,” again, Rob.

  “Are you kidding me? Do you know who I am?”

  Warfell tensed involuntarily to the expression and Brey noticed, creasing her brows.

  “That’s why we came here, to fetch Snowflake.”

  “Snowflake?”

  “Yeah Snowflake—my baby,” Brey curled a finger and smiled.

  “Oh my god Missus Brey it’s—it’s—what is it?” Bigfoot walked down the length of the bright white ceramic fuselage, oddly patting the landing gear like a dog’s scalp as if to say ‘hello’.

  “This is a functional prototype design my Father has commissioned for Moor. He wanted to name it after my Mother, but the contracts called for a national distinction, so we titled it the Vapor 7, Moorcraft 425 Fighter.”

  “Fighter?” Warfell asked.

  “Yes, he’s aggressively weaponized; twin plasma turrets port and star, magnetic pulse cannons aft and bow, and the thing on top is there by my request, cause good ol’ bullets work really well in space. It’s a high powered machine gun with spiral reloads—shoots six inch carbon mesh slugs that can penetrate magnetic resistance fields and breech hulls like poking holes in a birthday cake. I call it—”

  “The Peacemaker?” Danica tried.

  “What? No silly, I call it the Blunderbuss because it’s an end game boom-boom device. Peacemaker—who would call a deadly weapon a peacemaker?” Brey shook her head side to side.

  “Who would name a spaceship Snowflake?” Bigfoot.

  “He’s all white like a—okay never mind,” Brey smiled wide and opened the hatch.

  Snowflake was one hundred and fifty feet from aft to bow, forty feet tall on his pads, with a belly-width of thirty. His wings were triangular, coming down at forty-five degree angles for a span of eighty feet.

  All white, excepting the glassy-greys of the cockpit and plasma-turret pods on either side, the beastie-boy sported a tall dorsal tail fin decorated with four black spheres representing the gas giant Ana and her three habitable moons, Aleutha, Tibor and Occia.

  V-7 M425F was decaled in black on the tail and wing—the name Snowflake etched in bright red near the cockpit. He was an impressive sight on the outside—more so inside.

  Buggers! Danica thought. “I could live inside this boat forever,” she spoke aloud in wonder as Brey gave the tour.

  “Snowflake has three decks fully outfitted with a steam room, galley, four state cabins, my private quarters topside, central living area—and this,” Brey placed hands on the back of a leather padded Captain’s chair, overlooking the forward bays. The cockpit was massive, luxurious and comfortable. The transparent oval afforded a panoramic view of the hangar bay.

  “Wow,” Bigfoot whispered.

  “She can keep a crew of four to six happy indefinitely; the fuel cells will sustain full power for several lifetimes, aaaaand Snowflake can graze.”

  “Graze?” Danica asked like an idiot.

  “Using hydrogen, helium, carbon and other free-floating elements found in our system’s two gas giants, Ana and Alai to synthesize a pasty foodstuff that will keep you alive but not very happy,” Bigfoot answered and Warfell did a double take on her large friend who was so knowledgeable in this reality. “This vessel never has to take port or land…unless you want beers or something,”

  “Oh he has a microbrewery dude,” Brey closed her eyes, nodding her head up and down with pride.
/>
  “You get out of here—what can he make?” Robert had to know.

  “Ethanol is the primary alcohol used in beverages which is a simple compound of Hydrogen, Oxygen and carbon. It mixes with just about everything and will kick your ass. Let’s put it this way—I can’t fly the ship on it.”

  “Amazing,” Danica liked Snowflake—a lot. “Where will we go?”

  Brey smiled, even blushed, when she realized Warfell did not intend to leave her side.

  “Well, Dad suggests Earth,” the humble reply.

  “No Ma’am!” Bigfoot shot out. “Uh uh, are you crazy? You are!”

  Brey Fovea raised her brows and tilted her head to the side, nodding yes ever so slightly

  “Master Fovea’s gonna kill me,” Tawnee whispered to the dorsal windows as Brey booted Snowflake’s flight systems.

  “Daddy will understand, he’s got Magnus to run the mansion, c’mon it’ll be fun, ‘sides you are my authority on the inner territories, and the LVM.”

  Bigfoot leaned in to Danica with a hand to the side of his face whispering as best he could.

  “The planet is infested with a virus affecting nearly a third of the monkey men.”

  “Monkey? What?” That explanation threw Danica wide.

  “Time for that later folks,” Brey gazed up as the roof to the building receded in four sections. “Warfell, ever been in a space battle?”

  “Kind of, in a dream, but then…”

  “You know Mariner speak—Maritime lingo?” the pixie concentrated as pulled up on the stick and Snowflake rose silently, pausing just beneath the open bays of the ceiling threshold.

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, I’m setting your com to low so you can hear my voice,” Brey’s browns darted across her control panel. “Man the port plasma turret. She shoots just like a gun, but there is a one-second delay between blasts. Buckle in good, power-up toggles are on the left, it’s sight controlled, green means go.”