A Warrior's Return (28 page)

Levyon’s eyes seemed to be looking into
Eleanor as he said, “Not having the use of several of your fingers
will have absolutely no bearing on your ability to fly the bar-Seth
Eleanor.”

Her eyes flickered up, “You can read my
thoughts?”

“Yes I can when linked like this with
you.”

“You’re changing stuff in my head aren’t
you?” Eleanor said, as if she wasn’t too worried about her own
statement whereas I sure would have been.

“Very little my dear, everything was mostly
in place already. Just opening a few neural pathways and increasing
your equilibrium endurance a little. There perfect! Now if you
would follow me please.”

He led Eleanor to the second level down to a
console space area somewhat removed from the surrounding
consoles.

“This is your space. Now come stand
here.”

Eleanor stood in an empty square of space
and shook her head puzzled, “But I don’t see any controls?”

Levyon shook his head, “When flying the ship
your mind is synced with it. It does what you do. Have a seat.”

Eleanor looked even more puzzled, as she
glanced at the empty space behind her.

“Have a little faith and sit down.” Levyon
said patiently.

Eleanor bent backwards at the knees and then
with surprise sank down the rest of the way. A floating cordon of
blue lit lines had materialized beneath her.

“Relax and lean backward now.”

She did and more blue lines appeared
supporting her, as her legs elevated off the floor and she floated
up into space. Green lines of light curled over top of her in a
harness of sorts and meshed together with the blue lines.

A series of panoramic screens appeared
around Eleanor’s head so that we could see only glimpses of her
face in between the screens.

“Do you see it now? Do you feel how you are
connected with the ship?” Levyon asked.

“Oh yes! This is incredible! Everyone’s got
to try this!”

Levyon laughed slightly, “Everyone could not
do it my dear. You are one of a select few that can. The only other
one here that could fly the ship by my analysis would be Ellanara.
It would be wise for her to learn to fly the ship at a later date
to, in case of a casualty to yourself or if you should be
unavailable to fly. There is an intuitive autopilot mode, but the
ship handles far better when in the hands of a skilled pilot such
as yourself.”

“Shouldn’t autopilot mode be on? Surely it
would be more consistent in terms of flying than me at the moment,
because I can see myself either over or under compensating way to
easily!”

“In terms of consistency for the moment
perhaps, but overall the human mind, when streamlined like I’ve
just done to yours is far more able to deal with the emergencies of
the moment and the changing strategies of a battle engagement. How
good you are as a pilot determines how well the bar-Seth
performs.”

“Well then we don’t have anything to worry
about, because she’s the best pilot I’ve ever known!” Talaric said
firmly.

“Well said, indeed I’m inclined to agree
with you.” Levyon echoed in response.

I saw Eleanor flush slightly at Talaric’s
praise of her.

“Do you see the simulation menu? Good. Why
don’t you go ahead and run through some of them to familiarize
yourself with flying the bar-Seth before we try the real
thing.”

Eleanor must’ve engaged one of the
simulations, because the floating chair abruptly swirled and rocked
side to side and.

“Oh my! Was all that came out of the sudden
movement that had my stomach in knots of sympathetic pain for
her.

After a moment the chair’s erratic movements
evened out and became more gradual and I heard a slightly awed
whisper, “This is bloody amazing!”

Yes, Eleanor would be fine. Levyon after an
initial grimace apparently must have thought so too, because he was
back to smiling, or perhaps he could just cover his true thoughts
well.

He approached Katie smiling warmly, which
seemed to melt Katie’s guard down a little.

“Katie my scans show that you next to
Eleanor have the fastest reactionary reflexes. I wonder if I might
call upon you to operate the ship’s shield force capacitors and
flex array? It requires both a quick eye and a steady hand such as
yours to be properly operated to its best capacity.”

Katie had flushed slightly from the praise
that he had so artfully given to her.

“Sure what do I do?” She said sounding eager
to try something she would supposedly be better at than anyone
else.

“Step right over here.” Levyon gestured to
the space across from Eleanor, who was lost in a world of her
own.

It looked like she was driving an expensive
sports car around a sharp winding mountain road. All that was
missing was the sight of her hair rippling out in the breeze behind
her. It was readily apparent that Eleanor was having the time of
her life.

Katie eagerly stepped into her consol area
in anticipation of something equally fun to do. A large green
interlaced circle matrix formed around her. In the center of the
circle a replica model of the bar-Seth hovered. The model was big
enough for Katie to stand inside of.

The model wasn’t see-through; where Katie’s
torso connected with the model her legs couldn’t be seen. Katie
gasped and jumped back from the model reflexively no doubt afraid
that parts of her had been erased.

“Relax Katie it’s just an illusion to help
with seeing the model. All of you is still intact I assure you. Now
please step back into the model.” Levyon said patiently.

Katie stepped back inside the model somewhat
hesitantly. A bluish veil appeared like an elliptical oval around
the bar-Seth.

“That is the ships flex force shield. It is
always on in at least a limited capacity. At its lowest capacity
it’s enough to shield out radiation and very minor impacts such as
asteroid dust. The problem with all energy-based shields is that to
work them at full capacity it requires an enormous amount of
energy, which is hard to sustain over a long period of time. The
shield, if overextended too far, in power usage, can cause the
shield to crash altogether leaving the ship completely exposed to
enemy fire or other dangers. We don’t want that to happen. We
attempted, in the construction of this ship, to design a force
field that could help navigate around some of the weaknesses
inherent to this type of system. We created the flex shield. Allow
me to show you how it works.”

Levyon stepped into the green circle and
stood to the side of the model and placed his hand on the inside of
the model shield. A red dock came flying towards the model from the
outer green lined matrix wall.

“A hostile weapons fire blast. The ship’s
analysis of the power of the incoming strike will sound a warning,
when the ships force field isn’t great enough to withstand the
force of the strike. There’s been no warning so safe to assume the
shield is at enough capacity to deflect the strike.”

The red dot collided with the shield and
disappeared. Another larger red dot appeared coming towards the
model of the bar-Seth. Almost at once a low alarm sounded and in
corresponding sequence a square section of the shield turned yellow
and flashed repeatedly.

“Now as you can see the ship has recognized
that the shield in the area likely to be struck has insufficient
power to deflect the strike.”

Levyon reached forward with two fingers and
brought them together over the yellow surface of the shield, which
briefly showed the percentage dial up figure of extra power needed.
The yellow turned green as the power needed was successfully
transferred to that section of the shield.

“The ship automatically, when initialized to
do so and if there is enough power to draw from, will bring the
shield deflecting force up to a sufficient strength to deflect the
strike in the affected area, while the rest of the shield remains
at a lower power requirement level. In this way we can extend the
life and degree of available power for the shield by flexing the
available power to where it is needed the most on the shield and
not waste it where we don’t need it. You can also increase the
overall shield strength by mentally thinking in increments of ten
percent to adjust the entire shield to power up or down. Think you
can handle it Katie?”

“I think so.” Katie said shaking her head
confidently.

“I hope so Katie, because a battle can often
look like this.” Levyon said grimly.

Red dots appeared from everywhere in a
direct line with the ship. From the top to the bottom and from all
sides in staggered rates of speed the red dots raced toward the
bar-Seth.

Katie’s face had a look of stricken horror
on it for a moment, as she stood staring frozen by the sight of so
many incoming strikes and then to her credit she leapt into
action.

The fingers of both hands were moving
incredibly fast, as she twisted and turned about initializing timed
shield force flexes. Red dots of various sizes pinged into the
shield from all over, but all of them dissipated into nothing and
went no further.

After five minutes of intense action the
last red dot disappeared against the force field. Katie mopped the
sweat that was dripping off her face with one arm and turned toward
Levyon with an expression that still echoed her earlier horror and
with her lips quivering slightly in emotion she said fervently, “I
don’t want this job!”

“Too late you’ve proven yourself much more
than competent to handle it. Keep practicing. Come on group let’s
move on there are still more positions to fill.” Levyon said
briskly, as he moved down to a lower level of the amphitheater
inspired control room.

Katie turned to Talaric and shouted, as she
pointed after Levyon, “Tell him I can’t do this Captain! Tell
him!”

Talaric was doing everything he could do to
bite back a smile, “You know Katie you are actually pretty good at
that. Wasn’t she Sparky?”

“Oh my yes, an excellent example of grace
under fire so to speak.” Sparky intoned not bothering to hold back
a wide smile.

“Cut the crap!” Katie screamed out in
fury.

“There’s got to be someone else who can do
this!” Katie said addressing the room in general.

Levyon deftly turned back and smoothly said,
“Talaric is the only other one with a sufficient reactionary
agility, but he’s too tall and big of frame to adequate perform the
job well.”

Katie’s white complexion turned beat red,
“Are you telling me that I got this job over him, because I’m short
and small?”

“In a way yes.” Levyon responded before
turning and continuing down the stairs followed along by the rest
of us.

“You done been set up girl!” Titus said
laughing, as he walked by and patted her lightly on the
shoulder.

Katie remained standing there glowering
hatefully after us, before turning back to the flex shield consul
to start running through simulations.

“I need two volunteers, one for primary
weapons and one for secondary weapons.”

Before I knew what was happening Titus’s big
hand closed down over the top of my shoulder and practically thrust
me in front of Levyon.

“This one’s ours Miss Eva. We’ze gonna have
mass effect.”

“Titus no!” I exclaimed.

“Sign me up for primary and give the little
lady secondary!” Titus interjected over top of my objections.

“Okay then.” Was all Levyon said.

He pointed first to the left and then to the
right, “Primary weapons for you Titus and secondary for you
Eva.”

I tried to beg out one last time, “I have
terrible depth perception! You probably don’t want me to be in
charge of something so vital!”

“Depth perception won’t be a problem. The
ship does all the targeting telemetry. All you have to do is pull
the trigger and choose which targets to pursue, as well as where
the point of fire concentration should be. It will be critical for
you to help out Katie taking out incoming projectiles, but
primarily you will be responsible for the elimination of any small
targets such as enemy aircraft. That about says it all I think. The
simulation will start up automatically once you sit down.”

My eyes drifted to Talaric fleetingly, but
all he did was give me a big thumbs and a grin. He had betrayed me,
just as he had Katie!

I turned away and advanced into my
designated space. I sat backward into space and was caught by the
light strands the same way that Eleanor had been. Panoramic screens
appeared around me and lit up with more options and configurations
than I could begin to fathom ever getting a firm grasp upon.

There were dozens of small red diamond
shapes that a coolly modulated voice informed me were enemy
aircraft attacking the ship. They buzzed about the bar-Seth like a
swarm of angry hornets, as they popped off awful little red
flashing lights at the ship.

“Oh God please help me!”

I glanced over between one of the screens
surrounding me to see Titus having the time of his life, as he
pounded away with mass effect in his own simulation.

This was all his fault!

Katie’s voice spoke directly into my ear, as
if she had been standing at my shoulder, “You do realize Eva, that
our simulations are interconnected don’t you? I would appreciate it
if you would start taking these dudes out!”

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” I said refocusing on
the simulation before me.

An enemy craft went up in flames. It was
almost like a game I’d seen my brothers play as kids. The
difference being that this was no game. This was life and death.
After a while I started getting the hang of it.

I had to admit it wasn’t all that hard other
than extremely quick paced and requiring of a lot of concentration.
I was eliminating the hornets and even managing to take out some
missiles for Katie. She had thankfully stopped complaining in my
ear, but a headache was beginning to throb in the back of my head
anyway from the tension of the situation.