Kingdoms Away 1: Jorian Cluster Archives (8 page)

“Sure, but you gotta bring something to
eat.”

Ethas leaned forward, again in high spirits.
He rarely got to spend time with a group of friends, only with too
many sisters. Ed was happy he had made Ethas happy.

They climbed down the tree and started some
rough-housing. Erianna frowned at them from her position on a rug
under a tall leafy tree. She was still eating her lunch. “Be
careful,” she called out.

“Mum!”

They moved away where she couldn’t see or
hear them.

Ethas had Ed in a head lock and Ed kept
yelling out, “Cheater!” He was getting grumpy at not being able to
get loose.

“Let go.”

Ethas clung on.

“Let GO.”

They shuffled around the leafy earth; Ed fell
to the ground, trying to drag the determined Ethas with him.

“You’re supposed to let go … stop.”

Ethas released him and they both fell.

“Bad luck, Ed, how ’bout the best out of
three?”

They started again. Ed lost all the mock
battles.

The next day Erianna collected him, ready for
their trip to visit the Darcerus Chamber of Historical Collections.
It began to rain yet he knew that his mother would make the trip
anyway. He leaned into the window as far as he could before his
head hit the glass and he saw Erianna’s carriage stop at the rear
entrance in the courtyard.

Erianna’s favorite horses stood patiently
waiting the arrival of their friend. As much as Edrik enjoyed the
speed and agility of the airvehicle Celer, the honor of being
carried by live animals was exciting. In the Joiran Cluster one was
not permitted to simply harness animals for transport or labor
without the prior consent of the animal. How that consent was given
Edrik did not yet know. This knowledge would be imparted to him
when he turned anywhere from between ten to fifteen years of
age.

His mother had a special relationship with
the Noble Pintos. She also had a helmet associated with her days of
professional riding that she kept tucked away in her closet. She
had shown Eddie just once a few months ago. His father had made an
awful comment about her love of the beasts and a confused Eddie
asked her what he had meant. She smiled at him and when they were
alone took him up to her chambers. He rarely entered into her
private rooms, attached to his fathers. In the closet lay a large
carved box and Eddie had run his hands over the carvings. He fell
in love with the intricate design of horses and mountains.

She told him that she had competed many times
in the Conglomerate Games when she was younger and still lived on
Apis. Her father had been the Port Master at Dragon’s Eye. Her
mother had been the champion of the horse events and a strong
contestant in jousting and mock battles in both the local and the
Conglomerate Games. One year a group of local rebels had staged an
actual attack on their home planet, not satisfied with their
previous result on certain issues during or after the games. Her
mother had led her only daughter and a group of horse riders into
the fight and had won the day. The daughter had excelled in battle
and was rewarded with a special helmet, the helmet of Kara.

“That was you, Mum,” Ed had exclaimed,
wide-eyed. “Why don’t you play in the games now?”

“I have many responsibilities, Eddie. One
day, though, I plan to play again.”

That was enough for Edrik but he was so busy
touching the grooves in the helmet that he missed the sadness in
her eyes. When he looked back at her she had quickly hid the look
behind her custom smile.

They travelled in silence but sat close to
one another. A temporary canopy had been drawn over them. The rain
stopped and a cool breeze gently pushed the spring clouds away. The
journey from the castle to the capital took over two hours by
carriage. The castle was the main home of the sovereigns;
occasionally the council met there but most of the business was
held in Darcerus at Sovereignty House. As they approached Darcerus
they passed a sparsely populated housing area. Most people lived
out on farms or in thinly spaced villages. The roads were spread
out in a series of concentric circles from a huge park dedicated to
the Elysians. They turned into one of the connecting roads that led
to another circular road closer to the park

Many people looked or waved at the two in the
carriage. Most other people were walking, had different models of
the airvehicle, were on cycles or rode different animals. There
were no traffic lights on Darcerus; they used round-a-bouts
everywhere. Edrik liked this city; he hadn’t visited any off-world
cities but had seen 3D visions of them. Darcerus had trees, flowers
and lawns all over the place. Flowering vines grew on many of the
buildings, scenting the streets during spring. Ed breathed in
deeply, laughing as he realized his mother had done the same thing
at the same time. They turned right at an intersection and then
stopped.

They arrived at the grand building; it was a
huge grey stone structure with massive pillars on each corner, as
well as one on either side of the wooden doors. He and his mother
stood in front of the open entrance, dwarfed by the gigantic doors
that had been swept outward in welcome. Their shoes click-clacked
as they walked on the smooth, marble floor down the great hall.

The curator rushed over to them and received
them warmly. The tall, thin man leaned down to shake Edrik’s hand.
He remembered the firm grasp from another occasion, as a couple of
his fingers cracked, as well as the big, beaming smile.

“How do you do today, Master Edrik?”

“Good.”

Had his father been there he would have been
told off. The curator continued to smile and turned back to Erianna
and after a brief discussion with his mother, he left them to
return to his duties. As Edrik walked alongside his mother, holding
hands, he was about to ask her a question when her mobile
beeped.

She was frowning and looked at Ed. “This is
very sad, Eddie. A little girl, a bit younger than you, was
kidnapped. We have been asked to keep an eye out for her.”

“What’s her name?” Ed asked, wide-eyed.

“Serafina. She has brown hair and golden
eyes.”

“Gold eyes!” he exclaimed. “I wish I had gold
eyes.”

Erianna laughed. “She must be very important;
there are two crates and two space ships looking for her.”

“From the Space Corpus?” That was exciting.
“I wish I could join and help find her. She must be very
scared.”

“Yes, she must be …” his mother’s voice
drifted off quietly into deep thought.

She showed Ed the picture of the girl. He
stared at the clear image on her phone.

“She looks a lot younger and smaller than me.
She’s got lots of freckles. I wonder why she’s laughing. I wonder
why she got stolen? Can I tell Parax and Juner and Master
Trent?”

“Yes to all. We have to make an announcement
in the Darcerus Eventus. I’m sorry, Ed. I will have to do this
now.”

“Can I come, please, please …”

“Let me think for a moment.”

They left the building but returned home,
where Mum picked up some warm clothes for the trip. When she gave
him a nod after he gloomily stomped up the staircase he raced up in
excitement. They had to travel back into Darcerus but this time
they travelled in the silver Celer. The sleek lines of the vehicle
and the metallic surface reflected the bright moons. Ed loved
travelling at night; he would stare ahead as far as the lights
would illuminate the road. The internal lights on the vehicle were
almost magical in displaying their different readings of blue,
green and yellow.

They went to the Eventus office where the
evening staff welcomed Mistress Varak and her son. She detailed the
report and together they extracted all the information from the
Joiran Database, which was linked to EO, which was the central
depot for information. One of the assistants set up Boomer with Ed
keenly looking on. The system was encoded with the EO designation
and the data was transferred back and forth via the string
dimension s-str-d-02. The layout of the paper was discussed next,
Erianna always had a clear vision of what she wanted but would
sometimes defer to the opinions of her creative team. The
information contained detailed accounts of the two main ships in
the search, the Pteraspis and the Drepanaspis, both Avarian class
crates. Graphics of the vessels were added and final touches
made.

{[JOIRAN CLUSTER] [Drepanaspis] [Orbiting Saxe]

[914876/2577/41/space]}

Captain Sorance Chen had finished briefing his crew
on the bridge. It was now time for a quick check of his office
messages, something to eat and then back to the bridge. He entered
his office and sealed off the door. This was always a clear sign to
anyone that he was not to be disturbed. His face relaxed and became
unguarded as he rubbed his tired eyes. The office, spacious but
serviceable, contained books, Blazers carefully categorized,
personal items and his many awards, which were all secured in a
display unit behind new, tough transparent material made by someone
on Apis. This material had become very popular in space travel.

He glanced around the room, noting items in
place or if things had been moved. Everything seemed in order.

He relaxed further and walked around to his
desks that had been placed to arrange an L shape; they were to the
right of the entrance facing the display unit. He turned his new
Desk Computer, DC, on while admiring the workmanship of this latest
model from Behemoth. It was sleek and small but he didn’t like the
fact it was silver when his own décor was black, blue and gold.

“You can’t have everything.” Though he was
sure he came close.

He swiveled in his chair so that he could
access his DC on the short part of the L. Three messages had
arrived and had been downloaded to his computer. They were all
encrypted so he applied his “key” and read the messages. Two were
work related and one came from his wife. He read that one first.
She was now sorry she hadn’t come on the trip to Saxe but would
rendezvous with him at the Us : VA Post. He grinned; she wanted to
be part of the search and nothing would stop her. She had majors in
Psychology and Detection. Tharini Chen knew when she was needed and
would provide over two hundred years of experience in both of her
fields. She signed off her message by stating that over fifty other
partners of those onboard would be joining her at the Post. She was
a strong advocate of not depriving members of a healthy sex life
while on long journeys. In the nineteen days since he had sent her
a message she had organized her group and sent a message back.

Chen smiled again; he missed her. Tharini had
amazing abilities to organize and make people realize things they
never even thought of. It was that way since they first met. She
had calmly pointed out that they were a first rate team and should
bond permanently. Didn’t he think so? It hadn’t occurred to him but
after a few years he agreed. She had smiled in that all-knowing
way, and he knew she was thinking back to when she had first
mentioned the idea to him. So, he liked to mull a little.

He turned his attention to the next two
messages. They confirmed his arrangements for the plan, crew
distribution and procedures concerning the way the investigation
should proceed on each planet. The council had already issued out
notices about the girl, in the hope that someone would notice any
unusual activity and then report in. They had debated long and hard
about keeping it quiet but decided that the Joiran Cluster was
simply far too big an area to search in without additional outside
help.

What was new to Chen was that he also had to
keep updated with the science vessel, the Sordes, which was named
after and had the appearance of a flying reptile. It was an Averay
class ship with Basic Shielding. They would be picking up the
kidnapped girl’s parents from the Cruise Ship Anamoth, still
undergoing repairs from the attack, and transferring them to the
Sordes. The science vessel was headed toward the Oriri to
investigate some unusual movements of the Elysians. Chen noted this
down in his handheld organizer. He set up the rest of his desk by
raising the far end so that it would sit at a fifty-five-degree
angle; the table made some alarming noises as it inclined and he
noted this dutifully down. He moved slightly away from the
offending desk. He adjusted his chair to allow himself to reach all
parts of the inclined surface, which was now lit up like a large
monitor. Even after adjusting his chair so that he was in a
supported half kneeling half sitting position, his knees bumped
into the bottom part of the desk that had lowered when inclining.
He noted this down. The designer of the inclining monitor desk was
a friend of his obsessed with space-saving ideas.

The desk surface beeped, startling him. He
turned the volume down. He’d missed his meal. It was time to go
back to the bridge to prepare for Transcluster Verging.

Some hours previous they had just completed
Intergalaxial Verging. As he arrived there the equipment, engines
and machines had gone through their final checks. Eye contact was
made with all his crew with exchanged nods of greetings and a
chorus of crisp “Captain” heard from those who were free from vital
duties. Theirs was a standard bridge formation with all the
workstations pointing in towards the central table, nicknamed the
“Round Table” or “Arthur.” A large desk stood to one side and just
beyond that that an expansive screen took up almost the entire
bulkhead.

Captain Sorance briskly walked over to take
his position at Arthur and was shortly joined by three officers.
The Engineering Officer, Jade, was to coordinate with engineering
personnel on deck three. The Science Officer, Ross, was to
coordinate with the Verger Team in the science division deck two
and the Programming Officer, Arran, was to care for the Erge Team
on deck four. Each of them inserted a Blazer and a security card
into their respective slots in the glowing round table. Four panels
rose from the surface.