Short story excerpt: THE SHORT-LIVED ESCAPE OF JORONO CYNES, an AFV Defender story

 The small buildings were nearly uniform, all cubes three meters high and maybe eight meters wide and ten meters deep, with a door on the right side, and a slit across the remainder of the front of each building. M’kar watched through several sets of drac eyes as people opened the door to step into a building with their burdens. They came back out a few moments later empty-handed, and pushed up on the top portion of the slit in the front wall. Support bars dropped down as the top half lifted upward, and it turned into an awning, extending out into the clearing.

It's an open air market, Thyal said, after M’kar watched a dozen more buildings be opened, and bundles and crates unloaded and shared the images with him.

It’s an illegal market.

I still don’t understand why Tress thought she smelled hooples, though, he said, after they watched a few proprietors set about assembling racks outside their shops.

M’kar didn’t respond. She focused on a heavy-set figure that had emerged from the jungle. She sent the dracs up for reconnaissance and backtracked him, discovering a path through the jungle. That path led down past the place where Tress had caught the scent of hooples. M’kar held still, watching the figure who was little more than a dark silhouette.

Then he stepped into the light and paused, turning from side to side to study the bustle of the half-assembled market.

Is that --? Thyal made a mental sound that equated with choking.

Jorono Cynes. Only the need for silence kept M’kar from spitting. That explains the hoople smell. Tress either caught a glimpse of him, or she heard him -- he talks to himself constantly, he’s talking to himself now. She didn’t know what she heard or saw, but it translated into hooples in her head.

How had Cynes escaped custody and the sentence that guaranteed he stay under strict watch and unable to travel the galaxy for the rest of his days? Had he gotten his hands on hooples, despite all the precautions taken to keep hooples from falling into anyone’s hands, much less his?

What are you going to do? Is it going to be fun? Thyal’s chuckle held all the mischief of their childhood adventures and exploits.

I certainly hope so.

M’kar left the dracs patrolling the sky while she headed back up the slope. The first thing to do was let Tress and Jorgan know they had done very good, then send them back to the camp. She sent Barroo back to Decker, requesting he send Spitfire to escort the children. M’kar paused a moment to be grateful Treinna hadn’t yet sent Moonrise back down to the camp to spend the night with Tress. Explaining what her daughter was doing right now might be tricky. Especially if she had to calm a panicky drac who only knew that this situation wasn’t what her Human parent expected. M’kar swore she could hear Decker bellow when he read the last part of her message, which she had scratched into the plasti-strip, because there was no code to stand for the most important words in the message: Cynes here.

Spitfire popped in, spitting and snarling, but quietly. Barroo brought M’kar a plasti-strip with two words code punched into it: Wait. Coming. 

“Thought you might want to join the fun,” she whispered, and gestured for Tress and Jorgan to obey Spitfire and go. She settled down where she could comfortably sit and close her eyes and really concentrate on what the dracs were showing her of the market as it opened. She saw enough details that she had a plan by the time Decker marched up the slope to join her, seething and yet somehow silent with his intensity.

Short story excerpt: THE SHORT-LIVED ESCAPE OF JORONO CYNES, an AFV Defender story

 

With Spitfire cleared and set free to go back to playing, hopefully wiser and willing to follow instructions, the two of them could turn back to helping Decker attend to the children in the post-dinner lesson and storytelling time. Currently they were sitting in a clump on the other side of the camp from the medical tent. Their adoration-mixed-with-terror for the Security Chief ensured that when he snarled and marched back and forth in front of them, hands clasped behind his back and shoulders hunched, they listened. Even more important, they remembered what he told them.

Currently, Decker regaled them with one horror story after another about ensigns and new graduates of the Academy who messed up big time. They thought they were experts in wilderness survival, but took two steps beyond the sensor field protecting their camp on their first dirtside mission, and immediately faced disaster.

“And don’t you forget, you smelly lumps of walking bait, we got no sensor fields or even those sissy vermin repulsion fields, so everything’s zooming in on you right this second, drooling over the snack they’re gonna make out of you!”

M’kar noted that Decker at least had the sense to vary the many and messy disasters the arrogant, careless idiots encountered. So far, while she hadn’t really been paying conscious attention, she had heard about three arms, six legs, and various hands and feet that were lost, either swallowed whole or mangled so badly they couldn’t be regenerated before various disgusting flesh-eating bacteria set in or venom melted flesh off bones, along with large chunks of flesh bitten away so various organs were revealed. When that happened, usually the companions of the said careless idiots had weak stomachs and were too busy losing their last four meals to apply medical aid. Someone always died in each story.

The children loved it, even as they cringed and squealed and made gagging noises. M’kar hoped she and Brea could find something suitably silly to entertain them before they curled up in their sleeping bags, to dilute the images in their minds and deflect nightmares.

“I’m thinking the older ones should get guard duty tonight. Wear them out, have them available during the period when nightmares usually hit, so they can help quiet down the ones who are noisy when they wake up crying.” She pitched her voice soft enough only Brea heard her, as they settled down between the fire pit and Decker’s audience. 

“All of them get guard duty. Prove to them that the shadows aren’t going to solidify and swallow them whole,” Brea countered. They locked gazes a moment, nodded, and turned back to listening to the end of Decker’s story.

Short story excerpt: THE SHORT-LIVED ESCAPE OF JORONO CYNES, an AFV Defender story

 M’kar stood at ready to use her animal-focused psionic Talent to assist Brea. The ship’s medic currently was bent over Spitfire, who obediently lay on her back, wings spread, legs splayed, while the woman ran a medical scanner over her. M’kar had to admit the little drac did an admirable job not swiping at the distraction of the flashing lights on the scanner. She hoped that was a result of Decker impressing on her how important it was to lie still for the make-feel-good-again-lady. The only alternative was that Spitfire’s calmness was a sign of just how sick she got from overindulging in some local berries that hadn’t been cleared by Brea’s medical scanner yet.

“How is she?”

“Better.”

“Honestly, I told her multiple times, but as soon as I turned my back, she cleared off half the bush so fast, half of what went down her gullet was leaves and bark.”

“I’m not blaming you.” Brea set down the scanner and brought out a strip of spiced goho jerky. “If I’m going to blast anyone for the situation we’re all in, I’ll go after the dee-ee who cursed us all by asking what could go wrong on a planet with no permitted technology.”

“You heard about him, huh?” M’kar shook her head at the obliviousness of one of the newer members of the crew. He hadn’t learned yet that asking such questions usually invited Fate to drop an entire garbage scow of trouble on the crew of the Defender. She hadn’t had to do anything to correct the dead-head. His friends standing around him at the display in the visitor welcome center had turned on him quickly enough and tried to hush him. But too late. She was just glad he wasn’t in her department, and had no Talent or potential whatsoever. That meant she had very little responsibility for correcting his thinking and training him not to jinx their current mission.

The two women shared a grin as Brea waved the jerky in front of Spitfire, then tossed it high overhead. The little pink drac squealed with delight. That proved she had been obedient, rather than lying at death’s door. She leaped straight up, popped out, then popped back in at the top of the arc, just as the piece of meat started to drop. She snapped it out of the air and popped out again. Spitfire was no dummy. She knew better than to linger around the campsite, where the other dracs might get a whiff of her treat and try to persuade her to share.

Besides being a reward and a signal that the medical examination had ended, the goho jerky had an added ingredient, to purify her blood and finish the recovery process. M’kar thought about how droopy and clumsy Barroo had been for several hours after he woke up from an allergy-induced hibernation when he indulged yesterday. She thanked Enlo once again that her crewmate enjoyed experimenting with and studying natural compounds and discovering new healing potions and powders.

Short story excerpt: THE SHORT-LIVED ESCAPE OF JORONO CYNES, an AFV Defender story

 

A story between novels.

 

The crew of the Defender had run afoul of the irritating, silly little con man Jorono Cynes one time too many. He was supposed to be in custody for the rest of his life, but somehow Cynes showed up in the middle of a shore leave that was anything but relaxing.

 

Lt. M'kar and Security Chief Decker were supposed to be guiding some of the ship's children through a wilderness survival experience, but even though they were on shore leave, they knew their duty. They had to deal with Cynes and get him back into the hands of the authorities ASAP.

 

And if they could have some fun and frighten the irritating little troublemaker while they were at it, all the better.

Novella ebook available at Ye Olde Dragon Books and any online vendor.

“I’ve got an idea,” Chief Linguist Treinna Lore said, coming into a meeting of the drac parents and other command crew who had gathered after the latest intrusion.

The big draw of the planet Mendax was also a factor in the problems the crew of the Defender were facing. The government was desperate to become accepted as a member of the Alliance. They had thrown out the welcome mat to prove their world would be a good tourist planet, overflowing with natural resources. They treated Alliance diplomats and Fleet personnel like royalty. That meant the Defender crew who were on shore leave were given entire compounds for shore leave quarters, guaranteeing privacy and palatial accommodations. However, that generous welcome mat included refusing to screen anyone who wanted to come down to the planet, no matter how much of a perpetual ruckus was caused by people who wanted to get their hands on a drac. The “guaranteed privacy” of the compound they were currently meeting in sometimes failed through sheer force of numbers seeking out the presence of Fleet personnel. Even the most bumbling hunters could get lucky if there were enough of them stumbling around.

“Does it include making friends with that ship full of Ankuar that’s hovering at the outer orbital, and putting Security uniforms on them until the crisis is over?” Med Tech Brea asked.

Her lemon-yellow drac, Boomer, let out a series of chirps that certainly sounded like he was still irritated over the latest attempt. A group of loud, garishly dressed tourists (Captain Arroyan referred to them in her incident report as terrorists disguised as tourists) had broken into the sprawling compound the Defender crew had been staying in until two hours ago. This group of people worked on the assumption that if the dracs couldn’t see, they couldn’t teleport. They had tried to throw large boxes over the dracs. Boomer had shrieked fury and offended feelings. He had refused to be separated from Brea ever since then, and she complied eagerly. Fiercely.

“No, but I’ll hold onto it as a secondary plan.” Treinna gestured at M’kar but wouldn’t meet her gaze. That was a bad sign.  “The children have been begging M’kar to take them on a training campout,” she continued. “Ever since we returned to Mendax. That’s the easiest solution -- send them all away, send our dracs with them as guards, and impress on the entire ship’s complement of teacher dracs that they can’t come back to the ship until all the children come back. They might ignore us a lot of the time, but the teacher dracs are devoted to the children.” 

“I would love to head out into the wilderness and investigate some of the local wildlife, try those rapid-riders, do a little bow hunting,” M’kar said. “Some of the older children need a really tough wilderness survival session before they head to Fleet Academy. Just one little problem. We’d be heading off with a huge group of children and all the gear we’d need to feed and shelter them for a dec of camping. What’s to stop the wannabes from realizing what we’re doing and just swooping down with a shuttle and doing some kidnapping?” She pointed at the white noise device sitting in the center of the room, which made it impossible for people with listening devices to hear their discussion.