Wings of Steele- The Series, page 25
part #1 of Wings of Steele Series
■ ■ ■
The meeting took place on the landing pad away from the wounded and away from the prisoners. They stood in the shadow under the nose of the pirate cruiser; Jack, Derrik, Brian, Gant and the pirate, Kidd. Two armed security people stood off to one side, and Fritz sat at his master's left hand. Gant at his elbow, the pirate Captain stood arrogantly with his arms folded across his chest. He wore a red velvet coat, elaborately decorated with gold braid, resembling something akin to America's Colonial era. It was quite a contrast to his crew's motley attire and a bold statement of his selfish and arrogant nature.
Jack stood casually with his left hand resting on Fritz's head, gently scratching his ears. "What can I do for you, Mr. Kidd?"
"First," said Kidd coolly, "you will show me the respect of my rank you will call me Captain. Second..."
"First," interrupted Steele, smiling wryly, "you are in no position to demand anything. Second, you pompous windbag, you are the Captain of nothing. You're a dirt bag that's going to prison. That ship and everything in it, belongs to me..." He was watching the astonished expression on Kidd's face, but he caught the look of surprise in Gant's eyes as well. He had half expected the man to request fair treatment for his crew or something of that nature. Instead, the pirate aired some ridiculous personal demands. Jack found it easy to detest the man. "Now, sir," continued Steele, forcing professionalism, "if you have a reasonable request, make it. I am willing to listen. Otherwise, stop wasting my time."
Joshua Kidd was indignant. These men were wearing uniforms but nothing civilian or military that he could remotely identify. Yet they had come at him with enough cunning and combat training to lure him in, defeat his crew and capture his ship. He saw no way out and this infuriated him. "Who the HELLION are you people?"
"Well, we're from Earth," said Jack, indicating himself, Derrik and Brian.
"I can see that, you nutter, I'm not bloody blind... so was my great grandfather." The pirate collected himself and adjusted his coat. "I meant; who are you, what organization are you with? And by whose authority do you hold me and my ship?"
"No organization," said Jack calmly, "just ourselves... with a little help," he added, glancing at Gantarro. "Technically, I guess you could call us mercenaries, bounty hunters...” he shrugged, “take your pick, one label fits as well as another. And as far as our authority, I'm sure there are more than a few agencies happy to pay big bucks for your head. You've been a bad boy, Joshua; murdering people, pirating, who knows what else."
Kidd showed no emotional response and made no attempt to deny any of the allegations. "So," began the pirate arrogantly, his hands on his hips. "You intend to turn us in to the highest bidder... Well if it's money you want..."
"No," interrupted Jack, growing more irritated by the minute. "We don't want money, our fee is your ship. Nothing more."
"My ship...?" growled Kidd.
"Don't worry," said Brian coolly, "we'll put it to good use. Besides, you won't need it where you're going."
"It's MY SHIP!" insisted the pirate, his face flushing ruddy red.
Fritz was watching the pirate's every move and was the first one to see the flash of silver in his hand, a foolish attempt at revenge. There was no telling where the pirate had kept the derringer-sized laser hidden, or how it had so suddenly appeared with such deft slight of hand. But then again, to Fritz, it didn't matter. A gun was a gun and he would not allow any harm to come to his human. Without hesitation or command, the Shepherd lunged with teeth bared at the pirate's arm. The searing, blue-white laser passed between Jack and Derrik as they jumped apart, more of reflex than anything else. It all occurred in such a blur, no one besides Fritz and Kidd, really knew what happened.
Kidd was on his knees and grasping his throat with both hands, blood running through his fingers and dripping to the deck, his mouth and eyes wide with surprise. Slow to take his eyes away, Jack turned to his left at Brian's insistence. Fritz lay sprawled on the floor, unconscious and Steele dropped to his knees, crawling to his partner, ignoring the wounded pirate. He carefully rolled the limp dog on his side to ease his breathing and was horrified by the sight, cold heat racing up his back, his hands suddenly numb. The laser had struck the right side of the Shepherd's face; skin, bone and brain matter completely fused and charred. "Oh God, oh God no... MEDIC!!" Panic stricken, Jack Steele cradled his best friend in his lap while the others stood helplessly by. "Oh Christ," he pleaded, "please help him..."
Brian put his hand on Jack's shoulder. "Let him go, Jack," he said quietly, "he's gone now..."
"NO! No, he's not. See? Look, he's still breathing, see?" The Shepherd breathed steadily, but his body twitched and shuddered, his damaged brain severely short circuited. Brian tried to pull him away but Jack strongly resisted, pulling free. "NO!" He objected. He grabbed the medic heading for Joshua Kidd by the leg. "Fuck HIM! You get your ass over HERE!"
Medical personnel are instructed to always tend to humanoid life first. Animal and other life forms come after. The young tech was only following his training. He pointed to Kidd. "But..."
Jack's helplessness was quickly turning to rage. "NOW!" he snarled.
The medic knelt down, putting his field pack beside Jack and the wounded Shepherd. "Don't know what I can do, Commander," he said gently, "he's got quite a bit of damage..." The rage was surging, and Jack Steele was fighting to remain in control.
Suddenly, Jack found he had his .45 in hand. "You do whatever the hell you have to do to keep him alive," he growled, tapping the medic in the chest with the muzzle of the gun. "Understand?" The startled young med-tech nodded, opened his emergency surgical kit and instantly went to work. Steele gave the dog one last loving pat and stood up, turning to face Joshua Kidd. "You rotten piece of subhuman filth..." he snarled, blocking another arriving medic. "He won't be needing you..."
"But..." objected the medic.
"Buzz off!" insisted Jack, waving the .45.
Fearfully, the medic backed cautiously away from the pilot with the wild flaming eyes temporarily gripped by insanity. He turned to the group huddled around Fritz and decided to lend a hand there. Whether it was by coincidence or by design, for the moment, the group had abandoned Joshua Kidd.
"Help me," gurgled Kidd, one bloody hand reaching out beseechingly, a growing ruby-red stain ruining his pretty, white ruffled shirt.
"Fuck you, you lousy piece of shit," spat Jack. “There are no words foul enough to describe the depths of worthless human waste that you are...” Steele thumbed the safety off, “Hear that...? Know what that is...? It's Hell, and it's coming for you...” His voice was cold, deadpan.
"But," pleaded the pirate, blood running between his fingers, "he was only an animal..." There was no humanity in the dark eyes glaring back at him, only blackness. A void without hope, without mercy, vacant of all emotion except hate. He shivered from a wave of cold and realized too late he'd crossed the wrong man. "Oh Lord p-p-please," he stammered, his words and thoughts running together hoping to stave off the inevitable darkness of hell that was rushing forward, propelled by his own stupidity and arrogance. "Just an animal - I'll get you another - I'll give you anything - I can make you rich, yes that's it, rich - Rich beyond your wildest dreams... "
Having lost control, Steele bared his teeth with seething hatred, "You are too fucking stupid to live..." In a flash of electricity, rage overtook him like a tsunami rising up from his core and suddenly engulfing his entire body. Without hesitation, thought or physical connection, the muzzle of the 1911 came up level. Maria screamed as she descended the ramp of the cruiser, but Jack did not hear her, his mind disconnected from his reactions leaving him a bystander, watching it happen. He squeezed the trigger and watched Kidd's head explode, his brains splash across the deck, the empty shell casing tinkling lightly across the deck in slow motion as the near-headless body of the pirate captain limply toppled over. Blood ran freely from the stump of the neck, a growing pool of red breaking away in rivulets running into the seams of the deck. "That was for Fritz," Steele breathed, clicking the safety and holstering the gun. He stared blankly at the odd patterns of gore, the totality of the event unregistered in his mind, void of remorse or other feelings. Numbness faded, the thump of his heartbeat and cloudy hiss of static in his ears slowly turning back into voices like someone surfacing who had been underwater.
Maria touched the pilot on the elbow. "Jack?"
He spun. "Huh?"
"Jack, what happened here?"
"Fritz..." his voice trailed off. It seemed that suddenly his mind shifted back into gear as the rest of his surroundings came rushing back in at him. He spun around. "Where's Fritz?"
They had all been watching, the pirate crew, wounded, medics, his friends. There were quite possibly a hundred witnesses and not one person or being said a word. Brian stepped forward and took his friend by the shoulders. "They took him to the infirmary. So far he's still breathing, but that's about it."
"I want to see him."
"I'll go with you," volunteered Maria.
Jack put one hand on her shoulder and looked into her eyes. The rage was gone now, the tsunami retreating, leaving behind the wreckage and debris of loss, sorrow, grief and despair. "Thanks," he sighed, "but I think I'd rather go alone." He wiped away a tear with the back of his hand and with his head hanging, quietly followed a medibot to the infirmary. The others stood silently and watched him go.
“Alright alright!" yelled Brian, taking charge. "We've got plenty of work to do! Let's not just stand around, let's clean up this mess and get organized!" Once again the landing bay became a flurry of activity.
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The room was dimly lit and smelled of antiseptic. It took Jack's eyes several moments to adjust to the darkness, so he paused at the doorway before entering staring at the shiny white tile floor of the infirmary. Somehow it was comforting to know, at home or in deep space, some things remained constant. He took a deep calming breath and walked into the room. Fritz lay alone in the room on an infirmary bed, his only companion the lit console of electronics that monitored his life signs and kept him alive. Jack stood at the side of the bed and stared at the hoses, tubes and wires running from the console to his friend. If for only a moment, he contemplated pulling them out and letting the dog slip quietly away with dignity, then admonishing himself for even thinking of it. Pulling a chair over to the side of the bed, Steele sat with his head resting on the edge of the mattress and his hand on the soft fur of Fritz's shoulder. "I'm here buddy..." he whispered. An uneasy sleep overtook him as he felt the gentle rise and fall of the dog's breathing.
Several times throughout the night, medical attendants passed in and out of the room, checking on the dog's status. Except for a slight improvement of his stability, things went unchanged and Jack went undisturbed... until several hours later. "Jack... Jack!"
He sat bolt upright and blinked in the darkness. "Huh?"
The hooded figure stood in the darkness on the other side of the bed holding a snifter of brandy. "Are you with me?"
"Voorlak?" He knew it was. It was a question Jack didn't need to ask. "Ditarian Brandy I take it?" He rubbed his eyes.
"Of course."
Jack nodded, "Of course... got any more?" His mouth was dry and he could use the warmth, the room felt cold.
"Wouldn't go anywhere without it," said the Ancient, handing the pilot another snifter from under his long robe.
Jack accepted the snifter and took a slow draw on the thick, sweet liquor. It felt good as it slid down. "Don't suppose you've got anything to eat in there..." he said, pointing at the robe. Voorlak smiled, Jack couldn't see it so much as he could feel it. "No, I suppose not." Stiff and aching, he stood up slowly. "Don't you ever use a door old man?" Jack realized he was probably being a bit irreverent, but he was in no mood for formalities. Besides, he felt he had a kind of strange understanding, a link with the wise man that went beyond the pomp.
"No need," said the Ancient with a casual wave of his hand. "Besides, it's boring... no flair, no style."
It was Jack's turn to smile. "Well, I guess I've got to admire an omnipotent with a concern for style."
"Thank you... really, but I'm not truly omnipotent. At least not yet." Voorlak pulled back the hood of his cloak and sipped his brandy. He stared at the swirling golden liquor and thought. The silence was uneasy, seeming longer than it was and the discussion turned serious, as Jack knew it had to. "I had to come," explained the wise man, "to tell you not to give up on him like you contemplated earlier." He stroked the short fur on Fritz's front foreleg. "He may not consciously be aware of you, but you need to talk to him, touch him, he'll sense you. You need to keep his spirit alive, give him a reason not to give up his soul."
"What good will that do? He'll just be a vegetable, right?" Jack loved his friend with all his heart, but he had no desire to prolong the dog's existence if it held no meaning or quality of life for him.
"You must trust me," said Voorlak, waggling a finger at Jack. "All is not lost, unless he feels alone and gives up." He sounded stern but warm and fatherly at the same time. "Now I don't see you as a quitter; you're not willing to let him go without a fight, are you?" That had never been one of Steele's weaknesses but he was feeling a little helpless. He shook his head no, wondering what he could possibly do to help the canine that had not only saved his life, but had been his twenty-four hour companion for years. "Good," nodded the Ancient. "Now see this..." he moved close to Fritz and while stroking his fur, spoke lovingly to him. The monitoring equipment showed definite and almost immediate changes. "Of course, with your connection to him, you'll probably have better results."
Steele studied the old man for a moment, "You knew this would happen..."
"Yes... I suppose in one form or another, but not exactly when or how. It's not an exact science."
Jack sighed. "You couldn't tell me because you thought it might affect how I handled things? Maybe change my decisions, my destiny?"
"Now who's being omnipotent?" joked the old man, pausing to gaze at the dog. "Actually I don't believe it would not have changed your decisions; you are guided by your heart and conscience. Besides being incredibly imaginative, you have an acute sense of right and wrong which prevents you from being a casual bystander."
Jack thought about that sense of right and wrong and for the first time in several hours, thought about the death of Joshua Kidd... the event replaying in his mind in slow motion; the blood, the splatter, the gore in intense detail. But the gaps were almost more frightening than what he remembered; some of it a blur of color and emotion without definition. He felt an emptiness he couldn't identify mixed with guilt about letting the rage overrun that sense of right and wrong. Overrun, hell, it got trampled to death. That brought him down to the same level of principles as Joshua Kidd; he despised himself for that.
"Forget what you are thinking, Jack." Voorlak's voice startled the pilot who had been momentarily lost in the visions.
"But I murdered a man in cold blood..."
The Ancient shook his head, "No... Not a man, something more akin to a rabid animal. And not in cold blood, but in defense of all living things. He was filled with evil and you were his polar opposite. As two forces so diametrically opposed, those forces cannot occupy the same space at the same time; the stronger force will win out. The conclusion is always violent as one displaces the other; and the greater the forces, the more violent the conclusion. You were just the instrument of good displacing evil. It is done and forgotten."
Jack was stunned. "Forgiven... just like that?"
“Just like that," confirmed the old man.
“Can I get that in writing...?”
"Jack? Who're you talking to?" Steele turned to see Maria walk through the open door followed by Brian, Derrik and Paul.
"I..." he turned back but Voorlak was gone, "was um, talking to Fritz." He leaned over and rubbed the dog's frame, "Wasn't I buddy?"
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Mike Warren and Professor Edgars shared a room in an infirmary facility, several levels below the one in which Fritz lay. After a refreshing shower and a clean uniform, Jack paid a visit to them with the same group that came up to see Fritz. When the group arrived, Mike and the Professor were in the process of playfully harassing a rather attractive, nurse who fought back, deftly fending off the roaming hands. When Jack told the two men to behave themselves and quiet down, the nurse defended her patients, excusing their behavior due to the drugs they'd been treated with. Both men were happily animated and obviously feeling no pain.
The surgeon caught Jack and the others in the hall as they left and explained how Mike and the Professor were doing. It seemed beyond the serious burns, Mike also had three broken ribs and a punctured lung from the fall off the wing of the Sweet Susie. His ribs would knit quickly with the aid of an electronic stimulator which would accelerate the bone healing process. And using a small patch of healthy skin, a sheet of new skin large enough to cover the damaged area could be grown through a cloning-type process which would eliminate the normal massive scarring.
Unlike Mike, the Professor had no hidden injuries. Upon healing, he would receive a permanent, completely functional, five fingered, mechanical hand and arm covered with artificial skin. Unless carefully scrutinized he would appear completely normal. Jack was pleased that two men he called friends would return to good health in relatively short order. But since his thoughts never left Fritz for long, it was difficult for him to feel the happiness or relief he should have felt.
There was much to do after the capture of the pirate cruiser but no matter how long the day, how tired or busy, Jack found the time to see Fritz every day and spend time with him. After a couple of days of stable life signs, the surgeons carefully removed the sections of Fritz's damaged skull and brain tissue. In preparation for what, Jack was unsure, because the surgeons told him little. The only thing he knew was, what they were to attempt was strictly experimental and risky. And like most doctors anywhere, they were careful to not predict the outcome. After the initial surgery, Jack took to sleeping on the same bed as his friend, hoping the companionship would improve the odds of the Shepherd's survival. A week later, Jack entered an empty room and was told Fritz had been placed in a sterile isolation area and could not be visited for some time. Seeing the amazing things accomplished with Mike and the Professor, Jack had no choice but to put his trust in the skill of the doctors. He just wished they'd let him visit his friend.
