Chapter Six: Operation High Tail — Part 1

Kiyoshi tests his bonds, knowing that they are firm. He listens carefully as people scream in a closed room not far from him. In that room, he knows, arrowheads are being dug from flesh, dislodged from bone, open wounds stitched. He knows that his brother, a crazy young man with delusions of alien invasion and a desire to steal the Edgewind for its extraterrestrial secrets, is to blame for all of it. He fears that he will be the whipping boy, and if he is, it won’t be the first time that his brother’s antics have put him in harm’s way. The hours pass, and though he is certain that nobody has died, there is a palpable taste and scent of blood in the air. Blake leaves the quarters, clothes covered in blood, hands flashing signs of a language as alien to Kiyoshi as the far side of the moon. There are adjectives of expression that cannot be misinterpreted. Blake’s face is a visage of twisted rage, his walk a swagger of hell sent fury.

Blake can’t talk, and the storm of words flowing off his hands mean nothing to Kiyoshi, they are like the patter of rain against the window during a storm, threatening only in that there should be a feeling of information in the consistency of noise. One specific verb cannot be taken out of context, and Kiyoshi feels his brain rattle in his skull as Blake slams it against the unforgiving shell of the ship. Kiyoshi slowly loses a controlled flow of thought as the pain increases and changes location and intensity. It stops abruptly, and as Kiyoshi’s rattle mind works through the ringing hiss and brings the world around him back into perspective, he sees a young girl acting in his defense. Her right shoulder is bandaged, and blood is seeping through the linen. Her left upper leg is bandaged, and her clothes are stained with blood. Sweat pours down the back of her neck, and her hands are moving in a frantic patter of motion that is accentuated by her voice.

“We don’t hit — You said that.” She says, sounding like she is yelling and whispering all at once. “This isn’t different — I shot two of them, George and Jude shot two more. He pulled no strings, he caused no wounds . . . ”

The two are talking back and forth, their silhouettes on both walls a flutter of activity. For Kiyoshi it could have been a battle of shadow puppeteers, until the girl raises her hands up in front of her, eyes locked with the larger man.

“WE DON’T HIT!” Her angry, defiant voice is terrifying.

Blake grabs his head in frustration, throws his arms up in a tantrum, and storms off to the Captain’s Quarters. He slams the door behind him, leaving Kiyoshi to wonder if his death sentence has been rescinded, or merely delayed. The girl, whoever she is, doesn’t bother to look back at him, and Kiyoshi is shaking in fear as he realizes just how close he’s come to dying. She crosses her good arm to her bad, crouches over with pain, shaking worse than Kiyoshi. Her voice, when she finally regains it, is barely controlled, the voice of a scared, angry girl.

“I’ll send somebody to check on you, keep you safe.” She says, limping slowly back to the room where the others are resting.

Kiyoshi can’t see to know, but he suspects that the girl is crying. When she is gone, Kiyoshi is filled with dread. He is certain that his ribs are broken, and worried he might have a concussion. Nobody comes immediately, and the ship is too quiet to give him an accurate sense of time. The whoosh of air against the sales and skin is quiet and consistent, growing in power, if only because he can’t seem to take his mind off of it. He tests his bonds, knowing they will hold him until he is released. When somebody does arrive, it is a gnomish looking middle-aged man with no hair, sun kissed skin, and a carefully neutral expression. He flashes a light first in one of Kiyoshi’s eyes, then in the other, and then cuts his bonds. Kiyoshi thinks he can take the man, but something about the man’s stern look and cautious motions make him think twice.

“My name is Jude. Leftenant Daria wants you on the deck. Can you walk?” Jude asks.

“I can.” Kiyoshi says.

“Then come with me.” Jude says. “And before you scheme on trying to escape, remember that you signed on for this when you volunteered to be the blood price for your friend’s betrayal. Besides, we’re two hours into the arch, with a near vacuum behind us, and a bubble of plasma in front of us, so now really isn’t a good time to try to leave.”

As he comes up onto the deck, the sun is clearly set and to the rear of the ship, the stars are highly visible. On all sides are clouds, and even though the stars should be visible above and to the front, the arch compression is glowing violently in the night, about the same strength and color as moonlight, only the light is flowing like a cross between fog and lightning, moving fluidly about the ship, tickling wherever it touches. Kiyoshi is in awe. His mind is wrapt in a blur of incomprehensible thought; his heart is racing with the need to find answers to questions that have only started to form.

“It is bedeviling, isn’t it, Kiyoshi?” Daria asks, cranking a couple of ratcheting tackles simultaneously, until her instruments show the ship’s deck level on both axes.

“Our flyers never reported this kind of experience.”

“They couldn’t have triggered the response. We don’t know if it is the punch of mass, or our speed that causes the fire.” Daria sounds unusually distracted.

“Fire?” Kiyoshi is suddenly confused, as if anything the touch of the plasma feels cooler than the air around him.

“Saint Elmo’s.” Daria says. “What you did back there took balls of steel.” She’s fiddling now, fine tuning her tackle boxes in response to a subtle change in wind flow, “If the First Mate Blake weren’t kept in check by Captain Joe and his girl, well, since you got the brunt of his temperament first hand, I think you’ll know what might have happened to your friends back down Tokyo way.”

“His reaction is understandable.” Kiyoshi says quietly.

“I hear you, but speak up, and try not to mumble.” Daria shouts suddenly, cursing as she works one of larger handles suddenly counterclockwise, working so fast that Kiyoshi can’t feel the deck shift off center. “He’ll calm down once Joe is done talking to him. Problem is, our boys and girls are hurt, and they’re going to need to get to the Doc in Tó Naneesdizí. She’s a hotheaded little number, you going to need a Doctor’s touch too, I’m afraid, even though you don’t know it yet. Problem is, we’ve got George and Jude at the maps, and me at the helm, and we need to make quick time to the middle of the fine state of Arizona. How far did your fliers map the arches?”