“Have a little beer with us father?” Frost asked as he poured a healthy glass of dark porter.
“Oh, I'm no holy man. Though I have been blessed from time to time,” Liam said as he accepted the glass. “Not the best stuff on Earth, but much better than what they call beer between the stars,” he commented as he held it up.
Alice cleared her throat and sat up straight. Stephanie handed her a napkin from a pile near her and she wiped her nose and eyes. “Can I try a glass?”sShe asked Frost as he poured one out for everyone at the bar except for Captain Valance, who was refilling his glass with scotch.
“Now that stuff is a little more top shelf,” Liam commented as he saw the Captain put the bottle down. “How many glasses have you had?”
“I'm not sure, the bottle was full when we started it.”
“Most people would be on the floor right about now.”
“I have an unfair advantage,” Captain Valance said, toasting the man several seats down. “So, how about signing on permanently as the Triton's Chief Engineer? I heard you saying you liked what you saw down there earlier.”
“Well, let's see,” he looked to the pair he had brought with him, they smiled back, in expectation of his answer. “ Triton. He was a Greek God who was best known for his conch horn. The Myths say that the sound was so powerful it could send the giants fleeing in fear. He could raise or calm the waves of the oceans and summon the Gods. I like the name, her Captain has managed to, with the help of his crew and a lot of people he managed to pull to his side, calm a ship filled with panicking refugees and abandoned passages in the space of a day.”
The deck crew started coming through the far doorway, followed by Angelo and Paula shortly after.
Liam went on. “I'd say that the ship, though improperly used for decades, is steady, well made and has more years ahead than behind. The only thing left to ask after is her purpose,” he said loudly enough to catch the attention of most of the people entering. The place was filling up quickly, rumours of a lounge being open had spread like a wildfire.
Captain Valance looked at Liam for a moment, knowing he was being put on the spot. There was something about the way Liam was looking back at him that said that the older man had some idea of what to expect. The silver skull painted high behind the bar caught his eye then and he stood on the bar's foot rail.
“Quiet, he's about to speak,” Angelo said to the crew coming in behind him as the chatter began to rise.
“Shut it!” Paula reinforced with a harsh screech that had the instant desired effect.
“When I came in here with Jonas Valent this was the first thing we saw.” He raised his glass at the silver skull. “Not an hour later he sacrificed his life so we could go on our way unharmed. Some of his last words to us were; 'If I had just a bit more time I'd make the galaxy free again.' I see a lot of people here who are not free. People who have lost as much or more than we did today, who have already made sacrifices. I say the Triton has been christened anew by those sacrifices, and we'll find able men and women who want to make this galaxy free. That emblem, painted so long ago right next to our home world, applies just as much now as it did then, when the Triton first set out to defend the Sol system. Deploy, Dominate, and Disappear. Regent Galactic won't see us coming, and by the time they realize what's going on we'll already be counting our victory and vanishing right before their eyes. That's my intention, what's what Triton means.”
Liam picked up the queue and called out; “ Triton! ”
To which the crew replied; “Deploy, dominate, disappear.” Weakly at first.
“ Triton! ” he called out again with greater fervor.
“Deploy! Dominate! Disappear!” Replied everyone in the room.
Once more he cried out; “ Triton! ”
One more time the deck crew shouted; “Deploy! Dominate! Disappear!”
The room broke into cheers, and the crew in that space seemed revitalized. Stephanie brought up a hologram of the bridge crew, they were on their feet as well. “Liam had the comms open sir. Looks like the words out,” she said with a grin. “We're a crew with a purpose.”
“Great, now someone get back here an' help me tend bar!” Frost shouted over the din.
Domino Effect
“You're different,” said the young red haired woman looking over the top of her coffee mug. She was beautiful, and there was a curiosity about her manner as she shyly considered him.
Without another word she stood and walked to a large transparent bulkhead. Her long white dress had a scooped neckline and flowed smoothly over her curvaceous figure. She was stunning under the gentle blue and white light shed by the stars distorted through the haze of the hyperspace field. Her red hair was curled tightly into ringlets that hung down to a white choker. In the center of that choker was an emblem; a circular blue jewel with a sword through it. Over her shoulders was a white silk shawl.
Under the gentle illumination of hyperspace she turned her head and smiled at him so warmly. “Thank you.”
Her hand extended out to him, she was offering him his long coat, only this one looked much older, the tools he could see inside one of the pockets looked like they had been used far more than anything he'd owned.
Jake took it and put it on.
He was sitting in a chair then, his wrists and ankles were bound, the room was bare of decoration. A tall, wiry man with a long pointed nose was walking around him slowly. “My dear Captain Valent,” he said slowly, annunciating every syllable.
The deep irritation and anger he felt towards his haughty captor were second only to the pain in his head and neck. The rest hurt too, just not as much. There was nothing he wanted to do more than to tear his interrogator to shreds, but the restraints wouldn't give.
“I wonder if your name is shortened from Valentine?” He stooped down and looked Jake in the eye. “From your scans we can see no evidence of inbreeding. I suppose I'll have to have them scan you again,” The man with the irritating, angular face said before breaking into hysterical laughter.
Jake managed to hop in his seat and bite into the man's nose, it burst like ripe fruit.
The pain was gone when he opened his eyes and he was following a very tall blond haired fellow with broad shoulders down an old hallway. It looked like a ship corridor that had seen many, many years, but it was clean and well cared for.
They arrived at a doorway and the placard on the portal came into view; Captain was what it said. The door opened and Jake saw the large blond man again; “Sounds like a Captain. Looks like a Captain. Even acts like a Captain. It's all real, and I bet this trip would already be over if we had a Captain who sailed by the book.”
The lights went out. Darkness weighed heavily, panic rose in his chest, then there was a flash, just for a moment the entire world was alive. His hands gripped the controls of some metal beast. Another flash, and he could see the guns.
The flashes came faster, faster, until he could hear the ammunition being fed in a constant stream into the mini cannons. He could track enemy ships with his eyes and the targeting computer, and he was dead set on killing everything in the black sky. A sign hovered over his targeting reticle; Departures only today! Scheduled arrivals postponed indefinitely!
A large marauder corvette came into view, its tall, smooth vertical bow was topped with a charging beam emitter that glowered at him like a great big yellow eye. He fired, feeling the guns shake his arms, his shoulders, the pod that hung from the bottom of the old ship; there was no way they'd take him alive.
The beam emitter flashed and he was standing in a military port. All around there were young soldiers, getting ready to go off to war. An older man who was so familiar regarded him with a level gaze. There was a lot going on behind those eyes, so much like his own, and as the older, familiar man handed him the old black long coat he said; “I'm proud of you,” and was gone.
As he put the coat on he found himself saying; “The Ancient Americans used to tell a story about a lone wolf.”
“What killed him?” asked a disembodied voice.
“One of his own pups.”
