The Game of the Millennium: A Novel Page 2
A ruggedly handsome face appeared with penetrating blue eyes and light ash brown hair. “This is Captain Nathan.”
“Nate!”
“Oh hell. . . Astraos. You’re the one stirring up a mess down there, huh?”
“Looks that way.”
“They have a class one battlecruiser coming your way.”
“Time?”
“Ten minutes.”
“Beam?”
“Ha! You know my ship.”
“Right.”
“We’ll rest on top. Get yourself up here. We’ll talk compensation later.”
“Deal.”
“And one more thing.”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t cut this close.”
Lauren saw Astraos’s lip curl, the beginnings of a grin. “When have I cut it close?” He said with a tone almost hurt by the connotation.
“Lerrid Prime, comes to mind.”
He shrugged. “That wasn’t my fault.”
“Always seems to be the case.” The captain’s image faded from the lens.
“Son of a brooder signed off.” He put her down; they were very close to the last winding turn that would put them at the top of the butte.
“What’s happening?” Lauren saw a grim future, inevitable death approaching. She began to whimper. She started to wheeze then clenched at her chest, feeling her airways tighten. She was in the midst of a panic attack.
Astraos rushed over and ran his thumb underneath each of her eyes, gathering her tears. He rubbed them between his thumb and index finger, feeling pain for the female he had just met. “We will make it out of this.”
“How. . .? I heard some of what that captain said. We got no way to get out of here.”
A stupid, broad grin came over his face and she suppressed a smile, her panic attack seemed to lessen. How could he be grinning?
“The captain left out one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“There were more of them then.”
Lauren shook her head vehemently and laughed; she forced a long, intense breath out. His good nature was infectious and enough to end her panic attack.
“Wait here.”
“For what?” Lauren wiped the residual tears from her face. Be strong. Be better. This time the voice was her own. She would not be another woman who turns into a pile of mush at the first sign of trouble—no matter how precarious the situation. If you’re going to die, go out with some god damn spunk. He had sparked a fire within, she could not deny it. I have to be strong.
Astraos placed his hand on her shoulder. “For the fireworks, baby.”
He ran up to the top of the butte and waved to the J-Wing Fighters, unsheathed Laverne and Shirley with a mad grin, took a hefty breath and waited.
“Come wit’ it now!”
One of the J-Wing Fighters retracted their wings and sped towards him—the move of a katros suicide bomber. “Ah. . . I am sorry, slave. You have fought with honor. It’s all any of us can ask for, besides. . . fun, sex and free-will.” He twirled his blades in anticipation.
The lens put a target around the J-Wing Fighter and measured the distance. The lens, known as Informer, implanted detailed information on the J-Wing Fighter directly into Astraos’s brain:
Jacko-Wing Fighter - is one of the most dreaded small space fighters in the galaxy. The katros have one suicide bomber in each squad. The rest of the squadron’s goal is to protect the bomber until it hits its target. This tactic has been employed to destroy class two battlecruisers.
The katros suicide bombers are manned only by slaves. The katros created these suicide bombers by installing a chip that overrides the self-preservation nature in a slave’s genetic makeup. It activates, ‘the red siren,’ causing the slave to desire nothing but the destruction of his or her target in exchange for their life. The images ‘the red siren’ provides to the salve before their death is their particular species ‘heaven.’ This last illusion is there to ensure no deviation occurs.
Astraos stepped back to the edge of the cliff, yelling, “Remember to watch the fireworks.”
Lauren was befuddled by what he could possibly mean, while unbeknownst to her, a timid smile played across her face.
He ran to the edge and leapt. Once the wings are disengaged, it is near impossible for the J-Wing to elevate. And so, while the pilot tried to alter course, the J-Wing only moved up a few hundred feet.
Astraos predicted this and kept a mad grin attached to his face as he prepared for the ride.
Lauren watched this with a wide open mouth that an eagle could have made a nest in. “He’s—That—That alien is a maniac.”
Astraos arched his back, gaining some buoyancy in his flight. He was almost there. . . almost. . . Screeeech, the sound of Shirley tearing through the top of the J-Wing’s cockpit. He jabbed with Laverne and skewered the alien inside, flinging him out to find death on a desert rock.
Lauren could not believe her eyes. “Not possible.”
Astraos hit the controls, trying to trigger the wings, as it was nose-diving. “Come on. Come on. There has to be a button for these wings to come out.” He saw the other J-Wing Fighter flying towards him. “Come on!”
Once, the J-Wing Fighter is in ‘suicide mode.’ The wings are disabled permanently.
“Fantastic,” he said.
A direct hit.
The J-Wing, spiraled out of control. Unsure of what to do, he shouted, “Come on!” and yanked on the yoke. . .
Astraos’s head hit the headrest and his hands held the yoke which was ripped from the control panel, wires protruding out, he said, “Oh fuck. . .”
He looked behind to see the last J-Wing Fighter keeping a safe distance and about to fire. The controls in front of him were blinking red. “Where’s the eject button?" He fretted over the controls. “Eject. Eject. Where are you?”
Lauren saw the space fighter descending, black smoke bellowing from its midsection and the other fighter about to bring forth the final execution. She said with despair in her voice, “This is more of what I expected.” However tears did not assault her, it was inexplicable, but somewhere deep inside of her, she thought he would pull through.
Astraos smashed down on the controls, some odd beeping occurred, and poooof, the seat ejected. “Yeeeeeeeeeehaw!”
Lauren would later swear she could hear his voice carry through the wind with a distinct cowboy drawl.
He turned himself around, grasping the seat with both hands, seeing the other J-Wing Fighter underneath. He released, free-falling toward the J-Wing, keeping his arms to his sides. He took out Shirley and landed on top of the cockpit, again.
He said grinning like a devil, “I feel like I’ve done this before.”
The J-Wing maneuvered, and he slid to the side, holding onto the right wing with his left hand. This J-Wing Fighter still had its wings and did a barrel roll to shake him. “Had to keep things fresh, huh?” He gripped the wing with everything he had, slightly crunching the metal casing.
“Fireworks, baby!” He screamed as the J-Wing Fighter banked to the side of the butte that he had come from.
Lauren definitely heard that one.
He found himself smiling at the thought of her hearing that. There to witness his exploits. There. . . A beauty waiting for him. Get back on track. “Right.”
He saw his father’s aged face with long angry lines across his forehead from the constant displeasure of something he or his siblings had done. Let’s be honest. It is always me. His heartbeat raced as he prepared to do the unthinkable. Aim. Wait for it. The J-Wing Fighter did an altitude climb to take them out of the atmosphere. Now!
He launched his sword through the cockpit, piercing through the right side. The J-Wing Fighter’s nose peaked upward.
. . . and then
. . . free-fall.
Astraos slowly moved each hand to the left, air whipping at his face, his legs flailing as the space fighter plummeted thousands of feet. He grabbed on to Laverne, swung
on top of the cockpit, took out Shirley and cut open the cockpit like a canned jar of tomatoes. He pulled Laverne out of the katros. Astraos flung him into the air. “Farewell, dick.” He struck Shirley through the J-wing’s hall and used it as an anchor to pull himself in. He did this all in a matter of seconds and with the finesse that made it look easy—but very difficult to describe accordingly.
He grabbed the controls and grinned. “This will be easy.” He stroked the dashboard for some good luck and hoped not to snap the yoke from his strength again. “Come on, baby. I’ll do it nice and slow.”
The J-Wing Fighter responded, and he banked around the enclosure.
He had the J-Wing hover to the side of the butte Lauren was standing atop of. “Hop in.”
“The threat’s over. You took care of them. Why should I come along?”
Astraos frowned and pointed up.
Lauren looked above and her mouth quivered in response. “It can’t be.”
Above the Earth was a class one battlecruiser, it was the size of the moon. The hulking mass had endless rows of lights on the sides of the ship. It was menacing. Foreboding. A dark gray, ominous object that conquered the sky. Earth didn’t look all that safe anymore.
Tears rolled down her cheeks, she had survived one extraordinary situation to find herself in the middle of a much grander one. My mom. My friends. . . Memories, smiles, scenes of love, moments of caring and heartwarming times all streamed through her mind and displayed in front of her. The sort of flashback one has when looking death in the eye.
“They will find you and kill everything and everyone associated with you in the hopes of gleaming more information. We will come back. But we have to go. . . Now!”
Lauren stared blankly in return. She could not be the reason for so many deaths. She saw her mom, an apparition mouthing ‘go.’
Astraos reached out his hand. Lauren stood rigid, biting her lip, exhaled deeply, grabbed his hand and took the plunge.
She hopped in the seat behind him and asked, “What’s this green goo everywhere?”
“Alien bits. Have we done introductions? I am Astraos.”
“I know. My name is Lauren.”
“Oh, right. Lauren, buckle up. It’s the button at the top of the seat.” She did so.
Dialing. . .
The same image as before appeared again. “You’re cutting it close.”
“To be expected, right?”
“We’ll meet you halfway.”
“Have Kat meet me at the bay to remove any tracking.”
“You know, I’m the one who told you about that.”
“And I’m the one reminding you.”
He scoffed. “I remember when you were more like Pilox than me.”
“And that’s a bad thing?”
“It’s certainly more entertaining this way.”
August 7, 2015
Lauren packed her hiking backpack with an obsession reserved for addicts. This has to go here. This must go there. Perfect.
Her mom was running errands. Thank God. This allowed her to focus, be gentle and precise without the added pressure of her mom lingering, waiting, striking like a viper, swallowing her resolve and leaving nothing but the bones.
Lauren grabbed her hooded observing vest and placed it in its proper place, inside the backpack, touching the vest made her recall a summer night stargazing with her father; she felt the summer breeze on her skin, the coyotes cackling, the sticky humidity in the air that paved way for a chilly night bundled up under their tent.
This was to be her last venture mapping the stars at one of her father’s favorite sites for a long, long time. Lauren was off to Baylor’s Medical School in a few weeks. . . she did not know how to tell her mother. At first, she had kept it a secret just until she could find the right time; but weeks turned into months, and now the dreaded conversation keeps her up at night. She knew her mother would spew an onslaught of derogatory comments about Lauren leaving her to die. Ironically, her mother had bitched at her about how Astronomy would lead nowhere and how she needed to get out of the house and find herself. That sentiment, however, was a projection of her mother’s unhappiness. She did not want Lauren to go anywhere, at least no where past a half hour drive.
Theresa, her mother, had been on edge for a while. Her father had never been the best, even Lauren could see that—the dubious bouts of anger directed at Theresa caused her to mirror this loathsome attitude and focus it on her daughter. . . And now he was gone. This created a void in their household. And all that remained was a chaotic storm of emotion and despair that made her mother unbearable, much worse than before.
While grabbing an over-sized sweater to pack for the frigid nights, Lauren reminisced about her four years at the University of Arizona. She enjoyed that time which was filled with fun, sex, boys, a weird drunken night with a gal, pajama pants to class, budgeting, figuring out how to make decent meals and learning more about herself. She had been a loner throughout her time and did not forge any lifelong relationships. While at school, she perceived only two paths for herself: change majors and get a physics degree then pursue astrophysics at the PhD level or make the most of herself and help others by pursuing a career in Internal Medicine. She was currently looking at the specialty, Neuroendocrinology.
These two professions have a connection with her father. On certain nights of contemplation, Lauren would admit her professional passions began with him. The prior, observing and working in the field of outer space stems from their weekends of deep space hunting. The latter, the more morbid of the two, stem from his death. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and dead within six months—a combination of the cancer metastasizing before they caught it and his outlook on life.
He wanted to die.
Her father, Gregory, was a process engineer for Honeywell. A job he took as a young man with plans to move up-and-out which never came to materialize. He became docile and perfectly unhappy trekking away at the same job for what seemed like countless years. His ambition quailed as offers never came through the door and promotions went to those he deemed undeserving—not as intelligent and or the inept. He never looked inside to figured out what he was doing wrong. He didn’t play the game of work politics—rants and raves over the endless stream of ‘brown nosers’ hijacked many of their family dinners over the years.
When he landed an opportunity to show his worth to the company, to demonstrate what decades of toiling on the floor had given him, he screwed it up by lying to his boss and committing to a deadline he could never achieve. The product went for an initial R&D run and downed a line for a month. Honeywell terminated him, and with that, his motivation to live.
That was when Lauren and her mother completely lost their father and husband, respectively. He lounged about—having the ambition of a snail—and no longer had the drive to go out and see the stars with his daughter. She drove in from school once a month, trying to coax him into a ‘night of fun and adventure’ only to be let down, time and time again.
A tear ran away from her face and landed on one of the poles of the Hilleberg Anjan Two her father had gifted them a few years back for, ‘comfy camping and light handling under frigid conditions.’ Lauren wiped the tears from her face and continued to pack. She grabbed the heavy duty, commercial grade duffle bag her father bought after getting the telescope; they quickly realized how silly it was to carry the telescope and mount separately.
She unzipped the bag and went into her closet where the telescope and mount inhabited a bin with boxes inside (they were bought with her father at the self-storage lockers a few miles north of Winslow). She grabbed both items and the Hilleberg Anjan Two and placed them in the bag with some padding around.
It was no small wonder her arms and shoulders had some muscle and definition to them. The bag filled with the telescope, mount and padding weighed about sixty pounds. This she would lug from her room to the car, from the car to one of their spots (ranging from one-to-three miles away), every weekend.
Lauren touched her pristine telescope and remembered the day her father bought it for her birthday. They had talked about getting something with a bigger aperture (they had a 6i telescope when they first started stargazing). She remembered tearing through the wrapping paper like a squirrel foraging for a nut, knowing based on its weight what it had to be. She reminisced on that happy memory often: The mega-watt smile on her father’s face. The initial petty look from her mom that turned into a smile to match Lauren’s when she saw her daughter’s eyes.
Lauren’s heart fluttered. What a beautiful day.
Everything was packed and set for the last weekend in the shadow of a father. She chose to look at him in the sun, the acclaimed light that washed away the darkness. She witnessed the goodness, the actions that were noble and ignored the egocentric ones. Her mother could not let go, but Lauren would. Every weekend had been building momentum toward this fateful conclusion, she would relive the past in the present and experience the old discoveries that started their adventures in the night sky. This would be the last time for a while, because life called and Lauren was many things, but her mother, she was not. She would carve out her own existence, wielding one of her father’s attributes before his tumble: She would be relentless in pursuing life and bliss—the same relentlessness that her father had once pursued his passions with.
Galactic Calendar - 1258789 - Cheshir - Day 283
Astraos landed on the galactic hub, the bristling steel albatross at the center of the galactic market. The Trader’s Zone. The Center. The Wonder and Horror. The Station.
Station XI had many nicknames and occupied the clandestine neutral zone. The Station was unlike any other place in the galaxy, almost everything was legal and even encouraged, to an extent. The only illegal activities that were condemned are as follows: not paying fees associated with The Station and violence carried out against a worker of The Station. Murder was frowned upon but with all the blood feuds and duels and religious disputes and intraspecies hierarchies, murder was rarely convicted upon.