The Princess of Caldris Read Online Free PDF Page B

felt the vibes oozing off
Hammerstein. Parson’s pay grade didn’t make him privy to the
abduction of the Princess, the details of the salvaged Sunrider at
Fort Oort, or the fact that the government had commandeered the son
of an aristocratic family as psychic to root out an unsolvable
crime, but a lifetime of living by his wits and landing on his feet
gave him the sense to know this was a….well, he had some very
artful expletives in his mind when he summed up the
situation.
    As a young gentleman whose
Grandmatron had always told him, “Remember who you are,
Winteroud. Chin up and white tie for
dinner ”, I’ll of course leave the ribald
Navy expletives out of my recounting of the tale, but they are, as
I said before, rather an art form unto themselves; a proper
response, at some level, to the absurdity the universe so often
persists at presenting mankind. Sometimes even my Grandmatron would
add, “ Chin up, shoulders back, and boobs
out”, but of course only rarely and then
with the unending embarrassment of my mother who mostly preferred
delicate pretense and propriety to the certain genius of real
recognition that we live in an absurdly off kilter universe which
we did not make.
    Parsons whispered to the
head tech not knowing I could read him across the service bay, “You
got any idea what’s going on here with this little fly by night
run?”
    The tech gave him a sidelong glance, “Nope.
The Detective is top brass, the kid is rich, and the female captain
is smoking hotter than a volcano. They all have to be at Fort Oort
yesterday. Any questions?”
    Parson looked at the Hammerhead. “Yeah,
how’s my Honey?” He ran his gloved hand along the hull with a
loving caress.
    “ Well, Officer Hammerstein
over there wasn’t too happy with the time we’ve been eating up
prepping your Hammerhead, but I’ve kept it by the
numbers.”
    “ Thanks. I like coming
home with my heart still beating. Any word on the
winds?”
    “ Solar wind at a minimum.
One more diagnostic and you’re good to go.”
    “ Roger, Roger, Kazi,
kitty! Thanks, Buck!” Parsons quipped and climbed into the
Hammerhead and began his flight deliberations and
lockdowns.
    The tech nodded to
Hammerstein and we climbed aboard. There wasn’t a thing on that
airship that didn’t need to be there except a small plastic Hula
dancer someone had glued over a structural reinforcement over the
door and painted, “Aloha baby let’s dance!” below. Dancing of
course a metaphor for combat flight. If you’re going to die in
combat, in a Hammerhead, best to do it with a Cavalier attitude.
You've either got, or you haven’t got style.
    Welcome to the dance.
    The Hammerhead hummed to
life and all I could think of was “The little Engine that could.”
Not much bigger than a standard city airbus, the vehicle was mostly
intended for air support of ground troops securing areas in
conflict. Their simplicity, reliability, and sheer versatility had
made them beloved of any military or police forces that acquired
them.

    Steve Allman
    One of the airmen buckled
us in, “Each of your seat has an emergency force field and life
support back up pending a hull breach. If you get knocked out into
the void, you’ll have twenty-four standard hours of protection.
Then the seat trips into a stasis mode to preserve you. Time will
stop within the
    stasis field. If someone one homes in one
your beacon before it goes stasis, you may be picked up. Otherwise
you’re under stasis indefinitely-alive, but unable to call for
help.
    “ Thank you for that,
Airman.” Tokushima eyed him dryly.
    “ Just doing my job,
Maam.”
    “ Woolly Bully!” Parsons
snapped from the cockpit and I could feel the craft alight itself,
aloft quickly into the airstreams and high lights of dawn, rushing
like a puppy to the cumulonimbus and the high places in the
stratosphere. Parsons delight was palpable to me; behind us a
shimmering white line, purposeful action made tangible arcing up
and across