A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 24

This outpost will be closed shortly. I have no intention of passing your incompetence on to another outpost. You have the right to protest, and of course, I will provide immediate transport requests to the mining outposts where you will guard salt for the rest of your careers. Prepare to assist in the packing up. I hope that it is not beyond your ability, for your sake. You are dismissed.

Shaevre heard cheering and was amazed to find Nahl'een and Selena as the sources of the sounds. She walked over and hugged Nahl'een as she grinned. "Now Nahl'een, I wish to see your pony."

Selena rolled her eyes, "It's not a pony. It's a burro. She's too small to ride a pony. I bought her the only thing that I felt comfortable having her sit on."

"She's my pony," Nahl'een insisted.

"You can call her what you like, but she's a burro," Selena said, "The nicest burro that I've ever seen. Her ears are too long to be a pony."

"Her ears long enough to be horse? Maybe she is little horse. Maybe she will grow up and be a horse."

'Selena laughed, "Well if she shrinks much, with those ears she'd be a rabbit. It doesn't matter, Nahl'een. She's a sweetheart, and it's easy to see that she likes you."

"Now Nephew," Arrax said quietly, "Which one of the contingent here would you want at your side if you have to fight or the outpost came under attack?"

Xhan looked over at Shaevre, "That one," he said, "the one called Shaevre."

"Really?" his uncle grinned. "And you even know her name now. Well I am a little confused since she is not an officer and is of low birth. Why do you see value there?"

"She could take on all six of them at once and still win, couldn't she?"

"That depends," Arrax replied thoughtfully, "Would she have to leave them alive, or would she be able to kill them? If your hypothetical situation allows her to kill her opponents, then she could do it in even less time, not needing to be careful. But you did not answer me. Why do you see value there?"

"Because she can fight." Xhan grinned.

Arrax smiled, "You have just become more valuable to me than three officers and three lower ranks combined. Now we come to what is real. Now we come to what is what. What odds do you give our fighter girl there against any or all of the fighting instructors at the academy?"

Xhan stared at his uncle and he began to laugh. "I see what you try to teach me," he nodded.

"Good," Arrax said, "That is why she will be going with us on a mission this afternoon. Pack for a five night stay, and load your weapon. Be sure to take a full combat load. I doubt that you will need any of it, but it is wise to think of the worst case. You will have a decision to make very soon."

----------------------

Faith had been practicing all morning. It had been a couple of days and her wings had gotten strong very quickly. There had been a few comical crashes in her landings, but hurricanes aside, she could take off and land pretty well anywhere with ease now. Her present challenge was navigation. Things looked quite a bit different to her from the air than they did on the ground.

At the moment, she was busy finding her way back to where they'd spent the past few days. She hoped that she could remember all of the landmarks that she'd tried to memorize and she knew full well that the same things could look very different again to her from the other side as she worked her way back. She was trying very hard, because their plan for tomorrow was to head to where he lived. Faith felt a lot of trepidation over it, but she knew that he had to get home and she really wanted to meet his daughter. She hoped that it wouldn't go badly.

Dahlgren was pacing her from about a half-mile back and maybe five hundred feet above. They were less than five miles out now and he was glad that Faith had already begun her descent. What it said to him was that she knew where she was and was confident enough in the knowledge to make her approach. He knew that was when she'd be busiest, being new to this.

He looked over his shoulder and felt his heart want to seize. He saw the dark streak coming from miles away and stopped gliding to beat his wings hard, trying to gain the speed that he'd need to overtake Faith quickly.

She looked back when she heard his call to her and saw his hand signal pointing straight down. A second or so later, it seemed, and he was almost beside her.

"Down!" he shouted, pointing, "Fold your wings and drop straight down. Land as soon as you can and try to hide, Quick!"

"What is it?" she called out, but he pulled in really close as he passed her, "Spiral down tight and land as fast as you can! Do it!"

She looked back and saw something. She didn't know what it might be, other than it was coming fast from high up in a long arc. She folded her wings and felt the air begin to rush past her face as she gained speed.

"This way!" Dahlgren called, passing her once more on the way down, "Double back a little."

She nodded, and did her best to comply, keeping a nervous eye on the ground as it rose to crush her. Even at this speed, she could already feel the air temperature rising as she got nearer to the heated ground. She looked up again and lost whatever it was for a second.

Then she saw it. It had overshot them and was headed down itself. She pulled up a little, feeling the strain in her wings as she tried to brake a little. Dahlgren flew right past her face from right to left and she followed him toward a low mountain rising out of the desert floor.

She met him on the slope as he ran to her. "Try to find some rocks or something to hide behind. Let me handle this."

"What was that?" She asked.

He looked really grim, "That was a dragon."

"A what? A dragon?"

"Not really," he shook his head, "It was actually your new mother-in-law. Get behind those rocks and stay there, please. She's got a bee up her ass, maybe a whole hornet's nest."

"Well shouldn't I -- "

"No," he said a little sadly, "I was warned about this in my prayers this morning. I'll try to explain it all to you later. My mother and I work for the same people. As strange as it seems, they find that they like you, but my mother has some stupid ideas. Just stay here and stay out of sight. She's in no mood to meet anyone right now."

Faith nodded, feeling very unhappy. She had known that it could be a long shot that she might have one day of being accepted. From the way that Dahlgren was acting, that long shot was impossibility. She ducked down behind the rocks.

He met Ny'Zeille on the flat plain below fifteen minutes later as they walked toward each other.

"What have you DONE?" she roared at him.

"Hello Mother," he smiled pleasantly, though he knew that this would likely be anything but pleasant, "It's good to see you, too. I've missed you. How's --"

He fell over backward in a ball of flame. Faith almost screamed to see him on his back like that.

He picked himself up out of the dirt. "Alright, then it's not so good to see you. What was that for?"

"You know what it was for, "Ny'Zeille seethed, "Why Dahlgren? I've been telling you for years that you could have anyone. Why have you done this? Why a Red, of all females?"

He was furious himself, but he bit down on it, knowing that he'd need at least half his brain before she did something stupid. He smiled.

"Well, she's cute," he said, reaching over his shoulder for his sword.

The next fireball was on its way before Ny'Zeille had even noticed the appearance of the sword. She did notice it when he swung to send the blazing sphere right back to her.

"How dare you!" she raged and she drew her hand back.

"Same question," he said, "Just what is it that you think you're doing here? What am I supposed to feel now, joy and love that my mother has come to save me from what she sees as my foolishness?"

"Yes! I've worked tirelessly for too long to --"

"To what?" He asked, throwing his own blast at her, though he really hoped that she'd at least sidestep away, which she did. "I know why it was that you worked so long and hard, Mother. You were trying to regain what you saw as the loss of prestige to the family name for what you did when you went against your own parents and took up with my father. You were trying to make up for what you did.

When I rose to get where you pushed me my whole life, it still didn't get your asshole parents to forgive you."

He swung again and sent her next bit of destruction off into the desert. "Do you think that I never thought of it in all that time?"

"You are breaking your vows to the faith!" she yelled.

His sword came down, backside of the blade first to the ground in front of him, and the shockwave almost made Ny'Zeille topple over. She was covered in the dust that the wave had stirred up.

"Do you think that I give a shit now? You're making this up to suit your anger.

Don't play the holygirl with me!" he shouted, "I know that you've pissed off the Great Ones with this. You'd better get a grip, Mother. You've lost the love of your worthless parents over the way that you loved somebody. Don't make the same mistake with me. Stop this. I'm asking you with respect, but I'm not going to beg."

"No?" She grinned as she raised her palm in a direct line to where Faith was hiding.

Her son's eyes grew wide and he raised his hand. "NO!"

There was a bright flash of white-hot flame, and this time, Faith really did scream, but it was cut short.

Ny'Zeille screamed in pain as she turned and saw the glare in Dahlgren's eyes, and she knew than that she'd lost as the same white-hot flash came to her, but much more strongly in a blast which was tailored to suit one of her kind to take her to the edge of her own death. She fell in a ball of the blazing heat and blubbered in agony. Dahlgren felt like what a bow must feel like, sending arrows that it did not intend. What had gone to his mother had been sent by the High Council.

He lowered his hand and walked to where Faith had been hiding. On the way, he passed his mother where she lay on her back in a smoking heap, trembling. "I'm very sorry, Mother," he said as he walked past without looking.

The boulder that Faith had hidden herself behind was shattered, the smoking pieces lying everywhere vitrified from the blast. Faith stood blinking in the sunlight, a little scorched, but appearing unhurt otherwise, though she felt very strange. Dahlgren sat her down and after a careful hug and a lot of kisses, he tried to sense how much she'd been harmed. What he felt was that something had changed, but not markedly and it gave him a lot of hope. "Can you stand?" he asked, "How do you feel?"

"I feel fine," she said, though she really didn't, not the way that she'd been before. She felt alright, just a little different somehow.

"What happened?" Faith asked, "What was that? Dahlgren, talk to me, please?" She was sounding like a little girl to herself and she hated it, but she didn't understand any of what she'd just witnessed.

He kissed her quickly, "Come on, we've got to get out of here. She'll be alright in a day or so, I hope, and I didn't do that alone. She cast on you. The closest name for it that I can give is that it's a way to smite with holy power behind it. If it had lasted for any length of time, it would have likely killed you and removed this mountain. Hurry now, take off and I'll meet you. I'll try to explain as we go. We need to get whatever you want to take along and be gone before she regenerates."

"Regenerates?" Faith looked very nervous now, "You mean she's not..."

He shook his head, "That was a warning. I only directed it. I didn't even mean to send that to her. I was casting something different. They just took it from her and gave it to me to hit her with, and they added a lot to it. They're trying to tell her something, but I doubt that she's listening."

"Who are 'they'?" she asked.

"We've got to get away," he said, "I'll try to think of some way to explain it on the way."

------------------------

"Why we,... "

"Why ARE we,..." Selena smiled, "Go on, Sis, say it that way."

"What means 'sis'?" Nahl'een asked.

Selena shrugged, "It's just a way to say 'sister', that's all."

"Alright, Sis," Nahl'een giggled, "why ARE we taking Dahl's horse, and Gramma's horse too?"

"See? It comes out much better if you say it slowly. They need the exercise," Selena replied.

"Why we have packs now? Your things, my things, not need much. I have dolly."

"Packs need fresh air too," Selena shrugged. They'd been riding at a relaxed pace for an hour and a half. Selena was a bit apprehensive. Her little sister was doing so well, but this would be her first full day on her burro, and that would mean that there was a real limit to how far they could go. Fortunately, as far as she knew, they were almost where they needed to be, and they were a little ahead of time, by what the sun's shadows told her. They crested the next rise and Selena heaved a sigh of relief. The Xer craft was there waiting for them.

That set off another long round of Nahl'een's questions and Selena rolled her eyes.

With the animals loaded up and restrained -- which had been yet another adventure all on its own, Nahl'een was strapped into the seat next to Shaevre with Selena on the Xer's other side.

"Your turn, my friend," Selena chuckled, "I can already hear it coming --'Where we go now'."

"Where we go now?" The girl asked.

Shaevre groaned and thought about trying to get Nahl'een away from the uncomfortable part. She knew how much the little girl loved her grandmother. Finally she hit on an idea.

"We are going to look for your father," she said, "He has had a big fight and he met someone there. I was told that they liked each other so much that they are together now as a pair. That means -- "

Nahl'een gasped, "We go find Dahl!"

She stopped suddenly, "What means 'pair'?"

"They love each other, and want to stay together, like a family."

It earned Shaevre another gasp from the girl, "Family?"

"You've really done it now," Selena smirked.

"What it means," Shaevre began patiently, "is that Dahlgren has a wife now, and you have, .."

"Not have Mother," Nahl'een said thoughtfully, "Mother is dead." She leaned to look at Selena. "What I have?"

"Stepmother," Selena said, "probably a really good one who wants to meet you very much."

"I need name," the girl said quietly.

After seeing a glance from Arrax, Shaevre reached over and activated the headset for Nahl'een.

"Her name is Faith," Arrax said gently.

Nahleen nodded, falling a little quiet. "Faith."

She sat still for a moment and thought. In that time, Selena fell in love with her little sister all over again for it. Without meaning to, Nahl'een could capture anyone's heart in seconds, she thought.

She turned to Shaevre, "What means --"

Shaevre groaned again, knowing that this wouldn't stop. Selena turned her head and looked out of the window as she found Shaevre's hand in hers.

---------------------------

It had been just under an hour. They were over what had once been the state of Texas long ago, though it now referred to itself as the Texan nation -- what there was of it. Nahl'een had finally subsided and gone to sleep in her seat.

"Do you think that we can find them?" Selena asked Shaevre quietly.

"It hangs on whether they are in the air or not," the Xer girl replied, "If they are flying, I think that Dahlgren will want to keep them higher up, away from birds for today. If they still live, then he will want the speed of the wind pushing them from west to east and he can get that up there -- from what Arrax has said to me. If that is so, we can see them on the instruments. It will be harder to look tomorrow because he will seek to hide down low.

I cannot be sure anyway. From what Arrax said, the one that he flies with will be new to flying and maybe cannot go far. If they travel on foot, it will be almost impossible."

Selena nodded and didn't reply. She was thinking about Dahlgren. She'd heard why Ny'Zeille had gotten enraged days ago. Dahlgren was paired now and not single anymore. Selena wondered how she felt about that, but she came to a decision a minute or so later.

They hadn't been in love, after all. If there was any blame here, it was hers. He might have been a little more forthcoming, but she couldn't fault him for it, and she had stolen his horse. If they were successful in this, she planned to be friendly to him, because of her sister, and hope that she could find a role for herself in whatever came out of it all.

It hadn't gone too badly on balance, she thought. The big payoff was Nahl'een. She'd gotten her ten golds from Ny'Zeille finally, and another ten from Arrax through Shaevre for her help in getting Nahl'een out. She just hoped that her sister could adjust to all of these changes, and her best hope of that happening was that they found Dahlgren, preferably before dark.

There was a tone in her ear as her tiny headset came on. "We've found them -- we hope," was all that Arrax said, but she felt it as the Xerian cutter began to descend. Shaevre activated her headset and had a brief conversation with Xhan.

"Xhan thinks that he has located them," she said, "He has been tracking birds which fly at higher altitudes -- some kinds of what you call geese, mostly. But he kept seeing one flock on the instrument that never changed shape or size, and always flew in the wrong direction for those birds at this time. They have been sinking slowly so Arrax thinks that the other one has gotten tired or cold, or maybe both. We will see soon."

A few minutes later, they could see the them plainly and it was obvious that Arrax and Xhan had been correct, Dahlgren was nursing Faith along and she was obviously beat. The way they were, Dahlgren would have has to get them down soon.

He snapped his head around as he heard the engines of the Xerian cutter. A few hand signals to Faith and then he began to lead her down.

------------------

They walked slowly now. Dahlgren had tried to get Faith to accept that she was exhausted and to allow him to carry her, but she'd refused and been very adamant about it.

"No sir," she said flatly, "You just got done telling me not five minutes ago that your little girl is probably on that thing. I know that she probably don't care much one way or the other, but the way that I look at it, I've got me a stepdaughter. I ain't about to meet her lying flat on my back."

"Alright," he smiled, "Here she comes now."

Faith looked off into the distance and she could see the strange flying thing out there on the ground. Between that and where she was, she could see a pair of individuals walking toward them.

Between those individuals and where she stood, she could see a high speed jumping bean, hopping, running and jumping.

"Your daughter," she said, "is she like us? Why isn't she flying?"

Dahlgren laughed a little, "She's wearing pants and a shirt."

They began to hear Nahl'een calling out to him as she came, "Dahl! Dahl! .... Dahl!," There were even a few 'Dahls' in there where her voice cracked into a shriek in the middle.

"She don't look like she's gonna slow down any," Faith laughed a little softly, already taken with the way that the little girl's long pigtails flew as she ran.

"She never does," he sighed as he braced for the collision.

After a lot of hugs where Nahl'een's eyes were squeezed tightly shut, she opened them and she didn't look anywhere else but at Faith.

"Hello, Nahl'een," Faith smiled, "You just gotta be Nahl'een, the way that you tore a stripe across the ground to get to your daddy. You're the cutest thing too."

Nahl'een smiled and melted Faith's heart on the spot. But then she amazed them both. "You are Faith," she said, "Arrax told me. Why you talk funny?"