Star Guild: Episodes 1 - 3 (Star Guild Saga) Read online

tall. “Admiral Diana McCoy, do you have a challenge with my orders?”

  She took a step forward with face focused and blue eyes not bending away from the steely stare of his brown eyes through the screen. “Yes.” Then her body abruptly fell to the floor. Her starship had been hit hard. After several seconds, she collected herself and stood up straight. The admiral noticed she was clutching the side of her pants. She was nervous, but Admiral Byrd ignored it, choosing to listen—for the moment.

  “I'm keeping Starship Sirona here, Admiral. As you know, all of the men and women on Lumus are from my starship. We plan on extracting them from the planet and then jumping. We will meet your selected coordinates as soon as possible.”

  Admiral Byrd gave a quick shake of his head. “Negative, Admiral! You will take Starship Sirona with us—we'll come back for those on Lumus when it’s deemed safe!”

  “I can't do that, Admiral.”

  The admiral's muscles quivered and his body tensed, heat flushing through his cheeks. “Disagreeing is fine, but you are sworn by oath to obey my orders! It's cut-and-dried, Admiral McCoy!”

  “Not this time.” She pointed to the floor, as if it was planet Lumus below. “Our family members are down there. We intend to retrieve them. Once we do, we will then rendezvous with you.”

  Admiral Byrd's face stiffened, his eye twitched. He felt like squeezing someone's neck, Diana McCoy's neck. “Admiral McCoy, you are disobeying a direct order!”

  Admiral McCoy flared her nostrils. “My daughter is down there—sir!”

  Admiral Byrd dipped his head. “Like I said, we will come back and retrieve them.”

  Admiral McCoy shook her head. “The rest of the crew and the citizens of Starship Sirona are in agreement—I must retrieve the sons and daughters of my starship off the planet.”

  He shook his head, knowing that a tally of votes from the inhabitants of Sirona could not have taken place in such a short time, especially during combat.

  Another shudder and Admiral Byrd fell back against his chair. Straightening himself, he stared intently at Diana McCoy as he stated, “You are disobeying a direct order, Admiral McCoy.”

  Diana nodded, dropping her eyes to the floor. When she looked up, Admiral Byrd could see tears trailing down her cheeks. She touched her thick, dark blue command suit above her left breast, unclipping her silver and gold wings. She held the insignia within her hand, staring at it for a moment, and then brought her arm forward, through the blue screen. The screen wrapped around her forearm like water falling from a thin waterfall.

  “No,” Admiral Byrd shook his head. “I'm not accepting your resignation.”

  “I'm taking over Starship Sirona and hereby removing it from Star Guild.”

  “You can't do that!” the admiral erupted, just as another explosion rocked the ship. Admiral Byrd watched as Diana dropped her wings on the floor of his bridge, seeing the badge bounce and come to a rest near the base of the blue screen. Diana brought her arm back through the blue screen, resting it by her side.

  “This is mutiny, Diana!” yelled Admiral Byrd, with spit spraying out of his mouth.

  She bowed her head, knowing full well what she had done. “I'm sorry, Admiral.”

  Her image blinked out, and the bluish-clear screen in front of the holostage disappeared.

  He fell back into his seat. Then he said, “Brigger, give the coordinates to all of the starships. Once all Thunderbirds land, we jump.”

  ∞

  Crystal wondered if she was dead…a ghost, or a spirit finding its way home through the darkness all around her. When she heard a thud and felt a jostle, she opened her eyes, gasping for air as if she had been underwater too long.

  Her first glimpse at wakefulness was the crack in her Mech's windshield. Beyond the windshield, she observed the blue sky—the same blue sky she had looked at for years and years. She rolled her eyes. She was alive.

  I'm still on Lumus. Who painted me so lucky?

  She stretched her limbs, and as a rush of blood rose to her face, she felt her head pound and ache. I must have blacked out. Rubbing her head, she felt another jostle, then felt her Mech being lifted, and then resting at an angle. She was hanging diagonally, with the heel of the Mech's ebb feet touching the ground. Someone, or something, was holding her Mech by its shoulders. She looked up, forgetting that she couldn't see anyone through the thick ebb armor directly above her, where the Mech's head would be.

  Suddenly, she was moving and her Mech's feet dragged on the rocky ground. Someone or something was pulling her. She glanced back down at her Mech's feet, seeing how shredded and battered they were. They scraped across the ground, shooting up sparks in the process.

  She looked out her windshield, seeing the red mountains that she had come to hate during her long tenure on the planet. Where in Star Guild's name are they taking me?

  “Open com link,” she muttered, but her Mech's HDC didn't respond.

  She sighed, fear filling her. Of all things, she didn't want to be some kind of prisoner. If these faceless enemies wanted to show themselves to her, then so be it. She'd scratch their eyes out until they screamed for mercy, or whatever sound they used for that word.

  She exhaled loudly as she cracked her knuckles and glared out the window. Angrily, she punched her leg, squeezing her pants tightly and twisting them, unconsciously trying to tear them. She wanted to break something. “Bastards! All Bastards!” She let go of her pants and grasped her red hair. She was going to die and she didn't even have a photon pistol to defend herself. She wanted to hide or run away, but couldn't escape the cockpit unless she wanted to have a heart attack or brain death. The gravity pull on this planet was too strong, five times what a human could sustain. She cursed the planet and punched the window, wiggling her achy hand a moment later.

  She was being tugged along like a helpless infant who had disobeyed her mother. Something she remembered all too often as a child. She wanted to scream, but knew it was useless. For what seemed like an hour, she stared at her Mech's feet. She just wanted freedom…or to see her boyfriend again. But, who was she kidding? Herself? She ended that relationship a year ago.

  Abruptly, a shadow loomed over the ground. A shadow she'd seen countless times—it was from the dome of the warehouse roof where the Mechs were stored and her Mech's feet suddenly went from scraping against rocky ground to the smooth surface of an ebb floor. She was definitely on her way into the warehouse.

  As she was being pulled through the warehouse entrance, Crystal watched the light transitioning from daytime to shadows as the large doors shut behind her, darkening everything but the slits of early evening light coming through the upper warehouse windows.

  Passing through a second set of large doors, she watched them shut as steam rose from the artificial change in gravity, and knew she could safely exit her suit anytime she wanted. For a moment, she tested that idea by unstrapping her standing harnesses and reached toward the ceiling where a button unlocked the dome of the Mech. But, she stopped her finger an inch from it. Maybe she needed to wait it out…to think of a plan. She suddenly pictured herself clawing at the cockpit and being forced out by dozens of strange creatures, green ooze dripping from fang-toothed mouths.

  A jostle and a clank sounded somewhere behind her, and by the way her Mech was now positioned, her Mech was lying on the floor on its back. As soon as the steam from the gravity change cleared, she looked out of the window. She was in Mech Bay, a place she had been thousands of times.

  She heard a pound against her Mech's dome, sounding much like metal against metal. She remained still. It would take very special and strong tools to open up the Mech, unless they blasted it open like they had done with Hendricks' Mech, the poor soul. The question then floated in her mind. Why am I still alive? Do they want to experiment on me or something? She looked around for a knife, or any kind of a blade. She squeezed her hands into fists. She was just a Mechie, and they weren't authorized to carry such items while operating a Mech.


  The pounding against the Mech continued. She covered her ears and closed her eyes. The sudden urge to fight slid away from her. She wanted anything else, even suffocation, as long as she didn't have to see who was doing the pounding. She could wait in here and waste away as her Mech's air tanks emptied. She reasoned that it would be a better death than the torture she was sure to soon experience. She almost laughed. She'd been watching too many holovids.

  The window.

  It was right in front of her. She could see out of it, meaning someone could see inside the Mech if they wanted to. If they did, they would see her plain as day.

  The damn window!

  She didn't want to stare out of it, but it was so large she didn't have much else to look at. Even if she looked away, she'd see it in her periphery. This was a problem. If the creature, or creatures, looked through the window, and even if she chose to avoid eye contact with whatever it was that was out there, she couldn't, ultimately. She wouldn't be able to ignore them, either. But, she was trained to look, trained to notice everything. It had been ingrained into her since she was a child, locked into her by her family's military prowess, shoved into her by her combat education, and nailed into her during her short stint as a Star Guild starfighter. Looking would be a habitual response.

  The pounding stopped. They had failed to break through, just like she