The lions roar, p.6
The Lion's Roar, page 6
As expected, a soft tone from her tablet let her know that Dagor had sent her a message. Reading it in an instant, she picked up the spool and left the room. To be honest, she didn't mind the assignments from Dagor when they didn't involve killing people. Usually, it was just a small bit of sabotage. No one got hurt, and it usually only kinked up things for a day or two.
This assignment was cut and dry: drop off the spool in the cargo hold in Box B-7. Then she would get to talk to her son. As she neared the elevator, she practically skipped with excitement. Any thoughts of reaching out to Rictor were diminished by the all-consuming thought of finally talking to her son again. Then, one day, she would have him back with her, away from Dagor. They would go on walks along the coastline and ride bikes, and do things that normal families did. She could almost feel the warm water caressing her feet as they talked about the new friends he had made at school, the girl he had a crush on, or how much he wanted to grow up and be like his daddy. An older, deeper pain grabbed hold of Naomi at the thought of Orion. He had been gone for so long, but the pain was still there.
She could feel the tears forming and forced them down. In just a small bit of time she would see her son. She would smile and laugh and so would he. This was no time to fall apart. The elevator dinged as it reached the cargo hold.
The cargo hold was massive. It took up nearly an entire floor of the ship all by itself. Modeled after an arch, each aisle she passed was almost imperceptibly twisted at an angle towards the back of the room. The rows were about one hundred feet long and twenty-five wide with ample spacing between them. An open area was in the middle to make loading and unloading into the different aisles as easy as possible. As she passed each aisle, she read the small posters on the side of each of the shelves which gave a general rule for what was in each one. Naomi marveled at the sheer number of items in the hold as she made her way to aisle B. There was everything from small transport vehicles to medicinal supplies. She had never seen any supplies being loaded onto the Lion's Roar, but there didn't seem to be a dent in any of their stores. Finally, reaching her destination, she turned down the aisle and began looking for Section Seven. Aisle B seemed to contain food for the ship, she noted, locating the small box marked B-7.
The drop box itself was easy enough to find. Whereas all the other boxes were wooden and plainly listed themselves as food, B-7 was metallic, polished and smooth. The lid of the box was almost indistinguishable from the rest of it. If not for the small tongue of metal missing a padlock, Naomi wasn't sure if she would have been able to know where to lift.
She quickly popped the lid open and tossed in the spool of wire, glad to be done with it. Turning on her heel, Naomi rushed back to the elevator and sent it toward the living quarters. Leaning her head back against the wall, she wiped her palms on her pants. Soon, so very soon, she would see her son. She clutched her tablet as she left the elevator and ran to her room. She didn't care who saw her at this point.
As she reached the door, the tablet in her hands vibrated. She fumbled it back and forth between her hands as she tried to type in the passcode. The message was short, and a smile wound its way easily to her face. As she opened the door, she burst into her room almost laughing for joy. She was finally going to be able to talk to Nathaniel.
Chapter 12
R ictor's hands swayed back and forth to the rhythm of the music pounding into his ears. A smile played across his lips as he glanced toward the monitor then, shut his eyes again. After two weeks of looking through video footage, he had finally found the tip. It had taken combing through the same footage numerous times, as well as all the available files pertaining to the Voices and those who had accompanied them when they had visited Naomi's planet Minodori. The trouble was that no Voice had visited Naomi's region, which meant that one of Promioth's Envoys had to have sent an agent to bring her to the jump ship. Once that had been established, it wasn't too much of a stretch to understand that the Envoy's agent had probably twisted the truth in some way and prevented Naomi's son from getting onto the jump ship. This meant it was a simple hostage situation they were dealing with.
His smile quickly disappeared as the recorded message from the bug they had planted replayed itself in his mind, "Your son has ten fingers. You have ten days to do what I asked," followed by the whimpers of a mother longing to be with her child. Would it be murder if I killed Dagor? The thought had pierced his mind on multiple occasions, and Rictor tried to push it away again.
The Capital Bound did not handle their problems by murdering people. Revenge belonged to the Emperor alone. Even so, his hand began flexing itself, and he could feel the adrenaline coursing through his system. He sent a quick page to the Captain about a training session and focused back on the task at hand.
After Naomi, had arrived on the ship, he had noticed that she already had a tablet and an ear piece. Unless someone had seen the footage of her entering the ship during the first hour, there would have been no way to tell the difference between her and everyone else- except for the fact that she seemed to talk to herself. At first, Rictor had thought it was just an odd quirk. He had known quite a few people who muttered to themselves before. However, when it came to Naomi, she never seemed happy to talk to herself. Every single time she began muttering to herself, her face scrunched up as if she were in pain and she would almost immediately distance herself from anyone surrounding her. Not in any overt manner, but she would suddenly decide to take an elevator, skip meals, or duck inside random rooms. The more recent the footage, the better she got at keeping a low profile, but the key was in those first few days. Now, all he had to do was look through the footage and find any other people who randomly scrambled or would cringe for no reason at all. From there he could get a list of possible suspects and figure out how large or small Dagor's network on the Lion's Roar was.
A loud beep from his computer told him that the Captain had responded to his training request. Glad to release some pent-up energy, Rictor left his office and made his way down to the training grounds. Located below the housing floor, the training rooms were designed to help keep the members of the Lion's Roar in top shape.
Rictor exited the elevator and made his way through the many rooms filled with exercise equipment. Some rooms held free weights, others held large tracks, and others were simple rooms with nothing in them. In one such room he found Glenn sitting patiently on the ground with his legs crossed. His eyes were shut, and if not for Rictor's enhanced vision he wouldn't have noticed that the Captain was even breathing.
As he made his way to the center of the room, he could feel his body begin to meet resistance. Glenn had turned on the room's gravity well. Judging by how hard it was to move his body to the inner well, Glenn had probably set the gravity to a full two times normal gravity. Glenn opened his eyes as Rictor finished the slow trek across the room.
"Hello, Ric. You took your time I see." Glenn rumbled the words out slowly and carefully, his mouth barely moving to let them escape. Rictor could see from the way his skin hung that he might have been wrong about the two G's. Chances were that it might be a bit more than he had initially thought.
"Well, I had a whole band of spies and cut throats to take care of. Nothing big though." Rictor smiled at the Captain and began to stretch out his muscles.
A grunt was the Captain's only reply as he labored to move his large form. Beads of sweat began to form as he rose from his sitting position to a kneeling position. A second later he gave out a yell and began raising himself to his feet. His breathing became ragged, and the sweat began to drip off his scarred body as he struggled to straighten from his stooped position. Like a mountain rising from the earth his form began growing taller as he fought to right himself fully.
Rictor marveled at the Captain's strength and endurance. Unlike most of the others who assumed that the Captain just happened to be born the way he was, Rictor knew the real reason. It was what had brought them together as brothers in their quest to spread the news of the Capital. Both bore scars that hadn't come from fighting. Rictor's doctors had just been more careful.
Finally, regaining his full stature, the Captain moved in a slow and determined manner, not letting the decrease in G's cause his body to accelerate more than it needed to. It took fifteen minutes when all was said and done for him to leave the center of the gravity well and, when he had finished, he towered over Rictor with a large smile across his face.
"Well, how many was it?" Rictor asked finishing his stretches.
"Three G's," The Captain's reply came labored and his body gleamed with a film of sweat.
"Well, I suppose you thought I needed a handicap for our bout today?" Rictor asked.
Glenn's laugh resounded throughout the small room defying the padding that lined the floor and walls as he began to twist and stretch his own body.
"No, to be honest it was an accident of sorts. I was trying to think of how I could beat you this time and wandered right in to the center of the room. By the time I had commanded the artificial gravity to turn on, I was trapped.
Rictor stared at the captain confused. The room was hardly large enough for the Captain to be unaware of how close he was to the center of the room.
"Glenn, one of these days you should learn how to think and walk at the same time. You could have seriously been injured. Not even you are immortal."
"Like you?" Glenn's reply was soft, but carried a weight that slammed into Rictor.
Rictor watched Glenn walk around the center of the room to a rectangular case sitting by itself. Rictor hated it when his longevity was brought up. Glenn was the only person who knew about it, besides for the scientists from Yino, and Rictor wanted to keep it that way.
"You didn't have to bring that up," he called across the room. "It's not like I bring up your past all the time."
"The difference between us, Ric," Glenn replied as he opened the case, "is that I have made peace with my past and what I have done. You have not."
He pulled out two training swords. Glenn's was substantially larger than Rictor's because his size, but they were both the same design. Glenn flung Rictor's sword over the gravity well toward him. The flight of it was jagged and disjointed as it left the Captain's hands and then passed through the varying degrees of gravity, but Rictor still caught it easily. Since the swords had guards, on them he had no fear of cutting himself and was too skilled to worry about missing the hilt.
"How about we talk after you're lying on your back?" Rictor called to the Captain. He loved the man like a brother, but often his digging stirred up bad emotions.
Glenn nodded solemnly and walked back around the well to stand opposite of Rictor. They both entered a forward stance and touched the flats of their blades together in a salute. Slowly, each one paced backward three steps and stood motionless waiting for the other to make a move. Glenn moved first. Inching forwards, he kept his sword pointed toward Rictor's chest. Rictor began slowly edging his way to his left, keeping the gravity well to Glenn's back.
His heart rate began to rise as Glenn came closer, then skyrocketed when Glenn lunged toward him-his massive form crossing the small distance between them at breakneck speed.
Rictor dodged to his left, smacking Glenn's sword away with his own, then he thrust his sword forward. A small trickle of blood dripped down Glenn's side as he levelled his sword toward Rictor again, but he didn't seem to notice the blood.
Again and again, Glenn attacked Rictor. Blows came in from all around him, and he danced as much as he parried. Glenn's sword missing his flesh by centimeters with each swing. After each encounter, Rictor would dart his sword out and cut another slit in the Captain's flesh. On and on they danced around the room keeping a safe distance between themselves and the well.
Rictor ducked a high blow and slid the tip of his sword across Glenn's chest. The Captain roared in defiance and grabbed the cross guard of Rictor's blade before he could pull it back. Glenn pulled on the guard, catching Rictor off balance, and then kicked him square in the chest. A loud crack told Rictor that some of his ribs had just broken as he flew backward through the air and landed near the center of the room. The increase in gravity caused even more discomfort and pain in his chest.
He chuckled weakly as Glenn approached, both swords in his hands.
"Well Captain, looks like you might have won this one." The words were hard for Rictor to say as he struggled for breath. "Any chance you could help a fellow up?"
Glenn lowered his weapons and walked over to Rictor with a small smile on his face. "I guess I did. It feels good when it happens."
As Glenn extended his hand to help him up, Rictor snatched it and rolled backward flipping the Captain over his back and square into the center of the room. Rictor landed soundly on top of the fallen man, who tried in vain to lift his friend's weight, magnified as it was by the well. The Captain uttered a small command and the increased gravity was lifted from the room.
"Maybe I should have just left it off the whole time," he said pushing Rictor off.
"It did help you to begin with though," Rictor replied getting up from the ground.
"It always amazes me how fast your body fixes itself," he commented between large intakes of air. "Makes me wish I had some nanobots in me."
"Glenn, you know full well the price I paid for them. I wouldn't wish it on anyone," Rictor's voice grew softer as his muscles began to relax. "We need to talk about Naomi, though. She didn't reply to the message we sent. I am sure she would have seen it."
"She isn't exactly fond of you, for the record. Maybe she just threw it away."
"But, she's smart enough to notice something out of place. That's why I gave her the paper. She had to have seen it. So, the question is, why wouldn't she seek help?"
"Maybe she doesn't think she needs it?"
"No, no, no. She knows she needs help. She practically cries herself to sleep each night. She knows she's trapped and can't get out."
"What if the Envoy finally gave her what she wanted? Also, do we have any idea who it is yet?"
"You mean actually let her see Nathaniel? And I am thinking Dagor. I haven't heard his voice in ages, but from the recording I'm thinking it's him."
"Yes. What if Dagor gave her a bit of carrot before hitting her again with the stick? Just enough to keep her going."
Rictor paused in his stretches and chewed on the thought. Dagor wasn't a fool. He sat back on the ground with his legs crossed. They needed a way to reach her without alerting any of Dagor's other agents.
"Have you talked to Terran much?" Glenn asked, interrupting his thoughts.
"No, sadly not. Have you?"
"Not since the V-Sphere. I think something happened to him while he was watching it. His eyes never focused on the images, and he was speaking to himself the whole time. Something is off. We need to find out what is so special about him and why Dagor wants him dead."
"I am trying, Glenn," Rictor moaned. "I can't force anyone to tell me anything. I am not even sure if Naomi will be able to shed any light on the situation. But, I figure if we can get to her, we might be able to get to everyone else. I can't focus on both Naomi and Terran."
"'If' is a big word, my friend." Glenn stood up and began cleaning the training swords. "The whole ship is in danger while Dagor's followers are on board. It is time we switched tactics. I want you to confront her directly, and that's an order. I will take care of Terran."
Rictor closed his mouth and nodded in affirmation. He didn't always agree with Glenn's decisions, but he trusted his friend. He wasn't sure how he would reach Naomi without Dagor knowing, but he had the nagging feeling he was running out of time.
Chapter 13
T erran sat in the crowded classroom and placed his head on the desk. Why is school so boring? Of course, the classwork itself was easy--that had never been a problem. His problem was paying attention during lectures and acting interested. He had already read and memorized the textbook that the teacher was quoting, albeit incorrectly, and hated hearing the same information again. Where is the analysis and critique? The squirrely man at the head of the classroom began going down a distracted tangent, and Terran fought the urge the scream. Instead, he began drumming his fingers across the desk to calm himself. Many of the students around him turned in frustration at the distracting sound, but turned quickly back toward the front when he showed no signs of stopping.
Kelly, however, flicked his hand and gave him a stern look. "We don't all have super brains, Bro," she whispered, leaning over. "What are you even doing in this class anyway? I thought you were in a different segment all together."
"I was, but I finished early so I thought I would check out the other classrooms. I didn't think you were interested in Metaphysics," Terran shot back. "If I recall the last time I tried talking to you about it, you rolled your eyes and threw a teddy bear at me."
"I was nine, I wasn't quite interested in Metaphysics at that point," she replied. "Do wish I had another teddy bear though, Anna looks like she's about to die."
Glancing across the small room, Terran located his other sister with her face planted on the desk in front of her. It would have been easy to think she was asleep, except for her left hand drawing a small terrier in striking detail.
Terran let his eyes wander across the classroom as the teacher--Jerry might have been his name--kept on with his meandering speech. Most of the students there were taking copious notes trying to soak in all that Jerry was saying. The fools don't even know how wrong he is. As Jerry began fumbling over the importance of understanding the limitations of the human mind in trying to understand ourselves, Terran got up to leave the room.
"See you at dinner," Kelly called after him.
Terran smiled back at her and made his way to the door. Jerry kept his monotonous lecture going without paying Terran any attention. As he entered the bright lit hallway, a small figure crashed into him and knocked him to the floor.
