Commander Stargazer woke up to a noise around him.
It was different here from his last
prison. Then it came back to him. Aurora, Carolyn, Amy. Carolyn
and Amy dead. Aurora hating him. What had he done?
"It hurts, doesn't it?" a voice asked. Stargazer
opened his eyes to face a tall man
with blue/grey eyes a long, dark hair standing at the side of his bed. His hair was pulled into a tight braid that
was down to the small of his back. His
left ear was pierced and in it hung a dagger shaped earring. He was dressed in heavy denim jeans and a
grey shirt with a black vest over it.
His feet were encases in boots that came up to his knees and
over one
shoulder was a cloak. Stargazer could
see a sword at his side.
"Who are you?" he asked the stranger. "What
are you doing on my base?"
"I'm The General," the man told him. "And
this base hasn't been yours since
you screwed up. It belongs to my team
now."
"Your team?" the commander asked the man who did
not look like a disciplined soldier.
The man nodded.
"My. Team. The
team that has managed to get this place back in working order in three
days. The team that saved you with
sheer nerve and the power of one mage.
For a long time I was able to stay out Wars.
Thanks to you, I was forced back into this service and I had to
bring my children with me. You think
you hurt over your family? My Lord and
I hurt over the fact that this happened at all. We
hurt over all those who will have to die to restore the
balance on earth. You're getting off
lucky."
Darius turned from the bed then and started to the
door. "If you feel up to it,"
he said. "You can come up to the
command level and meet the new team. I
warn you though, keep your mouth shut about us."
Stargazer nodded and followed Darius to the ladders on the
walls.
"Use the ladders, Billy hasn't gotten the elevators
back in working order yet. Those are
actually a low priority to getting weapons and such on line.
"They were to make getting around easier,"
Stargazer said. Darius shrugged.
"Easy is all good and well. But it isn't
practical at this time. We have more
important things to worry about than how Easy it
is. One elevator works; the one in the
center of this place. It works because
of things like what Ethan did to find you and repercussions of such."
Stargazer nodded and followed. He actually
had no idea what The General was talking about or who
he was or who Ethan was, but he was human and he had apparently been
sent up
here to fight the mob.
Finally reaching the command deck, Stargazer was ashamed to
admit Darius was in better shape. He
was not winded at all from climbing the ladders or anything and that
was with
the sword still strapped to his side.
Darius led him to the main Command area where there was a lot of
activity going on. Stargazer just
watched as a boy with blond hair installed a weapon with ease. He seemed to be checking readings on
everything as he placed things in certain positions.
Finally he nodded as if satisfied with his work.
"Billy," Darius called. "Can you come down
here a moment?"
"Sure general," the boy said. He moved
into a shadowed area and vanished
from sight. He reappeared behind
Stargazer in another shadow.
"What's up?" he asked startling the older
man. Darius chuckled.
"I wanted you to meet Commander Stargazer. Commander,
this is William Lamont Cranston:
The Shadow. He has been since his
grandfather died 5 years ago.
"Hello," the boy said. "Darius, I got the
weapons' systems up and active
again. I installed new weapons because
the old ones sucked for doing real damage to The Mob.
They were pretty ineffective for making a point."
"They were intended to not harm anyone," Stargazer
said. Billy gave him a funny look.
"What kind of cop were you?" he asked. "In
any confrontation, you go in with
the intention of winning. You had a job
to do and shirked. Your weapons sucked,
you had no real way to spy except that bird, and you did a half assed
job of
making sure the bad guys couldn't get out of prison.
Very sloppy and ineffectual.
Anyway, Darius, these weapons that I've installed will make a
serious
hole in whatever gets in their range."
"Uninstall them," Stargazer demanded. Billy
looked at him.
"No," the young man said. "Unlike you, we
do not play with kid
gloves. Mon*Star put several of our in
the hospital. We think it's time to
send some of his to the morgue. That's
how we do things. He made this
personal; we're just returning the favor.
If you haven't got the stomach or the balls for this, stay in
your room
and out of the line of fire. Cause I
gotta tell you, all your way will do is lead to death.
More death than it already has."
Billy then stepped into a shadow and vanished and Stargazer
looked at Darius.
"A child just---"
"He is no child, Edward Stargazer. Billy
has not been a child in years. Since
before Mon*Star attacked. He knows what is
called for in War. And make no mistake,
this IS a War."
Juts then, alarms klaxoned and Darius looked out the two-way
mirror substance. He knew that was
Mon*Star. It was time to meet the enemy
and make his intentions clear.
"Billy, Fire at him and teach him a lesson about coming
near what is ours," Darius said.
Billy reappeared form the Shadows he had walked into and over to
the
weapons console. He lined a shot up and
fired. Stargazer just stared as the
beam of concentrated white energy burned through the fleet of sky
shadows
Mon*Star had. There was nothing left
once the beam had decimated its target.
Stargazer could see from whatever was bringing them images,
Mon*Star
looked completely stunned by what had just happened.
The Mob just hovered outside of Hawk Haven as Darius opened a
channel to him.
"This is Mon*Star, the Planet Master," Stargazer
heard Mon*Star saying. "Who are
you?"
Darius laughed coldly as he answered. He
only said 2 words but the reaction as
immediate. Mon*Star wheeled his boys
around after shooting at the base for a minute. A
simple Two Word answer had Mon*Star running and Stargazer had
no idea why. He knew Mon*Star was just
going to re-group but what ahd caused that reaction.
It was only two words. A
preposition and a noun. A name.
"The General."
To Be Continued...
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