Chapter 16: Red Wing One

Kru followed Major Sweet through the doorway, which was one of the Obsidian gates, and into a bustling room on Obsidian itself. Kru had been here twice before now, having been ordered to the Garden for educational opportunities. This time, rather than walking over to the Garden, they went to the Spirit Master's executive offices. A very pleasant older woman there asked them to wait a moment, and soon they were joined by a Legionnaire, who was obviously a soldier. Kru could recognize that this man was trained in war, just by watching him walk.

"Good morning Major Sweet, its good to see you again. Captain Kru, my name is Cyrus Poole. I'm here to take you to the meeting with Spirit Master McKesson."

They shook hands, in the manner of Earth, and in the blink of an eye they were standing on a raised porch, outside a large home overlooking a beautiful valley. A small group of children were playing on the lawn in front of the house. A voice spoke from behind them.

"Major Sweet, a pleasure seeing you again. Captain Kru, I'm Dave McKesson, welcome to my home!"

Kru found himself shaking hands again with a tall, slender man with a boyish smile, followed shortly thereafter by a second handshake, followed this time by a kiss on the cheek from his wife, Doctor Virginia McKesson, who insisted he call her 'Ginny', and who was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Until the introductions that followed. He saluted then shook hands with General Tyler, followed by a salute, handshake and kiss on the cheek from Captain Lanam. Kru's blush brought out a smile on Captain Lanam, which brought out the dimples on her cheeks, and suddenly Kru was looking for anything that might serve as a distraction from the mesmerizing focus that was Liala Lanam.

Fortunately the introductions were not over, as first the McKesson children, Andy and Serenity were introduced, followed by Elder Tejon. No free Preci could be introduced to this man without wide-eyed wonder. The only living Preci to never have suffered the weight of the Sh'kxu coercion was a legend!

Focus quickly shifted away from the adults when the other six children were called forward, and together, they led the adults into the house, to get settled in the large living room.

"General, Major, Captains, you are all aware that it is our awareness of the Light, an energy that underlies everything in our universe, that makes us Spirit Masters, or Guardians as we really prefer to be called." Ginny began. "Our children, those of the Legion, and our closest friends, are gifted with what we have begun to consider the next level of Light-awareness. They are also, every one of them, what can only be called inordinately precocious."

"Because of their precociousness, and their demonstrated sensitivity to the Light in ways the rest of us find difficult to follow, we tend to listen to our children when they come to us with ideas or concerns." Dave continued. "Last night they showed us something that you will want to see."

With a little edge to his voice, Dave continued.

"My children — all these 'Children of the Light', as they've been called, have violated the spirit of the rules we, their parents, laid down regarding the use of their gifts. But in doing so, they have given us something priceless. They have found a way to show us the first and only air battle at the beginning of the Sh'kxu invasion. All I ask is that you get as comfortable in your chairs as you can, because you will soon be asleep, 'for in that sleep of death, what dreams will come'."

~ The Battle of Estirem

The Preci were living solidly in what would have been the 1960's, technologically, when the Sh'kxu dropped without warning from the sky. Their ground and air defenses were all based on rockets and missiles that used chemical propellants as well as gunpowder based projectile weaponry. They had suffered the same kinds of international arms build up that Earth's technological nations had gone through, although there was no sign of the development of nuclear weapons. The build up of conventional weapons and military did mean that the response to the Sh'kxu was massive and quick.

... and almost utterly futile.

"Red three, Red three, break off, break off!"

The night sky over the city of Estirem was alive with a cloud of bright sparks, moving like they were being swept about by a giant, invisible hand. In the midst of the swarming mass of bright spots there flitted dull black triangles. Whenever the little triangles flew the defenders suddenly became attackers. Except for the little black ships, the sky was full of Estirem, battling each other.

"Red Two, Red Two! Red one. Watch out for friendly fire! Our own ships are attacking us!"

"Green Six, Green Six! Green Two. They're flying the little black ships! Shoot the little black ships!"

"Red One, Red One! Green Two. The little black ships have some sort of anti-missile defense! I've had two missiles burned at the last second by some sort of defensive weapon."

"Confirm, confirm Green Two! Green Twelve. I saw one of them crash and burn after taking fire from an auto-cannon! We can hit em, just lay off the missiles! They're useless!"

"Red One, Red One! Green Six. Green Two is now hostile! Don't let the little black ships get close, or your suddenly fighting for the other side!"

"Red One, Red One! Red Command. Target the...

Bombs on the ground! They've got another wave of bombs coming in! They're targeting our comm centers!"

Green Seven, Green Seven! Red Nine! Splashed one! The Auto-cannons are effective, just don't let them get close.

The wild scene before us jerked suddenly, and was washed out momentarily by a bright light from behind our point of view.

"Green Two, Green Two! Red One! I'm hit! A missile from Red Ten just clipped my wings! I"m going down! I"m riding this dying bird as far down as I can before I pop the cork. Good luck flight! Blessings on you!"

Our view slowly shifted, until we were seeing the clustered lights of the cities and towns below. Slowly the lights drifted to the left of us, and the darkened land below grew closer and closer. Suddenly there was another abrupt jerking, followed by a second or two of wildly spinning scenery, followed by blackness.

"That, was a piece of what we are calling the battle of Estirem. It appears to be a manifestation of the visual and auditory experiences of whoever was called 'Red One' in the air battle which took place over the city of Estirem." Dave said. "There are several important pieces of information in this brief snippet. Who wants to begin?"

"The only enemy ships spotted were the tiny black triangles." Kru suggested. "And they were fast!"

"Those little black ships had some sort of anti-missile system." Liala offered.

"The defender's auto-cannon's, whatever those were, were capable of shooting down the little black ones, if they could get them in their sights." Major Sweet added.

"What do those things, taken as a whole suggest?" General Tyler asked.

"Our Falcons are much more vulnerable if used as a front line option, but the Hedgehogs may be invaluable, if we can keep their remote operators safe." Major Deov observed. "We're going to have to switch our training emphasis to the hedgehogs for the new classes." Commodore Symington said.

"Will we be able to throw up a canopy of Hedgehogs that will be of sufficient strength to allow the Falcons to operate as bomb defense and ground support?" Commander Emanoff asked.

"Those are the things we will need to work out in the next six months. In six months time we will begin our Preci operations." Dave told the assembly. "To that end we are prepared to take some shortcuts.

Major Deov, Major Sweet, we asked you to each bring these particular Warriors, not because we wanted their opinions here tonight, although their opinions are valuable, and we were glad to get them, but because we want to use them as our new 'models' for the PNM Dumps into our newest recruits. We need everyone who comes into the PFF from now on to be able to hit the ground running."

Captains Kru and Liala spent a night at the McKesson home, It began with a two hour session sitting in a small meditation chamber with Dave and Ginny McKesson, Riah Hulin and Zaia Alvarez, and Master Eru.

The meditation session was followed by a nice run on a fancy track on obsidian, and another two hour meditation session.

Finally they had a very nice dinner followed by a couple of hours of interesting conversation with the McKesson's and their friends.

Later that night, with everyone in their own beds for the night, Kru lay in bed, with his hands behind his head trying to fight off the buzz of the day's events. It was rare for a freed Preci to have problems getting to sleep, they were usually able to fall asleep practically at will.

So it was that Kru was wide awake and wide-eyed when Liala Lanam slipped through his door, out of her robe, and into his bed and his arms.

By the time Ian and Grace's birthday came around, everyone in the McKesson house was wound up as tight as a drum over what we had been referring to as P-Day.

Dad's solution to the dilemma of how to handle the twin's test was finally revealed, as separate packages were presented. By mutual agreement of the rest of us kids, Ian and Grace both solved their cubes immediately.

'Redwood!" Ian said when he popped back into existence a minute after disappearing.

"Salmon Falls!" Grace said when she returned, only a few seconds after Ian.

Dad came through with Ian and Grace's armor, and the rest of the day's events followed the usual script, football and food, although

the fact that all eight of us had armor now made the football game more interesting than ever before.

~ Andy

The events of the next day could have been classified as 'A Tale of Three Armors'. Dad and Mom were scheduled for a meeting with the Legion Teams at 1 pm. Our time. There were five of them now. Even Great-Grandpa A.J. was on a legion team now that he was fully awakened. He was on Team Five, along with Sheb Halliday.

The first Armor Tale of course was ours, the Children of the Legion, all of us now able to wear our bright green armor. We met with Spinner and the Wood Wise. We had a plan of our own for making the eight near orbit Sh'kxu ships less effective in attacking our forces in the air and on the surface of Preci.

Our plan depended on the mindless fury of the Wood Wise bud-lings. But it remained to be tested, and the only way to do that was to capture another Sh'kxu, and see if the mindlessness of the bud-lings made them immune to the Sh'kxu coercion, as we believed.

As confident as we were in our plan's workability, we were not prepared to violate our parent's wishes again so quickly, especially since this time it would not be a mere violation of the spirit of their wishes, but a complete violation. So we asked if we could go to the dome on Dust, and asked Mom and Dad to meet us there at noon, before their other meetings of the day. We got permission, and met no resistance in doing so, which was suspicious in and of itself.

As soon as we got to Dust, we set up the dome's internal fields to partition the dome into four sections, a small section at one end for us, two evenly divided partitions at the end opposite us, and a large middle buffer area. We built a construct of Light, a focus that the Wood Wise consciousness could dwell in while they were here.

We made contact with the Wood Wise, and with their cooperation, created a link to our Light construct. Once the Wood Wise were in the construct and able to focus their consciousness on Dust, we were able to jump a bud-ling through to one of the far partitions in the dome.

Up close and in person, the Wood Wise Bud-ling was the very definition of furious death on the move.

<The bud-ling will thrive on the light coming through the dome, but it will not be happy with that alone. It will continue to look for a food source.> The Wood Wise thought to us.

We took turns trying to influence the Bud-ling with our minds, but we found nothing there to influence, not even the most basic of urges.

Mom and Dad arrived right on time. They were stunned when we introduced them to the Wood Wise, and shocked when we showed them the Bud-ling. Their shock turned to euphoria when they discovered their inability to coerce the Bud-ling when we asked them to try.

"Dad, we need to capture another Sh'kxu, just to be sure. If the Wood Wise Bud-lings are immune to the Sh'kxu coercion, we have a weapon we can jump into their ships with impunity once the battle has begun."

"Andy, how can we ask the Wood Wise to send their children to what will probably be the eventual death of most of them."

"Please do not think of the Bud-lings in that way, Mr. McKesson!" The Wood Wise responded. "They are of no more consequence to the Wood Wise than are the cells of your skin that you wash off in the shower every morning, or to the individual spermatazoa with which you humans reproduce. Do you concern yourself with the fate of every single one, or do you only worry about those which are successful?"

We kids hadn't been prepared for that particular nuance of argument. I think we collectively blushed. Dad certainly noticed our reaction.

"Other than embarrassing our children by that reference, do you really consider it an apt comparison?" Dad asked.

"Yes, it would be exactly how we consider it. Bud-lings are only a potential, they do not really represent an immature Wood Wise, and cannot, until they take root and begin to grow."

The Legion meeting was scheduled to begin in the dining room of our house. It was there that we tried explaining to Dad, Mom, Con our parents and the rest of the Legion that our new allies were from a place they couldn't go, and which was not just some new facet, and that it would be us kids who would have to do the transporting. It took hours, and there was a lot of heated argument.

Finally we had to prove it to them. We linked up in our normal fusion, and invited them to join us in it. As soon as they were comfortably meshed with us, we challenged them to follow us if they could, and stepped into the Light, and then into the Dream World. Of course we were alone when we got there. We waited a full minute before we stepped back into the Light and then back home.

"Okay." dad said. "But when we tell the troops about these new weapons, we are not calling them 'Bud-lings'!" Dad said.

"We've actually thought about that aspect of it already." Ren said. "We're thinking it should be 'Wood Furies'. What do you think?"

And that was what we called them, especially after sharing the recording of our new Sh'kxu captive, Spring's Deep Flowing and his encounter with the Wood Fury, which lasted mere seconds when the partition separating them was removed.