My writing attention has been absorbed by working on the Caspian and Karen story, so I have not been looking at others right now.
This is a snippet from the story-batch that follows after the death of the Cyndal character previously mentioned.
Grandpa is Cyndal's father, and Ben (Benjamina) is Cyndal's daughter, and second child. Ben's Uncle is Cyndal's younger brother.
The snipped takes place when Ben is sixteen.
Grandpa and Ben had finished packing, and getting everything ready. They had put into storage, or sold everything. Ben’s uncle was going to take over the farm, and work it with his own.
Ben had the letter from the Explorer Journeyman, the sheet with the phonetic words to say when they arrived at their destination that would get help, the two bars of gold, and all else she was going to take with packed up. She had her black suit, and battle armor on with the gold armor and plasma caster, and headset.
Grandpa had all his stuff with, including his black suit, armor, and travel stuff. He had also taken time to wrap a lanyard around his walking stick. The Explorer brought them the arm-box’s that would allow them to type to each other while in the vacuum. These were hooked to their headsets, and harness. And Grandpa was given the line that would be hooked between them as they went, to keep them together. The last thing given was a box that would keep them on course to the star system, and planet they were going to, with instructions on how to use it.
They shouldered their bags, and transformed.
“Are you ready?” Grandpa looked Ben over once more.
“Yes. Let’s go.” Ben spread her wings wide, stretching a bit in excitement.
They had already said their good-byes. Those people had already left.
“Ok. Stay with to the first point, and we will hookup there.”
“Race you there.” Ben leapt up, and quickly accelerated up.
Grandpa smiled and leapt after, racing to catch his granddaughter. He watched as the horizon fell away, and the sky got bluer. Ben slowed down, and he caught up to her. She moved into formation, behind and above to his left, relative to his direction of travel. They were going straight up, and accelerating at a steady pace. The equipment they wore showed their speed and altitude.
Ben had never done this before, and he had only done it three times. But neither of them had ever gone any long distance in vacuum. Ben had climbed this high before, and a bit higher, but had always come back down. Now they had exceeded her previous ceiling. They felt the ambient temperature drop as the atmosphere thinned and friction ceased to heat them. They crossed the successive sonic barriers, paying attention to the buffeting on their equipment. But it all held. Ben moved out of his wake, but maintained her relative position. The curve of the planet was becoming more readily visible. Grandpa had felt his body change its mode, as his internal organs adjusted, and completed the transformation. The sky moved more too black, and stars began to appear.
Finally, they moved to the highest levels of the atmosphere and beyond into low orbit. They stopped, and floated, as Grandpa unwound the line, and passed the end of it to Ben. He latched his end to his armor harness, as Ben did the same. This way they would not be separated while one slept. They both knew that this was going to be a long trip. Six weeks in vacuum, with only the equipment they wore to get them to anywhere, or to communicate. Ben typed a note.
-Ready?-
Grandpa read this as it scrolled across his eyepiece. Then typed back.
-Check your gear one more time. To be sure nothing is damaged.-
They checked each other’s kits. Bags sealed. Loose articles tethered. Gold armor shut off. Other power systems turned to standby/ambient recharge. Grandpa checked the box, and waved it around, spinning around at random for a moment. It still read as it had on the surface. And its casing was intact, having vented properly as they left the atmosphere.
Grandpa nodded, and typed. –All good. Let’s go.-
Grandpa started out, in the direction the box said to go. Ben let the line play out, then accelerated to match Grandpa, while maintaining tension on the line. They first accelerated around the planet, orbiting it three times in progressively higher orbits, then when their velocity was right, they changed vector, and accelerated away.
-We are on our way.- Ben excitedly typed.
First, they headed toward the largest moon. And felt its gravity pull them. They used this to accelerate more, and shot around and deeper into the system, toward the gravity of the sun.
The sentinel watched.
He was worried, but had been forbidden from direct action. The visitors had changed up several times, as they helped this world relearn to communicate with others. Other sentinels had reported that this was happening all over for three of the biped's generations, but it was slow going as the first to make contact traveled in their metal boxes.
Then the pair left this planet under their own power, without the metal box.
After they left, he descended and sniffed around. The visitors were teaching to harness power.
He had to report this at once.
The sentinel left.
Note to myself: They fly interplanetary, (6 weeks,) to monastery, on recommendation of one of the resident explorers. Ben and Grandpa travel in the black suit, armor, weapons harness with plasma cannon, and A/V transceiver/sight. They also carry swords and backpacks, and Grandpa’s cane. In the packs are some water and food, a robe each, and two bars of gold. They also have parchment with phonetic writing on it.
Ben was doing the pulling right now, but her mind was a long way away. Grandpa hung limp, asleep at the far end of the tether, their luggage between them. The soundlessness of vacuum was mildly disconcerting. The cold of the void barely noticeable. Their hardware told them they were skipping through space at a relativistic speed. Even with a distance of 24 light years to the next course change and a total distance of 135.7 lightyears to travel, the only part that Benjamina really understood was six weeks of travel time, constantly pushing. They had fasted and cleansed themselves before starting. So Ben’s stomach had complained a bit about being empty, but the light collected by her wings fed her body the energy it needed.
This left time for her to think. Typing to Grandpa got tedious, especially as he did not type well. His penmanship was almost as good as a bard’s though. Ben’s thoughts drifted to her past.
She knew the story. Her father had died when she was weeks conceived. Then she was carried into battle by her pregnant mother until her mother’s foresight told her not to. She had been born in a hut, and lived in a handful of makeshift communities until a new safe one had been made. Shortly after her mother had been killed bringing an end to that war. Here she grew up, raised by her grandparents. She was taught by the Explorers and learned how to begin to control her energy. Then she went through the mold and Grandma died. Now Ben was sixteen, her older brother had married. She was flying through the void at a speed beyond her comprehension, and a shadow moved.
Ben turned her attention, but the dark spot on the star was gone.
The sentinel for this system watched. The moment it moved it realized that it would have been fine staying put. The pair of humanoids were going too fast to be stopping here. But the fact that they were passing through, and not in one of their metal boxes was to be reported.
Grandpa pushed as Ben rested. This was an entirely novel experience for him.
He had been given battle form shortly before his tenth anniversary of marriage when he had been called off to war. Within a year he had half of the muscle of his right leg below his knee sliced off by a vicious cut. He used a cane ever after. But his skills had merited him an officer’s horse, which Cyndal tamed after the war. Then Cyndal went off to war in his place, and became the first woman in ten generations to go get a battle form in the mold. He had wondered why Cyndal, who had become an accomplished rider in her teen’s had ever after eschewed riding. Her response was ‘why ride when I can fly?’ On asking Cyndal’s husband, he confided that the matchmakers remark about riding being unladylike, combined with the fight with the bandits before the war, had soured her to riding. But she was still adept at harness breaking and did ride some in her position as a leader in the rebellion. Now, he thought, Cyndal would be proud of her father and daughter, flying instead of riding from one world to another.
Grandfather’s headpiece alerted. They were in the start of the approach to swing around a star and start their last straight leg. Orienting to the star he was approaching, Grandpa adjusted his flight angle slightly. This change of direction caused Ben to slowly swing around trying to continue on the original course. Grandpa pulled on the tether between them and took hold of Ben’s limp form when she got close enough. Using his own force he overcame her inertia and that of their luggage still floating on the tether. The course correction complete, he let go and was soon drawing away slightly as he continued to push.
Suddenly Grandpa realized he was thinking about his wife, and how much his granddaughter resembled her. He quickly squelched some potentially un-grandfatherly thoughts and studiously turned to his gear and checked their course. His wife had died 8 years earlier while Ben was in the mold. Ben finally had forgiven him for this, after the death of the grandparent of one of the other kids in the class. And Ben had learned that death was part of life, as was letting go. Grandpa cataloged this for a conversation later.
They fly into orbit, and discharge themselves against a satellite, thinking that it is just so much junk. They are then captured by to local police.
The police learn that they cannot communicate well, so they hypno-train them in the language. That done, the questioning continues, and it is learned that Grandpa and Ben are innocent of any malice.
They are then given directions on where to go to find the place they are being sent to.
They fly down to the planet, and to an arcology/geofont. It looks like a hollow mountain range, with all the buildings of an old city connected by walk ways and transit routes. It is very open, but also very much enclosed. Here and there where the structure is not built up around it, the massive pillars are visible that support the superstructure. The walls of the city are not solid, as one continuous building, but rather are made up of many interconnecting buildings. And most every horizontal surface has vegetation of some kind on it, somewhere.
This is a major change and point for Ben and Grandpa.
She begins training to harness her powers and makes a number of friends. By the time Ben leaves, to return to her native planet, she is a Journeyman, ready to test for Master level.
Grandpa becomes the gardener and an itinerant instructor at the monastery, mostly using his talents in helping with the first-level classes.
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