[Special Notes: I have told you before about the Grackle that often visits during morning coffee, and tells me stories of Darai. Sparrows, Ravens, Crows, Jays, Rooks, a lovely pair of Hawks, and even an Eagle has visited me as well and told their stories, which I have carefully written and posted. The Eagle visited when Katie was still a tiny pup, and I had to rush her inside to prevent a tragic disaster, or perhaps a simple misunderstanding as to what is or is not an acceptable meal. Well, several days ago I was visited by my first Falcon, who decided I was harboring far too many Pigeons and cleared them out for me. I'll refrain from posting the carnage left behind by my Falcon friend, but, he did dally long enough to screech angrily at me for being neglectful in the telling of Falcon stories. I politely asked if he had something in mind, so he jumped up on the wall and told me a delightful tale of the time Hero and Jaco visited the Falcon Base. Enjoy.] [The Lone Gunslinger, Chapter 17, Falcon Base] "Hurry up, we're going to miss it." Jaco is bouncing up and down at the door; his small field pack slung over his back. I'm checking my field pack one more time; we probably won't be back for a couple months. I expected Josh to sulk over us leaving but instead he's moving all his pillows, stuffed animals, and blankets over to my bed. "There's a shuttle every thirty minutes, Jaco, we'll be fine," I remind him. "Yea, but if we hurry we can be on the next one." The Falcon's are running a shuttle every half-hour from the Falcon Base to the Gunslinger Dining Cabin, then to the Raven Base, and back to the Falcon Base. I can't believe how much is going on; the Quartermasters are everywhere and using the opportunity to replace outdated equipment. Trucks are delivering crates and dropping them at every cabin; there are two Quartermaster crews at our cabin right now replacing our 'missing' Vid-screen. Jaco hid the specially modified one up in his nest and will reinstall it when we get back. "I'm leaving now, Josh." Josh is ignoring me as he pushes my clothing chest across the floor to make way for his. I think he is mad, and this is just his way of dealing with being left behind. Jaco is having a spasm at the door; I better just get it over with and go. "Bye, Josh, I'll be back before you know it." Simon is outside supervising the Quartermaster crew pouring the concrete next to the barn for the small landing pad we will be storing Jaco's Dart ship on when we get back. Lone Gunslingers don't usually get a Dart Ship, we aren't pilots, but Jaco is a Daraian and they don't want to waste a perfectly good pilot, so we are heading to the Falcon Base to sign for a brand new Dart Ship the Gunslingers purchased for us. The Gunslingers are going to buy a whole fleet of Dart Ships for the Raven Base. I probably should get used to calling it the Daraian Base; after all, it was my idea to call it the Daraian Base. The Daraians/Ravens will have to wait for a few months, the Falcon's don't have enough Darts to go around, so we put an order in with House Sparrow on Darai, but it's going to take awhile to build that many special order Dart Ships. "Hey pops, we're heading out now." "Hold on a second," says Simon. Simon pulls my hat off and then takes two bullets out of my gunbelt and slips them inside the headband so they can't be seen and puts the hat back on my head. "You'll know what those are for if the time comes," says Simon. "I already know, Michael told us about it on a range once, but I don't plan for it ever to get that bad," I say. "This is an easy first mission, and will count as your First Year finals, but don’t take anything for granted," warns Simon. "Always trust your gut." "We'll be fine, Pops." "You better hurry, Jaco is already half-way there," says Simon. "Huh?" I turn around; Jaco is almost out of sight on the trail that goes to the Dining Cabin. I run after my partner; he's a bit excited to get his Dart Ship. I don't think Jaco is going to get his Class 1 license, the Falcon's are grading, and they grade a lot harder than the Ravens, and Jaco hasn't flown for a long time. We will go through the refresher course, try the Class 1 test, and then deploy with the Advance Party to Pyra, but Jaco's Class 2 license is good enough for that--I don't think we will be joining with an Assault Dart Fighter Squadron this time out. Jaco's been on an Assault Squadron before, the story is crazy. The last time the Kitsune tried invading his home-world Jaco was only eight-years-old. Jaco was on his planets Second Defense Wave and was assigned to an older Destroyer as a message runner. Com-links are the first thing to go down during a space battle; it's because of all the electromagnetic pulse waves from the nukes. The little kids are used to run messages from the Bridge to the Engine Room. So, the crazy part, or the crazier part is that the Captain had expended all his ammo and decided to ram a Kitsune Battle Carrier. The Captain did eject all the Hatchlings in escape pods first, but Jaco got left behind because the other First Eggs forgot to tell anyone Jaco was still running a message. The Maintenance Chief shoved Jaco into an unmanned maintenance drone with a couple oxygen bottles and pushed him out into space, it saved his life but he spent three days alone curled up inside that drone--not much wonder why Jaco hates the other First Eggs. But, here's the important part, the First Eggs wanted to cover up their mistake and not tell anyone, it was Ruddy and Petrel that told someone Jaco was missing and a search party was sent to check for survivors and Jaco was found. I have to admit; after Jaco told me the story…well…I want to shoot this Colton Cyness person too. "Hey, wait up," I shout. "Hurry," shouts Jaco. "We can still make it." The Advance Party will be clearing the island chain the Quartermasters are moving to. The island has already been cleared by the Pyrans, but we are going to make sure before we land a whole fleet there. Jaco and I have been assigned one of the smallest islands to check; it should be easy. We will drop, check the island, and then give an 'all clear' to the ships that will be waiting in orbit to land on our island. Jaco doesn't slow down and wait, probably a good thing. The shuttle is just getting ready to leave when Jaco runs out of the woods waving his arms. I'm sure the pilot is used to last minute arrivals, and they wait. I catch-up a moment later, and we jump in the shuttle and find a seat. "Told you we could make it," says Jaco panting heavily. "We could have just taken our time and had some hot chocolate in the Dining Cabin." The truth is I'm not in a big hurry to get there. Nobody knows why, but Lone Gunslingers hate to fly, and I'm not going to be able to go into slow sleep this time. This won't be a three-day trip either, it's two weeks to get to Pyra--The Quartermasters will launch one week after we leave. Jaco plasters himself to the window, but I'm content with the aisle seat, I can see just fine from here. Seeing the whole Base from the air gives a much better feel for how big it is. I can see all the roads we have spent so much time running on every morning, but then the ship turns, and I lose my orientation of where everything is located. I can see the lake in the distance as we head towards the Daraian Base. The trip is only a few minutes to the Daraian Base, and I can see the center building that was finished last month. Two of the lodges look completed, at least from the outside, and one other has its frame up. The Quartermasters have been delivering supplies and helping out with simple things; they can pour the foundations for the cabins. I see a lot of foundations already poured and a big machine digging a hole in the ground. "Hey, Jaco, what's with the trench?" "That is the start of the Temple tunnels, we want to connect every cabin to the Lodges and the Temple," explains Jaco. "The Quartermasters had two of those big Trenchers on one of the Range Ships; we gotta use them while we can." The Quartermasters brought everything with them from every supply depot on every planet. That's what the Marshall General wants, to consolidate the entire Gunslinger Order on one planet. The days we needed to spread out and hide our meager resources are over, now we are the second most powerful Order in the Galaxy, and we are going to be all on just one planet. The Range Ships Jaco is referring to are the largest cargo ships ever built. The Gunslingers have a few of them, so do major mining companies and a few of the big Houses that deal in bulk trade throughout the Empire. "That's a lot of tunnels to dig." "We will only have time to dig one short tunnel before the Quartermasters leave, hopefully." says Jaco. "Shouldn't you be building cabins?" "The Quartermasters say we could build up on wooden foundations, but those won't last, and they said the concrete foundations need to cure until next spring, so, we are laying all the foundations and building three lodges. That will give us four temporary buildings to winter in this year, and then we build the cabins and the remaining lodges next year. Once we have the permanent lodges built, we will rebuild these lodges on a permanent foundation." I watch people get off the shuttle and new passengers board; there is a lot of traffic traveling around the bases. The Daraians are dressed in a mixture of their old Raven uniforms and Gunslinger uniforms. The Quartermasters have been very excepting of the Daraians joining us and even opened one of the big Range Cargo Ships for a 'shopping trip' excursion to allow the Daraians to outfit themselves with basic equipment. The shuttle lifts off again and heads over the mountains towards the Falcon Base. The Falcon Base is closer than I thought it was, just on the other side of a mountain range separating the two Bases. I wouldn't want to try walking though; the terrain looks rough and in some places I can still see snow on the upper reaches. The shuttle swings wide around the top of mountain and descends past the steep cliffs on this side of the mountain. The Falcon Base comes into view and is not what I was expecting at all. The upper Base, the living cabins, are built into the sides of the cliffs with steep roads winding down the side of the cliffs. And the Airfield takes my breath away, it's massive with thousands of every type of flying craft imaginable parked everywhere. I suppose it makes sense; the Falcons aren't just providing service to the Gunslingers; they must be providing air service to the entire planet. I can see the biggest city I've ever seen on the horizon in the distance. It's a long way and looks like the Falcon's turned the prairie on their side of the mountains into a giant runway, or many runways. There is some grass between the concrete, but this place is utterly massive--and busy. There is a train built up on… I don't know… stilts?... Concrete pylons. The train tracks… no, not tracks, single track… shoots off and branches in several directions. The shuttle lands on a platform next to a big glass terminal and the doors open. We grab our packs and head out into the terminal with the other passengers. The other passengers quickly go their separate ways, and we are left standing alone trying to figure out what to do. There's a disembodied voice echoing from speakers, announcing arrivals and departures on different concourses. I think I just stepped into an alien world, and I have no idea what's going on. "Jaco?" "I don't know, when I arrived on Raunu I came in on the civilian side of the airport, way over there at Rakna Municipal Airport, this side is the military base." Jaco points at the glass window of the terminal towards the big city on the horizon. Something catches my attention, and I run over to the window. A huge airplane is taxiing past the terminal. "Jaco look," I shout excitedly. "I think that's one of the big planes I used to see pass over the farm." Jaco walks over and joins me. "Yea, that's a military jumbo jet, the civilian ones are usually painted white with colorful markings." "Do the Falcon's own all this?" I ask. "It's more complicated than that, but yea, kind of," replies Jaco. "House Falcon runs all the major airports on every planet; it's what they do." "Omgosh, what's that?" I point. "That's a…" Jaco starts to say. "What's that?" I point at something else before he can answer. "And that… and that…" There is too much to see at once, and then I see the most glorious thing I have ever seen in my entire life. "Jaco?" I whisper. I walk over to… something… stairs, and they are moving, going up to another level. I put my foot out tentatively and then step onto the moving stairs. I almost lose my balance, and then the stairs are taking me up--it's glorious. I take a few steps back down, but the stairs keep taking me upward. I try running backward down the stairs… "Hey, watch it, kid," says someone. "This isn't a playground." "Oh, sorry, Sir." I tip my hat and reply stepping back and letting the stairs take me to the top. I almost ran into someone going up the moving stairs. I step off the stairs and wait for the man to leave and then try running back down the moving stairs. Jaco passes me going up. "You are such a country boy," says Jaco. I let the stairs take me back to the top, and then I kneel down and watch the stairs folding up and disappearing into the floor. "Where do you think the stairs go?" I ask. "It's magic," says Jaco sarcastically. "Is not," I reply. "I bet it's some kind of super advanced technology, you Daraians are amazing." "If you think the escalator is fascinating, wait until you find the moving walkway," says Jaco. "Huh?" "It's like a sidewalk, but it moves, you just stand on it," explains Jaco. "I want to see!" I jump up and look around for one. "Come on, we need to find an information booth and figure out where to go," says Jaco. I follow Jaco, he knows more where to go than me, and I'm just lost, but there are so many things to look at, and I keep stopping and then have to run to catch up with Jaco. There are shops selling coffee, and books and stuffed animals, and even one shop selling perfume, I think. "Hey Jaco, look, that man is shining that guy's boots, what do you think he did to get that kind of punishment? Simon would never punish me like that." "He's not being punished, that guy is paying him to shine his boots." "That's just crazy lazy," I say shaking my head. A shop selling newspapers grabs my attention and I wander over to look at all the papers. There are newspapers from nearly every world, seeing all the papers and headlines gives me a better understanding of just how vast the Empire is, I never realized before. Jaco picks up one of the papers and pays the shop keeper while I scan headlines. "Omgosh, Jaco, they found a new species." "What are you talking about?" "Look, they found a half-vampire-werewolf-zombie boy living in the jungles of Cormon." "Oh Hero," Jaco says sadly. "I sometimes forget how isolated the Brocal's kept you from the real world. That's a Tabloid; none of those stories are real." "Are you sure? Here's a picture of him." I show Jaco the photo. "They made that picture up." "I don't know; it looks real, I'm getting this paper," I decide, and hand the shop keeper two Imperial Notes. "Come on," says Jaco. "We need to get going." "Hey, there's a herd of space cows blocking the nav-lanes at the asteroid belt near Darai." "Yea, that always happens," says Jaco. "You gotta watch out for space cows." I eye Jaco suspiciously, maybe he's right and this is a fake newspaper, but there's a picture of the cows. Real or not, it's an awesome newspaper, and I like it. "What newspaper did you get?" Jaco shows me the headline to the newspaper he bought. IMPERIAL FORCES ATTACK DEMONIAN ROYAL PALACE-PRINCE VENGENCE ORDERS COUNTER-ATTACK-DEMONIAN CASUALTIES HIGH "That's terrible. Michael said in class that the Demonians destroyed their own atmosphere to slow down the invasion." "Yea, but read this smaller headline at the bottom," Jaco says pointing at the bottom of the page. DARAI IGNORES NON-INTERFERENCE TREATY-DARIAN COMMONWEALTH FLEET RUNS IMPERIAL BLOCKADE WITH FOOD AND MEDICAL AID "Good for Darai, makes me proud to be a dual-citizen. Which House is the Common Wealth Fleet?" "The Hawks will be commanding the Fleet, and the Sparrows will probably be providing the ships with the Falcons piloting. The Ravens will be providing intelligence and security, and every other House will be providing the food and medical supplies," explains Jaco and then whispers. "And I wouldn't be surprised if the Grackles are feeding false information over their News Networks to keep the Imperial's from knowing where our Fleet is at." "If the Imperial's win, they'll attack Darai." "I know. I'll have to go home if that happens." "I'll go with you; we defend Darai together." "I'm old enough now to be on the First Defense Wave, and the First Wave never survives." I think the conversation is getting too serious; I will fight with Jaco and won't be talked out of it. I hold up my Tabloid Newspaper and wink at Jaco. "The Pyran Ambassador had an affair with a Carinian stripper, see, they had a two-headed amphibian baby." I show Jaco the photo of a two-headed baby swimming around the feet of the Ambassador. "You're a nut," says Jaco. "Come on, let’s find the information booth." On the way to the information booth, I find the moving sidewalk Jaco was talking about and spend the next fifteen minutes playing on that before Jaco drags me off. I think the moving sidewalk is nearly as great as the moving stairs. The lady at the information booth doesn't have any idea where we are supposed to go and recommends we take the Tram to the Gunslinger Liaison Office, which is really the train on stilts I saw from the shuttle. We have to go back to the moving stairs and then out on a platform to get on the Tram. The Tram is amazing, and we get on the first section and I glue myself to the front window as it speeds from stop to stop. We speed past the last Terminal and then the Tram dips down into an underground tunnel and picks up speed. When the Tram comes back up to the surface, we are at the other side of the Airport/Base. "I think we went the wrong way," says Jaco. "This is the civilian airport." Nearly three hours go by before we manage to find the return Tram, which ended up being the same one we got off of. If I thought the Military Base was amazing, wow, the Civilian Airport is beyond belief, I think we spent most of the time wandering in and out of shops around the Concourses before getting back on the Tram. "My stomach hurts," I moan. "I told you not to eat those cinnamon buns," Jaco scolds. Jaco's right, Simon would never allow me to eat something so unhealthy, but it might have been my only chance to try them. I lay back on the seat as the Tram speeds us back to the Military side of the Airport, and then we have to wait for all the stop and go and stop and go at each concourse. The Tram finally reaches our stop and we get off. "Hey, this is where we started, there's the shuttle," I point at the shuttle just arriving at the landing platform off to our right. "Quick, let’s go ask someone getting off the shuttle," says Jaco. We run down the moving stairs and across to the landing platform. A Gunslinger is just coming through the sliding glass doors and we stop him. "Excuse me, sir, where's the Gunslinger Liaison Office?" "Just take those stairs and follow the walkway," the Gunslinger points at a sign above a normal staircase leading down to the tarmac. The staircase is just to the right of the shuttle platform, but I saw the moving stairs to the left and we never even glanced to the right. Jaco gives me one of those expressions that say it's all my fault. The stairs lead down to ground level and a normal plain door, and then outside and along the edge of the building. As we walk I get a strange feeling like we are walking back in time, the slick terminal with its smooth walls ends and then the buildings are brick, and then wood. The aircraft parked at angles along the building get older and smaller, and then there's an open space to walk across. The concrete ends and then it's just a small dirt path and grass. We come to a simple plain wooden building with a sign on it that reads, Gunslinger Compound. I know we are in the right place, I recognize the transport planes and Dart Ships lined up in the grass alongside a dirt runway, they have the Lone Gunslinger Crest painted on the sides. I push the door open to the small wooden building and walk inside with Jaco following me. There is a Gunslinger sitting at a desk looking at some paperwork and typing something on an old desk-Vid. "Excuse me, sir," I announce myself. "We're here for the Class 2 refresher course." "Jaco and Hero?" asks the Gunslinger. "Yes, sir." "Where you been, we've got runners out looking for you?" says the Gunslinger. "Sorry, sir, we got lost and ended up at the civilian airport." "From the icing on your face I'd say you had a good time there," says the Gunslinger. I quickly wipe my face and turn red. "Don't worry about it, I won't tell on you," says the Gunslinger. "You can start the course tomorrow. You two can stay in Cabin 12... hmm... you're First Years, do I need to go over the rules?" "No, sir," I say. "Cleanup after ourselves and leave everything the way we find it." "Very good and stay on the Compound, no more wandering around," adds the Gunslinger. "Sir, can I see my new Dart Ship?" asks Jaco. "It's still in orbit with the other new Darts at the space station clearing customs," says the Gunslinger. "Don't worry, we are expecting them to be delivered later this evening." I can see Jaco is disappointed. The Gunslinger gives us directions to our cabin, and we head across the grass towards the guest cabins. We are about half-way across the grass that separates the cabins from the dirt runway when a group of Falcon's, about our age, run up and stop us. "Hey there," says one of the Falcons. "You guys staying the night?" "Yea, we're here for the Class 2 refresher course," I reply. "That's great, we are getting up a game of Sparrow Ball and could use some more players, want to join?" Jaco grabs my arm and shakes his head. "Aww, come on Jackdaw, it'll be fun," says the Falcon. "Don't do it, Hero," warns Jaco. "Sparrow Ball is vicious." "Fine, if you don't want to play." The Falcon boy laughs. "What about you, Gunslinger, or are you scared too?" "I'm not scared, sounds fun." I drop my pack at Jaco's feet. "What's the rules?"