Excerpt: Strangeway's Mind Ship

Part I - A Gruesome Flag

Naval Space Service cadet, Horatio Hornblower Strangeway marched along the corridor cradling the tightly wrapped flag in his outstretched arms. His companion Vix Sorrell, one of the vulpine Vorpal cadets lengthened her stride to reach the door ahead of him. She snapped the heels of her boots down on the polished floor and pulled open the door.

Horatio stopped.

Predawn shadows laced the main quadrangle of the Academy grounds. Something was wrong. A cold line traced the length of Horatio’s spine. He tucked the flag under his left arm, a sign of disrespect that would have earned him a clip around the ears from his father or an afternoon of double-time marching from Drill Sergeant Bolton. Horatio raised his right hand to his temple and tapped a button on the arm of his sunglasses. The glasses amplified the ambient light and magnified the scene. He swept his gaze back and forth. Nothing. Up …

‘Damn!’ The curse slipped out, he didn’t mean to speak aloud.

It hung limp from the top of the flagpole and it was going to raise one mother of a storm. Horatio couldn’t say why, but he knew at that moment the worst waves of the storm were going to come crashing down on him.

Sorrell moved forward but Horatio stepped into the centre of the doorway blocking the way.

‘I know you don’t really know me, Sorrel,’ Hoaratio said. ‘But can I ask you a personal favour?’

Sorrell let out a low growl.

‘Go back inside and get yourself an early breakfast.’ Horatio flinched at the look Sorrell gave him. ‘Please?’

Sorrell stood on the tips of her toes and craned her slender down-covered neck until she could see over Horatio’s shoulder.

Horatio felt her warm breath on his neck. It held a tang of peppermint with just the slightest hint of raw meat. The scent wasn’t unpleasant, just disquieting. He watched as her head tilted up, saw her toffee coloured eyes flare wide. With a sigh, he stepped aside to let her past.

He had to hurry to keep up as she crossed the plascrete quadrangle to the base of the flagpole.

Sorrell worked to untie the knot on the flagpole’s rope. Her fingers were a little stubbier than human fingers, not as dexterous but she refused to let Horatio help her. Something wet splashed down onto her shaking hands. She shivered.

Blood.

The knot finally came loose and Sorrell eased the mutilated body of the fox down and laid it out on the ground by her feet. Horatio saw it was a female. He cringed at sight, repulsed and sickened by what they had done to the poor creature.

Sorrell’s lips curled back to expose a row of sharp, white and slightly elongated teeth.

Horatio shivered. The snarling expression on the face of Sorrell and the dead fox were disturbingly similarity.

‘I am sorry,’ Horatio said.

Sorrel spun on her heel and stalked back toward the main building without saying a word. The muscles in her back were visibly bunched, her hands clenched so tightly they trembled.

Horatio attached the flag to the rope. As he hauled it up, the bottom corner of the flag flapped down and touched the ground. That was another ancient military taboo.

‘What would your father say to that?’ Horatio chided himself. He didn’t really need to ask because he knew the answer. The words sounded in his mind just as loud as if his father was there glaring down at him with that look - the steel grey stare that could reduce a veteran marine to a quivering heap.

‘No respect! Why can’t you be more like your brothers?’

Horatio had heard that line so many times; it had become an essential part of his existence. The day he mouthed the words along with his father had been the only time his father had ever struck him. The slap stung but the look of disappointment in those grey eyes haunted him every day.

Finally, with the rope tied off, Horation stepped back, came to attention and snapped a salute.

Golden sunlight crested the eastern horizon blazing across the dark stain of blood on the bottom corner of the white Naval Space Service flag.

‘Wonderful! Just bloody wonderful,’ Horatio muttered.