The Light Blue Jumper Read online

  “Zaaro, who gave you a gun?” Madam asked as she pried it away from my trembling fingers.

  “No one is hurt, don’t worry,” she added. I heaved a sigh of relief. “Except Dinaara and that doesn’t count,” Madam cooed.

  Dinaara was sitting by the door, clutching her leg. “You murderous fiend! You cannot be from Zaaron! You lie, you steal, you are violent!”

  Madam seemed eager to take up my defence. “He is the most dangerous Zaaronian you will ever meet, Dinaara. He kills IPF officers for sport. Didn’t you see the three officers he killed earlier by crushing them to a pulp? You’d better not cross him. And now we will have our data back,” she said menacingly.

  I opened my mouth to explain that this was all some horrible misunderstanding, when the Commander winked at me again from across the room. I assumed he now wanted reassurance that he could remain with my family despite his poor performance of earlier. I nodded in encouragement at him and was about to speak, when Salaar shook his head at me. I had the feeling they were trying to say something. Why not just say it then? All the interruptions were disrupting my train of thought.

  Madam snatched the ball of paper back. “Let’s go!” she shouted.

  “She’s seen the secret data, we can’t leave her here,” Lethalwulf said. As usual he was right.

  Salaar cringed and Madam scowled but they agreed with the Commander.

  “Sorry Princess but your time is up. We are in an execution area after all.” The Commander seemed ready to do away with the wretched creature.

  I stole a quick look at her. She did not seem afraid in the least. In my assessment she was more dangerous than anyone I had ever met. If someone was going to be executed, I seriously doubted it would be her.

  “You’ll have to come with us,” Salaar said as he pulled her to her feet.

  “Watch the leg! I can’t walk! Looks like you’ll have to carry me if you want me to accompany you,” she said, smiling slyly at him.

  “As you wish.” Madam stepped forward and hoisted Dinaara over her shoulder; she was surprisingly strong and agile for her size.

  40. Princess Dinaara

  It had been years since I had last laid eyes on the two buffoons. They were both exactly the same. One was too frivolous while the other was too serious for his own good. Lethal had been the class clown while Salaar had been the valedictorian. I was, of course, the most popular girl in Military School, admired by all the boys and most of the girls. Salaar was the only one who stayed annoyingly aloof.

  The last I had heard, Lethal had defected from the IPF Secret Service, so that explained why he was with the rebels. And Salaar, what I had heard of him had been terrible news. He seemed the same though. Was it even possible?

  Madam X was well known; she was the ruthless leader of the rebel forces. Rumour had it that there was someone who outranked her, but he kept to the shadows. Apparently such was the secrecy surrounding his identity that he was only referred to as The Good Doctor. Nobody knew who he was or where he came from. I had even heard talk that he spoke only in code so that not even his own crew could comprehend the rebel plans.

  I did not know what to make of the Zaaronian. A lying, thieving, murderous blue balloon of a creature. He was a blight on all Zaaronian natives, the most peaceful of the ancient races. It was unbelievable that he had managed to locate the secret storage site, extract one particular page from the files and then set the site ablaze, destroying centuries of IPF secret records and all proof of the theft. The rebels must have helped him while acting as a decoy and keeping the IPF ship occupied.

  I had heard of a Zaaronian weapons developer who had absconded with the codes for the newly developed IPF missiles. At the time, I had dismissed it as an unverified story. Perhaps there was some truth to it after all. This evil creature seemed capable of anything. I sneaked a quick look at my injured leg as we moved out of the execution area.

  41. Lieutenant Salaar

  The last time I saw Dinaara had been when we graduated from Military School. She was the scion of the Royal House of Dinaar, a wealthy old line of monarchs who ruled the outlying kingdoms, rich in gems and mineral ore. They had been independent at some forgotten point in history, but ever since people could remember, they had been under the yoke of the IPF in exchange for IPF military might to protect the royal household and preserve their grip on the kingdoms.

  I had always had the impression that Lethal had some inclination towards her, so I steered clear of her. Whenever she joined us in the cafeteria, I would make an excuse and leave, receiving a grateful nod from Lethal. I would often see them laughing and talking together as they emerged from espionage training sessions and walk the other way, lest I intrude. I had never asked Lethal about her directly, or about any of the other women I saw him with. We had a tacit understanding that his rather colourful private life was out of bounds as a topic of discussion. Lethal had no qualms about discussing his endless exploits with me in glorious detail. It was an embargo I had enforced to save our friendship. I really couldn’t understand what women saw in him. I had decided one day early on that if I heard one more annoying word about a dim-witted conquest, or an insincere declaration of true love for the flavour of the month, I would end up clobbering him with my military training gun.

  The day before we graduated, though, I had a strange exchange with Dinaara. She had walked up to my table in the cafeteria and asked whether she could sit down. “Of course. Lethal will be here any minute,” I had said, assuming she was waiting for him. She looked confused. “I’m not here to speak to Lethal. I wanted to ask you where you were headed after school. I’m training for Black Ops at the IPF Secret Service.”

  “Isn’t that a little dangerous for you?” Her face darkened. “I meant being a royal,” I hastened to explain. “Don’t you have to go back home and, well, rule?”

  “That’s the only thing I’m good for, working in the family business? Of course you would think that.”

  “No, no that’s not what I meant. I just thought that was how it worked. But seriously, your family connections could get you any post, even a cushy Foreign Service job, so why choose Black Ops?”

  “That’s all you see, isn’t it? A spoilt brat with a powerful family.” She got up. “She’s going into Black Ops, there is no way she would be selected. Of course her family must have gotten her in. I am as good a soldier as you are, if not better,” she said

  “I’m sure you are. Lethal always speaks well of you.”

  “Of all the condescending…” She folded her arms across her chest. “Lethal does, does he? What about you? Wait, don’t answer that, I don’t want to know.”

  “I don’t speak about you at all. Why would I?”

  “Yes, of course,” her eyes narrowed, "I’m not important enough for the great Salaar to think or speak about me.” Her temper seemed to be rising.

  “I don’t understand how I’ve offended you Dinaara, I don’t think ill of you for being royalty; I like you despite that fact.”

  “How kind of you, not to hold the situation of my birth against me. Tell me, is my lineage the reason why you’ve always avoided me?” she asked.

  “No. I avoided you for other reasons.”

  “So you were avoiding me. I knew it was deliberate. I’ve heard enough!”

  Before I could explain any further, she strode away without a backwards glance.

  Lethal came up just as she was leaving. “What happened? The Princess was at our table and you let her leave? What was she saying?”

  “She’s joining Black Ops after graduation,” I told him.

  “Well then, my friend, so am I.” We laughed then, but he actually did. Apparently, five out of the six girls he fancied were joining up, so it was a decision based purely on democratic principles.

  42. Commander Lethalwulf

  Dinaara was dangerous. Taking her prisoner was about the only option we had, other than doing away with her. I was glad it hadn’t come to that; otherwise it would have been a total
waste of a good asset. We could use her as a bargaining chip in exchange for information about the IPF from the royal household. Also, in the unlikely scenario that Salaar ever plucked up the courage to pursue her, she could even defect. It was my duty to nudge him in that direction, I decided, for the good of the Universe, and if he didn’t rise to the bait, well, maybe I could end up being the hero of the story. On second thought, I’d really rather not. Heroes usually ended up dead or tortured or miserable at the very least. Salaar was born to fulfil the role. I preferred my life a little more comfortable.

  We made it into the corridor outside the execution area without incident, and then all hell broke loose. IPF troops closed in on us from all sides, guns at the ready. “Drop your weapons! Hands in the air!” they shouted. Zaaro was trembling like a bowl of jelly. I had to stop him from jumping in full view of Dinaara and the IPF troops.

  I reached over and held his wobbling hands and whispered. “It’s all under control. Don’t worry. Remember the drill that we did. This is exactly like that. Be confident. It’s the IPF, they are on our side.” Madam and Salaar looked at me like I was speaking Juggarwok.

  “Of course. I know that.” Zaaro cleared his throat to speak. “It’s all a big misunderstanding.”

  “That’s the killer. Don’t listen to him!” Dinaara screamed. “He shot me and killed three officers in the interrogation room. You have to stop them from taking me! They’re going to torture and kill me!”

  “We were planning nothing of the sort, but we can change our minds if you insist,” I told her.

  I couldn’t understand what happened next. Dinaara collapsed on the floor clutching her leg. Salaar, Madam and I overpowered some of the officers and grabbed their guns while the others rushed to help her. We now had them surrounded.

  “Move and we’ll blow your heads off!” I looked at Madam with frank admiration. She was wielding the biggest gun, aiming straight at the leader.

  “Zaaro, grab the Princess!” she shouted.

  He kneeled in an attempt to hoist her over his shoulder like Madam had done, but ended up falling over as he tried to stand up again, knocking her backwards into the line of IPF officers, out of whom a couple, sadly, fell on their guns. We ran headlong from the bloodbath, Madam taking charge of the Princess again. Soon we reached the black double doors at the end of the corridor, helpfully marked ‘EXIT BAY’ in large gold letters, and piled into an IPF escape shuttle. We flew at top speed towards the rebel base to rendezvous with The Good Doctor.

  Zaaro was crestfallen. I tried to cheer him up. “It happens to the best of us, Zaaro. I’ve been involved in enough escapades, which have led to the sad demise of numerous IPF officers. Unwittingly, of course,” I hastened to add as I saw the look of horror flash across his face. “In this case, there were just two, well, maybe three or an absolute maximum of six, casualties, if you count the three you crushed earlier. Nothing to get so down in the mouth about. You helped us escape, Zaaro. You were the hero of this adventure, and for that we will forever be in your debt.”

  On later reflection, I realised that had it not been for the Princess’ timely hysterics, we would not have made it out. It appeared we also owed her some form of gratitude.

  43. Lieutenant Salaar

  When we left for our mission, The Good Doctor and the rest of the crew had utilised the three remaining shuttles to escape the IPF attack and make their way to the rebel base. Once there, The Good Doctor had taken care of all the paperwork and financing for our new ship. He had simply told his financiers that he was on the verge of a breakthrough in developing a prototype for reversing the effects of the madness. What he had neglected to mention was that he had been on that very same verge for the last five years.

  Back on our newly commissioned ship, the Second Light – pleasingly similar to the First Light in that it was absolutely identical, right down to the same Central Command - I went to see Madam. “Now that we know who the IPF deep cover agents are, can we make the list public?” I asked. I was impatient to move on to the next phase of our plan.

  “No. We need to sift through and verify all the information first. What if the list has been prepared keeping in mind that we might find it? There may be decoys on it. Another troubling thought is: what were the chances of Zaaro finding this particular list amongst hundreds, unless, perhaps all of them contained the same information?” Madam was advising caution with good cause.

  Her comments took me back to a fateful day five years ago.

  We had received a tip, which we had immediately acted upon, not realizing it was a trap. We had lost a lot of good soldiers that day; my sister Anya had been one of them. We had rushed to the IPF site where, according to our information, innocents were being experimented upon to create biological weapons. Anya led the charge into the building, it seemed empty. Sensing danger, I was crying out to Anya to turn back, when the concealed biological bomb went off and we were all buried under the rubble.

  I had been severely wounded. If Madam hadn’t carried me away I wouldn’t have survived. My sister was not so lucky. The rebel force had to flee before they could complete a search for survivors at the bomb site. IPF forces cordoned off the area. According to all the IPF records of the aftermath we had been able to access, her body had never been found.

  I made a full physical recovery within two years of the explosion, thanks to Madam and The Good Doctor’s efforts. However, I would forever live with the knowledge that I had been infected with the madness, the most terrible IPF biological weapon in existence. The madness was an incurable disease caused by parasites feeding on all the rage, grief and hatred inside a sufferer. Any weakening of my mental or physical state would turn me into a monster, reduce me to an automaton, more fodder for the IPF war machine. It was the IPF’s piece de resistance, a biological weapon we had sworn to destroy, before it destroyed us all.

  There were days when I felt almost whole, but then there were days, when I could feel the darkness welling up inside me. Days when I could feel my vision restricting and tightening until all I could see was myself and I was a god. In my disease-fuelled delirium, I felt all-powerful. I would lock myself away with The Good Doctor’s helpful prescription sedatives until the episode passed. But how long could I resist the temptation to be omnipotent? I dreaded the day when I would stop fighting it, because I knew, that day would surely come for me as it had for countless others who had succumbed to the disease. I too would bow down in homage to my own delusions one day and set forth to destroy all that whispered of a different reality, one where I didn’t reign supreme, where other people dared to have other thoughts. My diseased mind would beget a world where my edict would be law, my judgment final and my punishment absolute. I just didn’t know how long it would take.

  “How long will it take, Madam?” I asked, as I snapped out of my reverie.

  “I’ve asked Central Command to help me decrypt all the information. Just be patient, Salaar.”

  “Is her name in there?” I asked. As long as her body was missing, I carried hope, no matter how slim, that I would find her one day.

  Madam paused. “No. That is the first thing I checked for. If she is not on this list, Salaar, you know what that means.”

  “I do,” I said, even though I knew I would search for her until my dying day.

  “Salaar, even if you were to find her, who knows what she would have become by now,” Madam said, voicing my worst fears.

  “I know, but as I have tried to resist the descent, she could have too.” I had to believe that. Anything else was too terrifying to imagine.

  “I’m trying to make sense of something else, help me with this. I’m assuming Zaaro jumped to the IPF secret storage site, because it was the closest safe place when we were hit by the stealth bomb, and then jumped on to the IPF ship when the secret storage site exploded. But why did the storage site explode?”

  I knew she was distracting me but her question was worth considering. “It appears none of us, not even the IPF, know wh
y the secret storage site exploded,” I told her, as I left her room, deep in thought.

  44. Zaaro Nian

  I had to speak to Salaar. I was passing by the control room when he emerged, deep in thought. He would have walked straight past me had I not called out to him.

  “I was hoping we could talk.”

  “Yes, of course Zaaro. Come, let’s take a walk.”

  “That would be nice, but could we talk first? It’s important.”

  “We’ll walk and talk at the same time. Fire away,” Salaar said.

  “It was an accident! I thought you of all people would know that I would never do such a thing!” My indignation got the better of me.

  “I apologise for my poor choice of metaphor! Please tell me what is on your mind.”

  “I’ve been thinking. When we were in that dangerous misunderstanding with the IPF officers about the secret data, the list we had, it was all a part of our covert mission. Am I right? Why didn’t we just tell them that? Or why didn’t you just jump us out of the situation? Why let things get so ugly?”

  “That’s an easy one Zaaro. We couldn’t tell the IPF regular team about our covert mission because it would have been compromised and we didn’t jump because of a similar reason; we would have exposed our secret to the IPF regular forces,” he explained.

  “Ah, I understand. I was also wondering why Madam said those horrible things about me to the Princess. She called me dangerous! Why would she say such a terrible thing?”

  “Zaaro I think she said that only because the situation demanded it. She knows it’s not true, but she had to say it to intimidate the Princess, otherwise there would have been bloodshed.”