Chapter Twenty-Three: Flight of the Angel

Jonathan looked at the papers the President had handed them. He activated the communications consol and said into the microphone "ACR 001 requestion clearance for launch."
"ACR 001, you have been pre-approved for high priotity launch by the President himself. You have a take of window for the next seven minutes. After that, we have to open the air lanes back up."
"Undestood."
The ship handled very smoothly. It was a gently rise of the ground, and the thruming of the engines was nearly inaudible. The whine simply wasn't present. They drifted out of the hanger and down a long strip of pavement to a yellow ring that was scorched by back-blast from rocket engines. From there, the direction of The Angel of Redemption changed, and she started to go directly upwards.
The ascent was quick, much better than a lot of the shuttles that Jonathan had been in. The ship was on the cutting edge of in-system space flight.
He reached parking orbit and plotted a course that would sling shot them by the moon. He wanted to see the black glass surface glitter once more. The absolute destruction that had happened there was terrible, but the new face of the moon was something to behold. It glittered in the night with the sun's reflection.
Jonathan kept with the speed restrictions of Earth Orbit. He watched as, a few minutes later, the moon passed beneath the hull of the ship. They were in orbit around the moon.
"Back to Norton to get Grinder and Andy?" Jonathan asked.
"That the best plan." marcelle agreed.
They went around the moon twice more before Jonathan got clearance to break orbit and blast directly toward the sun. The course was set and the light speed engined were humming quietly in the back of the ship. The Angle looked as if she was Icarus, flying to close to the sun before she dissapeared into seeming nothingness.
Jonathan and Marcelle were not asleep for the time spent outside of space and time.Their ship was operational, and everything was fine. The only sound was that of the computer making frantic calculations; somehow working out how to break back through into the universe.
It was oppressively quiet and out the window there was nothing. Not even infinte blackness, just an indescriabable nothingness.
The only had to wait three days before they found themselves floating above Norton. Jonathan stretched his arms and took the Angel of Redemption's controls in his hands, and began to guide the ship in towards the planet. The ship was directed right towards the colony that Jonathan had established, but when they approached, they found something they never expected to see. The buildings were scorched and dark, some were completely hulled out. One of the rovers was blasted into peices and there was no evidence of anybody anywhere in the complex.
"Andy and Grinder would have led the out into the wilderness." Marcelle said. "They can't have been captured, or ..." She couldn't bring herself to say it. There was a blood splatter on a nearby door that sugested that at least one person had been shot, quite possibly fataly.
"We'll take the Angel up, preform a low altitude search around the base, srating from a one mile radius out."
"I guess it's the best we can do." Macelle addmitted.
They looked around the colony quickly to make sure that there was nothing else the could learn. They found nothing, so they continued on their way.
They began flying around the base in wide cirlces, each one wider than the last, searching for any evidence of the people who had lived there. They were using military scanners and their own eyes, but the search was proving to be very fruitless.
The ship was able to scan quickly, but it was over two hours of circeling before anything was found. An alarm started to flash on the control panel. Jonathan leaned over and saw that it was a weapons launch warning. There was a missile streaking towards them. The self generated map that had been slowly growing as they flew pinpointed where the missile had originalted from.
Jonathan quickly armed the missile defense system. A high intensity laser tracked the missile and when it had a solid lock on it's position and flight path, it increased energy output to the point where it caused the missile to detonate.
Jonathan then took the ship back to where the missile had some from and brough it down on the nearest patch of level ground. He turned towards Marcelle. "It has to be the colonists. Why esle would they be out in the wilderness? The Idealists wouldn't hide out here."
Marcelle nodded in agreement, but Jonathan was surprised to see genuine concern in her eyes. "Be careful" she told him.
Jonathan opened the access hatch that dropped down to the ground. He lay down on the floor are shouted "This is Jonathan Brooke! I'm coming out!" He dropped carefully to the ground and stayed in a crouch, scanning the surroundings. He couldn't see anybody, but that didn't mean anything. Grinder was with the colonists, presumably. Jonathan knew he was a tactical genius.
A head popped out from beind a rock up on a slope. It was a familiar face, but Jonathan couldn't place the name. It dissapeared almost immediately and was followed by a man with a grisly beard on his face - Grinder.
"Jonathan!" he shouted. He ran down the hill and met the man. "Are we ever glad to see you. Sorry about firing on your new ship, but I thought it might be some sort of Idealst ship."
Marcelle dropped down beside Jonathan. "We understand" she said to Grinder. Norman slithered out of the ship and crawled contently around on his home soil once again.
"What happened here?" Jonathan asked.
"It's a bit of a tale, Jonathan." Grinder said as he led them back up the hill. In a collection of dense trees there was a small community of tents set up, well disguised from the air. Grinder led them towards one of the tents. "I'm not going to tell you the story. The historian here is." Grinder opened the tent flap and stepped inside. Jonathan and Marcelle followed.
Sitting upright in the bed was Andy. He looked up from a data pad where he was writting madley and smiled. "Hello Jonathan. I was just working on writing down your story so far."
"Hello Andy. How are you?" Jonathan looked at the young man. It was obvious he had been injured in the fight, but how didn't seem apparent at first.
"Well, it certainly hurts a little more when you know the pain is real." Andy said almost cheerfully. He patted what was left of his right leg. It had been amputated above the knee.
"Oh, Andy... you're leg." Marcelle said.
"It's okay, Marcelle. It's not like i can't go on living."
Jonathan felt a bitter feeling in his gut. Andy was young, too young to have that sort of thing happen to him. How, no, why did the idealist do it. Jonathan had to know. "How did this happen, Andy?" he damanded.
"It's a bit of a story." Andy said. "Not to worry, I think I've improved my story telling abilites since the last time I told you part of a history."