Chapter 3
Aerrow stared at the hand until Piper elbowed him in the ribs.
"Ouch! I mean Hi" He said quickly and shook her hand. "The name's Aerrow, Sky Knight of the Storm Hawks. This is my squadron; Finn, Junko, Piper, Radarr and Stork is our pilot." He finished, introducing each of them in turn. Piper shook her hand eagerly; so many questions slipped though her mind that she couldn't grab hold of one.
Stork's voice fizzed out of the radio once more. "Don't mean to nag, but do you think we could continue you little conversation someplace with less Talons?"
The group turned back to the carrier, the large ship may be down but it wasn't out.
Aerrow pushed the comm. button on his skimmer, "alright Stork, take us out of here" he replied. Immediately the Condor began to turn away, leaving the Cyclonians in the clouds.
The boys parked their skimmers in the hanger bay as Piper helped Gryphon into the Condor. Piper voiced her amazement that after leaping almost 100 feet onto a drifting carrier all she walked away with was a twisted ankle where she should, at the least, have a broken leg, if not dead.
Gryphon laughed. "I'm actually surprised, not to mention grateful, that it wasn't worse. Just to be safe though I'll try not to make a habit of leaping from speeding skimmers."
Piper smiled. "In the meantime, I'll be sure to find something in the Condor you can put on that."
Gryphon thanked her and they continued slowly to the bridge.
x x x
The rest of the team joined Gryphon, Piper and Stork on the bridge and picked out a chair around their Strategy table, all except Stork, who was at the helm making sure they were a comfortable distance away from the Cyclonian airship. Gryphon adjusted the ice pack on her right ankle and sat back with a grateful sigh.
"Umm," Piper started out, grabbing Gryphon's attention. "You have a little..." Piper fingered her own neck, looking a little green.
Gryphon wiped her throat with her right hand, a bit of blood was smeared on her fingers. Ouch, that was a close shave. Piper handed her a tissue and she wiped the rest of the blood away. "Thanks."
"So, Gryphon," the young Sky Knight began awkwardly. "Where are you from…? Exactly?"
"Aerrow!" Piper blushed with embarrassment, glaring at the redhead, and gave their guest an apologetic look.
Gryphon gave the two a lopsided grin. "I'm from Terra Skythern."
Piper forgot her humiliation. "Terra Skythern? I've never heard of it." She said, her amber eyes troubled.
"I doubt you would have, the terra was taken by Cyclonia at the height of the War, its Sky Knight squadron defeated. For 18 years my people have been held prisoner on their own terra."
"But," Pier began, "there should be at least some recorded history that I would have read..."
She shrugged. "Even before then communications with the rest of Atmos was difficult, but now it's impossible. The Cyclonians want the Therans to be forgotten."
Aerrow looked puzzled. "There must have been others of your kind – Therans? – off-terra when it was invaded?"
Gryphon shook her head sadly. "I'm not exactly sure of what happened, my guess is that any Theran who was off-terra were either captured or killed during the War."
"So what, after 20 odd years of complete slavery, how was it that you escaped?" The spiky blond questioned.
Gryphon turned her attention to him – Finn was it? – "I haven't been the first to try, and I won't be the last. Many have sacrificed themselves fighting the Cyclonian Empire." Grief gripped her heart. "This latest escape attempt was not as successful as we had wished; I actually started out in a team with four others." She paused, letting her emotions settle. "I've always been lucky but how I survived I don't know. Maybe because I'm only half Theran they thought I was only half of a threat." She mused, almost to herself.
"Wait...What?" Piper said a little confused.
Gryphon looked up; the five Storm Hawks – Radarr included – looked shocked.
She shifted in her chair uncomfortably. Nice one, why don't you just tell them your whole life story! She chided herself. "What? Did you think all Therans were a patchwork quilt like me?"
There were hasty stammers of protest around the table and Piper's face turned a shade of red to rival Aerrow's hair.
Gryphon laughed, forgetting her embarrassment "Here look," she reached into one of the pouches on her sword belt and pulled out a creased photograph. "My mother Jaya, and I." She handed the picture to Piper beside her without looking at it, she didn't need to, she could recall every feature from memory. The two stood at the base of a very large tree, the trunk of which took up most of the background, sunlight glinted through canopy somewhere to land upon them. Gryphon, looking a few years younger, was on her mother's left, the two wore matching grins and if it wasn't for that, you would never have known they were even related, Gryphon was tall but her mother was even taller. The tail, claws and fur seemed completely natural on her compared to her daughter. Jaya's had more cat-like features then human, including pointed ears that peeked out on either side of a short mane of golden brown hair, she seemed to radiate a wild grace and beauty. Another thing Gryphon did share with her mother, or at least partly, were her eyes. Gryphon's right eye was a perfect match to Jaya's rich golden eyes staring out from the photograph.
"She's beautiful." Piper said truthfully, and handed the picture to Aerrow.
The redhead studied the photo, "so your father was human?" he commented, and snapped his mouth shut with a worried look at Piper "Sorry, I don't mean to pry..." he trailed off and handed the photo to Radarr on his shoulder, who then passed it to Junko.
"Apology not necessary, I'm a stranger on your ship after all. Yes, though I don't remember him very well. He fought in the War and was always on the move."
Junko looked up from the two figures in the picture. "So is he…?" he couldn't finish and handed the picture to Finn.
Gryphon inhaled slowly. "My mother tells me he died in the invasion, I was four at the time. Any pictures we had of him were burned along with everything else, the Cyclonians were merciless." The Theran retrieved the picture from Finn and placed it back in her belt pouch.
The team had gone quiet enough that you could hear Stork grumbling at the controls. Aerrow finally broke the silence. "There's still something that bugs me; even with the time that has past and the lack of communications, it just doesn't seem possible that no one has heard of, or mentioned Terra Skythern or the Therans. The Sky Knight council on Atmosia has to have some knowledge of the terra if it had a squadron."
Gryphon removed the icepack from her chilled ankle as she considered this.
"That's true; the Sky Knight council has kept an accurate record of every Sky Knight and their squadron as long as there have been Sky Knights." Piper added.
The Theran clicked her claws on the table in thought. "I don't know." She said at last. "Could they have just given up on the terra completely? Were we not worth the risk? Many who have tried to escape think after all these years they assumed we had all been destroyed, and that if just one can make it off they can tell the rest of Atmos that 'yes, we are alive, and we want to fight with you.'" She leaned back in her chair, the exhaustion of the past few days seemed to catch up with her. "Maybe then I can rally enough support to free my home." She finished hopefully.
"Well you have our support." Piper said in earnest.
"That's right." Aerrow agreed. "We need all the allies we can get if we want to defeat the Cyclonian Empire." Radarr chattered his agreement as well.
Gryphon's throat tightened, she almost didn't believe there could be someone out here who would want to help her. Maybe she was dreaming, that's it, she was shot down, hit her head and was now lying in the Wastelands about to become lunch for some horrid creature. She quickly pushed away her dark thoughts. "Thank you," she choked out, "all of you. I don't think I would be sitting here if it wasn't for all of your help."
Finn sat up suddenly. "Hey that reminds me, what in the Atmos did you do to that skimmer? That explosion was incredible!" Junko nodded enthusiastically.
"You would have needed a pretty high-grade Eruption Crystal to pull that off." Piper offered.
"Eruption Crystal?" Gryphon had never heard of such a crystal. "No, I just used one of these." She reached to her belt again and pulled out another yellow-gold crystal. The crystal began to glow immediately and the golden glow increased in her hand until she placed it on the surface of the table were, it suddenly released the pent up energy in a small, warm wave. "It's called a Kinetic Crystal. It gathers energy through movement."
Piper was transfixed. "Wow." She breathed. "I've never heard of anything like it!"
"The energy is released once it stops moving. The more continuous or the faster the movement, the more energy is released once it stops.
"Wait," Finn interrupted, confused. "If movement gives this thing energy, how do you walk around with it without blasting a hole in your pants?" Piper tore her eyes away from the crystal long enough to glare at the blond, he look back at her and shrugged innocently."
Gryphon chuckled. "Fair question, the pouch I keep them in is lined with slivers of another crystal called a Potential Stone." She pulled out another small crystal and placed it beside the other, this one a blue so deep it was black. "It's the counterpart to the Kinetic Crystal. When near each other, the Potential Stone will absorb any energy the Kinetic Crystal gives off." Gryphon reached over to the golden crystal and picked it up, holding it a foot above the table. The crystal glowed again but did not release any wave of energy like before, instead it dimmed and a deep blue light grew inside the black stone below. Gryphon let the Kinetic Crystal fall back to the table and once again it glowed brightly and dimmed while its counterpart emitted a stronger blue light from its depths. "No matter the size the Potential Stone has an infinite amount of energy storage, as far as we know."
"Amazing!" Piper said quietly.
"Having one is the only safe way to handle or transport these crystals in small spaces. That's why it acted the way it did when I put it in the skimmer. But if the container it is in is big enough, like this ship, it will act as if it is still on solid, unmoving, ground." Gryphon grimaced, "it sure sounds confusing when I say it out loud."
Piper reached for the two crystals but stopped and looked at Gryphon, "may I?" her hand hovered above them.
"Yes of course!" Gryphon smiled as the girl picked them up with a look of complete wonderment on her face. "Better yet." She started, getting an idea. "You keep those, I have plenty more."
The girl was speechless for a moment "Oh wow!" Piper stammered, looking down at the crystals. "I don't know how to thank you enough."
Gryphon dismissed it with a small wave of her hand. "It's the least I could do, after all. Just consider it a 'Thanks-for-saving-my-life' gift"
"With crystals like this, who knows what kind of destruction Master Cyclonis could create" Piper realized with horror
"So what's stopping her? Aerrow asked.
Gryphon gave a wolfish grin "They are one secret we have kept well hidden from Cyclonia; they don't know where they grow and we don't tell them, even if they found one of the locations, mining Kinetic Crystals is about as dangerous as handling them, any attempt they try would blow up in there faces."
A worried laugh came from the helm. "Well that's a relief" Stork said in mock cheerfulness. "I just have one question." The Merb checked the Condor's course a final time before turning to face the Theran. "If the Cyclonians are not mining your terra, and they're not using your people for slave labour on other terras…why is it they are going to such lengths to erase all knowledge of the Therans?" Stork's eyed her suspiciously.
The team turned back to Gryphon, she stared at the surface of the table, her tail twitched in thought. If she wanted them to trust her, really trust her, she needed to be forthcoming. All the years of secrecy and living underground, always with the threat of capture, torture, and the promise to never give them anything.
"The Warders," she said finally. "It has to be."
