Cloud Striker, rocket jockey

An Angry Warrior

Jade had had enough and the high-pitched screeching scream that came from her core, the center of her being, broke the evening stillness as the metal chair she had sat upon became airborne. It spiraled awkwardly end over end across the room, landing with a clanging thud and when it quieted down, the clock on her father’s wall began chiming eight-thirty pm which enhanced her emotions.

Past the point of anger, the quietness of the night closed in on the impatient and furious twenty-year-old D’col-Yhian and human mixed blood woman as she paced across the floor. Her feelings were boiling inside her as she rolled her eyes up staring at the ceiling, but she fought back her tears when she stopped for the thousandth time in front of the metal door at the front entry. Suddenly her lips pursed and breathing in quick breaths, she threw her arms up with clenched fists as she angrily spewed!
“Where on this sorry dust bowl of a rock is that man?”

Then came a strong exclamation of words in her native tongue as she screamed out.
“Ahya Ahak’da dakim-ot’ Raoot!”
Jade hesitated for a brief second after she called him a black-haired slimy soil bug, and her fists tightened even more before they dropped to her side and she stared at the metal access.
“Aughhhhhh! I hate this! Wait until I get my hands on that, that, Ohhh! ”

Jade screamed out again for lack of words! Her eyes and then her head slowly turned to the right, fixating on the object she had thrown, and looking down, she let out a hard blow of frustration, which seemed to help in releasing some of her tension. Quietly mumbling something, she begrudgingly made her way around the leather couch that blocked her path, and going to the far wall, she righted the chair she had tossed, but then she suddenly gritted her teeth and bounced the chair on the floor a few times to release whatever else her body harbored in anger.

With the room going silent, calming her angry thoughts, she cried, and with a blank stare toward the wall her arms jerked, throwing both fists toward the floor, and she spoke in a soft calm tone.
“He just doesn’t realize how much he’s messing up.”

Another moment of silence before she turned her attention sharply back toward the front entrance, and dragged the chair noisily behind her, but about halfway across the room, she stopped beside a large arch.
Jade wanted to get a closer look at the timepiece hanging over the command room office door, and after plopping herself down onto the chair to stare at the clock, she noticed the chair wobbled a bit from a leg being slightly bent, but she didn’t care, her mind was remembering another time.

As the timepiece’s hand moved to the next digit, Jade’s memories flooded her thoughts, and her face brightened. With her lips turning into a smile, she remembered when her father let her hold the beautiful clock, and she had memorized every verse written at each number, citing them often to her father. As the clock’s second hand landed on them, she remembered how it had made her father smile. Jade’s eyes closed, and she whispered into the evening air.

“Please God, forgive my anger, give me the strength not to rip his head off when he shows up.”
Jade’s smile returned as she looked at the clock. She loved the piece of ancient technology with bible verses below each number, and her father had told her many times why he held onto it throughout the years. It was because of sentimental reasons, a gift his father, a retired federation Chaplin, had given him when he graduated from the flight academy, and besides being a cherished memory of his father, it kept perfect time, serving its purpose well.

Suddenly hearing the clock click over to the next number, Jade awoke from her thoughts, and ending the few minutes of living in her past, Jade jumped to her feet!
“That sorry excuse of a pilot had better come on before I feed him to my Go’fen-de!”
Her angry emotions returned to the evening at hand, and interlocking her fingers over the top of her head, with her elbows pressed together, she loudly proclaimed what was on her mind.
“I’m done! It’s nine o’clock! Please God, I’m trying! I’m trying not to lose it, but I just don’t believe it! He’s done it to me again!”

Looking over at the closed door for what now seemed the millionth time, she let out a low growling sound. Grabbing the chair again, she dragged it behind her as she walked, leaving it next to the couch where it had previously sat. Jade’s eyes locked straight ahead as she placed each of her steps slowly in front of the other, and as soon as she arrived at the entrance portal, her right hand, balled into a fist, opened, and she slapped the metal frame as hard as she could.
“Oh! I hate that man! I have had enough of this waiting!”

Those angry words hung in the air as the silence of the night once again took over the room waiting to be broken again as Jade walked to the window portal and leaned into it, looking out over the rocky terrain. Her breath escaped her nose in short blasts of heaving anger, and she felt the tears welling up in each eye. He promised the last time that it would never happen again. Now, here he is making a fool out of her, just like he always does. The large green star that served as a continuous light glared down through thin windswept clouds and stood sentry in the quiet sky. Its radiant light shone through the front wall portal that Jade anxiously peered through, enhancing the beauty of her piercing but stormy eyes.

“Oh, sweet Jesus! You’re going to have to put a hedge of protection around this man!”
A tear dropped onto the floor as a hand went up to wipe away any that may follow. Spinning around from the window, Jade took a deep breath, and as she paced back and forth, from the window to the couch, and back to the window, her magnetic shoe taps caused the metal floor to ring out. She wasn’t very fond of waiting, and her anger was growing into a D’col-Yhian rage. Jade’s thought of doing her late date bodily harm had quickly manifested, making her eyes burn an intense, fiery, bright hue. The lavender color of her eyes she inherited from her father’s and mother’s blood mix, went well with her lavender warrior blood that caused her blue skin to have a matching tint when she grew angry, and when her eyes glowed as they were, she was at her limit.
“Okay, I’m a fool! The clown has just ended his life as he knows it!”

She now was determined she would not allow him, a second-rate command rocket jockey, to make a passive fool out of her again. She stopped her pacing and looked down at the chair. Without another thought, she shoved it aside, and headed for the front entry!
“Cloud, you are about to get a taste of my D’col-Yhian side! You know what, I intend to see that you feel the extent of it, and it looks like it might be sooner than later, mister!”

Pulling the interior door gate switch down and watching the metal door slide past, her eyes narrowed as her patience was getting increasingly thinner. With a wave of her hand, the clear acrylic outer shield opened wide, and a cool blast of the interior air followed her out into the evening. Jade’s temper was steaming, on the edge of boiling. Cloud was now over an hour and a half late for their date, and to her, that was highly unacceptable! Looking into the distance, she hissed.
“Cloud Striker, I’m going to murder you! I certainly am! No one would wait for you like this! Not this long, not this many times, so get ready, mister, you are mine now!”

A strange silence followed Jade’s declaration, and her eyes grew wide!
“Okay, I’m sorry, God!”
She took a deep breath before continuing her rant.
“Striker, I don’t know what I’m going to do to you, maybe it’s not murder, but it’s going to be painful for you, and I am going to do it with great pleasure!”

Hearing Jade’s voice, as she stepped onto the porch, catching her by surprise, a king-size dog-like creature burst noisily out through the open door of its kennel. The D’col-Yhian Go’fen-de, with its silkie tail feathers, and feathery mane, along with the long fur-like hair on its underside shaking with each wiggle of the creature's smooth green leathery body, stood excited on its large, flat feet, facing Jade eye to eye. Its unblinking huge green eyes gazed into hers, digging deep into her heart, and Jade looked back with a point-blank stare at the creature with a crooked-looking smile on its round face, and wagging tail feathers excitedly spinning. Jade smiled, feeling the animal's love as she reached up with her hand and tapped the creature’s nose with her finger.
“Good evening, sweet Misty. You really shouldn’t jump out at people like that!”

Misty barked an excited greeting in return, and its tongue rolled out over sharp teeth to hang to the side of a wide-open mouth that took up most of its face before it plopped itself onto its haunches with a heavy thud at Jade's feet. Jade pointed her finger at the Go’fen-de and sternly exclaimed.
“If that man doesn’t show up within the next minute or two and if he stands me up, I’m just, well, I will not murder him exactly, I think maybe I’m going to sort of kill him slowly. Like, maybe pull his limbs off, one body part at a time! No, I don’t have that much time, but I’ll think of something!”

Misty shook her head as if tearing something apart and growled. Jade laughed and then quickly returned to her angry demeanor.
“Yeah, that’s right, you can rip him in two, and you know what, Misty, After you do that for me, I’m just going to kick that space cowboy’s excuses to the other side of this stupid rock! He’ll never get another date with me!”
Misty barked in response and sat glued to Jade’s every word, her tail feathers moving at an unbelievable speed as if agreeing to her master’s declaration. Jade smiled as she looked into Misty’s green eyes and giggled. Her D’col-Yhian anger became briefly sidetracked for a moment.

“Yes, you are so right Misty, it needs doing, and I’m probably the one to do it too! I will stand my ground and put him in his place! You’ll see, I’m not lying!”
Another agreeable bark came, Misty’s long pointed ears laid back in anticipation as Jade patted its head. Hearing her pet pal purr from her touch, Jade leaned in toward it. Hugging the creature as she whispered into its ear, she gave the soft Go’fen-de some simple directions.

“I’m going to get over to the flight team’s bunkhouse and give that knucklehead a piece of my mind.”
Misty barked again and shook with excitement. Jade laughed and pointed.
“Don’t you mess with my anger! I have to stay mad at this cowboy because he’s gotten on my bad side and must pay his due. His time is up. He had his chance! Baby girl, you stay here, and if I don’t find him first, and he shows up, I want you to devour him! Oh, not that, just sit on him until I get back!”
Misty turned an excited circle before giving a stern, locked gaze into the night air.
“Stay right here, Misty, and watch!”

Misty quickly laid down on the porch's edge as if it understood its master’s orders. Giving out a few more barks as Jade stormed off, it positioned its long-pointed ears forward, listening, watching Jade go to her motorbike. Turning back to look, Jade smiled.
“Good girl! Don’t follow me, stay!”
Jade quickly pulled the helmet off the handlebars and climbed onto the saddle. After a few furious kicks on the peddle, the night air that had hung quiet and without interruption, became torn as her motorbike roared in a shifting of gears over the dusty gravel surface.

Misty returned to her kennel, and as Jade disappeared into the night, the sound of a space scooter landing outside the command center dwindled into a crackling, grinding noise, shuttering before popping loudly to shut itself off. The clear dome on top of the craft slid open and Captain Jack Warrior spoke to himself as he climbed out from under the bubbled canopy.
“Oh, great Jehoshaphat! This hunk of space junk is acting out again! I think I better get Mister O’Shannon to look at that gyro tilt valve! It sounds as if it has some fusion fuel leaking.”

Barely a minute later, Jack Warrior stepped onto the entrance porch and Misty chirped a greeting.
“Good evening Misty, I am one tired rocket jockey.”
The captain reached out and patted the creature's snout before turning toward the building entrance. As the building’s acrylic shield slid back, the metal door opened. Jack’s powerful voice rang out.
“Sweetheart, I’m here.”
Silence only greeted Jack as he cocked an ear to listen for a response.
“Ja’de-ic baby, Dad’s home!”

Still, nothing but complete silence, and then Jack saw the chair. He looked awkwardly at the bent chair that lay on its side, blocking the middle of the entry area.
“What in the history of rodeo has happened here?”
He righted the chair, and as it wobbled, he called out again.
“Jade!”

There still was no answer, so Jack went to Jade’s room and knocked. After dead silence greeted him, he searched the house and discovered Jade wasn’t in any other room, so he walked out by the shed and saw her bike missing as well.
“Yep, just as I figured, she must be hanging out with the guys again.”
Jack reentered the command center, and in the kitchen, poured himself a large glass of lemonade before heading off to his office to wrap up today’s meeting with his command by finishing some paperwork. Meanwhile, over a rocky rise outside the crew barracks, a dust trail hung in the air as Jade slid her bike sideways to a stop. It took her fifteen minutes to ride from the command station, and bursting through to the inside of the steel structure, she called out angrily.

“Cloud, I’m calling you out, Cloud Striker! Where are you, you lying excuse of a human?”

Nothing but dead silence came as an answer to Jade. She turned slowly, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the dim light within the room, and she didn’t see anyone. Usually, during this time of the evening, the guys would huddle around, playing poker. Beanpole Jackson, an unlikely transplanted Englishman, recently became the team‘s Co-pilot-navigator. Tommy O’Shannon, their hot-tempered, red-headed Irishman, has always served as the team’s unlikely chief engineer, mechanic, and core weapons specialist. These two hotheads should be at the table arguing over the card game or something else trivial. Cary Tinman, a Red-Martian who signed on board two years ago as an explosives coordinator, bombardier, and astronomer, would usually be in his bunk playing his music or reading flight manuals. She yelled out again.

“Cloud! Answer me! Cloud Striker!”