The Tornado Sojourns (2) – Chapter 17 – Return to Montrose

 

The Tornado lifted off the planet Achrem after assisting Legion Commander Salmin with an operation to capture a fugitive named Kurla Babic, with Merionwen Strong and Lyris Skeet at the controls as everyone else was otherwise engaged.

Zerrad Skeet was tucked up in his quarters with shape shifter Malena Endia, Cerise skinned Telepath, Shiyne, was in the sickbay with Sciberran Healer Terrell Vorton doing some practical biology and engineers Pulsat Rad and Vanzyl and Visitor Parham were playing cards in the mess.

So Merionwen and Lyris were the only two working, Merionwen Strong was a striking figure, statuesque, tall, straight backed and proud and blessed with an abundance of red hair that would trail behind her like a mane and penetrating green eyes, and she was a forthright, volatile and feisty personality.

She was owner and Captain of the Tornado, and the reason she was sitting in the left seat during the early hours of the night watch was because her love interest, Parse Sacrod, whom she called Beefy, a former Legionnaire of the Royal Guard of Gouveia was secreted away in Montrose on the planet of Eirkos.

He was huge in stature, standing 6 foot 8 high and he was broad and powerfully built, his hair was short, curly and the colour of burnished steel, and with the characteristic ivory skin of the Gouveian race and with his mercury coloured eyes he was an altogether arresting figure and he and Merri had become almost inseparable under normal circumstances, but the separation was forced upon them on this occasion as he could have been recognised by one of the many Legionnaires taking part in the operation on Achrem.

Similarly, fellow Gouveian Asti Alegionaris was also confined to Montrose and she was even more noticeable as she was a 

Princess, and was the youngest granddaughter of the Regent of Gouveia

She was also the twenty-three years old girlfriend of Lyris Skeet.

The reason they wanted to minimise the Gouveian exposure was because they once had to rescue Asti after she was abducted by a Ghambran snatch squad from where she was being held on their Scorpion Cruiser.

The reason she was snatched by agents of the Ghambran state was that she was unwillingly betrothed to Prefector Collis of Ghambra and when she ran away from her home world to escape her fate he wasn’t prepared to take no for an answer.

They then tricked the kidnappers, into following the wrong freighter through a Stargate and into hyperspace.

In the intervening time Prefector Collis of Ghambra had proved to be a very impatient man and although he was very taken with the young Princess, he was not prepared to wait indefinitely so he married a different Princess.

But his agents, Maxil Weltz and Vint Reganus were still after them, bent on revenge, which was why they moved to the Eikon Cluster.

 

The Tornados first stop after leaving Achrem was to the agrarian planet of Eirkos to recover their crewmates.

After arriving at the port on Eirkos, the unloading didn’t take long and then Lyris parked the Tornado on the apron and then everyone got ready to depart.

The short heavy set Prinsloovian, Pulsat, was first down the ramp, holding his rough bony head proudly high.

On reaching the apron proper he turned stiffly to address his companion Vanzyl, who was uttering a string of whirls whistles and clicks.

“I know it, I know it” Pulsat said to his Kesslerian friend, who was a more slender and sleek form, and he had the hint of a smile about his pursed lips and Vanzyl whistled and clicked again and Pulsat snorted.

Pulsat was the only one of the crew who could understand every tone and toot Vanzyl uttered, as if it were in his own tongue, but that was common place for his species, there were very few races he had met on his travels that he couldn’t understand, although he couldn’t speak to them in their language, but he nonetheless understood every word that they spoke.

While they stood to one side of the ramp in conversation, Shiyne drove the stroller down the front ramp and the rest of the crew followed in a group in her wake, with Visitor Parham (Bagg), bringing up the rear wearing his more formal attire of a full length pale blue robe tied at the waist with a royal blue cord, which was beneath a full length dark blue leather jerkin, and he carried a simple roughhewn staff which was undecorated but for a carved cruciform relief a few inches from the top.

He always dressed formally for the journey to Montrose but always adopted more casual attire once he was there.

  

The Tornado’s APMTV, (All Purpose Multi Terrain Vehicle) was ironically nicknamed the “Stroller” but when Shiyne or Merri were behind the wheel it did anything but stroll.

The moment it came to a halt the group climbed aboard.

Almost last to board was Obgaron shape shifter, Malena Endia, who in her own natural Mercurial form of liquid silver glass looked very different to the slender brunette form that she was more often seen as, a form she first took 20 years earlier when she first entered Legion space, that of a 27-year-old human whom she met on a remote mining colony.

Having paused before boarding as she remotely closed the ramp and then she joined her human boyfriend Zerrad in the back and finally the Sciberran Healer Terrell Vorton, small and stout, though nonetheless striking in appearance with his chalk white skin, short hair of midnight blue and violet eyes, got in the passenger seat beside the bald and diminutive young Vann who was his equally strikingly beautiful lover Shiyne and a smile spread across her cerise coloured face and when her mesmerizing purple eyes looked at him they were full of love.

“Let’s get this show on the road” Merri commanded from the back seat, as she was eager to see her own love interest Parse.

 

The farm in the village of Montrose was owned by Bagg’s brother Trebreh, who was also a Visitor, and his wife Xandra and her brother Ale who was Bagg’s boyhood friend.

The crew of the Tornado were always made very welcome, but none more than the reptilian engineers Pulsat and Vanzyl, who were monopolized by the village children, to the delight of both, and that occasion was no difference.

While the excited children lead the engineers away young Princess Asti Alegionaris behaved in a very unprincess like way and sprinted across the courtyard and leapt into Lyris’s arms and wrapped herself around him like a Koala on a tree.

The huge figure of Parse Sacrod was not far behind her and scooped up the tall redhead Captain like she was a rag doll.

“Steady Beefy” she protested and then kissed him.

 

With the crew of the Tornado reunited they settled down to a relaxing two day stay.

Every moment spent in the peaceful setting of Montrose was precious to them and this one was all the more so because it was to be the last time for a few months.