A True Hero

33 - I've Got Friends...

It was weeks before things settled down again.

Blizzard vanished from the ship, taking baby Sirica with him. Nicolette and Dragato searched the ship for him and found one of our biggest starfighters, the GSA Opportunity, was gone. Captains of the starfighters were supposed to log when they departed, what they departed for, and when they came back, but there was no such log for where the Opportunity had gone. It didn't take a genius to figure out who'd stolen it.

At first, Arthur tried to trace where the ship was going using its UPS, or Universal Positioning System, but Blizz had turned it off. In fact, every way of tracing him had been destroyed. We sent search parties out to nearby planets and neighboring galaxies, but the Opportunity was fast, especially when undetected, and no one had seen a mysterious ship flying by. The GSA looked for days, covering millions of lightyears, but it was no use.

Blizzard and Sirica were gone.

As there was nothing more to be done, Arthur held a Detriment for both of them, not knowing if they were ever to be seen again, and went back, quite depressed, to his military matters of tracking NME and more celestial objects. But it took longer for the GSA to resume a "normal" life.

For one thing, the Detriment held for Blizzard and Sirica was very controversial. It caused the most drama in the GSA to date.

Some claimed that it wasn't right to hold Detriment for someone who wasn't officially pronounced dead. That was combated with the Detriment held for Kit Cosmos, as he was assumed to be dead and never officially found. Others said we should have kept looking for them since Blizz was a huge asset to the army. And still, others said it was better that a Detriment was held and we stopped looking, for what Blizz did to me was dishonorable and a Detriment was almost more than he deserved. These soldiers adjusted better to our "normal" life after Blizz. But the warriors of the Enterprise were split into two sides, and so much fighting broke out Arthur banned anyone from talking about Blizz or Sirica.

But that didn't stop people from asking me about Garlude, thus implying things about Blizz.

For a while, I retold the story as it happened, but some seemed swayed by Blizz's story and tried to argue with me. My closest friends, Arthur's knights, Jecra and Amai, Captain Vul, Val, and Nicolette, were the only ones who didn't bombard me to choose a side during the madness. In fact, they fought off those angered warriors that questioned me and shielded me from the public. It was nice, being almost invisible.

During those tense weeks, I trained with Nic in the Ninja Special Forces training room to master Galaxia's powers while she trained her Bushido Katanas. Galaxia was capable of more than I ever thought possible. She was so sharp, I could slice thick tree trunks in half with one swing, like a hot knife through butter. But she was also so light, every movement seemed effortless. My energy flowed through her as naturally as though she were a natural extension of my arm. I mastered sword fighting techniques, powerful golden sword beams, and even Mach Tornados. Nic was more than willing to be my guinea pig for any new moves or techniques I wanted to try, and she helped me learn how to navigate and control the fiery tornados. At the end of the last week of my "invisibility," I could make the Mach Tornados large and small, destructive or harmless, and control their every range of motion.

But when the chaos over Blizz ended, Arthur had to pull me back into the reality of the war.

"You've improved immensely," he told me, "but I can't have you training forever. There's always another mission to complete or battle to fight." And so the GSA life resumed.

My first task was to lead a small battalion of troops to a small planet to befriend the village and protect it from several monsters that enjoyed bullying it. My troop consisted of only two soldiers I knew—Asher and Terryn—and the rest were young soldiers I didn't know who seemed to already have their own opinion of me from Blizzard. They watched me with suspicious stares and tense gazes.