Descent of The Watchers

by D S S Atkinson

seized her right arm and leg, she released another muffled moan collapsing back upon the mountainside. “Aid the commander! Help me lift her!” As a partial darkness returned Samyaza felt a number of arms and hands lift her body, carrying it away from the searing heat that had woke her.

  They lay her back against a great boulder, yet in her confusion she could not focus upon them until that radiance burst the night sky alight once more. She mumbled into her speaker without coherence.

  “Did you speak, commander?”

  “What is that light?” She slurred barely distinguishable words.

  “A signal, commander, for Tamiel, her ophanim is missing.” A crewmate spoke up hastily.

  “Turn it off.”

  “Yes, commander.” She knew not where the voices came from, how far apart her crew was nor who was alive.

  “Excluding Tamiel’s crew, are there any not accounted for?” The question was met by silence. “Speak.”

  “Amazarak’s vessel is pinned between the ark and Hermon, commander. His ophanim cushioned our impact.” The data. Samyaza sat slouched, thinking. “We’ve had no communication from Amazarak.”

  “Have you searched his wreck?”

  “No, commander, there was no communication.” She looked up at her malakhim and watcher kin, with a struggle she pushed herself up from the ground, standing uneasily before her crew. Once more she looked across the wreckage. Vast streaks of burning fuel lit up the ruined ophanim and ark under Eden’s starlit sky, waves of flame tore across the windy terrain billowing fluctuations of unbearable heat and chills even through her metallic bodysuit. As she stood dazed, gripped in a confusion her eyes wondered up, past the peak of the ark, beyond into the black. It sparkled with a unique beauty that drew her mind away from the present troubles surrounding her.

  “I wonder when he last looked up at this view.” Without needing to explain her thoughts the entities joined her gazing upwards, they knew who she spoke of.

  “Perhaps he still is, commander.”

  “Perhaps.” She whispered under her breath, gazing back down from the sky towards Amazarak’s ophanim. It lay half exposed, crushed under the ark which itself appeared a mere battered heap of metal. “Come, we will search Amazarak’s vessel. There has been no communication from Tamiel?” She sought dearly to know of her friend’s condition.

  “No, commander, may I ask why you turned off the signal? It may be her only way of finding us.” The nephilim are free, I could not stop them. Azazel’s words still haunted her thoughts.

  “I do not wish to draw unwanted attention, we do not know what conditions the humanoids live in, I do not wish to startle them before we have some understanding of their nature.” Her crew nodded at her words as they traced the burning wreckage, encroaching upon Amazarak’s ophanim with weary steps.

  Pinned between the craft’s stillots and the ark, the ophanim’s body was lodged meters above the ground, the entry seal at the vessel’s base remained intact surging an immediate burst of hope into the commander. “Hurry! They may be suffocating inside!” She plucked a stillot from her back, and with her crew following suit the seven of them rushed to the seal, prying at it the team levered and thrust causing the sound of cringing metal to strain in the air. The commander suddenly ceased her actions. “Wait,” she held up a hand to her team who each froze. “Listen.” A barely distinguishable thudding sound repeated from within the ophanim, joined by a chorus of distressed muffled whelps, barely detectable to the watcher’s ears within her bronze suit.

  “They are suffocating, commander!” The team frantically pried at the reflective seal attempting to force open the craft, Samyaza began to breathe heavily, feeling the strain her actions were taking upon the life support system of her bodysuit.

  “Together!” As she yelled the seal burst away from the ophanim plummeting into Hermon’s rocky facing, Samyaza leapt backward in shock as a number of Amazarak’s crew fell limply through the circular gap crashing to the ground. To Samyaza’s horror the crew’s suits had been shred open by the impact, one of them writhed upon the floor as screams from above filled the air.

  “Return the seal!” Another body fell from the craft joining the watchers beneath. A malakhim scrambled to grasp the seal, heaving it up into his arms, with trouble the being strode to the ophanim yet quickly realised the vessel was suspended out of reach, even if the crew could have mustered the strength to replace the seal by hand. “Life support down.” Another whimpering cry called from the open ophanim. Samyaza watched, frozen. Slowly the calls fell quiet. In silence her team stood and stared at the dead bodies.

  All about them the fires of their debris continued to burn alight, the bitter winds and searing licks of flame swirled in the air around them and still Samyaza stood, her mind was blank for shock and confusion. I have murdered my own kind. Falling to her knees she extended an arm, lightly resting it upon the leg of one of her deceased crew. For some moments she remained in silence, gripped by guilt, she had dedicated her entire existence to saving her species, now, knowing she had actively destroyed it tore her apart within.

  “They knew the dangers of this expedition, commander.” The malakhim who still held the ophanim’s seal spoke through his headset yet Samyaza did not reply. She gazed at the inert features of her deceased kin, staring without control at their faded grey eyes. Each of her crew stood in a circle about the bodies, they knew not how to react. For many moments Samyaza remained slouched, silently glaring.

  “We need to search the ark,” at last she spoke up, faintly, “I do not wish their deaths to be for nothing, the communication device may still be intact. Bring me the data cube from my ophanim, Ertael, check the interior of Amazarak’s craft, see what is still functioning.” Her crew immediately dispersed, carefully stepping around the bellowing flames towards their ruined vehicles. As they made way Samyaza herself approached the ark. Her stillots spread apart upon her back, stimulated by her nervous system. The satellite was vastly different in appearance upon Eden, the planet’s gravity forced her to step up uneasily into the vessel’s bowel walls for the entire structure lay upon its side.

  “The cube, commander.” She turned, taking the device from her peer. “Do you need assistance?” The watcher shook her head without looking back, aided by her stillots she forced her way into the bronze tinted shell. Her stillots lit up the vast chamber’s interior, it was barely recognisable, Eden’s atmosphere had torn up metals which held it together from within, and as her stillots carried her to the deepest part of the wreck, lighting up the darkness, she noticed the communication chamber’s inner seal had been broken, a small slit parted the doorway.

  No. With a struggle she lined the concave bowel’s interior until she stood close enough for her stillots to reach out at the door. The tips pried the seal open with little effort, lifting Samyaza off the ground and placing her in the heart of the small spherical space. To her relief, as her body moved inside the device lit up. She inserted her cube into a small port within the ark, configuring the satellite’s data to transfer into it. “Commander! Come quickly!” Samyaza span about to the sound of a distressed crewmate, extracting Azazel’s data would take some time to complete, she left the cube, returning to Hermon to a hysterical cry coming from the darkness.

  The commander clutched her stillot tightly, with her tension the shaft immediately began flowing with a roaring heat. Again the whimpering sound echoed through the air. “Should we turn the signal light back on, commander?”

  “Shh.” She raised a hand as a screaming figure burst into the firelight, a humanoid, before she had a moment to react a malakhim leapt forward violently grasping the scrawny being by its throat, at contact three stillots too burst to life from the enormous malakhim’s back gripping the Eden form by its limbs, the devices effortlessly lifted the humanoid up, dangling it upside down causing a thriving look of distress to pulse through its face. “Do not harm it, Zavebe!”

  “Commander?” As the humanoid writhed around, held tightly by the stillo
t tips it continued to yell and cry out.

  “Let the language decipher.”

  “You believe it speaks a language, commander?” The malakhim who clutched the being did not release his grasp from around its neck.

  “Of course, be patient. This is proof the experiments were not a failure. These humanoids may be the last hope for the future of our people. Treat it with care.” At her words the malakhim released his grip from the Eden dweller, his stillots slowly lowered the being back to the ground yet upon its feet touching the floor the humanoid fell to its knees moaning and whispering in anguish. Samyaza stared curiously, its features scarcely resembled her kind at all.

  “I thought signs of our DNA would be more prominent.” Together her crew stood looking at the dark skinned humanoid.

  “We cannot be certain this was one of the subjects, commander.” Another watcher amongst them spoke to their leader.

  “It must be, the primitive bipedals that survived the ice were without language, they were timid, wild.”

  “Commander –”

  “They come... kill.. all...” A light, shaken voice suddenly filled the crew’s visors. Tears streamed down the stranger’s cheeks, his prominent facial features fell lifeless. “They come... they will kill us all... they will kill us all.” Samyaza