From the Ashes

by A B Lucian

  “Every major city on Earth was bombed into the ground. Humanity’s fleet was broken and scattered. And I found myself the only Protector still alive. It hurt Yosh, it physically hurt. It hurt to turn my ship around and run away. But I did. I ran, and I hid, while Mikail and the arkanians hunted the remnants of our fleet and broadcasted the execution of humanity’s government on every known frequency in every known system.”

  Yosh thought he saw shame in his grandfather’s wet blue eyes. “I gave up, Yosh. I hid and tried to duplicate the Protector’s genetic programme by myself, but failed time and time again. We had destroyed the research before Earth fell. Not a trace was left. I kept in touch with dissident movements, but there was nothing we could do. The Arkanian Secret Police kept us in check at all times. So while the traitor Mikail was busy helping an arkanian warlord become Emperor, I started a new life. I got married and became a merchant on Rigellia. Life was good. My wife and I had a son. I should have been happy, content, but the past still haunted me. Despair clung to the edges of my mind every night when I went to sleep and shame was my companion during the day. Olexander Farmer, the last Protector, a failure and a coward.

  “Until one day when your father got into a fight at school. He came home bruised and cut and bleeding. Five other kids had picked on him, and he had beaten them senseless. I watched his bruises disappear and his cuts close within a few hours. My heart raced and my spirit soared. Never had Protector genes passed down from father to son. It was a new beginning, and it was hope. Humanity had hope again!”

  Yosh had a wide grin on his face as he listened to his grandfather and he didn’t know why.

  “Those were good years, Yosh. I trained your father and presented him as the future of mankind to the different resistance groups, and the rebellion’s ranks swelled day after day. But Mikail caught on to us, and… he killed your father. I’m sorry, Yosh. Your father didn’t die repairing agricultural equipment. Mikail blew up a space station with ten thousand people on board, just to make sure your father died.”

  His grandfather cradled his forehead in one hand and sighed. “It was my fault. I showed your father to the galaxy too soon. Perhaps I pressured him too much. Perhaps I shared too much of the responsibility with him. I can see now that he wasn’t ready. He had certain ideas of his own about spreading the Protector genes and our role and responsibility. I felt the madness that crept into his mind, but I couldn’t stop him. I’ll spare you the details; They’re too painful. I couldn’t make the same mistake with you. I’m sorry I had to deceive you, but I couldn’t tell you anything until I was sure how you think, and what kind of man you are. Mikail would never suspect a boy with bad eyesight and boils on his skin of being a Protector.

  “About Captain Dupont and his crew, please trust them, Yosh. They are some of the best humanity has to offer, and they will help you on the journey ahead. I know you thought this whole thing was your little rebellion against me, but I was always aware you were sneaking out to go to them. Don’t blame them for not telling you, as they had no choice. What’s important is that they taught you the skills you need to carry out what you were born for. Yosh, you are a Protector of the Earth and my heir. All the leaders of the rebellion will rally behind you. The time is ripe. They will be ready to strike soon, but they need a leader, a figurehead. Now that I am… gone, you must take my place. Seek Obelyn when you’re ready to hear more.

  “My time is up. I record this message every time I leave Mandessa. You’ll probably never see this. Anyway, this time, I’ll tell you everything myself when I get back. I’ll also bring your half-sister with me. Yes, you have a half-sister… a few actually. And some half-brothers, but I digress. I’m an old man, Yosh, and we like to rant.” He sighed. “One last thing—and if there is anyone watching this with you, please ask them to leave. Now. This is for your ears only.”

  Yosh looked around the captain’s modest chamber, then turned his attention back to the screen. His grandfather waited for a full minute for Yosh to get rid of whoever might be with him. It seemed an eternity to Yosh. He was looking for a fast forward option when his grandfather spoke again.

  “Yosh, you will find more answers, and more questions, I’m sure, beneath our home on Mandessa. Go to my office and look for a small bump beneath my desk. Run your thumb over it, just as you did with the box on Obelyn’s ship. It will only open for someone with Protector genes. Beneath you will find many books and recordings about the Protectors. You will also find my old battle suit. It will adjust to fit you once you touch it. It’s yours now.”

  Yosh felt sick to his stomach. The suit was in Mikail’s hands. He had hoped the recording might offer some insight into how he might defeat Mikail, some shred of hope, but all he’d found were answers he already had, mysteries that gave him headaches and apologies he didn’t want to have to accept.

  “Yosh,” his grandfather said gravely. “Have you ever wondered why we live so far from Shacktown? Only the two of us, on our own private hill.” His grandfather smiled a wicked smile. “There is an interactive poster of the night heavens on a wall beneath my room. It’s a hologram. Push through it, Yosh. You’ll find a hatch. It will open only for those with Farmer blood in their veins. You’ll find the Black Silence there. She still bears some scars from the war, but there’s nothing out there remotely comparable to her. I’m promoting you to Captain of the Black Silence. Congratulations.” His hand reached to his left. “Good luck, Yosh. I’m counting on you. Goodbye.”

  His grandfather’s hand tapped the control, and the screen went blank. Captain Yosh Farmer leaned back and closed his gaping mouth.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Sabina followed the commotion into the smuggler ship’s cargo bay. The cargo doors were wide open and a group of smugglers argued next to the only rover they had left.

  “How could you let him leave?” The massive Captain Dupont roared at the fat Headly. “This entire planet will turn into a nuclear hell in fifty minutes. What were you thinking? Why didn’t you stop him?”

  Headly, although a massive man himself, shied away from the dark captain’s anger. “The boy was out of control, sir. He kept yammering about his grandfather and silence. Nothing he said made any sense. He blabbered something about out-ranking me now and that he was commandeering a rover. He flew past me, nearly knocking me on my arse mind you, got in the driver’s seat and just took off.”

  The captain’s small eyes flashed with anger. “You’re my head engineer, Headly. The rovers are your responsibility. Blast it man, they’re your personal property. Why didn’t you stop him? He’s just a boy!”

  Headly stuffed some tool further down one of his pockets and turned his heavy frame to face the captain. “Beg your pardon captain, but when you’re my age, you know how to read people’s eyes.” He shook his head and crossed his thick arms across his barrel chest. “And I’m tellin’ you it was no boy that strolled down here and took off in one of my rovers.” Headly nodded once as if they had already settled the matter. “I saw a man, a capable man. I saw a Protector of the Earth. And I believed in him, sir... even though he made no sense. He gave me hope. I wasn’t going to stand in his way.”

  The captain seemed taken aback by his head engineer’s words. He exchanged a glance with the bald oaf, Miles.

  Miles shrugged. “Boy wants to save Mandessa, that’s clear enough,” he said and turned his palms upward. “But what can he do against a heavy cruiser?”

  “Nothing,” the captain said through gritted teeth. “He can do nothing but get himself killed.”

  Sabina approached the three men. “Where did he go?”

  Headly sighed and shook his head. “He didn’t say. When I asked him, he mumbled something about his grandfather and some silence under his hill.”

  Captain Dupont frowned. “Silence under his hill? What in the Galaxy does that mean?”

  Miles limped forward. “Cap, it might be something from the disc you gave him. The one from Olexander.”

  The captain
’s large hand rubbed the stubble on his chin. “Hard to tell—”

  “What disc from grandfather?” Sabina interrupted. Things were clicking into place.

  The captain’s eyes turned to her. “Olexander always gave me a data disc to keep safe when he went off-world. I was supposed to give it to Yosh in case something happened to him.”

  “What was on it?”

  “I never asked,” the captain said. “And I never looked. It was another promise I made him.”

  Thoughts flashed through Sabina’s head. Olexander had given her a similar disc when she was young. Instead of talking to her to explain the situation, he gave her a long monologue about his past, her father, and the fight to free Earth. Yosh already knew these things from herself and the smugglers, so it wouldn’t make him run away like this. It had to be new information.

  “Mister Headly, I’m afraid I must borrow your last rover,” she said, patting his shoulder and climbed on the rover’s mighty four-foot wheel and into the driver’s cabin.

  “Now just a minute there lass—”

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Captain Dupont challenged her. “There are less than fifty minutes left until that cruiser throws its nuclear arsenal against Mandessa. If you leave, you will die.”

  “Captain, I release you from any service my grandfather recruited you into,” she said, staring down at him. “You have no obligations toward me or my brother anymore.”

  “Damn you, it is not about that.” The tall captain stepped in front of the rover. Even with his arm bandaged and slung from his neck, he still seemed formidable. “With your brother gone, you are the last Protector now. It is you who has a responsibility. You cannot go out there to die like your brother did. I will do my damn best to get you away from this planet in one piece, but you have to let me.”

  “You understand nothing,” Sabina said, shaking her head. She patted the pistol strapped to her right leg hard enough to be sure the captain recognized the metallic ring. “I’m going.” She slammed the thick armored door of the rover with what she hoped was dramatic finality. She waited three seconds and started the engines. If Dupont hadn’t moved, they would play a little game of chicken. When she raised her eyes from the steering wheel, Captain Dupont’s massive figure wasn’t in front of the rover anymore. No game of chicken needed.

  “Miles Crosby,” the captain’s thick voice boomed from outside. “You are acting captain while I am away.”

  The door to the passenger’s seat opened and Captain Dupont slipped in on the seat beside her, his face grim and his eyes hard.

  “Cap, what are you doing?” Miles said and glided over to the rover’s window. “You can’t leave.”

  “Captain, I must protest,” Headly said and joined Miles.

  Sabina smiled. Two large men, grown men, fussing like little girls over the captain. Maybe this smuggler captain was worthwhile after all. She’d have to keep an eye on him.

  “Enough,” Dupont said and silenced them. “Miles, if we do not return in time, take the

  to safety. Use the magnetic grapples to retrieve this rover if you can. With us in it preferably, whether or not we find Yosh. However, your first duty is to this ship and this crew.”

  “But Cap—”

  “You get the crew to safety no matter what it takes. Do I make myself clear, acting Captain Crosby?”

  Miles swallowed. “Yes sir!” Miles saluted and limped away from the rover. “Shit.”

  Dupont turned to Sabina. “I hope you know what you are doing. Go.”

  Sabina grinned. The rover roared to life and pushed them back into their seats as it zipped through and out of the Archibald’s cargo bay. “My brother may be young, but he’s not stupid or suicidal. I think I know what he’s up to, but I can’t be sure.”

  Dupont nodded.

  The road was bumpy, and the rover bounced twice for every foot it took them. They sailed over the patch of barren land Sabina had crossed on foot a day ago.

  Captain Dupont clamped his seatbelt with one hand. “And where is it you think he went?”

  Sabina held the steering wheel tight as they raced across the cracked earth toward Shacktown. “You heard what Headly said. I didn’t know whether to believe it, but it might be true. What else would give Yosh such hopes that he’d wander off like this?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  The excitement had gotten to Sabina too. She smiled and leaned into the steering wheel. “The silence, I’m talking about the silence! He said ‘the silence under his hill’.”

  The road from the Archibald to Yosh’s home might have taken longer on foot, but with the rover bouncing across the land in high gear it took only a few minutes. The small hill where Sabina had fled and left Olexander in Mikail’s hands came into view. She ground her teeth at the memory.

  Dupont’s face showed his confusion under the massive beads of sweat. “That makes no sense,” Dupont said. “We will die for nothing.”

  Near the bottom of the hill, the ground shook and groaned. Sabina struggled and pulled on the wheel with all her strength to keep the rover under control. The ground got bumpier the closer they got, and the trembling worsened until her teeth started to chatter. She stopped the rover and surveyed the hill.

  “Blast it, what is happening?” Dupont said, hissing and steadied himself against the dashboard.

  “I expected you to piece it together by now.”

  “Piece what together? Get us out of here.” Dupont’s face was losing color fast as the realization that the rover still shook despite coming to a halt sank in. “What is going on?”

  “I thought every human knew this. Have you forgotten the stories about the last Protector of the Earth? My grandfather!” She yelled to be heard over the roaring and cracking of shaking. “He was there when Earth fell, captain. He fought in the last battle, but he didn’t man a gun, he didn’t fly a fighter, he wasn’t part of any boarding party or strike team, he wasn’t an infiltrator, and he wasn’t a scout.”

  Thunder cracked beneath them. Everything within sight shuddered, and the ground broke apart as they watched. Dupont’s otherwise black skin had turned almost as pale as Sabina’s. “He was a captain, like you,” Sabina continued, her nails digging into the steering wheel. She put a reassuring hand on Dupont’s shoulder. “Don’t worry captain, the bombing hasn’t started yet!” She yelled at the top of her lungs now. “My grandfather fought with his crew, on his own ship—the only Protector frigate to escape the battle!”

  The top of the hill split open with a deafening roar, spilling tons of dark red earth and dust into the air. Chunks of moist, grassy boulders smacked against the rover’s windshield. Sabina wasn’t sure Dupont heard her over the racket, but it didn’t matter anymore. He would understand soon enough. After five minutes the clamor died down and most of the dust settled. The rover was half buried in rubble and earth. Sabina put it in gear and backed away and out of the hill’s guts. Once clear of the debris, she stopped and stepped out. The captain soon followed her example. The color in his cheeks had come back, along with the hope in his eyes.

  In front of them, the top of the small hill was gone, like a miniature volcano that had erupted. From the hole rose a sleek ship. It hovered in the air above the ruins of the hill, pieces of grass and dirt clinging to the pitch black metal of its elegant hull. The silent black leviathan hung still in the bright blue Mandessan sky.

  ◆◆◆

  The steel doors slid open, and the bridge opened up in front of Captain Dupont in all its elegance. It was at least five times larger than the bridge of the Archibald. He stood gaping for a minute, taking it all in. Yosh Farmer swiveled toward them in the navigator’s seat and greeted them with a wide grin. Navigating, engineering, weapons, security, and even research consoles lined the walls of the Protector vessel’s bridge. They weren’t pressed together like on the Archibald, where the crew members manning them bumped into each other when turning. There was space, there was breathing room, there was eve
n a huge viewscreen beyond the pilot’s seat and the navigation console that seemed to serve as a tactical display. At first look the design seemed wasteful, but Alain saw beneath the veneer of luxury. The design exuded elegance, efficiency, and ingenuity.

  “As I live and breathe,” he said. “The Black Silence’s bridge. I never—” The rest of his words stuck in his throat and he stopped himself.

  “Welcome aboard,” Yosh said to them, spreading his arms. “But you shouldn’t have come.”

  “You shouldn’t have run off on your own,” Sabina said. “You should have told us what you were planning.” The anger in her voice faded after the first words. “This is… fantastic.” She smiled and caressed the security console.

  Yosh shook his head. “I’m sorry, but it was a long shot. I will not risk someone else’s life for my own plans ever again.”

  Alain studied the controls on the consoles. Everything had to be ancient, but the entire ship, the consoles, the walls, the doors, and even the dirt-covered hull seemed newer than anything else out there daring to call itself a spaceship. “Is it running at full capacity?” he asked.

  Yosh spun his seat toward the console. “I was working on that when I saw you two. Most of the systems seem to have booted themselves up. As far as I can see, the ship is operational but its energy stores are nearly empty.”

  Alain frowned. “Can we get the weapons online?”

  “No, and even if we did, I’m not about to open fire on a vessel with my grandfather on it.”

  “Yosh, it’s unlikely—”

  Yosh turned halfway and pointed a finger at him. “He’s there, and I will get him back.”

  Alain raised an eyebrow. Headly had been right. He looked to Sabina for support, but she just shrugged and turned back to studying a console.

  “We have just enough energy for the stealth systems to hide us and get us to the cruiser,” Yosh said as he turned back toward them. “It’s a one-way trip I’m afraid. We have enough time to drop you two off—”