“It looks like that’s how it’s going down.” Gānē cocked her head. “Makes you wonder how many other news stories are…” She spread her hands, at a loss for words.
Ty chuckled, remembering his initial assessment. “You know, before we broke FTL, I thought it was going to be nothing. It’s always nothing.”
Her voice was soft. “Now you know it’s never nothing.” She wheeled and headed toward her quarters. “Twenty minutes, Top!” she called out.
“Yes, sir!” Ty called back, before racing off to his quarters.
Lincoln Reed
Lincoln Reed is a professor, writer, and editor. He holds a BA in film and media production from Taylor University and an MFA in creative writing from Miami University of Ohio. More than a dozen of his short stories are featured in online publications and print anthologies.
As a novelist, he is represented by the Trident Media Group Literary Agency of New York. His short film script, “Drop Dead Gorgeous” received the Best Screenplay Award at the 2018 Envision Film Festival. His freelance writings have been published in The Secret Place, The Marion Chronicle-Tribune, online platforms, and in university publications.
When he’s not writing or working, Lincoln enjoys spending time with his wife, Gabby.
Learn more at LincolnReedOnline.com
The Spark of Flame
Lincoln Reed
The Light Bearer flipped a poncho over his shoulder as the desert sun bled beyond the horizon. Wind slashed his skin and stung his emerald eyes. The slog of tired feet and starved muscles kept their rhythm as each gust threatened to bowl him over. He waded up the rolling dune without pause. Unending hours passed like faded memories as darkness crept across the roaming hills of sand. A crescent moon mounted in the empty sky. Stars sparkled like distant jewels. Nothing stirred in the wasteland. He was alone. A voyager without a compass.
The lone figure adjusted his visor and sipped liquid from a canister. A blaster, no bigger than a revolver, hung at his right hip. And as the murky water swished around his narrow throat, the Light Bearer considered the mouthfuls remaining. Six, perhaps. And the ammunition? Ten shots.
Chilled air descended into the desert basin as the two-legged shadow crossed the land of plateaued red rock. It had been two hundred passes of the sun since the spaceship Explorer One had hurtled through the desolate planet’s gloomy atmosphere and crashed. The Light Bearer had descended from an intelligent race, hailing from a home world far beyond the stars gleaming in the night sky. He was thin with gaunt features and slender hands. Narrow eyes glinted as burnt skin rubbed against his worn shirt and trousers. Heat blisters had singed his green hide. Callouses defined his bony feet. Tattered black boots offered no support after countless days of ceaseless walking. Long ago he had missed luxury, yearning for home. Now, all he sought was death…and the distant mountain that offered a shred of hope.
As the Light Bearer descended the desert hills, distant peaks loomed in the haze beyond the endless sand. His feet courted the end of his journey with each step, moving him closer to the edge of the planet Argon-12, searching for a species to inherit his gift of enlightenment.
Explorer One’s mission had been idealistic in theory. The Great Council of the planet Huron had passed an ordinance stating all distant galaxies should be rational such as the Huron peoples. This belief, both religious and politically motivated, sparked the sponsorship of a thousand missionary spaceships. Each was sent forth to the unreached corners of the universe. Explorer One, with a crew of two hundred, had been assigned a planet with one sun, vast oceans, lush valleys, towering mountains, and infinite deserts. Argon-12. A spec of lint in a scrawling canvas of stars.
Upon arrival, Explorer One’s crew, and their descendants, would provide the power of intelligence and reason to the planet’s fledgling organisms. The crew—comprised of scientists, linguists, and military personnel—were trained and prepared to spend the rest of their existence in the effort to groom Argon-12’s lifeforms. It had been long believed that Argon-12 possessed bipeds on the brink of a giant evolutionary leap. And, if all went as planned, someday they would evolve into beings on par with the Huronians; able to join their trade system and religious hierarchy.
A thousand years of cryo-sleep was required for the journey. The Light Bearer had another name when they’d left Huron. Eyo Two-Suns. It had been his father’s name. Eyo had spent his entire life studying and interpreting atavistic languages. On Huron, he’d been trained to understand and decipher primitive speech and intellect. He specialized in the dialects of fledgling species, which made him a top recruit for Explorer One.
In the fall of his twentieth year, Eyo said goodbye to his family, friends, and the orange Huron sun. Never again would it warm his face nor shimmer in his eyes. He and all Explorer One crew members understood the reality of their expedition. They’d spend their remaining days on Argon-12, investing their lives, knowledge, and expertise in the name of progress. They had pledged their allegiance to Huron and the Great Council. Thus, the crew would obey their wishes. Soon Argon-12 would be their new home. In the millennium to come, its teeming species would speak their language, worship Huron’s philosophy, and pray to its deities.
When Eyo had entered his cryo-sleep chamber on Explorer One, inertia had seeped into his pores and paralyzed his body. Years passed as seconds. Then, he awoke. The glass door unlocked. Red lights flashed. Hundreds of pods, containing his fellow crew members, were aflame. Liquid acid leaked from the ceiling. Eyo, still groggy, fumbled with the coffin’s handle and hoisted himself onto the deck.
Burning flesh. Its scent hung in the air, snatched hold of Eyo’s nostrils, and touched his face. Blood dripped. Slender fingers dabbed his forehead where a gash, long and deep, let flow the azure life-stream. A piece of flying debris had shattered a hole in the glass door of his sleeping pod, cutting his face. Oval eyes blinked, adjusting to the hanger’s murky interior. Lights and dials flickered. Thick smoke clouded the hall.
Eyo wheezed. Fiery debris cascaded as Explorer One burst through the planet’s atmosphere. Space, fire, and light sped past the cabin windows. Then, silence. Darkness.
He had no memory of the crash nor of the chaos that followed. The next thing Eyo remembered, he was hauling himself through the ship’s crumbling interior. He knew the protocol. If Explorer One’s acid fuel hollows had leaked, he and the crew had five minutes to vacate the ship. Death prowled as the stench of smoldering skin lingered. Was it his? Eyo pawed his limbs and chest. He’d been cut, but not burned. The same couldn’t be said for the remaining crew. He found the captain slumped against her cryo-pod. Eyo stumbled to the ground and planted on his knees. He crawled toward the skipper.
“Captain Huri!” he yelled. “We must evacuate!”
But the commander didn’t move, nor did she breathe. Acidic liquid, leaking from a tear in the ceiling, had melted her emerald skin. She’d expired.
Eyo gasped. He called to the other members of the crew. None answered as a swelling inferno consumed the ship. Smoke thickened as Eyo tottered toward the sliding doors. They were wedged shut. He pounded on the metal frame. None responded. As the acid continued its slow seepage from the shattered rafters, Eyo calculated his time left available—five short passes of the clock. It would mean a grueling demise if the acid reached his place at the door. He shouted again for help. Nothing called back.
Grunting with renewed determination, Eyo held his breath and lunged toward a storage unit containing medical supplies. He broke the security glass with his fist and wrenched a long scalpel from within. With lungs aching, he leapt toward the door and began scraping with the dagger. The small sword failed to penetrate the gate. One pass of the clock remained.
Acidic fuel poisoned the air. Its vapor wrapped around Eyo’s throat and squeezed. The sacred blood of Eyo’s alien race percolated into his eyes as seeping acid cratered the door. Eyo clawed, attempting to wedge his body through the new opening. Even so, the hole was barely wide enough for his slender f
rame. He reached his hand through the gap and groped for the door lock.
As life slipped away, Eyo fought for breath. His eyes dimmed. The acidic atmosphere clenched tighter. Heavy eyes blinked. Eyo prepared to exhale and intake his last when suddenly a hand thrust through the door’s cut aperture. It snatched his forearm, pulled him through, and dragged him from the ship.
Three survived. Eyo and two others fled the Explorer One before its implosion. Indigo flames christened the starry night sky as metallic debris rained upon the surrounding forest. And as they huddled together under a rocky outcropping, each tended to the other’s wounds.
“We are all that remains,” Maya said, dabbing Eyo’s head with a cloth. She’d managed to retrieve a medicine kit and a distress beacon before they escaped the ship. “What of it, Zulo?”
“A blaster, two cartridges of ammunition, a food pouch, and a cannister,” said the soldier wearing a poncho.
“Following protocol, we should elect a leader,” Maya said coldly. She was a medical specialist who had emerged from the crash mostly unscratched. Eyo’s head demanded stitches. Zulo had suffered a broken arm. A simple sling held it against his chest. Maya had realigned the bone and seemed intent on fixing the crew’s hierarchical order as well. “I am in command—”
“Protocol doesn’t matter. Not anymore,” Zulo huffed. “We’re stranded. Any transmission we send will take a dozen lifetimes to reach Argon-12. We’ll be dead long before help arrives. We’re walking bones. Dead.”
“Other Huron ships will receive it…and send us aid. Or…we’ll find a new ship,” said Maya, folding up her sleeves before drying her green scalp. “The inhabitants here. They will help us.”
“The primitives?” The portly soldier chuckled. Wrinkles in his round face jiggled. “We’re here for them, remember? Enlightenment.” As Zulo’s chest eased and his breathing slowed, he glanced toward Eyo, sneering. “And you…What say you?”
“I’m a linguist,” said Eyo. “A language specialist.”
Zulo leered. “A Light Bearer, eh? An academic. A waste of air.”
Maya ignored this. Eyo froze. Zulo crept closer.
“Fifty soldiers die…but you somehow survive. Funny, yes?”
“I can fend for myself,” said Eyo, wincing as Maya finished the last stitch. “You’ll not bully me.”
Zulo cocked the blaster, playfully aiming it at Eyo. “It’s an infant world. There’s no books here, professor. No elite class. Just the elements and the beasts.”
Eyo froze. The blaster tip pressed against his nose. Zulo grinned. Eyo’s mind spun.
He is crazed.
“I’m finding shelter,” said Maya, breaking the tension. A smoke cloud wafted into the night sky as Explorer One melted in the distance. “We’ll find a good signal in the morning…and send a distress call.”
Zulo holstered the blaster. His face crinkled, morphing into a laugh that rescinded into a cackle, echoing across the barren landscape. “We’re the enlightened!” he said, gagging on saliva. “The brightest!”
And when they’d found shelter in a shallow cave, Maya slunk into the night, looking for fire building materials. She never returned. Zulo nudged Eyo as the morning sun cleared the grotto's mouth. They searched all day, following her tracks as far as the nearest ridge. Then, her footprints disappeared as if she’d been plucked from the sky.
“She’s dead, old chap,” said the soldier.
“What? How can you be certain?”
Zulo frowned. “Doesn’t matter. One less mouth. More grub for us.”
“Maya is a medic. We need her.”
“Fine. Go searching. What do I care if you’re eaten?”
“Eaten?”
“Aye, lad. Big, nasty, creepy things dwell on the surface. Didn’t they prep you? This planet is ignorant of mind…but abundant in death. Indeed. Survival is the only language here, my Light Bearer friend.”
“But I can communicate with them. That’s why I’m here. I’ll tell them we’re peaceful.”
Zulo sighed as one might when patronizing a child. His eyes had lost their luminance and his voice had forfeited its strength. “No…you’re here to…oh, what’s the use? I don’t know why Explorer One’s engines failed. But whether we’re a thousand years early or late…there’s no hope. We’ll die here…and that’s all there is…just you and me.”
Eyo’s knees pulled to his chest as he rubbed his arms. Zulo adjusted his poncho and the visor around his head. He grinned. “You’re a Light Bearer…but can you spark a flame?”
Eyo couldn’t, but he learned. Zulo and Eyo shivered in their cave until the soldier taught the professor which materials would make fire and instructed him during the sparking procedure. In time, Eyo mastered the process and they slept warm next to a strong blaze.
They never found Maya nor her bones. Days turned to weeks in the cave. Rations dwindled. Frost caked the cavern entrance each morning. Winter loomed.
After thirty suns in the cavern, the duo had observed no other lifeforms. They were alone. Zulo planned for death, instructing Eyo how to bury him. The young academic clutched the beacon device Maya had retrieved from the ship. They had yet to power it on for fear of draining the battery. Zulo predicted the signal had enough juice for one message, but he didn’t seem concerned. By the time Huron received their cry for help, he and the professor would be long dead. Yet Eyo still held the rectangular box while he slept, careful not to push any of its buttons.
Death invaded their alcove on the fortieth night. When the fire faded and darkness flooded the hollow, the rank smell of an invader filled the air. Eyo awoke to the sound of Zulo thrashing and screaming. A large, furry, tentacled creature had snatched the soldier into its talons, rearing its fangs for a fatal blow. Zulo cried for help. The beast filled the cave mouth with black eyes roving the interior, locking on Eyo as Zulo fumbled with the blaster. All things moved in slow motion as Eyo clutched the beacon’s metallic box.
Zulo unloaded a round of the blaster’s red laser into the intruder’s hide. The massive creature shrieked. Then, Eyo suddenly snapped, realizing the danger of what might happen if the spider-like predator were to eat Zulo. It would consume him afterward. And death would reign supreme.
Eyo sprang toward Zulo and tugged on his comrade’s poncho as the creature pulled the soldier’s feet. Zulo cursed and pointed the blaster again, firing an errant shot. Eyo strained, gritting his teeth as he clutched the cloak. His fists cramped. Slender fingers slipped. The beast growled. Zulo pleaded with Eyo to save him. Eyo grunted. His grip failed. The beast roared, swiftly hauling Zulo from the cave mouth and into the darkness beyond.
In Eyo’s hands remained the poncho. Zulo’s visor and blaster were left on the cave floor. He never found the soldier’s carcass, nor did he give him the burial requested. Eyo lingered alone in the grotto for another three nights, clutching the blaster and the portable beacon. On the morning of the third day, he left the cave while donning the visor and Zulo’s poncho. The blaster hung on his belt, resting at the hip.
He read the stars and essayed the landscape. The planet had mountains. Of that, he was certain. He’d need to reach the highest peak in order to maximize the beacon’s signal. Only then, across the stars and years of lightless void, would Huron’s missionary ships learn the fate of Explorer One and, perhaps, send rescue.
After crossing the desert, loneliness swallowed Eyo as nights faded and days waned into countless memory. It was now two hundred and sixty days since Zulo’s death and three hundred passes of the sun since the ship had crashed. The beat of a sorrowed heart pounded in his ears as silence transformed into a roaring void.
Why had he alone of Explorer One’s crew survived? Zulo was right. He was a waste of breath. A coward. He’d let Maya die without a proper search. And he’d watched paralyzed while the beast dragged Zulo from the hollow. He could have fired the blaster. But, no. He’d watched as the terror sank its teeth into Zulo’s flesh and ingested his bones.
On his home p
lanet, Eyo had known adventure and danger only within the confines of books and ancient scrolls. Never had he tested his fortitude in the elements of grueling nature. Huron was a civilized planet far removed from the lowly state of primitive technology. He and his family lived high above the ground in skyscraper homes, inhabited by lush interiors and pointless luxuries. He’d come from privilege. A son of ancestral economic giants and conquerors. Yet, Eyo had survived and still breathed while the medic had disappeared, and the soldier had been devoured. Perhaps the priests were correct in their prophesy. To bear the light of reason and intelligence is better than the greatest army or genetic resilience. The mind conquers all.
To say that his journey across the desert had hardened him would be an understatement. While slender feet had braved the sand-hued topography, Eyo had slowly faded from existence as the title of Light Bearer transfixed his identity. Cowardice had given rise to pride while isolation bred his despair. Utter solitude consumed his being, as he recited whispers lost upon the empty wind.
All alien races, peoples, and ideologies are to become in tune with our kind, just as our gods state in the sacred texts: ‘For we are the enlightened, and we will give light to the universe.’
He survived the desert due to the genetic advantage of his Huron blood. The organs in his flesh could fast for months, if necessary, and the need for water was just as sparring. Yet, even when he escaped the arid region, the Light Bearer ate no animals nor any water dwellers. When he entered the jungle forest, countless species crossed his path, including large mammals, insect creatures, small flying critters, and creepy-crawling abominations. Their colors, shapes, and breeds were so numerous and equally diverse, it was as if the gods themselves had painted the scenery with teeming life. It would have taken several lifetimes to document their types and quantify their number.
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