The Drellic Saga: Books One, Two and Three

by Mike Marlinski

  Chapter Seventeen

  Daelon was completely alone on the cargo ship and in tears. In his mind, he had failed his brother. Thinking back to before his blackout, he found that he couldn’t remember the face of the creature that had stolen his 36 passengers. He slowly climbed the stairs to the upper deck, all the while fearful that he hadn’t seen the last of the monster that had somehow gotten on board his vessel.

  Not knowing how much time had passed, he made his way back to the bridge, in the hopes of getting some answers from the ship’s artificially intelligent computer system. However, upon reaching the captain’s chair, he discovered a terrible truth, which eradicated his hopes of somehow completing his mission.

  Daelon noticed a series of flashing bright lights, overhead. He looked up through his canopy, to see that the cargo ship was no longer on Siren. It was inside some kind of a landing bay; presumably belonging to the alien ship, he had recently encountered. His first thought was to wonder why he had been left behind on the ship, while everyone else had been taken. But before he could finish his thought, a brilliant flash of green light flooded the bridge. The source of the light was directly behind the captain’s chair. As the light then began to dim, Daelon wasted no time and quickly spun around in his chair, to investigate. To his dismay, he found himself confronted with the tall gangly creature, he had met earlier on the lower deck.

  The alien had many features similar to a human, but when closely examined, it resembled anything but. It was nearly ten feet tall, a full foot taller than Core, and stood upon two awkwardly shaped, scrawny legs that remained bent forward at the knees. Its feet were webbed and resembled large, scale covered fish fins.

  The atmosphere in the ship was clearly suitable for the creature, due to its lack of any protective apparel. Its skin had a dull grayish tone to it. Its feet, hands and head were all that were visible beneath its gray armored suit, just slightly darker than its skin, but nearly camouflaged by its similarity to it. It was difficult for Daelon to tell where its suit ended at the wrist, and where the organic flesh on its boney hands began.

  The alien had two arms that looked as though they’d have a terrifyingly long reach. They were thin, but appeared muscular, despite their armored covering. With his eyes, Daelon followed its spider leg-like arms, down to its boney four fingered hands. Each had an opposable thumb, but only three long boney fingers. But Daelon was most frightened by the creature’s haunting black eyes, which peered down at him in the form of a wide slit, on either side of its flat, slate looking nose. The eye slits were slightly rounded, but nearly rectangular in shape. Its nose was covered in several tiny nostrils, as black as its eyes, which made a faint wheezing sound, whenever the creature inhaled.

  Daelon and his visitor stared at each other for a moment, before the aliens’ signature green light returned; blinding Daelon. A few seconds later, the creature was gone. Daelon was once again alone on the ship, bewildered and confused by what he had just seen. He couldn’t help but wonder, if the aliens were just toying with him. Their presence alone was enough to send his imagination running wild.

  After a 100 year war with the Architects, the presence of an all new alien race, was astonishing. However, Daelon was convinced that their arrival, moments after the destruction of Siren and Tyrran, could not have been a coincidence. As he pondered their possible connection to the Architects, he squinted through the overhead canopy, while trying to spot the visual details about his new surroundings. Disappointingly, he saw nothing but a larger metal dome, looming over his transparent canopy dome, displaying rows of flashing lights, which were very irritating to him and were also causing his instruments to malfunction.

  Daelon assumed that he would not be able to exit his ship, but took a slow walk to the airlock, to humor himself. He made it as far as the outer door, when he realized that the ship’s computer systems had been compromised by the aliens. The auto-lock sequence had been engaged, preventing him from escaping into the alien ship’s landing bay.

  He used a flat console on the wall, to attempt disabling it, and upon doing so, was startled by a loud buzzing sound, coming from the top corners of the airlock. He looked up, to see that long gray tubes, resembling gun barrels, had been strategically positioned in the four top corners of the room. As soon as he made eye contact with them, he instantly found himself dodging repeated green laser blasts. It seemed that the aliens had retrofitted a defense grid inside Daelon’s own ship, turning his own systems against him.

  As he darted from one side of the chamber to the other, he found that the four barrels had full articulation and were following him in unison, in each direction he fled. He then pressed himself against the inner door and pressed down on the handle. The inner door opened instantly and he was back inside the Gate Chamber, at the rear of the ship. Once he had left the airlock, the barrels had ceased fire.

  After catching his breath, he returned to the bridge and turned his attention back to the canopy. He then found himself mindlessly screaming, “What do you want from me?!” into the transparent shell, over his head. Suddenly, the left touch screen in front of the captain’s chair, began flickering. The image had changed from his internal life support readings, to an image of Core, strapped to a table, presumably somewhere on board the alien ship.

  Daelon’s first instinct was to laugh at the thought that the aliens had somehow misinterpreted his relationship with Core, and assumed he would be overly upset at his capture. But Daelon’s mood soured, as he watched the same creature that had just appeared on his ship minutes earlier, enter the room Core was being held in. A second creature was already inside the room and standing at Core’s feet. He looked on, as the two aliens began poking and prodding Core’s neck, arms and legs with long hooked needles.

  After making a series of puncture wounds all over his body, the aliens began plugging the wounds with long, transparent snake-like tubes, resembling intravenous drips. The tubes were attached to automated, black cylindrical drones that surrounded Core’s table and appeared to be draining and storing his blood. Core screamed in pain, as the drones continued their work, with the aliens intently looking on.

  Given Daelon’s sympathetic nature, he couldn’t help but be disheartened by Core’s torturous experience. He was dying and there was nothing Daelon could do to help him. At first, he didn’t even want to help him, but as he observed the light in Core’s eyes slowly dimming, he could only be reminded once again that human life was by that time, more precious than ever. Daelon still had no idea as to the location of his 36 passengers, but he had a devastating suspicion that they had been rudely awakened from their states of suspended animation, and were currently experiencing the same hellacious treatment, as Core.

  Meanwhile in an aft compartment of the alien vessel, Core was taking his last breaths. His final sight was of the two mysterious aliens, who seemed to be staring lifelessly into his soul, as it was slowly being sucked from his flesh. His final thoughts were of the last moments he had spent with Drellic. At the time, he was driven mad by the war and was convinced of his own moral superiority. But as his life was about to end, he could only come to the realization that what he had done to Drellic, was the biggest mistake of his life and also his greatest regret.

  As Core’s mind wandered, he imagined Drellic sitting in the rear compartment of his ship, just after he had left Siren with a crew of six, excluding himself. Drellic was covered in a filthy brown cloak, as he had been snuck onto the vessel, during an enemy attack.

  Core was piloting the ship and had just announced that they had cleared Siren’s outer atmosphere and were on route to Tyrran. They had initially planned to use the gateway at Siren’s Delendra Tower, to instantaneously travel to the other world, but by that time, the tower had already been destroyed. Core knew that Drellic was keeping secrets from him. Just before takeoff, Core had insisted that Drellic inform him of his plan. But all Drellic would ever say in response was, “It’s no concern of yours. We just need to find my brother
and then report to The Depths. That is all you need to know.”

  Core had begged Drellic to order his brother to relinquish the Talin, in the hopes of weaponizing it sooner, but Drellic always defended his brother at great length and told Core that he respected the path that Daelon had chosen to follow.

  By the time the ship was half way to Tyrran, and Siren was burning behind them, Core had already implemented a mutiny against Drellic. The five other soldiers sitting beside Drellic, were confidants of Core, who swore allegiance to him and had agreed to aid in Drellic’s assassination. But when it came time for the plan to come to fruition, Core’s men had all gone back on their word. He recalled hearing statements like, “For all his crimes, he’s still our leader. He’s only ever done what he thought was right, for the sake of our survival. It was all for Siren.”

  Upon the impact of his mens’ betrayal, Core pretended to agree with them, then tricked them into joining Drellic in the ship’s rear compartment. Once they were all out of the front compartment, he sealed off the rear compartment and depressurized it. He then remotely opened the ship’s side hatch and flushed his six passengers out into space.

  It was then that he saw something he did not expect. He watched, as Drellic spun violently towards the hull of an Architect Planet Farmer. As Drellic’s body flew across the gap between the two ships, his body glowed bright yellow, like a miniature shooting star. He then watched Drellic’s body crash lifelessly into the slimy, black organic tissue that made up the outer hull of the Planet Farmer, and be sucked into the hull of the ship, like liquid seeping into a drain. His body then vanished without a trace.

  At that moment, Core was impacted by the magnitude of what he had done. He then realized that he had to ensure that it was not done in vain. He set his sights on Tyrran and prepared to touch down near the entrance to The Depths, where he would wait for Daelon to arrive.

  Core then felt his memories of those events slipping away from him. His gaze returned to the eyes of his alien captors. A moment later, he died on the table, leaving the aliens with the task of removing the feeding tubes from his flesh and disposing of his body.

  Core’s last memory was of Drellic’s final words to him. Just before they boarded their ship, bound for Tyrran, Core had asked Drellic why he never seemed to fully trust him, as he trusted Daelon, even though he had spent far more time with him than his coward brother, and had fought alongside him for years. Drellic replied, “You have always been a great warrior. But you have never been a great man. I can only hope that you will be someday, if we survive this.”