Chapter Eight
It was the Sirenese who had first taken to the stars one billion years before Morn Kail made his horrifying discovery. They believed Tyrran to be a wasteland, completely void of life, until they landed on its surface and found the Tyrranese; a race of humans identical to them in terms of genetic makeup.
The people of Tyrran were in the process of rebuilding their society for the eighth time, after the fallout of a great nuclear war, the likes of which had happened eight times before in their history.
The people of Siren had a similar history of repeated planetary bombardments that set them back thousands of years in progression each time, but had lived in peace amongst themselves for two millennia before landing on Tyrran.
Once the two peoples found one another, it was as if the ideals and utter barbaric hatred of old had crept their way back into the hearts and minds of all humans. War broke out between the two worlds; an intermittent war that lasted thousands of years.
In the beginning, one world attempted to conquer and claim the other and vice versa. Then, came aggression, spawned from religious and political differences, along with fierce immigration disputes.
Each society felt it was better than the other in every way imaginable. But one thing their governments had in common was a desire to aggressively deny citizenship to people indigenous to the opposite planet.
Finally, after one last great war, with a terrifyingly extensive nuclear arsenal, leaving both worlds almost completely devastated, the corrupt leaders responsible for the conflict were long dead and replaced by more reasonable successors with a common desire for peace.
Siren and Tyrran were finally working together and established a chemical agent in the form of a gas that was synthesized to eliminate radiation pockets, reverse global warming and re-stimulate plant growth. Both governments worked together to create the compound and ensure that it would be compatible with both planet’s atmospheres.
But the more human scientists interacted with scientists from the world opposite their own, the more they realized that Siren and Tyrran were formed at the exact same time and had identical atmospheric and surface compositions, down to the last molecule.
Religious leaders from both planets who believed in “the fates” as the ancient deities were referred to, took that particular scientific discovery as a divine sign that the two peoples were meant to coexist.
As a result, millions of years of prosperity and technological advancement came to pass. Since then, terrorist cells like the current insurgency had come and gone, but there had never been another catastrophic event threatening every last human life; at least until Secretary of Resources, Morn Kail, stumbled upon something with the potential to make mankind extinct in a relatively short time.
As it was explained to Jin by Morn, the gas compound which scientists from both worlds had used to repair the damage done to the planets, was beginning to reanimate itself at an accelerating rate. But instead of being triggered by pollution or radiation, the fact that it had been a useless chemical agent for so long, while existing in such a clean environment, had mutated it into something else entirely.
Morn Kail believed whole heartily that the worlds of man were consequently being poisoned by the very element that had saved them in the past; irreversibly so. When Morn was asked for a possible solution he simply replied, “We can no longer rely on the synthetic.”
It was a credible theory that left humanity with only one option. A new world needed to be colonized. Unfortunately, a galaxy as desolate as Eizenfar, left them with very few candidates. There were working with a very strict time table, meaning they could not afford to waste time putting an unfit world through a century long, atmospheric conversion process.
What the people needed was a Siren or Tyrran-like world already well into its natural developmental stages. According to star charts, there was only one that could be reached in the allotted timeframe. It was a planet called, “Kier-en,” which was an ancient human phrase meaning, placed in solitude.
This was a beautiful world nearly half way across the galaxy, orbiting a main sequence star at the appropriate distance and equipped with a rich oxygen based atmosphere, two oceans, hundreds of lakes and rivers, and three continent sized forests that were responsible for the entire planet’s photosynthesis based oxygen output.
Best of all, Kier-en was home to zero indigenous sentient races, making it even more ideal for colonization. To Jin, it sounded too good to be true, but the planet’s existence had been common knowledge in the scientific community for centuries and Jin Callos saw no reason to not sanction a mission there.
When Morn went before the council with his proposal, he presented a simple plan that won the Great Hall’s majority vote. A ship larger than any in existence would have to be constructed, in order to carry the number of people and supplies needed to start a colony on Kier-en. But there was still hope for Siren and Tyrran, and since humanity’s population wasn’t getting any smaller, securing a third planet seemed in everyone’s best interest, regardless.
Kier-en had trace elements in its surface minerals that had the potential to be extracted and converted into a form of anti-toxin, designed to counteract the effects of the compound that was killing Siren and Tyrran.
With little more than a decade to spare preparing for the journey, construction of the cargo ship, “Salvation” began on the surface of Bouldon; a giant space station colony, home to the majority of mankind’s hard laborers.
As the months rolled by, while Morn Kail headed the “Kier-en Initiative” unbeknownst to the general public, Drellic was enjoying Moya’s company every day at the institute.
She had instant popularity because of her immense beauty and the mystery surrounding her presence there, but had no reservations about making her fascination with Drellic, public knowledge.
They held hands in the hallways and sat together during lunch breaks, just like every other couple at the school. For a while, it seemed that Drellic’s status with the intoxicating Moya Fen, had brought the bullying he had dealt with for so long, to a halt.
He knew that the rumors about his father getting away with murdering the Emperor of Tyrran, would never disappear, but there had been a comfortable silence in the air, ever since the first time his classmates had seen him kiss Moya on the front steps of the school.
Everything was falling into place for him, and the comforting atmosphere made the idea of him finishing his education that much more appealing. But one night at the end of the school year, as a ferocious chill entered the air, Drellic had his first near death experience.
One particular season per year, which was the equivalent of a month on Modern Earth, the Siren City area would be struck by a violent cold spell that was used to mark the end of schooling for the year, as well as work cycles. During this month, it was rare to see anyone outdoors at all for any reason.
In celebration of his graduation to his next level of education, Syll allowed Drellic to take out a transport on his own for the first time. He used it to drive Moya to and from school, knowing they would most likely not see much of each other over the following month, due to the cold spell.
That night, as Drellic was about to open the hatchway so Moya could return home, he found himself being violently pushed onto his back, as Moya pinned him against the seat.
“I’ve had enough, Kail,” she said in a sassy tone. “I don’t want to wait a second longer.”
While Drellic was still struggling to comprehend what was taking place, Moya expertly unfastened his pleated dress pants with one hand, while removing her top with the other.
“Oh, that…” Drellic stuttered, as Moya continued to straddle him, while removing her bra.
“I don’t have anything…” Drellic muttered as he struggled to kick off his shoes from beneath her waist.
“We won’t need it,” Moya assured him, while slowly releasing him before aggressively tearing off his pants. She then casually reached up h
er long black skirt and pulled her underwear down to the floor, before straddling him again.
When Drellic entered her, he felt a strange calming he had never felt before. It was as if all the rage he felt for his father, for tearing him away from Moya years before, was finally gone.
They only managed to make love for a few minutes, before Drellic’s virginity and low tolerance for such pleasure, managed to get the best of him.
He climaxed long before she ever had the chance to, but that didn’t stop her from lightly kissing his cheek and whispering “I love you,” in his ear.
It was his first time hearing those words from her and it made him the happiest he had ever been. But on that fateful night, Drellic was about to feel a pain much more bitter than the one he felt when he was forced to leave Tyrran behind as a child.
After Drellic walked Moya to her front door and returned to his transport, he instructed the computer to return him home.
On the way there, while gliding through the dark wooded area that surrounded Moya’s neighborhood, Drellic felt an intense jolt inside the ship. A loud thud and vivid spark of electricity inside the cabin, was followed by the ship being violently thrown onto its side, smashing into the dirt road below, with incredible force.
Drellic smashed his head against the side of the ship when it hit the ground, instantly knocking him unconscious.
When he woke up hours later, he was naked and alone on the dirt road in the dead of night. His ship was nowhere to be found and the cold spell was beginning to take its toll on both him and his surroundings.
He shivered with fear, as thick, misty clouds of his breath appeared above him. It was so cold that he could barely move. He could even feel the blood trickling from his forehead, freezing as it crept closer to his eyes.
Drellic struggled to scream with all his might, but couldn’t. It had gone from seventy degrees Fahrenheit to negative twenty degrees Fahrenheit in less than an hour that night.
He then rolled onto his back and gazed up at the starry night sky, praying to be saved; the icy cold air stabbing every inch of his skin, as he violently shook with fear.
The Drellic Saga: Books One, Two and Three Page 63