Chapter Ten
Drellic and Moya lost touch over the next decade. They exchanged conversation in secret during the remainder of their terms at the institute, but had little to no contact in public. Their families insisted upon it.
Drellic was hell bent on leaving the Kail name behind and joining the military, but once Morn got wind of that, he asked Prime Minister Callos to go to even greater lengths to make sure Drellic’s every action was carefully monitored. An advanced protective detail, assigned by the Great Hall, did exactly that, until Drellic’s final graduation, before his career assessment.
Upon graduation, Drellic and Moya went their separate ways; seemingly for good. Due to his parents and protective detail encouraging his academic success, by the time he reached age twenty five, Drellic Kail was regarded as one of the top scientific minds on planet, Siren.
It wasn’t until he journeyed beyond the walls of his home and school that he discovered an entire world of open minded, accepting individuals. Having never learned who was responsible for the attack on his ship in the woods, ten years earlier, Drellic noticed a decline in verbal and physical attacks once his relationship with Moya came to an end.
Two years after graduation, Drellic began a career at “Karn Interstellar”, a manufacturer of advanced propulsion systems for interstellar vehicles. Ironically, while his father was overseeing the final construction of the Salvation vessel, bound for Kier-en, on Bouldon, Drellic was overseeing the construction of the “post light engines” and “star benders” that would allow Salvation to make the trip to Kier-en in just a little more than one Siren year.
The general public still had no knowledge of Salvation, or that their planets were slowly being poisoned to death by the gaseous compound they thought had saved them. But the plan was rapidly approaching fruition, and all was on the verge of being revealed.
On Drellic’s 25th birthday, he boarded a space ferry bound for Bouldon, where he would see his father for the first time in ten years.
The propulsion system was ready and only needed a ship to be placed inside. His nerves were getting the better of him, as he watched Tyrran pass by his window, knowing Bouldon was waiting for him just, beyond it.
Looking over the pilot’s shoulders, through the front windows of the ferry, he saw Bouldon appear behind the largest of Tyrran’s moons. Drellic had seen countless images of it over the years, but he found that they hardly did the real life experience any justice.
Bouldon was a giant metallic sphere, twice the size of Modern Earth that was constantly surrounded by hordes of incoming and outgoing ship traffic. The sphere was divided horizontally from top to bottom every few hundred feet, by long ring shaped platforms that circled the grand structure.
Upon landing on the highest ringed platform, the ferry passed through a seamlessly permeable protective shield, indicating that they had breached Bouldon’s fully pressurized atmosphere and that it was safe for the passengers to de-board without pressure suits.
Drellic had only taken a few steps onto the metallic runway beneath the ship, before he noticed his father standing tall over the other militants that were awaiting his arrival.
Morn and Drellic were then roughly the same height. And as Morn looked his son over for the first time in a decade, through his long flowing gray hair, he could only think to say, “Son…you shaved your head.”
“Yes, sir,” Drellic answered, nervously. “About ten years ago.”
“Looks good,” Morn said, in an insincere tone. “Shall we begin?”
“Of course, sir,” Drellic dutifully replied. “What choice do we have? Our time is dwindling.”
“Yes it is,” said Morn. “Well said, son. We can catch up later. For now, let’s do what we came here to do.”
Together, Morn and Drellic disappeared inside the factories of Bouldon, leading a large group of militants and government officials from both Siren and Tyrran.
“You’ve made your mother and I very proud, son,” Morn boasted, looking upon Drellic’s formal, dark blue engineer’s uniform.
“It’s why we pushed you so hard to pursue the sciences,” Morn continued. “We knew you possessed an intelligence far superior to most. We knew that was where you could do the most good for your people.”
“I know, father. All I’ve ever wanted to do is make you proud,” Drellic replied, in a detached tone.
In his mind, Drellic had loathed both his mother and father for many years, but he dared not show such defiance. The Kail name was on the verge of being redeemed in the eyes of both planets, and Drellic had finally earned the admiration and respect of his peers.
Morn then led Drellic onto a long steel runway, overlooking the largest of Bouldon’s factory floors. Below them, was the Salvation; the most incredible spaceship Drellic had ever laid eyes upon. It was more than enough of a distraction, to put the typical Kail family tension to rest.
Salvation was a cargo ship by design, but could be converted into a warship if needed. The hull was comprised of a sand colored titanium plating that complemented the dimly lit double doorways, near both the bow and stern.
Atop the ship, gleaming silver gun turrets formed a row of gun barrels, resembling a human spinal column. The guns were arranged in the same fashion on the ship’s underbelly; which was barely visible behind the giant magnetic locks that held the ship in place over the factory floor.
The ship itself resembled the blue whale of Modern Earth, down to the giant steel fins on the port and starboard sides. The ship’s tail was the only feature that diverted away from Salvation’s unintentional whale-look, coming to a sharp point over an open hollowed out section, where Drellic’s propulsion system would be installed.
Drellic carefully inspected the hollowed out portion, after acquiring a vantage point over the ship’s stern.
“The sizing is perfect,” Drellic said to his father, while holding out a small electronic device that measured the height, width and depth of the hollowed out section.
“Assuming your specifications were accurate, then yes, it is perfect,” Morn snapped.
Drellic then turned to his father, his eyes widened with surprise and said, “I would never play games with the lives of my people. They were accurate.”
“Then there’s nothing more to discuss,” Morn said. “Bring it to us.”
Drellic nodded and led his father to a large window, overlooking the landing platform where he had docked. Drellic then used a communicator on his wrist to instruct the cargo ship that had followed his ferry to Bouldon, to land on the adjacent platform.
“It’s already here?” Morn asked with a stutter. “I wouldn’t have expected you to be so bold.”
“You should have,” Drellic said, with confidence. “My boldness is warranted, considering I never had any doubts.”
By the end of the work day, Drellic’s propulsion system had been successfully installed into Salvation’s stern and connected to entry ways leading to the ship’s engineering deck.
The ship was then launched from Bouldon and put through its first test flight. Salvation traveled to the farthest reaches of the solar system, to an asteroid belt the length of ten Jupiters, and returned to Bouldon in less than sixty seconds.
Morn then realized that his dreams for his son had finally been fulfilled. Drellic’s engine design had the potential to save mankind. And since Salvation had at long last, proven itself to its creators, it was time to inform the people of the two worlds of the trials that awaited them.
Once the announcement was made, even Empress Tila Hevett could no longer afford to even speak ill of the Kails behind closed doors. Her silence had cost her her pride and there was no longer any hope for an official criminal investigation into Morn and his family.
Kail House became a feeding ground for the press, as Morn and Drellic were almost instantly looked upon as saviors, in the midst of man’s darkest age.
But upon returning to Siren City, there was one truth that Morn had yet to share with his family
, aside from his killing Emperor Covlar. Morn’s other secret was that he was dying of accelerated heart failure, as a result of old age, combined with repeated night terrors. It was an increasing sense of fear and dread that had been plaguing him since his first encounter with the strange green insect at the Great Hall, ten years before.
His nerves repeatedly counteracted all medical attempts to save him, and his physicians were giving up. It was always assumed that Morn would be the one to lead thousands of volunteers to Kier-en, where they would begin mankind’s next chapter.
But as he was immersed in a crowd of what he viewed as mediocre amateurs, he had only one solution in mind that would appease him. Morn had no choice but to ask Drellic to take his place, as Salvation’s commander.
Unfortunately, he would have to wait until Drellic returned from a scientific study, taking place at Siren’s South Pole. The mysterious glowing insects were spotted in Siren’s coldest region, a place no insect indigenous to Siren should’ve been able to survive.
A few weeks after Morn and Drellic returned from Bouldon and Jin Callos announced the Salvation mission to the worlds, Drellic was selected to be the lead science officer on a mission to the pole, to study the creatures.
Drellic had forgotten all about his own encounter with the insects in his bedroom, also ten years earlier, and was offended by the notion of the mission, because so much else was going on in the interplanetary scientific community.
But Siren’s leaders had been tracking the creatures for some time, and were beginning to associate them with widespread night terrors, similar to those Morn had been experiencing.
Several deaths had been subsequently linked to the traumatic visions induced by contact with the insects, which was what finally peeked Drellic’s interest.
As the annual cold spell that plagued Siren City was coming to an end, Drellic and a team of other science officers and technicians, were on route to the pole, where they would find a consistent temperature of negative 70 degrees Fahrenheit.
Small spherical surveillance drones had been sent out ahead of Drellic’s science vessel, to investigate the infected region. They returned images of millions of the green glowing insects back to the ship, indicating that they were somehow nesting inside a deep, icy crevice.
The science vessel was very small, compared to most of the cargo ships and commercial liners that were very similar to its design. A clear octagon-shaped canopy revealed two male pilots, covered from head to toe in dark gray protective coverings and face masks with internal heating pads.
The canopy encapsulated the forward most compartment, resting against the dark green metal plated hull, of the storage compartment behind it. Drellic was locked inside the cabin of the ship with a metallic safety harness, alongside seven other passengers; each with a unique role to play during the study of the unknown creatures. They were all dressed in the same protective gear as their pilots and also had access to an onboard armory, filled with energy rifles and grenades.
The sleek saucer shaped vessel then began to jerk from side to side, as it came into sudden contact with the one hundred and fifty mile per hour winds of the South Pole region. They were merely twenty or so miles from their landing site, but the mood on board was becoming extremely tense.
“What do you think they are?” a nervous technician asked Drellic, sweat dripping from his clammy hands, as the ship continued to shake.
“There’s no record of them that predates the last five years,” one of the female science officers added, looking in Drellic’s direction. “Such a large population, covering so much ground, could not have evolved to their level of ingenuity in that time.”
“It’s impossible,” the technician replied with a nod, also looking in Drellic’s direction. “They’ve been spotted all over the world, disappearing and then reappearing in unison. They don’t appear to be drawn to anything or have any need to eat. Now, we discover this nest; a cavern filled with them, buried hundreds of feet in the ice. What does it mean, sir?”
“My only interest is determining why hundreds of people are dropping dead from night terrors that provoke heart attacks, weeks, in some cases, hours after encountering these things,” Drellic boldly answered.
“That is our first priority,” he continued. “If they are truly a biological threat to us, they must be dealt with immediately.”
Then without warning, just ten miles from the landing site, a powerful force violently rolled the ship onto its back, flipping the crew upside down while secured to the wall, by their harnesses.
As the rest of the team panicked, the technician noticed that Drellic was still perfectly calm.
“Should we have been expecting this, sir?!” he yelled, as Drellic’s calm expression, changed into one of stern alertness.
“We are under attack,” Drellic aggressively replied, instantly silencing the terrified crew.
The Drellic Saga: Books One, Two and Three Page 65