by Sam Coulson
“Just about set,” Ju-lin said as she snapped the last of the panels in place. “There we go, hold the tripod, and activate.”
The scanner, which was roughly the size of my head, began making a series of high, then low pitched buzzing noises and flashing lights in all directions.
“Here, stand back so we don’t get in the way,” Ju-lin grabbed my arm and pulled me several steps back.
As we stepped quietly back, our eyes met for a moment. For the first time, inches apart. I felt a rush of warmth as the blood rushed to my face. I quickly turned back to watch the scan. We were back in the shadows now. Hopefully she didn’t see that my face was flushed.
“How long will the scan take?” I asked.
“I’m not sure,” she said quickly, and more loudly than usual. “The indicator on the top turns green and it’s supposed to give a long and even tone when it’s done. That’s what the instructions said at least.”
“You’ve never used one of these before?”
“No, Dad had to borrow it from the surveyor group, we’re lucky we had one on the colony, they are mostly used for-”
There was a series of distant but distinct thumps above us. Each thud brought a burst of dust from the roof of the cave. We glanced at each other nervously.
“Earthquake?” I asked nervously. The colonists had talked about how there were earthquakes back on Lagrange IV. They said that the earthquakes became more and more frequent as the mines gutted the precious minerals from the ground below. They had told one story about six miners who were trapped in a cave for five months after a quake before they were rescued and found. Only two had survived, the story had given me nightmares.
“Shh,” Ju-lin stood still, her hand up to silence me and her head tilted to the side.
They came again, three more thumps they sounded closer.
“That’s no earthquake, those are charges.”
“Charges?” I asked, not understanding. “You mean they’re mining in here already?”
“No, I mean charges,” she said. “Bombs.”
“Bombs?!” I couldn’t contain my panic. “Why would the colonists be bombing us?”
“They aren’t,” she said. “Those are a few klicks off. I think somebody is bombing them.”
Another series of charges went off, a huge cloud of dust rose from the floor and small rocks were falling from the ceiling.
“Okay now they are bombing us,” she said as she looked back toward the cave entrance.
“We need to get out of here.” I said.
“And go where?” she said. “If we run out there, then all we are is just moving targets.”
I looked at her; she had a fine layer of dust on her face. Like earlier that afternoon in the skiff, she lit up as danger grew near. Her eyes were wider, and her lips slightly apart. And, in spite of myself, I couldn’t help but think that she was incredibly beautiful. I shook off the thought.
Another charge sounded, the air grew thick with dust.
“On second thought,” she said. “Being a moving target sounds better than being crushed in a cave-in.”
I looked back at the symbols on the wall. I couldn’t read them, but I knew they meant something. They were a clue. A story. A truth. Something that would tell me more about where I came from.
“We can’t leave without the scanner,” I said urgently.
She opened her mouth to say argue but stopped; she must have seen that I was serious.
There was a low whistling sound coming from the mouth of the cave and getting closer.
“What is that?” I asked, taking a step back.
“That’s—ah hell!” she once again grabbed my arm as we stepped back against the wall.
The sound grew louder, then we saw a flashing light at the entrance of the tunnel. Ju-lin drew her plasma torch and crouched down, but she didn’t fire.
The blinking light was coming from a smooth silver orb the size of a fist that was whooshing down the tunnel and across the room. With a crash the device imbedded itself against the far wall near the symbols with a deep thud.
“The Sower be damned,” Ju-lin said as she jumped up and ran across the room to look at it. “Um, we need to get out of here. Now.”
“What is it?”
“You remember how I said my plasma gun works?”
“Yes.”
“Well, this will be like that, but a whole helluva lot bigger,” she grabbed the flashlights and began running toward the cave entrance.
The plasma charge began beeping.
I looked back at the scanner as it continued to flash and buzz.
“What are you waiting for?” She screamed back at me. “Forget the scanner, we have seconds before that thing blows.”
The beeping was becoming more frequent.
“Do you hear that?” She yelled. “Faster beeps means it’s about to turn us into vapor, we need to go, now.”
“But I need-” as I said it the scanner on the top of the light flipped green and it started sounding a soft tone. “There!”
I ran over and grabbed the scanner from the tripod and started running toward the entrance of the cave. Another bomb struck the surface nearby. Dust was so thick in the air it was sticking to my lips. I could see Ju-lin, about ten yards ahead of me scurrying up the rise out into the open air.
I threw the scanner up through the cavern entrance and I began to climb. My hand slipped and I slid back down, I fought my way back up. Again my hand slipped as the handholds came loose. I fell hard against the jagged floor. I got up once more to see Ju-lin leaning back over the top.
“Get up here!” she screamed as she offered me her hand. I pulled myself up once more, desperate as the echoing beeps seemed to meld into a continuous sound. She caught my hand and, with her help, I pulled myself the rest of the way up. After one final heave, I was clear.
We laid on the grass under the great grey stone, panting to catch our breaths through the cloud of dust. For a moment, the sky was still and silent. Too silent. I realized that the beeping had stopped.
The cave started to whistle as if taking a deep breath, and then it exhaled fire.
Chapter 10.
“We keep our stories in song, and we protect our Charon to pass on the truths of life and the stories of our past,” the voice said. “We discarded the written word long, long ago.”
“But why?” I asked. “Wouldn’t it help us preserve the stories? We could record our thoughts, build upon our knowledge.”
“Eli, you answer your own question,” he cut me short. “For what purpose would we need to keep our knowledge beyond our stories and songs? Our people came out of the darkness to live on the surface of this world. We left our records, our words, and our machinations to burn in the stars. There are few now who recall the symbols and language, and they keep the most sacred of our Charon. They are the keepers and guardians of our past. Both to keep it safe from destruction and to keep it safe from discovery. We do not want to slide back into the darkness.
A pillar of flame shot up out of the mouth of the cave. The heat was scorching. Sweat ran down my face, and I could feel the metal on my belt and the buttons on my shirt growing hot. Too hot. Scalding. I crawled away from the fire, frantically looking for cover. My eyes stung from the smoke and salt of my sweat, blurring my vision.
“Here!”
I followed Ju-lin’s voice to my left, I felt her grab the tail of my shirt and pull me to the ground. After a few seconds, the cave coughed twice more, and the flames disappeared. There was a backdraft as the cool night air returned, followed by silence.
I wiped the sweat and dust from my face and blinked as my eyes readjusted to the dim light of dusk.
“You alright?” Ju-lin asked as she got up, dusting herself off.
“I think so,” I responded. My eyesight was returning. Ju-lin had pulled me to the cover of one of the nearby stones. “You weren’t kidding about that plasma.”
“Next time maybe you’ll listen when I say run,” she
retorted. “You almost got us cooked going after that scanner.”
“The scanner!” I scrambled to my feet and ran back toward the cave.
The ground around the mouth of the cave smoldering red, the white stones surrounding the site were blackened. My heart sank.
“Where is it?” I yelled, frantic. “I tossed it up in front of me.”
“There,” Ju-lin pointed to a lump of slag. “Not much left of it.”
I ran over to where she had pointed and fell on my knees. I reached for the scanner and yelped in pain. It was searing hot. The sensor panels had melted and the metal components were charred.
“It’s wasted,” I felt my stomach drop. Whatever secrets that those symbols hid were gone. I lowered myself to the ground, sitting next to the remains of the scanner and hung my head.
“Wow,” Ju-lin commented. “That’s toast. Still, here, let me see it. There could be something left of the memory card.”
Ju-lin pushed me aside. She pulled a spanner from her belt and began poking and prodding at the still smoking pile of melted plastic and charred metal.
“Come on you little bastard,” she muttered as she shoved in the spanner next to a small slot and twisted. A small card, the size of a fingernail popped up from the slot.
“Brilliant!” a wave of relief swept over me.
She turned with a smile “It’s charred a bit, but something may be recoverable. Here.”
“Thanks,” I said as a surge of relief and excitement ran through me. “I’m surprised there was anything left of it.”
“I’m surprised there is anything left of us. I thought we were—” she stopped and narrowed her eyes, tarring into the dark sky. “Wait, they’re coming back.”
I followed her gaze. There were a series of three lights in the sky to the north, moving fast.
“Interplanetary fighters. Those signal lights don’t look like any Earthborn ships I know.”
“If they are coming back—” I began.
“—we need to get some cover, fast.” She concluded.
I slipped the memory card in my pocket, and we began scrambling through the maze of rocky outcrops. We pressed ourselves against the closest stone as they made a low and slow pass overhead.
Though I’d seen the hulking colony ship land, and spent quite a bit of time studying starships on the Slate, I couldn’t help but be in awe of the small, agile ships as they soared overhead. Unlike the ships I had studied, which were fearsome steel behemoths designed by the Earthborn, all of them bristling with weaponry. These ships were sleek and angular, even beautiful.
“Those are Celestrial fighters,” Ju-lin gasped. “Celestrials attacking a colony! Blowing up the cave? What in the void do they think they are doing?”
As she spoke I saw another trail of fire coming from the darkness somewhere above the strafing Celestrial fighters. It was coming in fast, heading straight for the lead Celestrial. Before I could say anything, it struck. There was a flash of light and a burst of flames as the fighter disintegrated into fire.
“What was that?” I asked.
“A missile. Someone else is here! Look, there,” she pointed, another ship was descending through the cloud. This one was much bigger than the others, and, I thought, much uglier. “A Carrack. Thank the stars, someone is looking out for us.”
Carrack, I recalled, was a large Earthborn-designed, four-man fighting and cargo ship used throughout the Protectorate. The huge ship lumbered forward, though it was slower and less maneuverable than the Celestrial fighters, it more than made up for it in firepower and armor plating. The ship’s four, large, rear-mounted engine pylons burned as it thundered down from the clouds.
Two smaller vessels shot out through the clouds on either side of the Carrack, moving fast toward the Celestrial ships. The two newer ships were different still than the others. While the Celestrial ships were sleek and rounded, these two were sharp and asymmetrical. The core of the ship was a long, smooth fuselage with a second stunted wing jutting from the base. Even in the dim light, the ships looked seamless, as if they had been molded out of a single piece of metal.
As the ships flew closer and began firing, I saw that I had had it backwards. The fuselage was a large rocket engine with a weapon system, and the smaller, stunted wing was the cockpit. It was as if the entire vessel was designed to be a weapon. While the Celestrial ships were designed to hide their weaponry, the newcomer’s ships seemed to be designed around theirs.
As I watched, a name came to my mind.
“Draugari,” I said softly.
Ju-lin spun around to look at me, stunned, then back up at the ships. “Can’t be, the Draugari never come out this way. Their territory is on the far side of the Protectorate passed the wild worlds, light years away. But, damn. Those are Slires.”
Slires, I recalled the name as well. Back in the hospital there had been talk of the Draugari, they had been one of the first things I studied on the Slate. The Draugari were a half-human hybrid race of unknown origins that lived on the fringe, feeding off of the civilized worlds. Though the bulk of Draugari craft were stolen and pirated and retrofitted Earthborn, Celestrial, and Collective vessels, they maintained their own, highly advanced long-range fighter craft, the Slires. According to the Slate, the Draugari were migratory with no known homeworld, how and where they built their own fighters was a mystery.
“Why are they attacking the Celestrials?” I asked.
The two remaining Celestrial ships broke from their tight formation as they moved to engage the Draugari. There were flashes of light and explosions crackled like thunder. I couldn’t tell who had come out better from the encounter.
We watched as the four fighters continued to engage. Stray shots struck the ground nearby, trees erupted in flames. I remembered the thudding explosions back in the cave and looked to the west toward New Haven. All I could see now was a pillar of smoke.
“The Carrack,” Ju-lin searched the sky. “Where is it? Those Slires must have been chasing it.”
“I’m not sure, I lost it,” I paused. “Did the Slires shoot it down?”
“No,” she said. “Not that I saw anyway. A Carrack wouldn’t go down that quietly. It looked like they flew right past it. Wait! Look there, to the north.”
I looked to where she was pointing, there were lights on the ground just over the slope, and out of view.
“They must have set down,” she said. “They probably picked us up on the scan and are trying to get us out of here, let’s get moving. We have some time while the Celestrials and the Draugari are having it out.”
I nodded and followed her as we took off in a run across the clearing toward where the Carrack had landed. As we ran, there were explosions as the Celestrial and Draugari ships continued to their dance.
“The Celestrials are winning this,” Ju-lin said breathlessly over her shoulder as we ran. Just then one of the Slires flew overhead. As it passed, the Celestrials fighters closed on one on each side. Lasers lit up the sky as the Celestrial gunners found their mark. The first Slire disintegrated violently into a shower of blue-green fire and debris began raining down on the aspen grove.
Too late, the second Draugari fighter came to the other’s aid, sending a stream of fire across one of the Celestrial ships. The Celestrial faltered as one of its three rear engines blinked dark, but it continued to fight.
“Here!” Ju-lin was waved her flashlight toward the landed Carrack as we closed the distance. Two of the crewmembers were outside of the ship. They stopped and looked toward us.
Looking up, I saw that they wore full space suits, helmets still on. They saw us and began running toward us. Something was wrong. They had weapons in hand, and were tall. Unnaturally tall.
“Ju-lin!” I called as I looked back at the Carrack. The exterior of the ship was covered in wiring and extra plating. There were two large scars across the hull that looked as if they had been welded together.
Ju-lin looked up with a flash of realization.
; Before she could act, the lead of the two figures drew a weapon and fired. Two flashes of light struck Ju-lin in the chest. She crumpled to the ground in a heap, and then the figure turned toward me. There was a flash of light, then, darkness.
Chapter 11.
Through the haze of my memory I could vaguely feel the pain. My leg throbbed at the knee. There were several faces hovered above me in the twilight. My teacher. My wife. I was lying with my back on a plank.
“Tie the leg down,” a voice instructed. “It will set in time, perhaps a month.”
“But I have work to do, the fields need to be plowed,” I heard myself say.
“Then your wife will do twice the work, or they will go unplowed,” the voice responded harshly. “You were foolish Eli. You took an unnecessary risk by moving the log alone. You must now pay the consequence.”
He put his hand on my knee, applying pressure.
The pain grew, but I said nothing.
“There are consequences for our actions,” This time it was my teacher. “We follow the way of our people. Walk the path of prudence and patience. You should have waited for help. You acted impetuously. And your pain is the result. Now, you must stay and lie down until the bone has set.”
“I don’t see why I can’t put on a splint. I can still work, I can still contribute.” I was pleading.
“Contribute?” spat the other voice. “You cannot contribute, for you have not learned. You took the short path. Those who take the short path seek to circumvent the realities of the world for power, status, or convenience. They think that they are taking a risk upon themselves, but they do not pay the price. The people around them do. No, you stay on the board. You can watch out the window as others toil all the harder without your hands, and they will toil together. A community is not about one soul acting alone for the sake of his own achievement, for his own glory. Community is submission to your own weakness to the greater strength of the whole so that we can thrive under the great dark sky.”