“Can we contact the Arwen?”
“No, we’re still being jammed. I’ll keep trying.”
Marjorie leaned back. Sweat dampened her uniform and her forehead. Behind her eyes she felt a headache ready to form.
“Captain!” was all the pilot was able to yell before he had to bank the shuttle yet again.
In front of them a wormhole had formed. She wanted to give an order but there was no time; it had formed too close for any maneuver to work. The shuttle entered and disappeared from real space.
Chapter Nineteen
Captain Cook, Fran, Ducket, Ambassador Simpson, and the four security guards crammed themselves into the back of the shuttle. The feelings of being the only one people could turn to for leadership was a welcome surprise to Marjorie. She was the only authority figure; she was the one who was going to give the orders. The months of worry and doubt had to be pushed aside at moments like this. These people’s lives were in her hands.
The shuttle had burst out of wormhole space into a very large hanger. There was a vacuum on the outside which made sense since creating a wormhole created millions of strangelets and even if one strangelet touched an atom of air it would cause a chain reaction that would destroy whatever ship they were on. She quickly ordered everyone in the back, not wanting whoever had kidnapped them to know how many people were in the shuttle. Now it seemed they were just waiting for the hanger to fill back with atmosphere.
Ducket paced in a small circle, agitated. Fran sat on the bench and bit her fingernails while Mason rested his head on the wall with his eyes closed.
The four guards looked to her, waiting for some direction. She smiled as best she could and said, “There isn’t anything we can do right now. We don’t know who took us, although I’d bet it was the Gyssyc.”
“They’re after me,” Ducket said her voice shaky and nervous. “They want to kill us all.”
“Ducket,” Fran said. “They are not after you so sit down please.”
“No, I will not sit down! We need to run! We need to get out of here!”
Captain Cook looked over at Fran who gave a sympathetic look back. She knew she was the one responsible for bringing Ducket; a decision she might be regretting now.
“We will.” Captain Cook used a calming whisper when she talked to Ducket. “Panicking now won’t do us any good. We need to sit back and wait to see what will happen.”
“I don’t like to wait,” one of security guards said.
“We can’t go out guns blazing. If they wanted to kill us, they would have.”
“How did they do it?” Fran asked. “How did they get us here? I didn’t even think it was possible to do what they did.”
“We have much to learn from them,” Mason said, his eyes still closed. “This is what I’ve been trying to tell the Ulliam since the Gyssyc first arrived. They wouldn’t listen.”
“What do you mean?” Marjorie asked.
Mason sat up, looked over at Ducket and pointed. “They got all excited when we first got the news. Parades and celebrations were in the works, then, all of a sudden, it stopped.”
“Why?” Fran asked.
“Ask her. Maybe she knows.”
Captain Cook moved closer to Ducket who did her best to avoid any eye contact with the captain. “Do you know why?”
“No, I don’t know why,” she said in a low tone. “I just know what I was told. That these people were the demons from the past. That they wanted to destroy us.”
“There has to be more to it than that,” Marjorie said.
“I think I understand,” Fran replied. “Imagine if all of a sudden a race of devils came to Earth. We’d be pretty scared.”
“Are you defending this?” Mason asked.
“No, just trying to understand it.”
The sound of something smacking against the back door echoed through the small cabin. Ducket screeched. Captain Cook felt her heart racing as she ran into the cockpit. Across from her was a massive wall-sized door that was opening. A small group of tall, skinny Gyssyc soldiers walked in a square formation, guns held across their chest. Their uniforms were impressive; black belts crisscrossed dark green attire. Helmets with black eye shields hid any expression they might be showing.
One Gyssyc led the group. His uniform was colorful and decorated with patches, ribbons, and metals. He had no firearms she could see. His face looked remarkably flat with large, expressive eyes. She had seen some of pictures they had taken of the Gyssyc while they were in hibernation, but, until now, she had a hard time seeing the similarity between them and the Ulliam.
She walked to the back of the shuttle. “Mason, Ducket. They’re coming to get us. If you can tell me anything that will help me, please do so. We don’t have much time.”
Mason spoke up after a few seconds of silence. “Admiral Norris managed to calm the government down after there was talk of war. The leaders of Ulliam agreed to meet the Gyssyc as equals as long as the Corps fleet was around. The Ulliam fleet met them and there was a battle.”
“Do we know who fired the first shot?” Marjorie asked.
Mason shook his head. “No. Right before the battle all the satellites were disabled.”
From the back there was more banging.
“We’ll finish this conversation later,” Marjorie stood and turned to Fran. “Fran, Ducket isn’t telling us everything. See what you can get out of her. Mason,” she turned to her friend, “come with me.”
“What?” he asked, astonished.
“We need a representative from the Corps, Earth, and Ulliam. From what I can see, you’re the only one who fits all three.”
Mason ran his hand over his bald, sweaty head. “Lucky me.”
Marjorie and Mason stood in front of the door. She pressed a button and it slowly lowered. Marjorie reached out and grabbed Mason’s hand. She gave it a reassuring squeeze before letting it drop again.
When the shuttle door landed on the platform, they were met by the Gyssyc Marjorie spotted earlier. He looked at them, his large expressive eyes blinked several times as he looked from Marjorie to Mason, then back to Marjorie again. When he spoke, his Common was perfect. “Are you Captain Cook? And is this Professor Ricter?”
“No,” Marjorie replied with great authority. “I am Captain Cook, but this is Ambassador Mason Simpson, representative of the Earth Alliance.”
The Gyssyc blinked a few more time before answering. “Come with me.”
“Where are we going?” Marjorie demanded.
“I am to take you to our leader to discuss the events that have come to pass.”
“Are we going to get some answers?”
The Gyssyc said nothing. He turned, and, in his own language, gave an order to the soldiers. They turned all at once and marched through the hanger. The guards filled into the hallway in groups of two. The first two stopped, turned and faced each other. The next two stood beside the first two guards and did the same. Eventually they were all standing with their backs against the wall, facing each other, forming what Marjorie could only describe as an honor guards formation.
Mason leaned into Marjorie. “Reminds me of my first dinner on Ulliam.”
“Reminds me of my last funeral on Earth,” Marjorie replied.
They walked past the guards and into the brightened corridor. Reading the reports and looking at the images from the first expedition, Marjorie found it hard to recognize this as the same place. It was crowded with Gyssyc who stepped aside to let them past. She wondered if the way they dressed signified something, like uniforms to tell citizens apart from officers. Did this ship even have normal citizens? The final count on the hibernation boxes was never really finalized, but she remembered Professor Ricter estimated it to be around 100,000. That would have been a large army, but not large enough to conquer a planet the size of Ulliam.
They continued up and Mason, his breathing a bit labored, kept his eyes forward. She worried about him. He wasn’t used to being on a ship filled with aliens th
at could, on a whim, decide they weren’t worth keeping alive. She remembered too well how poorly he did in pressure situations during training. “You okay?” she asked.
Wordlessly he nodded and continued to stare in front of him. Once again she squeezed his hand reassuringly.
After another few minutes of walking, the Gyssyc stopped in front of a door. He placed his long, boney finger into a hole located in the middle of the door and it dilated open. He pointed inside the room. “You will wait in there.”
“What about my crew?” Marjorie asked.
“We have guards around the shuttle should they try anything. If they don’t, they will be okay. If they do they will be dealt with accordingly.”
Marjorie didn’t like that answer but knew she wasn’t in a position to argue. With a curt nod she walked into the room. Mason followed behind her and the door closed.
Bright white light caused her eyes to ache before they adjusted to it. For a race with such large eyes, she was surprised at how bright everything really was. She looked over at Mason who was scanning the room with his eyes. “Be careful of what you say. This room is probably being monitored.”
“I wouldn’t doubt it,” Marjorie replied. “I’m not sure what they could hope to get from us.”
“Information which they could use against the fleet?”
“I’m sure they know I won’t give anything like that away.”
Mason nodded, then his shoulders relaxed a bit and his hands fell to his side. “Maybe I should have stayed on Ulliam. This is not the place for me.”
“You leave everything to me,” Marjorie smiled and continued. “I’ve been through stuff like this before. It’s almost second nature, really.”
The door from the other side of the room opened. Flanked by four guards, a Gyssyc walked in. The light from behind him cast his features in shadows making it hard for Marjorie to make out any details. She could easily see he was taller than any of the Gyssyc she met so far and she guessed he was the leader.
When the door closed, the shadows faded and the bright light from the room exposed his features. He was at least two feet taller than Marjorie who craned her neck to look into his large brown eyes. He wore an impressive red uniform with a burgundy collar. His uniform was decorated with ribbons and metals of all sizes, shapes, and designs.
He looked over Captain Cook, and then reached out with his hand to touch one of Marjorie’s metals. “It is good to see we share a custom of decoration,” he said.
“These marking designate me as a captain,” she replied. “A leader of my ship.”
He looked over at Mason. “I do not see any decorations on him.”
“He’s a diplomat. He speaks for our people and his name is Mason Simpson.”
“I see,” he stepped away and bowed. “The Gyssyc language is very complex. Judging from the transmissions we have been monitoring, we have determined the human vocal cords are not able to produce the sounds necessary to speak it. As you can see, we can speak your language so we’ll continue to speak in Common. I will need a name in Common, so as a gesture of goodwill, I am asking that you give me a name.”
“It would be an honor,” Marjorie replied returning the bow. “Are you the leader of this ship?”
“Yes, my decisions will be followed by all.”
“You’re like a president then?”
“I’m unsure how to answer that question. I do not know what a president is.”
“A president is an elected official who runs a country. The leader of the Ulliam people is President Packard.” Marjorie looked at the Gyssyc with a thoughtful eye. She placed her hand under her chin and shifted her weight from her left hip to her right. It was something she did while thinking carefully about a problem. “There have been many great presidents on Earth. I suppose we could give you the name of one of them. One of the more popular was named Abraham Lincoln.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Mason replied. “It could set a bad precedent when it comes to other choosing names.”
“Then I shall be Abraham Lincoln,” the Gyssyc said, ending any argument Mason and Marjorie might have. “Come with me, we have much to discuss.”
~*~
Unable to ignore the claustrophobic feeling of being trapped in the back of cramped shuttle, Fran paced in a tight circle. The four guards had moved to the cockpit since it was the only place they could get a good view of the hanger. That left her and Ducket, who seemed to have calmed down a lot more than she had, in the back. “Is it normal for your people to pace like that?”
“It is when you’re frightened,” Fran replied. “I really don’t want to be here.”
“Neither do I. We are surrounded on all sides by monsters we thought we destroyed many years ago.”
“What do they teach you in school about Merriam and those times?” Fran sat on the bench next to Ducket and hoped talking would take her mind off the situation and calm her racing heart back to a normal rhythm.
“We learned all of that in, um . . . what do you call the stories that are old and may or may not have some truth? I know you have a word for it.”
“Mythology?” Fran replied.
“Yes, Mythology class. No one ever believed the monsters were real.”
“What about Merriam?”
“We do believe he was a real Ulliam in history but we always thought his stories of vanquishing the monsters were just a myth. He is more well known for giving us the laws and rules we live by today. Without him we would still be living on the plains killing each other in tribal wars.”
“From the information we gathered on the comet, he was not only a great leader but he really did chase them off the planet.” Fran pulled out her computer and booted it up. She pointed one end at the wall projecting the image of the mural she had scanned. “Can you tell me what all this represents?”
Ducket looked at it. She pointed to the very beginning. It showed an Ulliam with a sword in one hand and a golden helmet on its head. The sword was raised high, ready to strike what Fran now knew was a gross misrepresentation of a Gyssyc. Behind the Ulliam was a never ending sea of bodies. “This is the first battle of Ulliam City.” Ducket pointed to the background where a large tower stood. “That is the tower of pain. It no longer exists. It is where Merriam was born, we think. He is leading his army into the city.”
Fran typed ‘first battle of Ulliam City’ on her computer. Within seconds, one of the articles she downloaded appeared. She quickly read it. Merriam sent three waves of Ulliam, each numbering 100,000, to their deaths as they stormed the city. Merriam was the only survivor and he left the bodies in the street to rot while he gathered more soldiers. “Wow, he sent so many to their deaths.”
“It was always debated if that number was true or not.”
“From information we got, I think it may have been.” Fran thought back to the educational hologram she had watched on the comet. “He knew the Gyssyc had few numbers, a short lifespan, and a long gestation period. Even if he killed one Gyssyc for every 10,000 Ulliam, in the end they would win. I bet leaving the bodies in the street to decay caused disease which probably worked to his advantage as well.” She looked up at the next image. The sky, blue and clear in the first image, gradually blended into orange, then blood red. Below the blood red sky was another painting of Merriam, looking over a hill toward a burning city. Ulliam bodies filled the large gap between the city and the hill. Dozens of tank-like vehicles burned.
Ducket followed Fran’s gaze and said, “The monsters tried to counterattack with the tanks. Merriam sent his entire army to stop them. This depicts the battle of the north plains.”
Fran typed that in her computer and read the results. The battle lasted three days; Merriam watched everything unfold from a hill as thousands of Ulliam died. There was archeological evidence of a battle, but no bones of anything other than Ulliam ever turned up. Most thought it was a battle between two warring tribes. “There is something I don’t understand. There is no physical evide
nce the Gyssyc ever existed. No wonder you all thought they were myths.”
“I do not have an answer for that,” Ducket replied. “I’m sure that will be debated for years after all this is sorted out.”
Fran scrolled through the tapestry while Ducket told her the stories it represented. Each showed a battle that seemed bloodier than the last. If the records and legends were correct, Merriam sent hundreds of millions of Ulliam to their death trying to defeat the Gyssyc. The second to last image showed Merriam standing in the middle of a city looking at the sky and pointing at something off the canvas.
She wondered if he was pointing at the comet, then dismissed the idea. There would be no way for the artist to know of the comet’s departure, so she guessed he was probably pointing toward the future. “What ever happened to Merriam?” Fran asked.
“He died after the last law was passed.” Ducket pointed to the last part of the painting. It showed a crowd of Ulliam extending past the horizon following a smaller group carrying a white casket. “The casket and his body have been owned by different Ulliam at different times in history. Today I believe it is the Ulliam History Museum.”
Fran looked at the casket carefully. It struck her as odd that the casket had no real design, no ornamentation at all. White, boxy, and undecorated, it was out of place. Even if it this was painted a few years ago, you would think the artist would have wanted to give the casket some kind of decoration. Unless he modeled it off the real casket.
She opened her computer and did a search for the Ulliam History Museum then a search for Merriam’s casket. A picture of the casket appeared on her screen. She gasped when she saw the image. She needed to confirm what she thought was right and pulled up her notes from her trip on the comet.
Ducket must have seen her sudden frenzy of research and sat next to her looking over her arm.
Fran snapped her head up and looked at the painting one more time. “I think I know why you’re people are acting the way they are. I think I know why they had a sudden change of heart about the Gyssyc.” She turned the computer over and showed it to Ducket.
The Arwen Book one: Defender Page 16