by K A Carter
“Indeed, it was. Her birth was as well a difficult one. Araime has a rare condition, known as Eyes of the Forgotten. It is why she bares the look she does. At first sight, Kharis was appalled at the look of her. To be stricken with the disease meant exile to a remote world we called Voltte. But I couldn’t bear to lose another child. Kharis, disgusted with our child, threw her into a burning pit. He nearly succeeded in her death. A handmaiden of mine managed to recover her. Her burns were severe, but she lived. From then on, I hid her from him; hid her from all our people. His plan to enslave our people for the sake of a false god was spoken into existence. Worlds fell at his hands. Only a group of rebels managed to gather enough strength to stand up against him. With the help of many other species. I had no other choice but to flee with members of the palace and those of worlds that hadn’t been attacked yet. A last effort to preserve our species. The rebels fought as we escaped to the edge of space. Everything was destroyed in the end.”
“That sounds like it happened a long time ago,”
“Over ten millennia ago.”
“How is it that you’re here talking to me?”
“The journey was…changing,” said Petra.
Minutes had passed. Jericho had hardly noticed the drying tears that had been wiped away by small hands across slim cheeks. “Something changed us on the far voyage, we arrived here not the same.”
“I see,” Jericho said morosely. “that is a lot to handle in a lifetime.”
“Only you know the truth of Araime. Others know the story that has been passed down. But they do not know of my daughter. It is why ask this of you.” Petra had tried to push back the tears; it wasn’t an easy thing to ask whatever it was. “I ask that when you leave, you take Araime with you. She has grown wearisome of wandering in the shadows of these halls.”
Jericho hadn’t expected her to request that. In a moment of contemplation, he swallowed any concerns he had. Decisions such as these needed to be left up to a vote. He didn’t have time for that. And he felt that he couldn’t say no. Petra was a friend, and her request was the least he could do.
“I will take her with us. She’ll be okay.” The words gave her a soft comfort that he could tell she hadn’t gotten in a very long time. Outside the internal garden windows, a sand storm settled in the distance.
∆∆∆
“She’s coming with us,” said Jericho. Anda sat across from him, balancing her weight on the side of a brown supply crate. Her eyes popped while chewing food ha she grabbed on the go.
“What!?” she responded/ “Al, do you really think that’s a good idea?”
“I agreed to it as a favor to Petra,”
Anda looked down in a pause and swallowed whatever was in her mouth. “We barely can assure our own safety,”
“She’s done a lot for us already. It’s the least I can do.”
“I get it,” she said, standing up and ambling towards him.
“Get what?”
“I get that you want to be that guy. The guy that keeps doing the good thing despite the shit storm that always comes his way. I get it.”
“That’s not it.”
“You don’t have to though. You don’t have to do this. Don’t take this girl with us to satisfy some need to be the good guy. You are the good guy. I know that. The crew knows that. We just haven’t had good luck.”
“She’s coming with us,” Jericho said sternly.
The crew had landed the Icarus on a dock within the palace walls. A thriving city outside the confines. The supplies Petra had given was more than enough for them. It brought them to use the storage space that lied on the same deck as the orbit jumper. One by one they loaded them aboard. It seemed like a small deed, at least to everyone but Jericho. He felt the long road ahead of them. He could tell it would be difficult to prove to them otherwise.
Araime crept onto the ramp. Jericho could see her. Most of the crew didn’t even notice. He could see how she got away for so long undiscovered. The shadows were her only home. Jericho had tried not to cry hearing her story; hearing Petra’s story. It resurfaced at the sight of her slow advance on the ramp. She was young based on her features. Petra hadn’t gone in detail about what happened to them on the trek to this part of the galaxy. He concluded whatever it was, they no longer were aged the same. He stopped at that thought. It worried him even more that his fears had been confirmed. The crew indeed were no longer in the confines of the known galaxy. He wanted to leave that part out until they were all back aboard and flying to the next destination. The information would maybe prove easier to swallow if the ship was already on its way further into the unknown.
Jericho stood behind the pilot’s seat as Freya typed in the acceleration trajectory. The Icarus transitioned out of the atmosphere of Vennok seamlessly. Somehow it felt like leaving a place like home. Although getting back to familiar ground was priority, Jericho wanted to hold hope that he would see Vennok again. However unlikely it truly was.
The crew gathered in the command center as usual. It was to be the unspoken ritual for the warp jump; Jericho would see to it. Freya joined them but stayed close to the hall that lead back to the cockpit.
“We have a new crew mate,” said Jericho. Araime walked to his side reluctantly. “She is here for good, I expect you all to treat her the same as I would you.” Most of them nodded with visible reluctance and a few with less than comforting faces. It may not have been that she was there, maybe the reality of their situation buzzed around their thoughts like bugs too small to swat away. Jericho could see the troubled looks. Squinty eyes and raised brows challenging what he had just said.
Uncharted space seemed like the next frontier, but not one anyone wanted to approach anytime soon. Certainly not Jericho, he barely knew his way around the edges of known space and the Sol system. He could see that glassy-eyed sadness in his crew's looks. A sorrow. Watching thousands die in the blink of an eye.
∆∆∆
“Are you jokin’?” Anda said.
“No. Petra, she told me basically everything.”
“Everything being?”
“The story about their people, and where we are, they are from the same place, I believe. They left after some evil presence nearly killed them many millennia ago. I think that’s where we come from. I think some of them stayed and that’s why the earth is what it is. Why we look like Moranthians and Terrondians. Maybe even more that developed somewhere else.”
“Well, why are you telling me this now?”
“Cause I don’t know how far we are out. I need help with the crew. I don’t know how they’ll take all of it.”
“Fuck, of course I’ll help, but I think you should tell them our chances,” She was probably right. Jericho didn’t do it though. None of it would’ve made sense without telling the full story. He wanted to spare them storytelling time.
∆∆∆
Freya chimed in on a com node in the Captain’s cabin. “Punching the next destination, Cap.”
Punching in the next destination. Another place that held more mysteries than answers. Jericho pressed his lips close to the node in his cabin. “Punch it.”
Freya began a countdown “Three, Two -“
Chapter 16: Nario
The Lanx System looked as busy as it had always. Something was different though; very different. Nario was no fool. He was a war hero, by at least the smallest definition of it. He put his brain to work watching ships pass by and stop, others lurking around like dogs on guard duty. Ships the color of sand scattered the dark void in front of them. The Voathi. It was some sort of mobilization. For the life of him, Nario couldn’t see any merchant ships. He would identify them by the large cargo banks that stacked on top of each other behind their bridge pods. There were no ships baring the trivial tags of independently own frigates and freighters. Though a scarcity in this part of the galaxy, it was unusual not to see any of the sort.
The Venture skated along, passing the system defense grid with relative ease. Ther
e it was, the shiny blue ball with a ring that sat atop of it like a halo. Nario was neither pleased nor discomforted at the sight.
At a closer look, merchant ships popped up in the vision of the window and could be seen darting in different directions. The skyrift was at full capacity. Ships were docked and most likely for a long period of time. Rhion poured coffee from out of a stationary thermos on the countertop. “Want some?” he said.
Nario backed away from the window. “Yeah I’ll take a cup.”
“What do you think the Bugs have been up to?” Rhion said, he had a gentle smile on his face, it was nice to look at and almost always brought Nario out of a war mindset.
“Bugs?” he replied. “Just be sure you don’t say that around them. And to answer your question, something shady, whatever it is.”
A company of hard steps came after the wide whistle of the lift doors opening. Marines, in a jest manor, laughed and chuckled as they approached the countertop. Nario ignored the fact that Corrinne was among them. She was a weakness that hovered over him like a cloud of rain. He liked having her there and hated how happy it made him feel.
The ship docked on the extension level. Only high-powered politicians were allowed to. Those associated with the Lanx Republic. The other two planets and now any official representatives from the Alliance. That meant Nario, or Rhion if he was being fair about it. The level was baron compared to his previous visits. Still bodies strutted back and forth with an overabundance of haste.
A small group had gathered by the skyrift, another greeting party. The Shadow Worker himself, thought Nario. In the short distance, Thoram stood, his arms opening to a wider stance.
“It brings great peace to see you, Ambassador,” said Thoram. “The others I have been in communication with are rather quite brash. It was difficult to keep things going between the Lanx representatives and your officials.”
“And yet here we stand,” Nario replied.
“And yet we do. No thanks to me. I discern that the other officials did all they could not to demolish what you managed to create with their points and requests.”
“I just said yes. You seem to be the coordinator.” Nario felt all the more suspecting of Thoram.
“I will not attest to that.”
The surface was as close to seeing a sight of Earth or Mars that he would likely ever get to outside of Sol. The city of Calispa was an interesting change from Saraya. The landscape, a modeled greenery picturesque vision. Like the poshest of residential areas. Nario liked it but could’ve gotten used to the sight of an endless ocean. The residence that Thoram had provided was unnecessarily extravagant. As artificial islands went, this was the utter exaggeration of one. Rooms that all connected through a single large corridor. It was almost like a hotel stay. Nario hated hotels and he felt uneasy about trusting Thoram with just about anything. He couldn’t explain it. Rhion had gotten the same feelings so he’d been told.
The morning brought with it a memory. The verdant fields around the residence gave cues of being Earth. Nario had to remind himself it wasn’t. He had been called to another sitting. In light of the vibrant scenery and ship the he had come to Brios on, the meetings kept him in the political mindset. Otherwise, it was a vacation. If he could only be so lucky.
Calispa wasn’t a city fit for government occupational buildings. The ambassadors were flown to Saraya, a four-hour lift away. The Catori, as Thoram called them, were elegant flight devices that seated four people at once. It had a wide barrel fuselage that contained protruding bubble windows on both sides. Contrary to the quad-helio based flight mechanisms that earth had fashioned, Catori’s gave no insight as to how it operated. No rotor or engine. It manipulated its flight path seamlessly. Dancing through the sky almost weightless.
The meeting hall had been waiting for them. In it was everyone Nario expected to see. Vrewulf, sat gracefully perched at the top of a set of chairs. Swarran’s large eyes focused in on Nario and his group.
“Ah, I had dreaded the day I would have to see your kind in person again,” said Swarran.
“Nice to see you too,” replied Nario.
Viceroy Vrewulf gathered the tails of her cloak; each of them gliding above the ground. “Swarran must you be a nuisance at every gathering.” She joined the group in the middle of the seats and sat in the same position. “You are speaking to members of the Republic now.”
Nario’s shoulders broadened as she said it. The words were true. Despite the small bickering, by law under the edict of none other than Thoram, the Federation and the planets governed by it, were officially represented.
In walked the lanky bastard. As if the thought of his name summoned him to existence. Nario recognized the bravado.
Thoram’s cerulean patterns changed shapes on the thinly woven fibers. A flashy addition to his already obvious decadence. The finer things, as Nario thought.
“There is an issue that has lingered amongst our ranks for a recent period of time,” Thoram said. “A fringe group exists just outside Lanx space. The planet orbits a dying star but is relatively easy to get to despite celestial debris.”
“What is this exactly?” Nario belted out, cleaning it up as he went along.
Thoram gestured in a calm manner.
“It is on the agenda of the Republic,” Thoram said, he spoke like a parent explaining chores to a child. “The directive is to give them this ultimatum. Relinquish their rebellious efforts or you will oversee the destruction of the planet.”
Hearing Thoram’s last words, jolted Nario into a defensive mindset. The feeling of being coerced and forced to do someone else’s bidding. He knew it from his time spent with the Federation. There was hope that underneath the luxury and title, Thoram was reasonable. It was quelled with his request which came of more as a demand.
“Swarran and his commanded squadron will accompany you to ensure that it’s resolved” Thoram added.
Nario put his mind at ease by trying to read between Thoram’s words. He would dedicate his efforts to making sure that peaceful solution was the outcome. Swarran being there wouldn’t make it any easier. A seemingly trigger-happy heir to power that most certainly didn’t belong to him. Not in anyway.
“So long as we can come to a peaceful solution” Nario replied. “What is it that this group did?
“I’m sure we can,” Thoram said. “It is a separatist group that has been hijacking valuable trade ships on the edge of Lanx space. So much that the trade commission has issued a boundary warning for all incoming and outgoing ships. We’d send a small fleet in but, the action would surely draw news outlets.”
“I see,” Nario started. “You want this resolved quietly.”
“What is all this about peaceful solutions?” said Swarran. “Those rebels have taken up arms against the republic. There are no remedies for disloyalty.”
“I do not know all of the facts; therefore, I will not be an accomplice to whatever ideas you have of justice. We will find a peaceful solution.” Nario said, raising his voice.
Swarran scoffed, his hard-exterior shell creating a beetling noise. “What would a human know about peace. Your kind has murdered each other for thousands of years.”
Nario’s eyes got wide. Swarran as surely the rest of them must have read codex information on humankind’s history and distinct qualities. It was only out of this eventual predicament that Nario read everything on the Voathi, Phobetians, and Zuri. Everything on every data tablet.
“Your kind has, by order, sanctioned genocidal practices on your own people. How does killing babies not register to you as murder?”
Swarran didn’t respond right away. “Our kind would be extinct due to over population, if we did not have a global mandate. Our resources would be depleted in a matter of years.”
“Find another planet,” said Nario matter-of-factly.
“This is not a subject you can speak on Ambassador,” chimed Thoram. “It would be best if you alleviated yourself from the matter. This session is adjourned.�
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As Nario left he spotted Vrewulf stopping Thoram. He turned around further to see her gently grasp Thoram’s shoulder. No clue as to what they could’ve been talking about.
∆∆∆
Nario had taken a small group of ships given to him to delegate over. A handful gifted by an old fleet admiral. His own small little fleet. Within it was a destroyer class warship. Equipped with some of the best tech and weapons the federation had to offer. The bridge wasn’t fancy. It wasn’t a necessity to be on a warship of that caliber. It had been a two day wait for it to get to Lanx space. Roughly two more hours before the ships reached the rebellion. That was if there were no complications. However likely...
The planet looked calm and arid. Pockets of water that riddled through thin clouds. Something about it struck Nario as barren and uninhabited. He stood at the edge of the bridge. Ensigns quietly handled their duties.
The Voathi ships stopped at a distance. In its entirety, the outer hull of Swarran’s ship looked all the more menacing. Nario signaled the helmsman to maneuver the ship. “Give me a position where I can see Swarran too. I don’t trust him.”
It was a waiting game of sorts. Nario stared blankly at the bridge window. Minutes passed. Something felt odd about this sort of mission. He pulled away from the visuals and stopped by a sensor operator. “Ensign,” he stopped to read the name tag.
She responded, “Kelly, sir.”
“Can you get me a long-range scan of the star up to this planet?”
“Sure can. The star will take a moment, but I can get you the planet schematics now.” She typed away pulling up screens and stopped at a holographic sensor report.
“The planet’s a rotating sand dune. Picking up trace amounts of ammonium and nitrogen. Thirty percent elements of unknown origin.”
A tone began to flicker; the sound of a hail. It spread and opened into a comm channel on the main screen. A soft masculine voice on the other end. “I urge you to not attack! There are women and children planet side,” the voice said. It was difficult to understand. The phonetic translations reverberating incorrectly almost making it sound robotic, but the words were there.