by Aer-ki Jyr
Even as he rested, his mind was alert and he was scanning the area for more threats, seeing a few small pockets of lizards being torn apart by the remaining Archons, then he turned to Jaime and looked up at the adept.
“I was using a stinger. Find the ones that are stunned and finish them off.”
“I’m out,” he said, looking around. “Anyone have any ammo left?”
“Use theirs,” Jason suggested, dragging himself back to his feet as he walked over and pulled a lizard rifle out of a pile of bodies before tossing it to Jaime.
“You ok, boss?”
“I will be. Finish up here,” Jason said, walking off.
“Will do,” Jaime confirmed before rounding up a few other Archons to start policing the bodies and weapons scattered across the area.
Jason was halfway across the sandy section headed for the exit back to their initial breach point when Paul caught up with him.
“You look terrible,” Jason told him, seeing the burn marks all across his armor. Some of it had melted and rehardened in little rivulets down the sides, while some craters showed a bit of charred flesh underneath at the very center.
“I’ve been better. What about you?”
“I’m getting away from the maybe dead to where I can keel over in private,” he said as the pair continued to walk towards the exit. “I need an ambrosia recharge bad.”
“I was afraid of that,” Paul said as they got to the archway that led out of the training course and into the normal ship corridors. “The new tissue can’t hold as much as the rest of your body, so you run out sooner. I’ll have somebody run some up for you, but…”
“I can get it on my own, I just need a breather before I head back.”
“Alright. I’m going to scrounge up a few men with ammo and push on down to the next level. Reports from upstairs say it’s a rout, so I doubt there are very many of them left.”
“They probably scared them all down here.”
“Possible. I’ll keep you posted,” Paul said, running a few steps back into the training grounds and picking up a lizard rifle, which he came back out with and tossed to Jason. “Just in case.”
“Keep an eye out for bombs,” his friend warned.
“Last few alive feel like going out with a bang? Yeah, that’s why I want to get down there before they have time to think,” Paul said, running off in a blur back into the lizard strewn killing field.
Jason backtracked to their point of entry, crossing out of the fortified zone as a team of Knights escorting a group of medics met up with him, which he redirected via four waypoints on his recently updated battlemap that now included all but 5 of the previously blank levels. He monitored Paul’s progress on his long walk back to the nearest base camp, with each footstep seeming to get heavier and heavier. With his usual efficiency Paul cleaned out the two levels below them while the other teams finished off the areas above, then the ‘all clear’ came through just as he was walking past the lone Knight guarding the entrance to the recently established supply base about 2 kilometers away from the most recent battlefield.
Jason walked over to one of the tables and pulled his helmet off, setting it on top along with each piece of his armor he disconnected, feeling progressively better with every bit of weight he removed. After a couple of minutes he stood there in his sweat-soaked uniform, blinking away the haze swirling around his head as he looked around for the foodstuffs, finding them off to the side against one of the walls of what had been a medium-sized storage bay. All of the previous equipment had been removed and replaced with Star Force gear, leaving a lot of open room to set up mobile facilities, including a couple of prefab buildings they’d managed to carry in through the corridors in pieces.
Jason grabbed two bottles of water, a handful of ration bars, and 22 doses of ambrosia packed into a stack of cookies. He took his haul over to a crate and sat down, then began to refuel as a scattering of partially wounded Archons began to walk in while the rest of them remained on site for cleanup duty.
The jumpship was finally theirs…assuming there weren’t some lizards left lurking around that they’d missed…and the long interior ground campaign was over. Jason knew it was a major coup, thanks mainly to the Hycre for tipping them off and disabling the ship in the first place, but it was Star Force that had fought their way through deck after deck, and if no one had died today then they’d have a perfect score on this mission, though obviously some of them had suffered some setbacks. It would take a while before Jason could get back to standard training and see how much strength and speed he’d lost, but for the moment he and the others stood as the victors and in possession of a very valuable asset, damaged as it might be.
After he grabbed a shower in the nearby prefab structure and took a badly needed nap he’d find Paul and work on giving it a proper name.
10
October 27, 2264
Epsilon Eridani System
Captured Lizard Jumpship ‘Bounty’
“Paul, get up here,” Morgan said through his helmet a moment before a new waypoint popped up on his HUD, far off into the confines of the jumpship that they were cleaning up and securing. A lot of the damaged areas had to be contained, bulkheads replaced, atmospheric seals checked, computer systems unlocked…there was an enormous amount of work to do, especially considering they were having to learn the lizard systems from scratch.
“What is it?” he asked, setting down a lizard control wand, their version of a datapad.
“Something you need to see.”
“On my way,” he said, taking a cue from her lack of detail. He examined the battlemap as he began to walk, seeing that her waypoint led back into the fortified area of the lizards’ last stand. They’d done a cursory examination of the area at the end of yesterday’s battle, but he knew teams there were still clearing out all the dead.
He was about 3 kilometers away in one of the engineering areas trying to find a way to reset the ship’s gravity to Star Force standard and decided to run his way over to her position, given that the jumpship’s internal transit system was still locked down…yet another item on their very long to-do list. Paul kept trying to guess at what it was she felt he needed to see all the way there but in the end his guesswork hadn’t even come close.
“That’s what I thought you’d say,” Morgan joked when Paul walked into the small room and didn’t say a word, merely staring at the aquarium that covered the far wall inside of which was a single occupant…that was staring back.
“I think the lizards were keeping her as a trophy,” Morgan speculated. “How do you suggest we get her out?”
Paul walked up to the glass wall and took off his armor’s helmet, setting it on a side table in what looked to be the private quarters of one of the higher ranking lizards, then he put his gloved fingers up against the glass.
A three fingered blue hand reached out and pressed against the glass on the other side as Paul looked up into the Humanoid face and torso attached to a fish-like tail…the spitting image of a mermaid from ancient lore. She even had green, flowing hair and a tiny nose, but it was the eyes that immediately drew his attention. Inset against her deep blue skin they glowed golden in some form of bioluminescence that also was present in tiny patches across her body. Those patches glowed aqua in color right down to the tip of her tri-fin tail.
“We’ll have to build a transfer tank,” he said, pulling his hand back but not taking his eyes off the alien mermaid. “I recognize this race.”
Morgan’s eyebrows came up. “You do?”
Paul nodded. “They’re in the pyramid database. I don’t recall their name, but I have seen that body before.”
“If they’re in the database then a language file should be included.”
“We need to hurry,” Paul urged, putting his helmet back on so he could use the comm. “Who knows how long it’s been since she’s been fed.”
“And in the meantime?”
“Keep someone with her at all times and organ
ize a search for other…trophies. I’ll take care of her transportation.”
3 months later Paul sat on the pier at the abandoned Corvati colony as the Elarioni swam up to the underwater terminal he’d designed based off the data the V’kit’no’sat had on her race…before they decided to wipe them out after the Garas’tox tried to lay claim to one of their waterworlds. The formerly amicable relations between the Elarioni and V’kit’no’sat had quickly shifted to all-out war, with a predictable outcome.
Based on his previous conversations with Ariel, as he’d nicknamed her, survivors of the slaughter had fled to the outer rim of the galaxy in five directions with intentions to reunite after they’d escaped the V’kit’no’sat…but the other four factions never showed at the rendezvous point 132 years later, suggesting that they’d been hunted down and destroyed while her ancestors had somehow managed to elude pursuit.
Ariel swam up into the three sided submerged bay attached to the dock and said something in her native language which Paul not only heard from the water but felt slightly through the dock itself. The high pitched cascade of tones was interrupted as the terminal translated her words into English above the waterline.
“You have come again. It is good to see you, rescuer. More questions about my people today?”
“You first, Ariel. How does the lake look?” Paul said, his words being picked up by the above water mic and translated subsurface to the Elarioni in her own language. Unlike with the lizards or the Hycre, Star Force had a complete translation program for their race thanks to the V’kit’no’sat, which was a great relief to Paul, otherwise it would have been decades, at minimum, before they’d be able to effectively communicate with her, if she’d lived that long. Her race needed some very specific compounds that the lizards had been reluctant to provide. According to her she’d been within a few months of dying due to malnutrition.
“It is empty, as you said. I have not felt such space in a long time. It feels good. I feel alive again.”
“Was the recent batch of foodstuffs an improvement?”
“They are adequate now. Thank you.”
“We want better than adequate,” Paul insisted. “Tell us how to make adjustments.”
“I don’t think I can without proper analysis equipment, otherwise I already would have.”
“I understand. When I upgrade this terminal I’ll try to include an analysis kit.”
“You needn’t bother. I have what I need now.”
“Except a way home. Have you thought more on making a map?”
“I have tried to remember. I guessed,” she said, pointing an underwater arm towards the terminal.
Paul logged into the upper section and saw that the map he’d given her, which was a copy of the one the Hycre had given him, had been amended to show a series of 5 dots beyond the outer edge, at the back of what would be lizard territory, which the Hycre had never been able to fully map.
Paul sighed, knowing that there was no way that they were going to be able to return her to her people, even if one of their worlds had survived the lizard invasion.
“Very far,” he said, looking down at her as she looked back up at him from a few inches below the waterline. Her race couldn’t breathe air, unlike the V’kit’no’sat swimming dinosaurs. The Elarioni respired through their skin, not their mouths, and sucked oxygen out of the water. For a brief period of time they could survive in the air, but the absorption rate was so much lower that they wouldn’t last long…similar to a person running a race at extremely high altitude. They’d get a little oxygen in but not enough for what their body needed to survive.
Her vocal chords also wouldn’t work in the air, which was why she had to stay submerged to communicate with Paul.
“You have given me a new chance at life. Do not concern yourself with returning me to the old one. It is possible the lizards have killed all my people. I may be the last. If so, this is a fair place to live out my remaining days.”
“Training will prolong those days, perhaps indefinitely. You may still see your people again.”
The feminine, yet alien face smiled back at him. “Optimistic are you.”
“I’m still having that training course built. I’m going to see how fast you are.”
“You are not built for the water.”
“No, but we’ve learned a few tricks to deal with it.”
“This I wait to see, but have you not enemies still to vanquish?”
Paul nodded. “As soon as the next batch of naval reinforcements arrive we’ll begin assaulting the lizard bases. I may be busy, but I’ll find time to continue our conversations. You know much of the galaxy that I do not.”
“Ask and I will answer.”
“Tell me about the lizard invasion. The more I know of our mutual enemy the better we’ll be able to fight them.”
“They struck lightly at first. Our fleet repulsed them easily, then they returned with greater and greater numbers until we were overwhelmed in orbit and fled back to the waters of our planet. They took our land and established their base there, offering us a temporary reprieve, but eventually they came into the water to slaughter us, but it was us who slaughtered them for many ages.”
“Still they would not relent. They wasted many lives foolishly trying to take our cities. Their plasma could not sink beneath the surface, so it was us that held the technological advantage…but over time they made changes, found new ways to fight us. With the small gains they managed they poured more and more of their people and resources into our destruction, but it wasn’t until they changed their physiology to mimic ours that the war turned against us. Once they learned to swim, millions of them took to our waters and slowly overwhelmed our superiority.”
“During the fall of my city I was rendered unconscious. When I woke I saw my freedom gone, captive of one of their landwalkers. He took me from ship to ship four times, I know not how far we traveled.”
“Interesting,” Paul said, staring down at the Elarioni’s wrinkled image as a slight wind disturbed the water’s surface. “We’ve encountered several different varieties of lizard and recovered genetic seeds they use to grow their offspring, with many varieties. Until now I wasn’t fully convinced they were artificial.”
“What do you mean by ‘grow their offspring?’”
“They are not born from another person. They begin as a genetic sample in a machine that sustains them as they grow into an adult form before waking.”
“A perversion of life we were not aware of. It explains many things.”
“You said you had cities. Is there something we can build for you here?”
“I have little need of such things.”
“I insist. What did you have in your cities that you could teach us to build?”
“Yes, teaching. I can teach you much of living underwater. I would rather help you build for your people than build for myself. I owe you a great debt and wish no more consideration. How can I help you?”
“I have a friend named Lens who builds our underwater ships and cities. He isn’t on this planet because it’s mostly land, but I imagine there is much you can teach him. We have 5 areas of combat. Space navy, small land fighting, big land fighting, air fighting, and water fighting. Water is our weakest area.”
“Then I shall help you strengthen it.”
Paul smiled, not only at gaining a potential new resource, but in the knowledge that Ariel would find a purpose here rather than stagnate in boredom. “We would welcome your knowledge.”
As soon as she finished her sentence a large glob of air belted out of her nose and rose up to the surface, drawing a frown from Paul. “Do you have lungs?”
“I am sorry. That was rude.”
“What was that?”
She avoided his gaze for a moment. “Excrement.”
“It was air.”
“Yes. We excrete gases, do you not?”
Paul laughed. “Yeah, but we have lungs.”
“Elarioni have a small compa
rtment,” she said, tapping her flat chest just below her neck, “that gathers up harmful byproducts from our bodies then releases them as gases time to time. I did not mean to do that now. The moment overcame me.”
“Well, to an air breather, that wasn’t rude at all.”
“I suppose not. But to a water breather we find the air to be harsh and foul. It is toxic. It is death. We must remove it from our bodies, but we do not like seeing it.”
“I understand. On my homeworld there are swimmers that breathe the air, not the water. Would you find them to be offensive.”
“I do not wish to anger, but I do not want to be untruthful. Yes, we would find them offensive.”
“The V’kit’no’sat are air breathers as well. Did they dislike you because you are not? We know very little of the ways of the water dwellers.”
“There was resentment from us, the stories are told, but we did not know of their reasoning, other than they wanted our planets for their own.”
“Tell me one of those stories, about the V’kit’no’sat.”
“I can tell you of the arrival?”
“Please do,” Paul said, listening intently as she recalled the history of her people when they first encountered their mutual enemy, peaceably. He wondered if the initial wellbeing between them was due to the fact that they were water dwellers, like most of the dominant races within the V’kit’no’sat. He’d read the data sent out to him via jumpship from the pyramid records which indicated that the Elarioni had ‘betrayed’ the V’kit’no’sat in some way, upon which basis they were exterminated. The records didn’t go into detail and Paul wondered how much of that was an excuse or if there was a legitimate incident that had occurred between them.