Sunlord

by Ronan Frost

  Then the thought struck him, and he knew had no alternative. Breathing the air from his lungs he forced his mind to become calm and relaxed. Once aboard the Urisa, the craft that had been his prison for two years, he would escape, and this time he would do the job properly. He caught a brief glimpse of a Sova-1 streaking overhead and hate rose like bile in his mouth. This time he would really do some damage.

  With this final bitter thought he ducked his head under the waves and forced himself to take a lungful of water. He gagged and flailed as salty water filled his chest like thick putty, retching instinctively as he began to sink. His last thought as he sank into unconsciousness was that he hoped his natives friends were still alive, for he would need their help.

  The steel mesh caught him before he had fallen far, and he was dragged unceremoniously to the surface, his limp humanoid form clothed in a ripped Hartrias issue helicasuit.

  The med-bot examined him quickly. Within moments Shaun's lungs were pumped free of water and he was connected up to a breather machine.

  "Condition stabilising," reported the med-bot. "Response to stimulus is low...muscle fatigue, blood loss, malnutrition...This lifeform is not going anywhere."

  The midshipman shook his head. "Keep him under general anaesthetic. I don't want him to move at all, we've had trouble with this one before."

  "The life form will need treatment," responded the med-bot. "A little water is still in its lungs."

  The midshipman hesitated for a second. "Very well," he decided finally, knowing Avatar would not be pleased if her prize died. Besides, what these med-bots said was true, for they were never moved by compassion or sympathy.

  "Strap him in," finished the midshipman as he turned upon his heel and strode back to the control room. "And keep a good eye on him."

  * * *

  Shaun tried to awaken slowly, letting his pulse rate increase fraction at a time to avoid alerting the med-scanners. He had aware of a plastic tube in his nose, pushed back down into his throat. He had to resist a gag as he became aware of it tickling his windpipe.

  Few people realise how difficult it is to wake up without making any obvious movements. It took Shaun years of Federation special forces training to perfect enough control so that he awoke without opening his eyes or changing his breathing rhythm. Now he eased himself into consciousness, letting his ears probe to evaluate his surrounds.

  He listened carefully for a full minute to the sounds of regular beeping and a distant deep rumble that could only be the Urisa's engines. Then he opened one eye a crack, peeping at his surrounds.

  It had seemed his ploy had worked. The Hartrias med-bot's had fallen for his faked catatonic state induced by mind exercises. Using these exercises which he had been taught back at the Federation, Shaun had managed to slow his heart and practically put himself into suspended animation. This high state of consciousness had been long ago perfected by the Psyc division on Earth, and Shaun had taken great pride in his natural ability of mind over matter. Combined with the lungful of water, Shaun had put himself dangerously close to the edge. He could have died.

  He shook off the shackles of doubt. He had made it, and that was all that mattered. Now he had to find a way out of here.

  He moved his arm slowly, shifting it millimetre at a time. It halted suddenly, arrested by a short length of strapping.

  So they had tied him down.

  Shaun closed his eyes and started to think. By the feel of the cool wind across his belly and legs, he guessed that the Hartrias had stripped him of his clothes. That also meant that his electric canister taken from the Flailer, hidden in his boot, was also gone. So that would mean he would have to find his clothes.

  He had almost forgotten the urgency of his mission - the fact rammed home as a faint hissing heralded the approach of someone through the door.

  Shaun was panicky for a split second, but managed to keep a hold of his heartbeat. The pulse reading on the machine levelled out to a steady bleeping, giving no indication that the prisoner was awake.

  He sat as still as possible as the sound of footsteps circled about his narrow bed, boot soles clicking against a polished hard plastic floor.

  A cold metallic rod touched him across the belly.

  "You can open your eyes," said a voice in his ear. "I know you're awake."

  Shaun was so surprised his eyes practically flew open. He saw a burly Hartrias officer standing over him, his stave swotting imperialistically in his open hand, his blood red helicasuit tight across a broad muscled back.

  To say the Hartrias looked like reptiles would be to say that man looked like a mammal. Considerable evolution separated the two, the Hartrias looking like a large framed, squat and burly human, proportions exaggerated as if seen in a carnival mirror. It was only when the officer turned did the Hartrias show a difference, the jawbone and cheek bones too pronounced and the black eyes too beady sharp to be human. It almost seemed as if a sculptor had chiselled the angular planes etched upon the officer's features from granite. Atop its slightly bulging head it wore a red beret and long black hair reached to its incredibly broad shoulders.

  "I've been watching you," it growled.

  Shaun made a move as if to grab the Hartrias about the neck, but his hands were arrested by the straps before they had gone a quarter of the distance.

  The Hartrias officer laughed, its voice harsh in his ears. Shaun realised in that instant that his captors must have stripped him of his translator bug that he wore on his throat, and he was now hearing the Hartrias speak through his own ears, without the aid of the microphone. Shaun recognised the harsh growls and abrupt vowel sounds as the native Hartrias language, one of the many that he had come to master.

  "Allow me to introduce myself," continued the Hartrias. "I am Slkor, overseer of the research facility. Ever since your capture I've found you a fascinating subject."

  Shaun scowled, and tried to retort with an insult, but found the tube down his windpipe effectively made speech impossible. He retched but to no avail, his biceps working against the straps in a futile, frantic effort.

  The officer, Slkor, smiled, revealing a neat row of incisor teeth. He strode up and down the length of the room, swatting his short cane against his thick muscled leg.

  "You almost got away for a minute there. Scheduled for termination one day, and the next minute you disappear, then reappearing making a mess of our establishment."

  Shaun grunted, clearing a little wind from his lungs. The more he moved the more the plastic tube irritated the back of his nose, but he pushed on none-the-less.

  "Why...no jumpspace..." he managed to whisper angrily. He had been mulling the dilemma in the back of his mind, and the more he thought about it the more it frustrated him, for surely control of jumpspace was impossible. His curiosity was fed by anger, for it had been its untimely failure that had lead to his capture.

  "You weren't expecting that one," laughed Slkor, leaning close over Shaun, his breathing heavy and rancid and alien smelling. "That is the key to L/Cn-41a, the central planet. The Critical Point."

  Shaun gasped, his anger forgotten instantly. The Critical Point? For many long years scientists had puzzled over where it may be, hell, there had been debates whether it even existed. The Critical Point was the theoretical point where all jumptunnels intersected, branching out from that one point like a giant tree's roots, its fingers reaching to the ends of the universe.

  It meant that every ship passing through jumpspace would have to pass through this point, like a subway train shooting through a vast complex station.

  The mind boggling implications came crashing down at once, flooding his mind with wild thoughts. It was like being enclosed in a small room, then taking to one of the walls with a sledge hammer and seeing a shaft of light poke through for the first time. Then the whole structure comes crashing down as they key revelation is revealed.

  The officer saw Shaun's surprise.

  "We found it quite by accident, and I see by your reaction...
" The officer waved in the direction of the medical equipment that showed the sudden leap in Shaun's heart rate. "...that you know what it means. Yes, the fabled Critical Point of modern jumpspace theory, the place no-one has ever found until now. It will give our mighty Kingdom victory at last."

  It all made sense to Shaun now - why the Hartrias were building such a large establishment and why they were taking great pains to avoid confrontation with the natives. It was obvious that if the Hartrias fleet could set up a planetside defence nothing could get past them. A series of two hundred metre high surface-to-space cannons and a net of orbiting laser satellites and they would have the Critical Point covered. A planet based fortress could intercepting passing ships, effectively regulating who passed and who didn't. If the Federation couldn't jump travel then they would be confined to one galaxy; trapped in a prison walled by vast distances.

  If the Hartrias managed to take control of the planet and had enough firepower they could attack Federation starships before the latter knew what had happened. Because no human knew where the Critical Point was no battle fleet could be sent to fight them. If the Hartrias kept the word quiet the Federation wouldn't have a chance.

  The officer connected a series of wires to the medical equipment. A small droid appeared at the punch of a button, hovering above the air with small arms extended, electrical knives buzzing.

  "Already three of your mighty battleships have fallen," continued the officer as he programmed the computer with savage taps with his large fingers. "Before they can get their shields up the battle's already over."

  Shaun made as if to speak, his mind confused. He was bitter that the Hartrias had beaten the human race in the search for domination of the Critical Point, but at the same time intrigued. He wanted to know what it meant for jumpspace astrophysics.

  But the Hartrias officer had had enough conversation. He advanced with two very long needles in either hand, a thin insulated wire leading back to electrical gadgetry.

  "We're going to conduct a few nerve tests on you now that you're awake. Don't worry, the pain is absolutely necessary if we are to test your genetic endurance properly. It will be over before you know it, and you'll be taken to the DNA lab."

  The surgeon droid hovered directly above Shaun's bare chest and grabbed him by the chin with surprising force, pushing back his head and exposing the jugular.

  Shaun's words were mumbled, his mastery of the Hartrias language hampered considerably, but the sarcasm was clearly audible.

  "Where I'll be harmlessly dissolved into your tech pools..."

  The officer pulled back, grinning suddenly. "That's right...now, if you'll just hold still while we set up a current..."

  Shaun buckled and arced his back as the two needles pushed through the skin of his neck, a tickle of electricity passing from one to the other.

  Shaun couldn't scream or he would rip the cord from his nose, but he screamed in his mind. He turned in on himself, thrashing wildly as dark images rippled through his knotted mind.

  The agony became unbearable, his ears filling with the noise from inside his head, radiating the pain in expanding psychic ripples.

  "An interesting pattern," mused the Hartrias officer. "Med-bot, get me an ultra-sound reading of the brain and nerve patterns. This is the strangest combination I have ever seen."

  Shaun's eyes roved desperately around the small white room looking for some chance of escape as the med-bot approached wielding a slender narrow instrument. He pulled against his bonds and twisted his hands in order to wrench his wrists free, but it seemed only to further constrict the bands.

  "Don't move," muttered the Hartrias out of the corner of his mouth. "It'll only make it worse. Here, I'll just have to get a tissue sample, then you're going through the med chamber for full analysis."

  Bizarre images flashed though Shaun's mind, his vision clouding, narrowing down. He felt the knife cut away the flesh of his scalp, a sickly tearing sensation like the crunching of foam.

  A bolt of red light flooded his mind's eye, then was abruptly gone, leaving a vast emptiness in its place. Shaun felt himself receding as if he was fainting, dropping away from consciousness, backing into the void of the back of his skull.

  He heard a scream, and realised it was not his own. He struggled against the cushiony darkness and fought through the dreams enough to open one eye.

  Then another arrow flew from the wall, catching the Hartrias in the side of the neck, just centimetres alongside the first.

  Things moved as a blur, the bolt of laser fire as the Hartrias dropped to one knee and let off a blast, the acrid stench of burning flesh, and an inhuman cry of agony.

  Chapter Ten

  Stowaway Rats.

  The universe is not hostile, nor yet is it friendly. It is simply indifferent.

  - Rev. J.H. Holmes.

  Darkness flooded the cargo hold as the massive door pulled closed.

  Ashian watched the great steel ramp rise into the air with a mixture of fear and awe, the slab sealing him inside a coffin of blackness. The door sealed with a reverberating clang and he was alone inside the empty belly of the ship with only small lights overhead to drive away the heavy darkness. But in the darkness was shelter and he huddled feet jammed close to his chest, breath sounding far too loud in his ears as the heavy engines as they rumbled slowly into life. He dare not move as the engines grew louder until they started spreading vibrations through the steel deck shaking his bones and thoughts into a state of immobility, a wild imagination populating the shadows with Sunlord warriors.

  He sat through what seemed like hours as the cargo ship gathered power. Distant fluorescent lights flickered on far overhead, casting deeper shadows amongst the neat rows of crates slotted into railing on the deck. A surge of power and the ship was airborne, its massive engines pushing the dead weight into the air with pure brute force.

  Ashian felt that familiar sinking feeling in his guts as the craft accelerated. Last time he had felt it was when he had been taken aboard the Sunlord's mother ship. This time it was different - this time he hadn't been invited.

  Ashian's large emerald eyes wandered over the interior of the hold, the far wall so distant it could have enclosed an entire village. A few lights flashed regularly, but that was all. The small currach hugged his arms about his legs, the air of the hold chilling, finding it hard to believe they were actually on their way.

  A rush of panic flooded his mind suddenly as a thought struck him. What if he couldn't find the crate Agil and Myshia hid in? What if the Sunlords opened up the crate and found them?

  He calmed himself with the aid of mind exercises, breathing deeply and slowly. He would have to wait until the ship had settled into flight a little more before he made his move - if he was too rash he could call attention to them all. The lonely native found himself wishing for the company of the others; he felt safe when part of the tightly knit group. Alone he felt vulnerable from all sides.

  He thought of Capac, the hunter who's braveness and courage was the spearhead of their attack. Although to all appearances to be boastful and outright confident Capac had sometimes been strangely silent, almost moody. Thinking back, Ashian was sure Capac had been more deeply affected by the death of Huso than was apparent; he knew they had been childhood friends and the latter's death had been sudden and unexpected. It certainly cast a hue of doubt over the feeling that they were the conquesting soldiers seeking revenge; rather, they were rats hunted down one by one.

  Capac's family had been massacred in a time that seemed so distant and so disjoint from the present. So much had happened since then, but still the memory lurked in the subconscious. The memory of the day when they had turned their backs upon their wounded and dying, leaving the entire village without burial to rot into the ground. The ultimate indignity as the flesh once warm now to be picked apart by hungry animals.

  Although, thought Ashian, Myshia did not seem grieved. Then again, she was always so preoccupied that very few of her feelings showe
d through her beautiful yet distant visage. Ashian conjured up an image of her in his mind, picturing her delicate face and slender body. She always seemed so aloof and removed from this world, so in control of her movements - all emotions kept under tight check. He sensed a feeling of power in her stance, her shoulders broad and square, always unflustered with trivialities. Sometimes it was almost as she was a queen overlooking her lands, but then at other times she seemed deep in disenchantment, all moorings with reality cast away. Ashian had rarely seen her smile, and wondered for not the first time what deep secret she hid.

  As he thought his heart moved with emotion. He was confused for a moment. What could this be? Had he feelings for her? The new emotion set a glow in his chest he had never felt before, yet at the same time was a trifle unsettling.

  A deep clunking reverberated through the hull as some distant machinery snapped into place. The vibrations of the engine had died to a steady rumbling as it pushed the craft through the upper layers of the atmosphere, nearing its destination.

  Ashian realised with a start that he had been day dreaming and cursed softly beneath his breath, knowing that sleep deprivation and hunger were to blame for his wandering thoughts. Crouching low between crates and moving as softly as he could manage Ashian set about searching for his friends.

  He checked the crates nearest the door first by running his fingers along the lip and feeling for the splinter he had poked between the rubber sealing. The crates were arranged in long rows stacked three or four high, meaning that to check the top crates he needed to scramble up a sheer wall with only narrow gaps in which to wedge his feet. Climbing with such little purchase was draining and the currach was quickly panting with exhaustion.

  There was a brief period of weightlessness that sent Ashian scrambling for a handhold as his feet drifted off the floor as if he were underwater. Clinging grimly upon his scant purchase he waited, looking like a skydiver caught suspended in time until gravity was restored when the craft began to pivot to match the spin of the Urisa.