Too Close to the Sun (The Sun 1)

by Popp, Robin T.

  Nicoli and the High Counsel walked along the main path that led into town. Over the horizon, the suns were beginning their final descent and the surrounding fields were bathed in a soft orange glow. Nicoli couldn’t help but admire the pure simplicity of life these villagers enjoyed.

  The village was less than two kilometers away when Nicoli stopped, his attention fixed on a field of dark green leafy plants. “I thought you said nothing grew out here.”

  Gil’rhen came to a halt beside him. “Is that a field of long beans?”

  “And over there,” Nicoli pointed to the opposite field. “That looks like honey melons. They look pretty healthy too.”

  “Interesting.” Gil’rhen looked thoughtful. "They certainly seem to be doing better than reports have led me to believe."

  "Let’s keep going and see what we can find out.”

  There weren’t many homes along the road into town and they didn’t encounter anyone along the way. Lanterns stood along the roads casting out small patches of light and revealing an unusually clean village with streets and homes in good repair.

  The village seemed unusually quiet and empty of people, until they drew closer to the public square. The few people they encountered gave them a wide berth. Nicoli found it a bit strange that no one approached to welcome them or, conversely, to challenge their reason for being there. At the other villages, the High Counsel had been recognized immediately and crowds had gathered around him. No one here seemed to know who he was.

  Nicoli glanced at the older man to gauge his reaction. His expression revealed none of his thoughts.

  They continued until they reached the public square and now were drawing more attention from the villagers who were about.

  “You should have worn a cap or something to hide your dark hair,” Gil’rhen said just loud enough for Nicoli to hear. “Your coloring is unusual on our planet and seems to draw attention.”

  Nicoli looked around. Several of the townspeople were indeed staring, but he wasn’t convinced they were looking at him. He slowed his pace and allowed the older man to draw ahead while he studied the faces of the villagers. The staring eyes moved ahead of him.

  Nicoli quickened his pace to catch up to the High Counsel. “It’s not me they’re staring at, old man.”

  “Are you being disrespectful, Colonel?”

  “No, sir. Making an observation. Look around. Do you see anyone who looks to be older than around forty? And you'll notice there are no children about.”

  The High Counsel looked intrigued. “I see what you mean. Very unusual. So you think we found what we were looking for?”

  Nicoli shook his head. “I’m not ready to go there yet. Let’s find the local pub. Maybe we’ll pick up some useful information there.”

  * * * * *

  Angel finished her snack and went back to the bridge. She considered pacing the entire length and breadth of the ship, but having done it so many times already today she thought she might go crazy if she did it again.

  Instead she went back to the bridge to stare out the front view screen. There was no sign of Nicoli or her grandfather. She checked her watch and realized they’d only been gone thirty standard minutes.

  She leaned back in the pilot's seat, trying to convince herself to be patient. She wasn’t used to such inactivity. She wanted to be where the action was. She wanted to be with Nicoli and know he was safe.

  Angel switched her gaze to the instrument panel, hoping for something to take her mind off how bored she was. A light on the panel held her mesmerized. Her eyelids grew heavy and her thoughts became less focused.

  Suddenly, she jerked wide awake. The clock on the instrument panel showed that she’d only slept for a couple of minutes, ten at the most. Looking out the front view screen, she saw that the suns had fallen below the horizon and it was fully dark. It was still too early to worry about Nicoli and her grandfather, so what had awakened her?

  She hadn’t turned on the ship's interior lighting and was thinking of doing so, when she heard it. A faint thrumming noise.

  Angel held very still and listened. It was not a sound heard often on Coronado, but it was one with which she was all too familiar - the sound of a spaceship.

  Angel ran a perimeter scan around the Icarus, widening the scan area until the other ship showed up on the screen. It was less than twenty-five kilometers away.

  Angel wondered what she should do. The presence of another ship, while unusual, could mean nothing at all. The bad feeling in the pit of her stomach argued differently.

  She considered moving the ship to avoid detection, but what if Nicoli and her grandfather returned, pursued by hostile Harvesters? They would have counted on the ship being where they'd left it.

  She would stay. Checking the pulse cannons, she found them fully charged. If the other ship came too close and proved hostile, she’d do her best to blow it away.

  With one hand poised above the pulse cannon controls, she watched the other ship crest the last mountain range. It was too far away for her to see through the view screen, so she did what she hated most. She waited.

  Fight or flight; that she understood.

  The blip drew nearer, then veered off toward the village. Angel watched for another minute or two, and then the blip stopped and didn’t move again. It had landed.

  Dropping her hands into her lap, she sat back and released her breath in a sigh. The relief she felt was quickly replaced by curiosity. The presence of a shuttle at one of these smaller villages was highly unusual. Why would one be here, at this remote site, this late at night?

  There were several answers that came to mind, but most seemed far-fetched. The one she found most plausible was the one she liked the least – which was that this was the Harvesters’ village and the aliens had maintained off-world connections and technology.

  If she tried contacting Nicoli over the comm-link, the other ship would be alerted to their presence. She could do nothing and wait for Nicoli to return, but the other ship might not stick around and they might miss an important clue in their search for the Harvesters. Someone needed to investigate it now and she was the only candidate.

  Nicoli’s words echoed in the back of her mind, telling her once again to stay put.

  Just a quick look, she promised herself as she headed for the hatch.

  * * * * *

  “It’s time!”

  The man’s announcement was immediately met with a hum of excited whispers as everyone in the pub suddenly rose and filed outside. For a moment, Nicoli and Gil’rhen were left staring at each other in bewilderment. What was going on?

  “Shall we?” Gil’rhen set the newly purchased glass of ale down and rose from his seat. Nicoli took a final swallow and followed after him. So much for sitting quietly at the pub and listening to surrounding conversations for information.

  Outside, it seemed the entire village populace was moving toward the same destination. Curious, Nicoli and Gil’rhen trailed after them. No one seemed to notice the two outsiders. Nicoli strained to overhear snatches of conversation around him, but nothing made much sense.

  “...the first to go...”

  “...have studied the procedure...”

  “...been so long...”

  Then he caught a familiar term.

  “...how exciting for Brother Mart’n...”

  “Careful.”

  “I mean Marcina, how exciting for Marcina.”

  “Yes, it’s a new beginning for us.”

  Then in a hushed tone almost too quiet to hear, “Has anyone notified Brother Joh’nan?”

  The whispered response came quickly.

  “No. You know how he is. It's better if we do this on our own.”

  Nicoli stopped listening. They'd found the Harvesters, he was sure of it. Did he alert Gil’rhen so they could head back to the ship? Or should he stay quiet in hopes of learning more.

  Curiosity won out.

  The villagers continued down the street until they reached one of the
many homes where they stopped to gather in the front yard.

  “What do you suppose is going on?” Gil’rhen leaned close to Nicoli so his words could be heard above the noise of the excited crowd.

  Nicoli shook his head. “I have no idea.”

  He casually scanned the crowd, studying expressions and gestures, hoping to learn something.

  Suddenly a woman’s scream pierced the night. Nicoli tensed, searching for the source of danger, ready to meet it head on if necessary.

  “They don’t seem alarmed,” Gil’rhen said, directing his attention to the crowd.

  “No, they don’t, do they?” Nicoli found that odd. "In fact, several of them are smiling."

  “Perhaps it's only a woman being punished.”

  Nicoli was disgusted at the man’s casual assessment of the situation. “If a woman is being tortured inside, then I intend to put a stop to it.”

  The woman’s scream came again and it was obvious this time that she was in extreme pain. Without waiting to see if the High Counsel followed him, Nicoli pushed his way through the crowd toward the house, wondering who and how many he would have to fight to get inside.

  He had his warring blade strapped to his side. Unfortunately, so did almost every other male in the village and Nicoli doubted he could fight them all.

  It was surprising to him then, when no one even tried to stop him when he entered the house. Once inside, Nicoli understood why. Everyone’s attention was focused on the woman lying in the center of the room on the floor. Her legs were spread wide and bent at the knees with only a thick blanket beneath her for padding. A man knelt between her legs and when he leaned forward, the woman screamed again.

  Instinctively, Nicoli’s hand went to the hilt of his blade. A restraining hand stopped him.

  “Wait.” The High Counsel had followed him inside and his attention was on the scene before them.

  Nicoli would have argued, but just then a new sound filled the silence. It was the sound of a newborn’s cry.

  It was met by a collective gasp from the crowd followed by an eruption of cheers, laughter and even weeping.

  The man kneeling between the woman’s legs stood and turned. In his arms, he held the baby, turned so all could see. In that moment, Nicoli got a look at the woman on the floor. Her head rested in the lap of another woman, while two others held her hands. All the women were weeping, but they seemed to be tears of joy. Then the mother raised her hands up to receive her child.

  “Marcina,” the man holding the baby said. “You have delivered to us a fine, healthy baby girl – the first child to be born to our kind in over a hundred years.”

  The happy cheers of the gathered villagers drowned out anything else the man would have said. Nicoli allowed Gil’rhen to pull him through the crowd, back outside.

  “Now is the time to strike, while they are preoccupied with the new birth.”

  Nicoli stared at the High Counsel. The same thought had occurred to him, but that had been before he’d seen the sight of the newborn child and the happy faces surrounding it. These people weren’t concerned with taking over a new planet, or annihilating an alien race. They only wanted what every other being in the universe wanted: a chance to live a normal life, to have children and be happy.

  “No,” he said. “These people are not our enemy. Let’s go back to the ship. I need time to think about this.”

  Nicoli started down the street, but the High Counsel grabbed his arm and jerked him to a stop.

  “Colonel, need I remind you that this is my planet and my region. I will not allow this race of…of aliens to take up residence here.”

  “High Counsel, now is neither the time nor the place for this discussion. The destruction of this village will accomplish nothing. The real danger is in allowing the Harvester leader to continue with his plans to take over your planet. Right now, we don’t know who that is. By the same token, he doesn’t know we’re looking for him. Destroying this village tips our hand and makes our search that much harder. Let me find the leader. Then we'll decide what's to be done with these villagers."

  * * * * *

  It took Angel almost fifteen minutes to find the spot where the shuttle landed. Her trek had taken her across several fields to the top of a small escarpment. She looked down into a large ravine and saw that someone had constructed a building at the bottom. There was with enough light streaming through its high set windows that Angel could just make out the shapes of several people unloading cargo from the shuttle parked beside it.

  It was impossible to see what the cargo consisted of, so Angel started cautiously down the embankment. The darkness provided her the perfect cover, but it also made her descent more dangerous since the steepness of the embankment required she climb down rather than walk. Facing the rocky side, she searched first with her feet and then her hands for solid places to step and hold. Several times, her foot slipped, causing a shower of smaller rocks to rain down to the ground below. Each time she regained her balance and froze, waiting to be discovered, either from the sound of the rocks she’d dislodged or the pounding of her heart.

  When she reached the bottom of the escarpment, she crouched low and waited in the shadows, pondering her next move. Going back to get Nicoli would have made sense, but she didn't want to take the time. So instead, she waited and watched.

  Her patience was rewarded almost immediately when two men exited the large building and walked to the cargo ship, disappearing inside it.

  A few moments later, they reappeared, each holding opposite ends of an anti-gravity pallet. Piled on top were various pieces of equipment. Though she couldn't be sure what their purpose was, the mere construction of the pieces suggested it was more advanced technology than any found on Coronado outside the ruling houses and flight towers and therefore not approved - hence the reason someone was trying to keep it a secret.

  As the men disappeared inside the building, Angel crept over to the ship. She wanted to look inside it, but it was impossible to tell if anyone else was aboard without exposing herself in the process. It was a chance she’d have to take.

  Staying low, she walked the length of the ship toward the open cargo bay studying the markings - or lack thereof - on the side panels. There was no name or call letters, which was common for ships that transported illegal goods and the information gave her no better clue whether this ship belonged to Harvesters or some other group.

  She rounded the back of the ship just as the two men she’d seen earlier reappeared. Quickly shrinking back around the side, she listened for the men to board and leave with their next load.

  Instead, what she heard was the sound of the cargo door closing and then, before she could formulate a plan, the engines fired to life cutting off any chance of searching the ship. Worse still, if she didn't make a run for it and risk the pilot seeing her, she was likely to get cooked alive when the heat from the under-thrusters hit her.

  Not giving herself a chance to think about it further, she raced the distance from the ship to the building, staying as close to the side wall as possible and hoping to blend into the shadows.

  Seconds later, the shuttle rose vertically into the air. The force of the thrusters against the ground caused a hailstorm of dirt and small pebbles. Covering her face with her hands, Angel turned her back to it, but there was no way to avoid getting hit and all she could do was grit her teeth against the biting pain until it was over.

  Mercifully, the ship ascended quickly and soon disappeared into the night sky.

  For a moment or two, Angel stood there considering her options. She could always return to the ship and wait for Nicoli. Together, they could come back and discover whatever was going on inside.

  What was she thinking? Nicoli wouldn't let her come back. He'd insist she stay in the ship while he came back alone. To hell with that. She was perfectly capable of investigating the building and discovering its secrets by herself.

  Angel searched the night sky and found it clear and open. No sign o
f the shuttle returning, but the fact that the men had left the building lights on suggested she wasn't alone in this ravine. She'd have to be careful.

  Moving to the door through which the men had carried the equipment, she pressed her ear against it, listening for any sound on the other side. When she was met with continued silence, she tried the door handle. It turned easily.

  Slowly, she pulled open the door, hoping no alarm sounded inside. There was no one visible, so Angel stepped inside. Well lit, the place had the clean white sterile feel of a research lab or medical facility. This made the small trail of dirty footprints on the floor stand out even more.

  Assuming they belonged to the men from the shuttle, Angel decided to follow them in hopes they'd lead her to the equipment they'd just delivered. Maybe if she got a closer look at it, she'd know what it was for.

  The footprints ran down the main hallway and she was careful to keep her own steps quiet as she followed them. Around her, the silence was oppressive, convincing her that despite the lights, she was alone in the building.

  The trail was growing fainter but Angel was able to see where it turned down an intersecting corridor and then led into the first door on the left.

  The minute she stepped into the room and looked around, she knew she'd found what they were looking for. All around her stood empty gurneys like those she and Nicoli had laid on back at the Harvesters’ main processing building. Thankfully, these gurneys were empty. But for how long?

  Looking around, she spotted a pallet of equipment against the side wall. She assumed it was the one she'd seen delivered. On the adjacent wall, opposite the door through which she'd entered, stood a second door.

  Crossing to it, she pressed her ear against it to listen for sounds coming from the other side. When she heard only silence, she tried the knob and found the door unlocked. She supposed the Harvesters didn't expect anyone to know about their facility, much less go snooping through it.