by DN Farrell
"Who are they and who are the Murcu?" Questioned the captain.
"They are your Commander Trellon and the big bear chested man, Saron the champion of our king, he has joined forces with Trellon and the Murcu, they are fiersesome underworld creatures." Retorted the chief minister.
"So what do you want us to do now chief minister?"
"We don't want you to do anything, but say your prayers, wait until the Kolatian community hears about this treachery!" Snapped back the chief minister.
"But chief minister this video footage could be staged." Replied the Captain.
"Staged, no way, the captain of the royal guards, Captain Oran has sworn on oat on his version of events; who are we to trust video footage and the affidavits of a dozen royal guards or your commander; you blankly tell me that your hands are lily white!" Exclaimed Regis as his temper rose up along with his speech.
"And you have the princess's body?"
"No captain, she was blasted out of existence."
"Yet the man who Trellon blasted was only stunned!" Exclaimed the captain, who didn't believe it possible for Trellon to do anything which the chief minister had stated he had done.
"Obviously he only wanted to kill the princess, so he reset the blaster to a high level, so as to make sure he could kill her with one shot!" Retorted the chief minister, who was convinced of his rightness.
"But why has the King's Champion joined forces with Trellon?" The captain asked, as the scenario painted by the chief minister appeared preposterous to anyone with an objective eye.
"How should I know captain, maybe your blessed Federation has paid him well for his services!" Exclaimed the chief minister, to which the captain ignored his comment, in the hope of steering the conversation into a more productive direction.
"Well chief minister, can you let me speak to the King."
"No captain, the king is too upset to talk with anyone right now. Your team here have been rounded up and have been imprisoned on charges of conspiracy."
"Can I speak with them?" Queried the captain.
"Certainly not captain, they are under the constraints of Artemesian law." Retorted the chief minister.
"But surely they are entitled to legal aid chief minister, they are entitled to legal consul from one of the navy's legal experts." The captain said, trying his best to gain some access to his crew members.
"You do not understand captain, in Artemesian Law, they are entitled to legal consul from our experts. Do not intervene in any way captain, or you will only make things worse!"
The captain just stared back at Regis, not known what to say and Regis had the last word. "Captain we will be back in touch soon, do not go anywhere until the legal processes have taken their course, good day!"
Lieutenant Pylor just looked over at the captain with a bewildered expression on his face. "Captain, Trellon couldn't have done this." He said.
"Of course not, he's been framed." The captain responded. "What fool would take out a blaster in front of so many witnesses and blast the princess like that?" The captain said rhetorically.
"Pylor examine that video footage for editing and get back to me when you have finished, in the meantime call all senior officers for an emergency meeting in briefing room A, and also scan the planet for the whereabouts of Trellon." The captain ordered the Communications Officer, then looking back at the image of the peaceful looking blue green planet Artemis 11 on the screen, he whispered under his breath, "Trellon what have you got us all into?"
Chapter Eight – The Murcu
Slowly the trio navigated their way around the caves, which where narrow, damp and wet, with water coming up to their ankles, once they travelled a couple of hundred meters into the cave system. The Cave system was uncomfortably narrow, but Trellon and the princess simply blindly followed Saron, who appeared to know what he was up to. Finally the cave system opened up into a decent sized chamber, about fifteen feet high and a dozen or so feet wide. Saron stopped and with him so too Trellon and the princess also stopped.
"We stop here for now." Saron said and then looking around he indicated to a fairly flat rock and called out to the princess, "Your Highness." The princess took the cue and she sat there on the flat stone.
The princess simply stared off into one of the three tunnels, which branched off from the cavern, while Trellon and Saron discussed what to do next.
"So Saron, you're familiar with these caves and the Murcu, what do you think we should do?" Asked Trellon, while he stood in the middle of the chamber while looking up to the big man, whose chiselled facial features appeared rock like, in the up light coming from the flare, which Saron held in his left hand.
"Commander, the Murcu are very dangerous." Said Saron slowly and with a deep baritone voice, as he looked down at Trellon, his face appearing menacing in the green light of the flare. " They are our cousins biologically, but they adapted to the underworld conditions. They are very strong, fiercesome and difficult to deal with. We could of course be lucky, some people have successfully communicated with them, but their ways are not our ways, it would be difficult to do so."
"But we can't go back outside or the royal guard will kill the princess and frame you and me for her death." Said Trellon and Saron just nodded with a grim expression on his face. "So Saron we have to get out of this cave system; Du Brien took my communicator, if I had it we could beam back to the ship, but if we can get to a communications center somewhere, I can contact my ship and my captain will help us ."
"Commander, the caves lead back to the ancient castle dungeons, but to get there we have to transverse at least fifteen kilometers of cave system and I have no idea how to get there, we could end up going round in circles or we could entrap ourselves or worse still, we could meet the Murcu and face death." Saron explained the grim details and Trellon just stood there not sure what to do. "We also have no water, the water in these caves is not drinking water and we have no food either." He continued.
"Wow!" Exclaimed Trellon. "But there is nothing else we can do, all we can do is move forward and hope we quickly find our way to the castle. After all fifteen kilometers is only a few hours, if we go the right way."
"You are an optimist Commander." Saron said flatly. "I have a compass, we can follow the general direction which leads back to the castle. The castle lies northwest of here, that is all that we can do."
"Ok Saron, then we better debrief the princess." Trellon said.
"You must do that commander, as the king's guest you are higher up the social order than me, hence it is your duty to inform the princess about this situation." Saron replied and with that Trellon turned and went over to the princess.
The princess was sitting there looking shocked and staring off into the distance. Trellon realized that she was slipping away from them; he had seen this before, the person as they slip into shock, they stare of into the distance, they sit when everyone stands and then they start to fall back and not keep up with the others. Pretty quickly they end up sitting in a corner somewhere either crying or staring, their will to live broken, forcing the others to leave them to their fate. But Trellon wasn’t having this, so he endeavoured to catch her attention.
"Your Higness, Your Highness." He said, but she continued to stare, so breaking royal protocol he grabbed her right arm and shook her gently. Finally she came too, looked up at Trellon and then back down at his hand on her royal arm, with a look of disdain. Trellon immediately removed his hand from her long skinny arm and then he addressed the princess firmly. "Your Highness, are you alright?"
"Yes I am ok." She responded and then held her head in her hand and with that she started to sob. She sobbed for a good minute or so, before Trellon decided to get her back into action with a little motivational speech, with the intention of getting her a little angry, so as to motivate her.
"Princess, I know this is difficult, it's shocking to have someone try to kill you, but it does go with the territory." Trellon said frankly.
This seemed to b
ring the princess back to her senses as she looked at him and chuckled a little and at last a little smile appeared across her beautiful lips. "Well you are right there commander, our family has always been at great risk. If I had my choice I would never have been born a princess, but then what can I do?"
"You can fight back princess!" Trellon exclaimed and then looking her straight in the eye he said. "Princess we are in the middle of a coup d'état, against your administration. We can walk back down the cave, which we came in by and your own guard will kill you and frame Saron and me, and of course within a matter of days, weeks or months the king will either be killed or forced to abdicate, along with every member of your family." Trellon said with a serious expression on his face and his hand pointed back towards the tunnel, which they had come in by. "Or we can go that way," Trellon continued and pointed with his right forefinger towards one of the tunnels, "and take our chances. Saron says they lead back to the royal dungeons. From there we can access a communications center and request help from my ship. Well what do you say princess?"
With tears rolling down her cheeks she nodded slightly, which Trellon took to be an affirmation. She quickly wiped away her tears and then said, "We better go then," and with that all three stood up and followed Saron, who started to walk down the tunnel, which Trellon had pointed to.
Initially they walked at a good pace, but after a few minutes Trellon noticed that both Saron and the princess started to slow down and the overall atmosphere was one of great fear and oppression. In a way, although not familiar with the planet, Trellon was at an advantage in the cave system. Trellon was used to dealing with wild looking creatures, gesticulating at him and trying to kill him, whereas most people in the galaxy would never have to deal with the creatures, which he had had to deal with over the years. But for Saron and the princess, the Murcu were the bogeyman. Neither of them had every met a Murcu, but they had heard scary stories, mostly scary bedtime stories, about how the Murcu would get them for been naughty. So as they went deeper and deeper down into the cave system, the feeling of fear on the point of nausea was palpable!
The princess was walking between Saron and Trellon. As royal champion, Saron took the forward position, while Trellon took up the rear position. Trellon could hear the princess's laboured breathing and he could not but notice her tendency to keep on stopping and cloying a little at the walls of the cave with her hands, as she struggled to fight fear on the one hand and her anger, at been assaulted by her own guard, on the other.
Even Saron appeared to be affected, as his breathing rate had sped up to a fast pant. Even the experienced Trellon was feeling a chill and an increasing rate of adrenaline in his system, thanks to the near panic states of his two companions.
The cave suddenly descended a few feet and water was now just above Trellons waist and just below Saron’s, while the water was up to chest level on the demure princess. The princess started gasping, obviously feeling panicked, but Trellon just gently pushed her from behind. The group continued to wade their way through the water, then a growling noise was heard and with that everyone stood still, petrified!
The growling stopped and Saron moved forward once more, then again he suddenly stopped. Trellon wondered what was the matter, then looking over Saron's huge left shoulder, he could clearly see about fifty feet away from them, at the end of the tunnel, a pair of luminous green eyes, staring back at them!
Saron just stood there and so too did the princess, but Trellon felt that the only way was forward, he was also terrified but they just had to go ahead, as if they continue to stay where they were panic would ensue, they would end up running for it and in all probability the Murcu would chase after them, as if they were prey!
So in order to stimulate a brave response from Saron, he decided to use his official title to get him moving. "Royal Champion, your duty is to protect the princess, move forward and protect her!" He exclaimed and that seemed to do the trick. Saron began moving forward and a few seconds later the tunnel rose up and they came out of the water and found themselves inside another big chamber, although this time , it was very big, maybe sixty or seventy feet in diameter and a good forty feet in height.
As the group came out of the smaller cave tunnel, they could clearly see the outline of a half a dozen or so hairy ape like creatures. Each one covered in hair, from head to toe and with faces which closely resembled apes, but also appeared mannish at the same time. Their eyes were humanoid but they glowed a bright green colour and they simply stood there gesticulating and swinging their long powerful arms backwards and forward, in the eerie green light of Saron’s flare, which made them appear eerily green in color and the princess instinctively hung to Trellon for support, so much for royal protocol!
From what Trellon could gather, they were about as big as a silverback guerrilla, about five feet five inches in height and probably the bigger ones weighing in close to three hundred and fifty kilograms in weight. If they were built anything like the silverback guerrillas of earth, then maybe Saron could fight and defeat one, but he could not fight and defeat six of them, and as for Trellon, even with his advanced fighting skill, he would be no match for anything as strong as a silverback.
Trellons experienced mind worked rapidly and within seconds he came to the conclusion, that the only way out of this was to befriend these hairy creatures. This might be a tall order, hell it might be an impossible one, but there was no way they that two humanoid men could fight and defeat half a dozen huge ape men!
Meanwhile Saron was positioning himself for a fight. He was crouching down, with the flare in his left hand and his dagger in his right, and one of the Murcu was mimicking his posture directly across from him. Trellon called over to him, "Saron, put down your guard you cannot beat all of them", he said. Saron just looked over at him with a quizzical look and Trellon indicated to lower the blade. Not sure what to do, Saron looked back and forth between Trellon and the Murcu and reluctantly he decided to follow Trellons advice.
"Holster your dagger Saron, don't provoke them." Trellon said.
"But Commander they might attack!" Saron exclaimed. Trellon just looked over at him and kept pointing his right hand in a downward position. Saron holstered his dagger, but kept his hand close in case he had to use it.
"Do you speak Galactic?" Trellon called out to the ape men, but they just grunted and continued to wave their arms backwards and forwards. So Trellon had another go at it. "Galactic anybody?" He said, Galactic been the communal language, spoken in the thirty fifth century, across the galaxy.
"Galactic, galactic, galactic!" Yelled one of the Murcu comically and then the others joined in with him, until the entire chamber was echoing with voices crying out the word "Galactic!"
Trellon started waving both hands gently downwards, as if he were attempting to soothe a baby and actually after half a minute or so it started working. The Murcu started to imitate his behaviour, which was non aggressive. Gently he patted his hands downwards, while his palms where pointed upwards, to indicate his peaceful intent.
"We three need your help?" He said while using his right hand to first identify himself by touching his hand of his chest and then directing it towards Saron and then the Princess. "Bad men are trying to kill us, we need to go through your caves, can you help us?" He queried and looked over slowly and deliberately at the ape men.
Then one came forward, as if to investigate him. This Murcu, one of the taller ones, standing nearly as tall as Trellon, who stood at five feet ten inches in height, started walking around him and looking at him. Then he started to say, "Galactic, speak galactic we do!" The ape man exclaimed, while pointing his right fist at his muscular hairy chest.
With that he started to walk around Trellon again and again, and Trellon made a point of not acting in either a hostile or defensive manner towards him, but at the same time whenever the chance arose, he looked straight into the eyes of the ape man, so as to make it quite clear that he wasn't been submissive either.
"Men above the earth come down here and ask Murcu for help? Very unusual it is, he he he…" The Murcu group leader said and then laughing, he ran back towards his fellow ape men, who joined in with the humour and arm waving.
Then coming back over to Trellon again, he bulged out his chest and came within inches of Trellons face and then stared at him for a long time, before trailing off. "Man above the earth make Habs curious, Habs bring man above the earth to the Great king for Judgement."
Then once more he walked up to Trellon and shoved Trellons chest with a gently shove, from his right hand, very nearly throwing Trellon back onto the cave floor, thanks to his enormous strength. But, Trellon recovered quickly and stood back up, making a point to maintain eye contact with the Murcu named Habs.
Habs nodded and said, "Man above the earth physically weak,” then he paused before pointing to his right temple with his right forefinger, “ but mentally strong, Habs bring him to see the king, if he wants help."
Trellon nodded affirmatively and with that Habs pointed to the other Murcu and yelled something incomprehensible at them, then they all started to file down one of the tunnels, which came of off the chamber. Trellon, the princess and Saron followed them and Habs waited till everyone had gone before him, then he walked behind them, as they made their way through the tunnels, towards the king of the Murcu.