Ghosts of Ophidian

by McElhaney, Scott

  Dawn leaned back in her chair, glancing over at Conner to gauge his response. He appeared to be equally as enthralled by Eilkenon’s introduction to their species.

  “How did you find that your last home wasn’t your original?” Dawn asked.

  “To answer that, I must first let you know who the Gods of Pli are and what their actual mission is. History tells my people that we are all descendants of the Gods of Pli – a race of super beings that rule the entire universe. We once lived like they do, supreme to all and able to force into submission any race that chose to oppose us or our search for the food of the Gods,” Eilkenon said, “And keep in mind that what I’m telling you is only what our history states. This is the history being downloaded into the minds of our people in those cryochambers out there.”

  “So, do those metal pieces on the side of your heads actually lead to a computer implant inside your brains?” Conner asked.

  “Yes, an implant that doesn’t occur naturally and cannot be removed without killing the subject,” Eilkenon stated, “Believe me when I say that we’ve tried. The only way to overcome the implant is to shut it down completely and allow the true will of the person inside to resume control of their own minds. The implant was inserted by the Gods of Pli – the same gods who visit our world every three hundred and twenty years.”

  “You’ve seen them before?” Conner asked.

  “Yes, when I was just a child. It was to be their final visit to what many believed was our home world. They were sorely displeased with us as we had been running out of resources for centuries. Our last offering of 92-146 was not enough to satisfy the Gods of Pli, so they swore to remove us from our world and force us to start anew. This was always the threat of the Gods of Pli,” Eilkenon said, “Either produce plenty of 92-146 or be banished from your home forever.”

  “What is this 92-146?” Conner asked, “Is it a metal? Or could it be oil?”

  “It’s a metal and it’s somewhat rare.”

  “Is it gold in color?” Conner asked.

  “No, it’s dark grey like 82-125,” Eilkenon replied.

  “Wait…” Dawn said, thinking about the names he used for the two metals, “Is 82-125 a soft metal?”

  “Yes, pliable and fairly useless except when used as a defense against the radiation of 92-146.”

  “Eighty-two, Conner,” Dawn said to him in English, “82 protons and 125 neutrons. That’s lead on our periodic table. And 92 is uranium’s number on the periodic table. No matter what planet you come from or what language you speak, uranium has 92 protons. The Gods of Pli are forcing them to mine uranium for them.”

  “What is she saying?” Eilkenon asked of Conner.

  “We know what the metal is that you are speaking of,” Conner stated, “Our people use that metal in our power plants or I’m ashamed to admit, in weapons of mass destruction.”

  “Ah, yes, we’ve considered the weapons potential of the metal before, but we’ve never pursued such a thing,” he replied.

  “How did these Gods of Pli get you to start mining this metal for them?” Dawn asked.

  Eilkenon tapped the metal thing implanted on the side of his head.

  “We can never know what the initial meeting was like between the Gods of Pli and our ancestors, but we do know what they are doing right now to keep us submissive. I believe this is what they do every time they remove us from one planet and insert us onto another,” Eilkenon said, “Right now, all those Ah Fidonay in the other room are experiencing an imaginary war between the Ah Fidonay and the Hellferions. There is no such race as the Hellferions, or at least we’ve never come across them beyond the imaginary universe of the slave master.”

  “Please slow down or help me to understand all that you’re saying,” Conner said, “Remember, I’m new to your language. Are you saying that the computer system is feeding a fake war into the minds of those frozen people in the cryochambers?”

  “Yes, a fake war that ends with the Gods of Pli saving our whole race from the powerful clutches of the Hellferions. Our planet gets destroyed and we are whisked off to a new Utopia where we can begin the process of starting over again. We will build our homes, plant our crops, and reproduce, all the while, teaching our children to worship the Gods of Pli who will return for the sacrifices of 92-146. If they are pleased with the sacrifice, they will leave us in peace. If they are not pleased, they will kill off our children as a warning for the next time.”

  “Dear Lord,” Dawn said.

  “Not to worry, though,” Eilkenon said, “The computer generated life is very convincing and we would wake believing that we owed our very lives and souls to the Gods of Pli. We would be willing to work night and day, mining the new planet to please those who saved us from the Hellferions. Oddly enough, no one will think to question the metal implants that only the first generation of settlers would have. Everyone else born after will not have the implants, but they will suffer the brainwashing of their parents and grandparents. Rest assured, this race will worship the Gods of Pli for millennia.”

  “That’s awful. How did they even get the implants installed?” Conner asked.

  “We will never know. We all suffer from a period without memories between the time the Gods of Pli express their anger and the time the imaginary war begins with the Hellferions. Once the war starts, we are already installed inside the ship with the cables attached to our brains,” Eilkenon stated.

  Dawn shook her head, then covered her face in disgust.

  “How did you manage to escape the system?” Conner asked.

  “We learned of all this from an ancient book that was discovered on a mining expedition in the Western Hills. My grandfather was one of the three people who found it. It was written by a stowaway on the ship that took us to what we had always believed was our home planet many thousands of years prior. His records described all that I’m telling you about now. The story of our people depleting the resources of a previous planet.

  “The story of people removed from the planet by the Gods of Pli and taken to another planet on a ship that imbedded false memories on its occupants. The story of a stowaway who found a way to hide from the slave master using a robe made from special fibres. The story of a stowaway who believed it would happen again and again. The story of a stowaway who figured out how to break the implants and separate the person from the system. Unfortunately however, the stowaway was only able to free twenty-six people from the system before the ship arrived at its destination.

  “As you can imagine, with a million people who recalled a war where the Gods of Pli rescued them, the stories of the twenty-six were seen as psychotic heresy. They were excommunicated from the others and their tale was never believed for a moment,” Eilkenon stated, “Much like our tale will not be believed by those who are not freed from the implants. Anyway, you asked how we were freed. The stowaway warned that once the Gods of Pli get fed up with the smaller and smaller sacrifices, the people would be shipped off without a chance to pack anything beyond what was already stored in the Pli Warehouse.

  “The Pli Warehouse is a giant building that the Gods insisted be packed with everything from mining gear to food stores, clothing, weaponry, and tools. The stowaway gave specific instructions on how to create an invisibility cloak and insisted that we create dozens of these and hide them amongst the explosives. He also told of how to create a strong drug that could be hidden inside a glass capsule and tucked into the cheek. The drug would wake me from cryosleep after only a few weeks but unlike the ones who would awake by using the hacking device, I would wake confused.

  “When the Gods of Pli came, I inserted this capsule into my mouth as well as a capsule that contained rolled up instructions. I kept these in my mouth for days, wondering if the stowaway had been telling the truth because the Gods of Pli hadn’t stolen us away from the planet. I would wake up a few weeks later with shards of glass in my gums and the taste of blood on my tongue. I was standing inside a glass coffin looking out at hundreds of others
facing me inside their own glass coffins.

  “I spit out the blood and glass, also discovering a rolled up paper in my mouth. I uncoiled the sheet and read my own instructions to myself. I was reminding myself that the Hellferion war that was only beginning in my head was all a lie and that I needed to carefully pull the cables free. I then needed to locate multiple objects that should be hidden nearby. Once I ripped the cables free and felt the metal implants on the side of my head, I knew the stories of the stowaway were true.

  “My cryochamber was on the fourth floor. Once I escaped, I closed the door and headed off to locate the cloaks, the three hack devices we had created, and more importantly, a saw. It took me the better part of a day to locate these. I returned to the cryochamber immediately and attached the hacking devices to three of my friends who knew about the stowaway’s tales. I gave them cloaks and then proceeded to cut off the slave master’s access to the cryochambers. If he told you he didn’t know about me, he lied. We talked for hours as I searched the ship for my supplies. I confused him and he worried that he had somehow made a mistake and woke me.

  “I didn’t free him of the guilt. I only searched until I found the storage room for the explosives. He left me alone once I put on the cloak and disappeared from his view. I’m sure he spent many an hour checking for flaws in his system. The others assisted me in my ongoing plan to free our whole race from the Gods of Pli. The first step was in waking the others. We needed more hacking devices and Weimenon was the perfect one to create what we needed. My men and I searched the ship and located all the electronics he needed to create more of these devices. The goal was and is to free as many as we can before we reach the planet.

  “We also have a secondary plan that is equally as important. We must somehow locate the slave master himself and hack into his system or the Gods of Pli will most certainly know which planet we have gone to. If they discover what we have done, they will only do whatever it is they did before – knock us out and reinsert us into its brainwashing dream machine. We can’t let them locate our planet.”

  “How can we help you?” Dawn asked.

  “You believe our story?” Eilkenon asked suspiciously.

  “Our own computer guy told us that there was a lot of data being sent through those cables into your cryochambers,” she said, “And everything you’ve told us lines up with everything we’ve seen. We have no reason not to believe you.”

  “I do have one question though,” Conner said, “What about the missile launcher being inserted into the shuttle.”

  “Understandable. We don’t know that we will be able to hack into the slave master. If we can’t, the least we can do is make sure it doesn’t survive after we reach the new planet. We will offload all our people and supplies, leaving all the explosives in the shuttle bay with the expectation to return for one more shuttle load. The final shuttle will leave and release its rockets into the shuttle bay – a shuttle bay loaded with explosives and local corridors loaded with enough flammable material to continue the damage further inward,” Eilkenon stated, “With the slave master gone, at least we have the assurance that it will not interfere as we prepare for a real war against the Gods of Pli. We’d prefer, of course, to hack into the slave master instead and send out a false distress call before its destruction.”

  “Wouldn’t the Gods of Pli just follow the distress signal to the planet anyway to check it out?” Conner asked.

  “Perhaps, but that’s why we will be cutting off the slave master’s access to the shuttle bay in the coming days. We are going to release one of the shuttles with a receiver that Mikunon created. It will stay behind and act as a relay for our distress signal,” Eilkenon said, “If they trace the signal, it will lead them somewhere between your planet and the planet we are going to.”

  “Your plan is ingenious,” Dawn said, “And we will gladly do whatever we can to assist you in this.”

  “I don’t trust them, Eilkenon!” Tippenon hollered, “They could report everything you just told them to the slave master himself and everything would be ruined.”

  “But they won’t, Tippenon,” he replied, “We’ve been watching them and it’s clear that they have no loyalties to the slave master beyond that of using it to learn our language. Why would they want to learn our language if not to plan a life among us?”

  “I am disgusted with the thought of the way the Gods of Pli have used you and your people for their own desires,” Conner said to Tippenon, “I can’t change your feelings toward me because I can see that you really don’t want to trust us, but I can still pledge my loyalty and service. Spy on us if you must, but you will see nothing suspicious about us.”

  “I trust you, Conner and Dawn. I ask for one thing from the both of you that will help us beyond measure, but I’m not sure that you will like it,” Eilkenon said, “I ask that you return to the forward portion of the ship and continue on with your lives as you had. Change nothing. If you want to assist our cause, tell the slave master that you encountered us in the aft section and that we are only hiding out like cowards because we have an irrational fear of the slave master.”

  “Really?” Dawn asked, looking around the room to see if the others appeared to be in agreement.

  “Yes. Anything else would make the slave master all the more suspicious and probably hinder our progress,” Eilkenon said, “I’ll allow Tippenon to continue his own suspicious spying on you if it will make him feel better, but I will forbid his entry into your bedroom and I will forbid him from hurting either of you. Disobedience regarding any of these forbidden actions will result in his death.”

  He stared at Tippenon as he stated those words. Tippenon nodded subtly, then lowered his gaze humbly.

  “I would gladly report your cowardice to the slave master if he asks,” Conner stated, “Though this would most certainly be an outright lie. I believe you are all very brave and I consider it an honor to be part of your heroic efforts to save your people. I only ask that you accept us into your community once this is all over. I’ve spent my life fighting and I’d like to retire in peace.”

  Eilkenon laughed then reached out and touched Conner’s chin. He did the same to Dawn.

  “You two will live in my own home once we arrive on the new planet. You will dine at my table every morning,” Eilkenon said, “That is how well you will be accepted into our community.”

  “Eilkenon!” Tippenon shouted, rising from his seat, “I’ve given you everything.”

  “Sit!” Eilkenon rose and pointed at him, “I will decide who gets honored and who doesn’t. These two may be presented with only a small task to perform, but they have forfeited their families and their world for us. They will never see another of their kind before they enter their eternal rest.”

  “Indeed,” Belfenon added, “If anyone shares the table of Eilkenon, it should be them. We are saving our own families but whom are they saving? They will be fighting for an alien race.”

  Twenty-Two

  Conner and Dawn left their cloaks behind as they were escorted back to the cargo hold. They touched the chins of the Ophidians and promised to do what was asked of them. Tippenon backed away from them when they attempted to touch his chin, but they didn’t take offense.

  By the time they had taken five steps into the cargo hold, the AI spoke up. It asked about their well-being, then continued to quiz them on the ghosts. They kept their promise to the Ophidians, painting the ghosts in a cowardly light.

  They retrieved their bags that remained on the floor where they had left them. Conner didn’t load his weapon this time however. They made their way to their residence in silence, both unsure of what the future held for them. It wasn’t until later that night while they lie in bed that the words found their way out into the open.

  “I’m afraid, Conner,” she said, resting her head on his shoulder as she curled up next to him, “I didn’t think I was signing up for something of this magnitude.”

  “Me neither,” he said, looking up toward the
ceiling, “But we’ve got the easiest job of all. I just have to spend the rest of my days here loving you and…”

  His words shocked him. He hadn’t spoken the L-word since he last said it to Nicole.

  “It’s okay, Conner. I’ve wanted to hear that for a long time,” she said, leaning up and kissing him tenderly on the lips, “I’m afraid that I might love you too.”

  He drew his hand up and raked his fingers through her hair.

  “But it’s dangerous. Loving someone can only hurt in the end,” he whispered against her lips.

  “Then maybe you haven’t been doing it right,” she joked, kissing him hungrily.

  . . . .

  The days turned into weeks, which turned into months. All the while, Conner and Dawn were so enthralled with each other that they forgot that something more important was going on around them. It wasn’t until several months later that they discovered the ship had been overrun with Ophidians.

  It happened one day while they were on their typical walk through the wide corridors of the tenth floor. They were first greeted by two Ophidians who didn’t seem to be in a hurry at all. As a matter of fact, Conner thought they looked like they too were on a recreational stroll as well. Neither were wearing the cloaks of invisibility that were needed to protect them from the slave master.

  Later that same day, they stumbled across three other Ophidians who weren’t wearing cloaks as well. Finally Dawn asked one of them if the slave master could see them.

  “Weimenon is now operating the slave master,” the one said, “He sent the distress call already. We’re free.”

  “And we already located the planet where we are headed,” another said, “It has everything we could ever ask for.”