by Tew, J. D.
‘Are you done bickering?’ a male’s voice rang out behind us. It was, to my ultimate astonishment, Liam, ‘Well are you? Let’s get this party started. If this is all true, and we really have this new purpose, I am going to kiss you, Theodore. If it isn’t, remember what I do to grapes, well, you will pay for waking me up this early for a joke.’
‘I cannot believe he dragged you into this too, Liam. We are not supposed to believe—oh my God. What is that?’ Mariah yelled, with her hands over her mouth.
From the dark of the sky flew two dark and shadowy masses that appeared with Lincoln and Dan in grasp.
‘Woo-hoo, that is what I am talking about!’ Lincoln yelled.
‘That was flipping awesome,’ Dan said with his classic style.
‘Everyone, listen to me, please,’ I said. Everyone looked stunned by the presence of two giant Bromels standing before us. Migalt was one of them, and I did not know the other. ‘Migalt, I need you guys to watch over us while we wait for the extraction.’
Migalt looked at me as if I was funny and said, ‘I believe we have it under control, Theodore. The rest of you, please wait to be taken to the ship.’ He peered at me. ‘One of the conditions was that the four agree to go with you. Otherwise your team will be ineffective. Strength of heart and conviction of valor are the key constitution of a team. Did they all consent and with informed knowledge of what lies ahead?’
I was sweating now. How could I be so incompetent at this kind of thing? I had many months to prepare, yet…
Suddenly, blasts roared out of the sky and scattered explosions around us.
‘No time!’ shouted Migalt. ‘Leave now!’
In a wild burst of blinding light, the first group—Dan, Lincoln, and the other Bromel—left. The second huddle—Mariah, Liam, and I—stood in awe and fright. These two, who were the most unwilling and freshly recruited accomplices, pleaded to me not to go. Guilt struck my heart like a dagger. The instructions were to bring willing individuals, but I felt in that moment they were acting out of their fear of the unknown. I held my amulet in hand, and it turned from a cool blue to burning hot.
We all gaped at a fiery, huge object in the darkness that magically appeared out of nowhere. A Dacturon battleship had just revealed itself with four blasts from its cannons.
As Mariah and Liam ducked for cover, Migalt agilely stuck out his spear into the direction of the warship, and the incoming fire bounced off the tip of the spear into wild, random bursts. One of the blasts exploded a hole into the side of a semi trailer in the parking lot, spewing out shards of metal and glass.
My entire body was now tingling with vehemence. Glancing to my side, I saw the shocked faces on Liam and Mariah as they appeared to be vaporizing before my eyes. I looked down at my torso and arms; every cell in my body appeared to be growing translucent. I turned my head to view Migalt, as he soared toward the invading vessel with majestic spear drawn and intent to destroy. I screamed, ‘No!’
“My thoughts were absent. The teleport was complete.”
12 theodore: the uriel
“The Uriel was five hundred and thirty-five feet from end-to-end, with a wing span of seven hundred and twenty feet—nearly the length of two football fields joined end to end. There were panels sporadically placed upon inside walls within the body of the ship to simulate distant stars with luminous white speckles, as if we were watching the giant view screen on the command bridge in Star Trek.”
It was like the Spruce Goose with an iridescent radiance from its faux star glow, fitted with futuristic weaponry, and built on a sleek contemporary design. The great engineers of today’s Earth would probably have heart attacks—out of joy—after seeing that beautiful machine.
The two groups were now banded together in the nerve center of the ship, the Chamber of Rafal. Dan, Lincoln, and Liam were accepting their new surroundings with open arms. But not Mariah.
I hugged Mariah, because she seemed distraught and regretful.
‘Theodore, my parents told me they were getting a divorce tonight,’ she said. Immediately, I thought, where did that come from?
‘What? I’m so sorry. I hope I haven’t made things worse,’ I said. No wonder she agreed to run with me this evening on the spur of the moment. Who wouldn’t, after hearing the same day about the divorce of your beloved parents? There was nothing I could do to console her. I could not tell what she was more concerned about, the divorce or being whisked away to a strange spaceship. She was immediately transferred to a special bay to be debriefed by Zane himself. I was worried that Zane would deport her back to Earth, because she wasn’t entirely willing, as my orders required. Then without the required five, my entire team and myself could have been deemed unfit for the mission and regretfully returned to our home world.
My last visit to the Uriel was brief and left me with no time for exploration. I wanted to put in a request for a tour. I didn’t want to leave anything by the wayside.
The Uriel, our new home, was now situated close by an incredible, breath-taking gigantic space formation called the Cliff of Divinity. It was several light-years tall, much like the Pillars of Creation. It was like a Niagara Falls of interstellar debris flowing into a dark abyss. The flow was a lava lamp-like unification of purple and black. The translucent violet was produced by the light emitted from neighboring stars outside the gravitational pull of the cliff.
We left the chamber to be introduced to our quarters. We walked through hallways that visually seemed to have a transparent wall on the interior side of the ship, re-creating the deepness of space. It was just imagery collected from cameras situated outside the walls of the ship to relieve the feeling of containment, and replace that anxiety with an overwhelming sense of vastness. The other boys were thoroughly impressed.
‘Dude, those Bromels were intense. I can see why they are Zane’s bodyguards. They could probably kick some serious butt!’ Dan said, as he stopped to immerse himself in the infinite black space presented on the wall.
Liam playfully kicked my foot, tripping me. I turned to chase him, and he put me in a headlock, wildly grinding his knuckles into my scalp.
‘Say uncle-say uncle,’ Liam said jokingly.
‘Uncle, Uncle! C’mon goofis! You are going to make me go bald if you keep doing that,’ I said, as I ran ahead to avoid our frisky scuffle.
‘Thanks, Ted,’ Liam said.
‘For what?’ I asked.
‘For this. If you didn’t bring me here, I’d be stuck on the third rock down from the sun in the Milky Way!’ he said, and continued down the hallway.
I laughed, running after him with my lips pursed, and I shouted, ‘You owe me a kiss!’
I could feel the presence of Dietons. They flowed around us, and in the center of our group, the formation of a body rose up from the ground. Level-by-level, the body began to take shape. The robotic man-thing standing beside us introduced himself as Nezatron. I recognized him immediately from my first encounter on the Uriel, shortly after I had been saved from a certain death at Taylors Falls. The others in my group gazed on in wonder.
‘I am Nezatron. Theodore has met me before. As you can see, I am made entirely from Dietons. I am from Sephera; therefore, I am Sepheran. I will be guiding most of your training on this ship. Welcome to the Uriel. It is the name of this ship. You will be sequestered to your sleeping quarters until notified. Don’t touch anything,’ Nezatron said.
Nezatron, as I remembered him from before, was robotic in nature. However, he was now of human form. The facade that he disguised himself with was of a man with platinum hair, slicked back; bright blue-green eyes, like the ocean near a coral reef; and about-average height—standing about six feet.
His voice was similar to before, but more human-like, yet still monotonous. It was the first time I actually saw—with my own eyes—the formation of Dietons. It was a sight to remember.
There was astounding warmth radiating from within my body. It was a feeling of inner serenity that pushed outward from the
center of my chest, leaving a tingling sensation at the outermost nerve endings of my body. The quality of the air within the vessel was pristine. I breathed deeply and cleanly.
I rummaged through my sleeping quarters, exploring what was known and unknown. It seemed designed for the comforts of an individual, but there was one important thing missing—a bed. A button on the wall intrigued me. Pressing it, I felt a flow of Dietons again, and then I heard Nezatron:
‘Lie down. Do it. You can trust me; after all, we have been through a lot. C’mon, lie back.’
I leaned backward slowly, and I felt my body braced by an invisible pressure. I lay completely back, comforted by the softest feeling I could ever imagine. It felt as if I were lying on a nimbus cloud, or millions of bubbles.
Nezatron said proudly, ‘What you lie upon is actually millions of Dietons. These Dietons were equipped with microscopic platforms. There are enough to encompass your entire body. No matter which way you move, the Dietons will adjust to give you systematic support at essential points of your body. In other words, they will give you complete comfort while you sleep.’
I rolled around. Nezatron was correct. The Dietons adjusted to my movements and provided an extremely comfortable platform for sleeping. Although, if any human watched me test that technology, they might think I was blithefully possessed by the way I was levitating about my room.
I learned that Dietons could not be observed with the naked eye until they worked together intensely to form an object. It was when they bound together their attachments with finality such that they created an image. The bed that I was toying with presented itself as a light grey transparent sheet of Dietons with slightly visible edges.
Nezatron was the most interesting form of Dietonical mass. He referred to himself as Sepheran, so I realized that when Dietons formed Nezatron, he was considered Sepheran. If the Dietons formed an inanimate object, that however was not considered a Sepheran, since that identity was only given to beings that had formed a new sentient soul. Nezatron certainly qualified. Although he appeared human, and executed flawless mannerisms that wouldn’t cause any by-stander any cause for alarm, he was still essentially robotic in nature. Despite that, he was definitely his own person, with his own soul. That was weird.
After the tours of our rooms, Nezatron led us five to a huge conference room in the middle of the ship. It had sunken wide steps that appeared as a circle, with its bottom-most platform right in the center. He beckoned for us to step down to the eye of the circle, and we did. We looked at the cavernous ceiling; it was a glass dome that, again, afforded us a wide view of outer space.
Suddenly, from a holographic projector on the ceiling appeared the image of Zane. We were engaged in a sort of hologram conference call. He said, ‘Attention! Please draw near. My name is Zane, and this is my ship, the Uriel. We are at war. My creators, the Dacturons, which I have long ago disavowed, have chosen a path of destruction. Urilian involvement in their lives angers them, and they choose war as the solution. It is my duty to raise awareness of this growing threat. My belief is that we all must involve ourselves in this fight. You will represent Earth, compliments of Theodore. We ran the database of Earth’s entire population, and with our findings, we now know that he is the only one capable of delivering us from this threat. He has risked his life to get you here, and lost everything, because of Dacturon greed and jealousy. Did you tell them about the death of your grandparents, caused by our enemies, just last night?’
‘Just Mariah,’ I said, with my head bowed down, and my body slouched.
All the other teenagers—even Mariah once again—conveyed shock at the news. They couldn’t cry; it was too unreal for them. But there was no doubting the chagrin on their faces. They were also still not fully recovered from their sudden departure from Earth. It would take several weeks for them to adapt to the new reality, if ever.
‘It is okay, bud. I am here for you. We all are,’ Liam said, and the others comforted me as well.
‘What are Urilians?’ Dan asked.
Zane continued, and said, ‘Urilians are basically anyone who opposes the Dacturons under my rule. This war is between the Urilian resistance and the Dacturons. You are here, because you willingly accepted this fate. If for any reason saving the lives of billions isn’t a cause you are interested in pursuing, then I will send you back to Earth. This mission isn’t for anyone who has doubts of what they are capable of doing. Your doubts might certainly lead to the deaths of others. Every decision you make from here to the end of this conflict will have an effect on the outcome.’
‘Why did you guys let this happen? I mean, Ted’s grandparents are dead. I mean, I don’t know what happened, or who did it, but it sounds like something real bad happened. Couldn’t you have stopped that?’ Liam asked angrily. I stood spellbound, wanting the answers even more badly than Liam did.
‘Liam, my power is finite. You might have been told that I was infinitely powerful and can destroy anyone or anything that isn’t in line with my law. It is true that I have strength, but my power has limitations,’ he said.
‘You can say that again, dude,’ Lincoln growled. ‘You definitely have more power than we do, yet Ted has lost everything that was important to him.’
Zane turned to Lincoln and said, ‘I understand. I am angry too at what I could not prevent. Join me. If you don’t have anything to fight for, you do now. The deaths of Theodore’s grandparents will not be in vain.’
He looked around the room to let his remarks sink in. Satisfied, he said, ‘You will refer to me as Zane. You may not call me Lord, or dude. I am only an Omnian with the ability to do miraculous things, so please spare me any worship. You will train diligently, as I have schooled Bromels for hundreds of years. The Bromels are the brilliant angelic beings that were vital in your escape to the Uriel.’
Dan brightened up, ‘Yeah, those things were super rad!’
‘I can see your attention spans are in short supply, so I will try to move it along. We will use technology unfamiliar to your world. Make no mistake, the enemy wants us dead. We must respond with the correct measures. War is hell, so you may find us training with motives and tactics that may lie below your base instincts. You, in fact, may from time to time experience doubt,’ Zane said. He seemed troubled. ‘But you must have faith in me and know that because you have sacrificed for me, I will sacrifice for you. War isn’t forgiving, loving, or humane. War is disgusting. It is something I am not proud of, but we are cornered more now than ever.’
He pointed to outside, to the crystal clear dome where we could see stars twinkling. ‘Right now, outside of the confines of this ship, wait ten Dacturon destroyers. They don’t advance nor withdraw, so we have to figure out what they’re up to. Undefined purpose, however, does not erase their ability to raid this ship. Although it would be improbable that they would succeed in boarding us, it isn’t impossible.’
‘So we are trapped on this ship, with a threat outside?’ Liam asked.
Zane answered, ‘Yes. Remember, the evil of the enemy is limitless. They are not hobbled by niceties, nor are they gentlemen of war. They are willing to do anything, with no regard to what is just. In contrast, your actions will need to be within the highest attention to morals and integrity. You will listen to Theodore and accept his orders, because that is his gift. His ability lies in his understanding of leadership.’
He gazed at us. ‘Any questions? It’s important that you clear up everything, right now. That is mandatory even before we can start.’
Lincoln cleared his throat. I knew he would be the first to ask.
‘Just two words,’ he said. “Why Earth?’
Zane had a puzzled look. ‘You mean why Earth is involved, or—’
Lincoln’s face was red from excitement. ‘Why are you recruiting from Earth? Why are you guys all pissing each other off on Earth?’
Zane nodded his head knowingly. ‘Excellent question.’
Mariah spoke us, her eyes flashing. ‘Yeah! I know
what Linc means. We’re just a quiet, technologically backward planet.’ She looked around in awe. ‘You guys are so much more advanced than us. What possible use can we puny humans be to you?’
Zane stared at her approvingly. ‘You are very clever.’
‘Thanks.’ She glanced at Lincoln. ‘So is he.’
‘The short answer is… you humans are unique. In one very important way. It’s true you don’t have the technology. You’re very weak in terms of physical strength. Almost laughable.’
‘Hey, watch it!’ Dan snarled.
‘But one thing sets you out. You have consistently been proven to be the most … adaptable.’ He paced the room. ‘Other inter-planetary species are bigger, stronger. They’re more intelligent. More advanced. But… you humans are the most adept at strategizing, at surviving.’
A silence filled the room.
Zane continued, ‘We have the technology. We have this nanocom, as Theodore already experienced. We give you the power and strength. You are the most perfect fit of any species we have ever encountered.’ His voice was animated, yet hushed.
‘Okay,’ Mariah frowned. ‘That makes sense. But—why did you recruit—’ Mariah pointed to me, herself, and Lincoln—‘three fifteen-year-olds…’ She further pointed to Dan, then Liam.‘…a sixteen-year-old, and a seventeen-year-old? Why didn’t you recruit some career soldiers from Earth? Or our most brilliant scientists and engineers?’
‘We need willing kids who are not entirely set in their ways,’ Zane said. ‘Adults with a significant skill in demand by a powerful nation will likely resist leaving Earth, and they may also have children of their own that they cannot leave behind. Our resistance to the Dacturon Empire is mapped out over the next several years. This isn’t going to be an overnight victory. So if you are not willing to devote some of your own time to saving your world and the existence of Sephera, then your journey can end now, and you will be sent home. If anyone feels like this is the end of their journey, please speak now,’ he said, waiting for a moment to observe any quitters. ‘Ah, no one speaks. Good! The success of your training will be a reflection of the effort you put forth. Thank you for your time.’