Marcus knew he was right. There was no possible way they could stand up against such awe-inspiring force. Granted there were only three ‘gods’ and none of them appeared to be armed, but for all the Terrans knew the ship above could be carrying weapons powerful enough to kill them and the Golan kneeling around them in the blink of an eye, and be crewed by a complement of armed soldiers.
Marcus looked at the faces of the Golan nearest to him. They weren’t afraid, not of the gods at least. They’d been looking forward to this moment since he’d set foot on this world. Who was he to defy their beliefs? Just because he knew that the gods were in fact aliens, did that give him the right to interfere? Just then he caught sight of Jakunu and Hanasi, and remembered the pride in Jakunu’s eyes when he’d told them that his son was to join the gods in the heavens. Could he really shatter his hopes, his dreams for his son? For all Marcus knew, the ‘gods’ were benevolent beings who meant no harm to the Golan.
No, the captain was right. They didn’t have the right to interfere.
As Captain Mitchell began to communicate with the Tengri, ordering the shuttle to come and pick up the team on the ground, Marcus and Serena looked to one another for comfort. This world had meant so much to them, with its strange people and customs. It would be a sad farewell.
She took Marcus’ hand and led him through the throng towards Jakunu to say their final goodbyes.
Chapter 9
Tears streamed down Serena’s soft cheeks as she hugged each member of Jakunu’s tribe in turn. Marcus couldn’t help but notice the bewildered stares of the surrounding tribes. The entire team had been granted passage with the gods. For them, such a boon was the greatest honor the gods could bestow. Why then, was the Terran female overcome with sadness?
Serena was met only with smiles and warm embraces. The Golan people were obviously not ones for long sad goodbyes, focusing rather on the cheerful moments they had shared with these strange offworlders.
Jakunu himself knelt down and grabbed her lithe frame, rising up to lift her in the air, letting out a roaring chuckle as he gently shook her and pulled her in for a startling bear hug. When he finally lowered her back down, she wiped away her tears and waved them all goodbye.
“Lobaha livo namu vave kodi jia,” Jakunu bellowed, clumsily mimicking her wave. “Livo tubuni.”
Although both she and Marcus had spent the whole time since the Tengri’s arrival on the planet, it dawned on Marcus that she had had far more contact with the Golan than he had. He had kept mostly to himself, marveling at the trees, the rain, the animals, content to be alone with his own thoughts. She, on the other hand, had spent the entire time engaged in conversation with the Golan tribe, learning their ways and their customs.
Just then, one of the Golan children ran to her with a small leather pouch full of colored stones. Serena almost couldn’t accept the farewell gift. Her lips were quivering, unable to utter a word. The child simply hugged her and ran back to its parents.
Captain Mitchell approached Jakunu, hand outstretched as if about to greet a superior officer. Curiously, the chieftain reached out his own hand, his massive palm upturned. Mitchell grabbed the Chieftain’s index finger, which was almost as big as his entire hand.
“Jukuvahi vave Jakunu,” he said, mispronouncing the few words he had learned from Serena as he shook Jakunu’s finger.
While Taz and Reid stood smiling in the background and waved, happy to be moving on, Marcus felt torn between two worlds. He wanted so much to stay. This world had come to mean so much to him. From its gentle creatures to its raging rainstorms, even its higher than normal gravity, he loved it here. He knew that he couldn’t stay. If he would, he knew that not only would he miss his friends, he’d also be letting his squadmates down.
Without knowing quite how to act, Marcus stumbled towards Jakunu, first with his arms outstretched for a hug, then hesitantly lowering one of his arms for a formal handshake. The huge Golan would have none of it, and grabbed Marcus with both arms, giving him the same sendoff as he had Serena.
Marcus warmed at the thought that he’d had such an impact on the proud chieftain. They had not had much contact, but with Marcus’ constant presence in their village, he must have touched the Golan in a way he’d not imagined. As Jakunu lowered him back to the ground, Marcus was smiling from ear to ear, not wanting to let go.
The shuttle had landed on the outskirts of Lo’Mock, with Raven eagerly awaiting their arrival. As the team tentatively made the long walk towards the shuttles, Marcus looked back over his shoulder. The chieftains had begun making their offerings. Alongside their champions, they stood by as a pair of females carried the heavily laden sacks of Je’eela leaves to the platform.
What did these ‘gods’ have in store for the prized herbs?, Marcus pondered. More importantly, given their power and advanced technology, they could easily harvest the entire planet. Why didn’t they? Why the ruse? It seemed to Marcus to be an awful lot of effort for maybe a hundred sacks of the stuff. And why did they want to take the tribe’s strongest champions? Marcus feared that his questions might never find answers.
He watched from the shuttle’s hatch as Jakunu embraced his son and proudly stepped aside to allow him to take his place on the platform of the gods.
“We’re leaving Grey. You wanna get left behind?” Raven called from behind him.
“If only you knew,” he whispered under his breath before entering the small shuttle craft.
* * * * *
The Tengri’s gangways felt cold, and hollow. Polished steel frames lined with deep blue padding were the dominant décor, lit by piercing white lights embedded in the ceiling. Marcus felt strange to be back on the ship. Having spent so much time on Ga’ouna, a warm and welcoming world teaming with life, the Tengri’s empty halls were a disheartening sight. Even in his cramped quarters, surrounded by what few personal belongings he had, Marcus felt alone. He emptied the contents of his rucksack onto his bunk and began sifting through the various souvenirs he’d collected on Ga’ouna.
After almost an hour of sulking, staring out into the dead of space through the small square window in his chamber, fiddling aimlessly with a small wooden figurine he’d been given by one of the Golan children, Marcus decided to head to the bridge and see what was happening. Given the presence of the aliens’ ship, he had no doubt that most of his squad – if not the whole crew – would be finding reasons to loiter in the Tengri’s command centre.
On his way to the bridge he stopped by the galley, whose warmly-lit nooks broke the monotony of the rest of the ship. The galley was cluttered with comfortable chairs, small trees in square black pots, and a range of cupboards and tables. It was situated right below the bridge, at the front of the ship. A wide, arching window opened onto a view of the planet below. It was a sight to behold. Unlike the heavily-exploited planets in the Terran solar system, Ga’ouna’s unspoiled forests and pure oceans were truly beautiful.
“You’re back,” Darryl Knoles, the ship’s cook, grunted noncommittally.
Marcus hadn’t noticed the surly man as he entered. He slouched by the counter that separated the galley from the kitchen. Marcus had few good things to say about Knoles. The man had a mean blank, unfriendly stare and utterly lacked anything resembling a sense of humor. His sarcastic tone and grim scowl was in stark contrast to the otherwise pleasant room where he served the crew their meals.
“Just what I needed, more work,” he moaned, scratching the scraggly mud-colored beard that encircled his thin cracked lips.
“Can I get a quick bite? Preferably something I can take with me to the bridge?” Marcus asked cautiously, unsure of what to expect.
Knoles furrowed his brow, peering at him through his sunken eyes before letting out an exaggerated sigh.
“I think I have a few leftover sandwiches in the fridge,” Knoles grunted, dragging his feet as he retreated into the kitchen.
Marcus wondered, not for the first time, how someone with Knoles’ sullen disposition
had been appointed to a position that required daily human contact. As the cook returned from the darkened corners of the galley, he tossed a pre-packed meal onto the counter.
“Thank you,” Marcus sputtered, rushing to leave the cook to brood in private.
Unlike the confined cockpit on their old Barracuda, the Tengri’s bridge was spacious, with three main console stations jutting up from the deck and out from the forward bulkhead, which was entirely given over to a deck-to-ceiling viewscreen that doubled as a window and a data display. The three stations took up most of the deckspace, and almost enveloped their operators in their steel frames, upon which controls and displays were mounted.
Copilot Lonnie Gardulo – a bright, eager young pilot whose ebony skin tone, grayish-blue eyes and cheerful disposition set him apart from the rest of the bridge crew – was sat at the copilot’s station on the left, while the ship’s navigator, Guy Wei a serious man in his mid-thirties with slanting eyes – was at his station on the right when Marcus entered from the main hatch at the back of the room. At the front and centre of the bridge, Zorita ‘Raven’ Spencer, the pilot from Marcus’ old squad, occupied the third station, behind which a central walkway led to a raised platform where Captain Mitchell sat propped on a swiveling chair, an arrangement of buttons and small screens embedded in its armrests. His pudgy, fur-covered pet lazily stretched its paws in the air as it lay on its back on the captain’s lap.
The ship’s readouts displayed data on Ga’ouna as an assortment of holograms hovering over each station’s consoles, with some more technical details glowing on the readout embedded in the forward viewscreen. Judging by the sleek design of the consoles and other electronics, it was clear that the Benediction-class cruiser had been designed much more recently than the basic, functional Barracudas. Marcus had been on the bridge several times before, but he was still no less impressed. It had dawned on him that the soldiers in the Terran military weren’t exactly equipped with the best technology that Terran science had to offer. Most of what they had been assigned had been cheap, mass-manufactured gear which would have served its purpose, but it felt odd that non-military personnel such as the Tengri’s crew had been equipped with far better equipment.
The barking of the captain’s pet alerted the others to his presence. Spot, Marcus mused. What a strange name for a creature with entirely monochromatic brown fur.
“How does it feel being back on the ship there, Grey?” Captain Mitchell inquired, swiveling his chair to face him.
“Its… good,” he lied, approaching the center of the bridge. “Any sign of the ship yet?”
“Not yet,” Raven replied, pressing a series of buttons on her console. “We’re still waiting.”
Spot yelped as Marcus came to a stop next to the captain’s chair, the little creature panting heavily with its tongue protruding from its squashed snout, its freakishly large eyes staring at him intently. Marcus had found the beast comical from the first moment the captain had introduced it to the team. It had been placed in a cryo-stasis pod prior to their arrival on the Tengri, and had proven a welcome addition to the otherwise serious-minded crew. Marcus reached out a hand, holding it a short distance from Spot’s nose. Almost immediately the dog caught scent of something new, something it hadn’t smelled before, and began to enthusiastically lick his fingers.
“Captain, we’ve got movement on the scanners,” Wei called. “It’s the alien vessel.”
“Put it onscreen,” the captain ordered.
The image of the sleek, shimmering craft appeared suddenly on the forward viewscreen, racing towards them from the planet’s upper atmosphere.
“Wei, get as many readings as you can on that ship and send the data to Dr. Gehringer for analysis,” Mitchell ordered. “Let’s bring the Tengri about. They said they’d give us a tow. What that means exactly… well, we’re about to find out, but let’s be prepared for the worst.”
“Yes Sir,” the bridge crew acknowledged.
A few moments later Taz and Reid came running through the hatch onto the bridge, having felt the ship’s acceleration.
“Is it time?” they blurted in unison, the image on the forward viewscreen already answering their question.
Marcus shot them a wide-eyed smile, pleased to see the pair of them again.
“Damn, she’s big,” blurted Raven as the alien craft slid closer into view. “She must be at least five times bigger than the Tengri.”
“Keep your cool Raven,” the captain ordered. “Nice and steady.”
The alien craft began slowing down as it neared their position, coming to a halt a few hundred meters away.
“We have an incoming transmission Captain,” Wei spoke. “Attempting to adjust the frequency.”
After a few seconds of fiddling with the controls, Wei was able to play the audio part of the transmission over the bridge’s intercom.
“Ono livo ja’aso nusu,” came the booming voice of the serpentine aliens.
A sudden jerk shook through the ship as a halo of soft blue light flowed over the forward viewscreen, surrounding the Tengri, while the alien vessel began to loom even closer.
“Talk to me! What’s happening?” Captain Mitchell prompted anxiously.
“Not sure, Captain,” the navigator replied, as the three bridge crew all frantically tapped at their consoles. “It appears to be some sort of gravity generator, a gravitronic beam, although I’ve got no idea how they’re projecting it without interfering with our own artificial gravity.”
The captain clutched his armrests with a nervous scowl. Spot seemed to pick up on the sudden tension on the bridge, springing into the air and deftly landing on its tiny feet, scurrying off in search of a safe place to hide.
As the alien craft wheeled across the screen, Marcus felt his stomach lurch as he realized that it was barely moving at all, but was actually pulling the Tengri to face it as it pulled away, towing the Terran ship along in its wake.
Without warning, a bright flash of light appeared in the distance, almost blinding everyone on the bridge with its intensity. Tangents of light began to stretch outward from the glaring blaze, enveloping both the Tengri and the alien vessel like tentacles pulling prey towards a hungry maw. Suddenly the craft before them seemed to stretch, wavering in front of them before shooting forward, pulling the Tengri after her at an incredible acceleration. Marcus felt as if his stomach had been pulled out of his body through his back. His lungs refused to breathe, and he gasped for air. His head was swimming and his vision became distorted. It was as if he was suddenly falling at a tremendous velocity, trying to claw his way back into reality.
Slowly the uneasiness began to recede, and Marcus could see that he had not been the only one afflicted. The captain’s face was as pale as chalk, and behind him Taz threw up on the deck.
Through the forward viewscreen Marcus could see that they were traveling through what looked like a tunnel made from pulsating waves of energy, the alien ship still visible a short distance in front of them. Grunting at Navigator Wei to send all the logs to Dr. Gehringer for analysis, Mitchell withdrew a small plastic bottle from his pocket. He shook the bottle, rattling its contents before opening it and pouring a handful of pills into his palm, swallowing a few and placing the rest back into the bottle.
“Well… hopefully this journey won’t take quite as long as the last one,” he proclaimed, visibly concerned. “Though we can use the stasis pods if we have to.”
The rest of the crew gathered their composure, and Taz went to clean up the mess he’d made on the floor. Mitchell remained still in his seat, staring intently through the forward viewscreen. He tapped his fingers on the console in his armrest for a while, before finally giving in and leaving the bridge, giving explicit orders that the crew were to remain on high alert and that he was to be made aware of even the slightest development.
Marcus stood stock still, staring in awe of the display in front of him. He had witnessed the incredible speeds Terrans were able to achieve by mea
ns of their mass accelerators, cannons large enough to fire entire ships across the deepest regions of space.
This was something else entirely.
Chapter 10
It had been three days since they had departed from Ga’ouna and the alien ship had made no attempts to establish communication. Tension among the crew had magnified with each passing day, and it was starting to show. The bridge crew, under orders from Captain Mitchell, had made several attempts to contact the alien vessel, but to no avail. The captain had also conducted a tactical meeting, preparing the crew for what might await them at the end of their journey, as much as anyone could prepare for such an unforeseeable event. In addition, he had also called a separate briefing for the remainder of Marcus’ old squad, one he conducted behind closed doors.
The meeting room was a long chamber on the second deck, next to the captain’s office. A narrow table took up most of the deck space, its shiny black surface reflecting the flowing energy waves outside the double-wide window. An enlarged viewscreen took up the whole bulkhead next to the entrance hatch, and was currently displaying a three dimensional rendering of the C-CORE logo that revolved ever so slowly against a golden background. It was the first time they’d all been alone together since leaving Takahashi’s corporate suite. It felt good to be there, just the six of them. Technically the captain had only been assigned to their squad after they had lost their former leader, but now, in exile, he was one of them.
“What’s wrong boss?” Jago asked, the behemoth of a man, visibly nervous over the secrecy of their meeting.
“Nothing’s wrong Ape,” the captain replied. “We just have some things that we need to discuss.”
“What’s so important that you don’t want the rest of the crew knowing about it?” inquired Reid, not one for dishonest deeds.
“Your… abilities,” the captain answered, silencing the room.
Merillian: 2 (Locus Origin) Page 6