by Terry Frost
“Did he ever. He scowled the whole way and stayed that way during our interrogation by old Caid Tikik. You remember the days when Hollywood held their award ceremonies back in the day when Earth had movies?”
“Yes, I believe they were known as the Academy Awards,” Allen said.
“Wasn’t one of their awards for best male actor?” Hammer asked.
“That could have been the one, and if we still had such an award Prince Gorvik would have won it, without question. Gorvik even stormed out of the king’s private chambers when he tried to comfort his nephew.”
“What did Gaakin say when he did that?”
“He just laughed and said he remembers back when his father told him he could bed any alien female on Daak, but he could not get betrothed to any of them. After sharing that with us, he clapped his hands and his chamber doors opened, and in walked a beautiful Daakie female, carrying this box and a tray with the necklace.
“I remember thinking to myself “why doesn’t Gorvik marry this handsome women” she was very fetching, Arvin.”
“We don’t always get to pick who our hearts go to, Anatoly.”
“True, very true. King Gaakin shook my arm in their customary way and asked that I accept this small token of appreciation for locating and returning his nephew to him. I couldn’t turn down his gift, so I accepted them. He made sure to tell me he wanted you, Jak, and as he called him, the not-Human Jeeves to have the singas. I did all I could do to explain that we need to get back to Colossus, but he said that was nonsense, and we had to stay the day and night to enjoy the festivities he has planned for us.”
“I’m thrilled that this whole affair turned out positive. I’m sure you probably need to rest awhile, so I won’t keep you.”
As Anatoly and Jak stood up and began walking out Anatoly stopped and turned back and said, “Arvin, I could be mistaken, but I’m of the impression King Gaakin is ailing. He coughed a couple times while talking to me, and he looked pale.”
Arvin hadn’t shared his knowledge of the king’s health and acted as if he didn’t know anything and said, “Could be just virus. We know all about those, don’t we?”
“Yes, sir.”
Colossus and its inhabitants had been setback a few weeks in their endeavor to find a new homeworld. So over the next several weeks, they stayed on mission until they finished scanning every planet and moon in the Calphor System.
Before plotting a course to the next star system, Admiral Allen sat down and composed a lengthy video updating the USC on Colossus’s findings and the remarkable discoveries of life in the uncharted realms of space. It was his opinion they had achieved more than any Human or Martian could have thought possible, and he was proud of that, and it showed in his video.
Sitting in front of his communications screen he hit the send button and the digitized message was on it’s way back to Mars. Feeling good about himself, his crew and citizens on board the huge generations ship, he walked over to his bed, turned off the light just above his head, and fell fast asleep.
****
After allowing Ensign Wolski to take her to Wolski’s favorite seamstress for her fitting, Junal had forgotten about her prince for just a short time. It would take at least a week for Junal’s clothes to be ready for her to wear, so Margo decided to take her to a few clothing stores in the shopping bazaar on Colossus so she would have something to wear while waiting on her new clothes.
All Junal had ever worn were ankle length skirts and bare shoulder tops, so Margo had a surprise in mind for her. She thought I know she is an alien, but what girl doesn’t appreciate a good pair of jeans. I’m guessing she will look marvelous in a pair.
Not only did Junal look fantastic in a pair of jeans, she was so happy with them she couldn’t express the sense of freedom she was experiencing while wearing them.
With their hands full of clothing bags, they were walking back to Junal’s quarters and Junal said, “I like Humans very much. You have the most interesting lives, and good ideas when it comes to what you call clothing. I would have never been allowed to wear such comfortable attire as these lovely jeans. Is it allowed that I may have more than two pairs of jeans?”
“Spoken like a true woman, Junal,” Margo said while lightly squeezing Junal’s arm. Junal looked at her new friend with a quizzical look on her face, which Margo noticed.
“What I mean by that, is all women want more than two pairs of jeans.” The comment made the beautiful young Venic laugh.
Once at her quarters, Junal asked Margo if she would like to come in and visit for awhile. Ensign Wolski had other duties to attend to but thought staying a bit longer would be okay.
After quickly putting her new clothes away Junal sat down by Margo and said, “You are a good friend, Margo. I most happy you are my friend.”
“Do you remember asking me while we were shopping what the word friend means, and I told you about all the ways a friend is good for a person to have?”
“Yes, I remember.”
“Well, I had a lifelong friend back in my world on Planet Mars, but she was not chosen as a member of Colossus’s journey and had to stay behind. I miss her so much.”
“This makes Junal sad, but now you have Junal.”
“Yes, I do. May I ask you a question about Obon?”
“Of course.”
“I’ve been told how you came to be living in the Daakie world, but I haven’t heard anyone tell anything about your world. Can you tell me something about it?”
Junal looked past Margo as she began to talk about Obon. “My world is a peaceful world. Obon has never known the word war. Until we were attacked by the Hive. We do not have warships like the Zurgut or the Colossus. We have ships, but they only carry Venic to areas of Obon.
“We came to know what war is when the Hive attacked Obon and our Grand Master sent a ship to ask Daakie for help to rid Hive of killing and stealing Venic. I remember watching the sky when Daakie began killing Hive and Hive killing Daakie.”
“Can you tell me more about Obon?”
“Obon has gold water and gold is in every Venic. If you cut Venic, they will bleed the color of gold. Obon has best soil to grow our food in. Our soil is best in the Bures System. Venic can grow anything in it, and grow is all Venic know how to do.”
“Sounds wonderful. Can you tell me why you were living on Daak?”
“Daakie is good aliens, but Daakie does not do favors for nothing. Grand Master bargained with King Gaakin that if he sent his warships to help Venic, then there would be cost. You know this word cost?”
“Oh yes. We, Humans, know all about the word cost. Things cost in our world too, and always has.”
“Our cost was high. Venic have to work on Daak for five periods before they can return to Obon. I too had to go to Daak, and that is how I came to know my prince.”
Ensign Wolski thought whatever happened to just plain ole helping out one’s neighbor. Guess the Daakie don’t consider doing something for nothing.
“Well, maybe when you and Prince Gorvik become betrothed, he will take you back there for visits now and again.”
“I want that very much.”
****
While the Colossians were two star systems away, back on Planet Yopa, the Nawi were preparing for a visit from a longtime friend from a star system named, Vagnas.
Vagnas was a star comparable to Sol, Earth’s star. The aliens coming to visit the Nawi were from a rocky planet named, Teran, where 120 million Terans call home. The Terans are an extremely old race about ten million years old, and their planet orbits eighty million miles from Vagnas. The planet was a warm planet with average daytime temperatures of around 90 during the cooler months to 120 degrees during Summer Soltice.
The tallest Teran were the males and stand seven foot tall. Their bodies are very similar to Humans, but with a few exceptions. Their arms and legs are extremely powerful, as are their large hands, but their skin is dark gray and their heads resemble birds of prey.
They have very small ears, bright red eyes with dark green pupils, a small beak, and are winged aliens. They keep their black colored wings folded on their backs unless they are about to take flight. When their wings are fully extended the male’s wings are ten-foot long from tip to tip.
The Teran envoy was sent by his Overlord Tun to planet Yopa to trade for gemstones, and his name was Overseer Flavon. Flavon and his ship had been orbiting Yopa for a couple of hours just before he boarded one of the ship’s three shuttlecrafts and took off with the exact coordinates to the Nawi dog pound, and home of Supreme Emporer Nulashin.
Terans were telepaths, meaning they are telepathic and can’t speak like other aliens. The only audible sounds they make, which are rare, sounds like screeching and is similar to the sound Hawks make on Earth.
Overseer Flavon’s spacecraft would be the envy of any and all spacecraft designers and engineers. The carbon black fighter they call Malcon is made from a metal never seen by other alien races. In the light of a sun it shimmers like polished onyx and without light, it is invisible to the naked eye.
The Malcon fighter seats four Terans and is fitted with weapons unknown to any of those that would be unfortunate to battle the swift ship. The Nawi Supreme Emporer Nulashin was only a pup when the Terans first came calling on his world.
With the aid of his father and a Teran teacher of telepathy, Nulashin learned how to communicate with the Terans while talking to them with only his mind. They had traded with the Nawi for close to a thousand years, and they were the answer to Colonel Hammer’s question’ of how they got such a powerful tool or weapon he saw cutting through stone while being allowed to visit the gem cutter's area.
Very few worlds had any knowledge of such a secretive race whose technology was far ahead of any known alien world. There were rumors eons ago about a war between the Hive and a race of aliens that fought them with invisible ships, which in reality was the universe's first cloaking technology. The rumors went on to say the unknown race was the only race to have ever made a group of Hive Nests retreat in battle.
After his first visit to Yopa to trade with the Nawi, Overseer Flavon enjoyed his time with the little Nawi, that he refused to leave the planet until Supreme Emporer Nulashin agreed to allow the Overlord’s special guard to install a long range communication device which was a direct line to the Overlord’s palace on Teran. Like several aliens that had visited the Nawi, all were concerned with their well being.
During his visit, Overseer Flavon had brought new weaponry to the Nawi people. Unlike the USC's protocol forbidding interfering with an alien race’s ability to arm and protect themselves, the Terans had no such protocols.
They were the race that gave the stone cutting saber to the Nawi gem cutters, and the explosive tipped arrows the Nawi used against the mynah. But this time Flacon brought powerful weapons designed like rifles that sent out explosive tipped projectiles that could easily take out small spacecraft or decimate such an animal like the mynah.
Nulashin and Flavon had a long and productive visit. Both races had made a good trade and Overseer Flavon was anxious to get back to Teran to show his king the beautiful gemstones he would be bringing back with him.
It would be a while into the future before the Human Race would be meeting the Terans for the first time, and it would be a good thing they met when they did.
The next system plotted for exploration was a system with a fairly small red giant, and known among Earth’s astronomers, as Meanin. It was well known that coming out of hyperspace was at best, a dangerous risk. During their calculations and discussions among many of their colleagues, physicists concluded the percentages though small, of coming out of a jump sequence, could have a chance of a catastrophic event. Such an event could be coming to close to an area’s host star or appearing into an asteroid field.
Though those scenarios didn’t happen when the Colossus came out of her jump into the Meanin System, something almost as terrible did. It would be the biggest threat the Human explorers would face yet.
FOR KIMBERLY
Acknowledgement: I wish to thank Rosemary Stoll for her valuable help in editing. I also what to thank Tatiana Vila of Vila Designs for her excellent artistry in the design of this book’s E-cover.
Author’s Note: I hope you enjoyed reading Colossus, Departure, Book 1. I’m not above begging, but this author needs your help. Please leave a review when you are finished. Reviews are an excellent way for an author to see how he or she is doing and receiving a rating of 4 or 5 stars will help this author climb the Author’s rankings on Amazon.
Colossus, Red Alert, Book 2, is now available on Amazon and Book 3, A New Menace, is soon to be available by mid 2018.
Also, if you like thrillers give my New Madrid Series a try. New Madrid is a four book series and starts with New Madrid, The Great Crevasse. The series is about an earthquake fault line that runs through eight states in the central part of the United States.
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