by Paul Tassi
“You don’t sound like you believe that.”
“My clan has always been wary of such claims. For generations we have worked for the betterment of the Xalan race, and war improves the lives of no one. While there is a sect that wishes for all our people to leave Xala and migrate to these new worlds, the ruling party, which has been in power for thousands of years, demands Xala hold firm as a military force to be supplied by the other planets. The vast majority of Xalans believe wholeheartedly this arrangement must continue. Our species has been battle-born for thousands of years and war is all we know. Pride has killed more Xalans than Sora ever did.”
Intergalactic war that lasted millennia. A mammoth planet full of humans. Even with all Lucas had experienced over the past few years, it was a lot to take in. He understood why Alpha had needed a quiet moment to explain it all to them.
“Where do we fit into all this?” Lucas asked.
Alpha brought up the original hologram of the woman once more.
“We will go to Sora. I will offer Talis Vale all my knowledge of the Xalans and our military operations both on- and off-world. I also possess the knowledge that would allow them to travel further than they have ever been into deep space. I would be infinitely valuable to them.”
“They’d raid your colonies,” Asha said.
Alpha sighed.
“It is a risk I must take. The war must end, one way or another. Omicron and the council must not be allowed to continue plotting this course toward mutual destruction. The war may be ended without the annihilation of either side. I believe uncovering my father’s research will be key to understanding the solution I seek. I believe it is why he was killed.”
“And what about us?” Lucas asked.
“You will astonish them the way they have astonished you. They have not seen these other worlds, full of creatures like them. They know nothing of Earth. To learn they are not the only Sorans in the universe will undoubtedly be a shattering revelation, and they will want to hear everything you have to say about your world.”
“And showing up in this Xalan hunk of junk, they’re not just going to blow us out of the sky?” Asha asked.
“I hope they would be more curious than vengeful when they encounter as strange a phenomenon as two of their own piloting the craft in tandem with their enemy,” Alpha said.
“You hope?” Lucas asked.
“Hope is the basis for this entire endeavor.”
Lucas lay on his mattress in the water chamber, clad in new khaki cargo pants and a black T-shirt from the mansion. His head was still reeling from all Alpha had told them about Sora, Xala, and the eternal conflict they were now squarely in the middle of. Nearby, Noah was playing with the only toy that interested him. It was the disc Alpha had given Lucas when they’d gone into the mothership, and the child was waving his arms excitedly through the various maps and interfaces, giggling as they changed shape before him. Having broken out of his sullen state, Noah would certainly help to improve morale if he began to develop as a normal child would.
Lucas’s quarters had needed some reorganizing, as even with the artificial gravity of the ship his stacks of books had been thrown across the floor during the Sentinel firefight, and Natalie had fallen off of her perch above his bed. He remounted the rifle and ran his finger through the gaping metal wound once more. It still pained him to see his old friend mangled so.
Lucas browsed through a data disc Alpha had given him after their chat on the bridge. It contained a large amount of Xalan-gathered information on their destination, Sora, and Alpha had advised the pair of them to study it closely. Thumbing through the basic information, he found the planet’s vital statistics. Sora was about 40,000 miles in diameter, which dwarfed Earth’s 8,000. It took the equivalent of 486 Earth days to orbit around the central star of its system, and the days were thirty-seven hours long.
There were thirty-five major continents and almost a hundred smaller ones, though the entire planet was governed by a singular ruling body. The total population was estimated by Xalan military officials to be around one hundred billion, with another five billion or so scattered across nearby planets and moons. They had forward military bases in other star systems on the way to Xala, but none of the planets were particularly hospitable, and as such they were merely used as stopovers.
The data packet was surprisingly light on Soran history. The tactical information was highly detailed, but in terms of the actual history of Sora as a society, not much was to be found. There was a sparse timeline that started with a brief note about the invention of interstellar travel with attached scientific notes Lucas didn’t understand. A note said something about a machine uprising that didn’t go into detail. After that was a huge chunk of time with absolutely nothing listed, and then suddenly the discovery and invasion of Xala appeared out of nowhere, with a litany of battles marking the many years after. The data file contained much to look through, but Lucas would have thought that the Xalans would know their enemies in and out and would have an infinite amount of information about them. Instead, there seemed to be pretty large knowledge gaps that didn’t make sense for a race with such advanced technological capabilities.
Lucas tossed the data display over to Noah, who was delighted to have a second colorful plaything. Lucas thought of their own upcoming timeline. Five months aboard the Ark? It was barely a week ago that he reached Portland, and though he was growing more accustomed to his new extraterrestrial surroundings, it was still a long stretch of time, and the vessel was not that big. Stuck with a baby that had now figured out how to cry, a woman who had almost killed him on a few occasions, and an alien with an assumed death wish, it was going to be an interesting ride.
14
In their own personal tunnel through space-time, there was little to disturb them. Far from the whirlwind of the first week, the Ark and its inhabitants were now in a place of relative calm. No cannibals, no drones, no stealth cruisers or alien warlords. Their journey was no longer a race but merely a drift, outside the bounds of physical space. On the other side of the passageway they could find anything, but for now they were allowed some sort of reprieve.
It had been a few weeks since they’d activated the core and started the final leg of their journey toward Sora. Lucas had a routine down that kept him sane and healthy. He was slowly adjusting to the thirty-seven-hour clock of Sora, as Alpha told him that his twenty-four-hour cycle would hinder his ability to function there, and though it exhausted him at first, he found sleeping fifteen of the hours gave him enough energy to stay awake the other twenty-two. He kept to his appropriated mattress and sheets and hadn’t dared go back to the pods for fear of what visions might plague him.
After he woke up and dressed in the water chamber, he ingested his first nutrient vial. As he and Asha refused to sleep in the pods, Alpha gave them portable inhalant devices that shot the nutrients straight into their lungs where they were then filtered into their bloodstream. It was almost entirely tasteless, but there was a musty iron smell that took some getting used to. Water was still plentiful, but a few of the tanks were starting to drain noticeably as the core drew on them for power. From the looks of it, they should have enough to last the months required, but the exact calculation of that fact Lucas left to Alpha.
When “breakfast” was over, Lucas began the first of a few workout regimens he’d crafted to help him pass the long, sunless days. Though there was no more solid food to be found on the ship since they’d gone through the last of the canned goods, the constant supply of nutrient packs allowed him to return to a healthy weight. By the end of his journey to Portland, he had wasted away to almost nothing, and he was lucky to be able to walk a few miles a day in the heat. But now, with proteins, vitamins, and whatever the hell else was flowing through his system, he did dozens of wind sprints down the metal grated hallway of the water chamber, aided by a pair of athletic shoes he’d looted from the mansion. When he was winded, he dropped and did as many military pushups as he could m
anage, and the number was increasing daily. There was an overhanging section of the wall he managed to use for pull-ups, and it had taken him a week of recovery to even manage a pair of them. He cycled in various other isometric exercises he remembered from high school football camp decades earlier and would repeat variants of the routine two more times before the day was over.
After downing two full cylinders of water after his workout, Lucas headed upstairs to the barracks to check on Noah. The prison cell nursery had been abandoned when it became clear that Noah loved sleeping in the pod Alpha had laid out for him. He slept soundly through the night, every night, which was stunning for a child his age. Lucas assumed he took to the pod because he had no real memories that could haunt him. The system was a godsend as it allowed him to wake up rested, fed, and happy each morning, and the gaseous nutrients meant few messy diapers. On this particular day, Lucas brought him a new holographic toy Alpha had thrown together in minutes. It was that the size of a tennis ball and had colorful symbols that shot out of all sides when it was touched. Lucas threw it up in the air and the symbols disappeared, and when he caught it, they immediately sprang out again, which pleased Noah greatly and he reached for it with outstretched arms. His burns had continued to heal, but Alpha warned that without more advanced medical supplies, they would likely never fully disappear, and the child would be permanently marked by his former planet. After handing him the ball, Lucas stepped over the welded storage cubes that made up a makeshift playpen, and the child remained enraptured by his new plaything.
Alpha had been spending a large amount of time in the lab, which was now unlocked as he didn’t mind visitors while he was working. Lucas supposed Xalans craved interaction like any other creature, and Alpha was doing his best not to fall back into isolation the way he had been before the pair of them came along. Lucas was glad for the company as well.
“What’s the project today, Alpha?” Lucas asked as he came in through the main door. Though the lab was always open, the door across from it remained permanently locked.
“Something that should prove useful when we reach our destination,” he replied. He didn’t have his power tools out today, but rather was programming something onto a small chip like the one Lucas had used for holotraining.
“What is it?”
Alpha held up his hand, the chip levitating a couple of inches above it. Lucas still didn’t understand how it did that. Some sort of magnetic trick? He grabbed it from Alpha’s outstretched claw.
“It is the entirety of the Soran language, translated into English. This program will help you master it, and you should be fluent in a short period of time. As should Asha.”
He presented a second, identical chip.
“When we do finally make contact, I imagine the Sorans would be far more receptive to you if you know the language 87.3 percent of their people speak.”
Lucas left Alpha to his tinkering and headed up a level to the armory, where Asha was sure to be found. He entered the large room and found a familiar sight: her reassembling yet another one of their confiscated cannibal weapons.
“Don’t you ever get tired of that?” Lucas asked.
“Keeps me sane,” she said, not lifting her head to acknowledge his presence. She was wearing a dark green tank top and a pair of white cropped pants streaked with grease. And she was barefoot, as usual. She too had been regaining some of her lost strength, and was not as rail thin as she once was. Her arms looked noticeably more muscular, and he’d seen her bench pressing storage cubes on occasion when he came by to visit. She never asked for a spotter.
The room was far more organized than when Lucas first came across it. The guns they’d taken from the village had all been carefully cleaned and organized by caliber, matched with appropriate ammunition that filled cubes on the ground. The three sets of Xalan power armor they’d taken hung on racks with the energy weapons propped up next to them. Though they’d all been meticulously polished by Asha, none of them were working as they hadn’t yet gotten Alpha’s attention.
Lucas tossed the chip at Asha, who caught it instinctively.
“What’s this?”
“Time to learn how to speak Soran.”
Asha rolled her eyes.
“We have to learn their damn language? I already speak Hindi and French. Can’t Alpha just make us a pair of those translator necklaces?”
Three languages? Lucas had almost failed out of AP Spanish in twelfth grade.
“You really want to sound like a robot like him? Besides, what else do you have to do?”
Asha looked down at the gun she was rebuilding for the fourth time.
“Alright,” she said.
She stood up and walked past Lucas toward the far side of the room.
“While you’re here, come take a look at this.”
She picked up a heavy cube full of ammo and set it on the ground. It had been sitting on another, larger storage device. One with a holographic lock on it.
“I found this hiding in the corner here once I finally got this place sorted out. I’ve tried everything under the sun with those controls and I cannot get it open.”
A few bullet indentations near the display indicated she’d tried more than just sifting through the lock’s display. A machete lay on the ground next to the cube, snapped cleanly in half. Lucas had become more accustomed to the design of Xalan displays, but as he attempted to unlock the container, he was met with multiple flashes of angry red. He couldn’t translate the symbols that appeared when he failed, but he understood their general meaning, warning him to back off.
“I’ve no idea. You should ask Alpha.”
She sat down on the cube and put her feet up on another container nearby filled with belt-fed light machine gun ammo.
“I’m wondering if he’s the one who put it there. If his friends cleared the place out before they abandoned ship, why wouldn’t they have taken it with them?”
Lucas didn’t have an answer to that.
“Anyway,” Asha said. “I’m going to go check on the kid.”
Over near her bed was a floating monitor that showed a view of Noah rolling around in the barracks. Lucas had a similar display in his own quarters that he could bring up to keep an eye on him.
Asha marched out of the room before Lucas could say another word, and there was more grease on the back of her pants than the front. Their relationship wasn’t what Lucas would call “friends,” but they were getting dangerously close to “colleagues” as their recent battles had forced them to pull together and, at the very least, allowed them to trust each other to a certain degree. In the weeks after their brief moment of personal revelation about her harrowing childhood and his lost son, they hadn’t talked much about themselves, sticking to the safe topics of the Ark, Alpha, Noah, Xala, Sora, and intergalactic war.
Lucas arrived in the CIC and stared at his primary source of entertainment these past few weeks: the captain’s chair. With over twenty hours a day to kill, he’d finished his combat flight school holotraining, completing all thirty-three levels of the program for the Ark’s ship class. Even when unplugged, his brain whirred with flight formations and intercept tactics. Growing tired of attempting to best his highest scores in the simulator, he thought about trying to learn how to fly a virtual fighter instead of a transport, but at the moment he had a new program to investigate.
The chip flew immediately into the console when he released it and familiar cables sprung out and attached themselves to his temples. The rush of information was something he was slowly getting used to, but this was his first experience with an entirely new type of program. There were no virtual spacecraft or foreign moons to fly around, rather his field of vision exploded with a countless array of geometric symbols. It took him a moment, but he began to understand what he was looking at. The Soran language.
A voice began speaking in English, and he was stunned to find that it was actually his own.
“Welcome to basic Soran,” it said calmly, soundi
ng exactly as he did.
Lucas was puzzled, but then something clicked and he understood. With no other English speakers around, Alpha must have taken a speech sample from one of their many conversations and used some sort of editing technology to allow him to say anything he wanted. He programmed it as a virtual guide for Lucas, as surely the lesson would be easier when he could already hear himself speaking the unfamiliar words. All he had to do was copy.
An hour or so with the audio tutorial and Lucas thought he was getting the basics down quite well. The language didn’t sound like any he’d heard on Earth. It wasn’t as slow as an American drawl, nor as intense as Japanese or Chinese. It lacked the flow of any Romance language, nor did it have the unpronounceable sounds of Arabic or African tongues. It was entirely unique, but Lucas, aided by his own voice, was learning to assemble simple phrases with ease. It was that good old neural stimulation at work again, allowing him to process information at lightspeed, but he wondered how much he could retain when the program was shut down.
The tutorial broke from its audio lesson and turned to a visual representation of the language, the geometric symbols from earlier, which looked far different than the Xalan words scattered through the ship. These icons were clean and organized while Xalan was more primal and almost hieroglyphic. As virtual Lucas talked actual Lucas through the layout of letters and words, he began to understand. Each sound corresponded with a shape. An “o” sound was a square, a “u” a circle, an “a” a triangle, and so on. Non-vowel sounds had more complex shapes. When they were combined into a word, the different sound shapes assembled themselves into one complicated glyph. If you knew what each shape meant, you could read the word. It took Lucas far longer to catch on to this system than when he’d heard the language audibly, but after a few hours, he was creating his own symbols by drawing them in the air, his finger turned into a virtual pen by the program.