Descend- Seeing Stars

by Sean Oswald

  The rumors were that it was a miracle granted by the Source. Of course, Eesa didn’t even really believe in the Source. The idea that somewhere out in the universe there was some being from which all energy came was too much for her.

  Of course, the other thing that made the relics so valuable was the way that helite crystals were used in their star fighters. It was those crystals that gave them their subspace capabilities amongst other things. T’ruon, one of their A’snkarnt advisors had been of the belief that but for a lack of sufficient PSI, the clan fighters were each worth a hundred Forlorn craft. Who was to say if he had been right or not?

  Eesa suddenly heard her name being called. A crier standing outside the meeting tent had just called her. She was being summoned to the tent. Eesa was a proud warrior, one of very few women who had made the cut. She was fast and strong, but above all else she was perhaps the best pilot that the clans had ever produced. She had fought in battles before the A’snkarnt had plucked the best of their race from their planet Tamoori.

  Over the course of her one hundred and three solar cycles she had seen combat, had faced down countless suitors who sought to subdue her like some keeper female that wanted to breed. She had fought for her right to this life yet for some reason this summons scared her. It was rarely good news to be called before the council of elders. Perhaps they had decided to allow her to attack the enemy vessel from space where they would have the advantage. The charged helite crystals might allow them to power enough fighters to make it work.

  Well, she wasn’t some unblooded cub to stand quivering. She checked her equipment belt and made sure she had all of her gear stowed properly. It wouldn’t do to be called out for some breach of decorum and then she marched into the tent.

  Once inside the tent she saw each of the council members sitting in a semi-circle. Her father was to the far right next to Jad-bal-ja who occupied the honored position of the center right. The expression on his face caused her to almost stutter step because he was clearly concerned.

  “Greetings, Pilot Eesa, daughter of Al-na-mar, thank you for answering the summons of the council.”

  She dropped to one knee and lowered her head, hands upon the ground with her palms up and claws retracted, as custom demanded. “This daughter of the Lepar clan appears as called. How may this one serve the will of the clans?”

  “Rise, Pilot Eesa,” came the rumbling voice of Namur-san, the Tygar elder.

  She did as bidden and then stood at the ready as was military custom. Her father then said, “Please give this council your assessment of the enemy we fought today, these so-called humans.”

  That was certainly not what she had expected, but Eesa didn’t allow surprise to show on her face as she answered. “They were powerful and displayed abilities that were unlike anything I have ever seen. I would agree that it is likely they are not the Forlorn for they did not match any of the information that we have on that enemy.”

  “Namur-san asked, “And what do you think will happen if the clans were to attack them? They were less than three hundred as I understand.”

  “Esteemed elder, I actually believe that they were far fewer than that number.”

  “Please explain,” instructed Jad-bal-ja.

  Several times a fighter or tank would blast the ground where a cluster of them were supposedly located. The ground would be torn up and the chunks of rock blasted right through the bodies. I have to assume that the bulk of their numbers were merely a hologram.”

  “And you were able to see that from up in your fighter in the midst of a battle,” challenged Al-fa-hed, elder of the civet clan.

  “That is what I am trained to do, elder. It is my very reason for existing,” she replied.

  Jad-bal-ja cleared his throat and brought attention back to himself. “And if I told you that we believe their numbers were less than thirty and that most of the fighting was only done by barely more than a dozen of them, how would that change your assessment.”

  “To think that so few could kill almost a thousand warriors from the clans is staggering. To do it apparently without taking a casualty themselves, does not bode well for us at all. Even if that were all of their numbers, how many thousands of warriors would we have to throw away to completely defeat them,” Eesa replied.

  “That is my mind. I thought at first as I directed the battle that we would be able to eventually overwhelm them. Even believing them to be the Forlorn, I fretted about how many thousands of lives would be lost to bring them down. But then the battle changed. Tell me Pilot Eesa, did you get a good look at their leader,” Jad-bal-ja asked.

  “No, only that he was larger than all the rest, clearly male. What I did experience was the shield that appeared after he arrived. I don’t understand how such a shield could have been created. I didn’t see a generator for it. That technology would be worth a fortune. But I did hear his voice in my head.”

  “What if he were the one creating that barrier instead of any technology?” The Leon elder asked.

  “I would say that such a thing is not possible, and it must simply be a technology that we don’t understand,” Eesa replied.

  “Your file and your father point out that you are a very pragmatic young female. You have little use for what you believe to be the discussion of mystics, but let me assure you that under the Source many things are possible that you might find hard to believe,” Jad-bal-ja said.

  Unsure if she had been asked a question or not, she risked answering and said, “If it were true that one individual could create such a barrier then that one would be akin to the divine messengers of the Source from the stories I learned as a child.”

  The four elders then sat there watching her. Finally, Al-fa-hed asked, “Child of Lepar are you willing to serve the clans?”

  It bothered her that he had called her child rather than pilot as protocol dictated but rather than correct an elder, she simply put it off as a sign of his nervousness. “My life for the clan, given happily and without hesitation.”

  Namur-san said, “Warriors often talk about dying for the clans, but the greatest service can often be rendered by living for the clans.”

  She didn’t know what to say in response, so she remained quiet. Finally, her father said, “My daughter, it is the decision of this council that we will parley with this human, Jay, tomorrow. If we can reach terms, then an alliance will be made. It will then need to be sealed in the traditional manner.”

  A wave of horror came over, Eesa. She wanted to curse, but her military bearing prevented it. “This is your will, esteemed elder?” Then she added, “Father?”

  “It is the will of the council and you are the only daughter of a chieftain of the appropriate age. We don’t even know if you would be compatible, but if peace can be reached you can serve Tamoori best by living. I fear if peace can’t not be reached that you will die but leave no people behind you to remember your sacrifice.”

  She bowed her head. Tradition was clear. “My life for the clans, given happily and without hesitation.”

  Then she was dismissed although she could tell that her father wanted to say something more. Perhaps they would find a chance to speak now. For now, she wanted to scream. She needed to hunt something. So, she ran out and leapt into the trees. The larger clans’ men lacked the agility of a leper. For her she was just as at home in a star fighter, the branches of a tree, or the floor of the jungle.

  She ran quickly, imagining that if she somehow ran fast enough, she would be able to outrun destiny.

  Chapter 19- Alliances

  Jay didn’t sleep much, but did spend plenty of time in meditation. He pushed off any offers for company he received, generally explaining that he was still too angry about the events from earlier. Eventually though he got a telepathic message from Amelia.

  His first inclination was to block her out, but he realized that would be childish. He could sense through the fusion that they all were sorry for it, even if some of them still felt the decision was jus
tified. While he couldn’t support the decision they had made, he was strangely reassured that despite the fusion it was possible for them to have a disagreement and still like one another.

  He opened himself up to Amelia as she said, “They sent a messenger. They have agreed to meet with you in thirty minutes. You are allowed to bring an honor guard of up twelve, but they guarantee that they won’t attack first.”

  Jay thought about it for a second before telling her to agree to their terms. He knew they were trying to set the meeting without enough time for him to prepare any sort of trap. It was silly though. They didn’t know what Jay could do with thirty minutes, to him that could be turned into a lifetime.

  Now the question was who to bring with him. Ironically, his study of history actually came into play here. He thought about famous moments of diplomacy throughout the history of Earth. Certainly, these people would have their own heritage and customs but the key lesson that he remembered was that appearance was often more important than reality.

  If he went alone, it would show them one of a few things and it was difficult to judge how they might react. It might cause them to believe that he was arrogant or dismissive of their customs or even without honor worthy of being guarded. Going alone would prevent risk to the others but he couldn’t protect them from all danger. They were a team and deserved to stand by him just the same.

  He called out to all his fuses and summoned them to one of the larger meeting rooms. One by one they popped into the room. Miguel’s team took over guard duties so that they could all attend.

  Once everyone was there, Jay started to speak but Amelia interrupted him. “Please let me say something first. I think I can speak for all of us that we regret upsetting you with our decision to scout the leviathan without waking you. There is still a part of me that thinks it was the right thing to do based on the information that we had at the time. The bigger problem was that we didn’t break off the battle when we had the chance. And that was because we let Miguel’s team join us.

  So, I want to say I am sorry for creating this mess. I own my part in it and I hope you will forgive all of us.”

  Jay smiled and said, “You are all already forgiven. We are all entitled to screw up. This time it cost lives and I think that is going to be an issue moving forward but I can’t stay mad at you. Just don’t do it again.”

  As everyone nodded, Jay filled them all in on the invitation to meet in less than thirty minutes now. “There is a part of me that wants to go alone, but don’t worry I have decided against that. We need to match their custom since we are the outsiders here. So, I need an honor guard and can bring up to twelve of you.”

  “Do you think that was the honor guard of that lion guy before,” Charlotte asked.

  “I had kinda thought it was his wives, but maybe so. I would be the last person to underestimate the power of a woman after all that we have been through,” Jay replied.

  What ensued was a bit of jockeying for position. Every fuse had an argument for why they should be on his honor guard. He was surprised that even the less combat oriented wanted to come, but it made sense to bring some of them. They might notice something that he didn’t.

  In the end he gave a spot to all of his wives, Char, Maddy, Bong-Cha, Samantha, and Emma. This provided a good number of eyes and different skills to look at the situation from different perspectives. Of course, the debate had used up most of their time, so he didn’t have time to argue with them about the next instruction.

  “I want you all to dress up for this. Use your own style, but imagine that you are going to a fancy, state dinner rather than a battle. That said you can bring weapons if you want, but I want you to appear as flowers on my arm more than thorns,” Jay said.

  “What, you’ve never acted like this before,” Amelia protested. There was a faint sense of offense oozing out of her into the fusion.

  “This is me catering to their expectations. Now, I’m sorry but there isn’t time to debate this. If you can’t do this for me then at least give your spot at this meeting to one of your sisters who is willing to go along with the show I am trying to put on,” Jay replied.

  Amelia stared at him for a moment. Then she curtsied and said, “Oh my, I have to go powder my nose for my big, strong man. I just don’t know what I will wear.” The sarcasm oozed out of her words, but Jay could sense that she was going to comply. He might pay for it later, but she was on board for now.

  A few minutes later they were all walking out towards the tent that had been set up a few hundred feet from their ship’s airlock. Jay was glad that it wasn’t too far as several of the girls had gone all the way and were wearing long elegant dresses and heels. Others like Meikiyo were wearing old fashioned Japanese formal attire to highlight her culture. They were quite an eclectic group. He had never seen Amelia in anything but shorts, now though she was in a dress that seemed to highlight her curves even more.

  When it came to clothes on women, Jay was usually an advocate of the less is more model, but he was surprised how hot they could look even though they were far more covered up than normal. He actually found their outfits more tantalizing. Maybe it was that he knew what was underneath, but he knew that it would be hard to take his eyes off of his wives and fuses.

  Which raised another question. The cat people were fairly close to humans, if just with more hair, mostly on their arms, legs. Oh, and their ears weren’t on the side of their heads like humans, but more towards the top and were definitely furry pointed. Yet the females who had been with Jad-bal-ja had been attractive in an exotic fashion.

  At least he realized that now. In the heat of the moment, he had been too worried about the safety of his people and trying to defuse the situation to worry about what they looked like. His mind however was going back over that memory in detail now and he realized that they were in fact attractive women. That left him wondering how the cat people would feel about human women.

  He scanned around the tent and found that there were only sixteen living inside and no other ones for a mile from the tent. From what he could tell so far, they were playing it straight, but he would still keep his guard up. As he scanned, he noticed another oddity.

  More than ninety percent of the PSI that was leaking out of him and the fuses was all flowing straight into the tent. About half of it was leaking out the back side of the tent but that meant a huge amount of it was pooling inside. He wasn’t sure why it intrigued him so much. He knew he needed to focus on the meeting, but there was some sort of significance to this.

  When they walked into the tent Jay found four men sitting on pillows in a semi-circle. Behind each of them there were one or more females. All of them were in different colored robes or harnesses. There were a few guns and blades visible but just like his wives they didn’t appear to be dressed for combat.

  Off to the left there was another woman kneeling. She was younger than the rest. Her furry arms and legs had a leopard pattern. As he looked around, he saw that each of the seated males and the females behind them had different appearances from lion to tiger, leopard to cheetah.

  Once he took this all in, Jay began speaking in the cat people’s language, “I don’t know what your custom is, but it is ours to bow out of respect.” He then offered a short bow at the waist while never taking his eyes off of them.

  Jad-bal-ja said, “Greetings from the Tamoori people. We are the four elders. Each of us represent one of our clans, Leon, Tyger, Lepar, and Civet. We greet you before the Source.”

  Jay wasn’t sure what that meant but assumed that the source was some term they had for a god. “And I am Jay, leader of the human race. It is good to have a name for your people. The question before us now though is if we can find a way to work together.”

  The Leon elder then said, “That will depend, but there is the matter of your invasion of our ship and the nearly one thousand dead Tamoori warriors. Under normal circumstances we would never deal with those who had attacked and killed so many of ours. But th
e disappearance of the A’snkarnt and the threat of the Forlorn makes for a different situation.”

  “First, we did not attack first. Your people did that. What we did wrong though was enter your ship without making contact first. We have had bad experiences with both the A’snkarnt and the Forlorn, so we were worried about what we would find here,” Jay replied.

  The Leon elder was almost as big as he was and the two of them kept staring at one another. Jay kept scanning their thoughts. Their thoughts were simply alien, but he kept getting a sense of excitement from them regarding something called helite crystals. He had to take a stab in the dark. “So, what are helite crystals?”

  The Tamoori may have been aliens but the surprise on their faces was still evident. “You do not know?”

  Jay paused before answering. “I know that PSI energy is being absorbed into those crates behind you.”