by Stan Butler
Chapter 9
Sakara floated in the crystalline depths.
His oxygen had run out hours ago but he was still breathing somehow.
He looked down at his suit and the multitude of tears and rips, blood sometimes leaking from around the shards of ice buried in his body.
He should be in pain he thought, but then again the cold had probably numbed his nerves, or killed them.
He tore the shattered helmet from his head and breathed in deeply.
Water flowed into his mouth and then out of his neck.
Gills?
He pressed his hands to the sides of his neck and breathed again.
Gills.
That confused him. He hadn’t had those earlier.
A second shock wave passed over him and he turned to see the research station sinking, on fire, into the depths, droplets of burning oil floating to the surface like amber bubbles.
He wondered if anyone had survived that.
The survivors would have headed for the suits after the submarine detonated. If they had been quick or he had been unconscious for longer than he thought then they may have escaped and the explosion may have been a booby trap activated by the wraith. Or it could have been a last stand.
There was a noise similar to a whale’s call behind him and the world went black.
Well, more of a reddish black.
He swam over to the side of the cavity in which he now found himself in and felt the wall.
Flesh-like.
He activated the torch surprisingly still attached to the lacerated suit and looked around the creature’s mouth.
The oesophagus had been blocked off and the trachea must have been elsewhere as the mouth was exit less.
He looked at the front of the mouth.
It was leech-like with thousands of teeth on curved flanges of flesh around the mouth, clamped together like the iris of a camera leaving no exit. The teeth themselves were chitinous. Not Terran enamel style.
Sakara thought to himself. These teeth would grow back quickly if damaged and although chitin is weaker than enamel, the teeth were probably not made of pure chitin, perhaps combined with calcium carbonate like the shells of crabs on Earth or perhaps sclerotin as used by terrestrial insects.
He continued to think as he floated in the mouth.
“What is the point of a mouth without any way to absorb the food?” he asked the nothingness that surrounded him.
He came up with two options; one, an alkali substance would soon start filling the mouth and he would be dissolved or two, this was a genetically modified creature designed for the purpose of transporting personnel and equipment around.
The latter was soon proved correct.
Water drained from the mouth suddenly and Sakara slumped to the ground, some blood seeping out from his wounds. The gills at his neck began to seal themselves back against his skin and the mouth opened, blinding him with harsh white light.
Figures entered the mouth and picked him up, laying him on a stretcher and leaving the moon pool chamber into which the genetically engineered creature had entered. The group entered a large airlock and waited for the cycle to finish. They were tall hominids. But unlike humans, they were covered in a chitinous exoskeleton. This in turn was covered in white coloured armour or clothes, Sakara couldn’t tell which one they were, they were more of a mixture of the two.
The chitin carapace was meltwater blue in one of the five creatures and white in the other four. Their faces were crustacean but with arachnoid eyes, eight in total. They had triple jointed legs with a second, reverse knee. They also had four arms; however two were nothing more than blades within sheaths on their back.
One noticed his scrutiny and, looking surprised to find him awake, jabbed a needle into his neck, He then continued to look surprised for the rest of the journey as whatever he had put into Sakara’s system failed to have any effect at all.
The journey ended in what was obviously a hospital.
The creatures began conversing with another group of identical creatures in what was obviously Terran Basic. This confused Sakara.
“Iae’Lae.” said the blue creature to whom Sakara had correctly identified as the leader of the new group.
“Tar’Kor, I see you have failed to notice the state of your patient again. You were explicitly told to keep him unconscious.”
Sakara filled the names in his memory. It was a strange form but they were short and memorable. The difficulty would be putting them to the correct creatures. He also wondered why they were speaking Terran basic but he was too tired to really care.
“Methohexital had no effect Ma’am.” The creature replied.
“Or did you get the dosage wrong?”
One of the other creatures joined in in Tar’Kor’s defence.
“The dosage was correct Ma’am.”
“Interesting...” She replied. “Bring him through to the operating theatre; we need to take care of those wounds. Aspects alone know how he hasn’t bled out by now.”
It took them around over three hours to remove all the shards of ice and sew up all the wounds with chitin thread. A pot of chitosan stood unused on the surgical table. The reason behind this had confused the doctors as only a little blood emerged from the wounds before halting.
“It is as if he had a chitosan layer in his skin like we do.” mused Iae’Lae.
Sakara dredged though his memories and found the uses of chitosan. It was a form of chitin which was one of the most powerful haemostatic agents discovered to date. He was confused as well.
Blood samples were taken and scans were run.
In the day he remained in the hospital he learned quite a bit.
The empire who owned this colony was called the Tor’Karian Empire. Jobs were paid on a supply and demand basis giving fluctuating but fairer incomes and even position in society. The colony depended highly on genetic engineering and on shrimp farms that provided the chitin for all the uses they put it to. Buildings were made of chitin, tools were made of chitin, and clothes were made from Shrilk, a chitin-silk composite. The entire society ran on chitin. Also, no-one seemed to know that they were speaking a language that he could understand, what a surprise that was going to be.
He didn’t know why he co-operated with them, or why he asked no questions but he did, staying silent until he was moved to a recovery ward. A Tor’Karian on a nearby bed looked at him with interest and asked the nurse who had brought him in who he was.
“A human we are looking after.” replied the nurse.
“Sakara.” replied Sakara.
Both Tor’Karians turned to him.
“Is that his language?” asked the Tor’Karian patient.
“No.” said Sakara “It is my name.”
Both Tor’Karians looked up in surprise again.
“He speaks Tor’Kar?” gasped the nurse.
“No, I speak Terran Basic which is what you’re speaking.”
The nurse backed off and hurried out of the room leaving Sakara with the patient whose insect-like mandibles were hanging slack around the mouth, probably their equivalent of open mouthed astonishment.
The nurse returned quickly with a regal looking Tor’Karian dressed in a flowing dress of silver and blue fabric. The creature’s skin was white except for an engraving in one shoulder that had been filled with blue paint. The symbol was of two blades crossed by a thorny flower looking like a cross between a rose and an orchid.
“Greetings Sak’Ara.” said the creature, subconsciously putting his name into Tor’Karian name form.
Sakara thought for a second then replied. “Greetings, leader of the Tor’Karian colony on Europa.”
The creature thought deeply, eyes closed.
“It is as I thought.” she said. “There is a psychic zone around him that has subconsciously learned our language.”
Other Tor’Karians entered the room. Obviously bodyguards and armed with what looked like ballistic weaponry.
“Com
e.” she said to Sakara. “There are things that I would like to discuss as we walk.”
Sakara rose from the bed and found that he was wearing specially made clothing of Shrilk, admiring its lightness and fit he followed the Tor’Karians out of the hospital.
The colony was very large. There was a large dome at the centre connected to a thick ring by wide corridors. At north, south, east and west on the ring were placed long rectangular buildings of which the hospital was the north one.
In the water around the colony swam giant worm like creatures like the one that had carried Sakara here that looked as if they were guarding the shrimp farms that produced all the chitin for the colony.
“Welcome to Dor’Lantha.” said the Tor’Karian as Sakara caught up with the group. “I am Dux’LanthaPax’Bel, queen of this colony.”
“Elected or monarchy?” asked Sakara.
“Elected.” replied Pax’Bel. “Every ten years the Tor’Karian people vote in a new leader for both peace and another for military. You will by now have overheard how our society works. Many may complain about it but it is the fairest method we have found.”
“A demand based society confused me at first but it does seem to be very fair.”
“This colony was founded only thirteen years ago, we were going to contact the Terrans but before we could the Vortron war began and we hid from both the Terran fleet and the Vortron raiders. After the war ended we thought about contacting them again but after what had happened on Orthana we decided against it.”
Sakara shuddered as he remembered the events that had lead up to the Vortron war. The colonisation of Orthana, discovery of the Vortron, diplomatic relations breakdown after ISF maneuvers in Vortron space and then the breakout of war.
He knew that had this colony been discovered after that war, another war would have begun.
Looking back at what the queen had said about him, he asked “What did you mean about a psychic zone around me?”
“All Tor’Karians are psychic and we are all connected by a neural web allowing instantaneous mental communication over great distances and it also allows us to sense other psychics nearby. Many Tor’Karians who worked on you felt a presence trying to enter their minds. By your stunned expression, this was either accidental or an automatic response to a foreign language.”
“So I am psychic?”
“Latent or untrained. I am unsure. You seem to show aspects of being a psychic, knowing when people are telling the truth, mind reading for language, psychic shielding...”
Sakara answered the latter.
“I was trained in mental defence by the church of blood.”
“That explains the psychic shielding but the other aspects are both highly trained and latent at the same time.”
“Why did you shoot down the Aurora?” Asked Sakara.
“We didn’t.” replied Pax’Bel. “There is a secret weapons development facility on Io under the control of your military faction. They were testing a next generation fighter and seeing which was better, a new pilot AI or human pilots.”
“For some reason I believe you.” said Sakara “But why were we attacked and what were we attacked by when we landed?”
“Ah.” sighedPax’Bel. “Six years ago the leader of the Tor’Karian military here, a man called Vic’Fer tried to set himself up as supreme leader by means of a coup. He was defeated and those who helped him exiled with him. When the research station was emplaced along with the relay the psi-waves produced by the fusion cores affected the neural web to such an extent that we were in constant pain. I prepared a diplomatic team but when we arrived we found the entire station had been massacred. Three Umbra or Wraiths as I believe you call them had gone with the exiled leader and had carried out the attack. The marines had already arrived but an Umbra had been left there and had killed them all.
Two months later an assault squad of AN-300’s and EX-180’s was landed on Europa and attacked us. We had to defend ourselves using the Umbra and a few other genetically engineered creatures.”
Sakara nodded and joined her on a tour of the colony. The ring contained housing and shops while the four points of the compass were the main workplaces; hospital to the north, research laboratories to the east, factories to the south and barracks and training grounds to the west. The wide corridors contained more shops but also a few businesses such as Shrilk tailors and other more domestic businesses.
The main dome however, was dramatic. In the centre rose a gleaming silver spire, the only part of the colony obviously made of metal, around it was a massive park split by broad paths into four zones. The first was a thick, tangled forest, the second a seemingly barren and rocky desert, the third an island in a tropical lagoon and the fourth an area of towering spires of rock, shrouded in clouds that must have been created for effect.
“Fire, Water, Earth and Air.” said Sakara.
“The realms of the four Aspects, divine creatures of ultimate power who preside over the wilds of nature.” said Pax’Bel.
Just as she said this a klaxon burst into life.
“Psi-wave imminent.”
“The fusion core in the relay is still running so we have a warning system in place to tell us to shield our minds against the pulse.”
Tor’Karians about them were sitting down and preparing for the pulse but Pax’Bel remained standing.
“Shouldn’t you be getting ready?” asked Sakara.
“That which we cannot change, we must learn to bear. I suffer the full fury of the pulse so that I may one day become immune to its effects.”
“So that you can continue to work if this was used as a weapon against you.”
“True.”
“Psi-wave imminent.”Blared the klaxon.
The wave hit.