Galactic Destiny

by Alex Guerra

  “We recovered data from an old crash site—a Yau ship that landed in the desert very far from here” I explained. “It had a video recording of the last moments aboard the vessel. Dotty traced it to this location after a great deal of research.”

  “A crashed ship? That must have been the ship my parents were on. They talked about the captain’s sacrifice, and how he allowed them and the rest of the crew to escape,” he confirmed.

  “Entosh, that was over three hundred years ago. Just how old are you?” I asked.

  “Oh, not too old. I’ve sort of lost track of time down here, but I should be around one hundred and four years old now, maybe one hundred and five,” said Entosh, slightly tilting his head to the side as he tried to pinpoint his exact age.

  “A hundred and four years old? That’s—”

  “Still young, I know,” he said with an empathetic nod and a flash of a silver smile.

  Shocked by the answer, I realized I had never bothered to ask about the average lifetime of a Yau.

  The average lifespan is two hundred and thirty years of age for males and two hundred and forty for females.

  “How old are you—Arthur, was it?” he said.

  “I’m thirty-two years old,” I said.

  “Wow, you’re practically a child! I’m sorry, I don’t mean to offend. There’s no frame of reference for me regarding any of your species” he said. “Piki will be eleven soon. I may have lost track of my own age, but I have counted every day she’s been with me.”

  “Where’s her mother?” I asked.

  Entosh looked down at Piki and rubbed her back. “She is no longer with us, I’m afraid. A few years ago, she had an accident in the tunnels and…” he ended the story there.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “Thank you, Arthur. You said that you recovered data from an old crash site, leading you here…” he replied.

  I am working with the Galactic Conglomerate,” I stated.

  “Galactic Conglomerate,” he muttered. “I’m not familiar with the name. But why have you come here?”

  “We were looking for something that may help us in our fight against the empire,” I admitted, seeing no harm in telling the truth.

  “Do you mean the Vael Empire, by chance?” he asked.

  “It’s a little complicated,” I said. “We are currently focused on fighting the Darkkon Empire. The Vael…well like I said it’s complicated.”

  “I see…it’s unfortunate to hear that nothing seems to have changed in hundreds of years.” The mandibles on the sides of his mouth clicked.

  “This is actually a more recent development,” I said.

  “Well, Arthur, you have answered the how, but still not the why. This is a lot of warriors to send to an empty desert of a planet. What were you expecting to find?” he asked.

  “We didn’t know what to expect. We came here looking for Yau technology or anything else that could help us. I certainly wasn’t expecting to find anyone still alive here,” I said to the pair.

  “And yet, here we are. Please tell me we can go with you. We have been waiting for someone to rescue us for ages now,” he said with desperation in his voice.

  “Of course, we won’t leave you here.” I smiled, looking directly at Piki before turning back to her father. “We can take you and your daughter back to Fengar, the capital world of the Galactic Conglomerate. The empire is attacking worlds in full force now. They’ve recently destroyed an entire planet. We need something to aid our forces against them,” I said, waving an arm around the room. “Is there anything here you think can help us?”

  “I can’t believe that the empire would continue to repeat what they did to our homeworld,” said Entosh as one of his chitin digits reached up to his chin, and his mandibles clicked once more. “You may have a look around, although most of what you’ll find here is what my family and I have used to survive on this planet. A great deal of it is tools, handed down to us from the original crew. There is one thing that may interest you above the rest of these items. I’ve sworn to keep her safe all this time. Come, I’ll show you,” he said, beckoning us towards the corner of the area.

  “Her?” I asked.

  THIRTEEN

  Entosh walked over to the one piece of the escape pod that was mostly intact, with a few of us following behind. The Yau wiped a fine layer of dust off the porthole before turning himself back to me.

  “Take a look,” he said, inviting me to peer inside. He pressed something on the side of the hull and the pod illuminated from within.

  Leaning in, I saw another Yau, green and yellow in appearance. Eyes closed, and arms placed down with her hands clasped together, there was no steady rise or fall to her chest, but the chitin was not dry or cracked like the dead insects I’d find at home.

  “Who’s this—is she alive?” I asked.

  “She is alive but in a self-induced hibernation. Her name is Feylan, one of the original crew members,” said Entosh.

  “How is that possible?” I asked.

  “Yau biology is interesting,” replied Entosh. “You see, when the crew crashed here, the situation was not much different than what it is now. The planet had little resources in these tunnels, and the crew sustained themselves with rations from the escape pod. What little sustenance the planet could provide wouldn’t be able to support the crew of seven.”

  “They starved,” I said.

  “Eventually, yes. But not for a long time. Lucky for us Yau, we do not need to eat much or very often, but supplies were limited,” he said, gazing upon the hibernating Feylan. “Around the same time when the crew arrived here, the Vael Empire was already wreaking havoc on our planet. It wouldn’t be long until it fell under the barrage of attacks. In secret, our people sent civilian ships in every direction from our homeworld. This increased the odds of survival. But these poor civilians…they would have to start a new civilization again from almost nothing,” he scoffed. “Not so different than what we’re doing here.”

  Piki sat on a chair next to her father swinging her legs. She looked with curiosity at myself and the others, studying us with eager eyes. We were the first people besides her own parents that she had seen. This was her first contact. I wasn’t sure if the gravity of her people’s situation had sunk in or not. I wished that she could maintain that innocence for many more years to come.

  “When the time came, the crew voted that Feylan would become the vessel for our species’ survival—a queen,” said Entosh.

  “What makes her a queen—is it something special or genetic?” I asked.

  “There is a serum. After inoculating a female, her body goes into hibernation. Then her biology begins changing with new pheromones, and slowly, she becomes a queen,” explained Entosh. “What it means is that when she wakes up, she should be on a safe new world, where she will give birth to countless eggs to start our civilization over again. After giving birth, she will be free to move around again and eventually rule over her children. Above all else, Arthur, she is the most important thing here. You need to get her off this planet.”

  “Entosh, my name is Seya. Does Feylan need the entire device to stay in hibernation?” asked Seya.

  “No, not at all. This is a safety and cleanliness measure the original crew took, more than anything else. Should we have a cave in, the shelter would protect her. It is safe to remove her from the shelter when we are ready to go. In her suit, there is another serum to wake her from her hibernation when the time is right.

  “That’s amazing…and a lot of responsibility. You weren’t born from a queen though since you said your parents were on the ship.” I said.

  “Correct. Both my wife and I were born of the crew. It was a difficult, but wise decision they made. In exchange for our new lives, two of the crewmembers needed to give theirs for sustainability. They did this to extend the amount of time available to them when waiting for someone like yourselves to arrive. A new generation was waiting, and the hope was to continue safeguarding Feyl
an until we could move her to another planet. Waking her on this planet would be suicide—or in this case, genocide,” said Entosh. “We can’t be sure if there are any Yau left in the galaxy, so we may be the last of our kind—the last hope. Unless you’ve come across others?”

  Years of living underground in such a manner had not done any favors for the man’s disposition.

  “We have not, but we believe there to be at least one other pocket of Yau left so far. It’s complicated,” I admitted.

  “I see, at least there is still hope then for others,” said Entosh.

  I didn’t want to ruin the mood in speculating that the other possible Yau may be the very reason why things have escalated so much in the past few months.

  “I see you have a power source of some kind for these lights and equipment. Where is it?” I asked.

  “Oh, its further down this tunnel,” he said, pointing to one of the two other tunnels in the room. “We should take them with us when we leave. They have been incredibly useful.”

  The man moved towards the tunnel in question with Piki trailing close behind him. A few yards into the twisting tunnel, Dotty pinged me.

  Arthur, several power cores are near. The tunnels have made it difficult to find anything emitting a signal.

  Jackpot, I thought as I moved with more anticipation behind the Yau.

  “Here we are,” said Entosh, swiping his hands in a semi-arc, presenting the power cores with a flourish of pride. “Five power cores. The crew and I have used but a fraction of just one of them over the several hundred years we’ve been here.

  “Five of them!” said Seya. I could see the crew was more than pleased to see something that would give The Pillar a bit more fight.

  “My parents told me the five of these could power an entire city for a hundred years or more, though my parents tended to stretch the truth often,” said Entosh.

  “No, that sounds about right,” I said, trying to subdue the urge to dance at the sight.

  Five full power cores, I can’t believe it, I thought. Had we found these from the very beginning…well, this journey would have ended before it even began.

  The bittersweet feeling was fleeting. My devotion to my new friends and their plight kept me grounded in this part of the galaxy. Each day, the thought of going home ranked further down my list of priorities. There was too much going on—too much at stake to quit now. I had grown accustomed to my role in helping the conglomerate, and the thought of transferring Dotty to Seya or Kayton was now only an option in case of an emergency. I needed to see where this was taking me, for better or for worse. If there were a time where I could go back home, even for a quick visit, I’d consider it if the time was right.

  “This exit to the surface, tell me about it,” I said to the Yau.

  “It’s not too far from here. There’s also plenty of room to move. The crew placed a door there, made from the wreckage of their escape pod. There was not a lot of need to go outside. Nothing lives on the surface here. At least, not anywhere in the immediate area. The elements would make a scouting journey too risky to go more than a few days before succumbing to the heat. These suits,” he said plucking the front of his dirty uniform, “they’ve seen better days. Initial scouting by the crew found that where they crashed was fortuitous. An underground cave system was a blessing in disguise beneath the sands of this planet.”

  “How long would it take you to gather your things, so we can leave? We are in a bit of a hurry,” I said. I didn’t want to be in the open for very long, and we still needed to contact the two pilots. We should load the dropship as fast as possible and jump back to Fengar.

  “Not long, if you help me take the items out, I can point out what is needed and what is junk. We have enough hands to make it in one trip. It’s not like I went shopping with my daughter while I was here.” he chuckled to himself.

  “Don’t worry about food or uniforms, only take the essentials. Our ship can provide you with everything else,” I said.

  “We can leave this place, father?” asked Piki with a gleam in her eyes. This was the first good news these two had received in a long time—if ever. Their lives were about to change drastically. We were also ensuring their species’ survival.

  “Yes, Piki. Arthur and his friends here are going to take us away from this world,” he said, looking at me. I gave the girl a nod of approval.

  “Thank you so much, Arthur! Thank you all!” said Piki, excitedly. She ran up to me and hugged my waist, suddenly. I gave the kid a quick squeeze.

  “Alright, let’s get started,” said Entosh, dropping a fist into his palm like a gavel.

  “Everyone, start pulling out everything and spread it out on the floor so Entosh can mark the items. The power cores and Feylan will come last,” I ordered. The team all replied in the affirmative and made their way back to the main hub of the Yau encampment.

  *****

  It wasn’t long until items were set out. There wasn’t much, but there was a lot of junk to work through. Entosh would take a quick glance around the room and discern what was necessary, while the rest we threw into accumulating piles of scrap.

  I checked over what Entosh kept while making sure he didn’t bring useless nostalgia along. A lot of them looked like thick dataslates. They contained encyclopedias on the Yau homeworld, its history, culture, and innovations. The list went on. I would have Dotty integrate with the devices when we were safely back on Fengar. There had to be something useful on them—their allure intriguing me to read a bit more into the Yau, should I have the time. If anything, we would at least be safeguarding the knowledge of a nearly extinct species. There was also a chance that they could help our mission or explain Yau technology better.

  The two Yau worked diligently and at a fast pace to gather their things. This was the last lifeboat off this cruddy rock, and they were not going to miss it for anything. I thought about how it must have been to live in a cave network for over a hundred years. There was nothing of importance on the surface, and the crew before made sacrifices for Entosh and his wife to be here. Anger would consume me before the madness did. There had to be something different about the Yau mind to withstand being here in isolation for so long without losing it. Or maybe it was desperation that kept them going.

  The team’s packs were full of the many items we could take with us. With a final look around, Entosh appeared satisfied with not leaving anything important behind. He went to the makeshift chamber holding Feylan and carefully pried it open. Checking on the woman, he pulled out the serum from her breast pocket and confirmed it was still intact. Next to the chamber, he dug out a small container with a soft gel lining it, and placed the vial inside, closing it up for transport.

  “Garvo, take Feylan with you. Seya, Kayton, Del, Ornay, come with me to retrieve the power cores,” I ordered. “Entosh, it’s going to get dark in here soon, are you sure you have everything?”

  “Yes, that’s everything,” he said, helping Piki put on a large pack.

  It was going to be a tighter ride on Dagger than it was on the way down, but the team would manage. We unplugged the five power cores one at a time, with the lights completely shutting off on the last one. The tunnels filled with lights from our helmets—not that we needed them, but rather to help Entosh and Piki as we made our exit.

  Entosh took us out of the third tunnel from the hub. Looking at the tunnel floor, I could see that this was the most frequented, as years of treading down the same path had worn and scuffed the tunnel floor into a lighter shade. The Yau barely looked back at the only home they had known. The conditions were abysmal—a deserted island at least had some appeal.

  The heavy footfalls of our largest trooper followed close behind me in the file out of the warren. With Feylan draped in his arms, the size difference was reminiscent of a father taking a sleeping child to her bedroom. The stasis, or hibernation as Entosh referred to it, completely stopped the Yau’s aging process. She retained her middle-aged features like Entosh, but
she had to be over three hundred years old.

  A steady glow from the power cores swirling white flames added light to our trek. Clutching its golden filigree, I hefted the bulky core at my side; its heavy weight countered by the renewed strength I found in its immense power. The team was silent, even Bon didn’t have anything to say—which was a first. Our feet scraping the floor and the occasional loose rock kicked were the only sounds throughout the tunnel as we trekked on. Piki enjoyed sneaking the occasional glance back at me and the others, a small smile painting her face.

  “We are coming up on the exit now,” said Entosh, pointing ahead.

  A makeshift door marked the exit. Made from pieces of the escape pod, the silver-gray hull bowed in to fit the curvature of the rounded tunnel wall. Grabbing the large handle with both hands, the Yau wrenched the door ajar—sand poured in through the narrow opening before the sunlight crawled in. Pulling the door open the rest of the way, the sand drained out in a flurry before settling along the tunnel’s floor.

  Entosh and Piki pushed the rest of it away, creating a wider and more accessible exit. The dust hung in the air, cut through by a golden ray of sunlight which expanded with each passing minute. After a few minutes, the father and daughter team climbed through and up to the surface.

  Being next in line, I made my way through the opening—the steep slope made it difficult to climb out with the hefty power core in hand. Presenting the core above me to Entosh, he freed me of the item, allowing me to hoist myself up by grabbing the hardened red chitin of the man’s offered arm. Garvo was next, gently bringing Feylan up to us before pulling himself out. The others followed suit until we were all out of the tunnels and back on the ruinous brown surface of Garos.

  “Kayton, raise Habi and Nadu if you can,” I said to the Codari, who nodded and got to work on the comms. “Dotty, get Dagger to our position and prepare for evac. Have The Pillar send a skip drone back to Fengar. We should be back within a few hours.” I said.

  Kayton was able to reach the pilots, now that the rocky tunnels were no longer playing hell with the signal.