Descent of The Watchers

by D S S Atkinson

child, he paced through another doorway in which a seat rest. There he sat down. Once more, all about him holographic screens appeared, this time however it was not his words which were projected, but images of Mount Hermon upon the surface of Eden.

  “Rafaela? Have you received my transmission?” An obsessive fervour gripped his voice. “A sign. An utterance. Anything.” He monitored the screens as he spoke. “Rafaela?” The child he held too turned its head to look at Hermon, though it was too young to understand its father’s desperation. “We will be waiting for you,” he whispered, “both of us.” With those words the room fell dark. The entity slouched back in his seat, clutching his son, embracing the moment of calm for he knew what great upheaval was upon the fast approaching horizon.

   

  3.

  A relentless beat of alarms bellowed through Heaven’s hull, guiding those watchers and malakhim who Zebub had organised towards the probe depots at the very base of the ship.

  Zebub stood before three formations of individuals, each destined for different coordinates about Eden’s surface. When Samyaza’s people had first touched down the planet looked very different, caught in a deep frost, they sought the lands most likely to support life yet they were far spread about the world’s surface. Each destination was to be searched, only her team was destined for the garden, where the first modifications to the bipedal life forms of Eden had taken place.

  “The probes will form a cradle to stabilise the ark upon entry, once we’re through the stratosphere probe two will release to allow for a lighter landing. Probe zero and one will bring the structure down to rest. We need to get it down in one piece, we must know what has become of Azazel and the missing watchers. After release descend to your coordinates and await contact.”

  Tamiel and Amazarak both nodded at Samyaza. Each had been chosen to lead crews down to the planet’s surface. Without words said between them the visors of their suits crawled up about their necks enveloping their heads. Their teams followed. Together they made their way towards the probes.

  These vessels, ophanim, resting within Heaven’s launch depot were minute compared to the mother ship, but each in their own rights were incredible pieces of technology. Cramped within, they could harbour but seven of the tall individuals.

  After the first two hundred watchers had been stationed upon Eden’s surface all those years ago, nearly all the ophanim returned to Heaven so the watchers could begin their surveillance of the planet’s solar system, intended to return in just one hundred of its years to rotate watchers, but now over two thousand had passed.

  The reflective tone of each craft shone bronze against the light, in the darkness of the launch depot however they were scarcely distinguishable. Each rest upon four enormous extending legs from which fuel was ejected, a number of other metallic limbs too hung from the crafts’ bellies, designed to perform actions outside from the safety of each vessels’ interior.

  The foot of each standing leg was made up of an intricate system of magnets. At each shafts’ base a large magnetised ring was connected via four stout attachments. Each fuel ejector was capped by a magnet of its own, and between them a magnetic disc hovered. The ring pushed the free body towards the leg at unfathomable pressures, which repelled it in turn with an equally as aggressive force.

  The ejected fuel from each leg pushed the ophanim away from the free disc granting the vessels accurate manoeuvrability and propulsion in an endless vacuum void of atmospheric pressures. At the bottom of each structure open circular seals gave way to the teams who clambered up into the interiors.

  There was barely room to move within, masses of panels and controls, pedals and wires protruded from all about the crafts, forcing the crew members to struggle into their flight positions. Despite the awkward fit, the thought of travelling through space in the ophanim always excited Samyaza. Alike to the dome which protected Heaven’s living quarters from unprotected rays of light, so were the probes built from a similar material. The entirety of the oval shaped vessels were transparent from within, allowing their crews a view of the universe’s infinite anomalies no matter where they chose to look.

  Once all were inside Zebub and his crew left the depot to the sound of a colossal shaft opening up in the chamber’s ceiling. It lead into Heaven’s hull, and joined to one of its four gates. These colossal cylinders extended out of the ship’s bowels, out into open space.

  “Ready, watchers?” Zebub’s voice filtered through Samyaza’s headset.

  “Ready.” Tamiel and Amazarak spoke together, awaiting their commander’s final word.

  “Ready.” She said, after a moment.

  “Keep contact amongst yourselves from the moment your teams touchdown, and when possible, report back to Heaven, commander.” With those last words Zebub fell silent and the three crafts lifted upwards, propelled by sharp bursts of fuel from their supporting legs. They rose sixty feet up, from there the probes shifted becoming parallel with the gate’s cylindrical opening. Softly, with scarcely visible flares of fuel burning in silence, the ophanim gracefully floated out of Heaven, hurtling towards the ark and Eden’s atmosphere.

  Samyaza looked at the satellite, she knew much about space travel, and knew that its exterior, though it had been within this solar system no longer than Heaven, had aged a thousand times over since the watchers first landed upon Eden.

  “Ready your positions, captains. Bring them in slow, connect together.” Those in control of navigation steadied and manoeuvred the probes with a delicate precision. Minute jets of flame burst from their appendages, which sprawled all about, stabilising the vessels until they formed a secure triangle about the ark.

  In the lonely barrens of space the four solitary objects began to fuse. Masses of tentacles conjoined before slowly lodging themselves to the ark’s bowels, there, the ophanim slowly made their final adjustments.

  With nothing but the feeling of metal juddering and locking into place the pilots began a dance of probing metallic rods in efforts to form a single solid construct. “Zero secure,” Samyaza spoke through her headset to those in her crew and with the lightest tremor the crafts fully enclosed upon the ark. The four structures formed a colossal tripod, with Samyaza and Amazarak at its base, holding the ark in an enormous web of limbs, and extending away from them, Tamiel’s ophanim, ready to guide and support the ancient satellite as the teams brought it down through Eden’s unpredictable exosphere.

  “One secure, commander.”

  “Two secure.”

  “Prepare descent.” Moments after her voice sounded through the crew’s headsets a unison of ejected fuel began to spout violently from the vessel’s free legs.

  As one the structure began its approach upon the radiating blue haven. The commander knew the most difficult part of their descent would begin upon entering the planet’s atmosphere. Her crew worked manically at their control panels, adjusting their projection and speeds in a hectic storm of communication between vessels to ensure they worked and moved as one.

  Their entry would need to be near perfect for the fragile state of their formation. Samyaza stared in awe at the beautiful dome of aluminous light as their ships began to level with the entry route down to Eden’s surface. The glorious halo emanated with an undying resistance against the ever consuming void of outer space, preventing the relentless vacuum of darkness that had not failed to absorb the life force of every other star in the solar system from ripping the delicate ecosystems of Eden apart. Such a rare specimen this world was, Samyaza could not help but be mesmerized by its beauty.

  Her thoughts were abruptly ended as the vacuum of space gave way to Eden’s bustling atmosphere. A thunderous roar engulfed the ophanim and their crews with a spectacular flaring inferno generated from massive friction.

  “Brace yourselves.” The commander spoke in her tongue in efforts to calm those inexperienced in orbital entry. As one the structure tore through the planet’s thermosphere to the sight of Eden’s protective halo slowly residing, giv
ing way to the spectrum of light, pouring its deep blue into the skies all about the planet.

  Shuddering violently the entangled vessels hurtled deeper into the world’s upper atmosphere. As quickly as the blinding halo resided an endless white landscape revealed itself to the crews, spread out before them, tens of kilometres above Eden’s surface. “What is this, Commander?”

  “The weather patterns of this world are carried by condensed vapour, it’s quite harmless.” With those words said the endless white spread was penetrated by the probes, still hurtling at great speeds towards Eden’s surface, their entry route had been stuck to with unparalleled precision. In another quiet moment Samyaza braced her excitement for what she knew was coming, though an unquenchable anxiety too throbbed her insides for the last words Heylel had uttered to her, and what she would discover once the ark was set down. Azazel’s words still haunted her. Before they consumed her mind completely Eden’s clouds cleared, bursting forth the unique spectacle of its landscapes. The sight immediately froze her trail of thought, from so high above its surface the view captivated her.

  “It looks like one endless plane.”

  “It’s beautiful.” Tamiel whispered, Samyaza herself made no comment, she simply stared down at the green plateaus,