The Fall of Saar (Once Upon a Saturn Moon Book 2)

by Edward Antrobus

  “My people,” he shouted to make his voice heard through the respirator. “Today is a momentous occasion. Today Bara brings us our salvation. She has seen fit to provide for us a new world. As always, our goddess puts no small task in front of us. The path before us is perilous and will take patience and planning. But I have no doubt that we will prevail and find ourselves a new home. Behold the first step towards our journey to a new home!"

  What does our leader have in store for us? There is something he is still not telling us. The young priestess didn’t understand what Vaamick could mean. Why would we want to leave Bara? How can the goddess bestow her blessings on us if we leave her behind? What would become of her people if we left?

  The temple priests and priestesses taught her that the moon goddess bestowed life on the people, the air they breathed, and the babies that were born to them. To leave it behind seemed to be inviting as sure a death as trying to survive the surface unprotected.

  Salaris struggled to remember her classes. Religious teachings dominated the lessons, but some of the curriculum included information about the worlds above them. Life was scarce in the solar system. Few places ever developed beyond bacteria. Only three known worlds ever developed any intelligence. Nowhere was it more advanced than on Bara at the height of its civilization.

  She had been taught that humans barely had spaceflight. They had only traveled as far as their moon. That thought always seemed funny to her that humans lived on a planet and had a lifeless moon. No wonder they had given up when they discovered their moon to be no more than a lump of rock. The other gods of the sky were much more interesting and they had still been abandoned as the Barakaaks had sought Bara’s warm embrace.

  She supposed that the information on the humans was old. Her people had no astronomers or other scientists since the war began. While little happened on her world during that time, forty years was a long time. Maybe those small aliens had come further than she thought.

  Vaamick finished his speech as distant rumble began to make itself known. Soon a streak of flame appeared in the sky, streaking towards the surface near the distant horizon. As the minutes passed, a tiny craft became visible. While the distance made the craft's true size difficult to determine, Salaris could tell it was nowhere near large enough to do what Vaamick had promised.

  The congregation watched in silence as the alien craft landed in the distance. Their people had mastered spaceflight long ago, but as the world cooled they turned inward and burrowed deep into the crust in search of warmth, interest in the universe outside their home had waned. Then Saarkaaks attacked, their few remaining ships and factories counted among the casualties. While there were rumors of a remaining ship, none had ever seen it.

  Only Salaris knew that the ship really existed and that Donoon had somehow learned to pilot the craft. His disappearance and the alien ship had to be related. But she couldn’t figure out how.

  Eventually, the craft landed near the shore of a giant methane lack. Vaamick signaled for the congregation to return to the ancient vehicle that had brought them. Their transportation was a hybrid between a bus and a train. It carried multiple cars and could contain the entire group. . However, unlike the trains of Earth she had once learned about, it could define its own path and required no track. At one point the cars were contained so that passengers would not need their masks or so much clothing.

  Salaris blushed as she remembered a gossiped story of a young couple, long ago before the smog. The couple snuck into one of the cars and made love beneath the Saturn-lit sky. Such was not possible now. The train’s windows had been destroyed in the war. Now instead of glass, large holes lined the sides of the vehicle, gaping holes like the wounds suffered by the rest of their society.

  Salaris squeezed in between her two seminary friends, grateful for the shared warmth. Most of her friends had abandoned her after she started dating Donoon when they were teens, assuming that her relationship with the high priest’s only surviving relative was a grab for power. Only Kasil and Lomis had been willing to give the dashing older man a chance, and discover the gentle nature and keen wit that Salaris had fallen in love with.

  She wanted to talk to them about what had just happened, but could tell that they were lost in thought. She looked around; her two friends were not alone in that. She couldn’t help but notice a subdued excitement in the crowd. Salaris really couldn’t blame them. This was the answer to their prayers. Their litany included beseeching the goddess for deliverance from their enemy and their tenuous grasp on life on the hostile moon. This was everything they had hoped and wanted for their people.

  Salaris frowned. It still didn’t sit well with her. There was something that Vaamick was hiding; she was sure of it.

  The doors closed as the last of the group pushed and squeezed into the train and the driver started their hour long commute back to their home.

  Salaris could feel the tension leave the congregation once they returned below ground and back to breathable air. Salaris let out an “oomph” when Kasil elbowed her in the ribs while removing her mask. She glared at her friend’s carelessness.

  “I’m sorry!” Kasil exclaimed, her eyes cast down at her feet at injuring her friend. “I didn’t mean to. It’s just so crowded in here. There is hardly any room to breathe! I didn’t know everybody would fit in this thing. What do you call it again?”

  “It’s—” Salaris started as she pulled off her own mask, but Kasil didn’t even pause her speech.

  “The surface looked pretty boring, don’t you think? Gray snow, gray sky. No wonder nobody goes up there anymore. There’s nothing to look at! Except for that ship! Where do you think it came from? Do you think they are going to defeat the Saarkaaks for us? That would be awesome. And a new world! How exciting. I hope its warmer wherever we’re going. And prettier. It definitely needs to be prettier!”

  Lomis shrugged and grinned at Salaris when she started rolling her eyes. Kasil was still prattling about the virtues of an attractive sky. She tended to ramble when she got excited. As she was very excitable, she talked a lot. Others found her to be empty-headed, but it was simply a matter that Kasil couldn’t be bothered to remember anything she didn’t find interesting.

  Lomis was the more serious of her two friends. Salaris supposed that came from being a Lun. Life, as a Lun tended to be short and bitter. Luns had no prospects, no future outside of the military. Certainly marriage was out. Who would marry someone who didn’t know who their parents were? Their greatest taboo was a Lun having a child. The child and parents were banished to the surface to die.

  Lomis didn’t see the need to bother with frivolous things like boys and gossip, when her life was decided for her. After completing her mandatory seminary training, she would be separated from her friends and turned into a warrior, sent to die fighting their enemy. A few managed to avoid death and rise in the ranks of the Barakaak’s military. But the overwhelming majority did not.

  These things were a fact of life for Lomis and shaped her life. She managed to not let it drag her down. Salaris respected this attitude and loved her for it, as she loved her chattier friend’s carefree attitude. Together the two helped balance her. They had been friends ever since sharing a nook in the orphanage. After reaching adulthood, they had decided to again share a living space in the quarters where unmarried women lived.

  The train trundled to a stop outside the temple gates. Vaamick exited first and gestured to the main hall. The congregation exited the ancient machine and headed for the hall.

  Every time Salaris entered the main chamber of the temple, she got goose bumps. Bara felt closer here. She felt the goddess’ presence in the carved stonework and brightly painted walls. Artwork depicting religious scenes filled nooks throughout the room. Ornate columns peppered the room, supporting the ceiling of the excavated cavern. The room was one of the few parts of the temple that had survived the attacks by the Saarkaaks, although it bore the scars of those battles.

  Salaris took he
r normal position in the hall, near a painting of the first Barakaaks worshiping the goddess. She noticed a column block, about chest high, was loose. As Salaris leaned against the worn and cracked column, she made a mental note to tell somebody.

  Vaamick’s limbs trembled as he walked up to the podium. The trek to the surface had taken a lot out of the old man. She hoped nobody else noticed, as that would make him angry. With Donoon gone, Salaris had been doing her best to take care of the cleric, but he was a difficult man to deal with. He was quick to anger and slow to forgive.

  His gnarled hands grasped the podium as he stepped onto the raised dais. This was the signal he was about to begin speaking and the room fell silent.

  “Bara provides all things,” he intoned.

  “Bara helps those who help themselves,” the crowd completed the litany in unison.

  “Brothers and sisters, today begins a new page in our history. Bara has revealed her plan for us with the arrival of that ship. We shall win the day against our enemies and live triumphantly on a new world. But our salvation is not yet secure.”

  Salaris shook her head. Obviously. That little ship isn’t going to carry all of us.

  As if reading her mind, Vaamick continued, “Today a ship arrived from Earth carrying explorers to our world. However, their ship is much too small for our needs. They must bring a larger ship so that we may all travel together.”

  So why didn’t they bring the larger ship? None of this makes any sense.

  “They will not do this willingly. Humans are little better than the Saarkaaks. They have no belief in the great goddess and seemingly try to destroy their own world at every turn. They will not welcome us to show them the proper way of life. When we arrive on Earth, we will be as conquering invaders, taking what they would squander! We will use the plague the Saarkaaks unleashed on us to diminish them and vanquish their remainder.”

  The plague? The plague claimed my grandparents. We can’t use it to kill.

  “We will live in a paradise of warmth and sunlight. No more tunnels and caverns for Bara’s proud people! We will have humans to serve us and use their numbers to finally exterminate the Saarkaaks.”

  Bara doesn’t condone slavery.

  “But this all depends on a larger ship. For this to happen, we must depend on stealth and manipulation. No person may travel to the ship or contact the humans in any way. They must not know of our existence beyond what we allow them to know. For now, we must go about our everyday lives and allow events to unfold.”

  Finished with his speech, Vaamick stepped down and began to leave. Salaris couldn’t believe her ears. This was even worse then she thought. This plan was insane! The Saarkaaks attacked us and we would destroy them; it was only right to fight them. But unleash the plague on a new world? The humans never did anything to us. This isn’t defense; it’s murder! This isn’t what Bara taught!

  Finally, her astonishment and rage could be contained no longer. While the time after a sermon was a time for quiet reflection and speaking aloud was taboo, Salaris could not hold her emotions in. She spoke.

  “That cannot be a plan from Bara! Her teachings are for peace!”

  Vaamick turned slowly, his face scrunched into a glare. “How dare you defy me? As the high priest of our religion, Bara speaks to me personally! To deny the divine nature of my words is to deny Bara. You are a heretic. By the laws of the goddess, you must be sacrificed to appease Bara before you spread your lies and corrupt the population!” Others noticed Vaamick’s trembling, but it wasn’t from weakness. It was from rage. He nodded to the temple guards and they began to converge on her.

  Salaris saw the guards starting towards her. She eyed the exit. The guards were between her and it; she would never escape without some sort of divine intervention.

  Moments before, people crowded around her. In a blink of the eye, there was no one around her. She looked to her friends. They had backed away as well. Lomis stood next to Kasil with a look of shock on her face. Her mouth was open as if to speak but no words were coming. Kasil, for her part, was openly weeping.

  My friends won’t help me against Vaamick. But Bara helps those who help themselves, right? She backed against the stone pillar. I wonder…

  With all her might, she pushed at the loose stone. At first it wouldn’t budge. The guards were getting close. Then the stone gave way. It fell with a thud to the floor.

  The closest guard barked a short laugh at her. “Think you are going to throw that at us, Salaris? I doubt you can pick it up.”

  If she was going to get out of here, the column needed to fall. She didn’t want to hurt anyone, but the guards wouldn’t back off. She pushed again at it. The pillar wobbled, and the stonework collapsed with a roar and a cloud of dust. Salaris saw the silver lining that her friends and other members of the congregation had backed away.

  A block caught one guard in the shoulder but no one else seemed to be hurt. The guard lay groaning on the floor, clutching his arm which seemed to be hanging wrong. Salaris cried for the injured man but thanked the goddess that nobody had been killed.

  The path to the exit was now clear as the remaining guards had scrambled to escape the falling rock. This was her chance to escape. She stepped over the fallen man and ran for the door.

  “After her!” Vaamick screamed. The guards recovered their senses and began to chase her. Out the door, Salaris had two choices. To the left, she could try to hide within the temple compound. The complex was not that big, however. Eventually, they would find and kill her.

  To the right was the labyrinth of tunnels that surrounded the complex. Some were better explored than others. Several were in ruins, abandoned in the early days of the war. As the plague raged through their people, there wasn’t a need to maintain them any longer. The Barakaaks decided it was better to concentrate the remainder in a central location around the temple and rebuild it than expand and have less protection should the Saarkaaks attack their stronghold again.

  Salaris hesitated just a second before turning right and plunging into darkness. She didn’t stop to wait for her eyes to adjust. The guards had lights and routinely patrolled the tunnels nearest to the temple. To escape them, she would have to go deeper. There was only one direction she felt confident she could lose the guards while not getting lost herself. She turned at the next fork and began to climb a shaft she had discovered as a little girl, heading towards the surface.

  Salaris didn’t really have a plan. All she could do was just keep running. It was all so unexpected. She knew that her fiancé’s uncle had a temper, but never thought that Vaamick would attack her for disagreeing with him. She defied the high priest in public and made herself his enemy and a wanted woman. It was only by the grace of Bara that she escaped his guard the first time. The fact that the goddess had helped her against the clutches of the powerful leader of their people should have been proof to him that his cause was an abomination, but she feared that the old man had become so twisted by power and hatred that logic would not deter him.

  Salaris paused to catch her breath, and wiped her brow. Despite the cold, sweat dripped from her charcoal black skin. The back of her shirt was damp, making her colder. The air was thin here and difficult to breathe. She knew she wouldn’t be able to stay very long. If the sub-freezing temperatures didn’t get her first, she would lose consciousness from lack of oxygen. Her feet were sore and her legs ached from the exertion. Only adrenaline kept her going at this point.

  Escaping to the tunnels leading to the surface had been a gamble. While these tunnels were a labyrinth beneath the surface of the moon, they really only led to and from the Temple, to the surface. She didn’t have her mask and shed her surface clothes outside the temple. If they found her here, she would be trapped. But she figured that her pursuers wouldn’t know these tunnels as well as she did. Hardly anyone came to this section of the catacombs anymore. It was too near the surface of Bara; too cold to be comfortable and the thin air difficult to breathe. More than that, it w
as near to Saar, the homeland of their enemy.

  She turned to look behind her for the men that had been chasing her for the better part of an hour. She was pretty sure she had lost them. It was difficult to see in the dim light and the thin air wasn’t helping to sharpen her senses. She took one, two, three big breaths of air into her barrel chest and held her breath to listen for footsteps in the distance. There was no sound except for the beating of her heart pounding in her ears.

  She let out her breath. She had escaped. Salaris had no clue what she would do from here, but the immediate danger seemed to have passed. She decided to reward herself with sitting down on a nearby rock to rest for a few minutes. “Just a short break,” she told herself. “Then I will figure out what to do.”

  The logical part of her brain knew this was a bad idea. If she stopped moving, she would cool down. Freezing to death was a very real possibility here. But her head was wobbly from exertion in the thin atmosphere and she needed to rest before she could go further.

  Salaris wished Donoon was here. She suspected that he had come with the alien craft that had landed earlier that day. She missed her betrothed dearly. The ringed planet had traveled nearly halfway around the sun since he had left, taking the last ship, not destroyed, in the war to Earth. It was a mission from the high priest of Bara himself, he said. Donoon wouldn’t explain any more than that, but promised that they would be wed once he returned.

  Maybe she should try to go back and find Donoon. It would be dangerous to return, but he would never find her out here. He could figure something out. Donoon was a man of action. It ran in the family, she guessed. He was always making plans and doing great things. He had even participated in one of the battles against the Saarkaaks. Salaris wasn’t a big fan of fighting, but it was nice to know he could defend her from the godless heathens.