Origin Expedition

by Charles F Millhouse

  “What is it… what’s wrong?”

  “I’ve got this funny feeling is all, like we’re not alone,” Colin replied. His bandaged eyes heighten his other senses, but he wasn’t sure if he could trust them. He tugged at the bandage. “Do you see anyone?”

  Avara’s breath caught in her throat. “No, there’s no one. Are you sure?”

  “No… that’s the problem. Take me to the ship.”

  Down inside the remains of the shuttle, Colin smelled coolant and engine fuel mixed. The burned odor of plastic and wires lingered in the air. When Colin reached out in front of him he touched a part of the charred fuselage. It felt burned and brittle. He retracted his hand.

  “Watch your footing,” Norvene warned when he met Colin and Avara at the shuttle entrance.

  “Did you find my sword?” he asked.

  “No, not yet…” Norvene said.

  Colin stood waiting while Avara and Norvene searched for him. He felt more and more like a weak child, and decided to take the bandages off his eyes, even at the chance of causing irreversible damage. Then…

  “Wait,” Norvene called out. “I think I found it.”

  Colin heard the unmistakable sound of his sword being pulled from its sheath.

  “It’s magnificent,” Norvene said.

  Without warning a slicing sound cut through the air followed by a loud thud. The generational sword fell to the floor with a clank. Avara screamed and Norvene let out a shrilling cry.

  “What – what happened?”

  “An arrow flew through an opening and hit my father in the shoulder,” Avara said in a shaken but strong voice.

  “Keep down,” Colin ordered.

  “You in there!” a voice from outside called. “Your right to this ship is forfeit. We claim the remains of this high-born vessel and all within. That includes you.”

  “Scavengers,” Norvene said between moments of pain.

  “They’ll kill us all,” Avara added.

  “I fear that will not be your fate, daughter. Those heartless men will have you for themselves.”

  Colin dared not wait any longer. He ripped at the bandages from around his head and tore them free. Hidden in a miasma of shadows and light, Colin blinked his eyes trying to clear his vision. He focused on his generational sword and reached out for it. He clutched the hilt in his hand. It felt good.

  “Do you hear me in there?” the man outside called again. “I will send my men in to get you… are we going to do this the hard way?”

  Colin stood over Norvene. The old man winced, his shirt soaked in amber. “Stay here and keep down,” he told Avara.

  “You are a fool, Colin McGregor,” Avara told him, though the tone of her voice said otherwise.

  The light from outside flushed his vision white when Colin stepped outside the ship. He grimaced and shielded the sun with the palm of his hand. He found the scavengers standing just within the debris field. Four.

  “I know there’s more than just one of you,” the leader said. He was a tall lanky man with large divots clustered all over his face. His voice raspy. His clothes were filthy but well mended.

  “Just let us go on our way and we won’t cause you any trouble. The remains of the ship can be yours,” Colin told them.

  “I take it that sword you have there will stay behind – I know you weren’t carrying it when you went in to the ship.”

  They were watching us. “No… the sword is mine.”

  “Then we have a problem – because I like the sword. Packer, Orf…” the leader pointed at two of his men, and they moved toward Colin.

  Both men were large, bigger than Colin and reminded him of Locklorn DeGray. They carried long wooden cudgels. They swung the instruments around their bodies like experts – extensions of their arms. Colin watched them both, steadying his footing and gripping his broadsword. He looked for anything he could use against the two men. They were larger, which was an advantage. Bigger men’s weakness was in their knees. They already walked with limps. Hard life in the wilderness might be Colin’s advantage.

  “Ting, Rymoar!” the sinewy leader shouted and made a command with his hands.

  Colin chastised himself for not watching the leader closer. Unprepared, Colin had little time to react when the other two men in the band raised their crossbows and open fire. The arrows, a tenth of a second apart flew toward Colin. He missed the first arrow and blocked the second with his sword, it went astray. The larger men – Packer and Orf – rushed at Colin while his defenses were down. They swung their large clubs like wild animals. Colin blocked their attacks with his sword, but some of the swings hit him. Reminding Colin of his injuries from the shuttle crash and his brutal whipping, he told himself to keep his wounds protected.

  A whistle of arrows whined through the sky, and Colin rushed forward, grabbed the lumbering Orf and pulled the large man in between him and the approaching projectiles.

  THUD

  THUD

  THUD

  The unbelievable look on the man’s weathered face told Colin the arrows found their unintended target.

  A hit on the back of his head from Packer’s cudgel sent Colin to his knees. The agonizing pain crippled him, and he lost control of his faculties. He dropped his sword, and it made a clang against the rocky soil.

  “Kill him, Packer!” the thin leader commanded.

  From inside his boot Colin pulled out his dagger and thrust it into Packer’s groin. The large man screamed and dropped to his knees. Blood gushed out tinting his pants a coppery red. He jerked the dagger out of Packer and sliced it across his neck. The cut went deep, the warm blood sprayed across Colin’s face.

  More arrows filled the sky and Colin leapt out of the way. He landed on his side. A jagged rock stabbed him. The gut-wrenching pain held his body in its grip. He let out a scream. In his rage he tossed his dagger. The heavy handled knife spun through the air end over end until it hit the tall leader in the upper right shoulder. Its force threw him off balance, and he fell to the arid ground.

  The two bow men saw their leader defeated and bolted in opposite directions, sprinting into the foothills and not looking back.

  Colin scooped up his sword. His shoulder wrenched, but he held his weapon up high when he approached the fallen leader.

  The bemused man looked up at Colin who stood over him. A tint of scarlet covered the thin man’s tunic. He tried to stop the blood with his hands, but the red seeped between his fingers.

  “Seems your other two men abandoned you,” Colin said.

  Between intervals of pain the thin man said, “It’s the law of the land… survival of the strong.”

  Colin thought of Shane. In the toughest of battles, he never would have run off from him. Perhaps that’s what got him killed. Colin pulled his dagger out of the man’s shoulder. “You’ll bleed to death unless you have that wound taken care of soon.”

  “I always knew I’d die out here someday. Might as well…”

  “Not be today,” Avara said when she approached.

  The midday sun washed out her features. Even with his eyesight restored, Colin couldn’t see Avara’s face, but he felt a relationship to her… one that he couldn’t put his finger on.

  “I don’t know where it is you come from Colin McGregor, but here in the Tribe of the Free we do not allow a man to suffer unduly. Even if he tried to kill us,” Avara said and yelled for her father to come help her.

  “Don’t touch me! I’d rather die than be in your debt!” the injured man screamed.

  “You understand he’d kill you if he had the chance… his kind of scum don’t know any better.”

  Avara turned toward Colin and gave him a scolding stare, with weight added to her words she said, “It seems you know just as little. My people will not allow someone to suffer even if that man is akin to the people who murdered my husband. It’s what keeps us sane and better than he.”

  Transfixed, Colin saw a woman of pride, a woman with sincerity, who despite her recent loss
could not abandon herself to hate and persecution. He admired Avara Rodan. He wished he could be as forgiving.

  Ioshia Station – Low Earth Orbit

  April 23, 2442

  Though it took some time, Hek’Dara Tannador arrived on Ioshia Station travel weary. He and his unit officer, Martin, flew from Tannador House under tight secrecy. No one, not even the Lady Carmela Anders knew they were off station. They flew to a refuel post in high orbit, where they left their Monarch shuttle and boarded one of Hek’Dara’s transport vessels. A ship that made food shipment runs from station to station. He and Martin remained hidden in a maintenance alcove where they stayed for twelve hours until the ship docked on Ioshia.

  The final words from Lady Everhart’s note reminded Hek’Dara that secrecy was paramount. Trust no one… the note said, and not even Martin knew why he accompanied Lord Tannador to Ioshia.

  The men wore clothes fit for a low-born. Hek’Dara covered his head with a large brimmed sou’wester that shadowed his eyes and masked his prominent features. He blended in with the other dirty raggedy men, they encountered when they arrived on the station. He covered his bulky body with a long dirty trench coat that reminded him of one of his long flowing robes he wore at state functions. The smell of the used clothing however reminded him they weren’t his robes of state.

  Martin wore less intrusive garments. His gray trousers and flannel pull over shirt convinced the populace of Ioshia that he belonged there. He didn’t have to mask his face; he wasn’t recognizable like Hek’Dara. He supplied them with fake identifications he designed, that would fool any ORACLE watcheye. Passing through Ioshia station’s lax security wasn’t difficult. The dreads of society lived on the outpost. It was a haven for every wanted person on Earth. For years the policy of the Union was to ignore what happened on the station. Many debated against the illegal activities.

  Havashaw Orlander wanted to destroy the orbital platform while others like Carmela Anders and Dante Pike, addressed where would future outlaws congregate? Hek’Dara and others agreed. Not to have Ioshia would cause outlaws like Oliver Duncan to find other places to infest.

  Hek’Dara knew of Oliver Duncan’s operations. The privateer didn’t hide his dealings, almost waving a flag – pinpointing his activities – to see if anyone would dare stop him. Mostly Duncan’s activities were dealing in black market items and were no threat to anyone. Hek’Dara’s only concern came in the privateer’s dealings with gold. The drug made an upsurge into the high-born community. Deaths were on the rise and he blamed Duncan and others of his vocation for the cause. Still, Moyah Everhart seemed insistent in her note to find Oliver Duncan. Otherwise Hek’Dara would be on Tannador House with his son and Carmela waiting for the hammer to drop. Even though Carmela told him otherwise, Hek’Dara considered hiding a coward’s way out.

  He’d never hid from anything in his life, least of all when he knew he stood on the side of right. After all this time he came around to his daughter’s way of thinking. All her life Da’Mira had caused trouble while Hek’Dara acted like a robot and followed the credo of the Union. Humanity stood on a precipice, it’d been teetering on the edge since the great purge and the high-born took control.

  All his life Hek’Dara told himself that the human race stood like a beacon of light, nothing could topple their new empire. He remembered the old poem, Man – that marvel of the universe. He took such a long time to understand what the poem meant and what Da’Mira had to say. Otherwise he wouldn’t be on Ioshia staring down a long dirty corridor of human refuge and wantonness.

  Martin made some inquiries about Oliver Duncan at Hek’Dara’s request and by doing so drew attention while not getting the information they needed. Before long Hek’Dara and Martin were shadowed and watched while they traveled through the dingy corridors and shoddy homes of the inhabitants.

  At Martin’s protest Hek’Dara sat at a small table outside a grungy eatery and drank a mug of cinnamon beer. The woman who served the drink looked like she hadn’t bathed in a lifetime. Her pretty face peaked out from under the dirt caked on it, but she stunk of mold and her yellow eyes hardened with grit in the corners. The woman’s gray hair laid matted flat with grime on her head, it looked slimy and infested with lice. “Are you sure you want to be doing that, Milord?” Martin asked in a low voice.

  “I’m just trying to blend in,” Hek’Dara assured Martin.

  Martin shook his head. “The only thing dirtier than that woman is the glass your beer is in.”

  Hek’Dara eyed the mug and agreed. He pushed it away and stood. He tossed a gold coin on the sticky table. Before he and Martin could walk away, two insidious looking men approached them. They wore plasma pistols on their hips, and stern looks on their faces.

  Martin stepped in between the men and Hek’Dara.

  “Careful,” the taller of the two men said. His teeth were dark with rot; he gritted them tight, his jawbone poked out the side of his face. “If we wanted your lord dead he would have been a long time ago.”

  “Our boss wants to see the both of you intact,” the second man said. He pushed up his glasses to the top of his nose and grunted. “So, don’t give us a reason to kill you both here and now.”

  Hek’Dara placed a hand on Martin’s shoulder and pulled him back, said, “It’s all right – this is the reason we came here.”

  “No one wants to come to Ioshia,” the first man said.

  The man’s bad breath caught Hek’Dara in the face and he shielded his nose with the back of his hand. Holding a cough, he said, “We are here to meet with your employer, are we going or not?”

  The second man chuckled, said, “Keep your large hat on your head, friend. Come with us.”

  “Yeah… and keep your mouths shut,” the taller man added.

  Hek’Dara noticed the atmosphere of Ioshia change when they walked further away from the landing bay and deeper into the satellite. The inhabitants became more protective, their watching eyes aware that two strangers walked among them. Even the children, which had been scampering and playing at the front of the station when they first arrived, now hid in the shadows and watched their every move.

  A foul odor hung on the air and sickened Hek’Dara. He took a deep breath and held it. After a minute he let out a gasp and took another deep breath to find the odor still lingering in the air. The stench reminded him of his food processing plant, where they processed the food cubes for the slaves and breeders. The chemicals put into the slave’s food had the same rancid odor before another chemical stifled the aroma.

  From the corner of his eyes Hek’Dara noticed a peculiar effigy depicting his likeness. He raised his wide brim hat to get a better look at it. Is that possible? He asked himself and took a step toward an altar.

  When the voice of a young girl startled him, Hek’Dara pulled the brim of his hat over his eyes and turned to her.

  “You are a follower of the noble Tannadors?” the girl blinked her sickly eyes. Her skin had an unhealthy gray tint, and her lips were dark, almost black. Her golden hair strung thin and looked like it had been falling out for some time. “I pray to them every night to send us food and medicine. Soon they will listen – you believe they will listen to our plight, don’t you?”

  Hek’Dara didn’t know what to say. How could he answer the child… the child who prayed to him? He looked up and down the fairway and although he didn’t know how he missed it before, he saw effigies of all members of the nine Great Houses.

  “Mister–”

  Hek’Dara cleared his throat and answered in a disguised voice, “I’m, I’m sure before long the Tannadors will answer all our prayers, dear child.”

  The young girl smiled, her front teeth were missing and the ones still in her head were black and rotten. She passed Hek’Dara a small drawing of a single red rose, the sigil of the family Tannador. “Keep this with you to show your loyalty to those who worship false gods.”

  False gods… he thought. The primitive idea of god worship ended around the ti
me of the purge when man had to abandon Earth for a better life in orbit. The impressions and ideas of god gave way to more rational ways of thinking. The devout ones, the monotheistic Abrahamic tribes that fled the Middle East, still practice the archaic religion somewhere on the dry sea beds of South Africa. But those living in orbit gave up the idea of god – or at least Hek’Dara thought so.

  “May the Lord Hek’Dara bless and keep you in these troubled times,” the girl said.

  Hek’Dara stumbled back and almost lost his footing. If it weren’t for Martin’s firm hand on his back, he would have. He turned and ambled away from the young girl. Gods indeed? Hek’Dara huffed under his breath and stood away from the others for a minute collecting his thoughts. How could they worship us as gods?

  “Milord,” Martin said in a low voice.

  “Yes… yes,” Hek’Dara replied. He knew there would be enough time later to deal with him being a deity.

  The two escorts waited, agitated. The shorter one said, “Can we be going?”

  “My apologies,” Hek’Dara replied. “Lead on.”

  Sometime later after leaving the fairway, the guards frisked Hek’Dara and Martin for weapons before seeing Oliver Duncan.

  When they met Oliver, he sat behind his large wooden desk going over digital records and making notes on another palm device. He looked up, eyed the two men, looked back at his device made a few more notations and then clicked the screens off on both of his machines. He stood, again eyeing the men. “You can take that off in here, I know what you look like, Lord Tannador,” Oliver said pointing at Hek’Dara’s large sou’wester.

  Hek’Dara removed his hat and before he could say anything…

  “I wondered when you would come here. The Lady Everhart told me to expect you soon, but it has been several weeks.”

  “You’ve spoken to Moyah Everhart?” Hek’Dara asked.

  “Over video, and even then, I couldn’t see her face.”

  “But you heard her voice.”

  “I’m not allowed to say anything about Lady Everhart to you… as per our bargain.”