by Kyle Perkins
My instincts tell me to kill anything that appears to be a threat, and yet, when faced with the beings from this world, I just want to learn more about them. This is dangerous thinking, and every fiber of my being tells me that it’s wrong. Well, almost every fiber.
Maybe Caius was right in shooting those attackers, and maybe I’m being too hard on him. He is only doing what he was trained to do. Maybe I’m the one that is broken. We weren’t sent here to make peace or friends. We are humanity’s last hope, and our future rests on the outcome of what happens here. I should probably talk to Erikk when I get back, and see if anything is malfunctioning in my suit… or worse.
I never intend to actually execute Caius. I just want him and everyone at the site to think I will. I want him to sit and think about his rash behavior, and disregard of the chain of command. It’s not like the kid is evil. A pain in the ass? Sure. I can’t let him get people killed, though. The guys that were with us knew what they signed up for, and though I am sad for their loss, we all know what is at stake. Nothing can go wrong. I hope that when I have returned, Caius will have learned a valuable lesson, and will be more open to direction. I am sparing his life, after all.
As I walk on the path towards the activity that E-7 scanned in the area, the leaves on the trees begin to change color from green, to a luminescent blueish green. The light is bright. Bright enough to light up the area even more, even with the star hanging just overhead. Are the plants reacting to my presence?
“E-7, what is this?” I ask.
“The plants here seem to share bioluminescent characteristics with some of the fauna of Earth. It appears they are reacting to our presence here,” he responds.
“So, the plants are alive?”
“All plants are alive, Captain,” E-7 says.
“I mean, are they… aware?”
“Aware is a strong word. I would conclude that they are reacting, much as a carnivorous plant on Earth would react to stimuli,” he says.
“This just made us moving targets. If the people in the area didn’t know we were coming, they do now. We just activated a beacon,” I sigh.
The light from the leaves begins interfering with my targeting system, picking up false positives. As we continue down the path, every few seconds, I catch something in my peripheral vision. I’m not sure what it is, or if the leaves are being targeted.
Trees begin rustling on both sides of the path, and the pitter patter of footsteps fills the air.
“Sir, I am getting a lot of interference with my sensory module,” E-7 says.
“Get out of here before—” I am cut off by a blunt object hitting me in the side of the head.
I shake it off and look towards the trees. Nothing. As quick as the first attack happened, I feel another strike in my back, knocking me to the ground.
I dust myself off and stand up.
“Show yourself!” I yell into the brush.
At the end of the path, two reflective eyes stare back at me in the distance. Before I can gather what I’m looking at, it’s already on me, and it feels like it weighs a ton. Even with my suit, I can’t shake it off.
Finally, it comes into focus. A cat of sorts, with very long canines and ultra-reflective gray eyes. I punch the creature in the snout twice. The blows seem to have little effect, other than making it angrier. It bears down on me, pressing its paws into my chest, and lurching its razor-sharp teeth towards my helmet.
I reach for my gun, but the cat’s hind leg is pressed down on it, making it impossible to move. Looking towards the tree line, I see men swinging in, using the vines hanging from the trees.
They have me completely surrounded and I am defenseless. How did I let this happen?
The men surround me and without saying a word, one of them pulls off my helmet. I look up to identify him just in time to see a crude club coming down towards my face.
***
My eyes flicker open to cold and dark surroundings – aside from the faint glow of sunlight at the end of room. Everything is blurry and it’s like a paste has been wiped across my eyes. I pull myself to my feet with a little more effort than is generally required just to stand. Those guys sure did a number on me.
Bringing my hand up to my face, I feel a trail of cold blood left behind from a gash under my left eye. I likely look a mess. I can’t blame these people for what they did, especially not after what happened at that settlement, but this is all a misunderstanding. I need to speak to one of their leaders before this all gets out of hand. This is not something they can win. I’m not sure how long I’ve been gone, but E-7 must have made it back by now, and if I can’t get to these people in time, we could all lose people that we’ll never get back.
As I prop myself against the wet stone wall, it almost feels like the rock is humming. The weight of my body on my arm feels uncharacteristically heavy, and then it hits me. They took my suit. I’m literally standing here, naked.
Everything feels so real. I guess I got my wish to experience the world without my suit. A little sooner than expected, but I’m not complaining.
The only thing that puzzles me is why my senses feel just as heightened in here without the suit. On the ship, I would have noticed right away that my suit was missing, yet in here, it took me far longer than is acceptable. Maybe the gravitational field in this place is corrupted?
I hear guards moving near the source of the light and take a few steps back. Without my suit, I am a sitting duck. I begin moving further and further away from the light source until I no longer hear their voices. As I move further, bioluminescent fungi line the walls, creating a path for me to follow. Maybe it’s a way out. Though, my last encounter with glowing life left me without my suit, and with a gash in my face.
Either my vision is going blurry, or the room seems to be vibrating, like the rock near the mouth of the cave.
“Am I high?” I think out loud.
Wisps of smoke encircle my body and lift me off of my feet, pulling me towards the center of the expanding room. As the cave expands, the central focal point seems to get further and further away, though I know I am floating towards it. Nothing that I know about science explains anything that is happening right now, aside from this being a hallucination, or worse. Maybe that head injury is worse than I thought.
The rocks towards the center of the room begin to vibrate wildly, almost aggressively as I move towards them. A force grips me and throws me towards the floor and I land on my back, pinned and looking towards the ceiling. The ceiling dissolves and the stars are exposed, even though it was just light out. Now I am certain this is a hallucination. Those men threw me in here to poison me!
I struggle to get off of the ground, but the invisible force holds me in place with twice the force of the forest cat. The stars swirl in the sky, before magnifying in to show Earth in flames. It all looks like a movie on one of our ship monitors. Then, it pans over to Mars and magnifies even more, to the surface of the planets. Even more, to a dome, and a man standing with a metallic arm holding his sword out towards a horde of other men. It zooms out, and then pans over for what seems like forever before stopping on Kepler. The scene unfolds, and our ships land, deploying us. The ships leave and the sky ignites with fire in a wave, encompassing the planet. The men from the Ark as well as the Kepler natives – all vaporized in an instant.
“You… stop this,” a voice fills my head before the room goes completely dark.
My eyes flicker back open, and two men are standing over me, covered in paint. They each lock an arm under mine and drag me to the front of the cave where a crowd of these people are waiting by a stake with kindling surrounding it.
“Wait… No! You can’t!” I shout as I push one of the men off of me. The other grabs me in a headlock and the one that I pushed comes back and hits me in the stomach with his club.
Gasping for air, I anticipate his next strike with the club and catch it in midair, jerking it away from him, causing him to fall behind us. I thrust the club upward in
to the man’s face that had me in a headlock, causing him to loosen his grip enough for me to get away. I start to bolt, but I am met by a dozen men with bows poised and ready to fire. I drop the club and put my hands up in defeat.
“Dolt fraga, utzida,” I hear a man say to my left as the crowd parts for him.
“I don’t understand your language; I need my suit!” I yell, pointlessly.
“Dolt fraga, niz!” the man shouts.
I may not know their language, but I do understand his body language, and he is telling me to surrender. I think.
I lay down on my stomach and put my hands behind my back. The two men are quickly on me, tying my hands behind my back with the same sort of vine they used to ambush me. They stand me up to face the man attempting to speak to me in their native tongue.
He is older, and clearly in charge. He looks hardened, like he has seen a lifetime of battle. Even though he is aged, the man’s physique is impeccable. He could do some real damage if he wanted to. What’s stopping him?
I scan my surroundings and find that I am just outside of a large settlement of some kind. From the looks of it, it’s far larger than the place we recklessly attacked. I can’t help but wonder if this is their capital. I spot my suit lying next to the mouth of the cave.
“Nog tistui, mig dultar,” the man says.
“I don’t understand. I need my suit,” I say, pointing towards its position.
The man gives me a curious look before walking over to my suit and retrieving only the helmet. He places it on my head, and it locks into place. The onboard targeting system comes on, as well as the translator.
“Why are you here?” the man asks.
“You attacked me, and threw me into a cave. I thought that was pretty evident,” I reply.
The man hits me in the stomach so hard that my eyes water.
“Why are you here? You, all of you,” he demands.
“We’re stranded. Our world is lost, we have no choice, and this place, your world… It’s our last hope for survival.”
“What happened to your world?”
“It was consumed by greed,” I reply, not wanting to mince words with the guy.
“You now bring this greed to Redisia, and you bring your fire,” he states.
“No, we were sent here to make a new home and we were attacked. We defended ourselves.”
“You slaughtered an entire village of our people. That is not self-defense, that is murder. You will answer for these crimes. You, and those you came with. The rest, they must return to the stars.”
“That’s impossible. Our ship is gone, and we have no way home. This is our home now,” I say, bracing for impact.
The man hits me in the stomach again, this time causing me to cough up a little blood.
“This is not your home. You are trespassing, and you’ve committed crimes against our people. This will not go unpunished.”
“Okay, then punish me. Let the rest stay, find a middle ground. Work this out. Our people need to live together, and coexist in peace,” I plead, bracing again.
The man grabs me by the helmet and brings his face against it, staring at me in the eyes through the visor.
“Your people and mine can never have peace. You are murderers, and without a way home, now you are pests. Parasites leeching off of this world. You will be punished, followed by the rest of your star people,” he growls as he pulls me away from the other two men and slams my back against the stake.
Others from the crowd rush in and begin wrapping me in vines, binding me to the stake.
“You can kill me, if it’ll end this, but you must not attack the rest of my people. They will bring their fire and destroy every life form on this planet if they have to. I am their captain, and without me, you have no chance of stopping them. They listen to me!” I shout.
“If they want war, they will find that their fire is no match for ours, and the trees,” he says as he starts preparing a small fire.
The men begin tossing a tar like substance over my body, soaking the stake and kindling with it, as well.
“They will destroy you. All of you, how do you not understand this? You don’t know what you’re dealing with. They will spare no one. I accept my fate, and give myself to you to do as you wish, but let me talk to them first, and make this right. It can end with me. No more death; no more loss,” I try pleading again.
“The time for talking is over. First you, then tomorrow, the settlements along the signal fires will unite. We will cleanse this world of your pestilence,” he says, holding lit kindling in his hand.
“Stupid. So stupid. Ambushed like a rookie, stripped of my suit, and left in a cave naked. Now, I’ll burn alive and for what? I traveled across the universe to meet my end, burning on a stake after taking the advice of a talking cave!” I say to myself, out loud.
The man throws the lit kindling on the ground and stomps it out.
“The cave… It spoke to you?” he asks, looking more surprised than I probably do.
Chapter 8
Aya
The center has emptied as I had asked. Ricon stands against a tree across the path from me. His hands at his side, he stares to the dirt floor in deep thought. Maybe he was right. Maybe I should’ve listened and not warned the already afraid women.
Could I have lived with myself if there was an attack? I knew the answer before I asked the question; of course, I couldn’t. Whimpers are still heard from the trees. The loss of the men is going to affect the overall safety of the people, and they wouldn’t have understood until it was too late.
Pulling my knees to my chest, I rest my cheek on my crossed arms. The serene path to the meadow is now considered a sure death. The strength I had when I addressed the women is quickly diminishing. Needing to be independent and alone proved to be nothing in comparison to the death of our families. They are a loss to our tribe, our strength, and our safety. A single tear falls from the corner of my eye as I waste precious moments away from the one place that makes me happy.
“Aya, whatever you are thinking, don’t.” Ricon wastes no time stalling my escape to the meadow. The pull to the water is magnetic. With my hair covering my eyes, I lift my head towards him, wanting to explain my need to go.
Instead I ease his fear, “I won’t.”
Saray emerges from the medicinal area, with her hands covered in blood. I watch as she runs to Ricon, realizing he is alive. Their reunion is everything the other women peering from the tops of the trees were waiting for. I smile for their happiness, knowing this is the beginning of the end.
The trees flow from side to side with the wind dancing through the center. The colors of the leaves have changed; the blues that were once found in the bushes begin decorating the branches that hold our homes.
Most haven’t even noticed. I am pretty sure I am the only one that sees the change. All of my senses seem enhanced since I left the cave. If only the cave could have given me a little advice on what to do next.
What am I thinking? I managed to make it out of there with my sanity, I guess I shouldn’t be complaining.
Saray runs to me with open arms, stopping just short of the death rocks. Her gaze falls to the new ones, decorating the area surrounding me. I don’t move to get up. I can’t. If I move there is only one place I want to go and I can’t let anyone know I am leaving. Her hands drip with fresh blood as she starts to cry.
“There were so many injured, Aya. I didn’t know what else to do. I heard your plea to hide, but I can’t,” her voice cracks as she begins to whisper. It’s as if she is reliving the massacre that was brought back from the hunt. “I was so scared.”
Before I can respond with any sort of comfort, Ricon lifts her into his arms, carrying her like a child to her tree. I watch as they circle their stairs to her home. She was defeated, and there was nothing she could do about it. The people of our home were attacked by the beasts of the woodlands and there was nothing that could be done to stop it.
Looking to the sky
, the reddened glow of the star dances the most beautiful shades of orange across the clouds. There must be something that Ricon still isn’t telling me. The men are gone, the beasts are attacking and the Hardez have sought me out. My mind is swirling with questions and there is no one that can answer them.
Hypnotized by the sudden return of the flightless creatures, I am unaware of the voices moving closer to our home. Afraid for the safety of our people and my inability to protect them, I close my eyes to focus on the words they are saying.
Immediately, I know it is our men; Garret and my father. They have returned with stories to tell. I want to know more, but the distorted tales will only give me what I need to know – not what I want to know.
“I understand, sir. I don’t know where she is. I locked her in the cave to fix her. How she escaped is a mystery,” Garret admits his actions against me.
“You had no right to punish my daughter as she does not belong to you yet,” anger seeps from my father’s words as he addresses Garret. “Now, we have intruders, and my daughter is missing? Garret, I should end you myself for your treacherous act against Aya. You should thank the people of the stars. Without them as a threat, you would be dead.”
“I’ll find her,” Garret promises, only to save himself from a sure end of life. The marching of the men grows closer as I realize that I am missing.
I could be free, if only for a night.
My dress begins to glow with the color of the cave. I reach into my pocket, holding the reason tightly in my hand. The stone reacts as I clutch it tighter. I can feel the life within, pulling at me. There is strength in its power. Is that even what it is? Power?
I open my eyes to a tiny meadow mouse scurrying along the rocks before it quickly disappears down the dirt path that I long to follow. Moments before, I had planned to sit patiently and wait for the return of my father, but now I have a chance to get away.
The wind picks up as I stand. Slowly, I descend from the pedestal as to go unnoticed by the people. I should stay and tell my side of the story to my father, but I know Ricon will tell him everything he needs to know.
