5
Braxton
Blaze Continent
I don’t know how long I had been lying there since I may have fallen asleep, but it was enough time for several members of The Guard to show up. I dragged myself up from the grass, feeling significantly better than I had before.
“We’ve got a live one over here,” someone shouted.
Two people rushed over to me, looking like they were prepared for a fight.
“It’s okay, he’s a Mystic,” one said.
That was probably one of the few times I was thankful for my freak-glove. I found the strength to stand up, finally taking a moment to check my surroundings. The ship was still resting quietly in the same spot as before. None of the dead had been moved from their positions despite the fact that there were probably twenty or so members of the Guard walking around.
“He’s the Mystic that stopped them!” one of the guys hollered, rushing over to me, “You should have seen the blast he sent at them. Never seen anything like it before.”
“Is that true, son?” another guy spoke from behind me.
I turned to see a very decorated member of the Guard. I never understood their ranking system, but I was quite certain this grey-haired guy was a leader of some sort.
“They killed my dad. I didn’t really have a choice,” I muttered, glancing over at the crumpled figure of my father, “I can’t really control my surges yet.”
“You probably saved us all,” he replied, “Who knows how many others they had in that ship before you fried them all.”
“You should have seen their rifles,” another stated, “They were shooting little fireballs or something.”
It sounded like these people were enjoying all the death around them. I still couldn’t get past the fact that we attacked these visitors with no provocation whatsoever.
“Did anyone go inside that ship yet?” I asked, “Like, are you sure they’re all dead?”
The leader chuckled, then patted me on the shoulder, “From what I heard of your actions, there’s no chance anything is alive in there. As a matter of fact, when we’re done evaluating the crime scene and getting our notes together, I’d like to see about The Guard sponsoring your future at the Mystic Academy.”
The look on his face said “You should worship me for such an offer – go ahead and cry as you offer your undying gratitude.” I hoped suddenly that my expression didn’t reveal what I was thinking: “My father was just murdered by aliens right in front of me and my rage was expressed in a way I can’t really control, but HURRAY, thank you so much for sending me to the Academy!”
“Thanks, but I think I’d better head home.” I replied.
I glanced again at my father and realized for a moment that none of this was real. My dad simply wasn’t someone who dies in the real world. Iron ships cannot fly in the real world. Earthians don’t exist in the real world. Mystics can’t shoot four lightning bolts from their hand in the real world. I was somehow living in a nightmare right now and I’d wake up safely in bed with nothing but a peaceful day of fishing on my mind again.
“Braxton!”
I turned to the woods and saw Kiernan running toward me. His bloodied and bruised appearance stopped my progress.
“What happened to you?” I asked.
“The freakin’ Guard,” he replied, nodding toward the soldiers nearby, “I heard the explosions and ran back to see if you were hurt. The ugly guy over there tackled me, claiming it was a military operation. His black eye was courtesy of my left foot, but that just made him angrier.”
The Guard must have heard Kiernan because he looked in our direction in that moment. I shook my head, realizing again that this was all just a dream.
“The aliens killed my dad, but I blame The Guard for attacking them in the first place.”
“Wait… your dad? No way!” he said, probably confused about my lack of tears.
I was equally as confused by my lack of emotion, but I suppose I always react this way in my dreams. I just wanted to go home, go to bed, and wake up to the real world tomorrow.
“Let’s get out of here before-”
That was the moment the other iron dragon appeared, racing in over the treetops. Thunder rumbled in its wake. Its shadow fell over us, turning the bright morning into a vision of late evening.
“Get out of here!” I shouted, grabbing Kiernan by the forearm and running to the woods.
I knew it was definitely a nightmare now. Wasn’t this how they always played out? I could already hear the multiple discharges of The Guard’s RD-10s, which I knew would be having no effect on the ship above us.
“We are here to investigate the attack on our shuttle. You are ordered to stand down at this moment or there will be retaliation,” the iron dragon blared its confusing words from above us, “We have come in peace and we will remain intent on establishing a peaceful relationship. This is your last warning to stand down.”
The dragon was confusing me now. I had initially thought it was a metal creature, then later settled on the belief that it was probably a space-faring vessel, and now that it spoke, I was at the belief again that the monster was a living being again of some sort. Kiernan and I continued quickly toward the woods.
The RD-10s continued to fire behind us despite the warning from the dragon. Once Kiernan and I reached the cover of the trees, our curiosity required us to turn and get one more glimpse. That glimpse was all it took to finally wake me up from my shock-induced dream. That glimpse contained more death than I had witnessed in my entire life. The dragon rained down fire from two separate areas on its underbelly. Each stream of fire hit its mark, dropping every armed member of The Guard and leaving four fleeing in fear.
“They didn’t shoot the ones who are running,” I muttered.
“What? Let’s get out of here,” Kiernan growled, “You just saw what that monster is capable of!”
“They claimed peaceful intentions both times and both times, they only attacked when…” I replied, remembering the evil expression of the alien who shot my father, “I just find it hard to believe that they intend us harm.”
He tugged my arm, drawing me away from the tree I had been using as cover.
“Let’s go!” he said, “This isn’t our battle!”
I allowed myself to be dragged several paces down the gravel path, unable to draw my focus away from the shadowy meadow where I’d spent many a day digging up the objects of the Metal-Masters. I could almost see the dragon descending beyond the foliage.
“No, I belong there. Those are the Metal-Masters and my dad died for them,” I said, yanking my arm from Kiernan’s grasp, “I gave them so much of my own time and then they forced me to become an enemy. If they truly are a peaceful race, then they need to hear my story as much as I need to hear theirs.”
“No, you can’t.”
“Stay here, Kiernan. This is your life,” I replied, already heading back up the path, “I can’t let my dad die for nothing.”
“I… you can’t… Good luck, Braxton,” he said, the sadness unmistakable in his statement.
“Tell my mom why…”
“I will,” he said, probably understanding my failed words.
I turned and headed back toward the meadow, toward the iron dragon.
April 8, 2377
In a private conference room on the sixth floor of the United Scientist Space Command Headquarters, three leaders from the USSC Pioneer Investigation Team met with six members of the hierarchy of the Space Command. It was one of those rare moments when a hush fell upon the associates who worked on the sixth floor because it wasn’t often that the two vice presidents, the president, and the chief scientist breezed through the legal department in the span of five minutes.
“So, just tell me what I’m looking at here,” Chief Scientist Ritter said, dropping the paper to the table in front of him.
“You’re looking at a ship that has just tested an experimental Jump Drive that would supposedly send it instantly t
o a star system 24 light years away. The scientific understanding at the time was that if there was a dilation of time involved, it would be along the lines of a few decades at the most. This was-”
“Wait,” the CEO inserted, “We didn’t have any concrete testing done to show how much time would be warped by the Jump Drive before testing it on a multi-billion-dollar spacecraft?”
“The testing was done with a probe launched from lunar orbit to the Titan Space Station near Saturn. The probe arrived at the space station 33 hours before we ever launched it – not a significant dilation factor,” Chief Scientist Ritter added before the Pioneer Investigation Team Leader had a chance to reply.
“But still, we were talking about a great possibility of this ship never arriving at the Beta Hydri instantaneously like everyone was led to believe,” the CEO stated, “Which means we were listening to that system 24 years later knowing that we wouldn’t hear anything. Well, nothing different than the…”
The room was hushed in that moment as people started to see the real purpose of this meeting. Commander Martinez from the Pioneer Investigation Team stood up, realizing it was time to just say the words everyone was thinking.
“The Hydrus Signals were sent in a form of our English language,” he said, walking toward the front of the conference room, “A language that evolved nearly a thousand years on a planet where they had no contact with Earth. If you’ll turn to page two, it’ll explain the math of our theory.”
He waited while the people flipped to the second page of the handout.
“Travelling toward Beta Hydri at a comparable superluminal speed that would make a transit of 24 light years seem instantaneous would in effect cause a dilation not of 24 years, but rather 926.3 years. You simply need to take Einstein’s formula that states we take the square root of one minus V over C squared. Granted, we use this formula to define warp percentages of subluminal speeds, but it also works with superluminal speeds too. You just-”
“That’s fine, Martinez. I don’t need a refresher course. But nine hundred years? We’re saying that the Pioneer did indeed make it to the Hydri system, but it was somewhere around the 1400’s?” the CEO asked.
“That’s exactly what we’re saying and if you date the soil and coral samples that we found in Florida, that ship has been buried around 850 years,” he replied, “Buried without any of it’s colonial establishment equipment – items I’m certain we would find on Hydrus.”
“So these signals we’ve been getting from the Hydri system are actually from the descendants of that crew.”
“Indeed.”
“So this planet is colonized by the USSC,” one of the vice presidents added.
“Which means we hold claim to any land already colonized in the course of the past 900 years there. We already know Australia is headed to the Hydri System in the next few months and they intend to lay claim to anything they can. What they don’t know is that we probably have already claimed half the planet by now.”
- - -
Tachyon Text Received 21:32 4/8/77… Captain Reiss to USSC: Arrived @ 4th planet of Beta Hydri… Earthlike atmosphere, pressure & gravity similar enough… sighted possible evidence of Pioneer supply pods & 2 structure frames… also sighted the signal dishes, still transmitting… human-like population totaling 2 – 2.5 million… will send 4 shuttles to investigate closer.
6
Diana
Green Continent
Although I knew we were heading to the other side of the planet, I didn’t expect us to arrive there in a matter of a quarter reap. I knew we were there though based on the message the captain was offering to the people of Blaze:
“We are here to investigate the attack on our shuttle. You are ordered to stand down at this moment or there will be retaliation,” he commanded, “We have come in peace and we will remain intent on establishing a peaceful relationship. This is your last warning to stand down.”
Despite the way I was being treated, I truly believed the captain’s statement. I looked up from my lap to see one of my stern-faced guards staring at me.
“Can I talk to the captain?” I asked.
“No, you will remain seated,” he replied.
“It’s important. He needs to know about these people. They’re different than us,” I stated.
He stared at me for a moment, but never so much as moved a muscle.
“I transmitted what you said to the captain and he said he is sending the commander,” he said.
Transmitted? There was that word again that didn’t make any sense to me. The man did nothing at all, yet he claimed to have “transmitted” what I’d said. The door opened on the far side of the room, and the woman with the long name approached me quickly.
“What is it?” she demanded.
I was taken aback by her aggravated demeanor and what seemed to be an intense anger toward me. I’d just as soon slap her face, but I knew I had no other options than to work at the survival of our relations.
“The people of Blaze are different than us – different than me. Some of them need no weapons at all. We call them Mystics. You need to be careful around those people,” I said.
“How are we to identify these Mystics?” she asked, her eyebrows still furrowed in anger.
“Their eyes are a beautiful deep black. Also, they wear at least one glove, sometimes two. The glove has metal lines on each of the fingertips,” I said, cautiously lifting my hand, palm up.
The guard raised his rifle, but she quickly raised a hand to stop him. I traced lines on my fingertips, showing her where the metal would be.
“Oftentimes, these gloves are locked onto their hands with a cuff, preventing them from coming off,” I said, “So just because someone is wearing a glove doesn’t mean they are violent. They may not be able to remove the glove.”
“Why are you telling us this?” she asked.
“I’m the one who invited you here to our planet. I believe I want the same peaceful relationship that…” I was about to say the word ‘you,’ but I wasn’t quite sure she had the same attitude as the captain, “the same peaceful relationship that the captain is looking for.”
She glared at me for a moment, then motioned for me to get up.
“The captain would like to come to the bridge,” she said, “If you attempt anything I deem as dangerous, I will kill you on the spot.”
“Let’s just hope you have a small spectrum of things you ‘deem dangerous’ then,” I replied, rising from my seat.
. . .
The bridge to this air-vessel was nothing like the ocean-faring vessels I was accustomed to. At the front of the room was a window that had certain areas of telescopic potential. It was as though they were looking at a grassy field with a giant metal cage in the distance. Some portions of the window had seemed to focus in on people, but they were much closer than they should appear when compared to their surroundings.
The captain, who was only one of four people that were on the bridge, had turned to face me, smiling a bit more warmly than the last time I’d seen him. The other people on the bridge seemed to be more focused on some lighted tables before them.
“My request for peace wasn’t granted by these people,” the captain stated, “Please tell me that all the people of Legacy aren’t like the savages on this continent.”
“No, I promise you that they are a minority,” she said, noticing that the ship they were currently on was descending according to the view in the window, “You’re not going to land here are you? Please come back to Green where it’s much safer and people are more civilized.”
“Thank you for your concern,” he said, taking my hand gently and leading me to the window, “I truly believe you are two different civilizations and that maybe you really aren’t like these people. I wanted to show you something.”
He pointed to several portions of the window and each image that he pointed to enlarged. Suddenly there were six telescoped windows, showing close-up views of some dead people.
“That’s the military of Blaze. They are referred to as The Guard,” I replied, “But you’re right. None of them are Mystics.”
“And you’re sure about these ‘Mystics’ that they are the only ones who can attack people or ships with the power of their hands?” he asked, “I’d like to-”
“Right there,” I said, pointing to a man who was coming toward the ship from the woods, “That’s a Mystic. You can tell by the black glove.”
“You heard her, Nova. Shoot the-”
“No! He’s surrendering!” I shouted over the captain’s voice, “He has his hands on his head. That’s the way Mystic’s show they can’t harm you – a gesture of surrender.”
“Captain?” the woman, presumably Nova asked, hoping for some further direction.
“Surrender? How do I know he won’t drop his hand and attack?” he asked.
“Mystics are bound by more laws than most people on this planet. They’re considered a danger to themselves and others, so these laws are strict. A false gesture of surrender is punishable by death,” I said.
“How do you know all this? How do I know you’re not just making this up as you go?” the captain replied.
“Captain?” Nova insisted, nodding to the window, “He’s coming closer.”
“My family is involved in a lot of trade. I told you about our coffee and tea farms. It’s important to know about the people who are responsible for about 40% of our sales,” I replied, “If he were to shock this ship, I would die too, so I’m not going to lead you into danger.”
The captain turned to the window and somehow caused the window to telescope his image. The man’s lips were moving as though he were shouting at the ship.
The Mystic Saga Omnibus (Books 1 - 5) Page 12
