He was eighty-seven years old and was seeing his home for the last time. He held the child’s hands tightly and squeezed as he thought through his life.
“You are special, child, for you did not get sick like so many of our people,” the old man said. His voice was rough, and had no energy. He struggled to speak. The flight up to the asteroid would take his life, but it was something he had to do.
“You're going to die, grandpa?” the child said.
“I was dead a long time ago,” he replied, breathing softly. “I wanted to see my world as only the eagles do.”
“Father says we will never come back,” the child said.
“Your father is a wise man. He has seen as I have that our people must leave.”
“Will we come back?” the child asked again.
“We will be called back,” the old man replied.
“By whom?”
The old man rolled back onto his back. Every breath was a struggle now.
“Long has the snake hurt our people. It spits evil spirits that infect the land and creatures. The Eagle, the Wolf and the Bear have been our greatest protectors. Now the Eagle has told me to leave this world to find a new one. There the Wolf will guide us and the Bear will protect us. But one day, the snake will return, and its evil spirits will dwell in those that are like the dead. These will rise against our brothers. The Eagle, the Bear and the Wolf will take the forms of men and women and will fight the snake and the evil spirits.
Then, we will be called back to our birth land.
But we will not be able to stay.”
The child dwelled on the words his grandfather had uttered. He was renowned for his visions and tales and the child would record everything he had said and relay it back to the men and women inside of the asteroid. He began repeating the words to himself. He tried with his young mind to see if he could find meaning in the words, but knew he wouldn’t. Only the wiser men and women would understand the message. He was proud of his grandfather and squeezed his hand.
The old man did not squeeze back. His spirit had departed from him.
The child wanted to cry, for he would miss him, but he had been sent out into the hangar for this purpose. The old man was the last casualty of a devastating war against him and the child was the first survivor. The child moved the stretcher slowly over to the hangar doors. It took him some time and a lot of effort, but grandfather was barely the man he had once been in his prime. The stretcher weighed more than he did.
The small boy went into a small room next to the hangar and closed himself in it. A small dim light came on and the child did as he had been taught. He heard the whoosh of air being sucked out of the hangar door and then waited for the red light to show the hangar doors were open. He counted to thirty and then pressed the button to close it. He waited till the light turned green and then exited the small room back into the hangar.
He wished he could have seen his grandfather float off into space. It had been his last wish. He wanted to fall back into the planet from which he had come. The child stretched to see if he could find him from the window, but was unable to see him. He then turned around and walked back into the asteroid.
Seven hours later, the asteroid vanished into threaded space and was never seen again.
3127 – Gemini 53, inside large vessel of unknown origin
Kale was lying on the cold floor. Everything was dark. He turned his head to the side and could see bodies lying on the floor as well. He knew them to be dead. He remembered their faces. He hated most of them, but felt pity for them. He had never wanted them to die. Not like this. But it didn’t matter, because he would be dead soon.
He heard someone calling out his name but couldn’t find the source. He crawled slowly as he struggled to breath. There was some light ahead of him and he just wanted to reach it. The air smelled stale and he remembered where he was. It was the Midnight Oil. It was his ship. He had been reborn inside that small white vessel. It had become the cold womb that had rescued him from the vacuum of space. For a moment, he felt warm and at home. Then he remembered. He was dying.
Kale struggled to breathe. If he could only get to the panel just under the window, there was a button there he had seen the tormentor press. It cleared the ship of air and brought it back. The tormentor was dead, and he had to reach the button in order to stay alive. Kale looked ahead of him and saw the small button. It seemed like a galaxy away. He was panicking and starting to get dizzy.
Kale closed his eyes and felt his heartbeat. He caught every breath and emptied the air into his lungs slowly. His heart slowed down to a crawl, and for a moment, the dizziness went away. Again, he heard someone calling his name. It felt out of place. He looked again at the button and began crawling along the cold floor towards it. It was the floor of the ship that would save his life on multiple occasions. It was the ship that made him who he was.
It was a ship that no longer existed.
Kale made his way towards the button, taking each breath deeper and deeper, knowing he was getting less and less air each time. He touched his throat, and felt it swollen. His eyes were the same, despite the fact he could still see. In his mind, he reached the button. He would not die. But his body was screaming for air. His body was dying.
Kale reached the button. He reached up, focusing on the button. It appeared to be moving. Kale was getting tired. He took one last breath, struggling to force the air down his blocked throat. He then lunged and hit the button. When his hand fell away, the button was gone, and a strange warmth swelled within him. It sped through his body, reaching the extremities. Kale dropped back down to the floor. He glanced over to his left arm, and saw a needle sticking out of it.
The dizziness started to fade away and Kale could breathe again. He stood up, but he was no longer in the Midnight Oil. Instead, he was just in the entrance of the lion transport. His mind began to clear, and he could hear the familiar voice of his AI calling out to him. He shook his head to clear the cobwebs and listened.
“Kale. The others. Biological agent.” Sentinel was shouting over the ship speakers.
Kale glanced back down at his arm where the syringe was sticking out of his arm. He ripped it out quickly and looked back out of the ship. Gheno and Ayia were collapsed on the ground, choking. Karai was at the bottom of the ramp that led to the ship. Her face was blue. He looked down at the floor were a small box with several more syringes lay open. Some of the needles had spilled out.
They were their nano-antibodies. It was a high tech serum that was able to fight off even the most harmful biological entities that might attack the human body. This ship, the AI was shouting, was one whole foreign entity, and it was attacking them. Kale dropped to the ground and hastily picked up the syringes and nearly tripped running out of the ship. He slid down the ramp and landed next to Karai who had collapsed. He jammed a syringe into her leg, pushed it in, and then ran to Gheno and Ayia.
As Kale got to Gheno first, Gheno pointed to Ayia. The teenager was holding his breath and appeared to be conscious. Ayia on the other hand had already passed out, her lips, cheeks and ears dark blue. Kale quickly jabbed her with a syringe while rolling several of the other needles towards Gheno. The boy quickly took one and stuck himself in the arm. He fell back immediately and Kale heard him take a breath.
Kale focused back on Ayia and could see the swelling in her neck and fingers go down almost immediately. The serum had been created for use in battle, but had found to be nearly 100% effective in other similar situations where foreign biological agents came into play. Explorers who discovered a new living planet drank the stuff by the gallons over a month period while exploring. The serum didn’t keep the germs out, but instead kept them from attacking the human body. Meanwhile, the body developed its own anti-bodies, if possible, creating immunities.
Ayia began breathing again, and in a way, so did Kale. He helped her sit up and then turned to make sure Karai was ok. She was staring back towards him, but not at him. Kale turned arou
nd and saw that the group of wooden creature men were all still standing there, looking at him. The woman was in front of the group. Kale again couldn’t explain why she seemed familiar. She clearly had a human face, but her facial features, her eyes, nose, mouth, were foreign to him.
She walked over to him and looked down at him.
“You lived,” she said. Again, he could hear the words, but her mouth was forming completely different forms than what he was used to seeing.
“You didn’t expect me to?” Kale said, looking up at the exotic face.
“No. I did not,” she said.
“Kale?” Gheno asked. “You're talking to her?”
“Yeah,” he said, looking back at him. “You can’t understand her?”
Gheno shook his head. Kale looked back up at the woman, who was already walking towards Gheno. She reached out her hand to him. Gheno looked up at her and then back at Kale, who was paying attention to Ayia. Gheno stood up and took her hand. He tried to shake it in the customary human fashion, but she was not shaking his hand back. Instead, the brown slime had covered his hand and he had felt a sharp burst of pain.
“WHAT THE HELL!?!” he shouted.
“I'm sorry. It is a bit painful at first,” the woman said.
Gheno stared at her. “Ok. Now I understood you.”
She smiled and nodded. She repeated the same brown slimy handshake with the two women.
“Kale. We meet aliens and they end up being wood people with slimy hands?” Gheno said, wiping the now clear slime from his hand.
The woman came back and stood in front of Kale.
“There is one more,” she said, pointing back over to their right. Kale strained to see over the crowd until he saw the small crusader fighter on the floor of the hangar of the alien ship. He grunted a bit in anger, and then reached down to grab a few more syringes. He would decide if he’d let the pilot live or not. Then again, his captors may decide that for him.
He walked towards the small ship with the rest of his crew just behind him. The rows of wooden men parted way to allow him through. Kale could hear breathing behind the wooden masks, and assumed they were all men, just like the woman. The woman, whom Kale was assuming was the leader of this group, followed yet further back. When Kale reached the small ship, he could see the pilot inside. He was aware and had kept his helmet on. Kale waved up at him, then motioned him to come out.
At first the man didn’t react, but then the hatch popped. A hissing sound was followed by the hatch sliding back into the ship. The pilot stood up, probably in as much awe as Kale and his crew had been at the sight behind them. Kale had panicked as well, but there was something about knowing they were human that comforted him. It wasn’t that they might kill him at any moment, but just the fact they weren’t entirely alien that prevented the worst of any panicking.
The pilot jumped down from the fighter and walked tentatively up to Kale. The Captain reached out one of the syringes and handed it to the pilot. He in turn, stuck it in his thigh. He looked around for a few moments, then reached back behind his helmet and pulled it off. It was a younger-looking man with black hair that spilled out of the helmet, just slightly past his shoulders. Kale tilted his head as he tried to recognize the man. He never heard Ayia speak.
“Cruxe?” she said, shocked.
Rage filled his ears and he swung out, connecting a fist directly into the left cheek of the pilot. He collapsed over in a heap. Kale lunged forward but was caught by one of the wooden men, who held him back. The man didn’t hurt him, just merely overpowered him. The woman stepped up in between them and looked back at Kale.
“This man is your enemy?” she asked.
“Yes,” Kale growled, standing in place as he was held by the wooden man.
“But he was helping you and your flying box when we came upon you,” she said.
Gheno laughed in the background and repeated ‘flying box’ quietly.
“He is our enemy,” Kale repeated.
“I see threads between you, and between this man and that woman,” she said, pointing between Cruxe and Ayia.
Ayia stepped forward. “What are you doing here?”
“We all have our crosses to bear,” Cruxe replied, wiping away blood from his face. Ayia nearly stumbled backwards.
“You?” she said.
“Him?” Kale said, looking back and forth between the two. “Him, what?”
“He,” she started to say. She looked back down at Cruxe. He had changed considerably from the boyish son of a criminal warlord. He was older, yes, but aged. He seemed far older than the four years that had nearly passed since they had encountered him.
“He was helping us, Kale,” Ayia said.
“Last we saw this kid, he had led a group of those Crusader bastards into the station and killed a lot of good men. Nice to see you're still with that group of nut-cases,” Kale said, spitting in his direction.
“I'm not with them,” Cruxe said.
“That ship and uniform beg to differ, pal,” Kale said, this time shaking himself loose of his wooden guardian and walking past Ayia.
“Tell me you don't know what’s going on,” he said.
“I do. I'm sorry,” she said.
Kale’s head went down. Gheno stepped forward.
“I remember him,” Gheno said. He could still see the death and carnage that had changed his life on the small research station. “I’ll kill him if you want, Kale.”
Kale turned around to answer his adopted brother and found himself face to face with the woman. Her eyes were green, almost neon. They were truly unique eyes. They made him remember another set of unique eyes. He hadn’t seen those eyes in a long time.
“Do you wish to kill this man?” she said, pointing down at Cruxe.
“You would let us do that?” Kale asked.
“We came for you,” she said. “He was just there as well.”
Kale stepped back and looked at Cruxe, past the woman. He had nearly committed himself to the killing the boy but then he looked back into the green eyes. He found himself staring back at himself and then through himself. He remembered another young man on the floor of a hangar being offered up to death. Kale took a deep breath and looked back Ayia.
“Should we kill him?” he asked her.
“No,” she said, without hesitation.
Kale nodded. “There you go. We don’t want to kill him. But be warned that he is not to be trusted.”
The woman nodded back to him. Kale turned and caught Ayia looking down at Cruxe. There was something going on there. She knew more about why Cruxe was here than she let on. She was welcome to her own secrets, but Kale had to admit he was a bit angry. Cruxe was a dangerous kid. He was thinking back at the climactic events nearly four years ago when he remembered something that had been said just a few minutes ago.
He turned and looked back at the woman. “Did you say you were here to save us?”
“Yes.”
Now Kale was completely surprised.
***
They were led from the hangar down seemingly uneven hallways. There were no lamps as the light just seemed to emanate from the walls at various points. Gheno commented how felt he was in the spaceship’s guts, except that it was all dry. They followed the woman down the corridors and would occasionally catch a glimpse of some other rooms that appeared to be living quarters. It all seemed logically placed and organized, just not in the strict sense of a human building or spaceship. There were very few straight lines.
Cruxe followed slightly behind the crew of the Lion and behind him were two of the wooden man, which turned out to be two men. They had removed their masks as well and were clearly human, again, with the unique features the woman had. They also shared in the green hue to their skin and hair.
They entered a large spherical room and the woman began showing them around. There were what appeared to be two very large spheres hanging from the ceiling of the room. They were filled with some sort of liquid and were displaying image
s of some sort. Even Gheno couldn’t make sense of them. All around the room were smaller similar spheres and many men stood around them. Occasionally, Kale would see one stick his hand into holes under the spheres and turn his arm about. When this was done, the images would change. On other occasions, small tendrils would come out of the wall, grab the spheres, and take them back into the walls, only to be replaced by another.
“This is a bridge,” Gheno pointed out.
The woman had been watching him.
“That word doesn’t make sense to me. This room is our eye,” she said.
“There is a lot lost in translation here,” Ayia said softly. She looked away to avoid Kale’s glare. He was still visibly angry at her for the Cruxe situation.
The woman pointed towards a raised ring directly under the two main spheres. Kale then realized there were no other chairs in this bridge. All of the sphere readers, as he was calling them, stood at all times. She motioned them to sit down and they did. Cruxe sat down next to Ayia. The woman sat across from them and held out both of her arms to them.
“My name is Ulisike Noqsim,” she said. When the said her name, the sound matched the movement of her mouth. “I am the weaver of threads on our Vahe, our ship as you would call it.”
Kale looked around to make sure the others were just as perplexed as he was.
“Well, I am Kale,” he said back to her. “I am the Captain of my ship.”
He introduced the rest of his crew, but didn’t mention Cruxe. He also didn’t mention Sentinel, who had remained quiet since the biological incident back in the hangar.
“You said you had come to find us?” Kale asked. He was curious, but at the same time, afraid.
“Yes. You have questions,” Ulisike said. “Please understand, we have many questions as well. Our elders foresaw this day would come and they will want to speak with you as soon as we get back home.”
The Lost Tribe (Sentinel Series Book 2) Page 16
