by S. W. Ahmed
The first vision came within a few seconds, and was followed by another several minutes later. Then came another, and another, just like the last time. And just like the last time, most of the visions were the same ones, at least the ones that he could remember. First came the view of Earth, looking quite at peace from a distance, and then blowing up in a massive explosion. Then he saw other planets blowing up, whole star systems disappearing into oblivion, and finally the entire Milky Way galaxy crumbling to dust. After that came the dead bodies everywhere – first humans, then Mendoken, followed by Aftarans, Phyraxes and Volonans.
The visions continued for what seemed like many hours, perhaps days. Sometimes there were long periods of emptiness between visions, during which he could neither see nor hear a thing. Like the last time, darkness and cold eventually began to engulf him, and despair kicked in next. He shivered in the darkness, and could hear the sinister laughter of that evil shadow far away.
But then, light replaced darkness once again. A sparkling star appeared in the distance and moved closer, followed by another, then four more. The six stars brought warmth and light, glowing brightly as they came closer. He stopped shivering, and felt stronger. Hope began to replace despair, as the shadow’s laughter faded away in the distance. He smiled at the stars, feeling happy and reassured that they were there with him.
Then he heard a voice. “He’s waking up.”
And, just like that, his eyes opened up back to reality.
“Where… where am I?” Marc croaked, blinking and rubbing his eyes. Sibular and Zorina were standing right in front of him.
“Still on board the Aftaran vessel,” Sibular replied.
Marc looked around, and realized he was in the same room he had collapsed in. He was lying on one of the two mattresses on the floor. His Aftaran robe had been wrapped around his body a couple more times to keep him warm. “How long was I asleep?”
“3 days, in your units of measurement,” Sibular said.
“3 days!” Marc was shocked. Last time, it hadn’t even been 8 hours.
“We couldn’t leave this vessel, since you were in no condition to travel in our little ship,” Zorina said. “So we stayed here.”
Marc looked at Zorina. She actually seemed to have gained a little bit of weight, probably from all the tasty food she had been eating here for the past 3 days.
“We have almost reached the Afta-Raushan star system,” Sibular said. “Our ship has also been fully repaired. Some enhancements have even been added with the help of the Aftaran crew on this ship.”
“You see, young human, your doubts about these Aftarans were in vain!” Zorina said, grinning.
Marc sat up slowly, wincing due to the throbbing pain in his head.
“So what happened to you?” Zorina asked, flapping her ears. “You had us really worried for a while!” She offered him a mug filled with a thick yellow liquid. “Here drink this. It’s called rauka. The Aftarans say it has magical healing powers.”
Marc took a sip. It tasted extremely bitter, but he was surprised at how quickly the strength began flowing through his veins. “These… these visions,” he said, “I had all these visions. It’s happened once before.”
“On Ailen,” Sibular said.
“Yes, on Ailen.” He gulped down the rest of the rauka. 3 days of no nourishment had left him famished.
“Sibular mentioned that incident while you were asleep,” Zorina said. “Tell me about these visions.”
Keeping his voice down, Marc told his friends everything he had seen in his visions, both this time and the time before, and mentioned how he had repeatedly seen some of the same images in his dreams. He added that he had first seen the image of Earth blowing up in a dream back on Earth, the night before his fateful pickup by the Mendoken. He also pointed out how strange it was that he had seen images of Volonans in his visions before he had even known what Volonans looked like.
“Hmm, very strange, very strange indeed,” Zorina said once Marc had finished. “You appear to have some kind of psychic power.”
“Either that, or I’m simply going bonkers.” Marc smiled, feeling a little better that he had gotten everything off his chest.
She flapped her ears. “I doubt it. If you really were going crazy, then you wouldn’t have seen things in your visions that turned out to be true. Like what we Volonans look like, for example. It’s very strange. I definitely think there’s something supernatural at work here. Though what, why, and who, if anyone, is behind it I have no idea. What do you think, my man?”
“I do not believe in supernatural phenomena, Zorina,” Sibular said. “We Mendoken do not acknowledge the existence of anything that cannot be substantiated by scientific evidence.”
“How do you explain this then?”
“I cannot. But if I understand the pattern of the visions correctly, they are painting a picture that a major calamity is about to befall our galaxy, where most of the major civilizations will be destroyed. That is, unless Marc foresees it and prevents it, with the help of some other force or forces of ‘light’.”
Marc shook his head in disbelief. “But how could I possibly foresee such a catastrophe?”
“That I do not know, Marc,” Sibular said. “But it may not be wise to ignore your visions altogether, especially if any of them turn out to be true. They may somehow be tied to the discovery we have already made about Volonan consar travel capability.”
Zorina corrected him right away. “You mean lack thereof.”
“Yes, lack thereof. That discovery was largely thanks to Marc’s involvement and intuition, not only because he helped my people develop consar travel capability that allowed us to mount the attack inside your Empire, but also because he was able to break out of his virtual world, meet you and trust you, and then get me out of mine. Otherwise, this information would have remained hidden while the war between my people and yours continued. So, as much as Marc’s visions defy all forms of logic I am familiar with, I am not ready to discount them quite yet.”
Marc was relieved his friends didn’t think he had lost his mind, even though their analysis was just raising more questions instead of answering any.
“One other interesting thing appears to be the timing of your visions,” Zorina said. “The first time it happened, you were about to return to Earth. Instead, you changed your mind and stayed with Sibular. This time, you were adamant about taking off in our own little ship instead of staying here on the Aftaran vessel, but your collapse forced us to stay here anyway.”
“Almost as if I’m being steered to go to certain places and do certain things,” Marc thought. But by who or what, and above all, why?
After a warm shower and a spicy meal, Marc felt much better. As he sat with his friends in their room, the screen next to the door suddenly lit up with a bell-like chime. Captain Thorab’s image appeared.
“Dear guests, we… ah, Marc, you have awoken! All praise to the Creator! How do you feel?”
Marc got up and walked to the screen. “I’m better, thanks. You were saying?”
“We have reached the entrance to the Afta-Raushan system. You’re welcome to leave with your ship now, or continue with us into the system.”
Marc glanced briefly at his friends, and turned back to the screen. “We’ll leave now, thanks. You’ve been most kind with your hospitality.”
“It has been our pleasure. I will send a couple of crewmen to escort you to the landing bay, where your ship is ready and waiting.”
Minutes later, the three friends were walking back to the landing bay, accompanied by two Aftaran crewmen dressed in black robes. When they reached the entrance to the landing bay, one of the crewmen pressed the latch to open the gate. “After you,” he said in a gruff voice.
Marc stepped first into the landing bay, and froze in shock. Their little ship was nowhere in sight. Instead, all he could see in between the bay’s pillars was a cohort of 12 Aftaran soldiers, all dressed in black robes with their faces covered, and a
ll standing in a wide semi-circle around the entrance. In their hands, they held strange looking weapons, all pointed directly at him.
Sibular floated slowly into the landing bay. “Stay still, Marc,” he said quietly. “Those are boryals they are holding, highly lethal Aftaran weapons.”
Marc was still too stunned to move. For a second, he thought about turning the other way and running as fast as he could, but he knew better than to doubt Sibular’s advice. He heard Zorina gasp and, out of the corner of his eye, saw her being pushed into the landing bay by the two crewmen. Seconds later, he heard the gate he had entered through shutting behind him. The three friends were completely trapped inside the landing bay.
One of the Aftarans in the center spoke, his booming voice echoing in between the pillars of the wide hall. “With the authority vested in me by Lord Wazilban, the three of you are hereby arrested.”
Marc’s jaw dropped in astonishment. Arrested? By Lord Wazilban nonetheless, the supreme head of the Aftaran Dominion.
“Under what charge?” Sibular asked, staying as calm as ever.
The Aftaran leader laughed. “You have the nerve to ask, you crafty, treacherous conspirators?”
“What in heaven’s name are you talking about?” Marc demanded.
“Take them away!” the Aftaran leader bellowed to his soldiers, paying no attention to Marc’s protests.
Chapter 27
“Meenjaza certainly lives up to its name as a desert world,” Marc thought. As he stared out the window of the short-range Shoyra-class vessel at the golden surface of the planet below, he wondered what undesirable fate awaited him and his two friends amidst those wide, sandy dunes. For the first time in his life, he was a real prisoner, shackled in electronically controlled restraints on his wrists and ankles.
Captain Thorab had tricked them and had led them right into a trap. By the time he had announced their arrival in the Afta-Raushan system, the Gyra-class ship had already arrived in front of Meenjaza and had docked with a smaller Shoyra-class vessel carrying a cohort of Aftaran soldiers. Thorab had purposely kept Marc and his friends in windowless quarters to prevent them from witnessing this event.
After being put in restraints, they had been transferred to the Shoyra-class ship, where they now stood with their faces pressed against the far window of the ship’s cabin. The Aftaran soldiers stood behind them, holding boryals pointed directly at their backs.
“What do you think they want from us?” Zorina whispered, breaking the silence. She was standing in between Marc and Sibular.
“I have no idea,” Marc whispered back. It was the exact question he kept asking in his mind again and again.
“It was our mistake to doubt your intuition, Marc,” Sibular whispered. “About Captain Thorab.”
“Silence, you infidels!” one of the Aftaran soldiers behind them thundered. “One more word out of any one of you, and it will be the last word you ever utter!”
The three friends fell quiet right away. Marc felt his fear rising by the second. He and his friends were being called “conspirators” and “infidels”. Given what he already knew of conservative Aftaran society, he cringed at the thought of the harsh treatment that likely lay in store for them.
The ship descended over a city, full of majestic structures spaced far apart from each other among the sand dunes. Marc was stunned at the architecture of the buildings – almost all of them looked like gigantic houses of worship, similar to pictures he had seen of ancient cathedrals, mosques and temples across Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Some of them had spires, while others had domes. Almost all of them had tall pillars with sweeping arches in between, and their overall shapes were either rectangular or pentagonal. A few of the larger structures had six sides. Even from a distance, he could tell that despite their classical appearance, the exteriors of these buildings were clearly well maintained and kept in tiptop shape. It was a marked contrast from the shabby ruins of the Volonan world of Nopelio.
In between the buildings lay gardens of sand sculptures, organized in neat, symmetric patterns. It took him a moment to understand their real purpose – to an observer from high up in the sky, they spelled out words in beautiful calligraphy. He was amazed to see such large writing sprawled across a planet’s surface like that, writing whose religious meaning evidently bore a constant reminder to traveling Aftarans where their priorities lay, and served as a warning to visitors from other civilizations to respect the Aftaran religion during their stay.
The pilot maneuvered the ship in between other Shoyra-class vessels and small ships flying through the air, and brought it to land on a circular open-air strip. Several other small ships were already parked on the strip. Three large, identical looking buildings stood around the circle, each one with tall pillars, spiked domes and sweeping arches.
Once the ship had come to a standstill, Marc saw Aftaran soldiers dressed in black rushing out of all the buildings, on foot and on floating platforms. In less than a minute, the ship was totally surrounded. The soldiers inside the ship opened the door and roughly pushed the three prisoners out onto the strip, where they were grabbed by the ground soldiers and dragged onto one of the floating platforms.
As the dry desert wind hit his face, Marc tried his best to keep his head high. There was something in that warm sunlight, that cloudless blue sky that gave him a feeling of hope. He wasn’t quite sure why. Clearly the situation he was in was beyond hopeless, but he could somehow sense that the world he had landed in had plenty of good and compassion in it.
Glancing over at Zorina, he noticed the look of despair on her face. Obviously she wasn’t feeling the same glimmer of hope, surrounded and being shoved around by these towering creatures with their black robes and covered faces. This clearly wasn’t the life of liberty she had been hoping for beyond the borders of the Volonan Empire.
The platform sped off towards the nearest building, entered through a gate that slid open on the ground level, and glided down a long, dark tunnel. Less than a minute later, it reached the other end of the tunnel. Another gate slid open automatically and let the platform pass through unhindered.
The view that lay beyond the gate left Marc breathless in awe. The hall they had just entered was magnificent. The arched ceiling was so high up that he could barely see it, and lines of stone pillars shot up to it along the walls and across the hall. The ornate decorations and calligraphy everywhere were a significant step up, both in size and grandeur, from those on Captain Thorab’s Gyra-class ship. The spotless white stone floors gleamed in the light trickling through the colored windows on the walls, as well as the light from hundreds of flickering lamps in front of a huge altar-like setup on the far side of the hall.
The floating platform came to a stop at the entrance to the hall. The three prisoners were motioned by their Aftaran guards to descend to the ground, and were then led on foot towards the altar along an aisle down the middle of the hall. Both Marc and Zorina tripped on their ankle restraints and fell a couple of times, but were abruptly pulled up and instructed to keep walking forward.
Perhaps this walk wouldn’t have been half as hard or embarrassing, Marc felt, were it not for the hundreds of silent Aftarans in the hall, all with their eyes focused on him and his two friends. Most of them were sitting on the floor in rows that faced the altar. As he walked past each row, he could hear the Aftarans whispering to each other, some of them making strange croaking noises while others just shook their heads. All of them had their faces fully covered, so he couldn’t make out their expressions.
After what felt like an eternity, he reached the altar and climbed up its short flight of steps. The altar was truly beautiful, with gold inscriptions on the stone partitions around it shining in the radiance of the hundreds of lamps that lay in front. A single column made of solid brown stone stood in the center, no more than 5 feet in height. Atop was a flat, glowing silver surface, probably made of a luminescent compound. The prisoners were told to stand in a line behind the column.
“Turn and face the audience!” one of the Aftaran soldiers commanded.
Marc hesitated, but knew he had no choice. Taking a deep breath, he turned towards the crowd. Looking past the stone column at the uncountable pairs of eyes below, he tried to suppress his fear with the feelings of hope he had felt upon landing on this planet, hope that whatever suspicions these Aftarans were harboring towards him and his friends, the good in them would ultimately lead them to the truth. They would understand that the three of them were innocent of these horrible accusations, and would set them free. Little did he know, however, that these feelings of hope were about to be crushed.
“Fellow citizens, arise for the righteous, enlightened leader of our beloved Dominion, Lord Wazilban!”
The words echoed across the large hall. A door on the right side of the hall slid open, and in walked a procession of Aftarans. It was a square formation of bodyguards protecting a single individual in the middle. The bodyguards all wore red robes and had their faces covered, while the Aftaran in the middle wore a bright, flashy green robe. He was taller than the others, and had no head or face cover. Instead, his robe had a high collar that circled all around his neck.
As he stared at Wazilban, Marc suddenly began feeling terrified. He started shivering, and sweat beads formed on his forehead. He couldn’t understand why the very sight of Wazilban made him feel this way, even though there was nothing particularly terrifying about Wazilban’s appearance. His face was somewhat elongated, and his feathers and eyes were green, but otherwise it seemed to have the typical features of any Aftaran.
The procession approached the altar, right past the bowing crowd of Aftarans. Wazilban climbed up the steps to the altar and stood in front of the prisoners. One of the soldiers guarding the prisoners bowed in front of him, and whispered something into his ear. He then walked up to Marc and stared at him closely.
