The Interstellar

by David Lund

  It was miracle he hadn’t become crazy. It would drive anyone mad to be locked in that cell everyday; never being allowed out, never seeing the sun. He knew that his mind was sound though: he hadn’t had any hallucinations, and he could remember everything that was going on. Even if a crazy person might not know he was crazy, he genuinely didn’t believe that he was. He seemed

  capable of rational thoughts at any rate.

  He had considered escaping but what was the point? Where would he go? He didn’t even know what lay beyond the corridor outside his cell, never mind after that. He knew he was far from home, and it seemed impossible that he would get very far. Also, the cell door was never opened. The food was pushed through a hole in the cell door that only opened from the outside. No one ever came in, and there weren’t any windows. His toilet was just a pit in the ground. No, he was condemned to live in this freezing hell until the day he died. He could only hope that day was soon.

  One day though, as he was waiting for his food, the door opened and one of them came in. He was so surprised that the door had opened, he couldn’t think and he froze. The one who came in said something in that strange language and grabbed him by the scruff on the neck. He had forgotten how strong they were. He was lifted into the air as if he weighed nothing and carried out of the room.

  They didn’t go far. Down the hall they stopped in front of another door and he was thrown inside and locked in. He got to his feet and pounded on the door, yelling for them to let him out. He was afraid, it was a strange feeling, he hadn’t felt afraid since the first days of being in his cell.

  He looked at the room. It was square and white. Very clean. There were little nozzles placed around all of the walls and on the ceiling. He wondered what they were, and approached the nearest one. But just then, water erupted from the end of every nozzle in the room, spraying him with tepid water. It felt like the most delicious thing ever. He tore off his clothes and laughed, for the first time since being in this retched place and that was a wonderful feeling. He rolled on the floor, soaking up the warmish water, spraying it over his filthy matted hair, laughing all the while. He felt like a kid playing with the garden hose in the height of summer.

  Sadly, it only lasted for a few minutes, the best minutes of his miserable life, then the water stopped abruptly. He looked around for a few seconds, expecting the door to open, but instead, something else erupted from the nozzles. A fine spray of something that smelled very strongly of bleach; probably some sort of disinfectant, he thought. He felt his skin tingle as the spray cleaned his pores.

  After being sprayed with more water for a few seconds, cold this time, the door opened again and it entered, carrying a towel and an a thin robe, both of which were thrown at his feet. He picked them up and dried himself then pulled on the robe. The creature watched him all the time, not caring about his nudity.

  Once he was dressed, he was led out of the room and down the hall again. He was allowed to walk this time, and he followed the creature through the hall of stone walls that were full of slime.

  The corridor seemed endless and he had lost the habit of walking, so he quickly ran out of breath trying to keep up. The tepid shower had wetted his appetite for warmth, and he only felt colder than

  ever now. He shivered violently as he was finally led through a set of double wooden doors.

  On the other side, the air was no warmer, and a freezing breeze whipped around his bare legs, making him shiver even more. The doors had opened on a large hall, which was dark and empty. In the dim light, he could make out furniture that looked old and broken. He had not seen any of this when he had been brought here. But how long ago was that? He had no idea. He hadn’t even seen himself in a mirror since he’d arrived. He simply knew that it must be many years, even decades.

  They walked on, along the hall and through another set of doors into yet another corridor. How big was this place? It seemed to be an endless stream of hallways. After what felt like an hour, but was probably only fifteen minutes, they stopped in front of a door that was ajar. He slumped against the wall, as his legs were having trouble keeping him upright.

  The creature beside him grabbed the front of his robe and pushed him through the door. Inside was what seemed to be an office. The walls were dark blue, void of anything else. In the middle of the room sat a large black desk, behind which sat one of the creatures. Its red eyes peered at him; its face cold and distant. He stared at the gills on the side of its head, and then at the desk. He couldn’t meet that red eyed gaze.

  The desk was pretty much empty. Something that looked like a file lay next to a black contraption, which reminded him of an old fashioned flip phone. He was then pushed into a chair in front of the desk, and the other creature left the room.

  He waited. The creature stared at him for several seconds before speaking in that strange language. To his surprise, the box on the desk translated his words into English.

  “Human,” it said. “I need information.”

  “Information? I don’t have any information. You’ve kept me locked up for god knows how many years. What do you expect me to tell you?” His voice felt hoarse after not being used for so long.

  The creature sat back and crossed its arms.

  “You are Human, and we need information about your world.”

  “Why should I help you?” he asked bitterly. “I’ve had nothing but misery from you.”

  “Your people are here.”

  “What?” he croaked sharply, sure he had misheard.

  “Your Humans are in our system, preparing to attack us.”

  “That’s not possible.”

  The creature opened the file on its desk and flicked through a few pages, and upon finding what it was looking for, it turned the file around so he could look at it. It was a picture of a man in his thirties or forties, a human. He was quite handsome, with dark hair and a twinkle in his eyes. He wore a uniform with a logo that said TEC on the shoulder pad.

  “What’s this?” he asked.

  “This man is the captain of one of your vessels, the Interstellar. A war ship come to destroy us.”

  “A war ship?” he asked, surprised. “I somehow doubt that my people would call a war ship The Interstellar.” He cleared his throat. He hadn’t talked so much in years, and his throat was dry. “Can I have some water?” he added.

  “Why do you say that?” it said, ignoring the man’s request.

  “It sounds like the name of an exploration ship, or a science vessel.”

  “A clever ruse.”

  “Doubtful. What kind of weaponry does this ship have?”

  “That’s classified information.”

  He laughed and it scowled.

  “You don’t know, do you? I doubt it has any weapons at all. I’m telling you, this man is an explorer.”

  He jabbed his finger on the face of the man in the picture.

  The creature suddenly stood and whipped a large hand around the man’s face, knocking him to the floor. He stayed there for a few seconds, feeling dazed, before clambering back on to the chair.

  The creature was on its feet, it’s pale blue face had flushed dark.

  “You do not mock me!” it roared, making the man cower. They stayed there for several seconds, staring at each other. The man could now look into those big red eyes, and he saw the craziness there, and the anger; but he could also see the sadness. This is what touched him the most.

  When he had been taken by these creatures, he had seen nothing. In fact, he didn’t even remember what had happened. He recalled coming home from a long day at work, and then waking up in their torture chamber, terrified and groggy. That was it. He had pleaded, many times in the beginning, for them to return him to his home, but they had ignored him, and continued with their experiments. He remembered the hopeless feeling and despair. He had always dreamed that his people would come for him, and even after many years, he hadn’t really given up hope. But once his beard had reached his elbows, he knew there was no
hope. And yet, this creature, this alien had confirmed it. Humans were here. Maybe here to save him. Maybe for some other reason.

  “Why do you hate us?” he asked softly. The creature stood and he could have sworn that it’s blue skin grew purple. The red in its eyes intensified as it growled and swiped a fist alongside the man’s head, knocking him to the ground.

  The man saw stars and tried to get up again but the creature was in a full blown rage now and he immediately took another hit to the side of the head, and then everything went black.

  *

  When he came to, the first thing he realised, before he even opened his eyes, was that the hard

  floor beneath him was shaking. Actually, it was vibrating. Where was he? He didn’t want to open his eyes however, as his head was already pounding, and if he opened them and saw vivid colours, he was afraid it would only make his head hurt even more.

  So he lay there for a while, letting the vibration of the floor soothe him and listened to the sounds around him. He could make out muffled voices coming from his right hand side. He opened one eye, and to his immense relief, the light was dim enough that his headache didn’t intensify. He therefore allowed himself to open both eyes. He didn’t move however, as he didn’t want to alert anybody that he was awake.

  The voices he could hear were coming from a couple of chairs off to his right. Two figures appeared to be talking to each other. He couldn’t make them out but judging by their strange language, they were the same type of creatures who had held him prisoner. He sighed and closed his eyes again. He had had faint hopes that he had been rescued by humans, but that obviously wasn’t the case.

  He opened his eyes again and took in his surroundings. The room he was in was small, just the two chairs where the aliens were sitting and the small space where he found himself. He still felt groggy but when he focused on what lay beyond the two aliens, he gasped, making the two aliens look round at him.

  He didn’t take any notice of them though. He was staring at a screen that showed nothing but dark space. He realized that he was on a spaceship. He stared hard at the distance stars, barely little pinpoints in the dark sky, but it was an amazing sight.

  The two aliens stood from their chairs and walked slowly and cautiously towards him. One of them picked up a small black box like he had seen in the office before. The alien flipped it open and spoke.

  “Human, are you okay?”

  “Who are you, and where are you taking me?”

  “Do not worry, human, we are here to help. We are taking you somewhere safe.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We are taking you back to your people.”

  22

  Michael didn’t think he would be back before the Friiist planet so soon, and if he was honest with himself, he didn’t like it. After almost being abandoned on the surface, it wasn’t really a place he cared to visit. But he had to save his crewmen, Adrian and Marshall were counting on him. Aside from this though, he couldn’t deny the beauty of the world beneath him. He stared at the blue and white shine of the planet, and wondered how it could have all gone so wrong. How did their own probe go so far off course?

  They were sailing along the flight path of the science vessel they were impersonating, and so far, everything was running smoothly. After disabling the Friiist outpost with their explosion, which of course wasn’t really a manned Henfor vessel, but rather a disguised old and disused ship; they had glided through the sensor net as quickly as they could and had adopted the pre-arranged flight path.

  The other ship, holding Jean, Gareen, Jal and Franck, was on the other side of the planet, also imitating a science vessel. They had agreed to keep communications to a minimum to reduce the risk of being discovered by the Friiist.

  Videem really knew what he was doing. Michael supposed that living amongst the enemy for so long taught you a few tricks. He had called in twice to the Central, the Friiist main command centre, to respect the protocol. Michael was worried about how the others were doing. Gareen didn’t have Videem’s experience but the latter had briefed his commander many times and he knew how things worked.

  As Videem was at the helm and navigation, the others didn’t have much to do but stare out of the window and talk about what they were going to do. Their plan was simple but ambitious: steal an underwater vessel. Videem reckoned they were kept on the planet rather than in space dock so that was where they were heading. There were several underwater docking ports along the continent, but because of the radiation, they were going to be very difficult to get to.

  The ship they were in was capable of going underwater, but not deep enough for where they needed to go. The underwater stations were only about a hundred metres deep, which was well within their ship’s capabilities, but the Henfor believed that the main buildings they were searching for, if they existed, would be right at the bottom, in excess of ten thousand metres deep. The pressure would be too great a strain on the hull. Their plan was to dive into the water far from any land and navigate their way to an underwater station. Then they would have to work out a way of stealing a Friiist submarine.

  “Right,” Videem said, “I think we can’t start out descent. We are at the furthest most point between two orbit stations. With a bit of luck, we won’t be detected as we go down.”

  Michael leaned forwards.

  “What are our chances of going unnoticed?”

  “Less than ten per cent,” Videem answered calmly.

  “Great,” Michael muttered.

  “Captain,” Caitlin said. “What happens if we are found out?”

  Michael looked his first officer straight in the eye.

  “We’ll worry about that if it happens.”

  “Starting descent,” Videem said, and the ship dived towards the planet. The ship began to vibrate as they entered the atmosphere. The dark space around them began to grow steadily lighter until it was replaced by a dark blue and purple sky.

  “Wow,” Lindsey said softly. “It’s beautiful.”

  Michael too was amazed. Far below them, but approaching rapidly, were huge snow capped mountains towering over large banks of ice covered ground. In the distance, they could all make out a vast blue and green ocean, which from this height, looked like a solid stone wall.

  Once they had truly entered the atmosphere, the shaking calmed down and Michael could hear the roar of the engines as they flew towards the ocean.

  “Have we been detected?” he asked the alien.

  “I don’t think so -”

  “Science craft 5489, you are way off your flight plan, what are you doing?” A Friiist voice suddenly burst out of the speakers, translated by the communication device.

  “Damn,” Michael said.

  “We were venting atmosphere and needed to enter the planet’s atmosphere to -”

  “Negative, you will be be filled with radiation, go back into orbit immediately, we will assist you there.”

  “What do we do?” Michael asked loudly.

  “We are thirty seconds away from the water, hopefully, they won’t be able to locate us, or thing we died in a crash, so I say we ignore them.” As he said this Videem shut off the communications system and took the ship into a steeper dive as they came up above the ocean. They all grabbed hold of their seats as the force of the dive pushed them backwards.

  “How fast can we hit the water without being crushed?” Lindsey managed to yell over the noise from the descent.

  Videem didn’t answered, either because he didn’t want to or because he didn’t have time. They hit the water hard and everyone in the ship was knocked forwards as the water naturally slowed them down, but they were unhurt. Apparently the ship was strong enough to withstand the impact.

  Videem took the ship as far down as he dared, to about two hundred metres and found a large crevice to hide the ship while they checked their readings.

  “There is an outpost about forty kilometres away,” Videem said. “But there is a vessel about ten kilometres fr
om here.”

  “Can they detect us?” Michael asked.

  “If we can see them, it’s a good bet that they can see us. I’m hoping this crevice will help avoid detection.”

  Michael wasn’t too confident about this, as Videem’s last guess hadn’t gone according to plan.

  “We need to act fast,” he said. “Can we contact Gareen’s ship?”

  “I wouldn’t advise it, it might give away our position.”

  “We’re going to have to come out of hiding some time. Where is this other vessel going?”

  Videem scanned his instruments.

  “It’s moving away from us, but very slowly, and our hull pressure is increasing drastically, we cannot stay at this depth for very long. We will need to move soon if we have any chance of making it to the outpost.”

  “How long can we wait?”

  “Ten minutes. No longer.”

  “Then we’ll have to hope they decide to speed up.”

  *

  Ten minutes later, the Friiist vessel was still in their vicinity but didn’t seem to have detected them, but Videem announced that they could wait no longer, and would have to go nearer the surface or the hull would be damaged. Their holographic matrix would no longer work underwater.

  They had known this before setting out, but hadn’t banked on being so close to an alien vessel before they got nearer to an underwater base.

  Their craft had weapons but they were designed for space fights. Although Videem said the rockets would be useless, the electric discharges should work, albeit not as effectively as in the vacuum of space, but they should cause some damage nevertheless. They had to believe the Friiist had weapons that were effective underwater though. Videem explained that they had never had an underwater battle with the Friiist and that it was possible their submarines were not equipped with any defences, but they had to assume the worst, therefore, Videem took the ship out as quickly as he could.