Across the Stars: Book Three of Seeds of a Fallen Empire
He watched as the Charon aliens broke through the Earth squadrons and converged on the surface, but still the lom-vaia girl stood her ground.
Suddenly Kusao realized that she couldn’t move. From what he had learned, he guessed that she had remained with them past the time when the lom-vaia needed sleep to replenish themselves. He did not know that she had fought fatigue to guide them back though the jungle, to be near the source of the memories recently added to her own.
She hadn’t even the energy to push her legs into the soil; he now detected her slow movement towards the life waters that indicated she had stretched herself beyond her own limits. As enemy fire rained around her, she continued to inch towards the life source. He knew that she could not withstand a single contact with laser fire.
He could not bear to watch any longer. Without hesitation, Kusao pushed open the cockpit of his fighter and jumped the twelve feet to the ground. Unable to hear the shouts of his comrades, he ran to the water’s edge and cupped his hands to bring the sea to the girl’s lips. The single draught was enough to animate her, he saw with some relief, but he knew that her instinctive reaction would soon be to sleep and recover. But she couldn’t sleep here! he thought. Desperation filled him as he she began to weaken. No, he just couldn’t let her die, incinerated by the enemy’s fire, unprotected in the open!
Before she could push her feet through the soil, he bent down and picked her up gently, then leaned forward to run to safety, shielding her body with his own as he watched the jungle’s edge draw closer.
Then, just as he neared the end of the strip of soil between the jungle and the sea, he felt a searing pain burning across his back. The Earth-fabricated uniform, only a copy of the alien suits the others wore, had absorbed and deflected as much of the short-range blast from the alien ship behind him as it could, but the intensity of the energy had penetrated it at last, slowly burning flesh throughout his body.
He continued to the jungle, drawing upon an inner strength he didn’t know he had, until many meters safe within the jungle, he slowly let go of the alien girl in his arms, content that he had saved her life.
She watched him silently and with a deep sorrow she had never known before, powerless as his body ceased to grow.
* * * * *
Erik stared. What was Kusao doing abandoning his fighter!? His transmission stopped the others from leaving the area, but at that moment a squadron of aliens had dropped upon them. They stayed to protect Kusao as best they could, joined by a few of the Earth fighters that had followed the aliens to the surface.
But Erik was too late to stop the blast. He watched the laserfire incinerate the area around his friend as if in slow-motion, then fired his own laser gun again and again in a fury of revenge at the small enemy fighter carrier’s weak spot, near the engine. The engine exploded even more violently in the richly oxygenated atmosphere into a bright fireball, yet watching it gave Erik no feeling of satisfaction.
Kusao had made it to the trees—but hadn’t returned.
“Come on, we’ve got to get out of here,” he heard one of the Earth fighters say. But he had not seen the lom-vaia—and he had not known the amazing person lieutenant Kusao had been. Erik refused, heading his fighter towards the razed ground and to the edge of the jungle.
I’ve got to see what happened to him, he thought desperately, looking into the distance, where he could at last see the lom-vaia girl lying close to the motionless body of lieutenant Kusao. Erik looked away quickly, his eyes burning, as his bioscanner confirmed no human life signs.
Now he hesitated. Did he have any right to interfere? he wondered. Kusao had given his life for this girl, and whether or not he had the time to bury him, Erik suddenly realized that it would be wrong of him to take Kusao from her. She would no doubt want to take care of him in her own way; Erik stopped a moment, regarding the jungle, torn by indecision. He despaired leaving Kusao behind, leaving his cherished friend in this alien soil so far from the Earth. The fact that Kusao had died performing a noble, selfless act was small consolation.
Nevertheless, Erik would honor it. After a moment, he followed the others cutting a trail through the battle back towards the grounded Discovery.
* * * * *
With the Earth fighters pulling away, the enemy redoubled its efforts and pursued them back to the ship.
“They’re going to follow us!” Knightwood screamed over the net.
The shuttle pressed forward as the squadrons doubled back to cut off the aliens from following it into the Great Bay. A beam of light emerged from the Discovery’s hull, radiating into hundreds of askew rays. The shuttle passengers watched in wonder as in between the Earth squadrons, the alien ships suddenly exploded, allowing the Earth fighters a clear path to return to the Great Bay; then as the last fighter passed into safety, the hull plate pulled into place with a deafening boom.
Dimitriev hurried to the bridge as the ship took off into space again, but a small assembly of blue-clad Earthlings watched in the observation window as the lom-vaia world diminished, and the great green seas and green plains faded into a clouded haze until the tiny sphere vanished from view.
* * * * *
The girl awoke and found his body beside her. She remembered the evening, the cries of her brethren that had burned to the ground. Lifting the man in her strong arms now renewed, she carried him across the jungle to the sacred soil and buried him deep in the cultivated sands.
She waited, days and nights, forgetting her own wanderings and the call to join the city dwellers, to release her seed child and live free with her people.
Finally, a young seedling pushed through the soil and into the sun’s warm light. She recognized his kind, beloved face and waited for his eyes to open. He smiled and remembered her, and now he also understood her words.
She waited until his lower limbs grew free from the soil and took his hand to lead him to the city.
Chapter Eleven
In the two and a half Earth weeks after the team left the lom-vaia planet, Erik Ross had been unable to clear the events of that day from his mind. He still found it difficult to accept Kusao’s death—but the replacement on the bridge crew, Lieutenant Forster, reminded him of the fact daily. And, with the death of another so close to him, Erik couldn’t hold back recollections of his brother.
Memories of Justin surfaced almost against his will to torment him at work on the bridge, at night as he slept. Events he had forgotten came to him anew, as if he had never really accepted his brother’s death until that day on lom-vaia when Major Dimitriev began to describe the battle at Charon. Erik hadn’t wanted to know the details, because until that moment, Justin had still been alive to him. He was still alive to him because Erik had not been there himself when Justin died.
Now Erik knew that Justin had lived another life at the UESRC, that perhaps he had changed and become someone Erik had never known. And if Dimitriev were telling the truth—then Justin had kept information about his friends and activities from his family, from his own brother. Dimitriev’s words had offered more new pain than solace.
Erik requested the holo-room late one night after bridge duty, just before the timeslot Kusao had arranged some time before. Erik could not face sleep yet, not when his dreams were sure to return him again to the last battle. At the late hour of 0127, one of the other technicians was finishing with the room.
Erik sat in the holo-room, engulfed by his old home with his grandmother, then the UESRC. But inevitably his thoughts turned to Kusao, and then his brother. He left the holo-room and headed back to his quarters. If he could not escape them, then he might as well get some sleep.
Already another bridge crew member had taken Kusao’s old room. Erik had gone with his other friends a few days ago to claim some small momentoes before the room was cleared. He had met the others from the shuttle team there—even Knightwood—and others who had met Kusao on the shuttle to Elphor. Dimitriev left when Erik arrived, but the others offered Erik Ross and James Garric
k their sympathy.
On the way back to his quarters, Erik had stopped by the observation relay window near their crew quarters, the only nearby vidscreen to project images of the outside world.
“Lom-vaia planet, please,” he had muttered, and a three-dimensional image of the green planet came to life before him. He stared at it for a long time, and then blinked hard. “Good-bye, friend.” He said in farewell, then walked away when he could bear the sight no longer.
* * * * *
Zhdanov moved away from the lab table and winked at Knightwood. A smile lit up her dark eyes. She caught herself and cast a glance over her shoulder at Dr. Koslov, who had gone over to the analyzer, but he hadn’t been paying any attention to them. At least, he and Cheung pretended not to notice.
Everyone had heard the news by now. Dr. Koslov, Romanik, Manning, and Cheung concentrated on the analyzer and kept their eyes ahead, giving the two a private moment.
Zhdanov had finally proposed the day after the crew returned from the lom-vaia world. He had traveled the length of the ship looking for an engagement ring. Then Zhdanov had found her in the Russian section nearer the Cargo Bay than the bridge crew quarters; he had found her by accident, or so it seemed.
She was supposed to be analyzing and recording the information from lom-vaia with the other scientists, while Zhdanov translated the findings into Russian with help from lieutenant Kaganov and the Russian maintenance technicians who were not currently busy. He had planned to catch her that evening and generate the perfect atmosphere for the question, but in the end he could not hold back and asked her to marry him spontaneously. And the location struck him as appropriate—he had finally asked her in the middle of documenting their research, in front of an audience, declaring a love that both had disavowed for so long.
The date was set a month away to give them both time to adjust to the idea and to prepare for the event itself. But now Knightwood reconsidered. Once she had made up her mind, a month was too long to wait.
She tried to concentrate on the more serious nature of their experiments. The discovery of some mythical “creator” from a place called “Enor” combined with the further vestiges of some galactic Federation had raised the question as to where the origins of these visitors had been, if the two were connected in some way, perhaps one being the remote ancestor of the other, or as per the same old question, two warring factions of one race; for the moment, she had chosen to assume that “Enor” was not merely a mythical place, that its “creator” was not merely a mythical creature who provided an explanation as to how the lom-vaia race had been born.
With no means of verifying their suppositions, the research scientists had been forced to review every small detail from the planets they had thus far visited, including a few vegetation samples from lom-vaia, but they lacked conclusive genetic evidence to form connections.
Knightwood kept her own hypothesis secret, but she was sure the convergence of the humanoid form was no coincidence. The alteration of the lom-vaia by an Enorian “creator” had gotten her mind working. What if the same thing had once happened on Earth? What if humankind on Earth had incorrectly pieced together the independent evolution of its own human race?
* * * * *
All aboard Enlil knew that the Great Leader had been displeased by the failure of the attack at lom-vaia. Not long after the failed attack, the Garen successor Iriken Zirnenka began to believe that it was the fault of the woman the Orian people knew as Zariqua Enassa or Alessia. She had to have helped the Selesta to escape, to thwart their trap yet again; it was not the first time she had thwarted the Great Leader’s plans.
In the last attack, she had interfered with their fighter’s navigational systems and driven their planes haywire. This time, she had decimated their forces, then run away! It was unforgivable, Iriken thought. Someone had to stop her, to force her to surrender herself. It was not merely that Iriken tired of battles and unending pursuit; he knew that if the Great Leader were ever to find and regain his Zariqua Enassa and the Selesta, then the Orian people would finally have their guide to a new home. They could then fulfill the purpose the Orian people all wished to accomplish; they could finally cure the Great Leader of his strange illnesses. Yes, he must be cured for the sake of them all!
It was with this in mind that Iriken Zirnenka proposed the mission to the current Garen, a mission to reclaim the Zariqua Enassa. Iriken was careful not to criticize the Great Leader’s failure in tactics around lom-vaia; clearly the Selesta had again had forewarning of their presence. At least, the ship had perceived the threat of their great numbers approaching and had taken measure to avert a great battle. Yet one small fighter—would Selesta perceive its presence? Iriken had asked. If one small fighter merely drifted at a constant rate towards them and made no communications? No, the Garen had agreed, surely her defenses would not be raised for a single fighter. Then, when any of the Selesta’s thousand air lock doors opened, the small fighter could enter the ship. And the pilot’s mission would be to retrieve her, the Great Leader’s Zariqua Enassa, and seize control of the Selesta.
The Garen had readily approved of the mission. Reports showed that the Selesta periodically reversed its thrusters to stop and emitted Kiel3 fighters that flew around the ship in circles and then returned through the same air lock door—some kind of maneuver training no doubt. The Garen agreed that the Great Leader would be surprised, but pleased.
They had both seen that Iriken would be the one to fulfill the mission, not only for reasons of secrecy, but because of his past experiences. Moments after the Garen had granted him clearance, Iriken picked up signs of activity outside the Selesta. He knew then that he had not a moment to lose. The Garen sent two others to follow him at a distance, to bring back visuals of his infiltration.
Yes, Iriken thought, drifting alone silently in space, as the aliens had once invaded Enlil, now he was going to invade them. He would find the Zariqua Enassa and bring her back. Selesta would then at last surrender.
Meanwhile, Erika waited in the lounge section, but Iriken never showed up for their meeting.
* * * * *
The squadrons had just gone out to practice their maneuvers when lieutenant Amina Johnson’s voice came over the net.
“All squadrons return to the Great Bay—and hurry.”
“What’s happening?” lieutenant Nakagawa asked from outside the ship.
“We’ve got an enemy intruder in the Great Bay! You’ve got to stop him. He flew in a minute ago, when the air lock opened. I don’t think he was anticipating finding the Stargazer in there—but we’ve got a lot of people on the ground, and no one can get to the planes without risking being seen in the open. Hurry it up—this guy’s doing a lot of damage in here!”
A stunned silence reigned on the net.
When the air lock opened to bring in the squadrons, the team had formed up side by side to prevent the alien ship’s escape. They could see that he had flown in circles and destroyed a dozen grounded Earth fighters by the time they arrived but hadn’t affected the Discovery’s own planes, the few that had been left on the Great Bay floor and not stacked up at the side or moved to the smaller fighter docking bays.
“What’s he doing?” Lieutenant Andersen asked as the enemy realized he was outnumbered and began weaving through them at an incredible speed.
“He’s got to know it’s over,” Manning agreed. “Just watch out—he’s firing.” The Earth fighters avoided the rampant shots of their cornered prey, but it was clear they would have to ground him soon before someone was killed. “Did he think there wasn’t going to be anyone in here?” Manning asked incredulously. “As if he could just waltz in here and we wouldn’t notice—”
“Shall I take him out?” Behrman asked, but then didn’t wait for an answer. Sighting the enemy’s weak spot, he grazed the enemy plane with a laser beam. The shot failed to ignite the enemy’s weak spot, but the impact of the blast brought the alien ship crashing to the floor.
The humans
on the ground rushed over to examine the wreck. The ship had been twisted up in the fall and would never fly again, but if the pilot were still alive, he showed no sign of moving.
The Earth squadrons landed a few feet away and emerged, holding their laser rifles ready as they approached the alien ship. A few remained in their planes in case the ship and its pilot were playing dead.
Erin followed Koichiro Nakagawa, Mara Ricna, and Einar Suffield-Andersen at the head of the group—the other pilots acquiesced to the old infiltration team and Blue Stripes’ experience in dealing with the aliens until Einar motioned for them to form a ring around the fighter. Erin hesitated to approach, sensing thoughts from the pilot within, strange but familiar words that became meaning before she could block her understanding.
Why did they not kill me? the pilot wondered. If we had surrounded one of their kind, he would be dead by now. No—do not think about that. Just remember your mission, Iriken, he added, trying to dismiss all doubts from his mind. I must find the Zariqua Enassa. I will find her and bring her back to Enlil. But—how strange these creatures are—he looked around and spied an Orian uniform. Immediately a wave of confusion and incredulity hit him, numbing his thoughts. He could not contemplate escape or self-destruction—he only waited mutely for them to discover him.
How had the Great Leader failed to tell them?!! he wondered, his mind reeling.
There were still Orians on board Selesta!
* * * * *
They waited several minutes, but nothing happened. Finally Erin stepped towards the plane, but Einar extended an arm across her to stop her. His expression said that he was afraid for her to approach it, but she shook her head and moved past him.