The Unexpected Morale towered over the Black Addison, leaking it's shadows like ink onto blotting paper. The men at the front pointed down their six barrelled machine guns and began to turn the crank shafts to their side, spinning the six barrels and drawing large holes into the metal plating of Nexelspire. "Get down!" Davelron screamed, running towards the rack of turbines at the Addison's rear.
Nexelspire's Sherifs were rolling down the windows of their offices, forcing cannons that spent most of the year lying dormant out into the snap of the crisp air. Marcus' ears shuddered as they exploded, driving the platoon the Sherif's office was floating on down slightly before it bobbed back up. The cannon balls made no indentation on the metal hull however, except to alert the powder monkeys inside the hull. They opened flaps in the hull, dislodging waiting barnacles, and revealing their own cannons. Except these didn't fire cannon balls.
"Oh my Thinker!" Emilia cried. "They're- they're-"
"Serpenmechs!" Davelron finished. "I haven't seen those monsters in decades!"
The Serpenmechs were fearsome mechanical dragons, forged from the reptilian clockwork of the Further Reaches. They were reputed to be able to rip open a building in the same manner as a human being: very easily. From bionic beaks, patterned with jagged metal fangs, were blown billowing clouds of furious bright orange fire. The clouds caught the sherif's office and ignited the barrels of gunpowder used to power the cannons. Large chunks of wooden debris propelled suddenly through the air, splattering the water and the deck of the Black Addison. A shard of metal sliced through the air towards Marcus but the Mechanical Wizard cast a forcefield spell, dissuading the shard away.
Screaming sea merchants and panicking shop vendors hurried from their floating wooden venues and began to wind the cranks which reeled in the anchors far beneath. The sound of creaking gears were loud against the howling winds but no louder than the explosions of cannons and guns on top of the Unexpected Morale.
The mass of Trident Holders who had been shopping in Nexelspire prior to the attack were now armed with crossbows and three barrelled machine guns. Bullets and bolts sliced through the air and bumped off metallic hull, but some hit the pin prick dots that were the Unexpected Morale's crew and the Morale's crew dropped. "Marcus, Emilia, arm yourself! It's our duty to protect these waters and we sure as Hell aren't going to run scared now!" Davelron cried, spinning the grand oak wheel and pointing the Black Addison away from the Unexpected Morale. There was a cluster of other Trident Holder vessels packing tightly together, allowing the blue coated guardians of the sea to run from one boat to another, rearming and reaiming their crossbows. Emilia leapt from the Black Addison and onto the Sky Tale, grabbing a cross bow and a leather quiver of bolts. Most of the Trident Holders were running from their ships and onto the Black Addison. As the newest ship to join the cluster, it was the closest to the Unexpected Morale, but it was becoming too crowded. She wasn't exactly talented with a bow but she knew she was going to need more space to fire if she was going to have any chance of winning.
There was a ship on the middle row of boats, equidistant from the Unexpected Morale and the docks of Nexelspire, and Emilia clambered up the drainpipe on the side of it's step covering shed and onto the roof. She stood on it and aimed the crossbow at one of the hatches on the side of the Morale. She pulled back the drawstring, winding a lever to stretch it back, and then loaded a stubby bolt from his back into the firing chamber. Her finger felt heavy against the trigger and she waited, pointing up at the hatch, ready to fire when she got the chance. Something unclear flickered in the hatch and her finger jerked at the trigger, releasing the bolt. It shot through the air, cutting a clean path, and then raced directly into the mouth of the flickering shape itself. It was a fully gas bellied Serpenmech and the bolt sliced directly through it's open mouth, smashing the igniter where a normal creature would have tonsils and erupting the gas tank in it's stomach in a grand ball of fire. Shards of metal raced through the air, propelled by a rippling cloud of orange flames.
"Good shot!" Cried a green jacket junior, watching in awe as Emilia ducked the burning wreckage of the Serpenmech.
"That was nothing." She replied. "I helped take down a real sea serpent a few months back."
"Duck!" The green jacket cried.
Emilia turned and saw another Serpenmech roaring towards her, it's metallic wings carving back and forth through the air. It opened it's mouth, a shrill bell screeching a shrill scream quickly followed by a ever flowing scream of orange flames. Emilia turned and leapt off the shed, rolling through the air. She hit the side of the ship as the Serpenmech's fire burst through the space she was only moments earlier stood in but before she could grab hold of something, she was in the water. It was shockingly cold, bubbling goosebumps across her arms and legs. She tried to ration the fleeting breath she'd taken before entering but it was beginning to choke her. A fraction of water was swelling her cheeks but she knew if she tried to spit it out, it'd only invite in more.
She tried to remember what Thaddeus had once taught her at the docks at the bottom of Vincent's Triple Helix. The water there had been so much warmer, so much inviting, except from when she'd begun to sink lower and lower beneath it.
"Push outwards with your arms." Thaddeus had lectured her. "Push inwards with you legs."
"That's not what the swimmers do up at the swimming events in the castle!" Emilia had shouted back, sinking beneath the water and then coming back out again, spouting water from her lips when it seeped into her mouth.
"You're a seven year old, Emilia! You're not a professional swimmer yet!"
Emilia said a quick prayer to the Blessed Thinker and then pushed her arms outwards, push inwards with her legs. She moved forwards and grinned with glee. It was working! The iron chains that were slowly pulling up the anchors beneath the platoons were getting closer and closer and then suddenly there was a gigantic explosion. Speckles of wood and iron raced into the water around her. Plumes of bubbles clung to her as she curled up in herself, avoiding the falling debris. It sunk around her as billowing clouds of orange flames curled through the air above the water. In front of her, the platoon collapsed down, the chain falling and the wooden building entering the water. Burning bodies fell from the sides, floating towards her. She closed her eyes and kicked them away, edging further and further towards the platoon. Her limited breath was beginning to run out, she needed to breathe soon.
"Where's Emilia?" Marcus cried to the Mechanical Wizard over the roar of Trident Holders firing harpoons at the Unexpected Morale. The harpoons were grand iron hooks that cut through the air and grappled onto the top of the Morale, the ropes pulling taught. The Trident Holders pulled on the ropes and, happy that they weren't going to fall, began to climb up the hull towards the deck.
The Mechanical Wizard's vinyl disc hard drive ran through all the possible If Statements and decided that rather than print anything it would whir it's motors and shrug.
"Well, aren't you helpful?" Marcus muttered. His Trident was heavier in his hand but he carried it valiantly, locking it into the bottom of a six barrelled rifle. It was loaded and the Trident worked perfectly as a handle, a bar trigger releasing all six bullets at once. He looked up as a Trident Holder hit the water to the side of the Addison. The Morale's crew were using axes on the grappling hooks, releasing the chains and allowing the Trident Holders to fall. Marcus pointed his rifle up at the Morale and pulled the bar trigger and released the six bullets all at once. Only one hit one of the Pirates and only in the wrong shoulder. They were still able to swing their axe to the height of it's swing, scattering more Trident Holders. "Retreat!" Davelron screamed from his pose at the wheel. "Move back to a distance of tactical proportions. Blast them with the onboard artillery!"
The Trident Holders who hadn't already fallen jumped into the water and swam back to their own ships, and those on the Black Addison leapt from it and back onto their own ship. Marcus and the Mechanical Wizard joined Davelron and the previously drowning man at the wheel.
"Where's Emilia?" Marcus shouted over the roar of Trident Holder propellers.
"She went onto one of the other ships to get a better shot." Davelron cried. "Anyway, grab hold of something. Things are about to escalate."
The Drowning Man looked more alive than he had been before. "Hello." He said, offering his hand to Marcus. "My name is Pontsher."
"Marcus." The boy introduced himself. "What were you doing in the water, Mr Pontsher?"
"Drowning. I was meant to be escaping the Unexpected Morale but it didn't really work."
"Is it true what they say? About the Captain having-"
"Yes." Pontsher shivered. "It's disturbing to think about."
"Gentlemen, perhaps we can stop gabbing and pay attention to fighting the Unexpected Morale? I believe it's about to destroy another block of Nexelspire."
The Unexpected Morale careered into yet another platoon, but this one was still anchored to the others. The metal hull sliced through the platoons and the wooden buildings on top, sending showers of debris into the water. Serpenmechs continued to spout from either side, setting fire to the wooden shacks quicker than the closest Trident Holders and their massive pumps could put them out. Buildings collapsed on all sides, sinking and burning, whilst the Unexpected Morale continued it's path of destruction. A floating armourers- rare since the realisation that water can cause rust- suddenly detonated, every cask of gunpowder inside bursting at once and tearing the surrounding platoons apart. Pontsher, Marcus and the Mechanical Wizard all had to duck to avoid a cartwheeling slice of metal as it raced into the distance.
"This is chaos!" Marcus cried.
"Don't you see why it is so feared?" Pontsher cried.
The cluster of Trident Holder's boats began to part, realising the battle was lost. There was no stopping the Unexpected Morale, at least not with Nexelspire destroyed as it was.
"They'll be going to the Holder Court for backup." Davelron announced, turning the Addison around. "They won't let the Morale escape, not with the Holder blood which has been spilt. We would be best to follow them. I'm afraid our journey is going to have to be shortened."
"That doesn't matter." Marcus said. "Where's Emilia?"
Emilia had clambered through the burnt remains of Nexelspire's Sherif's Office and climbed onto the next platoon. As the Trident Holders had lain war on the Unexpected Morale, Emilia had run through the various platoons, clamping and unclamping. Whenever she got a chance she'd take a chance to fire at the approaching Serpenmechs, doing all she could to assist the Trident Holder's struggle.
She'd been taking a final shot when she felt the platoon shake under her. "They're disanchoring." She whispered to herself. "I need to get off before they float away."
Emilia raced towards the door and out onto the parting streets but then she saw that the platoons weren't disconnecting of their own accord. They were being ripped apart by the cutting brow of the Unexpected Morale. It tour through the centre of the pavement and Emilia began to run away from it as it scattered wooden debris towards her. She got to the furtherest point she could and found herself staring down into the sea. She could jump in and swim or- no. She couldn't, could she? She'd heard that story about the Captain, she shivered, she didn't want to become the subject of another.
The Unexpected Morale loomed further over her and in that moment she decided. It would be better than nothing.
There was a ladder on the front, as there were on all boats, known as the target's escape. Climb up it of your own free will and you admitted yourself one of their victims. If you didn't, you were admitting yourself a dead man walking. Emilia ran and jumped onto it, using her bony fingers to pulling herself up the cold metal bars, lumbering herself onto the deck. It took her ten minutes to get to the top. When she did, she was met with swords, pistols and sneers of distaste. "Great." She muttered to herself.
Little did she know that a green jacket junior Trident Holder was watching the events through a telescope, prepared to risk his honour to protect the girl with the amazing shot.
To be continued...
Monday, 22 June 2015
Monday, 15 June 2015
The Quest for Verdisc (part 9)
Marcus and Emilia hadn't been on dry land- well, sort of- in a fair few months. It was a strange feeling against their feet, a floor that was anchored by iron suspension cables to the ocean floor as to keep it from swaying. In the majority, the system worked, but when large waves crashed against the outer tiers of the suspended platoons, the whole port shook.
Large wooden buildings careered up from the platoons as Marcus and Emilia walked further into Nexelspire. Not one of them was connected, but in fact they all floated on separate platoons chained together loosely. Davelron had explained it once by the logic that, Qamatha forbid, pirates attacked the port, the ships could be easily freed and allowed to escape via outboard motors connected to their rears. Docking platoons, like grand weaving H's made from metal, acted as the walkways between buildings, but they were as useless as just leaving the buildings to congregate naturally, due to the level of crowding on them. Emilia grabbed Marcus' hand like she used to when they were little and had first travelled to Vincent. So many people, it would be easy to lose him amongst them. Emilia cast an eye over the crowd around them. Motley bunches of handsome Trident Holders marched through the streets, swag bags of fresh food and drink slung over their shoulders. She saw one junior Trident Holder, he was wearing a shorter green jacket unlike the others, who was handing out freshly picked bouquets of flowers to those he passed. He gave one to Emilia and she confessed her heart fluttered a bit, not because of any interest in the Trident Holder but instead because of the thorns left remaining in the stalks of the flowers.
"Emilia, look!" Marcus cried, pulling her back and to a halt in the centre of the busy street. As people hustled around them, telling them to mind their way, Marcus pointed at the roughly illuminated sign on one of the buildings, next to a painted green cross. "Look! A Gqirha!"
"Good spot!" Emilia said. "We'll come back to that when we've got everything else we need. Now, come on!"
Large wooden buildings careered up from the platoons as Marcus and Emilia walked further into Nexelspire. Not one of them was connected, but in fact they all floated on separate platoons chained together loosely. Davelron had explained it once by the logic that, Qamatha forbid, pirates attacked the port, the ships could be easily freed and allowed to escape via outboard motors connected to their rears. Docking platoons, like grand weaving H's made from metal, acted as the walkways between buildings, but they were as useless as just leaving the buildings to congregate naturally, due to the level of crowding on them. Emilia grabbed Marcus' hand like she used to when they were little and had first travelled to Vincent. So many people, it would be easy to lose him amongst them. Emilia cast an eye over the crowd around them. Motley bunches of handsome Trident Holders marched through the streets, swag bags of fresh food and drink slung over their shoulders. She saw one junior Trident Holder, he was wearing a shorter green jacket unlike the others, who was handing out freshly picked bouquets of flowers to those he passed. He gave one to Emilia and she confessed her heart fluttered a bit, not because of any interest in the Trident Holder but instead because of the thorns left remaining in the stalks of the flowers.
"Emilia, look!" Marcus cried, pulling her back and to a halt in the centre of the busy street. As people hustled around them, telling them to mind their way, Marcus pointed at the roughly illuminated sign on one of the buildings, next to a painted green cross. "Look! A Gqirha!"
"Good spot!" Emilia said. "We'll come back to that when we've got everything else we need. Now, come on!"
They hustled through the crowd, dropping pardons to the people they shouldered out of the way. They followed the streams of moving people, around various corners of constructs and bobbing facades, plastered with wanted posters for infamous pirate vessels. The Bloody Rug Rat, was one that Marcus had heard of in stories Thaddeus had told him. The Holy Kevin and The Wrecking Decker were the lesser known ones, but the ship with the highest reward presented was renowned throughout the Quadratic Seas. The Unexpected Morale. Some said the Captain had- no. It wasn't worth thinking about. Some of those stories were too horrible to recall!
There seemed to be three individual groups of people in the crowds, with a fourth sub-faction. There were the sea faring Trident Holders, resplendent in their long blue jackets. They tipped their stubbled faces towards Marcus and Emilia as they passed, before muttering to each other, "They're a bit young for blue jackets, right?"
The second group were the fisherman, rugged blokes and women who towered over everyone else, but seemed to push people away with the stink of their flesh. Emilia, glancing at them until they stared back, noticed that they all seemed to head down the thinner metal platoons which acted as alleyways, cast in a mysterious red glow.
The third group of people, to whom the sub-faction belonged, were the Sea Merchants and their smaller relatives the rich Water Holidayers. They were the, relatively, normally dressed people who paraded up and down the streets as if they owned the place, knowing everyone and everything with their strange customs and habits. The majority of them, as the Merchants, knew the best places to get a bargain and those were the places that Marcus and Emilia eventually got around to filling cloth sacks at.
They were large wooden shacks that bobbed if you jumped into them- an action that was absolutely hilarious to do but irritating to experience if you sat behind the counter. They were filled with rows of shelves stacked high with the freshest fruit and vegetables- from all four corners of the Quadratic Sea- and large makeshift freezers that buffed your face with clouds of cold when opened. They held piles and piles of meat, chicken and pork and duck. "We're not getting any duck." Marcus said, defiantly. "It's completely inhumane."
"What's inhumane is us starving!" Emilia cried.
"Then get some bananas or something!" Marcus replied.
After a few hours of wandering around Nexelspire, the two wandering Black Addison crew members began to return to the ship the way they'd come. Food sacks were slung over their shoulders, lolling quietly like the platoons beneath their feet. Marcus saw the Gqirha sign again and they bobbed in, asking the main physician for his assistance. He told them he'd come to the Black Addison in a hour, if it was still there, and that service fees would be arranged then. Marcus and Emilia thanked him and then continued their wary hike towards the Addison. It was still waiting where it had been before they set off, bobbing slightly in the water that lapped against it's hull. Davelron was sat on the raised platform at the ship's rear, the Mechanical Wizard sat next to him. He stood when he saw them approaching. "Emilia! Marcus! Welcome back on board, let me help you with that shopping. You've evidently been busy." He cried, helping them. He seemed happier than usual, easily explained by the manner in which he hadn't been fined for mooring where he had.
"Where's the Gqirha?" He asked as they carried the bags below board and dumped them on the round wooden table.
"He should be along in an hour." Marcus said. "Too busy right now, dealing with some lady with multiple contusions, or something like that."
"Completely understandable." Davelron said. "The sleeping man doesn't look too bad, though. Come have a look."
They walked over towards the sleeping quarter's doorway. It swung open at a nudge from Davelron's foot and they walked in. Inside were the familiar four beds arranged in two selections of bunk beds, two on either wall and then a shared bathroom at the bottom that was merely a sink, a foggy mirror and a toilet. Davelron's bed was the top bunk on the right, a bag at the bottom. Beneath that was Marcus' bunk, decorated with the picture of his parents, Thaddeus and the man they were looking for: Demetrius Mist. The bottom bunk to the left was Emilia's, adorned with stickers from previous deck hand's stays aboard the Addison. The top bunk was the drowning man's. And it was empty.
"Where is he?" Emilia exclaimed.
There seemed to be three individual groups of people in the crowds, with a fourth sub-faction. There were the sea faring Trident Holders, resplendent in their long blue jackets. They tipped their stubbled faces towards Marcus and Emilia as they passed, before muttering to each other, "They're a bit young for blue jackets, right?"
The second group were the fisherman, rugged blokes and women who towered over everyone else, but seemed to push people away with the stink of their flesh. Emilia, glancing at them until they stared back, noticed that they all seemed to head down the thinner metal platoons which acted as alleyways, cast in a mysterious red glow.
The third group of people, to whom the sub-faction belonged, were the Sea Merchants and their smaller relatives the rich Water Holidayers. They were the, relatively, normally dressed people who paraded up and down the streets as if they owned the place, knowing everyone and everything with their strange customs and habits. The majority of them, as the Merchants, knew the best places to get a bargain and those were the places that Marcus and Emilia eventually got around to filling cloth sacks at.
They were large wooden shacks that bobbed if you jumped into them- an action that was absolutely hilarious to do but irritating to experience if you sat behind the counter. They were filled with rows of shelves stacked high with the freshest fruit and vegetables- from all four corners of the Quadratic Sea- and large makeshift freezers that buffed your face with clouds of cold when opened. They held piles and piles of meat, chicken and pork and duck. "We're not getting any duck." Marcus said, defiantly. "It's completely inhumane."
"What's inhumane is us starving!" Emilia cried.
"Then get some bananas or something!" Marcus replied.
After a few hours of wandering around Nexelspire, the two wandering Black Addison crew members began to return to the ship the way they'd come. Food sacks were slung over their shoulders, lolling quietly like the platoons beneath their feet. Marcus saw the Gqirha sign again and they bobbed in, asking the main physician for his assistance. He told them he'd come to the Black Addison in a hour, if it was still there, and that service fees would be arranged then. Marcus and Emilia thanked him and then continued their wary hike towards the Addison. It was still waiting where it had been before they set off, bobbing slightly in the water that lapped against it's hull. Davelron was sat on the raised platform at the ship's rear, the Mechanical Wizard sat next to him. He stood when he saw them approaching. "Emilia! Marcus! Welcome back on board, let me help you with that shopping. You've evidently been busy." He cried, helping them. He seemed happier than usual, easily explained by the manner in which he hadn't been fined for mooring where he had.
"Where's the Gqirha?" He asked as they carried the bags below board and dumped them on the round wooden table.
"He should be along in an hour." Marcus said. "Too busy right now, dealing with some lady with multiple contusions, or something like that."
"Completely understandable." Davelron said. "The sleeping man doesn't look too bad, though. Come have a look."
They walked over towards the sleeping quarter's doorway. It swung open at a nudge from Davelron's foot and they walked in. Inside were the familiar four beds arranged in two selections of bunk beds, two on either wall and then a shared bathroom at the bottom that was merely a sink, a foggy mirror and a toilet. Davelron's bed was the top bunk on the right, a bag at the bottom. Beneath that was Marcus' bunk, decorated with the picture of his parents, Thaddeus and the man they were looking for: Demetrius Mist. The bottom bunk to the left was Emilia's, adorned with stickers from previous deck hand's stays aboard the Addison. The top bunk was the drowning man's. And it was empty.
"Where is he?" Emilia exclaimed.
"He must be on deck!" Davelron exclaimed. "All the other doors are locked! Quick!"
They all leapt from where they stood and raced towards the stair case leading up, jumping from the steps and onto the deck. The Mechanical Wizard was stood, one of the illuminating arrows on it's front pointing towards the brow of the ship. They raced around the shed that sat strangely in the centre of the deck and towards the front, where the previously drowning man was balancing dangerously on the figure head, staring out into the open sea. "This is terrible. This can't be."
There was merely a wall of fog ahead, nothing more.
"Sir, you need to come down now. Please, sir." Emilia said, stepping forwards.
"No. You don't see! They've found me! They've found me! Oh my Thinker, they're going to kill me!"
"Who are?" Emilia asked. "Who's going to kill you?"
And then she saw. The wall of fog broke apart and from it exploded a massive ship, it's hull blazing with barnacles, a group of angry looking pirates screaming from it's brow. They were waving swords and firing pistols, and that was when Marcus noticed the words stencilled into it's front.
"Good Thinker." He muttered. "It's the Unexpected Morale!"
They all leapt from where they stood and raced towards the stair case leading up, jumping from the steps and onto the deck. The Mechanical Wizard was stood, one of the illuminating arrows on it's front pointing towards the brow of the ship. They raced around the shed that sat strangely in the centre of the deck and towards the front, where the previously drowning man was balancing dangerously on the figure head, staring out into the open sea. "This is terrible. This can't be."
There was merely a wall of fog ahead, nothing more.
"Sir, you need to come down now. Please, sir." Emilia said, stepping forwards.
"No. You don't see! They've found me! They've found me! Oh my Thinker, they're going to kill me!"
"Who are?" Emilia asked. "Who's going to kill you?"
And then she saw. The wall of fog broke apart and from it exploded a massive ship, it's hull blazing with barnacles, a group of angry looking pirates screaming from it's brow. They were waving swords and firing pistols, and that was when Marcus noticed the words stencilled into it's front.
"Good Thinker." He muttered. "It's the Unexpected Morale!"
Monday, 8 June 2015
The Quest for Verdisc (part 8)
Davelron burst up the stairs of the Black Addison and out onto the deck, his always booted feet slapping against the deck. Marcus and Emilia quickly pulled on their boots and their borrowed Trident Holder jackets and followed him out. The night air was refreshingly cool, compared to the usual heat of the day, and the moon was out in it's full disc, resplendent in the sky.
Marcus, Emilia and Davelron didn't notice the moon though. They were too distracted by the flailing body in the water. "Marcus, drop the barnacle swing!" Davelron called.
"Aye aye!" Marcus replied, running to the oak chest which sat patiently on the raised platform just in front of the propellers at the rear of the ship. He flipped it open and pulled out the plank of wood which acted as the barnacle swing. Large extents of knotted rope connected the plank to the interior of the case, and so it was thrown overboard. It clattered down the side of the wooden hull and stopped, just above the lapping waves. Davelron swung one foot over the edge of the deck and began to climb down the planks that made up the ladder towards the swing. When he got to the bottom he sat down, but rather than facing the hull as intended, he looked out to sea.
The Mechanical Wizard's message of the man over board rung loud and clear in their heads. If there was a man over board, there were two scenarios that were possible. Scenario 1: A creature called the Man Whale might be attempting to kill them. Davelron had told them of it one night, as waves crashed to either side of the ship, knocking them from one side to the other. There'd been the mating call of a Man Whale in the far distance and Davelron had grinned, telling them of it. They were colossal creatures, seemingly made of endless cold fat, that would destroy boats with flaps of their massive fins. As the boat began to sink, the whale would digest all but one member of the crew. The one person they didn't digest, they'd connect their tentacles to and then leave to bob up and down on the surface, until a good doer boat approached. And then the Man Whale would strike again.
Scenario 2 was that the man over board was an actual man, and that begged the question of where he was from. On the off chance that there was pirate vessel nearby, Emilia slid a new round of bullets into one of the gattling guns.
Davelron leant away from his barnacle swing and reached a hand out for the body in the water. It was dripping wet and cold as his rugged fingers graced it. He managed to grasp one finger, but as a splash of water drenched him he moved back, letting go. He took another grab at the hand and caught it, pulling it in. The body floated over to him and he attempted to lift it up. However, another wild splash of the black water nearly dragged him from the swing. Davelron used one hand to grip tightly onto the swing and the other to hold onto the man's hand, whilst turning his head to face upwards to Marcus and Emilia. "Bring me up!"
Marcus rushed to the side of the wooden case where a bicycle wheel with a handle protruding from the rim waited. Marcus grabbed the handle and began to spin it in grand circular rotations. The wheel turned another and then another which spun pulleys and various other overly complicated systems which began to haul up the swing. At first it was hard to turn it, but it became easier and easier until eventually Davelron's head was pointing up over the side. "Emilia, come help me will you?"
Davelron's hand, turned white from the muscles it must have been requiring, pulled the drowning man up slightly more and Emilia helped him to pull it over. Davelron pulled himself onto the deck and then Marcus packed up the barnacle swing, joining the others to stare at the body.
"I'm surprised he didn't drown." Marcus laughed. The body was quite large, with a significant swell around his sides. He was wearing chain mail, too, which was evidently weighing him down.
"Don't be rude, the man may be dead." Emilia said.
Davelron's index and middle finger slid around the man's wrist. "I don't think so. Merely comatose."
He stood up. "Emilia, set course for the nearest floating port. We'll seek a Gqirha there."
Marcus still hadn't got use to the speak of the Trident Holders, and it's own unique language.
"It's not a unique language, Marcus." Davelron told him. "It's a variant on some old Earth tone. A Gqirha is what you would call a doctor."
"Oh!" Marcus replied, helping the Trident Holder pull him below board. They put him onto one of the beds in the four person bedroom. It was decided that Emilia and Marcus would sleep in the main crew's quarters, at least until the morning. Davelron wasn't planning to sleep anywhere, but instead stand with the Mechanical Wizard on the deck all day as they ploughed on towards the Floating Port.
Marcus was awoken by the clap of a mooring rope slapping against the deck of the Black Addison.
"Emilia!" He said, nudging her on the sofa from the floor where he lay. "Emilia, wake up!"
Emilia stirred slightly in her sleep, moaning sleepily, and then rolling over, falling off the sofa onto him.
"Ow!" Marcus complained.
Emilia burst out laughing. "Oh my sweet Thinker! Your face!"
"You've been doing that since Uncle Thaddeus got us a bunkbed."
"And yet you continue to fall for it!"
"I think you're the one falling." He laughed.
"Oh, shut up." Emilia replied, climbing up. "You always have to make such bad jokes."
"At least I make jokes."
"You wouldn't realise." Emilia laughed, pulling on her heavy Trident Holder's jacket. "Anyway, why were you in such desperate want of waking me up?"
"Because we've arrived at the Floating Port!"
They both climbed out and walked up the stairs back to the deck. Davelron was on a small jetty, discussing something with a port hand. Beyond him was the Floating City of- according to a large sign welcoming Floating Merchants- Nexelspire. Beyond an armada of moored ships was a large silhouette of wooden buildings projecting out from the wooden platoons. Davelron saw they'd woken and waved.
They waved back and went over to the Mechanical Wizard. When it's gas lit eyes spotted them, the familiar tickering of it's inbuilt typewriter began and it announced several more long pieces of paper. It rolled out of the silver hatch on the front and Emilia took it, reading, "I am currently running low on supplies. Whilst you are in this section of the Quadrant Seas, I require a selection of new Ink Ribbons, at least ten rolls of circular parchment-" She stopped and looked up from the paper. "Good Thinker! This list goes on and on and on!"
"I can imagine." Marcus replied. "Uncle Thaddeus had a penchant for creating things that needed a hell of a lot of material to keep running!"
Davelron leapt back onto the Black Addison and padded over to them. "You two!" He cried. "It looks as if I'm going to have to stay with the boat. Due to being acting Kapteni, I'm not entitled to the boat itself, thus meaning I can't sign the insurance. Wait, I'm boring you. Anyway, long story cut short, I'll have t stay with the old girl. Can you go into Nexelspire to find a Gqirha for me? As well as getting food supplies and anything you two need. Nothing fresh, nothing that can't be preserved easily outside of a fridge. So on, so on. Think you can manage it?"
They both nodded excitedly, took some money and then the crew of the Black Addison strolled into Nexelspire.
Marcus, Emilia and Davelron didn't notice the moon though. They were too distracted by the flailing body in the water. "Marcus, drop the barnacle swing!" Davelron called.
"Aye aye!" Marcus replied, running to the oak chest which sat patiently on the raised platform just in front of the propellers at the rear of the ship. He flipped it open and pulled out the plank of wood which acted as the barnacle swing. Large extents of knotted rope connected the plank to the interior of the case, and so it was thrown overboard. It clattered down the side of the wooden hull and stopped, just above the lapping waves. Davelron swung one foot over the edge of the deck and began to climb down the planks that made up the ladder towards the swing. When he got to the bottom he sat down, but rather than facing the hull as intended, he looked out to sea.
The Mechanical Wizard's message of the man over board rung loud and clear in their heads. If there was a man over board, there were two scenarios that were possible. Scenario 1: A creature called the Man Whale might be attempting to kill them. Davelron had told them of it one night, as waves crashed to either side of the ship, knocking them from one side to the other. There'd been the mating call of a Man Whale in the far distance and Davelron had grinned, telling them of it. They were colossal creatures, seemingly made of endless cold fat, that would destroy boats with flaps of their massive fins. As the boat began to sink, the whale would digest all but one member of the crew. The one person they didn't digest, they'd connect their tentacles to and then leave to bob up and down on the surface, until a good doer boat approached. And then the Man Whale would strike again.
Scenario 2 was that the man over board was an actual man, and that begged the question of where he was from. On the off chance that there was pirate vessel nearby, Emilia slid a new round of bullets into one of the gattling guns.
Davelron leant away from his barnacle swing and reached a hand out for the body in the water. It was dripping wet and cold as his rugged fingers graced it. He managed to grasp one finger, but as a splash of water drenched him he moved back, letting go. He took another grab at the hand and caught it, pulling it in. The body floated over to him and he attempted to lift it up. However, another wild splash of the black water nearly dragged him from the swing. Davelron used one hand to grip tightly onto the swing and the other to hold onto the man's hand, whilst turning his head to face upwards to Marcus and Emilia. "Bring me up!"
Marcus rushed to the side of the wooden case where a bicycle wheel with a handle protruding from the rim waited. Marcus grabbed the handle and began to spin it in grand circular rotations. The wheel turned another and then another which spun pulleys and various other overly complicated systems which began to haul up the swing. At first it was hard to turn it, but it became easier and easier until eventually Davelron's head was pointing up over the side. "Emilia, come help me will you?"
Davelron's hand, turned white from the muscles it must have been requiring, pulled the drowning man up slightly more and Emilia helped him to pull it over. Davelron pulled himself onto the deck and then Marcus packed up the barnacle swing, joining the others to stare at the body.
"I'm surprised he didn't drown." Marcus laughed. The body was quite large, with a significant swell around his sides. He was wearing chain mail, too, which was evidently weighing him down.
"Don't be rude, the man may be dead." Emilia said.
Davelron's index and middle finger slid around the man's wrist. "I don't think so. Merely comatose."
He stood up. "Emilia, set course for the nearest floating port. We'll seek a Gqirha there."
Marcus still hadn't got use to the speak of the Trident Holders, and it's own unique language.
"It's not a unique language, Marcus." Davelron told him. "It's a variant on some old Earth tone. A Gqirha is what you would call a doctor."
"Oh!" Marcus replied, helping the Trident Holder pull him below board. They put him onto one of the beds in the four person bedroom. It was decided that Emilia and Marcus would sleep in the main crew's quarters, at least until the morning. Davelron wasn't planning to sleep anywhere, but instead stand with the Mechanical Wizard on the deck all day as they ploughed on towards the Floating Port.
Marcus was awoken by the clap of a mooring rope slapping against the deck of the Black Addison.
"Emilia!" He said, nudging her on the sofa from the floor where he lay. "Emilia, wake up!"
Emilia stirred slightly in her sleep, moaning sleepily, and then rolling over, falling off the sofa onto him.
"Ow!" Marcus complained.
Emilia burst out laughing. "Oh my sweet Thinker! Your face!"
"You've been doing that since Uncle Thaddeus got us a bunkbed."
"And yet you continue to fall for it!"
"I think you're the one falling." He laughed.
"Oh, shut up." Emilia replied, climbing up. "You always have to make such bad jokes."
"At least I make jokes."
"You wouldn't realise." Emilia laughed, pulling on her heavy Trident Holder's jacket. "Anyway, why were you in such desperate want of waking me up?"
"Because we've arrived at the Floating Port!"
They both climbed out and walked up the stairs back to the deck. Davelron was on a small jetty, discussing something with a port hand. Beyond him was the Floating City of- according to a large sign welcoming Floating Merchants- Nexelspire. Beyond an armada of moored ships was a large silhouette of wooden buildings projecting out from the wooden platoons. Davelron saw they'd woken and waved.
They waved back and went over to the Mechanical Wizard. When it's gas lit eyes spotted them, the familiar tickering of it's inbuilt typewriter began and it announced several more long pieces of paper. It rolled out of the silver hatch on the front and Emilia took it, reading, "I am currently running low on supplies. Whilst you are in this section of the Quadrant Seas, I require a selection of new Ink Ribbons, at least ten rolls of circular parchment-" She stopped and looked up from the paper. "Good Thinker! This list goes on and on and on!"
"I can imagine." Marcus replied. "Uncle Thaddeus had a penchant for creating things that needed a hell of a lot of material to keep running!"
Davelron leapt back onto the Black Addison and padded over to them. "You two!" He cried. "It looks as if I'm going to have to stay with the boat. Due to being acting Kapteni, I'm not entitled to the boat itself, thus meaning I can't sign the insurance. Wait, I'm boring you. Anyway, long story cut short, I'll have t stay with the old girl. Can you go into Nexelspire to find a Gqirha for me? As well as getting food supplies and anything you two need. Nothing fresh, nothing that can't be preserved easily outside of a fridge. So on, so on. Think you can manage it?"
They both nodded excitedly, took some money and then the crew of the Black Addison strolled into Nexelspire.
Monday, 1 June 2015
The Quest for Veridic (part 7)
"You see anything, boy?" First Mate Octavius Davelron shouted, leaning against the side of the ship. His beard, normally rugged and ever flowing, was freshly shaved off with one of the previously lost razor's he'd found in one of the old crew's jacket.
"Not yet." Replied Marcus. He was screwed up into a ball beneath the racks of fans that made up the rear of the boat. There was a thin track beneath that had been designed for a machine to roll along. Two weeks ago, the Black Addison had begun to suffer from technical difficulties and that machine had been the first to stop. "Typical." Emilia had sighed. "The mechanic is always the first thing to break." It had taken them the entirety of those two weeks to pull the fixing machine out, and then they'd given Marcus a spanner and ask him to go in instead, to check for any failure with the fans.
"Keep looking, lad." Davelron replied. "And be quick about it. We can't move until you're out."
"I appreciate that fact." Marcus said, shivering at a story the First Mate had told him. Apparently they'd invented the mechanic device because a young man had attempted to fix a fan whilst they were on and was shredded. "You won't turn it on until I'm out, will you?"
"Depends on how quick you are." Davelron laughed, standing up and making his way down from the raised platform where the wheel was. There was a small shed in the centre of the ship that concealed the stairs down to the crew's quarters, and on the other side they'd set up a table where Emilia was studying a selection of maps.
"Made head or tails of them yet, Emilia?" Davelron asked.
"Sort of." Emilia said. "I can see Vincent, which is here," she prodded a finger out at the island that had once been their home, "and I can tell that the beginning of the central continent is here. But I don't know where we are."
"The location diviner is broken, unfortunately, so we won't know for certain, but I expect we're about half way between."
"That would put us here." She said, pointing at it. "However, that would mean we should be able to see the floating ports."
"But we can't." Davelron said, looking over the side of the boats. There were countless nautical miles of clean, blue water, completely calm, completely still, but no floating port. He turned away as a cloud moved above, allowing the mid day sun to glare against the water.
Tick tick tick tick tick ding! Emilia and Davelron turned to the Mechanical Wizard, a robotic magician who could communicate only by the means of a type writer in it's torso. The ticker tape sentences poured out of the slot on it's front and Davelron pulled it off, reading, "There may be an obscuring mirage."
"I hope so, because I want to step on dry land soon."
Davelron didn't remind her that she wouldn't be doing that anytime soon, seeing that the port was floating and so was, in itself, a massive boat. He simply smiled and then jumped around, his ear's surprised at the sound of the scream from the rear of the boat.
"Help!" Marcus cried and they all raced to the end of the boat, to find him stuck beneath the fans.
"What's wrong?" Davelron cried.
"I've got my leg stuck in between a few of the fans!" Marcus replied.
"Then pull it out." Davelron replied, disappointed. He'd expected something exciting to have happened.
"I can't. It's stuck!"
Emilia sighed. "I told you I should have gone in, rather than him."
"Aye, it would have been a better idea." Davelron replied. "Alas, your shoulders are too broad. Now, think you can knock him loose?"
From the opening toolbox on the deck, Emilia pulled a hammer and grinned. "I don't see why not."
That night, they sat below board, the hatches firmly battened down. A thunderstorm had picked up, driving howling winds through the whirring fans. It sounded slightly like a robot was whistling, a sound that was strangely therapeutic. The sound that was therapeutic, however, was the crash of waves and frothing water against the oak sides of the boat. The Black Addison shook from time to time, but not enough to disrupt it's crew, safely huddled around the bolted down oak table.
The Mechanical Wizard standing sentinel to their side, Davelron handed around small coconut shell bowls of freshly spoiled pasta and sea weed.
"I remember when this was exotic." Emilia said, using a recently found penknife to place another curl of pasta into her mouth.
"Yeah!" Marcus said, smiling reminiscently. "How long ago is that now?"
"Three turns of the moon." Davelron said, then noticed the bemused faces of the rest of the crew. "That's about three months."
"Thank you." Emilia said. "Three months, wow! It doesn't feel like it."
"It feels much longer!" Marcus cried.
"No it doesn't." Emilia protested.
"It does if you suffer from sea sickness."
"I can't remember when I took up the trident." Davelron said, leaning back in his chair. They'd found an armchair floating one day, and so had heaved it aboard and dried it off, taking it below board. Now, every night, Davelron would lean back at the same time and begin to tell some old story about his day as the first mate of the Black Addison. From his belt he pulled a pipe and filled it with leaves from some far off plant called the "Camellia sinensis." Once he'd managed to light a match from his small pouch, he'd sit back and inhale thoughtfully. With the exhale, he'd begin.
"It was a good twenty years ago, or so I seem to remember. I was a merchant's son, living in his Narrow Boat tied loosely to a floating port. Me and my brother Gaius used to scribe the names of all the boats that passed into the port into a remarkably thick note book. We continued the tradition into the latter years of our third decade, by which time our parent's were both dead and we'd renamed the Narrow 'The Free Davelron.'" There was no remorse in his eyes, simply fondness for a time gone by. "One day, a boat like no other entered the port." This man who was so often restrained and quiet in his story telling suddenly leapt from his chair, throwing his arms around. "It was quite brilliant! As large as any barge we'd seen, but on it were the mightiest guns this side of the central continent, but I wasn't interested by them. I was interested by the racks and racks of fans and propellers on the back, pushing the boat through the water. The idea of the engines such as those needed to power the fans," his eyes glazed over with amazement, "well, it was quite inspiring. Me and my brother Gaius decided in an incident that we needed to join the crew. But we were untalented, not natural boat hands beyond the basics. So, what would we do? Well, only one thing. Stow away, of course!
"We got aboard the Black Addison whilst the rest of the crew were searching for food on the floating port."
Tentatively, Marcus raised his hand. "What's a floating port?"
"I've mentioned them in the past." Davelron waved it away as if it meant nothing. "Big cities built aboard buoyant slabs, left to float freely on the ocean. Traders, like my father, would tie themselves to them and then seafaring adventures can pull up at them and buy essentials on the move. Brilliant places. Anyway, we climbed on board the ship and hid in the cell room. The Black Addison spurred into life about two hours later, but the sudden movement trapped the door and locked us in. When the crew eventually found us, we'd starved for a month. They'd laughed, more than anything else. Found it hilarious! Gregory Defaut swearing he'd never have thought it so easy to stowaway aboard his own ship! George Izalathio wondering why nobody had been in the cell for so long! I remember, vividly, Zachary Forsooth complaining that he'd never seen mice so big!" And as usual, the story would end with Davelron on the verge of tears, remembering his old friends.
But there was something different this time, because their sentinel interrupted. Tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick ding! They all turned to the Mechanical Wizard and Emilia took the ticker tape words and read them in her head. "That can't be right."
"What?" Davelron asked.
"He's detected life outside."
The First Mate grabbed his trident and kicked open the door and began to charge up the staircase, out onto the deck whilst the other's followed them. He raced to the side and faced his trident to the side of the boat. "Blazing Hell Torrent!" He cried. "There's a man over board!"
"Not yet." Replied Marcus. He was screwed up into a ball beneath the racks of fans that made up the rear of the boat. There was a thin track beneath that had been designed for a machine to roll along. Two weeks ago, the Black Addison had begun to suffer from technical difficulties and that machine had been the first to stop. "Typical." Emilia had sighed. "The mechanic is always the first thing to break." It had taken them the entirety of those two weeks to pull the fixing machine out, and then they'd given Marcus a spanner and ask him to go in instead, to check for any failure with the fans.
"Keep looking, lad." Davelron replied. "And be quick about it. We can't move until you're out."
"I appreciate that fact." Marcus said, shivering at a story the First Mate had told him. Apparently they'd invented the mechanic device because a young man had attempted to fix a fan whilst they were on and was shredded. "You won't turn it on until I'm out, will you?"
"Depends on how quick you are." Davelron laughed, standing up and making his way down from the raised platform where the wheel was. There was a small shed in the centre of the ship that concealed the stairs down to the crew's quarters, and on the other side they'd set up a table where Emilia was studying a selection of maps.
"Made head or tails of them yet, Emilia?" Davelron asked.
"Sort of." Emilia said. "I can see Vincent, which is here," she prodded a finger out at the island that had once been their home, "and I can tell that the beginning of the central continent is here. But I don't know where we are."
"The location diviner is broken, unfortunately, so we won't know for certain, but I expect we're about half way between."
"That would put us here." She said, pointing at it. "However, that would mean we should be able to see the floating ports."
"But we can't." Davelron said, looking over the side of the boats. There were countless nautical miles of clean, blue water, completely calm, completely still, but no floating port. He turned away as a cloud moved above, allowing the mid day sun to glare against the water.
Tick tick tick tick tick ding! Emilia and Davelron turned to the Mechanical Wizard, a robotic magician who could communicate only by the means of a type writer in it's torso. The ticker tape sentences poured out of the slot on it's front and Davelron pulled it off, reading, "There may be an obscuring mirage."
"I hope so, because I want to step on dry land soon."
Davelron didn't remind her that she wouldn't be doing that anytime soon, seeing that the port was floating and so was, in itself, a massive boat. He simply smiled and then jumped around, his ear's surprised at the sound of the scream from the rear of the boat.
"Help!" Marcus cried and they all raced to the end of the boat, to find him stuck beneath the fans.
"What's wrong?" Davelron cried.
"I've got my leg stuck in between a few of the fans!" Marcus replied.
"Then pull it out." Davelron replied, disappointed. He'd expected something exciting to have happened.
"I can't. It's stuck!"
Emilia sighed. "I told you I should have gone in, rather than him."
"Aye, it would have been a better idea." Davelron replied. "Alas, your shoulders are too broad. Now, think you can knock him loose?"
From the opening toolbox on the deck, Emilia pulled a hammer and grinned. "I don't see why not."
That night, they sat below board, the hatches firmly battened down. A thunderstorm had picked up, driving howling winds through the whirring fans. It sounded slightly like a robot was whistling, a sound that was strangely therapeutic. The sound that was therapeutic, however, was the crash of waves and frothing water against the oak sides of the boat. The Black Addison shook from time to time, but not enough to disrupt it's crew, safely huddled around the bolted down oak table.
The Mechanical Wizard standing sentinel to their side, Davelron handed around small coconut shell bowls of freshly spoiled pasta and sea weed.
"I remember when this was exotic." Emilia said, using a recently found penknife to place another curl of pasta into her mouth.
"Yeah!" Marcus said, smiling reminiscently. "How long ago is that now?"
"Three turns of the moon." Davelron said, then noticed the bemused faces of the rest of the crew. "That's about three months."
"Thank you." Emilia said. "Three months, wow! It doesn't feel like it."
"It feels much longer!" Marcus cried.
"No it doesn't." Emilia protested.
"It does if you suffer from sea sickness."
"I can't remember when I took up the trident." Davelron said, leaning back in his chair. They'd found an armchair floating one day, and so had heaved it aboard and dried it off, taking it below board. Now, every night, Davelron would lean back at the same time and begin to tell some old story about his day as the first mate of the Black Addison. From his belt he pulled a pipe and filled it with leaves from some far off plant called the "Camellia sinensis." Once he'd managed to light a match from his small pouch, he'd sit back and inhale thoughtfully. With the exhale, he'd begin.
"It was a good twenty years ago, or so I seem to remember. I was a merchant's son, living in his Narrow Boat tied loosely to a floating port. Me and my brother Gaius used to scribe the names of all the boats that passed into the port into a remarkably thick note book. We continued the tradition into the latter years of our third decade, by which time our parent's were both dead and we'd renamed the Narrow 'The Free Davelron.'" There was no remorse in his eyes, simply fondness for a time gone by. "One day, a boat like no other entered the port." This man who was so often restrained and quiet in his story telling suddenly leapt from his chair, throwing his arms around. "It was quite brilliant! As large as any barge we'd seen, but on it were the mightiest guns this side of the central continent, but I wasn't interested by them. I was interested by the racks and racks of fans and propellers on the back, pushing the boat through the water. The idea of the engines such as those needed to power the fans," his eyes glazed over with amazement, "well, it was quite inspiring. Me and my brother Gaius decided in an incident that we needed to join the crew. But we were untalented, not natural boat hands beyond the basics. So, what would we do? Well, only one thing. Stow away, of course!
"We got aboard the Black Addison whilst the rest of the crew were searching for food on the floating port."
Tentatively, Marcus raised his hand. "What's a floating port?"
"I've mentioned them in the past." Davelron waved it away as if it meant nothing. "Big cities built aboard buoyant slabs, left to float freely on the ocean. Traders, like my father, would tie themselves to them and then seafaring adventures can pull up at them and buy essentials on the move. Brilliant places. Anyway, we climbed on board the ship and hid in the cell room. The Black Addison spurred into life about two hours later, but the sudden movement trapped the door and locked us in. When the crew eventually found us, we'd starved for a month. They'd laughed, more than anything else. Found it hilarious! Gregory Defaut swearing he'd never have thought it so easy to stowaway aboard his own ship! George Izalathio wondering why nobody had been in the cell for so long! I remember, vividly, Zachary Forsooth complaining that he'd never seen mice so big!" And as usual, the story would end with Davelron on the verge of tears, remembering his old friends.
But there was something different this time, because their sentinel interrupted. Tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick ding! They all turned to the Mechanical Wizard and Emilia took the ticker tape words and read them in her head. "That can't be right."
"What?" Davelron asked.
"He's detected life outside."
The First Mate grabbed his trident and kicked open the door and began to charge up the staircase, out onto the deck whilst the other's followed them. He raced to the side and faced his trident to the side of the boat. "Blazing Hell Torrent!" He cried. "There's a man over board!"
Wednesday, 27 May 2015
Spaceman: A Planet Called Inhospitable (part 4)
There was a tremor passing through the ice. Each foot step shot endless vibrations forwards. Within the course of about ten seconds, there were over a thousand foot steps. Floyd was somewhere in the centre of the Native’s army, his gloved hand wrapped tightly around Grace’s tiny, bare fingers. When they’d gone into the ice house, Grace had been scared. She’d only seen one settler before, her father, and his brother was certainly a little scarier.
She was about waist height to Floyd, wearing a small dress composed from the fur of Merehogs, and her hair expanded from the scalp of her head in grand, curling wires. Her skin was the same olive, bordering on green, shade as the rest of the native’s skin, but it was slightly paler. It could have been the product of Grene’s DNA, but it could have been from the way she hadn’t left the Home Cavern in her entire life.
“It’s rare for a Native Girl to ever leave the Home Cavern before her fifteenth age day.” Grene had told Floyd after the two hours they’d spent with her. “Tomorrow, when we march, it will be a great honour for the majority of her generation. To be allowed to leave the Home Cavern before the age of fifteen is the greatest honour you could be imbued with.”
“Why are they taking the children with them? Do they know no mercy?” Floyd had replied.
“They do know mercy, and they know that to be left out of a fight they believe they shall be able to win is a terrible dishonour.”
“They believe they shall win?”
“Nobody would go to war unless they believed they could win.” Grene had replied.
“Uncle?” Grace said, in the present.
“Yes?” Floyd asked, kneeling down.
“Us march them?” Grace replied. She had talked in a broken parody of the Eden Tones.
“Yes, Grace. We march with them.”
Grace shook her head, her curls of hair spreading out further from her head. She screwed her face up as she tried to work everything out. “Us march on them?” She asked, pointing to the far off silhouette of Solace on the horizon.
“Oh!” Floyd cried. “No. They,” he gestured to the people around him, “march on them. We,” he gestured to himself and then her, “go home.”
Grace looked back at the Birth to Home, far away in the distant. “Us go not way.”
“Real home, Grace.” Floyd said. “We’re going to our real home.”
“Dad?” She asked, then said a few words in the Native tongue which he reckoned meant Mum.
“Maybe.” Floyd replied, and left it at that as they began to march quicker.
Crane had taken over as temporary benvolio whilst Floyd was missing. From his bedroom on the edge of Solace, he stared out into the heart of the city. “I control this.” He said, happily and loudly. “I control all of this!”
Grinning, he ran from the window and across the room, to look out onto the wintered planes. What he saw was a wide, gigantic emptiness. He grinned. He could control that too! If Floyd Mayweather didn’t return in the week, he’d order the war carriers to lift up and they’d be able to race out and find the Native scum and kill them. But first, he’d have to move the Frontier, interfering as it was, waiting around Solace. Crane went over to his shelf and took down his viewing glasses, staring out of the window them. There was a shape on the far horizon, extremely tiny and completely unimportant, but it wouldn’t hurt to know what it was.
“It better not be Floyd.” He muttered to himself. Then he grinned, if it was Floyd, it wouldn’t hurt to brand him a traitor and get him shot by the Frontier men. Might be worth a try.
He twisted the rings on the outside of his viewing glasses and then image he could see readjusted, until it felt as if he was directly in front of the people he was staring at. And they weren’t the missing Mayweathers. No. It was an army of Natives, and they were all armed.
Crane laughed aloud. Brilliant news. Now he didn’t need to get the war carriers to go out to the Natives. They were coming to him.
The Natives didn’t shiver in the face of the cold, they relished it. Their skin didn’t freckle with the bobbled flesh of goose bumps, they fought against the growing veins and muscles beneath the skin. Their Merehog skins flapped against their flesh and their bare feet, mostly quite large, crushed the packed ice crystals of the ground beneath them. The majority of them held spears, and those who didn’t carried bows. From their backs, the archer’s pulled arrows made from carved nitrogen, and, as they loaded them into their bows, they raised them to the air. A guttural war cry burst from their mouthes, combatting the winds of white powder and flakes, and then, Solace was fully on the horizon.
“War.” Grace said, translating the war cry.
“Indeed.” Floyd said, and grasped her hand harder.
And so they charged, two thousand muscular legs slamming into the ice, carving further cracks into the ground and bringing forth more of the Alquarara. The archers released their drawstrings and the arrows soared, cutting apart the roaring winds. They moved slightly, the arrows against the raging breeze, but the archers were perfectly trained, having aimed the arrows to factor in the winds, and thus the nitrogen arrow heads smashed into their target. The Frontier began to wail, and Floyd knew the proximity detectors would be causing the lights to flicker on and off inside the perimeter buildings. He hoped none of the Frontier scouts were epileptic. Then he reminded himself which team he was meant to be on. As much as it pained himself to think it, he began to hope they were.
Floyd could see Grene on the front line, a laser rifle in his two hands. He pulled back the energising slider and the gun whirred with building power.
“Grace.” Floyd said, catching Grace’s attention. “Look, your Dad.”
Grace looked up and grinned at the sight of her father, so valiantly fighting alongside her mother. They led a small faction of the Natives, ordered to take down the Frontier. They looked quite incredible as they raged forwards. And then there was the grand roaring of engines and Floyd swore in the Eden Tone.
“What does that mean?” Grace asked, and Floyd smiled at the way in which she’d been taught the single phrase so excellently because it would come in so handy.
“It doesn’t mean anything, Grace.” Floyd replied. “Ignore me.”
But his curse wasn’t in vain. From beyond the Frontier was a roaring of engines, and those engines belonged to the Federation War Carriers. They were gigantic devices, hovering high above the icy plains, and emitting grand plumes of black smoke from their old fashioned engines. They opened up at the sides and allowed soldiers with laser rifles to jump out, or just shoot down. “Damn.” Floyd said. Bows and arrows made from hardened nitrogen were useful, but against laser rifles they were pointless. Floyd grabbed Grace and lifted her onto his back. “Don’t let go. Don’t you dare.”
“Yes.” She said, and he felt her tiny arms tightening around him. He took his rarely used blaster from his side and held it in one gloved, ready to fire. “Let’s go.” He shouted over the whirling winds and screeching natives.
They began to force their way through the running herds around them. Large blasts of lightning from the War Carriers ripped gigantic craters into the floor around them, showering them in hail stones of shredded ice, or freezing droplets of melted nitrogen. Smoke grenades landed around them and suddenly white smoke stung their eyes. Floyd had cursed. He’d insisted on the smoke grenades with in built tear gas back when they’d first invaded. Now, twenty years on, he was quite regretting it. The blasts of lasers forged energy spikes in the distance, staining the white smoke scarlet.
Around them, settlers dropped through the air with laser rifles, shooting at the Natives. As Grace and Floyd ran, they often saw the ground littered with Natives, but occasionally a Settler would be strewn across the ice, their wrapped body punctured with arrows and knives. Floyd reached down towards the nearest Settler body and pulled the knife out. He noticed a splinter of ice had punctured their cold mask. The face of Skelton Evans stared up at him with her large white eyes beginning to harden until the liquid became too strong and popped. “Don’t look Grace.” Floyd shouted, his voice drowned out by the discharge of laser rifles and the roaring of War Carrier engines. “Don’t look.”
As they ran, Grace cried. It may have been the roaring of War Carriers above them, thruster engine illuminated red as they burned like the eyes of vengeful Gods. It may have been the screams of her people, both in anger in her fear, as they charged and fell at the hands of the enemy. But Grace didn’t believe it was either of those factors. She believed that it was the idea of the bodies falling constantly around them belonging to her father, or to her mother, and the possibility that one of the bodies from which her uncle so carelessly scavenged weapons had the face of her family. She didn’t know what she’d do if that was the case, because already her tears were freezing against her skin. She couldn’t cry any more!
The next thing she knew, she was on the floor, her head resting in the lap of a dead Native. She didn’t know him, but there were thousands of her race, and she couldn’t know them all. Floyd was still in front of her, staring down in abstract horror. “Good God.” He was saying, and she recognised the foreign words as those that her father used when something surprised him.
“What’s it?” She asked, crawling up to join him. She saw he had slung a laser rifle over his shoulder, and had an ice spear in one hand. He must have looked like an amalgamation of both sides to the warring soldiers. She just hoped they’d both assume he was on their side, rather than both trying to kill him.
“The ice is cracking.” He told her, and pointed down.
She stood with him and looked at where an explosion of energy from above had ripped a massive chasm into the ground. “From it spews the Alquarara.” And it was true, she could feel her dainty toes being submerged underneath the liquid nitrogen that upon which the crust had once bobbed.
“We better get moving before we are drowned in it.” Floyd said, but as he turned, he found a gun pointed at his head.
“Don’t you think you’re going anywhere,” Spoke Crane, holding a laser rifle with both his arms.
“Deputy Crane, thank the gods you found us, we were on the verge of death.”
“Quiet, traitor scum!” Crane cried. “And I’m not a deputy, no more. I’m the Benvolio of Solace.”
Floyd used that word earlier that he said meant nothing. “You’ve managed to turn a war into a power struggle, you egotistical-“ And there was that word again, but it sounded slightly different.
“You just offended a Benvolio!” Crane cried. “You’re under arrest, the girl too. Who’s she, your illegitimate native spawn?”
Grace didn’t listen to the rest, she entered an almost unconscious state as they took her and Floyd to the Benvolio’s office for incarceration, whatever that was. All she remembered was being put onto a landed War Carrier and vomiting on Crane’s boots as it shook and lifted beneath her, and then the powerful smash of his gloved hand against her face as he looked at the steaming fluid splattered across his feet.
The War continued, even as Floyd and Grace watched in horror from behind the bars. The office seemed so much more intimidating and evil from this side of the prison, and Floyd cursed his sense of interior decoration from when they’d first landed. For the majority of the two days they were behind bars, Crane was no where to be seen, out in the empty planes killing Natives, or so he bragged. When he was around, however, he was unbearable, going to every length to brag over his new power. Floyd used more of the language of nothing every time Crane flaunted his authority, which only seemed to gather Floyd more and more punches to his face. “You do that one more time,” Floyd said, “and you won’t be able to say anything else.”
“The second I stop being able to talk,” Crane replied, a master in standoffs, “is the second the girl stops looking so pretty.”
Floyd stood and grabbed the bars. “You do anything to her, and you’ll regret it.”
“I’m so scared of the man from within the cage.”
And it was in that moment that Floyd grinned. “You better be, Crane, because I’m evoking my right to section forty six of the Federation’s Regulations of Law.”
Crane was new to the job, no matter how much power he had, so he didn’t know what that meant. Neither did Grace, but being a child she wasn’t so proud as to be unable to ask. And she did just that.
“Section Forty Six states that I am, by law, entitled to a trial by combat.”
“What does that mean?”
“If I can kill him, he has to let me go.”
Most people would have dropped their jaw in shock, or exclaimed, “No, you can’t do that!” Grace just looked Floyd in the eyes and said, “If he dead, how he let you go?”
Floyd sighed. It was a good point, trust a child to come up with it. “If he’s dead, he can’t stop me from running away.”
Crane hadn’t been listening, instead looking it up in his regulations book. And when he found it, he grinned. “A trial by combat?” He asked.
“Yes.”
“A good old fashioned shoot out for your future, do you want?”
Floyd nodded.
“You are old.” Crane evaluated. “You are slow and you are clumsy. I will win in an instance.”
“You refuse me my request?”
“On the count that we already know the outcome, yes.”
“Then I label you a coward, a craven unwilling to risk his life out of misjudged fear.”
Grace recognised the term, her father had often mockingly called her mother that when they’d argued over who would go out to the next family gathering. She knew it was a word that would insult her mother’s pride and honour, no matter how jokingly it was meant. For an up tight nothing like Crane, she imagined it would do volumes more.
Grace recognised the term, her father had often mockingly called her mother that when they’d argued over who would go out to the next family gathering. She knew it was a word that would insult her mother’s pride and honour, no matter how jokingly it was meant. For an up tight nothing like Crane, she imagined it would do volumes more.
“Then, traitorous scum, I will prove you wrong and myself right. We shall have our duel now.”
“Name your weapons.”
“Blasters.”
“A classic five steps and spin?” Floyd asked.
“Like something out of a pulp novel.”
Crane allowed him out of his cage and gave him a blaster, stepping in front of the cage with his back to Floyd. Grace watched in complete wonder, her hands wrapped tightly around the cage.
“One!” Announced Crane and they both took one step forwards, Crane away from the cage and Floyd towards it.
“Two!” Crane cried and they took a second. Floyd’s finger slipped around the safety switch on the blaster and disabled it, making the gun as dangerous as it could get. The handle was tight against his palms as he held it, ready to fire.
“Three!” Another step. Floyd knew he would have to fire first, and quick. The bolt would have to be to the blaster in Crane’s hand, to knock it from where it was held. Otherwise, there was a possibility that Crane’s shot would hit Grace and kill her. Grene would never forgive him if Grace was lost before they ever left Inhospitable.
“Four!” Crane cried. The final step was merely a moment away. Floyd ran over it all in his mind. A quick spin, on the heal of his boot, as he pulled the gun up to chest height, his hand extending as far as it could go. As it hit the apex of it’s reach, his index finger would pull back, taking the trigger with it, and the blast would be emitted from the tip on the front. The Blaster would shake in a sudden explosion, the metal recoiling driving his arm to fracture unless he moved his arm with it. The shot would roast the air around it, slicing through the air and hitting Crane’s hand and Blaster, melting the metal and the fingers with it. Two things could happen then, the energy pack inside the Blaster could explode, taking Crane and the majority of his arm and the hut around him to oblivion or the energy pack wouldn’t explode, and Floyd would have to plant another shot in the boy’s chest to finish the job. If I can kill him, he has to let me go. He’d told Grace, but he had to kill him for that to work.
“Five.” Crane said, dryly and slowly. Both men took the step and spun around, pulling their guns from their sides. Floyd had his gun in hand halfway through the turn, and the arm had reached as far as it could within mere seconds of that. By the time he was facing Crane, his finger was pulling back and the gun was jolting away. The air sweltered with sudden heat, and then he was falling through the air, backwards, amazed at the force of the explosion. When he climbed up, he saw the explosion hadn’t been his gun firing, but instead Crane’s energy pack detonating, his arm ripping apart and taking the hut with him.
Floyd grinned, but was instantly repulsed by what had happened to Crane. Days previously, they’d been friends. Now, they’d attempted to kill each other. Somehow he’d expected that Crane’s wouldn’t be the last death in their crusade for the Fourth Eden.
“Grace, come on.” Floyd said. “We have to hurry, someone will have heard that.”
Grace scampered out of the cage, casting an eye over the body of Crane on the floor, his arm ripped off by the terrible blast, revealing shredded bone and sliced ligaments. For the second time, she was sick on Crane’s boots.
“Hurry up.” Floyd told her, and they hurried out in the cold of Solace.
Beyond the Frontier and beyond Solace, the war continued to rage on, explosions of gun shots littering a battlefield of screaming and shouting. “Good Gods.” Floyd said. “They haven’t even breached the Frontier yet.”
Grace said nothing, she didn’t know what the Frontier was, besides a hushed concept her parents only spoke of when they were convinced she couldn’t hear them. “How us go to Fourth Eden?”
“We’ll steal a ship.” Floyd told her, grasping her hand as he pulled on his snow mask. “Don’t worry, we’ll get off soon.”
They raced across the ice, after Floyd had gone back twice to first grab the weapons that he’d salvaged on the battlefield and then secondly to retrieve some possessions from his room above the Benvolio’s office. The ship ports of Inhospitable were mostly unused, and very rarely visited, but when Floyd and Grace got to the grand hangars, they discovered that they were mostly empty. Apart from one War Carrier and a Boxship. The War Carrier required six fully trained pilots to fly, and that was once they’d got off the ground. Also, they weren’t designed for off planet travel. No, the Boxship was their only choice. It was about the size of a type of vehicle from the Metallic Earth, before it’d become metallic, called a Transit Van, and from what Floyd had seen in the ancient tapestries, it looked similar-ish. It was called the Boxship because of it’s resemblance with a large metal box, sloping down into a shuttered full length wind screen at one end, and boarded around the bottom like a dogem cart. There was a silver door on one side, rounded at the top, that opened with a press against it from the driver’s hand, in this case it was programmed for Floyd’s. The door slid open and he ushered Grace in, before following her and closing it. There was a bed opposite the door that was too small for Floyd but a perfect size for Grace to lie in. A toilet behind a metal wall was to the side of the toilet, and opposite it was a small kitchen and sink. At the end was the driver area, two pilot’s seats and a selection of instruments which seemed alien to all those except the people who’d been specifically trained to use it.
“Can us go?” Grace asked, sitting in one of the pilot’s chairs.
“Of course.” Floyd said, and began to move the instruments in the exact way needed for a takeoff to be effective.
Grace looked out of the wind screen and sighed a small, childish sigh. “Goodbye home.” She said.
Far below, as they escalated to the thinnest points of the atmosphere, the War raged on. Myra and Grene fought side by side, fuelled by anger and hope they’d be able to rescue their child before she left the planet. Beyond them, an unaware native saw the Boxship carefully tracing it’s way upwards. “Settler scum.” She said, in the Native Tongue. “How dare you try to flee this land?”
And with a salvaged laser rifle, she fired several shots. A success, on just one, as the auxiliary fuel cable smashed. She hoped they crashed and burned. And inside the Boxship, they were none the wiser...
Monday, 18 May 2015
Spaceman: A Planet Called Inhospitable (part 3)
Floyd Mayweather turned the dial at the base of his hood, pulling it closer against the growing cold. As his snow shoes traced footsteps further away from the confines of the Frontier, it seemed to become colder, prolific winds biting at the exposed skin around his neck. Despite the thermal gel his snow mask was lined with, he could feel goose bumps pickling across his flesh, and the crunch of the spittle in his mouth as it froze. The cold seemed not to affect his brother, hundreds of yards in the distance. His black figure had been difficult to follow at first, but as the twin suns rose to the east, he'd become a sore thumb in a bath of hands.
The temptation to stop the cloak and dagger routine and simply call his name across the plains had nearly overwhelmed Floyd many times, but always as he got so closer to doing so, he realised the danger he may end up facing, and so instead he continued the walk in silence.
After a few hours, as numbness began to creep through his legs, he found himself staring a structure he'd never seen before. The Federation, including himself, had often flown around Inhospitable, just within it's atmosphere, searching for signs of life. They'd never noticed anything definite, the source of the belief that the Natives were a transient race, but this was insane. From the snow cast ground protruded a gigantic range of mountains, brilliant caves carved into them from which Floyd could hear singing, chanting, laughter. Signs of life. The words were all in the incomprehensible babble that the Natives spoke, but their meaning could be derived. Happiness, joy, pride. Something had gone their way, but what?
"You've walked into their trap, Floyd." His brother Grene said, and Floyd shook his head rapidly, noticing that no longer his brother was in front, but actually behind him.
"How could you do this, Grene?" Floyd cried, but his voice was drowned out by a sudden war cry from within the caves. Floyd watched in terror as the shadows of a hundred charging people struck up on the white ice wall. He could hear their dizzying cry, see their weapons in hand, feel the shake of the ice as their feet carried them towards him. He knew those were the last seconds of his life, and so he turned to his brother and begged for mercy. A tear trickled down the inside of his transparent snow mask, feeling it freeze against the thermal gel.
"Do not plead, Floyd." Grene announced, walking over to his kneeling brother. "It's not over yet."
"You have betrayed the Federation, betrayed Solace and the Frontier. You've betrayed me!"
"I have good reason to do so!"
"What's that?" Floyd cried, launching to his feet.
Grene looked down at him, guilt ridden, ashamed.
"What reason do you have?"
"I have a daughter." Grene replied, and now it was his turn to cry.
Grene called off the Natives inside the cave, leading Floyd in. Despite the many times Grene had walked between the massive ice archway that they called, in their own tongue, "Birth to Home", he was still amazed. A stretching cavern of frosted glass, illuminated by the dawning suns of the planet's system, hosted hundreds of icy settlements, seemingly lasting forever. Floyd's eyes widened as he saw the ice tents, sheets of ice arranged in triangular compositions to form incredible structures far beyond the architecture of Solace. Between the ice places danced young children, scantily clad in the skins of the animals the settlers called Merehogs. The children dropped their icy hoops and their play things, as they saw the Mayweather brothers pass them.
No, Floyd thought. They didn't drop their things for the brother, they dropped them for him. They knew Grene well enough to trust him. They didn't trust this younger, stronger version who walked to his side.
Floyd's snow boots didn't work on the polished ice surface. Their metal prongs, diagonally spiking off from each side like a spider's leg, couldn't get a grip on the floor, so he found himself kneeling down to fold the prongs back into the soles.
"Take the shoes off." Grene told him.
"I can't." Floyd replied. "Don't you remember what happened to the Captain?"
Twenty years ago, when they'd first landed, the Captain of the landing ship had naively stepped out onto the surface of the planet. Most of the crew had looked away, but the Mayweather brothers had kept staring through the small perspex windows, watching as every inch of the Captain's body turned blue, solidifying until it began to prickle as the blood vessels burst. Then his body began to crack, solidifying until it was forcing itself inwards. Then he turned to a pile of dust, whipped away by the freezing winds.
"Trust me, Floyd. I'm not wearing shoes, and I'm just fine."
Floyd's eyes wandered down to Grene's feet. They were coated with thick socks, lined with thermal gel. Floyd was slightly reluctant to believe it as the truth, but he knew he must accept it. Tentatively, he sat down and pulled his shoes off, testing the iced ground with his toes. No freezing blood vessels or cracking flesh. Science had just surrendered it's hold on him, but he felt fine. Floyd looked his brother straight in the eyes, standing up. "Explain everything to me. Please."
"Would you like to meet her?"
"Who?"
"My daughter."
Floyd nodded. "Of course, but on the way, I want you to tell me how she came into existence."
"Really Floyd? I thought you'd be able to understand such things."
Floyd felt his face flush red, despite the cold. "You know what I mean."
Grene let out his hearty laugh, and for a few seconds Floyd felt safe again. Once more, he was with his brother in a strange new game where the rules were infinite, unknown, and eternally reproducing.
1885SC. Outwards Scout, Grene Mayweather, rode a speedster through the eternal night of Inhospitable. A blaster hung limp on his side, a propellant knife was strapped to his ankle and on his back was a long distance pulser gun. Showers of white snow sprayed from either side of his speedster as he bent over it's hull, attempting to beat his opponent in the furious race.
He and Niven raced each other on every expedition, it was a way to relieve the boredom of the grand white expanses. One of the watchers, housed in a tower protruding from the top of the Frontier, had seen a mysterious shape in the distance, and so they'd been dispensed to deal with it.
Grene Mayweather was expecting for it to be another explosion of geothermal power, from deep within Inhospitable's core, but it seemed not. As they approached, they saw that it was something much more dangerous than a rupture in the planet's surface.
A woman.
She was one of the Natives, humanoid and young. She was bathing in a long crack in the ice, nitrogen pools forming a natural resort. Niven laughed as he disengaged the engine of his speedster, the thrusters moaning as they shrank, the heat cutting out. He climbed out, swirling his axe, a thermal blade forming luminescent twirls through the air. "Niven, what're you doing?" Grene asked, well aware of the protocol when it came to finding Natives. "I've got the cuffs to take her back to the Frontier."
Niven turned and laughed. "She's bathing in nitrogen, Grene. Let me warm her up."
There was something sly and ultimately dangerous, animalistic almost, in the way he said it that put Grene on the edge. He felt a hand wrap around the propellant knife on his ankle. "I think we should just follow the procedure, Niven. This woman hasn't hurt us."
"But how many of her scum brothers have, Grene?" Niven asked. "And if you're worried I'm going to keep her all to myself..."
"Stop now, Niven. That's an order." Grene said, climbing down from his speedster.
"An order?" Niven laughed. "Don't you remember, I'm your senior! Now, let me be."
Grene didn't know what happened. One second he was standing there, feeling his anger boil within him like the water in the kettles back at the Frontier. The next second, Niven was on the floor, the propellant knife in his throat as the man began to shake and die, whilst the clash of the propellant knife's charge thundered across the empty plain.
Grene pulled Niven's jacket off his shaking dead body, wrapping it around the native woman as she climbed from the Nitrogen river. There were translation matrixes built into the speedsters, and he remotely activated them. "I'm sorry for my friend's crude behaviour. It was disgusting."
He heard his words repeated in the Native tongue.
The woman replied several words in the tongue, and then her words were repeated in the Eden Tones.
"You're species have committed fowler crimes to mine." She reached down to her bare leg and took the knife tightened to it. "He would have met a worse fate than me."
"Can you help me dispose of the body?" Grene asked.
"Yes." The woman replied, and with one powerful kick she knocked it into the nitrogen river.
"Thank you." Grene said. "I am in your debt."
"You are respectful for an invader."
"You are polite for a savage."
The woman displayed a slight emotion, maybe embarrassment or pride. "I am Myra of the Costello line."
"I am Grene Mayweather." Grene said, presenting his hand. When she looked at him bemusedly, he explained she was meant to shake it. She did so in that fashion of which strangers to society generally perform social norms, with great care, delicacy and awkwardness.
"It is a pleasure to meet you, Grene of Mayweather. I hope you will accompany me back to my family?"
"And you became a family friend?" Floyd asked, unconvinced.
"You could say that." Grene replied. "It was more a deal of them allowing me to live on the count that I assisted them. They'd ask me for the location of Merehog tribes, and in return they'd tell other parties of Natives not to hurt me. And then, after a year, they told me that they wished to imbue with a grand honour. A woman to marry."
"And you chose?"
"I chose no one. I told them I would not accept a woman as a gift, they told me that wasn't how it worked, and that I was to be given as a gift to a woman."
"And the woman?"
"Who other than Myra Costello?" Grene replied. "We were married by the statures of the Natives, and we were given a house in these caves. I took the role of Long Term Outwards Scout, living on the ice and sending reports to the Frontier, when they were needed. And so I became the only settler allowed inside the tribe."
"And your child?"
"Born merely three months after our wedding. The Native pregnancy is shorter, so that no child need be grown during the twelfth months, with a tad of careful planning."
"What did you call her?"
"I named her after our mother." Grene said. "Grace Costello. I thought it worked."
They followed a set of icy steps through a selection of tunnels, up into the walls of the ice cavern, into the heart of Home. And there it was, the Mayweather-Costello residence, an ice labyrinth of intricate rooms and valiant structures, but Floyd didn't care about any of those. He was much more interested in the child who awaited within.
Grene used his own key to open the door, trailing within and leading a strange route into the heart of the household. They stopped in front of the final door, or at least it was the final door in the respect that it was the final one they stopped at. Grene stopped before he pushed it open. "The girl inside is the most important thing in the world to me, but she doesn't belong on Inhospitable. She belongs on the Fourth Eden."
"The Fourth Eden? Why would you want me to take her there?"
"Because, of tomorrow morning, Inhospitable will become a war zone. The cracks in the planet's crust are driving the Natives insane, and they've vowed to kill the settlers. I have vowed to help them."
"You would betray your species for your adopted race?"
"I would betray them for my family, yes."
"Why are you telling me?" Floyd asked. "I could quite easily go back to Solace and tell them what's going on. We could evacuate before dawn. It is my duty, I am Benvolio after all."
"Because I trust you. I need you to take Grace to her home planet, to keep her safe."
"I presume from the tone you've adopted that you're not coming."
"I'll try, of course." Grene said, but Floyd knew what was coming. "I don't think I'll be able to."
Floyd nodded. "As your brother, I swear, I will do the best I can to return Grace to the Fourth Eden."
"Thank you, Floyd. Now you can meet her."
"You've walked into their trap, Floyd." His brother Grene said, and Floyd shook his head rapidly, noticing that no longer his brother was in front, but actually behind him.
"How could you do this, Grene?" Floyd cried, but his voice was drowned out by a sudden war cry from within the caves. Floyd watched in terror as the shadows of a hundred charging people struck up on the white ice wall. He could hear their dizzying cry, see their weapons in hand, feel the shake of the ice as their feet carried them towards him. He knew those were the last seconds of his life, and so he turned to his brother and begged for mercy. A tear trickled down the inside of his transparent snow mask, feeling it freeze against the thermal gel.
"Do not plead, Floyd." Grene announced, walking over to his kneeling brother. "It's not over yet."
"You have betrayed the Federation, betrayed Solace and the Frontier. You've betrayed me!"
"I have good reason to do so!"
"What's that?" Floyd cried, launching to his feet.
Grene looked down at him, guilt ridden, ashamed.
"What reason do you have?"
"I have a daughter." Grene replied, and now it was his turn to cry.
Grene called off the Natives inside the cave, leading Floyd in. Despite the many times Grene had walked between the massive ice archway that they called, in their own tongue, "Birth to Home", he was still amazed. A stretching cavern of frosted glass, illuminated by the dawning suns of the planet's system, hosted hundreds of icy settlements, seemingly lasting forever. Floyd's eyes widened as he saw the ice tents, sheets of ice arranged in triangular compositions to form incredible structures far beyond the architecture of Solace. Between the ice places danced young children, scantily clad in the skins of the animals the settlers called Merehogs. The children dropped their icy hoops and their play things, as they saw the Mayweather brothers pass them.
No, Floyd thought. They didn't drop their things for the brother, they dropped them for him. They knew Grene well enough to trust him. They didn't trust this younger, stronger version who walked to his side.
Floyd's snow boots didn't work on the polished ice surface. Their metal prongs, diagonally spiking off from each side like a spider's leg, couldn't get a grip on the floor, so he found himself kneeling down to fold the prongs back into the soles.
"Take the shoes off." Grene told him.
"I can't." Floyd replied. "Don't you remember what happened to the Captain?"
Twenty years ago, when they'd first landed, the Captain of the landing ship had naively stepped out onto the surface of the planet. Most of the crew had looked away, but the Mayweather brothers had kept staring through the small perspex windows, watching as every inch of the Captain's body turned blue, solidifying until it began to prickle as the blood vessels burst. Then his body began to crack, solidifying until it was forcing itself inwards. Then he turned to a pile of dust, whipped away by the freezing winds.
"Trust me, Floyd. I'm not wearing shoes, and I'm just fine."
Floyd's eyes wandered down to Grene's feet. They were coated with thick socks, lined with thermal gel. Floyd was slightly reluctant to believe it as the truth, but he knew he must accept it. Tentatively, he sat down and pulled his shoes off, testing the iced ground with his toes. No freezing blood vessels or cracking flesh. Science had just surrendered it's hold on him, but he felt fine. Floyd looked his brother straight in the eyes, standing up. "Explain everything to me. Please."
"Would you like to meet her?"
"Who?"
"My daughter."
Floyd nodded. "Of course, but on the way, I want you to tell me how she came into existence."
"Really Floyd? I thought you'd be able to understand such things."
Floyd felt his face flush red, despite the cold. "You know what I mean."
Grene let out his hearty laugh, and for a few seconds Floyd felt safe again. Once more, he was with his brother in a strange new game where the rules were infinite, unknown, and eternally reproducing.
1885SC. Outwards Scout, Grene Mayweather, rode a speedster through the eternal night of Inhospitable. A blaster hung limp on his side, a propellant knife was strapped to his ankle and on his back was a long distance pulser gun. Showers of white snow sprayed from either side of his speedster as he bent over it's hull, attempting to beat his opponent in the furious race.
He and Niven raced each other on every expedition, it was a way to relieve the boredom of the grand white expanses. One of the watchers, housed in a tower protruding from the top of the Frontier, had seen a mysterious shape in the distance, and so they'd been dispensed to deal with it.
Grene Mayweather was expecting for it to be another explosion of geothermal power, from deep within Inhospitable's core, but it seemed not. As they approached, they saw that it was something much more dangerous than a rupture in the planet's surface.
A woman.
She was one of the Natives, humanoid and young. She was bathing in a long crack in the ice, nitrogen pools forming a natural resort. Niven laughed as he disengaged the engine of his speedster, the thrusters moaning as they shrank, the heat cutting out. He climbed out, swirling his axe, a thermal blade forming luminescent twirls through the air. "Niven, what're you doing?" Grene asked, well aware of the protocol when it came to finding Natives. "I've got the cuffs to take her back to the Frontier."
Niven turned and laughed. "She's bathing in nitrogen, Grene. Let me warm her up."
There was something sly and ultimately dangerous, animalistic almost, in the way he said it that put Grene on the edge. He felt a hand wrap around the propellant knife on his ankle. "I think we should just follow the procedure, Niven. This woman hasn't hurt us."
"But how many of her scum brothers have, Grene?" Niven asked. "And if you're worried I'm going to keep her all to myself..."
"Stop now, Niven. That's an order." Grene said, climbing down from his speedster.
"An order?" Niven laughed. "Don't you remember, I'm your senior! Now, let me be."
Grene didn't know what happened. One second he was standing there, feeling his anger boil within him like the water in the kettles back at the Frontier. The next second, Niven was on the floor, the propellant knife in his throat as the man began to shake and die, whilst the clash of the propellant knife's charge thundered across the empty plain.
Grene pulled Niven's jacket off his shaking dead body, wrapping it around the native woman as she climbed from the Nitrogen river. There were translation matrixes built into the speedsters, and he remotely activated them. "I'm sorry for my friend's crude behaviour. It was disgusting."
He heard his words repeated in the Native tongue.
The woman replied several words in the tongue, and then her words were repeated in the Eden Tones.
"You're species have committed fowler crimes to mine." She reached down to her bare leg and took the knife tightened to it. "He would have met a worse fate than me."
"Can you help me dispose of the body?" Grene asked.
"Yes." The woman replied, and with one powerful kick she knocked it into the nitrogen river.
"Thank you." Grene said. "I am in your debt."
"You are respectful for an invader."
"You are polite for a savage."
The woman displayed a slight emotion, maybe embarrassment or pride. "I am Myra of the Costello line."
"I am Grene Mayweather." Grene said, presenting his hand. When she looked at him bemusedly, he explained she was meant to shake it. She did so in that fashion of which strangers to society generally perform social norms, with great care, delicacy and awkwardness.
"It is a pleasure to meet you, Grene of Mayweather. I hope you will accompany me back to my family?"
"And you became a family friend?" Floyd asked, unconvinced.
"You could say that." Grene replied. "It was more a deal of them allowing me to live on the count that I assisted them. They'd ask me for the location of Merehog tribes, and in return they'd tell other parties of Natives not to hurt me. And then, after a year, they told me that they wished to imbue with a grand honour. A woman to marry."
"And you chose?"
"I chose no one. I told them I would not accept a woman as a gift, they told me that wasn't how it worked, and that I was to be given as a gift to a woman."
"And the woman?"
"Who other than Myra Costello?" Grene replied. "We were married by the statures of the Natives, and we were given a house in these caves. I took the role of Long Term Outwards Scout, living on the ice and sending reports to the Frontier, when they were needed. And so I became the only settler allowed inside the tribe."
"And your child?"
"Born merely three months after our wedding. The Native pregnancy is shorter, so that no child need be grown during the twelfth months, with a tad of careful planning."
"What did you call her?"
"I named her after our mother." Grene said. "Grace Costello. I thought it worked."
They followed a set of icy steps through a selection of tunnels, up into the walls of the ice cavern, into the heart of Home. And there it was, the Mayweather-Costello residence, an ice labyrinth of intricate rooms and valiant structures, but Floyd didn't care about any of those. He was much more interested in the child who awaited within.
Grene used his own key to open the door, trailing within and leading a strange route into the heart of the household. They stopped in front of the final door, or at least it was the final door in the respect that it was the final one they stopped at. Grene stopped before he pushed it open. "The girl inside is the most important thing in the world to me, but she doesn't belong on Inhospitable. She belongs on the Fourth Eden."
"The Fourth Eden? Why would you want me to take her there?"
"Because, of tomorrow morning, Inhospitable will become a war zone. The cracks in the planet's crust are driving the Natives insane, and they've vowed to kill the settlers. I have vowed to help them."
"You would betray your species for your adopted race?"
"I would betray them for my family, yes."
"Why are you telling me?" Floyd asked. "I could quite easily go back to Solace and tell them what's going on. We could evacuate before dawn. It is my duty, I am Benvolio after all."
"Because I trust you. I need you to take Grace to her home planet, to keep her safe."
"I presume from the tone you've adopted that you're not coming."
"I'll try, of course." Grene said, but Floyd knew what was coming. "I don't think I'll be able to."
Floyd nodded. "As your brother, I swear, I will do the best I can to return Grace to the Fourth Eden."
"Thank you, Floyd. Now you can meet her."
Monday, 11 May 2015
Spaceman: A Planet Called Inhospitable (part 2)
"Snicker stole my Warmth Slippers!" Skelton Evans announced, one of her wrinkled fingers elongated towards Snicker. Floyd rolled his eyes.
"The old bag lies!" Deputy Snicker replied. "She hates me cause I sold her a dodge ice worm once!"
The argument had been jumping back and forth, back and forth for close on an hour. He didn't blame Grene for going to the Womanry rather than come with him to this. Snicker and Evans were well known to argue on a regular basis, over anything from a misplaced sock to an announcement of preferring one radio stream to the other. When he'd taken the duty of benvolio, he'd hoped he might see an end to the constant disruptions of their mediocre war.
That was five years ago.
"Deputy Snicker," Floyd began, grimacing at the old fashioned feel to the rank. Evans began to snigger as she believed her nemesis was to get in trouble. Floyd turned to her. "Calm down, Skelton Evans. I'll get to you in a second."
She scowled behind his back and began to sulk.
"Deputy Snicker," Floyd resumed, "you are to immediately refund Skelton Evans for the 'dodge ice worm' that you admit to having sold her."
Snicker began to search through his pockets. Floyd turned to Evans. "And you, Skelton Evans, are going to go to the bottom of the staircase and look for your warmth slippers. When you find them, you are to come into this room and apologise profusely to Deputy Snicker for accusing him of such criminal activity. Understood?"
Floyd followed Evans into the hall, and whilst he pulled his thermal jacket, six gloves and finally his ice mask on, Evans stood up, her hands holding the missing warmth slippers. She looked at Floyd and then grumbled, walking off to apologise to Snicker. Floyd shook his head, pulling a hood over it, and wondering why such a couple would insist on being married?
He heard the seeping of the Frost Lock door, not every building had the luxury of heat fields, and then heard it seep closed, before a light above flicked green and the inner door opened. Floyd reached to his face and pulled the mask away. "Crane?"
Crane was Floyd's assistant, who roamed Solace trying to find the problems and ruptures between residents for Floyd to solve. "Begging your pardons, sir." Crane said. "There's an incident going on in the central pass."
Floyd pulled his mask back on and felt his hand tighten around the blaster on his side. "Let's go and deal with it."
They stepped out of the Skelton's house and stared onto the central pass, through the centre of Solace. Floyd had only seen it full twice in his time there, and those times had heralded major events, like landing and then the first visit of the Federation. Now was for a completely different reason.
"You've got your work cut out, brother." Grene said, emerging from no where in particular. "A native has breached the peace."
"You've always been more comfortable with shooting these guys than me." Floyd said. "Fancy giving your benvolio a hand?"
"I'd prefer to help my brother, but you know how it is." Grene laughed, unlatching his blaster from his belt. "I'll let you do the talking, peacekeeper."
The Mayweather Brothers shouldered their way through the hooded crowd of spectators, urging their way to the centre. Grene was right. One of the natives had breached the stronghold.
"I need you to calm down." Floyd said, in the mother tongue of the Federation. "You are placing the inhabitants of this fine city in danger."
The native continued to rotate in the clearing of the crowd, a frozen arrow head tightened to the end of a wooden shaft. She spun it between her fingers, lashing out at each resident, and laughing as they backed away. Floyd had been on the receiving end of the spear once. Nothing was sharper than a frozen arrowhead.
Grene said a few words in the native dialect, learnt from years on the Frontier. The native looked at him strangely but dropped her spear. Floyd rushed forwards and pulled a pair of iron cuffs from the back of his belt, slipping them over her thin wrists. Her skin was tough against his gloved fingers, like the stewed flesh of the ice hounds they pulled in from beyond the Frontier.
"Grene, tell her we're taking her to be held in the cells. Away from the crowd."
"Floyd, do I look like a translator?" He asked.
"Good point." Floyd said, and began to drag her to the Benvolio's office, in the northern sector of Solace.
There was a cell in the Bennvolio's office and only fourteen people had ever been detained in there. Floyd pulled the door open and sat down on a wicker chair, looking straight into the eyes of the fifteenth. He repeated the phrase that Grene had taught him confidently. It sounded like complete nonsense, up until the moment when he said, "Floyd Mayweather." And then it was nonsense again as he explained he was the town's peacekeeper.
She began to laugh, her bound hands running through her braided black hair. "You keep no peace, Floyd Mayweather." She replied in stunted words. "You bring the war."
"You speak the Eden Tones?" Floyd asked.
The native didn't reply to that, just continued with her angered rant. "You bring the cracks of the ground, the spewing of the Alquarara, the death of our home. You people brought this upon yourself. You are demons unto yourself and unto those that you meet."
Floyd stood and walked out of the cage, slamming the door shut and walking over to Grene. "That's surprising."
"That she can speak the Eden Tones?"
"No." Floyd said. "The fact she can do so and still remain to sound so pretentious."
That night, Floyd heard a noise from the Benvolio's office downstairs. It was a giggling and a quick converse of native slang. He eased himself out of bed and pulled his ice boots on, wrapping his thermal coat over his normal clothes. He hurried to the stairs, each step a cringe as it made just too much noise. There was a spot he could stand in that would allow him to remain hidden whilst still looking into the heart of the office. The two figures had escaped the cage and were making their way towards the door. Floyd grabbed his blaster, prepared to shoot them, but realised that was the wrong course of action. Following them would be a much wiser idea.
Floyd holstered his blaster and pulled on his mask, chasing down the stairs and following them out of the door into the central pass. They were already running, chasing towards the narrow exit and onwards to the Frontier. The Benvolio took a deep breath and quickly chased after them, his boots' extending wire frames leaving broken foot prints in the floor. The two natives were fast, by the time he emerged from Solace, they were beyond the crevice, chasing across to the Frontier itself. Floyd contemplated running after them, but he'd walked the distance the other day with Grene. He knew it was a long way. No, instead, he took one of the Speedster's that the Frontier men used to travel from the Frontier to Solace and took the perimeter route to catch up with them. They seemed to have keys to the Frontier buildings, a security risk Floyd would have to inform Grene of. Floyd dismounted his speedster and dropped to the ice, cowering in the shadows of the Frontier when they turned to stare at the noise. They turned away quickly, their faces hidden in the darkness, and so Floyd continued to follow them. He crept through the tunnelling corridors of the Frontier complex, hiding behind the next set of doors at every turn, until they reached the final link in what they called the Frontier chain. It led out onto Inhospitable's main bulk of land, through an ice lock door. As the natives activated it, Floyd saw their faces in the glow of the red bulb above. One of the natives was the lady he'd imprisoned earlier. The second wasn't a native at all.
It was Grene Mayweather, his brother.
"The old bag lies!" Deputy Snicker replied. "She hates me cause I sold her a dodge ice worm once!"
The argument had been jumping back and forth, back and forth for close on an hour. He didn't blame Grene for going to the Womanry rather than come with him to this. Snicker and Evans were well known to argue on a regular basis, over anything from a misplaced sock to an announcement of preferring one radio stream to the other. When he'd taken the duty of benvolio, he'd hoped he might see an end to the constant disruptions of their mediocre war.
That was five years ago.
"Deputy Snicker," Floyd began, grimacing at the old fashioned feel to the rank. Evans began to snigger as she believed her nemesis was to get in trouble. Floyd turned to her. "Calm down, Skelton Evans. I'll get to you in a second."
She scowled behind his back and began to sulk.
"Deputy Snicker," Floyd resumed, "you are to immediately refund Skelton Evans for the 'dodge ice worm' that you admit to having sold her."
Snicker began to search through his pockets. Floyd turned to Evans. "And you, Skelton Evans, are going to go to the bottom of the staircase and look for your warmth slippers. When you find them, you are to come into this room and apologise profusely to Deputy Snicker for accusing him of such criminal activity. Understood?"
Floyd followed Evans into the hall, and whilst he pulled his thermal jacket, six gloves and finally his ice mask on, Evans stood up, her hands holding the missing warmth slippers. She looked at Floyd and then grumbled, walking off to apologise to Snicker. Floyd shook his head, pulling a hood over it, and wondering why such a couple would insist on being married?
He heard the seeping of the Frost Lock door, not every building had the luxury of heat fields, and then heard it seep closed, before a light above flicked green and the inner door opened. Floyd reached to his face and pulled the mask away. "Crane?"
Crane was Floyd's assistant, who roamed Solace trying to find the problems and ruptures between residents for Floyd to solve. "Begging your pardons, sir." Crane said. "There's an incident going on in the central pass."
Floyd pulled his mask back on and felt his hand tighten around the blaster on his side. "Let's go and deal with it."
They stepped out of the Skelton's house and stared onto the central pass, through the centre of Solace. Floyd had only seen it full twice in his time there, and those times had heralded major events, like landing and then the first visit of the Federation. Now was for a completely different reason.
"You've got your work cut out, brother." Grene said, emerging from no where in particular. "A native has breached the peace."
"You've always been more comfortable with shooting these guys than me." Floyd said. "Fancy giving your benvolio a hand?"
"I'd prefer to help my brother, but you know how it is." Grene laughed, unlatching his blaster from his belt. "I'll let you do the talking, peacekeeper."
The Mayweather Brothers shouldered their way through the hooded crowd of spectators, urging their way to the centre. Grene was right. One of the natives had breached the stronghold.
"I need you to calm down." Floyd said, in the mother tongue of the Federation. "You are placing the inhabitants of this fine city in danger."
The native continued to rotate in the clearing of the crowd, a frozen arrow head tightened to the end of a wooden shaft. She spun it between her fingers, lashing out at each resident, and laughing as they backed away. Floyd had been on the receiving end of the spear once. Nothing was sharper than a frozen arrowhead.
Grene said a few words in the native dialect, learnt from years on the Frontier. The native looked at him strangely but dropped her spear. Floyd rushed forwards and pulled a pair of iron cuffs from the back of his belt, slipping them over her thin wrists. Her skin was tough against his gloved fingers, like the stewed flesh of the ice hounds they pulled in from beyond the Frontier.
"Grene, tell her we're taking her to be held in the cells. Away from the crowd."
"Floyd, do I look like a translator?" He asked.
"Good point." Floyd said, and began to drag her to the Benvolio's office, in the northern sector of Solace.
There was a cell in the Bennvolio's office and only fourteen people had ever been detained in there. Floyd pulled the door open and sat down on a wicker chair, looking straight into the eyes of the fifteenth. He repeated the phrase that Grene had taught him confidently. It sounded like complete nonsense, up until the moment when he said, "Floyd Mayweather." And then it was nonsense again as he explained he was the town's peacekeeper.
She began to laugh, her bound hands running through her braided black hair. "You keep no peace, Floyd Mayweather." She replied in stunted words. "You bring the war."
"You speak the Eden Tones?" Floyd asked.
The native didn't reply to that, just continued with her angered rant. "You bring the cracks of the ground, the spewing of the Alquarara, the death of our home. You people brought this upon yourself. You are demons unto yourself and unto those that you meet."
Floyd stood and walked out of the cage, slamming the door shut and walking over to Grene. "That's surprising."
"That she can speak the Eden Tones?"
"No." Floyd said. "The fact she can do so and still remain to sound so pretentious."
That night, Floyd heard a noise from the Benvolio's office downstairs. It was a giggling and a quick converse of native slang. He eased himself out of bed and pulled his ice boots on, wrapping his thermal coat over his normal clothes. He hurried to the stairs, each step a cringe as it made just too much noise. There was a spot he could stand in that would allow him to remain hidden whilst still looking into the heart of the office. The two figures had escaped the cage and were making their way towards the door. Floyd grabbed his blaster, prepared to shoot them, but realised that was the wrong course of action. Following them would be a much wiser idea.
Floyd holstered his blaster and pulled on his mask, chasing down the stairs and following them out of the door into the central pass. They were already running, chasing towards the narrow exit and onwards to the Frontier. The Benvolio took a deep breath and quickly chased after them, his boots' extending wire frames leaving broken foot prints in the floor. The two natives were fast, by the time he emerged from Solace, they were beyond the crevice, chasing across to the Frontier itself. Floyd contemplated running after them, but he'd walked the distance the other day with Grene. He knew it was a long way. No, instead, he took one of the Speedster's that the Frontier men used to travel from the Frontier to Solace and took the perimeter route to catch up with them. They seemed to have keys to the Frontier buildings, a security risk Floyd would have to inform Grene of. Floyd dismounted his speedster and dropped to the ice, cowering in the shadows of the Frontier when they turned to stare at the noise. They turned away quickly, their faces hidden in the darkness, and so Floyd continued to follow them. He crept through the tunnelling corridors of the Frontier complex, hiding behind the next set of doors at every turn, until they reached the final link in what they called the Frontier chain. It led out onto Inhospitable's main bulk of land, through an ice lock door. As the natives activated it, Floyd saw their faces in the glow of the red bulb above. One of the natives was the lady he'd imprisoned earlier. The second wasn't a native at all.
It was Grene Mayweather, his brother.
Tuesday, 5 May 2015
Spaceman: A Planet Called Inhospitable
It was Year One Thousand And Seventy Six of the Second Cycle (1876 SC) and the fourth Eden was thriving with the excitement of youth. A Federation Star Cruiser had broken the delicate shell of the Eden's atmosphere and was landing in the clearing in the centre of the woods, grand plumes of white smoke escaping from it's roaring hover drives. Floyd Maywhether, his brother Grene at his shoulder, took a hand to his face to shield his eyes from the heat. "What if it burns down the trees?" He asked.
His brother Grene laughed. "Then we'll plant more trees, moron. And anyway, who cares? The Federation have landed!"
When the smoke had cleared, revealing the gleaming silver of the ship, a ramp began to lower from the front of the craft. Before they'd moved to the Unnamed Eden, Floyd's father had worked on Kirkwood building the mechanisms that lowered the door to be as quiet as possible, so as not to alarm natives when the ships first landed. In this case, the natives were causing more alarm than the Federation agents themselves. Market vendors, always the first to turn up at exciting events, barged their way through the clouds, wicker baskets of overpriced food raised above their heads. They positioned themselves around the ramp and readied themselves to present food to the people who'd soon be walking down it. "Have you ever seen a Federation Officer before, Grene?" Floyd asked his brother, who was two years the senior.
"Not in the flesh." Grene replied. "I wonder why they're here?"
As if in answer, the first agent of the Federation marched down the ramp halfway and stopped. He was an imperial sight, his cloak hanging low around his ankles and high around his neck, held by a golden chain. The Officer stopped and stared forwards at the growing crowd of intrigued natives. He swiped his hands through the air, summoning a blue rectangle of energy about twenty feet in front of his face. He began to read from the scrolling white writing that appeared on it. "Citizens of the Unnamed Eden, thank you for your hospitality. I represent the Federation."
A huge cheer echoed throughout the crowd.
"I have come to offer the one commodity no organisation is willing to give away." He announced, and the crowd instantly became silent. He couldn't be suggesting what they thought he was. No planet was lucky enough to receive such an offer, especially not the Unnamed Eden. "I present to you a chance to work for the Federation."
A rippled of applause drowned out the shouts of agreement from the crowd. A selection of rectangles higher above the spokesman on the ship slid open and great metal pods hovered out, a cloud of red haze masking the heat that their engines no doubt produced. As they began to spread out, fulfilling a prepared grid pattern, the crowd quickly spread out, allowing them to land without causing any harm. When the red haze dissipated, Floyd could see the Federation Logo embellished on the metal capsules. They quickly slid open and revealed android figures, with prepared microphones in their hands. "Recruitment droids." Grene said. "You tell them your details and they scan the local databases, before deciding whether or not to give you a job."
"What do the jobs include, brother?" Floyd asked.
"Searching far off stars, of course. Finding new planets and living on them, as well as travelling the Cosmos!"
Floyd's mind filled with excitement, hope. Desire. He needed that job, despite only being twelve.
"Can we go and get recruited, Grene?" He asked.
"I thought you'd never ask." Grene replied, and they forced their way through the crowds, pushing and shoving towards the nearest recruitment droid. Everyone else had the exact same idea, fighting to get to the machines, but Grene was tall and strong. He could get them to it, Floyd was sure.
In the end, they did get to it, and Grene said their names into the microphone. The Recruitment Droid whirred and then it's slit line mouth flashed blue with the timing of each word. "Floyd Mayweather. Grene Mayweather. Training engineers. Father is a pervious employee of the Federation."
It's eyes flashed three times.
"Misters Mayweather, you have been recruited for our services. Please report to the ship at once."
Floyd cast Grene a look that said it all. They'd done something with their lives.
1896SC. Floyd and Grene Mayweather were stood on a Planet called Inhospitable, staring out beyond the frontier set by the original federation scout's who had landed there. The Mayweather brothers had been amongst the original scouts, their first mission, and it had changed their perception of the Federation forever. Their mission had been to find new planets and introduce the people of those planets to the ways of the Federation, and the civilised cosmos. Now, it was in question as to who the civilised species was.
The frontier was a thin black wall of huts, in which the superiority of the Federation Scouts lived, armed with the very best laser cannons. Beyond the frontier was an endless white blanket of snow, stretching west and north beyond the bleak horizon, but to the east it sloped away into a jigsaw cutting that overlooked the Nitrogen Sea. But the focus of their attention was closer to them than the frontier, and a hell of a lot scarier than either. There was a crack in the ice.
It grew bigger by the day, at first a thin slit in the ice but now it was a gaping fracture, revealing the inky blackness beneath the planet's crust. The Outward Scouts, those like Grene who investigated the ground beyond the Frontier, reported that more and more cracks were building in the outwards ice.
"Of course," Grene said, as Floyd stared into the abyss beneath the ice, "the natives are blaming us. You heard about Fletcher?"
Floyd shook his head, a wasted gesture beneath his tight blue hood. "I haven't, no."
"He and Jonesy went out on routine patrol last week, studying the ice beyond the frontier. A load of the natives ambushed them, stole their rations and killed Fletcher. According to Jonesy, and our translation matrixes, the natives were screaming curses at them."
"God." Floyd said, standing up. Through tightly gloved hands, he straightened his blue jacket and felt the familiar weight of his blaster on his side. He'd only used it twice since their landing on Inhospitable, but both times had been experiences he never wished to repeat. Some found the stealing of life for 'the greater good' an honour. Floyd found it a disgrace. "When do you go back out to the Frontier?" He asked, worried that Grene may come to harm's way.
"Tomorrow." He said. "Which is more than enough time for you to show me around the encampment."
Floyd laughed. "Solace, Grene, Solace. Nobody calls it the encampment anymore."
"You've got to admit it looks like a concentration camp from the outside."
"I don't know what you mean." Floyd said, turning back to look at Solace. It was composed of twenty buildings, all constructed from heating inducing metals that released geothermal bursts into the nitrogen liquid beneath, every hour. Barbed wire fences guarded it from all sides, should the Frontier ever be breached, and the youth had come to decorate the wire with anti-native propaganda and graffitied signs. Not that the adults ever took them down.
They began to stroll towards it, their spiked boots clawing grains of snow away from the paths they took. When they'd first landed, 240 moon cycles for each of Inhospitable's twelve moons ago, it was possible to feel the planet's crust against the foot, if you dug far enough. Now, it was just compacted snow.
"Although, technically, it's not snow." Grene reminded him, when Floyd commented on it. "That would make it water."
"And would mean it would have frozen two hundred and ten degrees ago." Floyd replied, having heard the lecture before. "Thank God for the warmth gel in the lining of these coats."
"The only thing I respect about the Federation." Grene said, spitting a ball of saliva from his lips. It froze as it left the embrace of his mouth.
"Indeed." Floyd said, and they got to the barbed wire fences. A short entrance that could be hastily closed led into Solace. Attached to it were signs that read words like, "Ice Walkers" or "Nitrofaces."
The least imaginative was, "Native Scum."
"Where do you want to go first?" Floyd asked, although he already knew the answer.
"The Saloon, of course." Grene said.
The Saloon was a Federation run bar that was opened on every planet the Federation landed on. This one in particular had swinging doors that provided the illusion of a partially open doorway, however heat fields combatted the invading cold. As the Mayweather Brothers walked in, they were suddenly enveloped in heat and had to pull off their jackets and gloves before they sweated too much. A man with a synthano was sat on the raised platform in the corner, moaning along to the artificial music he was producing, and a couple of old men raised beers to them as they entered. "Gentlemen!" The bar woman, a stumpy middle aged woman with dyed blonde hair, cried. "What can I get you?"
"Iond." Grene said, stating the favourite drink of the Unnamed Eden. "With ice."
"Of course." The bar woman said, and took the small glass bottle form the shelf. She took a shot glass and filled it with a single ice cube, which she then topped with about twenty millilitres of the Iond.
Grene took it in one and then grinned. "I have missed drinking." He said. "Give me another."
Floyd rolled his eyes. It was going to be a long night.
His brother Grene laughed. "Then we'll plant more trees, moron. And anyway, who cares? The Federation have landed!"
When the smoke had cleared, revealing the gleaming silver of the ship, a ramp began to lower from the front of the craft. Before they'd moved to the Unnamed Eden, Floyd's father had worked on Kirkwood building the mechanisms that lowered the door to be as quiet as possible, so as not to alarm natives when the ships first landed. In this case, the natives were causing more alarm than the Federation agents themselves. Market vendors, always the first to turn up at exciting events, barged their way through the clouds, wicker baskets of overpriced food raised above their heads. They positioned themselves around the ramp and readied themselves to present food to the people who'd soon be walking down it. "Have you ever seen a Federation Officer before, Grene?" Floyd asked his brother, who was two years the senior.
"Not in the flesh." Grene replied. "I wonder why they're here?"
As if in answer, the first agent of the Federation marched down the ramp halfway and stopped. He was an imperial sight, his cloak hanging low around his ankles and high around his neck, held by a golden chain. The Officer stopped and stared forwards at the growing crowd of intrigued natives. He swiped his hands through the air, summoning a blue rectangle of energy about twenty feet in front of his face. He began to read from the scrolling white writing that appeared on it. "Citizens of the Unnamed Eden, thank you for your hospitality. I represent the Federation."
A huge cheer echoed throughout the crowd.
"I have come to offer the one commodity no organisation is willing to give away." He announced, and the crowd instantly became silent. He couldn't be suggesting what they thought he was. No planet was lucky enough to receive such an offer, especially not the Unnamed Eden. "I present to you a chance to work for the Federation."
A rippled of applause drowned out the shouts of agreement from the crowd. A selection of rectangles higher above the spokesman on the ship slid open and great metal pods hovered out, a cloud of red haze masking the heat that their engines no doubt produced. As they began to spread out, fulfilling a prepared grid pattern, the crowd quickly spread out, allowing them to land without causing any harm. When the red haze dissipated, Floyd could see the Federation Logo embellished on the metal capsules. They quickly slid open and revealed android figures, with prepared microphones in their hands. "Recruitment droids." Grene said. "You tell them your details and they scan the local databases, before deciding whether or not to give you a job."
"What do the jobs include, brother?" Floyd asked.
"Searching far off stars, of course. Finding new planets and living on them, as well as travelling the Cosmos!"
Floyd's mind filled with excitement, hope. Desire. He needed that job, despite only being twelve.
"Can we go and get recruited, Grene?" He asked.
"I thought you'd never ask." Grene replied, and they forced their way through the crowds, pushing and shoving towards the nearest recruitment droid. Everyone else had the exact same idea, fighting to get to the machines, but Grene was tall and strong. He could get them to it, Floyd was sure.
In the end, they did get to it, and Grene said their names into the microphone. The Recruitment Droid whirred and then it's slit line mouth flashed blue with the timing of each word. "Floyd Mayweather. Grene Mayweather. Training engineers. Father is a pervious employee of the Federation."
It's eyes flashed three times.
"Misters Mayweather, you have been recruited for our services. Please report to the ship at once."
Floyd cast Grene a look that said it all. They'd done something with their lives.
1896SC. Floyd and Grene Mayweather were stood on a Planet called Inhospitable, staring out beyond the frontier set by the original federation scout's who had landed there. The Mayweather brothers had been amongst the original scouts, their first mission, and it had changed their perception of the Federation forever. Their mission had been to find new planets and introduce the people of those planets to the ways of the Federation, and the civilised cosmos. Now, it was in question as to who the civilised species was.
The frontier was a thin black wall of huts, in which the superiority of the Federation Scouts lived, armed with the very best laser cannons. Beyond the frontier was an endless white blanket of snow, stretching west and north beyond the bleak horizon, but to the east it sloped away into a jigsaw cutting that overlooked the Nitrogen Sea. But the focus of their attention was closer to them than the frontier, and a hell of a lot scarier than either. There was a crack in the ice.
It grew bigger by the day, at first a thin slit in the ice but now it was a gaping fracture, revealing the inky blackness beneath the planet's crust. The Outward Scouts, those like Grene who investigated the ground beyond the Frontier, reported that more and more cracks were building in the outwards ice.
"Of course," Grene said, as Floyd stared into the abyss beneath the ice, "the natives are blaming us. You heard about Fletcher?"
Floyd shook his head, a wasted gesture beneath his tight blue hood. "I haven't, no."
"He and Jonesy went out on routine patrol last week, studying the ice beyond the frontier. A load of the natives ambushed them, stole their rations and killed Fletcher. According to Jonesy, and our translation matrixes, the natives were screaming curses at them."
"God." Floyd said, standing up. Through tightly gloved hands, he straightened his blue jacket and felt the familiar weight of his blaster on his side. He'd only used it twice since their landing on Inhospitable, but both times had been experiences he never wished to repeat. Some found the stealing of life for 'the greater good' an honour. Floyd found it a disgrace. "When do you go back out to the Frontier?" He asked, worried that Grene may come to harm's way.
"Tomorrow." He said. "Which is more than enough time for you to show me around the encampment."
Floyd laughed. "Solace, Grene, Solace. Nobody calls it the encampment anymore."
"You've got to admit it looks like a concentration camp from the outside."
"I don't know what you mean." Floyd said, turning back to look at Solace. It was composed of twenty buildings, all constructed from heating inducing metals that released geothermal bursts into the nitrogen liquid beneath, every hour. Barbed wire fences guarded it from all sides, should the Frontier ever be breached, and the youth had come to decorate the wire with anti-native propaganda and graffitied signs. Not that the adults ever took them down.
They began to stroll towards it, their spiked boots clawing grains of snow away from the paths they took. When they'd first landed, 240 moon cycles for each of Inhospitable's twelve moons ago, it was possible to feel the planet's crust against the foot, if you dug far enough. Now, it was just compacted snow.
"Although, technically, it's not snow." Grene reminded him, when Floyd commented on it. "That would make it water."
"And would mean it would have frozen two hundred and ten degrees ago." Floyd replied, having heard the lecture before. "Thank God for the warmth gel in the lining of these coats."
"The only thing I respect about the Federation." Grene said, spitting a ball of saliva from his lips. It froze as it left the embrace of his mouth.
"Indeed." Floyd said, and they got to the barbed wire fences. A short entrance that could be hastily closed led into Solace. Attached to it were signs that read words like, "Ice Walkers" or "Nitrofaces."
The least imaginative was, "Native Scum."
"Where do you want to go first?" Floyd asked, although he already knew the answer.
"The Saloon, of course." Grene said.
The Saloon was a Federation run bar that was opened on every planet the Federation landed on. This one in particular had swinging doors that provided the illusion of a partially open doorway, however heat fields combatted the invading cold. As the Mayweather Brothers walked in, they were suddenly enveloped in heat and had to pull off their jackets and gloves before they sweated too much. A man with a synthano was sat on the raised platform in the corner, moaning along to the artificial music he was producing, and a couple of old men raised beers to them as they entered. "Gentlemen!" The bar woman, a stumpy middle aged woman with dyed blonde hair, cried. "What can I get you?"
"Iond." Grene said, stating the favourite drink of the Unnamed Eden. "With ice."
"Of course." The bar woman said, and took the small glass bottle form the shelf. She took a shot glass and filled it with a single ice cube, which she then topped with about twenty millilitres of the Iond.
Grene took it in one and then grinned. "I have missed drinking." He said. "Give me another."
Floyd rolled his eyes. It was going to be a long night.
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