Science Fiction – Inklings Fiction

The Cambridge’s Final Voyage

Kinn System

“She’s nearly ready to be scuttled, sir,” First Officer Reddy says with a salute.

Looking out of the bridge’s forward viewing area, Captain Mali can’t help but sigh.

Floating haplessly through space ahead of them is the Cambridge, an old frigate that had seen more action than most, but it hadn’t seen nearly enough to earn its salvation. The ship had fought alongside Mali and his ship, the Adelaide in the Corva Uprising.

Now the ship was about to join the countless others that had been intentionally crashed into one of the planets in the Kinn system, where the wreckage would be slowly picked through by salvagers, robots, and scavengers who thought they’d make a quick buck.

“We’re certain that there’s nothing else we can do with her?” Mali asks his First Officer.

Mali had been doing all he could for the past few years to save the Cambridge.

For Mali, this was a personal fight to save the old ship.

During the Corva Uprising, the Coalition-planted insurgents had commandeered a ship and sent it hurtling toward the Adelaide. The Adelaide, a large, lightly armored, semi-clumsy battle cruiser. Since the ship was still going through its shakedowns, it had a larger crew than usual, and it wasn’t ready for combat.

Chuckling, Mali recalls how he had summed up the situation afterwards, We were sitting ducks and the insurgents were like hawks, swooping in for the kill.

Out of nowhere, the Cambridge dropped out of warp and then raced between the Adelaide and the ship that the Coalition insurgents were using as a massive battering ram.

The Cambridge took the hostile ship along its portside and Mali had thought that everyone aboard the ship had to of been killed—or, if nothing else, the ship had to of been disabled.

But then its forward thrusters roared to life, pulling the Cambridge away from the now stricken insurgent ship which was largely shattered from the impact. Once it was a safe distance away, the Cambridge opened fire and reduced the remainder of the insurgent ship to dust.

Mali had reached out to the captain of the Cambridge, but he was never patched through. According to his sources, the Cambridge was on some secret mission and the captain had disobeyed orders in order to intervene in the Corva Uprising.

That decision saved the lives of Mali, and the thousands of people aboard the Adelaide.

“I’m sorry, Captain, there’s nothing left for us to do,” Reddy shakes her head, “I’m sorry, sir.”

Sighing, Mali takes a seat, and he stares at the dark hulk of the Cambridge.

Even in its current state, the Cambridge looked like a fearsome warship. Its sleek hull betrayed the ship’s ability to fly faster than even some of the fastest ships available today. The sharp edges of the remaining armor stand as a testament to the nigh-impenetrable armor that once lined the entire ship. Gaping holes up and down the ship’s length stand as reminders of the weapon systems that once occupied those same spaces.

“Such a travesty,” Mali sighs once more, “It was a wonderful ship.”

“Indeed, it was, sir,” Reddy nods.

Mali nods back and he recalls one of his more creative attempts to save the old Cambridge. This particular attempt revolved around the abilities of various skilled engineers from all over. The finished project, as Mali had tried to convince everyone, would have been one of the best fortified defense stations along the Alexandrian border. Any Coalition ship that saw the station would immediately turn back to find another way because the sheer capacity of the proposed station.

But that plan fell on deaf ears.

Everyone assured Mali that the Coalition’s days of recklessly attacking planets in Alexandrian Space was over. They said the Coalition was crumbling and they couldn’t spare the ships on such an attack.

Mali wasn’t convinced and reminded those who shot down the idea that desperation drove animals and people alike to lash out violently.

He was then escorted out of the building and sent out on a new assignment far from home.

“Sir, it’s time,” one of Mali’s officers urges from behind him.

Nodding slowly, Mali finally relents. With a nod, he gives his permission for his crew to deorbit the Cambridge, “We may proceed.”

“Would you like some privacy, sir?” Reddy asks as a few short alarms chirp over the ship’s speakers to notify everyone aboard the Adelaide that the Cambridge’s scuttling is about to commence.

“No,” Mali grunts.

Still sitting, Mali watches the scene unfold before him as the Cambridge is given the honor that it was entitled to.

All along the length of the Adelaide, colorful flares and gas canisters are shot out, illuminating and casting beautiful colors in all directions. As Mali saw things, the flares and gas canisters painted one last picture that he could remember the Cambridge by.

A light flashes to life overhead, indicating that the Adelaide is blasting its horns for the stricken ship before it, as per maritime tradition. Sure, the sound would never reach the Cambridge in the vacuum of space, but tradition dictated the need to blare a ship’s horns in order to honor the death of their brethren.

A few seconds pass and every gun on the Adelaide flashes to life as they all let off a round or two as yet another salute.

And then everything stops.

The flares that had been shot off gently die out.

The gas canisters expel the last of their contents and the clouds dissipate.

The light indicating that the Adelaide’s horns are blaring turns off.

Taking a slow breath, Mali gives the final order that he had been dreading for the past few years, “Scuttle the Cambridge.”

On cue, a small handful of deorbiting torpedoes emerge from the bow of the Adelaide.

The torpedoes aren’t much to look at, and the only thing that really set them apart from the blackness of space are their thrusters, which are slowly burning as they carefully approach the stricken ship.

A few minutes pass before the various torpedoes come to a stop on the portside of the Cambridge. Once they’re all in place, the torpedoes’ thrusters all flash as they turn to full power.

Feeling like he is watching an old friend die, Mali helplessly watches as the Cambridge begins slipping toward the atmosphere of the planet below.

Several more minutes pass and the first few signs of reentry flames start to pick at some of the sharper edges of the Cambridge as it slips into the atmosphere. Seconds later, the ship is one massive fireball hurtling toward the unforgiving ground below.

There was no going back now, the Cambridge was gone.

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Smuggler’s Route

*Author Note: This is a prequel/supplemental story that feeds into The Invasion of Allegra and the series The Battle for Allegra*

Thessalonia, Allegra

22 June, 2284

“I’m telling you, Pete, this is a horrible idea,” Ransom Williams mutters forebodingly.

Looking over at his first mate, Peter Petrova can’t help but chuckle. Ransom had always been far too cautious and doubting to make it as a smuggler on his own, which is why he and Peter partnered up a few years back. Ever since then, they had always been several steps ahead of any local, regional, or any other level of security force.

All it took was Ransom’s worries and Peter’s cool and prowess.

“If you stay with the ship, you’ll be better off than if you come with me,” Peter tells Ransom, “I’m doing this. We’ve come too far not to.”

“But what if they’re expecting us!?”

Peter lets out a loud laugh and he motions around the busy spaceport, “Tell me, who in their right mind would expect us to come to Thessalonia of all places? A place known for its security and upstanding citizens?” Peter lowers his voice as he continues his usual, friendly smile firmly in place, “If the Coalition could even figure out that we’re on Allegra, they wouldn’t think we’d be dumb enough to come here.”

“If it’s such a dumb idea, then why did we have to come here?”

Pulling out a small bag of gold dust, Peter tosses it lightly up in the air and lets it land back into his hand. He offers Ransom a face that says, ‘are you really asking this?’ before he slips the bag back into his pocket.

This bag of gold, plus the other few that Peter has hidden on his person, were supposed to buy them a new ship.

Not just any ship, but a Thessalonian ship. One of the best built ships in the galaxy.

Knowing that the Allegrians were a people who didn’t like the Coalition to begin with and knowing that they all had an affinity for real money and not the paper the Coalition churned out in the trillions every second, Peter knew that he had finally made it big.

All it took was five or so years of hustling and grinding.

“Are you sure I can’t come along?” Ransom asks after a few beats.

“Can you keep your cool?”

“Um… Maybe,” Ransom answers honestly.

Sighing, Peter shakes his head, “I’m sorry, Ransom, I can’t risk it. Can’t you just stay with the ship? I’ll come by to pick you up once we get our new ride. You can double check everything to make sure we’ve got all of our stuff out of the Night Sky.”

“But I never get to leave the ship!”

“You never keep your cool! When you’re constantly making a show of looking over your shoulder, people notice!”

“What if I promise not to?”

“Then you won’t be able to tell if someone’s following you. Trust me, we’ll be better off if you just stay here. Just this time! After this, we’ll be home free, and no one will ever have to know how we were able to buy our ship in the first place!”

“But—”

“Ransom, stay with the ship. You can talk to the passengers, play some of your games, anything. Just stay here. We don’t want a repeat of last time.”

“That was a one off—”

“It’s happened several dozen times,” Peter interrupts. Taking a steadying breath, he tried to be as kind as he can as he says, “You can wander to your heart’s desire next time, for now, I’m going this alone and you’re staying with the ship.”

Ransom frowns and he crosses his arms. Letting out a pitiful groan, he relents, “Fine.”

“Thank you,” Peter nods to the man.

Smiling, Peter then looks back over the concourse that is stretched out before him, and he looks at all the people. Unlike a lot of the other planets that they visited on the Alexandrian side of the galaxy, most of the people here are all human. A few small groups of aliens are making their way around the landing area, but it is anything but representative of the number of aliens in the galaxy. Sighing, he shakes his head and wishes that things were different here. He wished that the Coalition would fall already, and everyone could be free once more.

A few moments pass and Peter realizes that his smiles had long since disappeared. Now he is just about searing, and he can’t help but notice that he is looking at the nearest group of Coalition soldiers with his hand on his hip where his concealed weapon is.

“And who’s the one who can’t keep their cool?” Ransom asks unhelpfully after a beat.

“Yeah, yeah,” Peter waves him off. Shaking his head, he quickly pats down his clothes to ensure that he still has all the baggies of gold and sighs in relief. Closing his eyes, he thinks, They’re all still here. We’ll all be able to get out of here soon.

Taking one last breath, Peter begins walking down the ramp of the Night Sky and he stops in front of the Coalition soldiers who were waiting for him.

“Peter Petrova?” the sole officer in the squad nearest Peter inquires.

Nodding, Peter answers, “Yes, sir, that’s me.”

The officer looks up from the paperwork they are holding, and he grimaces ever so slightly. Shaking his head, he then looks at the rest of his team and whispers a few things to one of them.

Feeling uneasy, Peter gets ready to draw his weapon and shoot his way out of things. It wouldn’t be the first time that he had to shoot people at this close of a range, however he always wished that things were this up close and personal. There was something about looking someone in the eyes when he killed someone that hurt more than when he shot at them from afar.

What hurt Peter even more was being the one who shot first. There were always the questions of who could have been spared, if the person he shot was a threat, and so many other things.

But that was the price that Peter paid every day in order to get as many people as he could out of Coalition space.

He was a smuggler, sure, but his cargo wasn’t drugs like so many others. He moved people. Not slaves, but refugees who hoped to get out from under the boot of the Coalition.

Whenever the opportunity arose, he helped people out and moved select cargoes as well, but that wasn’t his focus. He was here to spirit people away to a freer life.

“Mister Petrova, I don’t want you to make a scene, so please listen carefully,” the officer says after a short while of speaking to one of their soldiers, “We know who you are, and you’ve been flagged to be arrested. However, we aren’t about to do that.”

Peter swallows and he loosens up slightly. There was something different about these people. Cocking his head, Peter asks, “What are you getting at?”

The officer that had been doing all the talking takes a slow breath and then nods to one of their soldiers.

Peter looks to the soldier and curiously asks, “What’s happening here?”

The soldier’s eyes dart around, and they slowly answer, “You saved my family a few months back. You smuggled in some medicines to our town and that saved my family and a lot of people I know. Thank you.”

Unsure what to do, Peter remains still and silent. He had never been thanked for his work by anyone in Coalition Space. Up until now, the only people who got the chance to thank him like this were those he snuck across to the Alexandrian side of the galaxy.

“Not only that, but some of us have family that you’ve snuck out of here,” the officer continues, “Plus you’ve brought our people things in the past.”

Peter shakes his head, “I don’t get it, what’s going on here? Aren’t you guys with the Coalition?”

The officer chuckles and shakes his head, “Clearly you don’t get how things work on Allegra! We’re our own people, we just tolerate the Coalition’s presence.”

“And that leads us to a little something else…” one of the soldiers whispers, “We need your help.”

Peter cocks his head and eyes the soldiers. He can tell that they are being honest and straightforward about everything, but he wasn’t used to that. Every other planet that he had been to the soldiers seemed intent on finding and killing him. Now, after all these years of running, Peter is standing in front of people in the same uniforms as those who sought to kill him, and he doesn’t feel like running.

He isn’t sure if this is some sort of elaborate trap or if his instincts about the soldiers are true, but he chooses to remain still, waiting for whatever was to come next.

“We need you to transport something for us,” the officer says under their breath, “A lot of something, actually.”

Peter opts to sound skeptical in order to further feel things out, “Seems awfully convenient that you need me to do it, out of all people.”

The officer chuckles and shakes their head, “Well, we weren’t waiting on you to do it. Believe it or not, we were planning on going AWOL to move this stuff, but it’d make our lives a lot easier if you were the one who transported it instead. It would really help us, and our cause if you did.”

“And what ‘cause’ is that?” Peter asks, his curiosity getting the best of him momentarily.

“The Allegrian militia needs food, munitions, and supplies,” the officer answers, “We’ve got access to the warehouse that has everything we need, and we’ve got everything ready to move too. All we needed was the chance to steal a ship and fly it out to the—ah—the compound.”

“Allegrian militia?” Peter rakes his memory for mentions of such a militia, but he comes up wanting. All he can remember for sure is that the militia on this planet is loosely affiliated with the broader Resistance movement.

“Yes, can you help us?” the officer pleads, “If you do it, then we could stay here and maintain our cover a lot easier—”

“What will I be transporting specifically?” Peter interrupts, “And what will it be used for?”

The officer shifts from one foot to the other as they carefully answer, “Weapons, munitions, food, and medicine. Maybe a few pallets of other supplies too, depending on what our latest batch of instructions say.”

“And what will they be used for?” Peter repeats his question.

“On the war effort,”

“What war?”

“The rebellion?”

“Last I heard, Allegra isn’t in the middle of a rebellion.”

“Oh, you just landed, right,” the officer chuckles and nods, “My apologies. Well… the militia is gearing up for a rebellion and…” the officer takes a few steps closer, and he lowers his voice, “And there’s an alien invasion that is about to begin as well. For all we know, they might already be here.”

“I haven’t heard anything about an—”

“Please!” the officer interrupts, “I know this all sounds impossible, but it’s the truth!”

Peter looks the officer in the eyes, and he can’t tell for sure if the man is being honest or not. All he can tell for sure is that the matter is important.

“We’ve heard stories about some of your runs,” one of the soldiers speaks up, “We know that you can make this one a lot easier than any of us ever could. For all we know, we’d end up getting ourselves killed if we tried.”

“And we’ve all got families to go home to,” the officer adds, “I know it’s a lot to ask you to risk your life for us, but as Hemmings said, you’ve got a better chance than any of us.”

Peter swallows and he makes his decision. Looking the soldiers in their eyes, he says, “I’m in, but I’ve got a hold full of refugees here. I can’t risk them.”

“Oh,” the officer’s eyes drop, “I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”

“But I was hoping to get a new ship… I guess I could break it in with a quick run for all of you.”

The officer looks up, a spark in his eyes, “Really? You’d do that for us?”

Peter chuckles and he looks out over the crowd of people all around them, “You and I both know that this is a whole lot bigger than either you or me. I’m doing this for everyone.”

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Distant Prospects

Jutland Mountain, Gade-Grand

I get a whole planet to more or less myself and I still can’t find anything, Soren Grand thinks to himself with a soft chuckle. Shaking his head, he looks down at the old gold pan in his hands.

The pan, like a lot of the things that Soren owned, came from those who came before him. His boots came from his father. His grandfather was the one who first wore his watch. The gold pan? That came from some great grandfather back quite a few generations. It is one of the steel pans that were used in the American West back four hundred or so years.

But, if Soren learned anything from his family, it was that things lasted a whole lot longer when they were treated well.

Sighing, Soren looks past his pan at his bare feet. In the effort to help his boots, he never wore them in the water. Turning to his left, Soren confirms that the boots are still laying on a boulder along the side of the river right beside his balled up woolen socks.

“Maybe it’s high time my family found a new line of work,” Soren mutters to himself as he looks back at his pan and continues swirling around the materials in his pan.

Through all the generations, his family had likely gathered no more than a few kilos of gold.

That much gold might sound like a lot to someone who didn’t know much about gold prospecting but stretched over nearly half a millennium and that figure seemed quite depressing.

At this point, Soren can’t help but feel like his family continued their prospecting out of nothing but spite.

Either that, or they knew that it was impossible to try forever and come up with absolutely nothing this long.

At some point, something would have to give. Either there wouldn’t be an heir to the Grand family, or they would strike it rich. There was no in between.

So, they waited.

For generations.

And generations.

Sure, they found some gold, but any oaf who tried their hand at prospecting could find gold. Everyone knows that there’s gold everywhere.

The only trouble is finding a place that has enough gold to make it worthwhile to invest your whole life digging.

“Please, God, let me be the one,” Soren whispers a prayer as he walks off some of the larger and lighter stones out of his pan, “If you let me be the one, I’ll do anything. I’ll build hospitals. Churches. I’ll pay for a cathedral to be built! Just give me this!”

A few more seconds pass and Soren is walking off the final bit of ‘blondes’, as prospectors called them. Most people would just acknowledge this sand as light brown.

Walking back to the shore of the river he is on with the remaining black sands that he had been panning out, Soren purses his lips and offers up a few more pleading prayers. And, when those prayers finish out, he squats down in a spot on the river where the water is a little calmer.

Taking his time, he swirls the materials around in his pan, he taps away at the pan’s sides and top, and he eventually looks at the results of his work.

Three ‘colors’.

Three? Really? Is this some kind of joke? Soren thinks bitterly as he carefully gathers his very meagre findings. Even though it wasn’t much, Soren knew enough to save everything he could get his hands on.

Everything added up to something.

Eventually.

Shaking his head, Soren quickly pans through the concentrates in his pan once more and he finds one more flake of gold and a speck of silver as well.

Shaking his head, he rinses out his pan and tosses it to the shore.

Chuckling, Soren looks up at the sky and lets out a joking prayer, “Well, I guess that’s a hard no, then. Huh, God?”

Smirking, Soren shakes his head and looks back own to his feet. If it weren’t for everything else that he had been through in life, he would have given up on a lot of things by now.

The colonizing of this planet.

His little homestead.

His long-distance relationship with his sweetheart back home.

His prospecting.

His God.

If it weren’t for what he had already seen, heard, and felt, he wouldn’t have anything to live for.

“I know, I know, keep going,” Soren nods along as he feels a little God-nudge. That same nudge had saved his life on more than one occasion, and it had guided him to this particular world when he was given the opportunity to colonize a planet for the Dawn Royals.

Soren starts walking back to his boots when he freezes.

Something, namely that God-nudge that he had grown used to, was making him second guess quitting on this particular spot.

Looking around, Soren rakes his memory for any reason why this spot might look familiar.

Anything.

A good three minutes pass before an inkling of a memory of a vision from decades ago comes to the surface. The memory is foggy from its age, but it seems to fit this particular scene.

The only issue is that there was a mineshaft in the vision.

A mineshaft located right near where Soren had tossed his pan.

His brows furrowed, Soren carefully picks his way over the boulders in the river over to where the pan had landed. As he makes his way over, he takes in the stones around him.

As far as he can tell, there is nothing about the geology that should indicate that there is gold, or anything else, in the mountainside he is approaching, but he had been surprised many times before.

Shrugging, Soren reminds himself that he had very little to lose at this point.

So what if he wasted a month poking around at a potentially barren rock? He had already wasted at least a year and had all of a few dozen grams of gold to show for it. This river was the best producing one he had come across to date.

Swallowing, Soren reaches the beach of the river, and he removes his hat. Something about everything around him made him feel like it wasn’t proper to wear a hat here.

Running a wet hand through his greasy hair, Soren lets out a long, low whistle.

“Well, there’s no use standing here, might as well figure out what’s the big deal,” Soren says, reminding himself of why he was here. Approaching his pan, he continues scanning the stones for any signs of anything of value.

Nothing, as per the usual, Soren thinks.

When people heard about his intention to search for gold on this planet, they mocked him. Those that knew his family’s history were some of the harshest mockers.

They all told him that he wouldn’t find gold.

Those who didn’t know him told him that there wasn’t any gold here based upon charts, maps, and old data about where gold-bearing asteroids had crashed.

Those who knew him reminded him of his track record.

But the shining star through all of this was his special little lady back home.

She reminded him time and time again that King David from the Bible had never seen a victory against a giant before he faced Goliath. She reminded him that King David was the least cut out to do the job and that people doubted him.

And then David went out and made history.

Looking up at the sky once more, Soren whispers the same prayer he had offered up several times every day since he had arrived here, “Let’s make history, God.”

Bending down, Soren picks up his pan.

And there is a grand total of nothing beneath it.

Dropping to his haunches, Soren shakes his head and continues his prayer, “I don’t get it. I really don’t get it.”

Letting out a disgruntled sigh, he lays down and looks up the sheer cliff that his pan had landed at the base of.

Still shaking his head, his eyes eventually lock onto a tree.

The tree, like most of the vegetation on this world, is young. Nothing on the planet is older than maybe fifteen years, which was around when the seeders and spreadships that the Dawns sent out arrived in this system to try and make the planets around here more hospitable to humans.

However, what is sticking out to Soren about the tree isn’t its age.

It’s the fact that it is hanging precariously to the cliff’s face. All that Soren can see holding it up is a handful of slim roots, none larger than his finger or thumb.

There is an outcropping of stone hanging over most of the roots, which Soren notes must block out a lot of the rainwater that the tree might hope to ever receive.

And yet, somehow, the tree hung in there.

It persisted.

It stuck to the dream of living its life in the place where it was planted.

As Soren looks at the tree, he begins to wonder where it got its water, since the stone outcropping clearly blocked the rains. As he wonders, Soren’s eyes look back to the roots and he sees a slight glimmer.

Narrowing his eyes, Soren sees that there is a tiny spring of water that is burbling out of the cliff’s face providing water for the tree.

“Almost like that stream exists entirely for that tree,” Soren mutters with a soft chuckle. Looking back up to the heavens, he whispers, “Well, where’s my stream? Where’s the little crack that You set up just for me?” As those thoughts pass through Soren’s mind, he briefly recalls a scripture that said outright that if God took care of animals and plants then He’d take care of people. Rolling his eyes, Soren tries to convince himself that this was a sign that he’d find his gold.

Eventually, at least.

As if on cue, Soren’s little God-nudge speaks up and instructs him to walk over to where the tiny rivulet from the tree’s stream meets the base of the mountain. Looking at the bushes at the base of the stone face, he briefly considers ignoring the thought, but he eventually relents.

Shrugging, Soren thinks, What do I have to lose? No one’s watching me anyways.

Soren spends the next half hour chopping through and removing the bushes and he stops once he can see the damp area from the stream.

Sitting squarely at the base of it is a small, polished nugget of gold.

A nugget that wouldn’t be quite so dazzling were it not for the years of the water gently rolling over it.

Smirking, Soren can’t help but say, “Alright, I get it. I complain too much. But really? A nugget? That’s not about to cover any bills.”

Shrugging one more time, Soren crouches down and he grabs the nugget.

And he proceeds to tip over when he gives it a tug.

Surprised, Soren scrambles back to his feet and he clears a few stones from around the nugget.

Then a few more stones.

Then a few large rocks.

And some sand.

All the while, the gently flowing stream from about him washes the gold nugget clean, reminding Soren oh so vividly of what he was working for.

With every handful of gravel and rocks, the nugget seems to grow. Already it is many times larger and heavier than all the gold his family had ever dug up.

After an hour or so of digging, Soren’s stomach growls and his hunger pulls him away from his work. He mechanically reaches into his jacket, and he pulls out his bag of jerky. Reaching into the bag, he quickly rips it back out and he peers into it, looking for whatever had bitten him.

Confused when he doesn’t see anything other than blood, Soren looks down to his fingertips.

Staring back at him are some mangled fingers without fingernails.

In all of his excitement, he had gotten ahead of himself and gotten hurt in to process.

Chuckling, Soren reminds himself that he had forgotten to thank God for all of this as well.

Dropping to a kneeling position, Soren looks up to the sky once more and he offers God a sly smile, “So, what kind of cathedral you want me to build You, then?”

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A Bootleg Christmas

*Author Note: This is a prequel/Christmas Short Story to the story: The Invasion of Allegra which is in Kindle Vella*

Watchtower XXIV, Deep Space

25 December, 2283 – 00.04

“Fahy!” Vansen whispers through the door that she had just barely cracked open.

Yawning, Fahy rolls onto his side and looks at the light that is streaming in through the crack from the bright hallway outside of his cabin. Rubbing his eyes, he asks, “Yeah?”

“Can we come in?” Vansen requests, “It’s just Boris, Fagan, and I.”

Nodding slowly, Fahy thinks about what Vansen was asking. A few beats pass and he can’t come up with any ideas. Confused, he finally says, “Yeah. Why?”

The door slides the rest of the way open, and Vansen, Fagan, and Boris slip in silently. Once they’re both in, Vansen taps on the console beside the door, and it whooshes shut. She taps in a few things on the console before she smiles and excitedly says, “It’s Christmas!”

“Christmas?” Fahy rubs his eyes tiredly, “Already?”

“Yes already!” Vansen sounds happily as she quietly claps her hands.

“She’s a little too happy about all this,” Boris chuckles.

Vansen gives Boris a playful scowl before she responds, “It’s a bit of a big deal!”

“We know,” Fagan smiles, “We all know.”

“Well, it’s a bit of a bummer since we’re not allowed to celebrate right,” Vansen sighs.

Fagan shrugs, “Doesn’t matter what’s allowed or not so long as we’ve got each other.”

Vansen smiles and nods at Fagan, “Exactly!”

“So, how are we celebrating?” Fahy asks as he swings his legs out of his bed and straightens out a few things that are in reach.

“Well…” Vansen slowly looks around before she answers, “I sort of smuggled in some gifts for all of us. I made a few things too.”

“I made a few things too,” Fagan smiles, “Been sneaking down to the maintenance area to get a chance to make things.”

“Me too,” Boris smiles. Chuckling, he adds, “Fagan and I had to hide our projects from one another.”

“D—did you get something?” Vansen asks after a few beats.

Smiling, Fahy pulls out a few small boxes. In them, there are the things that he had been slaving away at for the past few months for his team.

“I thought you’d remember!” Vansen squeals happily as she grabs the box with her name on it.

Smiling, Fahy hands out the other two boxes as he asks Vansen, “How’d you manage to smuggle in gifts?”

A twinkle in her eye, Vansen answers, “I have my ways.”

“Mysterious as always,” Fagan chuckles, “From what I heard, there were some people who owed her some favors.”

Vansen lets out a loud laugh, “That makes it sound so much easier than it was. You’ve got no idea.”

Nodding, Fahy chimes in, “I’m sure it was hard—there’s a reason why none of us were able to smuggle anything in!”

“It really was,” Vansen nods along slowly, “Well, are we ready to start opening them?”

“Let’s,” Fagan smiles, “Who first?”

“Oh, we’re taking turns?” Boris asks, his first present already halfway unwrapped.

Vansen chuckles, “Of course, we are civilized, after all!”

Smirking, Fagan says, “Well, Christmas is here to celebrate Jesus and he said whoever is first will be last so… Boris, I guess you’re up!”

“Ha, ha, very funny,” Boris lets out a very sarcastic laugh before he turns his attention back to his gift from Fahy. A few moments later and Boris is poking at the small machine that Fahy had made for him.

“It’s a little farmer!” Fahy explains as he points out the small mechanism which is working slowly, “See how it’s using that thing like a hoe on the dirt? I thought it’d remind you of home!”

Boris chuckles and smiles slightly, “It does, that’s super neat. Thanks.”

“Alright, now I’m curious!” Vansen blurts out as she rips open her gift from Fahy. Once it’s open, she examines it and smiles, “It’s a cow!”

“Just like the ones on your ranch, right?” Fahy asks, his heart in his throat as he hopes that she likes it.

Vansen looks up from the cow after a few beats and assures him, “It’s awesome, thank you, Fahy!”

“Good, I’m glad you like it,” Fahy smiles back as he lets out a very quiet sigh.

Everyone else opens their various gifts and each gift is very well received. After a long while, Fahy is holding the very last gift.

“Well, you’re finishing things off, Fahy,” Vansen notes, “Hope you like it.”

Looking at the gift, Fahy briefly wonders what Vansen was able to make and what she could have smuggled all the way out to their Watchtower. The small, wrapped box isn’t large, but Fahy had suspected that it was impossible to smuggle anything larger than that out here.

“Well, are you going to open it?” Boris asks.

Nodding slowly, Fahy proceeds to begin unwrapping the gift. When he finishes, he sees that there are two boxes.

When Fahy hesitates, Vansen speaks up again, “The one on top is what I smuggled in, the one on the bottom is the one I made.”

Letting out a long sigh, Fahy stops and says, “Thank you all for this. As much as I’d like to be back at home with my family for Christmas, you all made this Christmas something special.”

“Oh, you can’t go and say that before you open your present!” Vansen laughs, “And besides, we haven’t even finished the party! Things are just getting started.”

Smiling slightly, Fahy presses his point, “All the same, you guys are the best. I hope we can keep doing this when this is all over—”

“You mean when we’re not in the middle of a deathly cold vacuum that could kill us and that the only thing keeping us alive is this little tin can?” Boris cuts in.

Fahy chuckles, “Yeah, I guess so.”

“I don’t know if I’d like to stick around with you weirdos if I don’t have to,” Boris says sarcastically.

Vansen elbows Boris and then looks around. Smiling, she lets her head lull to the side slightly and she sighs, “I’d like that. You all are something else, and I think my family would love you all too.”

“Mine too,” Fagan chirps.

“Same here,” Fahy smiles, “Let’s just hope that we can get home sooner rather than later so we don’t have to spend another Christmas way out here.”

“And so I don’t have to go through so many hoops trying to get you all gifts!” Vansen adds with a laugh, “I mean, you guys are great and all, but sheesh!”

“And so I can just buy you guys your gifts,” Boris teases. Holding up a hand, he points out a few burns, “You have no idea how much of a struggle it was to make all your things.”

Fahy laughs and nods, “I think it would all be a lot easier back home. A lot less people to try and sneak things by that way too.”

Shaking her head, Vansen scoffs, “You guys don’t even understand how much of a struggle it was to make it through all the trainings and whatnot they forced me through to become an officer. If I stuck to the rules like I’m supposed to, we’d all be stuck in the brig for this.”

“And we’d be dead not long after that,” Fahy adds the grim caveat that they all knew was the truth.

“And we’d be dead,” Vansen echoes in agreement.

“Well, open your thing already, Fahy!” Boris urges, “I’m ready for our Christmas dinner!”

“Christmas dinner?” Fahy asks, his ears perking up.

“Oh, unwrap it already!” Vansen laughs, “Stop getting distracted.”

Chuckling, Fahy shrugs, admitting defeat at long last. He was, in fact, stalling and he knew it.

Turning his attention back to the present, he gently unwraps the bottom box.

“It’s a miner!” Vansen tells him, “I know it’s just a figurine and can’t move like yours do, but—”

“It’s awesome,” Fahy cuts Vansen off, “I love it.”

Fahy is slowly turning the piece over in his hand as he admires Vansen’s work. Sure enough, the figurine is a very well done miner and they are in the middle of swinging a pickaxe. Fahy knew full well that Vansen likely spent just as long as he did, if not longer, making this present. He also knew that she must have spent a lot of time coming up with something that would be the perfect gift for someone like him who spent so much of his life belowground working the various mines around his home on Allegra.

“The second gift—the one I smuggled in—is the other part to this one,” Vansen explains, “Go on, open it!”

Nodding obediently, Fahy opens up the next gift and is greeted by the sight of a chunk of iron pyrite.

“It’s fool’s gold!” Vansen pipes up.

Chuckling, Fahy rolls the piece of metal between his fingers as he recalls the story that Vansen had likely used as inspiration for this gift. That story, as Fahy had told it, had taken place maybe ten years before. Fahy had been working an abandoned part of one of the mines he worked in an effort to find something worthwhile to make a name for himself and hopefully breathe some new life into his town’s mine which had been struggling as the ore dried up. As he had been digging, he found some iron pyrite and was convinced it was gold. After running through town and making a complete fool of himself, Fahy had been informed that his discovery was nothing more than fool’s gold and that he was the fool.

“Just like your story,” Vansen continues, confirming Fahy’s suspicion.

Smiling, Fahy looks up at Vansen and says, “Thanks, Vansen, this is great.”

Vansen takes the two gifts from Fahy and then puts them together so that the miner figure is preparing to strike the lump of fool’s gold instead of empty space. Handing it back, she smiles and nods, “I’m glad you like it.”

“Well, with that out of thee way, that means it’s time for some chow!” Boris announces as he sets his presents aside and pulls out his bag.

“I guess it is,” Vansen nods as she pulls her own bag out and starts laying out small bags of food, “I had to pull some strings for these too.”

Smiling, Fahy takes a bag that Vansen hands him and he does his best to help finish laying out their little Christmas meal.

When the meal is all set up, Vansen looks out the window behind Fahy and sighs, “Despite everything else, we sure have a lot to be thankful for too. I mean, just look at that view.”

Turning, Fahy sees that they are looking over the whole of the Milky Way.

“Yeah, that’s a view alright,” Boris nods, “Makes me think about how small everything is in the grand scheme of things.”

“Come on, guys, let’s eat,” Vansen says after a few moments.

Turning back to Vansen, Fahy smiles and nods in agreement, “Let’s.”

“Prayers first,” Vansen reminds everyone as she stretches out her hands.

Taking Vansen’s hand, Fahy nods, “Prayers first.”

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Caleb Fast

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The New Falklands Breeze

New Falkland Islands, Islas de Ligera

Santiago Pueblo wrinkles his nose trying to dissuade what his tired mind thinks is some unseen fly from landing. He continues doing so for several moments before he finally opens his eyes to see what is going on. As he does so, he realizes that a stray blade of grass had been picked up in the early morning breeze and had been fluttering in his face.

Shaking his head, Santiago chuckles and he looks out over the ocean that is spread out before him like a vast holiday meal.

It was all his for as far as he could see.

Or at least that’s what he had been told when he joined the first expedition to Islas de Ligera to colonize the planet. Only time would tell if the Dawn royals would make good on their promises to the first colonists. Such generous tracts of land and sea seemed like something they could easily take away, especially when they were the ones financing so much of the endeavors.

Maybe a hundred meters from the coastline of Santiago’s little island, a few large fish leap from the water. A cloud of trumpet fish seem to skip across the gentle waves like well thrown stones.

Santiago shakes his head once more as he considers how much care went into transporting these fish, and so many other species of fish, wildlife, and plants all this way. The cost of shipping all of his worldly belongings just a couple of lightyears took two years of saving, to think that the Dawns could send such massive colony ships the 2.6 or so million lightyears all the way to Islas de Ligera seemed impossible.

And yet they managed to do it.

And they allowed whoever wanted a free ticket to come along for the ride.

Sure, there were plenty of rules and stipulations, but it was still a generous offer when they were the ones paying for it all.

‘Keep an eye out for anything,’ was the ominous warning that was repeated to colonists time and time again on the voyage over here.

Looking out to the horizon, Santiago smiles and lets out a lighthearted chuckle, “Keep ‘n eye ou’ for what? There ain’t ‘nythin’ out ‘ere!”

Shaking his head, Santiago walks over to a nearby tree, and he drops back to the ground so he can watch the deep red sun rise over the horizon. There were warnings about this particular star being on its last leg, but the experts assured Santiago and all the other colonists who settled this system that there were still at least ten thousand years left to the star’s lifespan, and probably a lot more. Regardless of how much time was left, Santiago and the other colonists who settled this system were promised one hundred years of more or less unfettered rights to their claims. After that, it all depended on how the red sun looked to the scientists. If they thought it would last longer, then Santiago knew that his family would be allowed to remain for much more time. And, if the sun looked like it would give out, then the Dawn royals assured him that another location would be provided far from here.

The thoughts about his family make Santiago smile, and he looks over his shoulder at the home that he had picked out back on Gethsemane, the Dawn clan’s seat of power. This particular home was built on stilts, and Santiago felt like any building built near any body of water belonged on stilts. Having grown up on a swampy planet, he learned just how destructive water could be and how much tides could rise and fall. With that, and the knowledge of the planet that he was heading to in mind, Santiago made his decision, and he can’t help but feel proud of it to this day.

Sure, there had yet to be any flooding, but Santiago knew that he’d be ready should it ever come.

Stilling looking toward his home, Santiago looks to the window of his own bedroom, where he had left his wife, Grace, the night before. Smirking, he shakes his head yet again as he thinks about how territorial the woman got of the bed every time that she was a few months from giving birth. Rather than fight it, Santiago simply surrendered his spot and slept outside. He enjoyed the warm, salty breeze from the ocean. The semi-sweet scent that the early morning winds brought in from far away always energized him and made him feel like a new man.

Taking a deep breath, Santiago savors the smell of the breeze. He had chosen this particular island to be his own for many reasons; the main reason was that it was on the windward side of the New Falkland Archipelago. Having grown up downwind of a swamp, Santiago felt like he needed to be guaranteed fresh air for the rest of his days. Thus far, this planet had more than provided that.

Santiago’s eyes drop from where his wife sleeps to the window below, where his three-year-old son, Quin, and six-year-old daughter, Sariah, shared a room. Ever since Quin had been born, Sariah hadn’t let him out of her sight. Smiling, Santiago reminds himself that Quin was in very good hands should anything ever happen to him.

Life is good, Santiago continues smiling as he turns back to the waves that are moving a lot like the seas of tall grasses in the fields that stood between the home he grew up in and the swamps.

Santiago had always enjoyed watching the grasses sway in the early morning breeze back then, even though the breeze brought the smell of rot in from the swamps. His mother had always scolded him for leaving windows and doors open and letting the stink in as he watched, but he couldn’t help it. Every sunrise deserved to be watched. Every aspect of the earl morning held a beauty that few others ever got to see.

Looking to the horizon once more, Santiago can see the reddish-brown bruises and golden ribbons that paint the sky in the final moments before the sun finally broke over the horizon. Something Santiago always enjoyed was the suddenness of the sun rising. It just seemed so impossible that the sun, which seemed to take hours and hours to come close to the horizon could then pop up and be fully exposed in the span of ten minutes. Its teasing light would wake Santiago up at least an hour before most every sunrise as it illuminated the world below and chased away the stars that teased of a world anywhere other than here.

“Home,” Santiago whispers to himself, echoing the very first word that came to his mind when he first arrived on this island.

He knew that he had never been here before. He knew that the odds were against any living creature every touching the orangish-white sands of his beaches since the dawn of time. There was nothing about this place that could have possibly seemed like home to anyone else.

And yet, it called to Santiago.

Even in the arial photos called to him. Those photos were taken by unmanned drones from the spreadships that the Dawn royals had sent out ahead of the colonists to terraform planets. The photos themselves had no soul behind them to direct the cameras to things that would speak to people, as pictures taken by living and breathing photographers would, and yet, the pictures of this island spoke to Santiago’s soul.

The sun suddenly begins peeking out from the deep, deep blue ocean on the horizon. The sight of such a dark sun rising over such a dark sea always made Santiago shudder.

Behind him, the island’s sole bird begins chirping as the sun awakens it. It wasn’t often that the bird slept in this long, and Santiago can’t help but feel even more blessed that he was the only living creature here who had been able to watch the sun’s first moments in this new day.

“New days, new discoveries,” Santiago whispers to himself as he rises alongside the sun. Today, he would explore the undersea caves that he had stumbled upon yesterday with his underwater drone. New planets held plenty of secrets, and the Dawn royals paid handsomely for the best of these discoveries.

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Caleb Fast

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The World Beneath

The Black Forest, Allegra

“Listen, Horton, I don’t have all day,” Hreve snaps as he scowls at his companion. Horton had been stammering through the same complaint for the past three minutes and wasn’t showing any sign of finishing.

Horton huffs before he weakly says, “Well, I’m just saying that we shouldn’t wander all the way back here alone!”

Hreve ignores Horton and he continues deeper into the cave system that they had claimed as their apocalypse bunker upon the news of the alien invasion. Hreve didn’t know if the claims of the alien invasion were true or not, but he didn’t care. He was more than ready to fall off the grid and cease to exist as far as any governing officials were concerned. For that matter, he didn’t care if anyone else from the Thessalonian Shipbuilding Company knew if he was alive either.

In short, he needed a break. Any sort of excuse would do to get him out of Thessalonia.

Hreve chuckles as he thinks, And to believe it took an alien invasion to get me out of there. I wonder if it’s even legitimate, or if it’s even still going on…

Glancing back at Horton, Hreve’s brow furrows and he can’t help but ask, “How long have we been up here anyways?”

“Well over three weeks, I’d say.”

“Think they’ve beat back those aliens yet?”

“I still don’t know if the stories were true.”

“Well, I was hearing a few scattered words from someone on the radio we brought up here… whatever the story, there are other people up here too.”

“We could just be picking up some transmissions from somewhere else.”

“Not with the magnetic field around here.”

“What? Why?”

“Magnetic fields mess with radio waves, don’t they teach you framers anything?”

“They teach us to weld and rivet, that’s all you need to know to build a ship.”

Hreve shakes his head and sighs. I can’t believe they put idiots like Horton in charge of building my designs, he thinks in disgust, All it takes is one mistake on Horton’s side of things and I could be out of a job. Everyone at the shipyards could be!

Taking a few more steps, Hreve stops suddenly, and he shines his flashlight ahead. As was common in this network of caves, the tunnel splits off into a few different directions. That was nothing new, and Hreve had been following the ‘right-hand rule’ for most of this exploration trip.

What stood out this time, however, was that one of the tunnels was made of a different kind of material. Rather than be a dull grey, tan, or brown, this particular tunnel was almost black. In many ways, it reminded Hreve of an oxidized obsidian, just with a hint of green to its matted color.

Behind Hreve, Horton gasps, “I’ve never seen anything like that,”

That would be why I stopped, Hreve thinks with a slight chuckle. Something that he had always enjoyed about Horton’s company was how the man would voice his every thought. Sure, it could get annoying, but it would be funny more often than not. In this instance, Hreve managed to see the humor in things.

“It doesn’t look natural, how do you think it got here?” Hreve asks Horton. He didn’t expect an answer, but he was open to whatever idea the other man might offer. He approaches the odd tunnel and stops just a meter away from the nearest chunk of the greenish-black stone it was made of.

“Someone must have put it down here,”

Hreve nods in agreement, happy that Horton was thinking the same thing he was. Problem was, no one should have even been in this cave before them. It wasn’t on any maps—not even the bootlegged maps that Allegrian natives made of parts of the Black Forest. The mouth of the cave appeared to have been sealed off for centuries and was completely overgrown. A recent rockslide was the only reason Hreve had even been able to locate the tiny breach that he cleared away to allow everyone into the cave.

Reaching out, Hreve runs his finger along the cold stone face. It was several degrees cooler than the surrounding country rock, which he found strange. Just to confirm, he reaches out with his other hand and touches a piece of the natural grey stone that he was used to. He frowns when he notes that his initial impression was correct. Looking back once more, he asks, “But why would they go through all the work of building something down here?”

“There must’ve been something important down here.”

“Either that, or they wanted their own apocalypse bunker,”

“I don’t know… this doesn’t look like anything anyone we know would build. It looks…”

“Alien, I know.”

“But Allegra was uninhabited when it was settled,”

“That’s what they say.”

“You think that was a lie?”

“It could have been, or the alien race that lived here was extinct. Maybe they moved on when the water started drying up. I mean, if they were advanced enough to build with whatever this stuff is, then I’d guess they knew what to expect from a planet that was drying up.”

“Why not work to save the planet? That’s what the colonists did when they found Allegra.”

Hreve shrugs, “I don’t know, Horton. All I know is that we have to check this out.”

“I don’t know…”

“Haven’t you ever wanted to discover a lost race of aliens and be remembered forever for the discovery? We could be famous!”

“But you said you didn’t want anyone knowing about us,”

“That’s because we were nobodies back at home. With a discovery like this, we could be somebodies! You know what the Coalition does for somebodies?”

Horton’s stomach growls as if on cue, “I’d guess that they feed you at the very least.”

Hreve yearningly looks at the tunnel and smirks as his mind races with images of splendor and riches. He knew full well that this could just be the opportunity that got him and his family off this planet once and for all. With a find like this, he could get some cushy job in an office making records of this find for the rest of his life. No more risking his life to do something as monotonous as approving and improving the same old ship designs day in and day out. With a job like the one he was imagining; he could finally see the galaxy and not just the same few streets between his home and the shipyard.

Smiling wistfully, Hreve lets his friend in on his thoughts, “There would be a whole lot more than just food waiting for us… We could get out of the shipyards once and for all.”

“You know, some of us like our jobs.”

Chuckling, Hreve reminds Horton of their conversation yesterday, “You called your job a premature cancer ward and you said you were happy that you got away from it all.”

“Well, it’s fun when you’re not breathing in the welding fumes… Or cleaning up after someone’s mistakes… or—alright, I guess you’re right. I could use a new job.”

“Just imagine what they’d have us do after this…”

“Well… I think we’d spend a lot more time in caves. I don’t really like the sound of that.”

Hreve shrugs and he takes his first step into the darkened tunnel. When the world doesn’t suddenly explode or anything like that, he continues walking deeper into the cave. Turning back, he calls out, “Come on, let’s check this out. If you don’t like the job they offer you, then you don’t have to take it. All I know is that I’d rather explore caves and see something new every day than be stuck in that stuffy office at the shipyard.”

Horton hesitantly follows.

Hreve can’t help but notice that the dark, matted walls of the cave seemed to absorb all the light from his flashlight. While he still had enough light to continue deeper, he found himself squinting in an effort to see further. The limited light situation fortunately didn’t seem to phase Horton, either that or the man didn’t notice the change. Either way, Hreve was happy that Horton had stopped complaining.

At that, Hreve momentarily wonders if he might have lost Horton. He quickly looks back and sees that the man is in fact still behind him, and he continues ahead.

After a hundred meters or so, the tunnel begins dipping downward at a much sharper angle than it had been. Rather than be a five-degree slope like much of the cave, it is now dropping at about a thirty-degree slope, which makes it harder to stop and makes Hreve’s ankles ache. After maybe a hundred meters of that, the ground levels off and feels almost perfectly level, which Hreve finds odd. He is about to mention it but opts against it when Horton fails to say anything.

“It looks like the cave opens up ahead,” Horton notes as his faint flashlight beam shines ahead further than it had been.

Hreve nods slowly in response and he quickens his pace. He wanted to see if what he and Horton were seeing was true, something about the dark walls of the cave had made everything seem so tight that the thought of it opening up was both a surprise and a relief.

Stepping into a much wider section of the cave, Hreve stops once more, and he looks all around. This large cavern is about twenty meters tall and is easily three times that in length. As far as Hreve can tell, its ceiling is also a near-perfect semicircle, which he finds odd. In addition to being odd, it confirms his suspicions that the structure was in fact man-made—or more accurately, alien-made.

The walls of this cavern are made of the same dark material, but this stuff seems to have a slight glow, a glow that really highlights the geometric crystalline structure of whatever the walls were made of. Just to be sure, Hreve approaches the nearest bit of glowing wall, and he turns off his light. Horton seems to pick up on the idea and turns his off as well. A few moments pass before Hreve’s eyes adjust and he sees that the walls are in fact glowing ever so slightly.

“Weird,” Horton whispers.

“Yeah, very weird. I wish I brought our Geiger counter along, it’d be interesting to see if this stuff is radioactive.”

“Are we going to die? I mean, if all that smoke from welding didn’t get me, will this?”

“I don’t know… I wouldn’t think so though.”

“Why not? Doesn’t radioactive stuff glow?”

“Some does… but I don’t think this stuff is dangerous. The aliens wouldn’t have built with it if it was.”

“But they could have gone extinct from it.”

“That’s a possibility, but I don’t think it’s the case here.”

“I… I think I like it. It’s pretty.”

“I like it too,” Hreve agrees.

“I saw another tunnel at the far end of this room.”

Hreve nods slowly as he asks, “Think we should check it out?”

“We’ve come this far,” Horton answers.

Nodding still, Hreve grabs his flashlight and warns, “Lights on!”

Flicking on his light, Hreve squints against the bright light and he waits for his eyes to adjust. A few seconds pass before he feels confident enough to trudge on ahead to the far side of the cave.

“I was thinking,” Horton announces as they walk.

“What?”

“Do you think that these structures could be what’s causing the magnetic fields? Like, they’re weird anomalies, so they’d have to be made by something weird, right?”

“I don’t see why not,”

“Well, what are we going to call the aliens that made this thing then? I think it should have something to do with magnet in their name.”

“I don’t know about that—”

“How about Magnet-heads?”

“We don’t even know what their heads look like.”

“Field Layers? Magnet-ites? The Polarity?”

“The Polarity sounds pretty cool. A bit ominous, but cool.”

“I liked that one too.”

Hreve stops yet again, this time at the end of the large cavern that they had been in. He is looking through the cave ahead of them and he blinks a few times to confirm that he was in fact seeing what he thought he was. When that doesn’t help or change what he was seeing, he flicks his light off once again and Horton follows his lead.

Ahead of them, a faint light is shining from further down the tunnel.

“That can’t be daylight, right?” Horton asks after a few seconds.

“No… We’re way too far underground.”

“And we couldn’t have walked all the way under the mountain range… right?”

“Right…”

“Then… could it be lava?”

“It could be, I’ve never seen the stuff before though. Shouldn’t it be warmer in here if it was lava?”

“I don’t know… maybe these rocks don’t let heat move the same way.”

Hreve finds himself nodding uselessly in the dark and he also notices that his jaw had dropped. He quickly clamps his mouth back closed and he begins walking toward the light, this time without the aid of this flashlight. The light ahead of him and Horton appears to be almost aqua in color, which isn’t too unlike the sunlight on the surface, however, there still remained the issue of how far underground they were. There was no way that the light could be coming from the surface.

“I’m nervous,” Horton mumbles.

Again, Hreve just finds himself nodding along. His original thoughts of grand appearances and notoriety were gone now. All he could think about was just what could be ahead of him. He didn’t know if it was dangerous, if it was alive, or if it was nothing at all. All he knew was that it was something and that he had to find out what.

“I was thinking it could be some sort of light,” Horton rambles on, “Like, we’ve got our flashlights, maybe these aliens had lights too. Those glowing walls probably didn’t keep things bright enough for them, after all.”

“But how could it still be going all these years later?” Hreve asks, knowing that Horton wouldn’t know the answer.

“Alien tech. They’ve always got stuff we don’t. Just think about all the stuff that the Toaz had that we made use of—these aliens are bound to know some stuff too.”

Again, all Hreve can do is nod.

Horton continues babbling about everything that pops into his head for several minutes and Hreve allows it. There were better things to do than bicker, and on top of that, Hreve couldn’t muster his voice to say anything anyway.

Turning a corner, Hreve gasps when he sees a door that is being silhouetted by the aqua-colored light that is seeping through on all sides of it. Something about the presence of a door makes the entire situation seem somewhat normal and it makes the aliens—the Polarity as Horton named them—seem more human. No more were they some wispy civilization that may or may not exist, they were concrete and real—just like the door that is only a few meters away. In a way, Hreve thought that the presence of a door was funny, out of all technologies to find that humanity and the Polarity had in common, a door was not something that Hreve would have put on the list.

“Think it opens?” Horton asks suddenly.

“It’s got to,” Hreve answers as he boldly approaches the door. Stopping just in front of it, he begins feeling around for a door handle or a console beside the door or any other way to open it. He does so for a good minute before stepping back.

“Maybe it’s more simple than we’re thinking,” Horton offers as he steps forward for his own turn.

Hreve watches as Horton puts forth both his hands and rests his palms flat on the face of the door. Horton then takes a few deep breaths, the light from the door casting strange and eerie shadows off Horton’s body as he does so.

Then Horton suddenly presses on the door and it gives way, but not in the way Hreve expected.

Rather than swing one way or the other on some sort of hinge, the door glides into the area beyond in the same direction that Horton had pushed it. For a moment, Hreve is awestruck and confused, but his brain quickly catches up to the present and he realizes that the door was utilizing some sort of magnetism to work, a fact he found quite odd.

Horton stops pushing and he examines the door. Planting his hands on his hips, he happily exclaims, “Magnets!”

Hreve lets out a short laugh as he takes in Horton’s happiness, but he cuts his joy short when he realizes that he and Horton are both being bathed in the bright light that they had been pursuing. His eyes snap upward, toward the source of the light and he is greeted with what he can only describe as a massive screen at the top of the cavern he is in. The screen is at least a hundred meters above him and, if he isn’t mistaken, it appears to only be about fifty meters or so wide, which he found surprising. His eyes drop so he can take in the size of the cave that the screen is so easily illuminating when his heart skips a beat.

This was no empty cave.

It wasn’t filled with stalactites, or trash, or ruins, or anything that he had been expecting.

The floor of the massive cave is made up of gently rolling hills and a handful of valleys, all of which are spread across the huge five or so kilometer circle that the screen above Hreve is keeping bright. Scattered haphazardly along the hills and in the valleys are mostly small structures, buildings Hreve could only describe as hovels or huts.

However, those buildings were anything but primitive, like that description would imply. Rather than be built out of mud or brick, these structures are all built out of the same crystalline blackish stone. Roads made of the same material weave their way through the landscape, connecting all the buildings to each other and to the small assortment of larger structures.

“It’s like… it’s like some sort of vacation destination from the commercials!” Horton calls out joyously.

“Don’t!” Hreve grabs Horton’s shirt and stops the man from racing toward the nearest structure.

“And why not?” Horton demands, “This right here is everything we could have hoped to get from a discovery like this, and we can have it right now!”

Hreve shakes his head slowly. He isn’t sure why, but something didn’t seem right about all of this. As he shakes his head, he continues scanning the scene before him, and he begins noting the rusting hulks that are on the roads and scattered elsewhere as well. He sees that the pieces of machinery are more plentiful closer to one of the large structures, and he examines it more closely. After a few moments, he realizes that the structure appeared to be some sort of barracks.

Taking in a sharp breath, Hreve finally says, “I think this is some kind of military base.”

“Military? No way! Look at that over there! They’ve got a lake! There’s no way—”

“No! Look at those things out there! The ones with the rust. Those look like some kind of futuristic tanks to me! And look at these buildings here!” Hreve points at the nearby structures that seem like they would funnel anyone going through the door they had just entered through right to, “Tell me they don’t look like a checkpoint for people to check in before being let in.”

“But it’s so pretty!”

“Maybe that’s just how the Polarity builds their military bases.”

“But… why all the way down here?”

“I don’t know… maybe it was a bunker or something.”

“But aren’t bunkers supposed to house tons of people? This whole place,” Horton makes a big point of waving his hands around, “That’s a lot of work to just house a hundred or so houses!”

“I really don’t know,” Hreve sighs, “But I don’t like it. I know that much.”

“Well, are we going to look around at least?”

Nodding slowly, Hreve agrees, and he allows Horton to take the lead for a while.

Hreve and Horton make their way through the abandoned checkpoint, and Hreve can’t help but look inside. He stops long enough to poke his head through the open window and he takes in the sight of everything inside. He can see what appears to be a filing system of sorts for square, green crystalline plates. He can see what is clearly a chair sitting before what he believes is a computer, and beside that is something that he immediately recognizes as a rifle-like weapon.

Hreve makes a point of pointing out the rifle to Horton who simply shrugs and nods at the discovery before marching ahead.

Exiting the checkpoint area, Hreve immediately notes the green and red plants that make up the ground cover of the cave. The plants remind him of both moss and clovers at the same time, and he can’t help but wonder how the plant life hadn’t taken over the entire cave in the years since the area had been abandoned. Sure, there were some places where the plants encroached on the black road a bit, but they had yet to cover it completely.

Hreve continues following Horton for quite some time and he stops at the first of the rusting hulks that he is now certain are war machines. Horton continues on ahead, somehow unfazed by the machine.

Unwilling to part with the tank-like machine just yet, Hreve lets Horton leave and he begins circling around the machine. The machine is largely made up of the same blackish material that the alien race seemed oh so fond of, but there are parts of it that are made of what Hreve assumes is some sort of steel. The steel is where all the rust is coming from, and that rust has stained parts of the black material over the many years.

There aren’t any wheels or treads on this tank, and Hreve ascertains that it must use some sort of levitation to move along. The lower half of the tank appears to be just an armored carrier for whatever moved the machine, much like the tanks Hreve was accustomed to seeing the Coalition use. The upper half, much like a normal tank, was clearly the weapons platform where weapons that were a lot like the one in the checkpoint were pointing out every which way. There didn’t appear to be any front or rear to the upper portion of the tank, which just made it appear even more fearsome.

“Horton, I think we need to leave this place,” Hreve calls out to his traveling buddy as he quickly retreats from the tank. Something about all of the guns pointing out of it made it seem threatening and scary, even if it appeared to be very much dead.

“You can leave, I’m on vacation!” Horton calls back.

“Something happened here, man!” Hreve shouts, “I don’t think we should stay!”

“Whatever it is, it’s gone now,”

“You can’t know that.”

“It’s been forever since anything living was here.”

“We don’t know that,” Hreve starts. He is about to say more as he walks toward Horton, but he stops dead in his tracks. At his feet is something that he can only describe as a footprint. The print is easily a meter long and a little under half a meter wide and it appears to have been left behind by some sort of mechanization, based upon the sharp edges of the print. Not too far away, there is another print and then another and another. Judging by the state of the plants that had been crushed, the steps were not too terribly old.

“Horton…” Hreve says in a shaky voice, “I’m leaving right now, and you should too.”

“Just go already!” Horton snaps, “I’ll take all the credit for discovering the Polarity for myself!”

Hreve looks over to Horton and he feels a pang of anger, fear, and sadness as his friend threatens to cheat him. After so many years of working together and getting to know each other, Hreve expected more of the man. He had had Horton and his wife over several times over the years to have dinner with his own family, and here the man was threatening to throw all of that away.

Shaking his head, Hreve immediately thinks about what his father always said about how power always corrupts. People, no matter how good they once were, they always had a propensity to do horrible things in the name of gaining or maintaining power. That was one of the reasons why the Coalition had gotten so bad, or at least that’s what Hreve’s father said.

Before he can say anything else to Horton, Hreve sees something move on the crest of a hill in the distance.

A split second later, there is a flash and a beam of light.

Hreve’s eyes follow the beam and his heart stops for a moment when he sees a smoldering section of the green and red grass where Horton had been standing not long before. All that remained of the man is a few small scraps of clothing.

Somehow remembering the emergency drills from the shipyard, Hreve’s body immediately drops to the ground, just like he was trained to do in the event of explosions. While there hadn’t been an explosion, Hreve somehow instinctively knew that dropping to the ground would be his sole means of survival.

After a few seconds that seem to take hours, Hreve allows himself to look toward the distant hill where the flash had come from.

To his terror, there is something coming his way from that hill. It is walking in a soulless disjointed way that tells Hreve everything that he needed to know—the thing that killed Horton was a robot. Whatever it was, it had to of played some sort of role in this military bunker. It was a resident of this horrid underworld beneath the Black Forest.

Realizing that the machine hadn’t fired until it had a direct line of sight with Horton, Hreve concocts a plan: he would make his way back to the door he had come through whenever the machine was out of view.

Hreve immediately laughs at his plan, but he cuts his laughter short because he feared the robot would shoot at him if it saw his movement. A few seconds pass and Hreve’s thoughts return to the absurdity of his plan when he reasons that the robot hadn’t seen him. I’m literally about to play some psychotic version of red light green light to save my life, Hreve thinks, the craziness of it all bringing him far too close to laughing once more.

Before he can rethink his plan, the robot slips beneath the crest of another hill and out of sight. Without giving the order, Hreve’s body leaps up and begins sprinting back up the road. He was on autopilot, and he knew that his instincts were the only thing keeping him alive.

As he runs, Hreve looks back every few steps to ensure that the robot cannot see him. He gets a good three minutes of running in before he sees the glint of metal that the robot is made of, and he dives to the ground amidst some of the roadside plants.

The war machine is still stumbling along closer and closer to where Horton had been murdered. Whatever its agenda, the robot seemed intent on investigating the scene of the killing it had conducted.

Several painfully long minutes pass as the robot works its way down the hill and toward Horton and Hreve. As he waits for his next chance to run, Hreve realizes that he has to pee and a few tears stream down his face as he wills his body to ignore the urge for just a little while longer.

Before he has a chance to wet himself, the robot slips back out of sight, this time behind a building, and Hreve races closer to the door he and Horton had entered through an eternity ago. He gets to the checkpoint in time to see the robot emerging from the building that had come between it and Hreve, and Hreve dives through the open window into the room he had examined earlier.

Inside the building, Hreve takes several dozen unsteady breaths before he steadies his breathing to the point that he can calm down and think once more. As he thinks, his brain immediately jumps to the idea that there would be questions if he were to return without Horton. People could think that he murdered the man. He needed some sort of proof of what happened.

And at that, Hreve realizes that he jumped into the perfect place to take his proof. He reaches for the green plates, but he stops when he remembers just how badly he had to pee. Not wanting to risk his life to respond to the call of nature, he opts to pee inside of the checkpoint room he is in.

Finished with that, he then grabs a plate and the strange rifle as well. These two prizes in hand, he peeks out of the window just far enough to check on the robot. It is now standing over the charred earth where Horton had been standing not long before. Every now and then the machine takes an awkward step or two, but it seems like it has no idea what to do next.

And then it begins marching back the way it had come, just as suddenly as its showing up in the first place.

Hreve briefly considers making a run for it while the killing machine’s back is turned, but he can’t bring himself to risk it. He knew that he’d have a better opportunity as soon as it crested a hill.

He keeps repeating this line of thought for several minutes until the robot is finally out of sight. At that, he crawls back through the window, grabs his artifacts, and runs. He is several steps past the door he had entered through before he stops himself. He can’t help but feel like he had to shut the door. That he had to put the lip back onto Pandora’s box.

But, at the same time, he couldn’t help but feel like doing so would get himself killed.

Letting out a shaky, emotional groan that he is happy no one is around to hear, Hreve retreats, and he races away from the door, from the false paradise, and the killing mechanization. He doesn’t stop running until he steps out of the blackened tunnel and feels the familiar natural, cool stone underfoot.

Finally back on familiar ground, Hreve drops to his knees and he sets down the two pieces that he had taken as proof of what had occurred. With his hands now free, he drops down further, bowing to nothing in particular as he allows his emotions and thoughts to catch back up to him.

The terror that he had felt upon seeing the robot that killed Horton causes him to shake uncontrollably and he feels like his bones have been replaced with ice as the fear somehow reaches that deep into his being. The adrenaline that had kept him alive is easing up, and it is filling him with a pain that he can only describe as broken glass that is cutting at his insides. The excitement that he had originally felt is there as well, but it feels foreign and like it is an abomination. Any level of excitement right now felt like it was spitting on the grave of Horton.

Hreve isn’t sure just how long he had been sobbing on the ground by the time that he wakes up.

The ground beneath him is wet from his tears, and he can see several small streams of moisture that had found their way downhill from his face. As he looks at the wetted streambeds, he momentarily wonders how he could see in the dark. A moment later, his eyes find that he had somehow managed to bring his flashlight along and he had left it on as he sobbed and eventually fell asleep.

Swallowing, Hreve realizes that he hadn’t drunk anything for quite some time. He reaches for where his water had been but finds nothing. That is when he remembers that Horton had borrowed his canteen and had been carrying it when he was killed.

Swallowing once more, Hreve rises to his feet shakily. Bending down, he grabs the plate, the rifle, and his flashlight and he begins shuffling back toward where his family is near the mouth of the cave.

He didn’t know what he would do when he got back to them. He didn’t know what he could tell them. He didn’t know how to explain what happened.

All Hreve knew was that he had to get all of them out of this cave. Anywhere else would do. Even the open air would do. Better yet, Hreve thinks, Better yet, we can just get out of the Black Forest! Get away from all of this. Surely the alien invasion is over by now. Surely things are looking up out there.

Nodding resolutely, Hreve commits to the plan. He was going to get Horton and his families both out of here and far from that horrible cave.

Whatever the race of alien was that built that cave, they must have had no interest other than making war.

5 out of 5 stars (based on 1 review)

October 9, 2021

Interesting concept, well worth expanding.

Mike Blake

Caleb Fast

Check out his Author Bio!

The Pillars

Three Years Prior to The Battle for Allegra,

San Sebastian Copper Mine, Raudona Akiratis

“What are we looking at, Greer?” Francis Reedsburg asks one of his workmen who is currently chipping away at an odd protrusion in the stone face.

Joseph Greer looks up and shrugs, “Looks like some sort of… tower. I don’t know, boss, it’s weird.”

Chuckling, Reedsburg shakes his head, “It doesn’t look like much of a tower, old man.”

The elderly man shrugs once more and he resumes his chipping away at the surface.

Turning away from Greer, Reedsburg looks at the rest of his mining crew and he shrugs for them. They had been pulling strange things out of this mine for some time now, so it was surprising that anyone paid any attention to new finds. A few of them had taken up what they called archeology in their spare time and they collected the odds and ends that they found around the mine and in the mine dumps, but Reedsburg did everything in his power to discourage that now. For some reason everyone who started collecting the items began coming up with theories, each theory sounding crazier than the last.

But that wasn’t the issue. Theories didn’t hurt anyone.

What hurt was the fact that many of the so-called archeologists began quitting in droves, citing their theories as their reasons for leaving.

“Boss,” one of the workmen who is still standing at the crater left by the latest blasting calls out worriedly.

“Get back to work, everyone,” Reedsburg shouts out to those who are still milling about aimlessly, “This copper isn’t going to mine itself! We got quotas; I don’t want to remind you what the Coalition does when we miss quotas!”

“Boss!” the workman calls out once more.

Returning to the edge of the blast, Reedsburg snaps at the workman, “What is it?”

“It’s—it’s glowing!” the man stammers as he points into the hole.

“What do you mean it’s glowing?” Reedsburg asks, feeling like he had heard every excuse in the book from people who didn’t want to do the job that they had agreed to take.

Staring into the hole, Reedsburg stops and he realizes that his jaw had dropped slightly. Snapping his mouth closed once more, he scows at the man who had summoned him and demands, “So what? It’s probably just… it’s probably just got some trace levels of radiation or something. We’ll deal with it. Now get back to work, Willies.”

“Yes, sir,” the man nods before he bows out and starts back toward his dump truck.

Now alone at the edge, Reedsburg takes the time to take a good look at the obstruction. As far as he could tell, the object did look rather strange, which unfortunately gave credit to all of the lousy amateur archaeologists who kept abandoning everyone and forcing everyone to work longer hours.

What’s worse, the object’s deep, almost black color perfectly matched that of the various chunks and fragments that had been dug up repeatedly since the San Sebastian mine had been established. Those pieces just grew more and more common the deeper the mine got.

And now this, Reedsburg thinks with a huff. It was days like this that made him want to join all the others who were quitting as they strung together theories.

Shaking his head, Reedsburg allows his mind to wander toward some of the theories that the others had been creating. Some of their theories did seem to hold weight, but others seemed a little out there. The best theories always came from those who did the most research and the most work, some of the people had gone as far as to build labs in their homes to identify the compounds that the strange greenish obsidian-like fragments were made of and where they had come from.

Other theories relied on rumors and legends that were told by alien races and by people who had voyaged far beyond the furthest outreaches of human civilization. In Reedsburg’s eyes, these were not the most dependable of sources, but the similarities between those stories made him nervous. It wasn’t often that so many people who were supposed to be crazy all came up with the same sort of story.

And the most alarming part of those stories was the name they all threw around.

War Makers.

Of course, there were many iterations to the name, but the most prevalent was the War Makers. Most of the archaeologists took to calling the shards they found artifacts of the War Makers. It made for good stories, but it didn’t help the mine at meeting the Coalition’s strict quotas.

And now this, Reedsburg thinks as he looks one more time at the obelisk that Greer is still cleaning off. The thing’s sharp squared off edges and the random polygonal and triangular planes and outcroppings just made it look all the more otherworldly.

“That’s what worries me,” Reedsburg whispers to himself as he reaches into his pocket and rubs his thumb along one of the alien fragments that he had chosen to keep for himself. Pulling it out, he studies it closely and he also studies his foggy reflection, if he could even call it that. Frowning, he recalls all the findings of his archeologists.

They all said the pieces were alien. They all said that they were sure there was more down here and that they didn’t want to be around when it was unearthed.

“There’s—there’s another one I think,” Greer sounds from down in the hole.

Shaking his head, Reedsburg lets out a long sigh before he looks down at the oaf of a man and asks, “What are you talking about now?”

“Huh?” Greer asks as he looks up from the glowing outcropping. A couple of beats pass before he says, “Oh, yeah, um, well there’s another one of these things over there.” Greer points off deeper into the hole.

Sure enough, Reedsburg can see another spot glowing further into the hole. The glow is coming up out of the freshly made gravel left behind from the blast. As he looks at it, Greer can’t help but notice yet another glowing patch further on still. Frowning, he notes that each glowing area appears to be evenly spaced, something that was anything but natural.

Swallowing, Reedsburg realizes that he was on the edge of something that was going to be either one of the greatest discoveries of the century, or it was going to be Pandora’s Box and it would unleash something terrible.

The theories had to be true. Or, at least a few of them had to be. There was too much happening that had been predicted for the theories to all be false.

“Step back, Greer,” Reedsburg warns the old coot.

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Greer mumbles as he continues fiddling with the pillar.

Is it just me, or is that thing rising out of the ground? Reedsburg wonders as he eyes the glowing chunk of alien stone. The eerie green glow that it is giving off makes Reedsburg’s stomach ache and he momentarily wonders if the ache could be because of radiation.

He has to cut the thought short when the two pillars deeper in the hole break through the gravel ever so slowly. Sure enough, they were in fact rising.

“Get out of there, Greer!” Reedsburg shouts at the man. He is about to dive over the barricade that is set up around the lip of the crater, but he stops himself.

The pillars weren’t rising, the ground in the crater was falling.

And it was falling fast.

“No, this is my discovery,” Greer snaps as he reaches for the pillar one last time.

As if his luck had finally run out, Greer’s final touch seems to set off a chain of events that Reedsburg is immediately certain he would never be able to rehash properly when asked about them.

A bright flash illuminates the entire area of the massive kilometers-wide strip mine for a fraction of a fraction of a second. The light is a blinding white, but as it fades away, it becomes an iridescent green, much like the green stars in the neighboring systems.

Laying on the ground at least a dozen meters from the pillar is Greer’s body, which is smoking. The only identifying thing about the charred corpse is its uniform.

“Run!” Reedsburg shouts out loudly as he can as he spins on his heels.

Running away from the crater, Reedsburg realizes that he hadn’t heard his own shout and he begins repeating himself louder and louder. Every time, his ears fail to register the calls.

Flailing his hands like a madman, Reedsburg motions for everyone to run and, much to his relief, several of the miners do.

But most of the workforce bumble about aimlessly in a daze.

Racing toward one of thee nearest groups, Reedsburg shouts for them to move and, when they don’t, he begins shoving them toward the beaten gravel road that snaked its way around the massive mine all the way back to the surface world. While this escape wasn’t ideal, it was the only way out of the mine.

All Reedsburg knew at this moment was that he had to get out of here and he had to get as many other people as he could out as well.

The theories were right.

The War Makers were real, and they were waking up.

The next thing Reedsburg knew, he is running behind a surge of humanity. All his miners are racing toward the sole exit to the pit. It is at that moment that he realizes that there is a whole group of miners who are missing—the slaves. All the alien workers who the Coalition sent here to work until they died. Some of these aliens, Reedsburg was told, were royalty. Some were great leaders, inventors, artists, and so many other things back where they all came from. But, always keen to reduce every living being to the lowest point they could, the Coalition sent all these beings here to work as slaves.

Without another thought, Reedsburg skids to a stop, falling to the ground in the process. Spinning onto his front, he briefly remembers his time as a sprinter in the school he went to growing up. Summoning all the adrenaline he had, Reedsburg uses the loose gravel as a starting block as he sprints for all he is worth toward the caged off mineshafts where the slaves are held.

Running toward the caged shafts, Reedsburg can see all the alien beings clawing at the chain links that are holding them. They are yanking at the locked gates. He can see the fear in their eyes, their faces, and their actions all the way from over here.

They all knew that they would die here without a way out.

Reedsburg blinks and he finds himself at the first gate where he fumbles at the lock dumbly. He isn’t sure how he got here so quickly, but he chalks that up to a probable concussion, he had had one before, so he knew what it was like to black out for minutes at a time.

Still fumbling with the lock, Reedsburg realizes that he didn’t know the combination. He was the only one on the shift that was supposed to know it, but for some reason he couldn’t summon the memory. In all honesty, he couldn’t summon a lot of his memories right now.

As he fumbles with the lock, Reedsburg’s eyes rise to the aliens beyond the gate. They had retreated a few steps to allow him room to work, but the others are still tearing at the fence further away. It is in that moment that he realizes that everything he had been told about these aliens had to be a lie. They really were as human as he was.

Realizing that, he recalls all the things he had been told about the aliens from his miners who took the time to work with them. According to those men and women, these aliens all came from different planets the Coalition decided to war with and then enslave. These aliens came from both proud and humble races alike. Some were called Toaz, Dregg, and there were many others that Reedsburg couldn’t think of at the moment.

A few more precious seconds tick by when a thought hits Reedsburg. Reaching to his hip, he looses his pistol from his holster. The weapon had been given to him to keep the slaves in check, now he would use it to free them.

The slaves all see him pull out the gun and he can see an increased level of fear in their eyes. Part of Reedsburg feels dread at the thought of them fearing him more than whatever was going on in the crater, but he shoves those emotions down. He knew that he had never been cruel to them, it was the others who had been. He had always avoided the slaves because he despised the idea. But, he knew that in the aliens’ eyes, he was just another one of the oppressors.

Lining up his pistol to the padlock, Reedsburg lets off two rounds which pops the thing loose. The slaves do the rest of the job, and they swing the door wide.

When the first alien races out, Reedsburg can’t help but fear that they might turn on him, but they don’t. Instead, they race toward the escape route that everyone else is running up. Dozens of the now free slaves rush by and, before he had the chance to turn, one of the aliens stops in front of him.

The alien tries saying something, but Reedsburg motions that he can no longer hear. At that, the alien starts waving around and Reedsburg realizes that they are trying to convince him to save the others.

Nodding, Reedsburg does his best to assure the alien that that is exactly what he was intent on doing.

Turning, Reedsburg races over to the next caged off shaft and he gives it the same treatment as the first, but this time his newfound companion joins him.

This same thing happens three more times before it stops working.

And that’s when Reedsburg realizes that he had run out of ammo. What was worse was that he hadn’t packed any extra ammo today, he had never needed it.

Looking at the alien beside him, Reedsburg tries to communicate the predicament, but this seems to be a fruitless effort. Instead of pressing the issue, Reedsburg drops his weapon and he grabs a nearby chunk of metal which he uses to try and force the locked gate open.

If he was going to die, he would do so trying to save others.

Reedsburg knew that was the meaning of being a man—it was to put one’s life on the line for another. He had sworn an oath to himself and his God that he would do so, should the need arise.

Behind him, the black and green towers continue rumbling and the gravel that had buried them for so long continues receding. The glowing green continues lighting up the mine, more than making up for the lights which had been knocked out at some point.

This was his day. This was his hour.

There was no higher calling.

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Caleb Fast

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Voices from the Past

Taking a deep breath, Larkspur Bei Kynaston stepped through the portal. A flash of momentary cold accompanied the bright light before she found herself in the past, back on Earth.

She found herself in the middle of a half-full parking lot, a hot sun shining down from a deep blue sky. Due to the lack of screams, it was hoped no one had seen Lark appear out of thin air.

Spinning in a slow circle, Lark took in her surroundings. A busy street with noisy cars next to the parking lot in front of her. A small strip mall filled mostly with restaurants came into view as she turned to the right, filling the air with a delicious mix of smells. On the other side of the parking lot lay an empty dirt lot.

Still turning, Lark finally faced a large tan building, with people going in and out of the glass double doors, pushing shopping carts in front of them.

A rocky mountain range was the backdrop for the store, with the occasional spot of green.

Ignoring the slight ache behind her eyes, Lark powered up the silver bracelet on her wrist. The engraving was the Kynaston family crest: a white tiger resting beneath a wisteria tree.

“Where and when am I?” She whispered into the metal.

A black holographic square popped above her arm. White lettering spelled out:

Location: Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States of America
Date: May 19, 2015

“New Mexico? Seriously? There were no Franklin Particles any closer to South Carolina?” Lark grumbled. “I don’t know anyone here.”

This secret trip to the past was more of an experiment than anything else, since she was still trying to figure out how time travel worked. But now that she was this close to her brothers again, she would have given anything to see them, even from a distance.

Getting an idea, Lark checked to make sure she didn’t look out of place. Her hands not on fire or covered in blue lightning? Check.

Striding towards the store, Lark acted as if she hadn’t just spent the last few weeks two thousand years in the future, on a different planet, getting used to new superpowers.

That’s right. I’m just an ordinary twenty-year-old. Nothing to see here.

Making her way to customer service, Lark smiled at the grey-haired lady working the counter. “Would you happen to have a phone I could use? I left my cell phone at home.”

Not at all a lie, since she had left her VPhone two thousand years in the future. It wouldn’t have worked here, anyway.
“Of course.” The lady, whose name tag said BETTY, smiled sweetly at Lark. “Use that one. You’ll need to press nine, then enter the number you want to call.”

“Thank you so much!” Lark stepped over to the phone hanging on the wall across from the customer service desk.
Seeing that Betty was at least pretending to give her privacy, Lark punched in the familiar old phone number, fingers shaking from nerves.

“Hello?” A deep voice answered after a couple rings.

Lark’s heart stuttered.

“Alex.” Lark could barely breathe.

“Hello?” Apparently he hadn’t heard her whisper.

“Yes, um—” Lark stuttered.

Oh no! What could she say? She couldn’t exactly tell him who she was, or that he and Sterling were going to die within five years.

“Who is this?” Alex’s voice was still polite, but getting a little impatient.

Oh how she had missed him! Heart clenching, she took a deep breath.

“I—”

“Alex!” Sterling’s voice came through the phone. “Lark has a headache. I’m not sure—oh, sorry.”

Tears filled Lark’s eyes. How long had she dreamed about hearing these voices again?

“Alex? Ah!” Now Lark heard a young girl’s cry of pain.

“Larkie? What happened?”

“I’m sorry, I have to go.” Lark heard thumps and crying before Alex unceremoniously hung up.

Now there were tears in her eyes for far different reasons than sentiment. The moment she heard her younger self’s voice, Lark’s head felt like it was exploding. She just barely kept herself from retching on the white tiled floor. Lark nearly dropped the phone, wanting to cry right along with Little Larkie.

No wonder you’re not supposed to cross your own timeline.

Wishing she could have had more time to talk with Alex and Sterling, Lark stumbled back to the parking lot.

Without even checking to make sure no one was watching, Lark activated the Franklin Particles and dove into the muddy liquid that appeared between two parked cars.

Well, painful lessons learned. But those precious few moments had only made the hunger to save her brothers even more ferocious.

Wait for me, Al and Sterl! I’m coming for you.

5 out of 5 stars (based on 1 review)

April 23, 2021

I’m not sure why you took the scene out, but I love it! What a poignant glimpse into Lark’s heart along with an effective bit about the dangers of time travel.

Laura Sue Brewer

Erudessa Gentian

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Kissing Grass

One

Unmapped Planet

Coughing up what feels like a lung, Karl Sneddon heaves for all he is worth. Gasping for air, he momentarily wonders if this is truly how things were going to end for him.

Seemingly despite all the odds, Karl finally catches his breath and he rolls onto his back.

Above him, the night sky is awash with color. The stars’ white pinpricks on the navy background are only accentuated by the splashes of gold and red from the space-bound clouds of dust left by some abandoned mining operation years ago. Squinting, Karl can just make out the shadowed form of the ship that he had jettisoned from. He isn’t sure how long he had been here, all he knew was that he was here now.

Rolling onto his side, Karl realizes that the ground beneath him is seemingly sticky. Confused, he stares intently at the ground and he is greeted with the present sight of what seems to be grass.

As he stares, the grass sways gently and Karl smiles at the memories of the gentle breezes back home.

It had been nearly ten years since he left the gently rolling hills of Hebron, his homeworld. To this day he isn’t sure quite why he left, but he did. Being the stubborn man he was, Karl refused to return home either. To go back now was to give up on the nomad lifestyle that he had taken to.

Well, the lifestyle that he had taken to until his ship decided to get popped full of holes in a micro-asteroid field that wasn’t marked on his maps.

Shaking his head, Karl clears away the thoughts of what ruined his way of life and he returns his thoughts to Hebron. That wonderful planet of modern-day Eden. Everything grew there. Everyone was happy. Everybody had somebody.

Wincing, Karl remembers how that ‘everybody’ extended to everyone but him. His somebody, Abarrane, wasn’t ever interested in him. She had let him think that she was, sure, but that was the end of it. After three months of dating and feeling like his life was perfect, she ended it. Or at least that’s what Karl deducted when he found out that Abarrane was seeing another man and ignoring him. She didn’t even have the courtesy to tell Karl what was going on. So, Karl packed his bags and left the city. Two could play at that game.

After that, Karl bounced between towns and jobs in search of his calling. Yet, despite his pursuit, his quarry never materialized. He’d start to think that he was putting down roots when he’d find out that those roots were only superficial and bore him no fruit.

As he reminisces, he realizes that there isn’t an actual breeze right now, which piques his interest. Looking closer at the grass, he realizes that it is very much unlike any grass that he had seen before.

The grass looks alive.

Not alive alive, per se, but very much living. It moves on its own accord, which serves to confound Karl. Looking closer still, Karl realizes that the ‘grass’ had a hollow tube that glistened on the inside and had small grasslike blades stretching out from the blase of the tube. Only the tube green straw moved, Karl saw, and he then realized that these tubes were what was making the ground seem so sticky. Poking at one, he watches in wonder as the tube repositions itself and begins sucking randomly at his fingers and arm. The sensation tickles and Karl can’t help but let out a bit of a giggle at the discovery.

“Kissing grass!” Karl exclaims, naming the plant after what it looked like and what it did. In many ways, Karl realized, the plant reminded him of a venus fly trap, just without the mouth-like attachment.

Satisfied that he knew what was below him, Karl finally looks further on ahead and he sees a peaceful little creek and a small waterfall. Smiling, he can’t help but think, “For a place to be stranded, this isn’t all that bad!”

Finally sitting up, Karl looks around and he sees his one-man escape pod that popped open when it hit the ground, depositing him in a twisted heap. Shaking his head, he slowly rises to his feet, cautious to not overdo it, and he approaches the nearest piece of the capsule that had split into three pieces, as it had been designed to do. Reaching into a small recess, he pulls a lever and is reward with the first small pack of survival gear that came standard to the pod.

He wasn’t sure just how long he would be stuck here, but he knew he’d make the most of it.

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Caleb Fast

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A Father’s Blessing: An Inheritance of Blood

One

Creve Coeur, Giselle

“Dad, I’m here now,” Markus chokes as he tries his best to hold back the tears. Markus knew that he couldn’t keep the tears from flowing, however, the effort was as doomed as an ancient levies’ effort to keep back a rising tide.

“Come closer, son,” Markus’s father, Grayson Killian, weakly beckons as he reaches outward with a shaky hand. Grayson’s hand waves around randomly as he blindly searches for Markus’s.

At one point, Grayson Killian had been the most feared bounty hunter in Coalition space. His most famous quarries included a handful of rebel Fulcrum leaders and even a few wayward Coalition governors, all of whom were deemed too dangerous to pursue by the Coalition’s Space Corp. But that didn’t stop Grayson. Nothing stopped that man.

What made Grayson even more terrifying in the eyes of those who knew of him was the fact that he didn’t take just any job. Despite being a gun for hire, he was highly selective in who he chose to go after. He held himself to a strict code of conduct: he would only chase down those whose crimes warranted death. Because of this cut and dry guideline, Grayson saw his line of work as an honorable and righteous one.

A call, Markus knew, that his dad deemed worthy enough to pass along to his children.

Markus takes his father’s hand in his own and he holds it firmly. As he does so, memories of his father’s former strength flash before his eyes. There was a time that Grayson Killian could crush filled cans of food with his bare hands—those days had long since passed. Now Markus knew that his father even struggled to bring a glass to his lips to drink on his own.

Chuckling, Markus remembers why his father had crushed the canisters of food. Grayson wanted to make sure that there would be no temptation for Markus and his siblings to eat the food three months later during their accolade trials. By then, the food would all be gone. What wasn’t spoiled would have been eaten by the rodents.

Three months later, Markus and his siblings were sent out to prove their worth to their father. All that was given to them were a few crushed cans of spoiled food and one or two tools. That was when everything became abundantly clear to Markus and the others; they were entirely on their own in the world. There was no depending upon their parents or anyone else to keep them alive, it was down the just them.

And that’s how their yearlong test began. Those who survived would pick up the family trade.

Clearing his throat and wiping his eyes with his sleeve, Markus takes his father’s hand. Letting out a shaky breath, he dutifully reports, “I’m right next to you.”

“I always knew I’d go blind someday, you know,” Grayson sighs as he looks toward his son.

“It was all that drinking, I warned you,” Markus’s mother, Maridell, scolds from behind Markus.

“It may have been,” Grayson chuckles as a playful smile itches at the corner of his mouth, “Or it was your lousy cooking.”

Maridell lets out a condescending laugh before she quips, “I doubt you could have done better with what I had on hand.”

Letting out a long sigh, Grayson cedes, “Be that as it may, I never thought I would have to be blind this long. I thought I would have died by now.”

Looking his father in the eyes, Markus pushes down the urge to shudder. Staring back at him are two orbs that are nearly completely white. Years ago, his father’s eyes had been a deep blue—just like Markus’s. Now his eyes exposed something inside of his father that only reminded Markus of death.

“Remember what you needed to tell him,” Maridell urges. She likely saw that Grayson’s time was quickly coming to an end as well. After so many years of being inseparable, Maridell knew Grayson better than anyone else could dream. Markus knew that his mother knew the ins and outs of everything that his father had done. He was sure that his mother would take most of those secrets to the grave.

“Yes, yes,” Grayson mutters. With his free hand, Grayson pats down the bedside table and he eventually finds the object that he was searching for. He pulls it close to his heart and holds it there for a few moments. As he holds it close, Grayson’s blind eyes shoot around the room, like he is looking around at a crowd of people that are preparing to beat him to death. The look on his face reminded Markus of a man who knew he was going to die, but he just didn’t know when.

“What’s that?” Markus asks after several sickening moments of watching his father’s fear. It wasn’t that Markus hadn’t seen fear before, after all, fear was just part of the territory that his job brought. Having spent a lifetime hunting people down, Markus knew the look of fear when his target knew that their flight was over. What broke Markus’s heart now was seeing that it was his father, a man who never showed fear, lying there quivering like droplets of water on a hot pan.

“It’s… it’s a list.” Grayson answers simply as he fumbles around with the cylinder in his hands. After a few seconds, he finds the screw top and he opens it.

“What of?” Markus presses.

“Your next targets,” Grayson replies as his characteristically stern face returns, if only for a moment. Scowling, he then instructs, “Everyone on this list needs to answer for their crimes.”

“Their crimes?” Markus asks as he takes the tight roll of parchments from his father. Some of the pieces of paper are yellowed and brittle with age while others seem to be very new.

Nodding once, Grayson affirms, “Yes. My inheritance to you is a mission that might just change the tide of this war…”

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Caleb Fast

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"Go Forth and Write." Isaiah 30:8