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This is “The Chosen Warrior”, I’ve been working on it on and off for around a year now, and it’s around 1/15-1/12 complete. 😕 It’s the story of a young lad who discovers one day he’s been touched by destiny. He also wants to get his leg over. 😛
Part 1 of god only knows how many. Enjoy! 😀
“Rob…” The young girl’s voice cried. “Rob… where are you?” Rob turned around to face the girl, as he had done in his dreams a hundred times before. There she stood, on the cliff edge, same as always, and Rob was captivated by her incredible beauty, same as always. She was not human, but Vorren, an alien species who had contacted Earth some eighty years previously, and had helped humanity develop interstellar travel. Like most Vorrens, the girl (who Rob guessed to be around eighteen or nineteen) was tall, almost five feet ten inches, and was wearing a long, flowing, pale blue dress, which came down to just above her bare feet. But that was not her most distinguishing feature. That honour belonged to her eyes.
She stared at Rob with her piercing, almost shining, golden eyes, yet another trait of her species. She smiled, her face calling him, almost begging him to come to her.
“I’m here,” Rob finally answered, as he began his walk toward where she was stood. Suddenly, a gust of wind picked up, and the girl stumbled, her long, jet-black hair blowing into her face.
“Rob!” The girl shouted again, as the wind knocked her off her feet. In her rush to stand up, she tripped on the hem of her dress, causing her to stumble over the edge of the cliff, where she hung, by her fingertips.
“No!” Rob shouted, as he started to panic. “Just hang on!” Suddenly, time slowed down for Rob, as the noise of the wind subsided, and all he could hear was the sound of his own heartbeat, and the voice of the girl.
“Rob,” she said, mournfully, “I love you.” Time then resumed it’s normal pace as the girl lost her grip on the cliff edge, and plummeted into the ocean below, screaming all the way.
“No!” Rob yelled, as the girl’s scream eventually faded into silence. “NOOOOOO!!!!!”
Rob awoke in his bed a mere second later, sitting bolt upright and still screaming at the top of his voice. Once he realised that all that he had just witnessed had been a dream, he laid back down in his sweat-drenched bed.
“It was just a dream,” he said in his distinctive Irish accent. “Thank god, it was just a dream.” He rolled over in his bed to face the window, through which the golden rays of the sun were beginning to stream. Heh, Rob thought to himself, big advantage of living in Florida is that when you’re in a bad mood, at least the weather never reflects it. Rob got out of his bed and stared out across the small, modern town where he had moved to, two years ago, from his hometown of Cork. He smiled- he had a big day ahead of him, and he decided it was time to get it started.
“Computer, activate,” he said to the computer that, effectively, helped him run his daily life.
“The time is now 0722 Eastern Standard time,” the computer began in its hushed female American accent, “and today’s date is March the twenty-second, 2483. What would you like to hear first, Rob?” Rob mulled over the question- rather than program in macros so that he heard the same thing every morning, Rob preferred to have the choice of change. So much of the world had been computerised, automated over the past half-millennium, that Rob felt a little chaos was good for the soul.
“Hmm,” Rob said, deciding as to whether he wanted to hear his messages or his daily schedule first. “I think I’ll check my messages first, computer.”
“You have two new messages, Rob,” the computer said, plainly.
“Senders?” Rob asked.
“One from the Williams household, Ireland, and one from the office of Captain L. Hartley-Jones,” the computer answered. Rob smiled- the second one, he had been expecting, but the first one was almost certainly going to be a message from his mother, back home.
“Play first message,” Rob said, barely suppressing the urge to chuckle.
“Oh Robbie,” came the thick Irish accent of Rob’s mother, “why do you never call your poor mother? You’re stuck all the way over there in America and I never ever get to see you! Give your mammy a call, just once in a while!” The computer then emitted a quiet “beep”, signifying the end of the message. Rob had sat down on his bed, where he shook his head, chuckling to himself.
“Computer,” he said, composing himself, “prepare to record a reply to that message.”
“Standing by,” said the computer, while Rob coughed twice, and regained the straight face he’d had before.
“Begin,” Rob said. “Mammy, I call you once a week for crying out loud! I’m twenty years old- I can look after myself. Come over if you don’t believe me- I mean, it’s only forty minutes by shuttle. Anyway, if all goes to plan, I’m going to be heading off very soon to a place a lot further away than America. I may not get a chance to speak to you again, so I just want to say that I love you, and I always think of home, no matter where I am. See you, Mammy.” Rob then paused for five seconds, prompting the computer to speak up again.
“Transmit message?” The machine asked.
“Yes,” Rob asked, nodding his head. Although she fussed over him far too much for his liking, Rob missed his mother, and didn’t like the thought of worrying her unnecessarily. Unfortunately, when it was necessary, there was nothing that Rob could do about it…
“Computer,” Rob ordered, “play second message now.” Rob sat back down on his bed, while the second message began.
“Hi, Rob,” a deep, yet also feminine, American woman’s voice said over the speaker’s in Rob’s apartment. “We’re on for this afternoon. Half past one, in front of the Café Ambrosia. Don’t be late.” Another quiet “beep” signified the end of the brief, yet to Rob, significant, message.
“Computer,” Rob said, in a quiet voice, “send a standard acknowledgement in reply to that message. And cancel all events in today’s schedule but for one- lunch at the Café Ambrosia at 1:30.”
“Acknowledgement sent,” the computer said to Rob. “Changes to daily schedule confirmed.” Rob laid back down on his bed, and breathed a sigh of relief. Hopefully… he thought to himself. Hopefully, this will be the one…
Six hours later, and Rob was sat alone outside the Café Ambrosia, decked out in his usual attire of baggy grey trousers, a light white T-shirt and his trademark sunglasses. He checked his watch for the third time in two minutes, before he became aware of someone standing over him. He looked up into the face of the person, who was a woman in her early twenties, approximately 5′ 8″ with medium-length brown hair and a smug look on her face. Immediately, Rob recognised the woman as being the person he had been waiting for.
“Have I kept you waiting?” The woman asked, condescendingly, as she sat down opposite Rob. Rob kept a neutral expression on his face as he responded.
“Usually when people say ‘don’t be late’,” he started, as condescendingly as the woman, “it means that they won’t be late either. Do you always buck trends in this fashion, Leanne?” Leanne simply leaned back in her chair and smiled, smugly.
“I’m a captain,” she stated, plainly. “I’m allowed to have double standards.”
“It’s probably those double standards that got you kicked out of the forces,” Rob retorted, causing Leanne to frown at him. I probably shouldn’t have said that, Rob thought to himself, wincing at his rash statement.
“I assume you called me here for more than just small talk,” Leanne said with an angrier voice than before, as she leaned forward and rested her elbows on the table. Rob also leaned forward, and began whispering to Leanne.
“I want to you to take me somewhere,” Rob said.
“I run a cargo ship, Rob,” Leanne replied, “not an interstellar cruise ship. Go to a travel agent, get a ticket to wherever it is you want to go, and stop wasting my time.” Leanne was about to stand up, when Rob put his hand on her forearm, causing the young captain to hesitate.
“Take that hand off my arm, Robert,” Leanne said.
“Only if you promise to hear me through,” Rob replied. Leanne paused, before finally nodding.
“I suppose it couldn’t hurt,” she replied. “I could use a good laugh.” Rob took his hand off Leanne’s forearm, and clasped his hands together on the table.
“They don’t sell tickets to where I want to go,” Rob replied. “If they did, believe me, I’d have gone a long time ago.”
“And where exactly is it that you want to go?” Leanne asked, genuinely curious. Rob took a deep breath, before answering Leanne’s question.
“…Vorren territory,” he said, as quietly as he could so that only Leanne would be able to hear him. Almost immediately as he said it, however, Leanne burst out in fits of laughter.
“That’s funny!” She said, laughing condescendingly at Rob. “Either you’re joking or you’re completely and utterly insane.”
“I’m perfectly sane,” Rob replied, his voice calm and composed in spite of Leanne’s insulting attitude. “I want to go to Vorren space.” Leanne stopped laughing, and leaned back toward Rob.
“Robert, dear,” she said, deliberately sounding as smug as she possibly could, “you may not have noticed, but for the past sixteen-odd years, the Vorrens have been involved in a little skirmish with none other than the Pallatians, who just happen to be the most bloodthirsty and violent species in the galaxy. Of course, when I say ‘little skirmish’, I mean ‘full-scale interstellar war which has claimed several million lives on both sides’. And you want me to take you right into the heart of it?” Rob looked Leanne straight in the eyes, and answered her question.
“Yes,” he said, defiantly. Leanne simply sneered at Rob’s defiance.
“You’re either mad,” she replied, “or you’re stupid, or, most probably, you’re both. In vast quantities.”
“Something’s been happening to me recently,” Rob replied, whispering so only Leanne could hear him. “I don’t know what it is, and I want to find out. And I know, don’t ask me how, but I just know that it has something to do with the Vorrens.”
“You’re not still having those childish dreams, are you?” Leanne asked in reply to Rob’s statement.
“They’re not dreams,” Rob replied, “They’re premonitions, or repressed memories, or something along those lines, anyway.” Leanne simply yawned, and stood up.
“All this talk about dreams is making me sleepy,” she stated, sarcastically. “Or maybe it’s the company that’s boring me to sleep. I’m sorry, Robert, as much as I’d like to help you commit suicide, I have other plans for my life. Good day.” Leanne stood up and prepared to leave, but Rob was not finished with her.
“Wait,” he said, standing up and blocking her path. Leanne simply grumbled, and started to walk around him. Rob grabbed Leanne’s arm again, making her stop dead in her tracks.
“This is your final warning, Rob,” Leanne said, irritably. “Touch me again, and I’ll crush your windpipe.” She shook her arm out of Rob’s grip, and continued walking away.
“I said ‘wait’,” Rob stated hastily, as he placed his hand on Leanne’s shoulder. Almost instantly as he did so, however, Leanne spun on her heel, and delivered a precise and powerful strike to Rob’s throat with her fist. As soon as she had done so, though, she started screaming in agony. Leanne looked down at her right hand, which she had used to attack Rob and where the pain was coming from, and she was alarmed to find that every finger except her forefinger was broken and twisted, and, even more alarmingly, her entire hand was starting to turn purple as a result of the blood that was starting to pool under her skin. Leanne looked up at Rob, who stood there, totally unharmed. I got him straight in the windpipe, Leanne thought to herself, I know I did, but he’s not even bruised!
“Like I said,” Rob uttered quietly to Leanne, “something’s been happening to me recently.” Still in a great deal of shock and pain from her injury, Leanne simply nodded.
“I need to get back to my ship, to the sickbay,” she replied. “Can you take me there?” Leanne didn’t like to show weakness of any kind, but her hand was in a serious amount of pain, and she doubted she’d be conscious by the time she reached her vessel.
“It depends,” Rob replied, “can you take me to Vorren space on your ship?” Leanne sighed, and lowered her head.
“We’ll talk when we get back to the Griffin,” she said, referring to her ship by its name.
“That’s good enough for me,” Rob replied, escorting Leanne out of the café and toward the shuttle tube station.
Four hours later, Rob and Leanne were sat in the medical bay of the Griffin, discussing Rob’s proposal. Leanne had taken the time to heal her hand, and although the damage was all repaired, it still caused her a great deal of pain. It did, however, have the effect of making her more open to Rob’s request.
The two of them had just finished negotiating Leanne’s payment for the mission when Leanne asked the question that had been bugging her ever since her ill-fated attack on Rob.
“So,” she asked, cautiously, “when did this ‘invincibility’ thing start, anyway?” Rob took a deep breath, and sighed- he’d been expecting Leanne to ask that question ever since they reached the Griffin.
“I’m not sure myself,” Rob replied. “The first time I noticed it was four months ago, about two weeks after the dreams began. I was using a kitchen laser to cut some cheese, when my finger slipped straight into the beam.” Leanne grimaced- it was something she’d done on more than one previous occasion.
“Ouch,” she said, sympathetically. “Did it immediately cut off?” Rob nodded.
“Yeah,” he replied, “the safety system worked, but what was wrong was that I wasn’t in any pain, nor was my skin damaged. Normally when you do that, at the very least, you get minor burns. But I didn’t get anything.”
“What did you do?” A genuinely curious Leanne asked Rob.
“I tried it again,” Rob replied. “This time, I took off the safety and held my finger in the laser beam for five seconds.
“And?” Leanne asked.
“Nothing,” Rob replied. “No pain, no skin damage, no nothing.”
“Did you think the laser was faulty?” Leanne asked.
“At first,” Rob replied, “but after a few more experiments, I realised that something inside me had changed.”
“What kinds of experiments?” Leanne asked with a worried tone of voice.
“Masochistic ones, I guess,” Rob said with a slight chuckle. “First off, I tried scalding myself, but nothing happened, then I tried cutting myself, electrocuting myself, even suffocating myself, but nothing happened.”
“Suffocating yourself?” Leanne asked, as worried as she had been previously.
“Yeah,” Rob replied, “I locked myself in an airtight cabinet for over 6 hours… by all rights, I should’ve asphyxiated after 45 minutes. What was more incredible was that I didn’t even get cramp.”
“And all this started after you started dreaming about that Vorren girl?” Queried Leanne.
“Uh-huh,” Rob said, confirming Leanne’s thought. “I’m sure of it. Somehow, she’s connected to what’s been happening to me. I’m just damned if I know how. That’s why I have to go into Vorren space- I have to find her.”
“I understand,” Leanne said, nodding. “Quite frankly, Rob, I’m curious about this too. I’ve never heard of anyone becoming a demigod before. I’ll get you into Vorren space, don’t you worry.”
“Thanks,” Rob said, smiling. “I knew I could count on you and your crew. Speaking of which, when do I get to meet them?”
“Tomorrow,” answered Leanne. “They’re on shore leave right now, but they’ll all be back by the time we leave tomorrow morning.”
“OK,” Rob said. “I guess I’d better be going, if that’s OK with you, I have a few loose ends to tie up before I leave.” Leanne nodded, and smiled.
“Make sure you tie them up real tight,” she replied, sniggering, “you’re gonna be gone a long time.” Rob paused, confused somewhat by Leanne’s statement.
“It’s not that far into Vorren space, is it? I thought it was only two and a half thousand light-years.”
“It is,” Leanne replied, “but that’s still twelve weeks at the Griffin’s top cruising speed.” Rob was taken aback by the news. Twelve weeks? Rob thought to himself.
“Twelve weeks?” Rob asked Leanne, incredulously. “That’s almost three months! Just how slow is your ship anyway?”
“How slow?” Leanne asked, as incredulous as Rob had been. “In real terms, we’re talking about nearly two billion miles a second! I don’t suppose you took astronomy at school, but let me tell you this- space is big. VERY big. You can’t just fly out to a random star system on a whim! Twenty-five hundred light years is a hell of a long way, Rob, I suggest you get used to that idea.” Rob hung his head, defeated.
“I guess I’ve got no choice,” he said to himself. “Three months…” Rob muttered to himself as he left the Griffin and headed home to his apartment for what would prove to be the last time in a very long while…
That night, while he slept, Rob once again found himself standing on top of a cliff, facing a Vorren girl with long, flowing, jet-black hair. However, this was not the same dream Rob had experienced for the previous hundred-odd nights. This time, there was a difference. Rob knew what was going on, and where he was. However, there was one thing that still confused him. Slowly, he approached the girl, who still had her back turned to him.
“Who are you?” Rob asked, cautiously. Rob saw the girl’s head lower, as if she were contemplating his question. Eventually, though, she turned around, and faced the confused young man.
“Rob,” she said in her soft voice, which was always guaranteed to make Rob’s heart flutter, “that is a question for another time.” The girl smiled, before turning, and walking away from Rob, toward the edge of the cliff.
“Wait!” Rob shouted, as he saw the girl near the edge. “Don’t go!” Once again, the girl turned around, and faced Rob, smiling.
“I’m not going anywhere,” the girl said, almost laughing. “It’s you who is making the journey, Rob.” As the girl finished her sentence, Rob felt himself start to fade out. The world around him started spinning, melting from reality, and Rob became aware of a ringing sound, growing ever louder in his ears…
“Sheli!” Rob yelled, sitting bolt upright in his bed. “Sheli…” Rob shook his head, regaining his composure, before lying back down in his bed.
“Computer, alarm off,” Rob ordered, and the ringing noise that had been permeating his room for the past minute was silenced. “Time?”
“The time is now 0501 Eastern Standard Time,” the computer stated, plainly. “Your transport will arrive in two hours and twenty-nine minutes.”
“Thank you, computer,” Rob stated, as he swung his legs out of his bed and headed toward his shower. “Are all of my messages ready to be sent?”
“All messages have been primed to be sent just prior to entering long-term hibernation mode,” the computer confirmed.
“Good,” Rob replied, as he showered himself down. “Excellent.” As Rob washed himself under the torrent of water, however, his mind was elsewhere, standing on top of a cliff, facing a Vorren girl who had long, flowing jet-black hair. Her smile had become etched in Rob’s mind, as had her name.
“Sheli…” Rob whispered to himself, as he exited the shower and entered his sonic dryer.
Just under two and a half hours later, Rob was standing at the exit of his apartment, looking back on the life he was leaving behind. He’d lived in his apartment for eighteen months, but finally, it was time to leave, and head out into the unknown. Rob swung his bags onto his shoulder, and took one final look around his apartment, at his shower, his bed, and his computer terminal. Eventually, he decided that the time had finally come for him to leave.
“See ya, old place,” he said, quietly. “Computer,” Rob then ordered, speaking up, “enter long-term hibernation mode.” Almost instantaneously, all the lights in Rob’s apartment extinguished, and Rob stepped out of his doorway to the outside, allowing the door to slide shut, and lock, with a satisfying ‘click’. Not looking back, Rob headed toward the shuttle tube station, which was just down the road from his apartment.
A mere fifteen minutes later, Rob had arrived at the Griffin, and was greeted by Leanne, who was standing at the foot of the boarding ramp.
“I take it your crew have all returned?” Rob asked, prompting Leanne to nod.
“It’s time to get this show on the road!” Replied Leanne, almost enthusiastically. Rob smiled, and carried his bags on board the spacecraft.
This is great!
Are you gonna post the rest?
Positive reviews are the definition of excellence 😀 Okay, here’s part 2, hope you enjoy! 🙂
“Sounds like a plan to me!” Rob exclaimed as he boarded the 227-foot long spaceship. As he passed through the inner door of the airlock, however, he was disappointed by the sight that greeted him.
Most of the spaceships Rob had been on before had been pleasure cruisers, or at the very least, craft designed specifically for comfortable transport- filled with luxuries such as clean, hygienic toilets, comfortable reclining seats, special magnetic fields designed to reduce the extreme g-forces associated with space travel. However, the Griffin was not a pleasure cruiser. Rob grimaced at the sight of the dull grey walls and the low ceiling, not to mention the random piles of flotsam dotted all throughout the corridor.
“Have you never considered hiring a cleaner?” Rob asked Leanne, incredulously.
“Just how rich do you think I am?” Leanne asked Rob, equally incredulous.
“You could at least pick up some of the crap off the floor, make it slightly less of a health risk,” Rob replied.
“You’re invincible,” Leanne retorted, “what does it matter to you?”
“I may be immortal,” Rob hit back, “but it doesn’t mean I like falling over stuff all the time.” Leanne narrowed her eyes as she stared at Rob.
“You pick it all up, then,” she grumbled as she led Rob to the bridge of the Griffin, where her crew was assembled. Rob stepped down into the bridge area, and was confronted by the sight of the Griffin’s crew- all three of them.
“What the bloody hell…” Rob muttered under his breath as he stared at the assembled crew. Leanne strode forward and stood in front of the trio, mustering up the most enthusiastic smile she could.
“Meet the crew!” She exclaimed, trying not to sigh as she did so. Uneasily, Rob stepped forward, and met the first member of the crew: a seven-and-a-half foot blue-scaled Manduri.
“This is Sollain,” Leanne said, as Rob shook the huge, clawed, 6-fingered hand of the humanoid reptile. “He helps us with loading the cargo and, er, negotiating the deals.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Rob responded as he continued to stare into the yellow-green slits that were Sollain’s eyes. Rob released Sollain’s hand, and moved onto the next person in the line- who was, much to Rob’s surprise, a reasonably attractive young human woman.
“This is Anna Kennedy,” Leanne said, as Rob gently shook the young woman’s hand. “She’s our newest employee, currently undergoing a training scheme.”
“Hiii!” Anna exclaimed, nervously, shaking Rob’s hand a little too enthusiastically. “Good to meet you!”
“Erm, good to meet you too, Anna,” Rob replied, slightly worried by her enthusiasm. “Kennedy- is that an Irish name by any chance?” The dark-haired girl’s smile grew upon hearing Rob’s question.
“New Jersey!” She answered, a little too excitedly for Rob’s liking.
“She’s very new,” Leanne whispered in Rob’s ear, “only been here two weeks. She’s also only 18, and has very little experience with spaceflight.”
“Just how much exactly does she have?” Rob whispered back.
“Well, none, not yet, anyway,” Leanne answered, “but she shows great promise!” Rob let go of a still-grinning Anna’s hand, and, grimacing nervously, walked with Leanne to the third and final member of the crew.
Any hopes Rob had that the voyage on board the Griffin would be an enjoyable one vanished when he set eyes upon the final crewmember- for the man, such as he was, was a Griioki.
The Griioki were seen by virtually all sentient races as nothing less than a joke- they all resembled flightless birds, with few, if any, of them topping the five-foot mark in height. Nor were they particularly intelligent or inventive, and their physical strength roughly equalled that of an eight-year old human child. All that, along with the fact that their entire bodies, except for their faces, was covered with bright blue and green plumage, made the Griioki, as a whole, into the laughing stock of the whole galaxy. The Griioki standing before Rob was no different than the aliens he had had described to him in the past- no more than four feet eight inches tall, and with bright green feathers surrounding a brown, almost leathery beaked face. However, even before the alien opened his mouth, Rob sensed something from him that he couldn’t describe- it was almost as if he knew the odd-looking person from somewhere, sometime in the past…
“And this,” Leanne said, formally introducing the human to the Griioki, “is Rhopeth, our resident medic and counsellor.” Rob took Rhopeth’s talon-shod hand and shook it. What is it with aliens and sharp fingernails? He thought to himself, as Rhopeth stared into Rob’s eyed, and curved the edges of his beak upward into a grin.
“Hello, Rob,” Rhopeth said, in a voice much deeper and much clearer than Rob was expecting. Rhopeth’s accent sounded almost as if it could be West Indian, in spite of the vast gulf of space that existed between the West Indies and Rhopeth’s home planet. “I can tell,” the bird-like alien continued, “that we’re going to get along just fine.” Despite himself, Rob returned Rhopeth’s smile, and found himself staring in wonder as the alien shuffled off of the bridge and went down the corridor, heading, Rob assumed, toward his nest, or whatever a Griioki slept in.
“Well,” Leanne interjected, interrupting Rob’s train of thought, “now you’ve met all the crew, I’ll show you to your cabin so you can get settled in.”
“Okay,” Rob said, taking another look at Anna and Sollain before following Leanne off the bridge. This is going to be one hell of an adventure, he thought to himself.
In Rob’s cabin on the Griffin later, Leanne was sat cross-legged on the young man’s bed, reminiscing with him as he unpacked his bags.
“Will this be your first time out of the solar system?” Leanne asked Rob, trying to get to know better the latest addition to her crew.
“No,” Rob replied, placing some of his clothes into the drawers cut into the wall in his quarters, “I went to Proxima once when I was a kid. I’ve never been as far from Earth as we’re going to be, though.” Leanne nodded- the galaxy may have been huge, but by human standards, even the tiniest fraction of it could be mind-bogglingly big as well, and they would be going a long way. “What’s the furthest you’ve ever been from Earth?” Rob asked his new captain.
“About 3100 light-years,” Leanne replied. “When I first took command of the Griffin, after my, well, ‘incident’ in the forces, I took her all the way to the Endari homeworld and back. Took us nine months, and we had to dodge a few Endari-Pallatian battles, but we did it in the end, we made it back to Earth.”
“In one piece?” Rob enquired. He knew that the Endari were allies of the Vorrens, and were thus at war with the Pallatians themselves, with the same destructive consequences for the galaxy at large.
“Just about,” Leanne confirmed. “We had to run away from a lot of Pallatian strike squads, but this old bird is a lot more manoeuvrable than those Pallatian tanks so we were always able to lose them in the end.” Leanne smiled, and turned on the bed to face Rob. “Which, I suppose, is why you picked the Griffin.”
“That did have something to do with it,” Rob said, confirming Leanne’s suspicions. “What time do we launch tomorrow?”
“0600,” Leanne answered. “I like to beat the early morning rush, especially if I’m going on a long-haul flight such as this one. Speaking of which, do you know exactly where you need to go? There are over 50 worlds in the Vorren Confederacy.”
“I get the feeling I’ll be able to work it out as I go along,” Rob replied, packing away the last of his clothing in the cabinets above his bunk, before sitting down on his bed, next to Leanne.
“You know,” Leanne said, desperately trying not to slip back into her sarcastic tone of voice, “you really could have planned this a little better, Rob.”
“Not really,” Rob replied, “the dreams weren’t too clear, but they’re getting more and more distinct. I even know the girl’s name now.”
“What is it?” Leanne asked, genuinely curious.
“Sheli,” Rob answered. “Is it a common Vorren name?” Leanne simply shook her head.
“You’d better ask Sollain,” Leanne replied, “he did grow up in their realm so he’d be the best person to ask about Vorren culture.”
“I’ll do so tomorrow morning,” Rob said, standing up and leaning against his closet door. “I want to get some sleep before we lift off.”
“Why would you need to sleep if you’re immortal?” Leanne asked, allowing herself a small sarcastic smile.
“It’s not the rest aspect of sleep that I’m interested in,” Rob answered, returning Leanne’s smile with a knowing one of his own.
“Ah,” Leanne said, nodding. “I get you.” Standing up, she headed toward Rob’s door, but paused just before she reached it. “Let me know how it went, okay?” Leanne winked, before leaving Rob’s quarters and heading toward her own.
A mere thirty minutes later, Rob was asleep in his bed, but his mind was elsewhere…
Rob stared around the vast, empty room, trying to figure out where exactly he was. The room appeared to be at least 700 feet wide, topped by a glass dome, the top of which came a full 500 feet above the ground. Suddenly, Rob became aware of footsteps behind him. Slowly, he turned around, and saw Sheli elegantly striding toward him, wearing a long, flowing, sleeveless lilac ball gown. Suddenly, from out of nowhere, a slow piano waltz began to play, as Sheli strode up to Rob and placed her slender arms around his neck. As she did so, Rob found himself placing his hands around Sheli’s slim waist, and slowly, the two of them began to sway.
“Isn’t it peaceful, Rob?” Sheli asked, resting her head on Rob’s shoulder. “I wish it could always be like this. I wish war would just go away, I wish the Pallatians would just leave us alone.” Rob could feel Sheli’s tears dampen the collar of his shirt as she whispered her woes to him.
“Sheli,” Rob whispered back, nervously, “I-I-”
“Yes?” Sheli asked, hopefully, as she looked up into Rob’s eyes. As she did so, however, Rob gasped- what he had taken for tears was actually the unmistakable sight of Vorren blood. Rob watched as another drop of the thick, deep scarlet liquid, tinged with royal blue streaks, pushed it’s way out of the inside of Sheli’s gold-coloured eye, running down her face and finally dripping off of her similarly-shaded lips, forming a small, scarlet puddle on the bronzed marble floor of the ballroom. Rob stared down at the puddle as it started to grow, the blue streaks merging with the scarlet to form a sickly mauve colour. Trying to suppress tears of his own, Rob gently held Sheli’s head against his shoulder, stroking her long, black hair as he did so.
“I’ll be with you soon,” Rob whispered in Sheli’s ear. “I’ll be there…”
Rob awoke to find himself in his cabin on board the Griffin, which was being illuminated by the starlight outside. Rising from his bed, he wandered over to the window, and stared out at the myriad stars that still lit up the early morning sky.
“You’re out there somewhere, Sheli,” he whispered, quietly, “I’ll find you. No matter what it takes, no matter the cost, I will find you. I promise.” As Rob whispered those words, a shooting star streaked across the sky, almost as if to confirm Rob’s promise. Closing his eyes, Rob wished that soon, his dreams would come true.
Meanwhile, on the bridge of the Griffin, Anna and Sollain had already been awake for over an hour, preparing the ship for its journey.
“Check secondary batteries,” Sollain instructed Anna, speaking in the quiet, bass hiss typical of male Manduri.
“Secondary batteries…” Anna replied, hesitating slightly due to nerves, “fully charged.” After pausing briefly, Sollain wandered over to Anna, and sniffed at the air surrounding her.
“You’re doing it again,” the blue-scaled alien scolded.
“D-doing what?” Anna asked, taken aback by Sollain’s tone of voice.
“Perspiring,” he hissed in reply. “A disgusting habit, isn’t there some form of lotion you can apply to your skin or something?”
“I’m just a little nervous, that’s all,” Anna responded. “This is gonna be my first time in space.”
“There’s no need to worry, or to perspire,” Sollain said, as reassuringly as possible for a giant reptile. “Travelling through space is very safe nowadays. Every precaution is taken to reduce the dangers of deep space. And, even if you should get sucked through a hull breach, you wouldn’t remain conscious for more than 15 seconds.”
“Thanks,” Anna said, uneasily, “that makes me feel a LOT better.”
“Good,” Sollain said, grinning slightly. “Now, check the status of the CO2 filters, please, Anna.”
“Right away,” Anna said, returning to her checklist, but not before looking at the walls of the bridge, scanning them for any signs of wear and tear…
An hour later, at five minutes to six in the morning, all five crewmembers of the Griffin were sat on the bridge, preparing for the lift-off. Leanne was sat in the pilot’s seat, clutching the steering column with both hands. Rob could feel the vibration of the Griffin’s engine through the plating of the deck beneath him, and he knew that soon, the craft would be hurtling into outer space at a very high speed, subjecting all on board the craft to extreme g-forces as it did so. He had no doubt that he would be unaffected by the forces, but he cast a glance towards Anna, who was tightly clutching the armrests on her chair while staring directly ahead, obviously nervous about the impending blast-off. Rob then found himself glancing over toward Rhopeth, watching as the beaked alien simply winked at him once, before closing his eyes and going into a trance-like state, remaining perfectly still except for his breathing.
“Okay,” Leanne said, resting her right hand over a big, red button labelled ‘ignition’, “prepare yourselves for a little jolt.” She slapped her right hand down on the button, and as it depressed, Rob felt himself get pinned back into his chair, and he felt the Griffin slowly ease upwards and forwards, into the Earth’s atmosphere.
Rob was surprised to find that he couldn’t actually lean any part of his body forward, in spite of the fact that wasn’t in any discomfort whatsoever. He knew that his newly found “invincibility” was protecting him from the effects of the acceleration, but his lack of mobility was giving cause for concern. Are there limits to this immortality? He silently thought to himself as the forces started to ease and Rob began to move his head further and further forward. He looked around the bridge at his new crewmates, at how they were reacting to the extreme forces that were still bearing down on them. Unsurprisingly, Sollain was sitting bolt upright, as if he endured extreme gravities each day of the week. Anna, on the other hand, was not faring too well, as Rob could tell from her whitened knuckles and the grimace on her usually smiling face. Rob tried to crane his head to look at how Leanne was coping in the pilot’s seat, but from his position directly behind her, his view was obscured by the chair itself. Rob then glanced over toward Rhopeth, and to his surprise, found that the bird-like alien was still in the trance he had assumed before the blast off. His feathers were being dragged back by the g-forces, and his body was pinned back into his chair, but still, Rhopeth’s face didn’t flicker even once. Suddenly, Rob felt his body jerk forwards, and full mobility then return to him as the Griffin finally achieved orbit. Breathing a sigh of relief, Leanne let go of the steering column, and rose from her chair.
“Okay,” the young captain said as she started releasing her crew’s safety harnesses, “that’s the worst of it over, at least. From here on in, it’s 2.1 g’s tops.”
“Thank god for that,” Anna sighed as her harnesses were released. “How high did we go just now?”
“About seven and a half,” Leanne said as she undid the last of the harnesses, allowing Rhopeth onto his feet.
“Is that a lot?” The young woman asked her captain, who simply shrugged in response.
“You tell me,” Leanne replied, “you just went through it. Rhopeth, check our orbit.”
“Holding steady at 230 miles,” the bird-man said as he checked one of the display screens mounted into the walls of the bridge. “We can head out any time you want.”
“Okay,” said Leanne, sounding official, “we’ll make a couple of orbits just to get our bearings, then we’ll head off to Mars. Be back up here in forty minutes.”
“Leanne,” Rob said, still trying to find his feet under the ship’s artificial gravity, “why are we going to Mars? Isn’t that a little out of the way?”
“We need to use their linear accelerator to reach light speed,” Leanne shrugged. “Don’t you know anything about interstellar travel?”
“Yes I do,” Rob retorted. He knew that, for a ship to get even close to the light barrier, it has to first be shot between two magnetic rails, almost 2500 miles long, then has to decelerate and accelerate rapidly before it reaches the end of the rails. Finding a pair of rails was not difficult- there were 6 pairs, exclusively for commercial use, which orbited the Earth alone, and a further 2 orbited the Moon.
“What I want to know,” the young Irishman asked, “is why can’t we use one of the Earth’s, or the Moon’s?”
“The security on them is too tight,” Leanne replied, looking at one of the display screens on the wall.
“Hang on a second,” Rob said, “did I just hear what I think I heard?”
“Do you know how much the tolls are on those rails?” Leanne asked, incredulously. “It’s much cheaper this way, plus I don’t have to give the government any details they don’t absolutely require.” Rob began to silently curse his choice of transport for his journey.
“Supposing we get caught?” Rob asked, the irritation in his voice starting to seep through.
“We won’t get caught,” Leanne said, her voice full of confidence.
“You’ve said that before,” Rob sternly reminded the young woman.
“I know,” Leanne said, lowering her head, “believe me, I know. But I also know I can do this. I’ve been using Mars’s rails for over a year and I’ve not yet been caught. I can do this. Trust me.” Hesitantly, Rob nodded his head.
“Alright,” he said, uneasily, “I believe you. I just have one question.”
“What’s that?” Leanne asked, curiously.
“Do the others know about your toll-dodging?”
“Do they need to?” Leanne asked with a sly grin on her face.
“I guess not,” Rob answered uneasily, as he followed Leanne off the bridge.
A few minutes later, Rob was back in his quarters, stretched out on his bed. He had a good half an hour before the Griffin headed off towards Mars, and he intended to spend them gathering his thoughts for the mission ahead. He knew that, somewhere in the Vorren’s territory, Sheli was waiting for him, praying for him to come to her. Closing his eyes, he could see her gold-tinted eyes staring back at him, hear her soft voice whispering his name, over and over. Rob… Came the voice in Rob’s head. Rob…
“Geez,” Rob said to himself, snapping out of his trance, “I need to give it a rest before I get obsessed.” He walked to his door, with the intention of going to the canteen for some food, but when he opened the door, he was confronted by the old face of Rhopeth.
“Hello Rob,” Rhopeth said, ushering Rob back into his quarters before taking a seat on the floor.
“The bed’s more comfortable,” Rob said, sitting himself down on his bed.
“I prefer the floor,” the old alien said, crossing his surprisingly human-like (albeit feathered) legs underneath himself. “I know why we’re heading into Vorren territory.”
“Yes,” Rob said, “Leanne said she’d told you and the rest of the crew that I’d paid for transit.”
“Yes,” Rhopeth said, nodding, “but she didn’t tell us the whole story. Didn’t tell us about Sheli.” As Rhopeth said the Vorren girl’s name, Rob immediately stared at the old alien, his eyes wide and his mouth open.
“How do you-?” Rob asked, in a state of shock. “Have you met her? Do you know where she is?” He asked desperately, rolling his words into each other. Rhopeth simply smiled and raised his clawed hand, calming Rob down.
“I have seen her,” Rhopeth told Rob, causing the young man to smile. “Not with my eyes, but up here.” Rhopeth tapped one of his claws against his temple, as Rob’s smile turned into a confused frown.
“What do you mean, ‘in your head’?” Rob asked Rhopeth.
“It’s simple,” the old alien said, “I hear people, as they sleep. I hear their dreams, hear their hearts while their conscious minds are resting. That’s how I knew your name.”
“You were listening to my dreams?” Rob asked incredulously. “Isn’t that an invasion of privacy?”
“Not your dreams,” Rhopeth said, smiling wisely. “Sheli’s. She dreams of you, Rob, and she’s waiting for you.” Rhopeth then turned his head and looked out of the window at the red dot, which was growing rapidly.
“We’re almost there,” Rhopeth said, getting to his feet. “We’ll be needed on the bridge soon.”
It’s very good, thanks Nebagram!
Here’s part 3… 😀
“R-right,” Rob uttered, standing up and following the bird-man out of his quarters.
Rob stepped out onto the bridge, and was unsurprised to find Leanne sat in the pilot’s seat, clutching the steering column as she had done prior to take-off. Recognising the determined look of concentration on the twenty-four year-old captain’s face, Rob quietly took his seat behind her, not wanting to break her near trance-like state. Immortal or not, he didn’t exactly relish the idea of spending fifteen years in a Martian gulag. Rob watched as Rhopeth took his seat next to him, and as Sollain and Anna silently returned to the bridge, also taking their seats.
“Everyone buckled in?” Leanne asked, and was greeted by a general murmur of confirmation. “Good. The g-forces are going to be a lot lighter this time around but I don’t want anyone to be flying around the bridge and putting me off. Everyone set?” Leanne barely paused before continuing her monologue, not giving anyone a chance to respond. “Okay then! Here we go!”
The Griffin’s engines ignited, thrusting it toward the magnetic rails at over a thousand kilometres per second. On the bridge, everyone held their breath as Leanne guided the small craft between the two iron tracks. Rob was especially nervous, expecting the Martian security office to broadcast an order to surrender over the loudspeakers at any moment. However, the request did not come, and just before the Griffin reached the end of the rails, Rob’s body was jerked forward in his chair as the Griffin rapidly decelerated, before being thrust back into his seat as it accelerated once again, the magnetism of the rails forcing the ship to accelerate through the light barrier. Rob watched as a swirling grey mist replaced the streaks of light, indicating that finally, the Griffin was cruising at a speed several times faster than light.
“Okay, people,” Leanne stated, activating the automatic pilot and rising from her chair, “we are now cruising at a speed of 2.7 billion kilometres per second on a direct course to Vega nine. We should get there in about five days, so until then,” Leanne simply shrugged, thinking of what to say. “Carry on, I guess.” Nodding in agreement, the four crewmembers all rose from their seats and headed toward the exit of the bridge. “Rob,” Leanne continued, halting Rob’s exit, “wait up a sec.” Rob nodded, and headed back toward where he had been sitting just a few seconds earlier. Leanne eased herself into Rhopeth’s seat, making sure to dust it off first, and began to study Rob’s face. After a few seconds, Rob started to grin, nervously.
“What?” He asked, chuckling a little at the attention Leanne was giving him.
“I’m just trying to figure out,” the young captain said, “whether I’m staring at the face of a genius, a madman, or simply a lovesick puppy.”
“What d’you reckon at the moment?” Rob asked, genuinely curious as to what Leanne’s opinion of him was.
“I’m not sure,” she confessed. “There’s definitely a hint of something in those eyes. Whether it’s genius or insanity, I just don’t know. However, option number 3 is way out in front at the moment.” Leanne let out a little chuckle before she continued. “I’ve never seen you so badly bitten, Rob, and this time round, you’ve never even met the girl.”
“This isn’t like the other times,” Rob confessed, “this time round, it’s different. Don’t ask me how I know, I just do.”
“You said the same thing about that Minort girl, if I recall rightly,” Leanne reminded Rob. “And that blonde from Pittsburgh, what was her name again?”
“Amanda,” Rob said, smiling at the memory of the seven weeks he spent with the young woman the previous summer. Rob’s smile widened, however, when his thoughts turned to the Vorren girl who had been haunting his dreams. “Sheli is different,” Rob said with a conviction Leanne rarely heard in his voice. “Different even from the ones who were different themselves, if that makes any sense.”
“Yeah,” Leanne said, grasping the idea Rob was trying to convey, “I think so. Well, I guess that in a few months’ time, we’ll find out whether it’s true or not!”
“That’s right,” Rob said, looking forward to finally entering Vorren territory, even though he knew he was in for a hell of a wait…
Rob returned to his quarters an hour later to find Sollain standing outside, clutching an electronic notepad in his clawed hand.
“Sollain,” Rob said, acknowledging the giant alien’s presence.
“I have the information you wanted,” Sollain quietly hissed toward Rob. “About that Vorren name.”
“So soon?” Rob asked, surprised. “Thanks!” Rob went to take the notepad from Sollain’s hand, but the alien simply raised his arm so that it was well beyond Rob’s reach.
“I have one question, however,” Sollain said, as Rob futilely attempted to grab the pad, “why is this name so important? I know we’re heading into Vorren space, and I know that Sheli is a Vorren name, and I know that you’re the brains behind this whole idea. So, why is this name so important?”
“She asked me to come to her,” Rob said, after pausing to think about his answer. “She asks, and I go. That’s all there is to it.” Rob paused for a second, staring into Sollain’s slit-like eyes, before the alien nodded, humbly, and handed Rob the pad.
“The information,” Sollain said, before walking off down the walkway toward his quarters. Eagerly, Rob entered his cabin and laid down on his bed, studying the pad as thoroughly as he could.
“Sheli,” Rob began, mulling over in his mind the forename of the girl with whom he had become obsessed. “‘Sheli,'” he read from the notepad, “‘a name common to the upper-middle echelons of the warrior caste, typically bestowed upon the daughter of a captain or a commodore.’ She’ll be plenty rich, then.” Rob grinned to himself, before continuing his reading. “‘The name is derived from ancient Vorren, and is approximately 7000 years old. Its original meaning is believed to have meant “princess” or “figurehead”. The term given to such figures in ancient Vorren warrior myths are Shayali , from which the modern name is derived.'” Rob mulled the etymology of the word around in his mind for a while, his thoughts filled with images of Sheli, both on the cliff top, and in the grand ballroom. As he gradually drifted off to sleep, Rob’s head was filled with an image of the girl’s piercing golden eyes staring straight into his…
Rob awoke to find himself lying, shirtless, on the side of a hill, staring down on a crystal clear lake on a beautiful summer’s morning. He stared down to his right, and was not surprised to find Sheli lying there, snuggled up against him, her long hair blowing in the light breeze. Rob gently placed one of his arms around Sheli’s waist, holding her even closer into him than she had been previously.
“An untouched world,” the beautiful young woman said, as she smoothed out some of the ruffles that had appeared in her long, loose cotton dress. “The way nature intended. The way God intended. No machines. No governments. No war. Just us, surrounded by natural beauty.” As Rob stared at Sheli’s slender frame, a small bird, resembling a terrestrial sparrow, landed on Sheli’s bare shoulder. Rob put his finger out, and the bird gratefully hopped onto it, tweeting as it did so. Sheli let out a little giggle as the bird hopped around on Rob’s finger for a bit before finally flying off. As Sheli laughed, Rob found himself staring into the young woman’s face, totally enamoured with her stunning looks. Sheli stared back, equally entranced with Rob.
“I love you, Sheli,” Rob whispered into the young woman’s ear.
“I love you too, Rob,” Sheli whispered, almost quivering with nervousness. They leaned their heads closer, until their lips were almost touching, when they suddenly heard a sound coming from behind them. As one, they stared up to the top of the hill they were lying on, and Sheli let out an audible gasp as she was confronted by the sight of 250 heavily armed Pallatian warriors charging toward them, letting out the most blood-curdling war cry Rob had ever heard…
Rob awoke to find himself thrashing about in his bed, almost as if he were having some kind of seizure. After taking several deep breaths to calm himself down, Rob walked over to the window in his cabin, and reminded himself that it was, after all, just a dream, the same one he’d had the past five nights he’d been travelling to Vega Nine. Soon, however, they would be arriving at the colony, which, despite falling within Earth’s jurisdiction, had it’s fair share of alien colonists, including, Rob was very pleased to hear, almost three thousand Vorrens. He doubted very much that one of those three thousand would actually be Sheli herself, but he was sure that at least some of them would be of the same caste as Sheli, maybe even knowing the young woman…
Rob stepped onto the bridge of the Griffin, catching Leanne in the middle of her preparations to decelerate the Griffin to sub-light speeds.
“One hundred and thirty-one light years from Earth, eh, Rob?” Leanne asked, almost rhetorically.
“I guess so,” Rob replied, not fully understanding Leanne’s question. “When do we reach Vega?”
“Forty-five minutes,” Leanne replied. “We need to time it just right, we don’t want to be stranded in the middle of deep space with no rails to help us get back to civilisation, do we?”
“Does that happen often?” Rob asked, genuinely concerned.
“Rarely,” Leanne confessed, “but that’s not to say it’s not unheard of. When I was in the military, we kept getting reports of ships, which were thought lost several years prior, wandering into firing ranges in an attempt to get back home.”
“What happened to them?”
“We just escorted them off our property and sent them on their way,” Leanne said. “Don’t worry, though,” the young captain continued, trying to reassure Rob. “Only about 1 in every 20 000 ships goes missing in interstellar space.”
“Great,” Rob said, far from convinced by Leanne’s speech.
“Well,” Leanne said, looking at the clock on her instrument panel, “looks like we’re approaching Vega. We should be there in thirty-five minutes. Do me a favour and get everyone up here, will you, Rob?”
“Sure,” Rob said, somewhat nervously, as he left the bridge, looking for his crewmates.
Just over half an hour later, the Griffin re-materialised in normal space, and watching from the small craft’s bridge, Rob saw a small turquoise dot start to grow bigger and bigger in the middle of the bridge’s front portal.
“Vega Nine, everyone,” Leanne stated, pointing at the growing dot. “Home to species from all across the galaxy. We’ll be docking at one of their orbital tethers in about ninety minutes, so if you have anything you want to take down with you, to sell or to trade, now is the time to gather it up.”
“Are we actually going to be paying for these docking privileges this time?” Rob asked Leanne, allowing a little hint of condescension to creep into his voice.
“Only by virtue of the fact that it’s cheaper than splurging on extra fuel for landing and take-off,” Leanne retorted. “Do you have everything you need, Rob?”
“Sollain’s provided me with all the information he could find pertaining to the warrior caste,” Rob informed his captain. “Hopefully, someone down there should be able to recognise Sheli if I describe her to them.”
“‘Hopefully’, ‘should’ and ‘if’ all in one sentence,” Leanne retorted, sarcastically. Rob simply nodded, knowing what she meant.
“I know,” he said, “it’s a long shot, but it is my first shot. It’s not like these’ll be the only Vorrens I’m gonna meet.” Leanne nodded- they were still only at the start of their journey.
“Best get everything packed and ready,” Leanne informed Rob. “We’ll be docking soon.” Rob nodded, before heading off toward his quarters, leaving Leanne alone on her bridge.
A mere two hours later, the Griffin had docked with one of the long, thin cables extending over a thousand miles above the surface of the planet, connecting the world to an artificial ring, which hovered above the planet’s equator, day and night. Also attached to the cable was a small elevator car, which was cutting down through the planet’s atmosphere at speeds of almost 300 mph. On board this car, Leanne, Rob, Anna and Sollain were sat, restrained into their seats by tough leather-like belts that protected them from the effects of the turbulent atmosphere, which was shaking the car around on it’s tether.
“Are we nearly there yet?” Anna asked, her mind, not to mention her stomach, being somewhat troubled by the constant shaking of the car.
“Just another hour and a half,” Leanne responded. “Unless, of course, you’d fancy going faster.”
“An hour and a half?” Anna replied, trying to sound confident and optimistic. “That’s hardly any time at all!” However, there was no disguising the nervous grimace on Anna’s face.
“That’s the spirit!” Leanne exclaimed, as the car plunged ever further into the atmosphere…
Ninety minutes later, the car stopped shaking as it passed between two magnetic plates, similar to the ones that the Griffin used to propel itself through the light barrier. The car started to gently sway back and forth, before finally coming to a halt at the bottom of the cable. Breathing a collective sigh of relief, Rob, Leanne, Anna and Sollain stepped off the car, all of them (with the exception of Sollain) somewhat wobbly on their feet following their extra-long free fall.
“We’ll meet back here in eight hours,” Leanne announced to her crew. “If you find any good restaurants then let the rest of us know so we can meet up for lunch. In the meantime, Rob, Sollain, you go and gather information about this Sheli woman. Anna, you’re with me, we’ll be hitting the hardware stores, see if there’s anything we can use on the Griffin. Everyone clear on what they’ve got to do?” Rob, Anna and Sollain all nodded at Leanne, who simply smiled back at the three of them. “Good. See you two around lunchtime, then.” Rob and Sollain nodded again, before heading off into the metropolis they had come down into the middle of. “Ready, Anna?”
“Uh-huh,” the young woman muttered back to her captain, staring up the giant cable down which she and the others had just descended.
“Hey, there’s no time to stand there gawking, Anna,” Leanne said, snapping Anna out of her trance. “We’re on a tight schedule, remember?”
“Oh, erm, sorry,” Anna said, redirecting her attention to Leanne. “Hardware stores, right?” Leanne nodded, before heading off into the metropolis, in a different direction to the one taken by Rob and Sollain. “It’s a pity, really,” Anna continued, following her captain into the city centre, “I was looking forward to doing a little sight-seeing.” However, Leanne simply laughed at the young woman’s suggestion.
“There are no sights to see, Anna,” Leanne casually informed her young shipmate. “The planet was only colonised 35 years ago, none of the buildings here are older than that. There aren’t any alien life-forms here either except for the trees and plants, and there’s nothing really weird or alien about them, either.”
“OK, OK,” Anna conceded, “but this is the first planet except Earth that I’ve been to, and I’d really like a picture or two. Just something to send back to my parents, you know.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean,” Leanne admitted, “the first planet I went to with the military, I wanted to take a keepsake home with me, so my squadron clubbed together and gave me something to remember the planet by.”
“What was it?” Anna enquired.
“A grenade,” Leanne answered, chuckling slightly.
“Charming,” Anna said, grimacing slightly.
“Nah, it was only a joke, really,” Leanne said, still chuckling. “Besides, the only thing on that planet was a load of oceans, deserts and volcanoes. Do you know what you get when you combine loads of oceans with loads of volcanoes?”
“No, what?” Anna asked, genuinely curious.
“Rain, and plenty of it,” Leanne informed Anna. “Ten inches in one hour was the record, believe it or not. We moved on foot into a canyon at 0900, and by 1500, we were swimming down it.”
“Wow,” Anna said, genuinely impressed at her captain’s story. “How long ago was this?”
“April 1 st, a few years ago.”
“April the fir…” Anna muttered, before stopping, and narrowing her eyes. “Very funny,” she spat at Leanne, who was by now laughing very hard.
“Sorry, couldn’t resist it,” Leanne chuckled, before pointing to her left. “Hardware store at 9 O’clock. Got the list?” Anna nodded, retrieving a small electronic notepad from her jacket pocket.
“Good,” Leanne said, heading towards the shop. Anna followed Leanne into the shop, but her eyes were still noticeably narrowed…
Meanwhile, Rob and Sollain were walking down the back streets of the city, searching for the colony’s Vorren quarter.
“3000 Vorrens,” Rob stated quietly to his Manduri colleague, “all around seven feet tall, you’d have thought they’d stand out amongst a colony of humans.”
“Vorrens don’t like to socialise with other races,” Sollain hissed back, “not even species they’re allied with, like we Manduri or the Endari either.”
“Then why bother to set up a colony on a primarily human world?” Rob asked, confused by the Vorren’s apparent xenophobia.
“The Vorrens see a human-Vorren alliance as inevitable,” Sollain replied, “so they send a few thousand of their people out to human colonies, just to keep up appearances. They did the same with my people 60 years ago.”
“Keeping up appearances in the most invisible way possible,” Rob commented, sarcastically.
“Yes, ironic, isn’t it?” Sollain whispered back to him. Just then, they were slightly surprised as a tall, human-looking man walked past them, toward the elevator cable down which Rob and Sollain had descended. The man regarded them as he walked past, and Rob got a good look at his sparkling, almost shining, golden eyes. Once the man, who was clad in only a pair of leather trousers and a black denim vest, had walked off, Rob turned to Sollain.
“That was one of them, wasn’t it?” Rob asked the reptilian alien. “I mean, he was only a few inches shorter than you, and the eyes-” Sollain held one of his clawed hands up in Rob’s face, silencing him.
“Of course it was a Vorren,” Sollain whispered back, “but something wasn’t right about him. He wasn’t openly displaying any caste allegiance.”
“Is that unusual?” Rob asked in reply.
“Oh yes,” Sollain confirmed, a slightly worried tone creeping into his usually calm hiss. “Nothing is more important to a Vorren than his or her caste and his standing within said caste. That man had no caste insignia, nor was he displaying any social standing pins.”
“Meaning?” Rob probed, reminding Sollain that he was not as au fait with Vorren culture as his Manduri colleague was.
“Either he has no caste, meaning he’s a member of the labour class,” Sollain said, before taking a deep breath, “or his caste does not believe in advertising their allegiance.”
“Is that a bad thing?” Rob asked. Before Sollain could reply, though, they both heard footsteps coming from in front of them. Looking down the alley, they saw five young women walking toward them. All of them were Vorren, all in their late teens, and all were wearing skin-tight, high-legged leotards, thigh-length leather boots, and beret-style hats, around which their long hair was pinned. Everything about the women, their clothes, hair, even their make-up, was coloured in the darkest shade of black that Rob has ever seen. Immediately, Sollain recognised what the women were.
“Get out of sight, quick!” Sollain ordered Rob, shoving him down behind a pile of boxes.
“Friends of yours?” Rob whispered back, as the two of them observed the group pass by them, oblivious to their presence. However, as the Vorren women passed by the human and the Manduri, the one standing at the front, the “leader”, turned her head, and stared straight toward where Rob was crouched. Although he was well out of her line of sight, Rob could still feel her gaze burn into him, somehow.
“Is there something wrong, Mistress Tyzek?” One of the girls asked, as Mistress Tyzek, the one staring at Rob, stopped and paced toward the boxes that constituted Rob and Sollain’s hiding place. The girl moved closer to Mistress Tyzek and placed her gloved hands on the lead girl’s bare hips, eventually moving them upwards so that her arms were wrapped around her leader’s waist.
“I’m sensing something unusual,” Mistress Tyzek replied, smiling as the girl continued to caress her body, “something… otherworldly.” As the lead woman spoke, however, Rob could barely suppress the urge to jump up from his hiding place- he knew the voice, knew it very well. He sneaked a quick peek over the top of the boxes, and before he was dragged back behind the boxes by Sollain- he was able to confirm what he had suspected- the voice belonged to Sheli.
“Anyway,” Mistress Tyzek said, removing the other girl’s hand from her waist, “it is of no importance. Come along, our elevator will be awaiting us.” The five of them then walked off, and when they were safely out of sight, Rob and Sollain stood up, and climbed out from behind the boxes.
“That was Sheli,” Rob said to an irritated Sollain, pointing after the young women. “It looked and sounded exactly like her.”
“If that was her,” Sollain hissed, aggressively, “then you must give up any hope you ever had of being as one with her.”
“Why?” Rob asked back, getting irritated with Sollain’s tone of voice.
“Because they-” Sollain started, gesturing down the alley where the women had walked, “are members of the Vorren True Caste, the nastiest, most sadistic caste in the entire Vorren Confederacy! Even the Vorren government fears them, sees them as evil, doesn’t like to talk of them.” Rob simply shook his head.
“That can’t have been Sheli, then,” Rob said, defiantly. “She wouldn’t act sadistically, wouldn’t go along with a group like that. Of that, I’m certain. Maybe her twin sister?” Sollain mulled Rob’s request over for a few seconds.
“Possibly,” the blue-scaled alien conceded. “Multiple births are not unheard of in Vorren culture.”
“We may very well have her surname, then,” Rob stated, enthusiastically. “Sheli Tyzek… that’s definitely it. It’s got to be.”
“Vega Nine proved to be a good stop, then,” Sollain said, smiling at Rob.
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