They Returned-Story 03



Tears of frustration rolled down his wrinkled cheeks, while his hand cramped around the walking staff, wishing it would be a weapon potent enough to fight back. Strong enough for revenge! Moses felt ashamed of himself and his emotions. He was a man of peace. His eyes fixed on the thick column of smoke, he wondered how many had been taken this time. Kaleb the shepherd of the Fizman tribe came running as he noticed Noah. "Elder Noah, what are we going to do? I am sure they will come this way as well." "We must hide in the mountains." "We hid the last time, they found us never the less. They have beasts that can find our scent, even better than dogs. You know that!" Noah almost screamed. "What else can we do?" Lola still on her knees with her eyes full of sorrow, stared at the Elder. "Maybe the way of the Elders and the Goodwizards are wrong after all." Her face of sorrow, slowly changed as her tone became sharper with each word. "Maybe we should..." She hesitated to speak the dirty word but then she spat it out. " Fight!" Seeing the burning village; a sight he had seen last when he was a young boy. He remembered the pleading screams of his mother, as she was dragged away by them and his father doing nothing, except telling everyone not to resist. He pulled her up. "Swift, gather everyone of your tribe. We are going to the Valley of Descent ." Kaleb, whistled and signaled his dog to gather the flock. Noah who suddenly had an idea growing held him back. "You must leave the sheep and all your livestock behind. We must travel fast and unburdened." Kaleb, not entirely convinced to simply leave his livelihood behind, not knowing what the Elder had in mind said. "They didn't take everything last time. Maybe they overlook us this time. Did they take sheep back then?" "Everything! Sheep, chicken, pigs, dogs, and cows. Many men, women and children." Kaleb, never known to be the sharpest mind, pointed towards the burning village. "Maybe it is their punishment for living so easy. Giving honest shepherds only a small part of what a sheep is really worth. They cut it up and offer it to others with much profit. Is it not said that greed is one of the evil things that cause violence? We have eighty sheep. Maybe we should go and give them forty and they will be pleased and let us be?" Moses, on one hand, did not find any flaw in Kaleb's argument. Especially in terms of their religion, but his memories and the sight of the burning village made him realize, Kaleb, his father and he were wrong. Lola hefted one of the curved shepherd knives, it had a wicked sickle-shaped razor-sharp blade, slicing with ease through the throat of a sheep."What about Oraht, the husband of our daughter? What if they want one of our grandchildren?" Kaleb was not certain anymore. "Oraht is a Goodwizard and maybe.." She turned to Moses. "What is there? What is in that valley that will help us?" "It is where our Ark is buried, the ship that brought us here. There are things that can help us against them!"

-–""--

The being did look somewhat like a dog, Oraht thought. It did move like a dog would if walking on its hind legs, Elga the wife of community leader Pascar had a dog that could dance on his hind legs when Elga played the flute.

He and twenty other men of the community sat with their hands fastened behind their backs in what once was a Pascar's pigpen. It stank of pig feces but over it, all hung the stench of the fires that still consumed the village. They were guarded by this upright walking dog-like being. It wore some kind of armor suit, while it carried a weapon across slung across its back. It held a long stick in his right. The stick caused a painful sensation every time it made contact with one of the men. The dog-like being was not alone, but not all of them looked like dogs. Some of the intruders looked like the people of Arat, others looked like nothing in Oraht's world.

Pascar, naked and dirt-caked as him, leaned over. "I see you are awake. They have taken the children and women already. What will happen to us?"

"I don't know. I only remember what Old Moses has told me about the last time they came. They will take many, kill many and only leave the old and sick."

-–""--

The Jooltar slaver snickered in the eerie high pitched, almost insane sounding way his kind was famous for and exposed his formidable fangs. "The Syndic was right, there is a planet right here at the edge of Freespace full of primitive humanoids. A continent full of villages, each brimming with humanoid primates." He snickered even louder. "For the Polonium, they will pay me at Alvor's, I am going to get me a bigger ship and take what I had to leave behind."

The being he was talking to, had a rigid body shell and a long snout. It was Karthanian. Terrans sometimes saw similarities with seahorses. The Karthanian flickered his long black tongue into a thin tubular glass. On doing so gathering some of the thick brown syrupy liquid inside. The Karthanians called it Slobber and it was consumed both for nourishment and pleasure. Only after the third flicker, the Karthanian put the glass tube down. "I suggest haste. These are indeed the fringes of Freespace, but what are a few light-years here or there to a Union battleship captain, eager to pulverize a few pirates. Do I have to remind you how they feel about slavers?"

The Jooltar stopped snickering and sounded not as loud and confident as before. "We are far from any Union system."

The Karthanian gestured to the glass of Slobber, and then towards the planet displayed. "I think I let you have this all for yourself. The profit seems genuine. I thank you for considering me as a partner, but pass on this one."

The Karthanian pirate returned to his ship, where his first mate waited at the airlock. "No deal?"

"The Jooltar is raiding a colony of humans."

"What kind?"

"I think these are Earthers ."

"Let's get out of here while we can. Those are my orders."

-–""--

Moses, accompanied by all the members of the Fizman clan was walking as fast as his old feet would carry them along the worn-out path that connected the Sandman village with the Rosenheimer village. When he was young he could walk the entire distance with only taking one break. Now he simply had to stop every now and then. He hoped the Sky Demons had not yet attacked and raided Rosenheim. There he planned to get donkeys that could carry them a tad faster, on the two-day journey to the Valley.

Just as he and his entourage were about to reach the peak of the hill from where they hoped to see the other village. Noah heard the high pitched whistle of something strange and not of this world. A heartbeat later, a pointed black thing streaked across the sky. A cold hand of fear grabbed his heart and a sickening feeling spread across his stomach. He was certain of the sight he would see in a few moments. His throat constricted as he saw the flames and the smoke, Rosenheim too was burning.

In his despair, he didn't see it at first, but Lola pointed it out. "Look one of the flying monsters is burning too!"

She was right. Not too far from their group and right next to the path, was the twisted mass of one of these flying machines, that brought the intruders and transported their loot away.

He noticed two beings stumbling away from it.

Moses was a man of peace and abhorred violence. Just like he was taught, just like his father, but he did not hold them back, the young adults of the Fizman clan, led by Lola. As they stormed down the hill. Shepherd staffs and knives no longer tools, but weapons indeed.

-–""--

Oraht watched helpless, as two of the alien intruders, ripped two men to pieces. The scene was as horrifying and frightening as it was revolting. The short but powerful jaws of the dog-like intruders sank into the still moving bloody heaps that once had been neighbors and friends. The wet tear and the dull crunch of bones were sounds Oraht would never forget, he was certain. However in all this horror and agony, something new grew deep below his stomach, it was a cold rage. He was raised as a man of peace, to abhor violence and that there was nothing that justified it, not even self-defense, but his old conviction was withering and peeling away with each act of horror he had to witness.

Then they came for him...

-–""--

Moses reached the burning village and Valtar, the old community leader. The man was sod caked and his robe in shreds, but he was smiling. "Moses, we have chased them away! The sky demons can bleed. Their Thunder throwers can be used by us as well!" He held up an alien weapon. "I took down their flying thing with this!"

"They will come back with more and bigger ones. They will drop exploding things from far away and kill everyone. My father told me that it is better to let them have what they want. A few of us dying or abducted is better than all of us dead."

"Your father was wrong and so are you. Who is to stay behind and live and who must die?"

Moses sighed. "I am reciting what I held for the truth all my life, but I am no longer sure if my father was right. They are back and that means they will return as long as we let them. I am on the way to the Valley of Descent ."

"What good will that do? The legend of the Ark that brought us here might be buried there, but how to find it? What will it hold that can help us?"

"Things like that." Moses pointed to the Thunder thrower.

"You put your hope on something that might be there or not. Why not talk to the speaking altar and ask the spirits of the past for help?"

"Because it is forbidden. The talking altar is of the evil side. Besides my Grandfather had it ordered destroyed."

"And my Grandfather disobeyed yours. It is hidden in a cave not too far from here. It still speaks"

"Then your Grandfather might just be the reason these Sky Demons came in the first place, looking for that altar."

"Do you want to take a trip to the Valley search for something buried thousand years ago, while these Demons raid and destroy every village? Or take a chance that the speaking altar might grant us help?"

-–""--

The Jooltar slaver and pirate had already forgotten the cowardly Karthanian because seven ships had answered his call. The world held too much loot for one slaver. He wanted to haul off as much as he could. It was a small colony, as colonies go but still over a hundred thousand slaves and thousands of tons of life stock. The slaves were spread all across the main continent in small settlements. There was no real city, no traffic system that could be used to gather them at one convenient point. There was not even a central communication system that could be used to intimidate them. So he planned to simply burn and raid village after village, gather the locals in pens and then pick them up as soon as he had enough cargo space available.

This was now the case.

-–""--

Oraht had no hope left, he already saw himself torn to pieces, perhaps it was the sight of the macabre scraps around him, the blood dripping fangs of the aliens, but something exploded inside him. He rammed his head as hard as he could underneath the maw of one of the aliens and out of pure instinct, as he had never fought anyone or anything before, followed up with his knee into the belly of the beast.

His sudden and unexpected attack was even more successful than he could have hoped. His attacker was thrown to the floor and did not move.

His action was like a signal and the rest of the men scrambled to their feet and overwhelmed the other two alien guards with kicks and head butts. Only two men were harmed by the pain sticks before the three aliens were stomped and kicked into a bloody pulp.

It took them little time to figure out how to open the cuffs. They had seen how the guards did it after all. Armed with Thunder throwers and pain sticks, some even wearing bits and pieces of the Alien armor they gathered around Oraht. He was no longer a Goodwizard or a priest of peace, but the leader of a wild half-naked group of warriors out for blood and revenge.

-–""--

There deep inside the cave, a few hundred paces from the well-concealed entrance, and by the light of a lantern and several torches they looked at a rectangular metal box of chest height. It had a dark window and several bright blue lights. They all could hear a constant stream of voices and music emitting from it. It was a mix of many voices. Each talking in a different tempo, but now and then an understandable word could be heard.

Moses was more than a little intimidated. The altar, to him more or less a piece of lore indeed existed after all. He also remembered his grandfather talking about it and warning of its evil.

He whispered ."What if these are the voices of the Sky Demons?"

Valtar shrugged. "They are already here and they are already killing and abducting us. We don't have much to lose!"

Meek and womanly Lola was gone, in her place was a woman with the dried blood of a slaver smeared across her face, holding her shepherds' knife and an alien thunder thrower with confidence and a flair of unmistakeable readiness. She pushed herself next to Moses and asked. "How does one talk to the gods then?"

Valtar shrugged."No one I know has ever done it. My grandfather simply took it here so that fanatic grandfather of old Moses could not smash it."

Recent events seemed to have peeled away any fear or hesitation. Lola stepped forward. "Hello Gods, we need help against the Sky Demons."

The chorus of voices stopped and the Altar fell silent, the blue lights suddenly turned red. Moses was already turning and about to run when a single voice said. "Language analyzed and recognized. Old Terran English with Yiddish elements. This is GalNet terminal 5646. Part of the Colonization package for Ark New Canaan. Energy reserves at 22 percent. Please restate your request."

The small group stared at the thing, the lights had turned green. Lola cleared her throat. "Hello, Galnet Terminal. I am Lola of the Fizman family. We are all under attack by demons from the sky. They kill and abduct many of us. We need help from you."

"Unable to determine the meaning of the request. Cultural references and terms used are not in context with any emergency situation on file. I am forwarding your request to the next Union emergency center. Please stand by."

The dark window started to glow and out of nothing the head of a scaled monster appeared inside.

This time Moses was certain the machine was loaded with demons and ran towards the exit.

Lola, however, remained where she was.

The greenish monster said. "I am Emergency Analyst Zuuzz, it appears your Terminal is not avatar or holo enabled. Please restate the state of your emergency."

Lola simply repeated her last sentence.

The green being responded with a nod. "It appears your emergency call originates from a GalNet terminal that was part of a colonist ark. An ark that was listed as lost.

By analyzing your terminology, it looks like you are colonists that have lost some or all connection to technology. Please don't be afraid, I am a Shiss and my species is part of a large multi-culture society." A human face appeared next to the green monster. " I am Specialist Miller, my ancestors came from Earth. We have forwarded your emergency request to Union Fleet. The USS Resolute is diverting course as we speak. Estimated time of arrival is within 12 hours."

-–""--

The Jooltar could already see the sacks of rad shielded Polo coins before his inner eyes as the first shuttles filled with slaves were about to return from the planet's surface.

Yes, there were a few reports of resistance, but nothing unusual. If the trouble makers could be captured, they would bring more profit. Fighters were always welcome at the Death Arenas of Sin 4 and N'Ger. If they proved to be to much trouble, he could simply drop some orbital ordinance on them.

One of his command crew members, a usually grumpy Oghr interrupted his musings. The Oghr's voice did not sound as gruff and forceful as usual, but almost fearful." Captain Vox'har, we are being hailed."

"Ah, my call for more help has been heard. Put them on."

Instead of the static hissing, echoing quality of the usual bad Myon transponder communicator, he expected, a loud and crystal clear voice thundered across his command center. "This is Captain Snyder of the USS Resolute. You are hereby ordered to power down all weapons and shields and prepare to be boarded. This is your one and only warning."

All blood seemed to drain out of Captain Vox'har's head, his pointed ears drooped, and his tail went between his legs, just as the tails of his tundra hunting ancestors did when they suddenly faced a Zylon predator.

Two of his colleagues were either insane or never faced a Union Battleship. They ordered their ships to open fire as soon as the Union ship would come in range.

Vox'har's throat became as dry as paper as he and his command crew watched the Resolute drop a heartbeat later out of Quasi space. The 3500 m titan of Union might dwarfed the biggest Slaver ship by magnitudes. The incoming fire fizzled away in the seemingly insubstantial bubble of shimmering purple light that engulfed the behemoth. The smooth Ultronit surface of the Union ship suddenly sported dozens of dome-shaped dimples, cold fear grabbed the usually so calloused slaver, he knew what those dimples contained, translocator cannons.

No one knew how they worked, but they transmitted an antimatter bomb at the point of explosion via a different spatial condition directly inside the target. No shield, no armor could protect a ship from such an inside explosion.

-–""--

Moses was almost blinded as suddenly two new suns flashed into existence, illuminating the world just for a brief moment even brighter than the sun itself.

Flying things in groups of three roared moments later above his head spanning the distance from horizon to horizon in a few eye blinks.

Lola and the others had emerged from the cave as well. She said. "We are not alone. We have brothers and sisters out there beyond the sky."

Valtar, almost as old as Moses said. "He and the other Goodwizard have always known that. They have buried the Ark we came to this world and punished and isolated anyone who asked questions."

Moses nodded. "Much of it has been forgotten, but we always wanted peace."

Valtar made a gesture towards the destroyed village. "You can only live in peace if you are strong enough to defend that choice."