Flidoring The Early Wars (5 page)

The truth behind the story is that there was a small Black Hole that wandered through that sectioned of the galaxy, wreaking havoc on many of the stars. In addition, there were two planets in the Simnius system, Playzorus Prime and Playzorus Minor. No doubt, names derived from the story. In the catastrophic event, the minor planet was completely torn apart and has settled into a series of rings around Playzorus Prime. Before the tragic encounter, Playzorus Prime was a green and brown planet with deep blue oceans. Now, water averaging only twenty feet deep covers the entire planet; its land having been worn down and the oceans filled in. The bright ball of water glitters like a blue jewel in the night skies around Styner.

Once the Warp-ship maneuvered away from Graznosian space, Bellmus asked Timsssack if he would like to give the warp command. Timsssack took a deep breath and said, “Ready the Warp-drive; “Engage!” Just as he said, “Engage!” he caught himself pointing his tail toward the front of the ship. Bellmus and Slabriel both noticed it also and, after a brief chuckle, they all looked in the direction of the windows just as the Warp-drive kicked in. With eyes opened extra wide, they noticed the stars in front of them start to distort, and off they went.

Bellmus could feel the vibration of the engine in his armrests as he still clinched them tightly. He had been through many simulations before but he had never felt the engine like that. It seemed almost alive to him as it pulsated in a way that resembled a heartbeat. He also noticed a few squeaks and creaks in the hull that sounded a lot like moans and groans. For a minute, he thought that the ship might be trying to say something to him, possibly a word of warning or a protest of the journey. However, after more than a few minutes had passed with no major or minor malfunctions, he decided to release his death grip on the armrests and called out, “status report!”

“Warp-drive is operating at eighty-four percccent,” replied the Pilot.

“Course is two-four-zero point six-three by one-five point two, azimuth is point one,” spouted out the Navigator.

The Science Officer finished off the cadence with, “Life support, sensors, long-range scanners, and the kitchen sink all operating at peak performance, Sir.”

Of course Lyemad, being the Science Officer, was displaying a little of the Electerian humor they are well known for. Bellmus gave him a stern glance for his poor timing, but everyone else on the bridge had a good chuckle because it broke the great tension they were all feeling. Tessslan was the Pilot, and even he had to snicker a little at the well-placed jesting. His snicker quickly turned to a silent wondering of how Lyemad could seem so happy at times. He knew that true happiness comes through knowing peace, and he was sure that Lyemad did not know real peace.

After many hours of smooth sailing with nothing more than a burned-out light on a secondary control panel, Bellmus turned the bridge command over to Lyemad. Turning toward Timsssack and Slabriel he said, “Will you join me down in my lab for a cup of tea? I would like to get your opinion on my work.”

“Yessss, that would be very niccce,” replied Timsssack.

“Oh my, yes indeed I would very much like that!” said Slabriel, although it sounded more like, “Trill tick click tick tick! Click trill tick click click tick, Tick trill click click trill tick trill click tick.”

To which Bellmus quickly responded, “It is a good thing that I am starting to understand your language. Lyemad, run a level two diagnostics on the ships translators,” he barked as they were leaving the bridge.

“Yes sir!” shouted back Lyemad.

Bellmus spent most of the rest of the trip to Simnius in his lab showing off his Tasley Elite plants to the steady stream of curious Ambassadors. He had laid out dozens of flats full of small genetically altered plants that were able to produce leaves in just two days after planting. He had certainly gained the respect of everyone, especially from the other Electerians. They not only said that they felt healthier shortly after drinking the tea, but also, that it tasted great. Many of them apologized privately to Bellmus for grumbling about his being absent from so many events while he had been working on the plants. Bellmus knew now, more than ever, that he had secured his family’s name in history forever.

Bellmus was in his lab a couple of days later when the Navigator announced over the COM, “Sir Bellmus, we are coming into Simnius space now.”

“Thank you, drop out of warp and I will be right up,” he replied.

Once on the bridge, Bellmus ordered, “Put us in orbit around Playzorus prime. Lyemad, start scanning the planet and find out all you can about it.”

“Yes sir!” he snapped back in excitement. “I read no life signs; an oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere; high levels of Chlorine in the 80 degree water; and I do not seem to be able to scan through the bedrock under the water. The water averages twenty feet deep, but there is some kind of dense element in the deeper rock that our sensor cannot penetrate.”

“Very interesting,” mused Bellmus, “Lyemad, do the sensors show any place where the water is deep enough that we could get a sample of that dense rock?”

“Well, the heavy saturations of ore seem to be deep underground, but there is an impact crater that is deep enough to get a sample.” Lyemad replied. “It will be a small dispersion of the ore, but it should be enough to analyze it.”

Bellmus looked over at the pilot’s seat and asked, “Tessslan, can you maneuver us over the water and hold it steady enough for a diver to go down and retrieve a piece of that ore bonded rock?”

“I can sssit usss down in the water. The ssstarboard-docking hatch isss twenty-five feet above the landing padsss. That givesss usss five feet above the water sssurfaccce,” answered Tessslan.

“Good, take us down,” Bellmus ordered. “Now, who do we have onboard to use as a diver?”

“I would very much like the opportunity to be the first one from our star system to step fin onto a world from another star system,” said Slabriel eagerly. “The high concentration of chlorine in the water will limit my ability to stay on the bottom, but I should have plenty of time to dig out a nice sample of ore. The water temperature is quite warm compared to Angelus. It will feel like a nice hot bath for me.”

With that, Tessslan landed the ship on a good flat section of bottom and they opened the hatch. Slabriel looked out at the beautiful, pale blue-green water and started ticking and clicking as he leaped headfirst into the clear water. The ship’s translator did not work once his head was outside the door, but Bellmus thought he said something about ‘one big splash for our kind’ or something like that. Once in the water, Slabriel headed straight for the bottom holding a rock-pick in his tentacles. When he made it to the bottom, he found a thick layer of white sand covering it. Using his fins and webbed legs, he moved swiftly across the bottom until he came to the edge of the impact crater that dropped down about two hundred feet. There he was able to chip off a large piece of the ore and head back to the ship. He was just about back to the hatch when his gills started to burn from the chlorine. He popped up out of the water and gasped for air through his mouth while tightly pinching his arms over his gills—trying desperately to keep any more chlorine from getting in them as he cringed from the pain.

Bellmus had lowered a rope ladder from the hatch but Slabriel was struggling to climb up it. His finned feet made it nearly impossible. He finally had to go up backwards and use his heels on the ladder. As soon as he was in the hatch, he said, “I need some fresh water to rinse out my gills. They feel like they are on fire.”

Tucked down in the crotch of his tentacles was the piece of ore, which he handed to Bellmus. Carefully examining it, Bellmus replied, “Thank you Slabriel, this might prove to be very useful someday. I will take it to my lab and study it later. Why don’t you go down to the exercise room and use the showers, that should help rinse out the chlorine from your gills.”

Immediately Lyemad called down from the bridge yelling, “Father! There is a big chunk of rock from the planet’s debris rings headed right for us!”

After closing the hatch, Bellmus pushed a button on the COM panel and said, “Tessslan, get us back into orbit, now!”

Right after they left the surface of the water a rock about the size of a Graznosian child slammed into the water right where they had landed. The force of the impact sent sand and water hurling into the air and bouncing off the bottom of the ship. Again Lyemad yelled over the COM, “More incoming debris. Tessslan is taking evasive maneuvers. Hang on!”

Timsssack and Bellmus arrived back at the bridge only moments later, and Bellmus ordered, “Status report!”

“The debris rings around the planet are unstable. We suffered no damage, but we might need to stop at a “Ship-wash” to clean the sand off the bottom,” Lyemad said lightheartedly, trying to alleviate the stress of the situation.

“That wasss a clossse one, the Creator isss watching over usss,” said Timsssack.

“That may be,” Lyemad rebutted, “but I thought that I was the one that spotted that rock. I did not hear the Creator call down to warn you.”

With that almost blasphemous response, Tessslan jumped in with, “It wasss the Creator who causssed you to sssee that rock, you could have been busssy doing sssomething elssse.”

“You are welcome.” Replied Lyemad sarcastically.

“All right now, lets just be thankful that we did not get hit and leave it at that,” interrupted Bellmus. “Set in a course for the Paylee star system. I think we have seen all there is to see here. Engage.”

Upon saying that Bellmus noticed Timsssack’s tail pointed toward the front of the ship. “Interesssting,” Timsssack muttered, while most of the bridge crew looked at him with smiles.

Tessslan and Lyemad were not smiling, they were both feeling slighted by the other. While they were stewing over the whole Creator issue, Slabriel entered back onto the bridge. Returning to his seat, he told everyone of his victorious mission to the bottom of an alien world. Angelians can be quite good storytellers, especially when it involves something in which they played an important part. The event only took him ten minutes to complete, but his story lasted for over an hour. It was so entertaining that about half way through it, even Tessslan and Lyemad had forgotten their differences and were engrossed in the narrative.

At the conclusion of Slabriel’s story, the ship was already well on its way to the Paylee system. Paylee is a Red Giant star with two planets: Noteorius Minor and Noteorius Major. Noteorius Major is a gaseous giant with thick clouds of poisonous gases. It circles very close to Paylee, which causes the dense clouds to churn violently from the heat and gravitational pull. It is an extremely inhospitable place and is of no interest to Bellmus or his colleagues. Noteorius Minor, on the other hand, is of great interest. Even though there has been no communications, Electerus had picked up some signals that they figured only intelligent life could make. The anticipation on the ship was intense. They would soon meet their first beings from another star system on Noteorius Minor.

During the four-day trip, excitement filled the air as the three worlds swapped different stories and legends. At one point in the voyage, Lyemad realized that the Warp-ship needed a name that was worthy of its mission. After much deliberation and debate, they settled on “Volkran”—the name of an Electerian explorer who made the first flight into space. He stayed in orbit around Electerus for thirty minutes in a ship that he built himself. He had a dream of one day meeting aliens from another world, but he died before ever realizing his dream. However, his historic achievement was the starting point on the path that was now about to culminate with meeting aliens from other worlds. Everyone agreed that it was an appropriate tribute to his vision.

Coming out of warp close to Paylee, Bellmus ordered, “Sensor report!”

Lyemad, studying his instruments and screens carefully, responded, “I read an atmosphere similar to Graznos,” he paused slightly while rechecking another screen, “I have life forms!” he said with a crack in his voice. “They are concentrated in small cities spread out across the countryside. There is one large city that is central to the smaller ones.”

“Send a broadcast on all frequencies of a repeating tone sequence of the first six prime numbers. Two-second delay between numbers, five seconds between repeats. Shine a laser beacon at the main city synchronized to the tone. Run it for thirty minutes.” Bellmus commanded.

“I hope no one starts shooting at us before they figure out what you are doing,” said Lyemad sarcastically.

“If they built elaborate cities then they have some form of measurement with sub-divisions. They would have figured out that they could not divide certain values into equal parts. No matter what language they speak, those values will always be the same,” answered Bellmus in a reassuring voice.

“I know what you are doing, I just hope that whoever is down there understands it before they hit us with some unknown weapon,” said Lyemad, genuinely concerned.

About twenty-five minutes passed when Bichael (pronounced like Michael with a B), the Communications Officer and an Angelian, cried out with a high pitch voice, “Oh! Sir Bellmus, I…We…They are responding! It is the same sequence with one more prime number added to it.”

“I guess we have your answer Lyemad. We were not vaporized by any super weapon,” Bellmus said, returning a little of his sarcasm. “Tessslan, take us down slowly—just to the east of the big city by that large clearing.”

It was about mid-day when the Volkran entered the atmosphere of Noteorius Minor. The planet orbits Paylee at a great enough distance that the climate ranges from tropical to frozen, depending on location and time of year. It was a warm summer day with clear skies, except for a few scattered green clouds in the upper atmosphere. Just as Tessslan was about to cut through one of the clouds, Lyemad yelled, “Go around that cloud! Quick!”

Tessslan veered off sharply and sent everyone who was standing, flying to the starboard side. Somewhat confused he said, “What wasss that about?”

“That green stuff is a very strong acidic gas. It could eat through our hull plating,” replied Lyemad, relieved he had analyzed it in time.

Slabriel had been standing at the time Tessslan veered, and he clumsily staggered around until he tripped over his fins. Finally standing up again he said, “Wow, that was not very dignified was it?”

Tessslan apologized profusely to him and so did Lyemad, while Bellmus and Timsssack reassured him that everything was ok. Bichael, with as much sincerity as he could work up said, “You handled yourself much better than I would have in that situation.”