The Battle for the Ringed Planet (9 page)

“Conscripts? You were forced into the Sky ships?” Davin frowned.

The young curly haired teenager brought the soldier a tall silver tankard carved with woodland creatures and another for his father and Torian took a deep swallow, “Oh thank the gods of drink; this is damn good!” With foam on his upper lip and a grin from ear to ear, “I’ll take the keg!” and he gulped again. Daniel sat beside his sister and they both leaned forward watching the off-worlder while he enjoyed the drink.

“Each world is assigned a quota for the number of recruits it must provide to the Confederation fleets,” he continued with a wry smile, “unfortunately for me I met all the requirements and passed the medical and aptitude tests. Then they had a lottery and I
won.”
 

Nervously clearing his throat, Daniel spoke up, “In school the teacher says the Sky Demons … I mean, people from the night stars, want to come down and kill us.”

Putting down the tankard, Torian replied, “Actually as far as I know, no one knew you were here. We thought everyone was dead.”

“But you’re not a real Sky Demon? I mean, you rescued Siiri…” Serina piped up quickly.

“I’m not a demon. I’m just a human.”

“Are there others like you?” Serina leaned forward.

“Yeah, there are billions. More than you can even imagine, on dozens of worlds.”

“Women and children, too?”

“Men, women, children, white, black, yellow, and those are the natural pigmentations. People can have their skin changed to any color they want, blue, green, and bright pink though it is a little expensive. In some worlds, depending on the size and gravity of the planet, people are taller, shorter, and wider. There’s lots of variety in the human species.” Torian hesitated for a second, “A good friend of mine, Tristan, pigmented himself a shade of blue. Girls used to love it.”

“That sounds so strange.”

“In the big cities, especially on earth, people look very different, more than you can imagine.”

The smell of spicy lamb distracted Torian as he glanced to the kitchen. Soon Siiri emerged from the hallway clean and fresh from a bath. Her long ash blonde hair was now brushed and shiny, and she wore a light green knee length dress with gold earrings. She sat down next to Torian on the sofa across from her sister and brother. Torian had thought Serina the prettier sibling, but changed his mind after seeing Siiri bathed and changed.

Pointing to his flight suit, Daniel shyly inquired, “What do all those symbols mean on your blue outfit?”

The handsome off-worlder leaned back as Siiri glanced over his uniform, “She can tell you.” He grinned.

“What is the wing with the eye?” Daniel stared.

Siiri cleared her throat, “That means he is a scout, but not a very good one because he couldn’t find our village.” Smiling mischievously at soldier she continued, “That one on the shoulder means he is from the big Sky ship that crashed. Sadly, he lost all his friends on it. The one on the other shoulder is the scout vessel he flies, that also crashed.”

“You make me sound like an incompetent Sky Demon.”

“And the red and gold one means Torian has been in too many fights, and the purple one with the heart shows that he got hurt bad,” her voice slowly turned melancholy.

Then Krystin called out that dinner was ready, and they all stood. As Davin, Daniel, and Serina made their way into the dinning room, Siiri held Torian back with her palm on his chest, “How do I smell now, Torian McCallum?”

The soldier leaned closer, “Like lilacs, nice … reminds me of a girl back home.”

She shot him an annoyed look and he laughed quietly to himself, striding to the large dining table, carved with oak leaves and set with fancy light blue dishes and sparkling silverware.

“We’ve never had a …” Krystin refrained from saying Sky Demon, “… off-worlder for dinner. I hope this meal resembles something you’ve had before.”

Torian surveyed the plates as his stomach gnawed, “Lamb chops … just like home.”

“Do you say grace where you’re from?” Krystin glanced at Torian.

“Only when mom is around,” he grinned, and they all smiled. Davin said a grace Torian had heard before and they began to pass the plates of meat and vegetables around.

“You’re very … unexpected, Torian.” Krystin commented, “Who would have known people from the sky were like us, eating the same food, speaking the same language, though with a little bit of an accent.”

“We all came from earth. In fact your ancestors were probably mine too.”

That caused a bit of an awkward silence, until Daniel could not contain himself any longer, “What are the sky ships like? Do people travel between the stars?”

Finishing a mouthful of lamb and washing it down with some beer, “There are all kinds of sky ships; small ones, huge ones, from space liners to one shot colony ships. You can take a cruise through the rings of Saturn … Tristan and I, we flew in the tail of a comet, through the outer layers of gas giants, and between binary stars …”

Davin raised his fork, “But you said there is a war in the stars?”

“That’s why you all have to hide, marines may be landing here, this time real Sky Demons.” Then he added, “But there are good ones like me, who will want to protect you. If there is a battle, you could be caught in the middle of the fighting.”

Sirena leaned a little forward, “How many fights have you been in?”

“Children, let the man eat.” Krystin gave him an apologetic look.

“No, it’s Ok …” Torian wiped his mouth with a serviette, “I’ve been in a few battles in space.”

Across from him blue-eyed Siiri watched him coyly, “You don’t have to talk about it.”

“You folks remind me so much of my own family at home, even Daniel and Sirena are like my own brother and sister. I’ve been away for so long I tend to forget what it’s like to eat a home cooked meal in the company of a real family.”

“We’re glad you brought Siiri back to us, even if it’s only for a night.” Krystin smiled warmly, but he noted that Sirena glanced away.

Eagerly Daniel washed down his food with water, “What was the sky ship like that you flew?”

“I didn’t fly it … ok, well I did at times. The R-26 Hawkeye is a two-man scout vessel built to fly long-range missions and the smallest ship capable of creating a wormhole. My pilot was Tristan Alpha from earth, California actually. It was funny, but we were exact opposites. I wanted to fly and he wanted to play with the computers, but he was the pilot. Anyway, we were a team for two years and would go on these missions for a week at a time searching for enemy activity in far off star systems. We would launch a probe into a star system, then wait, wait, and wait.  To pass the time, he taught me how to fly, and how to land and maneuver between moons and asteroid belts. He was crazy; he hacked the logs so that I could switch places with him. Tristan said I was a natural pilot and after a while he just let me do all the flying.”

He gazed into Siiri’s azurite eyes, finding it hard to look away while she remarked, “You must have been great friends.”

“Yeah …”

“So you didn’t have any fights?” Daniel sounded a little disappointed.

“No, we had battles. The Rebels had a ship like a Hawkeye called a Starseeker, but it was bigger with a 10-man crew and a heavy gun turret. We encountered one near a red giant star, with thousands of asteroids and these gas giant planets. There were also hundreds of moons.” Torian drank some beer and then continued, “One of our probes spotted them first. Now, they outgunned us, but our ion engines were faster. It was cat and mouse for three days and we got no sleep. Tristan flew while I searched everywhere. To make a worm hole to escape, we need lots of room and time to come to a full stop, so neither one of us could attempt escape without the other finding out.”

All eyes watched Torian as he leaned back, “They finally spotted us, and I’m telling you, if it hadn’t been for Tristan’s flying ability I would not be here … they blasted the asteroid we hid behind and he twisted and turned to elude them. Blasting the asteroids worked to our advantage because all the debris and dust gave us a screen …”

“Then what happened?” Daniel was at the edge of his seat.

“We got behind then, and I had the guns … they didn’t see it coming and I turned them into dust.” Then he glanced around, “Tristan and I fought a couple more times. We took out a couple of Solvair fighters once, both green pilots …”

There was a silence for a few minutes as Torian leaned forward again and dug into his potatoes, but then suddenly changed the subject, “I got a farm where I come from, we grow barley, fields of gold.”

“We have wheat and 3 growing seasons before the snow …” the elder man grinned.

“Aye, we have 4, and some cattle.”

“You sound like you’d be right at home at harvesting time, just a green moon away.”

The young man in the navy blue flight suit smiled, “Could you use a hand? I was going home after this mission.”

Daniel joined in, “Are you going home when the other sky ships get here?”

Glancing at Siiri and without taking his eyes from her, Torian answered, “That’s what I hope.”

“I’ll bet you’re anxious to see your family …” the long blonde haired girl in the high-necked green dress stared back.

Serina interrupted, “You’re taking Siiri with you, right?”

The young man flushed slightly in response and Siiri looked down while he took his time answering, “We haven’t talked about it. My world is Kanata, one of the few real agriculture colonies. It has vast farms … it might work out for her …”

Suddenly Serina blurted, “You shouldn’t have brought her back, why couldn’t you just stay in the city with her!”

“Serina!” her mother glared.

“It’s going to happen again, Ma! Just like when they exiled her the first time! Now the Sky Demon made them allow her to stay.”

“She is my daughter and your sister …”

“But she is marked, Ma! And look what it’s done to us? No decent boy will look at me ever since she had those eyes! They think it will happen to me, too!”

Wading in to it, the off-worlder shrugged, “I thought Alvarr was your boyfriend?”

“He takes pity on me …even though he is pitiful.”

“Well, I happen to know there are a couple thousand lonely marines in fleet, almost all male, probably in orbit right now, big, muscular, even the ones that aren’t enhanced …”

She looked up, a little hopeful, “And they’re coming here?”

“If you give me a holo of yourself …”

“Torian!” Siiri shot him a look of annoyance.

“This affliction she bears … the voices …” Davin leaned towards Torian, “Have you seen it before in other worlds you’ve visited?”

“No, but when I did a medical scan something odd came up. It might be related, and if so, someone knows about it.”

Siiri peered at Torian and in a hopeful voice asked, “There might be a cure?”

“I don’t know, Siiri, but there are all sorts of cures … they could fix your leg Davin …”

The elder man interrupted, “My daughter, if they can cure her, maybe she can come back …”

Torian nodded pensively.

Once dinner was over and the plates cleared, Torian, Davin and Daniel retired to the living room while the younger boy brought them more beer. The two older men talked about all things farming. Most of the conversation was serious; the best way to grow crops, what types of crops, soil quality, comparisons between farm animals. Torian was interested in comparing notes, but Daniel wanted to steer the conversation towards space battles. The flight specialist politely deflected most of his questions while Davin sent him for more beers.

The girls watched from the kitchen, mother, daughter and sister re-united for only a short time, naturally curious about Torian, “I never thought a Sky Demon could be so human, and so real.” Krystin whispered to her daughters watching the young man joking with her husband.

“He’s cute, too. I hope all the good Sky Demons are like him.” Serina quipped.

Krystin grew serious, “I’m grateful to have this little time with you, my daughter. I suppose they’ll take you away in a Sky ship.”

“I know mother, but there must be a way for the Sky people to come back or for us to communicate.”

“I pray so, dear.”

As the evening wore on and the beer kept coming, both Davin and Torian began slurring their words and laughing loudly.

From the kitchen, Serina folded her arms and in a patronizing tone commented, “Like every other boy you bring home, he’s getting drunk!”

“Oh quiet!” her sister snapped back. “He’s nothing like Brant, and he’s fought in battles.” Then she got quiet; thinking back on the horrible end to the boy she had known all her life. Siiri glanced at her mother, then her sister, and then moved towards the living room where Davin and Torian were noisily hooting about something while Daniel looked on grinning.

She took Torian’s hand, “Come on drunken Sky Demon. You’re cut off.”

“Drunk? Why I haven’t started …”

“And you!” she shook her head at her father, giving him a dirty look.

Torian rose to his feet, wavering a little as Siiri pulled him along, “I’ll show you the guest room where grandpa stays.”

The double bed was another salvaged piece of furniture from the city. It was in great shape and Krystin had made it up with crisp linen sheets. Siiri plopped him gently down on the bed with Daniel following close behind carrying Torian’s backpack and utility belt with both pistols in their holsters.

“Don’t touch those.” Siiri warned as Daniel eyed the weapons, “I have seen what he can do with them!” Torian lay on the bed close to unconsciousness, “Now help me with his boots.” Both siblings struggled and finally pulled off his black thick-soled footwear, and then pulled a blanket over the young man.

“And you said I smelled!” Siiri muttered catching a whiff of the ale in his breath.

Pushing her brother along in front of her, she shooed him out of the room and at the door, glanced back.  Checking to make sure the boy had gone; she tiptoed towards the bed and reaching for his utility belt, unfastening one of the holsters and plasma pistols. Suddenly she felt an overwhelming rush of emotion and knelt down beside the sleeping off-worlder.