The Fifth Civilization: A Novel (35 page)

***

“We are being attacked by some natives, Commander.”

“Roh, by the grace of your Fox’Lo, destroy them! We’re sending
a team there now.”

“I will kill them or die in the attempt.”

“You won’t die, Specialist! There is no need for martyrdom.”

“If that is the will of the three Gods, Commander, then it must
happen.”

***

Just as the ringing in Roan’s ears had gone away, and it
appeared as though the last Kotarans were killed, one more rushed around the
side of the Kotaran craft and toward the outcropping where the warriors lay
hidden. He fired some shots from a pistol, preventing Roan from getting off
some of his own. The human ducked behind the rock, the image of a running
Kotaran burned into his mind.

The Kotaran somersaulted onto the top of the rock wall,
roaring and screaming. Native warriors bellowed a heavy yell, too, as if
responding to the Kotaran. They aimed their arrows, but the Kotaran was
quicker. Another somersault and he landed behind the rocks and in front of the
warriors. Chief went down first, his bow slashed by the Kotaran scythe. He tumbled
to the side but Roan couldn’t tell if he was badly hurt.

Roan aimed his rifle at the Kotaran’s back, but as if
sensing this move, the Kotaran used his tail to bat away the rifle. This flung
the weapon from Roan’s hands over the edge of the cliff. The beast then pivoted
to face Roan. At this point, Roan noticed that the warrior attacking them now
was the same one they’d kept on the
Colobus
for a month. This kanga face was one he could remember.

Recognition, however, only lasted a second. The Kotaran
butted Roan in the chest with the palm of his claws, propelling him a yard in
the opposite direction. His ass bore the brunt of his fall to the ground.

The Kotaran turned back to the warriors, who had moved to
their melee weapons. However fearless they were, the natives were not as tall
or quick or as strong as the Kotaran, who worked his scythe like a cleaver
through the bows and spears of the warriors. Once those were dispatched, he
began tearing his knife into the flesh of the natives. They battled with their hands,
but though they outnumbered the Kotaran, none could hold off his assault. One
fell to the ground. The other warriors, disarmed, clumped together and backed to
the edge of the cliff.

Chief stirred on the ground. He was regaining his bearings,
and pulling out a dagger from his sheath.

The Kotaran heard the stirring. He turned to Chief. His lifted
his scythe, now dripping with blue blood, and he said something in Kotaran.
Roan made it out as a reference to the Kotaran gods.

“Hey!” Roan shouted. He lifted himself onto his two feet.
The Kotaran’s attention shifted from the down-and-out Chief to Roan. Too far
away for his scythe to be effective, he quickly stuck it into the rock face and
once again pulled out his pistol. Aimed it at Roan.

This was the end, Roan thought.

Not so. Chief lurched forward and plunged his dagger into
the Kotaran’s foot. His boot was not enough to stop the blade. Crying out, the
Kotaran fired a shot, which missed Roan. The human found himself in shock,
however. He was sure the shot had bulls-eyed.

Angered by this stabbing, the Kotaran aimed his gun at
Chief, but the pain of the dagger slowed his movement. A warrior, running from
behind, grabbed the scythe stuck in the wall and plunged it into the beast’s
neck. Screaming, the Kotaran elbowed the hand and the warrior away, but left
the scythe in his neck. Like a stunned and wounded deer, he stood between Chief
and the warriors, spasming and wheezing. His tail fluttered, searching for a
victim.

Everyone knew the Kotaran was finished. Chief, Roan, and the
warriors watched him, teetering like a weak tree in the wind. After a few
seconds he opened his eyes, tightly shut from the pain, and shot Roan a look of
disgust. He gritted his teeth, and the look turned to fear.

“Fox’Lo…Bar’Hail…” the Kotaran muttered, audibly. Two of his
three gods. Then the Kotaran’s legs gave out and he tumbled over the side of
the cliff, down a good hundred feet onto the rough rocks below.

Gods and demons do not fight on land.

Two Mountains had always believed that, but today proved
that assertion false. The warrior regarded
Nikrun
as the stranger rested on a rock and spoke like a madman to the small talisman
he was carrying. He was not any taller than an average tribesman of Hedda.
Shouldn’t an angel or other Messenger of God be taller in stature than a
mortal? And shouldn’t such a divine figure be immortal, when neither Nikrun nor
the demons were plainly able to be killed? All this evidence suggested that
these foreigners were surely not from the heavens.

Voices came from the other end of the talisman
Nikrun
held. The object could be alive,
or more likely, it was some intermediary between
Nikrun
and his fellow beings on the ledges below. After all, were
the Chiefs of his village not an intermediary of God? Probably this was a tepid
analogy, but Two Mountains was too tired to continue thinking. The sun was
directly overhead, and it was far past the time his people should be asleep. He
had not eaten for hours, either, and his stomach groaned for food. Two Mountains
supposed he should bear these trials, as the day was the most extraordinary he
had ever experienced.

Nikrun
had waved
the warriors away from the strange enclosure (or was it a giant bird?) and
walked over to it himself, holding the Kotaran’s lightning club. The man was
gone for several minutes, opening a part of the enclosure and then walking
inside it.

“Won’t he be covered in all the bile and slimes that float
inside a beast?” one of the warriors asked Two Mountains. He was enthralled by
Nikrun
’s odd behavior.

“Somehow, I think that is not a giant bird, my friend. I
don’t see any organs inside it.”

“Then what is it?”

“I do not know.”
 
If
Nikrun
hadn’t warned them
away from it, Two Mountains would charge after the man and investigate for
himself.

He wouldn’t have to wait long to do that.

Hearing voices below them, Two Mountains peered over the
edge of the cliff.
Nikrun
’s friends
were working their way up the rock face, with the female and the blue David in
the lead. Behind them were the green men, struggling and panting their way up
the cliff. So he’d been right in his belief that the talisman
Nikrun
held was some intermediary
between groups. A magic stone such as that one would prove useful on hunting
trips and long treks.

Two Mountains called on his warriors to help the foreigners
up to the summit. No sooner had their helping hands done this than everyone’s
attention turned to the forest beyond. A flock of excited birds burst from the
trees in the distance. Rising after them was a mammoth blackbird, its roar
audible even from the cliff. It ascended slowly, pushing down air and swaying
trees below it, and Two Mountains had no doubt it was the bird they’d heard
during the night. Somehow the Kotarans had possession of this creature, and it
meant terrible things on an incredible scale.

Nikrun
’s friends
ran to the enclosure, which was now humming much louder than before.
Nikrun
was standing in the enclosure’s
threshold, motioning with his hand for the warriors to come his way and
shouting something that sounded like
lezzgo!
Giving one last glance behind to the blackbird, which was rotating now and
seemed poised to attack, Two Mountains decided to obey
Nikrun
. His warriors were ahead of him, already running to the
enclosure. This was a beast they couldn’t defeat. Two Mountains jumped in, and
Nikrun
shut a wall behind him with a
loud
clang
.

***

“I don’t see why you didn’t have a shuttle
prepared,” Grinek seethed at an operations specialist standing nearby. With his
rear planted firmly in the chair, Grinek had once again assumed the prime
position on the
Hanyek
. The ship was
now lifting off from the clearing, setting course for the pallid cliffs a few
kilometers or so away.

“I’m very sorry, Commander,” pleaded the officer. “We sent
one of our shuttles south of here an hour ago, so it’s too far away. And we
haven’t charged any of our others since we left Bauxa. They’re simply not
operational.”

Grinek waved him away. In another time he would have
executed him on the spot, like Sisal. But as of late he’d been too tired to do
so. Kotaran time, on which their ship and biological clocks were set, dictated
that currently it was far beyond midnight. The bright light outside disoriented
Grinek, but that’s what happened when you zoomed around a planet all day.
Grinek fought an urge to rub his eyes and watched the viewscreen as the ship
loomed ever closer to the white cliffs and the operations ship.

“Adjutant Annel, is our vessel responding?”

Annel flicked a switch, and a negative tone replied. “No,
Commander, there has been no communication with them since Specialist Roh last
reported in.”

Grinek pulled at his armrest and it nearly popped out of its
screws. Roh was possibly dead, along with his entire team. His best men had
again failed him. “Continue on our course. We will give one pass to that cliff
face, and if none of our men are there, destroy it and the operations ship. No
one can survive our cannons.” There was an affirmative reply. Of course, these
Earthmen had escaped their cannons once before, in orbit.

The ships grew closer. From the distance the
Hanyek
was approaching, the craft could
be seen to be powering its bottom thrusters and preparing for takeoff.

***

 
“Hurry, for the
love of Gwayvurn!” Duvurn shouted, invoking the name of his personal god. Roan gave
the controls on the ship’s small bridge a once-over, and was relieved to find
they were similar to an Earth ship, possibly because the vessel was modified
from a human one. David quickly read out some of the Kotaran script next to the
controls, and Roan went straight for a console with a yoke on it. He pulled it
back and lifted the ship up in the air. Thanks to a quick translation from the
Nyden, Roan had a pretty clear idea of how to fly the vessel, though it was
going to be tough doing it on his own.

“David, could you go to that console over there, and ignite
our rear boosters?”

“Certainly.”
 
David rushed over and looked over the controls. “Excuse me, but do I
press this red button here?”

“We don’t have time to experiment! Just press any goddamn
thing!”
 
David did as he was told,
and the ship rocketed forward, beyond the white cliffs, toward the treetops in
the distance. Roan plopped his ass into the seat and tried his best to keep
from flying across the room into the viewscreen. A light on a computer nearby
indicated the Kotaran mothership was directly tailing their aft, preparing to
match and overtake them. Roan wasn’t sure he had another chase in him.

“What do you think we’re going to do, just fly away?”
 
Duvurn screamed, holding onto the
doorframe for what seemed to be his life.

“Thanks for your support!” Roan spat back, desperately
trying to keep the craft’s axis parallel to the surface. “I only thought I was
trying to get us away from the bloodthirsty Kotarans!”

Roan managed to see, behind the hulking frame of Duvurn, the
figure of Chief gripping the sides of the walls. Somehow, the native had
managed to work his way to the bridge stood awed by what he saw. Roan didn’t
have time to dwell on this, but he knew that if he were a primitive native,
this was not how he wanted to be introduced to flying. A glider might be much
more peaceful.

“There’s a flashing light,” David shouted, manning his own
station. “Something about dangerous carbon levels. Might I suggest something,
since I know carbon is used for—”

“Not now, goddammit!”
 
Their little joyride was not going to last long. None of them had any
experience operating a Kotaran-engineered vessel, even one similar to a human
one. Any second it was going to tear apart from their incompetence or from
their Kotaran pursuer’s cannons.

***

“They’ve stolen our ship!”
 
This time, Grinek ripped the armrest
from his seat and flung it across the bridge. The sight of their auxiliary ship
darting away from the
Hanyek
was too
much to accept. “For the love of whatever gods you believe in, destroy that
vessel!”
 
Grinek buried his heads in
his hands, leaning over his knees.

“Do you want to do the firing, Commander?” asked the weapons
officer.

“I don’t give a shit who does the firing! Destroy it!”
 
As per his orders, the
Hanyek
opened fire with its entire array
of cannons, aiming for the small target erratically dancing ahead of them.

***

Laser bolts whizzed past them and the bridge glowed from
these green bolts. One hit and shook the ship, but most went beyond the vessel
and into the treetops. Flames shot up in the distance where they meshed with
the branches and leaves.

We’re done, Roan thought.

“They’re going to kill us!” Duvurn screamed. He had begun
muttering in his own language again.

Roan gave a glance at David. Almost calmly, David looked
back, realizing too that this probably was the end. The Nyden was no longer at
his controls, and instead seemed to have closed his eyes in prayer as well. His
head was glowing white. Roan thought of Aaron, of Kel, of panspermia, and the
fact that they’d made it this far only to come crashing down in a Kotaran ship.
They’d been chased across hundreds of light years, nearly killed on Bauxa, blown
up in orbit, only to die in a duel over the trees.

That’s how it could’ve played out. But those kanga bastards
weren’t going to get any of the spoils from Aaron’s Planet. Roan typed a few
buttons on the controls, and on the viewscreen, sky turned into ground and
ground to sky. If Nicholas Roan was going to go out, those assholes chasing him
were going out as well. Roan muttered a silent prayer to the gear gods of
engineering. Please let this maneuver work.

He directed the ship into the cannon fire of the Kotaran
vessel.

***

The operations ship flipped and headed directly for the
Hanyek
.

“He’s going to ram us!” a controller yelled.

The laser bolts were missing their target; the weapons
officer was panicking. Grinek gritted his teeth and steeled himself for the
impact.

***

Had Roan aimed a little to the right, he might have struck
the command sector of the Kotaran vessel. But he veered away from the laser
cannons even in his suicidal charge. Thus, when the human trawler struck the
Hanyek
it did so near its starboard
engine. Roan would discover this later, because during the collision he closed
his eyes right as the wing of the Kotaran ship disappeared from the viewscreen.
A hellish scrape and a violent shaking reverberated throughout the ship.

When Roan opened his eyes, he was surprised to find himself
still alive. The relief was temporary, because the sensors and warning lights
on the ship were shimmering like the skyline of Tokyo. No lever or button could
alleviate their pain, and the ship’s altimeter reading was dropping fast.
Grateful that he’d survived his own game of chicken, Roan did all he could to
steer the ship so that it was right-side up when it crash-landed.

No more glib remarks, no more shouts from Duvurn. This was
terror at its utmost, their last avenue of escape dashed by their pursuers and
sending them to the surface like a meteor. There was a clearing ahead, a
pasture scene that might have been from Roan’s ancestral homeland, the
California he saw in pictures. Roan smiled at the thought, not focusing on the three
seconds separating being airborne from not.

By the grace of the gods the ship met the planet belly-down.

 
There were
enough emergency stabilization procedures on the ship’s thrusters to keep it
from tumbling and spinning as it impacted. However, that didn’t mean the crash
was a landing—the lights went out and sparks flew as the belly scraped
the ground, and the whining of the hull indicated a good part of the exterior
had been shorn off. They drifted across the green for a few seconds, then came
to a halt before a cluster of trees.

A chair had fallen across Roan, and he lay on the hard metal
floor of the ship. He may have been unconscious for a few minutes; he couldn’t
be sure. He did know that the rhythmic sparking of a wire compelled him to open
his eyes.
 

Roan sat up. He brushed electric ash out of his hair,
realizing his batball cap was somewhere in the rubble. His first order of
business was to search for it.

David groaned, and crawled out from under a railing that had
fallen on him. The groan directed Roan’s gaze to his hat, covered in dust near
the captain’s chair. He picked it off the ground, his priorities in order, and
put it on his head. Now to help David. He extended a hand and helped the Nyden
up. Immediately, David cupped his hand on his cranial bulb, and Roan realized
it was bleeding.

“How badly are you hurt, David?”

“Not much, I believe. But it wouldn’t be good to take any
chances.”

If they hadn’t just crashed, David would’ve suggested Moira
help them. But Roan saw the doctor was up and about, focused on gathering the
survivors. And then once all were accounted for, they’d have to start moving
once again. The Kotarans probably had crashed, too—and the survivors were
not going to be happy.

***

One minute earlier, Grinek was experiencing his first moments
of terror in two months as the commandeered operations vessel sped toward the
bridge. It avoided the
Hanyek
’s
cannons but swerved to the right, striking somewhere toward the starboard wing.
He didn’t see whether it was destroyed or not, but it had surely suffered a
crippling blow with the crash. The
Hanyek
,
however, was much in the same situation.