Collision Course

Lycia manages to make it to the alien system but realizes that she's not alone. Meanwhile Richard tires to gain control over his demons

 

                                    In Between Systems. Escaped pod, Day 8

               

Lycia sits at her family’s dining table at home, her father and mother sit at opposite sides of talking about their day. Her brother, Dremux, and sister, Emerzan are there as well sitting across from each other as well. Emerzan is teasing Dremux about how the girls at the academy all think he is very handsome and that it’d be nice if he drops by. As usually he replies firmly denying such request and reminds her she is there to learn not gossip with the other girls.

               

He’d been so emotionless ever since he joined the navy, they have taken her joyful baby brother away and morphed him into an organic machine. He always did say he wanted to become more than what he already was, probably didn’t expect months of intensive training that would test all his weaknesses. They hardened his mind, body, and very core to become as unbreakable as it possibly can.  She remembers how playful he use to be as a child, if it wasn’t for his face she’d probably not recognize him.

               

Emerzan scoffs at his casual response and continues onward just to annoy him. Lycia smirks, it was amazing that he’d let her constantly bother him. Then again that has been the case throughout their lives, Lycia recalls that if Emerzan wasn’t teasing her, she’d be picking on their little brother. Though she’s been doing it more so to Dremux than herself lately, maybe it is because he isn’t around as much anymore. Lycia rolls her eyes as Emerzan continues blabbing on about what was happening at school. Emerzan has always so talkative, always having some sort of accomplishment to say about herself. Lycia stops eating and notices her father had halted his conversation with her mother and began praising Emerzan for whatever she had done. Emerzan, along with being talkative and annoying, is also always so very kind and helpful to everyone she met, which was one of the reasons everyone loved her so much. She even would go out of her way to help others species, which is also why she’d end up in trouble so often. And her mother as per the norm would scold her sending her to some school far from Alyu to punish her. Yet it usually had the opposite effect and Emerzan would continue to be the helpful hand to anyone or anything in need.

               

Lycia sighs thinking about what she how little she has accomplished through her life and can’t recall anything too memorable. Her height alone makes things harder by itself, but what is expected of her seems an unrealistic task. Her father though, had decided she’s ready to carry his torch, with no warning none the less. She’s not sure that she is ready for that responsibility. She just sits and stares at her food until her mother begins calling her and instinctively she raises her head ready to answer, “Yes moth…er?”

               

No one is at the table anymore, and now the table has been absolutely wrecked, scratch marks line it with broke glass ad sliver ware thrown all over the floor. She then feel steamy breathes on the back of her neck accompanied with a terrifying growl. Before she can even get up Lycia is yanked through the back of her seat by a scaly clawed pair of hands.  “You thought you could escape from us Alyuan, but you can never escape. Never!” Daemon’s voice growls from a black void and when she looks at her assailant she is greeted by the Renuein she killed. With its mangled neck hovering above her blood pours all over her face and it gives a horrific grin. Lycia pulls at the grasp choking her and begins gasping for air calling out for her family to come and save her. But nobody came; as it starts to blacken the only sound she can  hear is Daemon’s laughter which is becoming more distorted. She could feel herself falling, venturing deeper into the dark abyss with the laughter all around her. With one last gasp, Lycia peers it into the dark void just in time to see Daemon’s jaws snapping at her.

               

Lycia snaps awake up falling out of her seat her head slamming hard against the floor. She groans rubbing where her head and looks around her. The emptiness of the life pod is getting to her, she’s been isolated in this pod for what must’ve been days at this point. It isn’t that she was lonely she is use to not having anyone to talk to, it was the small area she is confined in. She’d spend most of her time pacing around the pod checking on how close she was to reaching her random destination. Last time she’d slept she had a dream that the pod was closing in around her crushing her. Sighing once more and picking herself up to check on her status once more. This time however, she notices the pods lights are beginning to flicker. Realizing that power was slowly beginning to drain from the pod she decides to stop the checkups, no point in knowing where you’re going if you get stuck once there.

               

Now she paces again along eating the horrible emergency ration she found in one of the pods compartments. The all day long repetitive routine is driving her crazy. The last interaction she had was with another medical drone that seemingly appeared out of nowhere tending her wounds in her sleep. Unfortunately for the drone the biogel it administered stung resulting in her breaking another drone. Since then the pod as been completely silent aside from her trying to find ways to distract herself. The pod doesn’t even have any books or videos to take her mind off her current situation. At this rate, she feels like she’ll go insane before anyone can find her. She shouts in frustration releasing her piling stress. A few more hours past while she just sits in silence doing nothing but listening to the sound of the Slip-Space Drive pounding.

               

The pod slows suddenly jerking fiercely, reacquainting Lycia with the floor.  The navigation system tries to speak but all that comes out of the speakers is garbled static. “What happened?” Lycia questions picking herself back up. Again though, the response is incomprehensible, but a hologram pops up showing the star system she’d just entered. The planets are completely unfamiliar to her, with different sizes and colors revolving around a star much smaller than her planet’s. The types of planets are surprisingly organized with solid planets closer to the sun while the gas planets, aside from a displaced moon, are farther away neatly divided by an asteroid belt.

               

Lycia stares at the projection, the scan shows that it is the third planet from the star that is habitable. It isn’t the worst planet she’s seen, it’s smaller than her planet and only has one moon but it should be suitable enough to land on.

“Enhance image around the third planet.” Lycia orders which is followed with a broken reply.

               

With a better look of the planet she sees what she is dealing with, the planet is mostly covered in water. And there are divided continents each showing their degrees of lushness and aridness, which seem fairly balanced. Oddly though, this planet’s atmosphere has an increasing carbon-dioxide level. The scanners then pick up some anomalies near the planet that blink a dark blue. They instantly catch Lycia’s attention, soon she zooms in on alien stations that are orbiting the planet. This planet is inhabited.

               

But judging on how primitive the stations appear as well as how there is no traffic going to or from the the planet it seems that they’re incapable of long distance space travel. “Great, now I get to deal with savages. That’s just what I needed.” Lycia whines. Sitting back down into her seat she plunges her face into her hands just wanting her hardships to end. Just wanting to go home and get her life back on track, it may be a tad dull but its better than all the trauma she’s been through.

               

So, having to land on that planet with the primitive aliens that live there only adds on to her stress levels. Recalling all the stories Dremux told about encountering isolated beings makes her hearts sink even more. He described to her that they’re always cautious and ready to attack at any movement you make. Communicating with them is a near impossible task, because they would never let you get close enough to them to place a translation device on them. He said that if you even managed to grab one it would scream and squirm causing a panic where the mass of them would flee or try and stop you. And that usually results in a bloodbath worsening relations.

               

That got Lycia thinking, when she lands how is she going to communicate with them? Does this pod even have the necessary equipment to handle a first contact scenario? Standing up Lycia starts looking around the pod trying to find anything that might be of use. Fortunately there aren’t many places that one can store any equipment, unfortunately the places that there are are either filled with food rations and water or out of her reach. Extending her arm toward an overhead storage, she hops to grab the handle. Her fingers skim it taunting her as well as fueling her frustration.  With a few more attempts,  along with a running jump, Lycia manages to open the cupboard only now to be left with how to grab the long container within it.

               

Looking around she tries to figure out what she can stand on to grab the container. But seeing how her ship was one of the best guarded in the Alyuan fleet not much was packed into the escape pods. Coming up with an idea she goes back to the console that the navigation system. “Commence manual override.” She commands getting another muffled static reply that is followed by a long silent pause. “Commence manual override!” Lycia orders once more sounding annoyed.

After this second order two nobs jut out of the console at her chest level. Taking a moment to herself she is reminded that the nobs are meant for a pilot who is sitting. With that thought in mind,  she refuses to sit in the chair, it would only emphasize how small she is. She grabs the nobs and tilting them slightly with pod mimicking her motion. Looking back she had hoped that it would be enough for the container to slide out. She sees it shuffle but it gets caught on the edge. Giving it a scowl, she tilts the pod further, but nothing happens. With her agitation beyond her limit of reason, Lycia thoughtlessly jerks the nobs to get it over the ledge, but instead throws the pod into roll tossing herself around. Thrown into the air Lycia slams against the ceiling, the pods lights now begin to flare a dark blue and the stress put on the hull can be heard with a quick few pops and cracks.

After a few more rolls the pod realigns itself resetting it trajectory so that it can reach the third planet as intended. This sudden change in movement body slams Lycia back to the floor leaving her dazed, but before she could do anything the container she’d been after comes rushing down towards the consoles sandwiching her head knocking her unconscious.

                           

             Earth.  Alki Beach, Seattle, Washington. 8:15 P.M.

Richard chuckles at what a pathetic sight he must be right now, this large man sitting alone in the fading sun, splinters sticking out of him like a porcupine, huddling his knees to his chest, sitting alone on a deserted portion of the beach. He pities and hates himself for it. “She’s right. I’m almost an adult now, I need to get my act together. Even if I have to be herded like the rest of society. At least I’ll know that I’ll have a role with some meaning to it.” He speaks openly to himself. As he finishes though his thoughts fill with dreams he once had, things he wanted to do, ways he wanted to set himself apart from the rest of the world.

These feelings inside him conflicted with each other making him a boiling pot of emotions ready to burst once again. Grabbing his head he feels his emotion battering his skull, meanwhile he just wants it all to stop, he wants things to go back to being simple without things and people complicating everything. “Richard, are you ok?” Sara’s voice tears through the whirlwind thoughts like a heated blade. He flinches thinking that he was alone.

“Yeah, yeah I’m fine. How, uh, how long you’ve been standing there?” Richard does his best compose himself.

“Not that long I saw you hit your head pretty hard. Are you sure you’re alright?” Sara asks looking very concerned.

“What that, that was because I felt a mosquito land on my head and you know that I hate bugs. I don’t think it got me though I’m pretty HARD HEADED.” Doing his best to erase all the troubling thoughts from his mind.

              

Sara doesn’t laugh, but she does smile and shake her head tossing a first aid kit next to him. He thanks her and pauses awkwardly while yanking it over. The painful process of plucking the splinters fro his legs is a slow one. Surprisingly the smaller one hurt more than the larger ones, but they bleed less too. The sight of blood causes her to turn around, though he lets out pained groans when plucking particularly painful pieces of wood. As he finishes he places antiseptic and bandages in his leg and brushes the sand and smaller splinters off his pants.  He walks up to Sara and tells her that they should head back.

“You going to be alright to walk?” She asks looking at his staggered stance.

“Eh I’ve had worse. Just need some time and rest to let it heal.”  

“Um… if you say so. Probably shouldn’t forget all the drift wood you collected.” Sara reminds him

“Right things are probably already, ya know, because you already had to walk back there alone without me.” Richard collects  the wood.

“Yeah… when they asked me where you were I told them that you tore your pants.” Sara slowly answered.

“Wait. WHAT?!” Richard feels his heart pop out of his chest.

“Calm down. I didn’t tell them about anything that happened over here, when they asked where you were I said that you had tripped and you got some splinters in your leg. And that you didn’t think you could walk back so you asked me to a first aid kit. I know you probably want to keep what actually happened here between just us.” She explains.

“Yeah if you don’t mind. I really don’t want to play into the stereotype of the big aggressive guy.” He thanks her and they continue walking.

               

The walk back to the group is a long, quiet, and awkward one, with neither of them wanting to make eye contact. Richard just stares at the still gleaming water. The sun is hidden behind Bainbridge Island, but the light still shines bright highlighting its outline. The sky near the island is a soft pink that fades into a darker blues-purple the farther you go away from it. The heavy sounds of helicopter rotors swallow the splashes of the water causing Richard to search for the aircraft. He barely gets the chance to glimpse the helicopters as they are speeding across the sky. He recognizes them as a pair of apache attack helicopters. “That’s weird.” He thinks to himself. He never remembered helicopters being part of Sea Fair, but those helicopters are pretty maneuverable and they might be new.

“Richard going on?” Sara asks distracting him from the oddity of the military aircraft.

“Hmm, oh nothing. Just lost in my thoughts.” He answers.

“No, I mean up ahead, look.” Sara continues pointing at a crowd of people gathering on the shore. Richard takes notice but only for a brief moment, because of a blinding glare coming off the water. Turning to look the see is a bright light in the sky. The light is blinding white, so much that it hurt his eyes trying to focus on it.  Taking a moment rubbing his eyes  he looks at the light again, but now it’s larger and closer to the water.  The light washes over the landscape at an insanely fast pace.

The object’s glare over the city’s skyscraper causes the whole sky to light up blinding him for a good moment. He jumps in his skin though, when he hears bloodcurdling screams coming from down the beach. Squinting his eyes he sees  the crowd of people running away from the beach, ducking behind cars and panicking into nearby buildings. He attempts one last look at the object noticing it hurling straight for them.

“Sara run! Run!”  Richard makes his message as loud and clear as he possibly could the object now roaring down. He drops the wood yanking her away practically dragging her.  Sara does her best telling him to slow down and that she can’t keep up with him. He can’t hear her though, between the sons of whatever is crashing and screams from the people he can’t hear much and keeps his pace. She falls down catching him off guard, Richard stops to pick her up taking another’s look to see when the object is. That was a mistake.

Richard gets Sara up and tosses her up the cement staircase trying to follow behind her. Before he can though, the object crashes into beach as the sand giving way carving its way up the shore. Diving out of its path he tries to scurry away, all the while debris showers over him, pelting him with hot sand and debris. The sound of the crash has his ears ringing while the debris burns though his clothes onto his back. Just when he thinks he’s far enough he curls up covering his head.  From the object, a heavy piece of debris comes flying out hitting him square in the jaw. Richard slumps to the ground fighting to stay conscious, but he fails.

 

Author's Note

Any positive feedback helps

Reviews

[Dtrab1]

Very good read. I'd love to read more! It really got me about Lycia trying to recall anything "memorable" just because hes in the navy. I'm sure different people will be able to see different points of view, so you can catch a lot of peoples attention and have them connect differently

[Ricky]

Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed it. Yeah Lycia has something to her that she can't see, but i plan on elaborating why she feels this way later on in the story. Thanks again for reading.

[Dtrab1]

Super cool. I can't wait to read more!!