The Pilots and the Passengers
By
UCSBdad
Disclaimer: You guessed it. I don't own Castle. Rating: K Time: An AU future, and see below.
Authors note: This is a sequel to The Pilot, and The Pilots.
Author's note: Some sci fi fans may note some things that I have borrowed from other fandoms.
"Can't you make peace?"
"Make peace with the destroyers of our planet? Of our race? Never. We could never trust them not to attack us through the many tunnels. I am stronger than she is. If you let me go, I can kill her, even if I die. That is all I desire."
"Where is your base?"
The alien looked suspicious. "Why should I tell you? You are human?"
"I can just ask the old woman, you know."
He shrugged. "We live to the south. Perhaps twenty of your kilometers away. Why?"
"I'm taking you back."
"No. I came here to kill and if need be, die for my race, my clan, my family. You cannot deny me this."
"Skinny, take him back to the airlock."
The old woman was happier when Rick, Skinny and the alien got back.
"Lord, your fine lady has been telling me that your Empire, a human Empire, is mighty, so very mighty. Please tell your masters to come here and smite these murderers. Destroy them utterly."
The alien sprang at the old woman, but Skinny was too strong and too quick for him.
"I have no idea what the Empire will do with my report when I get back, but I doubt a punitive expedition will ever come out this far. In the meantime, I'm taking your friend here back to his people."
"No!" She screamed. "Let us fight. To the death!"
"To the death." Screamed the other one.
They carried the protesting alien back to their ship and Skinny held him down while he screamed and raged at them.
"Okay," Simone said, "I can see some large radio antennas and what looks like an old landing pad. We can drop him off and leave."
"The sooner the better." Rick said.
They found the next planet with little trouble.
"Not much there." Kate said, looking at the sensor readings. "I'd say the most technologically advanced culture is about early Iron Age. The biggest building is maybe three stories tall. This isn't what we're looking for."
"We should go down and look around. Maybe this was a technological super power a hundred thousand years ago. Or maybe they have old legends that tell of the great and powerful building. Or, maybe they just have chocolate." Rick replied.
They landed outside of a small village that was probably a large city by local standards. They landed near two locals who were plowing their field with something that might have been a cross between a sheep and a lobster.
"We've landed in Hell." Rick said as the locals approached.
"You've been to this planet before?" Skinny asked, incredulously.
"No, but in some human religions, dead people who were evil in life go to Hell where they are tormented by demons who look kind of like those two. Bright red with horns on their heads."
"They don't have tails of any sort, nor cloven hooves." Lindane said. "They are tall though, about Skinny's height, two and a third meters. Doubtlessly because this is a low gravity world, sixty percent of standard."
"Their boss isn't the Devil then." Rick said. "He's probably just the Prince of Insufficient Light."
"We should open the hatch and say hello." Moecious said.
They did so and looked out at the locals. The locals looked at them. Then the two began running for the village.
"I guess we scared them and they ran." Rick said.
"I prefer to think that they saw a tall, charming fellow covered in beautiful fur and ran to spread the good news." Moecious said.
"It's created quite a stir." Kate said, still monitoring the sensors. "The village looks like someone kicked over an ants' nest."
It took a half an hour, but eventually the locals began heading for the ship. It looked like the whole village, men, women and children were headed for them.
"They've brought the kids along and I see only a couple of weapons." Rick said. "I think we should go out and meet them. We'll leave Andine and Lindane as well as Jane and Simone here. Okay?"
"Not okay." Lindane said. "I'm tired of being cooped up in this ship. And, if they're bringing their children along, shouldn't we do the same to show we're peaceful?"
There was some discussion, but eventually, Rick, Kate, Skinny, Moecious, Lindane and Andine stepped outside.
There were perhaps five hundred locals just standing there staring at the newcomers. The majority were dressed in a simple clothing, nothing more than a long shawl for the women and a breechclout for the men. Others were dressed in knee length tunics. One male was dressed in a brightly colored robe and leaned on a wooden staff. Three males behind him carried spears, but didn't seem to be aggressive.
Then someone pushed his way to the front and walked out in front of the crowd. He was wearing a copper breastplate, a helmet that was covered in plumes, a brightly colored kilt, and had metal greaves on his lower legs. In his hand was a two-handed sword, about two meters long. He began walking back and forth, yelling and waving his sword around.
"Probably the local chieftain, telling us how brave and powerful he is." Skinny said. "I've seen this sort of thing before."
Eventually the chieftain was done and he pointed his sword at the crew, yelled something and drove the point of the sword into the ground.
Everyone stood there for several seconds, and then Skinny took several steps forward and let out a mighty roar. Then he began yelling in Kzinti.
"He's doing the same thing." Moecious said, translating for the others. "He's telling the chief that he killed three Imperial Scarrens in hand to hand combat, which I rather doubt. Oh, he says he destroyed a Bird of Prey while captaining a scoutship. He can't expect them to believe that! He says he made the Kessel run in under twelve parsecs. Unlikely. And he once shot a famed bounty hunter. If he did, he must have shot first. And now he's…just rambling on."
"He's bragging about his sexual prowess." Lindane said. "I can't imagine he seduced the Patriarch's sister and survived. As for the…"
"How do you know?" Andine demanded.
"I've been learning the Kzin language from Skinny, as well as Vorlag from Moecious and French from Simone and Jane."
"No! How do you know words about sexual prowess? What has he been teaching you?" From the look on Andine's face, Skinny was going to wish he only had to face some Imperial Scarrens or a Bird of Prey.
"His data pad has an Anglic to Kzin dictionary. I looked the words up, Mother. I have lived most of my life in a brothel, if you recall."
"You're not dating until you're eighteen." Andine snapped.
"Mother! That's not fair."
"Twenty."
"I think Skinny is done." Moe said, nervously. "Perhaps we can go now."
That was not to be.
The chief bellowed and ran at Skinny, holding his long sword over his head. Skinny stood motionless as the chief rushed towards him. At the last microsecond, Skinny weaved to his right, grabbed the chief and threw him to one side. Perhaps forgetting this was a low gravity world, he threw the chief further into the air than he'd intended. The chief landed on his head and lay perfectly still.
The male in the bright robe and the long staff ran to the chief and examined him. Then he took the helmet off, dusted the plumes a bit, and walked over to Skinny. He gently placed the helmet on the Kzin's head. He proceeded to collect all of the fallen leader's regalia and give it to Skinny. The last item was the long sword.
"I'll bet that's the local shaman, or maybe the Grand Vizier." Moecious said softly.
Then he faced the assembled locals and made a short speech. When he was done, the entire village dropped to their knees and hit the ground with their foreheads.
Four locals, armed with spears walked to Skinny, drove the butts of their spears into the ground and also kowtowed to Skinny.
"That must be the local army." Moecious said.
It looked like the one in the robe was trying to pantomime something to Skinny. The Skinny reached down and lifted the first one up and handed him his spear. He did the same with the others. It must have been the right thing to do, as the four soldiers looked happy.
Next, a dozen women approached Skinny. They were dressed in bright finery and as soon as they reached the Kzin, they began a sensuous strip tease. When they were naked, it appeared they were quite young and very pulchritudinous.
To the surprise of his crewmates, Skinny dropped his trousers, allowing them to see his striped, furry buttocks. Then he pulled his pants back up. The women took several steps backwards.
Lastly, he drew a blaster and incinerated a large tree some hundreds of meters away. That impressed the locals. Then he headed back to the ship, bringing the shaman, or whatever, with him.
"I think I know what that was all about, but suppose you explain." Rick said.
"I got carried away and accidentally killed the chief. It appears that now I'm the new chief. Sitillo here, I think that's either his name or his title, tried to explain it to me."
"What about the soldiers?" Moecious asked.
"What I did is pretty standard in a lot of warrior cultures. The new king or clan chieftain raises his trusty warriors up and arms them. Again, Sitillo was a help."
"And when you mooned us?" Kate asked.
"Mooned?" Skinny looked perplexed.
"Showed us your butt."
"Oh. I was expected to take over the harem and impregnate the ladies with lots of fine, strong sons. I didn't think that I'd have much success explaining that their DNA and Kzin DNA would never produce any kind of offspring, but when Sitillo stripped the old king, I saw that his, um, sexual equipment was quite small. Even by human standards it was small. Whereas, my equipment, by any standard is quite large. I think everyone understood there'd be no interspecies sex."
"So, what do you do now? You're a king." Rick asked.
"I'm going to appoint Sitillo to rule in my place, as soon as I give him an ace in the hole. As you've probably guessed, you become the new king by beating the old king and killing him. The old king has armor, a huge sword and a couple of tough bully boys to scare off the competition. Much like the old Patriarchy, before we discovered humans. They need someone who's smart leading then, not the toughest guy around."
"What's the ace in the hole?" Jane asked.
"This." Skinny pulled out a small handle with a metal ball on one end.
"That doesn't look like much."
The ball moved out two meters from the handle. Jane reached for it, but Skinny pulled it away.
"Between the handle and the ball is a very thin single molecule. It's much like a garrote or a strangling wire, only more so. Watch." Skinny extended the ball again and shaved a chunk off of a nearby rock. Where the rock had been cut was perfectly smooth.
Again, there was a lot of pantomime between the Kzin and Sitillo, but the shaman seemed to get the idea.
Skinny led Sitillo out and made a speech in Kzin, sort of.
"We few, we happy few. We band of brothers, for he today who sheds his blood with me shall be my brother, be he ne're so vile. This day shall gentle his condition. And gentlemen in Kzin now abed shall think themselves accursed they were not here, and hold their manhoods cheap while any speaks that fought with us upon St. Crispin's day."
Although they understood not a word, the locals cheered mightily. Then Skinny put the regalia he'd just received onto Sitillo and allowed Sitillo to demonstrate his new weapon. Then Skinny headed back to the shop and his friends.
"Nice speech." Rick said.
"Thanks. That one always sounds best in the original Kzin."
They easily found the next solar system on their search. What they found was…
TBC