Charon's dream
Laughing, crying, cheering, sadness,
anger, and…anger. The nightmares continued. Charon couldn't
wake up from them. He kept seeing a laughing, furred face.
A reddish-orange face with a medal on his chest,t smiling at him.
Hundreds, no, thousands of deaths surrounding him. His beloved planet
Garnage, blowing up. He felt deep sense of duty to his people and
the culture of his planet. He saw the Thundernights being scattered
about, across the universe. A single old figure, straight out of
his history books, beckoning him, wanting to show him something.
Charon could sense, feel, no, see the power radiating from this lone figure.
He saw that his eyes were glowing red. They were not angry, but kind
eyes. Trusting eyes. Charon saw himself standing next to this
figure, but grown up. Then merge with the figure. This new
entity turned around and smiled back at the him. "One day you will
know what this dream was, but for now, you must be brave and endure."
Chapter 2
At Journey's End
Present day
Near the outer borders of the Lylat system.
The Intrepid
The trip was a long and arduous one.
Seemingly infinite space, coupled with the lack of sound made by The Intrepid
was eerie enough to make even a ghost fearful. The expanse of stars
and planets whizzed by the little ship like flies buzzing around a hot
window, while Charon, Greold, Trebard, and Chesold slept peacefully in
their stasis cells, their new destination came into view. This was
a bluish-green planet with hints of atmosphere and water, landmasses of
varying sizes and shapes and distinctive mountain ranges and canyons.
The planet looked inviting enough that is if the ship held together on
the landing.
Usually when on a long flight through
space, the Garnage used the stasis cells to hibernate between two points.
When the destination is reached, the stasis cells open up for the crews
to land safely at either at a docking bay inside a satellite base or at
an airfield on a planet. This was not happening to The Intrepid's
crew. The small ship was plummeting out of control, toward the surface
of this planet. Soon, The Intrepid was flaring up like a meteor entering
any type of low-atmosphere planet. The outside of the ship was enormously
hot, yet the inside stayed cool and comfortable.
Upon entry into the planet's atmosphere,
the ship leveled out and started skipping along the layers of the stratosphere.
Lower and lower, the metallic meteorite, was coming closer to the ground.
This in itself was not important, but to an unpiloted ship, many things
could go wrong, and it did. The Intrepid was coming down belly first
into a forest of trees, scraping the highest of these trees at first, and
then gradually lowering to take out the top half of the trees. This
effect slowed the ship slightly, but The Intrepid was still traveling at
a high rate of speed. Another forest lay ahead and this time, the
ship was going to plow straight into the middle. Trees cracked and
were thrown about like twigs as the speeding ship slammed into them.
An old warrior of a tree stood in the way of the ship. Two unmovable
objects were on a collision course.
The Intrepid slammed into the side
of this tree and was thrown for a loop, losing most of its front side in
the process. The old tree shook and shuddered, but was able to hold
its ground. Wounded and in pain, this warrior will live another day.
With The Intrepid in total disarray after the crash, the ship bounced along
the ground, losing a component here and a console there. The Intrepid
finally came to rest when it hit a large boulder on the ground. Flipping
the ship once again and spilling the rest of the contents across the landscape.
The stasis cells of the four passengers were among those contents and they
were thrown from the ship, scattered among the wreckage of the ship.
The occupants were still unaware of the horrific crash that had just taken
place.
This whole chain of events had not
gone unnoticed. High in the early warning tower, James saw the Meteorite
finally come to rest within his boundary zone. He sighed," Might
as well see where that thing landed and if anyone was hurt. More
likely, if anyone survived."
Something in the back of James's mind
made him a little bit more cautious than usual. He saw the meteorite
land, but something about the trajectory and the landing, made him a skeptic.
Meteorites usually just plow right through things, not caring if it was
a tree, boulder, or living creature. This thing had actually bounced
a couple of times, which he saw, before streaking out of sight. James
climbed aboard his hover cycle and headed for what he thought was the final
resting place for this new visitor from space. While riding to the
crash site, he wondered if Professor Andross from the planetarium had seen
the meteorite as well. He didn't particularly like the simian, but
he was a treasure trove of information. James finally arrived at
the crash site. The scene was that of complete disarray and chaos.
Small fires were around, in the forest of trees. Bits of metal and
wiring were all over the place. The main section of what seemed like
a ship was half-buried in the ground. Immediately, he was on the
radio to his superiors. "You better come to these coordinates that
I am sending you. There is a major crash of some sort of space-going
ship here. I have no idea if anyone's left alive, but will use extreme
caution to find the pilots, if any," James said.
"Are you sure that this is ship?"
a voice came over the loudspeaker.
"No doubt about it," James confirmed.
"But with all this debris, I don't think it is anything that we have seen
in the past. I believe it is a first contact situation. Though
I doubt the pilots couldn't pilot a dune hopper."
"Well, just be careful. I want
you in one piece so you can give me your report when this is all over."
the voice said. "I will be sending a full team to investigate this
crash. Out."
James sighed again, "Looks like you
have yourself another mess to sort out, James."
James started looking around for any
body parts or blood that might lead him to anyone or anything that might
have been piloting this hunk of metal. Just then he heard some movement
in the bushes to his right. James gradually stood erect and looked
in the general direction of the noise. Soon, he found out it was
only his son, Fox, holding his hover board. He had lagged behind,
because he too had seen the bright light flash across the sky.
"You shouldn't be here, son," scolded
James.
"I know, but I think I have found
something interesting over here," exclaimed Fox.
Father followed his son into a grove
of trees. Fox pointed to four oblong-shaped containers that were
hanging together from a piece of machinery in a tree. As he looked
at them, James gasped in disbelief. His search for the pilots was
at an end. These were the creatures that had made the ship.
James ran back to his hover cycle and reported his findings. "I think
you had better send over a medical team as well," James said, breathlessly.
"I think I have found the creatures that were the owners of this ship.
They seem to be in suspended animation and in trouble if we don't' get
them out of their chambers."
"All right, though we might know nothing
of the anatomy and internal structure. We will see what we can do
for these space travelers," said the voice.
Just then he heard his son scream
and he saw Fox run into view. He ran right into his father.
"One of the pods," Fox said shaking. "Is opening up on its own. I
didn't touch anything. I swear."
James ran with his son back to where
the pods were hanging precariously. Indeed, one of the pods had opened
up and its occupant was still strapped inside. James made a bold
decision. He unstrapped its occupant and laid him on the ground.
The small body, still in its tight-fitting suit, was breathing regularly,
but had not opened his eyes. From what James could tell, the creature had
yellow fur and a narrow face. The ears of this creature were rounded
and on either side of the head. Black spots and markings, not unlike
the cheetah species on Corneria, were also found. He could only imagine
the same patterns and features could be on the bodies of these space interlopers.
James imagined that it took some time to be accustomed to breathing real
air instead of the recycled air that was pumped in the stasis cells.
Fox heard, off in the distance,
the sirens of the incoming emergency vehicles and personnel. When
they did finally arrive at the scene, both father and son directed them
to the still prone figure on the ground. "One of the pods is open!?"
one of them exclaimed. "Don't you know anything about protocol?"
James retorted, "The pod was already
open when I arrived here. The only thing I did was help the creature
out of the pod. If you have any other questions, direct them to my
superior. He is right over there."
Some movement out of the corner of
James' eye caught his attention as he was pointing out a rather young looking
officer. While he and the medical officer were "politely" discussing
the situation, the small form began to move. Not in any quick, seizure-like
movements, but as if a person coming out of a long, deep, well-deserved
sleep. Both were looking at the form and finally it spoke.
"Water," it said in an almost inaudible, childlike voice.
I was amazing that they were able
to understand this newcomer to this planet. The doctors and nurses
all scrambled about in mild hysteria while James calmly walked over to
his cycle and poured what the visitor asked for. The visitor sat
up and slowly drank the contents of the cup and smiled. "Thanks,"
he said. "I needed that."
Then the realization hit him.
This was not his father giving him the water. This was another creature
all together. It looked like the creature that he saw in his dreams,
but not quite. The yellow furred creature recoiled and looked around
wildly. His eyes finally set upon the stasis cells and the occupants
still inside. "You might want to get them out of there," he said.
"They have been in there for quite awhile."
"Now how do we do that?" James
asked.
"By pressing the button that says
open, silly," the visitor laughed.
"By the way, what is your name?" asked
James as he was opening up the other cells.
"Charon," said the youth. "My
father, Greold and the other two, Trebard and Chesold."
The nurses timidly looked on as James
opened each of the stasis cells while the doctors and some of the other
personnel gently removed the passengers onto the ground. It took
a bit longer for what appeared to be adults of the new species to fully
recover from their ordeal. Chesold sat up and blinked his eyes
repeated and saw Charon talking to a creature with red-orange fur and pointy
ears. When things had calmed down to a dull roar, Trebard and Greold
began to accustom themselves their new surroundings. Greold told
their new found helpers on what had happened and how they arrived at their
current situation. He then looked at what remained of The Intrepid
and groaned inwardly. He motioned to Trebard and he too bowed his
head.
The medical teams looked at all the
occupants of the ship and transported them all to the nearest medical facility.
The new arrivals lightly protested about leaving their ship, but all was
assured that nothing would happen to their ship. James continued
to search the wreckage for anything that might be out of place, when he
found what appeared to be a small box buried in tons of dirt and rubble.
He kicked at it and it didn't move. He dug around the container only
to find it became bigger and bigger. Soon he realized this was no
small box, but a giant storage container. James had no idea how big
this container could be. "Looks like things around here never come
easy," sighed James. "I hope this won't take as long as I am fearing
it would turn out to be."